I have been listening to this song about Bob Ross, who happens to be one of my two favorite artists (Turner is the other one). This song reminds me of why I picked Turner's work to imitate for my painting class, and why I spent so much time into it—that sense of endlessness and that a piece of art can express what words cannot. I see art sometimes as a drudgery (after all, I only painted decently on my still life picture because I sat behind a perfectionist that made me feel bad), but maybe I have been going about it the wrong way.
A long time ago, I drew because I liked it—so much I dreamed of becoming an artist. Coming from a family of pragmatists who could not understand anything except academics (I mean this not as an insult, but my parents never even signed me up for the stereotypical music classes because they were hopeless in that field), this was not much of a dream at all. I never knew what my parents wanted me to be when I was young. I don't think any of us looked that far.
Somewhere in elementary school, drawing became a chore. It was a class, after all, and when people like your art they want more and you feel like you can't let them down. One of my classmates was really good at horses, and I tried to learn her style, and when my classmates asked me to draw a horse picture for her I was absolutely mortified.
I never quite did this with writing—maybe I have been influenced subconsciously but I never set out to copy someone else's style. I write from my heart, but I haven't drawn from my heart very often lately.
I drew a picture of what I thought Veronica's character in D&D would look like (she is a grey elf ranger), and it's one of my best drawings lately (in terms of anatomically correctness and expression). But what I really want to do is draw the pictures that haunt my mind, the same way I put them to words. I want to draw that void where the wind blows through, and the grass flows like sand.
I want to paint that quaint town nightscape, with the lanterns glowing faintly under a hazy sky, set against towering rugged mountains. I want to hear the stories from my art.
And maybe it is true, maybe every day is a good day when you paint.
. . .
I had completely forgotten when I gave Sam her nickname how ironic that would be, but this time I want to talk about the real Sam. I am—I won't lie—quite infatuated with him. What started out as simple gaming buddies turned into quite a fiasco. (And talk about a fiasco—Cain, who quite the benign Youtube-watching, Facebook-lurking guy, has now become a fanatic LoL addict on the verge of becoming a rager too.) I'm finding myself logged in to a particular place not for any other purpose but to catch him online—and on his end, I know he's been pretty much glued to his computer to chat with me when he has lots of other things going on (eating, for example).
I know Khajiit has taken this nonchalantly—even with a bit of joking encouragement—but I wonder if that is really how he thinks. Obviously, I don't want this to turn out like how it did with Yuma and I, and Khajiit and I have completely different rules when it comes to stuff like this, but, well, I still have to ask.
Does it count as cheating if I really, really like to spend time with someone more so than I normally would anyone else? If so, is Khajiit really okay with it? And if not, can I keep it this way—just really good friends—because it's pretty nice the way it is now.
Sometimes I feel a bit silly. Sometimes I wish I weren't so flippant with regards to such serious stuff—and yet, I think I have been this way ever since kindergarten when I decided I had a crush on two cute boys in my class. What can I say? I have always matured faster in romantic-attractions more so than my actual maturity.
. . .
Alas, I am hungry again. Must set out for food.
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Tentative Steps
On CNN, Kirsten Haglund, the winner of the title Miss America in 2008, says, "I remember the first day I decided to throw away my lunch, and I drank a Coke instead. I felt really good. I remember that day and the choice I made. And it was a choice made out of fear, not logic."
Maybe that is why I took out that bottle of diet coke Khajiit got for free from the vending machine. We are chronic Nestea drinkers, and when we are not drinking it we're drinking Lipton tea, or another latte from Tim Hortons. When I took a sip from the bottle, the fizzy drink caught in my throat and burned. But I kept on going. It is addicting, this heady mix of aspartame and carbonated water.
We have our reasons for choosing the drinks we do. Years ago, Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar wrote, "My wife and I have both been addicted to soda for many years. On an average day, I would drink six cans of soda and my wife would drink four cans, meaning we would go through ten cans a day at our house." General Duck prefers his soda sparingly, but the bottle in his hand has still become a part of his persona.
For me, picking a drink has much to do with the mood I want to convey in my life. Coffee in those ambivalent preteen years when public transit gave us a freedom I haven't tasted until recently (not surprisingly, I have adopted a new caffeine habit lately as well). Bubble tea to soothe a nostalgia that seeps through the edges of my vision so that there is always something there, something in the corner of my eye.
Hot chocolate? Well, because I wanted to roll up the rim. Not that I won anything.
. . .
Islandtown's metro line is asking people to name their new train. One of the names was related to the Greek god of time, Chronos. I told Khajiit that one of my characters was called Chronos. He said, "Everyone has a character called Chronos."
I have tried to read more lately. I checked out Middlemarch from the library, and Khajiit and I read the first chapter (and a very wordy prelude). There is something special about the way a book can make you laugh, but I had never quite experienced it until now. So I think George Eliot is something special, critics of her other life be damned.
On the radio we hear Adele over and over again. They are tragic songs, completely not fit for a coffeehouse with bright red and yellow banners promoting its new jalapeño and asiago cheese bagels. On her YouTube videos people says things like, "She's pretty inside and out," or, "She's not fat, too many celebrities today are too skinny." They remind me of the "compare her to Marilyn Monroe" posters, of the idea that arguing men like women who are not bone-skinny is still objectifying women, because the standard-holders are still men.
When Adele said she wasn't "some blonde, skinny, fake boob, white teeth" girl, there is something sad in that statement. Something that sits uncomfortably in my stomach, even though I am not sure what it is.
