No Graves In Egypt

Audra: "Is that The Book of Mormon in Spanish?" Me: "Yeah." Audra: "You're cool..."

2012-02-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

That happened today. Emoticon.

Exercise

2012-02-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's pretty much amazing. I've been reading allabout learning to cope with ADD (we've officially decided that I'm ADD and I'mgoing to do something about it) and everything that I've read has stressed theimportance of exercise. They say it's one of the best ways of coping--itprovides a focus for energy and lets you work off that energy positively, helpsyou to sleep (which I have trouble with, and now realize is in large part dueto the ADD), helps calm the mind, and has all the physical chemical and hormonalbenefits. And, you know what, it's just plain good for your body. So now thatI've actually decided that I'm ADD and I'm going to do something about it("Embrace your inner ADD!" -George) I've got an exercise dealio goingwith regular, scheduled exercise every day but Sunday. Maybe I'll have to walkon Sundays, too. It's good because it gives me the exercise with all of itsbenefits and gives more structure to my day, which should help, too.

Also, the stuff I've read says that going to bedand getting up at the same time every day even on weekends helps. George is sosmart--she's always advocated this. I don't think there is any possible way Icould handle 5:30 on weekends, but I'll keep it pretty regular-- on weekends,it's bed at 9, up at 6:30.

So, since it is no 9:00, it is bedtime for Charlie.

Once Upon A Time, The Heroine Decided To Quit, Throwing The Director Into A Colossal Temper And Nearly Destroying The Entire Production

2012-01-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Today at rehearsal I found out that my Miranda (one of the main characters) decided to quit Drama. Without telling me. She hasn't been to rehearsal since Winter Break ended, so I asked if anyone had heard from her. Someone informed me that she'd been talking about quitting. And she hadn't told me. Well, I called her and I get a "Yeah, I was trying to get a hold of you, but I wanted to tell you in person, but it really isn't working with my schedule and my mom's making me quit." WHAT THE CRAP DO I DO WITH THAT???

So I've been just going along and thinking things were fine, when I was actually missing one of my key characters. First of all, seriously??? You try out for a major role, and then you decide to quit barely two months out from the performance? NO. And then you don't tell the director? NO! So there I'm stuck with no Miranda and less than 2 months to performance.

Well, I was perfectly civil and thanked her and said goodbye and went and called George to rant. Then I went back and got my computer and headed to my office to hide in the office to try to work out a solution where I wouldn't have to cry in front of people because I was so mad that she quit, that she didn't tell me earlier, that I couldn't do anything about it, that I had to try to solve this situation, and that I wanted to do all the meanest things I could come up with to her but I needed to be nice. I ended up writing out all of the options I could think of--including the problems with them--and then going into a sort of 'analysis' to figure out which one was best. I figured it out, which was nice, but it wasn't nice that I had to figure it out in the first place. The solution is less than ideal, but it's the best option I have and it will do.

To Choose Responsibility-Induced Depression And Be, Or Not To Choose Responsibility-Induced Depression and Be In The Gutter... That Is The Question.

2012-01-18T20:27:00.002-07:00

I've decided that as much as I hate responsibility, I think I prefer it to being in the gutter. I had this revelation just a little bit ago during a conversation that went like this...

Me: >some complaint about responsibility and not liking them<

Padre: >some bracing comment about life and responsibility<

Me: But I hate them!

Padre: Well, then don't do them and end up in the gutter.

Me: But I hate that worse!

Me: o.o

Me: ... O.O
*LIGHTbulb*

Responsibility

2012-01-17T18:25:00.002-07:00

I just walked upstairs after telling El Nino that he's probably not going to have time for screens since he didn't do any of his checklist before I got home and now he isn't doing his exercise. I got him to practice piano, eat dinner, and do his stretches, and now he seems stalled out, playing with the iPod. I tried to remind him that he really wanted screens and he doesn't have any time to spare, and then when he seemed unresponsive, instead of continuing to nag and prod, I went upstairs. It was shockingly difficult.

Oh, listen! He's going to exercise after all. I still don't think he'll have any time for screens, though.

Yesterday I took George and Bon Qui Qui to the airport, which means that Padre, El Nino and I are at home. And the responsibility of feeding myself, El Nino and to a lesser extent, Padre, and helping to keep the house clean, do the laundry, and help El Nino with his list and life fell upon me. Also, and I suspect not so coincidentally, since yesterday, I have been feeling decidedly dismal and life has seemed decidedly grim.

I have responsibilities. But the ones that don't apply to academia are relatively minor. Feeding myself- sometimes. Keeping my room clean-ish- sometimes. Getting to mutual- most times. Responsibilities for mutual. But all the extra falls down and turns everything black and curdled-looking.

Today at school, I had a pretty unpleasant day, mostly due to self-inflicted factors, none of which were unresolvable, but then I came home and realized that I had all these responsibilities and I nearly decided to just sit in the car and cry, but I'd already had to turn off the car and it was getting cold. So I came inside and El Nino and I made a water-bottle of hot chocolate for his bus driver because the bus had broken down and I felt sorry for him sitting out there in the cold. And then I asked El Nino about his checklist and made sure he'd had something to eat and left for piano. When I got home, he'd done his piano practice, but nothing else. So I got him some dinner and encouraged him to do his checklist and got him working on his stretches.

I know being a grown up is supposed to be all about responsibilities and learning to cope with them, but the problem is that I'm not good at it. And I don't like it. Not even a little bit.

Please Hold, We Seem To Be Experiencing Unexpected Evolutionary Difficulties.

2012-01-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Does it mean that there is something inherently un-inquisitive or close (or small)-minded or shallow or unintellectual that I do not care about the curiously high rates of evolution in a few particular pupfish populations?

Dark Closets, Potato Chips, and Celine Dion

2012-01-07T18:38:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about Celine Dion, 'cause I've had "That's The Way It Is" stuck in my head all evening. I really think that she's a fantastic singer and her voice is incredible. I love it. She's amazing

It's just... her songs. I can't think about the words without laughing, choking, or vomiting. And I can't listen to the Titanic song without writhing on the floor in mockery or agony. They're all so sentimental! And... mushy. Like a fruit that's gone bad. (Which is NOT to say her songs are bad. They are not.) They're all about... "Oh, love... Love... I love you so much... Love is so great... Love is hard... You can do it... Don't give up... I won't give up... Hold on... Love..."I'm not saying there's anything wrong with love. I like love. I love love. Love is great. Love- in all its different forms- is pretty much the most important thing in the world. But these lyrics are pretty gag-worthy to someone like me. I'm just complaining because she's such an incredible singer, but some of her songs make me want to shoot myself in the foot. And the ones that I like? I want to shoot myself in the foot for liking them. I feel like I have to hide in a dark closet with headphones and a bag of potato chips where no one will ever find me to listen without shame. But that's not a very healthy or convenient option, so, I suppose I'll just go on listening not in a dark closet.

"It's Hard To Hate Someone When You're Praying For Them." -Padre

2012-01-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've complained about the Cemetery Keeper before. A while ago, he announced that he has cancer. Since then, pretty much starting the very next day, I have found that I don't hate him anymore. I still get angry at him a lot, and I still think that having to go to Cemetery is the most miserable element of my life (which isn't necessarily saying too much, because my life isn't exactly full of miserable elements), but I don't hate him. I figured that this change sprang out of the sympathy and guilt that suddenly reared up when he made his announcement- the blank and automatic feeling that I can't possibly hate someone with cancer, that's immoral and it just doesn't happen and that only a terribly person could possibly harbor such negative emotion towards someone who so clearly needs all the positive energy they can get.

The other day in the car, Padre offered another explanation. I had been commenting on the curious sudden disappearance of my intense antagonistic feelings towards him, and he commented that, "It's hard to hate someone when you're praying for them."

For a minute, I discarded the suggestion out-of-hand as ridiculous, but then it started to make sense. I'd been praying for a long time- since Padre made me promise to- that I would be able to stop hating him, without a whole lot of result- though, to admit it, it's a tiny bit of a self-defeating concept since when you hate someone you don't want to stop, so it's hard to pray with real desire and intent to be able to stop. But also, we started praying for him and his family as soon as we found out. And that was a prayer that I really could mean and want.

So, even if it was partly because I felt so horrible about the idea of hating someone with cancer and felt so sorry that he had it that I suddenly stopped hating him, I'm pretty sure that's the explanation, too.

Alone in El Dorado

2012-01-04T18:30:00.003-07:00

I begin to sense a pattern. Most of my more maudlin and melancholic mental maundering takes place later at night. That's usually when I feel weepy and despairing and like everything is wrong. It's the exhaustion, I'm sure of it. I've never coped well with sleep deprivation. Or stress. Or fear. Or illness. Or sadness. Or...

Let's just say I'm not a coper.

For my online speech class (#$@%) I have to give an "interpretation" of a poem. In this case, "interpretation" seems to mean introducing and reading the poem, and then explaining what it means and why I think it's significant to me.

The plan is to do either Alone or El Dorado, by Edgar Allen Poe, which are about a person who isn't like the others, who is misunderstood, who is all alone because of it, and a dude who goes searching for El Dorado and searches and searches but can't find it and then is told that it's out of reach...

If I pick the first one, I get to go on and on about how I feel that I can relate to the poem because I've never really felt like I think like other people and I think everybody is really alone in the end because nobody can really understand anyone else.

If I pick the second one, I get to give some existentialistic commentary about how I feel this poem beautifully describes the human condition - the way people are always seeking after something we can never find, but we can't stop seeking it: that ultimate truth and happiness are always just out of our reach and whatever we do, we can't ever quite get there.

It's decided. I'll do El Dorado.

Soolaimon

2012-01-01T22:56:00.002-07:00

Come here come say
Ride on the night
Sun become day
Day shall provide

Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon

God of my want, want, want
Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on
On to the woman, she dance for the sun
God of my day, day, day
Lord of my night, night, night
Seek for the way, way, way
Taking me home
She callin'

Bring home my name
On the wings of a flea
Wind in the plain
Dance once for me

Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon
Soo, soolaimon
Soolai, soolai, soolaimon

God of my want, want, want
Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on
On to the woman, she dance for the sun
God of my day
Lord of my night
Seek for the way
Take me home

God of my want, want, want
Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on
On to the woman, she dance for the sun
God of my day, day, day
Lord of my night, night, night
Seek for the way, way, way
Taking me home, and she callin' my name

God of my want, want, want
Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on

Somehow, Neil Diamond, you make me feel better.

It's been pretty much... a lot of time since I've posted. But since I've decided to give up Hulu, much like people have given up smoking or tobacco or drinking, maybe I'll blog every once in a while. I'm having trouble convincing myself I'm a real person.

I'm not sure what that means, and I'm not sure what it indicates. I have some sort of a plan. I'm going to get a Bachelor's degree in music theater at BYU. I'm going to write, provided I can re-convince myself that I know how to write.

After I graduate, I'm going to work as a flight attendant. I'm going to act. That's when things get hazy. I'll be on Broadway. I'll have my own theater. I'll become the next Sarah Brightman and Proud Mary will be my official hair-dresser and maker of unreasonable demands, such as kittens in the dressing room and bacon-wrapped dates available, though I'll likely only nibble. Maybe someday I'll get married. Maybe someday I'll have kids. I'll travel a lot. I'm not sure how this is all going to fit together, but the thing is I really want it to.

Maybe I have to learn to forgive myself for enjoying excruciatingly sentimental and humiliating books like The Last Song. Maybe I have to learn not to make fun of myself for my writing, even when it has romance or something sentimental. Maybe I have to learn to write. Maybe I have to be practical and stop with my ridiculous obsession with fairytales. I think I'm feeling very maudlin right now, though I can't be sure as that is one of the words that I love, but I'm still slightly hazy about.

That's the thing about the dictionary. You can look in as many of them as you want, and it's still nearly impossible to get a real feel for what a word means, the feeling of the word, the use of it.

Oddly, probably since I'm tired and [likely] maudlin, I just had a flash of fear that there is something about this world that I'm missing. Something that I don't know and don't understand that is essential to... to what I'm not entirely sure, but to something.

So I shall return to those so mysteriously comforting lyrics. Sool, Soolaimon. Soolai, Soolai, Soolaimon. Bring home my name on the wings of a flea...

Tricks

2011-10-25T20:34:00.000-06:00

I leave such awkward phone message. I can't seem to figure out the trick. Nor can I figure out the trick to emotionally stability... Seriously.

Though I seem to have figured out the trick of making people think things like... "Oh... I didn't really think you... liked men. I mean, not like that! I just kind of thought you were, like, asexual."

Thank you, Mr. Vraspir. I've decided to make a book. Of my favorites of your tactless, vague, or unreasoned comments. It's going to include both the above statement and the one from sophomore year about, "Hi, Carli, I head you got >insert great score I got here< on the PSAT. I know someone who got way better than you!"

I'll publish it when you try to run for public office. >:)

Coolest Cartoon Ever

2011-10-23T08:13:00.000-06:00

We're not even going to discuss how much time I spent looking up oboe cartoons that day.

Pizza

2011-10-13T21:18:00.002-06:00

Wow. I've come to the conclusion that I'm really bad at this "blogging" thing. It's been, what, a month since my last post? Well, today I just have to tell all about my big accomplishment of the day.

I have consumed almost an entire pizza. On my own. My friend Torificus Sparticus consumed another 3/4 and my brother a teeny bit.

U2

2011-09-18T20:16:00.001-06:00

I love U2's lyrics. George and I both do.

"It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, she moves in mysterious ways."

"Sometimes you just can't make it- best you can do is to fake it."

"You don't have to put up a fight. You don't have to always be right."

"What you don't have, you don't need it now, what you don't know you can feel somehow."

"I'm trying to focus, worm!" -Charlie

2011-09-14T17:42:00.002-06:00

"I'm trying to focus, worm!"
"Worm?"
"Indeed. Crazed ground-crawler!"
"Hagrid."
"Are you calling me bearded?"
"Whiskered."

I love my school. I love my classes. I love my teachers. I love getting to write notes about radicallous (and ridiculous) ideas to Kaylin during history. I love being able to fan-club with other people about getting to see Sir Ken Robinson (an education reform- actual system reform, not economic reform- dynamo) on September 27th and riding to school every morning with Kaylin and Max and Joseph. I love listening to music in spanish and occasionally catching on to what's being said. I love ToK (even if some kind of a cloying black cloud of despair did descend over the room today, shrouding us all with a pall of misery and grumpiness and frustration) and having my doodles and incoherent letter-doodles count as legitimate thought. I love the sun. I love choir after school. I love our Tambur song. I love my CAS binder. I love the way college and the rest of my life is coming but for now I'm still here. I love that my brother is taking Spanish. I love speaking Spanish to him. I love helping him write his song in Spanish. I love skipping wildly through the halls with Kaylin. I love walking around the halls with Matt and Geoffrey. I love that I know somebody whose name is Geoffrey instead of Jeffery. I love playing sushi tag and fan-clubbing about Doctor Who with Audra. I love that my whole school loves Harry Potter. I love that my student body president is an evil-dictator in training. (well, you know. It adds charisma to the school. A certain element of danger- of sophistication, mystery, and class...) I love that I (along with the other seniors) am no longer afraid of Mr. Collie, as we all were first year here. I love that I get to be in the FIRST GRADUATING CLASS EVER from my school. I love that I'm graduating this year. I love IB. I love playing around on googledocs and using it as a super scholarly and sophisticated form of instant messaging and note passing. I love that most everybody I text spells words out and punctuates and capitalizes their text messages.

