Which Lord of the Rings drinker are you?

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King there is an extended scene where everyone has a merry ol' time at Edoras with a few pints. While watching the movie recently, I conceived of the following: which Lord of the Rings drinker are you?

Théoden

The Wingman

Trying to hook up Éowyn and Aragorn like a bro (like an uncle?).

Aragorn

The guy who has heart-to-heart conversations with everyone

Éowyn

Clingy

 

Legolas

New to the scene/grew up in a small town

 

Éomer

THAT guy

Gandalf

The contemplative/quiet watcher

Merry and Pippin

The dancers

Gimli

All of us eventually

Frodo and Sam
Too busy taking the One Ring to Mordor to join in the festivities

I'll let you decide which one (or two or three) represent you best.

Why Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns Should Not Be Made Into A Movie

No no no no no no.

We all (or should all) know and love the classic story of The Devil Wears Prada, made into a movie in 2006 starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. The film was adapted from the book (loosely adapted, but still stuck around the same storyline) by Lauren Weisberger. 2013 comes around and she releases the sequel, called Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.

Now, spoilers ahead but I sincerely doubt you will want to read it and if it is made into a movie you won’t want to see that either but the only way it will be successful as a movie is if they just keep the title and change the plot completely. And actually, I don’t think there will be any spoilers because I couldn’t care less… if I give away any huge plot details, I’ll warn you again.

So I heard about this book, oh I don’t know, about half a year ago? It was then released at the beginning of June so I awkwardly went to the bookstore and made the fastest transaction ever made. I walked in, had my money ready, and the guy at the counter and I made little eye contact and spoke even less and then I was out of there. (I ended up buying a postcard from him a week or so later but I don’t think he remembered me [of course he remembered me I’m probably the only 20-year-old North American male to buy the book].)

Why I really wanted to read it was because if it was going to be made into a movie then Meryl would undoubtedly be in it and therefore I must familiarize myself with the content. I’ll link to an interview below where Meryl says that if a movie were to be made she would probably join, but she’d have to “lose the fucking weight.” This is also just a delightful interview to watch.

Anyway, the title “Revenge Wears Prada” would lead us to believe that MIRANDA PRIESTLY = REVENGE. Well, Miranda Priestly is seen about four times in the entire book and three of those times she doesn’t even speak. She has ONE scene and it is absolutely wretched. I mean, Meryl would make it wonderful, but OH MY GOSH NO.

The entire joy about the first book/movie was the back-and-forth and conflict between the protagonist (Andrea Sachs) and Miranda Priestly. There is none of that in this book. And the entire novel was based around whiny Andrea and her problems post-Runway (the magazine where she worked as Miranda’s assistant) career. As I said earlier, the first book was loosely adapted into the movie, but I don’t know how this one could be salvaged to actually be appealing as a movie. People familiar with The Devil Wears Prada will look for Miranda (Meryl) and frankly casting her in this would be a waste of talent… and I would say the same for Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci.

When you read the book as a book you think, “meh.” When you read the book as a potential movie you think, “please do not let this happen.”

Unless someone can get in there and adapt the crap out of the novel, I would advise all of these actors and directors and costumers and everyone to stay away from the movie. Actually, what I am saying is that this just won’t happen at all. I honestly don’t think that a company would actually invest in distributing Revenge Wears Prada as it is now. But maybe Aline Brosh McKenna (the screenwriter who adapted the first novel) can salvage it to be something that can actually replicate the charm, wit, and snap of the first movie.

We can only hope. Otherwise, don’t waste your time, Meryl.

Can You Please Spell Gabbana?

With a little under two weeks left in the Antipodes, I look at my blog and I can just feel future Devon looking back, raising his fist in the air and yelling, “CURSES!” I suspect he wants some more self-reflection so that he can look back and see what he learned from this experience… and hopefully he has learned to not refer to himself in third person because that is just the worst.

So let’s do a bit of a commitment to blogging for the next ‘little under two weeks.’ I will be sharing pictures of our trip to Hobbiton as soon as my dear sister has finished editing them, but until then it looks like you’re just going to have to stare at letters and numbers and punctuation marks.

First off: work. I’m actually not allowed to talk about my specific work at the Royal Society right now so la la la there’s that paragraph. A little more detail: I will be able to talk about it when what I am working on becomes public knowledge. Not that anyone who reads this is affected by the knowledge of what I am doing… but best to keep it off the internet nonetheless.

I can talk about my work at the Science Media Centre, where, if you remember, I am a little less of a policy intern and more of an… administrative assistant?

