Guess the Movie!

ETA: I'll keep this up for a few more days until I reveal all the answers. I want to see if anyone can come up with the last few.

I stole this from my friend Jasie and thought it was a cool idea. The hard part was selecting 15 of my favorite movies...eventually, I decided to pick movies that I either adore or which have scenes and/or lines that are memorable to me. I thought I'd pick the most obscure quotes I could find, but in the end, that just seemed a little cruel. There are certainly quotes I could have picked that would have easily given the movie(s) away and I tried to steer clear of those. This is only a brief sampling of the movies that I love, find amusing, make me cry, or are simply a good time. I actually think I would have had an easier time picking my favorite quotes from 15 television shows but that would have been downright impossible for anyone to guess. (In some cases, I've removed the names of characters which would have easily revealed the movie. Just FYI.) Here are the rules:

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions

1) "I mean, the voice isn't telling me to do anything. It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary." Stranger Than Fiction, Kara

2) "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." When Harry Met Sally, Christa

3) "Shelves in the closet. Happy thought indeed." Pride and Prejudice, Kara
(Now this is a rather obscure line in this movie but it has never failed to make me giggle.)

4) "That's so tacky... and you know what else is tacky? Tucking your shirt in when you're wearing a belt." "I only did that one time!" Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Kara
(This is from a movie that I love, but which does not have a lot of really quotable lines. Isn't it funny how some movies are like that?)

5) "What I'm trying to say, is... I think I love you. I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine." Stardust, Christa

6) "He must be very smart. I bet you look pretty good from a few thousand miles away."
(I could have gone with a very famous line from this movie but I didn't think that'd be very fun for those playing along at home.) The Cutting Edge, Kara (yay!)

7) "The Claw! The Claw is our master. It decides who will go and who will stay." Toy Story, Kara (I actually like Toy Story 2 better but I love this scene in the first one. Both are fantastic movies.)

8) "What is this? A center for ants? The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!" Zoolander, Kiersten
(I'm a little hesitant to admit this--because this is the type of movie I generally hate--but I have all sorts of love for the movie this quote is from. David and I quote from it all the time.)

9) "Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love." Moulin Rouge, Kara

10) "She weaves all things together."

11) "A woman happily in love, she burns the souffle. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven." Sabrina, (the original), Kara

12) "Never tell me the odds." Empire Strikes Back, Kara (I tried to stump you but I should have known you'd get this one.)

13) "I've always known myself. But he was the first to recognize me. And to love what he saw." Jane Eyre, MJ

14) "But I love the old Rose! The one with no makeup and baggy clothes who loves 'the perfect bite'! She eats carrots now, isn't that tragic?" The Mirror Has Two Faces, MJ

15) "Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing." Iron Man, Christa

Runners-up:
(Most of these are quotes from the movies above that were very close to being picked. I just couldn't not include them.)

16) "Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive?" Stranger than Fiction, Kara

17) "Would I be correct in thinking that you can neither see nor hear me? Then I'd like to tell you that you smell of pee. You look like the wrong end of a dog. And I swear, if I don't get my Tristan back as he was, I'll be your personal poltergeist! " Stardust, Kara

18) "I'm Tour Guide Barbie. Please keep your hands, arms, and accessories in the car, and no flash photography. Thank you. " Toy Story 2, Kara

19) "A eugoogalizor, one who speaks at funerals. Or did you think I'd be too stupid to know what a eugoogoly was?" Zoolander, Kiersten

20) "You're going to be bad for business. I can tell." Moulin Rouge, Kara

21) "Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich." Sabrina, Emily

22) "I don't date these girls because they're well-read. I gave one of them a copy of "Farewell to Arms". She thought it was a diet book."

I realized, after doing this exercise, that I have seen a lot of movies but very few of them stick with me. There are snippets and scenes and emotions that stay with me long after I've forgotten the plot, but there are not many movies that I repeatedly watch or that stay fresh in my mind. The majority of the films that I do own and do watch again and again are the happy films, the feel-good movies about love and life. But for every five sappy romantic comedies and teen girl empowerment movies, there is one powerfully visceral movie which affects me in ways that I cannot describe and which, on occasion, change the way I view the world. But unfortunately, these are also the type of movies that can only be watched once or twice in a lifetime and so they did not make the list.