I must say that my life is going quite well at this point. I really must be one of the 10 luckiest people in the world.

George and I figure that we are where we are because we were the weakest spirits before birth and they knew we couldn't handle all that trial and tribulation that goes around the world. So that must make the one of the 10 weakest people in the world.... Funny how that goes. :)

This Sweater Is So Blasted Comfortable

2011-09-10T21:17:00.000-06:00

I love this sweater. It's so soft that I think I must resort to quoting "Despicable Me" to even begin to express it... "It's so fuzzy! It's so fuzzy I'm gonna die!" I don't want to take it off, but I can't go to bed if I keep it on- I'll be way to warm to sleep.

So why am I blogging? I'm stalling. Stalling going to bed and taking off the sweater. Which is ridiculous, because I really want to go to sleep. But... it's so soft...

Oh, blast it, I'm going to bed. Fare thee well, fair sweater, fare thee well...

Feeding the Sub-saharan Villages

2011-09-10T20:59:00.002-06:00

I ate a lot today. Much more than I needed, and much more than I should have. I had a huge order of those deep fried fair-food fresh potato chips- the ones that are literally slices of potato deep fried and salted and mmm..... So unhealthy, but so good for the tongue and heart. Er... the figurative heart. Then I went to a picnic/cookout with my aunt and her neighbors and I ate a hamburger with cheese and tomato (no bun, of course) and a big huge serving of salmon and a polish sausage and a lot of the salad (Mm.... made with little shrimp and onions and lettuce and tomato... it had olives, but I picked those out... sad, but true.) and an apple and a peach off of the tree. This was a LOT of food.

I've also instituted a new practice in my life: Fruit Sabbaticals. Each month, I'll go on a fruit sabbatical for 3 days and eat nothing but fruits and vegetables and nuts--nuts since I need some protein source. I feel like this will be a good thing for my life. I decided that being a vegetarian wasn't for me when I gave it a two-month trial run, but I'm definitely liking the fruit sabbatical idea. My first sabbatical starts Monday. I know calling it a Fruit Sabbatical doesn't seem quite accurate- but it sounded much cooler than "Fruit, Vegetable, and Nut Sabbatical" or "Produce and Nut Sabbatical" or any of the other options.

Today... was a really good day, even though I overfed. I got to go to Art in the Park in the morning with Jake and this cookout in the evening, and I napped in the car on the way there! Art in the Park was so much fun- I sketched some of the stuff I saw and took some notes, and I found out what I should REALLY do if I want to "get knocked up".

There were so many amazing things there! There was one booth with wind-chimes and other artsy pieces made of silverware and a booth with clocks and bowls and jewelry made of of records and the vinyl from the records. One booth had a bunch of rugs made of alpaca, sheep, and yak wool and the woman was sitting there with her spinning wheel-type thing spinning alpaca wool into yarn. They had skeins of it for people who knit or anything to buy as well. There was a booth of an artist- Oluf Nielson- who did these big abstract oil and acrylic paintings- they were abstract, but they also looked like there was thought and purpose behind them, which I definitely liked. There was one of a painter who did realism and his paintings were just like photographs- you could tell more if you looked closely, especially at parts like the flowers, but it was amazing at how life-like they were! There were glass-work and metal-work artists and other style painters and one with artwork that was pictures made of pressed flowers and leaves- some of it even had vines of coral in it!

There was music, too- they had a troupe of amateur Basque dancers with the women in red skirts and flowy white shirts with a black apron and vest and a white bonnet and the men in white pants and shirts with a red-fringed black vest and a floppy red cap and sheets of bells tied around their legs below the knee. For one dance, they sent the dancers out into the audience and had them get audience members come dance with them, so I got to join in- it was a clapping and skipping dance, and it was so much fun!

Lookie! They're FISHIES! :D

In this one, the trees are made out of strands of coral!

I sketched the painting on one of the vases at this stand. It was pretty cool- she sold that vase, too, later on.

They were so realistic!

We were at one of the metal-work stands when I thought I recognized one of the figures as,Kokopelli, a Native American god. I wasn't positive, so we went to ask the man. He said that yes, that was Kokopelli, and did I know what Kokopelli was the god of? I couldn't remember, so I said no...

"He's the god of fertility. So if you want to get knocked up, you get him."

I stood there trying (not very hard) not to laugh as I said, "Oh, no- thanks, but I'm good."

We got to listen to a musician there, later, called James Orr. He's actually from Boise, and he's on tour. It was pretty cool. And I got to eat fair-food potato chips! :}

And then, George and Daddy and I went to Becca's to go to a cookout at her neighbor's. We had all kinds of philosophical and not-so-philosophical discussions and warred with bees and flies and ate lots of yummy food- and George got bags and bags of food- tomatoes and peaches and apples and pears... I shall be eating lots of these on my fruit sabbatical starting on monday. I'm quite delighted.

It was a very good day.

Charlie and Luke

2011-09-07T20:43:00.002-06:00

"Someday You're Going To Be An Orphan." ~Daddy

2011-09-07T06:06:00.000-06:00

I think my parents are great teachers- they also teach important things, and very, very different things than many other parents do- like reminding me that someday I'm going to be an orphan. When I was about 8- maybe younger- my mom taught me that if someone ever tries to rape you, you figure what they want, and if they want you to struggle, you struggle, and if they want you to be passive, you be passive.

My mom also does things like, when I text her that I accidentally knocked the back off of the car side mirror backing out of the garage, texting back "So what have you learned from this?"

On an unrelated note, my choir class is fantastic. It's technically an after school class, 5th period- but still for a credit and a grade with attendance and everything- and it's Chamber Choir. The difference from my Concert Choir class last year is really amazing. In this class, everyone cares about the choir as a whole, and about the music. They stay focused. They sing well. They're enthusiastic and dedicated. They don't freak out over high notes- they love the music. They take Mr. Brown's advice without the usual "eeeuh... that's weird..." reactions. It's really fantastic. It's so much fun that it's not even like having an extra class. And we get to have it every day!

So... We Meet Another Liver.

2011-09-06T19:31:00.002-06:00

I found out that I have a spirit twin. We used to hang out in the spirit world- we were twins. Then we finagled our way to being related when we were born, too. I also learned that I love bacon-wrapped dates, that lying (not real lying- made-up lying) can have unexpected and wonderful consequences, and that there is a small restaurant called The Cellar in Shelley, Idaho that serves reportedly fine wine and looks like it fell out of a the Sleeping Beauty fairytale on the outside.

The liver produces bile, AND it has to filter all of our blood. No wonder it's so big. (It's the second largest organ in the body, after the skin.)

Today, in Theory of Knowledge, I got to expound upon all of my knowledge about the corpus collosum and it's function in the brain- and what happens if the corpus collosum is split. I love ToK.

Recently I learned not to ever back out of the garage in a hurry, even if you're running late, because the car might be parked closer to the edge than you thought it was.

Today I learned that you should never drive to school without a parking permit, because ISU will choose that day (even if they almost never, ever do) to check cars for permits, and you will get a ticket and feel sheepish and uncomfortable and have to tell your parents you got a ticket and need a way to pay them back for the $30 you need from them to pay the ticket.

Welcome To Sprinkler Heaven!

2011-09-05T20:43:00.000-06:00

Have the Sprinkler-filled time of your life at Sprinkler Heaven! Here, you can do just about anything!

Interpretive dance...

Gymnastics...

Octopus Impressions...

Cross Country Training...

And good old fashioned Running and Screaming!

Join us at Sprinkler Heaven on a hot day and let the sprinkler delight begin!

Yes, I Truly Do Get Way Too Into These Things

2011-08-28T19:34:00.000-06:00

Knowing myself as I do (minimally), and analyzing my reaction to the first book, I went to Goodreads to find the reviews (and, yes, spoilers) for the rest of the Mistborn trilogy. You see, I can't handle some things in books. I get way too into books, and if the book has too strong an element of misery, disturbing, despair, or hopelessness, I can't handle it.

Well, it seems the books just get even deeper into misery and hopelessness and despair as it goes, and while I think the first book was brilliant and wonderful, I know, sadly, that I can't handle the rest of the series...

Sadly, I am a dedicated fairy-tale lover and I have a hard time accepting anything less than a complete, unqualified happy ending. I have made progress- I am more accepting of endings that have some more... thought and qualification to them. I can appreciate books for things other than sheer entertainment value and storyline. But... while I can even appreciate Pedro Paramo, at the time when I first read it, it deeply disturbed and unsettled me and left me feeling much less than cheerful. I felt like it had killed part of my soul. You see how it is?

I Get WAY Too Into These Things

2011-08-28T18:51:00.000-06:00

I just read the book Mistborn. I've had it requested from the library for months, and I finally got it yesterday. And- except for one flaw that makes me want to tear my hair and rant and rave and makes my brain revolt- it was fantastic!

This glaring flaw?

Brandon Sanderson blinking KILLED my favorite character! I'm fairly certain that he was supposed to be a favorite and that readers were meant to get attached- just perhaps not this attached. What made it even worse? He did it brilliantly! It was beautiful! It was absolutely perfect, and I STILL hate, despise, and loathe that he did it, so very, very much. I really, really, really, really wanted him to live! A lot of times I'm okay with characters dying. Even ones I liked. But I really, really wanted this one to live. When he died, it was plain as day- in that gorgeous, literary way- how he had been leading up to it through the entire book that far.

And yet... my bran and emotions utterly reject such a thing. Can't happen. Shouldn't have happened. ARGH!

Fantasy books are typically less subtle, less sophisticated, less "literary" than other books. I'm sure this one is the same and I'm just having a momentary dazzle-fit. But still, in fantasy literature terms, it's beautiful how he puts the thing together.

A Brief Comment To Prove I Am Still Alive and Still Having Thoughts

2011-08-17T13:40:00.000-06:00

One thing I love about my history class/teacher: I have twice used the word "dastardly" in assignments, I once wrote (and got an A on) an essay explaining why the American Revolution was nothing but a global version of a sibling-sibling/parent-child power struggle.

While I am sad that vacation is over, I am not sad to be going back to school. These are two separate aspects of the same event- vacation ending, bad, school beginning, good. I like my school quite a lot. I also like vacation, but that's life.

The Battle of >>Insert Battle Name Here<< Had Been Lost...

2011-07-27T11:17:00.000-06:00

I have a new cat! She was a Humane Society cat, and when they gave her to Zamzows and she was only $10... Well, I've been wanting a cat for quite a long time, and George brought her home for me! We had some trouble with her being terribly shy; she would hide and wouldn't come out and she wouldn't use the cat door and wasn't eating, but she's been improving by leaps and bounds! She's been using the cat door and eating a little and drinking. Today, a little while ago, I went out into the garage to see her, and she wasn't in her usual spot under Dad's workbench, or anywhere else, so I checked outside, and lo and behold, she'd used the cat door on her own and she was under the deck. And then... and THEN! came the most amazing thing... I called to her and she actually came out to me! She's been getting much more friendly, too.

I had my wisdom teeth out almost 2 weeks ago, which is {mostly} why my posting has been nothing more than one drug-induced list of reasons why it wasn't so bad. But now my narcotics have been taken away, and my mouth isn't hurting as much and I'm making do with Ibuprofen and the occasional ice pack.

In other news, I tried to wear black for Amy Winehouse, I really did, but it didn't quite come through. I'm just not good at wearing black. I don't have that much black that works for me to wear around the house instead of just to church.
And now, I must head back to my dreary work... Online classes.

May they burn in aitch-e-double-hockey-sticks forever.
------------------{here ^^^^__________________^^^^ you see my continuing reluctance to out-right swear on a public forum. That still only happens in my head.}

Gratuitous

2011-07-19T10:31:00.000-06:00

This might be getting a little gratuitous. That word is just perfect... It's like gratitude, expept, it's not, so I could be gratuitously gratitude. I mean grateful. Gratudinous. That should be a word. Anywho, I'm getting a little gratuitous in my gratitude, but still, here's some more stuff I'm grateful for. And this will make me feel better.

I'm grateful that I could get my wisdom teeth out before they caused me terrible problems.
I'm grateful that the doctors were nice people who made it a little bit less awful to have to be sedated with an IV.
I'm grateful that I have pain medication to make my mouth feel better and that the narcotics don't make me cranky.
I'm grateful for people who help take care of me- like my Gramma bringing me jell-o and reading to me or my Uncle helping me walk to the car and taking me home after sacrament meeting instead of having to stay for the rest of church or George giving me my painkillers and feeding me and letting me lie around sleeping and watching TV or J-man making his baking projects gluten free.
I'm grateful that I have beds and couches and ice packs.

I. Freaking. Hate. Hormones.

2011-07-08T16:20:00.001-06:00

Social Graces

2011-07-07T13:27:00.000-06:00

I'll admit it. I lack social graces. But I have learned a few things. Just now, much to my dismay, I found myself bowing- reluctantly- to the statutes and rules of politeness dictated by society. Not that I find them all stupid, I agree with many of them. It just annoys me that I can't say just what I want to say because it might be abrasive and/or offend somebody(ies).

I was working on a discussion board post for one of my online classes, looked at what I'd written, realized that it could be taken as abrasive, insensitive and/or possibly even offensive (thbt. They're all just too sensitive, that's all.), sighed, and deleted it. I would be proud of myself if I weren't so disgruntled at this whole wave of thought this event has brought on.

Society is like weaver ants, all of us crawling around practically on top of each other and forced to live with each other, so we have to come up with rules in order to keep things "civilized". So I have to watch whom I mock and to whom I do the mocking, I have to keep my more abrasive, cynical thoughts to myself, and I have to make sure that the innocent ones that I attempt to post on a class forum really are innocent and change them if they're not.

I'm Grateful

2011-07-04T23:47:00.000-06:00

I'm grateful for a lot of things. These are only a few of them.

