Finishing my WYD adventures...

I bought Harry Potter movies 2 and 3 recently, and they rock. I've had movie 1 since 2 years ago when I bought it from Lenore before she moved. I remember when I saw movie 2 for the first time, I was on the train home after my 5-month Sweden adventure. I saw movie 3 in theatres when it came out. As for movie 4, I'm buying it when it comes out. Filming for movie 5 starts soon, yay!

It's already the end of November, time flew by so fast this month for some reason... Soon it will be Christmas. My friends who are still at UPEI have exams coming up. Then in the middle of December, other friends are going to be home for the holidays. He's coming to visit, and I hope I can hold back the tears...

Dance is going well. Julia said I'm a lot quicker on my feet than I was last year, and she loved the little choreography I did with Jackie in musical theatre class. I'm the only person in my tap class who has mastered softshoe variation number 2 (which is a tough one) and while I was practicing it before class in my brand-new tap shoes, Kelly kept saying "don't look at your feet, you already know it, everyone wants to see your face!" I've been working on my extensions in ballet, and can lift my leg almost as high as Melody from "So you think you can dance". In jazz class, we started working on the end-of-year piece for the recital and it's going to friggin' rock.

Anyway, I keep procrastinating on finishing my tales of World Youth Day. Here's what happened on Sunday:

I had barely slept all night. I went back to where my friends were and people were waking up. Amy was walking around wearing emergency blankets in a way that looked like a tin foil kimono. Later, a few of us went to get coffee in one of the tents, and we walked a long way for that. Emmanuel was playing and I was singing along, I love that song... We chatted about JPII while in the crowd waiting at the tent, and I remember Tim saying that JPII was like Pope supermodel since he was so good-looking. After getting coffee, we returned to our area for the Mass. I remember another time, I don't remember if it was before or after getting coffee, but I saw crowds of people lining a little road, and some people were saying that the popemobile was going to drive this way. I jumped at the chance of seeing Pope Benny, so I stayed there for a long time waiting. While there, I chatted with a girl from BC who was also excited about seeing Benny, and we talked about Catholic teachings in general. She is hard-core, and it's so great to meet people like her, she is totally against artificial birth control and other things like that and it felt great to talk to someone who agrees with me on the Church's teachings. The volunteers holding the crowd back kept telling us that the pope was going to come this way, and we all waited in excitement, but all that passed were a few ambulances. Later, the volunteers told us we could leave, and we were extremely pissed that Benny wasn't going to drive this way. Was it their idea of a joke to lead a huge group of Catholics to believe that we were going to see our pope drive by, and then suddenly tell us that he wasn't coming? Grrr...

Anyway, during the Mass, I had my portable radio on the English translation, and the whole Mass was beautiful. It was long, but I didn't care. Funny moment - while everyone was attentive during the service, Ryan was sleeping. Our group started to leave Marienfeld right after the Mass. We gathered up our stuff, took a group picture, made one last bathroom run, and then walked away. We passed a group of Franciscan monks as we were walking. What we didn't know was that the next few hours (actually, more than just a FEW hours) would be total chaos... I like to call this chaos the Marienfeld Mass Exodus.

We arrived at the bus stop and there were huge crowds of people waiting. Apparently, every bus in Cologne was being used as transportation for people leaving Marienfeld, but it still wasn't enough. I, along with Tina, Norman, Chris, and a bunch of others got stuffed in a huge crowd of people, and it was not pleasant. People were being extremely rude - pushing each other, butting in line, someone was even stuffing empty candy wrappers in Norman's backpack. Later, some of us left the crowd because it was too stuffy, and that was a big relief. I think I would have passed out if I had stayed there longer... We decided to go to the next bus stop, which was a long ways away. The volunteers wouldn't let us climb over the fence, so we had to walk all the way around a huge building just to get to the right way. Then, we walked a long long time on every type of terrain imaginable - grass, dirt, mud, asphalt, wood chips, ditches, uneven ground, you name it, we walked it! I even remember one time, we tried to climb a little steep hill with a huge puddle at the bottom, and I nearly fell in - I was climbing it and I started sliding towards the water, but luckily I was able to get to the top. During that entire walk, I was grateful that I had worn my big sandals rather than my flip-flops. We were at a food station at one point, and later some of the guys decided to walk to the hostel rather than take the bus. I didn't even want to think of the long distance that it must have been... I was already worn out, and I knew we still had a long way to walk before getting to the bus stop.

