The Light at the End of this Semester

          This semester has been insane--absolutely insane. I cannot remember the last time I was not rushing to be somewhere, or the last time I was able to work out, watch television, or do anything else I like to do. I feel like at this point there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is faint, but it is still there. That light is still being masked by the rest of the articles I have due, the tests I have to take, the scholarship deadlines I have to meet, and just end of the year plans. I am completely drowning in work right now, and yet I am still hopeful because I know that the end is near.
          One thing I will be glad to have done and out of the way is a profile article for Magazine and Freelance Writing. At first I thought it was going to be extremely simple because you just write the story of their life, but as I am beginning to write it, I am becoming intimidated by the amount of information I have to work with (over an hour of interviews on audio) and sift through. I do not really know where to take the story and what the focus will be. Just seeing that hour's worth of audio on the recorder is so daunting that I do not know where to start. I do not know how to integrate direct quotes into the story, even I even have to for that matter. I am confident that my article will turn out well and that I will be okay, but just looking at what little I have so far and thinking about how easy I thought it was going to be is making my stomach churn.

The Wagon Accident: An Eavesdropping Experience

           Upon eavesdropping in a coffee shop, I heard an interesting story that made little to no sense. I walked in and ordered my blended Chai Bomb before waiting patiently beside two extremely tall men, both adorned with plaid shirts. The two men in their late 30s to early 40s seemed to be old friends who were grabbing a cup of coffee to catch up, but their story just did not sound right. One of the men asked “How’s Linda?” and I picked up that Linda was his wife. Then Linda’s husband gave a not so normal answer to this question. He began explaining that Linda has been different ever since she was hit by the wagon. Linda and their son Johnny have been crooked ever since. He then went in to explanation about how their curvatures were different. I was completely confused. Was this guy Amish or something? Who gets hit by a wagon? As I contemplated how this was possible, I continued to listen for maybe two more minutes, where they discussed how Johnny was doing in school. You all will be proud to hear that out of all his classes, he only has one B. What a successful little boy. With that, I received my drink and walked out, still trying to process a modern day wagon accident.

The Most Admirable Woman

          When it comes to people I admire, it is a broad category, but when it comes to someone I admire who has also had an impact on me, the list shrinks down to one person: my grandma, Claudia Thompson. If you look at her life on paper, most people would think she has not done a whole lot with her life--getting married at 17, being a stay at home mom for three children and assisting her husband in running their apple orchard/ honey/ jam business for the last 50 plus years. I see it differently, however, because of what she has overcome and because of the dignity she holds herself with despite everything. 
          I love my grandpa dearly, but he is definitely not the best husband and watching her deal with him over the years has really helped me learn the definition of patience. He is very demanding and rude sometimes, and he likes everything done a certain way. He expects her to do everything for him all the time, and she sits there and does what he says and never protests. She still goes about her work with a smile on her face and with a heart for Jesus.
          This woman loves Jesus like no other. She doesn't openly profess her faith because I do not think she was raised to be very evangelical, but she is the exact replica of what it would look like to obey God. She is kind to all, even to those who are unkind. She never gossips, even about those who do her wrong. She submits to her husband. She is generous with her time, her support, and her help. She is giving, even when she has nothing. She has greater patience than anyone I have ever seen, or ever will see, in my life. She is just an all round morally upright woman, and she has never compromised that.
          She has gone through a lot in her lifetime, too, so to see that she has been faithful and has not changed despite how hard life has been is truly inspiring. Her children are not the easiest to deal with. Her firstborn, a son, is crazy and never married, but instead mooches off his parents the majority of the time. Her second child, a daughter, is completely drama filled, from her teenaged days being called "Whora Laura" to marrying and having four kids, divorcing, dating a low life leech, and dealing with the drama those four kids have (which is always something, let me tell you). The third child is my mother, so you automatically must assume she's crazy too. Despite all that, she has really been the anchor in the family to support her children, whether that be taking care of their kids for the summer or giving them a place to live when life didn't go their way. As if she really needed to do all that when she had a lot of health concerns to overcome. 
          Recently she was given a month to live because of a large amount of cancer they found that  spread throughout her body. That was over six months ago. Now she is cancer free. She went through a lot of surgery and chemotherapy, and even along the way, she was having grandchildren left on her doorstep to be taken care of, and yet she never complained. That is the nature of my grandmother. To let life bring all its challenges and yet never let a complaint slip out of your mouth is a truly admiral thing and I wish I could be more like her. I wish I could have her patience. I wish I could be the great mother that she is (and great cook!). I wish people would admire me even a third as much as they admire here, because Lord knows that she is the most admirable woman I will ever have the pleasure of knowing.