I'm grateful for a roof over my head
I'm grateful for fireworks
I'm grateful that I got to have a roof under my feet tonight to watch fireworks
I'm grateful that I got to play with sparklers
I'm grateful that my dad has a steady, good job that can support us financially
I'm grateful that I have such a large extended family
I'm grateful for my new baby cousin Inches
I'm grateful that he slept in my arms
I'm grateful for getting to hold him and sing to him
I'm grateful that I can sing
I'm grateful for words
I'm grateful for wrock music
I'm grateful that I have moved so much in my life
I'm grateful for all the beautiful and exciting opportunities ahead of me
I'm grateful for fans that help keep my room a little cooler
I'm grateful for summer
I'm grateful for water parks and
I'm grateful that I live practically next door to one
I'm grateful for the slide at the end of the long line
I'm grateful for a computer
I'm grateful for my clothes
I'm grateful that I have curly hair
I'm grateful for my religion and my faith
I'm grateful for my parents
I'm grateful that my parents are married, together, in love, and in all likelihood always going to stay that way
I'm grateful for butterflies
I'm grateful for sleep
I'm grateful for dreams
I'm grateful for breakfast
I'm grateful for gluten free pizza
I'm grateful that there are so many gluten free recipes and foods out there
I'm grateful that I am happy
I'm grateful for my teachers
I'm grateful for my school
I'm grateful for prayer
I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn another language- and someday more
I'm grateful for colored lights
I'm grateful for our piano, even if it is electric
I'm grateful that my neighbor has a real baby grand piano
I'm grateful that George can visit her sisters
I'm grateful that my parents trust me
I'm grateful for people who believe in me and help me
I'm grateful for purple sheets
I'm grateful that I'm sad sometimes so I can really understand what happy is
I'm grateful that no emotion lasts forever, even the really, really unhappy ones
I'm grateful for our car
I'm grateful for our house
I'm grateful that I can eat food that I like, not just food that will keep me alive
I'm grateful for people I don't know who still smile and wave back- or first
I'm grateful that I don't have to make a list to express my gratitude for everything for which I'm grateful, because there would just be too many things. These are just the things that I thought of off the top of my head in just a few minutes. I'm grateful that I have been so blessed.

Fireworks

2011-07-04T23:17:00.000-06:00

I love fireworks. I really do. And watching fireworks from the roof is an experience to undergotrouble for. (I'm opposed to the phrase "to die for", as it is really a self-defeating concept) And they deserve every one of those three exclamation marks. Tonight, Dad and J and I got to light driveway fireworks- those fun little poppers that explode in a little spark and pop when you throw them on the ground, those tanks that you set up to battle and then spray sparks and little jets of fire and eventually burst into flame, and my favorite part of driveway fireworks... The sparklers!!!

All of the pictures were blurry since it was dark, but I love this one anyway.

Yes. They deserve every one of those 3 exclamation marks.

We went out on the roof to watch the fireworks. While we were sitting out there, Jackson asked me, "Will you hold me- stabilize me?" or something like that. And the fireworks were so much fun! We have such a cool view.

Wrock On. Trock On.

2011-07-04T21:59:00.000-06:00

Chameleon Circuit:

1. n. A circuit (hence the circuit part) on the Tardis that made it blend (hence the chameleon part) in with it's surroundings. The chameleon circuit made the Tardis appear to be a roman column when the Doctor and I landed in ancient Rome.

2. n. A trock band. Actually, the trock band. The very first trock group ever. The pioneers of trock.

Trock

1. n. Time-lord Rock. The musical movement (much less well-known and well-filled than the wrock movement) of making rock music about Doctor Who.

2. adj. Of or relating to trock music.

Wrock

1. n. Wizard Rock. Harry Potter rock songs. 'Nuff said.

2. adj. Of or relating to wrock music.

Alex Day, Charlie McDonnell... those other guys whose names I cannot recall... They make up Chameleon Circuit, the pioneer trock band. Sort of. But they also have solo careers. And I love them, quite a lot. It's not that they're miraculous musicians, because they really aren't, it's that they're charismatic, cute British boys who can sing.

Wrock music is a much better-known area of music than Trock, which is NOT to say that it is mainstream. It is Wizard Rock! And it's really quite marvelous. It is also full of musicians who aren't really miracles but who are charismatic, usually cute people who can sing and sing fun songs about Harry Potter. And... lots of them are British, which is fantastic.

Joy...

"One Minute Writing Contest"

2011-07-03T22:13:00.000-06:00

It's not a real "one minute writing contest" in that you have one minute to write. It's a contest sponsored by Boise State Public Radio in which contestants write a 120 word "essay" (as they called it) about "your uniquely Idaho memory/experience". I submitted my entry last night; I'm actually really excited about this! I wrote about one of the times I remember dancing out in the street in the rain; it was late at night and it was pitch dark except when lightning lit up the outline of the cloud-mountains of the storm front. I actually thought there were mountains for a minute until I remembered that there weren't any mountains in that direction.

Sometimes I Think The Whole World is Made of Words

2011-07-03T21:59:00.000-06:00

Late last night, I had words all jumbling around inside my brain, insisting on being acknowledged, refusing to let me sleep. So I pulled up my computer and typed up the words so that I could go to sleep, and this is what happened:

The words. They come to me at night. Whispered by the stars, they plague me, they soothe me. The words are my curse, and they are my gift.

The stars whisper, and someone has to hear them. Whispers are not silent; they are meant to be heard; they must be heard; they shall be heard. A woman whispers in the night, and she is the only one to hear. A child whispers to her friend, and he hears. And since stars have no ears to hear, the words they whisper must filter down to the Earth, to fall on the ears of anyone listening. And I listen, and I cannot stop up my ears, for no one else will listen, and the words will find a way through to my mind. Sleep, the phantom, looses urgency as the whispers crowd. They bunch, they mill, they demand my thoughts, my hands, my voice. The stars, so far from Earth, so far from voices, long only for a listening ear. I give them the gift of mine, and they give me the gift of their words. And always I will listen.

These words are not mine—never mine. They belong to the stars; I lent only my ear, my hands, and my voice, and they gave me their words.

They speak of things a mystery to me. They speak of love and life and birth and death and song and silence and they know them all. I know none of them; my hands, my voice, they are insufficient, and I cannot understand, but still I will give them my ear and I will give them my hands and I will give them my voice to use as they will, insufficient tools though they are, and though the whispers curse me, still they bless me, and the stars with their words and whispering hold my whole heart and I cannot turn away my ear.

Sometimes I think the world is made of words.

Owen Bennett Jones... With News Hour

2011-07-01T22:39:00.000-06:00

So. It's been requested that I be a little less dramatic while J is preparing to go to bed because it's so terribly distracting. So I must reign in the ongoing hissy fit and simply blog instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid book. EGYA!! Rmph. It's not fair. I disagree. I don't like it. I want it MY way. It shouldn't end that way. It doesn't have any right to end that way when the second book isn't coming out until next blinking year. Egads. Grumblefrump.

On another note, why is it that my bedroom acts just like a solar heating unit? No matter what I do, I can't keep it cool. Oh, it's nice enough, maybe even a little chilly- which is good- by midnight or after, but in the morning, though I shut the windows and close the blinds and open the door and leave on the fan, it proceeds with its daily routine of heating and heating and heating throughout the day until it is unbearable by night and I once again have to sleep on the couch to achieve any level of comfort.

And why is 'daily' spelled like that? It should be 'dayly'. Really. And Fiery? I think someone just got mixed up when they were inventing English and had a moment of dyslexia. It ought to be 'firey'.

Physical Education Is NOT Supposed To Be Mentally Taxing

2011-06-30T17:46:00.000-06:00

Even the online kind. That's why it's called PHYSICAL education, isn't it? Because it's, you know, for your BODY.

Shouldn't we get simple instructions, instead of convoluted, difficult to follow ones? Shouldn't we just... have a simple work-out log and a way to turn it in. Now please excuse me while I try again to figure out what the dickens she wants me to do.

Stupid online classes!

Those Dark, Brooding, Devil-May-Care Types...

2011-06-29T21:31:00.000-06:00

Those dark and brooding guys... Those careless bad boys... The tortured men... They get all the girls. Why is that? Because it's sexy to be dark and brooding. No, really. Dark and brooding guys, along with the nonchalant, bad boy guys and tortured dudes are wildly attractive. And it's doubly attractive when they're the dark and brooding AND tortured AND devil-may-care bad-boys. That doesn't mean that I would care to spend much time around them. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that I'd rather just appreciate from afar.

Seriously! What is it that's so very attractive about being tortured and/or dark and brooding and/or devil-may-care-wicked types?

In books and movies, it's all well and good. The dark and brooding guy ends up with the girl. And, yes, actually, I'm usually rooting for him. It's because he's just sexier than the other guy. Or... just because he's wildly attractive even though there is no other guy. As the case may be! Unfortunately, here we see another instance of stories and situations failing to transfer accurately off of the page or the silver screen, because in real life, dark, brooding, devil-may-care guys are not exactly great fun.

I have a thing for the bad boys. The dark, brooding fellows... Those rakish, devil-may-care types... All of them. I find them wildly attractive. I enjoy reading about them, watching movies about them, and writing stories with them, but somehow I doubt that the attraction would survive the transfer to reality. Blast it, why can't things ever work out like I write them?

Berries

2011-06-25T20:30:00.000-06:00

Berries are a very good thing. I'm very glad that we have them. I have only recently been initiated into the ranks of berry-eaters, but since then, I have been devouring strawberries like no tomorrow and eating blueberries in yogurt with granola.

While I was on vacation in Pennsylvania, I got to go camping with Kat and her family. They go on this annual 2 night camping trip called Mother Earth with several other families, mostly related to each other.

Kat's mom was worried that it would rain the first night, so we didn't go to the campsite until the next morning, but we got there by a little after 9:30.

The area is beautiful- it's in the woods and there is a large meadow-clearing that is kind of beginning to be pinched into two like a cell just starting cytokinesis. The bigger part is just this open meadow, the smaller part is where the campfire and tables all are.

On the other side of that, there is a... I'm really not sure what to call it. It's not nearly big enough to be a river, but I've always thought of a creek as a teeny little thing. I guess it's a creek. A little into the woods there is an outhouse- and it's really a very nice outhouse, considering; much nicer than a port-a-potty (or spot-a-pot, as they call it).

I didn't take this picture- or any of the others in this post- as I didn't have a camera, and I didn't take ANY pictures. (GASP! D= ) But... ours seriously looked almost exactly liked that. The door handle was on the other side of the door and the moon wasn't on the door. That's it.

I'm curious: who decided that a crescent moon would be the symbol for outhouses? And why? And does it have something to do with the phrase "mooning"?

The creek is lovely, except that it also happens to be full of crayfish- or crawdads, whatever you want to call them- and those are decidedly not so.

Crayfish are absolutely freakish and happen to be on my list of things to avoid at almost any cost. I only discovered this on this trip. These things are gigantic for creek creatures, and they have this gross, ugly shell and big pincers and antennae or whatever you call the equivalent of antennae on crustaceans.

Here's a picture. Just bear in mind that they're creepier in real life than a picture can really convey.

Yes. These things ^^^ were crawling around all over in the stream.

That first morning after we'd arrived, we (Kat, her little cousins Emily and Lauren, her cousin Ash, her older brother Ian, and I) were wading out in the water when we discovered the things. The others were all used to them, used to catching them etc, but I quickly discovered that no matter how logically I talked to myself or the others talked to me, I could not make myself accept them or their presence. I couldn't touch them, I could hardly look at them, and I found myself trapped, because stepping forward or backward might reveal more crayfish.

Well, eventually I had to give up my policy of safety and venture further out, assiduously making sure my feet didn't encounter any of the little monsters. The water was freezing cold, and since it was only about 10:30, it wasn't exactly boiling outside, so there was the usual noises-of-protest and slowly inching deeper and trying to convince each other to dunk. Emily was the first one to go under the water and she was paddling around all over the place.

Ian finally went under, and Ash, but Kat and I still wouldn't do it. Then, somehow, the splashing started. I splashed Ian, and he grabbed me and dunked me under. Of course, I felt much better and the water was quite nice for a while after that. We all got out after not too long, though, because it was cold, but Kat and I got back in the water later. We had a little inflatable raft and we used that to head upstream to hang out at the rapids. It was like being in a cold Jacuzzi.

Anyway, we ate stuff that people brought and cooked over the fire or on little propane stoves- myself, I ate a hamburger and some chicken cooked over the fire- whenever we got hungry.

Kat and Ash and Jessen (a friend of hers whose family also participates in Mother Earth, just for explanation of the random character now thrown into the mix... he wasn't there earlier.) and I went out to go for a walk along the road nearby. We ended up hanging out on a bridge for a long time... Darn those trouble-makin' kids, hangin' out on bridges and causin' trouble... We talked a lot and played truth or dare. Not that it was a particularly eventful game, as nobody could think of anything good. We even walked further to a pretty little covered bridge and hung out there. It started getting dark, so we reluctantly figured that as the dusk came in... so should we. Come in, that is. To camp. So that is what we did...

Then we had smores! (Side note: the spellchecker in Blogger or the Internet or whatever seems to think that 'smores' is not a word. Is it spelled wrong? I thought that was it. Interesting. Wait. I just realized. It's "s'mores", isn't it. As in... Can I have s'more? That doesn't make any sense at all. Hmph.) Naturally, I just ate the marshmallows.

But... Our fire didn't look anything like that. Our fire had asthma, I do believe. Kat, Ash, Jessen and I sat on a blanket in the middle of the meadow talking for a really long time as it got darker and darker. We brought over a bag of tortilla chips and a can of salsa- of which, yes indeedily, I did partake- to eat, too. Eventually, I turned into a kind of a sleep zombie. Apparently, I fell asleep with my head on Ash's lap or knee or something and was quite insistent about keeping it there. At a little after midnight, Kat finally got me up to make me go to real bed in the sleeping bed in the tent so I wouldn't get sick or something.

The next morning, Kat and I actually went swimming again. We tried to make Ash come with us, and we got him into the water and along with us a little ways, but as soon as we stopped paying active attention to keeping him there for a minute... he was gone.

Later that day, instead of going home we went to Kat's aunt and uncle's house in Philadelphia so that we wouldn't have to wake up at 4 in the morning to get to the airport.

And... so it went. And now that I've reached the end of that, I find I've also reached the end of my blog post. So...

The End.

Life Lessons Learned Picking Strawberries

2011-06-18T06:22:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in a long time, but I assure you, I had my reasons... What were those reasons? Very good ones, I assure you. In fact, excellent. Excellent reasons such as... not having much to say that I felt like blogging about. And that for the past couple of days I've been VACATIONING in Pennsylvania! I think that excuses me from blogging duties. But now that I'm blogging, I might as well say the things I've thought of to say.

First of all, Strawberries are so named because they grow in straw!!! WHO KNEW, RIGHT? I would NEVER have guessed that. I mean, it's so logical it doesn't make sense! It's Alice in Wonderland logic! I learned this on our strawberry-picking venture, by the by. (She said casually, casting a nonchalant look over her shoulder, far too cool to betray any sort of excitement or any such sort of non-cool-and-collected emotion or behavior)

I've never been strawberry-picking before, so this was a lovely new experience for me, and all kinds of symbolic life lessons popped out and smacked me upside the head. I'll just go ahead and put those on the blog devoted to such things... Later.

We went to Blues Fest- my first music festival, by the way. I just have new experiences by the truckload when I come out here, don't I? I've also had my only 2 college tours ever visiting out here. Last time I came out, we toured Yale. This time, we toured Bucknell. The fruits of this tour? I'm going to Bucknell.

