i support my brain.

this is where i write my really serious post about mental illness.

and how i feel about it. because this is my blog. and i write about what i feel like.

i could go one of two ways with this post.

1. i could blog about my experience of having a mental illness.
2. i could blog about how i'm advocating at alma and how i feel about it.

i'm going for the second route. not because i don't want to share my experience with you but because i just don't think i'm ready to put that on a blog yet.

so this isn't a post about me being proud of being in hufflepuff, me watching lord of the rings obsessively and discussing the lion king, being an RA, or being bombarded by moustaches.

no, this is my serious blog post about mental illness. and i really hope that you continue to read it.

i was going to write about vaginas. yesterday i wore my "got vag" shirt in public and i was pretty proud of it. and with all the stuff that's going down in michigan, it seemed like a nice topic. but my awesome friend lisa beat me to it. you can read her fantastic vagina blog here.

so now i get to blog about mental illness, yay!

because that's such a fun topic.

are you feeling uncomfortable? i haven't even started yet. hold onto your pants.

we have this huge stigma about mental illness. we don't talk about it. especially depression. we have this illusion that depression is just something that somebody works through and that they can just "get over" it. they can just wake up one day and decide to be happy.

believe me, i wish i could wake up every day and decide to be happy, and i don't even have depression.

and then we get into deeper realms, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. how much do you even know about schizophrenia? i know what i learned in my psychology 101 class. different types of schizophrenia. its different effects.

but one thing about it is clear: it's caused in the brain. thus it's a mental illness. but it's physical. there's something in the brain that's not right.

why is this so terrifying to people?

"oh good lord, your brain! surely not! they must be unbalanced! i should stay away from them. their brain is messed up."

a brain is a part of your body. like a boob. we don't hide from people with breast cancer. we support people with breast cancer.

i should make a sign that says I SUPPORT MY FUCKED UP BRAIN.

i saw this really great picture and it's somewhere on my tumblr, but i can't find it at the moment. its title was what if we treated regular diseases the way that we treat mental illness?

"tom had another pneumonia attack in his room the other day and he's too afraid to come into work. he's always doing that."

"i really wish you would just get over your cancer. it's really dragging down the company."

"i'm sure your cystic fibrosis will get better if you just decide to be happy."

am i the only one who realizes how ridiculous that sounds?

back to brains. i'm not a scientist, and i'm certainly not a neurologist, but i know for an absolute fact that my particular mental illness is physical. it happens in my brain, but what doesn't go on your in brain? is my brain diseased? infected?

no. there are just certain neurons that don't fire properly. and because of that, i have a mental illness. boom. you have certain chromosomes that work together and now you have brown eyes. boom. they're pretty much the same.

it's incredible when i tell people.

"wow! you have a mental illness? i never would have guessed."

"but you seem so normal."

"it must not affect your life that much."

1. millions of people have mental health issues. and you never would have guessed.
2. of course i'm normal. so is everybody with every disease out there.
3. no, it doesn't affect your life because i spend a lot of time making sure that it only affects mine.

at alma college, where i go to school, i'm the public relations president of active minds, a student-run college organization that works to help end the stigma against mental illness. we tackle stuff from depression to anorexia to schizophrenia. alma's active minds is one of the biggest chapters in america. and i couldn't be more proud to be a part of such a great student group.

once a month we put on what we call programming. we have a "normal size" barbie that we put in the cafeteria with facts about body image, how disproportioned barbie is, and the dangers of eating disorders. in february we have "mirrorless monday", where we tirelessly cover every mirror we can on campus. we plaster the mirrors with signs about anorexia and bulimia and how they affect college students. jacob and i spent three hours covering the mirrors in his dorm last year. this year we tackled the library and the academic building.

this is jamie tworkowski, founder of TWLOHA.
this is him speaking at my college chapel.
i am absolutely in love with this man and his dream.
he gives great hugs.

september is suicide prevention month. my freshman year, we brought jamie tworkowski, the founder of to write love on her arms (TWLOHA) to speak at our chapel. he is the coolest person i have ever met by far. we're hoping to eventually get frank warren from post secret, but he takes like, three years to book. TWLOHA was hard enough.

we have stall street journals. each month we highlight a mental illness, write an article about it, and stick on the back of all the bathroom stall doors. it's fun to read about seasonal affective disorder when you're in the john. i'm serious.

this year we stuck 1,100 yellow flags (yellow is suicide prevention color) in the ground to commemorate the 1,100 college students that commit suicide every year due to depression. we put yellow streamers all over campus.

play-doh organ system!

before exams, we have anxiety oasis in the library, where kids can come play with therapy dogs, play with play-doh, color, and be a kid to take off the pressure of exam week. we hand out stress balls and pamphlets about stress and other mental illnesses. last year we made the entire human organ system out of play-doh. not to scale, of course. we're not art students.

and every march we put on a play called "the synaptic gap", which is a dramatic reading. it shares the stories of various every day americans and their battles with mental illness.

jacob and i always play the same married couple with a son with bipolar disorder.

our motto is "changing the conversation about mental health". because you know what?

we don't talk about this. nobody does.

mental health is something that we hide. we shy away from it. it's scary. nobody wants to talk about it. i don't walk down the street with a big sign that says I AM MENTALLY ILL.

you know what? i don't even like that phrase. i have a mental illness, but that does not make me "mentally ill". we have put such a bad connotation with that phrase that i don't even like it. and i'm a mental health advocate.

i'm here to change the conversation. i'm not going to be silent about this anymore. it's time that we talk about this.

i'm pretty sure you would feel the same way when you've stuck 1,100 flags in the ground and with each flag, you think to yourself, this is a college student that took their own life because they felt that they couldn't talk about their depression.

