Back in the US of A, and jetlagged like crazy. 12 hour difference, man. The blogger ate my last post, so let me tell you..

I went to the Hong Kong history museum, which involved me looking at lots of Neolithic pottery shards. Admission is free on Wednesday, so it was incredibly crowded, with loads of stupid elementary school kids. It was really interesting though, because they put a lot effort into the reconstructions. There were facade reconstructions of a theater and a brothel, and then there were reconstructions that you could actually go inside of. I got to go into a junk, a shrine, a Tang (I think) dynasty tomb complete with vaulted ceilings, a tram, and a reconstructed street from the colonial era inside the museum. And it wasn't just a facade of a street; it included reconstructions of a tea parlor, a pharmacy, a bank, a printing press (the building with the press inside it), a store, a post office, and an alley with market stalls and clothes hanging out to dry overhead. The icing on the realism cake was the recorded sound effects, so at the junk, you would hear the creaking of the ships, the slosh of water and the cries of the seagulls, and in the tea parlor you'd hear the clinking of eating utensils and gentle conversation, in the alley you'd hear the vendors' cries, so it was like you were actually there. Not actually part of the street was a reconstruction of a British boat (which was unexciting, looking like every other boat in Annapolis harbor), a colonial collunade, and large boxes marked "Opium." Some breech loaded cannons, a rickshaw. For realism, of course. There was some video on the Opium War which had a portrait of Lord Palmerston in it at some point (I was like, woo! It's him!), the rest of which I didn't bother to watch because it looked uninteresting. In the folk culture section there was a mountain of steamed buns from a folk festival or something, a wedding panaquin and historical wedding clothes, ceremonial dancing lions, dummies posed to do the ceremonial rowing dance (an ethnic version of the Dragon Boat Race- maybe they were too ghetto to afford boats). There was an exhibititon on the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the 18 Day's War, which basically had never-before-published photos of the war from journalists intended for Japanese newspapers, and a Japanese propaganda film about the victory in Hong Kong. And there was an exhibition on modern Hong Kong, which is just MMC... my mom used most of the stuff when she was younger.

I also went to the science museum but it was aimed for kids. I knew most of the facts already, and some of the things there were already demonstrated in physics, but it was still cool. I got to do the Zimbardo illusion thing, where forced perspective in a room makes it look to an outside observer like I'm getting bigger as they walk around the room, when instead the room is strangely shaped. You could also walk through a rotating tube on an immobile catwalk, the tube being marked just right so that halfway through you'd suddenly feel like you were tilting and lose your balance, even though the catwalk wasn't moving at all. I got to run in what was basically a hamster wheel for humans that would crank a chain to turn a gear of some sort. It was incredibly difficult to get moving, but incedibly hard to stop, which was inertia and all that. I just got a riot out of running in a human-sized hamster wheel There was a face that looked like a hologram because it'd turn and watch you if you covered an eye. Actually it was a sunken into the wall, like a jello mold or something, but some lighting effect made it so that if you only viewed it with one eye (no depth perception) it would look like it was popping out of the wall and rotating. Lots of sound stuff too. There was a thing that you squeezed to force air through different plastic passages that were shaped like your vocal cords, so it would make crude a e i o u sounds. There was a maze-like room that absorbed sound, so you couldn't hear anything going on outside. If you pounded on the walls inside the maze, other people in the maze could hear it, loud, low, and distorted, as if you were inside a whale's heart or something. Totally unrelated, but if you stood under a certain convex plate at a certain point and clapped or talked, you'd sound very loud to yourself but nobody else. And there was a narrow wave tank which you viewed from the side to see what happened to waves when they hit a beach. One of the lecturers drove around a remote control hovercraft, which is actually not as impressive as it sounds, because it just looks like a boat that rides very high on the water. I measured myself against outlines on a wall showing the average set of Chinese boys and girls at various ages. I can't believe the average 18 year old is that tiny! There was a mound of fake food which was how much food an average Hong Kong adult ate in a year, which was .. I don't know how much I was expecting. And there were some unoriginal features like the kinetic energy machine (balls rolling down a track, basically), and the obligatory fake tornado.

Not on the same day, because my legs were tired enough to drop off, I went to the Hong Kong Tea Museum, which was amusing in itself because there was a giant inflatable teapot set on the lawn. Some pottery.. I guess I feel educated, even though we had to rush ahead of a throng of students on a field trip. Some cups.. pots.. tea cabinets.. scoops... dried tea leaves... video on excruciatingly boring tea ceremony.. You know.

Also tried to go to the art museum on my last day in Hong Kong, but it was Thursday and museums are generally closed on Thursdays. I guess it's to clean up after the rush of field trip kids after Free Admission Wednesday.

Read "Men at Arms," which is possibly the best Discworld book. Some discrepancies with Fifth Elephant regarding werewolves though. Also, a special feature called Captain Carrot Gets Laid. Finally. Was hoping to read "Thief of Time," seeing as that Hong Kong is the perfect place to read a book mocking kung fu flicks, but the English section of my local library didn't have it. Had lots of Eddings though. And Madame Bovary. Grrrr. Begone, summer reading! So many books, so little Pratchett... man, and Hong Kong calls itself a British Crown Colony?

Oh, wait.

Went on a three day cruise with an onshore excursion in Xiamen, China. It's in Fujian. Actually, it's more like one whole day, being that we actually sailed on Wedsneday evening from Hong Kong, and returned to Hong Kong at 2 in the afternoon on Friday. I was on the ship, and after the "wow, it's just like a hotel on land!" novelty of it, I sort of got quickly unappreciative because it.. well.. was just like a hotel on land. With elevators and stuff. That you were stuck in and made you nauseous. I'm so ungrateful. Overall though, I enjoyed spending time with my family. Uno is universal.. as are video games.. especially in an arcade with fake sniper rifles, and bikes that you can tilt on to change your direction as opposed to a joystick. And teaching everyone how to make music by running your finger around the rim of a drinking glass. I enjoyed just watching the sea, if there's anything to watch, most of the trip being just.. blue. The Roman- themed pool and the spa were great (though the chlorine started getting to my head after a while), especially with the water sloshing around from the ship tilting. I didn't know- I guess I should have- that ships roll, unlike airplanes, which rock up and down. It's more unpleasant than airplanes, unfortunately. The pool was like a mini wave pool, and I like ocean breezes. And the whole design was really cheerful and comfortable, though I ate too much. This came from the great idea from my family that since buffets are free, but our tickets automatically gave us $500 HK dollars to spend on food, that we should go to both the buffets and the pay restaurants to get the best of the free buffet food and the more formal pay food ($500 worth would be paid for by our tickets whether we spent that much on food or not).. Which means two meals for each meal. GAH. Best California rolls I've ever had though.

Possibly the most ghetto nighttime onboard entertainment I have ever seen though.. Random people in sequins dancing badly to really loud music to really tacky pyrotechnics involving a laser beam swinging into the crowd blinding it. Yes, Nick, more ghetto than the Greek dude trying to sing in Japanese. At least that was "cultural." I did, however, have my picture taken with a dude in a giant bunny suit. After returning from Xiamen, I tried to sneak into the casino, but this did not work because they were closing the casino anyhow because we were entering Hong Kong waters, and gambling is not allowed in Hong Kong. Hmm, I also wondered how the "Ladies of Love" night time show was, which I probably could've sneaked into as well...

Yes, Mainland (nickname: Big Green) China is now officially the most ghetto place I have ever been. Not so much as ghetto, but totally random. Let me demonstrate. Visualize what I'm about to say, instead of just reading over it, otherwise you won't understand me.

It is nighttime in July, and it is hot and humid. You see a large mall. Right in front of it, is not a parking lot, but a tiny lawn, maybe the size of a blacktop. There are large green spotlights pointed at the grass, so that it's a nice crayony shade of green, as if someone thought, "Damn, the grass should be green." Without thinking that grass isn't green at night. On the grass is some metal playground equipment. You know, swings, slides, etc. There's maybe a hundred people, coming and going into/from the mall, green kids (the lights doing their job) playing on the playground and random people sitting. On the grass. There are poles on the grass. There are Christmas lights shaped like fireworks on the poles. Around this whole scene are colonial style apartments badly in need of repair. There is a giant KFC sign in Chinese. Looming above the sign is a crane. And a clocktower.

