When I was 12 I picked up The Catcher in the Rye for the first time. Bored of the children’s section in the library, I wandered down the stairs to the small young adult section. The book was a small plain paperback. Nothing about the unassuming cover would normally make me want to read it. But I picked it up and put it in my pile anyways. At this stage in my life all I did was read. I would go to the library and come back with bags bursting with books. I didn’t much like being around people, and found it hard to relate with a lot of the kids my age. So I shut myself up inside of worlds created by others. I remember being engrossed in Holden’s world. I was young still, so some of the themes or phrases didn’t make perfect sense to me. But that was fine, because I felt like I truly understood Holden. I understood his frustration of not being heard, of not knowing how to make yourself heard. I understood his fear of growing up, his lack of being able to identify with others and his preference to escape into his own ideal world instead of facing the world head on.

Catcher made me want to write. It inspired me to try and capture the fears and confusions that one feels during a crossroads in their life. I know I want to write for young adults. I know this partly because of Catcher. Salinger captured a generation, he put to words the feelings so many have trouble finding words for. Everything Salinger did for me through my young adult life is what I can only hope to do for someone else someday.

First, we have one of the world’s biggest assholes Pat Robertson blaming all of Haiti’s problems, including the earthquake and poverty levels, on them being “devil worshipers.” Never mind the fact that that statement is completely unfounded and based on a stupid urban legend. I believe Jon Stewert summed up perfectly on his show how completely idiotic and insensitive this comment was.

Jon Stewert: Out of all the things that you could draw on from your religion to bring comfort to a devastated people, and region – LOOK HOW BIG THIS BOOK IS! ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. He rescues those who are crushed in spirit…’ ‘Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God, and I will strengthen thee.’ But you decided to go with ‘Tough titties, Devil-folk!’
Have you read this book? ‘From the depths of the Earth, you will again bring me up, though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed. Yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.’ I mean, that almost sounds like it’s about FUCKING EARTHQUAKES!
You got all this and you went with an urban legend about a deal with the Devil!

Then we have the king of class himself, Rush Limbaugh, saying President Obama wants to steal your donations to Haiti. What? WHAT?! I don’t even know where to start with this one. Hm, let’s start with actually going to the white house page that Limbaugh talks about, which DIRECTS YOU STRAIGHT TO THE RED CROSS. You don’t send money to the government. This is just a way to make sure people feel secure donating online and to make sure they’re not on a scam site.

Justin: “Why does Obama say if you want to donate some money, you could go to whitehouse.gov to direct you how to do so? If I wanted to donate to the Red Cross, why do I have to go to the White House page to donate?”
Limbaugh: “Exactly. Would you trust the money’s gonna go to Haiti?”
Justin: “No.”
Rush: “But would you trust that your name’s gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?”

When the earthquake happened though, Rush was obviously very concerned about the welfare and safety of the people in Haiti first and foremost though. Except not at all. Instead, Rush was very concerned about how this would give the upper hand to the Obama administration. Darn those Haitians, how dare they! And how dare the President! He would try to be compassionate after thousands of people just died. Just another example of the horrific Obama agenda to rule the universe.

Rush: This will play right into Obama’s hands. He’s humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this to burnish their, shall we say, ‘credibility’ with the black community — in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It’s made-to-order for them. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.

And now I’m sitting here now watching a Newsweek segment about how people in Haiti are “looting.” I hate how reporters are using the word “looting.” It’s the connotation of the word that bothers me, as though these people are doing something wrong. It isn’t “looting” if Haitians who are desperate for food, water and clothing are recovering what little they can find from COLLAPSED UNINHABITED BUILDINGS. No, according to mainstream media, these people should instead allow the food to spoil and go to waste instead of trying to survive off of it.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/haitiearthquake

Girls (and the occasional guy) swarmed Regal Theater last night practically frothing at the mouth at the thought of their favorite fictional love interests: Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. One fan even brought in a life-size cardboard cutout of Edward, provoking shrieks from the crowd.

(Bit of pre-warning, this review will contain spoilers. But honestly, there’s not much to spoil.)

The plot is pretty basic: Bella is getting old, Edward worries about Bella, Edward leaves Bella, Bella goes emo (something she picked up from Eddy, perhaps?), Jake is hot, Jake thinks Bella’s hot, Jake hearts Bella, Bella is a bitch. THE END! Oh, and somewhere in there Edward returns, but who cares? Have your SEEN Jacob?

If this movie did anything it showed that the true problem behind the first film installment of the Twilight series was its director Catherine Hardwicke (and also perhaps Stephenie Meyer’s sad writing ability, but that a whole other post). The first film was painful to watch with its lame (blue?) visuals, horrible camera work and just weird directing choices. New Moon was visually stunning and was much more pleasant to the eye. And it wasn’t blue, so I guess someone over at Summit finally learned about white-balance.

Kristen Stewert was about as emotionless and boring as ever. How is it possible to say every line in the same monotone voice? During Edward’s goodbye scene in the woods she seemed like she was having a bad case of constipation, not an emotional breakdown.

Rob Patz wasn’t in the movie much. Edward’s character in the film really needed to lighten up during some scenes though. He’s constantly brooding or in really deep thought. It’s not mysterious, it’s annoying. Even lines where he was supposed to be semi-funny fell flat on most of the audience.

I honestly didn’t notice Taylor Lautner’s acting skills. His, uhm… presence was too distracting.