i don't understand why we don't talk about these things. i don't know why we're so afraid. i, with my mental illness, am not dangerous. my grandmother doesn't even know i have it. and i'm not going to tell her. because i'm afraid of how she'll react. i'm not worried about breaking down and crying and confessing about what it's like to live with this.

no. i'm worried that she'll react the way that our society acts. this terrible stigma that we have. this idea that people with mental health issues are unbalanced. that they're dangerous.

this is a solid fact: people with mental health issues are more of a danger to themselves than other people. and these are people with serious mental illnesses, like paranoid schizophrenia. your neighbor that is struggling with depression is not going to hurt you. i promise you. she just wants to get through her day where she's battling depression. why aren't we supporting her? why are we afraid?

i'm not really sure how to end this post. this is something that i am very passionate about. and i'm going to continue to be a mental health advocate for as long as i have my mental illness.

and that will be the rest of my life.

to learn about active minds, click here.

if you're morbidly curious about my mental illness, click here.

don't be shy to click that button. i put it there for a reason.

and then i went on a lord of the rings binge.

the more i get into this blog challenge, the more nerdy i'm becoming.

let me rephrase that.

i'm not becoming nerdy.

i'm just writing about my nerdiness, and thus displaying it to the general public.

i blogged about being proud to be a hufflepuff. and i mentioned sitting on my bed and thinking about horcruxes.

i watch the lion king twice a day.

and i'm going to see the avengers again. for a third time. next week. yesterday i admitted that i have a thing for awkward genius doctors.

I'M NERDY. I'M ANNOUNCING THIS IN PUBLIC. on a blog. yeah.

okay okay okay so now i'm blogging about lord of the rings.

some stuff.

1. I JUST REALLY LOVE HARRY POTTER
2. i have never read lord of the rings.
3. i tried. i fell asleep. in moria. it was that ugly.
4. i'm going to try over the summer. but i probably won't get that far.
5. I JUST REALLY LOVE THE MOVIES
6. why the HELL did elijah wood not get an oscar for his performance in return of the king. somebody? anybody? i need to know this.

i was ten when the fellowship came out. eleven for the two towers, twelve for return of the king.

PG13 for... thematic violence. probably some other stuff. i'm too lazy to look up why it's rated the way it is.

but my entire family has read all of the books and my brother plowed his way with the silmarillion when he was like... nine. that kid is a beast. so of course we went to go see the movies.

i hated them.

the first one was scary. i was ten and there was a cave troll.

the second one was boring. seriously, it took that long to get to helm's deep? seriously. i'm eleven. give me something here.


return of the king. i was dreading seeing this in theatres. aaron had warned me about the giant spider. it was awful. when i was twelve, i had paralyzing arachnophobia.

and then it had like... EIGHT ENDINGS. when would the fuggin' movie end? i was sooo bored in the theatre, just waiting for it to end.

"oh it's gonna end, the screen is black! it's almost here! ahhh damnit, it's another scene..."

then i got older and worldlier.

meaning when i was like, fourteen my brother popped in the fellowship of the ring and i watched it with him. and suddenly i could appreciate the story. mostly for the violence.

i'm not a violent person. but to this day, my favorite parts of that movie are frodo getting skewered on weathertop, and then moria.

BALROG PARTY TIME.

then i liked the two towers for helm's deep. because it's a bunch of orcs (or are they urukai? did i spell that right?) climbing a wall and slaughtering elves and getting slaughtered in return.

and then my brother had two towers extended and it was awesome. oh, and treebeard is awesome, i like treebeard. he's pretty tight.

release the rivaaaaaaahhhhh

then i went through that tiny phase where i thought that legolas was hot. didn't we all have that phase? even the men? yeah? maybe? sure.

i didn't like return of the king. i hated the beginning. i can't stand smeagol strangling deagol. it's the music. and i wasn't into serial killers back then. and there was always one scene of his transformation that made him look kind of like the grinch and i couldn't take that seriously.

and then i got really into the movies. never the books, just the movies. they were cinematic master pieces.

goodness, how many times have i blogged about movies this month?!

so then i met jacob and now we've been dating for like... a year and nine months or something. and he likes lord of the rings like i like harry potter.

now i'm not picky about movies, or books for that matter. if i want to read the chamber of secrets, i'll read it. if i want to watch the two towers, i'll watch it.

jacob: SCANDALOUS. THIS IS SUCH A HEINOUS CRIME. WE WATCH THEM IN ORDER. WE READ THEM IN ORDER. by the way we're seeing the hobbit at midnight, don't care if you have a class at eight thirty, just sayin'.
me: i want to watch return of the king.
jacob: NO WE WILL WATCH THE OTHER TWO FIRST.

suddenly in high school i got into this huge return of the king phase. my junior year i watched it on my computer like, every night. i'd only watch the best parts, and i'd watch them over and over and over. jacob thinks this is a crime against humanity. one cannot simply skip parts of the movie.

see what i did there?

so i went back through my junior year of high school journal the other day and every other day is like, one in the morning comes really fast when you're watching lord of the rings. i could use some coffee. i hope obama wins the election.


yeah. then i put the movies aside for a while.

then jacob and i had our extended marathon. we couldn't actually do it. we broke it up. this was last august. and i realized that extended was the only way to go.

i only had the two towers extended. #firstworldproblems.

so i've touched on this earlier, but i had another lord of the rings binge about a month ago. during ACCL week i just really needed the one ring to be destroyed. i just... it needed to happen.

and then dave, jacob's fraternity brother, was like, oh hey i have all of the extended versions at the PMA house, wanna come over and finish the fellowship with me?

so we finished the fellowship and i was like, um can i have those.

and suddenly it was return of the king every night.

and i live tweeted.

normally live tweeting is a thing i reserve for criminal minds, but suddenly this kind of thing was happening.