A day in the life of a military wife....

Today was a busy day...a good day, but a busy one nonetheless. Well, it was busy for me because I had to wake up before 10am, shower and change out of pajamas before 1pm, and leave the house for some purpose other than getting the mail. Anything that stretches me beyond this daily routine seems busy to me and now I am quite tired.

The morning started off with David re-enlisting with the Navy for 3 more years. As a linguist, David was already obligated to enlist for an additional two years in addition to the four he has already served, but we've decided to re-enlist for more time for two main reasons: 1) If David goes to Korea next year (which we're 95% sure will happen), he'll be able to bring me along. If he'd only enlisted for two years, he'd only have to serve in Korea for one more year, which means we would not get command sponsorship which means I'd get left behind. With an additional year, meaning two years in Korea, we have a much better chance that I'll get to go along for the ride; and 2) It will give David more time to finish his degree. David is currently working on a degree in accounting and while he is technically a senior (thanks to all his language credits from DLI), he still has to take all his major classes which may take a few more years. Luckily, he can do most, if not all, of his classes online so he can continue his education while we're in Korea, but this gives him a little bit more of a buffer to get school done before his gets out of the Navy and starts looking for a civilian job or applying for a graduate program (most likely an MBA).

In any case, there's a little ceremony and swearing-in when you re-enlist and the re-enlistee generally gets to pick where this happens. David chose the Kolekole look-out which is a short hike up the Kolekole Pass, past a sacrificial rock, to a gorgeous view of the North Shore.

The sign before heading up the pass. It's a short hike, but the first quarter mile is pretty steep and oftentimes very slippery.

The look-out. This is looking north to the North Shore. The property is part of Schofield Barracks (so no access for non-military people) but it has a striking view. And it is also very windy.

David swearing an oath to serve the country, etc., etc. by an Army officer whose name I have already forgotten. David chose this spot because it's one of his favorite places on the island. When he first got to Hawaii, he and friend would hike up here and eat their lunches on their long lunch breaks. (Sidenote: The Navy has many uniforms, some which are very nice and others, like the utilities, which David is wearing above, which are not. (Makes them look like janitors really.) My favorite are the working whites, but David did not want to wear them on account of them being white and having to hike in the Hawaiian red clay. Oh well.)

After re-enlisting. Everyone who came to witness this momentous occasion shook both David and my hands and congratulated both of us. Okay. I guess I deserve some congratulations.

After we hiked back down the mountain, David and I drove down to Pearl Harbor to turn in the paperwork at the Navy offices there so that David can get his measly signing bonus. Still, free money. Yay! After eating lunch at Panda Express (their new Beijing beef is quite tasty), we decided to go to the U.S.S. Missouri, a museum ship, because neither of us had been there yet. The "Mighty Mo" is a decommissioned battleship that fought during World War II, the Korean War and the Gulf War. It was on the Missouri that the delegates from Japan signed the declaration of surrender that officially ended World War II. It was re-fitted with tomahawk missiles in the 1980s and was finally decommissioned in 1992. On the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Missouri was brought to Oahu and parked (I guess it would be more appropriate to say anchored) in the harbor next to the Arizona Memorial, so that the vessels involved in the start of the war and the end of the war were together. I did not know all this about the Missouri, and being the history nerd that I am, I found it all incredibly fascinating. Plus, I've never been on a battleship before. (We don't use them anymore sadly and the Missouri was the last one built.) I've been on aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines, but a battleship and their massive guns was something else. But everytime I go on one of these ships/boats, I am always so glad that David has a nice desk job on shore and will never have to go to sea. So now for a few pictures!

Me exiting the museum. You can see one of the many battery guns in the background. They are HUGE.
David pretending to fire a gun. Boys will always be boys, I'm afraid.

David standing in between two of the large barrels of the guns. I know he's trying to look manly, but unfortunately, he's just too skinny. Maybe if he were wearing his working whites. Yes, a man in uniform is always better. :-)

The best shot I could get of the USS Missouri. It is very large.

