WhatWhoLove

So remember last post when I said I wish I had a hobby so I could blog more consistently?

Welcome to my new hobby: http://whatwholove.tumblr.com/

Summer Reading

Obviously, I haven't been doing so well with my summer goal of posting here once a week. I've found that while I like the idea of it, I'm not actually a very good blogger. I wish I had a hobby or something to focus on so that I could be more consistent, but at this point, it's mostly just my random musings that I feel the need to express. So here's a bit of an expression:

Last night, I felt the need to read through the last journal I completed. If you didn't previously know, I've been keeping journals pretty consistently since the end of 7th grade. Most of the completed ones are currently sitting in a backpack in my closet at home, and I've told my Mum that if I somehow die before her, it is her task to burn that backpack and all of its contents. Journals are something that I believe to be incredibly private--while I sometimes use them just to write about my day or about who I think I'm in love with, I also use them to chart my growth as a human being. They've helped me discover my identity, what I truly care about, how I relate to God, how I relate to others. I feel like even if I was dead, I would still somehow be embarrassed if my journals were found and read...or worse, published. That's me in the raw, all guards down, no concern for my audience because there's not supposed to be one. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't all that deep at 16. If I remember correctly, there were a lot of entries about Corbin Bleu back then.

That was a large tangent just to say that I'm pretty proud of this last journal. It spanned the entirety of my junior year at NAU, from the first day of Fall semester to the first couple weeks of summer vacation. It was the most difficult year of school I've ever experienced, but it also pushed me to be a better student, writer, and creator. There were so many instances where I felt reassured that I was studying the right things and pursuing the right field. And it was also a time where I feel like I landed such a great group of friends that I was able to spend ample amounts of time with. There are so many memories in that journal, from the inceptions of various story and poem ideas, to eating IHOP after the Ke$ha concert, to processing after my trip to Haiti, to a Step Up marathon that turned out to not be a Step Up marathon at all. It felt great to relive all of that, and to feel like I really made the most of this past year. So if you were a part of it in any way, thank you for that.

All of this to say...I have some pretty large expectations for the coming semester. And I'll be there through it all, pen in hand.

Stuff I Like: StoryCorps

I would love to work for this organization one day.



(From their "About Us" page):

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages.
We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening, and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters. At the same time, we will create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations.
In the coming years we will build StoryCorps into an enduring institution that will touch the lives of every American family.

How to Write a (Good) Romantic Comedy

As I write this, I'm currently watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which I remember being my favorite romantic comedy of my junior high days. I've been reading the script for When Harry Met Sally, and a couple days ago at Target, I bought The Holiday (another one of my favorites) on sale for $4.75.

Let's try to ignore the underlying implication of why there are so many rom-coms in my life lately, and instead focus on the fact that I am a firm believer in the fact that they can be divided into two separate genres: Smart Rom-Coms, and Dumb Rom-Coms. The Smart ones work because they don't just rely on the fact that girls want to be sucked into a story and led to believe that the male love interest is worthy of pining over. They have strong, witty writing and believable characters with real flaws. My favorite examples of the Smart Rom-Com include When Harry Met Sally, The Holiday, and The Awful Truth (not to be confused with the Katherine Heigl/Gerard Butler film The Ugly Truth...never saw it, don't plan to).

On the other side of the coin are Dumb Rom-Coms. They tend to recycle the incredibly generic formula of "Boy meets Girl, Boy deceives Girl and/or Girl deceives boy, someone finds out, Boy and girl are through, but after some time of healing they realize they belong together and ignore the previous deception." The End. There is also plenty of eye candy to distract from the fact that audiences have already seen this movie, just in a different setting and with different-looking characters. In my opinion, dumb Rom-Coms include She's All That, Someone Like You, and From Justin to Kelly. Also, I've never seen it, but I'm sure what they say about Gigli is true. These films are an insult to the audience's intelligence, expecting them to believe that the characters presented are realistic and likable when they are actually one-dimensional and usually pretty annoying.

So a note to anyone who is planning on writing a Romantic Comedy at any point in the future (including me)...write real characters. I want Billy Crystal, not Freddie Prinze Jr.