I'm not sure if I'm getting across, but what I was thinking looking out at this was.. What the hell???

A fairly dumb tour.. we went to the beach, and just stood around acting like idiots, since it was blistering hot, even with the free fans and free water we were given. I hate beaches. The only thing distinctive about it was that you could see Taiwan. Chinese tea ceremony demonstration.. good tea.. but I didn't understand the Mandarin, and didn't pay attention to the Cantonese. Went to a nifty Buddhist shrine and ate a vegetarian meal there. The cooks were amazing- they could make everything taste like meat. They made fried glutton that tasted like pork kabob, and had some strange fungi mushroom thing diced up to taste like calamari, and mushrooms basted to taste like sea cucumbers, and some awesome vegetarian pan fried noodles.

My cousin is basically like Willis, except taller and thinner and with better hair. And not as maniacal.

On a wall in my cousin's room, there is a quote. "I am more thankful to God for my friends than for my daily bread, for friends are the bread of the heart."

Which leads me to wonder if a starving man with friends but no bread would feel the same way. I suppose he could eat his friends, but they don't have as much nutritional value.

In Hong Kong there is a tv show like Millionaire, where if you answer the question wrong, a trapdoor opens under you and you fall into a hole.

I must note about a manga version of "Return of the Condor Heroes" (which is of the popular, trashy, Chinese genre of martial arts books, which are like trashy fantasy books in the US) . There's a lot of stuff like "Dragon Girl taught him the secret way to resist the cold. And from then on, every day he could resist the cold even more until he didn't even notice it.".. ".. And Dragon Girl taught him the secret way to jump and catch. And for the next eight days he practiced the secret way of jumping and catching."... "She moved her hands really fast." Must have lost a lot in translation. And there's this guy who looks like Boromir. But Chinese. @_@.

Quote of the Day: GUARDS! Castrate him!

July 1; the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong's transfer back to China. Got to watch fireworks from Fish's balcony over Victoria Harbour at night, and a loony human rights protestor on a bridge surrounded by cops on my way to get some lunch (not that all human rights protestors are loony; this one was.) I filmed the fireworks. But I saw the footage again and it's extremely jerky. I wonder how the fireworks on the Mall were (I suppose now it's the morning of July 5th in the US.)

Am in Hong Kong. Actually, I've been here for a week or so (starting on the 24th of June) but was too lazy to blog.

It is all normal. It looks very good at night, sparkly like it's Christmas or something (Christmas in Hong Kong is demented by the way... too many lights...), but in the daytime, it's dirty. Japan creeps me out because it's an Asian country and clean. Has been 33 degrees C out, and I wish we'd turn on the air con. The fan is trying very hard, to its credit. This is part of the reason why I escape to my cousin Fish's apartment (flat, my bad) ... because my grandma is worse than Nick B's dad. I don't think she's let a meal pass without commenting on my fatness (when people comment that I've lost weight she immediately goes, "No she hasn't!") And she serves fish at every meal and gets hella angry if I don't eat it (despite eating other things). Evil..I hate having a mouthful of bones- it's like eating a skeleton, especially since choking on a bone when I was little and having to be taken to a hospital.

And semi-escaping from my other cousin's flat because a) he's starting to inherit his dad's temper (this being the type of model family where the father is the disciplinarian and the mother is the nurterer- so that the daughter is extremely compliant and my other cousin is starting to yell at his mom..) Also, he's been running around shouting, having spiked his hair like David Beckham and is wearing a "Brasil" soccer (read, real football) jersey. Also, I have to go to church with them, which althought it hasn't been as offensive as it was last year (we got to watch videos on "converting the natives of Africa") but it's still awkward because I don't know anyone and people think I'm weird because I eat pizza with my hands.

Anyhow. Fish has been teaching me how to play Counterstrike. Yay, FPS. And "Typing of the Dead." Type or die!

Saw a Voyager rerun last night. The episode that's basically- Harry Kim and the Planet of Women. Lots of unnecessary footage of Harry and some alien Anakin lookalike making out with hot sci fi Greek women. @__@ Were some of these writers up too late???

Note: Some of these Star Trek women were actually pretty hot. Except for Harry's girlfriend/attempted murderer, who looked and acted too much like Ms. Seabreeze.
Note: Whenever ANYONE goes to an island of beautiful women or something similar, the men always end up getting sacrificed or whatnot for malicious purposes and Our Hero always has to find their dessicated, mutiliated corpses. Goddammit.

Been reading Shadow of the Hegemon. And watching the Powerpuff Girls, who have a movie coming out on July 3. Which makes me think.. it would be freaky if the Ender's Game movie came out, animated, and in the same style as Powerpuff Girls.. I can see it now. *high squeaky voices* "I'm Ender!" "I'm Bean!" "I'm Petra!" Lots of sexual tension between Achilles and Petra in Shadow. Lots of Petra, which makes up for her noninvolvement in Ender's Game.

Reading the King James Bible too, at Andrew's behest. It's beautifully written, but very boring. Stop with the begatting and smiting already! Jesus.

It seems like I have not blogged in forever. And when I blog, it's about random shit, not about stuff that happens in my life.

Um, school is over. FINALLY. It hasn't really felt like summer cuz I keep going to school for various reasons, like my mom bitching about CAS forms. I'm not that incompetent, it's just that I don't care.

(you know all this. bear with me- this is just for the official record)

King's Dominion. HOOAH. It was as hot as shit, so I was actually feeling icky and soaked even without the water rides but then it rained. Hard. Like, pouring buckets. We had been planning on going on the water rides in the afternoon, but the rain sort of killed those plans. Roooolllleer coaaastersss.

Hurler- first coaster, wooden, fairly tame- Nick should've gone on this one.

Grizzly- po' Nick. I have a feeling he smashed his hip against the side because my fat ass was shoved up right next to him.

Rebel Yell, backwards, but the suspense was sort of ruined in that you knew you were going to go downhill when you ceased feeling like you were going uphill.

Shock Wave- stood in the front with Christine at her insistence (I guess she really trusts Jesus), got my head smacked against the dumb metal headrests, and since there were two cars on the track, had to wait for like 10 minutes after the ride before we could actually get out.. blegh. Puffy actually got stuck on it, and got gift certificates for his trouble. You know, Puffy had never been on a coaster before the trip.

Anaconda-that was sweet, especially the corkscrews. We went on it twice. The going underwater thing wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. I heard Julia or someone flashed the camera...).

Didn't go on the Outer Limits (You didn't miss anything, Jen) since the line was too long, and the same with the Volcano (Puffy's first coaster, which he said was lame- I don't buy it) when it reopened after the storm. Took one look at the Berserker going upside down in dreadfully slow circles and ran away, making some white lie about there not being enough time to go on it. Which happened to be true.

I used to be rather terrified of roller coasters because they were rather ominous- you'd have the creaking of the chains as they dragged the cart up the first hill and you could look down and be like, aw shit, why am I here? And then you'd be motionless for a second before you'd fall... I didn't really like the metal roller coasters as much because they'd seem too fast, because you couldn't hear things rattling or feel the turning motions because everything was so smooth. But still. Apparently the HyperSonic XL is the 9th fastest roller coaster in the US. I still don't think I could go on it. I wanted to go on the Skyflyer, but it was hella expensive.

Some wholesome noncoaster things. The Flying Eagle, which was like a swing ride except in carts, and I said it felt like being on a landspeeder and Nick said I was a dork. Quiet, you. And we went on the carousel (wheee!!!) which didn't go on for as long as I'd like, but it was still cool. The Eiffel Tower, which was nice and windy, and made me heightsick. Swing ride thing, which I remember from being little and crying because I was too short to go on it for two years straight. Took pictures on it, but it was starting to rain (read: storm) and the ride was cut short. And it lit up after I was on it. And the funnel cakes were good, and the food was good (but incredibly overpriced), and it was incredibly cool playing bumper cars, as long as you didn't crash into anyone head on, which was painful. I won a frog! Froggie! From throwing a ball into a basket. yup. So did Dipa. Hers was a different color. Played some skiball and lost pathetically, DDR (mostly watched it). Yup.

