Movie review - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Last night Matt and I went to see the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was prepared to be disappointed, because I really like the old one. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it was. There are elements of the original movie as well as the book, but there are enough changes to make it seem like an entirely new movie.

Johnny Depp does a great job with Willy Wonka, and makes him one of the weirdest characters I've seen. Entertainment Weekly said that he reminds them of a strange cross-dressing 19th century vampire with an effeminate voice, and they're onto something. All in all, I'd recommend this movie to anyone. You'll definitely get some good chuckles out of it, and enjoy the new and improved Oompa Loompas :)

He's home!

Yay, Matt's home! There's always a little period of readjustment after he gets back from a longer underway. We're not used to being around each other. He's used to being around the guys from work, and I'm used to having all of my time to myself. It doesn't usually take more than a few hours to get used to being together, though. It's so nice to have him home again. He's only home for a couple of weeks, then he's out again for a couple of weeks, then he's in for a few more, then he's gone for three months. We'll make the most of the time that we have together, though.

I've finally started on one of my papers, and I should have it pretty much finished by the end of tonight. I'm in a fairly productive mode right now, so I will probably start on the next one tomorrow. It feels good to be getting them done.

Bank error in your favor!

A couple of weeks ago, I was balancing the checkbook, and when I logged onto my bank site, I noticed a problem. There was $22,000 there that wasn't supposed to be. Upon further investigation, we discovered that the Navy had deposited the money into our account by mistake. Matt reported it, and they still haven't done anything about it. I put the money into our big savings account, because I figured that we may as well earn interest on it. I am treating it like it's not there in my check register, but it's fun to look at my savings balance online with an extra $22k in it. :)

Oh crap!

I am such a klutz. I was cleaning the bathroom and was using a bucket with some bleach in it, and I moved the bucket to the bedroom for a minute. I went back in to get something off the dresser, and tripped over the bucket. Now there is a very large bleached spot on the carpet. I have tried to think about ways to fix it, thinking as drastic as cutting out the piece of the carpet and replacing it with some of the extra carpet from a roll in the closet. I think this might make things worse, though, so I might try my idea in the back of the closet first. Yeah, it's that bad.

The power of Google

I just spent five hours doing research for my three papers, and I think I've got just about everything I need to start writing. That's going to happen a different day, though. I am working on three papers. For my science project, I am writing a paper on the country of Haiti, specifically the detrimental effects of deforestation on their food and water supplies. Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds.

For my religions class, I'm writing a paper on Buddhism, with a heavy focus on how Western society has both changed and not changed it. I was supposed to do an interview with someone of Buddhist faith in-person, but I copped out and sent my interview questions to a minister here in Hawaii. She is working on her responses and I expect to have them by the end of the week.

I am writing a paper on Intel for my business management class. This is the one that I had the most difficulty in finding resources. I need to focus on the business management aspect of the company. Try typing "Intel" in Google and see what you get - not what I needed. So it took me an hour or so to find the right thing to search for, but once I found the right phrase (which ended up being "intel employee management") I found more resources than I can possibly use.

Once again, Google came through for me. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error, but I firmly believe that there is nothing that I can't find through Google.

My name

I talked to my dad over the weekend, and he brought up the fact that I didn't change my name to Matt's name when we got married. I could tell that he might hold some traditional views on the subject, so I thought I'd explain why I decided not to change my name to Matt's last name.

The answer is really quite simple - I am my father's daughter. I am a Gillingham, through and through, and I am proud to be a Gillingham. My name is a reminder to me of the people that share the same blood as me, and a lot of the same physical features as well. It reminds me that humor is one of the most important parts of life (if you know the Gillinghams, you know what I mean,) and it's ok to just be goofy sometimes. I changed my name once, and I always felt weird about it. It was like I changed a big part of who I was, like I had abandoned a part of me.

Deciding not to change my name had nothing to do with not wanting to deal with the hassle of getting new IDs or calling the multiple places that I do business with. Instead, it's because I am a Gillingham.

I'm getting old

Today I officially moved out of my mid-twenties and entered my late twenties. I'm starting to feel old. It really doesn't bother me, though, because I'm in a point in my life right now where I'm really quite content with things. We've all heard the phrase "your biological clock is ticking." Sometimes I think about that as it pertains to having kids.

Matt and I are both undecided on whether or not we want to have kids. Until he's done with school, it doesn't really fit into our plans. Even then, if he goes into the Air Force, we might move around a lot and stuff, but financially, we'll be much better suited then to have a kid. This is all assuming that we can even have kids, which I've been told is a slim chance for me.

Since I probably can't have kids, we have discussed the option of adoption eventually. I like this route, although it can be expensive and legal hassles are always no fun. I would personally like to be a foster parent later in our lives, at a point when we're settled and financially set.

I'm not sure how I jumped from my birthday to having kids, but whatever. Anyway, thanks Mom for the card(s) and for the posts on the message board. It's good to see that you're catching on! Oh yeah, and thanks for giving birth to me :)

Other people

There are some things that it seems that "other people" always do, and that you live your life and don't give it much thought. Then today I realized that I have the privelage of being one of those "other people." I got to leave the life that I knew and move to a somewhat exotic place. If I want to take a walk on one of the most famous beaches in the world, I do. If I want to sit and listen to the ocean under the moonlight at 2:00 in the morning, I do.

