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.

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.

Books, Barnes and Noble and Me

Hello. I know it's been a while.

In Which I Complain and Exhibit Several Reasons Why I Need Therapy

I am a very easily anxious person. I worry about everything, and recently my worrying has hit a fever pitch because I am starting at a brand new school, and I am disgustingly scared.

I am finding ridiculous things to worry about.

It's getting out of hand. Really out of hand.

Have you ever felt so worried you can't breathe? Is this not normal?

And here. The world has handed me something else to fret unreasonably about.

Barnes and Noble is going up for sale and possibly out of business. Read the article here. Or HERE. They're both the same, click on your favorite one.

I learned this during my latest trawling through Yahoo! and I was somewhat worried.

Like most bookworms who live in the U.S., I have frequented B&N many times, and while I have a nice indie bookstore quite close, Barnes and Noble is a lot better organized and I go there when I'm looking for something specific, like a book for school or something. (The independent bookstore is good for serendipity.)

The article said that physical copies of products, like books and CDs, are slowly dying out because people opt for the digital version instead.

I often buy digital CDs, because most of the music I like is from YouTube musicians, and I don't see the sense in paying extra for shipping when I can buy the digital copy.

But books!

I grew up with books as closer friends than almost anybody else I knew. I had a fair smattering of friends (Am I lying? You decide!) but they paled in comparison to Junie B. Jones; Anne Shirley; the Bailey School Kids (Howie, Eddie, Melody and Liza); and Charlie Bucket. (I was really trying not to put anything Harry Potter related in there, because it seems like everything I put on this here blog has at least one HP plug.)

The actual feeling of holding the book in your hand, really turning the pages, losing the book because you left it at the kitchen table- these are some things that even the iPad (in all its fairly deserved glory) cannot replicate.

It's sad that a whole generation of kids is not going to be able to experience that. Someday in the future, people will be keeping paper books in museums like we keep hieroglyphics, and parents will be pointing at them in their glass cases and saying to their children, "See, honey? People used to read off of those. They didn't download information directly into their brains like you do."

That day is looming larger.

I'm all for the Internet, and it's great that people can hold their entire library- their entire lives- in the palm of their hand, but books are just nice once in a while.

Show some love. Buy a book.

(dramatic ending)

And now I'm back to thinking about school and I'm panicking. AARGH. Why is summer so SHORT?

How Embarrassing.

I am clumsy and quiet, which translates that I embarrass myself a lot.

Which is somewhat counterproductive, because the whole bloody point of being quiet is to minimize all embarrassing moments. Does this work? No. Not if you go to my school, where everyone from four years down to four years up knows your name.

Usually, I have no excuse for the stupid things I do. They usually involve dancing, because I could not dance to save my life, although I have yet to find a situation in which I would need to dance in order to save my life. Can you imagine that?

Evil Villain: All right. I have captured you for some unfathomable reason, because you neither hold exceptional power, intelligence, beauty, or money.

Me: That sounds reasonable. And kind.

EV: Now that I have you and am waiting for a response to my ransom note, I will need you to do something.

*dramatic pause*

Else you shall DIE.

*dramatic pause*

I shall need you to dance.

Me: What?!

EV: Go on! The Worm? The Macarena? The fist pump? Anything! Your doom awaits!

THEN I would die. But nothing that desperate has happened to me yet. Still, it just so happens that most, if not all of my embarrassing moments occurred because of dancing, clothing, sneezing, exiting or entering rooms at inappropriate times, and one time, cornbread and Snapple. I don't even remember what happened, just that cornbread and Snapple were involved somehow and that it seemed quite scarring.

Not scarring enough if you've forgotten, says my mind.

Shut up, mind. I am trying to tell a story here, and your comments are not helping. You've already put me horribly off track. Look. I was talking about dancing and now I'm talking about cornbread. Shame on ye.

Ah yes. The embarrassing moments that I push myself into hardly count. I don't even remember those. The ones that other people do to me (which also mostly involve dancing) are the ones I remember best, like a time in the sixth grade that I have only ever told B about. That was scarring.

THIS one. Involves DANCING. It is making me so ANGRY and ANNOYED and SCARED that it is CAUSING me to CAPITALIZE important words.

I don't want to. BLEH.

I will let you know if I survive with my dignity intact. (Which I won't.)

Quote for Thursday, May 20, 2010:

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.

No one dances sober, unless he is insane.

-Cicero, Pro Murena (Ch. vi, sec. 13).

