Still Wishing for Summer Vacay ...

Had our first Neurosci lab back in our Gross Anatomy facilities today - we're studying the brain more in detail. Friends who hugged me today say I smell like lab so I might have to pull out my scrubs again.

I really wish I could be on vacation. Memorial Day weekend was like a false alarm thing - all nice weather, happy BBQs, and then ... back to school.

Last Friday seems so distant now. I had my board exam in the morning and then went out with some girlfriends. Unfortunately, they wanted to go see a movie. Not just any movie though. I could have settled for X-Men, Angels & Demons, or Star Trek. Anything.

No. They wanted to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

Yes, that movie. Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. About a womanizing photographer who gets a life altering experience a la A Christmas Carol and explores what true love really means in the form of a childhood crush that can't be denied because of she gifted him with his first camera and they were always meant to be together and - This is a chick flick. You know the deal.

My face twisted so much, one of the girls immediately got defensive.

"Matthew McConaughey! Matthew McConaughey! Hot!" she wheedled.

Yeah, he is, but I'm not paying $12 to ogle his face. I'll admit the movie was cute and better than what I expected based on the trailers (but yes, I also had very LOW expectations), but am I the only person in this world who would rather watch your regular average chick flick (and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is most definitely a chick flick with a little "inspirational" pizazz at the most.) at home on DVD than in the theaters? I don't know but somehow, I automatically categorize certain chick flicks in a different category - i.e. the types that don't maximize the effects of a theater experience i.e. that will waste your ticket money.

Yup, I'm judgmental.

So what ended up happening was ...

I lost the battle. I know, I'm still ashamed.

Friend hooked three other girls in and loomed over me. "It's three for Ghosts and YOU'RE the only one who doesn't want to watch it so are YOU going to be a spoilsport, huh? HUH?!"

"But it's a - Fine," I muttered sulkily.

Other friend gave me a sympathetic look because she secretly agreed with me, but was too lazy to argue with me. Traitor.

Third friend suggested, "Well, how about 17 Again? Or ooh! Hannah Montana!"

I chuckled. "Good one."

She gave me a puzzled look. "What's wrong with -"

"OKAY, Ghosts it is!" I clapped my hands.

So ... the movie was okay. Sadly, I'll have to say that even for an cliched chick flick, it was still better than my all time hated movie: Mummy 3.

True, it had all the elements we'd seen before and the plot was predictable, but it had its funny moments, its cute moments. It was purely for entertainment and it carried its romantic comedy badge proudly.

I liked the trailers though. I kept pointing out various movies to the friends. "Now that's worthy of a theater ticket!"

They agreed, but eh, we were there and paid for anyway.

Amongst the various trailers that caught my attention:



This one made me want to cry and I can tell this will be a major tearjerker. Based on a novel by Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper is coming out in June, I think.

And of course!



Harry Potter love. This trailer is epic.

Asides from Ghosts, I also watched Taken the other day. My cousin recommended this action thriller and it was truly pretty good. A father goes off to save his daughter after she gets kidnapped by sex traffickers during a seemingly innocent trip to Paris. The story freaked out my girl cousin and me and the one man Rambo routine captivated the guys' attention.

I also demolished several books I had stored up, including A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)by Libba Bray. I had picked up these books for break times in between study sessions - like I'd finish a textbook chapter and then relax with a chapter or two from a novel for fifteen minutes. The books started out okay, as in I was still able to put it down, but as I got further in, I wasn't able to stop reading until ... they were finished. Study plan failed.

Excellent writing. The protagonist and her friends definitely had their unlikable traits in a way that made me admire Bray's writing even more. True, I did want to smack around some of the characters - and at times, the protagonist herself - during some bad moments, but everything, including those nasty personality quirks, felt real. Cattiness, peer pressure, insecurities - the girls were real, regular teenage girls with their petty rivalries and cliques and their selfish dreams and fears rang true.

Although the last book had certain scenes and revelations about certain characters (i.e. Felicity and Pippa's relationship) that I felt didn't exactly flow with what was previously depicted about the girls in the previous books and seemed more like it was thrown in for a sudden shock factor rather than feeling like it had always been planned by the author all along, I still adored the books. Some descriptions were so vivid, they creeped me out. (The scraping of the three ghostly girls' boots against the floor - wow.) And when it came to a certain tragic scene in the last novel, I couldn't help it. I teared up.

Few books have wrenched such physical reactions out of me and I'm so happy that I had the pleasure to read these books. Highly recommended!

I also hit several duds with other novels, but I'll leave this post at this for now.

Back to work! Need to finish several chapters tonight, get to bed earlier so that I don't pass out on my feet again, and be ready for lab work tomorrow.