The title of this entry is not a line from an action movie*, but damn, it should be.

* as far as I know...

So, the first week of August, my family went on a Fantastique Bike Trip up Lake Champlain and into Canada. It was amazing. Biking through the Adirondacks was a tiny bit less amazing, if only because biking up and down mountains is tough. While we were biking, one family member would always be driving the van. ... and would be constantly on the lookout for bread.



I finished The Sun Also Rises and The Awakening, and I must now muscle my way through East of Eden.



I have many more tales to tell, so I'll post again sometime when I'm ready to talk with my words and not with my AppleWorks Paint skills.

So, today in band, our conductor FINALLY admitted that she is, in fact, pregnant. This is made rather ironic and funny, seeing as she's a fill-in conductor for our old one... who is on maternity leave, because about this time last year, she announced that she was pregnant. So, yeah, I guess that being the band conductor at my school is a fantastic fertility drug. Now we just have to worry about the student interns who sometimes conduct the band...

In other news, my dear mother almost but then didn't ride that plane that crashed into the Hudson! o.o Luckily, she didn't (and is safe) and all the people who were on it are also fine. Nonetheless, it was a bit nervous-making to hear about.

And finally, here are the four photos I was missing from 365 photos.

( below a cut of course )

Photo the seventh of 365 photos.



I keep forgetting to take photos when I'm outside, so this is another bit of my living room. It's too bad, because today was a snow day, and I could've taken a photo of the delightful slush. (Not so delightful when it caused my dad to swerve off the road...)

I'm going to sleep now.

PS. I saw Onmyoji today and it was PHENOMENAL.

I've gotten my algebra grade back to what it was at the end of last term. I have the remainder of this term to raise it as much as humanly possible.

My father is heading off to the Wonderful Magical Special Land of Brittania! Unfortunately, there may be freezing rain tomorrow, which will make the journey to the airport hazardous. Fingers crossed it all turns out well, though.

These are the sorts of days I would not necessarily blog if not for having a photo to post. But here's Battle Hymn of the Republic Jewel, my other guinea pig.



He's almost six years old. That makes him an Ancient and Wise Soothsayer in guinea pig years. (This is probably also why he looks crazy. His eyes are naturally red, though.) (Also, I have no idea what's up with all the random capitals in this entry. I guess it will Forever Be A Mystery.)

My father's birthday was today, so we had a very nice little celebration at home with homemade pizza and cake.

And, from that cake, here is photo #2 for 365 photos:



Also, yay for having all of my icons back! I love having a paid account.

That's all for today, folks.

I just friggin' love Subway so much.

Summary of every day since Christmas: wake up, go on computer, eat meals, go on computer, watch an episode of a medical drama, go on computer, go to bed. I am being so inefficient with my vacation BUT I am sort of complacently happy, so that's good. Now, I just need to get out and see some people.

Also, lots of hugs to my big sister and big brother for the new music fix -- I have been listening to nothing but Queen and Lady GaGa and Paramore and it. Is. Awesome.

One thing our family got for Christmas was a packet of those magnetic words, the theme of which was famous movie lines. We have already had a lot of fun re-arranging the words. Some quotations now on the fridge:

"I am not his mother"
"Here's looking at your heels"
"All right Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for all the gin joints in the world"
"Dave, the truth is you look like a wise guy in my pajamas"
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"
"We don't need no little dog"
"You talking to a magic mirror?"
"Frankly, my dear, the force is sniffing glue"
"You just never know how you show me home"
"I can't handle your eyes on the wall"
"I once shot a boy's best friend in Kansas"
"Ask yourself, is it an angel or a damned dirty ape?"

Sense: we make very little of it.

Also, today, my sister and brother got out their flute and clarinet, and I got my trombone, and we all played and sang Christmas carols, and it was marvelous fun.

Hope it was a cheerful day for everyone!

This post is REALLY LONG, so I apologize.

