Movie review

In the past few weeks I have seen a few movies that I want to share. They all fit into the category of chick flick, but I think that everyone could enjoy them. This post might make me look a bit girly, but I do have a guilty pleasure in romantic comedies.

First: The Vow

This movie, which is based on a true story, is about a women who loses all of her memories of her husband. The bulk of the movie is him trying to get her to fall back in love with her. I was sad the whole movie. I most likely will never watch it again, because it was so sad. I am glad that I watched it, but be prepared to cry.

Second: The Lucky One

This movie is based off of a Nicolas Sparks novel. Sparks has an ability to write incredibly sad books, however, this one is average chick flick sad. There was a good level of humor mixed in with the sadness. To me this ranked as an average chick flick. Both of these movies were good, but were similar. Even the covers look a bit like each other. The designer took some liberty and swapped the positions of the characters.

Third: A Midnight in Paris

I saved the best for last. I am not a huge fan of Owen Wilson, but he fits this character. He is a babbling writer who is in Paris for a visit. He has a rich snob of a fiance, who has rich rude parents. At the start of the movie Owen's character Gil is a Hollywood writer and hates it. He talks of staying in Paris and writing novels. Of course his rich fiance would never leave her comfortable live back in Cali for a cramped apartment in Paris. Gil has this set of adventures that show him a whole new side to Paris. There are some underlying ideas in the movie that are always good to be reminded of.

WIB Hosts Style Coach Leslie Brown

I was really looking forward to this week's meeting. When it came to be Wednesday and I was running late for class, I really wanted to put on sweatpants and not worry. I am so glad that I didn't. Leslie came into the WIB general meeting to give us some tips on what to wear in different situations. I think that all of the girls walked away with some wonderful information. I encourage everyone to check out Leslie's website: http://www.lesliebrownstylecoach.com

Social Butterflies

On March 29th the Women in Business club at RIT held their second annual networking event for women. Social Butterflies was held at Pomodoro in Pittford NY. The event included networking, wonderful food and a speech from Eleonora Rakover, a GM at Xerox. I poured so much work into this event, that I was so proud to have it be a success. I do wish that I would be here next year, to make the event even better.
I look forward attending this event next year as an alumni. Thank you to all those who attended for making this a wonderful evening.

A Man in Uniform

Again, I promise not spoilers. I have been lucky enough to read a lot lately. My collection of books has been growing. Finally I might be able to make it a manageable size again.

A Man in Uniform is written by Kate Taylor. Once I found out that Kate is Canadian, I looked for the use of the well known "eh", and sure enough it was there! I feel as if the eighteenth century upper class citizens used such language. The book is surrounding a well known lawyer Maitre Dubon. He leads a comfortable life, with a very strict routine, until he takes on a mysterious widow as his new client.
I quite enjoyed the writing style. This book was quite enjoyable. There is some mystery. I found myself trying to figure out what was going to happen next, often I was wrong. This is a perfect read whether for a beach vacation or just to relax before going to bed.

The Hunger Games

Don't worry I wont give away any spoilers. The Hunger Games is the first of the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. I had heard of these books, but had no plan to read them, up until my brother's fiance handed me the first and the second, Catching Fire.

Once I started the first book, I was hooked. I flew through the first two books in a matter of days. It feels as if the main character, Katniss, is sitting with you telling the story from her point of view. The grammar is that of a friend having a conversation with you. I think that this is what makes the books so addicting. I feel as if this leads to some sentences that just don't work. I noticed this only a few times, but enough that it does detract from the book. However that is my only complaint. Now that I have flown through the first two books, I must wait up to three business days for the delivery of the third, Mokingjay. I can not wait to dive into the next book. Also coming up is the release of the movie on March 23rd. You can believe that I will be seeing it. The books are such a hit that there is already a release date for the second movie in 2013.

Essentially, I loved these books. I hope that the movies won't disappoint. I encourage anyone and everyone to read these.

Oh how I want to travel!

Spring break is coming up soon. As it is my senior year, I feel as if I should have an epic spring break. I, how ever, traveled all over Europe for 4 months and am broke. So instead I will be staying at school and working. That doesn't mean that I can't look longingly at the places that some day I will be able to go to. Here are a few that I would LOVE to go to:

Machu Picchu, Peru- It's not that far away, right? Who wouldn't want to hike through the mountains, so high up that the air is thin. Just think, those paths are the same ones that ancient messengers took to spread news to and from the city.
Isla Mujeres, Mexico- I have to admit, this is only because I have been before and fell in love. It may have been because of the amazing friends that I was with, or the friends that I made or the wonderful beaches or all of the above. I had so much fun the first time in Cancun that I will always want to go back.
Whistler Mountain, Canada- This is where the 2010 Winter Olympics were held. I would love to be this guy! What a rush it would be to have free range of the mountain and, just maybe, take advantage of the resort's Champagne Sabering lessons. I would feel like the king of the mountain, well at least until I fell down it, but hey a girls gotta try!

My passport is just begging to be used. All three are worth candidates, with breath taking views. At least I have my silver lining; I don't have to choose since I can't have any. Some day I will do all three of these things.

Eating in Italy the right way

This weekend I did a trip to Palermo Sicily. This is something I have been wanting to do the whole time I have been here. This post is going to be dedicated to the food I ate while in the trip, mostly because that was a huge reason I wanted to go. Thursday was a holiday, so no classes. I left nice and early in the morning, arriving in Napoli around noon. Napoli (Naples) is the birth place of pizza, so of course we had to have lunch there. Then we continued on to Palermo. Palermo is the home of cannolis, gelato, aranchini and many other things. I have found gelato that is fantastic so that I wasn't worried about finding. I am happy to announce that I found all of my food and they were all pretty darn good. So here are the pictures and a few more details about them.
This pizza right here was amazing. It was from a pizzeria with the nicest people in it. They didn't speak a lick of English ( always a good sign!). The oven was a wood burning bread oven that looked like it had been there since the place was build decades ago. The flavors were so good. Words can not explain this pizza. Other than the pizza though there is nothing in Napoli but garbage.
Once in Palermo, I was on the hunt for two things- arancini and cannoli. Arancini is a rice ball with either ham and cheese filling or ragu filling. The ones I found were the ham and cheese. It was incredible. The fact that they are deep fried probably helps.I had only one food left to find, and I was fearing that it would be the hardest. For the fact that cannolis come from Palermo, they were not sold in very many places. In the end I wandered into a bar and found mini cannolis worth trying. It was as good as any cannolo I have had, but not amazing. So that was probably the least favorite food of the weekend. Overall it was a great success of a last weekend in Italy.