May The Blog Be With You

So I've decided that I'm rubbish at blogging about for my life for 2 reasons. 

1) My life isn't all that unusual or interesting
2) The majority of it is spent watching tv in my room. Seriously, I spend at least 3 hours a day doing exactly that. Sitting on my bed watching tv usually with chocolate nearby. Remember that gym application? Yeah, it's somewhere on my floor right now. Under mounds of chocolate wrappers.
GO HEALTH!

But when you're life is boring, what can you blog about? I asked this question on google plus earlier, and didn't really get much of a response except slight mocking. Which I was afraid of. Which in turn gave me an idea. Why not write about what I was afraid of. So that's what I'm going to do.

(It's also come to my attention that these blogs seem to be getting quite personal. Hmm. Ah well, I shall continue)

Alrighty, here it is: The Things I Am Afraid Of:

Seriously, just look at that face

Jim Carrey. Yep. I'm that weird. Although I must admit I do like Bruce Almighty. Even if he is god damn terrifying in that film too. But Morgan Freeman makes up for it. Have you heard him speak? Seen his face? Morgan Freeman is just plain awesome.

But Jim Carrey? Ugh, I shudder at his name. He over-acts, he overdoes facial expressions, he overdoes annoying things and ugh.. just... I can't even begin on how bloody irritating he is.

And yet he has a career. A relatively successful one. I fear for the future of the human race. I met someone who was friends with him growing up. They looked scarred. I can't really blame them. If I ever watch Ace Ventura for more than 2 minutes, I start to feel it. Even the phrase "alrighty then" isn't so alright anymore. It's just plain terrifying. Like both Jim himself, and the fact he has a career still.

Sorry spiders

Spiders. I know, I know, not very unusual. But they are just so bloody scary. To be honest, there's not really much about spiders that scare me. If they stay still I'm fine (unless they're big, or a tarantula). But when a spider moves, shit goes down. It's the motion of the legs... nothing (except octupi which are cool) should have 8 legs. Especially on land. Especially when they're just so ugly. This is quite a short paragraph, mainly because it's an obvious fear and I don't really have to explain it.

But maybe I'm being harsh to spiders about their ugliness. I mean, I do have this picture on my computer (on the right).

Being An Old Cat Lady. Again, an obvious one. But let me explain. I'm not a very friendly person. I mean, sure I have friends. But I have no idea how. I'm not particularly nice, or patient or kind or anything that attracts friends.
 And I know I'm going to get comments like "but you have friends! you're a great person! everyone loves you!" (i can dream), but let me correct you. Yes I have friends, but I'm really not that great a person. As mentioned before, most of my life is spent watching tv. Not the most social of activities but somehow I have managed to turn it in to one. I'm not sure how either.
So yeah, just now I have friends. My main worry is that they all make better friends at uni (wouldn't be too hard) and I don't. I end up sitting here in my bedroom 24/7 instead of just 12/6.
The cats I think I'll just get to better fit the stereotype that will be my life. I'd rather have dogs, but they don't seem as sad.
Although the fact that I have to fight for my pillow every night is kind of sad.

Mocking. Not of me, I can cope with being mocked. In fact it happens frequently. And if you read any of my blogs, you'll realise that most of the mocking is done by me.
So what am I scared of people mocking? Sadly and nerdly (I'm inventing words, woo! see you biology degree, hello English) I'm usually scared of someone mocking a tv show or movie I like. Like the following conversation with my dad about The Forbidden Kingdom dvd which arrived yesterday:
Dad: "Is this really the dvd you ordered?"
Me: "Yeah... why?"
Dad: "Because I watched this when it came out and it's a steaming pile of crap"
Me: "Oh.. ok... I'm going to cry now."

Legend Of Korra. So much awesome

I'm so into my tv and movies that I'm constantly worried what people will think of me for some of the shows I watch. Will watching Teen Titans, Young Justice and Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra make me seem really immature and nerdy? Even though they have more adult viewers than child and massive adult and cult followings? To most people, these shows wouldn't even be worth a watch. To me, the quality of writing, story-telling, and plain beauty in the animation are so much more than you'd find in adult shows. And that's why so many people love them. Look at the IMDB ratings for these shows. Legend Of Korra has 9.2, The Last Airbender 9, Young Justice 8.8, even Teen Titans has a 7.5 rating. Shows like HIMYM and Big Bang only have ratings of 8.6, lower than 3 of the shows mentioned.
Yet most people would mock me to hell and back for watching, and loving these shows. Especially since I've watched 3/4 since being 13. So sure, mock me. IF you've watched the show. If you haven't, watch them (seriously, they're great) and then you can judge me.

