Why Europe? This is why. :)

So, I think I might be going to Europe next spring/summer. Money still needs to be saved, and tickets bought, and hotels reserved, and all that good stuff, but still. Oh, and I need to renew my passport. That'll be important to. But the point is, I'm going. I may be going. I'm probably going.

Maybe I'll come back.

I'm kidding. Of course I'll (probably) come back. My life is (sort of) here. I mean, this place is (kind of) my home, you know? How could I ever (seriously) consider leaving?

Maybe because Europe has THESE BOYS!!

I think I'm in love. No. I KNOW I'm in love. I've been casually listening to them for months now, but never bought their album. I wanted to go to their show in NYC, but BOTH shows were SOLD OUT and I couldn't get a ticket :( I know! Anyway, so since my missed opportunity (more than you know. Like, for real. Let's just say someone I know had a REALLY good time at the show. And after. TOTALLY JEALOUS!), I've been scouring YouTube for their music. And when Borders bestowed upon me a 50% off coupon today, I used it to actually buy their CD. I've been listening to it since about 4pm when I got home from the mall. It's now just before 9pm. That's right. 5 straight hours of this. It's THAT great.

Here is a little sample. It's called "Little Lion Man." Seriously love this song. I think I've listened to it about 100 times in the past, like, 5 days. Amazing. Mumford & Sons rock my socks :)

A Change of Scenery, Or How I'll End Up Living in Europe Before I Realize What's Happened

Lately I've been overcome with the urgent need to run away. Not just running away and never looking back. More like strategic disappearing. All my important contacts would know where to find me and how to contact me, but life as I know it in New Jersey would be gone, a thing of the past. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm in almost desperate need of a change of scenery. This isn't the first time this has happened.

I suppose the first time this happened, I was 18 years old. I was graduating high school soon, and I was tasked with choosing myself a college. Six years later, I realize I made the horrible mistake of applying to only one school (albeit, I did agonize over which schools to apply to, and instead of casting a wide net -- which would have been BETTER -- I went for only a select few. And ultimately only one). I got accepted, and was even given scholarship money. And the kicker? It was in New Jersey, a cool 600 miles away from home in North Carolina. In New Jersey I would never again have to see anyone from high school if I didn't want to. In New Jersey, I could reinvent myself, become my own person, find my own way. In New Jersey, I'd be close to New York City, the city of my dreams, the city that would offer me everything I ever wanted, the city that would probably chew me up, spit me out, but enjoy the taste so much, it'd invite me back in and we'd have a laugh. New Jersey was the answer to everything.

I realize now how naive I was. It's true I haven't seen people from high school unless I want to, and I suppose I have reinvented myself in a way. I'm a bit more outgoing, loud, opinionated -- typical NY/NJ area (I've even picked up a bit of an accent *groan*). I guess it's also true that I've become my own person, and I've kind of found my own way. I have a job and an apartment, and don't live with my parents. That all is true. It's the rest of it, the promises this all implied that's lacking and leaving me feeling unfulfilled. I suppose I should have realized that it wouldn't be easy, but I haven't just sat back and waited for it all to happen to me. I've tried; I've worked hard; I've put myself out there. Maybe it's the bad economy, or maybe I'm just a victim of bad timing. Or maybe what I've been looking for isn't here.

That's where the running away comes in. For months now, I've been longing to escape somewhere, to go on a prolonged vacation. Preferably somewhere I've never been before. I never got the opportunity to travel abroad for a year or so after college, just sowing my wild oats before I settled down and got a job. I searched for months after graduation for a job, finally landing one 4 months later. I've been at that job ever since. My 2-year anniversary just passed, actually, and I'm exhausted. I am so tired. Or maybe I'm just bored. I need to see something new. I need to do something new. I want to live somewhere new. Jag vill flytta till Sverige. Ich will nach Deutschland verlagern. I want to move to England.