A few nights ago, Veronica and Khajiit were working on our web design company (which reminds me, I need to get going on that), when they came across a photo of a group of students posing for what looked like a case competition. Veronica said, "Those girls look more natural, because girls take more photos of themselves."
Little things like that hurt. They hurt on a personal level, so to me they grate on my heart.
. . .
I stood in front of a class of one hundred on Friday. Made a public announcement about the film my environmental club was screening. I have not done something like this for a long while, especially not when I could see every single face and recognize people in the crowd.
The film itself was a success, if not a haunting one. We saw lovely paintings made of aluminum cans stacked on top of each other and baby albatrosses dead, bellies splayed open to reveal all the plastic inside.
Why must it be so sentimental?
I sleep at night panicked, tossing around, half-starting when I am about to fall asleep. There is something about the night, how still it is, that makes me uneasy. My body is failing me, or I am failing it, whichever one explains the aches and pains and dull anxiety.
Yesterday, in a fit of curiosity-laden panic, I looked up whether our house was likely to flood in 2100. The site says that if it does, it will be because of some harbor in the city near our house, or the beach, or the river. On SMBC, Zach Weiner describes a superior race that falls because of its impeccable ethics. I jaywalked across the street bordering my university today, against my usual rules of strictly following the roads.
. . .
In the depths of my blankets and shaking, I am lonely. I don't fully understand it, because I am not alone—I am far from alone—but I am still lonely.
. . .
When I wake up these days, it is usually to realize I have missed another class, or that it is now late afternoon and I have been sleeping all day. Khajiit, woken by my frantic prodding, would say, "We knew this was going to happen," to our promising ourselves the night before that we would wake up early. Then I would roll over and he would wrap his arm around me, and that would be my favorite part of the day.
These days it has been getting warmer in Islandtown. I pulled out my pair of red tights, paired them with the ridiculously high heels I bought from China, and got out a red shirt I had almost forgotten I owned. The lady at the food court eyed my outfit as I stood up next to her to throw away my cup.
Cosmic Gate is playing on my Pandora station. The other day Khajiit showed me how to set up a proxy so I could access Pandora from his server-in-a-closet. I took a jab at it yesterday and wondered if I had done something wrong when a firewall message popped up. Today, after a few changes to the procedure, I bypassed the firewall prompt. I don't know what triggered it though.
I was reading this very, very sad site that made me almost cry.
Somewhat unrelated, I had always thought that being an activist in one group made you much more likely to sympathize with activists in another group. My university, my city, and my province has proven me otherwise.
. . .
Maybe I have just been cooped up inside for too long.
Maybe that is why I took out that bottle of diet coke Khajiit got for free from the vending machine. We are chronic Nestea drinkers, and when we are not drinking it we're drinking Lipton tea, or another latte from Tim Hortons. When I took a sip from the bottle, the fizzy drink caught in my throat and burned. But I kept on going. It is addicting, this heady mix of aspartame and carbonated water.
We have our reasons for choosing the drinks we do. Years ago, Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar wrote, "My wife and I have both been addicted to soda for many years. On an average day, I would drink six cans of soda and my wife would drink four cans, meaning we would go through ten cans a day at our house." General Duck prefers his soda sparingly, but the bottle in his hand has still become a part of his persona.
For me, picking a drink has much to do with the mood I want to convey in my life. Coffee in those ambivalent preteen years when public transit gave us a freedom I haven't tasted until recently (not surprisingly, I have adopted a new caffeine habit lately as well). Bubble tea to soothe a nostalgia that seeps through the edges of my vision so that there is always something there, something in the corner of my eye.
Hot chocolate? Well, because I wanted to roll up the rim. Not that I won anything.
. . .
Islandtown's metro line is asking people to name their new train. One of the names was related to the Greek god of time, Chronos. I told Khajiit that one of my characters was called Chronos. He said, "Everyone has a character called Chronos."
I have tried to read more lately. I checked out Middlemarch from the library, and Khajiit and I read the first chapter (and a very wordy prelude). There is something special about the way a book can make you laugh, but I had never quite experienced it until now. So I think George Eliot is something special, critics of her other life be damned.
On the radio we hear Adele over and over again. They are tragic songs, completely not fit for a coffeehouse with bright red and yellow banners promoting its new jalapeño and asiago cheese bagels. On her YouTube videos people says things like, "She's pretty inside and out," or, "She's not fat, too many celebrities today are too skinny." They remind me of the "compare her to Marilyn Monroe" posters, of the idea that arguing men like women who are not bone-skinny is still objectifying women, because the standard-holders are still men.
When Adele said she wasn't "some blonde, skinny, fake boob, white teeth" girl, there is something sad in that statement. Something that sits uncomfortably in my stomach, even though I am not sure what it is.
A few nights ago, Veronica and Khajiit were working on our web design company (which reminds me, I need to get going on that), when they came across a photo of a group of students posing for what looked like a case competition. Veronica said, "Those girls look more natural, because girls take more photos of themselves."
Little things like that hurt. They hurt on a personal level, so to me they grate on my heart.
. . .
I stood in front of a class of one hundred on Friday. Made a public announcement about the film my environmental club was screening. I have not done something like this for a long while, especially not when I could see every single face and recognize people in the crowd.
The film itself was a success, if not a haunting one. We saw lovely paintings made of aluminum cans stacked on top of each other and baby albatrosses dead, bellies splayed open to reveal all the plastic inside.
Why must it be so sentimental?
I sleep at night panicked, tossing around, half-starting when I am about to fall asleep. There is something about the night, how still it is, that makes me uneasy. My body is failing me, or I am failing it, whichever one explains the aches and pains and dull anxiety.