It's on the east coast just like I wanted (I love it out here. The architecture is beautiful, I love the humidity, it's green, green, green and gorgeous), the campus is beautiful, it's only 25 minutes away from Eleanor and John (Kat's parents), it's a great school, I can take classes like dance classes and art classes without having to be a major in that field, I can do my theater major and creative writing minor, they have a lot of service opportunities- there's one program where they are working with this community in Nicaragua, and you can go to work with the program there (IN Nicaragua, friends, IN Nicaragua) during Winter break, Spring break, and/or for 3 weeks in the Summer. The girl who gave our tour- she's going to be a senior next year- told us that the classes are typically smaller classes.

And now we are going camping!

You Got the Wrong Message

2011-06-07T20:35:00.000-06:00

We were just watching one of those smart-phone advertisements, and George announced that the ad really speaks to her. Dad asked if she even knew what happened, George and I both replied, "Yeah, the other guy was right!"

Well, turns out that wasn't the message we were supposed to get. We were supposed to be frustrated because our phones can't surf the Internet and his could. But... the ad didn't have anything to do with our phones!

Me Cave Man. Me Kill Things. Me Eat Dead Things. Me Die Of Constipation From Not Eating Bran Flakes. Me Stink.

2011-06-07T19:21:00.001-06:00

My family and I... We are nothing more than a bunch of Cavemen in disguises. Flimsy disguises. Today, we brought home a dead animal, plunked it in the middle of the table and started tearing into it with our fingers, ripping off strips of skin, tearing off hunks of flesh, gnawing on bones... You get the picture. And we didn't even cook it- we stole someone else's.

No joke.

Except for the stealing part. We actually bought it. From Wal-Mart. Which is as good as stealing, I guess, since Wal-Mart is pretty much the devil. We were commenting on the very caveman-ish-ness of this. Cavemanery? It was cavemanners, anyway. Well, as we were commenting on our meal's state of being similar to that to which we would posit a caveman's meal would be similar, Dad pointed out to George (we having reduced the much-abused chicken carcass to a little white meat and a lot of bone and cartilage. Yes, even the skin had been devoured) ...

"Except that you're eating bran flakes." (Her desert. Mine was summer sausage. J's was cake.) And George just informed him,

"I'm a progressive."

It was a great moment. Speaking of great moments, I had another one last Friday. Saturday? Yes. Saturday.

I was at Roaring Springs (the water park) for a friend's (an exchange student) going away party. (Though I did keep insistently calling it her birthday party.) Ashley, Austin, Morgan, and Becca and I were all in the lazy river. Somebody'd said something about blue eyes, and it resulted in Ashley and I have a shouted conversation/argument/debate/discussion about blue eyes and plolygenic inheritance and dominant and recessive alleles. At the water park. On a weekend.

Lastly, but not leastly, we have a blue heron living in our neighborhood. It was in our yard. It perched on our neighbor's house. We took pictures. And a video. We hope it won't eat our fish.

*Edit: I just realized that at first glance, it looks like that says "we hope it won't eat our flesh." when really it says "we hope it won't eat our FISH."

I'm So...

2011-05-31T18:58:00.000-06:00

Tired.

Today I found myself inexplicably... weary. Fatigued. Exhausted. Pooped. Bushed. Wiped out. Jaded. Tuckered out. Zonked.

Extremely so, in fact. I nearly fell asleep in TOK, could hardly keep my eyes open through Biology, and slept through the last half of lunch on the floor in the corner of Mr. Callis's room. So I'm going to go do my homework, take a shower, perhaps work on a story for a while, and go to bed.

Funny thing is, I didn't go to bed late last night. I didn't have a sleep-depriving weekend. I've been rather reasonable of late.

One reason people get so tired even when they're sleeping enough is anemia. I was anemic when I was little. I'm probably not now.

Another reason is collective sleep deprivation manifesting itself at random times. It's probably this one.

I'm kind of hoping for the first one, because at least then I'd have some kind of an excuse and I could just take iron pills and get better. The second one (which... I'm pretty sure is it...) is harder. :P

The School Nurse From The Black Lagoon

2011-05-26T19:47:00.000-06:00

I'm serious. She is. I never go to the nurse before noon because of her. She's part time and leaves at noon, and I think there's some day of the week she doesn't come at all, but I don't dare risk it since I don't know for sure. She glares, bringing to mind the phrase "if looks could kill".

She seems to feel that if you're sick enough or whatever to need to come to the nurse, you better be sick enough to go home. And in order to be able to go home, you have to have a fever or be vomiting. She's mean.

George once brought me some shoes and pants to try on during lunch. Since we have a short lunch, we had to hurry, so I just used the bathroom in the nurse's office. She glared at me. She glared at George. She glared at me when I came down because I was so sick with a cold I needed to call Mom and go home. But I didn't have a fever and I wasn't vomiting. Today, I went to the nurse's office and suffered her glare, which I never, ever do. I was bullied into it. Not very hard, as I was in no condition to fight hard, but still.

Last night, I stayed at a friend's house, and we were up late working on a project. I didn't get to bed until way too late for me and woke up earlier than usual because she takes a very long time to wake up and has to have her alarm go off at 5 and then snooze it over and over. So I was half awake from 5 to 5:45 when we finally got up to go to Seminary. (Oh. Seminary. Joy.) And I am a VERY sleep-needy person. I don't cope well with sleep deprivation.

I sent this in an e-mail to my dear friend. I hope she doesn't mind me putting it here. I wasn't at all sure why I was e-mailing her, but I was. And I had no idea what I was talking about. I just started typing, and this was what came out...

Hello, I'm tired, hi tired, how are you, I'm Montgomery Grineld, that's fascinating, oh, I thought it was a microwave. You know, where you can cook fish and then the popcorn for the movie party. What party the movie party since when is that a party and where did this come from it doesn't make any sense but I guess there isn't one since it's not a microwave its fascinating is that plural since I would think you'd have to call it a fascinating not just fascinating but maybe it's one of those almost-collective words like that's mashed potatoes or that's oatmeal you see that's fascinating but it doesn't seem that way to me and oh la la the cow went over the rainbow and I won't have that needle I wont I wont I wont and then she forgot all her apostrophes and the ceiling fell out the window and the spell checker went kerblitzer and then pop goes the weasel because the monkey used a stapler this time since he wanted his penny back since he needed a spool of thread.

I'm sorry. I'm tired. My brain isn't functioning very well. I started typing, and I wrote it literally stream of consciousness. You see, if I'm not making a concerted effort to control my mind, this is the sort of thing that's happening in my brain right now. There is absolutely no coherency here.

You see that? I repeat. There is absolutely NO. COHERENCY. The rest of the e-mail wasn't so much uncontrolled stream of consciousness babbling, but it was... pretty bad.

Well, I almost fell asleep in TOK while we were watching a documentary (The Rape of Europa- it's about Hitler's purging of the art world all over Europe during and before WWII) even though it was very interesting. I had to go out and walk around the hallway loop for a minute. At lunch, Mr. Hunter, asked me if I'd been so bored by the video. I had to explain that no, it was very interesting, but I hadn't gotten much sleep and I was very... very... tired. Apparently I did not look particularly good, because Jaqui and Audra (both sitting nearby) expressed concern. They all thought I should go take a nap. Mr. Hunter inquired as to my next class. I told him it was Math. His response? "Not important. Go to the nurse's and sleep." Jaqui and Audra expressed voluble support.

So, as I was literally swaying on my feet, I allowed myself to be ordered down to the nurse's office to sleep. I explained the problem to Mrs. McGrew (the real force keeping our school running, the secretary) who very sympathetically told me to go ahead and go back and lie down. The nurse must have heard this exchange, but her death-glare made me feel obligated to explain again as I went through to the back, though her glare never wavered. I elected to ignore her and sleep and hope that she would be gone by the time I woke up and had to leave. Fortunately, she was.

Seriously. I was so tired that I didn't just nap, I slept. I had dreams.

George and I both really liked the nurse they had last year. She was very nice. School nurses should be nice. We figure the last nurse was handing out drugs to students or something, so they replaced her with anti-drug-nurse-woman, and that's why she glares at everyone, 'cause she thinks they're all coming in to get drugs. Maybe she assumes that everyone who comes in is just trying to get out of class, but as George said, "That's not even her deal!"

Anyway. Early bed tonight. Yoga again tomorrow.

The Drama of a Day, Or, Seminary Sucked But Then Stuff Was Fantastic

2011-05-24T15:40:00.000-06:00

Today, somehow unsurprisingly, went through the morning from dramatically bad to dramatically good.

The day started with Cemetery. In Church the other Sunday, the seniors gave talks about what they'd learned from and about Seminary. George told me "I think you'll be out of town when they do this next year." I agree. I don't think they want to hear what I've learned from Seminary.

Today, (in Cemetery) we were talking about the doctrine of plural marriage from the early days of the Church. That can be a difficult enough topic to talk about, but hey, I can handle that. It's something we should learn about. But what I can't handle is learning a difficult topic that I don't want to hear about from Brother H. I can't learn from him. I can't stand being in his class. He makes me angry on a regular basis. He's judgmental and intolerant and rigid. Nobody disagrees with Brother H. Nobody does anything that Brother H doesn't like. Oh, no, that is not ok.

I have to keep trying to remind myself that he is a person to. He is a good person- even when I think he is wrong or doing things wrong- and is trying to do what he feels is right, and I should understand that I should respect him for it and tolerate the things that I find so very intolerable. It's just REALLY difficult.

Naturally, I expected this would be a very difficult day for me to be present. That turned out to be an understatement. At one point, I had to walk out of the room to go call George and complain. (Who for one thing, besides commiserating with me and being suitably appalled at some of his statements, reminded me that Brother H isn't the Church. He's just a Seminary teacher. I can still believe in the things that I believe, no matter what he says or does. And, of course, that I should at least be glad that he's not a pedophile that I have to try to see as a human being.)

As a Seminary teacher, he is often admonishing us to do certain things to be righteous- one of his favorite topics happens to be "date righteously... no steady dating... only date other members." There are lots of other things too- but because there is such a huge clash here, it makes me want to not do those things- even though I know they're good things- just because he told me to and the way he presents them rubs me so wrongly. And then that makes me angry. I'm not going to go and do bad things just because he told me not to, but it makes me angry that he makes me feel like I want to behave that way because I know that I'm supposed to be good and to want to do good things.

On the car ride on the way to school, I cried and attempted to express as articulately as I could to Katie and Shane how angry and upset I was and why. At school, I was trying to go about my business, but I was still upset.

Mr. Callis (who is Mormon, too) saw me in the library and started to say hi, but he could tell something was wrong. He told me that "there's no crying after that amazing performance yesterday!" (referring to the play! The one I directed. HAHA!) and asked what was wrong. And Mr. Callis has this slow, soothing, kind of southern drawl. So over by the back of the library I poured out everything and how angry and upset I was and how I couldn't stand Brother H and how he makes me so angry and how I can't learn from him and I can hardly stand to be in that class, and he talked to me and helped me feel better. For one thing, he reminded me that it's ok, there is no more Brother H right now. It can be done now. You don't have to dwell on it.

After that, when I went up to the TOK room for first period, (we all show up way before class starts and hang out with our teachers. It's a Renaissance thing...) Mr. Hunter called me over to the desk to show me something.

(To speed back through time at the speed of light for the purpose of background knowledge...)

We'd been talking about and watching a video about James Castle, a famous Idahoan artist. He was deaf and mute and didn't ever learn sign-language, but he would use spit and soot and things like matchboxes, used papers, or old books to create his art.

While watching this video and having these discussions, I was reminded- very strongly- of J. While he can hear and talk, his mind doesn't work the same way ours does, and he can't communicate on the same level or in the same way as I can, for example. Their personalities- and even situations- seemed quite similar to me, and much of the artwork that I saw from James Castle looked just like things I've seen J make, and vice versa. I talked about J and the similarities I saw and was very interested in this entire topic.

(Aaannnd.... speeding back forward through time to this morning to resume the current story...)

At his desk, Mr. Hunter told me this story.

There was an old woman, probably in her 70s, who moved into the little house that used to be James Castle's. She believed that she could channel him, that she could talk to him. She didn't have very much money, and one day she was talking to Castle and told him that, "Well, James, I could really use some help." And she had the idea to open up this wall or go up in the attic. (Mr. Hunter wasn't sure which.) And when she did, an entire trove of James Castle's art was discovered. They ("they" meaning the art world and the people concerned with James Castle and his art) used to think they had his art, his style all figured out, they thought they had all of his stuff that was left. But this stuff was new! People hadn't seen this; it gave an entirely different depth to his work, it was different from the rest of it. And Cort Conley, (a writer from Idaho- he does a lot of historical and art writing, and has been very interested in and concerned with James Castle and his stuff.) was called out there to document this stuff that's happening.

Mr. Hunter got to talk to Cort Conley (who had told him the story) and he talked about me, and how interested I'd been in this. Mr. Conley was thrilled. Mr. Hunter said that he said (wow...very grapevine there, huh?) that this was great because the videos were doing what they were supposed to, it was all a success if it could affect one person. And he got- for me- a copy, a print, of one of the pieces. That was the tube of paper he'd been holding. It was a triptych (a three panel art piece) on these unfolded match boxes.

Nobody has seen this before! People don't just have prints of this thing. It's not in any books, it's newly discovered, and it's part of this discovery that has changed how the art world looks at James Castle and given so much more to his art history. Mr. Hunter had me unroll it right then to tell him what I thought. It was so cool. It was a panoramic view of one of the places from James Castle's memory. He had this amazing ability to remember things he saw and recreate them. He figured out linear perspective on his own. Shading. Values. But this one is different from all his other art! It's more what we would conventionally call advanced, the value scale is more developed, it's a panoramic view, it's the only triptych that they know of that he made. It has depth and shadow.

This picture has this photographic quality to it- not that it looks realistic like a photograph, just that it has that stillness, that captured-ness (Heyo! New word!) and sort of... well, memory-quality.

That... pretty much made my day. And so it went!

The Love Doctor: Or, The Lone Hairless Lemming On the Ice Sheet On The Mountain In a Blizzard

2011-05-23T17:06:00.000-06:00

The Love Doctor, by Moliere, is a comedic play about a man who doesn't want to let his daughter get married and the way she, the maid, and Clitander (her lover) trick him into it.

And today was my performance of The Love Doctor. I don't call it mine because I was in it. I call it mine because it really was mine. It was my brain child. I feel that creating it was a bit like giving birth. Mentally. I directed and everythingelse-ed it, dragging it and my actors along like I was pulling wisdom teeth. If it was out of ten, I'd say it was created out of one part despair, one part hysteria, one part hope, one part luck, one part wanting, and eleven parts... sheer, dumb something that could either be called tenacity, determination, or pigheadedness.

I directed. I solved the problems. I told people what to do. I made decisions. I carried on, even when I had to go home and cry and rant to Megan (thank you, so very much, dear) after at least every other practice and to pessimistic little me, everything looked bleaker than a lone, hairless lemming. On an ice sheet. On top of a mountain. In a blizzard.