If you're not careful, I might start looking for jobs in one of those places. That'd be a helluva change. Great, now I'm giving myself ideas...

Drag Queens and Vampire Diaries

I think I have a new favorite channel: LOGO. It's a GLBT channel that seems to constantly play episodes of RuPaul's Drag U or old reruns of Buffy. There are also occasionally movies, and other shows, but these are the two shows that seem to be on whenever I turn to the channel. Not that I'm complaining! have you ever watched Drag U?! It is hilarious. I love drag queens so much. And it's a nice little feel-good show too. I found my favorite queen from the show on Twitter, and she told me she loved me. It totally made my day, haha. Anyway, if you have the channel, I totally suggest that you watch it. It's really entertaining, and kind of addictive.

Anyway, besides watching hours of Drag U, I've also been furiously working to get my tiny blog dedicated to the CW show The Vampire Diaries off the ground. My friend and I started it in June, but didn't do much with it, and with Season 2 starting TOMORROW, we figured we should probably make use of it. So, for the past few weeks, we've been working our asses off to create content -- recaps, wishlists. We even produced a VDBingo game. It's like regular bingo, but with a Vampire Diaries twist! If you're a fan of the show, you should definitely go read some of the stuff on there. It's a snarky good time :) www.salvatoreboardinghouse.wordpress.com.

Besides that, not a lot has been going on since I posted a few weeks ago. I originally signed in here to make a more angsty post, but decided against it. It wasn't going to be like the past few that I've posted. It was going to be on an entirely different topic. In fact, I'm not sure if I've written about that topic here before ever. Maybe I'll give it a go tomorrow, or at least soon. I have a sinking feeling it might be plaguing me for a while. It's already been over a month. Sorry to be vague and annoying, haha. But I don't really want to get into it right here right now. Maybe/probably later.

Until then... watch and read! :)

Wow, I'm kind of a downer...

So... I'm quite the Debbie Downer, eh? Haha. I knew how depressing those last few posts sounded while I was posting them, but I can't even reread them right now because they were so bad/difficult to stomach. I suppose I'm still partially there, though I think I've gotten used to it, so I'm not as whiny (hahahaha right). I haven't even posted since late July because I couldn't bring myself to dwell on the same tired subject again. So I will try not too... for now...

Not a lot has happened, really. I'm still debating the things I talked about last post... new jobs and all, but I'm not sure what I would do, or even when. Like I've said many times before, I would love to live in Charlotte, but I suppose that would depend on what jobs I could find. I'm not even sure if I still know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm not sure when this "growing up" is going to take place, unfortunately. In a little more than 2 months, I'll be able to rent a car. Will it happen then? I don't know.

The other option that I've been toying with since I was still in college getting my Bachelor's was going to grad school. Okay, so I go to grad school. Next question: what the heck do I study?! I tried to figure this out, but I've only ever come up with one thing that would pique my interest: creative writing. It would be something that I'd be interested in studying, and I could always teach with a degree like that, not to mention become better equipped to pen the elusive Great American Novel. Either way, it'd be something new for me to do, in the process of (hopefully) bettering myself and my station.

So, back when I first thought of this idea, I started doing some research on schools. UGA was supposed to have a pretty good program. My friend was also thinking of going this route through Hunter College in NYC. That one sounded pretty good (especially considering the dissertation was just a novel -- whether or not you ever finished it!). But I never really got any further than just debating programs. I would consider it off and on over the years, but last week I really started considering it again. I researched a few more schools: Columbia University, NYU, and The New School. I couldn't actually find the program on the Columbia website during my quickie search (talk about elite!), so I don't really know anything about it except that James Franco is currently enrolled (♥♥♥). NYU, while very enticing, is expensive as balls. Seriously, more money than I paid per year for undergrad! The New School program sounded pretty good actually. Lots of workshops, seminars, stuff of that nature. And the dissertation is something like 100 pages of a novel (EASY!), and a 20 page research paper on some topic related to your field of study, which in my case would be fiction. EASY! That sounds awesome to me! Aaaaand, it's only like $11k-ish for a 24-credit year.

