500 Days of Summer

One of my favorite movies of all time is "500 Days of Summer" starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.  It is this beautiful story of boy meets girl, boy loves girl, girl gets tired of boy, and boy meets new girl.  I love it so much because of the strong focus on the main character, Tom Hansen, which helps the viewer really experience his emotions and confusion through the nonlinear narrative style.  It starts off with Tom in a regular, boring work setting and all of the sudden, a wonderful new girl steps into his picture.  This girl is Summer Finn and she is unique while still luring and flirtatious.  She reels Tom in with her interesting persona and they share a common band they both enjoy which sparks their relationship.  However, Summer is not one to settle down, regardless of how attracted she is to someone.  Because she does make it apparent to Tom that she likes him, they have a relationship but it is never given a title.  And Tom needs that.  So, Tom decides to ask Summer what they are and what they are doing if they aren't even moving forward.  Summer has no idea and doesn't want to make it anything and she calls them "friends", the ULTIMATE insult.  They break it off, and then it goes back on, and then off again, and this pattern continues for about 500 days.  Until the last day when they are off, Tom sees Summer and they talk and he finds out that she is engaged.  Imagine the pain Tom felt in that moment.  The words must have stung so badly, especially since he probably convinced himself that he was better off without the crazy girl who will probably never find real love and stick with it, but she does.  But, Tom has grown stronger since they were together and after they meet, he goes to an interview for a new job and while in the waiting room he meets a new girl.  She starts a conversation with him and seems to be interested so Tom asks her out.  When he asks for her name, she replies with, "Autumn".  How beautiful is that?  I can't even handle it.  Like a new season in the cycle of of life, Tom, without trying or expecting it, flipped over to a new page and heads into the beginning of a new story.  The whole movie ends there and I love that we don't see any more about him and Autumn because it keeps the movie sweet and simple in the finale.  The ending kept the story about the main topic, Tom finding love and losing love, and I could literally watch the movie 500 times without getting sick of it.  THE END.

How "Sisterhood" Inspired Me

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is one of my favorite stories and I think it is because it inspires me to improve my life.  During the course of being a teenage girl, and over the four long years of high school, I have found time when it has been hard to stay true to myself.  There have been so many influences around me wanting to mold and change every part of me, but I think I have done a good job at keeping myself straight.  And simple reminders of this path, like the book, have helped so much in doing so.  The reason I find the book moving is because every character grows more into who they are supposed to be throughout the journey of the book.  They are all teenage girls too, so that helps me relate.  But it makes me think about my life and who I want to be and surround myself with because they all have such a deep relationship with each other.  Finding those who you can truly call family without being legitimately related to is hard, but I know I have found some people like that over the years just as the girls did in Sisterhood.  Also, each girl meets someone new who helps mold them into who they are supposed to be and I love that because each story is different.  Lena meet Kostos and he helped her break down her defensive walls shielding her from love and being vulnerable.  Bridget met the guy at camp who helped herself realize that she needed to come to terms with her mother's death and that she needs to be true to her virtues.  Tibby meets Bailey who helps her open her heart to someone and finally feel love from another human being. And lastly, Carmen sees her dad for the first time in a while and she allows herself to let go of the grudge she has held against him for many years.  So reading about these beautiful stories makes me want to take a step back and reevaluate my life.  I may need to change some of the things about myself that I never though to before, but it would be for the better and I am grateful a nice story like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants helped me to do so.  

