Happy Hub: Rogue One, Sing, the Final Burger, & More!

Welcome to 2017! I feel like I've been steamrolled by 2016 but the bright side is at this point the only thing I can do is slowly reinflate. That's how human bodies work, right? While the world has dig itself even deeper into the hole of despair, December has been pretty fun in my personal life. We have a lot of ground to cover to so let's get to it!

Tunes:

There wasn't much time for music this month due to all my time spent reading, but I couldn't resist the pull of a few very tempting albums. The first of which was the Hamilton Mixtape. This should come as a surprise to nobody. Typically when I like an album, I like it as a whole. Unfortunately, I would not be able to say that while looking you in the eye. It's more that I could do without some of the songs rather than not liking them. For instance, Wait For It and Washington On Your Side are two of my favorite songs on the cast recording but their mixtape counterparts were wholly unimpressive. Some of my favorites on the mixtape are actually the interludes (An Open Letter!!!). Just assume all the interludes made it onto the list because they did. The intro, No John Trumbull, might be my favorite on the whole mixtape. The following, plus the intro and interludes, are songs that I will repeat a couple songs before moving on to the next track: My Shot, Wrote My Way Out (!!!), Satisfied, It's Quiet Uptown, Immigrants (!!), Helpless (!!), Congratulations (!!!), Cabinet Battle 3 - Demo, and Who Tells Your Story. Wrote My Way Out is hands down my favorite full song on this mixtape. I also am obsessed with Helpless because Ashanti and Ja Rule? Come on. Name a more iconic duo... I'll wait. I also really like Cabinet Battle 3 because 1) it's a Cabinet Battle and 2) the "how dare you" sounds like a demon and I live for it. 

I watched Moana with my brother and cousin over Thanksgiving break and of course I was immediately obsessed with the soundtrack. I would've included it in last month's Happy Hub but it was so close to the end of the month that I wanted to spend more time with it before putting it in a blog post. How can I put it in a Happy Hub if I can't even sing at least one song by heart? Now that I've had a month with it, I can easily say my favorite song is Where You Are. You're Welcome is a lot of fun, How Far I'll Go has a lot of spirit, and Shiny has grown on me, but Where You Are stirs up some beautiful emotions and visuals for me. That and We Know the Way. They make me feel like I'm flying and also encapsulates island life so well. I really appreciate them. Another one of my favorites is I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors). This one has a lot to do with the scene and how deeply I felt this song in my soul. I have yet to listen to it without crying. Since I've been listening to the soundtrack on Spotify, I've had access to the deluxe version and I love the outtakes. They're all so good. You need to give them a listen if you haven't had the chance yet.

It seems I only have time for one UK artist a month and last month Olly Murs got priority. Good thing that wasn't the end of the line for Little Mix because whenever I wanted to switch up my writing music, I turned to their new album, Glory Days. I honestly love every single track on this album*. I will say, however, that sometimes I skip Shout Out To My Ex only because I've already heard it so many times I want to listen to the other songs more to balance it out. This is going to contradict what I just said, but my favorite song is Power. I know this because it's the one I keep playing on repeat. So much for that balance. I'm looking at the track list and every time I focus on a song, I think, "oh yeah that one's definitely my second favorite," but then I look at the next song on the list and think the same thing. Hmm. I guess that's just a testament to how quality this album is.

Films: 

Getting the whole movie-going crew together is quite the ordeal these days since break is so short and it's the holiday season. These couple weeks in particular have had a ton of movies that we've been wanting to see but there is only so much time. Our top two priorities were  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Sing. Thankfully, we were able to get to both. Fingers crossed I'll find time in January to squeeze in La La Land and Hidden Figures. I can already tell that those are two films that are going to end up meaning a lot to me.

Rogue One (x)

Even now that I've had time to think about Rogue One, I don't know what I think of it. It was highly enjoyable and it certainly answered a lot of the questions I had while watching the original trilogy, but I didn't particularly love any of the characters. I appreciated being able to resolve some of those "plot holes" I found in the OT but the story is one of those that could be told in a canon novel (why do I get the feeling that it already has?). Basically, it feels like a filler. There were some great moments like Ani's dad joke and Chirrut taking on all those Stormtroopers. If I'm being honest I'm not entirely blown away by Star Wars. I already feel the incredulity coming at me. To me, Rogue One was a fun, exciting, action movie in space. I appreciated the female lead (go Jyn!), diversity in casting, and how Riz got to be in a Star Wars film after alluding to it in his verse on the Hamilton Mixtape. 

Sing (x)

Sing was my #1 priority this holiday season along with La La Land for one very valid reason. Taron Egerton. As if I would miss seeing one of Taron's movies in theaters let alone one where he sings?! Never in a million years would I pass that up. I will admit it was strange swooning over a gorilla. Good thing the marketing linked the characters and their voice actors so closely that it wasn't too far of a stretch. This movie made me so happy! The animation was bright and the song choices had me dancing in my seat and even compelled me to get up and applaud at times as if I were at a concert. I didn't, of course, because I am a considerate movie-goer. My favorite of the auditions was the trio of shrimp dancing to Beyonce. Coming out of the theater, it's obvious that Sing is a kids' movie -- not a family movie. That was very clear from the fart jokes (I'll be damned if I didn't laugh at those tbh). I had a hard time choosing a favorite scene, but I think it'd have to be the car wash. Perfect amount of comedy with a splash of warm fuzzy friendship feeling. Overall this was a fun movie with a cast of lovable characters and a great soundtrack that will get your toes tapping for days. (Seriously there are so many covers I couldn't even count them all.)

