Ask Me Anything!

As you may or may not know, today is my birthday, and I thought you might want to give me a little gift. ;) Don't worry—it's free! I have been wanting to do one of these "ask me anything" posts for a while now, but I was worried no one would ask questions and my idea would crash before it even got off the ground. So I figured: What better time to solicit questions than on my birthday, when you would have to feel like a horrible person to ignore my request for questions, right? Right?? ;)

By the Numbers: 2013

I could pretend I waited until now to post this so it wouldn't get lost in all the other 2013 recaps in your blog feed, but let's face it: I just hadn't gotten around to compiling everything until now. :) My numerical summations of 2011 and 2012 were so fun, I thought I would do another one for 2013! Enjoy....

By the Numbers: 2012

A year ago today, I posted a numerical summation of 2011. I decided to do the same thing for 2012, with a few different categories, and I also added a "most popular" section at the bottom. Enjoy!

Miles traveled by plane (everything else is too hard to count!): 56,615*
> 6,155 miles before I became a Leadership Consultant
> 36,542 miles as a Leadership Consultant
> 13,918 miles over Christmas vacation
Countries visited (not counting layovers, of course): 4
Austria | Hungary | Switzerland | France
States visited: 11
New Mexico | Missouri | California | Georgia | South Dakota
Arizona | Washington | Idaho | Illinois | Virginia | North Carolina
*Thanks, TripIt, for making it so easy for me to count my miles!

Struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight.

Photo via Instagram

You know what my biggest first world problem is? I've been out of the country for the two biggest movie releases of my life: The final Harry Potter film and Les Miserables. However, I saw both movies the day after I flew back to the U.S., which means I was able to see Les Mis on New Year's Day. I didn't expect the movie to be better than the play; Les Mis will always be a stage production first for me, then a movie. (And, of course, a book.) However, I was very impressed by the movie and definitely plan on buying it when the DVD is released. It will be a great movie to have running when I'm doing other things around the house. I could easily write pages about the 2012 adaptation, but I'll just share my brief thoughts here:

Teasers are just spoilers in disguise.

Note: I wrote this post way back in June but just hadn't gotten around to publishing it yet. In honor of the release of Les Miserables next month, I figured now was the perfect time to hit publish!

Source: tres-little-birds.tumblr.com via Majo on Pinterest

And by teasers, I mean book jackets and movie trailers. Hear me out: I love previews. I'm one of those people who is actually upset when I miss the previews in a movie theater, and not just because I don't like looking for seats in the dark. I really like trailers, and I used to think it would be amazing to be a trailer producer (a la Cameron Diaz in The Holiday). However, if I know I want to see a movie and already know the storyline, I don't want to see a trailer because I don't want any part of the movie to be ruined for me.

Waiting for Instant.

Source: frugalgranola.com via Kristina on Pinterest

So, as much as I love The Hunger Games, I waited until Saturday afternoon to see it this past weekend. No, the shows weren't sold out (Santa Fe isn't exactly the target demographic for the franchise), I just really wanted to save $3 by seeing a matinee show.

#postgradproblems

So on that note, here are five more movies I've been dying to see, but I'm crossing my fingers Netflix will add them to their Instant Queue soon so I don't have to pay a(n extra) dime!

Things that make me go "hmm."

Happy weekend, everyone! I wanted to start your Saturday off right with this adorable turtle picture. My friend Caroline posted it on my Facebook timeline for my birthday, and I just cannot get enough of it! It looks like it's saying: "GIMME A HUG!"

Source: Uploaded by user via Megan on Pinterest

Now, on to the interesting links I found this week:

Date Night: (Long Distance) Valentine's Day

Our dinner and a movie!

I'm aware this post is a little behind the times, but hey! Maybe that means it won't get lost in all the other Valentine's Day posts out there. So, as you might know, I am dating my high school sweetheart. Because we attended different colleges and have different graduation dates, we've been long-distance for a few years. This year for Valentine's Day, we decided to have a regular dinner-and-a-movie date from 800 miles apart. It was fabulous!