Yesterday, in a fit of curiosity-laden panic, I looked up whether our house was likely to flood in 2100. The site says that if it does, it will be because of some harbor in the city near our house, or the beach, or the river. On SMBC, Zach Weiner describes a superior race that falls because of its impeccable ethics. I jaywalked across the street bordering my university today, against my usual rules of strictly following the roads.
. . .
In the depths of my blankets and shaking, I am lonely. I don't fully understand it, because I am not alone—I am far from alone—but I am still lonely.
. . .
When I wake up these days, it is usually to realize I have missed another class, or that it is now late afternoon and I have been sleeping all day. Khajiit, woken by my frantic prodding, would say, "We knew this was going to happen," to our promising ourselves the night before that we would wake up early. Then I would roll over and he would wrap his arm around me, and that would be my favorite part of the day.
These days it has been getting warmer in Islandtown. I pulled out my pair of red tights, paired them with the ridiculously high heels I bought from China, and got out a red shirt I had almost forgotten I owned. The lady at the food court eyed my outfit as I stood up next to her to throw away my cup.
Cosmic Gate is playing on my Pandora station. The other day Khajiit showed me how to set up a proxy so I could access Pandora from his server-in-a-closet. I took a jab at it yesterday and wondered if I had done something wrong when a firewall message popped up. Today, after a few changes to the procedure, I bypassed the firewall prompt. I don't know what triggered it though.
I was reading this very, very sad site that made me almost cry.
Somewhat unrelated, I had always thought that being an activist in one group made you much more likely to sympathize with activists in another group. My university, my city, and my province has proven me otherwise.
. . .
Maybe I have just been cooped up inside for too long.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
My Favorite Songs, Part I
Here is a list of my favorite songs on Pandora. I would link the station, but it doesn't always give my favorite songs (the ones I've checked), and besides, I have over 100 songs I've "liked." I don't remember clicking the button that many times.
- All Hail the High Seas, Eye Alaska
- See Through, Megan McCauley
- I See Right Through to You, D.J. Encore
- Boston, Augustana
- Nothing in My Way, Keane
- Ghost, Jes
- If I Could Fly, Oceanlab
- Move for Me, Kaskade + deadmau5
- Miracle, Oceanlab
- In My Dreams, Noemi
- Before the Worst, The Script
- All Good Things (Come to an End), Nelly Furtado
- Half Acre, Hem
- Just a Dream, Carrie Underwood
- Hey There Delilah, Plain White T’s
- I Remember, deadmau5 + Kaskade
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Ring Around The Rosie
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
We all fall down.
I saw ghosts of cars today. In the reflection of the bus windows. Car ghosts running head on and crashing into their originals. The car themselves come out unscathed. The car ghosts disappeared.
Did the cars know they were driving into their haunted selves? Did the car ghosts know they were driving into their demises?
Did they know?
Did they care?
Yuma took me to the orchestra room today, and played Imogen Heap's Speeding Cars on the piano. He sang too. I had looked at the lyrics once before but had not noticed them. This time, I realized it was talking about suicide.
Suicide. Such an easy word to say, such a hard word to swallow.
In my dreams—or are they nightmares?—I have been chased many times. I have been on the run many times, from presumed enemies, to win a race, or for the sake of running.
But I have never fallen. Not once. Falling dreams are the ones that haunt my daydreams.
I am suddenly in possession of objects I would deem too dangerous for me to hold. Too dangerous for someone who has such a strong morbid fascination with these objects. But I accepted them with as much grace as I could muster.
What will it be like?
Do I want to know?
My scarf obsession started in fifth grade. Or grade five, as I used to say, before someone pointed it out to me and I subconsciously changed the way I spoke.
My youngest cousin and I were on the streets, with my aunt. We had finished shopping for something, and I cannot remember what it was, but it must have been important because why else would we be out at night in one of the coldest winters I could remember?
My cousin spotted a hat she wanted. We went over, and I, in classic little sibling manner despite the fact I was an only child, decided I wanted a hat as well.
She bought one for herself and one for me. I, in turn, bought the matching scarves and rabbit hair gloves.
My aunt later asked me, “Why aren't you wearing your scarf?”
“It's too short,” I told her.
So she got me another scarf, a long chocolatey caramel vanilla ice cream scarf. And perhaps that was what went wrong. I should never have two frivolous items, because what else could I do with them but want more?
I still remember the Fairweather scarf.
The tube scarf.
And every scarf that caught my eye afterwards.
I gave Yuma the chocolatey caramel vanilla ice cream scarf. It is one of four scarves I still have. He looks nice in it, I think. And anyway, he should have something for his throat, because sore throats are awful, especially for a singing throat.
We shared our favorite songs before. And found out how different our musical tastes are.
I am a melancholy-lyrical-rhythm dependent girl. One who grasps onto the melody and threads it through the lyrics in a silk weave. I do not know how he likes to describe himself musically.
Perhaps not as I describe myself.
The other day I was walking down the street and the trees seemed like plastic toys. The sky was so low it bordered surreal. I remember the air as biting cold, as it always is in December. I had only one year of warm December, where the snow fell as light dustings and winter was just as rainy as it was snowy.
The houses were some laborious decoration. Not real.
I walk alone from the mailbox to my door. No one walks down that path with me, except for Yuma sometimes, and even he does not reach my door.
On that stretch of road, I can be anything. Anyone.