I should point out that the vast majority of the tv shows I watch and love are adult shows. Just saying.

Train Toilets. I'm not going too far into this one. Let's just hypothetically say that I was on a train home from Glasgow when the toilet door didn't lock while I was peeing, a guy opened it before hypothetically announcing to the entire carriage that there was a "lassie daeing a jobby". And then I hypothetically had to walk the entire length of the laughing carriage back to my seat at the very back.

But it's all hypothetical of course.

I wish.

Endings. Whether a book series ending, a tv show ending or the end of a movie franchise I hate endings. All endings. Especially if they're cliffhanger-y or just bad. It means that the excitement of waiting for the next movie;book;episode is over. There will never be a new part, a new joy of discovering another plot line. New characters, new struggles, obstacles, excitement, emotions, nothing. There is only disappointment in a bad or unworthy ending, or longing for unanswered questions to get the answers they so richly deserve.
It's not only a hatred of endings though. That wouldn't be make onto a 'fear' list. I'm always terrified of reaching the end of something I love and have loved for a while only to be disappointed or questioning. In fact I normally put off or avoid reading or watching the last book or episode. I only recently watched the finale of Smallville about 2 years after it had actually aired. Because I'd watched 10 seasons of the show, I really wanted it to keep on going. Or end really well. Which it actually did. Even if we never actually got to see Tom Welling in the complete costume. We saw enough. I was happy. Which is rare. Especially if the ending was never intended to be the ending *cough* REAPER *cough* FIREFLY *cough* DEMONS *cough* THE FADES....
I could go on. But I won't.
Even the Hunger Games. "I'm Katniss, I'm being all badass, I just murdered a guy, woah I'm kind of insane and you have no idea how angry I am and what's going to happen! it's now years later and I'm married to the kid who threw me bread in the dirt once." SERIOUSLY SUZANNE COLLINS? DID YOU HAVE A DEADLINE YOU WERE LATE FOR AND HAD TO QUICKLY WRAP UP OR SOMETHING? GRR

Now JK Rowling; that woman knows how to do an ending. Wrap everything up, show the future so you show what happens to the characters, the right thing to do.
Unlike Anthony Horowitz who killed off one of the best characters in the Alex Rider series in such an irritating way. You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

Aaah an ending :O

I'm aware that this is getting long, so it's ending time




My biggest fear is also the most stupid on this list. But it's the one fear that I have nightmares about. The one fear that causes me to wake up shouting or screaming, all sweaty and breathing heavily.

It's a pebble. Going round a maze. While I've got a zoomed in view.

I know, call the fright police, it's horrifying.

I don't even know what's so scary about it, it just is. I've had the nightmare at least fortnightly since I was three. I've never been beaten with a pebble, or forced round a maze so it's never made sense to me. Or anyone else. But dear God is it f*cking terrifying. It's as scary as a Jim Carrey marathon, a bed full of spiders, my entire biology course (140 people) slagging off Psych, using a train toilet on the stage of Madison Square Gardens, the ending to The Fades ("there's more of them coming, this was only the beginning." "we'll be ready"... sorry guys, this show's been cancelled) and this:

Yeah I know, I have a great future as a photoshopper ahead of me.

So now you know my deepest darkest fears.  Only 3 rules remain.

1) If you tell anyone, I will have to kill you. All of you. Until I'm the only person left in the world. With millions of cats... FUCK, DON'T TELL ANYONE!! EVER!
2) Don't use these to mock me. Please.
3) Don't ask. I'm weird, you should all know this by now.

Caitlin out bitchez.

PS. 10 points to whoever finds a reference in here! and 10 points if you can tell me what it's from!! (Rhona, you've probably got an advantage here...)

Blog Ahead, Make My Day

Family. Just what exactly is a family?
"Ohana means family. Family means no one get left behind or forgotten." That's how Disney says it.
According to sociology, the family has the primary function of reproducing society. Ew
For Angelina Jolie: "Family is what grounds you."
Family means and is something different to everyone. For some it's living hell, for some it is a real life paradise. For me it varies between the two.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes my family is great.
Like this:

Sometime's they're downright hilarious, like this:






And other times? Well. Other times it's nothing like that at all. It's screaming and fighting and horrible and annoying and nasty and accusing and just not fun at all.
Now I'm not a saint. I'll admit that to anyone. I have my problems, I'm not holier than thou and I do my fair share of the bickering too. But it's the times where I do nothing wrong that I seem to get moaned at the most. And that pisses me off like nothing on earth.

