School Bothers a Petty Dork

I've gone back to school. At first it was not fine but then it gradually started getting better.
It's still not fabulous (which is a word I say now because I am Sharpay Evans?). I'd still prefer the aimless, content free-will of summer to the "I would rather lick a goat than stay here any longer but I can't just leave, can I?" structure of school.
Admittedly, some parts of school are are nice. But those parts are just the luck of my schedule, or me deluding myself into thinking school's okay so I don't explode from disdain.
After ensconcing myself into a summer-bubble of watching movies until four in the morning and spending time only with the friends I want to spend time with and forgetting that yes, I am socially awkward and no, not everyone in the world actually cares about fonts, coming back to school is a rude awakening.
A two-burst rude awakening.

1. We had to do a project that was all about us. (Because I'm not in high school or anything-- I'm six flipping years old.) This project was basically a bunch of basic questions (What is your favorite subject in school? What is your favorite snack?) that we had to answer on a poster.
One of the questions was What is your favorite band?
There was an athletic, generally popular girl who presented. We reached the music portion of her presentation.
"Um, well, I don't listen to a lot of music but I guess I like Nickelback."
I know my eyes bugged. I think my jaw might have even lowered a few centimeters.
Nickelback is one of the worst bands in the entire world. I have tried to listen to Nickelback objectively, but I seriously cannot force myself to like it. I have never met a single person in my life who said they liked Nickelback--who even said they guessed they liked Nickelback--and I didn't think I ever would.
Some things that are simply unacceptable not okay what are you doing stop stop STOP in my mind may not set off any alarms in anyone else's brain. See what I learn in school?
(But seriously. Nickelback? All of the bands in all of the world and you "guess you like Nickelback"?)

2. I like to type things, and fonts are one of my many geeky joys. I am very particular about the style of font I use with respect to the subject of the document, and I judge people based on the kind of font they use. (Also, I have an unfulfilled life and my one true friend is a sock puppet named Joe Bob.)
Now.
Teachers.
Is it okay to use Papyrus, Comic Sans, or Impact in the year 2011?
NO.
Is it bad that my AP Euro class combines the nauseating glory of all of these fonts in one fabulously horrendous homework packet?
You betcha.
Why is it okay? Who likes looking at these fonts? They're incredibly displeasing.

These two facts were incredibly important in my mind--everyone hates Nickelback and Comic Sans--but apparently not everyone knows this.

To summarize: I'm back to school and angsty about little things already. It's going to be a long, long school year.

Quote for Thursday, September 1, 2011:

I feel akin to the Platypus. An orphan in a family. A swimmer, a recluse. Part bird, part fish, part lizard.

--Trevor Dunn

At Home By Myself

for the first time in a long time.

It's storming outside. I'm listening to Rosianna's videos, because her voice is like the auditory equivalent of liquid sapphire, and she's so smart it makes me feel like I'm someone smart, too.

I'm looking for my copy of Frankenstein, because I need to find it for school tomorrow.

School tomorrow.

School tomorrow.

My locker combination is written on my hand. My room's a mess of loose leaf and pens and back to school clothes, all of which shall have to be utilized tomorrow.

This can't be happening now.

(Lack of Title Skillz)

Apparently staring at an inbox devoid of Pottermore emails does not make them show up any faster.

Also, asking Pottermore why it doesn't love you makes you socially abnormal.

These are things I learned today.

It's utterly gorgeous outside, and I am looking wistfully into the last vestiges of summer because my school starts up on Wednesday morning.

This was a good summer, really. It treated me well, and I am not ready for it to be over. My coping mechanism, as school inches closer, is insane denial and not packing up my school stuff because I believe that will fix something. Like maybe school won't start until I'm fully prepared.

That is a crazy idea, but one that I wish would come true.

This is another thing I learned today.

Some of the media I've absorbed recently:
--The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty. It is 400-some pages long and I finished it the day I got it. It is really super good and I plan on reading everything Jaclyn Moriarty has written ever.
--K cajoled me into seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes with him and my dad yesterday, and... and....
Um.
It was honestly the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in my life.
Not horrifyingly bad, mind you, it was actually fantastic and well-made and I liked watching it, but the way the story ran was terrifying, with the apes taking over and the Golden Gate Bridge and the ALZ-113...
I suggest you watch it, but I think I am done with the Planet of the Apes movies after that one. Oh.
--Primary Faction, which is the prequel to a television-show-hopeful called Chronicles of Syntax. I first read about it here, where it is explained thoroughly. There are twelve episodes of Primary Faction, and the first one is up here, in playlist form. I tried listening to it without bias (the bias being the fact that Liam Dryden is in it and is to be a main character), and it is excellent. I hope it does get picked up as a TV show, and that I can find a way to watch this show from America.
--Sketches from Catherine Tate (a former companion on Doctor Who), which are hilarious, like this one.

Quote for Sunday, August 21, 2011:

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment."

-Mr. Darcy

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice)

Muse for Today:

Should people be allowed to choose the way they die?

Time Travel 5

I think a lot about time travel.

Not only if it would ever be actually possible by people that aren't Time Lords/wizards/Doc Brown, but what would we do? What would be the limitations?

Where and when would we go? (We meaning me, and anyone who would use the time machine for harmless but irresponsible fun things)

Naturally, I made a list, as I am wont to do in situations, and I had 10 places/times at first, but I have boiled it down to an essential five.

Here we go.

1. August 15, 1965 at Shea Stadium, which the Beatles played on their second US concert tour. I think it would have been nice to see the Beatles when they were touring/together/alive together, and this concert just seems fabulous. Come on. Look at this and tell me it was a bad concert. Also, my sport-minded brother tells me that Shea Stadium was destroyed a few years ago, so I will also have the  advantage of going to a stadium that doesn't exist anymore and that I know nothing about.
2. The Chicago World's Fair in April 1893, for the primary reasons that I love Chicago very, very much and that they introduced the Ferris Wheel and spray paint at that fair. And it's a fair! In Chicago!
3. Times Square in New York City on December 31, 1999. While I was alive for the new millennium, I was incredibly small and I wish I had remembered something of it, because there are overwhelming odds that I will never see another millennium again. I will also enjoy it more than anyone else alive, because I will be the only person there who knows for sure that Y2K is not true. Unless there are other time travellers there.
4. September 7, 1533, for  the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I. I think she was the best ruler England has ever had (even if there are all of those sketchy rumours about her being William Shakespeare's mother). It would be nice to see the start of that era, especially since I would be able to experience 1500's England and see what England did for coronations in the 1500s.
5. Back to the beginning of this summer, to tell myself to actually do something before I waste three months. So I could do something before school starts in SIX DAYS. (I couldn't think of any interesting explanation for the last one, so I said something stupid instead of the six others I had on the list! Ta-DA!)

The problem with most historical events is that you know how it ends. You could say "JFK assassination" or "first moon landing", but you know what happens. The thrill is sitting there, not knowing what's happening next, instead of standing in the back, rolling your eyes and mouthing "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" along with Neil Armstrong. That's what I realized as I looked over my carefully prepared list.

But perhaps there's a different sort of thrill in hearing the words spoken by the original speaker for the first time in anyone's lives? Maybe there is a thrill in sitting in a theater with people who are finding out that Darth Vader in Luke's father for the first time, even though you have known for practically all of your life?

Hmm.

If you want, tell me your Time Travel 5. Put it in a comment or write a post about it. Whatever floats your boat. I just hope you lot are a hell of a lot more creative than me.
Now I will listen to Explorers 6 for the nineteenth time and then go to bed.

Favorite Thing on the Internet #45

Personally, I don't watch My Little Pony.
BUT.
If you're ever bored you should head over here where you can MAKE A PONY. You can even make yourself into a pony.
Love, love, love.
I am currently working on making myself into a pony, but first I made this gem:

Think of this as...the ideal FRAS pony. As what I dream I will someday be. I think my subtle title for this picture captures it all- "IDEAL UNICORN PONY WHO IS ALSO A COP."
And so it is.

