New Moon: the movie

I really have passionate feelings for the movie Twilight. Negative passionate feelings. It's horrible. I could go (and have gone) on forever about how much I hate that movie. Especially the ending. But I will not do so now. You're welcome.

But with my great disgust over Twilight, I wasn't all that excited for New Moon. I was not going to go to the midnight showing because I was already going to see it on Friday. But then Emma was going to the Irish regional dance competition on Friday and I had to see the movie with Emma. She's my Twilight buddy. So we went at midnight.

As we were sitting there waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the movie to start I tried not to feed into the excitement. I didn't want any positive expectations because then I'd only be disappointed, right? So Emma and I kept saying to each other, "This movie is going to suck." "Taylor's going to be awful." "Kristen and Rob need acting lessons."

But when the movie was playing, I was happy to find that IT WAS GREAT! seriously, I love the movie. It even held up under repeated viewings--I enjoyed it on Friday night when I saw it again. Yay. I am so happy it is good and now I can see it over and over again which I can't do with Twilight. But it does make me sad because now I see what Twilight could have been without Catherine Hardwick.

I was so surprised that Kristen Stewart can actually act. She can actually show emotion. Who knew? And Rob wasn't in it often, which just added to the wonderfulness of the movie, but he also wasn't so bad in the parts he was in. And Taylor was great. I really liked him as Jacob. The taking off of the shirt when Bella got hurt was a little much, but he is really nice to look at. I'm sad that Charlie wasn't in it more. He's my favorite. If I was fifteen years older...jk. Though I am totally Team Charlie. The best part though was that Catherine Hardwick was not directing. I blamed the awfulness of the first movie on the writer as well as director, but since it was the same writer for New Moon, I'm going to have to blame the awfulness all on the director.

Look at that, going in with low expectations really is the way to go.

On a side note, one of my favorite novels from this year is If I stay by Gayle Forman. It's been optioned for a movie and Hardwick is set to direct. So sad.

the weather outside is frightful

so i sit at the reference desk with two doors to the dark night on each side of me. with buttons that open the door so that patrons don't have to. since when was it so hard to open the door? everyone uses those stupid buttons, especially kids who treat them as toys. yet long after the patron has walked away the door stays open. which is why it is so COLD.

updates

SUGARBEE COOKIES
I got a bunch of questions a few weeks ago about Sugarbee Cookies so I thought I would just post about it. SC is dead. Sometime in the future I will try again, but for right now I don't have a company. I didn't talk about it when it first happened because I was embarrassed that I made this announcement and told everyone, and then it didn't go anywhere. It lasted about five days and in that time I managed to sell some cookies to my mom, dad and a coworker. Which was good. I never wanted it to be my life. I would've been happy with one order per month. It's just something I enjoy doing. But anyway...

NANOWRIMO
I have about 10000 words in my novel, tentatively titled Wolf Skin. My heart really hasn't been in it. It would be cool if I finished, but so much is going on and I haven't made writing a priority and if I can't write 40,000 words in three weeks, I don't think it's going to happen in one. I'm rather disappointed in myself. But even feeling that disappointment has not motivated me to stay up late to write.
So next year

NEW ZEALAND
I leave in 8 days. I am so EXCITED! I realized the other day that I left the MTC on Dec 4, 2001. Isn't that cool that I'm leaving SLC on Dec 2, 2009? And I'm going to church in Dunedin and I served there as a missionary in Dec 2002. Okay, I'm a dork.

And the best part is that it's summer right now in NZ. I was thinking about the last Christmas I was in NZ. My companion and I and our district leader and his companian got permission to go to the beach. We had comp study together then ran races in the sand and wrote our names with sticks. The one winter I was in NZ I listened to Christmas music for two months straight. Since those months happened to be June and July my companion at the time thought I was a little crazy. But it was COLD and snowy and it just felt like Christmas. Races on the beach didn't.

IN GENERAL
Last night after dinner at my mom's house I had to scrap snow off my car. In the same sandals I wore to church. My toes went numb. I guess it's time to put the sandals away. Sigh

Construction is driving me CRAZY.

I bought an Ipod Nano today. And then proceeded to spend about two hours playing Solitaire on it. I'm excited to have it with me for NZ. I'm going to need it with 30 hours of travel time, each way. That includes the three flights (SLC-LA, LA-Auckland, Auckland-Queenstown) and two six hour layovers. Such fun.

my library is not going to be open by Dec 1. so sad.

I just finished my 106th book this year. I wonder how many pages that is...

lost tour

I don't watch Lost. I did for the first season and half of the second but that was as far as I got before I started working when it was on TV and I decided I was tired of all the suspense. Just tell me all ready!

But I still went on the lost tour with Emma and Rachel.

Why? Because I thought it would be fun to see the internal part of the island. I'm not much for traveling in the city. I like to travel and see trees and mountains and stuff. And besides, I didn't want Emma and Rachel to have an adventure without me.

Emma booked the tour online. She looked at a couple of different tours and found the one that sounded the most fun for the money. We were excited. Sadly, what the website said the tour was and what the tour actually was were two different things.

We did not see the internal part of the island. A lot of Lost is filmed on this huge ranch where a lot of other things are filmed also. We did not see that. We were on a Circle Island Tour meaning we went along the outside of the island on the same roads that we'd been on all ready.

