My Thoughts on "The Fault in Our Stars"

Nowadays, I'm not usually moved by films. I think I've gotten my fair share of movies that have moved me in some way and it gets increasingly difficult for the next film to beat the preceding one.

But you have got to be living under a rock if you have somehow evaded the ubiquitous buzz regarding "The Fault in Our Stars". I never read the renowned novel and had relatively low expectations except for the fact that I would cry my heart out after this. And I did.

This movie was a serious tearjerker. I have never bawled my eyes out as much as I did during this movie. Not from The Notebook, Titanic, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Up, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, etc. No. TFIOS was seriously the biggest bitch of bitches for my tear ducts. I hated it. No, what am I saying? I loved every second of this masterpiece.

This wasn't some cheesy, tragic, sugarcoated, unrealistic love story. It was raw and portrayed life and cancer in such an insightful, real way. Life is not some grandeur, YOLO adventure; sometimes, you're slapped with cancer and you cannot control your fate no matter how much you want to.

I fell in love with the love story between Gus and Hazel, portrayed excellently by Ansel Elgort Shailene Woodley, and the theme of TFIOS. As promised, I cried for the whole second half of the movie. The theater workers standing near the exit definitely got some entertainment watching all the audience members exit with smeared mascara, bloodshot, watery eyes.

This film was so artfully done and had a profound effect on me. I am beyond lucky to say I have never been directly touched by someone with cancer (although I've had distant family members succumb to the disease) but I know a majority of people have. This film was beautiful and tackled on the serious subject of the disease in such a different way. Sure, there was the typical melancholy tone but John Green and Josh Boone did it in such a light-hearted, unsentimental way, it ironically emphasized the gravity of cancer. TFIOS undoubtedly touched many hearts and has cracked my top 5 movies.

If you do watch this brilliant film, I highly suggest bringing tissues with you. There won't be a dry eye in the audience by the end of this tearjerker. 

“Men at sometime were masters of their fates. / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings”

Okay? Okay.

Mayday

May is upon us. May: the month of my day of birth, AP testing, and the end of another school year.

I rarely put my feelings out there on the Internet because I'm a private person and highly doubt that anybody in the world gives a crap what I have to think. However, I just felt like I needed to let this out so here it goes.

After conquering four AP tests this week and doing tragically on each of them, I'm officially burned out.

I really expected to feel better than I actually am. That's not to say I don't feel free because I do feel like I just unshackled four handcuffs that were locked so tightly on my wrists that they left marks that will remain there for the rest of my life.

But I do feel a slight regret (one of the worst feelings in the world) for not studying enough for the tests. I worked too hard this school year to get a poor score on these stinking exams because I was too lazy to pick up a prep book for any of the subjects. In my defense, I did try cramming chemistry two days before the exam but that was really it when it came to AP studying. In addition, I was juggling extracurriculars and prepping for the SAT simultaneously. It all just became too much but it's still no excuse and I have nobody to blame but myself. 

----

Then I started to deeply ponder about my future. 

I've always carved my own path since I was a little girl. I take pleasure in spontaneity but I can never leave my life unplanned. Things just don't pan out for me that way. I've always known what I'm going to do with my life, how many kids I'm going to have, and the plan B's for all of my plan A's. I don't like change because I don't adapt well to it. I'm afraid of change.

I always knew I would get into the medical field, whether that was influenced by my incessant devotion to "Grey's Anatomy" (though not so much this season) or my parents' careers in the healthcare field. Even if I did change from wanting to be a pediatrician, a surgeon, and an optometrist, I always thought healthcare was meant for me. 

Yet lately I've questioned everything I have ever planned for myself. While volunteering at a hospital, I met a doctor who told me that to become a doctor, I must feel like God is calling for me to do this. Do I really want to help others? Do I really have enough passion to drive me through eight years of expensive schooling (assuming I make it into medical school with the cutthroat programs) and another four years of a low-pay, workaholic lifestyle during residency? I'm not too sure anymore.

The image of my future has now shattered before me and I feel like my ten year-old self lost in a sea of strangers in some crowded marketplace in a foreign part of the world. I had painted my whole future for 17 years and now it's gone. 

I feel blind everyday as my dreams and ambition slowly slip away from me. I have no idea what I truly want to do in life. Some impractical part of me wants to lead a vagabond lifestyle or open up a bakery (I really do love baking although my most impressive concoctions have come from a box) while another part of me searches for a more practical career to pay the bills.

----

I know I'm being overly dramatic and absurd especially since I will probably be ten times worse emotionally in exactly a year from now, so close to graduation and embarking on the next chapter of my life. But these thoughts I have typed up for the world to see have failed to evade me and it was about time I let them out. 

I always felt old but after I turned 17, the gravity of how soon things are going to wind down just fell on me. My last year of high school is imminent (and those goddamn college applications) and in one year I'll be an adult, free from parental control and into the gloomy world of taxes, jury duty, and whatever the hell adults do. It's something I've dreaded for the past five years and I'm scared shitless.