Shakespeare Free For All, which basically consisted of people not talking to me. Picnic was sort of excruciating, since it seemed like if people had a choice not to talk to me, they made it. It seems that the more people Nick or Alex invite to a social occasion, the more lonely I am. But the play was good, and it was nice being in an ampitheater with the IWBA. Making snide comments. BARDFU! I was pleased that I understood it. I think we should dub a term for "theater beautiful," which is a lot different from "tv ugly." TV characters who are "ugly" are just pretty people in glasses, but people on stage who're beautiful are often saggy middle aged women with make-up on playing teenagers.

Um, my DDR party, which was mostly other people playing DDR, but it was still fun. I'm afraid the stomping probably has made my house structurally instable. Except for picking up Silvia's socks when it was over. And my sisters and their husbands coming over later for the belated Father's Day party. Lots of food, talking about stuff. Wondering who I'm going to get married off to. Joy.

(Vortex explains how Link sheaths a sword into a scabbard strapped onto his back. Without looking at where he's sheathing his sword, and without impaling himself.)

VortexMR: imagain setting your sword parellel to the scabord but obove it
SFX 87: is it directly above it?
VortexMR: yes
VortexMR: touching the scabord
SFX 87: tip touching the scabbard?
VortexMR: whole sword at the moment
VortexMR: it's just laying there on top of it
VortexMR: with the blade resting against the top of the scabord
VortexMR: imagain that
SFX 87: like this? <=========o <=========|---o

(Blogger's Note: This is me not knowing the meaning of the word parallel at 10 at night)

VortexMR: no
VortexMR: like this
VortexMR:
<==========|---
<=========0
VortexMR: only touching each other
SFX 87: ah..
SFX 87: ok
VortexMR: then he tilts it up so only the sword right next to the hilt is touching the scabard
SFX 87: ok
VortexMR: then he pulls it foreword so the sword's blade runs along the top of the () of the scabord
SFX 87: oh!
SFX 87: clever!
VortexMR: then when the sword is done doing that he lowers the tip and then pushes back
VortexMR: yeah, allows him to line it up with less chance of bodily impailment
SFX 87: still sounds like a pain in the ass
VortexMR: takes him like 2 seconds, he's been doing it his whole life
SFX 87: still sounds like a pain in the ass
SFX 87: It takes a lot of skill just to line up the sword parallel with the scabbard in just one try
VortexMR: better then loseing a liver
SFX 87: true

SFX 87: that sword thing he [Link] does is physically impossible
SFX 87: pulling a sword out of a scabbard he wears on his back
VortexMR: the spinny what?
SFX 87: that too
VortexMR: why is pulling it out of his back imposible?
SFX 87: because I tried it, and it's basically impossible if the sword is longer than your arm. Think about it.
SFX 87: he can do it with the short sword. But not the long sword.
VortexMR: does he pull the goron sword out of his back?
VortexMR: and it would be possible, if the botton of the scabbard was not hooked to anything, so that it could tilt up
SFX 87: Noo.
SFX 87: it's impossible
SFX 87: Even tilting up
SFX 87: it's possible at your waist because you can move your arm in an arc
SFX 87: and the scabbard tilts with you
SFX 87: actually, hmm
VortexMR: wait a minute... your right... how the heck could ANY sword slonger then your arm be goten out of a scabard in one fluid motion?
VortexMR: well if it's at your waist, if it's longer then your arm plus the line from your sholder to the scabord
SFX 87: try it.
VortexMR: ware am i going to get a large sword and scabard?
VortexMR: link pulls everything but his sword and his sheild out of a fanny pack!
SFX 87: so actually the length of the sword would be less than the length from your hand to the scabbard, which is longer than the length of your arm
VortexMR: that's what i said, from your arm to your sholder across your body to the scabard
VortexMR: the link cartoon actualy exsplains that
SFX 87: That's only if you're drawing your sword parallel to your body. I think people would usually wear swords on their back for travel, because if you wore it at your waist it'd be annoying for walking long distances.
VortexMR: or if you want you be able to do stuff with your hands
SFX 87: rightyo
VortexMR: in the link cartoon you see him like shove bow and arrows into his fanny pack
SFX 87: So you'd think if you had it strapped to your back so it didn't get in the way, you wouldn't want it to wobble around, so it wouldn't be able to tilt, so you couldn't draw it from that position.
SFX 87: You'd have to strap it to your waist if you knew you were going into a battle or something. And if you get ambushed on the road, tough luck.
VortexMR: unless it was a short sword
SFX 87: yah
VortexMR: now when link to stuff out of the fanny pac, it was really small and grew back to normal size
VortexMR: he has a magical carry all fanny pack!
SFX 87: like a bag of holding
SFX 87: hmm, actually, I get this. The line from your hand to your scabbard (at waist level) is a lot longer than the line from your hand to your scabbard (when it's on your back)
SFX 87: it just is.
VortexMR: yeah i know
SFX 87: so if it was a long swordy you couldn't draw it
SFX 87: from your back
SFX 87: much less sheath it into your back
SFX 87: like young link does, even with a short sword
SFX 87: cuz even with scabbards at your waist, you sort of have to hold the scabbard still and make sure you don't miss the hole and stuff.
VortexMR: actualy you could sheith it, get the tip in there and then shove it up
SFX 87: you could, but you can't see it cuz it's on your back

Senior shirt. Kalimera. You guys have a better idea?

Blah. Went to school at 10, but stayed in school until 3:30 doing Chinese makeups.

Now, anyways. What should I get on my senior shirt?

Ah, today's my birthday. Yayfor. I don't have a 6th period exam tomorrow so I get to come in late, and even sleeping now, I can get 8 hours of sleep.

Ed finally returned my Ringworld to the library, resulting in my quote of the day.
"We're human! Let's have sex!'" -Ed on the overly amorous space explorers in Ringworld.

nononono, here's another quote of the day from watching PBS kids. "Bye, Lynx Kitten! I'm glad you don't know how to use kitty litter!" Quiet. It's summer, almost, and it's my right to allow my brain to rot by watching educational tv. Educational for four year olds. Man, if I were a host of an educational tv show... well, let's just say that I'd imagine that Bill Nye gets drunk as shit on the weekends and goes "Goddammit no more feckin' kids, heheh!!" as he wanders around in a drug-induced stupor with a chick on each arm and his bowtie undone.

Yay skippy. BTW, The Shining opens itself up to many merchandising opportunities. The Shining Inspirational Soundtrack! (creak! splut! wooodeewoodeewoodeewoooooo AIEEEEE REDRUMREDRUM danny's not here!!!") (Soothing New Age music in your very own home. Eh, at least, I hope that's the sound of water gently flowing...) The Shining Valentine's Day Cards! ("To my better half.. and half.. and half.. and half..") I must wonder though, cleaning the blood off the cameras after filming that elevator scene must be hell.

Why are psychotic (non axe-murderer) guys the most attractive? (Treize.. he's so sane, you KNOW he's mental, AND he's dating a woman with MPD... Sephiroth.. no comment...['Tell me about your mother...' 'I was created in a lab...' 'Zat is a start...' ] ) Actually, I think it's because psychotic guys are usually villains, and villains are attractive.

You know what I got for my birthday party?

PS2!!!!

And also. Maximo and Frogger. EGM says that Maximo's good. It should be amusing that he removes clothes every time he takes damage. Frogger though, is the lamest game I have ever played.

:: how jedi are you? ::

I did my Chinese oral project on one of the famed beauties of China, Xi Shi, whose name is comically infamous for being impossible for Cantonese people like me to pronounce. I did not realize this until I did my presentation.

I must wonder.

Why the hell are Chinese emperors so damn easy to seduce? It seems to be an oft repeated and valid military tactic in ancient China to send a foreign king a beautiful woman as a "gift" to "distract him from affairs of state." I can see this would go over well nowadays. ("Your mission.. seduce George Bush!") You'd think after a few thousand years these kings would learn to be less easily distracted. Or perhaps the enemies of the state psychologically analyzed the target for easily distractable tendencies, like eating people's poo. Oh, wait. That's the guy who's sending Xi Shi. Okay, then the guy who's getting his state destroyed must be a TOTAL maniac.