@emilyyxh: oh hang on, lemme just carry my BFF up this ACTIVE VOLCANO. #lordoftherings
@emilyyxh: frodo that's a spider! run! #lordoftherings
@emilyyxh: i am no man. FEMINISM! #lordoftherings
@emilyyxh: merry, one does not simply stab the witch king. #lordoftherings

you get the point.

i lost a lot of followers. but mordor began to follow me. and i was in the top twenty tweets for the #lordoftherings hashtag. yeahhh buddy!

i added "lordoftherings" to my phone dictionary. i'd already added "criminalminds". you know.

so during this binge i'm watching dave's extended versions. i did watch the other two, but return of the king was like... every night. for two weeks.

so then jacob comes back from his break while i'm at ACCL and i'm like, oh hey let's watch return of the king


and he's like, BLASPHEMY YOU'RE SUCH A HEATHEN WHERE'S THE FELLOWSHIP

and i'm like, ugh. boyfriends. so picky.

mmm. gorgeous hobbit.

i started wanting to be a hobbit. and i was like, man. frodo baggins is really hot. as a hobbit. with the ears and the curly hair and the baby face, just everything. and those EYES. those eyes. and his voice. i love his voice.

so jacob and i go through the movies one at a time. i'm just waiting for return of the king. but it's nice to watch the movies with him because he knows all of the back stories because he's read everything on the books. the histories. all of that stuff.

he told me about shelob's mom and how she sucked the light out of the world through a tree.

that's a pretty determined spider. did i spell shelob correctly? i need jacob for this kind of thing.

shelob is the spider, by the way. you know, the one that chases frodo, stabs him, and then sam is like, BITCH THAT'S MY FRIEND FIGHT FIGHT STAB STAB

yeah. shelob.

but anyway. we're going to watch return of the king in jacob's room when he's on duty. and this is the first day of the ill-fated fifteen day sinus infection that ended with snot pouring out of both of my eyes and me having a weird ear fungus. so we had to wait awhile until i could actually watch it.

that took like, two weeks. because jacob went kayaking in the wilderness with the president of our college.

so when jacob was gone i was like, OMG ACTOR COMMENTARY and they're making fun of orlando bloom and talking about him climbing cows to prepare for giant elephants. and shelob's stinger totally sent elijah wood to the hospital. oops.

and then it's like, who wasn't hospitalized during the filming of these movies? good gracious, three four hour films in three years with all of this make up and CGI and andy serkis like, drowning in a river? and nobody died?

but anyway, i just really like return of the king. frodo is a totally different person (hobbit?). sam is the best. cave trolls galore. faramir is pretty legit. gandalf is a badass. orcs and fighting and leveling cities! rohan riders plowing over stuff!

frodo destroying the ring!

he really doesn't. he wants to keep it. he has no intention of destroying it. he destroys it trying to take it for himself. so yeah, he's not the best hero.

i'm still trying to figure out how he hung onto that cliff. because at the angle he was falling, it just doesn't make sense.

and another thing, i really believe that he wanted to let go. you can see it in his eyes. and later, when he's returned to the shire and he's left over half of himself in mordor, i think part of him still wishes that he'd let go.

i don't really blame him.

but i guess that return of the king is kind of my go-to movie. in fact, i'm watching right now, and the ring was JUST destroyed. sauron's tower is falling! he needs some eyedrops.

now that the ring is destroyed, i only have about eight endings to get through.

yep. only about eight.

i don't think aragorn is attractive.
frodo is where it's at, kids.

oops. mount doom just exploded while i was finding that picture on google.

you know, that had to have been terrifying for frodo and sam.

"we destroyed the ring! yay! OH SHIT THAT'S A LAVA WAVE RUUUUUUUUUN"

i'm just going to end this post with that idea. peace out, kids.




post script: i also have this idea that some riders from rohan go to the rohan camp after they had already left. and they were left there saying, "man, we just missed out on the battle for middle earth. damnit."

i think i'm the only one who thinks of these things.

bubblegum. it involves counting.

is it me? or is this june go! challenge getting like... infinitely harder than last year?

every day it's like, oh shoot, what on earth do i blog about.


did my life get boring?

let's see.

today i...

1. woke up.
2. went to work.
3. watched a very potter musical and thought about showering.
4. actually showered.
5. read the last half of harry potter and the deathly hallows, making the number of times read 47.
6. napped for three hours.
7. ate some food.
8. went to work.
9. wrote this list.

yep. my life has gotten boring.

however, reading the last half of the deathly hallows was pretty awesome. i mean, it's the battle of hogwarts! i open at the close! breaking into gringotts and escaping on dragons!

then i thought about how much the movie sucked.

i've blogged about this before, so i'll spare you. biggest pet peeve: voldemort can't feel his horcruxes when they die. so why go through all of the intense shots of him wincing in pain?

i forgot something in my list.

i legitimately pondered horcruxes. i sat on my bed and i thought about them.


yep. my life has gotten boring.

gone are the days when i can blog about some awesome place that i went with some awesome people and we did awesome things and everything was awkward and i did zumba in parking lots and blah blah blah.

but i can blog about work.

i just realized that this post is like my life is boring HARRY POTTER i like horcruxes my life is boring OH NOW I'LL BLOG ABOUT WORK.

honestly. i got an intership to blog for the student life office next year. what are they thinking? i have no sense of direction.

ahem. WORK.

soooo i'm a swim coach.

let's get this straight.