Relations to Lena and Kostos' Story

So I have seen the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and I have also read the book, but I enjoy the movie's version of Lena's story more than how the book told it.  It may be because the movie writers probably wanted to make the story more interesting and romantic, so they added in many different scenes and completely changed the way Lena and Kostos met.  In the movie, Lena accidentally falls off of the dock and into the Mediterranean Ocean.  Her pant leg gets stuck on a piece of metal at the bottom of the ocean and she can't seem to get herself out of it.  Then, coincidentally, an attractive and single Greek native dives in and rescues her.  Now, who wouldn't want to tell this story to their kids about how they met?  Their encounter is basically every girl's dream.  To be saved by a gorgeous and all around good guy and for him to be interested in you is something that is kept to the story books and television screens.  Sadly, this encounter would not regularly happen but with fate involved, who knows what would happen.  I think the reason that I love this part of the story line so much is that I recently had something that happened to me that I can relate it to.  I went on vacation with my parents and my friend to Mexico.  While I was there, I knew I would meet boys but I never knew I would meet someone as awesome as this one guy I came across.  We met at the bar one night (don't hate me Mrs. Healey, I wasn't intoxicated) and we started talking.  We then took a walk and continued to just talk about our lives in a very natural way.  I was realizing then that this guy was literally perfect for me and it made me sad because he wasn't someone I could begin things with; he lived across the country and was in a long term relationship.  Of course.  But we still kept talking and I could tell that he was actually interested in me which was shocking since he was committed to someone already.  What was different about him was that I genuinely enjoyed being with him and was strangely comfortable with being myself around him even though we just met.  I have found it hard for guys to understand my personality and even my friends can tell you that about me, but he didn't seem to have any problem with who I was and I let him see me.  So, we ended up staying up the entire night laying on the beds by the pools under the Mexican sky and it was completely perfect and innocent.  As the sun began to rise and my time with his was coming to an end, I realized that I have never talked to a boy like this before.  We got deep but also laughed a lot together as we made dumb shapes in the clouds.  So I had to leave him and he had to go home to his girlfriend but regardless of him having previous commitments, I believe that fate was truly involved in our meeting.  When my friend and I got back to our hotel room after all of that time, my friend, witnessing the entire thing, says to me, "Lisa, I honestly think you just met your soul mate."  And I believed her because life doesn't just bring you to these people in such memorable ways and settings.  After all, my family wasn't even supposed to be going to Mexico when we canceled the first time, in January, the day before our departure because of the weather down there.  So of all times we chose and of all places in the resort, I met him in a specific time and setting that I may not have if I where somewhere else.  I still think fate is in the works.  

Anything Could Happen

For my quarter four research paper I am writing about fate and how love finds its way into people's lives without them even looking for it.  There must be a literature piece involved and I chose to incorporate The Sister of the Traveling Pants into it.  This beautiful story of four best friends has moments of excitement, sadness, and even laughter.  The books main story line begins when these four girls, all of different body types, trying on the same pair of jeans and each fitting perfectly into them.  This phenomenon keeps them together as they venture out in different paths during the approaching summer.  Each girl gets some time with the pants and then has to ship them off to the next friend that gets a turn with them.  These "traveling pants" serve purpose to keep them together but they also believed that the pants would bring them luck.  At first, Bridget believes this idea because she meets a handsome soccer coach at the camp she is at in Mexico.  Also, Lena probably felt lucky in general because she was in the breathtaking country of Greece, so who wouldn't feel lucky being in her shoes?  But for Tibby, stuck in her homeland working at a tacky superstore, luck seems to waver at first.  And Carmen's story is pretty neutral in the beginning because she is excited to see her dad but she also doesn't like the fact that he has a new family of his own.  So, as the stories expand, fate from the pants works itself into the girls' lives.  Lena ends ups pushing down her walls of protection and lets in a boy, Kostos, to love her.  Bridget ends up winning over the soccer coach in addition to other things happening after that, but overall she got what she wanted in the end.  Tibby meets an innocent girl who passes out in the superstore, and coincidentally they end up becoming great friends, but there is a twist.  The young girl is dying of leukemia.  This news upsets Tibby very much, but the defensive girl she was before has disappeared and in that place is a life loving teen.  For Carmen, she gets in a fight with her dad but they reconcile bringing them closer together than ever before.  So overall, whether it was the pants or not, fate works its way through each of the characters lives in touching way.  I love this story so much and I am very excited to be doing part of my research paper on it!

