sketches from life

I'm in a literary mood today. Well, for more than just today, I suppose. I'm on a literary kick right now. I recently started reading Jane Austen novels for the first time, and I've really enjoyed them. I started out over Christmas break by reading Emma, then moved on to Pride and Prejudice. I had to stop once the full swing of classes recommenced, but I plan on reading the rest of her books eventually.

And not only have I been reading her books, but also watching the movies. That started with Pride and Prejudice, the most recent version with Kiera Knightly. That's such a beautiful movie. It's really fantastic. And I was pleasantly surprised to find, upon reading the book for myself after having watched the movie, that the movie did a great job of capturing the essence of the book, even though it had to condense the story. Shortly thereafter, my mom (who also loves Jane Austen) called me to tell me that she had found a few other Austen movies, so I've been visiting my parents to have movie nights with my mom. So far, we've watched Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, and Emma. All of them are lovely stories, though none of the other movies come close to the level of cinematographic excellence of Pride and Prejudice. I'd still recommend them to anyone who likes that style of movie.

My last movie date with my mom consisted of a Jane Austen movie (Emma), and also of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. After having seen this older version ("older" only by comparison -- it was made in 1997), and especially since I recently saw a preview for a new Jane Eyre movie to come out in the near future, I became very interested in reading that book as well. However, as I mentioned before, now that school is back in full swing, I don't have much time for leisure reading. This was a problem.

The solution, I found, was a free app for my i-pod touch: an audiobook app. I've never really been one for audiobooks, as I really prefer to actually hold and read the book, see the words, and feel the pages. Somehow, listening to someone else read it feels like cheating to me. But with so little time that I can give up to reading, guilt free, it felt like a good option. I can listen while I'm driving to and from class. I can listen during my drawing class, clay class, and painting class, as long as the professor has nothing to say. I can listen while doing any homework that doesn't require reading or anything left-brained, really. I just finished Jane Eyre, and I only read about two chapters from the actual book. I'm really enjoying this app. It lets me get my "story fix" and yet I waste no time. I'm able to be productive and even use class time to read. I'm now trying to decide what book I'll listen to next!

Cool fact of the day:
Deep breathing gives you health benefits similar to aerobics.
Cool. Time to go do some breathing then.....

I'm really not a cold weather person. I don't mean that in a "take it or leave it" sort of way. I mean the kind of dislike where I'd really rather just hole up in my house whenever the temperature drops to freezing. Luckily, living in Texas means I don't have to deal with really crazy cold weather all too often. We have it usually at least once a year, but most of the time it doesn't last all that long, and life goes on.

But here's something crazy: Today is our THIRD snow day in a row! And many schools are saying that they're on watch for tomorrow and Monday's weather as well! I believe the highest temperature we've had the last few days was in the twenties, which, for Texas, is unheard of. Now, I know you northerners are probably laughing at us right now, but just hold your abderian horses! (And see the previous post if you don't know what that word means! We're learning things. Look at that.) Here in Texas, when we get weather like this, it's not snow, per se. Sure, the first day it might be snow, but very soon, it just turns to ice. And being that we only get weather like this maybe once a year, nobody knows how to drive on icy roads. So yeah, everything pretty much shuts down after an inch or two of icy precipitation. Normally though, by midday it will have melted away thanks to the beautiful, warm sun. This time, it did not. It's just too darn cold. So quit laughing before Karma comes and smacks you upside the head with a 105 degree summer! (Just kidding...I don't really believe in Karma. But still...watch yourselves.)

So since Tuesday, I have not left my apartment. I keep seeing facebook posts about having cabin fever, but I'm really doing just fine. My roommate and I had just stocked up on groceries before the storm hit, so praise the Lord, we've got plenty of food and such. So we've just been working on homework and having movie marathons! My roommate (who, coincidentally, has the same name as I: Rebecca) has gone out once or twice, and yesterday bought us a few more movies to add to our limited collection. The thing is that we don't have cable, so movies are our only source of lazy visual entertainment. We're just too cheap to give in to the cable companies. Hey, we're college students.

Unfortunately, that means that we have probably seen every movie we own at least twice. And some of them we've seen too many times to keep count. We love Disney movies. The classics, you know. Or at least classics from our childhood. We don't have some of the true classics that I'd like to have, but we do have some of my childhood favorites like Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Aristocats, Fox and the Hound, etc. I wouldn't necessarily put Tarzan or Mulan among the classics, but we have those too, among others. Since the snow in, I've been working on a drawing for my Drawing Concepts class, and while I've been working, we've been having our movie marathon. Here's a list of what we've watched so far (Hold on to your hats, this will be a long ride):

• Miss Congeniality
• The Mummy
• Beauty and the Beast
• Tarzan
• Norbit
• Pride and Prejudice
• Anastasia
• Aladin
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Deliver Us From Eva
• Hunchback of Notredame
• Rush Hour 2
• Pocahontas
• Space Jam
• Jurasic Park