When we finally arrived, the scene was like an action movie. People waiting by the road, others crossing a huge turnip field to get to the busses on the other side, crowds blocking the busses, helicopters circling overhead, and paramedics carrying people on stretchers to ambulances. It was nuts. I remember a bunch of times, I had actually considered faking illness so that I'd get back to town in an ambulance rather than stay in the chaos. But this crowd was a lot better than the one at the other bus stop. They were calm, sitting around chatting and playing music. Since I was so worn out, Tina let me sit on the little chair she had bought. There was a nun in full habit standing in front of me, and soon after I sat down, she saw I was worn out, then she gave me a cookie! I chatted with a girl from Germany and exchange my WYD cross for a little wooden decoration she had. I remember another time, before going to the port-o-potty, I took out the roll of toilet paper I had taken out of our bathroom at the hostel (and was extremely grateful to have brought with me) and some girl saw it and desperately pleaded for some! After a while, we knew the bus wouldn't be coming to the stop, so we decided to walk up the little road next to the turnip field to get to where the crowds were. Some groups actually walked through the field, and I remember a bunch of us were like "that is going to make for one pissed-off farmer..." because the turnips were being destroyed. When we got to the other side of the field, I even saw some children kicking turnips that were half-way out of the ground.

Then, we had to wait for the right bus to come. A few came, but we didn't get on yet. Later, as we were near the front of the crowd, the right bus finally came and when it stopped, the entrance was right close to where we were standing! Since I was at the front of my little group (me, Tina, Chris Sherren, and Bethany), I went straight to the bus entrance and plowed through a group of Germans who had set up camp conveniently right where the door was. They weren't even getting on the bus, all they were doing was sitting on their little chairs and blocking our way. They got mad at me and started yelling "Achtung! Achtung!" I just gave them a look of confusion, then continued. I led my group onto the bus, and when we got on, we cheered along with everyone else who had made it onto the bus! It was a huge relief, because we knew we were on our way to Cologne and wouldn't have to worry about anything else. The bus was crowded, but I got to sit down with a group of Italians from Milan. The guy sitting across from me looked so much like Elmer Deagle that I was thinking "If Elmer were Italian, this would be him!" One of the other guys traded his camera strap (it had "archdiocesi di Milano" on it) for mine (it had Canada flags on it). A long while (which seemed like hours) later, we finally arrived in Cologne. We took the subway back to the hostel and when we entered the place, everyone was telling the stories on how they got back! Being tired didn't bother me anymore, I joined in on the fun! My feet and ankles were very sore from all the walking we did, so I was relieved to put on my flip-flops. We finished our packing, then went to bed.

