It's my birthday...but it's also Tuesday.

Today is my 21st birthday.  I'm at Biola University for summer school right now, which means I'm again spending my birthday away from home.  I really should be used to it by now though.  I've spent my birthdays away from home almost every year since I was eleven.  I went to Awana Scholarship camp every summer, and it always fell on the last week of June.  At the time, I kind of like it.  Having my birthday at camp meant spending my special day with a lot of my friends (about 300 of them, actually).  I'd grown up with these kids, and was used to not only seeing them during the summer for camp, but also throughout the school year for other Awana events.  This made having my birthday away from home pretty nice!

One major damper surrounding this happy setup, though, was my knowing how much my parents were sad not to be with me on those days.  Eleven years old was a young age for me to start depriving my parents of their right to share in my birthday celebrations.  I feel that even now.  I've deprived my parents of exactly half of my life's birthdays, and my only excuses are camp and summer school.

Maybe I'm just being sentimental.  Either way though, I hope I can one day make it up to my parents.  For now though, I'm going to be happy knowing that as long as I'm happy on this day, they will be happy too.  I know this to be true because I heard that happiness in my momma's voice on the phone this morning.

Personally, I don't find birthdays to be the big deal that my parents were both raised to believe they are, but that's alright.  As long as they feel birthdays are important, I will too.

The regret of inevitability -- is the film too slow or is my attention span too short?

          Tonight I watched Public Enemies for the third or fourth time. The first time I saw it, I didn't know what to think of it, despite the cinematic setting. Historically, Michael Mann had created something beautifully accurate. Everything, even down to John Dillinger and Johnny's Depp's matching clothing sizes, made the film a legitimate piece of history. Why then, may I ask, didn't this film go over better with the public. Why didn't the box office take a bigger leap? Is the American viewing public so obsessed with action flicks that a crafted film doesn't stand a chance? Maybe it's just the sap in my that makes me love this film so much, but, in my personal opinion, it deserved louder applause.

          For starters, Public Enemies is straight up eye candy. And, no, not because it stars Johnny Depp (though that detail definitely doesn't hurt). Visually, the costumes alone are enough to make me lose my breath. Whether it's the long, dark, and mysterious trench coats or JD holding a Tommy gun with convincing attitude, Enemies dropped me into another time and place. Even if the writing and/or direction of this film had not sufficed in keeping my attention, the visual aspect might have managed the job on its own. Luckily for me, however, I feel the writing was outstanding. Will this film keep every viewer's attention? No. No film, that I know of, can accomplish that fete. What's more, bio/history-pics don't exactly own the box office. Gems like Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot are good examples of different times history ruled the hen house; however, I would personally question how much those box office numbers were influenced by the amount of action portrayed in those films. Don't read me wrong here, I love both of those flicks (I mean I really love them!), but if they had lacked in the action category, I suspect they would have had fewer returns. Not that I'm complaining. I'm a fan of the action genre myself, but I'm saddened to think that many accredited films have been tossed aside merely because they demanded an attention span that an action-saturated audience couldn't keep up with.

          In my own perfect film world, action films only have the amount of action necessary to effectively convey the story, and slower films aren't polluted with needless action sequences in order to seduce ticket-buyers.

          Ending on a lighter note, how amazing a job did Johnny Depp do in this movie! Amazing. He may make one heck of a pirate, but this is the type of role that shows off his real acting abilities.

Getting back in the game.

This summer will be remembered by Warped Tour, books, and ASL. I'm sorry, I mean MY summer will be remembered by ME for these things. Makes sense. The length of my booklist rivals the Nile River. My ear drums may shrivel from the concert madness, my eyeballs fall from their sockets from over-extensive reading, and my hands forever cramp from excessive signing, but I shall stay the course I have set for myself. It may prove true that there is little adventure in a life planned out, but it is this very adventure that I must plan in order to experience at all.

This is my last college summer. Live.