Bienvenue!

Hi guys.

So I'm thinking about writing a blog.

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was "The Land Before Time."  I was 4.  I made it about 10 minutes in, but as soon as the Tyrannosaurus Rex killed Little Foot's mom, I was done.  I threw a massive fit and insisted my parents leave the theater with me.  They weren't happy about it.

Years later, in spite of my early rejection of the medium, I love movies.  While I'm by no means an expert in film, I've taken film classes in undergrad and while I was abroad, and fed my appetite for cinema at a relatively steady pace from the first time I had full command of a Blockbuster/Hollywood Video card in high school... in fact, I skipped a good number of days of high school in favor of watching films.  I've spent a lot of time watching movies, and a lot of time thinking and talking about them.

As an expression of my love of film, I've had the recurring goal of seeing at least 52 movies a year for three years now.  Surely, seeing a movie a week seems like an achievable enough aim to a devotee.  To monitor my progress in this pursuit, I've kept track of every movie I've seen, including ratings from one (oh God why??) to five (marvelous!).  For the first two years of this continuing resolution, I stayed admirably on course.

...And then I started graduate school in clinical psychology.  I majored in psychology (or, according to my undergraduate institution, "Psychological and Brain Sciences"), and have wanted to be a psychologist since I first thought seriously about wanting to be anything.  After a few years out of school, I'm glad to be a student again and grateful to be in a program I (for the most part) love.  I've just finished the first year of my five(ish) year program, and in spite of the obscenities I hurled around midterms and finals, it really wasn't so bad.  It feels great being one step closer to the grown-up life I've wanted for so long.

But.  If you take a look at my "Movies Watched in 2009" list, you'll find a very sad state of affairs.  I barely watched 50% of my 52 movies goal, and that is purely the fault of graduate school.  While I'm back on track so far this year, I figure it can't hurt to add a little extra accountability into my cinematic aspirations.

And so: here is my little blog.  It has two purposes:

1. Keeping track of the movies I watch this year.  I'll include a running tally of movies-seen-to-date to determine whether I'm keeping up with my goal.  I'll write little reviews and keep up with my rating system.  And during busy, new-movie-watchingless weeks, I'll revisit some of my favorites and make recommendations for anyone who hasn't seen them yet.

2. Documenting my graduate life.  I spent so much time thinking about what grad school would be like, and so much energy actually getting here, and yet have recorded very little of my experience over the past year.  I used to be an avid journaler, but have lost the discipline for it.  Hopefully this will be a venue for tracking my progress through graduate school... Not to mention monitoring my work on grad school-related things, like, I don't know, my Master's thesis...?

So really, this is a way for me to ensure I'm devoting consistent effort to two things I love, while sharing pieces of my life with my friends, many of whom are far away.  After all, I feel like these two loves of mine have a lot to do with each other, and a discussion of one will hopefully somehow inform a discussion of the other.  I hope that sounds interesting, and that you have time to check in here every once in a while.

Thanks for reading.

<3