"A mighty voice from out the clouds to me announced today's undertaking. He said, "Go build a song 40 heartbeats long and sacrifice it for your love." So this one comes from high above. There have been other songs from out these strings, but they came out wrong. Don't be mistaken. But this one comes from high above, yeah this one is dedicated to you." ~m. ward

Tonight I watched one of my favorite movies ever, My Cousin Vinny. I can recite most of the lines along with the actors because I've seen it so many times, and yet it never gets old. I love the fact that Marisa Tomei, who grew up in Brooklyn, was forced to eliminate her Brooklyn accent as she was training to be an actor, and yet it was that Brooklyn accent that helped win her an Oscar for her performance in My Cousin Vinny. I love that accent. I still can't believe she won; her competition consisted of Judy Davis, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson, four of the most talented and well respected actresses alive, and somehow Marisa Tomei (a practically unknown actress) walked away with the Oscar. For a comedic role. I love it. I don't love all the conspiracy theories and criticisms that surrounded her win. Anyway, it's a really good movie. It makes me laugh hysterically every time I watch it.

School is going okay. I feel like one class has warmed up to me and has gotten easier to manage as the semester has progressed, but another class has just gotten worse. I'm going to give them new assigned seats on Monday. They'll hate me for it, but at this point I don't care. I can't deal with them anymore. Teaching is a lot harder than it looks.

Jason Schwartzman is coming out with an album that will be available on iTunes in April; I'm excited. He has a few songs already up on MySpace. If you're interested, one of his songs plays when you open my MySpace page, so check it out. I used to have Augustana's "Boston" on my MySpace page but I decided it was time for a change.