Supposedly, when Xi Shi walked past, fish would sink to the bottom of the pool because they weren't good enough for her reflection, and flying geese would fall out of the sky stunned by her beauty, and half-bloomed flowers would close up again and the moon would cover itself in clouds because they were ashamed that her beauty was so much greater than theirs. She wouldn't make a very good werewolf. Which makes me think, that those descriptions would be more apt for a real UGLY woman... Though that must be a very good deal for a poor washer woman because you could eat roast goose every day. You know.. she takes a nice walk by the woods.. ladeedadeeda.. and... FREE POULTRY! Excellent! Instead of moving up in the world by the very dubious method of being the king's concubine, she can just open up a fried goose chain store, like KFC except it'd be YFG- YueFriedGoose. Though I think that her being a Beauty and everything wouldn't alow her to eat anything except like, a piece of lettuce every day. I must wonder though, when she's washing clothes in Washer's Stream, does the dirt flee the laundry just at the touch of her hand? That'd be extremely convenient. They never talk about things like that in books- they have a Xi Shi cosmetics line already so I think it'd be very informative to learn, so that we can come up with a Xi Shi laundry detergent.

Maybe that's why she's famous for having stomachaches all the time... too much damn goose. Eat some vegetables, woman!

Man. and you thought a thousand ships was somethin'!

And today, friends, in AP Calculus with Kristen and Julia and Marianna, we talked about midget strippers.

Quote of two days ago: "Who cares about the World Cup? No one! What seperates humans from animals? Their opposable thumbs! You can't use opposable thumbs in soccer! You could teach cows to play soccer!"

-Mr. Willard

"Santiago Nassar finally knew that they were out to get him when he spotted the Mandalorian bounty hunter stationed outside of his house."

Yesterday, I thought a piece and sour chicken looked so much like a manatee that I was extremely disturbed while eating it. ("Noo, nooo! Not the manatee!")

What the hell am I on???? Am I always this nuts in school? I sweartogod..

You know what disturbs me? Guys who are disturbingly good looking. I don't mean just like, blindingly matching-sweater-from-Milan good looking, but like, obscenely good looking. Real guys, as far as I know, are kind of mishapen and lopsided, like potatoes, and forget to shave over the course of several days and have razor nicks and have really hairy legs when you can see them when they're wearing shorts and drink milk out of the carton and tend to scratch places they shouldn't. So stylish guys disturb me, because they seem less than real, like a conglomeration of everyone's ideals of what a guy should look like into one face and body, leaving features that aren't disagreeable to anyone but aren't distinguished either. Sort of like the woman on the phone who goes "The number you have dialed...".. her voice is nice, pleasant sounding, and nobody grates at the sound of her voice, but it's so... blegh. No matter how much manly stubble and scars-running-down-the-cheekbone-s you give Ben Affleck so he can be a mighty action hero or whatever, he still looks like a cardboard prettyboy who I wouldn't trust in the cockpit of an airplane because he'd be too busy looking at his reflection in the dashboard. It's like a robot or an alien, dude! Not a single hair out of place! Especially bishonnen anime guys, who not only are way too stylish for their own good, but literally are a conglomeration of everyone's ideals of what a guy should look like into one face and body. Like Darien from Sailor Moon. What in fucking hell could get a 17 year old boy (who's disproportionally drawn so that he's really leggy) to wear tuxedos and tophats for fun and throw roses at people???? Some people get all dreamy eyed over him, but Jesus, he creeps me out!

Note: Treize Khushrenada does not count. The 17th century clothes are for.. um.. well c'mon, everyone in Gundam Wing wears weird clothes and he's Grand Duke of something so he's excused. Plus, he has forked eyebrows and he watches opera and he fences and he flies giant robots. And his voice actor sounds like he has laryngitis. And he rants about God and humanity and the universe and has strange ideas on honorable warfare. Which makes him automatically cool.

What did medieval people do without shorts? Did they wear those funky tunics without pants underneath like Prince Valiant?

Ok. NOW I'm going to sleep.

Aboot yesterday. If you ever end up in a room with only Kristen, Julia and Marianna, and Mrs. Goetz you will end up with strange discussion topics.

-Pierced nipples ("What would happen if you were trying to breastfeed? Would milk like, come out of two holes?"), pierced toes, pierced.. that flap of skin between your thumb and forefinger.. tongue piercings. ("His mom thought it was like, self-mutilation, so she was like, 'Oh my god! What's wrong???' ") Tatooed eyeliner. ("What happens if the needle like, misses?")
-What happens if you stick a needle in your eye? ("Does it like, pop?" "..No, I think it's like, jello, inside, so it'd only, like, ooze..")
-Mrs. Goetz's belly piercing. ("I went to get a belly piercing with my daughter when she was a freshman. It was such a bonding experience.".. "It hurt! And I've had five children, so I know some serious pain!")
-Mrs. Goetz's reason for naming all her children with D names.
-Julia's desire to get a nifty lizard tattoo on her hip, her cool new belly button frog (You should get one, Alex), how she convinced a boy for a year that she'd gotten a nipple ring by wearing a bra with a bell on it.
-People at the tattoo parlour's screams of agony. (".. he was popping pills the whole time.. his tattoo was so big.. all down his leg and intricate.. that he couldn't get it all done at the same time because of the pain..")
-Sherry's desire to get a breast reduction. ("..That girl with big boobs..")
-Breast implants ("...they cut off your nipple! Ew... I mean, they put it back on, but still.."), Breast Implants Gone Bad ("...and her boobs were like, mushrooms! It was so gross.")
-Julia getting her belly ring pulled at a rock concert ("... so when I lifted my shirt it was halfway out and there was blood coming out of..")
-The one amazing day where Julia was wearing clothes that actually matched, and everyone commented in amazement. ("... Let's see... Herschel.. Jesse K..." "Right, then I came in and was like, 'Hey, you match!' " "... and Andrew P. You know there's something wrong with how you dress when Andrew... it was so sad..")
-Andrew's infamous sex joke. (".. I don't remember why, but he was talking in TOK and he said, '... And she sunk down on her knees in front of him.. if you know what I mean.' And we were all like, totally shocked!")
-Ms. Kavanaugh sleeping with a senior.
-Ms. Kavanaugh proposititioning every single male teacher on faculty and getting turned down.
-"Is Mr. Willard scared of girls?" debate.
-Mrs. Kellinger. ("It's pretty funny because I hear she's been pretty judgmental of everyone else these days.")
-How, while they were dating, the administration gave Mr. and Mrs. Goetz a good talking to for 'unprofessional conduct.' (".. you know, because we'd arrive at school together and everything." "That's so cute!" "So they gave us this talk and said, 'You know your son goes to this school' and about keeping a 'professional distance' and I said, 'Get out of my business!' ")
-One of Mrs. Goetz' students' tongue rings, which he kept clicking against his teeth. A student who painted his hair red white and blue for the 1996 Olympics with oil-based paints and had to shave it all off afterwards.

In that order.

I registered Time and Again and Dragonshadow on Book Crossing. It's not that I'm particularly generous, it's just that they're not books I want to keep, and as Nick has proved, who on ebay wants them? Even my local library probably doesn't want them.

I feel sorry for Czar Alexander II. Try have a grain of human decency, and end up getting killed. He didn't have to stop and help innocent people wounded in the first attempt on his life. He could have just driven past, and that would have been the smart thing to do, but he chose to be a decent human being. And for that he ends up getting blown up to itty bitty pieces.

What sort of world is this? That people can think they can save the world by chucking a bomb at someone? At least if you're killing someone, have the decency to shoot him, and leave people who didn't have any political affiliations until you blew their legs off out of it.

"Real" science fiction is too brainy for me. It sort of requires a certain type of upbringing, so that basically only scientifically educated Europeans can understand it. Fantasy is universal. Though while sci fi suffers from being too techy, fantasy can suffer from being too hammy, and you have dudes who say things like, "Lo! Hail the Dread Lord Hrothgar, for he hath arrived at our humble kingdom!" Lord help me.

