The Oscars
The Academy Awards have always been one of my favorite nights of the year because it was time I always spent with my mom when I was growing up. As a doctor, she seemed to be always working, and didn't have very many interests in common with me. One thing that we always agreed on and always did together, though, was watching the Oscars. We loved the glamour and cinematic romance, the acceptance speeches, and the musical numbers. I miss you, mama-san!

Because I value creativity and love movies (and get no satisfaction from critiquing for its own sake), here is a list of my favorite parts of this year's ceremony:
1. Jon Stewart...handsome, intelligent, different than other hosts.
2. Diverse musical nominations. I thought the choreography was more interesting than usual.
3. The Crash surprise. E!: Entertainment Television predicted a come-from-behind victory, since everything was "Crash, crash, crash" this week ;) And as we know, they're always right.
4. The cute presenter speeches: Ben Stiller and the Wilson boys.
5. Reese Witherspoon's speech about her Grandma. I feel that way about mine (she's a tough cookie!) and I can't wait to see her this month.
6. Michelle Williams' dress. It was so different- I wish I had heard who designed it.
7. The music playing during speeches. It was a little distracting at first, but it started to seem like it eased the winners' tension and gave their speeches more drama, and little bit of gravitas.
8. The speech by the directors of Wallace and Gromit. They're so quinticentially British, and the mini bowties were adorable.
9. Wolfgang Puck's menu for the Governor's Ball...the tuna crisps looked amazing!
10. The satiritcal campaign commercials. I liked the one against Dame Judy Dench, with other Dames questioning her true worthiness to be a Dame.

So now I'm 24. Everyone asks if I feel older or if it feels different. It doesn't; I don't really think of it as an "old" or "young" age at this point. I feel like I'm waiting for something in my life to change, though, and teaching keeps me too exhausted to promote anything new myself! My only big change for the future is still a long way away: I'm going to start studying for the LSATs, though I'm not certain if that's the right choice for my career either. For all my efforts to talk to the members of the band I saw last night at my party (which paid off a bit), I'm not sure that I'm still in the stage of my life when being a groupie is appealing:) So I realize, the change I want most is no longer to be just me, just by myself.