Story of My Life #8 - The Princess Thing

If you look at my Movie List you'll seen that I've been watching a lot of Princess movies lately. I've gone back and forth with all these Disney ladies - From Enchanted to Aurora - and I've been thinking a lot of about The Princess Thing.

I was just re-watching The Little Mermaid, and I was struck with how much I still liked it. It's not about love because I just re-watched Cinderella and though I still liked it, I didn't love it as much as I did as a kid. But with Ariel and Eric it was love - the enduring kind. I first saw the movie when it was first released in theaters - yes, I am that old - I was about five years old at the time, and I loved it. I loved mermaids and magic and handsome prince.

But now, now that I'm closer to 30 than to 20, now that I look at the girl I was and the girl I am and the woman I hope to one day be (if possible, I hope to one day be as hot as Helen Mirren, but that's just me), I look back to Ariel and Eric and I still love them and all the represent. I love Eric who is kind and handsome and funny, and actually has some say in his own story; but most of all I love Ariel, I love how she's impulsive and rebellious but means well, I love how she knows what she wants and goes get it.

Courage and independence come in a many shapes and forms, and I see that in my princesses. For me, princesses have never been these languid beautiful girls who are just sitting around waiting for things to happen to them.

Even in the Disney pantheon, I never saw them that way. I saw Ariel saving Eric right at the beginning; I saw Belle going to great lengths to protect her father; I saw Cinderella deciding to go to the ball even though it could land her in trouble; I saw Snow White running away and making a place for herself among the dwarfs; I saw Aurora dancing in the woods because she feels like it, and giving her heart away to this guy who dances with her.

Those are the things I see when I open this corner of my childhood and look at my princesses, my companions, the girls I wanted to be when I grew up.

Of course, I also see Princess Leia holding a gun and fighting the Empire, but well, she has always been on a league of her own.

I can go back and forth, from Snow White to Princess Leia, and Belle, and Giselle and Rapunzel. I can look at them and see these brave girls who fall in love and have adventures and sing for the heck of it, and who, most of all, have enough courage to stay true to themselves regardless of what life throws at them.

And to me, that's the Princess Thing.

Love,

Story of My Life #7: Dear Mr. Potter

So, a couple of weeks ago Dear Mr. Potter: Letters of Love, Loss and Magic was released. It's a book that compiles letters from fans telling how Harry Potter influenced them and their lives. I've previewed some of the letters and I was quite touched by them, and I decided to write a letter myself, so here we are.

Fair warning, though, I might get a bit personal.

--

Dear Mr. Potter,

You came into my life at a time of upheaval.

One of my favorite uncles had died months before, I was struggling as a college freshman, trying to face the fact that I had chosen the wrong university and the wrong major. But you helped me get through that first semester of hell.

And then, in the middle of it all - and before I started book 3- my grandmother died.

Grandma Sophie was sort of the center of my family... and without her, I had the hardest time dealing with just everything in general. She wasn't a walk in the park, but she was my Gran and losing her that year, six weeks before I turned 18 shattered me.

Life went on.

Few weeks after the funeral, my Mom and Aunt took my sister Boo, my cousin Betty and me to go see Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone on opening night. It was the first fun thing we did as a family after Gran Sophie died. That December Mom - who doesn't really approve of my reading so much - bought me Goblet of Fire and I was reading it when my Dad got a call, on Christmas day, that resulted on the four of us going to Spain next spring.

The Prisioner of Azkaban was with me as I stood as far away from home as I have ever been, and it comforted me in knowing it was there, all tattered and with food stains all over because I wouldn't put it down to eat. 

Then Order of the Phoenix came out and I nearly got flunked out of school - after Spain, I switched schools and majors - because I wouldn't stop reading it after I got it, not even in class and I had midterms around the corner. For Half Blood Prince, I had to pace myself, because it was finals week, I was older and trying to get over a mid-college crisis.

When Deathly Hallows came out... boy wasn't that crazy! I remember I was on holiday with my family when I sneaked off to check my email and saw the announcement of the title. And on the release date, I made my dad drive me to one of the bookstores selling it at midnight. He was sure there wouldn't be anyone around and couldn't believe there were over 400 people at that store alone, with another good 300 in the store next door which was selling the UK edition instead of the US one. My sister actually told me "I never thought there were that many crazy people like you."

