My Love for Rupert Pupkin & Fall TV

I have said it before, but this is a special time of year when it bears repeating...

Season premiere time is easily the best time of year.

The new school year is well underway, the Minnesota air smells of crisp leaves and apples, jeans & sweatshirt weather is just around the corner, and all one wants to do is cuddle up to watch some fabulous TV. Or if you happen to live in Colombia, where the temperature is about 83 degrees year round all you want to do is sit in pajamas on your bed with your roommate while you discuss all your favorite people-who-aren't-really-your-BFFs-but-you-talk-about-them-like-they-are-real-people-in-your-lives-anyway.

Fall TV season kicked off last night with the Emmys, so of course Kelsi and I made a dedicated TV watching date to check out all our favorite stars. So! Many! Amazingly! Hilarious! People! Jane Lynch hosted an elegant, hysterical show right from her opening act (if you missed it, watch that link right this second, please and thank you) with a background of various other characters throughout the night.

Now...while my love for TV shows is spread among many, there are five special men whose appearance on screen made me yell to Kelsi to get out of the shower cause "THEY'RE ON!!!"

{photo credits}

In all their fabulousness, the men of Entourage: Kevin Connolly (E), Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold). Adrian Grenier (Rupert Pupkin (alias) AKA Vincent Chase), Jerry Ferrara (Turtle), and Kevin Dillon (Johnny Drama). After wrapping the 8th and final season of Entourage, which just finished airing last week, the boys appeared together to present two awards last night. Seeing them on stage together made me remember how sad I am that EIGHT SEASONS of ridiculous shenanigans are now over for good. (Albeit there is a lot of talk for an Entourage movie)

As much as I am a loyal Sex & the City girl, there is just something I have found hysterical about watching these five men "grow up" together on TV for eight seasons. Their quick-witted humor, brotherly bashing of each other, sense of adventure, and how much they truly cared about each other deep down made Entourage a fantastic show. And to be honest, there really isn't another one like it on TV right now. I am the first to admit that shows like Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, the OC, Gossip Girl, etc. sometimes seem like the same plot, different setting, but not Entourage. This show (like its female counterpart in SATC) broke boundaries of what it meant for four guys to be best friends, live together and work together in LA. And have a hell of a time doing it.

The men of Entourage will be sorely missed on TV this season...I mean, what's not to love there??? Thank goodness there are new episodes and new shows to keep us company while we cross our fingers that a movie gets made!

Happy watching :)

Thursday Night Rituals & Gossip Girl Games

{because he's chuck bass}

I'm a "show" person. I don't flip on the television to channel surf or have background noise or to fall asleep. But I definitely turn it on weekly (or in the case of Colombia, turn on my computer weekly) to watch my favorite shows. From the old stand-bys like Grey's Anatomy to new favorites like Modern Family, I love to immerse myself in the lives of my favorite characters for an hour each week.

One of my favorite things about shows is having friends to discuss them with. What's better than getting together with a bunch of your friends to discuss the latest in the life of Ted Mosby, Chuck Bass, Meredith Grey, Addison Montgomery-Shepherd, Jim & Pam or Sheldon Cooper? For me, shows are as good a reason as any to get some friends together at the end of another work day.

Since indoctrinating both Kelsi and our friend Mandi into the world of Gossip Girl, we have started getting together on Thursday nights to have some wine and watch the latest developments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Thursdays are a good night to un-wind and get excited for the weekend ahead!

However, the CW network doesn't seem to understand the devotion we have for their little shows, so Gossip Girl is currently on a six-week hiatus, not to return until April 18th. What's a group of girls to do in the mean time??? Never fear. We are going to start watching the series over again, starting with Season One, Episode One. However, this time we are going to make note of the things our favorite characters do habitually; the little things that make each episode so fun to watch. We might just make a game out of it... ;)

Connections to Home & Updates

Well, February has come and gone and I wrote on this blog a total of three times. Oops! I really am not sure what has been occupying all my time on a daily basis, so hopefully I will have more to say in March!

Recent Updates
Things happening lately and things I am excited for in the future.

• Over the long weekend that just passed Kelsi and I headed to the mountains for some relief from the Cali heat and spa time at the hot springs in San Vicente. (Blog post to follow!)
• Seven short months after moving from Minnesota to Wyoming, my friends Anna and Andy got engaged!! Love them both so so so much and I am so excited :)
• Annnnnnnnnnnnnd Anna bought her plane ticket to come visit me in Colombia at the end of the school year! We plan to spend some time in the mountains as well as some time on the Pacific Coast.
  