I was sure it was going to fail. I thought it would fail and the performance would be miserable and just enough people would come for the performance to be humiliating but not enough for the size of the audience to assuage any of the humiliation and I would hate myself and everyone would ostracize and judge me for my failure.

You see, I've never directed a play before. I've never done anything like this before. I didn't have a teacher's help, except for a few comments from Mr. Collie. I didn't have any resources. I didn't have any experience.

And I did it. I was so proud of myself. I really feel the need to brag about this. Before it started, as I was running all over the place trying to get things done, I got that I've forgotten my lines! panic. I kept trying to tell myself that I didn't have any lines, but I couldn't seem to convince my insides, which to every reasonable assertion of You don't have any lines! frantically declared I don't care, I've forgotten them ALL!

The play started, and when something funny happened and the whole audience started to laugh, I felt this intense, permeating, uplifting sensation of relief and triumph. And... ok, now I have to brag on my actors.

They were amazing. In front of an audience, it was like they just came to life. They remembered every line and they performed instead of just reciting. They made the audience laugh. They did everything they were supposed to. They weren't distracting. They were wonderful. I was so, so proud of them!

When it was over, I was congratulated by friends and teachers. People like Mrs. Hunter and George (to whom I had confided my fears and very pessimistic view of how things were going) expressed delighted surprise at the contrast with the way I'd portrayed things to them.

It makes me want to cry. With delight.

I've really been pessimistic about this for almost the entire time, simply because I was afraid and inexperienced and frustrated. And because it really was a legitimate fear: it was hard. It was really, really hard for me to do everything I needed to do. I didn't know how. Because I was the same age as these people I was directing, I didn't have much authority and control over them, so it was hard for me to get them to do the things they needed to. So I was afraid.

And then when everyone started laughing, and my actors knew their parts and became so bright, I had (no matter how ridiculous this sounds) an alleluia moment. With the set fully up for the first time and chairs filled with people, they became actors. They rose to the occasion. They did it. We did it.

I am SO grateful that they did it. I am SO grateful that I had people to complain to and lean on. And I am so grateful that I've learned how to be stubborn, because that was really all that kept me from giving up when I was sure I was going to fail. And because of that, I didn't. If I'd quit, I would have failed. Because I didn't, this performance happened, and it was absolutely marvelous.

Next year will be even better.

Hitler... And the IB

2011-05-19T20:33:00.000-06:00

Can I just say? Amazing.

Fitness

2011-05-18T21:16:00.000-06:00

Today I spent my evening battering my body into misery (because it hurt so much) and shame (because it hurt so much. Out of shape!) at mutual.

It's an extremely intense workout. You are advised not to pace yourself and to put everything that you possibly can into it, and if you drop (on the planks) you get right back up. You just keep going and going. It's about 45 minutes including warm-up exercises (which are plenty hard enough if you're not in shape) and cool-down/ending exercises.

I got about 3/4 of the way through the work out and my throat started closing up. A little later, and I could barely breathe at all. I had to stop and one of the two women there running the workout walked with me outside. At the moment, it was just awful because I was gasping and gasping and couldn't get the air to my lungs, but it was actually really cool. Not the fishlike-gasping bit itself; no, it was just cool how you work as hard as you possibly can, and you make yourself keep going, and then when I couldn't breathe, she just walked me out and it was ok. It wasn't a big thing. (Well, for the most part. The young women's leaders were a little more inclined to make a big deal of it.) You have a problem, you deal with it, you come back.

I wasn't really worse than most of the other girls (except that they didn't have what sort of amounted to an asthma attack) but while we were doing the 9 dynamic minute plank exercises I was that close to collapsing. I actually did keep falling down. HOWEVER! I was quite proud of myself for getting up again right away, even when I could barely lift my arms and during the rests I could hardly get myself up to my knees (it hurt. A lot.) and it was very hard not to cry (I swear! It's some sort of a physical reaction to extreme exertion!) and just stay down.

But also, on the same line, I've decided to like healthier things. I've decided to like berries. I've decided that I hate Cheetos. I've decided to like George's berries and yogurt thing. Because I generally wish I could get better at being healthy, and sometimes I even try, but now I am feeling extremely shamed at my weakness and unhealthy state of being, and perhaps I can use that as the sort of launching point to actually do something lasting about it.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

2011-05-16T21:57:00.000-06:00

I was going to post the other lyric of the song, as it is much more relevant, but then it occurred to me that I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression (well, anyone who could cause me a problem by getting the wrong impression. Other than that, go ahead, world, get all the wrong impression you want...) or for anyone to find my blog because of the word "high" in a post title.

Somehow (almost certainly because of me, though I don't know how, since it wasn't in a pocket) gum got into the laundry and went all the way through to the dryer. This was not good. Gum is hard to get off of the inside of a dryer and requires lots of ice, rags, and fingernail polish remover. And when one has one's head stuck in a dryer full of fingernail polish remover fumes, one is bound to inhale them.

Me: I wonder how a person would tell if one were high on nail polish remover fumes...
Mom: You probably are.
Me: Oh. Huh. I don't really feel any different.

Sure, I felt lightheaded, but that could easily have been because of the whole being bent over and stuffed inside a dryer thing and the fact that this seems to be a common state for me.

A little later...

Me: If this is what being high is like, I'm not very impressed.
Mom: (to Dad, not me) What should we do about all the fumes in Charlie's head?
(I'm put away all the rags and nail polish remover and don't listen)
Mom: You should go outside for a couple minutes to get some fresh air.

Well, I did that, but I'm still not very impressed.

Comments and Validation

2011-05-16T21:42:00.000-06:00

I'm the kind of person who desires both validation and interaction. Communication. Being this kind of person, I'm going to encourage you all to comment... and thank those of you who do... because this makes me happy, making me feel validated in my quest to blog and my right to share (which I'm not sure I ACTUALLY have, never mind what the constitution says about freedom of speech) and interacted with. I'm not sure about the grammar of that last sentence. It got away from me a little, I do believe.

And I'm once again going to endorse myself (and co-authors) by reminding you of the existence of... the Thought of the Day Blog!

Deep Thoughts

2011-05-16T18:36:00.000-06:00

No, this post won't contain any deep thoughts. It's just ABOUT deep thoughts. Wait. Was that deep? Never mind. Anyway, I've been thinking about how often this blog is NOT, in fact, deep at all. I like to be kind to myself and call it "refreshingly witty" or "lighthearted". I suppose I could also be cruel and call it "superficial", "frivolous", "inane", or "shallow".

But that's just the way the world is, isn't it? (Whoops, looks like there's about to be some real thoughts in here after all...)

There are two sides to everything. With the right rhetoric and language, things can be cast in completely opposite lights. Language is such a powerful tool, and it can be manipulated in so many ways. I love language. In Theory of Knowledge at school, we talk about the different Ways of Knowing; my favorite (to think about and probably to use) are Language and Emotion. I gave my oral presentation about how we manipulate language to convey different nuances and subtleties of meaning. I can either be righteous or I can be a prude. I can be wicked or I can be interesting. I can be lighthearted or I can be frivolous. I can be shy and smart or I can be nerdy. I can be outgoing or I can be preppy. (Not that preppy is universally used to mean the same thing... AHA! Another nuance!)

Anyway, the actual point of this post was to apprise you all of the existence of a new blog: Thoughts of the Day Out of the Independent Republic of Gallimaufry. It can be found at www.republicofgallimaufry.blogspot.com and it is (of course) a blog for Thoughts of the Day!

So...

Go there.

36: Beep... Beep.... Beep...

2011-05-15T20:28:00.002-06:00

We did so much more... There was the playing monkeys outside and on the balcony, and the bumping down the stairs, and the all the wizard marionette games... But as I was the only one taking pictures, and I wasn't gonna stop playing just to get behind the lens, we didn't get everything. I am satisfied.

Hi, Mom, Meet Your Grandkid. Hi, Kid, Meet Grammy George

2011-05-15T19:33:00.000-06:00

I can't wait to have a kid. So that I can have it call my mom Grammy George

Just Kidding.

I'm pretty sure I can wait for a LOOOOONG while for THAT particular pleasure.

Lola Bella and Poppy Lou, (Who Was Not Even Two)

2011-05-15T15:48:00.000-06:00

We had a lot of relatives staying with us this weekend; my aunt and uncle and all their children and children-in-law (there are 4 children and 3 children in law) and their two grand-babies, Lola Bella and Poppy Lou, and another aunt. Lola Bella and Poppy Lou call me Charlie. It's the best thing in the world.

I was sleeping in my hammock, set up in the living room downstairs with my cousin Shannon on the couch. Last night- with a bunch of us congregated in the almost-adjoining computer/piano room where Amarillo (also known and Auntie Am) would be sleeping- we didn't even stop talking until about 11. For whatever reason (and believe me, I don't even know) I pulled my blankets on the ground to sleep on the floor instead of the hammock. And some point- I don't know when- still asleep, I got up, taking my blankets AND thermos of water with me, and wandered into Amarillo's room, had a conversation with her, and laid back down in there. All in my sleep. Then I woke up at before 7 to the usual people-doing-things noises and my screaming, banging, thumping brother.

But then, my entire morning was rescued by the eventual appearance of Poppy Lou in the arms of her Bulah (my aunt- Poppy's grandma), who reached out to me.

Last night, she was so tired she was walking (she's at that stage where she walks fine, but she can't go up stairs alone and sometimes she falls down- which, just because she's her, usually means she hits her head) like she was drunk, and kept insisting I carry her and, as I had gotten into the tossing in the air and spinning thing, sent out continuous giggling cries of "Again! Again!".

This morning, I taught Poppy how to "bump down the stairs." She started giggling and giggling and we had to go again and again. Lola (who has to wake up at LEAST twice every morning, and incidentally, invited me to go snuggle with her yesterday) had gotten up again and came to join us and learned to bump, too. So for a long time, it was the three of us, bumping down the stairs, giggling, and then dashing back up to go again.

I have a wizard marionette, and both little girls, especially Lola, loved it. Lola loved running away while I made the marionette chase her, singing spells- Bibity boppity boo, zip zabber and zoo! Zooo! Zoooom! Zippity zoo bibbity boo zim zoom!- and alternately flying through the air and running along the floor, clattering his big wooden feet. Poppy just liked to hold it; she was pretty enamored of my necklace and the refrigerator magnets.

Yesterday we had so much fun running along the deck outside- around the corner, reach the end of the deck, and run all the way back. Poppy ran right after Lola, with her wispy hair all dandelion-like in the air.

My computer (and Blogger, I believe) is very particular about photo uploading. And photos cannot be uploaded to Blogger at a conveniently close time to their original uploading to the computer; oh no! Everything must be refreshed, and the computer restarted, sometimes more than once before blogger can even CONSIDER registering that they exist on your computer. SO I shall upload pictures later!

World War II

2011-05-13T17:44:00.000-06:00

I wrote this in History today. It's a chat conversation between Hideki Tojo and Roosevelt. (And, at the end, Hideki and Truman.)

Japanese and American Diplomatic Pre-War IM Conversation

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Hey. Yo, Hideki. Get out of China.

Please.

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

Dude, no way, Roosevelt. You stop helping the blasted Chinese.

Thanks.

Dorkface.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Cmon, man, just stop it.

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

Make the Chinese stop.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Hah! You wish!

…

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Hideki?

…

To: NagumoFlyBoy

From: HidekiWarMan227

Dude, bomb the crap out of ‘em.

Japanese and American Diplomatic Post-Pearl Harbor IM Conversation

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Dude! What gives! Seriously? Pearl Harbor had like almost all our boats!

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

I know. Shoulda listened back at Manchuria, huh!

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

Dude.

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

What? You’re getting in on my turf!

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

YOUR turf?

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

Yeah. MY turf.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: FDR_Roxx

You know what? This is WAR.

To: FDR_Roxx

From: HidekiWarMan227

BRING.

IT.

Japanese and American Diplomatic Pre-Atomic Bomb IM Conversation

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Yo, Hideki. This war that’s on. How’s that goin’ for ya?

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

What? Who the blink is ‘TheTrumanator2000”? It’s not even a cool name

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Dude! What would you know about cool names? Seriously, HidekiWarMan227? One word for ya pal: LAME.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

Better than TheTrumanator! Dude who even ARE you?

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

I’m Roosevelt’s REPLACEMENT.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

What? Why?!?

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Uh… ‘cause he’s DEAD. And I was VP, so now I’m the Prez.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

Dude. Not cool.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Totally not. So. The war. Stuffs not looking so good for you, huh.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

We’re fine. Thanks for the concern. SARCASM.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Look, man, I’m trying to do you a favor here.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

Oh, sure. A favor. Insulting my war efforts. Me and my country feel so… favored.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Dude, it’s ‘my country and I’.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

Whatever. You and Churchill are such English snobs.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Look, here’s the deal. I’ll let you surrender, and nobody else has to get hurt. Unconditional surrender.

To: TheTrumanator2000

From: HidekiWarMan227

You’re kidding. Right? Oh, wait. Never mind. You egotistical Westerners NEVER kid about your greatness. In your DREAMS.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Cmon. Last chance.

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Hideki?

To: HidekiWarMan227

From: TheTrumanator2000

Fine.

To: XXOpenheimerDaBombXX, IFlyTibbets66

From: TheTrumanator2000

Nuke ‘em.

Making George Proud

2011-05-13T17:38:00.000-06:00

In CLA, Chronic Lazies Anonymous, the recovery group for those chronically lazy, esp. in their schoolwork, the first step is admitting you have a problem. The second is deleting your Facebook page.

(There aren’t any specific steps after that because nobody has gotten far enough in the program to work up the willpower to overcome their laziness long enough to make them up. Yes, it is rather a self-defeating cycle.)

I have at last completed step two, and while from some people I receive reactions of horror, I made my mommy proud of me, which is really one of the most important parts of doing anything beneficial to my life.

I also figure she would be proud of me for my superhuman efforts to understand the mysteries of mathematics as yesterday, since I found the previous day’s homework assignment so incomprehensible as to be in-complete-ible, I went in to beg for an explanation during lunch. And THEN finished the homework.

Also, on the math quiz today, I scrawled, over the answer column, “All of these are based on the assumption that 1+1=2. As I do not accept this assumption, I can’t do these.” But since I haven’t the nerve to take my life… er… grade into my hands that way, I answered the questions anyway and noted their location in the bottom corner with a note, “Just kidding. The answers are on the back.”

My tests typically entertain my teacher… I can only hope that while one is grading math test after math test it is at least something of a relief to reach one with doodles, comments, offers to contribute $5 to Xhang’s wallet full of money (which is practically begging to be stolen, in which case he would have absolutely NO money left) just for having such a cool name, and questions about the meaning of life written all over it. And elephants. There are usually elephants.

Wicked

2011-05-13T17:37:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, I got to go see Wicked for the second time. It was so fun to compare this performance with my performance—I feel like the one that I saw first was MY Wicked, since it was my first experience with the performance—and see how the same show can be so different with different performers and directors and audience. This one was definitely more focused on the comedic aspect, while mine was more dramatic.