Writing for You

Things that I have recently acquired:

• 80's Glam skinny Sharpie pens and I adore them very much.
• The Taming of the Shrew and Frankenstein for school. I do not adore these as much.

Things that I am reading:

• An extremely confusing, but tolerable, biography of Coco Chanel that I picked because it had cool pictures and I have the methods of a  four-year-old
• (Rereading, actually) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, because that is my second-favorite book in the series and the book is good
• Hound of the Baskervilles. Yeah. Because Sherlock Holmes makes me wish I knew him. (Also, did you know there's a TV show? My friend showed it to me a while back on Netflix. It takes some ideas from the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but it's not bad.)

Random somethings I have on my nightstand:

• An empty bottle of Coca-Cola that commemorates the company's 125th Birthday
• A plush bear that I think I got for Valentine's Day. It has a little pocket in which I keep paper clips. When do I even use paper clips? Hardly ever. But I have them. In this bear.
• A wooden cat, for some reason.
• A partially broken camel from Luxor, in Las Vegas. He has been dropped so many times that it is a wonder that he is only partially broken.
• A guitar pick.
• Three tennis balls for my juggling endeavors.

Things that I have realized that don't affect me in any meaningful way:

• Sandy Olsson, in Grease, looked better before she went all leather. Compare this picture to this picture. I don't know about you, but I prefer the first one.
• Whoever thought of backlit keyboards was a clever person.
• My blog is a hyperlink minefield.
• A man named Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock.
• Is that not the most fantastic name you've ever heard?
• David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, is getting married to Georgia Moffat, who is the real-life daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor.
• BUT
• Georgia Moffat played the Tenth Doctor's daughter in an episode of Doctor Who.
• So she is the real life daughter of the Doctor and the TV daughter of the Doctor and she's getting married to the (former) Doctor.
• Is this weird or what? It feels like this is some convoluted kind of incest when it so obviously isn't.
• Anyway, if you don't watch Doctor Who, I imagine that was somewhat confusing and meaningless for you and I'm sorry. Here is some soap that has a cookies-and-milk pattern. It even smells like chocolate-chip cookies.
• No, but seriously, you should watch Doctor Who.

Quote for Saturday, August 6, 2011:

It's okay to be fat.  So you're fat.  Just be fat and shut up about it.

-Roseanne Barr

Summing It Up

It is a new(ish) month and I, for one, will be heading off to school towards the end of it. So let me start August off with a lazy post.
Frankly, the last week of this month will involve more work than I have done these past two months. Well, three months, since I started counting school as over in mid-May.

1. I am not doing BEDAugust. I was considering it. And I missed the first two days, so honestly I don't think it counts anymore. Also, I am not interesting enough to do this twice a year. I'll stick to April. Anyway.
2. For the first time ever, I went to a real, full-blown concert. There was an enormous number of people there. It was stickily and blisteringly hot. And it might have been the best night of my entire short life. Seriously. Best day ever. Insert your Tangled gifs here.
3. I might have a job working for a company I hate. Well, I say might. They've offered. Did I imagine my first job would be this? No. Is it legal and does it pay me more money than I thought I would get at my first job? Yes. Do I need/want money? Yes. Am I going to work for Evil? ...probably.
4. Also, my friends and I registered for Pottermore beta, for which I am inappropriately excited. For not knowing what is and having serious doubts about the actual function of the site, you could even say there is absolutely no call for me to be so excited.
5. One of my friends and I spent the last thirty minutes coming up with bad pre-set Pottermore usernames, like BezoarSeeker89 or MugwumpMandrake456. Some of these have the potential to be truly atrocious usernames.
6. I am teaching myself how to juggle, and I am actually not doing that badly. I don't know where I will use this, but I do have a plan.

And that is all.
Music: Sunny Afternoon/The Kinks
(Deviating from my usual Quote/Muse format because I really like this song, The Kinks have recently reclaimed my heart, and I wanted to put only this at the end of the post.)

Frets of AAAAH

Perfectionism is something that I strive for. I have always aimed to be better than everyone else at everything, and while I rarely accomplish that, I am usually pretty proud of what I have done. "Practice makes perfect" was an adage lodged into my brain at five, and I have never been able to shake it off completely.

But.

One downside to my quest for spotless, holy glory is that whenever I can't get something after practicing, I begin to lose it. I begin to doubt everything I've ever stood for. I fail at things I used to be good at before, like writing or standing up.

Like now.

I recently started learning how to play the guitar, like every teenager who thinks they're cool because they know how to play guitar (only I am hopefully not that annoying, because I hate people who can play three chords on the guitar and suddenly they think they're Paul fricking McCartney, and one of my fears when I started this was that I would become one of those).

And I can't get it.

I can play a bunch of chords, and I have good hands for guitar (because they're man hands, according to Ginger... *shakes head bitterly*) but I can't...you know...actually play guitar. I can play chords individually, but when I put them together, they sound like Death is skinning a drugged hyena. My fingers can't move fast enough.

And the thing is, even with all of the practicing, I can't get it. I can't get it! And I'm beginning to wonder if I am just being too hard on myself because I started a short while ago, or if I just suck at instruments and should give up now before somebody dies due to my atrocious playing, or if it just takes longer for some people to stop wanting to lie on the floor and die every time I they mess up a chord change.

Muse for Today:

This is wonderful. He's obviously making up for his stupid name.

(Source: http://thecountercurseisunjellify.tumblr.com)

Hateful/Lovely

Hateful

1. Rude people, more than anything. If I can make the effort to say "please" and "thank you" to you, I'm pretty freaking sure you can say it back. It's not that bleeding difficult, and it makes you look better.
2. Superiors who think they can be rude to you. For God's sake.
3. Sometimes, you introduce a friend to a TV show or a band or an author, and at first you are pleased because they like it too, and now there is someone with whom you can share your adoration! But then they act like they discovered this band, and they act as though the amount of love they have for this band eclipses EVERYONE ELSE'S. This irritates me like nothing else.
4. People who try to make a point (especially, but definitely not limited to, people on the Internet) but their facts are not facts because they are wrong/entirely made-up/paraphrased to mean something entirely different than the original meaning.
5. People who think that their opinions should be the only opinions.

Lovely

1. People who hold the door open for you. This may sound simple, but it doesn't happen that often anymore.
2. People who say exactly what they think, so there are never any mixed messages. It doesn't mean be rude, it just means be honest. You always know where you stand with these people.
3. When adults find a way to treat a child like a child without babying him or her.
4. When people are willing to deal with you even though you are acting like a harpy and probably ruining their mood. Sometimes it's nice to know that people can deal with you if you act like that occasionally. Occasionally, permanent harpies of the world, occasionally.
5. The genial idiocy of a group of people at three o'clock in the morning when they like each other and have had a sizable amount of sugar.

Quote for Sunday, July 24, 2011:

Angelica: After all, I'm playing the most dangerous game of all!

Chuckie: Musical chairs?

Angelica: No, dummy! Love!

Muse for Today:

Glorious.

Crying at the Movies

On Thursday July 14, I went over to a friend's house for her birthday party. And it was an enormous nostalgia fest for the eight of us there, because five of them were going to the midnight premiere of the eighth Harry Potter movie.

(I, unfortunately, was the slag who didn't reserve her tickets on time, and would be going to see it at four P.M. the next day instead. I am dumb. The other two didn't like Harry Potter. I'm not quite sure what they were doing there. They must have felt very out of place.)

