Things I Did During Thanksgiving Break

1. Lazed around and took photos in City Garden all morning. See previous post.
2. Watched 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street back-to-back at a friend's house and realized just how many of the jokes I missed when I watched 22 Jump Street earlier this year without ever having seen 21 Jump Street.
3. Skyped three friends for almost a total of five hours. Essentially caught up on all the drama going on in other people's lives. Per usual, I didn't really have anything exciting to contribute.
4. Made three dozen Portuguese egg tarts for a potluck. Caught up on Jane the Virgin while doing so. (By the way, the show's premise seems really ridiculous BUT TRUST ME... IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY FUNNY. And it features a Latina heroine, so yay for diversity!)
5. Played two rounds of Mafia at the aforementioned potluck. I screwed myself over in the first round when I inadvertently revealed that I was the cop, but made an epic victory when I was one of four mafia in the following round. Though the Godfather was killed off, he'd chosen an excellent team: Asian Jesus was the loud-talker who was put out a great performance as one of the civilians; E was the soothing voice of reason secretly diverting the conversation; I was the silent one who, should Asian Jesus or E attract too much attention and draw suspicion, would remain unnoticed and slowly pick off the victims as I outlived the others.
6.  By the way, the egg tarts were a hit.
7. Finally watched Season 2 of Legend of Korra. Will likely not watch Season 3 and 4 until they are free on Amazon Prime, because I am too lazy to look up that stuff elsewhere.
8. Visited Abita Brewery with some classmates. Favorite part of that trip was probably driving across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. I'm not sure if it is still the longest bridge in the world, but driving across it feels like you're zipping across the ocean.
9. Finished writing Chapter 17 and 19 of EP. (I went out of order and wrote Chapter 18 a while back.) Chapter 20 is a short one, so I am essentially almost done with Act II. Act III will be a tricky one, because it'll mainly be about Rory's fall -- which I haven't completely fleshed out in my head -- but at this point I'm gonna pants it and see where that takes me.
10. Got a head-start on schoolwork on my "Lazy Sunday," which also involved trying out a potato soup recipe with my leftover heavy cream from the egg tarts and watching If I Stay, which I'd been meaning to watch since August. If I Stay, by the way, was good but not great -- the film didn't quite tug at me the same way The Fault in Our Stars movie did, even though I was bigger fan of the book If I Stay than the book The Fault in Our Stars. But it did remind me of how much I loved reading If I Stay and Where She Went.
11. Last but not least, I got to watch this lady perform live:

This was the first small-venue concert I ever went to, so I don't have much to compare this experience to... but I thought FKA Twigs was amazing.

In typical Sophelia fashion, I was starting to feel antsy before the show because I was worried about parking and, well, pretty much everything. The show was at the Republic, this nightclub in downtown. I Googled all sorts of things about how early you're supposed to get to a show, where to park near the Republic, what you should wear, etc. The doors opened at 8 and the show started at 9. My roommate said that since I was going alone, I should probably just go at 8:30. But I was way too antsy to be hanging around the house, so I ended up leaving my house at 7:30. Parking was a bitch, like I'd been expecting, but in the end I got there early enough to get pretty close to the stage.

I was on the left side of the stage, near a group of tall kids whom I would have guessed were 18-year-olds. They smoked like crazy. I'm pretty sure I smelled of cigarette smoke after the concert. I also smelled the scent of pot later in the night, and it made me want to gag. I essentially people-listened/watched for almost an hour and admired the room. The Republic has two floors, and I would have liked watching from the balcony, except I decided that I wanted to experience being on the floor "for research purposes."

Boots was the opener for the show. He wasn't bad, but in retrospect he didn't leave much of an impression on me once FKA Twigs took the stage.

The show started with "Preface," a chorale-influenced piece in which she chants over and over again: "I love another, and thus I hate myself." Her entrance gave me the chills. She was wearing this gold cloaklet with the hood drawn over her head and a long flowing skirt with two slits and black spandex underneath, and in the darkness, her hooded figure lent to the whole cathedral-esque feel.

FKA Twigs, I think, is one of those artists you can't fully appreciate until you see her live. She's famous for her dancing, which I've seen described in online reviews as "skeletal." It's mesmerizing to watch her move. But you can't discount her voice either. It's surprisingly high and ethereal. She didn't impress me as much with "Two Weeks" -- which is one of my favorite songs of hers to listen to -- but  "Give Up," "Hide," and "Pendulum" were great, from what I recall.

In many ways this concert was for "research purposes" -- and I did get plenty of that. But it was also an interesting experience going to a small concert by myself and getting lost in the crowd. Hanging around in downtown New Orleans at night isn't exactly the safest thing to do, but it was worth the risk.

All in all, I'd been dying to get out of the city for Thanksgiving Break -- even went so far as contemplated spending 300 dollars to fly to Miami -- but in the end, it was a good decision to stay in NOLA for the break. I spent a lot of downtime catching up with myself, which I think I needed more than anything.