Episode 605: Lighthouse

I want to start this entry by talking about how epic the snowstorm was. Just look at these pictures:It was an epic downfall of continuous snow for about 24 hours straight. After getting over my initial shock this morning (I had to sleep in the nude basically at 308 because I forgot my PJ's), I was pretty okay with the snow. It made everything look beautiful, as snow often tends to do.Okay, on to Lost! DON'T FORGET---SPOILER ALERT! ABC.GO.COM!!!
I think last night was the first time I was actually happy about a Jack episode. Usually, Jack's episodes make him all whiny and after awhile I just get sick of them. I mean, I think Jack's the only character who has had two flashback episodes in the same season. But this episode made me appreciate Jack and the way his character has developed.

On the island, Jack and Hurley go off on a mission for Jacob. This leads to some of the best Jack-Hurley moments I have ever seen on Lost. Whether it's Hurley telling Jack that Jacob is like Obi-Wan Kenobi or Jack screaming at Hurley to talk to Jacob, Jack and Hurley were on top of it. Also on top of it was Claire whose wild side scares me. Whether she was asking Jin if he were still his friend while digging into his flesh, talking about killing Kate, or smiling at Not-Locke her lovely "friend", this Claire is the very definition of scary. I did really like seeing Jacob's protective nature coming out over Hurley and Jack. I could see in him the love he has for these people. I really do think that love exists. It's cute to see. I think next week is when the firestorm is going to begin and the epic struggle between Jacob and the smoke monster will kick off. But who is this mystery person coming to the island? And who is the smoke monster? He seems to be doing a very good job at manipulating people onto his side. He already has Sawyer and Claire, who knows maybe Jin and Kate are next....
Okay, now for my favorite part of this episode: the flash-sideways!!! This was the best one of the flash-sideways we have seen, including the first even though that one was riddled with parallels...but this one was the best! Seeing Jack grow as a person even without the bearing struggle of his father was amazing to see....and he has a SON! The moment where Jack finds his son David at the audition was one of the most beautiful moments in all of Lost. It was like Glee and Lost had combined into a beautiful, wonderful thing of beauty (yes, I know).

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Lighthouse!

Namaste!

Things With S's

First of all, I'm Sorry it's been so long since I've posted on here. It has been a really long time, so long that this blog is starting to become a weekly kind of things which is not what I want. But I've been so busy that's it's even hard just to get those things done, that the blog kind of goes by the wayside. But I promise I won't let that happen anymore. You WILL be kept up to date! (Not that too much happens, especially when I'm out of my mind busy with school and such.) Anyway, below are the things with S's that I've had my mind on lately.

Scholarships! Applying for financial aid sucks. I would suggest not going to college. But not really...but seriously, don't. It's WAY too much. I can't finish all these stupid scholarships. I have to worry about getting everything right, doing all the essays, and depending on others (not Megan, she did her recommendation for me very well, and not Erin she did it ASAP as well) to complete recommendations for me. It's nuts.

Spanish... I'm scared of two things here: 1) Failing the class and 2) Me accidentally killing the professor. This class is so strict and he makes everything so hard. I don't know how well this class is going to turn out, and I really don't want it to bring down my GPA, but.... Today we had to write two FULL pages of Spanish in under 50 minutes. Ridiculous, right? Yeah, well, on top of that we had to complete all these requirements and if we make more than 15 mistakes (granted, this is a rough draft) we automatically get a C+ on the whole assignment. Yeah, feel bad for me now?

Auditions! On Sunday, I auditioned for the senior directed one acts. It was a terrific audition, much better than my one for Godspell. Which, that show was amazing by the way! I ended up getting a callback for the musical one act which had a special singing audition. I'm very happy with the turn out, but also incredibly nervous. The callbacks are tomorrow night....

History (and for that matter, school in general) My classes have me very nervous this semester, and for good reason. They're hard! I really just wish I can go right on and do all my theater classes. They will be challenging, but a good kind of challenging. These classes are just put there to lower my GPA and screw me over. It's awful. This Spanish class is going to be the death of me, and this History class has me very on edge.

