--Answers--
No.
Yes.

I wanted to blog yesterday night, only I was still on Cold Mountain, which means yakyakyak about Jude Law and beautiful North Carolina and murderous roosters and bad scripts, which of course would not be the point of the post. THEN I decided to blog this morning but the alarm didn't go off and I had to run to school frantically to be in school by 8 'o' clock (why the hell should anyone be in school at 8am on Saturdays). The bloody clarinet section had decided to have sectionals squarely outside the ITRR door. The ensemble is beginning to sound very good. Gaspar was there, and P was not, so of course everything went nice and smoothly.
"Essays make people hermits." Discuss. After the SEA history essay and outlines, sea of Tarling and Hall and SarDesai, I crawled out of my self-constructed concentration cave and blinked blindly. Is that all we are supposed to learn then, burying ourselves in printouts and readings, thinking hard and intellectually and ruining our eyes? Here I am thinking like a good Economist. ("In the long run, we're all dead.") Incidentally, I do them anyway.
I got my braces off. I don't think I look different. Oh, yes, here's what's different. I'm anxious I'll swallow my retainer. The pink plastic fills up half my mouth. I keep smiling at the mirror, as if expecting a new face to loom out a la facelift. Only it's still me, looking less like a rabbit. I think. My sister just told me about her friend who got asked out by a guy she only knew extremely briefly through CCA. She said, "No, I barely know you." Said he was weird. (And not good-looking. ) Where's the movie magic then? Not everyone can look like Jude Law.
Cold Mountain is
a) too long
b) awkwardly (but not badly) casted
c) an insult to said actor's acting abilities, but if anyone else played Inman the audience would be comatose, so therein lies the rub
d) a movie with an exceedingly sluggish beginning
e) extremely disorganized.
However,
e) It has heart and GASP a sparkle of originality in the love story thingie. Why didn't Ada run for medical help when she saw Inman was shot? Why did she collapse on the poor fellow and cry through her atrocious accent? Ruby managed to save her father because she was sensible.
f) the Natalie Portman story is beautiful.
g) Renee Zwelleger is a riot. However, I still see her mincing around in that silver dress Roxie-ish.
h) That blonde guy who shot Inman in the end. Shiver. Scary.
Happy V-day everyone, when I'm thinking about changing the world again, while doing my homework.