Anne Reminds Me to Live Simply

Lately, with all of the cool, hip gadgets this world has come up with to tempt the "average Joe", I have gotten lost in them all.  There are iPads, iPhones, and cute and expensive clothes that are extremely hard to resist buying even without even having the needed money.  Our race has gotten sucked up into the "I want more" norm.  And it is time to have a reality check. The check can be possible with simple reminders in our daily lives like Anne Bradstreet's "To Her Father With Some Verses".  In this poem, Anne states that she would rather live simply with little to pay than live extravagantly with much debt.  In this day in age, people think the opposite way.  We create, sell, and buy in order to feel good about ourselves and feel apart of the loop.  I enjoy Anne's poem because it keeps be humble and it could do the same for most others who were to read it as well.  When I get my head out of the clouds, I am able to see things rationally, the same way Anne did.  I agree with her completely and I think that if people were to just open their eyes, they will truly see like both Anne and I.  If everyone were to drop the unnecessary items they are consumed with, mainly obtained just so they can feel accepted, then there will be no purpose in owning them.  Consumer products are all about having the next best thing but if people stopped forcing themselves to buy these things, they could spend their money on more rewarding purchases.  If people would quit blowing dollars left and right, they would be able to pull someone out of debt or help a homeless vet at a shelter.  Anything counts as long as it goes toward a higher purpose.  In conclusion, Anne's wise words go past her age and into the future because she speaks truly and about topics most people don't think twice about.

I can relate to Anne

I have realized that I rarely try to relate the poetry I read to my personal life.  I guess one isn't supposed to go out one's way and try to make connections, but I have never even naturally made connections before.  That is until I read "By Night When Others Soundly Sleep" by Anne Bradstreet.  This poem is about Anne as she lays in her bed in the midst of the night, dwelling on her life's problems.  She is stressed and is kept awake but when she thinks of her God, her discomfort is eased.  I can relate to this poem because I sometimes find myself laying in bed after a tough day and thinking of the passing time.  Stress overcomes the sleep and before I know it, it is 1 a.m.  However, when I am able to calm myself down and think about the big picture, with the help from God, I am able to relax.  Also, I have noticed that Anne's poems are not very specific with her time, which was the 1600s.  The poems I have read from her have all been on very broad and general topics that most people to understand.  If she meant to do this or not, I do not know, but that was very smart of her to do.  Because her pieces are not specific to one period of time and are such popular things to write about, religion and love, her work will never die down and be forgotten.  It won't be forgotten because she is a classic but she also won't be forgotten because she wrote about true events that happen in most people's lives.  Many people are kept awake at night due to their racing minds but stress is eventually relieved and the rest can take over.  Also, "To My Dear and Loving Husband" is about true, unconditional love which most people encounter in their lives.  Overall, Anne's work will never be forgotten because she spoke for the general public in a very relatable way.

The Book My Dad Came Home With for Me

This past Saturday I was running all over the place, busy doing various things and for the hour I was home, my dad came up to me and told me he got me something.  I was very excited because who doesn't like a good present?  Especially a surprise!  But, my dad retrieves the gift and hands me a book and the title read STOP Wondering If You'll Ever Meet Him.  I took it and just smiled.  I could not believe my eyes.  That my own father is buying me self help books at the age of eighteen, let alone a love self help book.  I was dumbfounded, completely hit with the fact that my life had come to this at such a young age.  And I know how bad this must look to you Mrs. Healey and all others who may be reading this, but I swear I am not that desperate and pathetic to have my own dad buy me this.  He knows I have been pretty unlucky with guys recently and he can probably tell that I have been distressed over it.  But this distress is normal for teenage girls so there is nothing to worry about.... I hope.  Anyway, I began to read this book and I can already understand and partially relate to what it is about.  The intro brings you across this fake scenario with a girl named Julie who meets fictional Sam and they hit it off for about two nights.  Then, out of nowhere, Sam drops off the face of the earth leaving Julie sad and confused.  She thought she had gotten so close to real love and a great future even after just two dates with this man.  The writers of this book, Ryan Browning Cassaday and Jessica Cassaday, get this spot on.  Girls dream even if given the tiniest of bait from a man.  We read into literally everything they do and say and we put our every happiness on the line when we plunge in with a man.  We also exaggerate all of our feelings and make our expectations way too high for realistic.  The realistic place this book brings me down to is that love is truly out there for me, even if it takes me decades to find it.  It is nice to be reminded this right now, because quite frankly I don't even have time for a guy nor should it be one of my priorities.  It gives me comfort thinking that when the time is right, it will happen and that I won't be alone forever.  I just need to stop looking and then it will be a natural occurance.  So, I am grateful for this book even though it was most likely written for a woman in her mid twenties.