Don't believe me do you? Okay then, an example is needed. 
Yesterday (Saturday 22nd) I was going upstairs and heard my dad talking to someone. I asked "who were you talking to?". What I got was a massive yelled rant about he is allowed to talk to people without having to answer to me and I should mind my own business. But with many expletives that I have excluded. Makes no sense to you? Good, I'm not the only one.

And that's when family is the worst. My parents can go through days of ignoring my existence for the most stupid things; me having a different tea to them because I don't like pork, watching a movie or tv show without my dad even though I taped it, having a can of Irn Bru because all I do is sit on my arse and drink fizzy juice all day. At the time of the Irn Bru incident, it was my first fizzy juice in about a fortnight.
But seriously, my parents can over-react. If there was an Over-Reacting Competition (there probably is somewhere) my parents would win the first prize every time.

Most recent example? This morning. I put a sock in the washing after my mum had already done that wash and apparently that ruined everything. Why the sock couldn't just wait in the basket until the next wash? I have no clue. So I got told to stay in my room because she "couldn't even look" at me for a while. So I've done as I was told, stayed in my room and what just happened?
I got yelled at. Again. For not having showered. Even though I was told not to leave my room, and last time I checked there wasn't a shower in there.
#ConfusionCentral

But on the other hand, sometimes my family is great. We all get along, have movie nights with chocolate and chinese food, we go on walks along a beach, kayaking at the reservoir. We just have fun. 

But recently the good and bad has been about 50/50. Especially with my sisters who can be all "do you want a drink when I go through?" to "get yourself a fucking drink!" 30 seconds later. And there's Lauren, who has recently discovered that although mum can hear her swear from another room, she can't hear the movement of her middle finger flicking up at me. And that's my 12 year old sister. God knows what's going to happen once she turns about 15.

So recently I've come to a conclusion:
I sometimes like my family, I sometimes don't. But I don't have a choice about who they are. I have to live with them, put up with them and somehow come out unscathed. So they're my mandatory family. The family I'm forced into having.

(Except for Ellie.. #alwaysandforever)

And the family that I choose? The 'ohana' that grounds me?
I think you all know the answer

And don't even get me started on my Aunty Paula...

60 Second Screenplay for DKR

Ok, this is another departure from proper blogging, but I got Total Film magazine and this was in it. And it was too great not to share. Especially since I'm somehow getting views from North America and Germany- I  have no clue.

But anyway, here is Total Film's 60 second version of The Dark Knight Rises:

FADE IN:
EXT. AIRFIELD
Masked mercenary TOM HARDY hijacks a plane mid-flight to show how badass he is.

TOM HARDY
Fargarble bwurble sassen frassen rassen

AIDEN GILLEN
Er... what?

TOM HARDY
Ah, you must not be watching this at the Imax. (Clears throat) I said, Bane on this plane means Bruce Wayne will be slain...

INT. WAYNE MANOR
Cat burglar ANNE HATHAWAY breaks into CHRISTIAN BALE's safe.

CHRISTIAN BALE
You're not the French maid hooker I ordered! I must stop you with my bow and arrow as archery is so hot right now.

ANNE HATHAWAY
Whatever, grandpa.I'm out of here, but not before kicking your ass to show how frail you've become in exile. Laters!

MICHAEL CAINE
Don't worry Master Wayne, it's me job to look after you and talk slowly and distinctly.

MARION COTILLARD
I' a suspiciously useless character. Pay me no attention.

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
Mr Wayne? Police. I'm a righteous orphan who wants to fight crime.

CHRISTIAN BALE
You're... you're not Robin, are you?

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
Everyone knows Robin wouldn't work in these movies. I knew you were Batman when I saw you smile because we're both secretly sad.

CHRISTIAN BALE
Whatever. As long as you're not Robin. Time to suit up!

INT. WALL STREET
TOM HARDY shoots up the stock exchange to defraud CHRISTIAN BALE, even though everyone sees him do it. Batman takes chase.
ANNE HATHAWAY
I can take you to Tom Hardy's secret underground lair.

CHRISTIAN BALE
What the... A trap? It's true what they say: never trust a criminal who hates everything you stand for.

TOM HARDY
Mr Wayne! All aboard Bane's pain train!

TOM dumps CHRISTIAN in a prison pit on the other side of the world while he threatens to nuke Gotham.

CHRISTIAN BALE
Damn you, Bane! Gotham is dying while I'm stuck in this hellhole!

TOM CONTI
We have sunlight and food, and no guards. Think of it as a gym.