Maybe I'm just crazy from this sleep-deprived month and beyond stressful week and tomorrow, I will wake up with my life together again. 

P.S. I applaud you if you made it through all that rambling. 

How I Met Your Mother Finale Reaction and RANT *SPOILERS*

All HIMYM fans have been waiting for this moment forever: the epic moment of how Ted met the mother.

Let's just say I have never been so emotionally distraught from a TV episode in my whole life (other than the Friends finale). I was first elated, then disappointed, then annoyed, and then outraged.

Now the amount of speculation that revolved around the finale has been apparent for a while, such as the whole mother-is-dead thing, which I totally bought and rightfully so when the finale revealed that the mother was indeed dead (hence, Ted's use of past tense in almost everything he says).

I would have assumed, however, that the writers would change it up to throw off fans from this theory. They didn't.

This was unfortunate since I was incredibly sad when they did show the mother got ill and died, confirming everyone's fears.

However, this did not even come close to what outraged me the most from the episode. 

Perhaps the biggest offense of the episode was the writers' decision to divorce Barney and Robin after three years of marriage. When they announced their divorce, I kept on hoping that this was all some sick joke and that they would end up together. There was no way, Barney and Robin, who I've shipped since the season they got together, who the writers have developed so much, would throw away their marriage like that. What the HIMYM writers spend a whole season on was thrown away within the first 30 minutes of the episode.

But it was obvious from all the signs that Ted and Robin were better matched. Yet there was something about Barney and Robin that meshed, that made me a fan of them and a majority of the fan base a fan of them. The writers developed Barney into a man who has changed for the better, for the woman that he loved, for the woman he burned the playbook for, for the woman he would end his sleazy lifestyle for. And by divorcing them two and allowing Barney to make a new playbook and go back to his sleazy lifestyle...the writers threw away nine years of character development.

It is not just Barney that the writers tarnished, but Robin as well. They made her seem like the coldest bitch around when she yelled at Lilly and never wanting to hang out  with the gang. The gang even started mocking her, calling her the yeti, as if she was some alien. This really angered me because the twist was just so unbelievable.

Probably the only thing I actually liked from this episode was Barney becoming a father. I teared up. Although I hoped #31 would be Nora or Quinn (after Robin, of course), I'm slightly happy that he had a lovechild with an unimportant woman, especially since he's always wanted to become a dad, something that Robin could not give him. 

Is somebody cutting onions around here?

Nevertheless, the double plot twist at the end when Ted's kids tell him to ask out Aunt Robin confirmed my worst fear. Not only was it such a stretch, the way it was done was so stupid. Ted ran to Robin's apartment with her gazillions of dogs and when she opens the window, she sees old Ted holding up the blue french horn from season one. The episode ends.

Yeah, I get it, it's the exact same scene from season one except 20-30 years later. Cute. 

No. Not cute at all. Barf. Worst way to end ten years of a show ever.

Barney and Robin were meant to be! Robin wasn't supposed to turn into the cold bitch that she did near the end and Barney was supposed to give up his slutty ways to be with her. They worked and the writers ruined everything.

The overall tone of the episode digressed from the usual light tone of the show. It was way too somber (I mean I get it's the series finale but it was just too different to work).  The characters  also morphed into characters that were so unlike from what the actual characters are that the plot became unbelievable. 

I'm still suffering from shock and will probably be emotionally distraught for the rest of the week. 

If only

What did you think of the finale?

Walking Dead: Season 3 Finale

I won't be doing a recap of "Welcome to the Tombs" (well, not really), the season 3 finale, but I'm just going to give my final thoughts so SPOILERS ARE AHEAD. You've been warned.

Seriously, I commend the writers' ability to tug at the viewers' heartstrings and invoke pity for even the most annoying characters. I'm pretty sure many of us have wanted Andrea to just die already this season but boy I took back my words this episode.

I mean if we really think about all the stupid and annoying things she's done, she deserved to die. But, she did have a change of heart and the fact that she was so. damn. close. to returning to the prison. Ugh. It really sucks because her depressing death (shot herself due to zombie bite) makes us feel like the governor will win (we know that won't be the case though). Sighs, I hate how she's been an "original" character too so it makes it worse for us since we've been with her (or she's been with us) since the very beginning....

I was really shocked that the Governor and his minions just ran off after some bells and whistles and the alarm sounded off. I mean I expected much more.

I still really enjoyed this episode and I'll really miss Milton and Andrea. Even though I hated the latter for a while, it was still very sad to see her go and I'd take her back any day. I also felt very bad for Michonne, who isn't one to display her emotions but when she stayed with Andrea and the look on her face....

Anyways, I'm really glad that they rescued the Woodbury residents. I mean, I get that means more mouths to feed and more objections to fight but I always thought the more the merrier. All in all, this was a sad finale and I cannot believe I have to wait so long for the next season. 

What did you guys think?