In my humble opinion...

We got home at 2AM this morning from New York. I repeat: two in the morning. I couldn't sleep on the bus because the seats were really weird and uncomfortable. I said some witty things while I was drowsy that I was hoping to share, but I forget now. I had a good day roaming the city. We took the Museum of Natural History by storm, although it looked nothing like Night at the Museum, which broke my heart. Then we saw Evita (aka the point of the trip), which was good. I liked it. The music was super great and the dancing was to die for. I wish I could tango! However, it was kind of raunchy... Language and sex and stuff... Mind you, I went with me mum and she didn't have to like shield my eyes or anything, so it wasn't too bad. The lead actress was good but she was really shrill in the upper range and as a result I couldn't understand part of the story. Oh, and I felt like they never truly got into the heart of her character. Look at me, so opinionated! (Remember that sentence, we'll revisit it shortly.) After that I ate a fantastic Italian dinner and watched a bunch of crazy Spanish people freak out over football. We went shopping at stores with four floors and ran amuck in the Disney store. I was the only one who knew the words to Following the Leader from Peter Pan, which was awesome. Then I ate low-carb cheesecake and felt like a fat whale on the bus. Good day. Oh, and I woke up at 8 AM to baby-sit and go to practice. Yay!

Now that we're done with the diary portion, onto the Actual Post.

I was going to tell you in my reading update, but here goes: I finished Emma. It was wonderful. Totally worth staying up late for. That is, until I read the Introduction.

I hate whoever wrote the Introduction. First of all, because I accidentally read part of it while reading the book she--- Wait, Whovians, I'll let River Song say it.

I won't spoil it for anyone else, so there. I'll just say there was a huuuuuge spoiler in there. Huge. Ginormous, really. The other reason why I hate the Intro person is because I totally and completely disagree with them. If he/she told me that 2+2=4, I'd pull a 1984, scream "It's 5!!!" and shoot rats at his/her face. (If you haven't read the George Orwell book 1984, that joke just went over your head.)

I won't get into specifics, but I was flipping through the Introduction and reading bits and pieces and kept running into stuff that just seemed, well, wrong to me. They made some speculations concerning Emma's character that didn't quite make sense to me. Furthermore, they (I don't know if it was he or she) seemed to make the story too complicated. Yes, yes, Austen was a master who clearly was intentional with the way she structured the society in Emma. But you'd have to have a degree from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to come up with something this complex all on your own. I mean, from a writer's perspective, I know that we all like to take on a deeper meaning. The writing world is riddled with symbolism and allegory and whatnot. But we're only human. We can only make our writing so deep.

I closed the book before he/she/it could get his/her/its grubby hands all over Knightley.

Moral of the story. We all have our own opinions. We all have our own interpretations of literature. There's the author's interpretation, then there's what each individual reader takes from the story. This reigns true in most aspects of our life. For example...

Lisa: I loved the chicken. The sauce was delicious!
Emily: Really? Mine was a bit dry.
Abby: I liked the chicken, but the sauce was too much.
Katniss Everdeen: I killed that chicken. It could have used some more bones for me to chew on in my hunger.

Katniss was the equivalent of the author. Sort of. Anyways, we all are entitled to our own opinions. And in my opinion, some opinions are wrong. :) Like Introduction person. They are wrong, wrong, WRONG.

WRITING UPDATE: Planning to slip some writing in later. After I eat more food and pack more and send out 20 gazillion graduation cards.

READING UPDATE: In the middle of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Some language. It's a creepy book, with creepy photographs to match. But there is time travel (!!!) so I can't complain. Although the romance vaguely resembles one with a certain Dr. R... (If you aren't reading TC, here's the link. Check it out.)

Now, I am going to sleep. Enjoy the most famous song from Evita, because I'll admit, I certainly did.

PS - I am giving you the Lea Salogna version because she did Les Mis and is a Disney princess. Patti LuPone gives me and my friends the creeps and no one wants to see Madonna do anything ever. So here.