Quite a few of us had grown up with the series, and for the three hours before they left we were talking about our hopes for the movie, how great it would be, how everything was ending, but really nothing was. As one of my friends said, it wasn't like our books were going to disappear overnight. And we would always have our experiences, all the memories tied to years and years of reading this amazing series, and talking to friends about this amazing series, and making other people discover this bloody amazing series. All the fake wand duels, all the dressing up as Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley for Halloween, all the waiting, waiting, waiting for the next book or movie or announcement was not going to be erased from our memories because there weren't going to be any new movies or books.
They left for the midnight premiere at 10:30, and I was picked up and taken home with a heavy heart. Talking to my friends, most of whom had been similarly affected by the Harry Potter series, made it hit me--hard--that this basically looked like the end of my life. And I'd better damn well appreciate that now, while I still can.
The next day took forever, because I was waiting until four o'clock and torturing myself with Tumblr, which was Potter-saturated. We got to the theater at three o'clock, waited in a line that was already enormous and made me panic that we would end up in the first row, looking up at the movie screen like it was the top of the Sears Tower. (But we didn't, thank the gods.)
I had puffed myself up before, thinking that I was emotionally prepared for this movie. I'd read the books! I knew what was going to happen! I was prepared for the fact that every minute that passed by was my childhood being wrenched away from me! I was totally prepared, yeah?
God, no, I wasn't.
I cried:

1. When the Death Eaters burned the Quidditch pitch, and I remembered Harry as an untroubled first year playing for the first time on that pitch, and my eyes welled up before I could help it.
2. From when Snape died to the end.

Most people kept drinks in their cupholders. I kept tissues.

And then the Hogwarts Express sped away at the end of the film, it felt so final. That's it. It's only lucky for this generation that we were here to see it.

Quote for Monday, July 18, 2011:

"If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf." 

— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

Muse for Today:

I saw a GIF of Jo Rowling saying this on Tumblr, but I can't find it now, but I was emotionally vulnerable the other day and it made me cry.
“Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”

Also, in less important news that I feel like I have to share anyway: It is my blog's birthday today. It is two years old.

Screaming at Laundry

Maybe you don't.

But if you have severe mood swings (like me, the BEST example of the worst kind of nerdy asocial teenager), have you ever had one of those days where something

really really dumb happens

and it sends you over the edge?

Today started out fine. I woke up a little late and had cake for breakfast. (Do you see this? I look like I eat cake or pie or cookies or a bowl of butter or the entire country of Switzerland for every single meal. Until I started writing about this stuff, I didn't realize that I ingest so much sugar and call it a meal. One day you'll see "Today, after my midmorning snack of a whole Cadbury's factory...") And that is a good start to the day, negative body image or not. Then I went to the library and got my summer reading books (ugh) and avoided reading them by reading Dearly Devoted Dexter, which makes me want to duct tape my eyes shut. But in a good way. There isn't a good way. But this book is creepy right from the start. Feeling comfortable? BAM! Shameful game of Kick-the-Can! Murdering pedophile! Bad fashion sense!

Anyway, then I did some things which weren't too bad.

But then- then, my mother told my brother and me to go take care of the laundry, and this already sounds like a first-world problem.

I usually have no problem doing this. My mother does a lot, and the least I can do as her child is empty the damn washing machine when she asks me to.

But my nerves. I'm not even sure what happened. Because I was just traipsing downstairs kind of like this

only not quite as happily because come on, guys, I was going to sort out laundry-
and then-

I'm not really sure how it happened. But I ended up having a screaming match with the laundry, which wasn't responding to me, and throwing clothes into the laundry basket, saying something like "Stupid laundry! ENH! Stupid t-shirt! ENH! Stupid pants! ENH!" and it was really dumb and so was I and I just ended up putting away the laundry and not mentioning this to anyone I know. Except the Internet, which is, in the end, the second-wisest option.

And this is why you shouldn't do laundry. It's super aggravating. Just buy new clothes and stuff the other ones under the bed. Or make a bed out of your old laundry or whatever, I don't know. That's what I do.

Quote for Friday, July 8, 2011:

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island*.

-Walt Disney

*Which was, incidentally, a book. Hmm?

Muse for Today:

This blog, which is probably the funniest blog I have ever read in my life. This post from that blog is also an extremely hilarious post. I only feel bad that I didn't discover this blog a long time ago. Also, this tumblr, because it combines clothes and Disney, which are two things that I appreciate very much.

Opinion Post

This blog is mostly comprised of tangents and links to stupid pictures, so I don't pretend that I know what I'm doing when it comes to blogging.
Also, I don't pretend that I have the cause to discuss important stuff. I feel bad when I share my bumbling stupidity with innocent victims.
But here I do anyway.
I am a teenager, and I have never been told I'm fat and I myself don't think I'm overweight (I know you don't know how I look, and I know I'm usually talking/thinking about eating or actually eating, but trust me) I don't always feel skinny.
When did it come to a world that prizes being skinny over everything else? And why is it damn near impossible for me feel okay about how I look without having matchstick legs and a waist like Scarlett O'Hara?
This has been said a thousand times over, that girls need to stop worrying about their appearance and that it's what on the inside that counts, but nobody seems to think that way. Almost every female role model that the mainstream media presents us with has some kind of emphasis on her body.
It's like it doesn't matter if you have talent that stretches to the moon, if you don't have the package to sell it, there's a problem. As if you can't be a singer because you're "fat" (or, you can, but be prepared to have a whole lot of criticism slung your way). Because singing obviously has nothing to do with your career, right? It's all about how good you look in a miniskirt.
It's just so annoying. SO annoying. Pretty people don't have to look like they stepped out of a matchbox and glued a human face on, but it seems like that is only way anyone will ever look at you twice.
If it is what's on the inside that matters, then why don't people act like it? It's nice to be fit, but pushing yourself to danger in order to look skinny is even something that is all to considerable.
But I'm tired of hating myself for eating a cookie, and I'm tired of feeling awful when I skip eating, and I'm tired of setting goals that I can't reasonably reach. There are ways of becoming slim--healthy ways--but putting so much pressure on girls to spend their entire lives fifteen pounds underweight almost clouds those ways, because some ways are faster and easier. It's annoying that I think like this. And most of it is my fault, for letting myself think that it's important. That my weight is the only thing standing between me and feeling normal. We all know I will probably never be normal.
(So, for the TL;DR crowd:) Yeah, weight matters. But it should, never, never become all consuming, and it should never, never get dangerous. And the way society's priorities are set up now, it's easy to forget.
I hope this made sense. I don't usually write stuff like this.

Quote for Wednesday, July 6, 2011:

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it ... high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl.

-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Muse for Today:

frezned never fails to entertain me/guide my life choices/make me wish I was Australian.

I Bleed Americana

If anyone even bothers to look at this time wasting page of the Internet anymore (because seriously, thirteen days on the Internet seems to be five years in actual life. Don't these people ever do anything else?) (I am productive occasionally am a hypocrite who also rarely never does anything else.)
Except I went to ORLANDO and other places that pale in comparison to ORLANDO and the only reason Orlando makes these places pale is because The Wizarding Freaking World of Harry Freaking Potter is in Orlando.
And it was glorious.
But we're not going to talk about things like that (in other words, things that will MAKE QUESTA CRY TEARS OF JEALOUSY).
Instead, I prepared a special treat for all of you today. *rubs hands together gleefully*
BAM!

The Interesting and Cool Story about the Day of Mind-Blowing Internet Superhero FRAS

(The Story for which Generations have Waited, Cried, Killed, and Pleaded and WILL NOW HAVE...FOR FREE)*

I spent four hours in a boiling minivan this morning, because it was the last leg of our road trip. My family members were mutually kind of sick and tired of each other's company, and glad to reach home. My brother K actually hugged the house. Which was overkill. But he's little(ish) and allowed to overkill like that.
I unpacked the car and my suitcase, watched Hairspray for the fifty-thousandth time (because I am a huge sucker for that movie, and it has a much better plot than the 1988 version. I mean, in that version, Amber von Tussle acts like she's five years old. Get some real insults and then you can open your idiot mouth), and then started catching up on my Internet content, and there was a lot.

YOU HAVE BEEN SLAPPED BY BRILLIANCE. FEEL FREE TO GROVEL AND/OR LEAVE MONEY.**

Topic change without transition: There are two reasons this post is called "I Bleed Americana":

1. I have been trying to use this title for a post for a few weeks now because
2. I like the cadence of "Americana" but
3. I wanted to use it at an appropriate time, and what better time than when I hear fireworks outside my door? It's American Independence Day. The day when we were deprived of British accents because our forefathers wanted freedom. *coughs, straightens nonexistent tie, reminds self about how she is not bitter*

Lord, this is a messy post.