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dancing

)

Muse for Today:

The fact that school ends in FIVE DAYS and that my gym clothes smell like they were dipped in perfume concentrate because of the Girls' Locker Room, even though my socks smell bad.

And this, which is a t-shirt design that I wish I'd made:

Fear of...

I found this thing called 'The Phobia List.' I have always wanted one of these. I have wanted someone to just compile a dictionary of this, put it in book form, publish it for all the world to see. Have they? I wouldn't know.

The gorgeous, prayer-answering site has the weirdest, sometimes most redundant phobias ever.

Nudophobia- Fear of nudity

Chirophobia- Fear of hands

Cathisophobia- Fear of sitting

Euphobia- Fear of hearing good news

Bacteriophobia- Fear of bacteria

And the classics:

Phobophobia- Fear of phobias

Sesquipedalophobia- Fear of long words

I once saw a movie where a guy was afraid of EVERYTHING. How is that possible? How do you live if you're frightened of everything you meet? It must be awful.

THINGS I'M SCARED OF:

Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns

Didaskaleinophobia- Fear of going to school

Arithmophobia- Fear of numbers

Scopophobia or Scoptophobia- Fear of being seen or stared at

Phalacrophobia- Fear of becoming bald

SCARE OF THE DAY:

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words

I almost fainted. What's fear of fears that have names that are too long?

Quote for Saturday, September 26, 2009:

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

-Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

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

Muse for Today:

The Phobia List, of course! Fear, oddly enough, inspires me today. Like fear of my teachers if I don't finish my homework.

Facebook + Peer Pressure = Mess

i am typing today without capitalizing anything except names. i have envied people who can do this without going completely crazy.

i keep on pressing the shift button, and feel like i should be using abbreviations like 'w/o' and 'b/c' which is weird because I don't do that.

I GIVE UP.

My friends in general are Facebook-ing, Twitter-ing, AIM-ing, Photobucket-ing, texting, be-ing so generally tech savvy that it's darling and makes me want to throw up. A blog and an e-mail account are about as tech-y as I'm getting, O Waves of Peer Pressure! So go home, using your high-falootin' GPS! I'll be here, using PAPER and PENCIL! Or at least a keyboard that's a normal size! *blows raspberry*

Of course I'm not an advocate for the good old days, I'm as bad as anyone else. I have no idea how I'd live without a computer/iPod/phone. Even TV. How would I watch Ace of Cakes?

Enough of that. Book I'm reading right this moment- The Orpheus Obsession. It's quite good, the main character, Anooshka, thinks in a different way. The way this author writes, Dakota Lane, makes grit and dust and lime green sparkles seem like fairy dust. This one made-up place, called Constellation, seems like dark magic, the stars so close, just waiting there for you to see.

Well, my round up for today is done. I have karate and homework to do, so I will leave you.

Quotes for Tuesday, September 15, 2009:

The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.

-Homer

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

Muse for Today:

I've decided that a 'Muse' for me will sometimes be a real and actual Muse, and sometimes, like today, it will just be something else. What makes me think? Today it's The Orpheus Obsession, by Dakota Lane.

P.S. Today's the fiftieth post. I guess that's a landmark?

Skip This Post If You're In a Bad Mood

I have overcome my depressed state. Yes, school starts tomorrow, but there's nothing I can do about it. So.

I have always scorned watching pointless videos on YouTube even though I frequently have, but I no longer do, because as I say this as I have an interest in watching a video of someone from MuggleNet eat five Big Macs because of a 'thank you' for a fundraiser. It's disgusting, but interesting. 2500 calories altogether! I have never seen the end, and I hope he doesn't vomit. Yuck.

Jamie: Why are we doing this again?

Andrew: To thank all the people that donated.

Jamie: Well, I could have just written them a card...

My friends troll through YouTube and send me random videos, some of which are completely pointless, like Redheads Protest Wendy's and the song about where the chapstick is, and some which were nice, like The Duck Song.

What a pointless post. I have nothing to say, and my rambling often makes people angry. If I have nothing to say, then I should just not speak!

But that would make people angry too, so I just pick one depending on what day it is.

Quote for Tuesday, August 25, 2009:

Some artists claim praise is irrelevant in measuring the success of art, but I think it's quite relevant. Besides, it makes me feel great.

