Wipeout v. Howie Do It

An interesting question arose at the dinner table last night when ABC's Wipeout had it's season premiere: "Is the show overly cruel?" My answer to this question is no for one main reason: peole choose to do this to themselves compared to Howie Do It (which could in my books be considered a cruel show) where unsuspecting victims are preyed upon by a snarky bald man and his camera crew. People don't sign up for Howie Do It there loving friends and/or family usually sign them up so that they can have a quick laugh as they watch their unsuspecting friend/family member be humiliated in front of however many million TV viewers plus the people in the audience. That, while being funny, is rather cruel. Contestants on Wipeout, on the other hand, sign up to be publically humilated in from of millions of TV viewers and some of them actually enjoy it. Thus, while the contestants on Wipeout are not only humiliated, bbut generally beaten up, it is not a cruel show because participation is voluntary whilst Howie Do It, where people or solely humiliated is a cruel show because participation is forced (subliminally speaking). So ends this short rant about what makes a show cruel.

Essay Brainstorming

Question (please answer the first part the rest of it sort of turned into a rant, I'll underline the question to help you out): Which form of multimedia thing would best suit my new essay? Video, (not) radio (I need visuals), cartoon (I can't draw), or powerpoint? Okay so basically video or power point. Being as I have no equipment or editing knowledge I am currently leaning towards power point essay, but even after viewing many examples I still have no idea how to go about creating a power point essay. I really have no idea how to do much of anything actually and I'm beginning to wonder whether or not I should have ever taken this class. I keep failing. I swear if my grade in this class brings my GPA down...actually I don't really know what I'll do, be glad that my future major has nothing to do with language arts most likely. I plan on having a medical career which is excellent because I am good at science and math whereas I am an utter and complete failure at all things involving the English language (I'm pretty good at other languages though). I hate this, I absolutely loath this feeling of failure and it seems that I haven't been able to escape it all year in this class. First term C+ (on the essay), second term B (on discussion), third term C (on the essay). I think these grades are trying to tell me something, and I haen't listened. I probably should have dropped during first term and taken U.S. Humanities instead. It may sound like quitting, but I wouldn't necessarily call it quitting as someone quits when they don't want to work to overcome the challenge, I, however, tryed and failed to overcome the challenge which would seem to reflect a lack of talent in the area hance I should never have tried, thus it would not have been quitting. It would have saved me a lot of stress and pain that's for sure. Well I suppose I have learned something as I did not make the same mistake on my schedule for next year. I am taking 3 science classes (1 AP, 1 normal, 1 at KC college), one AP math class, one AP foreign language, technically 3 normal history classes (one per term), and one normal language arts class. Recently I had thought about maybe taking AP Lit, but now I think that idea has most definately been shot down, oh well, good riddence. Now I just need to not fail this essay like I failed the last one and then I will be done with this class forever. Unfortunately for me I don't know if it's possible for me to not fail this next essay.

To the brainstorming part:
Okay so I've basically decided to write about why I ride (horses) which I plan to make some sort of a twist on "Why I Write" essays. If this were a normal essay written out on the computer I don't think I would have too much of a problem (it would be all about me-my voice is present, it's something I feel strongly about-easy for me to write, I plan on writing about all of my 'interesting' experience with horses which all should have deterred me from ever wanting to ride again and then try to explain why I still ride-interesting). The problem for me is I don't know if I can explain (in a way that everyone would understand) why I ride without sounding like a cheeseball. I don't know if I could make anybody understand with words, which is where the pictures and possibly videos come in. I think my gameplan at this point is to start writing about why I ride and those 'interesting' times on the blog and possibly also on word and then take a bunch of pictures of my horse and me riding my horse (with some help from a few friends) to help explain the reasons...I think this sentence has gotten away from me so I'm going to opt to end it here. Okay, sounds like a plan, but I could still use feedback (being as no one has given me feedback thus far).

If You are a Guy Don't Read This (trust me you will regret it if you do)

PMS (If you are a guy I bet you believe me now about regretting reading this) and the events that follow directly after it are somethiing that no one should ever have to endure and yet every woman (exepting those with medical differences) endure it every month. The degree of discomfort can very from barely noticing it to not even being able to walk. I would be one of those crippled women. Let's put it this way, if these are menstral cramps I fear that I may die during labour/birthing. When my time of the month roles around I become extraordinarily emotional (como las que estan embarazadas), bloated to the size of a first trimester pregnant woman, endure extreme amounts of pain (I am often awakened in the middle of the night by this pain and am somethimes un-willing to walk in a non-hunched over manner), and I generally become anemic to a certain degree (my hemoglobin dropped to 10.6 at one point I believe, normal is 13, I finally got mine back up to 12.9). Basically life sucks. School only makes life worse because if one becomes stressed one's cramps become unbearable and then one shrivels into a little ball. (Guys complain about aches and pains all the time but no guy ever had to endure a little piece of hell every month. Quite honestly they can be quite wussy at times and it rather annoys me.) So now (as in currently) I am majorly stressed and in quite a lot of pain. I have quite a bit of work to do this weekend and not really all the time in the world to do it. Let's list all of the things that are causing stress: AP Bio project due Wednesday, AP Lang Portfolio due Wednesday, AP Lang [impossible] essay due within three weeks, Spanish speaking finals due in 13 days, Spanish written final in 13 days, some sort of misunderstanding about work next fall that I care no to discuss, allergies, sinus infection, and I am very behind on this forsaken blog due to the fact that I have not been home lately due to family deaths and marrriages (actually only one of each, but one is more than enough) etc. And the fact that I have all of these things to do prevents me from doing the one thing that generally relieves my stress: ride. Grades come before my mental health I guess. Oh I forgot that I also have some things to get done before the Spain trip in three weeks from Thursday...great more work. I am almost beginning to regret doing all of these extracurricular things/difficult classes. I am so stressed and there is nothing I can do about it because I don't have the time and I am hormonally unstable which generally favors me brooding on the strongest emotion which in this case would be stress. I just remembered another stress item (or two), my Pre-calc class believes me to be an idiot (thus I fell like an idiot) and I have a pre-calc test to make up Thursday after school. Terrific. And I haven't been able to work out very much/consistantly and so not only to I feel fat, but I am fat and having all of the water weight from my freaking period is not helping me out at all. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am an emotional wreck. I need a vacation in which I do abolutely nothing. I need to get away. Speaking of which I was thinking today about what I am going to do after college and I decided that I might possibly be the kind of person who never really puts down roots and is constantly moving. Quite honestly that lifestyle would be okay with me. I'm already something of a loner at school and I like to keep to myself (it doesn't really bring me any pleasure to share my issues with other people, it's not their proble so it shouldn't be something they have to worry about). I could do the runner lifestyle, I might actually enjoy that. I think I have ranted about everything that I needed to rant about so let's wrap up this rant shall we. Stress sucks. PMS/Menstralness sucks. School sucks (at the moment). The end.