You Wanna Hear Something Funny? How About a Story About Bubblegum

          Everyone has always told me it is dangerous to drink and drive, but no one ever warned me of the dangers of chewing bubble gum and driving. Last year I went to a party at the house of some Biola seniors. The theme was "Back When It Was Cool."  We all dressed up in 90's outfits and The Backstreet Boys and other formerly popular bands blared from the speakers. It was a good time, and my favorite part had to be the bubble gum dispensers dispersed throughout the house. My jaw started to ache because I must have had about 20 pieces! Finally it was time to cap of the night and after a final dance, I gathered the people I transported to the party and we hopped back in the car.
          The party continued into the car as we turned on the dance music and sweated from the close proximity. There we were, six people in one car singing at the top of their lungs, dancing as much as the space would permit, and chewing some bubble gum. I opened the windows to get the air to circulate and that just added to the party atmosphere.
          I blew a nice big bubble, about the size of my head, if not bigger. Suddenly the breeze from the window caught it and the bubble was being sucked out of the car. Since it was so big, I didn't want it to pop because it surely would have splatted in my hair, so instead I let my head follow it outside. So here I am, with my head and my abnormally large bubble flailing out the window like the jowls of a St. Bernard when all of a sudden the other girls in the car give a high pitched squeal. I looked forward and realized I was just feet away from the car in front of me who had stopped at the red light. I slammed on the brakes and stopped literally two inches away from the vehicle and we all breathed a sigh of relief--the girls, because we didn't die, and me because the fast brake deflated the bubble and I was able to simply stuff the remains back in my mouth. Needless to say I will never blow bubbles to an open car window again.

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" Nearly Crashes

Official Movie Poster Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

            Usually when you watch a movie, you expect it to be dumbed down so that the average audience will understand, or at least have the ability to understand. Not so with “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” a movie which covers an insider trading scandal, a market crash, a bailout, a love story, and of course a ton of greed in the middle. It shows the infamous Michael Douglas back as Gordon Gekko, a role that won him an Oscar in 1987 when the original “Wall Street” came out. Douglas nailed his role as the most greedy slime ball of a man imaginable, and  yet I love it. Douglas was perhaps the best part of the movie because the rest of the film was confusing and overly didactic.

            Gekko gets out of prison after serving eight years for what he considers “a victimless crime,” but what most of us would call insider trading. He meets Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a new up-and-coming trader who is planning to marry his estranged daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Jacob was feeling vengeful toward the man (Josh Brolin) who started rumors against and crashed the company Jacob supported, causing his mentor (Frank Langella) to kill himself and so he bonds with his future father-in-law and learns his ways. Winnie warns Jacob that her dad will hurt them, but he thinks Gekko is a changed man. True to character, Gekko betrays his own family to get back in the game. The movie ends with him trying to reconcile after his many betrayals.

Gekko (Douglas, pictured left) and Jacob (Labeouf, pictured right) decide to have a relationship behind Winnie's back.