1. i do not teach swim lessons.
2. i do not get in with children and help them float.
3. the children i work with know how to swim.
4. i'm a coach. A COACH.

now that that's out of the way.

in the morning i work from seven thirty until nine thirty. the first hour i have older kids. thirteen to eighteen year olds. second hour i have eight and unders.

i am two completely different people with these groups.

my older kids are mostly high schoolers. i love them dearly, even though they don't believe it. on average, i have about four of them in a lane. they know their stuff. they can swim. i give them legimitate work outs. we don't have to work on much.

until they get lazy. (ahem. parker.)

today i found a diving ring and i decided that i would randomly throw it into the pool and they could find it during their practice. when they found it, they could dive down and get it and give it back.

i dropped it in the same place three times in a row. they got confused.

emma and i named it the ring of destiny. i held it aloft and shouted "ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL! ONE RING TO FIND THEM! AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM!'

since it's older kids practice and emma and i have lanes next to each other... these things tend to happen.

emma: girls float better than boys.
me: maybe... it's because... they have uteruses.
emma: THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. UTERUSES CAN FLOAT.
me: we have to figure this out.

later.

me: can uteruses float?
my mother: what?
me: you're an anatomy teacher. can they float?
my mother: maybe. they're small.
my father: i don't know, they're made of muscle.
my mother: I'M CONFUSED.
me: if you just had a uterus in your hands and you dropped it in a bowl of water. would it float.
my mother: i'm still confused.

when i'm at morning practice and i work with my eight and unders, i'm an entirely different person. my older kids know that i have a boyfriend, that i blog, and that i love serial killers. i talk to them about life and high school. not so much with four to eight year olds.

me in a really high elementary teacher voice: okay! i need your eyes and ears above the water! we're going to FREESTYLE ALLLLL the way to the other end! i wanna see BIIIIG kicks! with LOOOONG arms REEEACHING for the wall!

emma and i coach two lanes of these little kids. it's awesome. here's what happened last week.

me: there are two emilys in this lane! but i bet that both of your ages combined aren't as old as THIS emily!
little emily: how old are you?
me: well my birthday was yesterday, and i turned old.
carric: YOU'RE FORTY?!

i love my life.

this morning, we told our kids that when they did breaststroke, when they got back to their streamline position, they had to hold it for threeeee counts.

every time ashley popped up in the exact opposite of streamline position, she stuck her head up and counted out loud "ONE TWO THREE!"

down the entire lane.

when she finished, all of us were cracking up. including the parents. she stuck her hands on her hips and screamed, "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?!"

the other day, when we told the kids to do an entire fifty, charlie shouted, "leapin' lizards!"

today at evening practice, which is all ages, i still work with the older kids that decide to show up.

usually that just means my boss's daughter.

nobody was swimming, so hannah and emma and i could set up the pool early. i got the biggest stack of kickboards EVER, tucked them under my chin, and waddled them over to lane one.

after practice, i couldn't even wrap my arms around them. hannah told me i channeled my inner bruce banner.

COACH EMILY SMASH.

this is my fourth year with this team. i've never had this much fun, thanks to hannah and emma. i am officially an honorary triplet.

my second year of coaching, the year that i graduated from high school, i broke my toe demonstrating tight streamlines on the blocks. i walked it off. the kids had nooooo idea.

i let my car get decorated my ten year old girls. i have to help kids tie ribbons onto their flip flops. i pass out muffins. i play a game called bubblegum that involves a lot of counting.

honestly, i couldn't ask for a better job.

i did summer swim at a different team for nearly fourteen years. i never thought i'd get to coach one. let alone for four years.

i love my autumn ridge swim team. and i can't believe i get paid to work with such fun children and such awesome people.

well this is from last year. look how long my hair is.
i'm on the left, by the way.
if, you know, you couldn't tell.

i love my swim team, and i love my job.

now that i've blogged about it, i need something new to  blog about. since my life is boring now.

schwarma. explosions. and... stuff.

i've been told that the avengers isn't a girl movie.

well, i've never liked traditional girl movies.

the notebook? passable.

anything else nicholas sparks? i've never wanted to watch them.

chick flicks? not really.

i like the dark knight. inception. animal house.

but i wasn't that thrilled about the avengers coming out earlier this year. i absolutely loved the dark knight and iron man, but i just kept thinking, man. all these super hero movies. didn't thor, captain america, and iron man 2 just come out? like, seriously?


so i wasn't that stoked.

then my trusty dusty friend roger ebert gave it a good rating, and everybody who saw it on opening night said it was TOTALLY THE MOST AWESOME MOVIE EVER.

so i got curious.

tumblr alerted me of the beauty of tom hiddleston. (that's loki.) i'd never found chris hemsworth that attractive. the hair. it got to me.

but he was australian.

and then...

gah. i just really love him.

there was mark ruffalo. 


honestly. i don't know when i suddenly got obsessed with this man. for goodness sake, he's forty-four, happily married, and has three children. he's FORTY-FOUR.

but jeez oh petes do i think he's absolutely gorgeous.

so i got more and more intrigued. and eventually i decided that i absolutely had to see this movie. not sure when. i just woke up one day and said, "I AM GOING TO SEE THE AVENGERS AND IT WILL BE GLORIOUS."

so jacob came down two days before my birthday on a dreary friday. and i marched right up to him and said, get your wallet ready, we're going to see the avengers.

jacob: really?
me: YES. RIGHT NOW. LET'S GO.

so we drove half an hour to rave to see it.

and it was sooooo awesome and beyond description. i couldn't shut up about it. and i saw why people wanted to see it twice. it was awesome.

there was the perfect amount of explosions. it had a legitimate plot. the avengers weren't just a bunch of superheroes that suddenly banded together to fight evil. they all had their problems, and they all certainly didn't like each other. iron man and captain america will never be roommates. bruce banner and tony stark may come together and speak science language, but when it comes down to it, they don't really like each other, at least not until they end where they drive off together in tony's car, probably to solve the next big scientific problem. the black widow and hawkeye have some weird love thing that involves killing people, and nobody knows what the hell nick fury is up to.

and thor? he just doesn't understand humans.

but besides having the right amount of explosions, it was also hilarious.

and here's the kicker: why didn't people think that this is a girl movie?

it is full of hot men.


sure, there are explosions and fights and nuclear bombs and screaming people and weird aliens, but seriously. gorgeous, gorgeous men. some of them in tights.

so today hannah and emma and i went to see it. they hadn't seen it, and i was going through bruce banner withdrawal. not just because it was mark ruffalo, but because i am legitimately intrigued by bruce banner, and i think i will be forever.

everyone is just so overly cautious around him, and why wouldn't they be? one raw nerve and boom.