Yeah. I mean, my work does relate to policy… What I do is I go through research profiles of universities and institutions around New Zealand and input the researchers into this huge database (the most comprehensive database of scientific experts in New Zealand, I might mention) so that they can be easily accessed when either the Science Media Centre or someone contacting the Science Media Centre needs some information.

SO one day I input a couple dental/fluoride experts into the database. Next thing you know… BAM. A regional council has decided to STOP PUTTING FLUORIDE INTO THE PUBLIC DRINKING WATER. News. Of. The. Century. And what happens next? The staff at the Science Media Centre look up fluoride experts to contact about this situation. And we all know how the media influences legislation (no sarcasm, it does, deal with it), so I helped. Somehow…

But the task does get a little monotonous and sometimes I feel like my learning level has reached its maximum. I do read all about the research that is going on in New Zealand, but that’s only stimulating for so long. But, a job is a job and it still feels satisfying to know that you are helping out, making things easier (and letting the people with more experience spend their time on more important tasks).

With my wine in hand (yes I’ve turned into a middle-aged woman) I can sit back and look at the hand-drawn calendar on the back of the door and see that my time at work is coming to an end. And while my work has looked a little bit more like a straight line as opposed to a jagged, inclining line (like last summer), I still feel accomplished. I’ll probably write another work-based post when work is actually finished because I can imagine that it bores you to read about it… and onto a couple more light-hearted, fun posts.

Mount Sunday

A couple of weekends ago, Emily and I flew down to Christchurch, Canterbury (South Island) to take a drive out to Mount Sunday, or as you may know it, Edoras from The Lord of the Rings. Now, if you read that correctly, yes, we drove. Meaning me. Opposite side of the road. But that wasn't the hard part... enjoy the photographs below and I'll give some commentary in the captions.

Early on in the drive...

The view near the beginning of our three-hour drive from Christchurch to Mount Sunday.

Me, feeling good about a half hour in. The hardest part of driving on this side of the road was staying near the centre line.

So we weren't really expecting snow...

Home of the Horse Lords.

After a solid hour on an unsealed road, we arrived at Mount Sunday in snowy glory. Much different than we expected, but it was actually quite wonderful getting to see it like we hadn't seen it before. And the mountains were breathtaking as always.

This is the river that we would have had to cross to get to Mount Sunday. Because of the snow we didn't feel comfortable actually going up the hill... there was a huge storm the weekend before that actually forced us to move our trip a weekend later. But this just means that we have something to do next time we come!

Em spent a few days before actually creating the flag of Rohan. Yep, that happened.

So close yet so far away.

So naturally we decided to throw it in the air a la The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers... this was try #8 or something so we decided to stop while we were ahead.

The stream we had to cross to get a closer look... this is coming back. I hopped it, but Em took her shoes off and walked through like a champ because of the precious [camera].

Our aptly-named vehicle, Subarufax.

Time for the slow drive out...

And a view on the way back to Christchurch.

The day went really well. On the road by 8:00am, reached Mount Sunday by 11:00am, and got back to Christchurch in one piece by 4:00pm. I made really detailed directions and had my expert navigator on book. We were a bit disappointed not being able to climb Mount Sunday as we would have been able to without snow, but we got over it pretty quickly. Em and I would make a pretty good team for The Amazing Race, I'd say!

Here's a picture of the landscape not in the snow (and perhaps more familiar to you):

And I think that's the wonderful thing about New Zealand: the landscapes are beautiful in sun, snow, rain, and fog. There's definitely something magical about nature.

How I Influence Policy In New Zealand

Holy moly it's July and I have been a blog slacker. As I am already pretty well into my last month of work, I think it is time to start reflecting upon my TRUE purpose in New Zealand... POLICY. DUN DUN DUN. But actually, I'm here to immerse myself in the world of policy, so let's create a sort of flowchart that tracks how my work influences the big boys and girls.

Let's start with MOI.

HELLO THUR

I do research and compile information and relevant, current views/knowledge on a variety of topics, like green technologies, pest management, and demographics.

This information then gets put together by me and my supervisors at the Royal Society of New Zealand, who compile it and present it to...

Experts! Like David Suzuki! Except they're usually New Zealand-based and have knowledge about the topics the RSNZ is writing on and help contribute their expertise to the Royal Society so that they can create comprehensive, concise, and informative issues papers and briefs to...

Parliament. The information hopefully catches the eye of an MP or two who feel strongly about the issue we are presenting. The next step is...

