This Years Christmas Picks

Current mood: passive, laid-back, and merry
Number of seconds till Christmas morning: (as of 12:16 am on Dec 24th) 71,040
Chocolate Treat of the day: Peppermint Bark

Last Christmas I wrote a post where I listed the top 12 worst Christmas songs of all time. This year, however, in the spirit of positivity and joy, I’ve decided to post my “top 8″ picks for best renditions of great Christmas songs. These are all songs that are not only quality good Christmas carols (ie-songs that dont make you scratch your head in confusion or make you want to tear your hair out because they are so annoying), but I’ve tried my best to pick artists who have done superb renditions of said songs. So, without further to do, here is my Christmas top 8.

8. Coldplay-Christmas Lights
I realize that this is not a classic Christmas carol, and that by picking this song, I have broken my own rules. But they are my rules so I am allowed to break them. This song is great. The fact that Coldplay wrote a Christmas song at all is great, and every time I see Christmas lights this one plays in my mind. Classic Coldplay. Classic Christmas vibe. And a pretty sweet music video to go along with it.

7. Trans Siberian Orchestra-Carol of the Bells
If there is a song that can capture the mood of Christmas, it has to be Carol of the Bells. The slow build leading up to the crescendo mimics our own excitement as December 25th gets closer and closer. Plus, the Trans Siberian Orchestra knows how to pack a punch. And the song sounds even cooler when timed to Christmas lights on a house.

Video 1-Trans Siberian Orchestra version of Carol of the Bells

Video 2-Sweet Video of Carol of the Bells timed to lights, but not TSO :/ (still cool though)

6. Straight No Chaser-12 Days of Christmas
While this song is a classic, it makes me ask questions like, “when do these 12 days start?” and “who is giving this person all these gifts and how do I become friends with them?” This song being the fun lighthearted jingle that it is, I had never really thought much of it. Mostly because it’s to hard for me to remember how many maids are a-milking and swans are a-swimming. But then, I heard what this male a capella group did with it. Gold.

5. Nat King Cole-The Christmas Song
My favorite Christmas song of all time, sung by king of classic. I can smell the chestnuts already.

4. O Come O Come Emmanuel-Sufjan Stevens
This is one of my favorite classic Christmas hymns. It’s such a powerful song about the coming of Christ and how He is the only reason that we even get to celebrate this time of year. He has come to ransom His people that were captive, and that is something that we get to rejoice in.It’s beautifully written, and has been sung for hundreds of years. I love the language the composer uses. And paired with Sufjian’s unique style…it’s like Christmas before its even Christmas. So listen to the soothing sounds of Sufjan and rejoice because Emmanuel has come. (Also Sixpence None the Richer and Enya both do a cover of this one as well and they are wonderful, so you should go listen to them as well).

3. Michael Buble-All I want for Christmas is you.
Step aside Mariah Carey. Fresh off a new Christmas album, everyone is talking about Michael this season. With a voice made of pure gold wrapped in velvet, why wouldn’t he be in the top 3? This one goes out to Katie.

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas
I love Peanuts. I couldn’t pick just one, so I’ll pick the whole soundtrack of this movie. Everything about it is Christmasy. IT takes me back to being 9-years-old sitting by the fire, drinking coco and watching good ol’ Charlie Brown try to find the meaning of Christmas. Vince Guaraldi Trio nailed the sound of Christmas with this soundtrack. Thanks Vince.

1. Barenaked Ladies-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
And finally number 1 goes to the Barenaked Ladies. This Christmas Album as a whole is one of my favorites. Songs like Deck the Stills and Elf’s Lament are classic BNL sillyness while this song, and their rendition of Carol of the Bells give the album a real unique sound. This song is just a mix of two great artists and has a sound that I adore. Enjoy. And Merry Christmas.

Me and Winnie-the-Pooh

current mood: unpondered
top 3 things I want: 2TB hard drive, new shoes, a big dog
chocolate treat of the day: rolos. pure, simple, joyous.