about 3 or 4 hours later, we had to wake up again to take the bus to Frankfurt. I slept on most of the bus ride but it was only a few hours. At the airport while waiting to get our passports checked, we sat around and chatted with each other. On the flight from Frankfurt to London, I ended up sitting beside a German businessman who was talking in very loud German to someone else, but I still slept (albeit erratically). In London, as we were waiting in the lineup at security, there was a big group of Orthodox Jews in front of us. And they were the hard-core Orthodox Jews - the old men had on the suits, big hats, long beards, curl hanging down the side of their head, the younger men had on the skullcaps, and there was a woman with a scarf wrapped around her hair. I immediately thought of the Hava Nagila that the Jewish band at Marienfeld played. But after coming back from WYD, I thought of another cool thing - Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, and it was an interesting coincidence that the Jewish group was in front of us. Just as in real life, the Jews were first, and we came right after. I think it was in the London airport that I had my first real meal in days - a yummy burger platter thing in a restaurant. It was either Frankfurt or London, I can't remember (lack of sleep)... Anyway, the flight across the Atlantic wasn't too bad, but Norman got a migraine because of having had a concussion 2 weeks earlier. But I remember as we were flying over Greenland, people were looking outside the plane windows. I looked too, and saw the snow-covered mountains and glaciers of the untouched nature of Greenland. We were all amazed at this beautiful creation, and we took pictures. Arriving in Toronto, we were all worn out from the flight, and Charlotte was in extreme pain because of a broken rib (someone fell on her at Marienfeld and broke her rib). Originally, we were supposed to sleep in the airport overnight, but we found out that the Diocese of Charlottetown would pay for us to stay at the Econo-Lodge instead, so we jumped at the chance. But again, we only had a few hours of sleep before having to get up and catch our flight to Charlottetown. We ate breakfast in a restaraunt in the airport, and saw a trippy aquarium with floating cubes in it. As we were going through security in the Toronto airport, one of the guards who knew we were coming back from WYD asked to see the bracelets I was wearing, so I showed them - the yellow/white Pope bracelet and the blue "Generation JP@" one. I figured she was Catholic since she was so interested in seeing our bracelets. She wasn't checking them like when guards check stuff at airport security, she seemed genuinely interested in what we had. At our gate waiting for our flight, we had a group prayer and I passed my Benny book around for the group to sign it. I also remember earlier I saw another WYD group in prayer in another part of the airport. On the flight home, I sat next to Luke but we didn't talk much since we were so sleepy. Everyone's family and friends greeted us at the Charlottetown airport. A few priests were there too. Later that day, I had my pictures developped and bought a photo album. I was so tired because of only having slept a few hours at a time for the past few days that I crashed early and didn't even bother watching Canadian Idol. World Youth Day was quite the experience, I'm sure I probably missed a few anecdotes in my posts here, but the whole adventure was totally worth it.

It's Harry Potter movie review time!

I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night with Sara-Sour. It rocked! The special effects were awesome and the acting was good. It's obvious that Ron and Hermione like each other, but it was obvious in the previous movies too (especially in movie 3, when they suddenly hold hands, then get embarassed and immediately let go). Cedric Diggory was perfect as the pretty-boy the book described him to be, and Fleur was good too. Voldemort looked almost exactly as I imagined him to be. Moody was awesome too. Seeing all the flags and excitement at the Quidditch World Cup campground reminded me of Marienfeld at WYD. I was gripping the bottom of my seat when Harry was battling the dragon and during the Priori Incantatem part. I nearly cried when everyone realized that Cedric was dead. There were funny moments too - when Moaning Myrtle tried to get a peek at Harry in the tub, and when Moody turns Draco into a ferret. Also, when MacGonnagall tries to teach Ron how to dance, and when Neville attempts to practice his dancing. Also, when Hagrid and Madame Maxime were dancing at the Yule ball. The Weasley twins were hilarious too.

But even in a movie I enjoyed, I have some critiques. Mainly that many parts of the book were cut out or altered to fit in the movie. I understand that book 4 is huge and they couldn't include everything, but because of all the cuts and alterations, I'd say that you have to have read the book to fully understand the movie. Among some of the things that I must critique:

-In the start of the book, Harry is living at the Dursleys. The Weasleys are supposed to come pick him up for the Quidditch World Cup. In the movie, Harry is already at the Weasley house when he wakes up from the dream.

-In the book, Harry's vision involved the old man seeing just Voldemort and Wormtail. In the movie, Barty Crouch Jr. was also there. At first, I was thinking "Who the heck is that?" It was only later I figured it was Barty Jr.

-Most of the Quidditch World Cup got cut out. I was expecting to see the match, along with the mascots and celebrations. The movie only showed the Irish leprechaun and not the veela, and didn't even show the match. Also, Viktor Krum was barely shown in that part of the movie and he's supposed to be a big superstar. The only reason I knew he was a huge star is because of how he was described in the book.

-Winky was completely cut out of the movie. Dobby was out too, as was the whole SPEW thing Hermione started. Peeves the Poltergeist was cut too. And Ron's oldest brothers - Bill, Charlie, and Percy. Also, Ludo Bagman was cut too, as were the goblins.