Part of The anime Hamlet. Good when it sticks to the Hamlet- the 'get thee to a nunnery' and 'to be or not to be' scenes are really dramatic and powerful. Bad when it goes with the anime plotline- the jokes give me a rash. More Hamlet, damn you, and less anime slapstick! I also have to note that in the earlier acts, the facial expressions of actors are so off what their lines are supposed to be, and the narrator is incredibly annoying. She gets less annoying later because by then the plot is on so many tangents ("I'm Rosencranz!" "No, I'm Rosencranz!") you actually need a narrator.

(Yes, whoever's going to be flaming me now, I have seen Slayers. Yes, it is funny. NO, Hamlet should not be funny! I actually contend that both Shakespeare and anime are far better when they're serious. Especially the anime, because you start having trite romantic comedies based on crossdressing guys and alien cat girls.)

I think it's hilarious that people all have their panties in a bunch over the "racism" in Attack of the Clones. Obviously George Lucas must be racist because he depicts a clone army of Latinos invading the Grand Old Republic!!!! Nevermind that the guy who plays Jango isn't even Latino... OOH! He looks Latino! Obviously, George Lucas should have had the foresight not to hire this man because he looks Latino! Which would be totally unracist, correct? What the hell??

I saw "Pearl Harbor" over Memorial Day weekend (and I'm really not used to spelling harbour without a u). It was so bad, except for the war scenes, which were disturbing. Hell, the romance was worse than Episode 2 because they were pompously trying to hammer a certain emotion into your head.. it was sort of like during every scene, you could imagine a guy standing in front with flashcards reading, "Heart-wrenching Romance" or "Comical Interlude" or "Ominous Foreshadowing" or "Delightful Irony."

For a war movie, it depicted the Japanese pretty well, unlike quiet a few low budget Chinese war movies I've seen ("The Japs are killing grandpa! Nooo!"). I'm surmising that a lot of the Japanese actors were actually American-born, so that they spoke real Japanese but badly. :) I know this from watching tv shows where they'll hire American-born Chinese to play Chinese Government Agents or whatnot, and they'll be speaking Chinese, but so badly you know they were born here. Or they'll say that the Chinese people are speaking Cantonese when they're actually speaking Mandarin. And sometimes they'll fake their lines because nobody actually understands them, so they'll say things like, "The coconut is on fire, fool!" dramatically and to the uninitiated it'll still sound like they're discussing important military secrets. I've heard that Lucy Liu does this a lot on Aly McBeal. Though a lot of the Japanese soldiers in Pearl Harbor (the ones that had no speaking lines) were played by Chinese people, which my mom said wasn't surprising because many self-respecting Japanese people wouldn't want to be in that movie. I wondered if Chinese people might be uncomfortable playing Evil Japanese Soldiers (tm) sort of like it might be discomfitting for Jews to be playing Nazis, but she said that they'd probably enjoy the opportunity to play the part as villainously as possible. Hell, we all look alike. Which brings me to this discussion.

Me: Hey mom, in Chinese war movies, are the Japanese people played by Chinese actors?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Then how do they distinguish between the Chinese soldiers and the Japanese soldiers?
Mom: For the Japanese soldiers, they paint on an evil mustache.

I suppose if you were really low budget you could hire the same actors for each side, so you'd have one shot of a trench where all the Chinese soldiers are, then stop shooting, have all the actors change uniforms, paint on evil mustaches and run over to a different trench, and then start filming the scenes with the "Japanese" soldiers. God, that'd be ghetto.

I thought it was hilariously funny when Alec Baldwin teaches the pilots to say, "Wo shi mei guo ren." ("I am an American" in Mandarin) NO! Ya think??? And what else could you think the blonde guy waving frantically and yelling in really bad Chinese is supposed to be?

Anyhow. For Pearl Harbor, the "Let's kill them all!" mentality was rather disturbing, because it was such a double standard. You've all see then trailer as little kids play baseball and the women are hanging up their laundry to dry and stop to watch the Mitsubishi Zeroes fly in low over Pearl harbor to prepare to slaughter their innocent fathers and husbands and whatnot.. but then it's like, "Whee! Let's bomb TOKYO!" I think it'd have been more interesting if they'd done parallel structure with the Japanese army.. I mean, it's not a Japanese story, obviously, but just little things. Like you'd see a shot of the interior of.. Rafe.. what's his face (Maybe they just said Rafe as a pronunciation of the R.A.F, but I got the impression that was the name of the guy Ben Affleck was playing) 's airplane, and you'd see a picture of his girlfriend on the dashboard, and then you'd see a shot of the inside of the Miscellanious Japanese Pilot Who's Trying to Shoot Him Down's airplane. I think it would have been a good touch for there to be a picture of a random Japanese chick inside his plane too.

But I guess only America has happy-go-lucky hotshot pilots with loving girlfriends. Because everyone knows that all Japanese are homicidal war machines with no personalities or social lives. I don't know how much retribution the Japanese "deserved," but I'd say they got more than enough with Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This whole killing thing sucks, no matter who does it to who.

Actually, I think it was Red that had a picture of his girlfriend and Rafe had a little oragami bird. Which makes me wonder, Hey dude, if you hate Japanese people so much, where'd you learn to fold oragami?? Eh????

Dyson Spheres!

Something that probably belongs on Puffy's Blog, but actually I just came on the website because I'm reading Larry Niven's "Ringworld" (since I'm suffering from "Discworld" withdrawal) and I wanted to know what Dyson spheres are. So. I can be dorky too. BTW, I have to note that every post I put on Puffy's blog is actually a quote from Puffy. This is more than can be said for the things that Nick and Alex post.

You know what I hate? I've got my TOK presentation to prepare for and my world lit paper, so basically I'm spending my whole night on BS. It's like a nasty twisted version of cotton candy... it's sort of white and amorphous and bland and you eat it and you suddenly realize it isn't anything at all.

This afternoon I've been feeling sudden urges to puke.

Thank God EE is over with.

Bleh.

Amusing conversation with Silvia, regarding a post on Alex's Blog.

SFX 87: Alex is spanking the monkey.
chimpberry: wut monkey?
SFX 87: it's a game he's playing
chimpberry: oh ok
SFX 87: do you wanna play?
chimpberry: no, I don't hav time
SFX 87: he's seeing how fast he can finish it.
SFX 87: ok

Installment three of Angie's Blog Special Feature: GAY DISCWORLD PORN!!!

This quote is straight from Mr. Pratchett himself, not that fanfic trash I've been quoting earlier.

"Rincewind knew what orgasms were, of course, he'd had a few in his time, sometimes even in company, but nothing in his experience even approximated to that tight, hot moment when every nerve in his body streamed with blue-white fire and raw magic had blazed forth from his fingers."

-The Light Fantastic

Okay, so it's not gay, but it's just funny calling it GAY DISCWORLD PORN!!

Can't believe I've gone like a week without blogging. Anyhoo. Yes, I did see Attack of the Clones, with Mr. Thomas. Mwa. And other people, of course. He still hasn't paid me back. Despite trying very hard to avoid bringing up "that new Star Wars movie" at my sister's wedding, other people couldn't stop talking about it, and my parents would be like, "Hey, Angie's seen it!" Grr. Stupid high heels were extremely uncomfortable, and whoever decided to put beading along the side of a dress so that your underarms chafe like hell should be shot. But I looked nice, for once, and you get used to it after a while. My sister was very pretty (but she's generally pretty no matter what she wears, even the traditional Korean chima that makes everyone else look like a tent) and I feel sorrier for her.. she said the dress was really heavy. She had four dresses to change into and out of. Chinese qipao, traditional wedding dress, Korean chima, and evening dress for the dance.. oy. And they're not rentals either.

Nice, Catholic wedding. Except the sermon was all in Korean. And I was annoyed by the (English) sermon on divorce, considering that the father of the bride is divorced. My mom was extremely annoyed that before they had her and the groom's mom go up front and light some candles, the pastor only explained the ritual in Korean.

You'd be amazed by how ghetto looking the reception room was without decorations... before the reception we put on the tablecloths and the seat covers and the centerpieces (floating candles, wOOt!) and garlands and pots of fake flowers all around. Originally, it was fake wood tables (like the type you find at the school library) and folding chairs, with corny looking tin Greek wannabe columns down the middle, but it looked a lot better after we put several thousand dollars worth of decorations on. Plus, they turned off the flourescent lights and turned on the chandeliers and lit the candles. Thank you.