I can twirl the air and pretend I am holding onto Lillian. Slash slash jump. I pretend Prescott is there, and I am telling him off yet again. I even sing sometimes. I start off with songs I know and twist the lyrics to my liking. Then I change the tune.
Then I reach my door, and halt the show.
As I write, I wonder, will I ever be well known for my writing? If I will be, will they who read my other, more famous works look back on these simple thoughts and try to assign some deeper meaning to them? Will they think, “Now here is a real thoughtful piece, here it reflects some profound theme.”
Death. Life. And everything in between.
But perhaps there is no real reason for this piece. It is not a statement, nor is it a message. It is merely an expression, a method to consolidate musings.
It is, after all, what came to mind first. And as I am listening to Speeding Cars right now, and re-imagining the car ghosts yet again, I wonder if they are at peace. Ghosts freed of their curses, free to go wherever they want.
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
We all fall down.
I saw ghosts of cars today. In the reflection of the bus windows. Car ghosts running head on and crashing into their originals. The car themselves come out unscathed. The car ghosts disappeared.
Did the cars know they were driving into their haunted selves? Did the car ghosts know they were driving into their demises?
Did they know?
Did they care?
Yuma took me to the orchestra room today, and played Imogen Heap's Speeding Cars on the piano. He sang too. I had looked at the lyrics once before but had not noticed them. This time, I realized it was talking about suicide.
Suicide. Such an easy word to say, such a hard word to swallow.
In my dreams—or are they nightmares?—I have been chased many times. I have been on the run many times, from presumed enemies, to win a race, or for the sake of running.
But I have never fallen. Not once. Falling dreams are the ones that haunt my daydreams.
I am suddenly in possession of objects I would deem too dangerous for me to hold. Too dangerous for someone who has such a strong morbid fascination with these objects. But I accepted them with as much grace as I could muster.
What will it be like?
Do I want to know?
My scarf obsession started in fifth grade. Or grade five, as I used to say, before someone pointed it out to me and I subconsciously changed the way I spoke.
My youngest cousin and I were on the streets, with my aunt. We had finished shopping for something, and I cannot remember what it was, but it must have been important because why else would we be out at night in one of the coldest winters I could remember?
My cousin spotted a hat she wanted. We went over, and I, in classic little sibling manner despite the fact I was an only child, decided I wanted a hat as well.
She bought one for herself and one for me. I, in turn, bought the matching scarves and rabbit hair gloves.
My aunt later asked me, “Why aren't you wearing your scarf?”
“It's too short,” I told her.
So she got me another scarf, a long chocolatey caramel vanilla ice cream scarf. And perhaps that was what went wrong. I should never have two frivolous items, because what else could I do with them but want more?
I still remember the Fairweather scarf.
The tube scarf.
And every scarf that caught my eye afterwards.
I gave Yuma the chocolatey caramel vanilla ice cream scarf. It is one of four scarves I still have. He looks nice in it, I think. And anyway, he should have something for his throat, because sore throats are awful, especially for a singing throat.
We shared our favorite songs before. And found out how different our musical tastes are.
I am a melancholy-lyrical-rhythm dependent girl. One who grasps onto the melody and threads it through the lyrics in a silk weave. I do not know how he likes to describe himself musically.
Perhaps not as I describe myself.
The other day I was walking down the street and the trees seemed like plastic toys. The sky was so low it bordered surreal. I remember the air as biting cold, as it always is in December. I had only one year of warm December, where the snow fell as light dustings and winter was just as rainy as it was snowy.
The houses were some laborious decoration. Not real.
I walk alone from the mailbox to my door. No one walks down that path with me, except for Yuma sometimes, and even he does not reach my door.
On that stretch of road, I can be anything. Anyone.
I can twirl the air and pretend I am holding onto Lillian. Slash slash jump. I pretend Prescott is there, and I am telling him off yet again. I even sing sometimes. I start off with songs I know and twist the lyrics to my liking. Then I change the tune.
Then I reach my door, and halt the show.
As I write, I wonder, will I ever be well known for my writing? If I will be, will they who read my other, more famous works look back on these simple thoughts and try to assign some deeper meaning to them? Will they think, “Now here is a real thoughtful piece, here it reflects some profound theme.”
Death. Life. And everything in between.
But perhaps there is no real reason for this piece. It is not a statement, nor is it a message. It is merely an expression, a method to consolidate musings.
It is, after all, what came to mind first. And as I am listening to Speeding Cars right now, and re-imagining the car ghosts yet again, I wonder if they are at peace. Ghosts freed of their curses, free to go wherever they want.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
School Again, What A Surprise
Proper titling rules dictate that I should not capitalize the "A," but I am ignoring that for aesthetic purposes only. Anyway, after a long three-day weekend (yay for Columbus Day), I am back into the school routine. Which, thankfully, means reduced time for annoying college things, but unfortunately, also means increased time for schoolwork.
Since my morning was rather uneventful (we watched this "how to turn a sphere inside out" video and a few Old Spice commercials during communication time, but that was mostly it), I will skip right to French, where our teacher, who I shall now call Mme Pottery, spent most of the class showing us this music video (in French, of course) whose main ideas are "Why do we have to go to school and do all this work?" and "Oh, leave it to Charlemagne, he's to blame." Then we listened to this music video by the same singer who performed at the 1967 or 1965 Eurovision contest, and it's a song about a doll who complains that since she's so pretty she should be able to have so much, but she can't have boys falling in love with her. Or that was what I got out of it, anyway.
Great use of over an hour's worth of time.
