Merry Christmas! May we all remember what we're supposed to be celebrating! And then, once our priorities are straight, I hope you all got gifts you can actually use! I went shopping with my mother and pointed to stuff, so no big suprises here! Staples. And legal pads. Go figure!

Tis the Season!

This christmas is strangely lacking the Kunze Christmas mania. Partially this is because my parents have spent the entire semester trying to, first, buy a house, then get the tenants to get out so they can move in. Lately they couldn't move more than the basics in because the carpet layers were coming "soon." Finally my parents decided that they coudln't wait for them any longer and moved half of the stuff out of storage and bought new furniture to replace the stuff that was left in California because it wouldn't fit in the moving van. True to form the carpet people showed up directly after we'd hung all the garland and put up three of our four christmas trees. They also made it the week of the faculty Christmas party, and were laying carpet still within an hour of the first guest arriving. Needless to say, we are short on fa la la la la around here. As for myself, the combination of being sick for a week and a half after thanksgiving, finishing a recital dress and having finals has left me with little energy to climb an orchard ladder and hang an angel on the twelve foot tree. Andrea's boyfriend has been here all week, so she has little energy that doesn't involve fawning all over him..don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. It seems like this might be it for her, but still. Chaperoning for a week is the last thing I wanted to be doing. Luckily(or unluckily) they are extraordinarily loud, smacky kissers -- so one doens't have to be in the room to know what they're up to. Sitting at the fireplace I heard them quite clearly down the hall and could heckle them without actually having to move. So anyway -- I'm going to go wrap presents now. We bought more stuff at Costco which falls under the "stuff for the house that we get instead of presents for each other" and rather than display them, I'm going to stick a bow on it and put it under the tree. "From: Mom and Dad, To: Mom and Dad" So there! Deck the halls indeed!

Oh yes. Skiing. Every muscle in my legs is protesting this morning. More in my back are joining in the chorus. And my arms keep claiming that they've been ill-used. There's no rest for th' wicked, and th' righteous don't need none. Anyway -- I'm going to go curl up by the fireplace and try to stretch these suckers out. Before I finish allie's present, decorate the tree, and make a zillion angel ornaments! Merry three days til christmas!

Skiing! Isnt' it wonderful? Wizzing down the mountain at a breakneck speed, staying upright only by luck and the grace of God! My family went for the first time in 3 years (hard to find snow in California). Jason, Andrea's boyfriend, spent the day on the bunny slope trying to master the snowboard. He's only ever surfed before, so I hear he spent more time sprawled out spread eagle on the slope than he did upright. Allison only wiped out every 3 feet or so on the "big people trail" and Andrea and I had far too much fun racing to the bottom. Oh, except for once when we made a wrong turn and found ourselves staring over the edge of a black-diamond cliff. We made a mutual decision that neither of us had dying on our agenda for the day, so the next best plan was to hike back to the Y and take the other fork. We thought we'd just take a short cut through the powder, but ended up waist deep, so we had to truck it back uphill and around. As I see it, I planned on downhill skiing, not cross country with a good portion of hiking thrown in. I'm sore now, but tomorrow will be worse....Anyway -- we abandoned Jason to the bunny slopes, and spent the rest of the day taking Allie up and down the backside of the mountain. All in all it was a great day...and to end it off with a kick I went off a small ski jump! And landed it even -- barely, but I still feel a victory! Anyway, I'll blog tomorrow if the muscles in my body still permit me to type!

The Twin Towers! Amazing! Everyone who hasn't yet needs to go see it. I love it. They kept nearly everything from the book, and Gimli has the best lines (basically all of the comic relief) but they aren't just ploys to add some lightening. They're actually in the book! YAY! I can's even critique it! Even the stuff they changed was ok (and granted it wasn't much -- they were pretty much purists). Wow! Glowingly positive reviews from me! I can't wait for the third one. Until then I'll just have to read the book again....and again....and perhaps again! (on a side note, I'm so happy to know what happened in the battle scenes. Normally I skim over them because I can't keep the names straight -- are they talking about a city or a person. Now I know!)

