I have yet to understand the title of Kubo and the Two Strings. Perhaps a reader who watches it can enlighten me later. Anyway, this movie was phenomenal. It was the first truly original movie that I’ve seen in the past two years. And yes, I cried at the end. (Of course, I’ve cried at every movie I’ve seen this summer.)

Other movies that I saw this summer included Star Trek: Beyond, Finding Dory, and The Secret Life of Pets; all of which made me cry. 

I believe that this Star Trek movie was the best in the past few years (I’m partial to the one with the whales for some reason.). A well balanced female warrior, an old starship, Chekov, and that perfect use of the Beastie Boys made Beyond into an amazing movie that I would definitely watch multiple times. 

I think I cried the most at Finding Dory, but I think I knew that I would cry going in. I had been waiting for so long for this movie, and now it’s here. There was a certain magic of seeing the conclusion of one of my favourite childhood movies with the giant red recliners of an AMC movie theater. It’s better than the reviews say. If you go and see a movie, see Finding Dory.

The Secret Life of Pets was a weird movie. As much as I loved it, it just felt a little forced. Of course, it was extremely well written and I loved it all the same. I’m not saying don’t go see it, but there were movies that I would have preferred to see, such as Pete’s Dragon. 

There were three big movies that I didn’t see this summer. These were Suicide Squad, Ice Age (15?), and Pete’s Dragon. I really wanted to see Pete’s Dragon and Suicide Squad. My parents said that Suicide Squad was horrible, but with Panic! at the Disco and twenty øne piløts on the same soundtrack, it can’t be that bad right? It’s gotten really good reviews from my friends. 

A final note on Ice Age: They should have stopped at three. 

Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Morning(?)

Anna Grace

Are there certain places in the world where you wonder if time is displaced? Is that just me? I know it isn’t, because I saw a tumblr post about it. These places, such as an empty school, are strange to humans because we already have a context for it. Students are supposed to be in a school. Lots of people are supposed to be in a school. So when you’re in an empty school after dark, you feel strange. Where are all the people? Why is it so dark? Why am I in an empty school after dark anyway?

In an airplane, time just doesn’t seem to exist. I’m here, and it’s 4:46 am and 3:46 pm at the same time. Then I look at the clock on the plane, and I see that I have 9 hours and 58 minutes left. What to do with all that time? I can’t sleep, meal service has ended, and I’m tired of staring at a screen. For the first few hours I reenacted Hamilton (Delta has Hamilton on their entertainment software because why not?). 

Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Morning(?)

Anna Grace

This trip has been great. That being said, I feel like shit and I think that if I ate anything remotely healthy my body would reject it. I’ve tried my best to eat healthily on this trip, but it’s hard when you’re in America. Every chance I got, whether we were in Pensacola or New Orleans or Atlanta, I tried to eat a salad for the meal. 

(That was practically impossible in Texas and Arkansas, because a) those were the first two places we went; and b) when you’ve been overseas and haven’t had really good Tex-Mex or BBQ, you eat it regardless of how you’ll feel later. For the first 8 days that we were in the States, we had some kind of BBQ for a meal. )

These salads were huge though! In fact, everything in America is huge! A few hours ago, my mom and I split a kids meal. I don’t think I’ve even seen my brother finish an American kids meal. 

Despite the fact that crazy cheap prices for huge portions might sound good, it’s a contributor to the major health problems in America. 10 dollars will buy a lot more McDonald’s than fruits and/or veggies, which is why you often see or hear of people in relative poverty eating unhealthy foods. 

So what are we going to do about it? I’d love to hear your ideas. 

Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Morning?

Anna Grace

We’re back with the airplane blog post challenge! As of right now, I’m on a plane back to Japan. This one is nonstop, so I think it’ll be easier to write more. That being said, I’m very tired. 

School starts soon and I’m really nervous, so I have to shift my priorities a bit. I’ll try and space these blog posts out so that you guys get good content for the next week or so without me pulling my hair out. I’ll also try and schedule a few posts so that when the school year starts you guys won’t be left with nothing to read. Also, what do you guys want to see more on my blog? What do you like about it? Leave it in the comments!

Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Morning(?)

Anna Grace

In all my time as an amateur kind-of-but-not-really observer of maps, I’ve never realized that the space between Alaska and Hawaii forms a straight line. It took semi-severe turbulence for me to bring myself to check the flight progress map found in the monitor on the back of the seat in front of me. It turns out that at that very moment, we were perpendicular to that line. 

This has made me think about people and lines. There are parallel people, perpendicular people, and other-names-for-lines-that-I-can’t-remember-right-now people. 

With perpendicular people, we enter their lives for a while, and then leave, impacting them in a way.

With parallel people, I have two theories. The first is that these are people that stay with us our whole lives, or at least longer than perpendicular people. Like our parents and life-long/best friends could be parallel people. 

Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Morning(?)

Anna Grace