high school goggles
I think I have the High School goggles on.
After several viewings of Monsters Vs. Aliens last month, I now find myself craving and longing to watch the Hannah Montana movie, and 17 Again, both of which may be good movies in themselves but has little value for 24-year-old me. In fact, I’m so proud of wanting to watch these nonsensical flicks, I’m even watching Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist again this Saturday.
Ok, so Nick and Norah isn’t exactly of the same grain as Hannah Montana or Zac Efron in 17 Again. But the point is, it’s not a movie that is for my age. I’m supposed to be a level-headed, responsible adult of above-average IQ. And yet I spoil my brain with these fluff.
Not only that, I have been frying my brain with senseless trashy books too. I have just recently blown a considerable amount of my leisure budget on trashy Mills&Boon and Harlequin romances. Yes, I know some are very good reading, and I cannot deny that my fascination for history started with trashy historical romances with their plucky heroines and incredibly-unreal leading men, but the realization that my bookshelves are peppered with more romance novels than veritable good reading is rather unsettling. And it didn’t help that I bought three more last Wednesday (two of which I’ve already finished).
In How I Met Your Mother, Robin said that she can’t help liking her ex-boyfriend again no matter what a loser he is, because he represented a time in her life when everything was a possibility. Hmm. Maybe. But thinking about it, people don the High School goggles as a defense mechanism. Regression, I think it was called, if I remember my psychology teacher right. Of course, cleaning one’s room to find remnants of long past high school and college life can send one on a rolling trip through memory lane.
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I keep wondering why I’m hung up on teenage romance, or the thought of romance itself that part of me is blaming it on the “Sandcastles In The Sand” encounter last month. It was so surreal that Monique’s invitation to be my pretend-girlfriend is still a huge win for me, and still makes me grin mischievously. And as much as seeing my highschool crush again after all these years is amusing, it’s not something I would wanna repeat. It’s a bit harrowing and you can’t help it– you will devolve back to the same mousy, self-esteem challenged girl you were in high school.
Hence, the High School goggles.
But really, I think I’m indulging myself on trashy romance novels because it is the ultimate fiction for me. Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary or Crooked Little Vein from that good newbie author whose first name is William– they are not all that unreal for me. I seriously think that I will encounter that kind of surrealism in real life. But the sweep-off-your-feet kind of instant love that romance novels commonly suggests, now that is something that never really happens.
Again, I am sounding bitter. But I’m not, really. It’s just a recognition of something that is too farfetched in my world. People do not see each other across a crowded room and decide to fall in love. I think humans are too scared for that. Intelligent ones, that is. Oh well, love is silly.
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Everyone else is off falling in love and acting stupid and goofy and sweet and insane, but not me. Why don’t I want that more? I *want* to want that… am I wired wrong or something?
–Robin Scherbatsky, How I Met Your Mother
complete guide to insanity: chapter one 
after watching 17 Again, i got to wondering, do they ever cast people who are actually high school age to play high school aged kids?
i wonder about that too. I was wondering too how come these actors can get away with looking 16-years old when they’re actually 26 (like veronica mars), but they’re probably of the same make as Nancy Drew who never ever aged (she’s been 18 for 60 years!).
I ramble. I drank too much Coke. Hehehehe.
epekto ba yan ng squash leche flan? 🙂
used to collect harlequin and silhouette books — think i still have the boxes somewhere in the attic.. hehehe!
it’s actually not easy to cast high school aged kids in tv and movies because most of them are actually in school and don’t have time to act professionally. it’s only the disney kids and the like who have tutors on sets and things like that who get cast on parts that are their real ages. but for most other shows, they cast 20-something actors because they’re the ones who have the time to do it and don’t need more legal stuff (e.g. parental consent, etc.)
In my defense, this was written last year, although I know I have made the awful error of calling Warren Ellis as a newbie writer :)) Shows what I know. :))
I’m all for highschool kids not being cast in TV or movies yet, because they do have to have their education. Otherwise, TV will be a constant reality-tv full of kids you’d want to hit. It would promote too much violence 😀