So. Then there was Thursday. I enjoyed a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner with not only one but TWO families on that much beloved day. I was a bit... nervous for the second one. I'm not quite sure if you've ever had to endure your significant other's family for a long period of time or not, but one's actions and conversations can get a bit awkward and/or overanalyzed during said period of time. Overall, I think everything went well, though. Most of them were pretty cool...
I definitely think his grandfather is my favorite. Let me give a brief character sketch:
He's not more than a few inches over five feet, with a round, Santa Claus-esque belly and a warm welcoming face. He likes to smoke Strawberry Phillie Blunts, but only when his wife isn't around, as if she wouldn't notice the smell of it on him anyways, and he can never smoke the entire thing, so he'll find odd places to hide his half-smoked mini cigars outside. He's pretty forgetfull--over the years his wife has developed the habit of picking up the items he's left behind (such as a box of said minicigars), asking him if he has said items without telling him that she actually has them in her pocket, and then handing it over to him as he grins at his silliness and comments (once again) on his forgetful tendencies. He also likes to make fun of my "bird-like" eating habits because he doesn't understand vegetarianism, and then he'll jokingly ask if Evan is planning on becoming one, too (knowing full well that Evan detests vegetables and will take the comment as an attack to his "manliness"). After a jolly laugh, his grandfather will go on to entertain you by sharing his stories about crazy nuns and that guy who lives down the street who went to rehab. once, but who is "kinda cool anyways."
Basically, he's absolutely ridiculous and I love it.
After dinner, Evan and I hung around for a while, until after most of his relatives left. In this way, I got to know a couple of his aunts and uncles really well, and they were all pretty cool. I'm really liking one of his aunts in particular: she's really smart and confident, but somehow still comes off as unoffensive, just barely. It's like she's so on top of her stuff that she'll go to say something, and it'll get you thinking, but just as you're about to feel offended for that comment she's a) on to something else, b) you realize the only reason you felt offended in the first place was because you have an ego and she's a SMART woman!, or c) both of the above. Quite interesting. I really respect her a lot, actually, in a role model kind of way. I mean, she's very independent, but so caring... and she's caring but so fierce. Bizarre combinations.
So then Evan and I ended up going out to the movies. I guess it's been his little tradition the past few years--to go see a movie on Thanksgiving. So we went and saw the 3-D version of Beowulf.
I know there will be much debate about this movie in the future, so let me put my two cents in now. We'll begin that it was an excellent movie, but was clearly created to be seen in 3-D and the overall effect the writers were trying to have will be lost without this aspect. They put a lot of thought into how to get the audience's attention and how to make the movie seem that much more real through the use of 3-D technology. There is a certain psychology to it, and it's brilliant.
Also, I will say that when they strayed from the plot of the story, they were usually doing so for an understandable reason, such as to make the story more relatable to the modern day audience. They added a lot of depth and motive to the characters, consequently creating a much more complex (and better?) story. The fact that I'm saying this means they do it rather well... I usually HATE movies that come out based on something I've read. I know, however, that these strays may anger any people out there who are quite emotionally attached to the story of Beowulf. Even after my rave reviews, I still have a few friends who are resistant to it. Personally, I think the movie version is precariously perched on this thin line between being too similar to the basic plot line that it's ok they're calling it Beowulf and too dissimilar to consider it anything but another piece, a more modernized version for today. It's like the twenty-first century rewrite of one of man's most classic hero stories. Maybe I'm biased, though--I didn't really like Beowulf when I read it the first time, and though it may grow on me in the future (potentially when I explore different versions of it), it's still not my favorite story, though I can understand why it was so appreciated at that point in history.
But I digress. I spent the majority of Friday sleeping, though I did go on a long drive around Lake Winnipesaukee underneath a nearly full moon and wrote a pretty good poem on a paper bag (the only paper we could find in the vehicle). That was pretty fantastic. It was just the perfect night for it, and I hadn't written a decent poem in a while. So overall, the day was a lot of relaxing mixed with a little bit of creativity.
I spent Saturday doing laundry, writing a paper, and then playing Vampire (it's a role-playing game) with the gang. It was quite an intellectually demanding day, as I was analyzing the role of Buddhism in America in the late 1800's and comparing it to the potential roles this religion/philosophy/psychology provides for Americans today for my paper. This was then followed by several hours of jumping into the character of this arrogant Baron Vampire from the medieval ages who seeks help from the Vampire Prince when his castle and all his lands are taken over by barbarians and a sect of Vampires who are trying to take over the world, basically. Unfortunately, my intelligent and charming character finds himself surrounded by fools (one of which is a 60 year old Vampiric alchemist who keeps on forgetting what he's created and ends up handing over all these weapons with the wrong labels, which... ends up a little nasty...) It was a lot of fun because I was playing around with this new skill that enabled me to use shadow hands to manipulate objects (and/or people's faces when we were in a fight). We called it a night after we successfully stormed my castle, defeated the (wicked strong!) dude who had taken it over, and interrogated him regarding the whereabouts of his master so that we could ensure that these Vampires weren't going to take over the world with their evil schemes. Yikes. Novel, anyone?
And then I slept in late on Sunday and came back to campus just in time for dinner, before drinking my first cup of coffee and doing homework for the next six hours. Yes, I probably should have done more than the little work I had done over the break, but I really needed that break, and when I was back, I was ready to get back into the groove.
Hey, on another note, I just looked up vampire on google and learned a lot of things about how the legend of vampires may have come about. I promise details on this in the next entry, it's pretty cool, and I want to look into it more.
Well until then, ciao.