When I was young, one of my favorite childhood characters was Winnie the Pooh. A fat, cuddly ‘ol bear who ate nothing but honey and wore a red t-shirt that was to small for him. I had a stuffed animal pooh bear that was my bedside companion every night and my fellow explorer by day (until my mom lost him, but that’s a different story). When I was 3 I had a Pooh bear themed birthday.*

Now I am old…er. I still like pooh bear. I like him because he ponders things. But he doesn’t ponder them to get smarter or to be wiser. In fact, he often admits that he is a bear of “very little brain”. He likes to use simple words like “how about lunch?”. But he doesn’t ignore things he doesn’t understand and he doesn’t disregard things that are practical either. He lives simply and kindly.

I too like to ponder things. Recently, I’ve been pondering the idea of life and time. What I mean is the concept of time and myself being alive and functioning in this very moment. And why this moment? Why did God choose to have my life occur in this section of time in the grand scheme of history?

Sometimes I have this thought: that people-humanity-has gotten smarter or funnier or more “advanced” over the course of history; like we are some kind of learning robot race that has “developed” over time. But in reality people were probably just as smart or funny now as they were 500 years ago. They were people with feelings, ideas, hands that moved, and blood that flowed. They weren’t like stupid cavemen who beat themselves with rocks or something.

So with this in mind, I then ask myself, “why are these eyes, the eyes I see through?” How come I live in this place right now? If I only get one life-a certain number of breaths to take-why did they start on May 26th 1990? Things are happening to people all over the world right now and they are very real things. A boy in Africa fell and scraped his knee and it hurt. Someone in Brazil is eating a sandwich and thinking about a soccer match. George Clooney is somewhere doing something right now. The fact that at some point in time, I was six years old. I was a six-year-old girl who had six-year-old thoughts and did six-year-old things. But now, I’m a 21-year-old girl. I’m still me, but I’m different.

This idea of seeing me, and my life, outside of myself….the idea that time is not permanent. I think we often act like it is. It’s a marvelous mystery–time.

I’ve been expressing these ponderings that I’ve had to the Maker. He hasn’t answered my questions. But like Pooh, I don’t need to understand them, because I am a creature of very little brain and like small words like “how about coffee?”. I just enjoy recognizing these things and pondering them. I’m content in my lack of understanding.

It’s not that I don’t seek understanding, I just accept the fact that there are things I may never understand. In this life time, or in the life outside of time.

Perhaps I have given you a few things to ponder. So I shall leave you with this quote. It doesn’t really have to do with what I’ve talked about, but it’s still great.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
-Winnie-the-Pooh

*I only know I had this birthday because of pictures in a photo album I have at home. It was probably the best birthday I ever had.

Consistency

current mood: full, and in survival mode
current location: the foxhole. my home away from home at my home away from home.
chocolate treat of the day: trail mix. mmmm….

There are few things that one can count on in life. For the most part its unpredictable. This is something I have been relearning over the course of the past six months. Things I never could have predicted or imagined in my wildest dreams happening. Everyday I have to look at the schedule on my bulletin board everyday to make sure I go to the right classes. My brain is always going a million miles an hour.

But there are some things that are consistant. Theses things keep me sain.
-God is good and He is here.
-facebook’s logo will always be blue.
-the bon will always have cookies.
-the salad bar will always be open.
-so will the ice cream freezer
-i will always have card access to the equipment room.
-if someone is singing in the media center, it will always be mason.
-liz’s candy jar will always have candy.
-there will always be turf in my cleats after practice.
-if the wifi isn’t working, ethernet will.

I don’t mid it when things are chaotic. In fact, I almost function better when things are out of control. The consistency of chaos…I can always count on my life being out of control.

If only I could be consistant with blog posts.

The Soccer Team goes to California

(I was going to post this post sooner, but alas I am lazy so I am only posting it now. When you read this, get in your mental time machine and go back about a week or so.)

Current mood: grateful & blessed
Current altitude: 38,000 feet? (I’m in an airplane)
Chocolate treat of the day: chocolate chip power bars

On Sunday, my soccer team left the GFU campus at 8:30 to head south to beautiful sunny southern California where we would play Chapman University and La Vern.