-Rita Skeeter didn't look as tacky as I expected. She looked eccentric, but I expected much tackier. Also, the whole thing on her being an animagus sneaking around to collect gossip on Harry wasn't shown either.

-I understand that they can't use the original actor who played Dumbledore because he's dead, but the actor who played Dumbledore in the last two movies just can't compare to the original. The new one is not the grandfatherly figure that the original one was, and at times he was even scary. When Harry's name came out of the Goblet, there were scenes where it looked like Dumbledore was threatening Harry and about to hit him.

-Voldemort wasn't scary enough. He looked scary, but I expected him to have the high scary voice that the book describes. In the movie, he didn't act very threatening.

-The death eaters looked like KKK klansmen in skull masks. I made a scarier death eater on Halloween than they did.

-In the book, Dobby gives Harry the gillyweed, and freaks out because the mermaids "kidnapped" Ron. In the movie, Neville gives the gillyweed, and not much is shown about what the mermaids took into the lake until Harry gets there and sees them in the water.

-Barely anything is shown in the movie about Hagrid being half-giant except when he talks to Madame Maxime.

-In the end of the movie, nothing is shown about the Dementor getting Barty Jr. In the book everyone freaks out because that incident would prevent Barty Jr. from testifying in court, and in the movie he is simply sent back to Azkaban. Also, he doesn't tell the story of how he got smuggled out of Azkaban and attacked the real Moody.

-Priori Incantatem wasn't as intense as I expected. I had pictured golden arcs forming a dome like a cage around Harry and Voldemort, and Harry taking in the sight of the ghosts that appear. In the movie, it wasn't that intense, there was no phoenix song, and the part with the ghosts is only fully understood if you have read it in the book.

-Because the book describes him as having a hook-nose, I pictured Krum as a young Snape. In the movie, he wasn't dark/brooding as I expected.

-Nothing was shown about the Weasley twins wanting to open a joke shop. Also, nothing was shown about the leprechaun gold or Harry giving them his winnings.

-The maze. What the frig was that? In the book, they're supposed to encounter all sorts of dangerous creatures and spells - blast-ended skrewt (also completely cut from the movie), sphynx, mist that flips Harry upside-down, boggart in the form of a dementor, giant spider... In the movie, it was just moving branches. May as well have battled the whomping willow rather than that piece of crap.

-In the book, neither Harry nor Cedric know that Krum is bewitched while they're in the maze. Krum is under the Imperius curse, uses the cruciatus curse on Cedric and Harry saves him by stupefying Krum. In the movie, Krum and Cedric duel, Cedric beats him, and Harry tells him not to hurt Krum because he's bewitched.

-In the book, the Patil twins are in different houses (Parvati is a Griffindor, Padma is a Ravenclaw). In the movie, they're both Griffindors.

-Sirius was barely shown at all, and in the end of the book, he's supposed to show up and several people realize he's not a mad killer after all. In the movie, he is only shown once - in the fireplace when he talks to Harry.

-The Dark Mark in the sky was perfect, but the one on the death eaters' arms didn't look enough like it. It looked more like a skull on a fancy stick, rather than a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth.

Yes, I'm picky when it comes to books being made into movies. But this one was still worth seeing. Hooray for Harry Potter!

I am such a Harry Potter geek...

I went to the Charlottetown mall after my Pilates class this morning and at the calendar stand I bought the best thing ever - a Harry Potter calendar! Actually, it's a calendar-book thing, more like a day-planner. It has lots of pictures from HP and the Goblet of Fire, I can't wait to see the movie! Hehehe... I remember one time Lenore and I were discussing HP and she said that if she were the movie director, she'd cast me as Cho Chang. I've noticed in the movie pictures that most of the characters have grown up pretty fast - in Philosopher's Stone, Draco was a puny little runt who actually made Daryl Brunt (the pipsqueak from Canadian Idol) look mature, but now he's tall and quite dashing (though still too young for me). Though I've also noticed that Viktor Krum looks like Dreamboat, except Dreamboat's nose is a lot bigger (and to those of you who don't know me very well - no, Dreamboat is not the guy who turned me down recently, the Dreamboat saga is long over).

More Harry Potter funny stuff! Check out this site then this one.