There were. But I still got all the collectible bookmarks (the ones with the seven questions that would be answered) and even a special, super cool bookmark the store was giving away with each purchase. It's a night I still remember and it makes me smile.

When I think about it, the girl that went to buy that book at midnight was quite different to the girl that read the first book, in between I had lost my Gran, gone to Spain, dropped out of college, got into a different college, realized I had chosen the wrong major again, but also that I had to see it through or I would keep hopping from one thing to the other, career wise, forever. I had made friends a world over, in great part because of HP and fanfiction (I was relatively well known in the Spanish Lily/James fics circle of writers, back when it was still quite small).

In many ways, it was because of you, Mr Potter, that I began to find my own voice as a writer.

Now, I'm getting ready to watch movie 7 part 2. I still find comfort in your adventures, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for it, and for all the friends I've made through you.

All the best,

Alex.

Not my best pic, but that's me the night I bought HP7!

Story of My Life #6 - On Long winded Sob Stories.

Okay, so a few weeks ago I was on the mood for a Tearjerker - sometimes it happens, I just feel like having a good cry about something not related to my real life. So a friend told me about Tapestry by Karen Ranney. Now, I've read the works of Ms Ranney before and I generally enjoy them - some of them I've even love. 

So I went forth, located a copy of Tapestry - since it's an older book a friend had it and loaned it to me - and went forth to read. 

It was a tearjerker, and it was for the most part okay, but it lost me because it was one of those epic sagas where the hero and heroine have to go through hell and back, then visit the moon, maybe mars and have an tea with the Yeti before they get to be happy. 

I loathe such books. It's not that I don't think tragic stories shouldn't be told or that I don't know that real life can be right down cruel. But when I'm looking at a story for comfort, I can't help thinking was ALL that really necessary? 

Let me tell you what happens in Tapestry in the barest of terms: Heroine loves hero from afar for years. Hero goes to war, gets blown up and loses - literally - half his face. Hero comes back and is - understandably, I think - a bad tempered bear. Heroine disguises herself as a maid, goes to the Hero's house and slowly but surely gets him to come out of his shell with the power of her love (So far so good and if it would have ended there I would have LOVED this book, but oh no!!).

Hero is thinking of sending Heroine away because she deserves better than him but the heroine disappears on him due to the fact that she has to get back to her rich heiress life. Hero eventually decides to marry for the sake of getting an heir, and marries the Heroine. Hero discovers Heroine is the maid he was in love with. Instead of being happy about this, Hero reverts back into Bear Temperament. Eventually, Hero forgives Heroine and they are happy.... for a while (Again, if this would have been the ending I would have been okay, but we are only midway through the book).

Heroine discovers she's preggo! YAY!! but then Hero is told BY HIS FORMER SUPERIOR IN THE ARMY WHO JUST QUIT THE JOB BUT WANTS THE HERO TO DO AS HE SAYS ANYWAY that he has to go back to war. Hero knows Heroine is pregnant, but goes anyway BECAUSE HE'S A DUMB ASS THAT PUTS DUTY TO HIS NO LONGER BOSS OVER HIS FAMILY. Heroine is sad, but hopes he'll come back for the birth of the baby. 

Hero gets blown up again, and thought dead. Heroine hears the news and losses the baby. Heroine becomes Pod-robot with no will to live. Years go by. Hero is still thought as dead. Heroine joins charity causes, fosters tons of children unconsciously trying to make up for the one she lost. Hero is not dead after all and comes back. Heroine doesn't want to see him. Hero pulls a BIG GESTURE TO MAKE UP FOR THE FACT THAT HE WAS GONE FOR YEARS and Heroine forgives him and they live happy with their adoptive children, only occasionally feeling sad about not having their own babies.

See it took me FOUR paragraphs to sum up what happens in this story. And I ask again, was all that really necessary? For me, whenever I read stuff like that, I feel like author didn't make any choices, she just wanted her characters to suffer, and suffer, and then suffer so much because that's supposed to be the makings of a Great Love Story?

Honestly?

I enjoy long, complex stories, I do. When it makes sense. Harry Potter I love. I live for Star Wars - and that's one heck of a long-winded, complex story, more so if you count the Expanded Universe. I loved the LotR movies. There is nothing I love more than a good trilogy or series. I like it. Do I need it crammed into a single book? Nope. Do I need my hero and heroine to have every single possibly bad thing happen to them to believe they love each other? No way!