And with that, I must get to studying. Good luck with all your things with s's!!

Peace out!

Episode 604: The Substitute

Seriously ABC, you're messing with my blog titles! So apparently the season premiere of Lost actually counted as two episodes, so last week's was the third, and this week the fourth. WOW. I'm gonna keep this entry kind of short, even though pretty much the fabric of Lost was revealed this week. I have a lot of homework that has to be done, though.

SPOILER ALERT! GO TO ABC.GO.COM TO WATCH THE EPISODE FIRST!

Okay, so where did we leave off? Right. The people of the temple tried to kill Sayid with a pill of poison because they believe his is INFECTED, and Jack is pissed. At the end of last weeks episode, Jin finds (or really she finds him) Claire in the jungle. Now forget all of that for the moment. Enter this week's episode which is centered around Locke where in his flash-sidewayses (?) we discover that Locke still has a life with Helen, a life with marriage in the future. However, because his faith has not been discovered on the island, we find the same miserable Locke we have come to pity in all other flashbacks. He is miserable especially when people tell him he can't do something. He gets fired and Hurley (yes, Hurley) gets him a job with a temp agency he owns (I want to know the deal with Hurley pretty soon). There Rose (yes, Rose) gets Locke a job as a substitute teacher but only after Rose tells Locke that he has to deal with the life he has been given, as she has done with her cancer. Ah, destiny. At the school, we learn that Ben Linus himself works as a European History teacher. WOW.

On the island is where the madness develops. First of all, I just want to say that the sequence in the first act of the episode where we see the perspective of the monster and then Locke materializing was amazing artistry, even though I sort of felt like I was on a roller coaster. Everyone at 308 agreed that there should be a Lost theme park. I just want to talk about a few things from this episode:

Richard - I thought Richard was going to pee his pants in this episode, but it was also enlightening to see him vulnerable like this. Good angle to his character.

Sawyer - Sawyer is broken at this point. In a way, he's kind of like how Juliet was before she and Sawyer fell in love. He just wants to get off the island. This comes in the form of joining the not-Locke, because that's his true goal. Or is it?

The boy - The boy in the jungle whom not-Locke sees...hmmm...I think it's Aaron. I don't know how, I don't know why (well, I suspect Aaron is REALLY the true candidate to succeed Jacob even though he's not on the candidate list, but that may have changed due to Claire failing as a mother, but you never know. We may know more once we get to know the new rogue Claire. This could explain why the boy knows about the "rules" and the epic duel or whatever it is occuring between good and evil on the island)

"The weirdest damn funeral I've ever been to..." - one of the funniest quotes in Lost history as well as an "awww" moment for me. Between Sun's caring about the placement of Locke's body, Ben's eulogy, and Illana's touching moment with Jacob's ashes, I wanted to cry.

The cave and the candidates - The whole meaning of Lost, the numbers, why they're on the island, and everything was explained in that moment with not-Locke and Sawyer. The reason why they were brought to the island was because Jacob believed them candidates to suceed him. He knew all of this was to happen, and he needed a replacement. The numbers represent the candidates because that was how Jacob had them listed. We know the mystery of the numbers!!! AHHH!!! The only thing is, not-Locke says there is no reason for the island to be protected, but he is obviously wrong (or twisting the truth to get Sawyer to join him) because we have already seen that the island has come under seige (Dharma Initiative, Widmore).

This was a crazy episode that revealed almost everything about Lost. Just wait to see what happens next!

Namaste

Ben Franklin, My Birthday, and Other Oddities

The whole past week has been a crap load of homework and tiredness leading up to my tremendous birthday weekend! The week began with me stressing out because I procrastinated and didn't finish reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography which I was supposed to do by Thursday. I was also freaking out because on top of all that there are still scholarships that remain to be completed and my crazy professors feel the need to keep compiling crap on top of crap, including reading a third of a book at night. Also, a lot of stuff has come up that I have to handle with the school...and my parents. It's great. In short, after spending so ton of time (including some quality library time with Megan in the UVM library) reading and reading well into my nights, I finished everything, including Ben Franklin's autobiography which ending up being more interesting than I first thought it was going to be. His life was really interesting and he was incredibly intelligent. His autobiography almost read like a novel and I found myself chuckling at times at his witty banter.