Miscellaneous:

(x)

It's been a really, really long time since I've worn nail polish. At least it feels that way. I can say with certainty that I have not dipped into my Zoya collection for a while. For the first half of December, I decided to go for some holiday sparkle. There were a few reasons for choice, Tamatoa being one of those. The other reason was that I love the Ornate Collection to pieces and this is one one I have yet to wear. That's right, folks. I finally got around to Zoya Ziv. I honestly could've taken a million photos of this nail polish and exactly zero of them would be able to capture the brilliance of the nail polish. It's so shiny and mesmerizing. The glitter pieces vary in size and some are more orange-toned than others so there's a gorgeous depth to it.

When the chipping was getting bad, I took Ziv off so I could free up my nails for Christmas. Since the lighting has been awful due to the winter weather, I didn't even feel it was worth trying to Instagram my second finger nail color of December especially since Edyta is so dark anyway. Originally I chose it to match the dress I would be wearing for our annual family Christmas party, but I quickly discovered that its unique blend of colors and sparkle makes it resemble black sesame soup, a sweet Chinese (possibly just Hong Kongese? or just southern Chinese?) dessert. Black sesame soup also happens to be one of my favorite desserts and we know that I am not the biggest fan of dessert. It is also worth noting that I am wearing Logan on my toes because I cannot pass up a holiday season without wearing Logan. 

Burger #10 (x)

Two years ago I limited myself to 12 burgers in 2015. When 2016 rolled in and I had only eaten 5 of the allotted 12, I decided to carry over the 7 left over burgers for the year. Now here we are at the end of 2016 and I have only just hit double digits. I don't think I'll be continuing this resolution because I have proved to myself that I can live without burgers. Those final two burgers will be lost to the void. Maybe in an alternate universe, my other self had used the last week of the year to gorge herself on burgers. Our world will never know. That being said, the resolution was not the only thing I wanted to mention about this burger. I just got a little carried away. What I wanted to say was that this was my and my brother's only lunch date this month because the academic month was quite short and only after all our finals are over with can we celebrate. Man, I miss those tater babies already. 

Usually I leave my bookish news to my monthly Wrap Ups, but my reading month this December cannot be ignored. Forged from desperation and a reading high, I went from many, many books behind schedule to finishing with four days left to spare! Not only that, I used those last four days to read five more book, bumping my total book count for the year to 100! That has been my ultimate reading goal since I started keeping track in 2012. Now I can scale back and read without pressure, especially at the end of the year. I'm just glad I had so many good books waiting for me in this final stretch. It made my job infinitely easier.

I've already mentioned our annual family Christmas party in this blog post but I think it deserves its own section in this Happy Hub. I love throwing this party. I am in charge of planning games but this year, we had a much smaller (but much more tight-knit) turnout than previous years so I was able to scale back on the planning and prep. It was a blessing, really, because I was feeling so off. Probably burnt out, is all. Being in a group of family that I'm actually close with made the party feel fun and lively despite the lack of bodies. That makes it sound like there were like three people in attendance... We actually had 12 guests (16 people if you count my family), which still is a good number. It's just not the 25+ we've gotten on other years. In the end, it all worked out since I was so exhausted anyway. I had a lot of fun and I looked good doing it. That's all that matters besides the quality time.

Blogosphere: 

I wholeheartedly meant to put up my final two Travelogs from my trip over the summer (summer?!) but they proved to be too much for me this month. My brain (and probably body as well if I'm honest) desperately needed a rest. Instead I did the bare minimum and put up the Fall 2016 Recap. Last Fall I challenged myself to do only original hairstyles and while it was very rewarding, it was also exhausting and it took me a while to straighten myself back out. This year I thought I'd do a season of side braids. My hair has grown out since I cut it a year and half ago and it is finally long enough to do proper side braids like I was used to my freshman year of college. The great thing about this season was that there were a lot of great hairstyles that came out of it and I am itching to do some different hairstyles.

I also want to give a shout out to my good friend Steph over at Sparkle and Sprinkle for being my test kitchen. I mentioned these lumps of coal treats would be cute for our Christmas party because I saw them in a video but I got too busy to actually make them. Steph, on the other hand, made them and even wrote a whole blog post about it! She's the best and you can read that post here.


I'm finishing this blog post in the last minutes of 2016 and it will be the first to go up in 2017. How special is that? I hope you had a safe New Year's and have a happy year ahead of you. Make sure you let me know what made you happy this December in the comments below! I'd love to hear them and it'd be an awesome, positive note to start your year on.


Talk to you soon!

xo, Yvette

*For the first time in forever, I do not mean the deluxe version. I could do without the deluxe tracks.