But I went and saw this really nice fireworks display two nights ago at Stone Mountain, in Georgia. It was really bright and loud and Southern and completely unlike any sort of fireworks I have seen. Georgians know how to do the Fourth of July. Even though people outside my house have been setting off fireworks since two o'clock this afternoon, Southerners Do It Better.™

I just don't generally identify myself as American, although I was born here and have never been raised anywhere else. A girl, a teenager, a student, an aspiring writer, a reader, a fangirl, all of these tend to come before American.

I don't know if it made me feel more patriotic. But it was something interesting to consider.
Happy Fourth of July, self. And everyone else, because even if your country didn't become independent from Britain today, we can all celebrate because we're not dead yet.

*Slight exaggeration DID NOT OCCUR. The author is a pillar of gorgeousness and doesn't have any self-esteem issues that she feels she can fix by writing nicely about herself on the Internet. Nope. Nope. Not at all. No way. No.
**The author may actually be is a complete narcissistic fool.

To Be Fairly Honest,

Pottermore was a bit of a letdown.
Like, what is it? I watched the video of Jo talking four times and I don't really know what it's supposed to be. I thought it would be the encyclopedia, but now...I'm...not so sure.
After reading the crazy frenzy of live blogging on Questa's blog, where she waited at her computer screen for Pottermore to open, I feel a little guilty.
I stayed up until four and then I fell asleep. I only got online now.
But now I see that it wasn't even worth stressing myself over! If it's not opening until October, why would you announce it now when you're not even done yet?
Humph.
I love Harry Potter, but how can I love this when I don't even know what is going on?

Gooey Funk

Recently, I've been in a funk.
The kind of funk where you are just angry at everything, and feel completely purposeless, and want to finish everything but simply don't have that kind of motivation, and all you want to do is lie face-down on the floor, not moving, and wonder why you even exist at all.
I am a lazy person in an astounding number of ways, but I am rarely lethargic, and I hate being this way. It's frustrating.
Most people (the kind of people who still say 'funk') would describe this kind of a mood as a blue funk, but I think my funk is more a squishy, lurid purple kind of funk that is horrible to be trapped in, and a sad sight for those who aren't in any sort of funk at all.
(Funk is starting to be a semantic satiation in this post, isn't it? No. Wait. Don't answer. Yes, it is.) (You're so endearingly charming, FRAS! Talking to yourself like someone cares!) (*blushes in the most endearingly charming way possible* Oh, stop it!)
It's times like this where I forget to do stuff that I love, like bake food or talk to my friends or work on my stories or read books that I've read fifty thousand times. I just end up focusing on how much my life sucks and looking up sucky bands on purpose (which is a deviation from my normally much more impressive pursuit of good music) and abandoning books in the middle because I hate everything and watching (I'm not even kidding) five hours of Glee in a row because I want to indulge in an activity where my legs and mind don't move.
Skip the parenthetical sentences if you'd like to see me reach the point! *attempts dashing grin that just comes off as creepy*
(I had a Season One box set because I decided to start watching the show finally after two years. The plot line has a lot of holes and it's a little stereotypical and, quite frankly, the show doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes, but it's a good show to watch when you are doing an excellent impersonation of someone in a screen-induced coma. Also, they can sing. Sometimes, I wish they would leave certain songs alone [I don't care if you're Vocal Adrenaline, you do not TOUCH Bohemian Rhapsody], but they all have stunning voices, and Quinn's and Rachel's make me especially jealous.)
(I'm so sorry for all of you who don't watch Glee. Here. I hope this makes you forgive me. It is soap that looks like food.)
It's so easy to fall into this kind of anti-creative funk. Unbelievably easy to just give up, especially when it's summer vacation and you live in the kind of town where I live. And I think that hoisting yourself out of a funk is completely dependent on you, and how you work. In my case, I just need to stop doing all of the things that are detracting from my creativity and focus purely on one thing before I can even begin to work on anything else.
But sometimes that is so, so hard to remember, and even harder to attempt.
In even more FRAS-related news, I am going on vacation! So, posts will be infrequent/nonexistent until July 4. I only say this because I've been better about posting lately, and this hiatus is NOT me slipping into my ways of yore, just me being in Orlando. At the Harry Potter theme park. Yeah.
Also, since I probably won't be blogging on the day, a happy early birthday to my cousin Questa, whose birthday is on Friday!
And also a happy birthday to Sonic the Hedgehog, who is twenty whole years old today! I never played your games, Sonic, and I probably wouldn't even know it was your birthday if it wasn't for Alex Day putting up a video about it.

Summer Supremes

It is June 18th now, I've been out of school for a whole week (summer goes faster than you think it will) and I am fulfilling my vision of what I thought my summer would be like: sitting in pajamas  in front of the computer, eating cereal, writing, and making plans to do stuff (unlike last summer, I plan to actually leave the house once in a while this year).
This is definitely not my favorite part of summer, but, you know, it's familiar. And summery, I suppose, because what other time of year do I really get to do this?
So, I am making a list of my favorite things-summery things. Think of it like the song, only there is a definite absence of schnitzel with noodles.

• Going to bed late, and not having to wake up early. (That's groovy, because I reap the benefits with none of the consequences, unlike during the school year, when I can stay up as late as I want but end up having to get up at six-thirty anyway.)
• Being able to walk everywhere, because it's WARM
• The feeling of air conditioning on skin after coming in from outside
• Warm concrete
• Swimming
• The smell of sunscreen
• Freshly mowed lawns
• Ice pops
• White sundresses
• Getting my hair cut shorter for the summer
• Music releases (they all seem to happen in the summer, I think, or am I crazy?)
• Rereading Harry Potter, like I do every year
• (This summer, anyway) The last Harry Potter film
• Eating unreasonable things for lunch (like cereal...) because no one is around to tell me otherwise
• Spending time with one of my friends before she ships herself off to boarding school next year
• Lemonade
• Lemon-scented items
• Lying down in the grass and looking up at the sky
• Recycling all of last year's school papers (Except Trig. Trig goes in the blooming shredder. And is then set on fire. And then I dance around the ashes, making up a chant and then singing it backwards.) (Not really. But God, I hate Trig.)
• So. Much. Time. To. Do. Things.
• Not seeing those annoying classmates of mine whom I would prefer not to see
• Reading those books and seeing those movies you promised you'd watch over the summer (I've already read The Great Gatsby [before John put it as the Nerdfighter Blurbing Book Club Book! How's that for psychic ability?] and seen Cool Hand Luke.)
• Baking food. Like brownies or bread.
• The smell of talcum powder
• Water gun fights
• Making lists on this increasingly pointless blog I keep

Also, I am going on vacation soon! To Orlando! (Actually, basically to the South of the U.S., but ORLANDO is my main focus. Unbridled commercialism, here I come!)

Quote for Saturday, June 18, 2011:

It is foolish to tear one's hair in in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

-Cicero

Muse for Today:

I don't know if you know about this already, but oh my God, this is whipping me into a frenzy. If you don't like Harry Potter, you are free to skip this link. WHAT IS JO PLANNING? But it is so groovy--SOMETHING IS HAPPENING.

http://www.pottermore.com

Click on one of the owls.

Why Don't I Finish Anything?

While I was watching this video from nerimon, I was reminded of Brain Crack.
What?
Yes.
Brain Crack is an idea that these guys stole from this other guy, but it wasn't really thievery, they just talked about zefrank's idea, so it's just like citing your sources, and I hate this sentence because it's a nightmare, and basically the whole idea is (as Alex explained in the video...unless you just scrolled by it without a legitimate reason to skip it, in which case I despise but completely relate to you) is when you get an idea, and your brain cannot immediately work on it, and you keep working away at it in your head, thinking about it, and perfecting it to the point that you are never, ever going to finish it. Or start it. And your brain becomes addicted to thinking about the possible conception of this idea, like a drug.
Oh.
So there's a name for it.
Because I have these ideas all the time, which it is one of the things I loathe about myself. I have never finished anything that I like, but I have all of these good ideas that I never even start.
Sometimes, it's because:

• I am distracted in World Studies/Math/English, and I think of some idea obviously  sent from Heaven itself (yeah, that's right), and then I can't do anything about it, because I am in school. I can never start just randomly doing something in class, because I am sure to get caught or miss something that might be on the final.