So... yeah, that's why I stay away from books like this - I think it's also to blame fore my fear of super long books - I've never seen the appeal.

Now, I ask you? Do you like 'saga's? What's the kick? the payoff?

Let me know,

Alex

Story of My Life # 5 - Of Girls and Goddesses

If you have been reading this blog lately, you'll probably know that I love Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams' series The Goddess Girls - the series is about famous goddesses Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and Persephone as tweens attending the Mount Olympus Academy - and lately, I started to think of why I love them so much. 

I guess its because, for me, middle school was so incredibly traumatizing. I was in a school I hated, my so called 'friends' often made me the butt of their jokes, and I felt so alone most of the time. And, I think I love Persephone's book the most because I often felt like a phony trying to fit in with my friends.

Thankfully, both Persephone and I outgrew out of our phoniness, and where her friends proved to be true, mine not always did, but eventually I did make good friends, friends I still keep to to this day. (Actually, in some ways, my best friend reminds me of Artemis)

And I just love seeing friendship portrayed in the way it should be, specially among young girls: something that makes you stronger, and makes your feel accepted for who you are, and with fabulous people who are completely different to you but love you anyway. These girls also have conflicts and problems, but they solve them by talking to each other, by not letting misunderstanding stand and by loving each other.

I wish more books told that story, because mine eventually became something like that - sure, I was in Prep school by then but it was worth the wait to have friends like that.

I'm interviewed at Book Crazy

Book Crazy has this awesome weekly feature where she interviews other bloggers.
I was lucky enough to be interviewed for this week's feature, and you can read my interview here.

Thanks Book Crazy!

Story of My Life #4 -I Freely Admit...

... (Or Endings I Didn't Care For)

I freely admit I'm one of those people who tend to compare 'Real Life' to whatever fictional world I happen to be obsessed with at a time - this time frame can go for a few hours spent watching a movie to years of wishing there was a real Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the fictional worlds include movies, TV, books (of course!) and even anime (surreal hair and all!).

I also freely admit that I get seriously pissed off when I don't get the ending I hoped for. Like today, for example, I was busy, had chores to do and errands to run temptation won and I decided to channel surf for a bit before getting a move on (because, as I've said many times before, I'm lazy), and I stumbled across an Audrey Hepburn movie (another free admission: I love Audrey's movies) and I had to watch.

The movie was called The Nun's Story, and it's about a young Belgian woman who enters a convent to both become and nun and a nurse (and work in Congo) and eventually has to decide it she's really meant to be a nun or not. Well, let me tell you something: it took me about twenty minutes to figure out she was not cut to be a nun, it took her two and a half hours (and about, I guess, some 10 years of her life as portrayed in the film) to realize she wanted to be a nurse more than she wanted to be a nun.

There is a flirtation with a doctor - if it looks like a flirtation and it quacks like a flirtation, I'm calling it a flirtation, even though she's still a nun at this point - once she FINALLY gets to Congo, but then nothing happens, she's sent back to Europe, and we never hear from Congo ever again, thank you very much! Half an hour later the movie is over, *SPOILER ALERT* she quits being a nun, and that's it.

I mean it: That's It! I felt completely cheated out of my time. I don't know if I expected some big romantic ending (maybe, I do hope for and expect a little bit of romance in everything because it's my favorite genre in the world), but I hoped for something. I hoped to learn that, after everything, she would be happy.

I hoped and that's a big thing for me.

I can deal with endings that are less-than perfectly wrapped in a bow (like in Nick and Nora's Infinite Play List or even in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) but I need hope. I need to have the feeling in my gut that these characters - these people - I just shared part of my heart with have some sort of Happy in their future.

Because, without hope, what's really the point of it all?

Story of my Life (EE #1) - Christmas Edition.

Story of My Life - Especial Edition - On Christmas!

Here in my country we don’t have the Thanksgiving tradition as in the US (and Canada, I found out watching How I Met Your Mother), so we save our giving thanks for Christmas. So, here I am. What I’m a grateful for as 2009 draws to an end?

Well, I got a wonderful family - stick around, you’ll hear plenty of them in upcoming SOL’s. My sister might be a bitch on wheels half the time but when push comes to shove, she always sticks around. I also happen to be my parent’s beloved baby, who even at the advanced age of 25 remains theirs to spoil (and trust me, I AM A SPOILED BRAT), but more than that their love is upon me. Plus, there is my extended family, aunts and uncles and so many wonderful cousins – my cousin-but-really-more-like-a-sister Betty, in particular.