When I first heard about this trip last April, I was thrilled. I could not believe that out of all the places we could be traveling to, we would be going to my home town. I live a short six blocks away from Chapman and I knew that if we were going to be down there we HAD to visit my home for some of mama Norton’s home cooking.

Monday night was game time for us as we rolled out on to the Chapman stadium.

The field was massive. Biggest field I’ve ever played on. They were a good team too.

My sister, and my friends Katie and Robert had made signs for every member of our team. They passed them out to friends as they arrived. The cheers from the stadium got louder as more fans filed in.Even though we ended up tying that game, it was one of the most fun I’ve ever played. The crowd had so much energy and was so fun. They gave us energy when we were down 2-1 and never stopped believing in us, which gave us energy and belief in our selves.

After 90 minutes when the whistle blew we headed into overtime. Two 10 minute periods with the golden goal rule. At this point my legs were so tired, and while I had the skill to keep running, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. I looked up at the mob of 50 plus people that had come to cheer us on and a new wave (a small wave, but a wave non-the-less) of energy came over me. This was my home town. This house was my house, and I was not going down without a fight. And we played hard for the next 20 minutes.

I didn’t mind tying that game. We worked hard and had fun. It was a night to be proud of.

Ties are funny things. There are some ties where you can walk away and say, “yea, we played hard and fought valiantly and that’s just the result that we got.” Then there are ties that are hard to swallow because you know that you could have done better. Our game on Wednesday was that second kind of tie.

We drove out to Pomona to play La Vern at some random field that changed locations a bunch of times before it was finalized. It was 100 degrees out. No exaggeration here, it was actually 100 degrees. Our team was tired from not only a 110 minute game two days before, but also a fun filled day at Disneyland on Tuesday. We played slow and sloppy. I felt like my legs were going to burst. Like I had no energy the second I stepped on the field. There would be moments were we pulled it together and played our game, but for the most part it felt like I had regressed to my sophomore year of high school.

Its frustrating when you want to do better and work harder but you feel as if you physically can’t do anything more.

What I like about athletics is that there comes a point in almost every game where physical skill and endurance don’t matter anymore. You, and your team have to be mentally stronger. You have to want that win more than the very air you breathe.

We tied that second game 1-1. We should have won 3-0. Those are the kind of ties that hurt. I think in the end though, it will make our team stronger.

This trip has been a huge blessing. It brought our team together in fun and unpredictable ways. We got to play a great game of soccer under the lights on a warm summer evening. We got to spend a day at Disneyland. We learned what it means to play through the heat both literally and figuratively.

I got to spend time with my family and friends who I miss and love dearly. I can’t thank them enough for taking time out of their day to come and cheer us on. How they didn’t give up on was when we were losing. How you believed in us. It meant the world to me to see you on the side lines. You cheer better than our fans do back in Newberg.

I would like to somehow wrap this up in a nice little bow with a cute and clever send off, but I can’t really think of anything and I feel like pictures tell better stories anyways. So I’ll just end by saying thanks again to everyone at home. And to my team mates, thanks for letting me show you around my town a bit and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season holds for us.

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Job Hunting in Newberg

Current mood: anxious
Current state of my apartment: 2/6th empty. we need Jordan and Mikayla.
Current state of Fox campus: packed. Freshmen got here today.
Chocolate treat of the day: Chocolate Lobster Taco. Yea, it’s real. And its crazy. Of course the food network would have something like this.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-lobster-taco–signature-taco-recipe/index.html

 

The thing about moving away is, I no longer have a steady income. In fact most of the money I’ve made this summer is locked away in a savings account with the words “Juniors Abroad” stamped on it. However, I need to purchase things. Things like food, new shin guards (cause my brother stole mine), and school supplies. Alas I have no money. I need a job.

I have work study, but most of the jobs are taken. I don’t know how I missed all openings (again) but I did.  But! I’ve brainstormed a few ideas that might help me.