In this one, there were almost two Galindas—comedic Galinda and serious Galinda—and when she switched back and forth, her whole demeanor, even her voice changed. I think that I liked my Wicked better, and that mine actually was better, even though this one was wonderful, too. I think Fiyero was a little more real than my Fiyero, but I don’t know that I liked him better. All of the songs were sung a little differently in this one, the characters portrayed a little differently.

I thought my Elphaba managed to embody Elphaba’s transformation throughout the play better than this one. The close-to-the-ending scenes with the shadows playing out the drama where Elphaba is ‘melted’ were different, too. In mine, it was a little more drawn out, and Elphaba’s part was more dramatically managed and the whole thing, combined with Glinda’s part, was more effective and emotional. I loved Chistery and the monkeys in this one, though. I just do. They’re one of my favorite parts of the entire show.

Neglect

2011-05-13T17:33:00.000-06:00

So, I have indeed been neglectful lately. I would blame it on the fact that blogger has been down for a few days except for the fact that I hadn't been anywhere near it for days before that. Well. I intend to remedy the situation and make it up to you. To me? Whoever.

Cain... er, Cane

2011-05-05T20:18:00.000-06:00

I want a cane. But not just any cane... I want a cane with a SWORD in it. Also, let it be known throughout all the land that in accordance with the prophecy, something dramatic has occurred.

And I'm going to Wicked on Saturday!

!!!!
!!!
!!!

I think that warrants another one of these... !!!

In Which Carli Makes Statements Easily Construed as Controversial and Hopes It Doesn't Have Any Negative Effects on Her Life

2011-05-04T16:23:00.000-06:00

Something I find interesting: this celebration over the fact that "we" finally killed Osama bin Laden.

First of all, I think it's interesting that everyone is celebrating the taking of a life. That people are cheering killing. I have a tendency to think that killing is never decidedly good.

Maybe in this case it was the lesser of two evils- leaving him alive or killing him- but I am not entirely sure even on that point. Now he's a martyr.

On an entirely different note, listen to this song!

You know you're at Renaissance when...

2011-05-04T15:56:00.001-06:00

you look at the clouds and instead of seeing cotton balls, monsters, bunnies, dragons, Q-tips, cars, etc., you are assaulted by the unmistakeable sight of characters from your IB English books, such as Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka.

you look at the district's AP Spanish EOC (end of course exam), which is an Oral presentation and the classroom is filled with protestations of "LAME!" "What? This is crap!" and "What? I can't do this! There's too many instructions!"

you resent any incoming students as interlopers into your "family".

you look down with scorn upon those who dread giving 3 to 5 minute presentations and you are appalled at the 2-5 minute time limit on talks at church because you know how to talk for much longer than that.

your mention of how miserable you are because you have a cold turns into a full class discussion of what you should do about it including a vote on whether or not you should go home (with a resounding, unanimous vote in favor) and two offers to drive you home at lunch.

Yes, I Am An IB Student, And Yes, I Do Lack Several Basic Life Skills Including The Ability To Handle Basic Life Situations

2011-05-04T15:43:00.000-06:00

This ( ^^^^ ) statement is indeed true. It begs the question "How many IB students does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" (one possible answer being "No one knows; before they get enough, there are so many that the lightbulb can't stay intact") or perhaps, more relevantly, "How many IB students does it take to count a pile of art projects and figure out how to affix them to the wall using pushpins and masking tape in a reasonably symmetrical formation?" with the answer being "Five, a teacher, and nearly an entire class period."

{One limitation of this study is that the experiment is so inconvenient that it could only be performed once, resulting in questionable results and the possibility of a fluke occurring.}

I was attempting to listen to a song on Youtube and wondering why the video had such a very long beginning with no sound. Then I realized that the sound of my computer was off and the music had been playing for the past 15 seconds.

Also, I have put "The Fascinating Girl" by Helen Andelin on hold at the library. I am quite excited, and I expect it will either vastly improve my desirability or cause me to vomit blood. I predict the second option, as I am generally not very good at taking advice with regards to my personality whether or not I think it is good advice, or advice that I like.

That is not to say that "The Fascinating Girl" won't have excellent advice- the value and "good-ness" of advice really depends on what the goal is- and on the qualifications of the individual in question. For example, if one is trying to convince a stray cat to stop sneaking into one's house, it would definitely NOT be good advice to leave a dish of cat food out and install a cat door, but that WOULD be excellent advice if one were trying to take care of a cat. And it would NOT be good advice for the average desk clerk, salesman, or lawyer to leap off of a tall building for publicity, while it may well be wonderful advice for a stunt-person.

2011-05-03T16:49:00.000-06:00

There's a fishhook that

I can't get out of my floor.

Oh, how I hate it.

2011-05-03T15:55:00.001-06:00

I just saw an advertisement on the side of my screen. It had a pouting, be-glasses-ed cartoon woman with bright red hair, abundant and quite exposed cleavage, giant hips, and a waist smaller than her head. She was wearing some kind of likely-spandex super-hero suit and a graduation hat. There were a lot of numbers in rows covering the bottom half of the ad. When I first saw the words at the top, I saw,

Return to School With a Goat.

See if you qualify!

I think it actually said Grant, but I like my version better.

Pink!

2011-05-02T17:38:00.001-06:00

Carli was bored. So now we're going pink.

Chromosome 15

2011-05-02T17:37:00.000-06:00

Chromosome 15 in the human karyotype (in the D section) is shaped like a wishbone, so I call it the Wishbone chromosome.

It follows that if you had an extra chromosome 15, you could be given the power of wish-granting and be a genie. Hehey! It seems I've just solved another of life's great mysteries.

Another note from Biology today?

"AGGH! Quick! Destroy the evidence!"

Cheese

2011-04-28T18:46:00.001-06:00

A creepy old man just tried to force me to eat cheese.

Not to worry, though. I managed to sneak the cheese in the trash and thwart his dastardly plan.

War

2011-04-24T20:00:00.000-06:00

So, we (I don't know who the two sides were. There were just Us and The Enemy. And We were the good guys.) were holed up in our home base. Which I had be this knoll that's in the middle of part of our yard.

So James (my friend) and I decided we needed to get over to the other post to hold it against the enemy. So we had to go running across no-man's land, flinging grenades (pinecones) like no tomorrow. We had to run across the yard to the bushes in front of the porch (it's a wrap-around) and leap onto the porch, diving behind the bushes.

But then Hennessy- a friend of ours, she was really young; she was like a little sister to us- took it into her head to try to come across no-man's land to us. I had to leave James there and run across, once again flinging grenades for cover, to grab her and dive (and these were pretty impressive dives. I mean really, hurling myself forward and into the ground and tumbling down the side of the knoll... the grass-stains were innumerable...) down the hill into the base. Then I gave her a tongue lashing for leaving her assigned duties and putting everyone in danger- including me and James because I'd had to come and save her skin and now he was trying to hold the post alone.

So I heard a noise (someone was doing something in their garage) and went off, hiding in the undergrowth (the bushes) to investigate. There was an enemy supply convoy coming. To my great luck, I found a cluster of highly poisonous plants. So poisonous if you even touch them and then touch your food your food will poison you. If you get the dust blown in your face, it's not a good thing. If you inhale it, also extremely bad. You get the picture.

And I devise an incredible plan.

Oh, I forgot! I got shot in the arm when I saved Hennessy.

I went back to talk to Raj (he's the guy in charge).
He should send somebody with the poison and a bunch of charges to attack the convoy and make it LOOK like we were trying to blow it up, and really just poison the food.
Of course, I wanted to go, but Raj wouldn't hear of it. I was in no condition for such a suicidal mission. He would get someone else. I was furious, but finally declared that I would just go help James.
So I left the poison with Raj and went off to get to the post.
But I'd brought something with me.

I'd brought with me....
A WHOLE lotta charges.
And I tell James that I've actually got a plan that might not dovetail too well with what Raj wants going on.
We can't hold this post with just two of us, and I have got to be the one who goes on the convoy mission, because I don't WANT them blown up. The poison isn't the just-in-case-we-fail-at-blowing-them-up, the poison is the whole POINT of the mission. Besides, I don't want anyone else going on that dangerous of a plan. It was MY idea, anyway. So we're going to blow up the post so that the enemy can't use it.
Then we'll run around west (around the other side of the house. I told you. Fantastic yard. It's big.) and escape there. Then we'll loose them in the woods and get back to the main post.

James- being practical as always- wants to know how I'm going to pull off going back for charges and detonator and stuff without alerting Raj or getting shot again.

So I remind him that I never come unprepared and start setting the charges.
I jump up, looking above the bushes and shouting and waving and holding up the detonator-charge. They try to shoot at me, I toss up the detonator, shoot it myself, and (with the added umph of their gunfire) as James and I flee, the whole place blows.
We get separated- agreeing to meet eventually at the Ring, a small island in the middle of a ring made by the river. It's a sanctuary, guarded by water and tree spirits and can only be entered by the invited and it protects all who seek shelter there. If they were allowed in by the spirits.
And so I head off and make it to the main hideout- though my arm is broken, thanks to being shot and all the falling that happens when you're constantly diving for cover- and find Raj, who demands to know what's going on. I demand to know if he's sent someone on the convoy mission yet.

He admits he has and I finally drag it out of him that he'd let HENNESSY go, and I'm out of there, chasing after her. I finally catch up with her, but she won't go back, and I can't take her back without compromising the entire mission, but I take the poison and the charges from her. We sneak in and start planting the charges and I put in the poison.
But then...
Hennessy is out of sight when someone sees me (which was bound to happen, I knew) and they surround me and I distract them for Hennessy to get away.
Then as they try to close in on me, I blow the last of the poison dust (which I've still got in my hand) in their faces and make a quick escape. They pursue me all the way back to the base, where I tell Raj what's happened and that I'm going to lead them off.

I head toward our supply cache (I actually hid my waterbottle in the rocks that make the little waterfall on the pond) and that's where they catch up to me. I still try to escape (of course) but they shoot me AGAIN, this time getting me in the shoulder- same shoulder as arm, it was the left one- and I can't get away. But I do inform them very scathingly that they are either lousy shots or lousy tacticians, because they won't get anything from keeping me alive.

They knock me out and take me to their main fort in the area.
I eventually wake up and find that they're going to try to get information out of me, but mainly they just want to ransom me back.
So I play up the injured incapacitated captive bit, and they leave a window open.
Careless mistake, because I drag myself out and crawl to escape. This was accompanied by all the required crawling and muffled moans of pain and collapsing. I've been shot twice and much abused, remember.
And I finally make it to the river.

And collapse in the water, and the spirits carry me to the other side.

I stay there- not very aware of the passing of time, because I'm injured and sick and it's somewhat in the nature of the place, since it's so otherworldly- until I'm mostly healed.

But James wasn't there.

And he didn't show up in all the time I was there.

So I finally left, feeling the need to go home again. See, James and I lived with his sister, Jessa. And I have no idea what I'm going to tell her.

But when I finally got there, James was there. I find out everything that happened since my capture. He was caught and held but traded back (for a prisoner our side had taken) a few days later and sent home to recover from his own injuries. He wasn't able to go to the Ring. 

The enemy had crushed the resistance- Hennessy was killed, and so was Raj- and the area was being guarded. Not too heavily, they were arrogant and believed it when they said that there was no more resistance (Yes, I'm fairly certain we were resistance fighters).

So I snuck back the the place, putting poison in the guard's water to get in unobserved and gathered my things from the supply cache. 

And... that was as far as I got. I suppose we relocated later to begin a new resistance movement.

I Wrote A Poem Today.

2011-04-21T20:22:00.000-06:00

It's not a rhyming poem, or a singing poem, or a funny poem, or an epic poem, or a love poem, or even a magnificent poem. It's just a happy poem. A thinking poem. And a remembering poem. I think my mom would like it.

The Room is Yellow

The room is yellow.

Not with paint or things.

But with the streaming sun staining the carpet

In brilliant disjoint slashes like

Yellow Spring falling through the shades,

And with blankets returning borrowed, yellow warmth.

Woken by the spoken words of parents,

And the thumping, clunking and shrieking;

The irrepressible child

Who may well never sleep,

But lie awake instead a-night,

Tunelessly singing, humming,

And flings himself out into frenzy

Of action and activity, from that moment,

When he decides it is day, the time

Has come for mayhem.

Not tired, but far to comfortable

To even consider rising.

That is, until the crescendo of waking activity

And the draw of breakfast sounds—

Ringing silverware that sings that someone makes something I want—

Pull me groaning and reluctant from comfort

To slip into the discarded pajamas,

Silky fabric gliding smooth across skin,

And the opening door at last admits

The power of the havoc wreaked by the waking.

Carli Hardy

The Baker: An Egg Tale of Horror

2011-04-20T10:54:00.001-06:00

A mostly wordless tale of The Baker, the most terrifying creature known to all Egg-kind.

This production has been rated G for:

Gore, Violence, Death, and Eggsesive cruelty

Not recommended for small children, the squeamish, or pregnant women.

Do not view at night, when alone, or directly before bed.

The writers and producers of this production bear no responsibility for messes, laryngitis, egg-sympathy (a condition in which the victim refuses to eat eggs on the grounds that it is too cruel), Baker-like feelings of antagonism towards eggs, nightmares, tension, heart failure, post-traumatic stress disorder, or any other adverse effects on the viewer.

But The Baker ignored their piteous plea.

An untimely and uncomfortable grave...

This... has nothing to do with the story. But don't lie to yourself.
You know it's cool.
Just because it's a purple plastic cup.
And in life, it's even purpler than it appears here...

Sometimes I Really Think I'm Going Crazy In The Night

2011-04-20T07:49:00.004-06:00

Don't you hate it when you're in bed and you really need something from the floor, but you can't reach down to get it because there's a murderer or a demon monster under the bed waiting for you to be stupid enough to do just that so they can kill and/or devour you?

This is how I feel sometimes.

And when you're lying very still, but you're not under the covers and you won't be safe until you are, but you can't move because if you do, the monster will notice you and eat you?

And when you're facing the wall and suddenly you realize that the psycho man from the beginning of 6th Sense is is standing there in your room and if you turn around to look he's going to shoot you?

And when you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the moment you let any appendage over the edge of the bed- be it head, leg, foot, hand, or arm, it will be devoured?

And when it's way too hot, but you can't get out from under the covers because they're the only thing standing between you and the monster or murderer that's lurking in wait and you can't take off your pajamas because then you'd be vulnerable and you certainly can not, under any circumstances, get out of bed to turn on the fan, because that would just be asking to have the thing under the bed grab your ankle and drag you screaming and flailing down into it's lair, already littered with the bones of the rest of your family to a fate far too awful to comprehend?

Have you ever stood by the light-switch, poised like a ninja and then the moment you flick the light off you perform an incredible leap to your bed, where you lie curled up, trembling, under the blanket in the dead center.

Or had to run up the stairs as fast as you could because there was a killer or a demon right on your heels?