I went ice skating tonight! I haven't done that in years. At first I just kind of flung myself from one wall to another with reckless abandon, but the third time around I remembered how I'd done it before. By the 5 time around the rink, everyone get out of my way! I stop for no one. (Except of course for those annoying little kids who flail around, cut you off and then fall....then you look like an idiot flailing around trying to develop some coordination in time to avoid landing on them) Then Eric Benson did a really neat trick of turning around and SKATING BACKWARDS! Of course I had to learn how to do this. Winter sports are the only things I'm good at (actually, just skiing, come to think of it). So he was skating forwards facing me, as I drunkenly staggered around backwards. I never did quite get upright all the way -- I felt much safer bending halfway to the ground. That way I was that much closer to it when I fell. But I didn't fall. not even once, and pretty soon my coordination had picked up enough to the point where he didn't have to catch me when I lurched nearly as often. It could have been a scene from a movie though...skating around, losing your balance, falling into the arms of the man in front of you. Eric of course is years younger than I am, but the thought did cross my mind that this is the first time I've been in a man's arms (relatively speaking of course, with a few technicalities thrown in) in...wow....lets see...well the last time that happened I don't think I could have technically labelled him a "man" since neither of us had reached 18 yet. Has it been that long? ouch. Well...speaking of depressing news on the homefront, new years is rapidly approaching. I've never kissed anyone on New Years. Is that just a myth hollywood has started to make us feel bad? Meg Ryan movies seem to make it seem necessary, or wait -- how many movies has she been in? Maybe it's only Meg Ryan that gets kissed on New Years, and a few background extras. oh well. I'm not going to think about it. That will just put a damper on my whole holiday to get all sloppy now. I just finished watching When Harry Met Sally for the first time (sacrilidge I know) and I'm a bit of a funk. I'm only 22...I should give myself a break. And on that rather depressing note, I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight all, and Merry Christmas if I don't have 3 seconds to blog until afterwards!

I am so tired. This semester just about wiped me out. Usually I'm the big pusher of the Christmas season, and right now I couldn't care less if we actually put the rest of the ornaments on the tree or not. Part of this funk may be lack of sleep combined with multiple appointments. 8:00 and the dentists office don't mix...but on the plus side my eyes have remained the same for the first time since I was 5 years old. Yay! No more wondering when exactly I'm going to go blind. Now I'm eligable for laser surgery. On the minus side, I found out that being a singer is bad for your teeth. Yep. Did anyone else know that mouth breathing causes halitosis and gum recession? Me neither. Also I don't grind my teeth, but I clench my jaw when I sleep. I have been informed that if I keep this up I will not have teeth in another 40 years, and it's contributing to my gum recession. Plus genetically I'm pre-disposed to, you guessed it, gum recession. They keep throwing around words like "grafting." I asked if they knocked you out when they did that. They both looked at me and laughed. I wasn't being funny. If someone is going to be taking skin from one part of my mouth and stitching it to another, do they think I want to be awake for it? But anyway -- that's quite a ways in my future. When my parents are no longer paying for such things I'm sure. Anyhoo. I'm going to bed. I have to go to Bonnie's house tomorrow to wash her mirrors and vaccuum her floors (I'm not complaining, she's paying well!) Night!

Big freaking final in an hour. After getting roughly three hours of sleep the night before last, I got a grand total of 5 hours of sleep tonight. Woohoooo-getting up at 5 to study for an 8 o clock final may not be the best way to go, but at this point I don't care. Then I have to come home and pack and go HOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEEE!!!! For "all y'all" in Yakima -- I'll be home in a bit!

FA LA LA LA LA!!! I go home tomorrow! I have had less than three hours of sleep this past night, and I have a huge final tomorrow that, at least for the present, I seem to be unconcerned with! I have a random guy crashed out on the floor of my apartment (actually not so random -- Matt, who came home after his final to finish writing the term paper he must turn in this afternoon) and I am in desperate need of a shower. Ah well. Perhaps after my nap....