The Prime Minister's cabinet. The current government is the National Party, which is pretty much the equivalent to the Conservative Party in Canada. These ladies and gentlement can then influence...

The Honourable John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand. This is a picture of him putting back a brewski while Prince William tends to the grill (LIKE A PEASANT). He can, of course, influence how his party votes on bills and if our papers have something to do with moving that forward, then I have done my job!

Of course, the Royal Society of New Zealand is non-partisan and has been working for over a hundred years with different governments and its main goal is to provide well-being for New Zealanders in the realms of science, technology, and the humanities.

It's actually sort of nice to see this all laid out because it let's me know that, yes, I'm getting the policy work done. As much as a twenty-year-old intern can, at least.

Alphabet Food Challenge

Two weekends ago, Emily and I had the BRILLIANT idea to have an alphabet day. This meant only eating 26 types of food all day, each from a letter of the alphabet. I’ll take you through the day.

PRE-BREAKFAST

Tea

BREAKFAST

Ricies

Milk

Kiwifruit

Yogurt

LUNCH

Loaf

Capsicum

Honey Mustard

Spinach

Bacon

Vanilla Coke

AFTERNOON TEA

Gingernut

Devonshire Cream

Jam

SNACK

Apple

Xocolatl

DINNER

Quiche made with

Pastry

Zucchini

Egg

Onion

Feta

With a side of

Noodles with

Unsalted Butter

And

Water

DESSERT

Ice Cream

So yeah we got creative in some places (re: loaf and xocolatl [the Aztc word for chocolate]), but hey.

This Is Terraformed Mars

Pretty cool, eh?

Retriever

In grade 1, a few of us “advanced” spellers got to create our own list of words for our spelling quiz. Having a golden (ok, this post is just full of irony since I just spelled that “goldon”) retriever at home, I suggested that one of our words be “retriever.” When the time for the test came, I, for some reason, decided to write the word “retriever” on a slip of paper and put it on my lap. I can’t remember if I actually used the paper to spell the word correctly on the quiz, but I do remember getting it right.

Afterwards, I went up to my teacher with a HUGE grin, a proud sort of smile, to share with her my ingenious strategy to ensure that I would spell the word right. Clearly, she was not as pleased with me as I was, evident by the concerned look on her face. She looked at me and said:

“I didn’t think that you would cheat. I didn’t think that would be something that Devon would do.”

Seriously, those were her exact words. She remains to this day one of my favourite teachers. And I don’t know why in the world I thought it would be ok for me to cheat on a quiz, but for some reason I did. I don’t know if I had ever been given the opportunity to full-out cheat on something before… I’m sure I had tricked my family with stories once in a while (or at least I thought I was tricking them), but never actually cheated.

Anyway. The point of this isn’t “and I never cheated again,” but rather a realization that the way we act dictates people’s perception of us… everything we do makes an impression on our character and when that impression is wrong, disappointment follows. Or something like that.

This isn’t some reflection on my current state of mind, I’m just wondering why this is one of the small handful of memories of grade 1 that I remember. I’m not one for analyzing dreams, but as for the memories we keep… there must be a reason for those, right?

Yogurt for Dinner

We woke up this Sunday morning to find that Wellington decided to carry through with the weekend trend of "rain." So we decided to pop in one of the two Meryl movies we brought with us to New Zealand... Julie & Julia. Now, we quote this movie a lot. One in particular stood out for us today, though: "yogurt for dinner."

This happens after Julie Powell gets into an argument with her husband and - brace yourselves - loses the will to continue cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If you haven't seen the movie, don't worry, that wasn't a spoiler. It's just one of the many moments of the "Amy Adams part" of the movie that you will come to love/hate.

When Emily and I are discussing what to have for dinner or what to buy at the grocery store for upcoming meals and find ourselves in a sort of culinary mind fart, we resort to: "yogurt for dinner." During our early days in Wellington (because, well, we're old townies now) we decided that we would definitely actually have yogurt for dinner someday and whaddya know today was the day.

We had a yogurt parfait. Which is essentially yogurt + granola. Now, it would have been great to have some of Mom's homemade yogurt (side note: after eating homemade yogurt ["curds"] in India for lunch everyday, I got a craving for my mom's version of it when I got home but I forgot to ask if we could make some... mental note to remind self for when I get home in July), but we did have some homemade granola! Emily worked her magic in the kitchen (but seriously, my sister is a really good

cuisinier and I would be having yogurt for dinner every night without her) and made some homemade granola! I would ask her what is in the recipe but she is intensely concentrated on a game of solitaire right now and I dare not distract her.