Red Shirts

I know that I haven't written about the season finale (which was absolutely superb) yet, but I realized something today that gave me the utterost confidence that there is a great chance that I will win my Lost bet. So I went to tv.com to see if Lost was still the top show of all time (it is) and decided for some reason or another and noticed a comment pertaining to the color of Juliet's shirt in the last episode. Her shirt was red. Now I am not a 'trekkie' by any means, but I did go see the new Star Trek movie (mainly because it was a J.J. Abrams [who directs Lost] movie with music by Michael Giachino) and I happen to know the significance of the red shirt being as my father and brother are huge trekkies. So I did a little digging and found that most everybody who died on Lost (people who you see, not nameless extras) were wearing red shirts when they died. Colors varied from reddish brown to pink, but were still in the general red category. Anyway a list of these characters would include:

1. Juliet (who I believe to be dead)
2. Neil 'Frogurt'
3. Shannon
4. Charlie (I believe his shirt was in the brown category)
5. Michael (whose shirt was also brown, but he was wearing a red shirt when he traded Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Hurley for Walt)
6. Boone (instigator of the red shirt joke on the show)
7. Nikki
8. Charlotte (orange undershirt counts)

That's what I could find, there may be more, I just don't really have the energy to look. Anywho I believe that strengthens my argument that Juliet is indeed dead and therefore not with Sawyer, thus freeing up Sawyer to be with Kate...I win.

"The Variable" yes I realize the next episode is on tomorrow so it's a good thing I'm putting this up today otherwise if you missed the episode and...

...needed a quick recap of the things you need to know for tomorrows episode and I posted this tomorrow at 7:59pm you would either have to find some magical way (such as Tivo) to record the new episode so as you had time to read this post (but then again if you had Tivo you wouldn't have missed last weeks episode in the first place) OR you would watch tomorrows episode and be totally confused because Lost is written in such a way that if you miss one episode you aren't going to understand the next one unlesss you are incredibly clever beyond all means OR you would miss the beginning of tomorrows episod ebecause you were reading this summary OR you could read this summary while watching tomorrow's episode and only half know what's going on in both...inhale...thus do not complain about the late posting (I know none of you would actually do that I just felt like ranting for a short bit there) because it is in fact not late it is simply on time for tomorrow's episode because now what happened last week will be fresh in your mind. That might in fact be the longest sentence I have ever written.



Okay now getting down to it last weeks episode was rather confusing, here are the things you need to know for tomorrow:

• Widmore is Daniel Faraday's father (where did he get the name Faraday? his mother's last name is Hawking). Dan's mother convinced him to go to the Island when she told him that doing so would heal his memory loss problem (a consequence of Dan testing his time traveling experiment on himself). ----Flashbacks


• Oh yeah, Dan came back to the Island at the end of the last episode (but it was recapped at the beginning of this one) after working for the Dharma Initiative in Ann Arbor.


• Dan believes that his mother was wrong about sending the Oceanic 5 back to the Island when she did because the Dharma people (who are building the Swan Station) are about to drill in a significant amount of electromagnetic energy at the Swan Station site which will cause a huge accident with what I assume will be major casualties. The solution to this energy pocket is to cover the entire area in concrete like Chernoble and have a team of two push a button every 108 minutes to keep the energy at bay.


• Dan revealed to Dr. Chang that he and Miles are from the future and that Miles is his son (luckily Miles denied everything which for the time being kept the secret safe). He also tells Dr. Chang that he needs to evacuate the Island because of the large electromagnetic energy pocket beneath the Swan Station site.


• Sawyer held a meeting as to what the Oceanic survivors, Juliet and the leftover Freighter people should do next being as they are in a crapload of trouble (Sawyer has Phil tied up in his closet, Linus suspects Kate and Jack are Hostiles).


• Dan crashes the meeting and says that he needs to speak with his mother who is a Hostile.


• The members of the meeting vote on what to do next Sawyer, Miles, Juliet and Hurley vote to pack supplies and go back to the beach to start over.