Food was.. odd.. though. Most of it was tempura, but they failed to provide us with tempura sauce.

Anyways.
But it was very romantic when my sister and her husband had their first dance and everyone gathered around them on the dance floor and blew bubbles..

Then when we went home, my dad had to return his tuxedo to one of the guests so that they could return it to the rental place, but my dad forgot to bring an extra pair of pants so he ended up wearing my spare skirt home... Lookie, he's Scottish! No one one fell for it who actually saw him indoors, but at least once we got to the parking lot in the dark it just looked like he was wearing a long coat or something. Oy.

Yay! Got Episode 2 tickets, one for me and one for Alex. Alex is going, Alex is going!! Whee! Ladeeda!

My Diet Blog was very briefly on the top 10 most recently updated blogs. But not anymore. I actually suspect it's on there immediately after I update it, but I'm never on the main blogger page to check.

BTW, there was an article about blogs in Newsweek, but it focused more on people using blogs to make political statements.

Are we doing anything tomorrow? If we are, I'm so out of money. Blah.

It was such a Nice Spring Day (tm) that I made myself go for a walk. And bought a cup of iced coffee. For $3. Which is silly, because first I owe Jen $3 and also because it's too cold for iced coffee and windy. Thunderstorm warning, actually. Gah, it was sunny when I went out.

Went to lunch at Jen's Chinese Restaurant (which my dad insists was named Joe's Chinese Restaurant previously) on Sunday for Mother's Day, which I ended up not buying anything for because I was broke and it'd look really dumb asking my mom for money to buy her a present. She got a cool heart balloon with 'ink on this balloon conforms to blah blah blah laws' written in small print on the edges in English and in Spanish, and an Ocean's 11 DVD, and yellow roses. My family talked about dumb adult things which I still don't understand. Blah. My brother-in-law couldn't come because he got stuck in a bachelor party out of town and thought he could make it back but couldn't. Personally, my suspicion is that he got too drunk, since once he was at my house and got really drunk and puked in the bathroom and had to lie down on the sofa.

Worm low score- 18. It's physically impossible to get lower than that.

My sister's wedding is next week so me and my mom went to G Street Fabrics on Saturday to buy cloth so she can make her dress. My mom's dress; my sister already has a dress. It was cool at first going 'ooh, shiny! Pretty! Soft!' but then it got annoying after like two hours with my mom going, "This shade of purple is too dark." "Too light." "Too solid colored." "Too hard to tailor." "Too aquatic." "Too blue." "Too red." "Too expensive." "Too cheap-looking." "Too thick." "Too sheer." Blah. Then she found an employee there (who was also an immigrant) and they commenced to have a strange strange cloth and sewing and whatnot conversation in broken English. ("It's lavendle. You use eet for ze linink. Ahn'd you use zis for ze girtle. And zis for ze skilt.") I went to sit on the sofas by the front door to wait for my mom to finish, which were apparently put there just for that purpose because the only other people sitting there were really bored looking husbands (and sons.)

Worm high score- 2379.

I did so bad on the physics retake. Dumb trippy conceptual problems. Dumb proofs.

Worm high score- 2151. I need this game for my graphing calculator, it's so addictive.

Too many essays. Annoying. Anyways.

Woo. Went to Baja Fresh with Alex, Nick and Silvia, then to the hippie store. Wanted to buy two little owl statues for mother's day but it was $40. New Age stuff is always overpriced, possibly because people are willing to pay so much for it. And then to Circuit City so Alex could buy earphones. Woo, go guacamole. Silvia was amazed that normal people don't take calculus in high school.

Had to throw out my toast from yesterday.

Frog orgy and Boromir! Yeah, the Japanese are really getting into Lord of the Rings now. A Japanese Fan Art Gallery. I found it from Theonering.net, so I'm not sure why it's that special, it was just linked from there. Really good art though. Elrond as an anime character is disturbing looking.

What was funny about yesterday was, Nick took my graphing calculator to calculate the tip for the Silver Diner.

SFX 87: http://www.anastrophe.co.za/article.php3?article_id=23 This is the funniest thing in the whole world.
SFX 87: Don't let them Nigerians rape my maid!
IHateIB: Nick's coming with us.
SFX 87: to rape my maid?
IHateIB: Hence the "coming."

Strange, strange conversations.

Watched a downloaded, movie in which the person who made it spliced up together parts of Casablanca and The Maltese Falcoln and other old black and white films, and dubbed over the dialogoue, to create a Classic Lord of the Rings movie. It's f-ing hilarious.

Arwen, Warrior Babe. An epic war poem about the mighty Arwen Evenstar. Tremble ye mighty and despair.

Math Studies= Easy. Psych= Banal. I'm so mellow.

Didn't go to Le Madeline as expected since we decided the metro ride would be too long. Fun with Nick and Jen on the Pike! Which, since they all blog, you know about already. They should make sidewalks wide enough for three people to walk side by side. Today was hotter than expected. Don't know why Jen quoted me- I've had a similar (maybe not as funny as it was at the Silver Diner) quote on my blog for a while now. Go chocolate pancakes. Food eaten at the Silver Diner on my Diet Blog. Which isn't working to make me stop eating, but it's still pretty entertaining to upkeep.

Am planning to do something tomorrow with Alex and maybe Nick.

AP Calc test was difficult, at least the free response. Probably because I severely had to go take a piss during that part of the test, especially with that problem about water leaking out of a cone. GODDAMMIT! We only got a five minute break between the multiple choice questions and free response, and there was only one bathroom in the stage's dressing room, so there was quite a line, and after like 3 minutes Ms. Chapman came in and said, "There's no time!" and shooed us back out. Have no idea why Gordon has a crush on her. Sam will kill him if he tries anything. The MC (with calculator) questions, however, were ridiculously easy since they gave us 50 minutes for 17 questions, and I'm still wondering what I skipped/did wrong. But then again Math Studies was ridiculously easy.

Have decided (read, Nick decided) to go to Le Madeline (or whatever) in Bethesda tomorrow w/ Nick and Jen between tests. Woohoo. Ghettro. I think I'll go buy something for Mother's Day after Jen gets picked up by her mom.

As Alex told me to a while ago, I have made a permanent link to my diet blog. Also, Sims' blog, very belatedly.

The Hobbit Bath/Drinking Song. As demanded by Sims. It's the Bath/Drinking Song because the movie people cleverly spliced two songs from the book into one. From the Green Dragon scene cut from the movie, which will be in the Longer More Garrulous DVD.

Nickypoo, Jennypoo... anyone who's taking Math Studies Paper 2 on Wednesday, we can all hang out after we finish taking the test. Me and Nick have to take the Psych test in the afternoon, but we can all hang out for like three hours after the Math Studies test is over. I dunno where.

I shall have to study like a good little cherub for IB Math Studies and AP Calculus.

Conversation held in Calculus with some senior girl I don't know:

Her: I should ask Mr. Thomas to prom.
Me: He wouldn't go. He's an insomniac, so whenever he stays up late it's really bad for him.
Her: He could sleep on my shoulder.
Me: You'd get squished.
Her: I'm 18! It's all legal!
Me: Righty-o.
Her: Is he married?
Me: No.
Her: This could be the start of something beautiful.

Remember folks, Lord of the Rings: Lego Edition has been updated. Legolas!

Took SAT 2 writing. Scott Church crashed into the test proctor. Which was funny. The test itself was stupid. Which does not necessarily garauntee that I did well on it. I don't care. Was supposed to call my dad for him to pick me up from MK but my mom gave me a glasses case with glasses in them instead of the cell phone, used Karen's cell phone. Why does a sophomore have a cell phone and I don't? Unfairness. Waited in front of MK for an hour before my mom finally checked the answering machine and my dad checked his voicemail, simultaneously. It was a nice day to be waiting outside but I was cranky because I was bored and hungry. For some reason, I get *really* cranky when I'm hungry, sort of like how Nick is really cranky when he's tired. Ate too much today to compensate. But am full. Blah.

Shpachee has streaked her hair red. Looks better than streaking her hair blond. I wonder why I don't call her by her real name- I wonder what she'd want to be called on my blog. Probably not her real name and she changes nicknames too often.