1) A final stab at one or two work study jobs. I’ve got the applications, resume, and cover letter ready to go. All I need to do is turn it in tomorrow. If I get said jobs I really hope I don’t drown  in a sea of work, soccer, activities committee, and CMCO classes/projects. This is gonna be a kray-kray semester.

2) Apply to work at the Foxhole. Since I practically lived there last year, I think I deserve to be hired there. I’d be the best barista Fox has ever seen. And I love coffee. And the hours are reliable so I know exactly when I would be working and it wouldn’t cause me to much stress. Dream job? Yes please.

3) Become a mom for the boys soccer team. I had this inspiration of an idea about two days ago. What if I charged a small fee to do laundry and pick up apartments for boys who are lazy? People hate doing laundry right? So, why not charge people to do their laundry for them. I’d pick it up, wash it, fold it, and bring it back to them. Just once or twice a week. I think there might be some real money to be made in this idea because some people just don’t have time, or are to lazy to do their own laundry. And plus, I could work my own hours! If all else fails, I’m gonna put this plan into action.

So those are my ideas to make some $$$ so that I can do things like eat this semester. Please Lord, let me find some form of work. I’d like to be able to not ask my parents for money all the time, and soccer is really cutting into my availability.

Why doesn’t the economy run on things like toenail clippings or hand made friendship bracelets?

Things that come in 3′s.

Current mood: torn
Current Pandora Station: Mumford and Sons Radio. I could listen forever.
Chocolate treat of the day: bittersweet chocolate

In the last few weeks I’ve noticed a trend of 3′s in my life. Three sets of three initials have been taking up the 3 states of my existence. So lets dive in.

VBS
stands for: Vacation Bible School
state of existence: past
length of time: 3 weeks

August 1-5 was Calvary’s traditional VBS. The theme was flight school. Being on staff in children’s ministries this summer I was involved in helping put on the production. And if you have never seen a Calvary VBS, let me tell you it is a production. I love it. The actual VBS only lasts 5 days, but the preparations start months before. For me, things really took off two weeks before VBS started. I was in charge of this thing called “The Black Box” (basically a treasure chest filled with cheep toys for kids) and decorating 10 classrooms for preschool kids. If I had a nickel for every staple I used in those two weeks of prep-work….or for every airplane I saw over the course of the VBS…

Durring the actual week things weren’t to hard for me. I got to walk around and check on the classrooms to make sure everything was ok, and then I got to play with kids. Best job ever.

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These kids have taught me a lot over the summer. They are so loving, forgiving, and honest. They will tell you exactly how they are feeling without holding anything back. They always smile. And when you tell them about Jesus, they soak it in and just believe. They don’t ask questions, they just honestly believe it from the depths of their little souls. A wonderful picture of what Jesus means when he says that we need to have childlike faith. Simply believing is hard for grown ups.

I had also never been referred to as a grownup until this summer.

SNL
stands for: Sunday Night Live (yes, I mean Sunday)
state of existence: present
description: college comedy sketch show that is written and produced by college students

Last Christmas I was privileged to be part of the first Sunday Night Live. There were about 16 of us college students and friends who came together under the direction of RJ Sains, Benjamin Harris, and Jake-the snake-Marthaller. We did a hour and a half long show that was comprised of both live sketches and videos. We expected about 60 people to show up, but we were shocked when 230 people did. I had the time of my life being part of that show (even if I might have just looked like a fool the whole time) and afterword I told the guys, “even though I’m away at school if you guys do this again, I want in.”

For some reason these three hilariously funny guys brought me into the inner brain-explosion circle and we’ve been meeting periodically all summer to work on SNL 2.0. This show promises to be even greater than the last. Its been so fun watching it come together but its horrible too because this time I wont be able to be there on the night of the show due to the fact that I leave for school 4 days before. I can’t wait to hear the stories though.

Here is a look at the last show.