• Jack wants Kate to take him and Dan to the Hostiles which leads to a pissing match between the two men: Sawyer: "Kate don't say a thing." Jack: "She can say whatever she wants." Sawyer: "Something, something, something come with us Freckles." Juliet: "[Oh no he didn't] Kate the code to the fence is 141714 (or something else containg ones, sevens, and fours) you should go with Jack."


• Thus the four who voted to go to the beach start packing and the other three head to the motor pool to get guns.


• Dan stops to tell a six-year old Charlotte (who according to what Ben said in season 4 shouldn't even be born until July 1979 and it is 1977) that when Dr. Chang evacutates the Island she and her mother need to get on the sub and leave.


• After arming up at the motor pool a Dharma Bus drives up containing Radzinsky and friends who start shooting after Dan and friends refuse to drop their guns. Dan is nicked in the neck.


• The three (now fugitives) run to a jeep and speed away.


• Radzinsky goes to Sawyer and Juliet's house to tell him what happened and discovers that they have Phil tied up in their closet. Sawyer and Juliet are taken into custody.


• Upon reaching the pylons Kate goes to shut them off. Meanwhile Dan tells Jack that they can in fact die as 1977 is their present (which doesn't make any sense because if they die in the past on the Island their lives will run in a continuous loop and whatnot, but whatever I guess it makes the show more dramatic).


• The three trek into the jungle, Dan reveals his plan to keep the EM energy from being released (and being as it was the EM energy that crashed the 815 flight destroying the energy will erase the everyone's pasts'/futures' I don't even know anymore). He plans to detonate the Jughead (hydrogen bomb) that the Hostiles buried earlier on.


• Eventually they reach the Hostiles' camp and Dan goes i waving his gun around demanding to talk with Eloise (his mother).


• Richard starts talking to him and trying to calm him down telling him that Eloise isn't there.


• Dan demands to know where the Hydrogen bomb is, points the gun at Richard's head and counts to 3.
• All of a sudden Dan is shot in the back by none other than Eloise herslef, he tells her that he is her son and then dies...L O S T

This time they have gone too far with the whole time traveling thing, they CANNOT change the past, it is impossible for if they never came to the Island then they never would have to go back and change the past, it CAN'T HAPPEN. If it does happen, and the season finale ends with the plane landing in L.A. I will not only be incredibly pissed, but I will also be incredibly disappointed because the writers have been sooo clever with the plot (up to this point in time) and it would be a shame for them to cop out now.

In response to a comment about the top 100 TV show lists...

Hockey Flower said...
Those lists have disney channel on them. yick.Just because lost is popular does not mean it is not stupid. Just saying.
Banch said...
Yes that is unfortunate, but it is also a fact of life that the Disney Channel has managed to corrupt the minds of young children who watch the mind-numbing shows religiously forcing them to become popular. Their popularity could also be due to the fact that young children have much more time for TV in their daily schedules than people who have outgorwn the Disney Channel. This means that the shows that beat out the Disney Channel shows are truly beloved by the older public since the members of the older public (who are generally much too busy to watch TV during the week) make time in their busy schedules to watch these shows more often than the little kids watch their frufru kiddy shows. Since I doubt that anyone will actually read this comment I shall copy the run-on sentence argument into a short blogpost.

I say now (in response to reading the end of the comment, I really need to start reading the end of people's comments, I really don't know what my problem is, this has happened twice now, the first time I didn't read that my teacher had said to speak with him the next day about my paper until after I turned my paper in = EPIC FAIL) that even if it is stupid there still must be something about it that makes millions of people want to watch it.

If You Ever Find Yourself Home Ill and Only in the Mood to Watch TV...

Due to my insufficient immune system I have spent much time watching TV lately as is custom when one is home sick. In doing so I have come up with a schedule of TV that I will watch when I am home sick:

9:00AM (if I am up by then and am in the mood to watch re-runs from the secon season) ER on TNT
10:00AM and 11:00AM (My favorite two hour block) Las Vegas on TNT (more on the excellence of this show later)
12:00Noon (Lunch) Tivoed episodes of Lost/In Plain Sight/ER or CSI: Miami on that one crime channel (24 for Shellesburg cable)
1:00PM (usually I am also workin on some form of schoolwork by this point in time unless I am truly dying of pain) From about noon to three there really isn't much on TV so if there aren't any fun marathons running on USA (i.e. House, Law and Order: SVU, In Plain Sight, or Burn Notice) I usually stick a movie in (yesterday I had to watch a movie as part of my HW so I stuck that in)
3:00ishPM Lost is on Scifi (it's season 4 re-runs at the moment so I will watch them) or Wife Swap is on Lifetime
4:00PM Gilmore Girls on ABC Family
5:00PM there is absolutely nothing on TV from 5-5thirty so I usually watch something that I have Tivoed
5:30PM Friends on TBS
6:00 and 6:30PM Friends on CW
7:00 varies from day to day:

• Monday: Dancing with the Stars on ABC or Chuck on NBC
• Tuesday: Biggest Loser on NBC
• Wednesday: Usually not home till eight when Lost is on ABC
• Thursday: Parks and Recreation on NBC
• Friday: Random movies on random channels or Supernanny at 8 on ABC
• During the weekend House or some other equally entertaining show is on USA

When I am sick I am usually done with staying conscious by Eight or so thus I go to bed. However with this round of illness I feel like someone is constantly using a sledgehammer to drive a railroad spike into the back of my head and the since laying down position usually irritates my massively infect sinuses and surrounding areas I have been finding sleep an incredibly difficult task to accomplish. In this case I usually read until ten or so then toss and turn for around two hours until exhaustion overcomes the pain and I lose consciousness. The battle has only just begun though for once I've had two to three hours of sleep and REM sets in the pain of my head is usually enough to wake me up in a cold sweat (from a fever?) and cause me to have to try to fall asleep all over again. Needless to say my nights lately have been less than pleasant. I go back to the doctor Tuesday to see if my infection deep sinus/head infection has cleared up (which I highly doubt being as I am in so much constant pain) and if it hasn't I shall be scheduled for surgery in the near future. My life is so great right now.