Speaking of dinners, on Thursday night we had sushi. Em picked up some salmon rolls and crab rolls from a place not too far from here.

Friday morning, I woke up and my lips were SO dry. I spent the day drinking lots of water.

Saturday morning, I woke up and around my lips were SO, SO dry and my face had a bit of a rash.

Sunday morning, I woke up and my lips were better but my eye had swollen about 25% of the way closed.

We can only think of one thing that may have caused this outbreak of [what we think are] hives: the crab meat in the sushi. I can no longer put a cocky "N/A" through the "Allergies?" section on medical forms anymore. I am allergic to crab meat. True, it doesn't make me die or anything but it makes me feel like Joan Rivers after a fresh dozen injections of botox. And if it was just something random, I still don't think I will be eating crab meat just in case because when I don't feel normal I turn into a big baby. Like in that genius NyQuil commercial... "Pam... Pam... can you call my mom?"

Anyway, hopefully my face simmers down to normal for what looks like is going to be a rainy, wet week. I will stay dry, insha'Allah (as my boss from last summer would say).

Orange

In both elementary and secondary school, my peers and I were always encouraged to discover what type of “learner” each of us was. In grade ten, I remember having to do a "true colours" quiz to define exactly what we were. We were either gold, blue, orange, or green.

Anyway, as we finished our quizzes we had to go to each of the four corners of the room, each for a different colour. I saw the orange corner piling up with people... people who did a lot of sports (not that I didn’t “do” a lot of sports, meaning that I liked to run in soccer but was hopeless with the ball), people who were generally in tech courses, and the kids who couldn’t stay focused on anything. I found the quiz online and charts explaining "how we see ourselves" and "how others see us." I've put them below and highlighted the qualities that apply to me.

Gold Personality:

Things that frustrate golds:	Things golds do to frustrate others:
·        Irresponsibility	·        Control freak
·        Lack of planning	·        Being bossy and controlling
·        Lack of discipline	·        Working long hours
·        Laziness	·        Being obsessive
·        High risk taking	·        Being judgmental
·        Illegal behavior	·        Planning for everything

 

Blue Personality:

Things that frustrate blues:	Things blues do to frustrate others:
·        Lying	·        Lack of planning
·        Violence	·        Being passive
·        Personal rejection	·        Avoiding conflict
·        Lack of communication	·        Suppressing problems
·        Lack of close friends	·        Being too generous
·        Sarcasm	·        Being overly sentimental

 

Orange Personality:

Things that frustrate oranges:	Things oranges do to frustrate others:
·        Rules and laws	·        Ignoring rules
·        Same routine	·        Being undisciplined
·        Deadlines	·        Lack of planning
·        Paperwork	·        Being quick-tempered
·        Lack of adventure	·        Thinking out loud
·        Too much structure	·        Impulse buying

 

Green Personality:

Things that frustrate greens:	Things greens do to frustrate others:
·        Routine	·        Not being sociable
·        Small-talk	·        Living in the future
·        Plagiarism	·        Being wordy
·        Illogical arguments	·        Blowing up when criticized
·        Social functions	·        Not going with the flow
·        Incompetence	·        Being too independent

Clearly I am not a "blue." But when I was doing this test, I distinctly remember emphasizing, in my mind, my gold and green qualities. I just know that I skewed my results so that I wasn't an orange. But, now that I am exactly halfway through my job, I realize that I am feeling more orange than I ever have before. I sincerely kick my grade ten self for excluding myself from the orange group when really, I'm as orange as I am gold as I am green.

Actually, I think it was stupid that we growing human beings had to assign ourselves to just one colour and one corner of the room when really we should have been embracing all of our colours... but perhaps the curriculum has changed since then. And I'm not saying that this colour test has defined who I am, but it kind of has. I've been thinking that I'm this gold, going through life in my merry gold way without really embracing my orangeness and greenness (and a little bit of blueness).

What am I even trying to say? Screw these personality tests? Maybe. I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that me in this present work environment has really made me realize my gold/green frustrations and has emphasized the opposite in my orange and that I need to stop ignoring my orange and instead embrace it... and for these last six weeks, find out how I can incorporate my orangeness into my everyday routine (which apparently is anti-orange anyway) because right now, I'm feeling a little blue (because blue is the opposite of orange in that it is complementary, right?).

I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone, let alone me. But I think I am having an allergic reaction to some sushi I ate so that might have something to do with it.