CHRISTIAN BALE
I'll climb out of this pit, despite my serious injuries!

Buoyed by CHRISTIAN BALE's return, Gotham rises up in a way that people who haven't seen the film will compare to the Occupy movement.

ANNE HATHAWAY
Can I kill Bane? I don't know what he was saying anyway.

TOM HARDY
Lame. [DIES]

MARION COTILLARD
I'm the REAL villain! Time to destroy Gotham for reasons my father only partially conveyed!

CHRISTIAN BALE
Never! I'll use my flying thingy to explode the nuke over water.

The nuke explodes, killing CHRISTIAN BALE, except MICHAEL CAINE later spots him with ANNE HATHAWAY in Florence.

CHRISTIAN BALE
With Gotham safe and me free of Batman I can finally live my life in peace. Because I've not done that for the past 8 years...

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
By the way, I AM Robin.

CHRISTIAN BALE
[Expletive-filled rant]

ENDS


I hope you loved this as much as I did.

Tweets from my cousin

So I just found my cousin's twitter page. It's too good not to share <3

For anyone wanting the full experience: https://twitter.com/_erinjane

But here are some of my favourites:

What does cryptic mean? I thought it was the egyptian language?
just fucking fuck off and dont come fucking back
the only words i can really say right now about how im feeling is fuck fuck shitty fuck
going to attemp finishing to kill a mocking bird online without my glasses, wish me luck!.
5 minutes laterwho the fuck is Atticus?
1 hour laterif Atticus is her dad then why not call him dad?..it would help so much
i've changed my outfit like three times today.
Watching baby programmes like One Born or even Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant make me want to have a baby even more
your flirting tactics are so shit, they make me cringe
got called a over-reactive c*** today...hmmm thats a new one  (I added the stars, she put the words)
hate when i tell someone to "shut the fuckup" it sometimes comes out as "fuck the shut up"..
my goal in life is for one of the kardashians to adopt me :)

And many many more. Including this:
There's so many pretty girls on twitter and I'm just sitting here like a potato or fetus or something

Which made me laugh because here's some of the photos she takes and posts online:



And my family think I'm weird.

Seriously guys, help me.

I'm going to make him a blog he can't refuse.

University. That big scary place which my mum had to practically kick me out of the car to get me to attend today. There was blood shed, tears cried and dropouts attempted. But I went. And I'm so glad I did.

So I'm studying Animal Biology at Edinburgh Napier University for the next 4 years. Year one consists of all the biology students sharing lectures and doing basic biology. This is what I walked into today:


Imagine that amount of people in one room. Yeah, I needed a new pair of pants too.

Okay, so I'm slightly exaggerating. But there was still 140 people I had never seen before aged from 17 to 46 all talking and shouting and being generally intimidating. After 5 minutes, this was me:

And that's not even exaggerated at all.

Cue a really boring hour long lecture where some professor (or Charlotte, as Napier is all very "call us by our first names, we're awesome! love us!") talked about how great biology was. Well no, we all hate it. That's why we've decided to do a 4 year course in it.
In said boring lecture I made human contact!
 And yep, it really was that dramatic

But hey, when you meet someone called Sarah Moon (get the picture now? huh, huh? no? ok then...) you just have to talk to them! And I did, hopefully without seeming too clingy. Maybe.

This was followed by some team building exercises because why work at university when you can team build? This is Napier's entire attitude to life. And I love it. Mainly because I don't like work, but whatever works.

And that's pretty much how my first day at uni went. I think I'm going to like it. I've got about 6 people that I've formed a wee group with (gym memberships together and everything. I know-me- at a gym!) and they're all pretty great. None of them are anything like friends I already have, Sarah's the less egotistical Nina Nesbitt of Napier. But they're still pretty great. And surprisingly; so's Napier.

Turns out the entire week is all team building, health and safety lectures (blowing up the lab is bad!) and matriculation. I've got Tuesday off, Thursday is optional and Friday is an hour at most :D. My kind of week. Even proper timetabled time (?) is pretty damn good. On Mondays we're even in the lab for 5 hours straight; which is much better than sitting in a lecture hall for 1 or 2 hours without moving. Although there's a Starbucks downstairs meaning I can drink hot chocolates in lectures. Maybe by the time my hot chocolate is cool enough the lecture will nearly be over! #win

So in conclusion (my A in English is not wasted) I like university. A lot more than I thought I would. I like the university, I like that the gym is cheap and I won't get judged (except by all the really hot guys who were benching my body weight when we checked the guys... I mean gym out earlier). Plus the student discounts aren't too bad.

