I'd like to thank the Academy...

I wanted to write about something deep...

like the Atlantic Ocean... (thanks Farley 2A)

But seriously folks, I'd like to start off with a quote from the movie The Prestige:

"The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special... you really don't know?... it was... it was the look on their faces..."

This is true.  The audience does know the truth.  In fact the audience knows more than the truth.  The audience can read your mind.

One of my many directors told me this back in high school.  He told me that I could be acting my heart out on stage but if I wasn't committed both physically and mentally to the role, the audience would see right through me.

This is spot on because herein lies the difference between a good actor and a great actor.  An actor can play a role and still do a fine job portraying a character and not be fully devoted to the project.  But, those actors that fully devote themselves to a role are the ones that blow your mind.

So with that in mind... I give you some of my Oscar picks

(I have not seen every movie but I still think it will be fun to see if I'm right...)

Visual effects: Inception

I mean, what a cool way to depict dreams...

Music (Original Song): Tangled (I See the Light)

Just because I love this movie.  One of my favorite animated movies ever.

Film Editing: Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Social Network 

I think this was the best edited movie.  It was captivating.

Directing: David Fincher for The Social Network

99 takes for the first scene (which was 8 pages long) just goes to show you that this guy won't settle for less than perfection.

Costume Design: True Grit

Just because I love Western movies.

Cinematography: Wally Pfister for Inception

It's about time for Wally to win one.

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3

Duh…

Actress in a Supporting Role: Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit 

I absolutely loved her in this role.  She was rough and tough and I believed in this character and wanted her to get her revenge.

Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman in Black Swan

I still haven't seen it but I trust everyone that has told me how great she was.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale in The Fighter

I haven't seen this movie but, come on, it's Christian Bale...

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth in The King's Speech

I haven't seen this one either but I really want to.  I pick Colin Firth for a few reasons: he is too good of an actor to not have an Oscar, I have loved him in every movie that I have seen with him, and it is his time to shine.

Best Picture: True Grit

I love Westerns, I love the Coen brothers, I love Jeff Bridges and it is about time for a Western to win an Oscar.

Those are my picks...

It is true that I have a biased opinion.  It is also true that I do not have an informed opinion because I haven't seen all the movies that are nominated.  But I've done my best to put down my picks.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll get a few right...

Rest of my picks:  

ART DIRECTION - Inception 

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Inside Job  

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT - Poster Girl  

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - Biutiful  

MAKEUP - Barney's Version  

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE) - The Social Network  

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) - The Lost Thing  

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) - God of Love  

SOUND EDITING - Toy Story 3  

SOUND MIXING - The King's Speech  

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY) - 127 Hours  

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY) - The King's Speech

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholdee

You know how they say that every snow flake is unique and different?

I believe you can say the same for eyes.  But not just, "Every person has a unique pair of eyes."  I think that each eye is different even if they are on the same face.

Now, lets take a step back for a second and really think about what the eye does for us.  It doesn't technically "see" for us... does it?

[Here is the "sciencey" part of this post]  
Reflected light passes through the clear cornea and the aqueous humor in order to enter the eye through the pupil.  (Now depending on the amount of light coming in, the radial or the circular muscle may contract.  If there is a small amount of light, the radial muscle will contract and dilate the pupil.  If there is an excessive amount of light, the circular muscle will contract causing the pupil to constrict.) After the light has passed the pupil, it goes through the lens.  This lens is made up of transparent proteins called crystallins.  What is interesting about the lens is that it can be adjusted in your eye without you knowing.  There are muscles called ciliary that contract and stretch the lens so that your eyes can adjust to maintain a clear focus on an object as its distance changes. Once the light passes through the lens it enters the eye[ball] and travels through a jelly like substance called the vitreous humor.  Finally, the light hits the back of the eye, the retina.  There, the photo receptors (rods and cones) of the retina undergo chemical and electrical reactions to send signals out the optic nerve to the brain where these signals, caused by the light entering your eye, are translated into the sensation of seeing. [End of "sciencey" part]

Now, I could further explain how the rods and cones work and all the different types of cells responsible for making and transferring the signal to the brain and even how the brain crosses the signals from each individual eye before all the signals are translated into "vision" but, I think it is more interesting to imagine seeing things without eyes...

You have to admit that it might be possible to stimulate the neurons in your occipital lobe (the lobe containing the primary visual cortex) in such a way as to mimic the signals that the eye sends to the brain.  Then wouldn't you see something?

I mean, you don't have eyes!  But the same process that happens to perceive "sight" should happen in your brain if you stimulate the neurons in the same way your eyes do.

Ok, so why do we have eyes? Well, eyes just make everything easier... but that isn't a creative answer. 

I like to think they serve a greater purpose.  After all, we are created in the image and likeness of God.