• I bought my plane ticket home to Minnesota for the summer! Nothing like a little trip planning to get you motivated for the rest of the school year :)
• My friend Katie and I bought tickets to see Sugarland in concert at Summerfest AKA the best outdoor music festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! Outdoor music in the summertime - specifically country music is literally the best thing ever. I haven't been to Summerfest since I saw Keith Urban two years ago, so I am psyched to return.
• I heard from my friend Ilse in Uganda. She left on February 10 for the Peace Corps in Uganda and after tw0 painstaking weeks I finally heard from her that she is alive, happy, well and living with a great host family!
• Kelsi and I bought plane tickets to Medellin and have reservations at Rio Claro Nature Reserve for Spring Break! We will be staying in a tree house with three walls and one side open to the river below. Oh hey Swiss Family Robinson.
• After tutoring all the time to pay my way through college, I really have been missing that one-on-one connection with kids that is hard to make in the classroom. Thanks to a hook-up from a fellow teacher, I am now tutoring two siblings, 6th grade boy and 5th grade girl, once a week each in math and loving it! I just love being able to work at the student's individual pace and not feel like I somehow need to find a balance for every kid in the classroom.

Books
We went to our ladies only book club last week and I brought lots of things to share!

• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - After getting through the initial 100 pages, I couldn't put it down. If you love mysteries or novels or just good writing, you must read this series!
  
• The Girl Who Played With Fire - As good as the first one, but better. I read this book in two days because I couldn't wait to figure out what happened to Lisbeth Salander.
  
• The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest - The saga continues. I read this book non-stop until it was done and then proceeded to watch all three of the Swedish movies with English subtitles. These books are just as good as everyone says they are. Lisbeth Salander is literally the female Jason Bourne and she basically rocks at it.
  
• The Handmaid's Tale - A Margaret Atwood classic about what America would look like in a primitive, futuristic society where women are only kept around for their ability to reproduce. I had to read it in high school, but re-reading it as an adult was fascinating.
  
• Power of One - Five year old Peekay grows up in South Africa at the start of apartheid and his journey to be a boxer is filled with funny characters and a great story of personal triumph.
  
• Something Borrowed - I love Emily Giffin! Such a good author, and these two books tell the same story from two best friends' points-of-view. Sounds repetative and boring, but the story is anything but. Definitely a good beach or travel read that you can dive right into.
  
• Something Blue - The companion to Something Borrowed.
  
• Out of Captivity - I may or may not have cried like a baby on the bus coming home from San Vicente while reading the end of this book. This is the story of the three American men, Keith, Tom, and Marc who were held captive in the Colombian jungle by the FARC for 1, 967 days. Their plane went down while they were doing countranarcotic intelligence work for the Department of Defense, and they were only rescued years later by a covert operation led by the Colombian military. Lots of their time in captivity is spent with Ingrid Betancourt, whose books I also read, and who is a pretty controversial figure in Colombia so I loved hearing their take on things. Overall this book was a stunning insight into their personal will to survive in captitivity and remain the best of friends.

Awards Show Season
I wasn't ever that into awards shows when I lived in the United States, but living abroad I am so into them! They are just this huge connection to life back home, even if it is the lives of people I don't actually know.

• After the Grammys I immediately get Lady Antebellum's new album and have been listening to it non-stop! I was so out of the music loop I didn't even recognize their song, Need You Now on Glee, but it was super good. I also cannot get enough of Something About A Woman - love those lyrics!
• Also post-Grammys I am in love with the Avett Brothers when I need some good relaxing music to grade to. :) They just looked so adorable and psyched to be on stage singing with Bob Dylan that I loved them immediately.
• Why oh why do we live in a society where Lady Gaga arrived to the Grammys in an egg and everyone thought it was hilarious?
• FACT: James Franco is an awesome acter in Indie movies about a person stuck in a cave for 127 Hours. However, he is a pretty terrible Oscars co-host.
• Not as bad a Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes who was terribly rude and basically made me forget how kind and adorable British boys can be.
• Best moment of the Oscars? When James Franco's grandma exclaimed "I just saw Marky Mark."
• Ryan Seacrest is actually the death of all that is good about live TV. If I wasn't so starved of good old fashioned U.S. celebrities, he would actually make me throw things at the TV.
  

...so how's that for a random Wednesday of thoughts?

More conherent ramblings to follow soon...

Season premiere time is easily the best time of year.

Oh hi, I'm that girl firmly grounded in reality (most days), however still hopelessly addicted to some delightful television shows. It has been a long summer, but fall has arrived and with it the season premieres of all my favorite shows filled with characters I wish I knew in real life. Eeeek! I cannot wait to see what the writers have in store for this season. After teaching 8th graders all day long there is no better relaxing escape than a good dose of sitcom television.

Here's what I will be watching:

• Brothers & Sisters
  
• One Tree Hill
• How I Met Your Mother
• Gossip Girl
• Glee
  
• Grey's Anatomy
• Private Practice
• The Office
• Entourage (which technically just ended, but I did watch it this summer!)