30-Day Book Challenge: Day 19

Day 19 - Favorite book turned into a movie

 
Image via Goodreads

The Time Traveler's Wife. It's books like these that make me think twice about the old adage, "Don't judge a book by its cover," because that's the very reason I picked this book up. I was in Border's a few summers ago when they were doing their "buy two paperbacks, get one free" deal (oh how I miss Border's), and I plucked this off the shelf solely because I liked the way the spine looked. The cover was also intriguing, as well as the title, so I flipped it open and read the first page. Hooked. This book made me laugh and made me cry. It was a book that made me think and question certain plot lines as I worked out the overlapping timelines in my head, but not to the point that I couldn't thoroughly enjoy the story.

Then, of course, I found out they were making the book into a movie. With Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, no less! Excellent. I wondered how they would fit all the intricacies of the book into the film, and of course they couldn't, but it was still a great movie. I definitely laughed and cried at the film version, too. I saw it opening night with my dad, brother and some friends, and I remember my dad looking down at me at one point with tears in his eyes. "Great movie, Megan," he half-joked. It was a great movie, but it made all of us cry. Well, except maybe my little brother. :)

30-Day Book Challenge: Day 15

Edited to add: Jessica's Book Chat prompt this week at Sweet Green Tangerine is our favorite male character, so I'm linking up with this old post. I also wanted to share the adorable button she made for today. Enjoy!

  
Day 15 – Favorite male character

This one was tough. I didn't want to pick a Harry Potter character because I've been using that series too much during this challenge. I also considered Dirk Pitt, but I already used his series, too. I just finished a book with a pretty cool male character, but I want to save that book for a later date. Choices, choices. But, I finally had to decide, so I did. And the winner is ...

 

Image via Listal

Sir William Stafford, from The Other Boleyn Girl. This is kind of a weak choice, I admit, because although he is a main character, he isn't super present in the book. I do remember silently cheering for him throughout the whole book though, and he's a stable source of support for Mary. So there, I had to pick, and I did!

P.S. - When I was looking for a picture of William Stafford, I noticed he was played by Eddie Redmayne in the 2008 movie. Why does that name sound familiar? Because he's playing Marius in the upcoming Les Miserables movie! Eek! (The casting choices for which I've already blogged about twice - once last month and again yesterday, oddly enough.)

Help me out here - who is your favorite male character from a novel? What obvious characters am I blanking on?

Update: Les Miserables casting choices.

Remember last month when I went on a bit of a rampage about the Les Miserables casting? (It turned out to be my most-read post of January, actually. Lots of other Les Mis fans out there, I presume?) Well, one of my gripes was that Taylor Swift was rumored to be under consideration for the role of Eponine. Today, I discovered that's no longer the case! Instead, Samantha Barks - who played Eponine in a West End production of Les Mis for a year - has been cast. Now here's an Eponine I can get behind. Can't wait for the movie!

And in case you needed more proof:

Oh, and did I mention how adorable she is? Just check out her reaction when she found out she had landed the part - while onstage for another production. Plus, she's already brunette!

30-Day Book Challenge: Day 11

Day 11 – A book I hated

Image via Goodreads

Atonement. I'm one of those people who refuses to see any book-turned-movie if I haven't read the book yet (and am planning to do so). However, I broke this rule with Atonement and severely regretted it. I went to see the movie with my mom's book club (who had just finished reading the novel by Ian McEwan). It was very depressing, of course, but I still liked the movie. The book, which I read a few months later, was a completely different story. First of all, I already knew I hated Briony, so it was difficult for me to read pages and pages about her childhood activities, including a particularly long diatribe on her watching her pinky finger bend and examining the knuckle and thinking about how it all worked. (Yawn.) This tedious writing style, coupled with the decent length of the book (480 pages), made Atonement very sluggish reading. But mostly (SPOILER ALERT) I didn't really want to keep reading when I knew everyone would just die unhappily in the end anyway. I did force myself to finish it and I was not rewarded. Ho-hum.