            Douglas is the real focus of this movie because his performance was so outstanding. Sure, LaBeouf, Mulligan, and Brolin were good supporters, but they were so overshadowed that they are barely worth mentioning. Douglas is the villain you love to hate and the perfect Wall Street tycoon that exemplifies greed and manipulation. He plays the father who wants to reconcile with his daughter just as well as he plays the greedy backstabbing jerk that steals from his own family. He won an Oscar for this role years ago and he is still just as good at it.  

            The downside is that Douglas was just a platform for Director Oliver Stone’s preachy thoughts about Wall Street. Stone’s father worked on Wall Street, and so he displays a lot of his feelings toward the greedy people of Wall Street through speeches and conversations.

When Jacob was talking to Brolin’s character he asked, “What’s your number? Everyone has a number that they feel is enough and when they get that much money, they will be satisfied. What’s yours?”

 Brolin replies, “More.”

Another time, Gekko says, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the game.”

Stone was overly didactic and really made it obvious that he was trying to portray the people of Wall Street as greedy, power-hungry slime balls. There was a little bit too much of Stone’s own feelings in the movie.

            On top of all that, the first half was way too difficult to understand for the common man. They used a lot of financial lingo that isolated most of the audience from understanding what was going on. It was not until it picked up with more character motivated plot lines in the second half that the movie was even slightly watchable. As a director, Stone should have made it clear what was happening so that you did not have to be a finance guru to comprehend what was going on.

            The original “Wall Street” was such an amazing film and the sequel that appeared  23 years later just did not live up to it. Michael Douglas continued to keep the infamous Gordon Gekko alive and better than ever, but Stone was unable to create an interesting successor with a boring, confusing plot line and his preachy speeches. The point of this movie seemed to be to get out feelings about greed and power instead of make a clear cut, enjoyable film. It was not terrible, but it was just too perplexing for me to know the difference.

Now on DVD and Blue-Ray.

Not So 'Crazy' in Love

             Everyone remembers their first love and the feelings that brought. It is something you can never forget because it was the first time you had that special connection and  thought it could overcome anything. Such was the case for Jacob and Anna, who tried to make their first love work even with a 5,000 mile distance between them. “Like Crazy” has been successful at film festivals, like Sundance, where it earned the title of Best Picture and lead actress Felicity Jones received a Best Actress nod. “Like Crazy” is an indie film, and obviously so because it is made apparent through its camera work and its story line. The love between them was cute, romantic, and relatable, but that did not overshadow the fact that the film was not as professional as I would have hoped.

The official poster of "Like Crazy" provided by Paramount Pictures.

This movie starts out as your typical “first love” type of story. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Jones) meet in college in Los Angeles. She is from the U.K. and he is from L.A. Once her studies are completed, she was supposed to go back to England, but instead she decided to violate her student visa and spend the summer in bed with Jacob. When she went back home for a wedding, she was banned from returning to the U.S., putting a heavy strain on their relationship. They go through cycles of other people and then texting or calling each other out of the blue and rekindling their relationship. It is unhealthy because we see how happy they are when they are with other people and yet they keep going back to each other which causes them more pain. In the end, the ban gets lifted, but did they end up happy together? It is left open-ended. Writer and Director Drake Doremus made it seem like too much had happened between them for them to be truly happy again, but that is more up to interpretation.

The final moment of the movie as Jacob (Yelchin) and Anna (Jones) reflect over all the time and events that have passed through the course of their relationship. Picture Courtesy of the SundanceChannel.com

            “Like Crazy” showed its independent nature through some sloppy camera work as well as a slow, character driven story line. Whether it was intentional or not, the camera work was awful. It was shaky and blurry, and that was extremely distracting from what was going on in the story. I mean, have the filmmakers ever heard of a tripod before? Also this was a character driven story, and yet the characters were very underdeveloped. In the beginning you get a slight glimpse of their growing feelings for each other and how they get along, but past that, all you really know about them is that she is an English journalist, and he is an American furniture maker. Their motivations are not really known because their characters are vague. Towards the end they find other people to be with, and the audience starts to like the new people better! This is because throughout most of the movie we see a lot of dishonesty, a lot of tension, and a lot of trials between Anna and Jacob that proves they are better off apart. “Like Crazy” is what I like to call a “shout-a-long” because throughout the movie you want to scream things like, “What are you doing?! Obviously violating your visa is a bad idea.”  The director did not establish a great connection, the characters did not make good choices, and then we got to watch them grieve over their situation when they are the ones that caused it. There were bad choices made by both the director and the characters which made the film annoying.