Note to the reader:

I am terribly sorry that all of my blog posts lately have been about me ranting about my horribly immunodeficient afflicted life, but being as the episode of Lost that was on last night was all the major flashforwards (from season 4) and early episode highlights (from this season) in chronological order I don't really have much else to talk about. Plus I haven't really been in an incredibly chipper mood due to the fact that AP exams keep getting closer which stresses me out quite a bit so obviously I'm not in the mood to write a Puff Piece (of course I've never really been in the mood to write a Puff Piece it's just not my nature). So once again I apologize for being such a downer and throwing so many pity parties for myself, but this really is the only place I can rant about this stuff.

I Forgot a Movie

So I finally broke down and watched Twilight and was quite amused. The movie actually sort of followed the book, but the over-dramatic-ness was really quite hilarious. I do admit there were only a few times in the movie that left me going "Really? No, I mean seriously, really?" It was a decent movie, I can see why a twilight fan would really enjoy it, but there is no way that I would ever spend money on it. I don't even spend money on the books, I borrow them from my kind and generous friends. I think the problem that I have with the Twilight series is that I read the first three books before they were really popular and got strange looks from people because iwas reading "a vampire book" which translates to "Fantasy" which translates to some form of the word nerd. Then all of the sudden millions of girls realized that within the nerdy fantasy book there was a slightly provacative love story so those miliions of potentially shallow fangirls took the nerd book and turned it into something that reminds me of the Disney Channel and the Jonas Brothers (both of which I despise). Suddenly it was cool if you read the nerd book and those who didn't (such as myself because I already had) were weird. Next came the obsession over Edward, every girl wanted to be Edward's girl but unfortunately they couldn't mainly because HE'S A FICTIONAL CHARACTER! Personally I think Edward is a little bit of a creeper. I don't know the book me cae mal ahora. I'm going to stop myself before I really start ranting, so back to the movie. The movie was okay, if you are the steriotypical fangirl go ahead and buy it (although if you are a steriotypical fangirl you would have bought it on the day it came out on DVD so the preceding sentece was absolutely unnecessary). If you're like me, borrow it and watch it with a group of friends who enjoy lauging at it (not with it) and making jokes about it. If you're somewhere in between rent it and watch it on your own.

Brief Movie Reviews

It seems to me that it has been a very long time since I have blogged about a movie so now I shall briefly describe movies I have seen recently and my thoughts about them.

The Fast and the Furious (the first one): In case there are people such as myself before 3 P.M. yesterday out there who have not seen this movie the plot follows an undercover cop who infiltrates/befriends a group/team of street/drag racers. He is investigating a string of highway robberies of semi-trucks that he believes this team of racers is responsible for. Along the way he falls in love with the head hauncho's (Dominic played by Vin Diesel) sister whose heart he breaks when he informs her that he is a cop. He is also blamed (by the FBI) for a premature arrest and therefore release of another dangerous racing team. After the cop finally figures out that it is indeed Dominic and his team who are robbing the semis he follows them out on a job and ends up saving the life of one of the team members as the truck driver was ready for the robbery and therefore armed with a shotgun. The movie ends with a lot of things left unresolved and therefore leaves the viewer with a hankering to see the sequel and now the third one which is either in theaters now, or will be soon. Quite honestly I enjoyed this movie, but people who have a low tolerance for bad language and gang-type activities (meaning a lot of lawlessness) will probably not. I do want to see the sequel and the third movie, but I doubt that I will ever buy them because the first two are on TV all of the time and I'm sure that eventually the third one will be on TV as well. If you want to see this movie I would suggest renting it or watching FX, TNT, or USA on the weekends.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off: I am ashamed that I hadn't seen this movie before last Friday. This movie is a classic about a teenage boy who concocts and brilliantly (but not quite flawlessly) executes a plan for skipping school, getting his girlfriend out of school, and taking his girlfriend and best friend for Chicago to spend the day. This is a must see. I would definately buy it. It is absolutely hilarious (and stupid, but hilarious).

The Simpson's Movie: If you like the Simpson's you'll like the movie. I didn't particularly enjoy it as that kind of stupid/funny isn't really my cup of tea, thus I would definately not waste any money on this movie.

The Holiday: This is a chickflick/romantic comedy. It's abot two girls who have just had their hearts broken who spend Christmas at each other's houses and manage to find love and happiness. It sounds really cheesy, but I, a person who despises corny chickflicks, really enjoyed it because mixed into the vast amounts of cheese was a ton of comedic relief. No, I wouldn't buy it, but I would watch it again on TV. I recomend this movie as an excellent break-up movie. If you haven't seen it and it's not going to be on TV anytime soon and you're really in the mood for a chickflick I would say go ahead and rent it otherwise just wait for it to be on TBS again.

