Happy People

Happy people live longer. Google it if you don't believe me; I know there are studies out there to support my opinion (I love how "google" is a verb now). I'm sure that happy people still want things, make mistakes, have regrets, but in my experience, which I admit is limited, truly happy people are content with their lot in life. So in honor of Thanksgiving, and because I want to be a truly happy person, I have decided to share with you five things that I'm grateful for:

1. A skill with my hands: my roommate taught me how to crochet this semester and now I will never be able to sit at home and idly watch a movie again. I am grateful that I can be productive and lazy at the same time.

2. Good food, and lots of it. I've never understood disorders like bulimia and anorexia because I have a great relationship with food (I'm still working on my relationship with the gym). And I'm sure there are more people than I can imagine who didn't have dinner today. On the one day of the year that it's acceptable to not be on a diet, food is definitely something to be grateful for.

3. BOOKS!!! I love books! I will never be able to say this enough. I love books so much that I have bookshelf full at my apartment and a bookshelf full at my parents' house. My mother actually grounded me from books in the fifth grade because I read instead of doing my math homework (the only time I've ever been grounded, by the way). Books have the amazing power to take me places--analytically, emotionally, imaginatively--that I doubt I'll ever find another way to travel to. Can you tell what I want to do when I grow up?

4. Movies. To a much lesser degree than books, movies can also take me places I may never experience in any other way. The major difference between books and movies is the latter's visual element; the range of sensory detail available for expression is much greater in movies because of that. And when a movie reinterprets a book, it totally changes how you read that book again, because you go to it with the visual element and the imaginative element side by side in your mind. They're also a great way to be productive and lazy at the same time, if you have a skill with your hands (if not, you're just being lazy).

5. Education. As strange as it might sound--especially as we approach finals week--I love school. I love learning new things, reading new material, thinking about something in a way completely opposite to how I might have originally thought about it. This applies particularly to my Fiction Writing class, where in small workshops we help each other write better by sharing what we thought the authors did well in their stories and by offering suggestions for revision. My fiction is so much better now. I love my roommates, but they read my stories and say "I like it. It's good." I love my workshop classmates, because they tear my writing apart and point out all my weaknesses, and each story I write gets stronger than the last, builds on techniques I learn from that education.

I realize that technically it's not Thanksgiving anymore, but if you haven't already, I challenge you to pause and consider the things you're grateful for. Feel free to share in the comments section below. It's a hard lesson to learn how much you love something only after you've lost it. And you'll be happier anyway. That's the whole point of life, isn't it?

Twilight

So I saw the Twilight movie today with some friends, and obviously the books were in the back of my mind. Talk about a book sensation: everybody talks about the Twilight series now like they talked about Harry Potter the last couple of years (everybody in Utah, anyway). As a lifelong leisure reader, I liked the story. I got sucked in and I read all four books. As an English major who is studying great literature and learning the techniques used to write that great literature in order to write better myself, I can't help thinking these books could have been written better. The moon imagery in the titles; the reinvention of vampires and werewolves; fight scenes, especially with the Volturi; the sensory detail readers get when Bella becomes a vampire are all great techniques Stephanie Meyer used to pull her readers in. And it's good that she used them because I have never followed a more whiny or naive protagonist than Bella. The problems in Bella and Jacob's relationship were visible long before they actually became problems; predictability like that is really hard to get away with in fiction and I didn't feel like Ms. Meyer earned it elsewhere in the story. Some of the turns in the story are great because they're totally unexpected, like when Edward disappears, but the pleasure of the plot twist was lost in page after page of Bella's pain. The section in the last book when we got out of Bella's head and into Jacob's during her pregnancy was great; why couldn't we have had something like that for the most dragging part of the story? But let's not dwell on the series; people have strong opinions. Let's talk about the movie.

The movie was fabulous! I can't think of anything from the book that was cut out of the movie, anything that was changed except maybe a few minor details. The actors were great: Dr. Cullen looked a bit younger than I imagined; Edward didn't look quite like I expected either but he pulled it off fabulously; Bella was pretty enough for the interest in her from other students to be believable and she was just clumsy enough to match the book (and not whiny at all!); Rosalie and Alice hit their characters right on the mark. The scenery was gorgeous. Actually seeing what Forks and the surrounding area might look like has totally changed for the better the image in my mind when I think of the books. The special effects matched the story and blended in to the fabric of the movie pretty well, and the music was beautiful. I want the soundtrack even if I never see the movie again. Even the ending was well done, indicating the possiblity of sequel movie but designed so that it will still work even if a second movie never comes out. My official stamp of approval on this movie: It is worth seeing at least once, especially if you've read the books.