Frankly, my blog, I don't give a damn

So I've spent most of my day watching old Nostalgia Chick videos. The last video I watched from her was one where she spoke about her Top 11 'Guilty Pleasure' Movies. In this video she mentions how everyone has movies that they love even though they shouldn't. Which got me thinking: what are my guilty pleasure movies?
So here's my countdown. In no particular order, my Guilty Pleasure Movies:

Arthur And The Invisibles (2002)


This film basically tells the story of a 10 year old boy played by Freddie Highmore (who is great by the way!) who gets shrunk down and turned into CGI where he meets the Minimoys. Basically shit goes down involving some evil guy trying to buy his house and he eventually using the Minimoys to stop this happening.

Now this film came out when I was 12 but I still remember going to cinema with my family and falling in love. A 12 year old shouldn't like this movie, an 18 year old REALLY shouldn't like this movie yet I do. It's just such a well told story with beautiful animation and Freddie Highmore being as badass as a 10 year old can be. The film did alright at the box office and received average reviews but deserved so much more. It was simply a great movie. Even though it's not really the type of movie you could admit to loving.

But don't get me started on the sequels. We'll pretend they don't exist.


The Last Airbender (2007)



Let me just start by admitting that this is a shit movie. It's just really really bad. Damn you M.Night Shyamalan. You took an amazing tv show renowned for it's energy and creativity and drained the life out of it.
Yet I still really love this movie. It's not something I can explain, I think it's more to do with my complete and utter adoration for the original show (which you should watch, regardless of your age). So while I can admit this movie's many many flaws there's something about it that's still great. Although it could have been waaay better. (Again, fuck you M Night Shyamalan). Surprisingly this one actually did alright at the box office even if it did win 5 Razzies and was one of the worst rated films of the year. Hell even one of it's main actors admitted that the screenplay was good until the director ruined it. And when your own stars are saying you're shit; it's time to choose a new job.


Sky High (2005)


Ah Disney, why are your movies always so great? Especially Sky High. Normally comedies about superhero's don't work out so well. Especially when mixed with Disney's favourite movie location: a high school. Yet where this film should fail so badly it succeeds. Even if I do admit that the villian's plot to turn everyone into babies to raise them as super villians is weird. But it still works! Because that's how generally great Disney is, how great Michael Angarano is (trust me) and how great Sky High is. In every point where it should suck it's just plain awesome. But yes, it is a Disney film about teenage superhero offspring going to high school, so I shouldn't love it as much as I do. But I think everyone should.

Forbidden Kingdom (2008)


Talking of Michael Angarano brings me to The Forbidden Kingdom. This is probably the least known film on this list, however it's probably the highest rated. And my favourite movie, possibly of all time. This film has nearly everything I love in a film: a good story, Jackie Chan and Jet Li being all badass and martial arts-y, the underdog plot, a teenage guy saving the world. And Michael Angarano, which is always a plus. The action scenes are truly great to watch and the story is intriguing, making you want to see how the film ends. I saw this film by mistake years ago when my dad made a typo on Lovefilm, and yet it is probably the film that I've seen the most often (with the exception of 68's Oliver!). So yeah, slag me all you want, but watch the film and you'll see where I'm coming from. Unless you hate martial arts films, in which case gtfo.

Thunderbirds (2004)


Which brings me to the last film on the list. This is probably my second favourite movie of all time as well as the one I'm most ashamed to admit loving. It was a massive box office failure and has been horribly reviewed yet there's just something about it. The film knows it's bad and it accepts this and does the only thing it can: has fun with itself. It wants nothing from the viewer and so doesn't really warrant an emotional investment. It's just an hour and a half of shameless, childish fun. And isn't that what the original tv show was about? Although there's a couple of bad acting performances in this *cough* Ben Kingsley, it's actually a good film. A great film even. But since most people hate it, and the fact that it is a 'kids' movie, it's the one that I'm most embarrassed to admit watching every 2 months and still loving the fact that it never gets old, or bad. Even though it is quite bad. Ugh I'm sorry, I just love it so much.

Forgive me society?

This is not the blog you're looking for

Blogging. Why am I doing it? Honestly I don't know. I've practically been bullied into this. (thanks guys). Compared to Beth travelling to Chile to volunteer and top all my stories I lead a pretty boring life. So this blog won't be very interesting, but what were you expecting? I'm 18, Scottish and nerdy. I don't exactly sky dive on weekends or travel the globe. I'm normal. Average. Boring.
But hey, you're the ones wasting time reading this.