My Best Friend's Wedding: Staged as a Romantic Comedy, but not you're average chick flick. It's about a woman who is asked to be the maid of honor at her ex-boyfriend's/best friend's wedding. They two had made a deal that if they were both unmarried at 30 they would marry each other. Well right as the woman (Julia Roberts) is about to turn 30 she gets a call from this guy asking her if she will be in his wedding. She says yes with the intentions of breaking up his wedding and winning him back. The movie is about her schemes and the turmoil she goes through in trying to get the wedding called off. If you're looking for a happy/sappy ending do not watch this movie. Personally, I think it could have been funnier, but that's just my perogative. It wasn't my favorite movie so I definately wouldn't spend any money to see it (I don't really want to see it again) but if you want to see it, wait for it to be on TBS.

Gran Torino: Absolutely the best movie I have seen this year. This movie is about a widower who befriends his Chinese neighbors and protects them from the neighbor hood gang. I'm not going to say anymore because I think everyone should go see this movie, or buy it when it comes out on DVD and find out what the movie is about for themselves. This movie combines a precise amount of comedy with a truly sad/dramatic situation. I laughed, I cryed, I loved it. I will be buying this movie when it comes out on DVD.

There is Something Wrong With Me (Health-wise)

So I have had a bad run of health lately that has left me rather clueless as to what's wrong with me. It all started about a month ago when I ended up with a horrible virus that rendered me unable to speak or breath for that matter as I was constantly coughing and in pain from a spectacularly raw throat. That lasted about a week. On Wednesday of that week I decided to go to school (you can't really miss a lot of school and expect to pass classes with my schedule) if for nothing else, than to pick-up the work that I missed so that I could start catching up. The next day I woke up and my eye wouldn't open all of the way so I couldn't see very well. I figured that I was just tired and that the blurry vision would pass (it didn't) I walked to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and saw that my eye was glued shut in one corner by a nastiness which I shall refer to as matter and the eye itself was bright red/pink. I hope that you have used some sort of argumentative reasoning to determine that I had pinkeye (the best and worst disease you could possibly be afflicted with). Pinkeye, as it turns out, is very contagious thus I stayed home so as not to infect the entire student body. By that afternoon I was on antibiotics so I figured that I would go to school the next day. The next morning I woke up and couldn't open my eye at all, it was glued shut by matter, so I stayed home once more.

The next week was Spring Break and by Sunday afternoon (the fourth day of the pinkeye infection) my eye was almost back to normal so I figured that I would be healthy throughout the rest of break. Monday was an excellent day, I felt great, the weather was lovely, and I was able to go to the Barn and ride my horse for quite a while that afternoon then relax that night. However, the next day (Tuesday) I woke up with a migraine above my left eye so I pretty much slept all day in attempt to get rid of it. Wednesday I felt okay, my head still hurt some, but it was nothing compared to the day before and I was able to function and start working on my homework (which I had intended to do on Tuesday).

Now we get to the health problem that has me rather perplexed/worried. Starting that Thursday I developed a migraine-like headache over my right eye which has progressively worsened. The week after Spring Break my eye/the area around my eye began to swell, that Wednesday the combination of swelling and pain caused me to miss school once again. I went to the doctor and was informed that all of the mucous created when I had my cough had gotten stuck in the sinus pocket behind my eye and was now infected which was causing the pain and the swelling so he put me on Augmentin to clear it up. Now two weeks later I finished the antibiotic Saturday morning and today (being Monday) my eye has started swelling again and my head is killing me. So I think I shall be going back to the doctor's office/hospital for some X-rays/further investigation in the near future and quite honestly I am a little worried. I can't imagine anything good causing a person's face to swell, but at the same time I really want the problem fixed.

Possible diagnoses:

1. Last week I went to the optomitrist for an annual check-up as well as to see what was causing some inflamation on/in my eye and found out that the pinkeye/sinisitis had caused an infection in my eye which I believe that doctor referred to as choroitis or something along those lines so perhaps this is some random side effect. However both of my eyes are infected and only one of them is swelling so...? Also she put be on antibiotic eyedrops that I believe should have cleared up that infection by now so I don't really think this is directly related to that.
2. Chronic migraines, my symptoms match those of a migraine but I don't believe that migraines usually last for a month so this is rather unlikely.
3. Brain Tumor? I don't have all of the symptoms of this, but still, you never know.

Symptoms:

I have had a migraine headache that doesn't change sides, dizziness (no fainting), stiff neck, extreme exhaustion, blurry vision, and sensitivity to light.

