AFI Update

So I talked about my movie binge last post. Here's a more complete update of the films I've seen on the 2007 AFI 100 Years...100 Movies List

Movies I've seen with AFI rankings next to them:
#1 Citizen Kane
#2 The Godfather
#3 Casablanca
#4 Raging Bull
#8 Schindler's List
#9 Vertigo
#10 The Wizard of Oz
#11 City Lights
#12 The Searchers
#13 Star Wars
#14 Psycho
#17 The Graduate
#19 On The Waterfront
#21 Chinatown
#24 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
#25 To Kill A Mockingbird
#26 Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
#32 The Godfather Part II
#33 One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
#34 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
#39 Dr. Strangelove
#50 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
#51 West Side Story
#57 Rocky
#66 Raiders of the Lost Ark
#71 Saving Private Ryan
#72 The Shawshank Redemption
#76 Forrest Gump
#83 Titanic
#89 The Sixth Sense
#92 Goodfellas
#99 Toy Story

And I'll keep things posted as we go along. Take care fans.

P.S. You can find the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years..._100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)

Thank The Flu For The Movie Binge

Hello fans,

First, I want to apologize for not posting in quite some time. When I was ready for another post last week, I got smacked with the flu. It began on Monday afternoon and ended sometime between last Thursday afternoon and last Friday. Because I couldn't do much, I figured that it's a good time to catch up on my movies. You can deduce how much time I spent in bed from the list of movies I watched since I was sick.

• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• The Godfather Part III
  
• West Side Story
• Rain Man

After those movies, I was inspired to print out the list of AFI's top 100 movies that was published in 2007, which was the 10th anniversary of the original list. I'm looking to watching most, if not all, of the movies on the list. As of right now, I have watched 22 movies on the list. And I'm only counting those movies where I can recollect at least 2/3 of the movie. So there are some movies that I've seen when I was little and don't remember much, and I have therefore not counted them. Right now, I'm watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Most of the ones I watched on the list I really enjoyed, but there are some that I didn't enjoy much. I didn't expect to fall in love with all the movies on this list, but I have grown to appreciate them and understand why they're on the list.

Things in the classroom have been good so far. A challenge I've been facing with is how to deal with the material that I was supposed to cover when I was sick. I think that the class has been able to recover nicely since I was sick, and I've been trying to backfill the material when I can. As time goes on, I consider more and more the possibility of getting a PhD in Statistics Education or something of the like. It's something that I love and want to make a serious career out of it, and there's plenty of time to decide what to do.

As for this weekend, I'm going to watch some more excellent movies. Here's some of the movies that I'm looking to watch over the weekend.

• On The Waterfront
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Scarface
• Silence of the Lambs
• City Lights
• The Graduate

I know it'll be a stretch to watch all of those movies, but I can try. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Awake....somehow

Unfortunately, it's Monday. Back to waking up at 8 in the morning, going to morning class, and doing all sorts of work throughout the day. At least the weekend was not as bad as it looked on Friday.

As I was driving to WV to spend the weekend and a B&B with my lady, my car's "check engine" light was periodically going on and off. When I was roughly 60 miles away from Blacksburg, I realized that it was not worth the risk. So I turned around and put my car in the shop. There's a part that needs to be replaced, so I won't have it back until mid-week. Because of this, Annette came down and spent the weekend in Blacksburg as well. We went to Walmart a billion times, and I don't really know why. We ate some awesome food, especially at Mac & Bob's in Salem and the Meditarranean Restaurant on Main St. nest to Moe's. Be warned though that the food in that place can give you some terrible gas. I'll leave it at that

We saw Dan in Real Life on campus, and it was a great movie and better than my above average expectations. It reminded me of his serious role in Little Miss Sunshine, and part of Michael on "The Office". Also, I was supposed to keep it as a surprise for WV, but we watched season 7 of "The King of Queens". I think there's about 3 more episodes we didn't see, so I'll have to get season 8 before I head up to WV in March, which is when we rescheduled the trip for.

Ok, I need to stop typing, make lunch, and get to my 9:05 class. Hopefully, my frequency of posting is making some people happier ;-D Peace out.

Because The People Want It

It was brought to my attention that I should post on a more frequent basis. And if people want more posting, then they shall receive more posting. So here goes...

The first week of the semester is coming to a close, and it's been a pleasant one. Classes don't seem to be much harder than the ones from last semester. And teaching is the best thing ever...at least for me it is. It seems like the students enjoy my mildly crazy teaching style, or they're wide awake from eating lunch before class. In any case, I had them do a mini assignment where they basically introduce themselves to me in the form of a very short bio. There's a lot of interesting people in my class, but I rather not share because of confidentiality issues. So trust me that I have an interesting group of students. I've been telling some people that I have the best job in the world, and I mean that because this is what I'm looking to do with my life.

Besides that, I'm about ready to call it a night. After my 9:05 class, I begin to head up to DC to enjoy a three day weekend with my lady. I was worried that I couldn't make the trip between the snow we got today and my car temporarily acting up. I'll probably be helping her spruce up her new apartment, and I'll relax some while I have the chance to. Maybe I'll knock out a chunk of Eldest, which is shaping up to be yet another great book. Yes, I'm sticking to my word that the Inheritance Series is better than Harry Potter. Eragon doesn't even need his dragon to take care of that whiny brat. To Harry Potter fans, I'm sorry if I offended you.