This one makes me laugh my head off every time I see it.

I got new tap shoes last week. My old ones were the cheap kind with ribbon ties and were falling apart so I bought a good pair - Bloch jazztap.

Last night I sang at Mass at the Chaplaincy Centre with Tasha and Carla. After Mass, Jason and Neal had a Dr. Mario speedround tournament, then Jason played against Kim. When Jason and Kim played, they kept dropping $hitbombs on each other (when random pills fall down after the other player did some cool trick to set off a virus-eliminating chain reaction) and I kept using a word that my WYD buddies and I learned in Germany - scheisser. I was like "hehehe, you're dropping scheisser-bombs!" Later, a bunch of us went to East Side's for supper.

The movie version of Memoirs of a Geisha is in theatres next month and I want to see it. I LOVE the book, and am re-reading it. The trailer is awesome, and so are the pictures I've seen so far, except I have a few gripes. First of all, in the book, Hatsumomo is older than Mameha, and in the movie it's the other way around. Hatsumomo looks in her 20s, and Mameha looks at least in her 30s. Also, Hatsumomo is supposed to be very short. This picture shows Sayuri, Mameha, and Hatsumomo. I pictured Nobu's scars to be worse than they look in the pictures, and I pictured him as fat. Also, Granny and Mother look totally different than I imagined. Granny doesn't look old or cranky enough, and Mother isn't ugly enough. Also, since it's a Hollywood movie, it might not end up looking authentic. When I found out the book was going to be a movie, I figured they'd get Japanese actors, film it in Japan, and make it a Japanese-language film with English subtitles. But it's Hollywood-produced, with mostly Chinese actors speaking English. But I still want to see the movie, I think it's going to be awesome anyway.


Anyway, that's all for now!

Continuing with my WYD adventures...

I'm so friggin' tired right now, I had two dance classes in a row. Ballet and musical theatre. And tomorrow I have jazz and modern, but at least I have a break in between. I love dance... I just wish I were better at it.

Frig, I haven't even finished writing about all my WYD adventures! I still have to write about Saturday, Sunday, and the journey home. Here's Saturday:

That day, we went to Marienfeld for the vigil and overnight campout. I hadn't had much sleep because those of us who went to the Taize service came back late to the hostel, but Taize was so worth it... On the subway on the way to where we would start walking to Marienfeld, a group of Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa's order) boarded the train. One of them sat close to us and she was such a sweetie! Anyway, when we arrived at our dropoff spot, we ended up taking a bus instead of walking so we ended up not walking the 10km I was expecting (that's what we got in Rome and Toronto, plus in Rome it was above 40 Celsius). I felt we were lucky and blessed to not have to walk all that way, we only ended up walking a short distance before arriving at Marienfeld. I remember talking to a few people from Thailand when we took a pit stop. The weather was cool, unlike at previous WYDs, when it was so hot that people were walking around in swimsuits.

Then, Father Gerard led us to our section - B20. We got settled, then I walked around and talked to people, and traded more nick-nacks. Close to where we were, I met a young monk from Ontario. I can't remember the name of his order, but it's a missionary order based in the states. They wear the long grey robes and everything. He was friendly and I enjoyed talking to him. We both agreed that in a world like this, WYD gives us hope for the world. He said he wouldn't be staying for the Mass the next morning though, because he had to fly to Rome to study theology there. God bless that monk, people like him give me hope for the world... I also met a woman from Spain (from Andalucia) and we started talking in Spanish. I told her I've been to Spain and she started talking about Spanish food. She mentionned "tortilla de patatas" and I said I love tortilla (in Spain, tortilla isn't corn chips, it's a potato omelette - yum!) and Spanish food, and she said "tu eres muy inteligente!" (you're very intelligent!). I met lots of other people walking around, and everyone was friendly. I do remember though, that so many people wanted my blue Italian hat! I don't know how many people offered to trade stuff for it, and they did that to everyone who was wearing one of those blue hats! Those Italian hats were quite a hot commodity... I was glad I had managed to get one early. I remember some Spanish guys tried to trade a white baseball cap and scarf with the name of their town on it, and some Spanish girls tried to trade an orange baseball cap from their town too.

