Roommate J, RussianRoommate and I just got back from the Fencing Twins' birthday party, where I knew most of the people there. What an amazing feeling, to have lived somewhere for months and to realize you have, in fact, made social progress.
Today's Dean's Date festivities went off without a hitch. I turned everything in, and then spent the afternoon reading all of More Tales of the City. (I read all of Tales of the City two days ago.) Why oh why oh why have I suddenly discovered a HIGHLY ADDICTIVE heptalogy when I should be studying for Rome final and packing my stuff before Cousin J and Cousin B show up on Saturday to haul it to Uncle Hoagie-Free-Zone's house in Philadelphia (the logistics are very confused, but the fact that I SHOULD be packing is clear)?
More TV/Movie Watching:
Part one of the season finale of House was last night, and I watched it, as always, with HSClassmate. Talk about intense. Anticipation of next week's episode is at an all-time high.
I also just watched the season finale of Brothers & Sisters. Great show. Recommendations abound, even if it is veering dangerously close to soap land with this mysterious sibling plot line. Rachel Griffiths is still awesome, though, and Luke MacFarlane is freaking adorable.
In a rare instance of spontaneous hallway bonding, Roommate J, two guys from downstairs, HaHa's roommate, and I watched Mulan two nights ago, and sang along to all the good parts. It was so much fun, mostly because we were forced to borrow our RA's DVD player and hook it up to the broken one in a dorm we don't even live in in order to watch it on a screen big enough for all of us to see. It was worth it, though, for the looks on the faces of the people in the study room next door when we at last burst out of the room at one fifteen still singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You."
On Sunday I also watched The Bubble (Ha Buah), which was playing in France along with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Subcontinent, Family, and I were there this summer. We saw Harry Potter and didn't see this, but I remembered the title and that it got good reviews, so I decided to give it a shot. Three Things:
1) For once, the Romeo & Juliet parallels didn't occur to me until after watching it, when I sat down and re-read the reviews it got. They were all there, though: star-crossed lovers, Benvolio and Mercutio characters, the crabby cousin on the other side, death, assumed-death, death, and eventual death. Also, like Romeo and Juliet, you know that it's not going to end well--it's one of those edge-of-your-seat movies that is physically uncomfortable to watch--but hope against hope that you're wrong.
2) I've always felt woefully uneducated about the whole Israel-Palestine conflict, and although I would never go as far as to say this movie cleared some things up for me, it was easy to enter into the plot and not be confused by politics. This was not because the movie was devoid of politics. Quite the opposite. However, it deftly navigated its way through Tel Aviv, checkpoints, and Palestine in a way that allows the viewer to follow along easily.
3) Well-acted. Very well-acted.
3a) Those fake French accents were adorable.

So here I am, with the year rapidly coming to an end. Tomorrow I plan to immerse myself in Rome studying until after dinner, when I'll turn my eye to packing. Maybe then I'll read Further Tales of the City. I don't think I can restrain myself longer than 24 hours.