The problem with that (and not to sound like a snob) is that I don't know if I would be happy with an MFA from The New School. That makes me feel horrible. It's an accredited institution, and it's been around for like 80 years. But I guess I just envisioned myself going someone a bit more prestigious. I think I have too high expectations. Because, really, there is NOTHING WRONG with The New School. I've actually considered going to the New School before (though I can't remember now for what). And, really, when I think about it, it wouldn't be so bad... I think the issue is that I'm trying to talk myself out of going, period. I don't have the money to pay out of pocket, and just thinking about filling out a FAFSA, or applying to financial aid gives me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. Ugh. The learning, the school work, the commuting I can do. But when it comes to financial issues, I chicken out. I actually said to myself "Ah, you can just learn from experience!" Wow, way to be a downer, me.

So here I am. Still working, not matriculating, and still trying to figure out what I want to do "when I grow up." *Sigh* This is my quarter-life crisis, I guess.

I Wish I Had a GPS For My Life

I had kind of forgotten that I wrote all that last time. It wasn't so much that I had forgotten that I had written it as much as I had forgotten that I had had all those thoughts just days before I had them all over again, in a much weakened state.

Let me explain: last week was awful. Well, the beginning of the week was awful. It was a low point in my impending quarter-life crisis. Monday was such a crap day, that I decided about halfway through the work day that I was going to go home and search for jobs in Charlotte. Fuck it. I'd had enough. I thought about it for the rest of the day; it was sort of my driving force to get through the rest of the day. I thought about it a bit when I actually got home, but I was so drained from being enraged for most of the day, that I never looked. Still haven't.

Then, on Wednesday, I went into the City to see Chuck Klosterman do a book talk on Eating the Dinosaur. It was really good, really funny. He's such a great and entertaining writer. He simultaneously makes me feel smart and dumb when I read this stuff, and he makes me want to be a better (and paid) writer. His writing inspires me, and I remember that more strongly whenever I spend a particularly long time with his writing, and even more so when I hear him speak (2 times, now). As I was sitting on the train going into the city, I realized that if I were to move to Charlotte, I wouldn't be able to do this anymore. I wouldn't be able to, on a whim, go roam the city, or go to spectacular events, or see famous people out on the street, or almost bump into them getting on the subway. It's the little things, you know? These little insignificant things that make me happy, that make me feel validated, at least the tiniest fraction of a bit. There are other things in Charlotte, namely people who are important to me, that are calling me, but it would just be so much better if they all lived here with me, haha. I realize how selfish that sounds, but I'm completely serious. They should just all move here. We'd have so much fun (and get in so much trouble).

But they're not here, and they're not moving here, and again I'm torn. I'm not happy here; that much is clear to me. But I 1) lack the money to move into the city, and 2) lack the job opportunities to try to make a location change right now. Being complacent is so much easier than taking action. Especially when I can't figure out which action would be best, which I deep down want the most. I realized yesterday that I may be able to continue my job from a remote location (i.e., Charlotte), but I don't know if it would remain full-time, or turn into a freelance situation with sporadic work. That wouldn't be good. So still, I'm stagnant. And it's driving me insane.

I'm 24 years old, I'm only able to bank about 1/8th of my salary each month, and I'm drowning. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm lost. Someone come find me, please.

Welcome to Starbucks. May I Interest You in a Venti Soy Caramel I'm-Not-Getting-Any-Younger-uccino?

Is it weird that for a second there, I just considered quitting my job and working at Starbucks? Like, for a second, I actually thought that making snotty professional types their half-caf soy mocha lattes or whatever could be inspiring. It could definitely afford me some much needed free time, don't you think?