This is from atop the captain's bridge, looking down at two of the gun batteries. You can see that the Missouri points straight at the Arizona Memorial. You can even still see where the oil is continually spilling out of the sunken ship.

After touring the entire ship (that we could access anyway), David and I stopped by the Social Security office so I could finally legally change my name. I debated what to do and I finally opted to keep both my first name (which I do not go by) and my maiden name so now I have one very long name but that's okay.

So it's been a very long and eventful day in the sun what with the hiking and the touring and the name changing and on the way home, we bought some Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice cream (soooo good) which I am very much looking forward to eating.

Books, etc.

I just finished reading Richard Bushman's biography of Joseph Smith entitled Rough Stone Rolling. Bushman is a long tenured professor of history (who has taught at the University of Delaware, Columbia, and BYU) and is a member of the church. In an attempt to make Joseph Smith and the church more accessible to both members and non-members alike, Bushman delves into a lot of complicated church doctrine which makes the book drag a little, mostly because I'm already familar with the concept of our celestial progression and the nature of God as a fully embodied person. But for every heavy-handed section, there are fascinating insights into the life and times of Joseph Smith. Bushman does not shy away from the controversies in Joseph's life and like Joseph himself, admits that he was a flawed man, given to his passions and consumed with his calling in life, despite the resistance he faced. Not only did I gain a greater insight into Joseph the man and prophet, but I learned so much about the foundation of the church, the inclusion of new knowledge and doctrine, and the central role of the Book of Mormon. It's a long book, sometimes tedious and sometimes absolutely fascinating, but I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a very balanced and even-handed account of the life of Joseph Smith and his legacy.

Other than reading and watching the Olympics, not much has been going on in my life. I'm still searching for a job and slowly growing more and more crazy each day for lack of anything to do. I had 3 interviews for an admin position close to home (wouldn't it be so nice to walk to work?) but I got the impression during the third interview that they had already decided against me because they kept making comments about how over-qualified I was, how I might be bored, or how I should be working in a museum, not as an admin assistant. I tried to explain that I would not be bored, I liked mundane tasks, there are no museum jobs on an island as small as Oahu, and what does it matter if I am over-qualified for a job if I'm still willing to do it and can do it well? I haven't heard back about the job (my interview was a week ago) so I'm not holding my breath, but the sooner I can rule out that potential job, the sooner I can look more vigorously elsewhere. But the sad fact is that there are very few jobs in Hawaii and even fewer close to home and I do not want to have to drive an hour each way in and out of Honolulu everyday (the traffic is absolutely horrific here). I have a few other options and I'm applying for some teaching positions at the college level but since the new semester is starting soon, I probably won't be able to get a job until next semester but at least it would be something. Hopefully something will fall into place.

In the meantime, I'm going to go check out some new books at the library and bake some banana bread.

Women's Gymnastics All-Around

So I'm a huge Olympics fan. I might have even secretly wanted to be an Olympic champion in my youth. I still figure I have a shot in archery. Anyway, I watch pretty much all the coverage I can get. During the winter Olympics, it's all about figure skating and during the summer, it's all about gymnastics. Gymanstics has been dominated by the Chinese this year...which fine. The women faltered in the team competition (Alicia Sacramone, I'm looking at you) but the women's all-around was all about Nastia Lukin and Shawn Johnson. I'm a big fan of Shawn Johnson's consistency and steadiness in all of her routines. She just seems hard-working and nice, not to mention that she's an awesome gymnast. I'm rooting for her to win the gold. Nastia Lukin has beautiful lines and a grace that is very rare for gymnasts, especially for the Chinese, who are so awkward everytime they move their arms.

But what is with the scores right now!?!?!?!?! ARGH!!!!

Okay, so I'm still watching the competition (I don't want to be spoiled even though I know I could find the results out right now) but the two Chinese gymnasts bobbled and faltered and balanced-checked their way through their balance beam routines and still scored higher than Shawn Johnson's near flawless routine. What gives judges?