The Worst Movie Ever

I just went to see Star Trek: Nemesis. Wow. Let me say that I am somewhat of a Star Trek fan. I don't do conventions, I don't have technical readouts scattered about my apartment. But I am relatively versed on the time line (next gen at least), and I do enjoy the occasional debate about alternate timelines/multiple universes. Having said that -- this movie blew. It was horrible. I'm now going to ruin it for you.....

We open the movie with a "best man" speech that even Patrick Stewart can't make sound well written. Then Data breaks into a chorus of "blue skies" and Worf-with-a-hangover growls "Irving Berlin." Right. Then we get positronic signals from an uncharted planet. Picard grabs Data and Worf to go try out the new ship -- which turns out to be a ....ready for it...DUNE BUGGY! Oh yes. There's all that spiffy technology for you. Rubber tires. No windshield. And a cleverly fixed Star Wars-esque rotating machine gun on the back...which is a good thing too, the star wars part that is.....because they are found by SAND PEOPLE!!!! So now we know that the uncharted and nearly uninhabited planet in the middle of nowhere (if there's a bright center tot he universe it's the spot furthest from) is Tantooine. And the Jawas help load them into their own dune buggies. Aha. So we rescue the Data-in-pieces (no it isn't Lore) and get the heck away from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Now we're back on the ship. We've been called to Romulus to witness our 35th government takeover since the series began. Suddenly a ship uncloaks in front of us. It's big. It's mean. And its loaded with ...... orcs. Apparently Sauroman the Wise had been busy this week. Funny, I don't recall Romulans getting rings. But apparently the elves took a little detour to another quadrant of the galaxy after leaving middle earth.

So we meet the real bad guy. A very bald twenty year old with a complex. Turns out he's a clone of Picard. To prove it he cuts himself with a big stinking knife and hands the blood stained knife to Data. On the ship Crusher takes an EYEDROPPER and sqeezes the blood into a PETRI DISH. Wow -- my guess is that they used all of the money for this film in the spectacular dune-buggy chase sequence. Or perhaps in stealing other movies' props....because Picard and Data get captured by the bad guy (who by the way watched a little TOO MUCH princess bride beforehand "Oh, and WHAT AM I!!!!?")....and escape using the cute little black ship from Independence Day. As they burst their way through a labrynth of hallways, I kept waiting for a "must go faster...must go faster."

So we've reached the crisis. The Enterprise is crippled. No other ships can help them. Picard decides that he must see his double face to face. So he beams over, and after killing off a few orcs, beats the crap out of his dying nemesis. Complex boy makes one last ditch attempt to stab Picard with a knife -- when Picard pulls something from wall, and the poor boy's momentum impales him.....(wait for it)....the boy looks down at the shard of metal sticking out of his chest -- looks defiantly at picard, and taking a hint from the Uruk hai (so if you cross orcs with what -- Klingons?) -- pulls the shard further in, killing himself. Wow -- somehow it isn't as cool without the face paint, the dreds, and the growling.

Meanhile, the crew is still in ultimate danger of the weapon-o-mass-destruction that the ship carries...the transporters are down....the ship is crippled...so what do we see coming to the rescue? Its...a bird! It's a plane! No -- it's SUPER DATA! (This was the coolest part of the movie. seriously) He hurls himself through a hull breech using his momentum to get him to the other ship. Great in theory right? But we somehow ignore the fact that the same momentum that will carry him to the other ship, also would cause him to do somersaults through space on his way over..thus negating the superman flying routine.

I won't spoil the ending completely....but isn't it amazing that, somehow, in a plot twist before Data sends himself into a life or death situation.....Him and Picard on an exploding vessel and there's ONLY ONE PARACHUTE (ahem...emergency transporter).....and just prior to that he's downloaded his entire memory into the newly discovered positronic B-4 (prototype date)....hmmmm sounds to me like the writers were keeping their behind covered in case, for some goodness knows what reason, they decide to make another movie after this one.

So that's the story. Have a missed anything? Oh and for those that do go see it...the cheerful tune that data sings in the holodeck that they all smile over but can't remember what it was....Pop goes the weasel.