My purpose here is not to brag or rub it into anyone's face, it's to show how much I appreciate how lucky I am to be free to do these things and to be, if only for a relatively short time, one of those "other people." I know that my time is almost up, and before too long I'm going to be back in the ranks of the workforce, living from paycheck to paycheck again.

And he's gone again

I dropped Matt off at his pier yesterday morning. He's gone for two weeks again. I never like seeing him go, but I know that he has to, so there's no reason getting upset about it. I manage to keep myself busy with school and various video games. I have three big papers coming up that I need to start working on. Knowing me, I will wait until the week that they are due. I hope I don't do that again, it's really stressful.

History

One of my assignments today was to do a Power Point presentation on Judaism, which included a section on the Holocaust. That got me to thinking about history and stuff. For most people today, World War II is just history, something that happened a long time ago that doesn't really affect us today. For my grandparents, it was a part of their life and will probably always be. The same goes for the Vietnam war - for me and my siblings, it's just history, but for my parents, it will always be more than that. Hopefully, for the kids that haven't been born yet, the war on terror will just be history.

My sick cat

I have a sick cat. Buffy let me know Tuesday night that she is not feeling well by peeing on my bed. Fortunately, I was not in it at the time, but instead working on my computer. I didn't see this happen, but smelled it shortly afterwards. I immediately blamed Nite, and was chasing her around the house when I went back into the bedroom and caught Buffy doing it again!

I stripped the sheets and off and threw them in the washer, and noticed that the matress pad was bloody. This was when I realized that Buffy was sick, and this was her way of telling me. I spent the rest of the night following her around the apartment with a bucket of bleach and a can of Resolve, because she continued to leave bloody drops everywhere. I called the vet first thing in the morning and took her in. She has a urinary tract infection, and they gave me some amoxicillan to give her twice a day (that's fun, I have to force it down her throat.)

Yesterday all seemed well, then this morning I was rudely awakened to a pile of cat puke next to my head. Once again, the smell of bleach fills the bedroom. She better get over this quick.

School update

I am in week 5 of my fourth block of classes, and although I started out full-force, I am right back where I usually am by this time. I only read what I need to in order to complete the assignments, and I have generally lost interest in the idea of school and am more focused on simply completing my degree. I still strive to get an A in all of my classes, but I only do just enough to get that A. I haven't started on my final papers yet, and if history has a say in it, I won't until the week they're due. This is bad because I have three of them due.

However, I did read one entire chapter for my science class because it was interesting. It was a chapter on renewable energy sources and went in depth in the subjects of solar and hydrogen power. I think that my next car will probably be a hybrid (one that uses both a battery and conventional fuel). This might be a little more expensive initially, but with the continued rise in gas costs, it will save far more money than I will spend up front. I also will strongly consider solar power when we buy a house. The same concept applies - more money up front, but we will save in the long run.

The best seats in the house

Tonight Matt and I went to the fireworks at Pearl Harbor. We went to the pier that his sub is parked at. There were very few people there, which we both like, and we found great seats at the end of the pier directly across the water from the barge where they were launching the fireworks. We had the best seats in the house. From where we were sitting, not only could we see the Pearl Harbor fireworks, but if we looked to our right, we could also see the fireworks from Hickham Air Force Base, which is adjacent to Pearl Harbor.

We were so close to the fireworks that the "big boomers" filled our entire field of vision. To see all of those we had to physically move our heads. It was also fun getting to see the duds and misfires. We were treated to a good show, and one can't help during the show to think about how lucky you are to be watching it in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I was impressed and I feel patriotic now. It makes Matt's leaving tomorrow morning for 5 days a little less bad.

Slowness

I've noticed that my site has been taking a long time to load lately. I think it's related to Blogger, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Hopefully, it will fix itself soon.

We don't have a whole lot planned for the 4th. We're going to go for a moonlight stroll on one of our favorite beaches tonight and then watch the fireworks from the Navy base overlooking Pearl Harbor. I haven't gone to watch fireworks for years, and it's something I always liked, so it should be a good time.

Tentative schedule for us

Matt and I sat down and put together a tentative schedule from December until after he's done with the Navy. We have pretty much decided that we're going to live in Atlanta. He wants to go to school at Georgia Tech (eventually) and I have been to Atlanta and liked it. A big city suits us well because we would like to utilize public transportation when possible.

Anyway, here is our tentative schedule:

Dec 9-17 - Australia
Dec 19-27 - Wisconsin
Dec 27-Jan 3 - Colorado
Jan 3- Back home in Hawaii
Feb 6-Feb 20 - Island hopping (visiting three other Hawaiian islands)
Mar 20 - Leave Hawaii for good
Mar 20-Apr 10 - Stay in Atlanta with the cats (board them) and find an apartment
Apr 10 - Fly to Los Angeles to pick up the car then drive to Las Vegas
Apr 10-13 - Las Vegas with my parents
Apr 13-18 - Stay in Colorado while picking up our stuff
Apr 18-19 - Drive to Wisconsin to pick up the rest of my stuff
Apr 19-23 - Stay in Wisconsin
Apr 23-24 - Drive home to Atlanta