At this point, I just want either Shawn or Nastia to get gold-silver, and the Chinese to get kicked to the curb. Hopefully, on their last event (floor) something terrible will happen to the Chinese (mean, I know, but they've been annoying me with their over-inflated scores and home team advantage) and Shawn/Nastia can nail it on the head.

So now the floor routines are starting. I'll give my minute-by-minute impressions and comments.

JIANG YU-YANG (China): She had a big fall on the vault and she just made a pretty serious mistake on a very basic dance move on the floor. She's not really in medal contention anymore so whatever.... I'm over you. She got a 14.something.

ANNA PAPLOVA (Russia): I'm rooting for one of the Russians or Romanians to kick the other Chinese girl out of her spot. Her music isn't as awful as some other routines. (Sidenote: why do women have music on their floor routines and not men? It doesn't add anything to their routines...actually I find it really annoying because the gymnastics never seems to take musicality into consideration when choreographing these routines...so pointless.) So she did a great floor routine. Really solid. 15.050.

KSENIA SEMNOVA (Russia): She's in 4th place right now behind Shawn Johnson (who goes last). She actually appears to have listened to her music once or twice. Nice. Oh wait....I think her music is "Putting on the Ritz" or something like that. Very jazzy and very 1980s. I hope she steps out of bounds. No such luck. She did a good job. Dang. 14.775. Okay, I can breathe easier....that's not a super stellar score.

YANG YILIN (China): The commentators love to create lots of drama and they make so many nit-picky comments that you think all the gymnasts actually suck. Okay, she has to go down but I kind of have a soft spot for her now because she's using music from Moulin Rouge which LOVE! It's the opening "La Boheme" and I always thought this music was awesome for a dance routine. She had a little stumble. Yay! Okay, she did a pretty good job but I'm hoping the judges will suddenly find a billion little mistakes and give her a really low score. Please judges? You've done it to the Americans throughout this competition. Pass on some of the unloving to the Chinese. 15.000. Okay, that's something that the Americas can easily over-come.

NASTIA LUKIN (USA): She's very pretty....especially for a gymnast. Her father was a Russian gymnast (I think her mother was too) and she was born in Russia before coming to America as a toddler. And her Dad is her coach and it's a little adorable. So far, she's doing a great job. She really is incredibly graceful and beautiful. Okay, she was awesome. 15.525. (Excellent.) Hit everything and she should get the silver at the very least, if not the gold depending on what Shawn Johnson does. She's next!!!

SHAWN JOHNSON (USA): She needs a 16.125 or better to beat Nastia (which just isn't going to happen) so now she's shooting for a silver. Her first tumbling pass was huge and right on. Her music is from August Rush and it actually works really well for a floor routine. She's nailing pretty everything right now. If she just keeps it up, she'll take silver. (Aside from the part where gold is better than silver, I'd rather get a silver medal. So much prettier...gold is a little tacky). YAY! Just waiting for her score....15.255. Silver medal by .075 (between her and third place).

Nastia Lukin wins. I'm quite pleased (even though a Chinese got a bronze). Nastia was really solid, had a lot of great routines and really stuck the landings.

Another sidenote: The commentators have also been making a huge deal over the international make-up of American gymnastics. Nastia Lukin was born in Russia. Shawn Johnson's coach is from Beijing. Kevin Tan on the men's team is Chinese, Alexander Artemov is Russian, and Raj Bhavsar is of Indian descent. I find it rather amusing that this is note-worthy, when America has always been and still is a land of immigrants and since many studies have projected that whites will no longer be the majority in America by 2042*: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_on_go_ot/white_minority. Get with the program commentators.

Anyway, it was a fantastic competition and America took the top two spots (and is now back on the top of the medal count, thank goodness). Now I'm looking forward to the individual gymnastic events, track and field and for the Michael Phelps show to be over. (No doubt, he is AWESOME but I'm pretty sure America has some other athletes. Just a guess.)

Also, does the local news need to tell me everywhere Obama has been on his vacation to Oahu? I do not care that he went body surfing at Sandy Beach or played basketball with his buddies at his old high school. Plus, I so did not need the image of him in a bathing suit floating around in my mind. Anywaaay....