-Chris Van Allsburg

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

Mysterious Ways

One day you will look... back

And you'll see... where

You were held... how

By this love... while

You could stand there

You could move on this moment

Follow this feeling

That's from the U2 song Mysterious Ways. The song reminds me of certain curtains. The curtains are dark silky purple, with black velvet stars and moons all over. The mysterious curtains frame a picture window at night, sweeping the floor elegantly, gathering dust and making people sneeze. There is a group of four people sitting on the window ledge: one, a boy, dozing as he holds an open book in his hand; another, his sister, a skinny girl with dark hair, frowning and sulking with her back to the sea; their older sister, plucking nervously at a silver bracelet she's wearing, staring at the ocean as though it had taken something irreplaceable from her, long ago; and the last, the oldest brother, tall and serious, who is waking up the younger boy while keeping an eye on the shady shape lurking at the door.

The youngest boy, Quinn, wakes up and sees how the moon shines through the curtain, making it glow in the dark. Mother's favorite curtains. Do they really have to leave them behind? Now?

"Quinn, let's go!"

This scene is completely made up, of course, but the curtains, though lengthened, are not. I have them! Oh, gorgeous curtains! Lovely!

Quote for Friday, August 21, 2009:

Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.

-Louisa May Alcott

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

Lying

"Have you done your homework, Freedom? I know you have that math test today. You studied, didn't you?"
"Of course! What do you think I am, a liar? You don't need to check up on me all the time, you know!" I said as I frantically looked over the study guide for the first time, stuffing it hurriedly in my bag as my mother came up the stairs.
That happened once, in sixth grade. Naturally, I aced the test, but that's not the point, really. Kind of, but no. (An "A." 97%, people!) There was this study on the Yahoo! homepage, the recent news part, that people lie. A lot and unconsciously. And my mother-and maybe even my brother-will be perfectly happy to let you know that I am no exception.
I found this-the study, not my compulsive lying-very interesting. Especially the part that said humans are programmed to lie. That people lie three times in ten minutes while getting acquainted. What would the world be without lying, do you think? Better, or worse?
On the one hand, there couldn't be any lying, about anything. I suppose that's very good. No lying about anything shady or anything like that. But what if just telling the truth, that thing that is so revered, you could wipe out a whole species of animal? What if you lose a friend because of blunt honesty, you tell a secret that they trusted you with? What if you make a friend because of your honesty?
Enough 'what ifs.' (What if I finally shut up? Yeah, right.)
I guess lying is okay, in moderation. You will have no life whatsoever and will probably end up completely alone in life if you tell either lies or the truth all the time.
But I guess that was obvious. Unless you're a liar.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090819/hl_time/08599191721500

Quote for Wednesday, August 19, 2009:

Don’t lie, but don’t tell the whole truth.

-Baltasar Gracián, Maxim 181, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

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

Yuck. It's Seventh Grade.

I was reading the fabulous blog of Libba Bray, the author of A Great and Terrible Beauty, and the most recent post was of something that I hated.
http://libba-bray.livejournal.com/50319.html
YUCK! I hated seventh grade. Hated, hated, hated, with every fiber of my being. Sixth grade was just bad, but seventh grade was sixth grade with a dollop of stress added on top. And poison. And rat's tails. Not cool. It seemed like every single person was growing up exept for me. I don't want to grow up, of course, and I'm trying not to, but it's very depressing when people become bratty idiots who you cannot stand for more then three minutes.
And one commenter said something extremely lovely, not to go to school dances, that's the solution.
Why do they even have school dances? No one even dances. It's just an excuse to waste lots of time and money going and embarassing yourself. I went to two dances in sixth grade and I never will again. It was a scarring experience. And Libba's discription does not make me eager to go to anything else.

Quote for Sunday, August 16, 2009:

Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.

-Elbert Hubbard

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

Back from NYC, but mostly Penderwicks

I, Freedom R.A.S., am back from New York! It was, of course, completely brilliant, especially Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, and the Empire State Buliding. Chiron, from the Percy Jackson series was right, the Greek gods and goddesses are everywhere. Quite frankly, I am glad to be home. I really appreciate where I live now.

I have mentioned The Penderwicks, I believe? The series by Jeanne Birdsall is fantastic, and I finished reading the sequel, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, for about the twelfth time. I adore that book, even more than the first one, probably because the readers get a glimpse into the Penderwicks' home life. Jane and Skye, I think, get a better part in this book, and Batty becomes more of a person, to me. And Rosalind is not lovestruck. That's always a bonus.

But the thing about reading any of the Penderwick books is that in the slight euphoria I get after reading one, I start to believe that the books could happen. I know they can't. My cousin, J, even made up a genre for books that are simply too perfect to happen, but are written like they could. (The Casson family books, by Hilary McKay, also fall under this genre.)