But it's bad that I thought this, right? Like, it would be a serious pay cut. I already feel like I make on the low-end for what I do. I seriously need to be paid more for the amount of work that I do. Maybe I'm in the wrong industry. Maybe I should have gone to school to be a psychologist like I had thought about while I was in high school. For a while there, I really wanted to be an FBI profiler. No joke. I was all into it. But then journalism caught my heart, and against the advice of my parents, I went for it. Now I have a degree that was awesome to study, but is essentially useless to me since I don't even work in the journalism field. I hate newspapers. Hate them with a passion. Magazines are better, but hard as shit to get a job at if you're not freelancing, which I don't know if that's something I want to do right now. There's definitely the money in psychology, but I think I might enjoy reading/watching suspense crime dramas more than actually living them. I don't want a high risk job.

I don't know what to do with my life. I'm at a standstill. I think I mentioned this yesterday. I hate Jersey so much. I want out of this armpit. But if I go anywhere but into NYC, I'm going to miss it too much. I so badly want to move back to Charlotte, but, as much as I love it, that city is beans compared to NYC. It's THE CITY. You can't find a better city than that. It's true that I don't go in there often, but what would I do if I didn't have it in my life? It's like a weird addiction. A lover on retainer. I don't need it all the time, but it's nice to know that it's there when I do. When I need to escape into it. When I need to experience something new and exciting. How could I possibly part with it?

I'm sorry this is rambley, and disjointed, and possibly hard to follow. Welcome to my brain. I just wish I knew what I was doing with my life. I want to do something new, I want to get out of here, but I don't want to limit myself and dash my dreams by moving back to a relatively smaller metropolis. I don't even know what my dreams are.

I think I'm on the verge of a quarter-life crisis here.

Not Enough Hours In The Day

Okay, so that writing I mentioned I was going to do while everyone was at work last post? Yeah, that didn't happen. I got distracted with an online game called Bloons. What the hell is wrong with me? My cousin was also there, trying to write lyrics... but I got him addicted to Bloons too! We suck at staving off procrastination, haha.

Anywho, I'm back in New Jersey now, having not written anything in like a week. I really need to get on that. I have so many side projects going on right now, it's hard to find the time, though. I think maybe my job isn't stimulating for me in the way that it needs to be in order for me to feel fulfilled. Instead, I have to put in 100% effort just to stay on task, which doesn't always happen. I take breaks, I get off task, but I still manage to finish my work. I'm just not that passionate about it. So I have to use my time after 5 to work on my side projects for which I have FAR more passion. These projects include, but are not necessarily limited to: reading, writing, reviewing, blogging, watching movies, catching up on TV shows, etc. Unforunately, there aren't enough hours in the day to engage in all of these activities in a given evening, so I have to pick and choose. Which leaves me WAY less than satisfied most of the time.

Which is why I usually only sleep 5 or 6 hours a night. I'm trying to suck every last second that I can out of that day, just so I can do something that I enjoy. Is that so much to ask? To be allowed to do something that enables me to escape a little bit from my sad, pathetic life? Tonight, I think I'm going to try to write. Not fiction, but an essay of sorts for a blog that my friend and I are trying to start. It hasn't been updated in almost a month, and we need new material. We have a bunch of ideas floating around, but nothing has been written. I guess you could call it a fangirl site, of sorts. It's a little dorky, but we love it. It's all about the CW (I know, I know) show The Vampire Diaries. You can read our 2 posts (haha *sigh*) here: The Salvatore Boarding House. We figure since it's the summer, we can be a bit slack, but once the season starts, we're going to try to update more regularly. If you decide to visit, I hope you enjoy.

Once I'm done with that, maybe I'll try working more on my 2009 NaNo, which I have tentatively titled "It's Not Too Late." We'll see. Or maybe I'll read. Or something else. I don't know. I need a job where I can get paid to do a hobby. That would be sweet. Until then, I have to content myself with staying up until 2 a.m. to allow my brain some sort of creative outlet...