So yay for the Olympics and if you made it to the end of this post, yay for you! You get a silver medal.


* I will, however, not comment on my views on current immigration policy.

Photography

I like to think that I have a good eye for photography. I don't know much about aperture, lighting, or exposure time, and I certainly don't have anywhere close to a decent camera (David and I want to buy a new digital camera but we simply cannot agree on which one to buy, especially when newer and better ones are being released like every other day) but I think I do a pretty good job of finding interesting angles or capturing things at just the right time to get a really beautiful shot. I really love vivid colors in photography too. There's something very sweet and poignant about black and white photographs, but nothing is more beautiful to me than colors that pop and explode. I also really love to photograph objects that most people don't look at twice. I especially love architecture and landscapes....I rarely ever take portraits and only then, I take them for memory's sake and not any aesthetic value. One of these days, I'd really love to take another photography class and get into it some more but for now, I'm happy to take shots that please me and offer me a continual glimpse at something I found beautiful. I thought I'd share a few (okay, a lot) of my favorite photographs that I've taken over the years. In no particular order:

This shot of the Seine River in Paris (from September 2004) was pure luck. The sun had just barely set as we were crossing a bridge to Notre Dame and I set my camera (which takes fantastically horrible night shots on most occasions) on a pillar of the bridge to get a longer exposure of Paris at dusk. I think this is one of my most favorite photographs I've ever taken, mostly because of the muted hues of the sky, the lights reflecting in the water and the way the lights create different shapes and shadows.

This is the view of the street from the bedroom window of my apartment in Rome during my study abroad in 2004. I loved how the shutters (which actually functioned!) framed the shot. I just wish the buildings hadn't created such long shadows on the other buildings and obscured the people down below. To me, this is what Italy looks like and when I think about Italy, I often envision it as if seen through wooden shutters.

The Iwo Jima memorial in Arlington, Virginia. I took this photograph in May 2008, right at twilight. I love that the memorial is just a silhouette of the men, but that the colors of the American flag can still be seen. Plus, I think the clouds and the sky behind the statue are pretty.

I really love the color of these leaves and their translucence. But more particularly, I love the juxtaposition of the blue sky and the green leaves. I just think it looks really cool. I took this photograph in May 2008 during a visit to the Civil War battlefields in and around Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania.

I couldn't decide if I liked this photograph better in black or white, so I included both. This is from the Confederate cemetery in Fredericksburg. I love old cemeteries. I love how the thin headstones slant and slide in the ground and how their inscriptions are faded and worn from years and years of rain and snow and time. Modern cemeteries with their highly polished marble headstones creep me out, but I love old cemeteries. I find them oddly peaceful and calm.

Again, this is from Fredericksburg (or just outside of it....I think this was closer to Spotslyvania actually) from my trip in May 2008. You might recognize it. I love the green grass, the faded old fence, the dirt road and the billowing tree in the background. This photograph makes me feel like it's still 1863 in this rural area. I don't think this photograph would be half so interesting without the fence jutting in.

Again with old cemeteries. This was taken at the Mission Delores cemetery in San Francisco in the summer of 2006. It was just a small plot of land, full of beautiful pink and purple roses and other flowers.

So this is my cat, Emerson. The most adorable and wonderful, and yes, slightly neurotic cat that ever was. Some may say that I am obsessed but I only say that he makes a wonderful subject. I got on the ground to photograph him from his little cat scratcher. I think he looks rather kingly and dignified in this picture.

So here's my kitty again. He really hated this cone. But I love the red of his cone and the blue of the sheets and my sister's wrought iron bedstead in the background. Mostly, I just think my kitty is cute.

This is the Salt Lake Assembly Hall in Temple Square (March 2008). I went to Utah to research Mormon tabernacles for a paper and I took lots of interesting shots of the tabernacles, but I think this is my favorite. I like the verticality of the spires, the interesting architectural lines and the tree branches that impede the view.

(Edited to add: Sorry about the weird text issues with this post. Blogger and I do not get along. I really don't think its posting formats are very user friendly and it always takes me twice as long to post something here as it does in any other blog-type program. Hate. I just got too fed up to spend hours fiddling with it to get it right.