I spent a good part of econ figuring out the tax graphs and how to draw producer and consumer burdens. Now I have the concepts down, so the graphs are easier. Yay! Unfortunately, we have a test on Monday, which means I will actually have to look over the practice test (it's quite a heavy bundle), and I am not looking forward to that.
I also spent a good part of my free convincing Yuma that math team was more important than frisbee. I'm not sure how well that went. But I did get to print out all the stuff I needed to print out (except the Naviance sheet), and then tomorrow morning I will have to schedule various meetings, but I think all is going well (so far). Clay took my computer (which reminds me, I hope he logged me off), so I got my envelopes written out and reformatted my lab, and Yuma and I folded paper airplanes according to that tutorial he found online, and we spent ten minutes or so throwing paper airplanes in the hallway. Archie, who was at the corner table, stared at us weirdly. When Clay came out, I finally managed to throw a successful, airborne, non-circling-back plane. I was really proud of myself.
Then I got all of my earlies letter envelopes settled, including seeing Tea and Kathrya multiple times in the process. After that, we (although Kathrya was just in it for the walk and the Gretchen-glomping time) went to math team, where everyone was already there. To our horrendous dismay, there was only one of the round 5 and 6 practice problems each left. Oh no! So we each took one and will now have to settle for next time.
Argon came over a while later and asked Tea about RSI. It was a long, rather drawn-out conversation, by the end of which we found ourselves all sitting on tables. Ms. Sherbert looked over at us and asked, "Are you guys practicing?"
Haha. I tried one of the geometry questions, but because I was too lazy to square numbers in my head, I didn't go further.
After math team, I went to the library, where I saw Zephy and Reese. Zephy was doing her physics homework (oh, utexas, how I loathe you so), and Reese was figuring out other people'schicken-scratch handwriting, because he got a huge list of rejects from his email list for tech club or something. So I sat down and tried to figure out said handwriting with him, and I think we got a couple of the emails (Reese's way of testing to see if the emails were valid was to send out an email with the subject line "test" and nothing else). We didn't get Superman though.
Pity.
Since my morning was rather uneventful (we watched this "how to turn a sphere inside out" video and a few Old Spice commercials during communication time, but that was mostly it), I will skip right to French, where our teacher, who I shall now call Mme Pottery, spent most of the class showing us this music video (in French, of course) whose main ideas are "Why do we have to go to school and do all this work?" and "Oh, leave it to Charlemagne, he's to blame." Then we listened to this music video by the same singer who performed at the 1967 or 1965 Eurovision contest, and it's a song about a doll who complains that since she's so pretty she should be able to have so much, but she can't have boys falling in love with her. Or that was what I got out of it, anyway.
Great use of over an hour's worth of time.
I spent a good part of econ figuring out the tax graphs and how to draw producer and consumer burdens. Now I have the concepts down, so the graphs are easier. Yay! Unfortunately, we have a test on Monday, which means I will actually have to look over the practice test (it's quite a heavy bundle), and I am not looking forward to that.
I also spent a good part of my free convincing Yuma that math team was more important than frisbee. I'm not sure how well that went. But I did get to print out all the stuff I needed to print out (except the Naviance sheet), and then tomorrow morning I will have to schedule various meetings, but I think all is going well (so far). Clay took my computer (which reminds me, I hope he logged me off), so I got my envelopes written out and reformatted my lab, and Yuma and I folded paper airplanes according to that tutorial he found online, and we spent ten minutes or so throwing paper airplanes in the hallway. Archie, who was at the corner table, stared at us weirdly. When Clay came out, I finally managed to throw a successful, airborne, non-circling-back plane. I was really proud of myself.
Then I got all of my earlies letter envelopes settled, including seeing Tea and Kathrya multiple times in the process. After that, we (although Kathrya was just in it for the walk and the Gretchen-glomping time) went to math team, where everyone was already there. To our horrendous dismay, there was only one of the round 5 and 6 practice problems each left. Oh no! So we each took one and will now have to settle for next time.
Argon came over a while later and asked Tea about RSI. It was a long, rather drawn-out conversation, by the end of which we found ourselves all sitting on tables. Ms. Sherbert looked over at us and asked, "Are you guys practicing?"
Haha. I tried one of the geometry questions, but because I was too lazy to square numbers in my head, I didn't go further.
After math team, I went to the library, where I saw Zephy and Reese. Zephy was doing her physics homework (oh, utexas, how I loathe you so), and Reese was figuring out other people's
Pity.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Now Or Never
I don't believe in fairy tales, too cynical . . . I'm not gonna live forever, said I'm not gonna live forever—gotta make it now or never.—Forever or Never, Cinema Bizarre
Matt and I decided upon a project where we would interview various period 7 classes (because that was when we had stat, and when we could be around the school interviewing people in other classes) and ask them about their opinions on the increase of various department budgets. So we tried to follow a statistical approach, and randomly chose five classes out of every group (we had separated them by AP/honors, A-, and B-levels). This process was much flawed by the senior interns, whom I have not talked about extensively yet but I may get to in the future.
Anyway, for our AP/honors classes, we had chosen notoriously senior-infested classes such as AP environmental and AP Spanish. This posed a problem, because we needed at least six people from each class, so Matt said we could just, uh, choose another class that fitted our needs. It was not random, but, hey, it was the best we could do without physically tracking down the seniors in their intern positions.
(Later on, I asked Reese how many people were in his AP Spanish class, and he said two, including him. So Spanish was definitely out.)
