What's Your Astronomy Picture of the Day?

This was the astronomy picture of the day on my birthday a few years ago. I think it's pretty sweet :) it's the space shuttle, connected to the space station, zooming over earth. At night. Lovely. :)

The Many Faces of Jane Eyre

All right, Jane Eyre has been a favorite book of mine since I was 13. I love the heroine - plain, serious, strong, righteous, steadfast. And Mr. Rochester is, of course, a regular Byronic hero - brooding, impassioned, powerful, mysterious. As far as gothic novels go, it's definitely a winner.

So guess what - there have been over twenty-seven film adaptations of this book. Twenty-seven! I have NOT seen all 27, but I have seen quite a few. Some I like, some I loathe, some I wish I could copy and paste elements out of them to make one perfect, perfect Jane Eyre movie. Sigh. The following is my diagnosis of said adaptations.



1944, starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. Joan F. has a flighty, frightened style of acting (have you seen "Rebecca?") that, while effective, is NOT Jane. Also, Orson Welles just reminds me a lot of "Poor Judd" from Oklahoma. Can't really get over it!



1983, starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke. This is definitely a favorite. Timothy Dalton pretty much IS Rochester, and Zelah looks closest to how I pictured Jane in the book (though a little older). One rotten tomato: sometimes Dalton's impassioned outbursts are a little TOO Byronic for me...borderline cheesy? At times perhaps? Rarely though. Still a favorite.



1996, starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsborough. Seen a bit of this one. Fun fact, this was directed by Franco Zeffirrelli! He did Romeo and Juliet (the 70's version). This one's interesting...the Jane was a little too stoic for me, but I thought this Rochester was a pretty good choice. Better than the next one anyways!



1997, starring Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton. I've seen part of this. Okay, does anyone else think this Jane looks like Mackenzie Bezzant? Even a little? Haha okay maybe not. Anyways, Ciaran Hinds is not Mr. Rochester. 1) He has a moustache. 2) He is Captain Wentworth. 3) He has a moustache. Did I mention that Rochester should NOT have a moustache?



2006, starring Toby Stephens (Orsino in 12th night!)and Ruth Wilson. Okay, I really like this one. Visually stunning, gorgeous soundtrack, Ruth is spunky (maybe too much? In the book Jane is more sedate) and Toby does a surprisingly fantastic job! He's dark but still teases, and he's manly. The downside: Hollywood. Of course they find a way to make things sketch. Grr...




I'm curious about the 2011 version! Jane is young! Like in the book. And this Rochester seems to have a good piercing presence. Aunt Janet, have you seen it? Is it praiseworthy and of good report?

Well, I successfully postponed studying for my last final by posting something that probably makes no difference either way. :) At least the book will always be good.

Music, Art, and Science Meet

Did you know there are music scores in Braille? Check out these elaborate notations! I'm not sure I would ever be able to make sense out of them. I don't have the patience or delicate touch for it. If I were a blind musician, I would probably just try to learn everything by ear. And, chances are my music would be limited to Fur Elise on the piano. :)



Artistically speaking, being a blind musician wouldn't be so bad! You would have no visual distraction from the sound you're making - you could focus exclusively on tone and sound. I love that idea. Sometimes Sister Applonie has us close our eyes in choir as we tune up chords. It's amazing what making your ears work a little harder will do to your sound. I mean, it worked for this guy, right?


(Blind Egyptian Musician, 15th century Wall Mural)

Music for the deaf is a little trickier. How does one make an art form based exclusively on sound accessible to those who can't hear? Well guess what! I found out about some awesome technology this week! There's a program that makes visual representations of musical pieces. This video is made by someone who does a bunch of these "animated scores", if you will. My favorite is Debussy's Arabesque No. 1. It's so much fun to watch! The intervals are pretty good for computer software! And the rhythms are right on. Maybe this is a way the deaf could experience music! And who knows, maybe in a couple hundred years this will be the way everyone learns music. You really should watch at least some of it. My favorite part is 4:28 to the end. And everything else.