But even the little things that go on in their lives, that could only happen not to me, oh, I am so jealous of! I want to recite a poem by Shakespeare that confuses everyone so they don't know it's about love! I want to spy on my red-headed neighbors through the forsynthia hedge! (Too bad we don't have red-headed neighbors or a forsynthia hedge.) I would love to live near a Quigley Woods-like place!

I guess I'll just have to make do. It's like I'm being openly taunted when I read these books, like: Ha ha! Nah nah nah nah boo boo! We can do all of this and you can't! But I suppose the whole magic of these books is because it's not happening to me. And B, J, and K are all perfectly anoying sometimes, but I suppose we're sort of Penderwick-ish when we're all in the same place. I have no idea what I would do with any more sibling-like relatives. Not to mention how crazy everyone else would go.

Quote for Thursday, August 13, 2009:

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

-Hamlet, from Hamlet, scene ii, by William Shakespeare

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

How to Kill an Artemis Fowl Character

SPOILER WARNING: If you are not through reading Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (and maybe some of the other books) skip this post.
I have just finished reading Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, and I am angry. Angry, angry, angry. The ending- well, not quite. The entire book had me feeling like I wanted to snap something in half, mainly whenever a certain character was mentioned/made an apperance. That character was Minerva Paradizo.
A few days ago, I was at my local bookstore. My mother said I could buy a book, so I was wandering around the Percy Jackson/Artemis Fowl display. (Gah! The Last Olympian was $15!) I had just finished Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, and was eager to get to the library to get The Lost Colony. I picked up the book to read the back, and when I got to the last sentence I put the book down as though it was on fire. The sentence was:

And she was only twelve years old...

I read an excerpt at the end of The Opal Deception, and Artemis was being pubescent and noticing girls all over the place, and my immediate reaction was to think: My goodness, this does not bode well. No, Artemis, no!
Guess what? As usual, I was right. Every time Minerva Paradizo spoke (mostly when she was mentioned by Artemis) I had to sit on my hands to avoid breaking something. A vase... a pencil... Minerva Paradizo's curly blonde head...
And at the end Butler said that she was pretty and sharp and could give Artemis a run for his money at chess....
NO. NO. NO.
And The Time Paradox is checked out of the library and I can't see if Minerva falls into a volcano to meet her fiery death! Is killed by Butler on Artemis's command! Is stabbed between the eyes with a paper clip! Better yet, I hope she doesn't show up at all. To some, she may be a decent character. I hate her.
[after several minutes of thought]

I suppose that's unfair. It's not her fault. Oh well. I can't control what happens, that's the good part.

Quote for Today, Wednesday, Because I Am Done With Makeup Quotes:

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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

Oh, U2!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to get more into music. I was very limited in my choice of music, and I knew it. And I think my music choices have certainly gotten broader and better.
Recently, I was reading The Artemis Fowl Files by Eoin Colfer, and Butler's interview said that U2's song I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For could have been written for Artemis. He (Artemis) is my favorite character, so naturally I went to YouTube and looked up 'u2 i still haven't found what i'm looking for'.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
How have I not heard them before? Of course, I've heard of them, but I didn't know anything about them, or their songs. I guess I didn't think they were much.
That is the exact kind of music I think I've always wanted to listen to, but I didn't think that anyone wrote that kind of music. I was amazed. Intelligently, I shall say again: Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBj2wsimvQ&feature=related

Songs in a Circle

I am sorry I've not been blogging for several days. I'll catch up on posts, hopefully. The only disadvantage is that there won't be any quotes for those days. Ah well. Maybe I'll do several quotes today.
I am one of those random people who always has a certain song or fifty-three million playing in my head all at the same time. Lately, it's been Harry and the Potters, and their song We Save Ron's Life, Part 8. Very amusing. He does save Ron a lot. (Look! Even my music is Harry Potter related!)
What I find horrible is when a song is awful, just horrid-ness put to music, and you can't get it out of your head! Or the lyrics are awful, or something, and it's like glue. Gah! Some of these songs come from my brother, of course, because our tastes are so different it's just irritating. (He enjoys game shows when people fall off of large objects and into vanilla pudding. He watches them religiously and will cry if he misses it. I don't. Enough said.)
Sometimes though, it's very useful to have some mindless music going on in your head all the time, because if someone is bullying you (say, making you walk across a large object under which there is a whole mess of vanilla pudding) or yelling at you (about having vanilla pudding on your new shirt), you can play some song, and nothing but the lyrics will register.
Of course, if you begin to sing the song out loud (yes, I've done that) you could get into trouble, but playing a song in a loop in your head is convenient and completely useful.