"the last time i was in new york i accidentally broke... uh... harlem."

hulk smash.

dr. banner is a time bomb. and they treat him like a serial killer. the best part, he knows how he's being treated. and he can get snide about it.

he spends a lot of time shuffling around, looking at the ground, and wringing his hands. when things get too nervous, he focuses on being a genius and finding the tesseract. his big question: "are you sure you want me in a small, pressurized submersible?"

great question, dr. banner. great question.

honestly. he's treated like a serial killer.

"better keep a close eye on dr. banner. if things get hairy, we'll stick him in that really awesome reinforced cell. sound like a plan? awesome. let's let him work in his lab by himself. TONY STARK DON'T POKE HIM WITH THAT STICK YOU IDIOT."

getting back to watching the actual movie with hannah and emma.

sooo we get there and the theatre is empty. EMPTY! we're so excited. we can talk as loud as we want. which is great. because we're movie talkers. those annoying people behind you that don't shut up? yeah, that's us.

and it's dollar fifty popcorn day. and they eached smuggled in some candy. so we're sitting in the back row watching all of these hot guys exploding stuff and throwing down and we're eating candy and popcorn.

everything is beautiful. the movie is beautiful. it's better the second time.

so my initial reason for seeing this movie twice was because i wanted to get my bruce banner fix. the hulk is pretty neat, but i'm more interested in the ticking time bomb scientist who's treat liked a serial killer and who stands around and wrings his hands, being a genius and everything.

i have a thing for doctor geniuses, i think.

so when the movie is over and we're still completely geeking out about everything, i realize that this made me want to see it a third time.

in trying to get rid of my need to see dr. banner (and the rest of the awesome movie), it just made me want to see it more.

oh, by the way, the best part of the movie is the very, very end. you know when iron man is like, oh man, i saw this schwarma place, we should totally go get some, since we saved the world and everything.

new york has been flattened and he's just come out of space and he's like, MAN. SCHWARMA. SOUNDS YUMMY.

so emma and and hannah and i did that thing where we sit and read awesome names off the credits.

name of the day: wolfgang neidermeyer. way to go, mrs. neidermeyer. way to go, raising a son like that.

so after all the credits are over, suddenly, there's a new scene. and we're waiting and suddenly...

it's the avengers. eating schwarma. at a blown-out restaurant.


dr. banner is stuffing his face. i don't blame him. he spent most of the day smashing up manhattan. and tony stark is stuffing his face too, because he went to space and back with a nuclear bomb. that's got to make anyone hungry.

can you imagine hosting a dinner party for these guys? that grocery bill has got to parallel my college tuition fee.

but it was just so beautiful. and we couldn't stop laughing for about ten minutes.

i approve of the avengers. and i will be seeing it a third time, mark my words.

and the avengers approve of schwarma. yum.

i'm a hufflepuff, hear me roar!

this is the post where i justify being a hufflepuff.

hang on. i don't have to justify being a hufflepuff to you, to myself, or to anyone.

I WAS BORN A HUFFLEPUFF, BABY.

and at this particular moment in time, i do not care how absolutely nerdy this post is going to be. because i love harry potter more than i love life most of the time, and by golly, i love being in hufflepuff.

in accordance with the above statement, my harry potter levels of book reading are skyrocketing. and since it's summer, they're going to continue. you want the stats?

of course you do.

harry potter and the sorcerer's stone- 44 times read.
harry potter and the chamber of secrets- 45 times read.
harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban- 45 times read in english, 1 time read in spanish.
harry potter and the goblet of fire- 45 times read in english, 1 time read in spanish.
harry potter and the order of the phoenix- 45 times read.
harry potter and the half-blood prince- 45 times read.
harry potter and the deathly hallows- 46 times read.


i'll make them even. i promise. but i need all the books in spanish before i can truly do that.

i feel like i should maybe keep a tally somewhere? but i keep this all in my head. and saying it out loud gets really confusing. i should just copy and paste what i just wrote into a word document and title it 'THIS IS MY HARRY POTTER TALLY YEAH!'

because that's how i would title something.

that movie list from last night? it's called "um. these are movies i want to see."

you should see what i initially title my english papers.

but i digress. back to the wonderful world of harry potter.

speaking of that, getting off subject again, my family and hopefully my boyfriend and i are going to florida for christmas. the hopefully part applies to jacob, i'm definitely going. but my mother says something about going to disney world.

me: we've been there already.
my mother: but it was fun. we could go again.
me: WE COULD GO TO THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER.
intense silence.
my mother: we could do that.
me: AEURHGSKJDHGOWAIURHGSKDGHSDJHGWOURAGHSDKJG

that's basically me jumping up and down and making sucking noises like a fish out of water because i am too excited to breathe.

countdown: somewhere around... six months until we go to florida. i will not let my mother forget this conversation.

