It Has Been Years! (Only Not Really...)

It feels as though it's been years since I touched you, my dearest bloggy-blog, and so much has happened. Wow.  Where to start? I'm out of school now, first of all. Also, I can now reveal that I engaged in an amusing (if somewhat juvenile) prank with a good friend of mine, where we managed to convince most of our collective friends that we two were dating. (The fact that my best friend Kristi was on board served well - we never would have pulled it off without her backup.) Amusingly, my younger sister did not even find out about the fake "relationship" until the week before we called it off and told everyone the truth. So for most people it lasted a month, but for my silly and rather oblivious sister, the prank only lasted a week.

I must confess that I don't think I'll ever do anything of the sort again; lying to everyone really killed me inside and made me feel super guilty. I can't even really enjoy the prank, because it still sort of makes me feel a little bit sick inside.However, the resulting inside jokes that emerged between this good friend and I as a result of our false relationship make up for the ill feeling for the most part.

In addition, I have applied to the UW study abroad program. I'm hoping to be in Japan next summer. But what about this summer? What could possibly have me so busy that I have neglected my blog for such an extended period of time?

...A summer job. Yes, a summer job. Also a dying laptop. But more on that later. First: I am currently working for Oregon State Parks at a State Heritage Site as an Interpretive Intern, and I am thoroughly enjoying it thus far.  I love being able to take people around the site and tell them about the importance of the site and how it contributed to Oregon's heritage and history. On the downside, the heritage site is approximately 7 hours away from home, and so I have a summer far, far, away from all of my friends to anticipate. Additionally, I have no idea how I'm going to see "The Amazing Spider-Man" premier with my friends since I can't take any days off except for my weekends. Pardon me whilst I bawl, since I have been looking forward to this movie since I heard about it just under  a year ago when they started releasing production photos, etc.

Spider-man has always been my favorite Marvel super-hero (He's almost neck-in-neck with my all-time favorite superhero, a DC character known as Brainiac 5). I really love Spidey, and I really wanted to see this film with my friends. Movie premiers are no fun by yourself...

"The Amazing Spider-Man" premiers soon. It is much more
accurate to the comics than the last 3 Spider-Man movies.

This is Brainiac Five. He is awesome. And a Genius.
But mostly just awesome.

...Okay, now, where was I? Right. No movie premiers. Pehh. But hey, at least I got to see "The Avengers," which, while not yet including Spider-Man (Who DOES join the Avengers at one point, though he tends to be more  of a solo act), did have some other fun folks we met in a few other great Disney/Marvel flicks over the years. By "other fun folks" I mean:

Thor Odinsson,  "Norse God" and hammer-wielder with long golden locks that are usually 'creatively toussled' and/or greasy. An Avenger, and a good guy.

Brother of the adopted Loki, "Norse God" of mischief. Loki will get his own intro later.

Ironman, aka Tony Stark, main inventor and head of Stark Industries, though he did pass the reigns over to his childhood friend and girlfriend (fiance?), Pepper Potts. He invented the suit he wears and is quite a snarky character. He likes to go solo also, but does play a fun part in the team. Plus, because he's a self-declared "Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist," he's the one with the funds to keep a place for the Avengers to hang out when they aren't saving the world... or avenging it.

Captain America, the first avenger, named Steve Rogers. He is awesome and kind and heroic and almost too good to be real. He is also a super-soldier with strength, patriotism, and an awesome shield.  He lost the love of his life when he was buried in ice at the end of WWII and was cryogenically preserved until being dug out not too long before the Avengers started up.

From Lto R: The Incredible Hulk
(top left), Hawkeye (bottom left),
Ironman (front mid-left),
Nick Fury (mid back)
Black Widow (front mid),
Captain America (back right),
Thor (front right).

Along with a couple of other fun friends, namely the head honcho of the Avengers Initiative: Nick Fury the super spy, Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), and the Incredible Hulk (Bruce Banner),  The Avengers band together to defeat the evil villain of the piece, who I still think deserves more credit and less blame then he tends to get in general circles. On the bright side, Tumblr seems to agree with me, so all of my geeky internet friends that I've never met in real life agree with me. And I've sort of managed to argue my best friend Kristi to at least admit that my point of view was tenable, though she's still mad that he killed some civilians. And I would probably be mad too, if the story were real... but it's not, so I am not mad at him and I think he's a great character with a lot of depth and fascination and I really hope that the writers of coming Avengers/Hero movies work with all the depth and interest in his character, rather than just going with the very two-dimensional "hurr hurr, I'm a bad guy and I'm evil and BOW TO ME and FEAR ME and DIE LIKE BUGS!"... because honestly, he would be a lot more fun to play with than that. But I'm not a screen writer. And if I were, I'd have a hard time not making the story TOO Loki-centric because he is just a fascinating character... but I haven't even gotten to him yet, so...

Loki Laufeyson/Odinsson "Norse God" of mischief and general chaos is the villain of the piece, wreaking havoc on Midgaard (aka Earth) mostly as a temper tantrum/general freak out because he's recently undergone intense emotional trauma, not to mention the fact that he's been hated and bullied for most of his life for what he thought was no reason. He only recently realized that he always felt different from his brother, family, and his brother's friends (he had no real friends of his own) because he actually was different. Not an Asgardian (a "norse god" like Odin, Frigga, Thor, Sif, etc), turns out Loki was actually a runt Jotunn or Frostgiant, the enemies of Asgard, that Odin brought back as a sort of insurance should the Frostgiants ever try to attack. Loki was raised as Odin's son, but since a peace accord was struck, Odin really had no use for Loki anymore, but continued to lead him on, acting as if he might actually have a chance to ascend to the throne. When Thor proved unworthy, Loki expected to recieve the throne, but did not, and this, coupled with the realization that he was actually "the monster people tell their children about at night," drove him mad and he went on a nutso rampage killing all of the frostgiants to prove that he was a true son of Odin (eep). He then went on to attempt suicide by falling into a black hole, but that failed and he ended up on Earth, where he decided if he couldn't rule in Asgaard he could at least rule in Midgaard. (I have no idea how to spell these words, forgive me for not attempting google).

So there we have it. Now, what was I talking about before I got off on a tangent? I guess it doesn't really matter. Unfortunately, my good friend Jirah has sort of developed a celebrity crush on the guy who plays Loki, and she is dragging me kicking and screaming down a similar path. In my defense, Tom Hiddleston (the guy who plays loki) is hysterically funny in his interviews, has a good sense of humor, is reportedly a really nice guy, and happens to play my favorite character in a superhero movie.

We all know I love superheroes.

But thus far I have resisted, though I did confess he would probably fit right in at a family reunion, his humor is almost identical to my dad's/brother's... I want him for a cousin. Because he has a funny velociraptor imitation, and is also really NOT self-conscious, which means he and my brother would probably end up having an awkward dance-off, or bad-joke-off, or something of the sort.

But again, I digress. And since I'm not yet posting half a dozen pictures of him, I have concluded that I just am being fed TOO MUCH INFORMATION, and unfortunately he's not like some movie stars who are stuck up and obnoxious and full of themselves in real life. If he were more like a politician it would be a lot easier to not celeb-crush... But I RESIST! I DOOOOOO!

Or I'm trying, anyway...

We shall see. Hopefully my next blog post isn't a celeb-crush post. That would probably make me cry, and then yell at Jirah for sending me all of those youtube videos and tumblr photos. Peh.