That Thursday was the lecture about the autobiography in my history class. I was surprised by the fervor with which my professor talked/preached about Ben Franklin and how his influence is still as far-reaching as today. It was almost incredible, and I found myself really enjoying and delving into the lecture. I think that's the first time that's happened to me since coming to college. At the end, my professor read an example of another man (though fictional) who led a life like that of Ben Franklin. It was from The Great Gatsby.

But enough about that...onto the festivities of the weekend!

I have the most amazing friends on the planet. Friday morning Megan and I snuck (okay, we went to public safety and asked them to let us in) into Career Services at Champlain to give Meg (Megan's former supervisor at her work study and current career advisor) her valentine which consisted of rose petals scattered all over her desk, on the floor, down the stairs, and into the lobby, a teddy bear, and a mug full of Hershey kisses. Friday night was spent with more baby oil and a night of rest and relaxation which was much needed and deserved for both me and Megan. Megan had spent the week putting together an annotated bibliography for one of her crazy professors. Are we spotting a theme in this semester? Anyway, we stayed up until midnight, when my birthday officially began then went to bed. Before I fell asleep, I kind of smiled to myself. I had just turned 18 years old. I was an adult. WOW. And then that was the last I thought of it.

Saturday was spent with my parents. I hadn't seen them in awhile and it was really nice to be together again. My mom was happy too, which in turn made me happy (of course!). We talked about a lot of stuff, and they also brought me a couple of packages my grandparents sent me for my birthday. I got some new clothes and a new pea jacket! It's really nice and my grandmother was really happy that I actually asked for something for my birthday. I'm really bad at that. I hate it when people ask me what I want because I always feel bad or I actually don't really know. Anyway, 308 was decked out for the celebration. Giant banners saying "Happy Birthday Ryan" were put up around the door to the bedroom and down the stairs outside the room. Needless to say, it was epic and a wicked cool surprise to come to.

We went to Velvet's dorm where we made a HUGE pot of macaroni and cheese from the five boxes Megan, Velvet, Ashley, and Joe bought during the day. Velvet and Ashley were also making cupcakes which was funny because my mom had made cupcakes too. This amounted to a shit-ton of cupcakes at 308. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it was really good for breakfast the next two days. I was very close to crying when everyone gave me their gifts. Joe drew me an anime version of myself as the birthday king, Ashley gave me a Where's Waldo? book and a book of corny pick-up lines (of course, these gifts were in a bag labeled X-RATED GIFT and I was tortured all week basically), and last but not least Velvet and Megan made me a collage of pictures from the entire last semester and words that describe me. It's absolutely beautiful. THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!

Valentine's Day. Megan took me to go see a show at the Flynn. Now, this show was a mystery to me, but Megan began leaving me cryptic clues on facebook, revealing letters that spelt out the title of the show. I felt like Nancy Drew...or...The Hardy Boys deciphering them, only I'm obviously not smart enough to figure it out on my own seeing how Megan had to point it out to me. Yeah, I'm that oblivious. But in the end, the show was Gospelfest! It was a group of gospel singers singing praises to the Lord. It was amazing. We had such a good time and made a dozen new memories...right, Megan? $

Basically, the next day was spent on homework at Dobra Tea and the sketchy foodcourt at the Church Street mall with Megan. And now here we are, back in the ugh world of homework and class. Ugh.

Is it time for Megan's birthday yet?

Peace out!

Episode 602: What Kate Does

Once again, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! Go to http://abc.go.com/watch/lost/93372 to watch the episode if you haven't already.

Wow...I think things are finally starting to come full circle. Ideas brought up in the first two seasons are being seen again and developed into the end. For instance: the INFECTION! Major part of the plot. And even if the dumb people on the ABC forums can't seem to figure out what's going on (seriously, they have their facts WAY out of order), I'm sure the rest of us can surely see what's going on on LOST!