BUT ANYWAY.

for this really long time, i liked ravenclaw. not that i don't like ravenclaw now. when i read the first book for maybe the thirtieth time a few years ago, i was like, you know what, harry was totally set up to be in gryffindor. everything is just kind of biased toward gryffindor. of course he'll be in gryffindor.

i got excited when characters like luna popped up. ravenclaw fighting at the ministry. ravenclaws stepping up.

and then i'd start feeling bad for random slytherin kids. like the slytherin fifth year that harry steps on while he's waiting for the beauxbaton's carriage in the fourth book. is he evil? are his parents death eaters?

probably not. he's just your generic slytherin. they can't all be bad, can they? i mean, for heaven's sake, SNAPE was a slytherin. sure, he had some death eater mix-ins and he totally almost but kind of not sold james and lily to voldemort (that was mostly peter.) but you know, he's snape.

always.

i hope i just didn't make you cry if you're an avid fan like me.

but hufflepuff never gets any glory. in the first book hagrid talks about them being a bunch of duffers and harry is like, omg i'm totally going to be hufflepuff i didn't know i'm a wizard and i don't know anything about anything wow i'm eating an ice cream sundae.

and everybody in hufflepuff is always kind of soft. like hannah and justin. ernie isn't exactly soft. but he's ernie, ya know?

and then cedric came along in the fourth book and i was like, yeahhh cedric! most people were like, he's a pompous dick, but you have to remember, this is coming from harry. of course harry's going to think he's a pompous dick.

but cedric is a good quidditch player, he's good in the triwizard tournament (aside from barty crouch jr.'s help. but that wasn't his fault.) he's genuinely nice and sweet, and of course, he's ridiculously good looking when he's not portrayed by robert pattinson.

though i must say, that's the best role i've seen him in by far. seeing as the alternative role that i've seen is edward cullen.

for all this time, i had this weird affiliation with ravenclaw. i've always been kind of sort of top in my class (watch me try to be humble.) and i've always loved reading and studying and all that fun stuff. so for a long time i was like, I'M IN RAVENCLAW.

then, before all the books were even out, i was taking online quizzes. and they always put me in ravenclaw, every time.

it got the point where i knew the books well enough that i could just foil the quizzes and get into whatever house i wanted to. but when i genuinely went with my gut feeling, i was always in ravenclaw.

but there was always this persistent little voice in the back of my head that said: emily, i think you're a hufflepuff at heart.


so then i had this debate. i kept thinking, well the sorting hat wanted to put harry in slytherin and he chose gryffindor. if the sorting hat really wanted to put me in ravenclaw, couldn't i choose to be in hufflepuff, where i felt like i truly belonged? i mean, if it's good enough for harry potter, it's good enough for me.

i had this internal struggle until the age of twenty. please don't make fun of me.

and then pottermore happened.

no, i was not a magic quill hunter. i had just gotten a tumblr and was trying to figure it out, i was working, taking classes, and going to physical therapy.

i wasn't about to stay up until three in the morning hunting down a magical quill. i could reread the books instead and celebrate the last movie coming out. which i did. oh i did i did i did.

so then pottermore finally came to the public in april. during exam week.


fantastic job, pottermore team. you really helped my essay on lolita.

there were really only two things that i wanted out of pottermore: a wand and a house. now that i've gotten both of those, i haven't bothered to log back in or gain house points.

i got my wand. and what d'ya know, my wand is HUGE. that's right.

my wand is an entire inch longer than voldemort's. and has a phoenix feather.


fourteen and a half inches. it's a creative wand and good for charms work, which is nice, because my facebook says i graduated with NEWTS in charms, muggle studies, and arithmancy. when i go to the wizarding world of harry potter, i will find it my wand. and i will buy it. that's a promise.

but i was still confused. voldemort's wand is the longest wand mentioned in the books, and suddenly mine is a whole inch longer.

oh well. i'm cooler than voldemort.

and then it finally came. time for me to be sorted.

i got sorted at my library carrel, the only place that i could use pottermore on campus. i went with my heart and my gut on every single question. this sorting test was developed by j. k. rowling herself and it was supposed to sort you into your true house, where your true destiny lies. i was so excited and so scared.

what if it put me in ravenclaw? 


well, obviously, you've been reading this post.

I'M A HUFFLEPUFF, BABY.

i alerted all types of social media. i was so happy. i bounced up and down. i announced it at dinner where my friend ryan hugged me and we congratulated ourselves on being in the best. the rest of ryan's fraternity brothers (that happen to be jacob's brothers) scoffed at us. most of them are ravenclaws. so is jacob. i won't hold it against him.

but i am proud of my hufflepuff heritage. i am a hufflepuff, hear me roar!

and j. k. rowling isn't into hufflepuff bashing either. when i was greeted in the hufflepuff common room, a nice cozy room by the kitchens, this was waiting for me.


"It ought not to be concluded that Hufflepuffs are dimits or duffres, though they have been cruelly caricatured that way on occasion. Several outstanding brains have emerged from the Hufflepuff house over the centuries; these fine minds simply happened to be allied to outstanding qualities of patience, a strong work ethic and constancy, all traditional hallmarks of Hufflepuff House."


see. j. k. rowling likes hufflepuff. we're not a bunch of duffers after all.


have you seen that e harmony video where the lady cries about loving cats?


i just... i just really love hufflepuff. oh gosh, i'm crying, thinking about hufflepuff and harry potter again.


yep. i'm real cool.


of course i'm cool. i'm a hufflepuff.

i give this two stars.

i feel like i'm having some sort of existential crisis.

all day long. ever since i got up. i've been thinking, what am i going to blog about today?


it's sunday. not much happens on sundays. last sunday was awesome because it was my birthday. i can always blog about my birthday like the self-centered person i undoubtedly am.

so then i was thinking, well i can just blog about my day. that'll be fun.

what i did today.