Things that make me go "hmm."

Source: 1.bp.blogspot.com via Amanda B. on Pinterest

Have I mentioned all the awesome things about my internship yet? No? Well, I can't decide what the best part is, so I'll let you decide. Is it:

A) The fact that "business casual" actually means "jeans,"
B) Having my own office ... with a window!

or

C) Getting to troll the Internet all day for cool/interesting/weird stuff?

While you ponder that, I'm going to elaborate on option (C) a little bit. My first job every day when I get to work is to find interesting stories for our "News From the Field" column, which consists of four to five briefs every morning linking up to other news stories around the web. (See some examples of the briefs I've written so far here, here and here.) Unfortunately, a lot of the cool stuff I find doesn't really fit in with the theme of Outside magazine. Fortunately, I can still share it with you here, on my blog! From now on, every Saturday will feature a post with my favorite links from around the web. Get excited!

By the Numbers: 2011

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions, normally. I figure if I want to do something, I'll set a goal and do it; I don't need it to be January 1st to feel motivated. However, reading all my lovely fellow bloggers New Year's Resolutions posts has gotten me in the mood to set a few goals for myself. Before I do that, though, I think it's important to see what I've accomplished in the past year. So here's a rundown of 2011, by the numbers.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

A few months ago, I accidentally stumbled upon an IMDB listing for a 2012 version of Les Miserables. The only cast members listed at the time were Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean (how amazing is that?!), Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert (once again - amazing!) and Anne Hathaway as Fantine (I like Anne, but I guess I always pictured Fantine as older ... and blonde). This discovery might seem trivial to the average movie-watcher, but I absolutely love Les Miserables.

I literally grew up with the story and soundtrack of Les Miserables. I even got to see the play on stage when I very young; I still vividly remember the scene where Eponine crawls over the barricade to Marius, her chest drenched in the brilliant red of fake blood. The day before my family moved to California, we played "One Day More" on repeat throughout the whole house. This was when I was 7 years old, and I knew (know!) every word. When I was 11, I read the book by Victor Hugo for a class reading assignment. (Man, were those war chapters dense. But I still have my own copy!) Even today, "I Dreamed a Dream," "Who Am I?" and "At the End of the Day" are go-to songs on my iPod when I'm on a long car ride and need to sing something to stay awake. 

After my initial discovery about the new film, I regularly checked IMDB for updates. After all, if this movie really was (is?) coming out in 2012, how could they not have a full cast listing yet? Emma Watson was later listed as "rumored" to play Cosette (which was super exciting for me!) and Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen (rumored) were listed to play the Thenardiers. (Madame Thenardier is kind of the Bellatrix Lestrange of Les Mis for me, so that's just perfect!)

Since then, Emma Watson has (unfortunately) been replaced with Amanda Seyfried for the role of Cosette. What?! I'm very disappointed by this. It's not that I was totally set on Emma playing Cosette (I don't know anything about her voice), but there is just something about Amanda Seyfried that rubs me the wrong way. In the same article where I read Amanda would be playing Cosette, I read Taylor Swift might be playing Eponine. What?!?! On My Own? A Little Fall of Rain? How can Taylor sing these as they deserve to be sung?! Plus, isn't Eponine brunette? I guess Taylor can dye her hair for the role, but we all know what she really looks like.

Sorry for my little venting session. I am definitely still stoked to see the movie (opening night, no doubt), but I'm a little disappointed with some of the casting thus far. After listening to the soundtrack for two decades, I have a certain image in my mind, and this just isn't living up to that.

P.S. - The title of this post has been one of my favorite quotes for as long as I can remember. It's currently listed under my quotes on Facebook, but I also remember having it featured on my MySpace profile. Imagine how long ago that was. The quote is, of course, from one of the many wonderful songs in Les Miserables!