Even better than this three day weekend is going to be my Bed and Breakfast endeavor with my lady in West Virginia next weekend. I would like to do some hiking in one of the national forests that are adjacent to the B&B, and I would like to spot some bears in the forests. I'll make sure to take some pictures.

Good night and good luck.

Twas the Night Before a New Semester...

So 9:05 tomorrow morning marks the beginning of a new semester. Last semester was a pleasant one. I was introduced to graduate work and the duties of a TA. I'm pleased that I was able to handle the work well, and as a result, the bar gets placed a little bit higher. The courses are going to be slightly more challenging, and this will be the first semester that I'm teaching a full course.
Nonetheless, I am very excited to embark on this journey. At the end of the journey, I'll be presented with one of the hardest tests I will ever take...the qualifying exam. 12 hours over 3 days of testing what I learned during this academic year. I think that I can come out victorious, but it will come with some hard work and dedication. Also, I hope that I'll be a great success in leading 120 engineers to appreciate statistics.
Before I hit the sack, I'm going to write up another homework assignment and enjoy some bedtime tea. Until then, auf wiedersehen.

Let's Check The Scorecard

Let's see how well I succeeded in my list from last blog. Comments are in bold

• A moderate amount of sleep. This one should be easily attainable. Great success.
  
• Finish Final Fantasy XII. Failed.
  
• Play Guitar Hero on the surround sound. Failed.
  
• Annoy my father. Again, this should be easily attainable. Great Success.
  
• Read at least one page of Wicked, with the hopes of finishing the book. This one may be tough. 10 pages, so great success.
  
• Annoy my stepmother. Another easy task. Great success.
  
• See one of my roommates from Loyola, Kevin. Not only would I get to see him and hang out, but I can get a pair of sneakers I left there over the summer. Great success.
  
• Bust open my saxophone. It's been collecting dust since I'm not playing at Virginia Tech.
• Find a way to watch the VT/UVA game if it's not on national TV. Great success!
  
• Exercise. I don't know if this will be easy or hard yet. Got sick, so failure.
  
• Study something that pertains to statistics. This one may be very difficult. Does thinking about it count? That's your call.

So not so bad for a list of goals. I'll write more when I'm feeling better and when I don't have so much work to do.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

So this is my first winter in the mountains, and the climate decided to give me a nice warm welcome with some flurries and lots of wind. According to some students, people have been knocked down by the wind, so it seems like the best strategy is to stay indoors and to avoid wind tunnels. Let's see how that works out.
Yesterday, I cooked dinner for one of my neighbors because she turned 22 today. There was gnocchi (Italian dumplings) with roma tomatoes, kalimata olives, and smoked mozzarella. For dessert, I made Italian cheesecake, which is cheesecake with ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese. Both of those things came out wonderfully, so it was a good night. The interesting part was that I woke up around 2:30AM with everything on. I didn't even know I went to sleep. The good part of waking up then was that I got to seize the chance of moving my car from the parking meters into a good spot in front of my building. If you live or have seen Blacksburg, you know how horrendous parking is. For the Loyola folks, parking at the FAC was better than this situation.
Tomorrow's going to be an awesome day because it's the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. I'm going to NY for the break, but I'm not going to be doing much. I want to spend the first couple of days not thinking about grad school, but that will probably fail. And then I'll get myself ready for an exam that I have when I come back. It's the 3rd of 3 long-winded exams. I've averaged 2 hours and 37 minutes on the first two exams, so I'm expecting the third one to be a long one as well. The good news is that I feel like I'm grasping more and more of the material as time passes, and it showed when I did better on the second exam than the first. Ok, I'm done with geek talk.
Saturday's going to be interesting because there's a football game because I've noticed that a lot of people are leaving town tomorrow or Saturday morning. Will the stadium be filled with 60,000+ screaming fans? I hope so. The only game that matters now is next Saturday at Virginia (grrrrrr). At least my mom will enjoy Saturday's game because she wants to annoy her neighbor, who's a big University of Miami fan.
Since the break's coming very soon, here's some goals that would be nice to accomplish. And if I forget, I can come back to this post to check. I'll take any suggestions for adding to the list.

• A moderate amount of sleep. This one should be easily attainable.
• Finish Final Fantasy XII.
• Play Guitar Hero on the surround sound.
• Annoy my father. Again, this should be easily attainable.
• Read at least one page of Wicked, with the hopes of finishing the book. This one may be tough.
• Annoy my stepmother. Another easy task.
• See one of my roommates from Loyola, Kevin. Not only would I get to see him and hang out, but I can get a pair of sneakers I left there over the summer.
• Bust open my saxophone. It's been collecting dust since I'm not playing at Virginia Tech.
• Find a way to watch the VT/UVA game if it's not on national TV.
• Exercise. I don't know if this will be easy or hard yet.
• Study something that pertains to statistics. This one may be very difficult.
  

So there's my laundry list of goals. As you can see, I've played it safe with the difficulty, so I can feel good about my self if I can knock out most or all of that list. Back to some Guitar Hero and reading before going to sleep.

Good fight; good night.