Other times, it is because:

• I'm outrageously lazy and don't like doing stuff.

Which is bad, bad, bad and really has no excuse except that everyone's doing it Mom my God just leave me alone so I can listen to the sound of my teenage angst alone in my room.

Is there some sort of cure for Brain Crack? Do you have any Brain Crack ideas?

Pretty much every single story I've ever attempted to write is Brain Crack, which goes like this:

"I really like that idea about the ninja princess unicorns who, like, team up with Medusa and, like, go mess up Atlantis. That's a pretty cool idea that, like, everyone will love! People, like, love Atlantis! I am so full of ambition and drive! LET'S DO THIS!"

Two days later:

"I'm kind of bored. What should I do? Maybe write that ninja princess unicorn story that I wanted to write a few days ago? I said I would start that, but then I did something unimportant...maybe I should do that?"

*goes on Internet instead*

Three weeks later:

"Princess...ninja...unicorns? WHY DO I BOTHER THINKING AT ALL? I HATE EVERYTHING."

Three weeks and one day later:

"So I had this totally cool idea, right? There are, like, sea turtles, and they're, like, waiters for this diva of a rooster..."

Quote for Wednesday, June 15, 2011:

Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.

-John Dryden

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dryden#Absalom_and_Achitophel_.281681.29)

Muse for Today:

I am sick of the Internet, and I think I am alone in this opinion.

A Desperately Scattered Post

Generic Friend: Heyy

Me: Hi.

Generic Friend: What's up?!?

Seriously? I might kill you.

I don't like people who do that. If you are bored, don't spread your ennui my way. I am happy here. On the internet. Or, you know, not on the Internet. Um, yeah. That happens, um, often. All the time. *coughs, refuses to make eye contact, pulls at collar of t-shirt*

As much as I like hearing from my friends, them being bored is not really something that stimulates my interest. Become less boring, and then talk to me.

Oh. I'm a jerk. Don't look at me. DON'T LOOK AT MY TEARS

Exams are over, but I still have to get my results, and I am maybe 89.4% sure I failed math and physics, but I am not worried about anything else. Because I am totallyfreakingwonderful at everything else, right? *begins to cry anew*

Also, I finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter. The ending traumatized me because Jeff Lindsay is a brilliant, annoying sadist who likes toying with the vulnerable feelings of his readers. But I quite like the book, and I would read the second one. Dexter's an interesting guy.

Things what I did today:

• Woke up
• Took an English final
• The bell rang in a disappointingly un-High School Musical way
• But we were let out of school forever! (Until next fall)
• Walked to a restaurant to have breakfast with three of my friends
• Ate breakfast
• It was really good (banana-nut French toast)
• Wandered around my town
• Realized that if you are a group of nerdy teenagers there is nothing to do in my town
• Walked to a craft store
• Bought black half-masks
• Wore them on the street
• I'm fairly sure people in their cars thought we were crazy
• I know at least one of them stared
• Went to my house
• Watched Phineas and Ferb
• Hmm
• Anyway
• Got a shot
• It didn't really hurt that badly
• But I would say that anyway, because I want the Internet to believe that I'm not a sniveling little coward
• Ate pasta
• Gods above, I did a lot of eating today
• And putting it on this list just makes me look like a bigger pig
• Ah well
• I do like eating
• I am watching Tron: Legacy
• And it is well-made and quite technically proficient
• (HONESTLY, GUYS--THEY'RE WEARING LIGHT)
• But Disney needs to stop using the name 'Flynn'
• Tangled and Tron: Legacy had close release dates, and they had 'Flynn Rider' and 'Sam Flynn' respectively
• The next film they release will have a guy named 'Flynn Flynn'
• I wouldn't be surprised
• I am done
• I have to finish watching this film

Quote for Friday, June 10, 2011:

I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.

-Isabella Heathcliff

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights#Wuthering_Heights_.281847.29)

Muse for Today:

Sometimes, being with people you like very much is exhaustive, because you actually care about their opinions. I tend to be more honest with people I barely know than people whom I actually trust. Why is this?

Gods Above

It's finals week.

I hate finals.

But it's my last week of school before summer vacation. (tries to work self up to excitement and fails, because finals suck too much)

I feel kind of guilty about even writing anything, because it is tangible proof that I am not trying to study, but there you have it. I am not going to study until the night before.

Anyway. This link is really cool.

I knew some of them, though. Like

• aglet (thank you, Phineas and Ferb)
• arms akimbo (thank you, Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place. Even though you never taught me how to spell 'Schuyler', you managed to teach me something)
• petrichor (thank you, Doctor Who)
• Brannock device (thank you, shoe shopping)
• ferrule (thank you, school)

Tum ti tum ti tum.

Yuck.

If anyone ever offers you Trigonometry, just say no. It's okay to say no to Trig, kids.

I'm not making coherent sense. You know why? Because of Trig, and because of this project that my group and I left until the last minute in Spanish. Even though it was entirely our fault, I will blame it on my Spanish teacher, because that makes me feel better about my stupidity.

That's all. I'm going to go pretend to study. I'm sorry about my uninteresting post. Also, B (my cousin) went back to school today. Sucks to be B, but good luck to her anyway.

*fades away into nothing using bad special effect*

Days until finals start: 1 day, depending on how you look at it.

Days until finals end: 4 days.

Finals I feel like I have to study for: 3.

Mixed Feelings

I have news to share with those of you who know that I hate my Spanish teacher.

That ought to be everybody, since I never shut my mouth (or my... keyboard?) about how much I hate my Spanish teacher (a lot).

WELL.

In Spanish class, there was a project, which is still ongoing, but part of it was due Wednesday. For part of the project, we separated into groups and these groups were our 'family' when we were moving to a Spanish-speaking country. We each had a part to play in the family. (I was the ten-year-old girl!) And we had to write a thirty-entry diary from the character while they adjusted to life in their Spanish-speaking country. (We lived in Chile.)

I hated this project, not just because it was assigned by my Spanish teacher, whom I hate, but because it was simply annoying and time-consuming, and I had other things I wanted to do but couldn't, because of this wacko Spanish project assigned by my wacko Spanish teacher.

Using my logic (a logic which I find no one else uses or should use) I didn't end up finishing the project until the night before it was due, even though my Spanish teacher had given us two months to do it.

She handed back the diaries on Friday, and mine had quite a few disheartening blue marks all over it (on every single sentence I wrote except for ONE), but so did everyone. But ugh, I'm not supposed to get as many mistakes as everyone! *flips hair*

Anyway. *arranges hair back into normalcy*

SHE told the entire Spanish class (both of them) that she thought my writing was good. That I had the funniest diary she's ever read as a teacher and that she hopes I like writing in English, because 'there is definitely a writer in there' and that if I pursue it, I could go far.

I simply don't know what to think. Do I:

take the compliment because she is has read more books in her life and likes my writing and thinks I could get somewhere with it? Also, because I like compliments?

or do I

denounce the compliment because I hate her and everything she does and feel like my writing must be awful if she likes it? And I feel like my writing is crap anyway? And because bitterness is my thing?

Quote for Saturday, June 4, 2011:

"I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money."

-Pablo Picasso

(http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i-d_like_to_live_as_a_poor_man_with_lots_of_money/217843.html)

Muse for Today:

Why do people use so much more than they need? What makes us feel like we can do that?

Days until finals start: 6, including today.

A Happy Pig and Stupid Pigs

(I love this pig.) (Also, I do not own this picture of this pig. All credit goes here.)
It is 2011, a year which is almost halfway done. Wow. Time goes slowly while you're living it, but when you look back, it seems like gobs and gobs of time are slipping away.

"It reminds me that I'm closer to death!"