The website had said we'd get to visit the lagoon where Sawyer and Kate find the guns and we could go swimming in it. There weren't many dressing rooms so we decided to wear our swimming suits there and change after. Well, we did go to that lagoon, but we didn't get to go swimming. We weren't there for more then five minutes. So we were stuck in our swimming suits all day long. I looked and felt really stupid. We all did. Because the others on the tour booked through a different sight and did not get the misleading information and were not in their swimsuits all day.

The funniest, most embarrassing part of the tour was at the end when we visited Dharma. there was a film crew from Spain going around also. Apparently Spain is HUGE into Lost and they were filming stuff for segments to air in Spain leading up to the season premier in February. So the six of us on the tour were interviewed. Yes, we will be on the news, in Spain, in January. Can I just remind you that we were dressed to go swimming, NOT to be on TV? It's hideously embarrassing. And as the news lady, Raquel, was asking us our predictions or our favorite characters or how we wanted to see the series end, all I could think was, "don't put that microphone in my face. don't ask me anything. Please just ignore me." Because I don't watch the show! So when Raquel asked, "How does it feel to be being here in Lost?" I totally spoke up because that was a question I could answer. Best part? I'll be dubbed.

Raquel's Blog Pic. it's hideous, but so funny! (do not tell emma I posted this link. she'll kill me) I am compelled to share.

It was so funny/interesting/entertaining to be in a van with six Lost fans for eight hours and listen to them go on and on about Lost. It made me want to watch the first five seasons and join into the fun in February.

I was going to post pictures, and maybe I still will, but I'm tired of uploading them more than a few at a time.

brilliance personified

My library is closed for the month for renovations. Instead of giving us a paid leave of absence we've all been scattered to other libraries. Today was the first day at my new library. I was given a locker and just as I was about to shut my new locker door I was handed the key to the locker. I thought it would be smart to put the key on my key ring so I wouldn't loose it. So I did. And then I put my key ring back in my purse and put my purse back in my locker. And shut the door. It was at that moment I thought, "crap."

So two of my nice new coworkers looked for at least a half hour for the master key which we could not find anywhere. I had brought a project I needed to work on which I then couldn't get to. I needed my chapstick, but that was locked away also. And my water bottle. My new manager is also new to that library and no one was sure if she'd have the master or when she would arrive. I was getting mighty nervous but she finally showed up around 2 and new exactly where the master was.

Anyway, nice first impression (of an idiot).

hawaii three

We went to the Punchbowl which is a crater dedicated as a memorial to soldiers who died.

We went on a hike to Manoa Falls. So different than the hike to Diamond Head. This one was green and wet and MUGGY! And there were a lot of bugs that had a feast on us.

It was kind of a crazy hike. The path was wet which made for mud which made for hard hiking. We were sliding all over the path on the way back down and most of us were in flip flops. One of Emma's flip flops broke so she was hiking barefoot down most of the trail and leaning on me so that she wouldn't slip. Rachel actually did slip. It was funny; I laughed. But only because she wasn't hurt, just really muddy. It was an adventurous hike.
sunset from our beach

Some random picture I accidentally uploaded. Pretty, eh? I actually took it from the car as we were driving. One of many I took from the car. For some reason I really like doing that. It's fun, though most of the pics aren't so great.
The flight home left Saturday night at 11pm. We were waiting for the plane to load and when Emma says to me, "are you feeling adventurous?" It was 10:30 pm (2:30 am Utah time) so of course I said, "yes!" with an exclamation point and everything. Because they'd overbook the flight they were asking people to volunteer to be bumped. We volunteered and in return we took a $600 travel voucher each and a night in a hotel.

We didn't make it to our hotel until midnight and then had to wake up five hours later so that we could leave for the airport at 6 and be on our "adventurous" flight and leave by 7:30. We had two transfers instead of the original one and finally made it home Sunday night at 11 pm. It was a long day.

On our way to LA Emma was seated next to a man who smelled like alcohol at the get go. Yes, at 7am. And in the five hour flight managed to down 8 (possibly 9-not sure if he got another one at the end to take with him) beers and two snack packs. He reeked so bad he was giving Emma a headache. She must have soaked up the stench because besides the occasional whiff, I didn't smell anything. Emma was not happy. I guess it makes sense that there isn't a limit since the airline was making lots of $ off of him, but we'd have liked the flight attendant to have said "no." It would have made our flight a lot more enjoyable.

Stepping off the plane in Salt Lake was a shock. It was HOT in Hawaii. Sticky, stifling, glistening, glorious heat all week long. Now it's dry and cold. But I only have one month of winter and then I'll be experiencing summer once again. This time in New Zealand. yippy!

Here Emma and I are in the shuttle to the airport after five hours of sleep and a long, adventurous day a head.

hawaii 2

My mom and I were the only ones in my family who wanted to climb Diamond Head. We got up early. Sadly, even at 5:30 am we managed to get stuck in traffic. It was beautiful to watch the sun rise as we were climbing out of the crater.

Looking down at Honolulu Adult illiteracy is so sad.

We also went to the Polynesian Cultural Center.

I was really disappointed that the Temple was still closed for renovation. I really wanted to do a session. Instead we just stopped off to look at the grounds

Emma, Rachel and I went on a Lost Tour. Here is the survivors beach. More on this later.

We went to Matsumoto's for shave ice. It was good but I had shave ice at a different place and though I don't remember what beach it was or what the store was called, I thought it was much better than Matsumoto.

This is the sun rising over Honolulu taken from the beach behind the house. You can see Diamond Head to the right. Because of the time difference I was up to watch the sun rise most every morning.