The Doctor Who Experience

So, as many of you probably know (because I have shouted it from the rooftops since I got the tickets), my brother and I went to see the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary at the cinema. I am still spellbound by the entire experience. It was one of those rare moments in life, where the anticipation actually pales in comparison to the actual event. I really couldn't have imagined it any better. There were so many feelings happening all at once, I thought my fangirl heart would explode! So here it goes....GERONIMO!!!!!

First of all, they didn't just project the episode onto a large screen; they made it an experience from beginning to end. Before the movie started, they showed facts about the show onscreen and put up quiz questions that people were shouting out answers to. Then, the lights darkened and we see Strax the Sontaran on the screen telling us, in his unique way, to not use our cell phones or to eat our popcorn too loudly. We go from that to seeing Matt Smith exclaiming his excitement of the *100th anniversary in 12-D*, that is until he realizes he is in 2012 and it is only 3-D. He makes everyone laugh like only he can until he pulls out his sonic screwdriver to start the film, only to be transformed into David Tennant. At this point, the entire audience cheers out loud at his appearance as he warns us about seeing Matt Smith's chin in 3-D. We all laugh and then the film begins with the opening titles of the original 1963 series. There were a ton of Easter Eggs throughout the film, some of them being: The Coal Hill School where Clara is teaching was where companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright taught; The Doctor's phone number is the same one from Season 4's "Stolen Earth"; 11 carves the date and time of the very first show into a stone wall (It was said that the numbers were an activation code for Captain Jack's time vortex jumper); We got a flash of River Song's red heels in the vault and of course 4th's scarf on Osgood the technician.

Then there were the moments that pretty much broke us all. Near the end of the film, we all got to see a flash of Peter Capaldi's eyes as all of The Doctor's incarnations both past, present and at least one into the future, swooped in in their individual TARDISes and tried to save Gallifrey. At that moment, the audience burst into cheers and claps and gasps. Then, we all audibly choked back tears when 10 said "I don't want to go", just as he did right before his regeneration. (Really, Moffat? You just had to go there?!) And I think the final moment that drove the nail into the coffin of all of the fandom's hearts, was when Tom Baker showed up to talk to Matt Smith's 11. That was it. That done us all in.

I do want to take a few sentences to talk about how brilliant John Hurt, Matt Smith and David Tennant were together. It was the great mix of banter and serious moments between them that I loved. Also, in my (unpopular) opinion, Rose Tyler is not the best companion; however, they brought her back in a very clever, unexpected way so I didn't mind so much. (Billie Piper looks amazing, by the way!)

After the film ended, I looked around in the lobby at all of the Whovians in their t-shirts, hats, dresses etc. There were several cosplayers, although none as cute as the seven year old boy dressed up at the 11th. People were asking to take pictures with him and he would whip out his sonic screwdriver and do his best Matt Smith-like pose. I was surrounded by people who, like myself, bleed TARDIS blue. I loved it. This anniversary film brought together people from 94 countries! Few events do that nowadays. I felt like a part of something that was bigger than me.

In the end, Moffat did a bang up job giving honor to 50 years of Doctor Who. He found a way to simultaneously tie up a lot of loose ends while still leaving questions we want answered. So here's to the next 50, Doctor Who! ALLONS-Y! 

Ugh, such a nerd :)

I'm a nerd. Most people know this about me. My husband claims to have not known before he married me; usually after I have squealed for hours about how close the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary is, or he sees that I have Captain Picard as my wallpaper on my phone or my ringtone is a score from Lord of the Rings or that I can quote Harry Potter at the drop of the sorting hat. But, he knew. I have always been this way. I was a fangirl before I even understood what that meant. I wasn't, however, always as proud and vocal about it. I hid it. I kept it to myself because let's face it, kids can be downright mean and would already pick on me about my looks so I felt I didn't need to give them any more ammo. What did they say about me, you ask? Sure, let me share my secret pain with you. No, no...I'm doing it now and you will have to suffer the consequences.

Here's a great example: A group of kids were playing on the jungle gym at school and when I wanted to join in, this kid piped up and said, "Sorry, you have freckles and your hair is a little too red." Seriously? I ignored him and continued to play. He spoke the words as if he could barely stand the taste of them in his mouth. I found out (years and years later), that it was being called what is known as a 'ginger'. If you're not sure what that means, like I was, a 'ginger' is a person with red hair. But not only that, to qualify as a 'ginger', you must also possess pale, ghost-like skin and freckles. My hair wasn't all that red, but I guess along with the other two quailifing factors, that's the category I was lumped into. So God forbid anyone also figure out what a nerd I was!