I also have an awesome most excellent dog! Name’s Rocco Albert Lampone and technically he’s my sister’s dog but see, until a couple of years ago I had my own dog, his name was Kero Boulis Daidojui (Bola for short) and he was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been around. Daddy originally got it for both my sister and me, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Bola was mine, sadly a couple of years ago, Bola died and since then Rocco sleeps in my bedroom, like Bola used to do. He might not care one whit for any order I give him, and did destroy my favored pair of Sylvester slippers, he might listen to Boo more, but when I get back to my house from school or work, is his wagging tail that lets me know I have a home.

Friends! That’s another thing I’m very grateful for. There are my real life friends, Vi in particular who has been my best friend since Prep School, when we got talking one day because even though we didn’t have a math teacher during the first few weeks, we both always got early to school anyway. She’s crazy, but she understands me. There are also my E-friends, like Niradj and his girlfriend, whom I’ve been close to for almost eight years, there is Lauren and Stella whom I still keep contact with since we met in a message board Ages ago. And Kylie too, who next to Vi might be one of the few people who actually knows who deeply neurotic I am. And so many others.

There is YOU, and everyone who’s reading this. When I began to blog about books, I never thought it would stick, see, I’m not real good when it comes to finishing projects, since I lack ambition and my competitive inner bitch is usually smothered under a thick blanket of laziness, it’s easy for me to give up.

But I haven’t and in big part that’s thanks to you – and to the Bloggiesta, who forced me to get back on track.

And I’m also thankful for my Bearsie, the teddy bear that has been source of amusement, comfort and love since I saw him under our Christmas three, 23 years ago. He has been pillow, international traveler and keeper of all my secrets. Might be old and his fur not what once used to be, but he’s still sitting right next to me always.

Well, that’s me! What about you?

PS – Happy Xmas/Holidays/Winter Break!

Story of My LIfe # 3 - On Families, Craziness and Zazu

Story of My Life 3 – On Families, Craziness and Zazu.

Just a few days ago I finished reading the latest installment of Lisa Kleypas’ Hathaway series: Tempt Me At Twilight, and it got me thinking about family. The series revolves around the Hathaway family; a bunch of eccentric but lovable people, and it got me thinking about my own family. Having grown up in a large, embarrassing and extremely close-knit family, I understand eccentric families, and I appreciate reading about them in a more or less realistic fashion.

The Hathaways are particular favorites of mine. Usually when you read about eccentric families is in a cartoon-like way, with the families serving just to humiliate our normality-seeking protagonist and mortifying said protagonist no end. The heroine must learn to overcome her family’s oddities and break away from them; the hero must learn to love the heroine in spite of said family. It’s a common enough plot, especially in Y.A. Fiction, few authors – like Melina Marchetta or Mariah Fredericks – write realistic family life without judging or preaching.

The reason why I love the Hathaways is because, yes, they are eccentric – they discuss any and all topics, they argue with each other, had an unconventional upbringing where the girls were taught that they were equal to the boys (something quite unusual in England during the 18oo’s), and one of the sisters, Bea, adopts any and all animals that come her way and when she gets stresses kleptomania gets the best of her- but they love each other.

My family is a bit like that, eccentric and loving at the same time. I have gossipy aunts and insufferable uncles and branches of the family that I’m not at all close to, but with the ones I AM close to, it’s great. Sure, we embarrass each other, and it’s a sheer act of courage to bring a boyfriend home since one of my uncles like to interrogate them, another makes fun of them and my aunts like to say ‘indelicate’ things in front of everyone, and we also have a fondness of discussing our many medical maladies with each others. We hold each other through thick and thin. We are different and clash and are each other’s pains in the behind but, in the end, we belong to each other.

And, as for annoying relatives, in the words of Zazu from the Lion King: “There is one in every family, two in mine”

Story of My Life # 2 - On Evolution, Me & The Fourth Grade

Story of My Life #2 - On Evolution, Me & The Fourth Grade

There are a few things in my life that can be accountable for most of my neurotic but lovable self; and since this is Story of My Life you’ll probably get to hear most of the eventually, like right now.

Even though I wouldn’t call myself a devout Catholic, I was born and raised one and yet, for 11 years, I attended a Seventh Day Adventist school, all because said hell hole was right across the street from my grandma’s house.

