Saw this movie today, and surprisingly, I didn’t really like it all that much! I didn’t DISLIKE it, I just thought it was ok, and probably wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it to other people.

Although it wasn’t the greatest movie I have ever seen, it did have one of the greatest lines I have ever heard! To put it in context, the female lead (Helen Hunt) had spent the night with her new boyfriend (Colin Firth) – whose small children she also teaches.

During the night, one of the kids becomes ill and the other older kid is sent to the father’s bedroom to look for something. Upon discovering his teacher in the room half naked, he comes back and announces “Miss Epner’s here!” to which Frank replies “Yes. Miss Epner and I…had a sleepover.” AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

EPIC WIN on his part, I think!

The plot is kind of confusing, so I copied the synopsis from Wikipedia (so you guys can tell (unlike one person who’s already been confused) that it’s not actually about two women in love, lol!)…

April Epner (Helen Hunt) is a 39-year-old elementary school teacher and adult adoptee whose life is changing rapidly as the movie begins. April longs for a child, but she and her husband Ben (Matthew Broderick) have been unsuccessful in their attempts to conceive. Her adoptive mother tries to persuade her to adopt a child.

Then, the day after Ben abruptly leaves her, her adoptive mother passes away.

Into her life steps her birth mother Bernice Graves (Bette Midler), who had abandoned her when she was an infant. Bernice is suddenly anxious to get to know her long-lost daughter. April resists the idea, annoyed that she was abandoned.

Bernice, an exuberant woman with her own TV talk show, initially claims that April was fathered by Steve McQueen. This turns out to be a lie. While her relationship with Bernice develops, April struggles to reconcile her lingering feelings toward her husband with a new man in her life, Frank (Colin Firth), the father of one of her students.

The situation is complicated when April has a brief affair with Ben while seeing Frank (and pregnant with Ben’s child at this stage). Frank reacts to this with anger, and they break up.

The plot is resolved as April works through her feelings for and relationships with Ben, Frank, and Bernice.

What’s the best movie line you’d ever heard?

On my 9th birthday…my lovely friend Merrilyn managed to jam the self-service ice cream machine in the restaurant we were in, ending up with an enormous ice-cream snowman in her bowl because she didn’t have anywhere else to put it!

I think that pretty well sums up what my Friday was like!

1. Freakish accidents.
This happened at work this morning. In the hall where our before-school program is held, there are frequently rows of 4 seats (attached to one another lengthwise) and piled on top of each other 3 or 4 high. This morning one of the younger kids was sitting on top of one of these piles playing with a Nintendo. This on its own wouldn’t have been too bad, IF there hadn’t also been one other, single seat, stacked on top of the stack. This is difficult to explain, but what happened was when he leaned forward while he was playing, he, and the single chair he was sitting on, tipped off the stack and fell onto the ground! I’d just walked out the door of the kitchen/office in time to see it happen, but he was too far away from me for me to do anything! I quickly put down my drink and ran over to him, while the other guy working with me lifted the chair off him and put it out of the way. He was crying SO hard, and it looked as if he’d landed right on his kneecap, which is definitely a very painful place to land! Oddly, he did calm down and stop crying after a few minutes, and once he got his Nintendo back and some ice for his knee, he was fine! Apparently the injury wasn’t as bad as it could have been!

2. A magazine
As some of you might already be aware, I rather like reading Brio Magazine. Although Brio is produced by the fundamentalist Christian organisation Focus on the Family, I do not read Brio because I am a Christian. I just read it (online) because it’s interesting, and it provides my friends and I with endless topics for discussion and debate. While we were in town today, Jenny and I wandered into a Christian bookstore. After looking around for awhile, we stumbled upon the magazine rack, which held, much to our delight, a real-life copy of Brio! Considering it was also MUCH cheaper than I thought it would be (NZ$3.50!) I wasted no time in purchasing it! How could I not!? Although I disagree with almost everything Brio believes in, it was still entertaining to actually find it here in NZ!

3. The search for a tablecloth
This was actually the main reason I headed into town today. To try to find a purple tablecloth as part of the decorations for my 21st. We ended up going into 3 or 4 shops, and finding many tablecloths of all colours and designs…except what we were looking for! Sod’s Law I suppose! I may yet resort to pirates!

Oh! I’ve also renovated my Livejournal! It looks rather snazzy, but is sadly lacking in the area of friends, so if you’re an LJ user, and want some more comments (I visit my Friends Page at least once a day!) then feel free to add me, and maybe leave a comment to left me know who you are, just so I don’t get confused!

On my 7th birthday…I told my cousin she looked like a boy! At least I think it was this birthday!?

AUGUST 30th EDIT: On my 8th birthday…My friends and I were all obsessed by digital pets/tamagotchis!

Yay! I’ve finally finished this sod of an essay! Ugh. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so glad to see the back of something in my entire life! *strangles it*

As for the orphaned information, in the end I managed to work most of it in (or at least the basic concepts) in a way that didn’t really require direct referencing. It kind of feels like cheating, but I honestly don’t know what else to do, and surely it’s better to have it in there, and show that I have this knowledge, than leave it out, right? o.O

Now.
The Thing You Should Never Do.
Spray varnish inside. Yup. I was foolish enough to do this this evening, and now regret it because my bedroom smells like paint thinner. Great. :/

What was I doing spraying varnish inside at night? Well may you ask! It wasn’t like, exterior painting varnish or anything, it was varnish for the cover of a scrapbooking album, but it still smells, lmao! FAIL.

On my 6th birthday…I didn’t do anything memorable.

I spent most of today writing (part of) a 3000 word essay about depression. Fun times! Lol! I haven’t finished yet, but I have discovered something rather frustrating.

Has anyone else ever experienced that feeling when you’re writing an essay or a research report and a piece of information pops into your head that you KNOW is correct and relevant to your topic, but you just can’t remember when or where you learned it, and can’t find any other reliable academic source to attribute it to in your bibliography?

Yup. I have that now. It’s going to drive me nuts!

On my 5th birthday…I had a huge pink and white castle cake which, at least in photos, appears to be a giant marshmallow!

Yesterday I went scrapbook shopping and bought what I suspect are the coolest things ever. Paper piercing bugs. It’s slightly difficult to tell from this tiny little photo, but these things are small plastic rollers with either a single or double row of metal spikes in the top. You run them across your page and they punch evenly spaced holes in the paper, which you then fill in with embroidery thread for a pretty stitched border!

I’ve actually never tried sewing on a layout before, but I’ve been wanting to try for awhile and when I saw these I figured they’d be a good start. Besides, they’re pink and spotty. I think that means they WIN at life! Now I just have to be careful not to poke holes in things which shouldn’t have holes poked in them. Like my finger!

Amusingly, right after I posted yesterday’s blog about the kids at drama school sharing the part of the Queen, I get a text message from the other teacher telling me she had somehow negotiated that the two kids are to completely swap parts, with the boy playing the Queen in both shows and the girl playing the Mayor!

We had our first rehearsal since this change last night and it went really well. Both of them have already learned 90% of their new lines (much more quickly than I could do it!), and the girl is a MUCH better Mayor than she was a Queen. It’s like a totally different kid! Both of them seem happy with the change too, which is good. Problem solved!

On my 4th birthday…I had my first party involving Merrilyn, my first “best friend” and someone who I am still good friends with now!