The audience would ooh and ahh whenever Lautner didn’t have his shirt on (which was basically 90 percent of the movie, but who’s complaining?), and there was literally a collective audience moan the first time he took it off. Sometimes it was completely unnecessary, such as when he decided to do a bit of a strip tease after Bella cuts her head open. But who knows, maybe his neck muscles have magical healing abilities.

On a side note, nobody made a peep when Edward/Rob Patz took his shirt off to reveal his painted on chest.

Anna Kendrick as Jessica was hysterical, as were the rest of the high school kids. Billy Burke played the role of a concerned parent well. The scenes where Bella is screaming in her sleep were especially harrowing to think of from his perspective. Ashley Greene as Alice was also fantastic for the few scenes she was in. She wasn’t as weird as she was in Twilight at least. The film actually discusses the other vampires abilities (or atleast Jasper’s), something they completely left out of the last movie. Dakota Fanning was stunning, but it was a bit hard to think of her as Jane instead of Fanning-playing-Jane.

I definitely had issues with the overall message of the movie. I literally felt sick to my stomach during scenes where Bella and Edward were together at the end. It just felt wrong. She was like a drug addict who was finally getting her fix. It was  disturbing to watch her walk away from Jacob. In one particular scene Jake pleads with Bella to stop looking for Edward, to think about her father and him. But she ignores this; she is willing to hurt everyone she loves for Edward. I can’t imagine the implications this is having on young girls who look at Edward and Bella as the perfect couple.

Don’t go into New Moon expecting a thought-provoking plot line, fantastic dialogue or great acting. It’s a romance movie that plays out like a cheesy truck-stop romance novel (because honestly, the Twilight series is just an over-hyped version of that), and people who like that sort of thing will love this.

At Park there is a selective scholarship program that fully pays for tuition and a new computer called the Park Scholar Program. Students can apply as incoming freshmen or as rising juniors. It being my sophomore year, I was really hoping to be able to apply for this scholarship.Except apparently I’m not good enough to apply. Not because of my GPA or any other academic or judicial reasons. I can’t apply because I came in as an English major.

I don’t understand Park’s reasoning for this. It’s like Park is telling me that no matter how well I do grade-wise, no matter how much time I put into Park-related organizations like the Ithacan and ICTV, I’ll never be quite as good as the other students. This realization has really started to get to me and make me feel inferior to a lot of my classmates. I’ve started to question my own abilities and worthiness to be in the school.

Now, I don’t think for a moment that I would receive one of the few awards available. Yes, I wanted to apply, but I’m not as delusional to think for a second that I would deserve the award over some of the other people who are applying. This post is about me feeling like my own school is telling me I don’t belong, that I’m not good enough even though I’ve been taking classes for this major since my first semester. Since on paper I came in for English, I’m worth less to Park.

The elitist logic behind this issue confounds me. Why can’t all Park majors apply and then be chosen  by who deserves the scholarship most? Just because someone decides in their second semester that they want to pursue a major in the communications they’re somehow inferior?

There are books about Twitter and even guides on Twitter manners. Why does it have to be so complicated? I remember joining Twitter when it was still building momentum. The trending topics were actually meaningful and interesting. Granted, the site was down half the time, failwhales were a lot more common and barely anyone I knew had one, but it just seemed more free and organic then. Now before I tweet I feel like I have to pre-analyze my content; make sure it’s worthy of being posted. And while this may be a good thing (because who really wants to know if I’m walking to class or going to lunch?), I’m still a little melancholy to see pointless tweets be shunned when it’s those pointless tweets that built the site to be as large as it is today (that and Kutcher).

And honestly, give it a year or two before some new site makes tweets seem as obsolete as cave drawings.

… Just reread that and realized that in me telling people to stop analyzing Twitter, I completely overanalyzed Twitter. I think it’s bedtime now.

The sign now reads (from top to bottom):

“We love drunken sex!”

“Even registered sex offenders can join in on the fun! =)”

“Hi! My name is Elaine, and I’m here to tell you that substance induced nights of promiscuity are good for you! And sometimes when your man slips something into your drink, it’s just his special way of saying ‘I love you.’ Come to my conference to find out more useful info.”

I’m actually really sad I didn’t go. Our friend Char (who will probably yell at me for putting her name here, but she can suck it because I may have lots of friends named Char…) went to the event and it sounded hysterical informative.

On another note, Glee was fantastic last night. Was anyone else worried that the show was just going end up being a one-hit wonder? So far this season, I haven’t been very thrilled with the show; in fact, I was downright bored with most of last week’s episode. But last night’s episode (Preggers) brought back all the charm and freshness the pilot episode had.

–

So what else am I going to talk about now other than the number one question I’ve been asked over the past couple days: “Did you see what Kanye did at the VMAs?!”

Kanye is a douche. Apparently anyone who isn’t living under a rock thinks so, heck even President Obama thinks so. But why is this news to anyone? He’s always been a douche, it’s part of his persona. Just like Lady Gaga being crazy artistic. It’s what puts them in the tabloids; it’s what makes them famous. And I agree, he should get a lot of flak for what he did to Taylor Swift, but I also think people have taken it too far by telling him that his mother would be ashamed of him and using her death to make him feel guilty. It’s an overly cruel punishment, he’s already had to suffer through the death once.

Now to be a complete hypocrite, I thought I’d share these hilariously horrific images that have been circulating the web. They’re so wrong, but I just can’t help but laugh… kinda like a Helen Keller joke (and if you know me, you know I love a good Helen Keller joke).

View more here, although PhillyD.tv has the most hysterical offensive ones here.