I think they tell something about who you are (window to the soul).  The uniqueness of each individual eye just makes the person who has them that much more unique.

I think that eye color is something that helps my argument...
(Now I don't mean for this to be a "every person is unique and different" post.  I just want to comment on interesting facts of the eye)

I looked up different eye colors and this is what I found: brown, blue, hazel, gray and green.

In my experience, eyes have two regions for color in them.  The region right around the pupil and the region that surrounds that.  For the sake of clarity: lets call the region near the pupil region 1 and the other region 2.  Region 1 is rarely a perfect circle but region 2 extends from the edge of region 1 to the sclera (the white of the eye).

(Now, this doesn't mean that there can only be two different colors in an eye.  There can be many different shades in these two regions.)

The best way I can describe region 1 is a "splash."  It looks as if someone splashed a drop of color around the pupil and froze that splash.

What is cool about these regions is that they are in all different eye colors.  It can be that region 1 is a light shade of brown/blue/hazel/gray/green and region 2 is a darker shade of brown/blue/hazel/gray/green (or vice versa).

All eye colors are attractive.  This "splash" is something that makes them so.

There are so many songs about eyes and eye color...

One of my best friends, Bailey, loves the song "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison. (and it just so happens that she has brown eyes)

One final thought...

You can never know your eyes better than someone else.  This makes sense since you can never "see" your eyes.  Well, you could see them in a mirror or a reflection in the water (like Mulan).  But those reflections can't be trusted because it is almost impossible to have a perfect mirror or perfectly calm pond.  Besides, what you'd be seeing is a reflection- not the real thing.  Only another human can truly "see" your eyes (with their own).

This makes for an interesting proposition:

Since the eyes are the window to the soul, is it possible that the best way to get to know yourself is through another?


Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I know this is a long post but I think everything here needs to be said (including the shout out!)

Thanks again to Wikipedia and this time webMD!

Funny Valentine's Day Article

Funny article I found:

Students at nearby high school 'Fixing' Valentine's Day
Bridgeport, CT

Students at Bridgeport's Central High School have chosen a radical way of celebrating Valentine's Day.  Instead of the traditional giving of chocolates or flowers to significant others, the students have collectively decided to re-name the holiday and change the customs.  Rachel Weston, student body president, issued this statement:
"We know that most of us hate this holiday anyway so we decided to change things up a little.  We are calling it 'Single's Day.'  This is a day where everyone who is in a relationship, no matter how casual or serious it is, has to give a gift to every single person in the school."

This was decided only a few days ago after senior quarterback Josh Holloway and senior cheerleading captain Valeria Vargas changed their facebook relationship status to "In a relationship."
The statement continued to say:
"I believe that it is in the student body's best interest that (for the sake of all the single students and faculty) all couples, whether in the honeymoon stage or steady, should give gifts to all single students and faculty.  Also these gifts should be personalized and a minimum of 15 minutes of thought needs to be put into each present."

Student body vice-president, Mark McCray, added his own comments in a personal interview with the school's newspaper, the Central Intelligencer: "Yeah, I wasn't for this idea at first because I was getting ready to profess my love for Valeria.  But after she was 'FBO' (facebook official) I went with Rachel's plan for 'Single's Day.'  I mean, now Valeria has to shop for a present for me.  And it has to be thoughtful too!"

Rachel was overheard talking to one of her friends about what a terrible person Valeria is and how Josh would "really only be happy with her."

"I really like the idea behind this new holiday," said student government faculty adviser Ms. Cooley, "it is so great especially since my idiotic ex-boyfriend just became 'FBO' with this disgusting dancer from that gross club downtown that I never go to to pick up men."

-David Fitzpatrick

Mental Sweating

This topic came across my mind as I was studying for an Organic Chemistry test.

I thought, "Why do I get so tired after I study for a long time or if I take a long test?"

After all, I'm not working out, running, or playing hockey.  How can I be more tired after I take the SAT than after I play a hockey game?

After examining the question for a while, I tried to come up with a logical reason why brain function can tire me out.

At first I thought:

Well, I get tired after I use my muscles.  My brain must just be a muscle that expends energy.  Like my gastrocnemius or tounge.  But when I typed "Is my brain a muscle?" into Google, this is what I got:

"No.  Its composed of two things called gray matter and white matter, gray matter is made from the cell bodies of the nerve cells, and the white matter made from the bundles of their axons (which transmits the nervous signals to other neurons or effector cells"(site: WikiAnswers)

So, why/how does the brain need/get it's energy?

After a little more research, I learned a little bit more about it.

Your brain cells need two times more energy than the other cells in your body.

Neurons, the cells that communicate with each other, have a high demand for energy because they're always in a state of metabolic activity. Even during sleep, neurons are still at work repairing and rebuilding their worn out structural components.

