serena's thoughts

    This past  Saturday the 25th I was able to see Harry Styles in concert after almost 2 years of waiting. Originally the tickets were bought in November of 2019 when I was 16 years old. With the concert set to happen in July of 2020. But as COVID spread throughout the country the concert was canceled until September of 2021. At the time that felt like I'd never see him, but the day has now passed. Showing me how quickly you can get lost track of time. The week leading up to the concert I was honestly more nervous than excited. The United Center holds over 20,000 people at once and the concert was sold out. When I had been there before in 2019 to see Queen and The1975,  I had no problem with this at all. But this is obviously not 2019 and being around 20,000 people at once has turned into an almost foreign concept. It wasn't that I didn't wanna go, it was because I didn't want to get sick. I felt better about it considering you needed your vaccine card or negative ...

    Since I have talked about my favorite book on here, I thought it was only fair to talk about my favorite film. Asking someone what their favorite movie is, is usually a difficult question for them to answer, but not for me. Above is a still from the 1989 film Dead Poets Society Dir. Peter Weir. The film follows a group of boys in a preparatory high school in 1959 Vermont. The movie is considered an 80s classic and even won an Oscar in 1990 for Best Original Screenplay. It is currently streaming for free with ads on YouTube.  I first saw this movie in 2018 after watching the popular TV sitcom, Community . In one of the first episodes, The main character Jeff has a teacher that acts just like Robin William's character John Keating. And at the time I had never seen the movie, so in order to get more of the jokes, I found the movie on Netflix and put the movie on. I remember watching the movie and asking myself " Where's Matt Damon? " And was about 30 minutes i...

      As I come to an end on my third Holy Hell (2016) rewatch I asked myself and you reading one question. Would you ever join a cult? Of course, the  obvious answer is "no" but sometimes the answer isn't always that simple. When getting a deeper look into not only the Buddhafeild but cults as a whole you are sometimes able to see a pattern with its members. That being that they are usually vulnerable and in even more cases, they are usually women.      Pictured above is a still from the 2019 horror film Midsommar dir. Ari Aster. This film follows Dani, her  boyfriend, and their friends on a trip to Sweden to visit their friend's annual Midsommar festival. There will be some slight spoilers for the movie, so watch it and come back! It is streaming on Prime Videos. It is revealed to us in the beginning that Dani's parents and sister have died in a murder-suicide. So we already know that Dani is in a very vulnerable state since she has just lo...

      I  have read countless books throughout my 18 years, but it was only this year when I came across the author Taylor Jenkins Reid. She is most notable for writing the smash 2017 book titled 'The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.' Her follow-up 'Daisy Jones & The Six' follows a rock band throughout the 70s through their rise to fame and subsequent breakup on July 12, 1979. The book is written as a transcript, as a journalist decades after their break-up speaks with the members. In an attempt to see what it was like being in the biggest rock band of the 70s. Now when reading this post you might ask yourself " Why have I never heard of this band? " That's the thing, they don't exist. In both books (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six) you follow these made-up celebrities, yet they feel so real! There were instances where I found myself looking up members of Daisy Jones & The Six because I simply forgot they weren'...

The movie I watched this week was Holy Hell (2014) dir. Will Allen. This film was about the time Will Allen spent with a spiritual group called the Buddhafest. I think the scene that caught me off guard was a scene where a member of the group recounts one of the experiences she had. She recalls the months where her father was dying and how the leader of the group Michel Rostand forbid her from seeing her father. She talks about how she would buy her plane ticket to go see him, then she would cry for hours and hours, before ultimately canceling her flight. This scene in particular made me feel just so heartbroken for her. This situation had happened decades before and yet you can see how it still affects her to this day. To the point where she had to stop talking to let herself cry. You can see firsthand how she still feels the guilt of this, years after. And that is truly heartbreaking.  Something in Holy Hell that caught me off guard was the scene where they talk about “ The Kno...