NaNo 2009 Rewriting Update

So, I decided to try what I was talking about last post. I've put aside the one story I've been working on fairly steadily for over a year, to rework my NaNo from 2009. For the most part I've kept most of what was written for the girl. I decided to keep her POV solely as written in her online blog, as before. But with the guy, I've pretty much rewritten that. Now, instead of only hearing what he's saying to the dog or around the dog, it's just standard first person POV. I've tried to keep the stream of consciousness to a minimum, focusing more on actions and what other people say, but I sneak some thoughts in there, too. So far, I think it's working. I've reworked something like 14 scenes, and it's flowing fairly easily. I'm pretty excited about that, actually. I'm still trying to figure out if it will be possible to pull off the original concept. I veered so far away from it in my original version, I'm not really sure how to pull it back. I'm trying though. I'll report back... :)

In other news, I flew to Florida late last night for a bit of visiting with the family. It's just as hot here as it was in New Jersey with that freaking heat wave. It's actually a little cooler here than it has been there, but apparently the temperature dropped like 15 degrees up there, so now it's cooler there than here. I can't win. Sheesh, haha.

Okay, while everyone is at work, I think I'm going to try a bit of writing before the house fills up again, and I get distracted...

Until then!

Writer's Block, Part 65

It has been entirely too long since I've written anything original. I was going strong for a while there, about a month ago, even managing to write 13 pages in like 5 hours one day. I don't think I've written anything since. It's totally bumming me out. I know all I have to do is just, oh I don't know, do it, haha. I just need to find the motivation.

See, the issue I'm having right now is that I've hit a slump in the story that I've been working on for a really long time now. I have a general idea of where I'm going, but I don't really have it mapped out scene-by-scene. I know everyone has their own style and writing process, but I'm starting to wonder if my method just isn't working for me anymore. I tend to meander my way through the plot, usually ending up somewhere totally off-track from where I intended. That's fine and all; it's part of the creative process, the journey. It happens. But sometimes I get so far off course, I have to back-track and rewrite. That already happened once. I'm now on the second version of this story. And the wall I've hit now is making me think I have to back the truck up again and rework some things. That's not a bad idea. Like I said, I understand that that's the writing process, but I'm losing steam. It's just frustrating in a totally trivial way. *Sigh*

So, I've been considering laying that one aside for the time, to stew a bit, and moving on to another piece I started last year for NaNoWriMo. I managed to make it to 50k words in November of last year, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with how it turned out. It wasn't even finished. I just sort of stopped because, once again, I had hit a wall. I love the characters; I fell in love with them immediately. And I like their situation, but I think my issue is with the way the narrative is told. The girl's point of view is told completely from her entries in an online diary that she keeps. The guy's point of view is told entirely through conversations he has with his dog (he's not crazy; the dog doesn't talk back. It's more of a therapeutic thing, haha). I really love that concept, but I haven't quite figured it out enough so that it works really well. The blog part works alright, but the dog part reads kind of funny sometimes. It doesn't really work. I think it might work better if I also had a 3rd person omniscient view point, but I don't really want that. The point was originally to tell the story through these people in a way where the reader didn't get to see all their thoughts, which is why I approached it this way. People have a hard time admitting things about themselves if they have to say it out loud (or type it for the world to see). We're only ever close to 100% honest in our own heads (though, even then we may not be honest with ourselves). Maybe I'll just switch it to normal first person, like an inner monologue, but try to reign in the stream of consciousness. I'm good at that... which is why I wanted to switch it up and not do that.

I don't know. Maybe I'll try it that way for a while, see how it works out... I'm excited to try again. Now I just have to find the time...

