Pan's Labyrinth

This week Pan's Labyrinth was shown in the International Cinema at BYU. It had a huge response and Kristin and I found ourselves sitting on the floor in the aisle at first. (That is until we stole some people's chairs after they left due to some technical issues in the beginning) This frightening and gruesome tale is something I would only recommend seeing edited, as the edited version contained a sufficient amount of horrifyingness to get its point across.

The movie follows the story of a girl who, in coping with a very traumatizing experience in post civil war Spain, encounters a fantastic world of magical and gruesome creatures. As her reality becomes more and more cruel the fantasy world becomes more real and intertwined in her reality.

She experiences a series of tasks that become more horrifying as they go on. She remains the epitome of innocence throughout the story though. As her step father's (a fascist captain) cruelty is further revealed, her innocence becomes more apparent.

Though this movie is not one for the average escapist seeking pure enjoyment, it definitely is thought provoking and revealing about the nature of cruelty vs. innocence. I would rate it high on a scale of intriguingness - thus landing it a place on my blog. I'm glad I saw it, but will probably never need to watch it again.

Nice People

Have you ever noticed how some people are just ultra nice? Well the other day I was stressing about not having the book to do the reading for one of my classes. I was asking the professor if he had an extra copy I could borrow for the day, which he didn't, when a girl I had never talked to before said that I could borrow hers to make copies with. I ran to the copy machine, but it was broken. When I found her again moments later she said that she would just scan the pages for me and email them to me.

Sure enough, the next day there appeared in my email an attachment with some 25 pages scanned into a PDF. Gosh some people are nice. She even apologized for it having taken so long. This went beyond any form of ordinary niceness. (and I was beyond grateful as our grade seems to be solely based on doing the readings and discussing them in class).

Rodeo

I recently attended a rodeo at the Utah State Fair. It was pretty much awesome as we got to see many a cowboy, which is usually a good thing.

At one point they were showing off some little cowboys and girls. This entailed putting kids (starting around age 2 and ending around age 7) on top of sheep and then opening the gate and letting the sheep go. I had no idea a sheep could run so fast, or that a child could cling to one so tightly. Most of the kids just fell off pretty quickly and were semi trampled by the sheep and just laid there crying until their parent came and picked them up. There was one girl though who just clung on for dear life. She made it about half way around the arena before falling off. Just think of her bragging rights when she gets old enough to know how to brag.

The bull riding was of course my favorite, though I've been debating ever since which is more dangerous: bull riding or bull fighting. Feel free to put forth your opinions. I'm leaning towards bull fighting, though if someone was doing both at the same time, that would definitely win out. There was one injury this time, when the bull just fell keen over right on top of the guy riding it. Needless to say he didn't walk off by himself (the cowboy that is, the bull trotted off just fine).

Here's a pic of me and some of my gal pals after the show. Oh so lovely:

Spanish Tortilla: Fail

I have now made spanish tortilla 3 times. I use the term 'made' here rather loosely as it generally denotes success. In truth I have only succeeded once in truly making a delicious spanish tortilla, my first attempt, with my mother. Kami and I have tried twice in the last 2 weeks and both times something went horribly wrong.

Our first attempt we followed the recipe exactly: 5 medium potatoes, 5 eggs, 1 onion, some salt...or so we thought. Turns out that the potatoes we selected must have been extra extra large, because the tortilla turned out to be basically just potatoes with a hint of egg. Needless to say, it was a little dry, but not horrible.

Our second attempt was last night. Everything was going so smoothly; we had a good ratio of egg to potato with 4 potatoes and 7 eggs. This was going to be a giant and delicious spanish tortilla. That is, until it came time to flip it. We did not have a plate large enough to flip the tortilla onto, so we decided to use a cutting board. This proved detrimental as when we went to flip it, the whole tortilla slid right out into the sink, which was full of dirty dishes.

Seconds later, I was on the floor and Kami was bent over the sink, both of us laughing/crying. We finally pulled ourselves together and managed to salvage some of the tortilla. We put parts of it back in the pan and continued to cook it, but by then it was just a small mess of eggs, potatoes, and onions. Basically the biggest fail of my life.