Quote for Some Day I Missed:

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

-Oscar Wilde

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

Neville

I am, if you have not guessed, an HP junkie. It's my life. K is watching Goblet of Fire for, I don't know, the nine millionth time. And I was thinking about Neville. Oh, poor, poor Neville Longbottom. The Boy-It-Could-Have-Been. But Neville Longbottom and the Philosopher's Stone isn't half so catchy, is it? And, like Harry was wondering in the sixth book, it would have changed everything. If Alice Longbottom hadn't died for her son, if Lily hadn't died for Harry, would it have deferred to the other? Or would Voldemort still be going strong?
There are so many people at school who hate Harry Potter. My friend Lauren was saying that she doesn't like magic stories, so she doesn't read it.
As I've said-repeatedly-it's not a series of funny words and wand-waving. It's very, very principle-centered. It's about love, courage, good/evil. Besides, it's funny.
And before any sarcastic person asks me how much I'm getting paid to give a sales-pitch for these books, I'm not. I love them, the characters, how human they are. I'm doing this out of my own free will. But my wallet is running on empty. If anyone feels obliged to throw a few dollars my way, I'm not one to object.
But Neville. The name of this post. He's not my favorite, never has been, never will be. Ginny and Ron Weasley are much cooler. But Neville has always been pitiful, a bit pathetic, really. And as the series goes on, he gets stronger, cooler, actually. I can see him as the Chosen One, if it came to that. He slayed Nagini, after all. So I do like him, I suppose. But frankly, I would choose a Weasley over anyone else in the series any day.

Contests

I hate contests.
Namely, sweepstakes. Why, you ask? Because, my dear sirs and madams, I never win. It's awful not to let me win. If you are thinking about sweepstaking something utterly cool, don't even bother anymore. Just send the prize/prizes to me. Like an espionage mission, we can switch suitcases.
This sweepstake in question was, of course, a Harry Potter sweepstake. (Is it sweepstake or sweepstakes? Is sweepstakes a plural or a normal non-plural word? These are the questions that haunt me....) And it wasn't just one prize, it was several! I had so many chances, and yet I didn't get one. Grrrrr. And even if I had one, chances were I never would have used it, but now we'll never know, will we?

Quote for July 23, 2009:

"If I win I'm a prodigy. If I lose then I'm mad. That is the way history was written."

-Artemis Fowl, from Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

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

My iPod

You may not know this about me, but I am addicted to my iPod. Mostly to podcasts. In The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan, Apollo is obsessed with haikus. He says this one on page 155:

Dreams like a podcast

downloading truth in my ears.

They tell me cool stuff.

(I never said it was good.) But I love that haiku. I quote it all the time. My brother, on the other hand, likes the music on my iPod. Harry and The Potters, Billy Joel, Survivor and Elvis are just a few of his requests (except for Harry and the Potters, which was mine).

For a few harrowing days, it was lost! I was traumatized, you better believe it. But now that I have it back, I am going podcast crazy.

I doubt you care. Neither do I! I just wanted to do a quote of the day.

Quote for July 21, 2009:

One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die as a man.

-Daniel Webster, from Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, page 173

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

The Last Lecture

Part of my summer reading list was to read The Last Lecture. That was a book I liked. It was funny, and nice, and it was fun to read.
*crowd of slack-jawed people stare in astonishment* Yes. It's true. For me, school books (books assigned by teachers) tend to be never fun to read. That was the story of my entire last school year! It wasn't a school book, however. It was something I might've read on my own.
I was thinking about the achieving your childhood dreams part. I've still got time, I haven't grown up completely, right? There are lots of cool stuff to do. Like I've never been to Disneyland, I've never scribbled with crayon all over a wall, I've never met JK Rowling, I've never written/published a book, I've never waved from the top of the Eiffel Tower and I've never checked my watch against Big Ben and I've never, ever beaten my brother or my cousin at Mario Kart. (Nor do I think I ever will.)
There's a lot more stuff I'd love to do someday (like be British for a day). In the book, Randy Pausch did stuff I'd never dreamed of doing. My favorites were being in zero gravity and, naturally, painting on the walls of his room! That was fabulous. Amazing. Brilliant. And when it comes to books, I usually know what I'm talking about.