Stuff I Like: Sassitude

When it comes to music, my tastes are pretty male dominated. I frequently say that my favorite genre is "men with butter voices": John Legend, Guy Sebastian, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye.

But every once in awhile, there comes a female voice that makes me stop, listen, and reevaluate my "Favorites" list. So in addition to "men with butter voices", I also have an ear for "ladies with Sassitude":

We call that Sassy Brass.

Dressed in 2D: Roger Klotz

After months of thinking about it and planning trips to Savers that have yet to happen, I have FINALLY brought together my first outfit that is a nod to a famous cartoon character. I was looking through my wardrobe last night to see if there was anything I could pull together without going out to buy anything, and it dawned on me--Roger Klotz from Doug.

Simple enough. All I needed was a white T and jeans, a leather jacket, and sideswept hair. I wasn't willing to dye my skin green, but I had recently gotten lime green nail polish, so I think that sufficed. The results:

Though it's normal enough that nobody around me noticed, I still felt super cool and animated. So here's hoping that now that I've had a taste of it, I'll get to Savers soon in search of my next character. I think all I need to complete a Linus Van Pelt is a striped red shirt.

If you have any suggestions on other cartoons that should be emulated, feel free to let me know.

The Endless Summer

After the roughest semester of my life (academically speaking...socially it was fantastic), summertime is finally here. I'll be living in Flagstaff, on the NAU campus, in my very own dorm room that is decorated with Haitian art, a potted plant named Beatrice (in honor of the sassy character from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing) and a sacrilegious painting of Jim Henson. I now carry the noble title of Housekeeper, though I was informed that we won't be cleaning toilets or showers, so that's a welcome surprise.

My schedule will be erratic, but I will have plenty of free time to journal in the cemetery that sits right next to my building, make a sufficient dent in the List of 100 Movies that I want to watch before I graduate, and generally enjoy all that Flagstaff has to offer in the summer: namely, NOT 100+ degree weather. In fact, it snowed today.

Summer is a great time for pursuing goals, so I've come up with a few that I would be happy to achieve in the coming months. Hopefully it will turn out better than last summer, when my goal was to read every children's book Roald Dahl ever wrote. I believe I only got through 3, though they were all brilliant. Naturally.

Jordan's Goals for the Summer of 2011

1. Blog here at least once a week. Hopefully life as a Housekeeper will provide plenty of fodder. I hear that Cheer Camp week is the worst, on account of all the bobby pins that our vacuums suck up and all of their popsicles that get stuck in the freezer. I can't wait. That last statement was not sarcastic.

2. Complete another draft of the full-length screenplay I just finished this semester. I'll hold off on this one for a bit...I need some distance, as it was the bane of my existence for 16 weeks.

3. Work out another idea for a new screenplay. Working on the last one, I realized that while fantasy/action movies are some of my favorite to watch, they are not my favorite to write. Now I want a dialogue-heavy, character driven comedy. I'll probably be watching When Harry Met Sally a lot.

4. Become YouTube famous. I feel like if I wasn't so afraid of marketing myself, that this could actually happen. Currently, there are two videos on my account that have more than 2,000 views, and one with over 3,000. It is time to explore what I have to offer the YouTube community, and see if it could actually take me anywhere. Plus, some people get PAID just to make videos all day erry day. So why not try, right?

5. Read the entire Old Testament. I feel like I'm pretty knowledgeable on what happens in the New, but that there are a lot of things I've never read through fully or that I've forgotten from the OT. I know it's pretty long--according to my Bible, it's 793 pages. But I had to read The Count of Monte Cristo the summer before sophomore year of high school and that behemoth was over 1,000. Maybe that's not a good example...I read the SparkNotes. But I have higher hopes for this endeavor, because it was not assigned to me and I genuinely believe it to be very important. Nothing against Dumas, but he's no Creator, knowwhatImean?

6. Find a man. I'm half joking, and am borrowing this goal from my roommate of two years.

But only half joking.

Since I want to write here so often, perhaps I will actually update you on my progress with everything. Easy content! It's a beautiful thing.

Hope you're having a lovely summer,
Jordan