So, Monday was rather fantastic. I got to school and was not looking forward to algebra (I never am...). But, in some incredible run of luck, algebra didn't suck. I was not wishing pain on my teacher the whole time. In fact, I was understanding everything, and I didn't wish any bad things on anyone! I hope this is a good omen for algebra in general. I'm going to hope it all gets better from here! Also, I wasn't looking forward to band, and was hoping that maybe we'd have a band study, but since I was almost sure my conductor was in school that day, I figured we'd have to play... but we didn't! It turned out that my conductor's plane back from Chicago had been held up due to the snowstorms. It was quite the real life deus ex machina.

( and then even MORE stuff happened )

WE GOT A SNOW DAY ON FRIDAY
FWWEEEEEE~
:D

This meant that me not having done any of my homework didn't matter at all! And the funny part was, it didn't start snowing until 1 PM... and we get out of school on a normal school day at 2:10. Still, it has been snowing practically nonstop since then, though it's calmed down a bit now.

I managed to get most of the Christmas presents I was intending on buying today. Now I just need to get one for my sister and Chris and I'll be all set. Christmas shopping is very tiring, and its quite astounding to watch as the money slowly but surely disappears. ._. Still, wrapping the presents is a lot of fun, and I think this is the first year I'm getting everyone in my family a present.

I think I realize why so many people get socks for Christmas. There are oodles of socks on sale around Christmas time, and most of them are very nice. Really, the whole time I was shopping, for every person I was buying for, I kept saying to my sister, "What if we got them these socks? Or these socks? Or what about slippers? Leg warmers?"

Other than that, there's not really anything new to report.

Today, I did an entire ID sheet for history. This is an accomplishment, because ID sheets are really hard and take a long time. The reason for this is that they just give you a list of historical terms/items, usually somewhere between 26 and 30 (this time it was 38), and then you have the name every bit of significance they had between two certain years. The years this time were 1789 and 1800, and my goodness, a lot of stuff happened in those years. Yeesh. But I finished it! And now I have to write an essay on Frankenstein. Oodles of fun.

I am very excited for Christmas! On the one hand, it can't come fast enough, but on the other, I still need to make Christmas cards, clean up the living room so that we have a space to put advent calenders and decorations, buy everyone stuff... Aww maaaan, I've really got to get to that. I can't make up my mind about what to do for gifts, though. Should I get my whole family and very close friends something, and get them all something nice, or should I get all of my friends something small? I dunno. If it boils down to it I'll at least make cards and get people candy. Candy is always good.

In other news, my writer's block/lack of inspiration/lack of ability to formulate a plot is *still* stopping me from writing anything. Very frustrating.

That's all for now. Oh, one more thing! A bundle of teachers were cross-dressing on Friday. You just don't expect to see male teachers in dresses, but it wasn't so weird mostly because mostly they were wearing those shapeless, hardly feminine dresses that might as well have been pants. It was still very funny though.

My sister is back home for the weekend, yay! We all had chinese food and cake and it was lots of fun. Also, we (my big brother, big sister, big brother's girlfriend, mother, and myself) went on a walk down to the resevoir and took nice photos. The fall colors are so pretty. Fireworks on trees, I swear — and it looks amazing reflected back in the water. What's also great is that the ground is literally blanketed in pine needles, so everything looks orangish and stuff. Autumn is the best.

Unfortunately, I have disgusting amounts of homework. Really, DISGUSTING amounts, it makes me want to gag and throw stuff and break things. It's very frustrating. So, back to work!

Namely, we are giving props to my siblings. Even though they are miles away and with their own schoolwork they STILL were able to go onto AIM for a while and try and help me slog through a heinously long and complicated algebra problem. It involved a lot of confusing typing and a lot of photos taken and then sent for the sake of showing work, but, in the end, we got an answer of some sort, so it's all good. Even if we hadn't, it's still spiffy that the internet makes it possible for me to do that at all.

But I have some more work I should probably get to. Biology, namely. Also, I have a field trip this Thursday! YAY! And I've memorized how to play Build Me Up Buttercup on my trombone! DOUBLE YAY! The only problem is I haven't memorized Carry On yet and I really need to. nyuoom...