There was music playing on stage and every time the bands took a break, they played a cd with a song that I love - Manha do Carnaval. I have it on my computer and recognized that particular version immediately. Later, I went back to where my group was in our section, and everyone was getting their food. I and a few others in my group went to get our food boxes and I went back to my friends and we played cards. During our game, a band of Jewish musicians started playing Hava Nagila and I said to my friends "I think that's a Jewish tune" but Neal thought it was polka! Anyway, as we were all playing @$$hole, a mouse ran onto our tarp! We jumped and screamed, and panicked as Martina tried to catch it. Finally she did catch it and an American guy from a nearby group used two of the vigil candleholders to make a mousetrap for it. He went off to release the mouse somewhere else. Actually, it's wasn't a mouse, someone said it was a shrew, but we always call it "the mouse" anyway. Rachel freaked out at the thought of sleeping in the field because of the mice. But as I later saw on the WYD video, Cheryl didn't seem to be freaked because she dropped her food on the tarp that the mouse ran on, then picked it up and ate it anyway! My friends and I also had other fun times - we made a human pyramid, and took pictures for Father Charlie.

I remembered that in Toronto, I ended up missing the vigil because of the horrible bathroom lines, so I made sure that no obstacles would prevent me from missing this one. In the end, I didn't miss it, and the vigil was awesome. I was a little worried about the weather because we saw a few dark clouds, but by the grace of God, we didn't get rained on after all (in Toronto we got rained on during the night and in the morning). I had my little portable radio to listen to the English translation, and the vigil itself was beautiful. At one point, they started singing Taize hymns, some of the ones I had fallen in love with at the Taize service the previous night. I recognized them immediately and that made the vigil so much more special to me. After the vigil, I ate some stuff from my food box and my friends went to sleep. Neal looked like a turtle with his hood covering nearly his entire head! I only slept about an hour or two, I wasn't sleepy and the weather was too cold. I discovered that I was much warmer walking around and talking to people so that is what I did most of the night.

I ended up walking all the way up to the hill with all the candles where the stage was, but the security guards wouldn't let anyone get too close. I met a group from Korea close to the hill. I also saw a huge sheet with "Joseph come Karol amico dei giovani". I'm not sure what it means, but I do know that Joseph (Ratzinger) is Benedict XVI and Karol (Wojtyla) is John Paul II. WYD in general was full of references to JPII, and how Benny is doing a great job following in his footsteps. Later, I saw a group of people (I think from Spain) playing music and doing a little dance in a circle. Amy was there too and we danced with them for a while. I had left my blue hat in my backpack on our campsite because I was sick of people trying to trade stuff for it. Later, I went back to where my stuff was, and took a picture of Amy, Sara, Tim (Sara's "boyfriend") and Cheryl sharing a blanket. Tim and Sara were always together at WYD and even if he "married" Tina she still called him "my boyfriend". Tim is hilarious, he always made me laugh with all his crazy antics. I tried to sleep some more, but couldn't. I tried to find that monk again to give him my WYD cross (everyone in my group got one but since I already have one from Toronto, I didn't feel the need to keep this one) but he was nowhere to be found. I figured he left already to go to Rome. Well, if we don't meet again in this life, we'll meet again in Heaven! The sun rose soon after, and people started waking up and getting ready for Mass with the pope.

Anyway, I'll write on Sunday and the Marienfeld Mass Exodus chaos later. Till next time...

Halloween happenings, latin jazz dance, Harry Potter, and gripes on Christmas commercialism...

For Halloween, I ended up going as Bellatrix Lestrange after all. I wore a long black skirt, high-heel boots, the sparkly top I got in Sweden, and a black velour cape. I ended up buying the cape at Walmart for much cheaper than the one I saw at Repeats, and then bought some stuff at Fabricville to sew onto it. I ended up sewing the trim onto the cape at work, and I must say, time goes by a lot faster when I'm doing hands-on stuff. Reading passes time but with all the interruptions it can get annoying. I also sewed on some ribbon ties in a colour that I like to call "Slytherin green". I also drew the dark mark on my arm.