Also, speaking of internships, the Paperclip Job Shadow "event" is coming up soon, and apparently my name was called on Friday, but I did not hear because I was in the hallway at the time (trying to navigate from one end of the school to the other in under five minutes). So I was informed this morning that there would be a workshop for job shadow participants during lunch, which I promptly forgot (until lunch was almost over, and I was in the library with Argon, who informed me that he wrote his elemental symbol on his tests for his chem class now). Luckily, I was able to schedule another appointment during the first half of period 7 to make it up. And, hopefully, I won't forget the second workshop (résumé writing, what fun) tomorrow.
(Clara and Ariadne and I looked over some of those mock-résumés, and they were ridiculous. Varsity basketball captain, founder of the Ultimate Frisbee club, various trips around the world to volunteer—with everything funded by scholarship money, high honors, 3.8/4.0 GPAs, NHS, various other academic clubs and activities, various other community service clubs and activities. Ridiculous, I say. I thought mock-résumés were supposed to be average content-wise so we could feel good about ourselves and be confident with the résumés we came up with.)
Today was also my English class' designated reading period (for the week). I brought in Gone with the Wind, as I mentioned yesterday, and this book has well over 1000 pages. We had around 45 minutes to read, and after those 45 minutes, I accomplished 26 pages. Only 1000 or so pages more to go. Yippee. (Can you believe "yippee" is a word, but "yay" is not, according to spellcheck?)
Non sequitur (a word I learned from Reese earlier today, as we were discussing his Spanish class, Spanish in general, how little I know of the Spanish language, and typing Spanish using a Spanish keyboard), I was bored yesterday, so I typed "forever" in my Google search bar. Then I decided to add "or never" to it, and searched the result, and came up with Cinema Bizarre's song, Forever or Never, which I found fascinating. So I searched the band up, and discovered the Eurovision contest, and last year's winner, who is absolutely the most adorable violinist I have ever seen (the most adorable human being I reserve for someone else who happens to not be a violinist).
I spent over two hours on various Eurovision finalist songs, including this Ukraine one, which is bizarre (the refrain is apparently "I want to see Russia goodbye"?), to put it mildly, and this Russian one, which features a girl popping out of a piano.
I feel it everyday, it's all the same. It brings me down all the time but I'm the one to blame.—Over and Over, Three Days Grace
MID—
Scarlett: 0
Rhett: 0.5
Matt and I decided upon a project where we would interview various period 7 classes (because that was when we had stat, and when we could be around the school interviewing people in other classes) and ask them about their opinions on the increase of various department budgets. So we tried to follow a statistical approach, and randomly chose five classes out of every group (we had separated them by AP/honors, A-, and B-levels). This process was much flawed by the senior interns, whom I have not talked about extensively yet but I may get to in the future.
Anyway, for our AP/honors classes, we had chosen notoriously senior-infested classes such as AP environmental and AP Spanish. This posed a problem, because we needed at least six people from each class, so Matt said we could just, uh, choose another class that fitted our needs. It was not random, but, hey, it was the best we could do without physically tracking down the seniors in their intern positions.
(Later on, I asked Reese how many people were in his AP Spanish class, and he said two, including him. So Spanish was definitely out.)
Also, speaking of internships, the Paperclip Job Shadow "event" is coming up soon, and apparently my name was called on Friday, but I did not hear because I was in the hallway at the time (trying to navigate from one end of the school to the other in under five minutes). So I was informed this morning that there would be a workshop for job shadow participants during lunch, which I promptly forgot (until lunch was almost over, and I was in the library with Argon, who informed me that he wrote his elemental symbol on his tests for his chem class now). Luckily, I was able to schedule another appointment during the first half of period 7 to make it up. And, hopefully, I won't forget the second workshop (résumé writing, what fun) tomorrow.
(Clara and Ariadne and I looked over some of those mock-résumés, and they were ridiculous. Varsity basketball captain, founder of the Ultimate Frisbee club, various trips around the world to volunteer—with everything funded by scholarship money, high honors, 3.8/4.0 GPAs, NHS, various other academic clubs and activities, various other community service clubs and activities. Ridiculous, I say. I thought mock-résumés were supposed to be average content-wise so we could feel good about ourselves and be confident with the résumés we came up with.)
Today was also my English class' designated reading period (for the week). I brought in Gone with the Wind, as I mentioned yesterday, and this book has well over 1000 pages. We had around 45 minutes to read, and after those 45 minutes, I accomplished 26 pages. Only 1000 or so pages more to go. Yippee. (Can you believe "yippee" is a word, but "yay" is not, according to spellcheck?)
Non sequitur (a word I learned from Reese earlier today, as we were discussing his Spanish class, Spanish in general, how little I know of the Spanish language, and typing Spanish using a Spanish keyboard), I was bored yesterday, so I typed "forever" in my Google search bar. Then I decided to add "or never" to it, and searched the result, and came up with Cinema Bizarre's song, Forever or Never, which I found fascinating. So I searched the band up, and discovered the Eurovision contest, and last year's winner, who is absolutely the most adorable violinist I have ever seen (the most adorable human being I reserve for someone else who happens to not be a violinist).
I spent over two hours on various Eurovision finalist songs, including this Ukraine one, which is bizarre (the refrain is apparently "I want to see Russia goodbye"?), to put it mildly, and this Russian one, which features a girl popping out of a piano.
I feel it everyday, it's all the same. It brings me down all the time but I'm the one to blame.—Over and Over, Three Days Grace
MID—
Scarlett: 0
Rhett: 0.5
Friday, March 26, 2010
On A Good Day
I have been, as of late, really obsessed with OceanLab. I had always liked instrumental and emotional vocal music, so I never paid much attention to specific genres. However, OceanLab—and vocal trance in general—takes my appreciation for heavily vamped music and beautiful lyrics to a whole new level. It's just like when I discovered "Mad World," by Gary Jules.