            The reason this movie is doing so well is because it is everyone’s story. Doremus wrote and directed the film so that you could see yourself in every situation. Doremus justifies the undefined characters and the open ended story because he wants the entire audience to place themselves in the story, but that is not a smart directing choice. We already know our own stories; we paid to see theirs. It was a little unsatisfying.

            Granted I did appreciate the realistic way Doremus portrayed first love and how it feels impossible to let that go, and I did think the acting was amazing, but I just left the movie completely unfulfilled. The fact that the characters were undefined, self-destructive, and just plain foolish was a real turn off.

6ix "Park it Right Here" Grill

The turkey ciabatta sandwich from the 6ix Park Grill.

           Upon visiting the 6ix Park Grill, you get an aura of class. Not too fancy, but just elegant enough to display true class. Behind the ambiance though, is delicious food that leaves a lasting impression. On top of all that, 6ix Park Grill is wrapped up in great service, catering to your every need and desire. I would say that is a fine dining experience.
           Located adjacent to the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, California, the restaurant defines themself by their California Coastal Cuisine. Their dinner menu is dripping with juicy steaks, salmons, and other choice meats. Their lunch menu is splattered with a variety of salads, soups, sandwiches, and other light, but filling dishes that are appealing to a very general clientele. The sandwiches are served with your choice of french fries, sweet potato fries, fresh fruit, or green salad, and while the french fries are above average, and the green salad is phenomenal, the fresh fruit is a sure-fire delectable choice. With an array of colors and tastes from succulent pineapples to refreshing blueberries and raspberries, you get a savory compliment to any fresh sandwich you choose. The turkey ciabatta which consists of a good amount of turkey, soft ciabatta bread, some dill Havarti cheese, a healthy portion of ripe avocado, chive aioli, and a layer of green lettuce is truly divine. Never before has a simple sandwich been so scrumptious and filling at the same time. You get the same kind of quality and portion with every dish on the menu. For a nicer restaurant with slightly higher prices than your average Cheesecake Factory type of place, you get large portions, so it is worth the cost.
           One of their specialties, a dish that people come far and wide for, is the wood fire shrimp which is doused in a Thai chili marinade that is absolutely addicting. It is impossible to get enough of this prawn because it is so succulent, so rich, and is comparable to a juicy steak. It is complimented by spicy aioli and a slice of avocado to really "Californianize" the dish. It is definitely a must have if you are visiting the 6ix Park Grill.
           The setting is part of what makes the restaurant though. The lighting is low and romantic and you feel classy even before the food is served. It helps to hone in your senses on the glamorous taste that the restaurant provides. 6ix Park Grill is perfect for a nice outing with good friends, a romantic spot for that special someone, and they even have a private room that works for business meeting or wedding parties. It has the perfect atmosphere and feeling for everyone and that is part of what you paying for.

The menu captures the essence of the restaurant.

           Finally the service is the icing on the cake. The servers are polite and friendly and they are very understanding of everything that you need. Quick to refill and cater to special orders, the waiters are what really make this restaurant great.
           Ted Hill, Executive Chef at 6ix Park Grill, has a lot going for him at this restaurant. He has a good staff behind him, killer recipes, and a beautiful setting in the building connected with the Hyatt Regency. It is so good that you will definitely want to park it there for awhile and never leave; just have the good food keep on rolling in. The sign of a good restaurant is not how many people want to go there, but it is how many people never want to leave, and 6ix Park Grill has that going for them.