Best Picture: Out of Africa

Out of Africa, the real-life but fictionalized tale of a woman who married a guy out of convenience and moved to Africa to farm and then fell in love with a loner-type safari hunter, won the Oscar for Best Picture for1985. Of course other things happen to this woman, played by Meryl Streep, notably getting syphilis. The surprised me.

This movie is really one of those epic Hollywood love stories, like Casablanca or The English Patient. Or at least it's supposed to be. Streep plays Karen Blixen, the aforementioned woman who moves to Africa and then experiences all sorts of things. Her love interest is Denys, played by Robert Redford. To me, Redford is always playing a variation of the same character; he never brings any depth or uniqueness to the characters he portrays. But he's certainly nice to look at. When the movie came out, Redford's star power was slightly in decline, but Streep's was red hot having already done Silkwood and Sophie's Choice (both of which netted her Oscar noms). Redford is top-billed, even though Streep is clearly the star of the film.

These two fall in love, obviously, even though Karen is married. It's just a marriage of convenience though, so we're supposed to think it's okay that Denys moves in with her and they are a couple. I honestly didn't care about that though. I was disappointed that Karen turned into a naggy woman desperate to not just be loved, but to have that love be proved by getting married. She gives Denys an ultimatum, which is never a good idea. It's supposed to prove their love or something, but ultimatums are never a good idea.

This movie was long and not terribly interesting. It needed to be edited (director Sydney Pollock, who won Best Director for this film) was really in love with shots of the landscape. This film was up against The Color Purple (which was entirely shut out) and Witness (which I think should have won because it's masterful). Streep is great at accents, but an accent does not a compelling character create.

I would recommend skipping this and watching Witness instead.

Back in the Groove

I may have been in funk the past few weeks. Lots of reasons for this, none all that interesting to delve into. Suffice it to say I let more than a few things go by the wayside as I embraced the funk. I started coming out of it last week, but really kicked it to the curb today. I think it all started with me making the choice to walk to work. It really is a fabulous feeling. Tonight I decided to take my first jog/run of the year. The weather was  nice and I felt great as I was running around downtown. When I got home I did all the things I've been putting off--folding and putting away my laundry, doing the dishes, straightening my living room, cleaning off my counter of the clutter that overtakes it, cleaning out my fridge and taking out the trash. I felt like I do on Saturday mornings--productive and useful.

Funks are a natural part of life (at least of mine). I don't generally mind them, but I also love being back in the groove.

Snow Day Productiveness

Topeka got pounded with snow all day yesterday. I think the official amount was 13 inches. There was so much snow that Topeka Metro and the City called today a Snow Day. What did I do with my free day? I slept in, worked out, did my taxes, made cookies, made granola, attempted to fix the un-painted spots on my wall (it did not go well; I think I made it worse), organized all the random pieces of paper in my desk, took out the trash, did the dishes, folded my laundry, cleaned off my car, watched Jeopardy!, addressed Valentine's cards to friends and family, painted my toenails, and, of course, called my mom to wish her a Happy Birthday.

I do not want to go to work tomorrow.

Behind

I'm behind. On almost everything. I need to write papers. I need to research. I need to make presentations. I need to study. I need to call about internships. I need to call about doctor bills that I paid. I need to read. I need to sleep. I need to eat.

There's never enough time in the day to get it all done. Also, I'm a procrastinator.

Bad combination.

Produtive Saturday

This morning I made banana bread, fixed my toilet, cleaned my house and took out the garbage. If I had quarters I would've done a couple loads of laundry too. I plan to get some homework done this afternoon and finish the book for Book Club tonight, all so I can play on Monday!

April First

Guess what?! My new laptop arrived yesterday! It was very exciting, and I was up very late installing all sorts of things on it so it would be just like my old laptop. Which I realized was very old and outdated. But, I sorta miss it, mainly because it was comfortable and I had everything on it. Now starts the grueling task of transferring everything over.

What I'm most excited about with my new laptop is that it now holds enough memory for me to install ArcGIS on it. Yes, this is sorta dorky, but it's a computer program I need for my GIS class and having it on my personal laptop means I no longer have to go to campus to work on my project.

And that project is going to be a lot of work. So I'm glad I can do it at midnight, sitting in my pjs, while watching Buffy.

A Holiday of Productiveness

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a pretty awesome, motivational, inspiring, world-changing person. Today we celebrate his birth and life by getting the day off from work and school. I should've done something that involved service or helping others, but I guess I sorta helped myself by being productive.

Instead of sleeping in, I got up and exercised (because my work is having a Biggest Loser competition). I reviewed some class homework and figured out what I needed to be doing (which is basically a lot of reading). I took the bus downtown and walked to the Broadway Cinema on this unusually warm day to check out Golden Globe winner Colin Firth in The King's Speech (which, while possibly slow at times, had superb cinematography, great acting, and a wonderful ending that made the slow parts all worth it). I walked a few blocks to Salon NV where I got a way overdue haircut (which was pretty nice, especially the head massage). I took the bus home and proceeded to do some aforementioned reading for class on Wednesday (which is sort of shocking considering what a procrastinator I am). I then ate some veggies, hummus and cheese and watched a brand-new episode of Chuck (which was awesome and left me barely able to wait until next week, and made me hate those promos for this week that actually included stuff from next week, not this week).

And now here I am updating my blog and planning on getting to bed early for a full day tomorrow. It feels good spending my day being productive instead of wasting it.

Productivity

This morning, following on the heels of helping one of my roommates pack all her stuff in a Budget Truck, my other roommate and I took on the task of cleaning our fridge. With four people sharing a kind of small fridge, it tends to get overcrowded with condiments, salad dressings, and other things you only need/use once. And at one point, some hot fudge got spilled and ran down under the bottom drawers and created a nice little hard pool. So we went through all the old condiments and salad dressing and threw out anything that was past expiration. We threw out things that we were pretty sure belonged to girls who had lived here three roommates ago. We took out all the shelves and cleaned them with hot soapy water.

Winter is the perfect time to clean out the fridge, as our garage is so cold that all our perishables sat out there for a few hours without perishing. When the fridge was cleaned and everything put back in, it looked like a brand-new fridge! Ah, the joys of being productive.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I found the energy to clean the long-overdue bathroom, sweep the floor and stairs, and take out the trash. Tomorrow we hope to rearrange the spare bedroom downstairs to make it more conducive to watching movies and hanging out.

All in all it was a productive day, cleaning, ordering school books, playing Wii. And it felt good.