Nightmare Before Christmas
Tonight I bought the movie that has become my favorite: Tim Burton's
The Nightmare Before Christmas. I love the music and the richness of the atmosphere, and recently I've come to love the theme of the movie.
The main character, Jack, is dealing with an emptiness in his life, and he goes through the same kind of search for meaning that a lot of real people deal with. During this, he stumbles upon Christmas Town, and becomes enamored with it. Jack says that he feels "the warmth that's coming from inside", and he has a hard time both understanding and explaining what he feels, but he at last decides that "just because [he] cannot see it doesn't mean [he] can't believe it."
The beginning of the movie makes it obvious that there is a message about spirituality, mostly because the words that Jack uses to describe his experience are so typical of phrases used by people, especially Christians, of their spiritual awakenings. I was never quite sure what the story was trying to say about spirituality, however, since Jack makes such a mess of things in his excitement. I think I have it figured out now.
The message is about not taking religion to the point of fanaticism: Despite his spiritual experience, Jack is still the same person as he always was. Rather than completely changing who he is, his new spiritual side becomes a motivation for him to be better at living his normal life. I think that's a good lesson. People don't change their personalities when they become converted; they grow and become better, but they don't become different people, and in the end the best application of their religion is in their daily lives, and not in fanatic replacements for their lives.
A real lesson
I'm not very good at expressing my feelings. Well, that's not entirely true. I have no problem at all letting people know about my frustrations or opinions, but when it comes to real, heart-felt emotions, I tend to keep those bottled up inside.
I think that the real problem that I've had in the past with this is that people who I really care about don't know that I care about them, and they sometimes just assume that I hate them.
Over the last year or so, I think I've gotten a little bit better at this. Here's one thing that I've learned during the process:
When you do vocalize your appreciation for someone, it amplifies it. That doesn't just apply to when you tell the person, but anyone. Like if I admit to my roommates that I like a girl, suddenly I start liking her more.
I'm not really sure if this is a good side-effect or not. Was I better off back when I wasn't even trying? I don't think you can be disappointed if you don't have any feelings.
Weird faces
I just got back from the copy center in the Tanner building. The girl that was helping me was wearing what I would describe as a "cute outfit." (Though admittedly I know little about anything "cute," so I might be wrong in that assessment.) I remember thinking that it was too bad that she didn't have a prettier face.
Then she and her coworker surveyed me about some girls that, according to them, are generally considered hot, but that these girls don't find attractive. One of these was Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, and the other was some red-headed girl from some pussycat group that I'm not familiar with. The copy center girl said that she could see why people found these singers attractive, but that she thought that they had "weird faces."
Is that irony?
Number 7
From sunrise to sunset? Exactly how much do you think I play video games? I can't even remember the last time I played while the sun was up.
Number 1
It's really cold at 6 am. The burrito isn't much incentive to get up, because the only concern that my body has is that I get back into bed.
I did think that getting up early today for Marissa's challenge was a little bit easier than getting up that early for a class. Not because of incentive or consequences, because those are certainly more extreme for a class (especially my AI class, which is pretty much the hardest one I've ever taken). The real reason that it was easier today is that I know that I only have to do it once and I've satisfied the requirement. If I only had to get up and go to class one morning a semester I'd have no problem getting that over with.
And the sausage breakfast burrito is really spicy. I recommend sticking with the bacon one.
(In case you're not a subscriber, this is in response to
my assigned life goals for the week.)
150
This is my 150th post. I thought I would waste it by simply announcing that.
The Israeli Formula
Last Christmas my brother Troy and I went to the mall by our house to look for Christmas presents. As we were walking around checking out the high school girls, we got stopped at one of those booths that they have for businesses that aren't going to last long enough to pay rent. This girl at the booth started telling us about all of these useless accessories that they make for cell phones. I probably wouldn't have listened to her, but she was
so hot. She had dark hair and skin, and she had a hip style about her. She had this great accent, too. (We found out that she was from Israel.) Troy and I were totally hypnotized.
After flirting with her for about 20 minutes she convinced me to buy a microphone that clips on to the cell phone so that you can have it play over your car radio. A pretty handy thing, right? I bought three of them.
So this weekend my dad was in town visiting, and we had dinner at University Mall. My dad got stopped by a large breasted woman with pretty eyes at one of the booths. She had a pretty accent, so my dad asked where she was from. Israel. She convinced him to buy some nail care products even though he was embarrassed to be seen holding them. He bought three sets.
The moral of course is that if you have some product that can't sell itself based on its usefulness then all you have to do is put it in the hands of an Israeli girl and someone will buy it. You can at least count on the Casteels.
New Category
I think I'm going to have to make a new category on Provo Platinum for people who habitually post things that don't make any sense.