I'm a little bunny.
(I hope to make that into a literary statement one day, up there with 'My mother is a fish'.)

Quote of the Day (QotD): "A hint: if it's a choice between girlfriend and pony, take the pony. If you get tired of the pony, you can sell it." -Sims.

Yes. I read Nick's blog belatedly.

I can't find Nick S' blog. He keep changing online diary services. But I'm sorta apathetic, so I'll find it eventually.

Have you all noticed that Nick B posts links to sites we've all gone to like three weeks after the rest of us? Like, LightoftheWorld.

I'm going to do that too. Mr. Thomas' Blog. No. But close. I looked at the high school classroom webcam. It was all dark. Cuz it was 7 at night. I'm such a dork.

You can tell what I've been doing all night.

Take the test here!! Made by Jenna and Robbie.

Also known as the Smiling Tree Frog or Dumpy Tree Frog due to the nature of its appearance, this frog is a very hardy creature and a favorite pet of amateur frog owners, although some pet owners complain that they are not active enough. These frogs love to eat, which can make them quite fat, hence their "dumpy" appearance. Unlike many frogs, Frog are you?these frogs do well with other frogs of their species and are fairly friendly. They like a warm and moderately humid habitat and eat larger insects like crickets, cockroaches, locusts, moths and beetles.

What kind of of Frog are you?

Take the What Will Your Result To This Quiz Be? Quiz
by napoleonherself, if you are so inclined.

what's your battle cry? |
mewing.net | merchandise!


Okay then.

test yourself at fontlover.com!

Take the What High School
Stereotype Are You? quiz, by Angel.

Yay! Now it's official!

I am fascinated by the famed beauty of Caitlin B. It's like Helen of Troy, only to a lesser degree. Her face probably only launched a minivan.

I've put up my diet blog. It's going to show everything I eat every day, so I can humiliate myself into eating less. You must all yell at me at school if you find that I am eating a) fried things b) candy/sweets c) junk food.

Fucking retards. "We're going to strip you to see if you're wearing appropriate underwear!"

I like math, but I don't love it. I wonder if I can make a living doing it.

Which Sluggy Freelance Character Are You?

Rob says that he's sure that somewhere in there, Andrew has "a grain of human kindness."

Are Hank and Sethy gay? How come I assume that everybody's straight until I find out they're gay? Why don't I just save myself a lot of trouble and assume people are gay from the start?

By Jingo, let's nuke Afghanistan!

Auguries of Innocence

William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

Didn't know there was a Palmer, so I started reading it at 7:10. Wonder how I did. Did pretty well on a math test though, and my next math and physics tests are being moved to Wednesday instead of tomorrow because of the Every 15 Minutes thing. That is my school update. Huzzah. Who cares? This post is so boring... I nearly considered not putting it up. But I'm a boring person.

Which LOTR Woman are you?

CHALUPAS. I love those. They're tasty.

Bought a (mass produced, probably) painting of a house at the dollar store, which changes color when you look at it from a different angle. It's not very special. It's a normal, suburban house, but it reminds me of my own house, and the changing colors makes it look like sort of when a cloud passes over the sun and then the sun shines through again when it gets darker and lighter, so it's just a real.. comfortable painting. When I go to college, I think I'll take it with me, because it's not like my house has room for much more of my crap.

Also, I bought a plastic fish cup. It's a cup, shaped like a fish, so that when you stick like, a tube of toothpaste in it, it looks like it's in the fish's mouth. It's real cool.

Ah.... the joys of the dollar store.

Was digging around in the load of junk I have at home, and found a history quiz from middle school. Apparently, we were learning about Garibaldi and Count Cavour and etc. Goddammit. The same pointless shit over and over again. I'll show you all the quiz on Monday. It's pretty comical.

Yesterday. Went to Maryland Day, which was really fun. I got to eat liquid nitrogen icecream (s'cold!!!!!!), which was some ice cream powder with liquid nitrogen poured into it, and you'd stir it up and cold smoke would come out and after the smoke was all gone, the ice cream would be totally solid and you'd wait for it to thaw until it was like normal ice cream. I was lucky too cuz we got the last of the ice cream powder and the people in line had to be content watching the volunteers there pour liquid nitrogen in a cup, and go "ooOoooOoOOh" as smoke came out of it, and not eat any, except they splashed some (accidentally) on my arm and it sort of hurt. My mom's ice cream was rock hard, so I had the volunteer pour more liquid nitrogen, and he was like, "Okay, but it won't do anything for that." It turns out that the ice cream was frozen solid, not that there wasn't enough "water" in it (I don't care- if it's transparent and looks like water, it's water, damn you). So I walked around with my mom's frozen cup of ice cream for thirty minutes before it began to melt. And there was all sorts of cool shit, like the fire fighting game like hockey except people would use a hose to spray balls into the goal, and a lego robotics thingy where everyone watching was Asian (who else?) and a lung capacity tester thingy (I had greater lung resistance than most people my age which I guess I expected but it sort of pissed me off).

Went to the UM farm (which I think is funny, that they have a farm at UM) to see the Cow With The Hole In It. Didn't see it though- it must've been inside. Saw some other cows. They were big. I wanted to check inside the barn, but it smelled like poo. No, it smelled like POO. So I ran off. When I apply to UM, I'm considering writing in my essay, "If I were to throw the Cow With the Hole In It on the barbie, would you call it an O-bone steak?" I'm not sure if they'd like that. I may also start my sssay with "My psychologist says I'm a pathological liar and my name is not Angela." I don't think they'd like that either. I think I'll do something serious since now I do have something serious to write about, so I won't need the conversational tone bullshit. Saw an equestrian show where a woman in the middle would yell things like, "Sitting trot!" "Canter!" "Stand halt!". Everyone in the arena was white and female. I want riding boots, because they're cool. But to wear knee high boots well, you must have the riding pants, and to wear the riding pants well, you must have a good ass. So, no riding boots for me. The food court was a little ways off from the farm, and they were cooking stuff like hamburgers and hotdogs. It was real sketchy. I wonder if the stuff was "fresh", if you know what I mean.

I got to go into a wind tunnel where the winds got up to 30 mph and it was cool but real creepy (except that I knew that it was safe) and a little girl started crying (my mom said later that it was because her balloon blew away.) Now that is real stupid, and I didn't feel sympathetic. Don't take a balloon into a wind tunnel. The tour guide told her mom she should take the balloon outside but she was like, no, I'll hold onto it, and she did, except the balloon came off the ribbon. So much for that. Apparently, they would actually put reporters in the wind tunnel and strap them in, and crank up the turbines to like 100 mph, and this woman (on the video they were showing as we waited in line to go into the wind tunnel) was screaming, "Let me out!" by the end. (She wasn't actually screaming because she was hysterical, it's just that you have to scream everything to be heard in a wind tunnel. But still.) Jeebus. Talk about professionalism. I wonder if the wind tunnel was hit by the tornado earlier in the year. That would've been poetic justice. For messing with nature or whatever. (I don't care about harmony with nature. It's all BS anyways)

Oh yeah. Listened to a lot of college stuff, which was bizarre because in the physics building you'd walk past doors with signs reading, "Danger, experimental nuclear testing lab." and "Ion Laser testing to the left" (or something. About lasers). Saw an exhibit on fractals. Totally unrelated but, apparently at UM they're doing an experiment with a steel ball 10 feet across and filling it with volatile sodium to create an artificial magnetic field. Yeah, that's what I want for my birthday.