Waterlogged

I don't know why or what's going on, but I am currently suffering an all-consuming thirst. Maybe it was the honey mustard on my sandwich. Maybe it was the ultra-delicious pickle I had on the side. But something about my lunch fucked me up, and now I can't stop drinking water. It's driving me nuts. In a little over an hour, I've had somewhere around 32 oz of water. Maybe that's not a lot; I don't know. But my stomach surely feels like it is. All that water sloshing around and making me uncomfortable.

Is this ever going to stop?!

And now my Nalgene is empty again. The thought of another really cold refill not only sounds delicious and refreshing, but also nauseous-making and ill-advised. The water feels so good pouring into my belly, but once it's there... I don't know if I'm going to bet able to waddle to the bathroom when or if my body starts processing it.

Maybe if I regularly drank more water, I wouldn't feel like I am ODing. As it is, I need to curl into a ball.

*shrug* Just felt like I should share -- you know, since I'm trying to be in the spirit of sharing the mundane details again...

Let's Try This Again...

Wow, I am really bad at this whole journal-keeping thing. I blame the internets. No, really, I do. I think I've expounded a bit on this before. It's so easy to be involved in things -- blogs, social networking sites, Twitter, etc, -- it can get quite distracting. So, once again I have let this blog sort of lapse into the blackhole that is the World Wide Web (wow, when's the last time you hear someone refer to it as that? haha).

Anywho, once again, I suppose I was feeling a little nostalgic, so I decided to go peruse my old livejournal, and re-realized that I was so free with that one, writing about my everyday life like it was actually interesting. I really need to start doing that again. I did that here once too. I need to stop trying so hard. "I'm just cataloging my life," I'll have to tell myself, as a meager motivation to write something. So I revamped this blog again, changed the colors and layout. I figured maybe if I change up the way it looks, I'll be more willing to look at it, and thereby, more willing to write on it. We'll see. Again.

God, I hate that I'm so bad at this. I wish that my life was something interesting, something worth reading: a doctor, an exchange student studying abroad and documenting my experiences, something. Instead, I am a (reluctant) young professional, living in New Jersey, wishing I lived in Charlotte, wishing I did something that I was really proud of, wishing I made more money so that maybe I'd have the freedom to do something that I was really proud of. Not yet, though, I guess. It's not in my cards for the immediate future. So maybe this can be a catalog of me struggling to attempt that. That's pretty much what it's been so far. Why not continue, with a renewed effort? I think I will. I'll try at least.

So, that's it in a nutshell. Welcome. This is my pitiful, wasted life.

"Remember Me": In Hindsight

Over the past 18 hours, I've been trying to sort through the mess the new Robert Pattinson film Remember Me has left of my head. As I was watching it, I was enjoying it. When it was over, I wasn't so sure any more. As the night wore on, and my mind kept running around, trying to make sense of what I'd seen, I started to like it again. I think. The surprise ending (which I will not give away) was screwing with me, making me think, which I suppose is a good thing. I even dreamed about it. I woke up, got ready for the day, and found myself thinking about it, still, on the drive to work (I was even running late because every time my cell phone alarm went off, my brain thought it was a text message from the main character Tyler Hawkins, haha). By the time I got to work, I liked the movie again. I even gave a positive review to a coworker.

Now, at 3:00 p.m. I'm starting to reconsider, again. On the surface, it had an interesting concept. Two college students who have both faced family tragedy in their lives tentatively begin a relationship, find they actually do like each other, and begin to fall in love. However, the very pretense that brought them together threatens to break them apart. Can they keep it together while also trying to salvage what's left of their families? I won't tell you the answer, but suffice it to say, the journey is entertaining, heartbreaking, and even, at times, insightful.