(I also think that Adam Lambert sings that particular song better, although Jules has a better music video.)
Sometimes, I wonder—do I like a song more because of its lyrics, or because of its sound? I mean, I love "Satellite" mostly because of the line, "You're half a world away, but in my mind I whisper every single word you say." On the other hand, I love Rain's "Love Story" despite not knowing what the lyrics mean. And then there are songs like Enya's "Only Time," which I absolutely love, both lyrically and musically.
(Richard Marx's "Boy Next Door," which I have linked before, is another song with amazing melody and lyrics.)
Maybe I'm just spending too much time on Youtube. I mean, without a "loop" option, I'm constantly tempted to try out new songs, thus increasing the list of songs I like at an alarming rate. Using Pandora when I'm lazy also doesn't help.
Other Odd Happenings (OOHs):
After repeated pleas (from the majority, if not all, of my gym class), our gym teacher has decided to replace the yoga videos with Tae Bo ones instead. So, instead of stretching at almost impossible angles, we have adopted a punching/kicking workout. It's fun—well, until Double Time. That's Blank's term for "do those really complicated moves that I just taught you but in half the time that I took to showed you how to do them."
Really, really fun.
I have to say, this is much better than what would otherwise have been in store for us—more fitness center equipment workouts (or more commonly known as: stick to one equipment and pretend you're doing something). And since this is my last quarter with the physical part of gym (wow, I can't believe it's finally almost over), I (hopefully) won't ever have to go back to the fitness center again.
But with my luck, you can never tell for sure.
Later on, in English, I asked Mogley, "Did lacrosse season start already?"
"Yeah," he said. "Why?"
"Oh, our gym class is in the wrestling room right now, and a lot of people are playing with the lacrosse sticks lying around the room, so I thought that lacrosse season probably started."
"Wait, they're touching the lacrosse sticks?"
"Yeah."
"I spent FOREVER making sure my stick is placed just right," Mogley said. "If anyone moves it, I will hunt them down."
"Well, how will you know who they are?"
"I will lift the fingerprints off and personally hunt them down."
And I thought the weird guys were only limited to Dino and Mario. I shrugged, and as English was the last period today, and the bell had already rung, I got up and left. Mogley stayed behind to finish a 6x6 sudoku.
(Matt, who sits next to me in stat, always brings crossword puzzles and sudoku games to class and does them instead of work. One time, he shared a sudoku with me that he had only filled in a couple of numbers, and I started filling in numbers so fast he couldn't even keep up. Ever since, he's been trying to perfect the art of fast sudoku solving. I think it's been detrimental to his grasp of stat knowledge. I also think that the fact that I use a complicated elimination method to solve sudoku puzzles and that I can scan several lines and be aware of multiple numbers at the same time means I have spent way too much time on this game. I blame Opera Widgets for this entirely.)
Been talking to myself forever, and how I wish I knew me better. Still sitting on a shelf and never never seen the sun shine brighter, and it feels like me on a good day.—"On a Good Day," OceanLab
P.s.: Oh dear, Dino's gaining ground against Argon in the label-war. ("Did I tell you about that time when Argon—yeah, uh... I don't know how he's going to win this.")
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Overdue-Part I
I have not posted anything in... more than I week, I believe. Probably two. Who knows?
Anyway, the good news is, I'm back from my sort-of-hiatus.
Bad news?
If you count my jittery, hysterical nerves as bad news, then I guess that's it.
As probably 99.5% of people who actually read my blog knows, I was at a school-wide challenge thing yesterday. As for the 0.5%, I'm too worn-out to explain in too much detail. Maybe some day later. Maybe...
Anyway, as Mogley said, "What happened in room 108 stays in room 108."
Yeah right. What happened in room 108 goes directly here, of course.
It all started early yesterday morning, at around eight in the morning, to be exact. My mom had driven me to school, because I still do not have my permit yet (a sad fact that is prone to change). We arrived really, really early. Way too early. In fact, there was only one other car there, and the door was locked.
So my mom suggested we circle the school, which I agreed to, because it was way too cold to wait outside, and there wasn't anything else to do. When we made a circle and came back, the doors were thankfully open, and I departed from my car just as the person in the car in front of me opened the door as well.
Guess who it was?
Reese, of course. Who else would be here this early? (Ignore the fact that I'm early as well.)
We made our way upstairs to the supposed meeting room, and I told him how my mom predicted that no one was going to show up, because, well, I had completely forgotten about the existence of the challenge until late last night myself.
"Oh," Reese said. "I have Joss's (when I named Joss as such I was not thinking of possessive problems) phone number."
But as it turned out, Joss was the last person we had to worry about, because he showed up (despite Argon's remarks of how unreliable he could be) early as well. Something about "I get to miss rowing for this, and I don't want to go to rowing."
Whatever the reason it was.
We were assigned a room (room 108 here, for identity's sake), and we headed over right away to set up. Which included Reese connecting his laptop ("it's way better than Camel's" even though the brand is the same) to the Smartboard. Of course. After moments of flickering screens, plug-in problems, and various other mini-disasters, he gave up synchronizing his laptop to the Smartboard and settled for the projector instead.
By this time, we were set to begin anyway, and Mogley and Ben showed up as well.
We were all here, and excited. We each took a copy of the problem, and half-ran towards our room, closing the door behind us. We were going to begin. Totally.
Right.
Half an hour in, Joss said, "I'm hungry. When's lunch?"
