Mural
~Miseries-Hollow and I started working on an astronomy mural this month, in honor of our astronomy teacher. He works for NASA, and his class has won a shit ton of awards, so he deserves it~ I came up with the idea, and October - having taken the class a year before me, and therefore blessed with more knowledge on the subject - made the design. So yeah, basically it's October's mural, BUT I CAME UP WITH IT ;; Yeah no, she deserves more credit for it all than I do XD We've been getting help from a bunch of our friends, including ~Myzoxoa, =Cicilicious, and several others who don't have dA accounts. I'll probably be posting pictures of it all when it's finished, but if you're curious as to what the base sketch looks like, you can go check out a video we made here.

Robots, Zombies, Food
I saw three movies this month: Surrogates, Zombieland, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I shall now review them, because I'm totally qualified as a movie critic. NO SPOILERS.

Surrogates
Pretty good movie. Not one of Bruce Willis's best, but pretty decent. I think that the concept was a lot fuller and more thought out than the plot itself. They could have taken it way farther than they did, but that's not to say the movie was a complete waste of time. It actually is sort of reflective of human nature, in a similar way that Wall-E and District 9 were (so, of course, I liked it XD ) My only real qualm with the movie is that it sort of just... ended. There was a tiny wrap up, but it seemed to me like the director/producer went "oh shit, we have about 10 minutes worth of film we still have to stick in, but we have no room for it! Uuuuuu Duuuuuh... Okay, let's come up with a really quick ending that can wrap stuff up right now, even if it sucks!"

Zombieland
Seriously, this was the BEST zombie movie I have EVER. SEEN. It was so completely fantastic! I don't even know how to describe how magnificent it was. The characters were amazing; so well thought out and developed, so three-dimensional and COMPLETELY un-flat. I loved them all. Some people I know are concerned that the movie is just another Shawn of the Dead ripoff, but it's actually quite different. While Shawn of the Dead is blatantly trying to make fun of zombie movies in general, Zombieland's humor is derived straight from the situation itself; therefore, it's a serious, real zombie movie that just happens to be funny as fuck. Just be warned of two things: It's extremely gorey (not that I care), and there are a couple scenes with clowns that will surely send a Coulrophobic running to the bathroom to wash the pee out of his/her clothes.

... Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns, btw, in case no one got that. >>;;

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
I'm sort of disappointing with this one. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was my favorite childhood story, and I still hold it close to my heart. When I saw the previews for the movie, I was actually quite happy with the twist they were putting on the story to make it more movie-compatible. After all, a down-on-his-luck scientist with a talking monkey is more fun to watch than a grandpa just sitting around telling his kids about the mythical land of Chew and Swallow. Mostly, the problems I found were derived from two things: the animation and the jokes. As the movie progresses, and food starts to rain down, you look around the screen and go "WOW! That animation is SO REALISTIC!" and then you look at Flint and Sam, and all the other characters, and wonder what the fuck happened; they're so cartoony, it doesn't seem to fit. The humor was, in places, very slapstick. I hate slapstick. I think the world would be a better place if people didn't intentionally create a humor based around people getting hurt (or in Flint's case, kicked in the eyeballs >> sorry, October). Some of the dialogue was HILARIOUS ("Oh my god, I am so sorry, are you okay?" "It's okay, its just... pain. >>" ), but there were some jokes that were SO ridiculously over-used that it sort of ruined parts of it for me. That, and some jokes just shouldn't have been there to begin with (Chicken Brent, anyone? >> ). I think it's a great movie for kids, but I also think the director failed the nostalgia-based audience.

Philadelphia
I went on a trip to Philadelphia with my AP Government class on the 14th. It was pretty fun, though I must say that the best parts were the parts that had little or nothing to do with history or government at all, like the Ride the Ducks Tour XD But that's okay. There was one thing, though, that had to do with current events that I was really impressed with; it's a play called "The Living News", and it is absolutely FANTASTIC. It touches on a bunch of current issues through different characters (all played by the same 3 actors), and the script represents each side of each issue equally. That was nice, because a couple of the things they touched on were a rather sensitive topic for me (Same Sex Marriage [which I'm for {obviously, since I'm bi}]), and I wouldn't have been happy at all if they had only taken one side of the issue and not the other. I actually really appreciated the way that they portrayed both my side of the argument and the opposing side of the argument, on all issues. Not to mention, they were FANTASTIC actors. If you ever go to the Constitution Center in Philly, go check them out, seriously.

Oh yeah, I'll probably be posting a video of my journey in Philly on PlumsDeify, though that's going to have to wait AT LEAST another week; I have to study for my SAT, and that is sort of taking over my life at the moment >>

Flu
Yeah, I got the flu last week. Seriously, exactly one week ago, I was lying on a couch wrapped in 3 layers of clothes and a thick blanket, shivering and aching all over. Didn't go back to school until Wednesday (and the week still felt long). Most of my friends ended up getting sick, too. We had a Pep Rally the Friday before last, which required the entire school to be shoved into a gym with about 2 inches between everyone (if that). We were all breathing the same air, screaming, and touching a shit ton of people, so by the time Monday rolled around, a good chunk of the school was sick. Seriously. On Tuesday, 550 people were absent, just from the flu; that's not even counting the people who were out for other reasons or skipping. The next day, there were around 600 people absent, and I have friends who are still feeling the effects of it all. ~Miseries-Hollow couldn't come trick-or-treating with our group of friends yesterday because she was still sick :c *huggles* I shall bring her candy.

But I'm fine now. Took me a few days to get over it all, but it wasn't too bad overall. It let me get some homework done that I wouldn't have gotten finished if I hadn't stayed home XD

Halloween
October, I know how bummed you are that you couldn't come, so I won't be offended if you don't read this part XD;;

This was the best Halloween of my entire life. Seriously, it was SO FUN. I sat around all day working on my costume (cutting fabric, making fake blood, splattering fabric with fake blood, burning holes in fabric, matting/tangling my hair, doing my make-up). I went as a zombie this year, you see, and it was probably the most intricate, most time-consuming, most scary, and most AWESOME costume I've ever worn. I looked bad-freakin'-ass. At the moment, I don't have pictures (it was raining, and I didn't want to pull my camera out), but ~Myzoxoa's mom does, and I'm going to try to obtain those from her so you all can see.

Edit: PICTURES!