Jessica watches another movie

I love horror movies.  I love them even when they are bad.  Because I watch so many movies, very rarely am I scared or surprised.  Don't get me wrong, even when I know something is going to happen (usually based on the music or the scene) I still will jump.  I'm not talking about jumpy-scared, I'm talking about sitting-with-your-back-to-a-wall-so-nothing-can-sneak-up-behind-you-even-when-you're-in-your-living-room-scared.

This weekend I saw The Cabin in the Woods.  When it first came out, I read reviews for it and most critics said that it was self aware and sort of mocked horror films.  So, I've been wanting to see it.  SIL doesn't like scary movies (I'm pretty sure we've already covered that), so my brother asked if I wanted to watch it with him this weekend.  

via

The basic bare bones premise per IMDB: "Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods."  

You think you know the story...think again. 

 I liked it.  It wasn't too particularly scary, it wasn't too particularly gory. They poke fun at all the horror flick cliches, but I thought they did it in a clever way.  The end wasn't what I was hoping for but it never is.  There were some parts where I honest to God checked to make sure that it was #1 Brother's dog next to my chair making noises. And that is more "I'm so scared that this is going to scare me" level then actually being scared by the movie.  Movies have a way of doing that to me.  

I also watched The Dictator.  This was a movie that I had not interest in seeing.  I saw Borat and thought it was really funny.  I think the funniest thing about that movie was the fact that the people in the movie didn't realize it was fake.  I didn't see Bruno, I thought it would be too similar to Borat.  #1 Brother told me it was pretty funny and it was more mainstream comedy then Borat.  

IMDB

It was much funnier than I anticipated.  That's really all I can say.  There were a few bits that I felt were unnecessary, but it wouldn't be a Sasha Baron-Cohen film otherwise.  

I is so smrt

I am officially in my second year of grad school!!  I only have three more classes and about a bazillion hours of clinical.  And when I say "a bazillion" I really mean 900, but is there really a difference?

On to psychopharm!  Which, because I am super nerdy, I'm actually excited about.  

Nobel Peace Prize

Right now, I'm taking Research Methods & Program Evaluation.  Super fun!  We've been working on a research proposal.  We've (by "we" I mean me and & of my friends) written a proposal paper and on Tuesday we have to present it as if it were a real research project and we are hoping to get funded. 

Because we are all so busy, the only time we could get together to write the first part of the paper was on a Friday evening.  Needless to say we decided that drinks and snacks would be helpful for getting the creativity flowing.  If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some pics. 

 It was during this that we came up with our team name.  For some reason, my professor wanted us to have team names.  Our first name was Team Glen Coco.  The only reason that was our name was that I wanted someone to yell out "You go,Glen Coco!"  That didn't happen.   As we were writing our paper we realized that we were going to win the Nobel Peace Prize for our fake research.  

We are proposing a correlational study to compare elementary schools with an enrichment programs for gifted and talented students with schools that do not offer a program.  Particularly, we are looking at the prevalence rate of ADHD.  It is our hypothesis that schools with a program will have a lower prevalence than those that do not.  This is the beginning stage of a long term research study.  We are going to solve the ADHD problem in America!  See totally worthy of an Nobel Peace Prize. It's because of this that we are now Team World Peace.  

We have since been signing off our emails with "TEAM WORLD PEACE!"  We're pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.  

evasedropping

I was at Starry Nites this morning with no school work to do!  Oh glorious day!!  I was sitting outside reading Jane Eyre (which I've never read, but I feel like I'm gonna love it).  There were a pair of women sitting next to me and I was catching bits and pieces of their conversation. I wasn't purposely listening, but sometimes I can't help it.  

From what I heard one of them was getting married.  They were talking about random wedding stuff and at one point Future Bride made a comment about working out/getting fit.  Bridesmaid then said something so wonderful that I almost wanted to tell her how wonderful it was (I didn't, of course; that would have been weird).

Bridesmaid:  You don't have to be fit, you just have to be yourself.  

I am a warrior!

1)  I had so much fun doing the Warrior Dash! 2) I finished every obstacle and that was my goal! 3) I am sore as hell right now!  

Here's my weekend in photos!

Pre-race. Notice how pink my shirt is here

It's official, I'm running the Warrior Dash

Real Warriors hydrate with beer.  That sums up our training regiment

My tracker so the Capitol can find me

Post-race.  Notice the not so pink shirt

We survived!

Another post-race with the mountain in the background

I just can't get enough

I love, love, love the Olympics!  I can't stop watching them.  I can't stop reading the news posts on Yahoo!. I can't stop tearing up in inappropriate places when I'm reading about the sacrifice that some of the athletes, their family and their friends had to make so they could make it to the Olympics.  

What's prompting this gushing about the Olympics is the double-amputee that just qualified for the semi-finals.  That's right, you read that correctly: DOUBLE-amputee.  He ran on carbon prosthetics.  And he just qualified for 400m dash semi-finals at the freakin' Olympics.  

Let that all sink in.  

Talk about triumph of the will (Random side note: I normally hate that phrase).  He was born without his lower leg bones and decided "Screw you world! I'm going to be a runner!"

I can't even get off my couch long enough to train for the Warrior Dash. 

Hats off to you Oscar Pistorius!

Loud American opinion

I want to first tell you that I know nothing about gymnastic.  Nothing.  Besides the fact that I love to watch it in the Olympics.  And I also love the move Stick It!, so I know it's not called gym-nice-tics. 

Of course I watched the US women's team last night.  When I saw that a team member, McKayla Maroney, was only doing vault, I was a little annoyed.  Again, I know nothing about gymnastics, but how could they pick someone who was only going to contribute one score?  Wasn't there someone else that was good on vault and was good on the other apparatus?  

But she nailed her vault and it had the highest difficulty in the finals.  

As I continued to watch the finals, I noticed something that made me like McKayla more and more.  Every time a teammate finished a performance, she would come down and all the other teammates would half-hug her and say supportive things.  McKayla was the only teammate who consistently gave full and meaningful hugs.  

There really is no point to this post; I just wanted to share what I noticed about McKayla.