The guys have such a passion for creativity, comedy, and bringing people together. Its been so much fun to laugh with them all summer. Not to mention shooting the best single camera shot music video of all time. My thanks goes out to Jake, Ben, and RJ for letting me be part of this silly, crazy, awesome project and supplying me with never ending Seinfeld, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development quotes. Here is to O’douls, Asbestos, and Mole Men.

I think its amazing how God created laughter. Such a simple action that has such a powerful impact on people. I love to laugh.

GFU
stands for: George Fox University
state of existence: (very near) future
location: 983 miles from home. Newberg, Or.

My summer clock is running out and it seems to only have sped up ove the past three weeks. May seems years ago. I’ve started packing boxes to ship my possession to my home away from home.

I’m looking forward to play soccer again. I’m looking forward to my roommates. I’m looking forward to seeing friends. I’m looking forward to a chai latte from Chapters. I’m looking forward to the 3 mile run I take down to the river where I like to watch the sun go down.

I will miss my friends at home. I will miss my family. I will miss my green fluffy couch. I will miss the speaker system we have. I will miss my car. I will miss the job I had this summer. I will miss the beach and finding sand in my bag. I will miss the smell of sunscreen. I will miss going to college group. I will miss house group. I will miss people saying phrases like “mole man” “fuh-dayze” “regrets” and “hashtag”.

Living in two places is hard.

I wish I could teleport.
I wish I could take everyone with me.
I wish I had three wishes.

My Brother

Current mood: excited about new clothes
Current state of living room: war movies and video games everywhere…this week is man week at our house.
Amount of apple products in my house: alarming. its like a mini apple store in here
Chocolate treat of the day: chocolate doughnuts. 350 calories of pure delight…and regrets.

My brother turned 13 on July 7th. My brother has beaten me in lots of things over the past year.
He’s taller than me.
He beats me at every video game.
He wins in arm wrestling…don’t think I could pin him as fast as I used to in normal wrestling.
I think he is funnier than me.
He held a member of the opposite sexs hand before I did.
And now, he will soon surpass me in athletic ability.

Like me, he plays soccer. And in this past year West has joined a club team. This summer I’ve been doing my best to stay in shape for next years season up at Fox, and I asked West if he would care to join me for a work out the other night. We went on a three mile run. At about the 1.25 mile mark he said, “you can go faster if you want”. “This is my pace”, I replied. “Oh”, he said. I told him the route (for the third time [he doesn't listen as well as I do yet]), and he then took off at a “better” pace. He remained a block ahead of me for the rest of the run.*

He looks so much like my dad now. They are very similar. Both love to skateboard, to fix, break, and make things; they love to shoot guns. They also have been saving up money to build a hot rod…or some sort of fast car thing.

West and I are also very similar. Watching him progress through jr high, I laugh because he thinks and does some of the things that I often thought about or did when I was in jr high. He is more daring than me though. He doesn’t care what people think about him-or at least what strangers think about him. He’ll hang his head out the window of the car and yell things like “you want fries with that?!” at random people.

He also makes up words. The most common made up word is “sheef”. It doesn’t mean anything, and it means everything. When I eat the last poptart he calls me a sheef. When he dies while playing Call of Duty he’ll exclaim, “sheef! I pushed the smoke grande button!”

He farts. ALL. THE. TIME.

When my family came home I said, “I’m blogging about West.” He said, “Who isn’t?”

As I watched my brother running ahead of me, I could not help but feel a tremendous sense of pride in him. Being 8 years his senior, I remember very clearly the day he was born and have watched him grow into a creative, confidant, talented, funny, athletic young kid. I love my brother very much and would do anything for him. I’m looking forward to watching him grow. I think that he will do great things to impact the world around him. I wish he would keep playing the piano, because I think it’s good for him and he’ll regret it if he doesn’t. If a girl ever breaks his heart I’ll throw eggs at her car, and if he ever breaks a girls heart I’ll shave his head. He loves his hair.

He loves instagram.
He has an iPad 2.
He eats everything.
He knows all the words to Rebecca Black’s “Friday”.

Even if he ends up being better than me at a number of things, he’ll always be my little brother.