"What Kate Does" was an awesome episode last night, obviously playing off of the Season 2 episode entitled "What Kate Did", this episode slowed the pace after the mega thrust we had into this season with the premiere and returns to focus on a central character, Kate. My projection is that this is what is going to happen throughout the course of the season, and instead of a normal "flashback" occuring for the central character of the episode, it will be a "flashsideways". (?) Right. Anyway, throughout the flashsideways of this episode, it appears that even if Flight 815 landed, Kate is still destined to be a part of Claire's and Aaron's life. Also, it seems as though Ethan was always destined to stick needles into Claire. ?

It would also seem as though the psychic who insisted that Aaron be raised by Claire still accomplished his goal by sending Claire on Flight 815, only instead of knowning the plane would crash, the psychic knew that the couple Claire was going to would not accept the baby. Or maybe he knew that all of these events would play out, but the result would still be the same. It's a theory.

Meanwhile, Sayid has been INFECTED by that same illness Rousseau's team was infected with (as we have seen many times, especially played out in Season 5). This was diagnosed by Dogan and Lennon with electroids on Sayid's nipples (yikes! :P) and burning him with a poker. We still don't know what the illness is yet, or what it has to do with the Jacob/Smoke Monster struggle. Also, Jack isn't buying it as always and almost kills himself because he can't seem to trust these people who are trying to protect him! Although these people are trying to kill Sayid, they have good reason just like Rousseau had good reasons of killing her teammates.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the episode. I especially loved Josh Holloway's beautiful acting moment on the dock with Kate telling her how it's his fault Juliet is dead and how he was going to propose to her. I was left with tears on my cheeks seeing him portray truthfully the pain Sawyer was feeling in that moment. Beautiful. Also, I love how Jin can speak English now. It makes me giggle. And I especially love that he was the one to discover Claire in the jungle. But apparently she has been INFECTED as well, according to Dogan? Whoa! Can't wait till next week! See you then!

Namaste!

A Typical Night At Jeanne Mance

Last night Megan came to spend the night at wonderful Jeanne Mance. We began the evening by eating over at Brennan's in the student center (mmm...yummy pancakes!) and going Rite Aid to pickup some baby oil. What was the baby oil for you ask? Well when Megan and I returned to The Mance (a very fitting nickname for my very sketchy dorm) we busted that oil out, took out the fountain we bought at Rite Aid, turned on some soothing music on Megan's computer, put up a sheet to create a "zen tent" as we called it, and proceeded to give each other AMAZING massages. It was awesome! We felt so relaxed which was perfect after the long and tiring week we both had.

Later on, we decided that we were VERY hungry. This is where stuff went down. My dining hall was closed, so we decided that we wanted Wings delivered (the most amazing food place in Burlington, other than Dobra Tea, but those are the top two). When they called, we rushed downstairs only to find a police officer with three guys from the dorm in the front hallway. He was reading them their rights while we rushed onto the scene. It went something like this:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used---"

"WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Needless to say, it was pretty awkward. Especially because we all had to sign the reciepts because NONE of us paid in cash and because we could tell that all the arrestees were thinking was:

"Shit, I want some Wings!"

and all the police officers were thinking was:

"Hey, you wanna get some Wings after this?"

So after that awkward incident, we went into the common area to get some drinks from the vending machine that ONLY took Cat$cratch. We wanted cherry Coke, but apparently the vending machine didn't want us to have cherry Coke, the vending machine wanted us to have orange Vitamin Water, because that was the only button that worked, except it only worked when Megan punched the friggin' machine! Meanwhile, the police officers wanted to bring the arrestees into the building for some questioning I guess, but they had locked themselves out of the building. So they started knocking on the window trying to get me to open the door for them. I ran around the corner, but by the time I got to the door, they had already opened it with their mad police skillz. I was scared. But at least we got Wings.

Peace out!

Snowball

What do you get when you combine dress up clothes, the 308 gang, a chocolate fountain, music, a dance floor, and a whole ballroom full of semi-drunk college kids? Snowball, duh! That's right, last night was the night of the epic party that was Snowball. This is the event that the picking out of dresses, the massive amounts of exercise, and the excitment has been leading up to. The night began with a text message from Megan:

Get your a$$ over here!