After a fabulously exciting spring, full of cliff-hangers, I am so excited to get back into these shows. What happens to Chuck Bass? How will the staff at Seattle Grace recover from a bone-chilling finale that rocked the TV world? Please, please, please tell me we get to see Addison and Sam more in this season of Private Practice. Cause the final scene of the finale??? Amazing, but not enough. I want them on dates - adorable dates and totally in love. And an open note to the creators/writers/actors of HIMYM - its season six, can we meet the mother already?!?! AND AND Britney Spears guest stars on Glee? All Britney thoughts aside, that will be fantasticly amazing. AND AND AND is Clay alive on One Tree Hill? Cause I kind of love him and really hope his crazy stalker didn't kill him off at the end of last season. And The Office - last season with Steve Carell? You know that is going to be memorable (at least more memorable than last season...let's hope!).
In summary, get watching and then send me messages on Twitter about how great the episodes were. Just remember to wait one day so I can view them here in Colombia. Spoiler alerts UN-welcome. What are you watching this season?? Any suggestions??

Hi, My Name is Kristin and I am a TV on DVD Addict.

Just completed my first wire transfer from pesos back to dollars in my US bank account and what do I find waiting in my email upon my return?

That's right. The Best Buy after Thanksgiving day sale flyer. Yessssssssssssssssss.

For the past three years my friend Allison and I have woken ourselves up at the obscene hour of 3:30 am in order to arrive at Kohls by 4 am then trek over to Best Buy for their 5 am opening. No part of this is driven by my need to Christmas shop, although I do love buying presents. No, no. If I am awake and dealing with customer service people in the middle night you can rest assured it's 100% for me. :) We typically find lots of great work clothes at Kohls, and then head over to Best Buy for our yearly dose of DVDs.

Last year I bought this:
That's right. Seven seasons of the best comedy and applicable life quotations by Sarah Jessica Parker that $99 (On sale!!) can buy you. I have been enjoying it all year long! :)

So this year...my brother will be sent in my place to Best Buy at 5 am...and I am struggling with what to have him purchase? All the seasons of Friends are on sale, so are Entourage seasons, and the Office...but he already owns all the Office, so I could just watch his? Ah I don't know...

And of course...Gilmore Girls...all seven seasons for $149. I feel like I need to own this. I love Rory and Lorelai! (My college roommates are cringing as they read this as they despise GG with a passion, but I LOVED it)

Thoughts anyone?? :)

Happy Monday!

I Am...

I saw this on Lisa's blog this morning and decided to follow suit. :) I promise a more detailed update on NYC soon!! :) (As in maybe tonight??)

I am:

Reading… Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. Loving it so far because she is hilarious! Hopefully I can finish it soon and then go see the movie!

Keeping… my sanity while trying to inspire 8th graders to learn Algebra.

Baking… maybe cookies this weekend? We have another Tribes training (the program we are learning about community based classrooms...) on Monday so we will be at school until 6. I think cookies will be essential to everyone's survival.

Watching…all the shows I missed last week. I just started watching The Big Bang Theory because it's on every night here at 5:30. I love this show because the four guys are so incredibly nerdy and lots of their jokes relate to math. :)

Trying… to dance salsa! Kelsi and I started salsa dance lessons Wednesday night and plan on going frequently to improve our skills! Every weekend we conclude Sunday night by saying MUST. LEARN. SALSA. Therefore, we are making it happen. $100.000 pesos ($50 USD) for 36 lessons...hopefully we will be able to hold our own on the dance floor soon!

Making… time for myself. I have had a busy couple of weeks...this weekend I plan on devoting some serious time to my book and the hammock.

Congratulating… Barack Obama on one year in. I cannot believe that one year ago I was voting for the first time in such an incredible election for my country.

Happy Friday friends!

Hopelessly addicted to you, dear television shows

SUCCESS!!!

I officially streamed my first American TV season premiere here in Colombia only one day after it showed in the States!! Hooray! Seeing as how over the last 4 years I have gotten hopelessly addicted to several shows, this is a great success in my life. Also, who doesn't need something relaxing to do at night after you finish grading your students' writing assignments on why anything to the zero power is one? ;) I certainly do.

Basically, what it comes down to is that I love TV on DVD. It is so incredibly addicting because you can watch the same show episode after episode without commercial interruption and without having to wait a week in between. As a result of watching TV on DVD over the years I am now addicted to the following shows (pathetic I know, but try and refrain from judging, thanks!):

• One Tree Hill (thanks Liz!)

• Gossip Girl (thanks Jenny!)

• Grey's Anatomy (thanks Anna/Reuter Hall front desk during sophomore year of college)

• Private Practice (as a result of my Grey's addiction, of course I watch the spin off!)

• The Office (thanks Joe!)

• How I Met Your Mother (thanks Joe/Jenny/Jeremy!)

• Brothers & Sisters (got into this all on my own...whoops!)

• Entourage (thanks Joe/his roommates)

I realize this sounds exhausting, but just think if you were me and had to watch them all every week. Also, I know a number of people who watch each show and there is nothing better than being able to discuss your favorite characters under the pretense that they are actual people. :) Last night I watched the Gossip Girl season premiere and I am hoping I will be able to watch the rest of my shows when they premiere as well! Who knows how long I will continue to watch them, but I do think they are fun, entertaining shows!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!