* Disclaimer here: he did have to stop and walk 3 times. I never stopped once. I only say this so I look like less of a wimp.

Why I Dance

Current mood: happy
Current song playing: California-Rouge Wave
Most recent adventure: houseboat
Chocolate treat of the day: fudgesicle

First of all, I’m rather disappointed in the writer in me because of lack of blog posts this summer. I’ve been sucked into the vortex that is Tumblr (which I affectionately refer to as the lazy man’s blog). So I’ve come up with a new system/conviction/promise to myself. For every three trips into the Tumblr vortex, I will write one substantial blog post. Someone better hold me to this….

Last week I had the privilege to go to Lake Shasta with 58 of my fellow college students for a little houseboating excursion. What a blessed week of bliss.

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About half way though the week we have to bring the houseboats back to the marina so that the water tanks can be refilled and the sewage dumbed. We had four houseboats and the students were divided up as we made our journey back across the lake. I was on boat 4 with a handful of girls and captain Jonathan Sepetjian at the helm. The lovely miss Stephanie Hall put on some music and small dance party erupted. Lauren Belknap, Kayla Dean, Katie Humphfres, Stephanie, and myself were all dancing and singing out on the front deck in the bright morning sunshine.

At some point between Ke$ha’s Blow and Justin Bieber (requested by Lauren of course) I took a step back and watched my fellow dancing queens laughing singing and shaking their limbs awkwardly. What good medicine dancing can be. There were just five of us girls jumping and singing secular songs, but it was beautiful.

Our bodies were created to move. We have joints, tendons, muscles, and bones that all function together so that we can move. We move our bodies to perform tasks to get from point A to point B. As an athlete I try to push my body to the limit so that I can perform better. However, while I was twirling in circles the idea of moving my body for pure enjoyment–the idea that I am alive; with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.

I saw the grace of God in that moment.

Grace because our soulsl have been given a unique shell in which to dwell on on this earth. Not a boring, stiff something; but something that can do all kinds of amazing things: laugh, climb, swim, throw, jump, and run. We could have all been trees. That would have not been as much fun. Our bodies are a blessing. Thats kinda cool.

Music with its melodies, rhythms, and sounds. It moves through the universe and brings people from all walks of life together. I love music, and I love to dance. I think that when we move our bodies we feel healthy, rejuvenated, and alive again. I believe that it’s a good thing to dance. If the Israelites danced when they were finally out of the grasp of the Egyptians, I will dance with my girlfriends on a houseboat, on a lake.

The Art of Waiting

current mood: unknown
today is: Day 38 of summer.
chocolate treat of the day: home made oreos. lish.

We live in an instant world. Everything is at our finger tips. High speed internet, fast food, fast cars, netflix streaming to your tv, curagigs that can make a cup of coffee in 5 seconds. You can get almost anything instantly.

And while some of these things are good, I think that society as a whole is beginning to lose a valuable skill: waiting.

I’ve been thinking about this idea of waiting for quite some time. It may be why I haven’t updated in such a long time (or it could have been because I was insanely busy and then insanely lazy). This thought of why waiting can be such an important thing occurred to me a few months ago when a friend of mine was pregnant. Her name is Melissa Brosch, and she is the high school director at my church. She has a big, crazy, loud personality, a huge heart for ministry and high school students, and is a wonderful godly woman who I love very much. Working in high school ministry and being pregnant means that one has a fan club of 100 girls who are dying to know when the baby will arrive, what gender it will be, and then they can come over and baby sit. I’ve been told that the first time a woman is pregnant its all mysterious and exciting, but here is the kicker: you have to wait 9 months before you can hold the baby. 9 months before you can hear it laugh. 9 months before you know whose eyes and noes it will have. 9 months of anticipation. 9 months is a very long time.

In the final weeks of her pregnancy, Mellissa was on maternity leave, at home, just waiting. Day after day waiting for little Oliva to arrive. I think those last two weeks of waiting would be the hardest part..

Its not like there is some form of insta-baby where all one has to do is push a few buttons, or take a rapid growth pill and then in 2-3 business days TA-DA! It’s a boy! But I feel like thats the world we live in. Make it go faster and happen quicker because I don’t want to wait.