Or stared at the same exact spot for as long as you could because if you looked away, you would see the murderer who was just out of your sight?

Or refused to go anywhere near the window because you knew you would see a murderer skulking outside it, grinning at you and brandishing a knife, gun, or other frightening implement of your death?

Or heard thumps and realized that a monster has worked its way through the rest of your family and you're next?

Or wondered if it really is possible to die of fright?

Or realized that you just barely managed to get your foot up on the bed before the monster grabbed it to drag you down to death and dismemberment?

Or prayed "Please, please, please, please, please, make me go to sleep, make me go to sleep, make me go to sleep, please, please, please, please..." because you know that's the only way to escape and make it stop- even though sometimes even that doesn't work, but it's still better to wake up dead that it is to be awake when the monster comes for you?

This is how I feel sometimes.

And do you have a child-like faith that the only safe place at night is in your bed, under the covers, but you're still terrified of the night when even that protection fails?

Oh, Kim Carnes, you said it all so admirably. Actually, perfectly. You might have written it for me.

Thoughts

2011-04-19T21:00:00.000-06:00

If someone texts me at midnight or some other obscene hour of the night, I will cheerfully eat his or her liver.

I say things to my Mom that I would never say to other people. Isn't it usually the other way around?

I actually don't have anything else to say, those two thoughts were just kind of floating around in my head, demanding to be acknowledged, shared, and entertained.

Political Spectrum

2011-04-18T20:17:00.000-06:00

The political compass test tells you where you fall on their spectrum, which apparently is fairly widely accepted. This is what it looks like.

And then they show you where a couple of famous world leaderly people reside on this axis.

So, I'm usually not especially interested in the political spectrum or where I fall on it. However, I am a highly curious individual. And I was highly curious about this particular idea.

So I took the test.

And this was where I fell. Right next to Ghandi. A little less communistic.

Several people in class fell in the same Ghandi-ish area. We've decided to become a club and call ourselves the Ghandites. I wonder how Ghandi would feel about that.

My favorite part of the test was the last page (6/6, it said at the top...) where at the top of the page, before the questions, it said, "Finally, a look at sex."

No joke. It was hilarious.

This Is Awesome.

2011-04-18T19:54:00.000-06:00

Just sayin'.

Swear Words

2011-04-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

Sometimes they are so tempting.

It is somewhat satisfying to type a few lines worth of "#%$&!@#%^*&^%$`", although I usually find it to be enough to just use 4 or 5 asterisks to indicate a single word I would rather not say.

Unfortunately, there's not much that I can say verbally, as I stubbornly refuse to resort to profanity, as tempting as it is. It's less a matter of self-control than a matter of stubborn, pigheaded refusal to lower myself to the level of the people I look so scathingly down upon because they swear up a storm all day long because that's the only way they can express themselves, and even that form of expression has been degraded in effectiveness through overuse.

Then a moment comes along where I want desperately to say a word that will shock people and shock myself and leave no doubt as to the fact that I am decidedly displeased with the situation.
And I can't do it. So I have to make a few expletives up and ramble a lot about exactly how I feel in order to convey the same thing, which is much less lingually efficient, though I think it is just as satisfying, it just takes a lot longer. But it conveys quite a lot more information.

But sometimes I simply can't keep myself from using a little `^%$#&*% and a couple *****. I just do it along with the rambling.

Coming Up With Roses

2011-04-13T20:43:00.000-06:00

Allow me to bring up the topic of projects.

They take time.

They take effort.

They are taking out my brain.

First period, I was given another one.

Now I'd like to talk about Biology.

We come into class.

She tells us what our next topic will be.

She hands out a paper. It's got the "details" of our next project.

Which is on our next topic.

Which we have NOT covered. Not even a little bit.

And she says.... "Go to it."

I have reached the head banging against the desk phase.

Now I would like to talk about functions for a minute.

Math class begins. She hands us a paper. It's all about functions. We are to begin working.

I have NO BLASTED IDEA where to start.

I don't know anything about functions.

She expects us to know how to do this.

She finally starts explaining. Nothing she says is remotely comprehensible to me for the first half.

The second half, I am scrambling and feeling so far behind I didn't deserve to pass second grade.

Shall I bring up wallets?

Funny things, wallets.

Easy to store important things in, such as money, credit cards, school IDs, reminder papers, or drivers licenses.

Easy to lose.

I feel graduation requirements also deserve a place here.

I am called to the office to discuss registration and credits.

Turns out I have to take 3 online classes over the Summer.

Turns out the class that I HAVE to take during the school year may fall as a 1st semester class.

Turns out if that happens, I have to drop choir.

Haha. Not gonna happen.

So, if it does, I'll have to take it online 1st semester, bringing my class number up to 9 for the semester.

May I talk about time?

Sometimes it runs faster than you think it does.

And then you suddenly realize you're running late.

And then assignments don't go quite the way you'd planned.

Today has not been exactly coming up in daisies or roses or whatevercrap that saying is.

&~^%<#?+%@#`!%$ @%^ *%&^% ^%$@#$%<@?#$%

2011-04-13T15:30:00.000-06:00

It is NOT fair. It should NOT be this difficult for me to graduate. I take all the classes I can. I get A's and B's. I'm enthusiastic. I'm motivated. I'm a good student. It's not fair that I should have to take 6 online classes just to graduate while people who skate by taking the bare minimum and just barely passing classes graduate with no problem.

I shouldn't have gone to that stupid school 9th grade.

I should NOT have to either drop choir or take another online class.

It is not fair, and I do not like it, and I am extremely angry and sad and upset about this. And barring dropping choir, dropping IB, or dropping out, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I can't bring myself to drop choir because it is my only elective and I need an elective to give me a break. And I LOVE choir. I need to learn the things that I learn in that class.

I can't drop IB because everyone would be disappointed in me, including me, and I would miss out on this beautiful IB family that's started developing and that I've never had anything remotely similar to and that I love.

And I can't drop out because I have no interest whatever in living with my parents the rest of my life (not that they would let me) having an unfulfilling, low-paying job, being uneducated, being looked down upon as uneducated, or any of the other things that usually come with dropping out.

So I am going to cry and storm and be angry and sad and upset at the unfairness and difficulty of it all, but I'm still going to do it, even though I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO and I DON'T WANT TO.

Noodle-spined bar sinister son of a blind camel and a cactus.

Expletive. Expletive. Expletive.

Question: Done? Answer: Yep.

2011-04-09T22:28:00.002-06:00

ACT?

Yep.

Book?

Yep.

Bread and Toast?

Yep.

Living Daylights?

Yep.

Beautiful Clean room?

Yep.

Timothy Dalton AKA James Bond?

Yep.

Here. Have another picture (or two) of [Timothy Dalton] James Bond, just for fun. You know you love him.

Daring Escape out the Window and Tea Party On Top Of The Car?

[X Error: This Image Could not be displayed due to copyright laws, technical errors, and/or confidentiality conflicts]

Yep.

Renaissance...

2011-04-08T17:29:00.000-06:00

Oh hallowed halls, and vine draped walls, the proudliest sight there is, when gray and sear our hair hath turned, we shall still revere the lessons learned, in our days at dear old.... Oh wait. That's from Wicked. Never mind, I was talking about my school.

It's interesting. Really. At a normal school, the main topics of conversation are sex and drugs.

And Renaissance, the main topics of conversation are sex, drugs, did-you-do-the-homework and TOK.

Walk into any given classroom at any given moment, or really any conversation, and you are likely to hear "OOOOH! TOK moment!"

Fascinating.

Syllogism

2011-04-07T17:47:00.002-06:00

I have learned to logic.

Example 1

Premise One: All good judgement comes from experience.
Premise Two: Experience comes from bad judgement.
Conclusion: Good judgement comes from bad judgement.

Why is this such excellent logic?

Because it follows all three rules of logic (or at least of syllogism):

Two premises and a conclusion
Three terms, each of which occur twice (Good judgement, experience, bad judgement)
Quantifiers, such as 'all' (All)

Example 2

All people who kill are murderers.

Mr. Hunter kills creativity.

Mr. Hunter is a murderer.

Shaking in your little blue boots yet? Oh yeah. Carli has learned to logic. I'll be unstoppable.

EDIT:
I didn't mean to take credit for that second one. I didn't make it up. My friend made it up during TOK.

The 8th Deadly Sin

2011-04-06T21:38:00.000-06:00

Today, we discovered the 8th deadly sin: Neglect of Dental Hygiene. We aren't sure of it's official one-word title. I was thinking perhaps something like... De-dentia.

We received warnings that the liars and those who did not brush their teeth would be thrust down to hell, and that gums are not enough, and woe unto the blind and the deaf, and they shall be thrust down you-know-where along with they who did not brush their teeth. Here is an image that I feel might drive this point home to you (Yep... I did tell you I'd attempt this. And Yep... I did draw it in marker.):

Please, my friends, brush your teeth. Avoid this awful fate. Tell your friends.

Consistency

2011-04-05T20:53:00.009-06:00

con·sist·en·cy
[kuhn-sis-tuhn-see]

–noun, plural -cies.

a degree of density, firmness, viscosity, etc.: The liquid has the consistency of cream.

steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form,etc.: There is consistency in his pattern of behavior.

agreement, harmony, or compatibility, especiallycorrespondence or uniformity among the parts of a complexthing: consistency of colors throughout the house.

the condition of cohering or holding together and retainingform; solidity or firmness.

(Dictionary.com)

Now, I've been told that consistency is a good trait that people ought to have. I, however, would like to argue this point. First of all, consistency has more than one meaning. You can speak about bread dough and say that it ought to have consistency, or be consistent. But that is not NECESSARILY a good trait. What if the bread dough is runny and full of lumps? I don't imagine that would make very good bread. Forgive me if there is some form of bread which IS made like that. But then suppose that THAT bread is thick and smooth? That wouldn't be good, now would it?

I don't imagine it much matters how dense, firm, or viscous a person is, except in extreme cases, such as if it is possible to pour a person out of a pitcher, use him or her as a cinderblock for propping up things which are broken or too close to the ground, or if this person is unable to understand basic speech. These are extreme cases of viscosity (pourable-ness), firmness (hardness/whack-able-ness/un-bendy-ness), and density (stupid-ness), and none of them are good qualities at all. Whereas in non-extreme cases, none of them matter much.

With regards to the second definition, I would like to submit to the floor a synonym for 'consistent': Predictable. Being predictable often leads to bad things, such as the villain always being a step ahead of you and able to predict your every movement, or your betrothed growing bored of you. It also leads to you becoming bored with your life. Is this a good thing? I would submit that, NO, being bored with your life is not a good thing at all. Using 'consistent' in place of 'predictable' is merely a technique of rhetoric.

I have no argument with the third definition, provided consistency in this case is not take so far as to, for example, make an entire house in shades of gray or the exact same chroma of tan.

Definition number four is a direct contradiction of the encouragement people often receive to be flexible. Aren't we encouraged to try new things? To be able to change?

I hereby declare the council to be 'consistent' and to have 'consistency' refuted and my own inconsistency justified.

Mesopotamia

2011-04-05T19:20:00.000-06:00

I feel that Mesopotamian ought to be spelled "Mezzopotamia" and ought to be a musical dynamics notation. Like mezzopiano or mezzoforte. Mezzopotamia. Or, possibly, mezzopotamian. I'm not sure which sounds better.

Inconvenient truths. They are, inconveniently, exactly what their name proclaims them to be. Inconvenient. For instance, it is inconvenient that the night is never as long when you are actually able to sleep as it is when you are lying awake, tossing and turning. It is also inconvenient that there is no means as of yet of vanishing when that particular someone you are trying to avoid comes walking down the hall. At least, not to the general populace. I can't speak for the detailed populace. It is inconvenient to realize how teachers feel when you are put in a 'teacher-ish' position yourself and that they are not exaggerating or incompetent. It is inconvenient that you do not KNOW nearly as much as you think you know, you only believe it, making even more that you 'know' into something you merely believe because it was based on stuff you believe, not know.

But who am I to say 'merely believe'. Believing is quite a powerful thing. Really, I think it's at least as good as knowing.

The Sun

2011-04-05T16:15:00.000-06:00

Winter is an extremely long and arduous season. And when Spring is supposedly "just around the corner", it's just as bad. However, today it was sunny. Admittedly, it was an unpredictable sort of sunny, with thick white clouds drifting over the sun at random moments and plunging the world back into unfair and unreasonable grayness for a minute, but the sun always comes back. I like that concept- the sun always comes back. I also like the reality of a returning sun. That means a return of shorts, t-shirts, bare feet, tree-climbing, trips to the lake, natural absorption of vitamin D, and (eventually) summer break.

I've just started walking part way home from school, just so that I can at least pretend to get some modicum of physical activity into my life. This is only possible with cooperation from the sun.

I am abjectly grateful that there has been sun for me.

Why do Inconvenient Truths Have To Be So Terribly Inconvenient?

2011-04-04T21:09:00.000-06:00

Yes, world, I laugh with you and mock the face I see in the mirror.

Which mocks right back.

I don't imagine this sort of circle of mockery can be good for my self-esteem. And isn't that important? I think they talked a lot about that in Health in 8th grade. During the bit about mental and emotional health. Actually, 8th grade wasn't such mentally and emotionally healthy time at all, so I expect I can just pitch whatever guidance it tried to give me. There, world. Self-esteem isn't important at all, now is it?

Now that I am older and, presumably, wiser, I find that the ability to mock oneself is much more effective at preserving good cheer and mental and emotional stability than sheltering one's self-esteem and ego. It is absolutely impossible to shield one's ego entirely, it is bound to get bruised once in a while, and if it has been sheltered it's entire existence, it won't have a very high pain tolerance. And that can hardly be healthy.

Although... presuming is never really wise, is it? So does that make it an oxymoron to presumably be wiser? Presumably...

And then, I'm a self-acknowledged self-lover. I think I'm great. Perhaps I just have an ego so large it can hardly feel it when it's bruised, so I sit here thinking thoughts that don't apply to real people at all.

Does that mean I'm not a real person? Perhaps I'm just a part of the Red King's dream. Though I don't think he could dream up such a mocking blog post.

I feel like these posts are boring without pictures. So I may try to find a way to copycat my cousin and include pictures. I'm sorry.

But since it is most definitely not physically, mentally, OR emotionally healthy to deprive oneself of sleep, I think I will refrain from doing so.

I just realized that I never got to the point about the Inconvenient Truths. And I promise- there was a point. Actually about Inconvenient Truths and how irkingly Inconvenient they are. I shall have to do that one later. Pretend I titled this post "The Circle of Mock". Now try putting that to the tune of "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King.

It's the Circle of Mock

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle

The Circle of Mock

Carli Hardy: Survivalist Extraordinaire

2011-04-04T18:23:00.000-06:00

I've decided to compile a list of survival tips. I feel a moral obligation to share my wisdom with the world, as someday these survival tips may save someone's life.

Carli Hardy's Survival Tip #13: When finding yourself teetering on the brink of a deadly precipice, catch hold of a conveniently located vine and pull yourself to safety. THEN ask yourself how you ended up in such an alarming situation and consider what to do to prevent it from happening again.

