Current Obsessions (Disguised as Recommendations)

After the non-stop action of the holidays, my life has slowly settled back into its old routine.  I'm still checking archival job listings every week, and in another week or two, I'll start searching for a part-time retail job.  Until then, though, I'm enjoying my break between college and the real world by reading as many books and watching as many actors as I possibly can.  And since my day revolves around books and actors, I thought I'd talk about my most recent discoveries.

Now reading: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - When I was in middle school I adored reading Pullman's Sally Lockhart trilogy, which was about a girl solving mysteries in Victorian England, and I still read them every two or three years.  I always meant to read his other trilogy, His Dark Materials, but I didn't even buy the books until the movie came out in 2007.  I'm only 100 pages into the first book, but I can already tell that I won't be disappointed. 

Now listening to: "I See the Light" from Tangled - I found this song on youtube before the movie was even released, and my first reaction was a) oooh this is pretty and b) OMG ZACH LEVI IS SINGING *swoon*.  After seeing the movie and placing the song in the proper context, though, I've become absolutely obsessed.  I listen to it at least once a day, and I see no need to apologize.




Now watching: Upstairs, Downstairs - Last week, the BBC aired a three-hour miniseries rebooting the classic 1970s drama Upstairs, Downstairs, set six years after the original series ended and introducing completely new characters.  I've never seen the original series (PBS hasn't re-aired it in ages and the DVDs are dreadfully expensive), but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the show in the slightest.  It started out a little wobbly (I found several of the characters boring at first), but I thought it ended very strongly.  I particularly loved the theme of responsibility to the family and the shifting definitions of family.  Oh, and this man certainly added to the appeal:

I wouldn't mind seeing Ed Stoppard show up in all of my costume dramas.