I think selfie sounds like a dirty word...a dirty something. But apparently that is what the kids are calling it when you take a photo of yourself on your phone and post it to FB or the #twitter. What is it called when you take your own picture with your digital camera, hunt around for the USB cord, take 15 minutes to remember that you have to turn the camera on in order to get the pictures off and then upload them to a folder on your desktop?
I have decided to call that art.
My cousin has asked me to post a photo of the dress I am wearing this summer to my brother's wedding. She and I are bridesmaids together. Then I thought, "Self- real bloggers post selfies of themselves in 2013." Here you are, don't be jelly of how cray I look:
That is not a weird spot on my leg, that is on the mirror...I hope... otherwise my soon to be sister in law is going to kill me.
Another classic film in my collection is Wayne's World. I love this movie. It is by far one of the best SNL movies ever made. (I do not own Coneheads to watch it again and provide a scientific answer to this one though).
Growing up just miles from the largest airport in MI I feel a connection with Wayne and Garth when they are sitting under the flight path of landing planes in Aurora, Ill. It is really awesome to see them landing and feeling that you could be crushed AT ANY MOMENT by a Boeing 747. I am sure that I am not alone in yelling "Car" to this day when playing in the street. Or even the opening scene with singing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of one's lungs in the car. It is almost an educational film...NOT! But seriously there are so many things in this movie that have clearly shaped viewers like you...or me.
This film also helped me to not be afraid to move to WI with all of the talk about Milwaukee- I felt certain I could live here after hearing Alice Cooper tell me wonderful things about the place. Unfortunately the film did not teach me much about the geography about WI otherwise I would have know how far I would actually live from Milwaukee.
Wayne's World has lots of timeless positive messages for today's youth. First you should not trust "the man" who wants to sell your talent and make you rich- selling out is never good. Second, even when you fight with your best friends, you just need to talk things through and it will work out. Third, one of the most important things is that you cannot force love. That poor woman Kristy really tried hard to get Wayne and it was awfully ridiculous.
Side note: As I was reviewing the short life of this blog I have decided that there is probably an element of love in all of the movies I own. Or every movie ever made...think on this. We will revisit this topic later.
I think everyone, including college students, can learn from Wayne's World. RAs everywhere should add this to their collection to plan excellent! floor programs. If you watch the special features (have I mentioned I do not have cable anymore?) they talk about how Wayne and Garth just know how to have fun. If I were to recommend an RA program for this movie, I would focus on that fact. It would be fun to watch this movie and then as a floor create a local cable network show for College students. It could be about believing in yourself and your talents or about the friends you have made in College so far and how way cool they are. Or it could be about how you are NOT WORTHY to be in the presence of your favorite professor or RA. It could even be about following your dreams and how to use College to do it. While making the short video your residents will have fun making their hair into 80's metal hair (or mullets) and will hopefully also learn something from it.
After it is complete you should contact your local RHD or social media guru to get that video out there. Your viral lessons will help others. And you will have fun while doing it. Sounds like the perfect combo to me!
The next film in our collection is The Wizard of Oz. I have recently seen this movie as I prepared to see Oz in theaters. But this classic will never get old. Now that it is 2013 I of course watched this film along with finding fun facts on the internet. Let me fill you in on a couple of them.
1. In the scene where Dorthy is opening the door to see Oz for the first time, the film is already being shot in full color, not the sepia and white that was featured in the first part of the film. So the inside of the house, the walls and door, as well as Dorthy were painted/dressed in the sepia and white colors so they appeared to be that sepia color while the rest of the scene was in actual color as she looked out at Oz.
2. The scene in the forest with the urban myth that one of the cast members hangs himself in the trees. Well in fact the part in the film that looks like that is actually the wings of a large bird flying away from the camera. That is one of those stories out there anyway. Apparently there were lots of large birds on set to help with the "real life" atmosphere of the forest and such.
3. I was surprised that I had not heard before that Buddy Ebson (my favorite Hillbilly) was originally set to play the Tin Man but had a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum paint dust that they painted him in to become the Tin Man.
Like most children I was understandably terrified of this movie when it was on TV. I hated the monkeys, the witch and the tornado. In my life I have developed quite the fear of severe weather and spent many of my childhood storms in the basement waiting for the roof to fly off of the house. When I was thinking of RA programs to theme around this movie the first thing I thought of was to review severe weather with students. I have come to find in my time that they would rather run to the highest level of the building or straight outside to see the action. In my mind I picture the building roof flying off, laptops and underwear swirling through the air, and then having to deal with the aftermath for all the now displaced students. If only they could see the disaster I see.