Ah, yes. Thank you, Cheerful Callie of Ironica, for your wise words of...cheer. Heh.

"You're welcome!"

Ah, ha! I hate you! But thanks!

So, in our seminar today, we are going to talk about something blah yeah bleh ugh.

I have nothing to say, but I wanted to put a post up anyway because I don't want to get out of practice and have to launch myself in with a BEDA-style challenge.

Again.

I have finals soon, but they start on Wednesday. I'll study. Tuesday night.

And maybe after school ends and I stop "learning" from my Spanish teacher every day for an hour (an hour where she figuratively sticks a bottle opener covered in acid into my brain and randomly pokes around in there but literally makes us write dialogue after unnecessary dialogue for want of anything better to do) my writing will not suck so much.

Or maybe it will. Who knows. I hate my Spanish teacher. What a cow. What a pig. (No offense, Smiling Pig Above.)

I also hate stupid females and males in my World Studies class. (I mean, come on. I'm not that smart, but even I know that Islam is not a country. Or a language. OR a city. I'm surprised you can even read, much less be in an honors class. And do you know how I know what Islam is? Because I actually do the bloody reading! EXTRAORDINARY!)

I'm sorry about this post. But enjoy the pig. And look at the Muse, so you can have the pleasure of reading something that is not me. Unfortunately, I am an unfaithful Blogger user, and they are all from Tumblr.

Quote for Thursday, June 2, 2011:

Never trust a pig selling pork sandwiches.

-Tom Robbins

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pig)

Muse for Today:

MR. BEAN! PAPER HAT! *swoons and dies*: http://nerdboyfriend.com/2010/04/rowan-atkinson/
One of the funniest Tumblrs ever: http://nickclegglookingsad.tumblr.com/
Something Harry Potter related and funny because of Ron's face: http://lexcanroar.tumblr.com/post/6108987401

INTP

This guy is called frezned. Well, actually, he's called Tom McLean, but on the Internet he's frezned. Why? I don't know. Before I started watching his videos I thought his name was Ned. It's not. He could have at least called himself freztom or something. He's just confusing everyone.

Anyway.

He is Australian, and you don't really have to watch the video to understand this post but you should watch the video anyway because frezned is HILARIOUS. Almost as hilarious as me.***

Anyway, the test he is talking about is here. There you go, just click on the word 'here'. Nicely done. You've grown up so much. I'm so proud of your clicking abilities. (Psst! I'm really not.)

As you can tell from the title, I am an INTP, which means "Introverted (I)Ntuitive Thinking Perceiving" and sorry, but I am probably not going to talk about your type (unless you are also an INTP). Because this is my blog, okay?

The description page for an INTP describes me in a very uncomfortable way. I guess it's what I would be were I being honest with myself. Except it says I'm 'familiar with the dark side' and I'm not quite sure what that means. I'm Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader? Or I am prone to doing things that are wrong? I am in touch with the bad things in life? I am slightly self-destructive and can relate to why people do bad things? Hmm...

Nope. I'm pretty sure it means I'm Anakin Skywalker. That would make sense. Yeah.

Some things it says that are sadly true about me: I don't like happy people, I don't think I am weird but others do (I mean, I know I'm weird. It's just that I am even weirder than I think I am. Apparently. Talking to other humans lets me know this is true), not punctual and frequently loses things (*sighs, shakes head sadly*).

Anyway, quite a bit of this is true about me. So I looked up what the polar opposite of an Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving is, and it is an Extroverted Sensing Feeling Judging. And that one makes me sad. Almost nothing on that personality box is true for me.

And the moral of this story is: Um, all I really wanted to do was watch old frezned videos, but instead I wrote a post. So when you want to do something fun, instead do something fun that involves more work than the first fun thing. Yeah. Wait, that's a rubbish moral. Maybe I should stop now.

***Far, far, far more hilarious than me. Also more Australian than me, which makes him better than me in every way. EVERY. WAY. He also makes quantum physics jokes that I don't understand and does fancy computer stuff for fun. This makes him so much better than me that after I finish this post I will cease to exist.

Quote for Monday, May 30, 2011:

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

-Francis Bacon

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon)

Muse for Today:

This thing. I suppose it's really the opposite of a Muse, because instead of making me think or making me curious, it is WIPING ALL THOUGHT FROM MY HEAD. I keep listening to the Supa Dance Mix over and over and over and over and over and over and over ad infinitum.

LOOK, QUESTA. LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE. YOU'VE CREATED A MONSTER.

Heavy Heaviness is Heavy

I should really just make "Things I Don't Like" a thing (is it already a thing? What constitutes something being a thing?) because the main reasons that I got on Blogger were because of TWO things I don't like:

1. School
2. Adults--specifically, adults who talk about you when YOU'RE RIGHT BLOODY THERE. Thank you, Mother, but I have a rudimentary enough understanding of Hindi to know that you're talking about me. Honestly. Exactly how stupid am I supposed to be?

I have heavy things on my mind, not in the literal sense (heh) but yesterday was weird and dense enough, and now that I seem to be out of my rut of bad blogging (although, depending on your opinion, I might have always been a bad blogger and my rut might just be permanent), let's talk about lighter things.

Like the future.

Because that's not heavy at all.

When you're me, that is pretty heavy (why have I used the word 'heavy' so many times? Am I from the eighties? What is going on?), especially when you've no blooming idea what you want to be. See, I have a vague idea, but the...practicality...is not entirely there. I don't much want to think about what I'm going to be, because I am trying to get through my life now, and that seems hard enough. Sometimes now is enough to deal with.

But things that are not so heavy (since I am going with that word now) or actually may be heavy but pique my interest:

• People who make drawings for me, especially when they surpass what little skill I possess
• People who defy my expectations
• The Dexter Morgan Series. I looked on Wikipedia, and the last book in the series (Dexter is Delicious) has influences of cannibalism. CANNIBALISM? Dear Jeff Lindsay, Dexter's ALREADY a supernatural crazy serial killer! HOW MUCH FURTHER DO YOU NEED TO GO? Even though I am now scared to proceed any further with this series, and I am myself a vegetarian, I am wondering how an author even begins to work something as tabooed and unconventional as cannibalism into a book. *shudders* Looks like I'll continue these. *gingerly picks up Darkly Dreaming Dexter*
• That 'How Stuff Works' has a page on sarcasm, and it's not sarcastic. It's genuine, and pretty interesting.
• All-American Rejects. It's funny how I can listen to 'Move Along' after four years of running to it and still like the song. Also, in the Performance Version of 'Gives You Hell' (I like it better than the Narrative Version), Tyson looks crazy and/or drunk, and either he can't dance/he is Jack Sparrow/he was drunk. Hmm?
• S'mores. I'm having some over AN ACTUAL FIREPIT later tonight, and that will be the first time I've ever done that!
• Charlie McDonnell. Still amazing. I've been watching his vlogs for almost a year!
• David Tennant, because he is still the best Doctor in the entire world, even though some people *coughs at someone who is not reading this* think Matt Smith is better.

Quote for Saturday, May 28, 2011:

"Good evening. Tonight on 'Is There' we examine the question, 'Is there a life after death?' And here to discuss it are three dead people."

-(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Flying_Circus#E._Henry_

Thripshaw.27s_Disease_.5B3.10.5D)

Muse for a Day:

"How about 'Hello, sweetie!'? You should put that as your quote."

"No, that's dumb. I hate River Song, and I hate everything she says, and I hate that quote. And not everyone will understand it, anyway."

"But it's good! Please!"

"Shut up. You get your own blog, and then you can have a Quote of the Day, and you can put that rubbish quote. And even then, you would have gotten the idea from me."

"I'll get a blog. But I won't have a Quote of the Day! I'll have a Quote of the Week! I might even have a Quote...of All Quotes!"

*long pause*

"What are you even saying? Idiot."

"Even then, Marshmallow People will still come first."

"Idiot."