I was the kid that enjoyed being alone in her room, listening to music and reading books or writing my own. I needed social interaction as well, but an insane amount of alone time to just be in my own head. I haven't changed, by the way. Science Fiction was my absolute favorite thing to write about and also watch on television. I could write an entire book about how brilliant, amazing and bad-ass The X-files was and still is...but I digress. I owned figurines and trading cards and different books about all of my favorite geeky shows. Once the Internet was properly invented, I would get online and write and read fanfics about all of my favorite characters. And by myself, alone in my room, I could lose myself to so many other places, entire worlds even! My imagination has gotten me through a lot of things in life and I'm quite proud of it. I FINALLY grew up to accept my looks (I'm totally cool and proud if people want to think of me as being a ginger) , and my nerdy brain and now you can't stop me from getting outwardly excited about the 50th Doctor Who Anniversary. You can try, you just might accidentally get hurt.
 
"Never apologize for being nerdy, because underdy people never apologize for being assholes" - John Barrowman (Capt. Jack Harkness-Doctor Who and Torchwood)

Having it all.

Yesterday, I was running a few errands and ended up taking a wrong street and had to turn around within a wealthy neighborhood. (Side bar...drop me in the middle of Cambodia and I can navigate my way around the streets...but put me in the middle of the town I grew up in for 23 solid years and I will get turned around in a heartbeat.) As I was driving through this neighborhood, mouth agape at all the richness, the thought entered my head; you're almost 30 and you still don't even own your own home, much less something like this. I then had to shake myself, quite literally, out of that thought process.

Sometime within the last couple of months, I met a woman through an acquaintance of mine...lets call her Suzy. I was out at lunch with my acquaintance and Suzy and after eating our meals and chatting about various random topics, Suzy looked at me and said, "I would have thought you had everything, you know, it all." The statement was jarring. I asked her what she meant by it and she responded with, "Well, until I got to know you better, I assumed you lived in a nice big home, had the marriage, 2.4 kids, white picket fence...you know...it all."  I think I may have just stared at her at first. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to this woman, who was obviously comfortable enough to not only make these assumptions, but to say them out loud to me. Did she not think I would get offended? Upset? How dare she! She didn't know me well enough to say these things to me! Do I not have it all? Because I was just starting to feel comfortable with my life path, and now I'm being told it isn't enough? All of these thoughts and emotions ran through my blood in about .02 seconds. Then, all of a sudden, I felt sorry for this woman. She must be so sad and frustrated and angry because she thinks that all the above mentioned things are what it means to have "it all."(I would like to take this time to point out that my brilliant friend recently wrote and published a book called "Can Spiritual Women Say F*$k: A Jersey Girl's guide to Inner Peace. It's amazing and brilliant and some of things she talks about sort of go along with this post so I would be remiss (and an awful friend) if I didn't mention it. I'm not very tech savvy and can't figure out how to post a link to Amazon, but please check it out. Jess Barrett, you have helped me more than you will ever know.)

I know how tiring it is to try to keep up with what the world tells us is the perfect life, but I had finally woken myself up from that perceived reality; and I wanted desperately to wake Suzy up. When I told her my thoughts on the subject, she looked at me like I belonged in a mental facility for the criminally insane. I asked her if she ever thought that she was forcing an unrealistic ideal upon herself and she gave me a blank look as if to say, "Have you ever thought that you aren't?! And are wrong for not doing so?" My acquaintance was beginning to get antsy with all the tension in the air so I swiftly changed the subject. I know Suzy isn't the only person I'm going to run into who thinks how I'm deciding to live my life is mental, but I don't understand how other people don't understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect by any means. I still find myself secretly judging others for their choices and then have to slap myself in the face and say, You have no idea what their unique path in life is so cut it out." 

So, there you have it. Kel Cooley calls B.S on this whole "it all" crap. Your "all" may not be the same as mine and that's perfectly ok. We were not all put on this earth for the same exact purpose. How boring would that be?  All we can do is focus on our own passions and paths. And for goodness sake, burn that damn white picket fence in effigy!

Just. Write.

Ok, I haven't written anything on this blog in over a year. Stuff got in the way, sue me. I've decided to chuck the whole bucket list blog...well, maybe I will come back to it later...but for now, I think the best path to walk is to just...write. Write about any and everything that comes to my mind. I'm telling myself that I will be disciplined and put out a new blog every week. Haven't had the best track record so far, but I'm trying not to be negative. I've realized over the past ten years, that I am naturally a negative person. I assume the worst, so when something goes right, or I have any kind of success I just feel relieved. I've had to work on training myself to react to things in a positive way. I'm one of the first people who would say F*&k it, I'm done. And I do that quite often...but then I remind myself that being negative isn't going to get me anywhere in life; and that being positive won't actually kill me. If it can only help, why not try? This is where the amazing, brilliant people I surround myself with come in. They never let me say F*&k it. They encourage me to keep going. Sometimes they can be so damn positive, I want to punch them in the throat and say...it may happen for you that way, but it will never happen to me! Be realistic! But in the end, they are my salvation. I believe that everyone has not only one, but multiple soulmates out in the universe; and if you find one of them you are one of the luckiest people in the world. And if you're like me? Then you are exceptionally lucky, and you should just quit being so damn negative.

Kel