Music Monday (2)

Welcome back to Music Monday!  This week I've got all Disney songs for you.  Let's start with the scariest one and also my absolute favorite...

"Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I love this movie so much.  Just the music is enough to give me goosebumps!  And now that I've been to the place where the story is set, it's even more amazing.  I've been looking at old Disney movies lately and I've noticed that some of them are actually darker than I originally thought.  A song about getting an outcast girl to fall in love with him with the ultimatum being 'I'll kill you'?  In a Disney movie?  Wow... Despite the dark undertones, I'm so in love.





"Savages" from Pocahontas
I'm in love with this movie too.  I love the colors and the music!  I like that this song has three singing parts-- the Settlers, the Native Americans, and Pocahontas has a strong part of her own.  It's so beautiful!  Alan Menken for sure knows what he's doing.





"He Mele No Lilo" from Lilo and Stitch
Another movie I used to watch incessantly.  My sister and I watched it so much that our DVD got scratched, so now the movie stops in the beginning of every song so matter how much fast-forwarding we end up doing.  Any way, this is such a cute song and the animation is adorable-- one of the more round, cute Disney animations.





"I Won't Say I'm in Love" from Hercules
This is such an awesome song to sing along to.  I love that Meg is a Disney princess without really being a Disney princess.  She's on the outskirts of princesshood.  And she's sort of a bad guy even though like Anakin Skywalker, she hasn't completely turned to the Dark Side.





"Reflection" from Mulan
A beautiful song from a beautiful and flowy movie.  Another favorite (I seem to have a lot of those!)
Thanks for watching and reading!
--Jude

Friday Memes

TGIF, Follow Friday, and now Let's Talk is brought to you by Ginger @ GReads, Parajunkee, and i swim for oceans.  Let's head into the questions!  Feel free to leave your own link below.

TGIF

Reading Blues: We all get them from time to time.  What helps you overcome those reading slumps when nothing seems to grab your attention?

I think I've only had this happen once in a profound way in my blogging career so far.  I moved past this horrendous time by stepping back a little.  I didn't push myself to read just because I've made it my business to read for the Internet. I tried new things on my blog so that I could begin to think in different ways rather than solely through literature.  I let myself wander until I came across a book that screamed, "READ ME!!!" in an obnoxiously good way.  It's probably not the most efficient way to do things, but it worked for me.

Follow Friday

Have you ever had a character that disappointed you?  One that you fell in love with and "broke up" with later on in either the series or stand-alone book?  Tell us about him or her.

Edward Cullen from Twilight.  He represents a perfect boyfriend in many ways, but at some point in time, he's just too perfect and he was pretty unchanging for the longest time.  I fell out of love with perfection and I was looking for a guy with some flaws.  Simple as that.

Let's Talk

What ONE underrated book do you want to share with the blogosphere - new or old?

In general, I haven't noticed very many memoirs being reviewed.  They're extremely underrated.  I'm reading one right now called 'Prozac Nation' and it's probably one of the most informative and interesting memoirs about a young woman suffering from depression.  So that's the book I would like to share with you today!

Thank you very much for reading!  Again, feel free to answer these questions for yourself and/or leave your own link below in the comments.  I will try my best to stop by your blog this weekend!

--Jude

If You're Interested...

Hello there!

Some of you may recall that recently I traveled to France a couple of weeks ago.  Some of you may also know that I've begun to keep a travel blog.  Well, now the two collide as I begin to show you pictures and tell some of the stories I brought home with me.

If you'd like to read and/or view the pictures, my travel blog is here:

Jude Discovers the World

The link above takes you to the front page, not a specific post, so you may not arrive on my Day 1 France post.  No worries, just follow the tags.

If you do take a look at this blog, I thank you many times in advance!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Jude, Meet Pottermore

Hello there!

So recently, I signed up for Pottermore.  I've been sorted into Ravenclaw (after reading the description underneath the result, I can't say I'm sad that I didn't get into Gryffindor.  I live in a tower AND apparently I'm clever!).  I've also received my wand-- 11 inches, laurel wood, phoenix feather core, and (my favorite part) surprisingly swishy!

I have grown to love making potions (even though it takes a really long time) and I only kind of like dueling.  I can't seem to get the hang of it.  Those that can do it really well must be robots who can type really fast!

Aside from the "gaming" part of the website, it's actually really interesting!  One is able to essentially walk through each of the scenes in the books (if my understanding is correct, you can only go through the first book at this time) and you are able to click on most things and learn something that you couldn't know just by reading the books.  For instance, you can find out how J.K. Rowling chose the names for her characters (the Dursley's were pretty interesting, especially hearing about a time before Harry and Dudley were alive and there was merely a rivalry between the Potters and the Dursleys.  I'll let you read for yourself though).

If you would like to become chums on Pottermore, my username is ErisedSand6227!  Feel free to leave your usernames below if you have an account and I'll try and find you, if you'd like.

I hope that you are having an excellent week so far!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Music Monday (1)

So, I don't want to completely abandon you while I'm busy with life, so I will leave you with some music that I've been in love with lately! 