Are you familiar with the story of Les Miserables? What do you think about the casting choices?

May the odds be ever in your favor.

I've been meaning to write a review of The Hunger Games for a while now, but this week seems especially perfect. I finished the third book of the trilogy, Mockingjay, on Tuesday, and it also happens to be Banned Book Week. In some places, The Hunger Games trilogy has been banned for these reasons:

"sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group"

Source: google.com.ph via Tippi on Pinterest

Well, after reading all of them, I don't see how they are sexually explicit. Unless of course, kissing at the age of 16 is considered sexually explicit, but I don't really see that holding up against some of the other "young adult" books that are published today. As for violence, I can understand. When my friend first told me they were banned for violence, this particular line from Mockingjay came to mind:

"Weapons fall from their hands, fingers clutch their faces, as blood sprays from all visible orifices - eyes, noses, mouths, ears.... I grit my teeth and run, leaping over the bodies, feet slipping in the gore." Mmm, yummy.

In light of passages such as that, I can see why some people might think the books are "unsuited to age group." After all, when I encourage my peers to take time out of their busy college schedules to read the series, I always tell them: "It's a really fast read. I read the first book in two days during recruitment! [And if they're Greek, they understand how impossible it is to do anything except recruitment during recruitment.] Think Twilight, but better. Much better." I only compare The Hunger Games to Twilight because they are both written at a very low reading level but enjoyed by an older age group. It is there that the differences end.

You are more than you have become.

Last night, I saw The Lion King in 3D. I went with four of my female classmates, and we were all amused to notice every person in the theater seemed to be at least 18 years old.

Source: google.com via Danielle on Pinterest

Watching the classic Disney film as a 21-year-old university student was an eye-opening experience. I hold The Lion King close to my heart, as my sorority's mascot is a lion. In fact, it's a running joke among my close sisters that I like to quote inspirational sayings from the movie in my everyday life. My personal favorite is from a leadership conference I attended with Alpha Delta Pi in the summer of 2010. During one workshop, we watched the scene where Simba sees his dad's image in the stars. Mufasa tells his grown-up son (in his deep, oh-so-sexy cartoon voice):

"Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become." (Hence my post title.)

So of course, when we discovered the movie was being re-released in 3D, we had to go. I'm proud to say that I contained myself quite well (unlike my embarrassing Harry Potter episode). I stayed dry-eyed through Mufasa's death and Simba's discovery of his body, even when Simba tugged on Mufasa's ear to wake him up. My willpower ran out, however, when Simba began crying and running across the gorge, begging for help from "somebody ... anybody!" Then I cried.

Source: google.de via A on Pinterest

Nine movies in 24 hours.

Saturday/Sunday, July 23/24

At the Amboseli airport, waiting for the flight back to Nairobi.

Finally, after 23 unforgettable days in Africa, it was time to return home to the U.S. It would take me 24 hours and 15 minutes, including a 16-hour flight over the North Pole. Actually, if you want to count from the time we left Amboseli, it took 38 hours and 45 minutes - plus the two-hour drive from San Francisco to my home. That's right, we had a 14-hour layover in Nairobi, which we spent at a little cafe at the airport because we really didn't have anywhere to go in the city. I did get to try Pineapple Fanta, however. That was exciting.

 

I have now tried Citron, Fiesta, Apple, Pineapple, Orange

and Strawberry Fanta. It's kind of a game for me now.

Mom was flying straight to Switzerland for work, so we parted ways in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. I had a semi-quick layover in Dubai, which gave me the following impressions: Shiny! Western. Unbelievably hot. I felt like I was in a kiln the moment I stepped onto the jetway, despite the fact it was 4:50 in the morning. In the airport, I saw a familiar green straw, so I wandered about the terminal for a few minutes and - sure enough! - there was a Starbucks in the airport. I didn't get in line, though, because I didn't know if they would accept my gift card.