BYU Student Section Flash Mob Dance

Kansas State's student section surprised the crowd by doing a flash mob dance during one of their Basketball game's time outs. A week or so ago, the BYU athletic department sent out a training video for OUR VERY OWN surprise dance. My thought process was, "no one's going to do this, I'm not going to try to learn it" but boy was I wrong! The special day came and everyone was at the game hours early practicing! I learned it as quickly as I could. It was AWESOME. The crowd was totally surprised and we stole the show! Here's a video. I'm the one in white...haha just kidding. It's a little hard to see the dance moves because there's 5,000 of us! Beat that, Kansas State!


Oh by the way...we WON the championship! :)

Disneyland!

Nate and I drove to California over President's Day weekend to go to DISNEYLAND! It was nice to get out of Provo. We stayed with his parents in Irvine, which was only 15 minutes away! We stayed for 10 hours at the park both days we were there. It rained both days (ALOT), but we were well stocked with umbrellas, Gatorade, and Famous Amos cookies and hence had a fabulous trip. The pictures below were snapped between torrents.



Outside Sleeping Beauty's castle. It's smaller than the one in disneyworld, but...dare I say it? I think I like this one more! There's something so rustic and charming about it. I couldn't stop staring at it every time we walked by.




Outside the haunted mansion. Is it weird that this ride still gives me the creeps? We went on it twice, and that was quite enough.



This was taken in Tarzan's treehouse. I think around the corner is the huge plastic leopard Sabor that roared in my face and made me very frightened.



We caught a 3-D show (love the glasses), "Captain EO", which Nate insisted on seeing because of all his "fond childhood memories" of it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Apparently George Lucas, Michael Jackson, and Steven Spielberg all teamed up to make this little classic. It was...well, I think it falls (along with Australian Musk Sticks and 2001 A Space Odyssey) under the category of "something you have to experience once but need never endure again". Basically Michael Jackson flies his starship to a planet full of creepy TV-cable people and uses his magic musical powers to turn them all into colorfully clad dancers.

Here's a short clip, for your viewing pleasure :)



Strange, no?



GORGEOUS flowers we found in California Adventure during one of our sunny hours. I had to take a picture. I think its my favorite of the lot!



At the end of the day - wet, exhausted, stuffed with cookies, and very, very satisfied.

We got a lot done! We went on Indiana Jones five times, Tower of Terror five times (3 too many for me), Matterhorn (an abominable snowman roller coaster - my new favorite!) 4ish times - a note on that one, we got to skip ahead in line 4 times because we only had two people! Woohoo! Space mountain 3 times (what an amazing ride), Soarin' twice, Peter Pan twice, Pirates of the Caribbean twice, and pretty much everything else at least once. Yet somehow we never did make it to It's a Small World...

Must You Keep Left?

Master Yoda does a voice recording for the TOM-TOM gps system.

Ice Castles at Midway!

This weekend Nate and I drove up to Midway to see the Ice Castles! It was a genuinely fun and NOVEL activity, which can sometimes be hard to find in Utah County. My roommate told me about these icicle-house things that some guy makes every year using pvc pipes and water pumps, so, naturally, we had to go.



The scene was gorgeous.



Nate's "Not-a-nutcracker" smile. I like this picture more than the other one of us together, but he doesn't.



The light is all natural! Just kidding. :)



A close-up.



My freakishly long tongue was parched.



The white witch, empress of the lone islands, is probably just around the corner.



Aww...



Sweet, no?



We had fun picking out our favorites.



This one was my favorite. It reminds me of Atlantica from The Little Mermaid.

It was quite awesome, and definitely worth 5 dollars. They say it keeps growing week-to-week, as the icicles melt and freeze and re-melt and re-freeze. (If Pete and Re-pete are on a boat, and one falls off...) :) haha anyways, I'm happy to say we found something new to do on a Saturday night. If you know of any other oddities to visit in Utah, let me know! I'm all ears.