Sickness.

I am horrendously ill.

I had a wonderful, relaxing, quasi-productive Easter long weekend, and at the close of this weekend, an unknown illness invaded my body. It is as if my immune system has entirely gone to sleep. I legitimately feel as if there is a (very mean) man inside my head inflating a balloon, and subsequently filling that balloon with pudding. The balloon is attempting to emerge from my skull--first through my nose, and now through my ears. Lovely lovely lovely today is such a wonderful day.

I'm getting through because of peppermint tea, Advil cold and sinus, and the anticipation of sleep. The moral of the story is that all people should avoid being too close to me should I accidentally breathe my nasty germs on you. Hopefully my immune system will wake up soon and we can all be friends again.

I remain unchanged.

Directly quoting me on March 18th, 2005: "I had a bunch of random things typed here before, but my brain is all tired and I can't really think." Three years later, all is essentially the same.

Direction.

In recent years, I feel that I have made a step towards maturity: I now search out films based on their directors and producers, in addition to the general aesthetic appeal of what I discover at apple.com/trailers. My conclusion thus far is that I greatly enjoy two specific director/producers: Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan.



Undoubtedly, I took notice of Ridley Scott with his Academy Award-winning epic Gladiator. I am both a lover of ancient history, as well as a lover of a well-done 'action' film, and thus Gladiator tops my list of favourite films. In addition to Gladiator, however, I soon discovered that Ridley Scott possessed more talent than I was aware of. Adding films like Tristan & Isolde, Kingdom of Heaven, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford to his exhaustive list of films. I love Scott's interpretation of characters within particular contexts, and the overall approach he takes in projecting the vision of his film. Ridley Scott is the first director whose film I have watched solely because he was associated with it. NB: Legend is not Scott's best work, albeit I do enjoy a good fantasy.



On a slightly different note, Christopher Nolan was one of my more recent discoveries, merely a year ago as I analyzed Memento for a summer course. One of the most mind-bending and intriguing films I've ever seen, Memento inspired my great appreciation for Nolan's examination of the intricacies of the human mind. I believe it takes a very creative mind to decide to purposely run a film in snapshots of reverse, revealing the most key element of the plot at the outset of the film and regressing through the occurrences leading up to such a pivotal plot element. Additionally, Nolan also directed/wrote/produced one of my other favourite films, The Prestige. Continuing his trend of mind-bending, Nolan throws the viewer for many a mental loop-de-loop, and definitely keeps you guessing. Christopher Nolan's continuing work on expanding Batman films excites me.

Watch their movies. I'm shamelessly promoting these directors in my procrastination.

Post-Bahamas Reflections

Less than a week after returning from the Bahamas, I am extremely unmotivated and would give almost anything to return to such a glorious place. I have never felt so incredibly relaxed and at peace on a break during school before. Generally speaking, I have a fun time during reading breaks, but am always panicking in the back of my mind about my excessive homework that I am neglecting. This time? This time was different. I actually had fun and didn't worry about the consequences for my academic career. In retrospect, that may have been an irresponsible choice; however, I feel much more mentally stable having relaxed so much.



Never in a million years did I think that I would go to a place like The Bahamas on spring break. It seemed like an unbelievable dream when I went to Orange County in my second year, so this was a completely wonderful and surreal experience. The general schedule of a day went as follows: wake up somewhere around 8:00 or 9:00 am (approximately 5:00 or 6:00 am British Columbia time), eat breakfast, put on sunscreen, pack a bag, walk to the ferry and head off to another island. Once arriving at the aforementioned island (Hope Town, Guana Cay, et cetera), we would poll the locals and other nerdy tourists for the best beach location and make our way there. We'd then sleep, swim and snorkel for a bit, grab some lunch, sleep, swim snorkel some more, and then make our way back home. We'd go out to dinner somewhere, come back to the house to watch Cops for a few hours, and then go to bed before 11:00 pm. Fantastic.



I have never been happier about spending such a large amount of money before... aside from the money I'm spending on my education? Yeah. Anyway, the moral of the story is that everyone should go to The Bahamas with seven of their closest friends and have the time of their lives. :) Done and done. I am a very content woman, despite the fact that I have about twelve books to read in order to complete my university career. Minor details...