Far from Perfect

I don't think you realize how many drafts I've gone through since Wednesday, trying to get a post up. I mean, this time last month I had twenty-seven blooming posts and now I'm struggling to produce five. There's even a chance that this will end up deleted like the others, because I am simply being rubbish at writing. If you're reading this, erm, hi. Obviously I didn't fail this time.

I work a volunteer job sometimes, and I came back from it an hour ago. It was busy in sporadic bursts, so there was a bit of downtime where I was splitting my time between reading a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter (it's not a bad book, really. A few years ago I tried writing a character named Vinnialia. Remember her? Maybe not?) and in some ways, Dexter is what I might have dreamed of Vinnialia to be if I had started her now. I think he's amazing. He's so angry, but a twisty-good person. and reading Hayley G. Hoover's blog.

This next bit connects to the rest, I promise, so bear with me.

I've been feeling pressured lately, like I'm not good enough at anything I try, and if I'm not the best, then what is the bloody point in trying? Like there is really no point to me as a person, because I am going nowhere anyway. And that people are going to leave, and I hope that some of them leave nothing but tissue-paper memories that I can promptly set on fire and then dance around, and I hope that some of them take me with them when they leave, and I wish some didn't ever have to leave at all. I miss so many people, and it's not my last chance for the ones I worry about, but it might be. It always might be. Because people will change, and then what do I do?

These kinds of thoughts set my head into a fizz, and I feel like a soda can is all shaken up in my head and ready to explode, spraying orange bubbles all over everything I think. Imperfection. I strive for perfection, but I never do anything perfectly. Humans can't do anything right. And slowly, lately, I've been finding it hard to appreciate anything. I listen for the high note that cracks instead of the rest of the song, I look for the one horrid feature someone's got no matter how pretty he/she is, and I am finding firsthand the simple truth that I learned years ago:

Heroes die hard, because heroes are human. Heroes do idiot things sometimes. They let you down, they act unlike the hero you've come to imagine in your head--because the hero in your head is not the same as the hero out here. People screw up, I've always known that. I've even perpetuated that notion. But it seems like the ugliness of the situation takes over everything, and I forget that there's anything pretty at all. I forget that I have turned a human into an idea, into something that I want instead of something that is. Maybe I just need an idea. A perfect idea, something gorgeous.

That looks like my customary brand of something. I'll publish this one, hmm?

Too Lazy to Put A Title. There.

I have three posts in drafts but I really just wanted to take this video from YouTube and put it here instead of putting anything that I wrote myself.

Why? Because I'm bloody original, that's why. Oh, YEAH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6wo2wpT2k&feature=player_detailpage#t=140s

I first saw this movie in the fifth grade, and this is one of my favorite songs in West Side Story.

(Sorry, but the Jets win favorite song with this. I mean:

"Gee, Officer Krupke- krup you!"

and their rushing around and stupid voices are completely but appealingly insane.

"Hey, I got a social disease!"

Even a ten year old can appreciate that.)

I love it mostly because of Anita's singing. "You forget I'm in America!" and the way her voice deepens on "Everyone there will have moved here!"

Also, it is a fun song, but the material of it isn't entirely just fun.

Gods, I love old musicals. The acting is cheesy, but the music is usually better.

A Post by Itself

***I was going to put this little RageRant in my last post while I was editing it a bit, but then I realized that I would be interrupting the flow of the post even more than I usually do, by talking about hating school, then ranting about the administration, what a perfect example of inertia/stereotypically fat Americanism I am when I'm tired, Movie Thoughts, and weird weirdness. So I stuck my administrative rant here because I really wanted to put this on this bloggery blog that I attempt to maintain. If you like me, think of this as a bonus of me! If you don't like me, get out! We don't like you anyway. Right, guys? Guys?

Did you know my school lacks any sort of central cooling? This school. Is so freaking hot. ALL THE TIME BECAUSE THEY CANNOT FIND IT IN THEIR ADMINISTRATIVE HEARTS TO FIX THE SYSTEM. Yeah. They were going to fix it, but they spent the money on new turf for the soccer and football [that's American football, chaps] fields instead.

Why this is stupid: TURF affects people who play soccer and football. AND NO ONE ELSE. Absolutely no one else gives a damn about the turf except for people who play on it, and maybe the coaches. And that is about three teams (boys'/girls' soccer, boys' football), so maybe sixty, seventy people out of a thousand schoolgoers care about the turf.

While a central cooling system affects EVERYONE in the school. All melty, crabby, boiling one-thousand of us, including the sports teams. THEY also think it's too hot in the school, and I know some of them would be perfectly happy to be temperately comfortable during the school day at the sake of some new turf...next year.

This was a stupid decision.

As you can tell, I don't play sports. No. I am clumsy and vaguely uncoordinated, and I can hold my own in tennis, but in basically everything else, I am a mess. I'm not a Bella Swan, who can't even get out of her truck in the morning without almost being hit by a car, but let's suffice it to say I'm not athletic.

But I sing. I'm in the choir, and I love to sing, and I would do anything to keep singing and improving my voice enough to do more challenging music. I will do anything to keep at this, and these kinds of episodes with the turf tick me off.

Schools are cutting funding to the arts everywhere. Last year, when I was at a different school, our band/choir program was reduced to almost nothing. It very nearly got cut out completely, and it took major battling, pleading, compromising to keep it. This year, half the Drama Club couldn't go downstate to see a guy from our own school perform AT STATE (this is a bit of a big deal) on opening night.

Okay, granted, it was the week before finals, but the other school in our district (we synchronize almost everything with this school), that has finals at the same time was going- and they didn't even have a person performing! And if the football team made it to state the week before finals, would you let them go?

I am not dissing sports. I have tried out for sports teams (and not made them because of how awkwardly uncoordinated I am- SHAME) and I see how hard my more-athletic friends practice, how much time they give, how much they care. But why, why, why are athletics more important than the arts? What is so hard to understand about why people sing, play an instrument, act? What about people like me? I can't bloody well turn to volleyball if they cut music funding! This is what I have-singing. Why do some people feel like it is better to make us all fear dying of heatstroke in math class, or depriving us of something creative, than letting the sports team run on not-new turf for a year?

Another note: This is not strictly pertaining to my school. My school isn't bad about the music thing- we had new choir robes this year! But it does happen in places where I am not, and it's not good.

But the turf and the air conditioning.... that is strictly pertaining to my school. And I still don't agree with it. Rubbish.

Things I Do When I'm Tired

So yesterday, which was Friday (the 13th! AAAAAH) I was exhausted. This year has reminded me exactly how much I hate school. Also, it was just too bloody hot outside this whole week. It was my birthday on Wednesday! It was nice. But I would rather I hadn't gone to school at all this whole week, because I hate people and my school and being in school when it's hot.

I like that school is preparing me for later life, but apart from my World Studies class, I feel like I learn more from random Google searches about topics I'm actually interested in. I hate Trig, I learn nothing, basically at this point I am simply trying to keep out of summer school. Why do I have to learn something that is both useless for any sort of practical use and involves a lot of work that I am unwilling to undertake? WHAT IS THE POINT? Sometimes I just can't take it. I am so tired of 'learning' stuff I don't want to learn. AAARGH.

So I was tired. Clearly. And what did I do when I was tired? I ate an entire bag of pretzels and watched two and a quarter movies in a row. I saw Nowhere Boy and Flipped and part of The King's Speech, but despite my love for Helena Bonham Carter, by that time I started that film the time was almost midnight and I was part-zombie.

Nowhere Boy, if you don't know, is a film about John Lennon and the most important women of his childhood- his Aunt Mimi and his mother Julia. I was watching it partially for Thomas Brodie Sangster, who plays Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster and Paul McCartney in one? Excellence) and because I like the Beatles.

I forgot, though, that this isn't a movie about the Beatles- it's about John. So the film cut off right before they left for Hamburg, when they really started becoming a bigger sensation, and I didn't get all the music I so unwisely anticipated. I'm glad they didn't put anything after Hamburg in there, though. It would have lost the focus of the film. What made me quite like this movie was the mannerisms of the actors. John's evil, shaming sarcasm, the defiant way he holds his mouth, and the way Paul looks up through his eyelashes while he played guitar all reminded me of the old footage of the actual Beatles. They actors didn't really look a lot like them- they were like them.