This message followed a message saying she was ready and I could come over when I was ready. In a swift motion, I grabbed my crap and ran out the door and down the sidewalk. When I was about halfway to 308 I stopped and realized something: I forgot my ticket. Awesome. So I ran back to the Mance, grabbed the ticket, and raced to 308 where the awesome and amazing family that is Megan, me, Ashley, and Velvet got ready, took pictures, and caught the bus to Snowball.

Once there, we had an awesome time. Aside from the drunken rude pushy girls who kept shoving Velvet away from us, and the mild smell of vomit that arose from the crowd, the actual dance was awesome. And so wasn't the FOOD! Meatballs, coconut covered shrimp! Whoot! There was even a chocolate fountain which made Ashley very giddy with delight.

After the dance we caught a very overloaded school bus to take us back to Camp Champ. Now, this bus was overloaded with some very bro-like bros, apparently from Velvet's dorm as she tells us. Between them shouting profanities such as HER-O-IN! HER-O-IN! and LET'S GO SMOKE SOME CRACK! and me and Ashley sharing the single seat in the back of the bus, you know, the one where truly only one person's butt can fit, it was a pretty crazy ride. When we returned to 308, I just collapsed as well as Megan whose dress provided a pretty excellent pillow. What a night...

Peace out!

Episode 601: LA X

LOST IS BACK!!! With the departure of Glee until April, the members of 308 (really just Megan, Ashley, and I because Velvet hates it) have replaced Glee presently with ABC's Lost! Now, I have been watching Lost the past five years of my life. I was in the moment when Claire gave birth to Aaron, when Boone died, when Juliet talked to Jack behind thick plexiglass, when Tom said, "this is OUR island!", and especially when Juliet made the nuclear hydrogen bomb go off at the end of last season. Lost is a work of pure art with fantastic acting, an amazing and twisted storyplot that has been told in one of the most creative ways possible. I love Lost. Megan and Ashley have caught up completely thorugh all five seasons, a feat which I commend them both on. Watching five seasons of a TV show in a span of three months is pretty accomplished. Especially Megan who spent all of her Christmas break watching it. But that's the power of Lost!

What I am going to attempt to do is have a blog post every Wednesday with my review and thoughts on the previous night's episode of Lost because it's basically that important to me. Lost has been major inspiration to me in my acting, creative flow, and art styles. Seriously. So I'm going to pay homage to the final season the best way I can. BE WARNED: When I talk about the episodes, there is going to be a lot of SPOILERS if you have not watched the episode yet. I suggest going to http://abc.go.com/shows/lost to catch up first.

Okay, on to this week's epsiode which is the season premiere (obviously) entitled "LA X". The episode began with right where we left off at the end of last season. Juliet detonated the hydrogen bomb "Jughead". But, after the white flash, we saw Jack back on flight 815 with Rose sitting right next to him! It's like episode 1 all over again! The only thing is, things are a little different. Hurley is the luckiest man alive (what!?), Boone is alive without Shannon, Locke is alive, Charlie is alive (but almost dies), and Desmond is a passenger! Some wild stuff is going on especially when we see that the island is sunk underwater. What did Jughead do? Next we see that all the same people from before (Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Miles, Sayid, etc.) are still on the island, in the present only Juliet is dead after being buried under the imploded rubble of the old Swan Station! Two different timelines!? Damon and Carlton were right when they said that the flashbacks were going to be way different. I can't wait to see how this plays out in the next episodes to come.

We also learned that the bad guy with Jacob who killed him through Ben is the Smoke Monster who has now taken the form of John Locke, who is officially dead! I'm guessing that the smoke monster was also Jack's father Christian on the island and Yemi, Mr. Eko's brother. Things are sort of beginning to make sense...sort of. We also find that there is another group of Others on the island. I think that these people are Jacob-worshippers and this is an ancient religion of some sort that migrated to island some time ago, but that's just a hypothesis. Anyway, they drown Sayid in a pool of disgusting water that apparently wasn't disgusting before, and Sayid comes back to life! What is going on!? Guess we'll have to find out next week....

Namaste!