a stroll downtown

I'm finally on Spring Break! And I'm spending it in D.C. with my aunt and uncle. Yesterday, Uncle Dan, Aunt Marti and I went to Monticello. I was surprised at how small it was in person. Monticello is only 21 rooms, and even though it sits on 5000 acres, it just is not that large of a house. But it was a beautiful place.

Today, I walked along Pennsylvania downtown and saw a few sights.

sweet prank

Meredith sent me this link, and it's too sweet to not share with everyone. Here's one of the craziest pranks I've ever seen:
http://www.gadling.com/2008/02/01/best-prank-ever-stopping-time-at-grand-central-station/
for some reason, the way to make links active is not working on blogger, so sorry about that.

Academy Awards

The Oscars didn't offer too many surprises. The people I expected to win won, and the movies I expected to win won. My favorite part was, by far, when Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová performed "Falling Slowly" from Once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsc5XYnsYVg&feature=related

a good lunch

I hate the middle of the week. Tuesday, I'm tired and the weekend is nowhere in sight. The only thing that makes Tuesday tolerable is walking tacos. Lunch on Tuesdays is good. Not on the hot line, but at the Bistro Bar. Walking tacos are just taco salad, but they are taco salad with fritos. I love walking tacos. It's the best part of my Tuesday.

Homecoming

This past week was homecoming at Calvin, and I was out doing something nearly every day. Monday night was Calvin Improv, which is always a riot. Thursday night, I went to CTC's (Calvin Theater Company) production of Alice in Wonderland, which was an interesting show. It was good, but a little hard to describe. Much of the story was told through mime, so it was not your everyday, traditional play. I did enjoy it, though. Friday afternoon was the seminary pond jump, which I did. They cut a hole in the ice, and about 150-200 people jump in. The jump wasn't the worst part--the worst was how everyone had to stand barefoot on ice or in ice water (depending on what your position in line was) for 25 minutes. And afterwards, I realized that the ice was surprisingly sharp, and I have cuts all over my arms and legs from it. Friday night was Airband, which is a lip-syncing competition. People put together all kinds of groups for it. There were all kinds of things, such as a Hairspray dance, various hip-hop things, a tribute to classic rock via Guitar Hero (including songs by Boston and the Scorpions), and everyone's favorite, Nschmuck, who did 'Nsync and Backstreet Boys songs, with pretty good dance routines to go along.

All in all, it's been a busy few days. And now I have to spend my weekend getting caught up on homework. Fortunately, I'm really enjoying my classes, so homework isn't too bad of a thing. I even think my math class is interesting. Which is pretty amazing.

Chicago!

Meredith, Jennifer, Diane and I went to Chicago over interim break. It took us awhile to get there because we got stuck in a blizzard on the way and we just sat in the snow until they took care of accidents and cleared roads. But we had a good time even though we had less time there than we'd planned. And at the end of the trip, Diane got me sick with the flu, and I'm still getting over it. That's my excuse for not getting these pictures up sooner (We went last Thursday and Friday).

Here we are in front of the weird faces. There was another one across from it, and they rotate through different pictures of people.

The Bean.

The Chicago river looked so amazing.

Me outside the Felicity room at American Girl Place. We had all always wanted to go since we were little and it was a lot of fun. We didn't actually buy anything because it would have been too expensive so we just looked around. But there was so much new stuff there to see, so we weren't bored by any means.

Our dish-clearer, us, and Erin, the girl we stayed with Thursday night at The Melting Pot. Our fondue was amazing. We demolished all our food, especially the dessert. Chocolate dipped strawberries, cheesecake, pound cake, marshmallows, brownies, rice krispie treats, and bananas were what we got to dip.

A Picasso we saw at The Art Institute.

Another Picasso. The museum was amazing.

two items

Last night, I went ice-skating, and I forgot how much fun it was. Possibly the best part about it was that it was an outside rink. I've never lived anywhere cold enough to have an outdoor ice rink. And speaking of cold, it is so cold here. Right now, it's about 11 degrees, but with the wind, it feels about -5 degrees. I've never lived in the kind of weather where if you don't have a scarf, you feel like you've lost your breath and your throat is freezing and beginning to close up. It's an odd feeling, but I don't dislike the cold. Yet. The locals assure me that somewhere around mid-February the snow will no longer be magical and I will begin to hate it. We'll see.

Another item of note: last week, I discovered what my least favorite movie of all time is, and what could quite possibly be the worst movie I have ever seen. Shattered Glass. Don't even get me started on this movie. I know Lee Hardy is supposed to be a really smart guy, but it was his idea to make half of Calvin freshmen watch this movie, and I think I will forever hold a grudge against him for it. Aside from the fact that Hayden Christensen is potentially the worst actor ever to hit the big screen, the entire movie was pretentious, silly, and by the end, you are begging Stephen Glass to kill himself and stop whining about it. Of course, he doesn't kill himself. Instead, he insists on living on and writing a stupid book that was turned into the very movie you are watching. I don't normally wish death on people, but in this case, I am very tempted to do so. This movie made me hate every single character in the movie, so there wasn't even anyone to like or root for in any way. I am convinced that it was the biggest waste of 94 minutes in quite a while. I intentionally didn't write about the movie here right after I saw it because I was too incensed to write in coherent sentences. So there you go, my two cents on Shattered Glass. A movie to avoid at all costs.