I also thought I would share the first of many "Yes, This Is Your Life" stories. One time at a College there was a woman who worked to help plan programs for students. The weather was quite unpredictable that day but she had a one fund approval for a Drive In Movie to be broadcast in a campus parking lot. After securing all the proper permissions and buying the movie rights, all that was left was to meet the vendors that set up the screen and broadcast the movie over a radio frequency. The vendors rolled up in their SUV that had an inflatable screen and all the other necessary equipment and two twenty something men. Just then in the half sunny/half green sky there were some ominous clouds matched with a tornado siren coming from town. This girl, being the Hall Director that she is said to the SUV "Hello fellas. It is so nice to see you, I am terrified of tornadoes and I am about to go into this building and get into the nearest bathroom for safety. Please feel free to join me." Then this RHD and her two new friends spent the next 20 minutes in the women's locker room to avoid certain peril. As this RHD was calling her RAs to be sure they were shuttling her residents to safety she realized, "yes, this is your life."
The amazing end to that story is that said gentlemen set up the screen and we watched a drive in movie from our cars despite the previous weather until it became unsafe outside once again and they had to finish the film in the basement of a residence hall. Just another adventure in student affairs.
Friday, Friday Friday (sung aloud in the ways of Michael Buble and Nelly Furtado's Quando, Quando. Quando). I am impressed I have kept up to my word with my movie project. Well sort of. I decided Year Without a Santa Claus and White Christmas needed to be saved for a later review, even though they are located in my cabinet in alpha order with everything else. I moved on to When Harry Met Sally.
I had some very fond memories of falling asleep to this movie in college, with my roommate Angela always giving in my desire to watch that film before bed. I have seen it close to 300 times, so I am sure falling asleep was easy- I knew what was going to happen. I often compare myself to Meg Ryan's character Sally in this film because I order things in a restaurant similar to how she does, I do not like butter on my toast or salad dressing and people always look at me weird. But I do only like pie warm and ice cream with real whipped cream, if it is from a can I suppose I can eat just the pie not warmed.
I am also known for my accents. I often use them on campus when talking to students and I am not sure if they are annoyed- but I press on. The scene with Harry and the pepper on his poppygash is too much! I love it.
I decided to skip planning RA programs around this movie. I felt a film of this caliber might just be best enjoyed without education behind it. Plus the sun is shining today and Oberon was to be found at my local market so I must simply pretend it is summer. No learning today folks. Just solid sunshine and gearing up for a weekend of student frivolity as it is the last weekend of the semester before exams and there is a concert on campus. Today we relax, blog and remember that we need to enjoy every last ounce of the sun in this part of the country.
Enjoy #spring and any #fests you might have this weekend. I am certain that I will.
Day one of operation "Watch All My Movies" has begun. The last one among my films in the house is Yours, Mine and Ours with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball. I love this movie. It has been a while since I had seen it, over a year for sure. It is such a wonderful movie about love and family. It is really encouraging that both Helen and Frank found love after loss and based on the dialog it seems to be even greater than the love they had before their previous partners had died. And despite challenges and adjustments they just loved each other and all of those kids. It gives us all hope that tragedy can and often does change the course of our lives, but hope lies right around the corner.
I told myself that I could find an RA program for any of the movies in my DVD cabinet. I stand by that challenge for myself. A major theme in Yours, Mine and Ours is that theirs is a blended family and many students coming to college today are coming from families that are not only blended but maybe multiple times over. One way to program with this film is to talk about family and the many different kinds of families that exist. Have your residents share their family structures and learn from each other the diversity that exists in families right on your floor. Helping everyone understand where we come from will help better the connections and relationships we form.
There is also the scene with where Lucille Ball is fed a large amount of alcohol without her knowledge and she makes quite a mess of meeting Frank's kids. Albeit the unrealistic speed of her recovery that evening- it is a good starting off point to program about when someone you thought you could trust puts something extra in your drink. It is always disastrous and when consuming you should TRUST NO ONE.
Wow, not much in the way of funny today, but hey- how do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it! Or in my case some snot from those tears I shed watching this great film.
Yesterday I decided that I would start to put my blog out there. I thought I needed to add at least one more "witty" post for my soon to be millions of followers to get hooked on my blog.
I commented on my new development, I have gotten rid of my cable TV and the outrageous expense that it carried. Then I revealed my plot to watch all of my movies reverse alphabetical order but I was distracted by my overwhelming urge to watch The Little Mermaid. I even went so far to come up with four pretty good RA programs to plan in conjunction with the movie. But as I was trying to post the blog- I lost it! All of the fascinating things that I put together. Well needless to say it bummed me out. So I gave up for another night on working on my blog. But today is a new day!
I was wondering how in this day and age I did not highlight and copy that blog post. It is interesting how easy it is to recover lost things in Word so I had a false sense of security. Well, I have learned that lesson. I need to back up the blog. I like how confident I am that this is going to grow beyond the few posts it is now. It is funnier how I am confident other people will read it. Give it time, the Pioneer Woman did not start out with lots of followers, it took time. Onward. Stay tuned for great programming ideas for the films in my DVD cabinet. This should be good...
