Curiouser and Curiouser

New job, new blog

catherineeliza — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:39:22 +0000

I know changing blog addresses is a total pain for the 3 people that have links to me on their blogs or saved in their favorites, but I felt compelled to change.

So if you have any faith that I will once again blog regularly, please make the move to:

Curiosity Killed the Cate

catherineeliza — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:46:46 +0000

I really didn’t like the novel, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist which I read for a class. It had too many sexual antics for my taste, and it really bugs me that approximately 50% (I’m pulling this statistic out of thin air) of YA books are set in New York City – it seems really disproportionate.

But I have a great love for Michael Cera, and this trailer is well done, so I’ll probably see the movie anyway. Who knows, if they leave out one particular scene in a hotel by the ice machine, I might really like it.

[OFFICIAL] Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist movie trailer

A few thoughts

catherineeliza — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:00:46 +0000

To me September has always been the real new year. I’ve never moved on from the traditional school time-table; guess that’s one reason I’ve decided to go back there! But seriously, getting some nice autumnal weather after and a new sweater or two after the summer heat really makes me want to take on new endeavors. What endeavors might those be, you ask? Well…

My final class in order to become teacher-certified!! I’m so ready to be done with school (well, for now – I’m certain I’ll be back), and I cannot wait to be really and truly ready to win my dream job.
Speaking of my upcoming career search, I’ve decided to create a website to promote myself (more my style and more accessible than a traditional portfolio). I bought my domain name months ago, but I’ve yet to begin work on the site. I really want to have it ready to go by January…
Healthy diet and regular working out – the perennial goal. Yeah, it’s totally time to really embrace that.

I did love Princess Ben, which I’d read good things about (particularly enjoyed the hedgehog connection), but I hate the cover, particularly it’s resemblance to Ever which I still need to read. I so rarely enjoy books with models on the cover, I just don’t like it.

I’m rather annoyed with Danny DeVito for stealing my project. I took a playwrighting class in college and I did a stage adaptation of one of my favorite books, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. I’ve always thought I’d pull that script (a very rough first draft) and really do something with it. So eight years later, DeVito swoops in and steals my thunder. Rude! Maybe next time I should move a little faster? Maybe?

If I don’t read Breaking Dawn soon, I’m going to stumble over a spoiler which I’ve been madly dodging left and right – they are everywhere. I really want to read it fresh, but I don’t want to buy it, and I don’t want to go through the crazy library wait. My problems are endless.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing for the last 9 months (oh man, time flies), I don’t have any good answers for you. I’ve been in Rochester, working away bit by bit at my schoolwork and being a bit depressed about how long things take and how nothing is easy. Oh yeah, and I finally joined the 21st century and got layers cut into my hair. All caught up?

Masterpoop Theatre

catherineeliza — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:36:52 +0000

I don’t think I’m asking too much. All I want is to once a week be whisked off to another time and place, preferably with a little romance. So why did you promise me an entire season of Jane Austen and then stick two mini-series I’ve already seen in the middle (when your new movies have been an all-too-brief 90 minutes), and then not play anything for almost all of March?

Tonight is a Johnny Cash concert!?! Do you really think that’s an acceptable alternative?

You know I’ll always love you Masterpiece Theatre, but please, try to do better in the future.
Thank you.

Two movies I really liked

catherineeliza — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:39:12 +0000

I’m not really as up-to-date with movies as I used to be, but I recently got both Sydney White and Bridge to Terabithia from Netflix and I was surprised to find how much I loved them both!
Sydney White is a Snow White retelling starring Amanda Bynes which puts it right up my alley, but it was only in theaters for about a day, so I assumed it was terrible. Still, I had to see it, right? And I have to say, it was very funny. I don’t know what Samm Levine did to become the eternal smarmy, girl-crazy nerd, but he certainly does it well. I thought the whole thing was pretty well done; quite cute and some laughs to boot.