This is what I wrote about the two pictures from the cemetery since it's being stupid: I couldn't decide if I liked this photograph better in black or white, so I included both. This is from the Confederate cemetery in Fredericksburg. I love old cemeteries. I love how the thin headstones slant and slide in the ground and how their inscriptions are faded and worn from years and years of rain and snow and time. Modern cemeteries with their highly polished marble headstones creep me out, but I love old cemeteries. I find them oddly peaceful and calm. )

Team of Rivals

I just finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Abraham Lincoln, Team of Rivals. It's an excellent book; I highly recommend it. I really enjoy reading biographies because they illuminate not only the life of the person being discussed, but they shed so much light on the times in which they lived and the people with whom they interacted and knew. Team of Rivals is not a biography of Abraham Lincoln in the general sense of the word, but rather a biography of his political genius and the men who fought against him for the Republican nomination in 1860 and who would later become members of his cabinet and for the most part, true and loving friends.

I have often underestimated Abraham Lincoln. But then again, I think the Civil War is a much misunderstood time period that is too often reduced into a bloody showdown between the North and South over the issue of slavery. This interpretation, which is the watered down version that most history students get, in no way accounts for the real reasons the Civil War began, how it transformed, and how Abraham Lincoln united the broken country with his humility, intelligence, and mercy. For any one that wants to better understand the Civil War, this book is an absolute must because the Civil War was not begun over the abolition of slavery but rather over an issue of states rights. Most Northerners did not care if slavery was abolished or not, but rather, they did not want slavery to extend into new states like Kansas and Missouri and to disrupt the balance of power between free and slave states. It was Abraham Lincoln who subtly and decisively made the war about freeing the slaves.

Like I said, I have often underestimated Abraham Lincoln because until you understand the complexities of the war, you can never appreciate the brilliance of the man. I was taught that Lincoln was a great man but I had never before been convinced of it. I went to his massive monument in DC and wondered how a person becomes so revered throughout all history when his deeds did not seem monumentally heroic to me and I assumed most of his notroiety came from his assisination (people who die too soon are always over-esteemed, in my opinion*). But I now understand and I truly feel that Abraham Lincoln was guided by something more than just his own good sense. It makes me wonder how different this country would be and how our history would have changed had Lincoln lived. Lincoln has now become one of my favorite presidents.

And now that it is is almost 2pm, I think it's about time that I took a shower and changed out of my pajamas. Next up, I think I'll start Theodore Rex, a biography of Theodore Roosevelt.


* For the record, I don't mean to suggest that deaths of people who die before their "time is up" (like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger, etc.) is not terribly tragic, because it undoubtedly is. But I also think that we tend to idolize these people who never fell from grace or who were only just beginning that we never had time to fall out of love with them. As a result, I think they become a little over-hyped...some of which is justified, but much of which is not.

Virtual Tour of my House!

Some people have expressed interest in seeing my new humble abode. So without further ado, here is a picture tour of my our condo:

This is my car, a 1990 Lexus LS400. I couldn't help taking a picture of it to share. You can see some of the multi-colored condos in the background.

Our condo. Each building has four condos (two on top and two on the bottom). David and I live in the second-floor condo on the left. There are quite a number of buildings in this complex.

Here you can see the stair leading up to our condo and a shot of some of the other buildings in the complex. Each building is painted either yellow, blue or a greenish-blue. I like the yellow ones best, but we live in one of the green-ish blue ones. I think these are some of the nicest condos in the area, at least from the outside.

Upon entering the front door, you are greeted by our couches. David and I can't decide what color they are (he says brown, I say green) but in either case, they are comfy places to sit. (Please note, all the drapes were put up by the previous owners. I take no responsibility for their appearance and would love to get new ones if we had the money.)

Opposite our couches, are our two lovely bookcases (which I love and now want to fill with more books), our nice TV (bought used off Craigslist) and our Guitar Hero guitars (for our Wii). I still need to organize the bookshelves some more and I'd like to put some wedding photographs in the space above the television.