Today my family all helped my sister move into her dorm. For the first time in my life, I have my own room! It's actually sort of weird because I'm not used to it.

Also I only have seven days left of vacation and I have so much work left to do AAAAA

So I think I'm going to have to get offline right now and not come back ever until the 27th.

Haha, who am I kidding, I have no self-restraint and a horrible work ethic.

Also, I was watching Harvey Birdman and Robot Chicken the other day. Both were very funny.

EDIT: After listening to the Last Unicorn, I'm listening to the Last DJ. What other "the last" songs are there?

So, today's writer's block is "What happened to you today?" Does that seem a bit silly to anyone but me?

Also, I don't know what to do tomorrow. Lately I've started doing this terrible thing where I sleep in until 11 and then I don't actually do anything until noon. I just feel so laaaaazy, but I can't exactly seem to get up any earlier. And then, there's not much I want to do anyway. -_________-

But, summer is almost over so I must get some stuff done. (Like summer reading, for instance.) I kinda want to bake stuff, because baking is fun, but it doesn't feel like real baking unless I do it from scratch. Sure, cake mixes are fun and easy, but I kinda want to make something other than cake. I suppose that'll mean searching for a recipe. I need to think of projects to keep me from going crazy this coming year, because I'm going to be very bored with my sister and one of my best friends leaving the state. So far, I can think of sewing clothes and making a cook book. Why is it that the things I think of to occupy my time would be so very frowned upon by feminists?

Anyhow, it's clear that I don't really have anything to say. I got the unabridged Arabian Nights. And I have a new song I really like! It's sort of like and happy and fun, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. It isn't the style I'd normally listen to, but I really like it. It's very hippie-ish.

And my sister is leaving in about two weeks which is very sad. ):

I hearing the songs that are at the bottom of the American Top 20 Count-Down, because they're ones that I don't hear much on the radio normally. (Most of the stations in my area stick to songs that are either by well known bands, or that are in the top 10 and up.)

Anyhow, Casey Kasem does his whole Long Distance Dedication thing, where people write in and dedicate a song to someone, or just request a song. Usually you get dedications that are oozing sap and sweetness, about someone's long lost wuv who they are hoping will still love them after not having spoken for 6 years or something. At least 50% of the time, the Long Distance Dedication is something like "Here Without You," by Three Doors Down, or "Far Away," by Nickelback. Needless to say, I don't generally enjoy the Long Distance Dedication so much.

Still, this Sunday, much to my surprise, it was by some person who had traveled from Germany to South Africa, and learned English by listening to the Top 20. Rather than request an over-played love song, they requested "Africa" by Toto. I think to Long Distance Dedications are worth it just for the few times that there are interesting ones, with interesting songs that you don't normally hear. I really do love that song, too. I first actually heard a parody version of it, in this Christmas video that I think I linked to back in December... Also, it was in Scrubs.

So, yes, this is a somewhat random thing to blog about. Nothing much new going on, though. I'm sort of just taking it easy lately. A third of my family possibly has whooping cough. I suppose that's new. xP

Also, may I quickly express my deep love for PostSecret?

I've decided that in the world today, there is no way to be as majestic as you could've been in the world before the WWI and WWII. The world was just more majestic back then. Okay, maybe not really, but I think cars make things less cool. I don't really like cars. I like the Voltswagon Beetle I guess. Did you know it took me forever to realize that the actual word "beetle" wasn't spelled "beatle"? I found out how to spell the band's name before the actual creature. When I was a little kid I didn't realize it was a pun.

When I update my LJ early in the morning, I ramble. Usually I don't even wake up until this time (during the summer, that is), but since my family is going on a really long biking trip in August, my dad is getting us in shape by having us get up early and go on bike rides. We went on a ten mile one the other day, and did eight miles this morning. Still, we're aiming to do 60 miles a day on the actual trip. We managed that much when we biked to Canada, but that was two years ago. (I'm also not very interesting this early in the morning.)

---

I was reading through Kate Beaton's webcomics the other day, and you know? I want to be a history geek when I grow up too.