As for Bridge to Terabithia, I was appalled by the trailers for this movie, as it looked like a realistic little story about two friends making up a world of their imagination in the backwoods had been turned into a fantasy CGI nightmare. Turns out the showed every bit of the CGI in the trailer, and the majority of the movie was exactly what I would have hoped. I read that Dakota Fanning turned down the part of Leslie Burke, and while I like her fine, I’m quite glad the AnnaSophia Robb who is growing on my at an alarming rate.

book/staircase

catherineeliza — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:29:47 +0000

Look at this completely awesome staircase/bookcase! Looks kinda steep, but otherwise, perfect.

“When Leonie and Rhodri added the upstairs, the architect proposed a handsome and clever book-lined staircase to house their formidable combined libraries in one streamlined space. “It’s just brilliant because the way it’s conceived, you can walk by it and not even notice it,” Leonie says. “So it’s like this fabulous surprise.”

Click on the photo for more pictures of this apartment…

I heart water aerobics

catherineeliza — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:44:08 +0000

I started attending a water aerobics class at the YMCA with my mom. I decided to go just to be supportive to her and have some good mother/daughter bonding time. Wouldn’t you know, I’m addicted now? I really do love it. Everything they say about the benefits of exercising in water are true. It simultaneously makes your cardio workout easier (no impact) and harder (constant resistance), and on top of that, you can’t really tell that you’re sweating! Also, I like to pretend that this will lead to a late, great synchronized swimming career for me. Then again, I’m pretty sure they don’t allow floatation belts in the Olympics.

big city, big pest problems

catherineeliza — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 05:49:27 +0000

I snapped a picture of this notice in my apartment building as a momento of urban life. I wish I knew how to make it bigger so you easily see every comment, because they are very funny. It took about three or four weeks for this notice to get every note you see here.

will work for money

catherineeliza — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:13:36 +0000

I know my blog’s been very boring of late, but that’s mostly due to the fact that so am I. I moved home just before Christmas having almost lost my mind over finishing a very challenging semester, winding up a job that I’d been at for three years (sadly, by far my longest stint), and of course, regular holiday stress. I’m still running down to the basement daily to dig things out of boxes since my bedroom has been a storage receptacle for years, and thus, needs to be cleaned out before I can really move in, which I’ve had plenty of time to do, and yet, have not. And now my last semester at Rutgers starts tomorrow, my student teaching position has not yet been approved, I need to find another one in an elementary school, and very importantly, I need to find a job. I need to find the highest paying part-time job I can with night hours. Other than working the graveyard shift at my local Mobil-Mart, does anyone have any ideas? Oh yeah, to throw into the mix, I’m sharing a car with my sister because neither one of us can afford our own, so can I add to the order of a high-paying but not actually difficult part-time job that I can do at night that it also be in a convenient location? Let me know what you come up with, thanks!

many pints of peppermint ice cream

catherineeliza — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:10:44 +0000

peppermint ice cream

Originally uploaded by catherineeliza_nyc.

We had peppermint ice cream last week at my sister’s birthday, and we decided we like it. So another sister decided to serve it at her son’s first birthday party last night. Problem being that peppermint ice cream is a seasonal flavor, and our local grocery store was already out of it. Yesterday my mother and I decided to try to find some for her while she was at work, so after calling a few places, we drove to a local dairy which had some home-made peppermint ice cream. We bough 3 or 4 pints and I called and left a message for my sister that we had found the ice cream, and would bring it to the party that night. I was well satisfied with our cleverness and went to the gym. Upon my return, I saw had a message that my sister had found peppermint ice cream at another store and had bought a quart for the party and a quart to give it us. I went to tell my mom that we didn’t need to bring the ice cream to the party and learned that while I had been at the gym she had gone to another store and found peppermint ice cream there as well and bought two quarts (one for the party, one for us). So now, we have a lot of peppermint ice cream. Be sure to drop by if you’d like some.