First, "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye
I first saw this music video while I was sitting in the living room of my French host family-- it was so trippy, but so cool and the song itself is just so catchy!  I love it!

"Domino" by Jessie J
Another really, REALLY trippy video that I saw in France!  I love the costume changes and I'll admit, I swoon a little when she hits those high notes.

"Lady Godiva" covered by Alex Day
I'm in love with the cover!  The video is so theatrical and, and, and.... yeah :)

"Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, as covered by Cimorelli
This is such a cute family.  All of the girls are sisters and are all super talented and awesome!  It's weird though, when it comes to this song, I tend to prefer the covers.
I kind of like this Music Monday concept... maybe I'll make it a thing.  Tell me what you think!
Also, slowly but surely, I will be scheduling reviews and inserting the occasional "live" post.  Thank you for giving these artists some love and I'll talk to you again very soon!
--Jude

Oh Geez, Blogosphere, I'm sorry!

Hello there!

I realized that I haven't posted anything in a while, so I'll write an update for you!

I am now finished traveling for a while!  I loved the trips that I took this year (I'll blog about them later, as soon as I have enough time to breathe and all of those fun things that are essential to life).  I have tons of pictures and tales of adventure and I can't wait to share them all with you!

In other news, I think I've made my college decision.  There are still some questions that I must have answered, but they're not essential to my decision.  I have another week before I need to make my formal declaration to the college, so I hope that I can get that done soon and send in a deposit.  The next step?  Rooming.  It never ends.  That'll be exciting though!  The stressful part of picking a place to go is out of the way and I can take everything else in stride.  I know I won't have to get to know an entirely new city, just new parts of it.  I'm excited!  I think next year will be a great year!

I just found out that I have a month and seven days left in my high school career.  I'm nervous about this, but ready to move on at the same time.  High school graduates, is this a normal feeling to have?

Prom is also coming up.  See?  The events just never end.  I come home from running around the world (not literally, if you're just tuning in) and I come home and I have to hit the ground running again what with the end of high school looming not so far ahead of me.

This summer, I'll hopefully be working in the same job that I held last year (cross your fingers!  It's not a sure thing) but when I'm not working, I will have some free time.  I think that I will need a project.  The summer edition of NaNoWriMo certainly sounds appealing, so I'll do that and also gardening, but what else?  Do you have any thoughts of projects that could be done in a summer?  Or a series of small projects that could be done in a summer?

I'm working on putting more reviews out, so bear with me!

Thank you for sticking with me through this period of sparse posting!

--Jude

The Bookish Tag!

If this video says anything along the lines of, "I'll post the question below," I will have to to this later.  
Enjoy!
--Jude

Movie Time! 'Vertigo'

"One of Alfred Hitchcock's darkest and most compelling suspense films tells the story of police detective Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart), who has a crippling fear of heights-- and an all-consuming obsession with a married woman.  When an old friend asks him to tail his wife (Kim Novak), Scottie is drawn into a vortex of deceit and murder.  But that's only the beginning as a mesmerizing score draws Scottie to the film's haunting final shot."

This was my first Alfred Hitchcock movie!  Honestly, I wish we had watched more of his movies in Literature and Film class.  We had to write a paper on him in relation to his movies 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' (that review is coming soon!) and it was just so interesting to read about his life!  Did you know the first movie he directed was never finished?  And that the way he got into the movie business was by designing title cards for silent films?  And that his parents sent him to jail with a note that he had been bad at home and should be shown what happens when you do bad things when you're older?  It's just so interesting!

Any way, the movie.

I liked the choice of James Stewart (I like him more since I've seen 'Rear Window') as the main actor.  He portrays someone with extreme Acrophobia and vertigo quite well-- I believed that he had it, in any case.

Things get more interesting when Madeleine came into the picture and Scottie (James Stewart) was asked to follow her to make sure that she wouldn't hurt herself as her husband feared.  I don't completely understand what happened to Madeleine, but it's still really intriguing and thought-provoking.  It was amazing how attached Scottie could become to one human being, especially when he met the other girl, her character's name was Julie (she's played by the same actress that played Madeleine in the first two-thirds of the movie).  His attachment to Madeleine became really uncomfortable to watch as Scottie bought her clothes like Madeleine's, asked her to bleach her hair and style it like Madeleine's... Madeleine was Scottie's drug.  He was on Madeleine withdrawal and he wanted her back so badly that he was willing to create her.  What made it so scary was that I had never really seen this kind of attachment before.  Scottie was just unable to let go.

When I die, I don't want people to become to attached to me as to try to bring me back through any means.

Technically-speaking, this was really interesting.  The ways Hitchcock filmed this movie were ground-breaking.  Zooming out and moving forward in order to zoom in?  Genius!  It was just beautiful.

Alfred Hitchcock is truly the Master of Suspense.  This was such a great film, even if it was uncomfortable to watch at times

I would recommend this movie to anyone who has never seen any Alfred Hitchcock movies but would like to (it's a good start), those who love movies with suspense, and those who like technically-brilliant movies.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Reverse Q and A

Defense360's channel can be found HERE.  She is a beautiful individual and you will enjoy her as a person immensely!
Enjoy!
--Jude