Estoy Muriendo

I feel like whining as I've had a pretty crappy run lately (don't think about that sentence too hard). So last week I came down with a respiration-ending cough that deprived me of air, my ability to speak, and sleep all week. I went to the doctor and after having two unpleasant tests run on me (influenza and mycoplasma) the doctor was able to determine that I had a virus and there was absolutely nothing she could do for me which was just spiffy. So Wednesday I was still coughing and couldn't speak (when I did speak I sounded a tad bit like Gollum) but I didn't think I was running a fever and my head ddidn't feel quite like it was going to explode so I decided to go to school at least to get the homework and such that I had missed. School went okay, but I had a ton of things to make up (i.e. major tests, papers, etcetera) which was just spectacular for me because by the time school was over and I was home all I wanted to do was sleep. Regardless of that I did all of my immediate homework and emailed a couple of papers to my AP Bio teacher just in case I couldn't go to school the next day (twas an off-chance at that point in time). Then I ate dinner, watched Lost ("Namaste") and went to bed. That night I woke up and for some odd reason that I didn't care to acknowledge couldn't see very well out of one eye (my vision was incredibly blurry), not seeing caused me no problem in gettting back to sleep, but the next morning when I woke up couldn't open my eye all the way, one corner seeme to be glued shut. I got up, went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to my horror there was a ton of matter (gunk) in my eye and half of my eye was a lovely shade of hot pink. I went and told my mother figuring that pink-eye was no reason to miss school. Oh how wrong I was, pink-eye is incredibly contagious and is capable of spreading through a school like wildfire through a drought-stricken valley. Thus I went back to bed. That was a very miserable day, between hacking and not being able to rub my incredibly itching/burning eye. That afternoon I got my antibiotics (Z-pack) which did absolutely nothing to relieve anything, but made me non-contagious enough that I thought maybe, just maybe, I would be able to go to school the next day. Well, the next morning I woke up and couldn't open my eye at all so school went out the window once again. So I emailed my teachers for my homework and went back to bed. The next day I felt a little better, but still wasn't capable of doing uch other than sitting on the couch and watching television while coughing and trying not to rub my eye. the next day was more of the same (less pink and matter in my eye though). Monday was good, I took a friend of mine to the Barn and let her ride my horse. Tuesday was horrific I ended up with a tremendous migraine that caused half of my forehead to swell up to twice its normal size prompting people to ask if I had hit my head on something (which I hadn't). Wednesday was okay (yay, more Lost), but I had planned to do homeowork on Tuesday and Wednesday and since I slept through Tuesday I only had Wednesday and I spent most of Wednesday at church making soup and serving food so I didn't get much done. Thursday I had another migraine which was bad because I had a six-hour drive to Seward, Nebraska ahead of me (luckily I wasn't driving so I slept most of the way). Yesterday was fun I visited my sister's college (as in college visit) and watched Twilight for the first time (meh, twas okay) with her and her friends last night. Today I woke up and my eye was weird again (it's a little pink and there was quite a bit of junk in it) then worked for 3 and a half hours on my paper for AP Lang (which is really, REALLY BAD) and now it's done and I'm starting to get a migraine. Oh joy. I'm going to go heat up my lunch now.

I Realize that I Missed One and It's too Late to Do a Summary and So I Shall Mearly Rant

"Namaste"

What an episode! They're back! Anyone who actually reads this blog is probably tired of this topic (well I hope you're not, but you kind of have to have watched the show from the beginning and developed an opinion on the matter to really care or find it interesting, but anyway)but I have a strong inclination after watching this episode of how things are going to wind up romantically on Lost: Jack and Juliet then Kate and Sawyer.

Now for some Evidence:

• When Sawyer said he was 'over' Kate he said it was because she was never coming back then lo and behold she did come back thus he didn't really mean it.
• Sawyer initiated the whole "It's good to see you Kate."/hugging thing therefore he must still have feelings for her.
• Jack and Kate have barely spoken since returning to the island and what they have said to each other has mainly involved exchanging infromation of the non-romantic kind.
• Jack is definately still in love with Juliet and seemed rather jealous when he found out that she and Sawyer were living together.
• Sawyer is clearly torn between his longlost love and his new little fling with Juliet.
• Juliet seems a little jealous and slightly threatened by Kate's presence on the Island, if her relationship with Sawyer was as impecably strong as his relationship with Kate was she would have nothing to be jealous of.
• We still don't know the true reason Kate came back to the Island, perhaps she came back for Sawyer...

Jack Shepherd vs. The State of Delusion

For those of you out there who follow my blog and have read some of the uber long posts I have about Lost episodes have most likely gathered that I don't believe Jack to be the most spectacular chap to have ever roamed the Island. There are many things that have led me to this conclusion, don't get me wrong there was a time when I totally supported the Jack/Kate relationship it is only recently (anytime between this summer and a week and two days ago) that I have become a much larger fan of the Sawyer/Kate relationship (plus I have a bragging rights bet riding on them soo...) and now I shall proceed to explai why that is via some sort of a pro/con list (do NOT mock the pro/con list):

Reasons Jack is a good leader (pros):

In the beginning (meaning between the time the plane crashed and the day Michael walked off) I perceived Jack to be a rather decent fellow for these reasons:

1. He was very nice to Kate when he learned about her fugitive status - he didn't see it as his business and therefore left it up to her to tell him about it.
2. He genuinely cared for everyone on the island and therefore (even though he really didn't want to) took on the role of Leader.
3. He didn't judge people for their past lives (Charlie-drug addict, Sawyer-con man, Sayid-'interrogator,' Kate-murderess, etc.)
4. He didn't let Sawyer die from the knife wound - bleed to death or die of sepsis (but seriously e shouldn't have pulled the knife out until he had the medical suppise that he needed.
5. He made sure everyone else was safe and happy before thinking about his own health.
6. He put the Marshal, who was dying of sepsis, out of his misery when Sawyer (who needed glasses) shot him in the lung instead of the heart.
7. He selflessly went after Claire when she was taken by Ethan and ended up saving Charlie's life even though it appeared that he was more than only mostly dead.
8. He put the nitroglycerin-covered dynamite in his bag instead of Kate's (which can also be seen as an overprotective gesture and is therefore also a con).
9. He didn't cast out the tail section survivors after they (meaning Ana-Lucia) accidentally killed Shannon.
10. He attempted to save Kate from the Others when they were first captured.
11. He saved Sawyer's life by helping Kate and Sawyer escape the cages on the Alcatraz island.
12. He promised Kate he would come back for her when he thought he was going to get to escape the island.
13. He helped orchestrate the ambush on the Others when they were coming for the pregnant women.
14. He got everyone safely to the radio tower.
15. He encouraged Kate to go the New Otherton w/Sayid and Miles.
16. He helped get as many people as he could off the island.