We all stared at him.
"Lunch will probably begin at... noon?" I said.
"Oh, good, because I'm starting to run low on energy."
The minor food episode aside, we returned to focus on the problem at hand. Reducing carbon emissions and water and energy usage? Converting to renewable energy sources? How hard can that be?
"There's this really cool thing," Mogley suggested, "that's a wind turbine, but it's in the shape of a balloon and floats high in the sky."
"Turbiiiine," Reese said.
"What?" Mogley asked.
"'Turbiiine.' Not 'turban.' You said 'turban.'"
"No," Mogley said. "It's 'turbin.'"
"'Turbiiiine!'"
"'Turbin!'"
"Turbans are the thing you wear. On your head. If I searched up 'wind turbans," there wouldn't be anything."
And Reese proceeded to do exactly that. We stared at the Smartboard intently. Right after he pressed enter, a picture of a guy wearing a turban with turbines popping on top showed up.
We all laughed as Reese tried to resume on his argument.
"Well, if I searched it in Merriam-Webster, it would say 'turbiiiine.'"
"Go ahead," Mogley said.
So we waited as Reese went on Merriam-Webster, searched up the word 'turbine,' and pressed the audio button.
"Turbin, or turbiiiiine."
"Ha!" Mogley said. "It said 'turbin!'"
"No," Reese said. "It said 'turbin,' or 'turbiiiine.'"
"But it said 'turbin' first."
"But it also said 'turbiiiiine.'"
"Enough!" I shouted. "We're going to compromise. We're going to call them 'turbies.'"
We quieted down (slightly) after that. Ben declared that he would be responsible for the "food unit," whatever that meant. I sat down on the ground (because I hate the school's chairs, and Reese wouldn't share his squishy chair), and Joss sat down beside me to let me use his shoulder as a pillow. Mogley resumed his wind turban searchings. Reese dedicated one of the cows to be a "music cow," opting to play piano music.
"Can we play something else?" Ben asked. "The piano's good and all, but it's putting me to sleep. We need something to energize us."
"Okay," Reese said. He fiddled with the cow, and soon heavy metal music filtered out.
"Come on, seriously?" Joss said. "Anything's better than this music!"
"It's not my fault," Reese said. "It's an online radio station." But soon he changed it to Kesha's "Tik Tok."
". . . brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack," Mogley sang. I stared at him.
"What?" He said. "I've heard that song all night at Counties."
"That's so disgusting," I said. "Why would you brush your teeth with Jack?"
"It kills all the bacteria," Mogley said, matter-of-factly.
"So do you spit it out, or do you swallow it?"
"You swallow it, of course."
I wanted to ask, And you would know this because?
But all I said was, "That's still disgusting."
"Yeah," Mogley said. "It is. But at least you get rid of all the bacteria."
We went back to work afterwards. Ben tried to find the energy budget our town had, but failed. Reese tried next, but failed as well. So I tried next, obviously. And failed as well. In frustration, I wrote on one of the blackboards, in huge letters, "Life sucks. Why can't our town's budget papers be clearer?"
"Nice handwriting," Joss said. "It looks like graffiti, but more legible."
And he promptly added "SPARTA!!!" under my words.
"Hey guys," Reese said. "I've plotted water usage by year into a chart. It's steadily rising."
"Good," Mogley said. "How about you plot it as a function to population? Because obviously water usage is going to increase with more people."
"Okay," Reese said. "A ponction--function--a ponction to fopulation."
After a while, Reese said again, "Hey guys, I don't think this is working."
"Why not?" Mogley asked, but then he looked up and realized. The "ponction" for water usage per person was actually... decreasing.
"Well, it needs to decrease MORE then!"
I started cracking up, and we all started laughing, and I started laughing more because everyone else was laughing more, and soon I couldn't catch my breath.
"I--I need to go outside--to calm myself down."
Joss agreed and followed me outside. We went down the hallway, while I tried to talk about unrelated things to stop laughing.
"Pink, fluffy bunnies," I said. "Pink fluffy bunnies under purple clouds, with green rain and..."
"Somehow I doubt that's your solution," Dino said as he walked past us.
We ignored him and kept on walking while talking about pink bunnies and purple clouds. As we reached the end of the hallway, we turned around, and that was when we saw a picture of our cafeteria tables on the school's TV.
What?
Joss and I started laughing even harder. I don't even know why we started laughing. I guess the enormity of the situation was just too funny, or that was what I thought. Joss took out his phone and videotaped the cafeteria tables "as proof," but to what purpose, I have no clue.
We laughed all the way back, and when we passed by the math office, we went in to grab some more water.
"They're in the corner," Mrs. MacDonald said, pointing. "Would you like some snacks as well? We've got lots of cookies and brownies and other treats."
We each took some treats, and then walked to the corner to grab our water, when I discovered that there was tea as well.
"Hey, organic tea!"
"Oooh," Joss said. "Let's get some tea as well."
So we each took a can and walked--or more like ran--back to our room. I had a piece of brownie half in my mouth when I opened the door, and Mogley spotted me.
"Where did you get the food?" He asked.
"Mhmm-mmphm," I said.
"The math office," Joss added.
"They have food?"
"Yeah," I said, having swallowed the brownie. "They've also got tea as well."
Mogley, Reese, and Ben immediately ran out.
(I was going to write everything in here, but I'm running out of time, so I shall have to compromise, and write more tomorrow. I'll get to the Team Darkness part tomorrow, as well as all the other parts that eventually turned me into a laughing mess by the time everything ended.)