When I was in the Fourth Grade we had a unit on how the world was created in Science. Now, if you have been around as many Adventists, Christians and hard core Catholics as I have, you’ll probably know some of them aren’t too keen on the idea of Evolution, in fact some of them will deny it until their last breath, and that’s just the way of things.

That day, all the way back in fourth grade, when I was expecting an explanation about Darwin and Natural Selection and such (my cousin was two grades ahead of me and in a different school, so I had some idea of what was coming, since I sometimes read her textbooks); I got a kid-friendly version of the first couple of chapters of the Genesis. When the teacher was done I raised my hand and when he finally acknowledged it – they were a bit chauvinistic at my school, mind you, girls almost always got called last – I asked “What about Evolution?”

What followed was a very long half hour of the teacher laughing at me and asking me if I really believe that I - not us, not humans in general, but I - came from monkeys. And that was the extent of the explanation I got. Oh and I got called Monkey-Girl for about two months after that.

Back then I couldn’t understand what the heck was the big deal, my parents were Catholics and people of science at the same time –they both have degrees in Chemistry- and it had never been a problem for them to believe in Evolution and in God. I never thought I would get in trouble for believing the same.

When I read the summary for Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature, a little part of me went back to the fourth grade and as I began to read Mena’s story I remembered a few things about back then, so it was very easy for me to identify with her and her struggle between believing in God and in science and her ultimate realization that even if she hadn’t figured out all the details, she believed both.

Since I left that Adventist school almost a decade ago, I transferred to a public prep school and went on to a failed attempt at studying journalism and eventually ended up studying and getting a degree in biology and even though I no longer identify myself as Catholic the way I was raised, God continues to be an important presence in my life.

The key of it - as I learned and as Mena learns in Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature- is in finding the balance. I have science to explain to me any number of things and I have my Faith to sustain me when science cannot. And, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the perfect arrangement.

Story of My LIfe # 1 - On Princesses and Sisters

New Section!!!

Okay, so I totally tend to be one of those people who compare her life to the books she reads, and sometimes it's not even that much of a comparison but there has been some sparks between me and books I've read... and I decided to talk a little bit about them.

And I've also managed to convince my friend Kylie@The List Maker's Book Reviews, to come along and do it as well - we are still working out frequency and stuff, btw - and we hope to talk about the way books have influenced, helped or simply resonated with both of us in every which way.


STORY OF MY LIFE #1 - On Princesses and Sisters

Princesses are common in books, you can pretty much always count on one or two princesses being in need of rescue at any given time, but there are also other type of princesses: the ones who do the rescuing.

Now, other than being my dad’s little princess (with my sister being the big princess, since she’s a full year older than me), I’ve never thought I had much in common with the princesses of the book realm; but that all changed when I read The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine a few years ago.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre tells the story of two sisters who love each other greatly but are opposite as two people can be. Meryl, the oldest, is a bundle of energy, always brave and always the protector of her little sister Addie. When the tables turn and is Meryl who needs rescuing, Addie must find the courage that was there all along and put aside her fears.

Having a sister myself, I know it’s the oddest of bonds; there is no one I love more than my sister and also no one who can piss me off as much or as fast. I might bitch about her but I bristle at the first sign of danger around her. It has always been this way, and I have also always been the cowardly sister, the one who doesn’t like to go out of her comfort zone and afraid of things that ‘might happen’, while my sister Boo has always been the one with the huge personality and bossy attitude.

We are as different from each other as Meryl and Addie are, but I also think we are just as close. There are things I don’t understand about her, things I only forgive because she is my sister and there had been times when I have loved her more than what I have liked her, but I would kill, maim and deliver the apocalypse for her, because that’s what sisters do.

There are many things I liked about Addie and Meryl but the one I always remember is the way Addie describes the difference between she and Meryl toward the end, after she had found her own courage:

“I finally saw the real difference between Meryl and me, truer than the difference between cowardly and brave. She wanted to battle monsters for the adventure of it. I wanted to defeat them for the peace that would follow.”

When I read that it was like a little light bulb went on, on top of my head in true cartoon style. Even will all the differences – like the fact I have never battled a dragon and my sister knows squat about sword fighting – I could see Boo and me in that little phrase and it was oddly liberating and it made all the difference between my sister and me, even if she doesn’t know.