Those are all the pros I could think of, but please enlighten me if you think of any more.

Reasons why Jack is wrong for Kate (cons):

1. When Kate offered to tell him what she did he turned her down saying that he didn't want to know then about two days later asked her what she did and was not very accepting when she didn't tell him.
2. He generally thought that whenever he came up wit and idea (i.e. moving to the caves) that it was the absolute most right thing for everyone to do (yes I realize that is bad grammar and being as I am very tired and it is still before 10 A.M. I really don't care) and therefore pushed it on everyone and was slightly miffed at those who didn't agree with him.
3. He helped torture Sawyer for information when he could have gone about it differently.
4. He made Kate lie to him about the toy airplane when he didn't believe her about who it belonged to (it really belonged to the man she loved not the man she killed) and in the process of doing so made her tell him what she had done even though she didn't want to after he turned down her offer to tell him.
5. He went after Michael when Michael went to try to save Walt even though Locke and Michael both told him not to (he went after him to brig him back, eliminating Michael's free will).
6. He wouldn't let Kate come with him, Sawyer, and Locke to bring Michael back (eliminating her free will and beginning his overprotective streak).
7. He was quite angry with Kate for tracking him, Sawyer, and Locke when he told her not to (showing how little he understands her).
8. He seemed to blame Kate (he gave her the cold shoulder for a while) for losing the guns to the Others since they captured her while she was tracking the threesome stated twice above and made the same threesome trade their guns for her life (in actual reality it was his fault for a)not letting her come along and b)not realizing that she would follow them anyway).
9. He was mean to Sawyer because Sawyer (in his altered state during his infection from the bullet wound in his shoulder) said that he loved Kate.
10. He kept many important people (Sawyer, Locke, Kate, etc.) in the dark about his intentions to 'build and army' to attack the Others with (being as it would affect everyon living on the island he probably should have made that public information).
11. He was angry with Kate for asking him to do the surgery on Ben to save Sawyer's life and set the three of them free (seriously...overly jealous, how could he not see this coming she and Sawyer have been together at the cages the entire time).
12. He got rather buddybuddy with Juliet even though he was supposedly still in love with Kate (yeah obviously not THAT in love).
13. He was angry with Kate for coming back for him when he told her not to and didn't do anything to help her escape the Others, but instead thought only of his and Juliet's escape from the Island (when has she ever done anything he asked her to that involved not going somewhere?).
14. Upon arriving back at the beach and learning of Juliet's alternate agenda he proceeded to not tell anyone about it even though it affected all of the survivors.
15. He was angry at Kate for not telling him about Naomi right away (even though she told him after being sworn to secrecy by Sayid).
16. He didn't listen to Kate when she suggested that Naomi had left a dummy trail and then was miffed when he followed the dummy trail while Kate stole the radio, followed the real trail and found Naomi.
17. After they got off the Island and Jack and Kate got engaged Jack became rather paranoid about Kate's mysterious phone calls so he did the smart thing, got drunk and had a shouting match with her in which he revealed to Aaron (who was unbeknownst to the two adults in the room with them) that Kate was not his mother.
18. And going along with number 17 he got into a jealous shouting match with Kate about her 'doing something for Sawyer' (that's right he got jealous of a guy stuck in a different time on a constantly moving island, the same guy who jumped out of a moving helicopter so that he, Kate and the rest of the people in said helicopter could safely escape from the island, very mature).

And the cons have it, Jack has little to no understanding of Kate and therefore things between them ought not to work out in the end.

Los Hermanos Jonas

Two words: Boy Band. What do boy bands have to offer the world? The answer: absolutamente nada. Seriously what is the world's fascination with the Jonas brothers? I don't get it. In my French class I sit next to two girls who are absolutely in love with different Jonas Brothers and Edward Cullen. Speaking of which what is the world's fascination with Twilight? What started it? What hooks teenage girls on boys who are fictional characters and boys that might as well be fictional characters for the chances that an average girl has at dating them (being as there are millions of girls in love with three boys).

I looked up the definition of boy band and this is the page that I got (http://www.dictionary.com/)
Boy Band - 1 dictionary result

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Main Entry:
boy band
Part of Speech:
n
Definition:
a formulaically organized pop music group of good-looking young men who can sing and dance

What does formulaically mean?
adjective
1.
made according to a formula; composed of formulas: a formulaic plot.
2.
being or constituting a formula: formulaic instructions.

In other words all Boy Bands are the same, love one, love them all.

Jogging Woes followed by a Random Rant

I successfully injured myself jogging again and so I regrettfully admit defeat by winter. I will not jog again until the snow is off the ground, but to stay in shape until then I shall use the trainer...........bike..........thing which will hopefully save my leg/foot from untimely destruction. I kinda need my foot. This completely off-topic and random post brought to you by cabin fever and stir craze. I have recently become a fan of ebay on which I was able to buy something brandnew cheaper than I found it at Wal-Mart (which I despise). If Wal-Mart and Target had to fight to the death my money would be on Wal-Mart. If the innaguration is Tuesday does that mean that the Biggest Loser won't be on? This would be the second time that last years election has interfered with said show, sad. Lost is on on Monday and Wednesday, but not on Tuesday. Thursday is a sad day, on Thirsday night one goes to bed almost completely defeated by a week of school and tests and homework with only the thought that one must get through yet another day of school before the end of the week. Tomorrow is Monday, which would usually be a bad thing except for the fact that it is a half day meaning that after doing nothing at school for almost four hours I will be able to come home and relax while cramming for an ap bio test that I successfully avoided with the snow days we had last week. I did manage to get most of my homework done though, although I should have gotten it all done being as I had five days of break. I did not spend those days huddled in front of the TV though, actually I had to bundle up in Carharts everyday and go to the Barn to feed my poor horse who is living in the pasture and had to weather the cold. I cannot wait until Spring and I will not have to make up anymore snow days because I will be in Spain. Hooray! End Rant.