Then I went home for my sister's bridal shower. With my hair all messed up (more than usual) from the wind tunnel. My house was not messy, for once. Played the purse game, in which you get points if anything on the list that's read out loud is in your purse. No, I have no condoms in my purse, used or unused, as the debate went. No, I have no lip balm in my purse. No, I have no cell phone in my purse. It would've been more entertaining if I actually use the purse I had for the game, (since I was like, "How do you play?" and my sister was like, "Just get a purse," not mentioning that there ought to be stuff in it). I had a ticket stub in my wallet, but that was not in my purse, because I never use a purse. I dunno, it wasn't really a good bridal shower for me because I don't know any of my sister's friends. I don't think if I get married I'll have that many girlfriends, because it seems like all my friends are guys, so I'll end up talking to a volleyball. (This was more like a bachelorette party, but my mom called it a shower. Maybe she's not familiar with the term bachelorette party/) And played a game listing as many wedding movies as possible (winning team listed 10.) And looked at photos of my sister and her fiance all decked out in rental wedding stuff at Brookside Garden. My older sister's husband is good at everything. He's a really kickass photographer (I'm not sure if he's professional, but he looks it) and a really good cook, and my oldest sister rocks at baking. Dinner at their place kicks ass. Had a tasty cake she helped make, which was decorated with white chocolate pellets that looked so much like pearls my aunt-in-law was picking them off her cake. That's some mad skillz. I wish I had a handful to bring to school so people could oggle me as I quaffed pearls.

But we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where I decided my calling in life. Strange that I've always known what I wanted to be but that it took so long to figure out. I decided it in one night, but at the same time, I've known it ever since I was old enough to talk.

I've found my calling in life. I know what I'm going to do in college.
I can't tell you though, because Andrew will laugh at me, and I don't want to feel like I have to prove anything.

My IB English training notes that it must be deep deep symbolism that a gay guy was chosen to play the Devil in Damn Yankees.
Or MAYBE... Steven Shema is just really really good.

Real life is nothing like English. Thank God.

Down with English.

I checked at Damn Yankees. Apparently, Alex is alive. Whoopeeee. "Shoeless Joe" is stuck in my head.

I had a dream that Alex was run down by a car and died. Afterwards, we'd (meaning the juniors) would be at school and doing school stuff and we'd see things that reminded us of Alex, and places he'd been, and things he'd never finished. It would make us happy at first to remember him, and sad because then we'd have to remember that he wasn't there and he wouldn't be coming back. And also, I was wondering where he was, since he was dead and if there was an afterlife, and that made me sad too because I knew that he'd probably be really excited at having found out the answer to the Life, the Universe, and Everything, and wanting to tell us, and it sounded so much like Alex. And I said, "Did you hear about Alex?" to people and Jen said, "Yeah" and I told Andrew said that it wasn't so painful to understand what happened to him, but more that someone could intentionally do something like that. And then Nick S said something modern and nonsensical.

I'm glad you're alive, Alex.

Waking up crying is so much worse than waking up screaming- when I was little, I'd just have nightmares of monsters in the basement. I don't know why my dreams have to grow up as I do.

Nick is nasty and cynical. I want to smack him very hard. I know he's been having a hard time. So I feel guilty about wanting to smack him very hard. And I want to smack him very hard for inadvertantly making me feel guilty for wanting to smack him very hard. And I feel guilty about that too.

The Angry Lesbian and Orson Scott Card. Tell me, do people take classes to purposefully misinterpret what someone else says, each and every time??? This lady.. okay, OSC says something like, "Anti-rape laws are so much more strictly enforced now than they were 25 years ago." And the interviewer lady decides that Orson Scott Card is a mad serial Nazi rapist. Hello!

You know what's better than sex? Reading Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow simultaneously. OH yeah!

I can understand why John Ashcroft was concerned about having his picture taken in front of the statue of Justice. Her bronze bosom is rather distracting, so I can see the Attorney General's motivation for keeping it covered with a $8000 drape. After all, whenever I see John Ashcroft, I think, "God, what a giant boob!"

I feel the need to write this because most of my blog is me ranting about stuff, not what actually goes on in my life. It's such a shitty excuse for a diary in that respect- I won't be able to read this over several years later and remember things that happened, because I never write about them.

Quote of Yesterday:
(while writing thank you letters to the mentally ill patients who talked to us at Springfield Hospital)
Alex Dudley: Dear Walter... thank you for talking to us.. we had a crazy time..

I think I did go insane. Springfield Hospital was as boring as mud. I was (unsensitively, probably) hoping/expecting that it'd be like at Bellavue, with loony people yelling, "I HATE THIS PLACE. THE MEDICINES DON'T WORK. I'VE BEEN HERE FOR SEVEN YEARS. I HATE THIS PLACE." but it was a nice, happy place. With really boring staff members making presentations. Though the guy who talked to us, Walter, was really cool once you got past the fact that he had a hard time talking because his meds got his tongue swollen. Now that I think of it, he wasn't really as funny as we all remember him (having gotten our group to break out into spontaneous laughter), it's just that he was really cheerful and animated, and the mood spread. And when asked about the opportunities for patients to have relationships, a staff member said that they didn't officially condone relationships but some patients would go out on the hospital grounds for "bush therapy." That brought the house down. But it's not as funny when I tell it. Nothing ever is.

Springfield looked/felt like an elementary school. It was the horrid yellow bricks. Rob had suspected it used to be a college, but it wasn't- it was always a mental institution. I still wouldn't like to live there. It was, however, unlike RM for the last two days, completely air conditioned.

The bus ride was real good. It was fun talking to Rob but Nick was cranky and antisocial on the (airconditioned charter) bus the whole time, and just slept. The scenery was marvellously pretty (I suppose anything's pretty in spring), even though Rob observed that landscapes like that were a dime a dozen in Maryland. I don't think that's a bad thing.

But we got back by seventh period and I ended up going to math anyways even though I just could've skipped, and I didn't have my homework or my AP problem done because I hadn't expected to be going to seventh. See, see, it's not irresponsible like when you don't do your homework because it might snow the next day. On the sheet, it said that we were excused from seventh, so I'd thought the night before that I wouldn't have to go to math and didn't do my homework. And I didn't get to feel morally superior to the people who did skip either, because the only reason I didn't skip was because I thought other people would go, and give me away. Oh, and Mr. Willard said I couldn't retake the physics heat test at all because I already used up two Mulligans last quarter, and I think I'm getting a C. So I was real cranky. Heat does that to me.

But I did good on today's math test. Wazzah. Thus ends my boring, boring blog entry. I'm beginning to see why I don't talk about my life much.

Shall say that most irritating line, because it fits.. "Hot enough for ya??" I should have brought that water shpritzer to school.

Finished Time After Time. Better than I could write, but one of the worst books I've read in a while. Someone needs to learn how to plot.
Am now reading Ender's Shadow. Makes me feel a bit dumb and depressed, but fortunately it's not One of Those Weeks (Days, Months, Years, insert one of those times), so it won't make me UberDepresssed. This book needs a catharsis though. You can't be angsty all the time. I wonder if Orson Scott Card is chronically depressed. It occurs to me that I'm probably of below average intelligence, since there seems to be a difference between being intelligent and being educated, and I'm the latter. Took a look at IQ tests and ilk in Psych, and they basically seem to be a tests of basic spatial and verbal skills, which seems more like education than actual intelligence... having a solid grasp of situations even while being in the midst of them, being able to know people and know where they stand, using information objectively and analytically, knowing what course of action to take and how to go through with it, and how people/things are likely to respond to it. Aka, Ender. I'm pretty clueless. I'm glad I'm dumb though- I imagine being smart sucks. But if Scott Adams is to be believed, imagining being smart is pretty pointless too, because it's impossible.. like being a bug on a 2D plane trying to imagine the third dimension. Hell.

Bloody hell. Came in to school at 6:25 in the morning to retake the physics test (cuz I'm going on the psych field trip and won't be here at lunch) but Mr. Willard forgot, and was displeased with me dropping in on his room at like, the Crack Of Dawn (tm). So I'm taking it tomorrow at lunch, but still got saddled with hanging out randomly at school for 45+ minutes. Spent it sitting next to the elevator on the third floor watching people come in. I can sympathize with guards on night watch now. Honestly, it'd probably be less boring to just fall asleep. I spent some time making profiles of people.. 'blonde white girl, hair in pony tail, pink tube-top, khaki pants.' A note about descriptions. You really can't see people's eye color from far away. You just can't. I don't see why people consider eye color so integral in descriptions of people, since it's basically worthless.

The ship drawing tutorial. Step 1. "Get a good book on elementary perspective which can be understood." DOH! -_-

It's sort of funny. It's like a "Shakespeare for Dummies" thing or something. Shakespeare for Dummies... Step 1. Learn to read.

I found this particularly amusing, though probably no one else will.