Flipped was a lovely book. I liked that book a whole lot, and what was nice about the movie is that they took some of the diologue straight from the book. And they did the film in voiceover, telling the same story from both Bryce and Juli's perspectives. All they left out was a bit of character development, but the characters didn't look like I pictured them. I felt it was a good move to place the movie in the sixties, though. That sweet story might not have survived in the era of texting and Facebook. But it was worthwhile.

I haven't yet finished The King's Speech, but I reached the part where he swears dozens of the time, and I just thought it was funny. He's a prince, and he's trying so hard to keep his dignity with this commoner, and he just goes off. It's fairly hilarious.

Also, weird weirdness is weird: Just last week, one of my oldest friends (meaning I've known her for a long time. She's only a month older than me, so not agewise oldest) was reading Gone with the Wind. And then she asked me about Catcher in the Rye. I wrote about both of those in the space of a month. Coincidence? I don't even tell anyone I keep a blog.

Quote for Saturday, May 14, 2011:

Is nowhere full of geniuses, sir? Because then I probably do belong there.

-Nowhere Boy (2010)

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1266029/quotes)

Muse for Today:

I didn't always hate school.

This is grea- no! It makes no sense!

I am ashamed to admit it, but I really like clothes. I like books and music plenty, but shopping for clothes gives you an immediate magic.

"The reason consumerism is alive and well in America is because of people like you, FRAS."

-Everyone who has ever heard me talk about buying things

It's an instant kind of judgement that isn't quite imitable, shopping for clothes. Shopping for books is calm, organized, systematic. Shopping for music is a drawn-out process where I end up buying nothing because I cannot commit to anything. Shopping for food is one where I just feel tempted to toss some pudding and fifteen packets of gum into the cart and call it a week. (I wonder why I don't do the shopping at my house...) Shopping for shoes is basically a wimpy battle: 1) I want these shoes. 2) Walk out of the store buying shoes that are infinitely cheaper but ultimately worse than the shoes I wanted. Shopping for clothes is the calmest frenzy. It's an organized tornado of efficient but looping shoppery.

Did you know that this was the very first music video ever shown on MTV when it launched back on August 1 of 1981?

• Look how far music videos have come in 20 years, as far as technology is concerned! (I mean, plastic tube? Odd bodysuit woman? Shaky camera work? [I'm not really sure if the shaky camera work was intentional or not, actually.]) Look at how MTV has destroyed itself by not playing music anymore and instead inflating the egos of tanned morons who don't have talent but want to be famous anyway? Ha! I am so full of whimsy!
• I find it funny that a song called Video Killed the Radio Star was the first music video on a channel about music videos. Killing the radio star, one music video at a time. And MTV had to rub it in everyone's faces. Good job, MTV. You used to have a sense of irony.
• Also, I enjoy the "Oh-wha-oh-wa" women in the background. I always pretend to be them.
• It strikes me that this song actually makes no sense on its own, and the video clears up nothing.
• Why did you meet the children? What were you doing in an abandoned studio with the Radio Star? How in the name of alfalfa do you even know this Radio Star? It's not like you ran into her shopping for bread. Even if you did, you wouldn't recognize the Radio Star. The Radio Star didn't go on video. And you were the first/last WHAT? Dear Buggles, what are you trying to tell me?
• And in the video, I assumed the blond kid was you. I assumed the Radio Star was the woman in a bodysuit. So why did the blond kid morph into the Radio Star?
• Heh. Turns out I hate this song.

Quote for Saturday, May 7, 2011:

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

-Oscar Wilde

(http://thinkexist.com/quotation/quotation_is_a_serviceable_substitute_for/180217.html)

And so it is.

Muse for a Day:

Songs that tell stories.

Not songs that are about a girl, or a goat, or a garbage truck (while I do love a good toe-tapping garbage truck song), but songs that go through a little plotline in a melodic way. Such as the album Tommy by The Who, which tells a whole dysfunctional story about a boy named Tommy who unwittingly makes himself deaf, dumb, and blind but becomes such a master at pinball that he manages to start his own cult. Freaky, but interesting. Or Catsongs by Tom Milsom, three songs all about a cat named Livia who dies and how the family deals with it. (Also, Catsongs is hilarious in its own right. Catsongs III, when Livia responds, makes me laugh even now.)

What BEDA Taught Me

Even though there were two days when I didn't post, I found that doing BEDA helped me. Usually, I'm pretty resistant to blogging. I feel like there's nothing to say, and I don't care, so why am I doing this for myself? And then I end up on a hiatus from November to March, when I never was much of a poster (meaning person who posts- I never was a poster on a wall, to my knowledge. I could be, somewhere, maybe. I could also be in the background of some person's picture. I could be in hundreds of pictures, and I would never know it. And they would never know me) in the first place.

Although it doesn't seem like it, BEDA got easier as April dawdled along. I grew to actually like posting stuff, and starting to think about what I should write about. It became a ritual. It actually became fun, and if I want to pursue some kind of a career in writing, I need to become better at it, and more dedicated to writing quality on a regular basis.

So BEDA is practice, and I'll try to write like I did during BEDA (minus the "God life is so boring this is stupid I hate everything it's hot outside ooh, ice cream" posts that cropped up all too frequently...) the rest of the year. And depending on what my life is like in a couple of months, I might even try BEDAugust.

But now we're onto May! School is drawing to a close, my birthday is coming up, and it's utterly gorgeous outside. Life has potential.

Quote for Sunday, May 1, 2011:

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

-Winston Churchill

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Churchill,_Winston)

Muse for Today:

Bow ties. And not just because there was Doctor Who last night.

Pitcher in the Wheat or Something

(Yes, I know what it's called.)

Last summer, I read this book-you might have heard of it?-called Catcher in the Rye. One of my best friends loved this book to pieces, and I'd heard about how it was one of those books 'you just have to read if you're an angry teenager like you are, FRAS!'. (I might have made up some of that sentence, maybe possibly. But it was implied.) So I did.

I think I hated it a lot the first time, even though I found myself relating to Holden Caulfield. I think I hated it because of the toenails. The one scene where they're clipping the toenails at the beginning of the book? Ugh. I hate it. It still gives me the disgusts.

How he just wanted someone to talk to, and he could count on exactly no one. His general angriness and the 'phonies' that make up this world- I'd thought about and hated it all, and some of his thoughts were mine.

Well, he could count on exactly no one- except for maybe his sister, Phoebe. I liked the sister. And the girl he won't talk to, even though he got so many chances, Jane Gallagher. I spent so much of my time after reading the novel wondering why didn't Holden just talk to her? He had opportunities, and she probably would have made him feel better. But I thought about it some more (I thought about this book the whole summer) and I came up with these reasons:

1. Maybe he didn't want to feel better. Maybe wallowing and hating everyone and everything was his style.

2. Maybe he didn't want to go back to those times when Jane was his friend. He was younger, and he was a different, more naive person. Pencey Prep changed him, and hardened him. Maybe talking to Jane would hurt too much, and he wouldn't be able to bear it. Maybe she was one of the few people who he genuinely liked, and he wanted to make sure that she kept the old image of him in her mind.

Granted, it's been a year since I read the book, and some parts are fuzzy, but I liked Holden Caulfield sometimes (because he was like me) and I hated him other times (because he was an unutterable jerk) (so, he was too much like me). But I think Holden is everyone- insecure, and just wanted to trust someone completely, and having to deal with the death of someone he loved (his literally), not have to deal with any fakes he didn't want to deal with. He just wanted to live. And despite everyone who hates him, I don't think that's bad.

I'm going to reread the book, knowing what I know now, and write more about it some other time.

Quote for Saturday, April 30, 2011:

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.

-Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye

(http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/quotes.html)

Muse for Today:

The best stories that J.D. Salinger ever wrote: Franny and Zooey, especially Zooey's, which makes more sense.

And BEDA is over, darlings! 3o posts and all!