Have you seen those Verizon 4G ads?

At what point can’t you go any faster? Things will always take time, its not like you can make something download in 00.00.00 seconds. Then you didn’t download it. How fast are they expecting to get?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my high speed wireless internet. I remember dial-up, and don’t want to go back to that ever. But I think that there are some things that are ment to take time. Potentially lots of time, and maybe even sometimes longer than we like. But those things that take time can end up being the best part of your day, week, life. Like the turkey at Thanksgiving that took 4 hours to cook or seeing a friend or a family member after being away for a while.

I want to be better at waiting. Being expectantly unexpected, and content with the pace of life. Not making tons of plans, or trying to figure everything out, but simply riding the wave and seeing where life takes me.

 

ps- this is awesome.

All Things Hunger Games

current mood: partly cloudy
current weather conditions: cloudy
current weather conditions in Orange: sunny
number of oranges on my desk: 2
chocolate treat of the day: none. (i walked down the candy asile today and nothing looked good o_0)

I wanted to discuss one of my obsessions. It is this book series:

It’s called the Hunger Games and it is written by a woman named Suzanne Collins and it is pure gold. Its a story about a post apolctolpytic world in which the capital city called Panem, takes 24 children ages 12-18 and makes them fight to the death every year in a gladiator like fashion that is broadcast for the entire country to see on live TV. Yea, brutal right? This is not a children’s book. The story follows the young heroine Katniss Everdeen on her journey as she is chosen as a “tribute” to participate in the 74th hunger games. This book is followed by two more which are titled “Catching Fire” and “Mocking Jay”.

I really enjoyed reading this series. And I am looking forward to the year 2012 because, they are making “The Huger Games” into a feature film.

-pause for me jumping up and down in excitement-

Ok, I’m ok now.

I have known about the plans to make this book a movie for quite some time, but now it is getting lots of hype because the lead actress and two lead actors have been cast. It won’t be to long before the rest of the roles are cast as well. What I wouldn’t give to visit that set for a day….

Katniss will be played by the lovely Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Josh Hutcherson (The Kids are All Right) will be playing the role of Petta Mellark, and Liam Hemsworth (The Last Song) will be playing the role of Gale Hawthorne.

Jennifer Lawrence

Josh Hutcherson

Liam Hemsworth

After preforming in a film like Winter’s Bone I have no doubt that Lawrence will have the be able to bring the house down as Katniss. I don’t know very much about our two male leads, other than the fact that Hutcherson was in Journey to the Center of the Earth and that movie was…well, it was. Hopefully both boys can bring the heat to the crazy love triangle that Katniss finds herself in the middle of.

While I am very excited for this epic story to find its way to the silver screen, my biggest fear is that this will turn into Twilight. Which makes me sick. My sister was a big Twilight fan before that franchise was born. I tried really hard to like Twilight, but honestly I think it’s the most boring, over dramatic story ever written. And the films are nothing but people staring at each other and Taylor Laughter walking around with his shirt off. If anyone so much as mentions the words “Team Gale” or “Team Petta” I will hunt you down and and stuff a Twinkie down your throat faster than you can say mocking jay.

Lets do some basic math:
Hunger Games > Twilight

Are we good now? Excellent.

So there are many exciting things in development for this film. I hope that it turns out good. If you haven’t read this book, please put it on your summer reading list and make sure that you get to it. I know that it sounds awful and gruesome to read about children killing each other, but I had to read Lord of the Flies when I was in 10th grade, so it’s not that bad.

Final thought: I think that this Linkin Park song would be cool as part of the sound track. Be advised, the chorus has some bad words, however I feel like the over all feel of the song and the verses capture some of what Katniss feels while participating in the games. I shall also leave you with two more fan art images that I found. ^_^

PS-Hunger Games fans, I’d love to know your thoughts on all this. What do you think about the cast so far? Or anything else related to any of this greatness.

Gale, Katniss, Peeta

more fan art