Finally, found via xkcd:

Most kids say that they're just going to skip the last half-day of school, so as an incentive to make everyone come to school on the last day, my science teacher says he's bringing in bagpipes. Yay bagpipes?

Graduation was great. My sister's speech was very good and blessedly short; all the speeches were good, really. I'm pretty sure everyone wanted to get out of that gymnasium, though. It was VERY hot in there, and I don't think there was air conditioning. By the time it was done everyone was all red in the face, so pictures with the graduates all came out looking kind of funny, but ah well. I'm really going to miss the graduates, though. ): It was kind of weird to see all those people who I'd only ever seen in the halls, thinking, "I'm probably never going to see them again." And I don't mean my friends — I mean the strangers-but-familiar-faces people. I'm going to miss them in a very odd sort of way.

Anyhow, now that this is the last full week of school, summer actually seems in reach. YAY. But we still have finals week to get through. Anyhow, this is all keeping me rather busy.


Not really much else to say.

I think I just realize why I so rarely follow through on it when I say I'll post about stuff "later." Usually, the stuff I postpone is stuff where I can only finish sentences with "you would have to have been there/have seen it yourself/have read the book/have watched the movie," etc. It doesn't make for good blogging material on my part.

That being said... O Brother, Where Art Thou? was still an excellent movie. I liked the whole aspect of an adventure in pieces, like the Odyssey. (The movie says it's based on the Odyssey but I don't think it was based particularly closely.) The ending credits of the movie were set to the song "Angel Band," which happens to be a shape-note song I've sung before in a group. I felt very in-the-know hearing it in the movie. Overall, I liked it. As for Brave Story, it had a somewhat generic plot, but it was done in an enjoyable way, the animation was very pretty, the landscapes were creative, and the world it was set in was a whole lot of fun. There, I did it. I blogged about something I said I was going to blog about. :D

In other news, well, not much of anything. However, life is really dragging along right now. ずるずるずるずる、it just goes on and on. I think I must be very high-strung right now, though not in the usual way. That is, rather than getting easily pissed off, I seem to be very easily thrown into nostalgia. I can't listen to songs like "Photograph" or "Summer of '69" without getting this glazed look and having one of those whimsical sighs. Weird.

My sister had the prom this weekend. (As one of my friends pointed out, when I phrase it like that, it sounds like a disease. "OH NOEZ YOU HAS TEH PROM!!11!!" Sounds plausible to me!) She was going with friends, so when they drove by to pick her up, we decided to take some pictures in the front yard, because we have a nice birch tree and stuff. What was funny was that one of our neighbors across the street who is my age was having friends over, and all of the friends were up at the front window of the house, watching us take photos. We had our own audience. I don't think they realized we could see them, but still, it made us (or at least me) feel very important. xP

My little brother was reading an Encyclopedia Brown book when he suddenly got this very surprised look on his face, so my sister asked him what was up, and he said, "This book says... well, it says this guy 'had a way with gentle sex'!" Of course, he had missed a "the" in there (the book said this guy "had a way with the gentle sex," which is much more fitting for Encyclopedia Brown), but I thought a) it was a funny misreading and b) it would be quite funny if a kids' book suddenly and randomly started talking about sex.

That aside... My great-grandmother is turning 102 tomorrow. I think I'd like to live to be very old, provided the world is still a good place to live in by the time I'm old. Knowing my nostalgia for a past I never even knew (as in, the world before the World Wars (as in, Jane Austen Land :D)), I bet I'd find myself saying, "When I was a young lass..." a whole lot if I grew old. I want to grow old anyway, though, so I can write a lot of memoirs and stuff. (Not really. I don't really want to write memoirs.)

One thing which people really don't do anymore is write lengthy, lengthy letters to one another. A lot of information we have about famous people we get through letters they wrote, or others wrote about them, but now, there's no need to write such in depth letters, because you can just call the person, or text them, email them, what have you. People also wrote much more fancifully back then (well, some people did). Reading their letters seems more like reading poetry at times.

On a much lighter and more modern note... Cheerful Korean music video!