Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving is going to be really interesting because it will be the first Thanksgiving with my new guy friend. We will be going to his uncle's house in Woodhaven first, then my aunt and uncle's house in Dearborn. At my family's house, we usually have a buffet. My mom makes her famous coleslaw, my aunt makes her famous green been casserole and sweet potato pie. My grandma makes pumpkin pie. Beware turkeys! My grandma usually orders an Amish turkey and I have to say it is the best! There are always leftovers. I could live off of turkey. Besides turkey, there is usually enough food for an army! To drink, we have coffee, different variety of pop, and hawaiian punch with orange sherbet. That is my favorite. My uncle usually has Christmas music playing in the background and the famous movie, "A Christmas Story" is played on the big screen t.v. in the basement. It doesn't matter how old we are, my cousins and siblings and I all sit together. We've been doing that since the 'kid table' (which is still in the basement! It hasnt' been used in years).

I am more thankful this year than I have ever been in years past. It was exactly 1 year ago the day before thanksgiving break, I was laid off. I'd been laid off for 6 months before I found my job with the head start program. While I was laid off, I was forced to move out of my apartment. A week after Thanksgiving I broke up with my fiancee. This year I am thankful for my job, my best friend who let me move into her condo with her, and my boyfriend who has shown me what a good guy looks like.

"Gaunt to Gargantuan and Back: The Atkins Method of Acting"

This article talks about the drastic physical appearance of actors/actresses in order to fit a movie role, mostly concerning weight. For example, the article talks about Renee Zellweger in the movie "Bridget Jone's Diary." In order to fit the role as "Bridget" Zellweger gained weight in order to have a more 'average' appearance. What does that mean anyway? Today's society and media puts enough pressure on women as it is to lose weight. Of course after the filming was over, Zellweger went back to her "normal" weight at a pretty fast pace. The same goes for actor Christian Bale who lost a lot of weight in order to appear gaunt in the movie "The Machinist." It's interesting that many movies in which actors/actresses change their appearance in this way, win Oscars or are nominated for Oscars, which suggests a selling point. According to the article, actors create an illusion to viewers that they can change their appearance in the same manner.

My response after reading this article is concern. It seems that in order to have a hit movie, actors will go out of their way to do just about anything to become the character in a movie. I don't see how anyone could put themselves through that so many times without facing repercussions. It seems that there's a fine line between reality and illusion.

Halloween events

My weekend was pretty busy! On Saturday, the children at my church had a harvest party. I had to get up early Saturday morning to help set up. The kids came at about 12:00pm and so the chaos began! The kids looked so cute in their costumes. Some came as princesses, others were Star Wars characters. There were about 21 children total. After they ate, they played games, such as ghost bowling, eating a donut from a string and a cake walk. They got to make puppets and decorate pumpkins, which was my favorite. The kids were very creative!
Later on, I went to a friend's house and helped pass out candy. We didn't think there would be a bunch of kids, so we gave out a handful of candy. As time went by, however, more and more kids came up the street. My friend had the idea of passing out quarters. He went inside and took out this huge can full of coins and picked out all the quarters. I was worried the house would get egged, so I was careful not to show the kids (and teens!) what I put in their bags. Well, one little boy happened to hear the clink of the quarter as it fell into his pumpkin basket and asked what it was. I said it was a quarter, and his response was, "A quarter! Cool!" then ran off the porch to show his quarter off. That was the highlight of the evening! After we turned out the lights and locked the door, we watched a couple scary movies, such as "Fog" and "The Haunting of the Bell Witch." I didn't have nightmares, which was good!