But was what I spent 2 hours watching last night really all that good? Sure, it had its moments. Sure, it was interesting to watch. I laughed in the appropriate spots, and enjoyed the hell out of supporting character Aidan, Tyler's quirky binge-drinking roommate played by Tate Ellington (who is adorable, and quite possibly my favorite part of the movie). I mean, there was definitely enough man-candy to go around. But, I also enjoyed the character of the littler sister, Caroline (Ruby Jerins), who, in a way, reminded me of myself at that age (only, honestly, like 57x more awesome!). But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't distracted by the fact that it was Robert freaking Pattinson in this movie. Poor guy. He is quite the distraction. Not because he's super handsome (though, admittedly, his is NOT bad to look at). It was more of the whole "oh my god, it's that guy who's on all the tabloids and whom virtually every female between the ages of 5 and 50 is in love with, myself included on certain days, etc." So, between the occasional sighing and giggling I heard coming from various directions, it was sometimes hard to get into the story.

Which brings me to that fact: the story. Rumor had it, it was based on a book, but a little googling tells me that it is, indeed, NOT. That's a shame because I was hoping maybe reading the book would help answer a few of the holes I felt were in the story-telling. Like I said, the relationship started of tentatively. It was almost awkward, forced. But I suppose it was believable, given that the whole thing was started as a scheme between the guys. You know, like how boys in movies do. That's all fine and good (though morally questionable, boys). But they never really mentioned it or came back to it until it was An Issue. The only allusion to it is a shake of Aidan's head on the night of Tyler and the girl's (whose name is Ally) second date. And I love Chris Cooper (who was Ally's father, Sgt. Neil Craig), and he played the character well, but I didn't believe the playful, dependent relationship between the cop father and struggling-to-find-herself daughter at the beginning of the movie. That felt forced. Maybe, then, it was Emilie de Ravin, though I don't know about that since she was fine the rest of the movie (not to mention pretty much rocks in LOST). I don't know. What was the problem then? I can't tell.

As the story went on, I became more comfortable with the characters and their situations and behaviors. I felt bad for them (and good for them) in all the right spots. But then, when Sgt. Craig comes around again, beats Tyler (again), and the aforementioned pretense is revealed, I felt very little as the characters seemingly overreacted and sent themselves into unnecessary pity-binges. Maybe I just expect too much maturity from the characters who are only supposed to be a couple of years younger than I; I don't know. But I guess it was alright; things started to pick back up (with a decidedly emotional display of brotherly love), so all was good.

But then came the ending. Ho. Ly. Shit. I wasn't expecting that. I'm not going to give it away, but it was jarring to say the least. I've heard a lot of people criticize the ending as a hokey attempt at a sort of sensationalism, an attempt to scare the audiences into submission and acceptance with their own fear. Now, now, before you think that zombies came out of nowhere, it was nothing like that. But once we figured out what was going to happen (which didn't fully occur to everyone until minutes before the end), I think it's safe to say the whole audience was a little shocked and pulled from the narrative.

There was a voice-over to the movie, over the last few minutes, but I couldn't tell you what he said. I heard his voice, but none of the words registered as my brain lost all ability to comprehend language. As it finally faded to black, my thoughts came back, and I was mad. I couldn't understand why they would give the movie that hadn't been that bad such a shitty ending. But then I started thinking about it. It shouldn't really have been that big of a surprise. They gave us all the necessary clues throughout the movie. Some may have needed more context clues than others, which is probably why it went on for so long, but it was all there. So, shocking yes, but out of nowhere? Not really. And the harder I thought about it, the more I tried to remember that final voice-over that my ears had chosen to ignore, I realized that it had to end this way to deliver that final message. And, in my opinion, it's a hell of a message.

So, will this film change your life? Probably not. But was it a good movie? I think I'm going to have to go with yeah, it was pretty good, all things considered. It had its faults, but the relationships, the heartfelt characters, and that crazy twist ending overshadowed most of the awkwardness to make a rather enjoyable (and intensely thought-provoking) experience.

Dilemma averted.

Read what this person had to say about the script back in April 2009: http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/04/memoirs.html

Here is (I think... could be...) the final voice-over text: http://quote-book.tumblr.com/post/133682783/whatever-you-do-in-life-will-be-insignificant-but