The front room is basically a big, wide open space that forms a living room area, dining room and kitchen space. Here's our little table filled with David's school books. The crazy kid is taking 3 classes this term! In the corner of the window is our air conditioning unit. We've only started to use it recently on really hot days. If we don't use it, though, geckos start to move in.

Our tiny little kitchen. But it suffices. I really miss the gas stove I used in Virginia but the electric isn't too bad. And it is nice to have a whole refrigerator to myself but it's still packed full! When I first got here, David had like two things in there. Men.

It was too hard to get a good shot of our tiny bathroom, but I at least wanted to show off my adorable polka-dot shower curtain and purple bathroom mat. David LOOOOVES the bathroom mat because it's so soft and plush. Sometimes, I catch him just standing on it, squishing his toes into the fabric.

Our bedroom. It pretty much just consists of a bed (queen size, thanks), a dresser, and a massive closet (see below). The two rooms aren't very big but that's okay. We only go into the bedroom for sleeping because it gets too hot inside the rooms. But I do love our bedding set which came with matching valances and curtains.

The aforementioned awesome closet. This is my side and David's is just as big. I sometimes wish there were more spaces to hang up clothes, but all the built-in shelves have proven to be very nice. The other bedroom has a similar, but smaller, closet.

The second bedroom, which has become our office. It's generally in a state of disrepair so this is a picture of it at about its finest. There's not much in here except the desk, computer, table, and two bookshelves (one smaller one that holds all our movies and a bigger one for all of David's language books). We also iron in here. That's about it.

So that is our house! David and I have really enjoyed decorating it and buying new furniture to make it more home-y. Although David bought the condo over a year ago, he didn't really feel the need to buy a lot of furniture. He only had the couches, table, and one bookshelf when I moved in so it's been lots of fun for me to infuse my touch in the place. There's a lot we'd love to do with the place (paint the walls, replace all the doors, electric outlets and doorknobs, etc) but chances are, we'll only be here for another year. But in the meantime, it's a pretty nice place to call home.

Look how literate I am!?!?!?

I found this off my friend Abby's blog. (Who is a librarian and therefore awesome.) I've attempted many times to read those "100 books to read before you die" type lists but I'm still working on it. I want to read everything, so I'm only going to italicize the ones I REALLY want to read and actually mean it.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (I got about 60 pages into it....does that count? I want to read them but I have a feeling that the movies did such a good job, there's no need to for anyone to read them ever again.)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (The new Masterpiece Theatre adaption of this book is sooo good.)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Okay....so maybe I never did finish the whole book, but I was *this* close!)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Everything? Seriously?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I've seen the movie...)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Steinbeck happens to rock. East of Eden is my favorite though.)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Do I get extra points for at least owning this book?)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (I read the Edible Woman. Does it count that I've read ONE of her books?!?!? It totally should.)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (My mom says this is really good....)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D'Ubervilles was hard enough....thank you very much...)
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I LOVED this book as a child.)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (Saw the movie. It did not inspire me to read the book.)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Okay, first why does it say "The complete works of William Shakespeare" on #14 and then list Hamlet as #98? Shouldn't Hamlet be covered under that? Same to the fact that Lion, Witch and the Wardobe is part of the Chronicles of Narnia. And what's with all the love Charles Dickens is getting on this list? Aren't all his books the same? I mean, c'mon...

But really, this makes me realize that I've read more than I realized but that I still have a long way to go until I can really be proud of myself. (Though I think my English teacher mother, who has probably read every single one of these books--no joke--would be quite proud of me.) It's a good thing I just got my Hawaii Public Library card two days ago. (I won't even mention how ridiculous they were about giving me one either.) Sadly, their collection is quite pitiful (but then again, I've spent the last 7 years around the BYU library and the Library of Congress which tends to give you a superiority complex when it comes to well-stocked libraries) but they've got to have some of these books. (And I won't even discuss how aghast I was to discover that no library on this blasted island as Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters.) Of course, I quickly picked up several books to read, but most were either cookbooks or historical non-fiction. I've got 400 pages left (of 700ish) of Team of Rivals, and then I've got Founding Mothers and Theodore Rex to breeze through before I can get to some fiction. Yay for books! They make me so happy.