Oy Vey!

Over the past week I attended school for 3 hours. Between being anemic, doctor visits, and the bitter cold I successfully avoided quite a bit of school, but had I actually attended school like everybody else I would only have spent 11.5ish hours out of a normal 40 hours, this is because I reside in Iowa (not the potato state, the corn state, and yes we do have electricity here). Monday there was an early dismissal due to a blizzard, Tuesday there was a late start due to the same blizzard (8 inches of fresh snow on top of the 6.5+ already existing which then proceeded to blow and drift), Wednesday, Thursday, Friday there was no school due to the fact that the air temperature never breached -13 (degrees fahrenheit) and the windchill never got above -30. We set record lows (for the viewing area of KCRG TV9) with -29 air temp and -51ish wind chill. As I recall the buses wouldn't start because the fuel was gelled up. This week was quite enjoyable and tomorrow is an ealry dismissal day thanks to conferences so score 1 for the students (except for the AP students such as myself who need to have read 50something chapters of the AP Bio book by the beginning of May regardless of the weather. Terrific.

Chick Flicks and Hallmark Movies

The two types of movies named in the title are the most irksome types of movies around. Yes being a girl I enjoy the occasional chick flick because they always end happily and involve some sort of complicated romance, but if you think about the concept of chick flicks too hard you eventually feel sad because you know that there is about a one in a million chance of what happened in the movie ever happening to you. Chick Flicks usually involve a girl finding the perfect guy and in turn finding true love. A girl who watches too many chick flicks usually gets into the mentality that it is incredibly possible to fall in love within a week and get married to live a perfect life with the man of their dreams within a month, now call me a cynic, but that is never going to happen, at least not that fast. The fact that the girls in these movies always end up getting their hearts broken and then mended generally by the same guy is also depressing because I'm sure that pretty much every girl out there knows that said scenario is generally not the case. Also chick flicks are generally incredibly predictable, the viewer knows exactly how the movie is going to end the moment all of the characters are introduced, where is the fun in watching a movie when you know how it's going to end? The same is true with Hallmark movies. They usually portray a 'real life' situation in which some sort of problem arises and then is resolved through a bunch of family-friendly events. Hallmark movies are meant to teach a lesson about family and love that either most people are already aware of and do not need pounded into their heads or other people don't care about. (Disregard the last part of the last sentence, I realize how confusing it reads.)

My question is how on earth do these movies manage to flourish in the box offices and on TV?
My point is that these movies are pointless, depressing, and stupid when watched over and over, but okay for the spontaneous/occasional viewing.

For the Rest of the Lost Junkies Out There

Here are the season 5 promos (as you can tell I have very little to do today and I have writers block):

January 21st (only six days 15 hours, and 56 minutes until a most exciting television event)

Most people are incredibly excited for January 20th when President-Elect Obama loses the 'Elect' from his title. I however am not really excited for the 20th at all, I don't really enjoy watching politically biased news reports about what is practically old news. It was exciting when Obama won the election and made history and the swearing in seems to be much less exciting especially when it is being followed up with the new season of 'Lost' premiering on the 21st. I am truly a 'Lost' junkie (which ought to be blatantly obvious by now) and I could care less about the 20th. I do realize this is a potentially offensive and pointless post, but I don't really care, it's how I feel. I would much rather watch a 2 hour season premier of a high-paced, mind-churning, thought-provoking show than watch Lord-knows-how-many-hours of dry speeches, formality, and masked loathing by separate political parties. I can also guarantee that I am not the only person in the U.S. that feels this way. Now that I have successfully written about 100 words of absolutely nothing I feel that I have ineffectively ranted about this topic and should probably quit writing while I'm only a furlong behind.

The 'Twilight' Epidemic

I just want to say before I type anything else that I read the first 3 books before they were popular. Actually when I was reading them I was spurned for reading creepy scifi vampire books and now I am spurned for having no desire to read the fourth. Well that's not entirely true, I do want to read the fourht, but not because I am obsessed, I want to read it because it is a good story that left off at a bit of a pinch in the third book and I want to know what happens.

Now that the media has gotten its claws into a good book every tween girl (by the way what does tween mean?) in the nation is in love with Edward Cullen (I however am rooting for Jacob) and fantasizes that they are Bella. Girls who are in love with Edward seem to feel the need to be protected from everything bad in the world (as Edward does for Bella) by an incredibly jealous overprotective, formal/stiff, boy with incredible strength. Now before I go on I must admit that after reading the first book I felt a little the same way, but after reading the next two books Edward is seriously starting to get on my nerves, why would anyone want to be held captive by their boyfriend's sister? I find it kind of sad (not to bash the girls in these videos or anything I'm sure they're great people and all) that a girl would let herself slip so far as to become so obsessed with a series of books and fictional characters that she practically devotes her life to it: