Movies I've watched

Out of '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', I've watched the following (in chronological order by date of release):

The Wizard of Oz
Gone With the Wind
Wuthering Heights
Fantasia
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Dumbo
Casablanca
Singin' in the Rain
Roman Holiday
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Rear Window
The Man Who Knew Too Much
12 Angry Men
An Affair to Remember
North by Northwest
Ben-Hur
The Apartment
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Lolita
The Nutty Professor
Goldfinger
My Fair Lady
The Sound of Music
The Jungle Book
M*A*S*H
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Sting
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Picnic at Hanging Rock
All the President's Men
Star Wars
Grease
Alien
Life of Brian
The Muppet Movie
Ordinary People
The Empire Strikes Back
Airplane!
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Chariots of Fire
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Tootsie
Return of the Jedi
The King of Comedy
The Terminator
Ghost Busters
Back to the Future
Stand By Me
Aliens
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Babette's Feast
The Princess Bride
Moonstruck
The Untouchables
A Fish Called Wanda
Big
Die Hard
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Batman
When Harry Met Sally
Pretty Woman
Total Recall
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Strictly Ballroom
Groundhog Day
Philadelphia
Jurassic Park
Forrest Gump
The Lion King
Casino
Babe
Toy Story
Clueless
The Usual Suspects
Independence Day
Secrets and Lies
L.A. Confidential
Titanic
There's Something About Mary
The Sixth Sense
The Matrix
Meet The Parents
Memento
Moulin Rouge!
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Chicago

Books I've read

Out of '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die', I've read or watched (more than half of) the following (in chronological order by date of publication):

Aesop's Fables - Aesopus
The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte-Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There - Lewis Carroll
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Tes of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
The Garden Party - Katherine Mansfield
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Thank You, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
The Third Man - Graham Greene
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John Le Carre
Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep - Philip K. Dick
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum - Heinrich Boll
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
The Sea - John Banville
On Beauty - Zadie Smith (sort of)
Saturday - Ian McEwan (currently reading!)

Humanity

Secrets, lies, mystery,
humanity.
We tell stories to each other as well as ourselves,
Learn to hide our secrets,
Our hearts,
Ourselves.
We can’t let people in,
Work so hard on being fine
and forget how to be real.
Forget to live.

Make life meaningless.

All a shadow.
No one sees past the mask
constructed so flawlessly
Must remain enigmatic;
the only way to be safe.
Experience teaches,
Take no risks.

Remove the mask
only to face rejection,
a knife of ice.
Replace the mask
stay safe.
So let not your guard

slip.

Graduation Day

I graduate tomorrow. It feels surreal and amazing that I've actually achieved this incredible thing - an Honours degree. And although there are a bunch of people that I couldn't have made it here without, really there's only one person who achieved this: me. I'm the one who took 7 years to do a 4 year degree. I'm the one who repeated topics that drove me crazy the first time round, the one who studied for exams that made no sense to me, who sat through hours of lectures that put me to sleep. I'm the one who got up at 6 every morning last year, who was home only to sleep, who worked through every weekend. I'm the one who sat at my computer for so many hours that my eyes felt glued open and neglected my family and friends and my own health in order to succeed. I worked harder than I thought possible, learnt to do so many things I never thought I'd be able to, and made it to a mountaintop I thought never to reach. I did that. Me. Now that it's over I forget how hard it was, every single day, to keep working. I forget how much I proved to myself through that time. But the truth is that it is an amazing achievement. And I am amazed and so proud of myself for getting here. And I want to write this so I will never forget it, so I can keep returning to this blog and reading it and remembering that despite all my belief to the contrary, I might just be an amazing person after all.

Quotes for today

It's random, thoughtful quotes that speak to me with clarity. Many of them come from unexpected places, and perhaps this is why they feel so poignant - the surprise is what brings tears or laughter. Or understanding.
Here are some more favourites:

"I'm not afraid of the man who wants ten nuclear warheads. I'm terrified of the man who wants only one."

- The Peacemaker

"I've seen knights in armour panic at the first signs of battle. And I've seen the lowliest, unarmed squire pull a spear from his own body to defend a dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright. It's defined by one's actions."

- Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

"Well you know how it is... You're out at night, looking for kicks and someone passes around the weaponised hallucinogens..."

- Batman Begins

"Look. It's like this. Most people, when they get to college, feel really insecure. It seems like everybody around them knows so much more. So they race to try to catch up, pretend to know things, instead of slowing down to actually learn them. Because they don't realize that the discomfort of uncertainty is the most precious part of the experience. See, if you can feel comfortable... not knowing, you can learn anything, anything. And if not, well, then you've stopped before you've begun."

- Dawson's Creek

Hmm, that'll do for now. Ooh, no, I forgot my (ahh, other) personal favourite: "Women. Can't live with 'em; can't kill 'em."

- True Lies

BTW, I just re-read some of my old blogs and realised I'd forgotten to continue my Lucy-story.... and I promise to continue writing it at some point.

The Anti-Valentine

I feel like a very sad and pathetic person tonight as I ponder the saddest day of my year - Valentine's Day. I tell myself it's a stupid ritual perpetuated by idiotic individuals who (for some reason) need a special day every year to adore their loved one - as if owning the other 364 days of the year isn't enough. That's what sucks about Valentine's Day. It's a testimony to the fact that our world belongs to the married people, the couples, the non-singles. Being single is considered a curse, something to avoid at all costs. I tell myself that it doesn't matter, but it does really. It matters that happy chick flicks annoy me and romantic songs make me cry. It matters that even if I do get my dream job, I know I won't be completely happy. It matters that couples form their own little clubs that exclude the single people, not thinking for a second how much that exclusion aches. It matters that every tv show and movie perpetuates this stupid concept that to be alone is to be incomplete. Imperfect. Undesirable. It aches that I may never belong to those clubs, and that those dreams and romantic songs may never belong to me. But what can I do? Keep singing the anti-valentine song. Smile and hold my head high and ignore the ache. Even when it keeps me awake at night. And maybe one day it won't matter, one day the smile won't feel forced and the angry voice will fade. And then maybe one day there will be no more ache.