1. got up at jessica's at eight.
2. drove back to my house.
3. went back to sleep.
4. ate some food.
5. went to a grad party. ran into my second cousin once removed. because that happens all the time.
6. went swimming with alison.
7. went to a work meeting.
8. ate strawberry shortcake at my grandma's.
9. thought about blogging all day with this voice in my head going, you have to have this done by midnight!


i just checked my "what to blog about" folder from last summer.

maybe i've like, totally changed and become a new person? but just about nothing on that list applies to my life right now.

so i guess i'm going to kind of just spout stuff about how much i really love roger ebert.

if you don't know who roger ebert is, i will cry. when i was at ACCL and we had dinner at carol's, we walked to her house and i was telling my friend that i had a dream that i had coffee with roger ebert and it made me soooo happy, and my friend says, "who's roger ebert?"

oh, you know, only the most famous film critic in the country, if not the entire world.


i follow him on twitter, obviously. his tweets make me feel intelligent. plus i get his movie reviews early.

i also super admire his strength and courage; cancer left him without a voice (or a chin) and he's in his seventies or something, and every week, without fail, he publishes witty and fantastically on-the-spot reviews of movies.

i generally won't see a movie unless i read roger ebert's review of it. even if i do see it without his review, i will read it within the next week and compare.

so i guess this started when i realized that my list of movies that i want to see before 2013 was getting really long and i needed to write it down.

so i did.

here it is.

1. Moonrise Kingdom.
2. The Amazing Spider Man.
3. The Dark Knight Rises.
4. The Brothers Bloom.
5. Blindness.
6. The Avengers. Again. Because it rocked.
7. Odd Thomas.
8. Brave.
9. The Darjeeling Limited.
10. The Royal Tenenbaums. Because I fell asleep the first time.
11. Pulp Fiction.
12. Thor. Maybe. Probably not.
13. Maybe Captain America. Since we’re on the subject of Thor.
14. The Hobbit.
15. The Descendants.
16. Tree of Life.

seriously. the avengers. MUST. SEE. AGAIN.

right. some of these movies come out later. odd thomas happens to be my favorite book, and it comes out as a movie in october.

i am scared to death that they will ruin it. so scared. until your favorite book becomes a movie, you do not know cinematic terror.

so anyway. i'm going through this mark ruffalo phase that i mentioned earlier. this originally stemmed from me watching "the kids are all right" (which is fantastic. go see it. but not with your parents. it's awkward.) and he was the donor dad. and then suddenly the avengers is coming out and he's in that movie.

and then suddenly he's in like, five movies that i want to see. it's about this time i start thinking that he's hot. for an older dude.

so he's in the brothers bloom. and he's in blindness playing the doctor.

so i decide, well i've made this list, might as well read roger ebert's reviews of these movies. if i tweet about it, maybe he'll tweet me back. not likely. i've been trying for a while. i gave up on thomas gibson. BUT I GOT HEATHER HEADLEY.

anyway.

i start with the brothers bloom. two and a half stars, which is between "wait for the DVD" and "worth the matinee price." he likes the premise of the movie, but it gets a little too meandering and eventually a bit too confusing. 

my concensus: still going to watch it.

at the end, he makes a reference to the life aquatic.

me: OMG THE LIFE AQUATIC I LOVE THAT MOVIE I WANT TO MARRY WES ANDERSON THE JAGUAR SHARK YAY THIS IS SO GREAT.

(i talk like this in real life when i get excited. it's really fun for my relatives.)

so i read his review on that.

having seen the life aquatic on multiple occasions and loving it terrifically, i was pretty happy with his review. he pinpointed the loneliness of steve, the private humor of eleanor, and the bristliness of cate blanchett, and explained the awkward love triangle better than i could've. he described it as "whimsical". which it is. it's wes anderson.

so after that, i moved onto blindness. because i've been slogging though the book so i can watch this movie.

first line of the review.

"Blindness is one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films I've ever seen."

this did not bode well.

i read on.

he absolutely hated it.

it was one of the most brutal reviews i've ever read, and he's had some pretty brutal reviews. he said that he left the theatre with his eyes and ears "feeling assaulted" and he was so unhappy that he'd had to sit through the entire movie, which is over two hours.

one and a half stars. i think he was being generous.

i wondered if he'd read the book. if he hasn't, he probably wouldn't like it.

hell, i'm not sure if i like it. 

even though i put a looooot of stock into what roger ebert says (it used to be that if he didn't like it, i wouldn't see it), i still think i'm going to watch blindness. no matter how terrible it is, i am slogging through the book so i can watch it, and i will be damned if i don't get to.

now this is my remaining question: when i post this link to twitter, do i tag roger ebert in the tweet?

the last time i did that with a band, they read my blog. it was so fantastic.

if roger ebert reads this, i think i will die of happiness. i admire that man so much. 

i'm at the point in the writing of this post that i realized that i just wrote it all about my newcoming obsession with mark ruffalo, my existing obsession with roger ebert, and movies.

i don't see movies all that often. honestly. it was a big deal that i saw the avengers. an even bigger deal that i saw the hunger games, and that was only because i read the book.

after i wrote that post about the hunger games, somebody said, "what do you think about the cinematography?"

i don't know anything about cinematography, honey. i don't know anything about movies.

which is why i have roger ebert.

yep, i think i'm going to tweet him. we'll see how that goes.

well, that was awkward.

before i begin today's post, i want to let you know a few things.

1. i just drank my first ever real margarita.
2. i drank it while watching monsters inc.
3. this may or may not be classy.
4. monsters inc. is a very undercredited movie, and i believe it is one of pixar's masterpieces.

since i've now had alcohol on two occasions in my entire life, i have a feeling that i'm a lightweight. i was totally envisioning having one margarita and starting this post with "i may or may not be slightly buzzed" and seeing where it went from there, but alas, four ounces of tequila in a whole margarita mix plus me only have one margarita in a small martini glass does not get me anywhere decently unsettled.

now on to the post.

last night i was on facebook chat with my boyfriend jacob. during the summer our relationship is long distance; he lives in michigan, i live in indiana, it's sad, we skype only when i bake, blah blah blah, etc. etc., he sends me pictures of animals playing banjos to make me happy.

we were discussing awkward moments. jacob has a stance that goes something like this: it's only awkward if you make it.

if that's true, i make every single thing in my life awkward.