I went to the Halloween pub at the Wave and Ryan was there, dressed as Shaun Coady (afro wig, sweater like Shaun would wear, and name tag with "my name is Shaun Coady" written on it). Shaun was dressed as a ski instructor in a neon pink ski suit. I saw Willy Wonka and an Oompa-loompa (though it was just coincidence that they ended up dressed in coordinating costumes, Willy Wonka was like "I even found an oompa-loompa!" and pointed him out). George Yammine and his friend were Hal Johnson and Joanne MacLeod (the Bodybreak people - Keep fit and have fun!). There were also two guys dressed as Jesus, a few priests, monks, and nuns. But every time I see someone dressed as a "pedophile priest" (black shirt with priest collar and doll hanging at his crotch), I want to kick his ass. I saw one at the Wave and it pissed me off so much because I'm sick of those stereotypes. I also saw a guy I knew in high school dressed as Harry Potter and I got a picture with him. We also discussed a few Harry Potter theories. Near the end of the night, I saw a few other people I knew in school, including Colin - the @$$hole who called me ugly every day. As soon as we recognized each other, I simply gave him a "I'm too good to talk to you so piss off" look and turned away. There are many people I've forgiven for being mean to me in school, but he is not one of them. I even remember some people thought it was funny that he was always mean to me. Even though it's been a long time, seeing some of these people again brings back bad memories.

The next night, I went to Myron's for the Halloween party there, but I didn't really enjoy it. It was overcrowded and though the band was ok, I didn't really enjoy the show. Mark Cameron was there in a santa suit. I saw a few other people I know. Someone thought I was dressed as a Jedi because of the glowstick I had (all the stores were sold out of Harry Potter wands so I used a glowstick instead, the guy thought it was a lightsaber). But I find that in general, the bar scene here sucks. I don't like the music, or the atmosphere very much. I prefer the scene in Salamanca, Spain. There, they have good music (wooo David Bisbal!), lots of dancing, cheap drinks, no cover charge, and cuter guys. After leaving Myron's I went to Jack's Pizza and some creep tried to pick me up. Luckily, the police officer there made him leave.

On Halloween night, I went to Tasha's to help her give candy to trick-or-treaters but no kids came. Probably because she's on one of the main roads and there's lots of traffic, and most parents don't want their kids to go on busy roads. But we still had fun. Later, I went to Baba's and it was ok. The bands were cool, and one of the musicians was dressed as the Pope! I saw a few people I know and talked to them. I tried a drink called "beetle geuse" or something like that and I ended up hating it. There was a black twizzler in it, and black licorice makes me gag. After the licorice started melting into the drink, it tasted so bad that I had to force myself to finish it.

Anyway, enough about Halloween, I took a Latin Jazz dance workshop class yesterday at the Pilates studio. When I heard that the teacher was going to be a Puerto Rican man with an accent who teaches class in flamenco shoes (the girl from the Pilates studio had said "he even wear shoes with the little high heels!"), I was thinking "wooo yeah!" and expected some hot David Bisbal look-a-like. But he wasn't. He was actually at least in his 30s and balding. Though his dancing is a different story... He's an awesome dancer, and I think he used to dance professionally (I heard him telling someone about going to New York with other Puerto Ricans every year to dance). More men need to get into dance!

Harry Potter movie 4 is coming out soon! I'm re-reading book 4 to refresh my memory of all the stuff that happens in it. In the past few days, I've read about half of it, and will probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. HP rocks!

It's early November and stores are already bringing out Christmas decorations. Grrr... I hate commercialism. Jesus is the reason for the season! Though I enjoy the Christmas hoopla in December, now is way too early to start getting into it. I hate it when the secular media takes our holidays and tries to make them something they're not. Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus, not about tacky decorations and getting presents. Frig, no one makes a huge commercialist deal about Hannukah, Yule, or other religions' December celebrations, so why Christmas? People get snippy at me if I say that Christmas is a religious holiday, and the seem to refuse to acknowledge the true meaning of Christmas. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is midnight mass, because it's truly a celebration of the reason for this holiday.

Anway, that's all for now. Have a nice day!