They are manufacturing enzymes and neurotransmitters that must be transported out to the very ends of their– nerve branches, some that can be several inches, or feet, away.

Most demanding of a neuron's energy, however, are the bioelectric signals responsible for communication throughout the nervous system. This nerve transmission consumes one-half of all the brain's energy (nearly 10% of the whole body's energy).

Thank you Wikipedia!

Ok so now this makes a lot of sense!  The brain cells need two times the amount of energy that your normal cells need.  So, for every hour I spend totally devoted to studying or completely invested in a text, it is (time to break out the calculator!) like two hours of physical work.

Well, that is not entirely true because there is plenty of overlap in the types of work.  You use your brain to communicate with your muscles so you are using brain cells when moving.  Then you can't really know if it is just your brain making you tired during or after a test.

I know that I move my wrist, fingers and arm during a test to write my answers down.  
But surely that can't take up too much energy.  Can't it?

Maybe I unintentionally twitch my leg up and down while thinking about a question.
Again, how can only that be the cause of my exhaustion?

I was not doing any physically demanding processes at all during the test to have gotten that tired afterwards.  It must have been the thinking!

I want to call to your attention exactly how tired I got after taking the SAT.
Once I got home, I laid on the couch the rest of the afternoon watching movies and dozing off multiple times.  I didn't talk.  I didn't move.  I didn't even get up to get food when I was hungry.  All I wanted to do was nothing.

Now perhaps I was being a bit dramatic. (It is very likely given my dramatic nature) But I was very tired and I know I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

This was where I was going to give you an example of a person who just recently took the SAT and said she was tired and all she wanted to do was nap after the test and not move from her bed...

Well, when I called my sister to ask her about how she felt after taking the test, she said she was relieved.  That wasn't the answer I was going for so I asked her if she felt tired at all after taking the test...

She said no...

Well, now I don't know if I'm the crazy one or she is.

I'm leaning towards me being the crazy one.  And if that is true then why are you reading a crazy person's blog?

Not just any crazy person either.  Someone who thinks thinking is so physically demanding that he must sleep after taking tests.  I mean just thinking about this brain stuff has gotten me all tuckered out.

Happy Valentines day everyone!  
I love you all!

"Romanticism"

Today was the first "snow day" at Notre Dame in over 10 years.  The University has brain-washed it's students into believing that school will never close because of the weather.  So I must say that I have lived through a rare event: a Notre Dame "snow day." 
It wasn't just any old winter day in South Bend either.  True there was snow on the ground and most places it was higher than my knees, but it was sunny outside.  There was no (seemingly never ending) cloud cover that prevented the Vitamin D from hitting my skin, entering my body, controlling the calcium absorption in my intestines and keeping my bones strong and unbreakable.
It turned out to be a beautiful day: sunny, snow-white, restful, and fun.

Now it is the evening and it has started snowing.  It isn't the blizzard conditions that we had last night but, instead, it is beautiful snow falling slowly in large flakes that stick to my nose and eyelashes.

This brings me to a comforting thought: romance and love.

My Calculus TA, Yen-Chang Huang, took the first 20 minutes of our first class to tell us his life story.  He told us where he is from: Taiwan. 
He told us how many years he has been a graduate student at ND: 5. 
He told us what he was studying in Mathematics: i dont remember. 
And he told us why he came from the tropical climate of his home to the cold tundra-like climate of South Bend, Indiana: he thinks thought that snow was romantic.

He got this idea from the movies that he watched back home in Taiwan.  He described a scene from a movie that he watched to us that developed this ideology.

The description went something like this:
"Sow u know win da man and da woman are outside in da end a da movie, riiiight? riiiiiiight?"
"Weeell, u know win day kiss da snow starts falling and ahhh u know its soo romantic!"

Yes, it is true that winter and snow bring out a romantic feeling in most people.  But, there is also the  frustrated/mad/upset feeling that blizzard weather brings which counter acts any good feeling that the winter once gave you.

I have experienced both of these feelings in the past 24 hours.  Walking back to my dorm last night in a windy snowy storm (that some call blizzards) and trudging through the ever-increasing deep snow gave me an upset feeling for a few moments.  However, that was soon quashed by a good feeling of accomplishment - that I was conquering a bone-chilling, frost-biting storm.  But, this evening, I saw a beautiful, calm, still snowfall.  A snowfall that one would associate with a romantic scene.

It gets me thinking about romance and love.  A fun thought to entertain. 
It is something that is, easily, within my reach.

After all this is Notre Dame.  Anyone can find Our Lady.  Now all I have to do is find "my lady."  Which will be harder since she won't be gilded in gold or on top of a golden dome.

But, as of now, Our Lady is on top of a dome that looks more white than golden...

Happy Snowpocalypse everyone!