Carli Hardy's Survival Tip #34: When given a choice in a duel between a pillow fight and a joust, tell your opponent you'll take the pillow fight and the armorer you'll take the joust.

Carli Hardy's Survival Tip #74: When swimming in a lake and being shot at by crossbows, duck under the water BEFORE you are shot.

Carli Hardy's Survival Tip #172: When confronted with a choice between an uncrossable river of molten lava and a very large, very angry boar, shout irritating things at the boar to provoke it into charging you, leapfrog over its back, and let it charge into the lava. Then go home and have a long, hot shower.

Facebook

2011-04-03T09:50:00.000-06:00

Recently, I've been wanting to delete my Facebook account. Only a few things have stopped me. One, I don't know what happens to my information, if it's gone, or if Facebook saves it and now I just can't access it. Two, I don't know how (though I could fairly easily find out). And (the real reason), I just can't work up the willpower yet. Dear me.

Viva: The Musical: Continued

2011-04-02T11:28:00.000-06:00

I felt it was worth pointing out that I don't mean Viva as in the milk brand. I meant Viva as in the third person singular conjugation of the spanish verb Vivir, even though now that I'm thinking about it, it might make more sense as the imperfect past tense third person or imperfect past tense first person, possibly, depending on how you think about it... Whatever.

Viva: The Musical

2011-04-02T09:20:00.000-06:00

This was actually prompted by my mother...

When I was little, and I was angry with my parents or my brother or my sister, I would storm around my bedroom singing about how mad I was and how awful they were. I had this song that I would sing over and over about storms whenever it was stormy. I just made them up. I sang about things I was doing. I remember sitting in the car with my head leaning on the window, and it was pouring outside- and there was thunder and lightening, I think- and I was sitting there singing, "The thunder roooolls..... and the lighting strikes....."

Now I usually sing real songs. The lyrics so often narrate life so well... I'm not talking about songs like "say what you need to saaaay, say what you need to sa-a-ay, say what you need to saaay..." that have absolutely nothing to say. I'm talking more about.... "what you don't know you can feel somehow" and "

I've always thought that those animated Disney movies where they sang all the time and musicals are much more natural than 'normal' movies, where they don't. I also think that life would be MUCH better as a musical. Even when I'm not singing- narratively or just because I've thought of a song that needs to be sung- I'm humming. When we went hiking, and J and I discovered an echo, what did the people behind us find themselves hearing? The da-da-da version of Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.

Extra! Extra!

2011-04-01T17:39:00.001-06:00

Last night there was not an avalanche, and seven people were not trapped! They enjoyed their skiing trip in safety and fun-ity. Join us on the 10 o'clock news when we will inform you that they have gone home perfectly safely and happily, continuing to not be trapped by the avalanche that didn't happen!

Downsizing

2011-03-28T20:32:00.002-06:00

I think I've figured out what downsizing is for hotels. It's when they have to start making those shampoos and conditioners in the showers smaller.

The Fairytale Reinvented

2011-03-28T20:30:00.001-06:00

Picture this: you walk down the street. You see the restaurant to which you are heading, The Spotted Dog Cafe. A man in a white button-up shirt and black pants is watering the flowers. You enter the building. Do you see a spotted dog anywhere? No. You see glass-topped tables with neatly pressed white napkins and upside down goblets placed around each and waiters in nice white shirts and black pants. You are brought to a table and handed menus. But THEN.

Then your charming and delightful dinner companion grabs the teeny little salt and pepper shakers and begins regaling you with a charming and delightful dinner theater, using the salt and pepper as characters. It is a fairytale, vaguely reminiscent of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

This was our evening. Except that I was the charming and delightful dinner companion. In my fairytale, Leonora has grown bored of being imprisoned in her tower, so she begins looking for a way to escape. To her good fortune, a prince happens to be riding by. His name is Hortwotherbanger. He likes hunting. Though he isn't very good at it. Leonora finally manages to get him to tie one end of her rope to a tree while she ties the other to a hook inside her tower. She then proceeds to climb across the rope to the tree. Hortwotherbanger takes great exception to this, as he insists that as he is a prince and she a damsel in distress, he must rescue her, though Leonora has already informed him that no, she is not a damsel in distress, she just needed a bit of help. She climbs down the tree as soon as she reaches it, though being trapped in the tower her whole life, she has never done such a thing. She is quite successful, as there was only one window in the tower, and she had spent quite a lot of time studying that tree.

Hortwotherbanger attempts to make her go with him back to his castle, but Leonora, declaring that "This is silly!", refuses and heads for the nearest town to find employment and a home, as she is quite tired of the tower.

At the unemployment agency, nobody can think of any good ideas of a job for her, as the only thing she knows that she can do is climb trees and sing, as she's been locked in the tower her whole life and hasn't had much opportunity to try things. She can't be a hunter, as she has made quite good friends with the animals and is a vegetarian. She can't be a lookout for a hunter because if she can't be a hunter, she can't really aid and abet them. Hortwotherbanger shows up, sent by his mother, since he doesn't have anything to do with himself besides hunting, and he not very good at it. The unemployment agent suggests that if she is good at rescuing people, she might do that, and hortwotherbanger might be rescued. So Leonora headed off to take a break by taking a look at the housing market to see what houses she might be interested in.

The Housing Marketer suggests she go into marketing and rent out her tower. Unfortunately, a dragon has taken up residence around the foot of the tower and nobody wants to rent it. And that irritating Hortwotherbanger keeps showing up at Leonora's apartment, wanting to rescue her, though she keeps insisting that she doesn't need rescuing, that she isn't in distress, and that he should just go away, but he just keeps coming back. At last, Leonora comes up with a scheme: she will convince Hortwotherbanger to move into her tower! She could convince him that this was rescuing her, too. Unfortunately, Hortwotherbanger mistook her instructions due to his chronic listening disability and convinced himself that he needed to slay the dragon to rescue Leonora. Now Leonora has an even bigger problem on her hands.

And she has to somehow solve all of her problems...

Thursday Moody

2011-03-23T15:39:00.000-06:00

I've decided that I want to write a story about a girl named Thursday Moody, who lives in Forgotten, the coral reef-like series of old subway tunnels and long-unused sewers... It sounds fascinating. I wonder what it's like there...

Today Inside my Head

2011-03-23T15:28:00.000-06:00

Sleep. I think it must be some sort of an external force that softens the sharp edges on life and rubs away the fog on the surface and restores clarity, control, and some measure of morale to the mind. I’m surprised that the Greeks and Roman’s didn’t have a god of sleep, or at least, if they did, that he’s not more prominent. I think they have one of dreams, but I can't remember for sure. When you haven’t slept, everything is worse. When you have, everything feels better. Exhaustion brings on the tears and the misery. Sleep banishes them.

Crying also sometimes makes you feel better. Mr. Conroy told us that crying actually gets out some of the stress chemicals through the tears. Maybe that's why.

I was listening to a Radio Lab called 'Pass the Science'. This man (I can't remember his name) was recounting an experience and his thoughts and he said "I love you science people... that you won't... nothing will stop you! You are jolly well going to explain it." And he had this sweet British accent. I don't usually say 'sweet' in blog posts; maybe it's because I'm wearing a ripped hoodie and feeling kinda like a punk. No, no, not THAT kind of punk. Just... y'know. Or you don't, but in any case, it's too difficult for me to attempt to explain today.

Words

2011-03-20T16:30:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, the Curse of Calpurnia struck again... it was a terribly sluggish day after we got home form the discovery center, but then Mama and I decided to play overturn and then watch The Bourne Ultimatum, even though even that didn't sound particularly interesting.

While we were playing, we found the word Pharaoh, but we couldn't use it because it was all on one tile.

We also found Ceagal. We think that's how you should spell seagull. Well, at first we just found eagal, but then we saw the C to make it ceagal. It didn't work as well when I tried to make it 'ceagalsledy'. But it would have used up more letters.

Neighborhood Watch

2011-03-20T14:34:00.001-06:00

Is he wearing a fedora?

I went for a walk yesterday evening, and this is the picture at the end of the road. It makes me laugh. I know they're in lots of places. I think it's the picture that does it... It's one of those 'no such-and-such allowed' type pictures. These are the thoughts I had.

"No shady individuals permitted."

"Criminals have been warned, and so can not be upset when they are arrested by our formidable neighborhood watch."

"Our neighborhood watch has more accurate time telling than your silly little pocket watch."

"No trenchcoats allowed."

"Double-Pointy Hats Strictly Forbidden"

Things That Make Me Happy!

2011-03-19T08:43:00.000-06:00

Only a couple of them, actually...

Sleeping in
Comfortable Beds
Breakfast
Waffles
Bacon
Yummy-flavored Gum
The Discovery Center
Visiting Las Vegas
Visiting Utah
Hiking
Saturdays
Writing Stories

You Know That Feeling...

2011-03-18T21:14:00.000-06:00

You know that exhausted sort of misery that you get because you're so tired your brain has just shut off all the effort bits you've got and you just want to cry about everything and your brain will pick out and dwell on every single trivial negative tidbit it can come up with and even the thought of going to bed makes you feel so mournful you want to wail in misery everything feels like the end of the world and you know it's just because you're tired but that still doesn't make you feel any better?

Sometimes, You Just Gotta Cross Your Arms and Say...

2011-03-18T19:05:00.000-06:00

"Look, dude, I have a shinier sword than you do, so just back off and nobody has to lose any appendages."

Oh, The Times...

2011-03-17T18:55:00.000-06:00

...they are a changing.

That is, the functions of the various days of the week are shifting.

You see, lately I get so excited for Friday the Thursday is the new Friday. And Sunday is the new Monday because I dread it so much because Monday is the next day... And Tuesday is generally (though not always) worse than Monday. Huh.

The "Oh-Mockle"

2011-03-17T17:59:00.001-06:00

That would be my pronunciation of The OMACL.

I discovered this, as mentioned in a previous post, because I wondered what 'Siegfried', as in 'The Siegfried Line' (a German strategy in WWII- it was an offensive line that ran sort of along the French Maginot line of defense) meant. So... I looked up the word in the dictionary, since my Word processor said that it was a word, unlike many words that come from other languages than English. It said that Siegfried was a hero from Germanic legend who slew a dragon and won Brunhild for Gunther. Of course, this immediately piqued my curiosity. Actually, it gave it a good swift kick in the rear. So I Googled it, as is my habit of doing to most things that pique or kick my curiosity, and discovered that the whole legend was written in the poem- written in Middle High German in 1200- called Nibelungenlied. Which, incidentally, my computer also recognizes as a legitimate word.

I Googled 'Nibelungenlied', and found that the entire text could be found on a site called.... The OMACL! The Online Medieval And Classical Library.

I have filed the website away with Radio Lab in my "extraordinarily interesting and useful nerd sites"

I've also decided to create a secret society. I shall call it the NERDS. That stands for "Nefariously Ersatz Rooftop Dwelling Society". We shall hang out on roofs and be nefariously ersatz in all of our doings. In fact, we shall take an oath to do so always! Of course, now you shall have to join NERDS, or we shall have to NERD- which is to say, Nefariously Eliminate Remaining Detriments. And, sad to say, any threat to our security is a detriment.

Inception

2011-03-17T17:38:00.000-06:00

Mind Blowing

Inception... This is an entirely FANTASTIC movie. I loved it. I learned that they way I reacted was the exact same way that my cousin reacted. Mind Blown. But the movie itself is not the point of this post... Except that, well, it kind of is.

The other night, I started having nightmares. Then I would wake up from the nightmare. And it wouldn't be over. I kept waking up, only I never really woke up. It was a very confusing and startling way to actually wake up. Presuming that I did. I certainly hope that I did. Anyway, it was SO exciting to have such Inception-like dreams.

No Graves In Egypt

Audra: "Is that The Book of Mormon in Spanish?" Me: "Yeah." Audra: "You're cool..."

Exercise

Once Upon A Time, The Heroine Decided To Quit, Throwing The Director Into A Colossal Temper And Nearly Destroying The Entire Production

To Choose Responsibility-Induced Depression And Be, Or Not To Choose Responsibility-Induced Depression and Be In The Gutter... That Is The Question.

Responsibility

Please Hold, We Seem To Be Experiencing Unexpected Evolutionary Difficulties.

Dark Closets, Potato Chips, and Celine Dion

"It's Hard To Hate Someone When You're Praying For Them." -Padre

Alone in El Dorado

Soolaimon

Tricks

Coolest Cartoon Ever

Pizza

U2

"I'm trying to focus, worm!" -Charlie

This Sweater Is So Blasted Comfortable

Feeding the Sub-saharan Villages

Charlie and Luke

"Someday You're Going To Be An Orphan." ~Daddy

So... We Meet Another Liver.

Welcome To Sprinkler Heaven!

Yes, I Truly Do Get Way Too Into These Things

I Get WAY Too Into These Things

A Brief Comment To Prove I Am Still Alive and Still Having Thoughts

The Battle of >>Insert Battle Name Here<< Had Been Lost...

Gratuitous

I. Freaking. Hate. Hormones.

Social Graces

I'm Grateful

Fireworks

Wrock On. Trock On.

"One Minute Writing Contest"

Sometimes I Think The Whole World is Made of Words

Owen Bennett Jones... With News Hour

Physical Education Is NOT Supposed To Be Mentally Taxing

Those Dark, Brooding, Devil-May-Care Types...

Berries

Life Lessons Learned Picking Strawberries

You Got the Wrong Message

Me Cave Man. Me Kill Things. Me Eat Dead Things. Me Die Of Constipation From Not Eating Bran Flakes. Me Stink.

I'm So...

The School Nurse From The Black Lagoon

The Drama of a Day, Or, Seminary Sucked But Then Stuff Was Fantastic

The Love Doctor: Or, The Lone Hairless Lemming On the Ice Sheet On The Mountain In a Blizzard

Hitler... And the IB

Fitness

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

Comments and Validation

Deep Thoughts

36: Beep... Beep.... Beep...

Hi, Mom, Meet Your Grandkid. Hi, Kid, Meet Grammy George

Lola Bella and Poppy Lou, (Who Was Not Even Two)

World War II

Making George Proud

Wicked

Neglect

Cain... er, Cane

In Which Carli Makes Statements Easily Construed as Controversial and Hopes It Doesn't Have Any Negative Effects on Her Life

You know you're at Renaissance when...

Yes, I Am An IB Student, And Yes, I Do Lack Several Basic Life Skills Including The Ability To Handle Basic Life Situations

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Pink!

Chromosome 15

Cheese

War

I Wrote A Poem Today.

The Baker: An Egg Tale of Horror

Sometimes I Really Think I'm Going Crazy In The Night

Thoughts

Political Spectrum

This Is Awesome.

Swear Words

Coming Up With Roses

&~^%<#?+%@#`!%$ @%^ *%&^% ^%$@#$%<@?#$%

Question: Done? Answer: Yep.

Renaissance...

Syllogism

The 8th Deadly Sin

Consistency