Accio that box of tissues.

Spoiler Alert: This post contains details from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Photo via Pinterest.

So, I know I'm not finished with my Africa posts yet, but I finally saw the final Harry Potter film last night, and I just have to post now while it's still fresh in my mind.

Yes, I am a Harry Potter nerd. Not the kind who had exorbitant amounts of Harry Potter paraphernalia or who actually expected to receive a Hogwarts letter on my 11th birthday (I was always painfully practical, even as a child), but I literally grew up with Harry Potter and all his adventures.

My mom somehow found the book back when it was first released in the U.S. and brought it home for my brother and me from an airport. I remember us reading the back of the book and thinking: "Gee, Mom, a book about a wizard boy. How awesome." Little did we know then what this book would lead to....

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first book my mom ever read aloud to my brother. As he got older, we would take turns on who got read the newest book first, racing through it in two or three days so the other person could read it and we could discuss together. As we got even older, my brother realized I was the faster reader, so I always got to read them first. Yay for me!

We also saw all the movies together, even if that meant sacrificing the opening weekend experience. Two years ago, I used my day off from my summer job to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with him in Berkeley. Last year, we both waited until Thanksgiving break (a painful five days) to see the first installment of the Deathly Hallows.

That is, until this year. As you know, I was in Rwanda on July 15, and I was pretty torn up about it.

And my brother said he wouldn't wait me for me ... not this time.

So my roommates and I spent one afternoon watching YouTube videos of Harry Potter parodies, even though they each took about an hour to load. Here's my favorite (and I must credit the title of my post to this song):

My one (major) beef with this video: I'm sure "remember 2001" sounded better than "remember 1997," but that's when we found out he was The Chosen One. (Or actually 1998, here in the U.S.) Gah.

And finally, after all this ridiculousness (embarrassing example: While in Kenya, I was telling my mom about my mixed feelings about seeing the last Harry Potter movie, and I quoted the Half-Blood Prince when Hermione asks Harry how it feels when he sees Ginny with Dean, and he says "It feels like this, Hermione; it feels like this," and I legit started to tear up just thinking about it! My mom thought I was crazy....), I went to see the movie Monday night with my little brother and one of his good friends, Riley.

They had already seen it together at the midnight premiere, but Riley brought along her Harry Potter glasses for me to wear and Michael got some popcorn for us. And then it began. I was so excited tweeting about it that I missed The Dark Knight Rises trailer, which was apparently really exciting. One guy even came in just to see the trailer and then left right away. Hmm...

I held it together pretty well for the first half of the movie. But then Neville led Harry through the secret passageway into the Room of Requirement, and I was overcome with emotion. My brother gave me a weird look, as nothing sad had happened, and I looked at him through my tears and squeaked, "I'm just so happy!" (Cue Michael's "my sister's a freak" face.) It was all downhill from there. The look on Ginny's face when she saw Harry had returned to Hogwarts = tears. Professor McGonagall "protecting" Harry from Snape in the Great Hall = tears. Snape's memories in the Pensieve = lots and lots of tears (definitely the most emotional part of the movie, for me). And then, leaving the theater and realizing it's really the end of Harry Potter = more tears (to the utter embarrassment of Michael and Riley, of course).

I remember racing through the seventh book as usual back in high school but slowing down when I got to the last few pages because I knew it would soon all be over. At least then, I still had the movies to look forward to. Now I have nothing.

But I am so grateful my mom found the Sorceror's Stone before the American media kicked in and children everywhere became obsessed with the story. I was one of those obnoxious children who wanted to conform to the non-conformists, and I know if I hadn't read the first book before the franchise became popular, I never would have developed such an appreciation for it. Example: I refused to read Twilight for years on principle because I was sick of hearing everyone talk about how great it was. (I finally read them all. They're not that great.) So thank you, J.K. Rowling, for being such a large part of my childhood and now my young adulthood. Hogwarts will always be my home!