the doctor's. the dentist. random dance recitals. life.

so i'm telling jacob that i want a harry potter themed wedding (THINK ABOUT IT, GUYS.) and he says, "well remember how that one themed wedding turned out?"

me: OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVEN'T BLOGGED ABOUT THAT SJKDHGEUWHGJDSHG WHAT OMG I'M BLOGGING ABOUT IT TOMORROW"

the idea of me blogging about this wedding while slightly buzzed on tequila is very appealing to me. but i'm not so sure that i liked tequila.

jacob: just don't be... too crass.

me: i'm crass? oh. i'm crass.


right.

i will now title this The Awkward and Amazing Themed Wedding of 2011.

so i love weddings. i absolutely love them. i was a bridesmaid for the first time when i was nineteen, and i loved every minute of it. funnily enough, i wasn't one of those girls that planned her wedding when i was little, but now i'm spending more and more time thinking about it.

serious relationships do that to you.

so i'm spending the weekend at jacob's in michigan and he says, hey my friend garrett (or was it grant? garrett. um.) is getting married and i can take a guest, want to go?

well sure. i pack a new summer dress and two pairs of shoes in case one doesn't look right, extra hairspray, and my black bow. so ready for this wedding.

the wedding is a little over halfway between jacob's house and alma. it's cool outside. gray. misty. generally unhappy. i'm driving jacob's (now) eighteen year old escort station wagon named algernon. that's the importance of being earnest algernon, not flowers. i've only been driving a stick for about... two months. and i'm taking it over a hundred miles. this is a big deal.

algernon, being old and relatively feeble on the inside (the heat works in the summer. the air conditioning in the winter), the defroster wasn't doing much. jacob's never heard of rainex. (if you haven't, GET IT.) so when we merge onto the highway, i can't see anything. i'm trying to put this car in fifth gear and the window is so fogged and it's raining so hard that i cannot see a thing and i start to panic and cry.

the defroster works. we don't die. we get up to highway speed. and we pretend that we're heading to alma. and of course, we eat licorice.

after a fun hour and a half in algernon eating licorice and feeling fancy in our wedding clothes, we find the church in the middle of nowhere. we park in the grass because the small parking lot is full, and we head inside just a few minutes early.

there was one particular thing that jacob forget to mention about this wedding.

it was renaissance themed.


the bridesmaids were wearing traditional renaissance dresses with their hair done up in flowers. each bridesmaid had on a different color. there was a renaissance band playing pipe music at the front of the sanctuary. the groom was wearing boots and a cape.

jacob and i took seats in the back and took everything in. we looked for friendly faces and we quickly realized something as the wedding processional began to renaissance flute music and tambourine: the only person we knew at the entire wedding was the groom.


1. we didn't know the bride.
2. we didn't know any of the wedding party.
3. we didn't know any of the guests.

the wedding itself was lovely. it was a very traditional wedding. the wedding song was "at last i see the light" from tangled, which was awesome, because i was still in my big tangled phase. the ushers were dressed in renaissance garb too, and they lead us out row by row.

leaving our row for last.

we were expecting food, but instead we got in line at a little table that had baby carrots, celery, and those little catered mini hotdogs and sausages. jacob and i, both being vegetarians, weren't very interested in that, so we each got a small plate of carrots and dip.

we hadn't eaten lunch. we should've.

by the time we got to the reception area, there wasn't a table for us to sit at. everybody that we didn't know stared at us as we tried to find a place to sit. we eventually sat down next to a big guy with a beard and his family. he shook our hands, and we introduced ourselves to him and to his sons, all of whom had very interesting and old-timey biblical names.

we devoured our carrots. hung out with bearded guy's family. tried not to be awkward. wanted more food but couldn't get any. then we came up with our plan.

on the pretext of getting more food, we would use the bathroom, and then sneak out. nobody would know. it wasn't that we genuinely didn't want to leave, but we'd congratulated the groom, eaten some carrots, and pushed our company on a bearded guy and his family. it was time for us to split.

we excused ourselves. said we were getting more food. found the bathroom. while i was peeing, the bridesmaids walked in and started stripping out of their renaissance dresses.

i met jacob in the foyer and we snuck out of the church and ran back to his car.

i had left the headlights on and his battery was dead. the car wouldn't start.


so what did we do?

we went BACK into the church and asked bearded guy for a jump. we told him that we had another place to be, and that's why we were ditching so early.

he gave us a jump. bearded guy was really cool.

so we drove to alma and got ice cream with my roommate who does summer research. in our wedding clothes.

this was my first time in what is the "new" stucchi's, formally known as college corner at the corner of campus. they had real food besides stucchi's ice cream, and we loked at their menu.

they named the vegetarian panini the "veggini."

please. take a moment. let that sink in.

oh stucchi's.

their philly corndog is called "the big willy."

again. take a moment. let that sink in.

we're pretty sure that this is done on purpose. especially the sign that says "TAKE A BITE OUT OF OUR BIG WILLY!"

when i ordered my veggini, i did not say veggini. i said, "um... i want THAT." and i pointed to it.

so we had a nice ice cream with mariah while jacob's battery recovered. we parked at zeta, since that's where my car is supposed to park, and when we were leaving, we saw my brother coming back from the grocery.

his expression: DA FUQ R U DOIN' IN ALMA?

his words: see above.

so i got out and gave him a big hug and he was like, "why aren't you in indiana why are you wearing a dress did you eat stucchi's why don't you visit me"

and i was like, "OMG I WENT TO THE MOST AWKWARD WEDDING EVER"

and then i drove jacob's stick all the way back to allegan. and then we told his parents about the wedding.

then we watched up.

because up is another pixar masterpiece.

just... pixar. i just love pixar.

and so that's the story of the awkward themed wedding.

jacob: still want a harry potter themed wedding after remembering that?

me: muggle.