Gaaaarrrrrrr....

Apparently I have left Alex's copy of Room of One's Own at F. Scott Fitzgerald, and he is now entitled to my copy of ROOO unless he'd like me to buy a new one for him that's the same edition. My own copy is brand spanking new anyways, but it's just not the same.

I also owe Ranwa $6.

I feel like such a leech.

Acting is not such a great an art relative to reacting, that amazing ability of good actors to stand there with appropriate expressions on their faces while their co-stars are emoting. Anyone with decent hamming abilities can shout in anger or cry in despair, but it takes great(er) acting ability form an expression of utmost terror or the profoundest sympathy all while never saying so much as a word.

I have finally gotten my cummerbund and shirt for concert choir. Through some miracle, the first one (both shirt and cummerbund) I tried on actually fit, saving me the embarrassment of needing to order things in extra large.

At least we have no bow ties this year.

On the Top Ten Most Recently Updated Blogs:

Nick, the Irrepressible Bastard.

Congratulations! I've yet to see a peer on the list up till now.

Ideas rejected by medieval romance novelists:

Ivan Hou: The story of Sir "I Kirr You, Blian de Bois-Guirbelt! " Wilfred of Ivan Hou, the Chinese Saxon. God, just the prospect of a Chinese man named "Wilfred"...

Shuck n' Jive-n'-Ho: A medieval ethnic epic comedy about a young ghetto knight and the honey who loved him, and the mysterious man only known as the fun-loving, carousing Black Knight... wait. That already does exist. Please shoot me.

Wilfred's Game: the sci-fi adventure of a genius boy who is sent to a space station where he trains for knighthood in a zero-gravity jousting room and inspires loyalty and comaderie among his fellows. Written by the famed Sir Walter Scott Card. Hoo-ah. Oh, and he also battles aliens known as Buggers, which is much more profane because this is an English novel. Featuring a stirring rendition of "Jews in Space" by Isaac of York.

Ivan's Hoe: A Communist tract featuring Robin Hood and romanticizing the simple agrarian ways of medieval England. Oh yeah, and Russians. Lots of Russians. Ivanhoe becomes an unwitting agent of the Man, as, in the name of Richard the Lion-Hearted, he misreads the name "Plantagenet" as "Plant-a-Genet," resulting in the deaths of many a rodent stifled in the mud, hence exposing the academic snobbery and callous treatment of the proletariat, represented as rodents, by the elitist aristocarcy.

Um.

I think that this can be classified as one of those, "She is delirious and knows not of what she speaks" type blog entries.

Concert Choir rehearsal was a major waste of time.. spent most of the time sitting around in the lobby with other CC people while the other groups were rehearsing in the auditorium. Talked to Andrew about what he looks for in a girl, and he apparently looks for a carbon copy of himself, but female. Figures. Alex confided later that he thought Andrew was lying but I didn't see any reason why he would be or anything weird about the response. We spent our time bemoaning the lack of food, and making Jen squeak.

I need sheet music, because I spent most of the actual rehearsal time not knowing what to sing and just burning up under the stage lights.

Concert choir is so sucky, myself included. (Sopranos are distracting and have all the melodies and need to be strangled.) It's rather discouraging, because I joined for the social aspects, but it turns out that mostly everyone I know is in Madrigals anyways, meaning that I have different music, different rehearsal days, and I can't even join in with people when they're spontaneously singing in physics. (start rant here) We have to wear the stupidest outfits, we stay at rehearsal the longest, and suck donkey balls to boot (musically, not literally). (/end rant here)

"Paul and His Hens" was stuck in my head. Goddamn clucking..

cluck cluck cluck cluck....

Make it stop!!!

King Kong (which I saw on tv last Friday) is not a movie that ages well, though it is, admittedly, funny.

A stegosaurus is charging us! Let's shoot it!
Death by brachiosaurus! (I find all the scenes of men being chased and eaten by a large, water-based, lumbering herbivore to be quite amusing. What is this, stop-motion Jurassic Park?)

I was hoping that any day now the people hoping to save Anne would wake up, thwap themselves and go, "Damn, she's so not worth this." I mean.. let's see... the whole rescue expedition gets killed except Jack... the tribal village is destroyed and many people stepped on and .. eaten.. by King Kong (ah, the indiscrimant dietery habits of monsters)... New York is ravished, people in train cars get crushed inside the cars, planes get swatted down.. I mean.. and for one dumb blond screaming actress. (This is honestly all she does for the whole movie. Scream herself hoarse.. okay, and faint. Why on Earth Kong wants her, I can't even imagine. After half an hour of dragging her through the island jungle, musn't he be thinking, "Can't I get a goddamn minute of peace and quiet??") And it's not like Jack didn't know it was going to happen too. It's like, "Oh, let's take away the ONLY thing that's keeping King Kong placated!"

Being taken care of and adored by a giant gorilla. It doesn't seem to be a half bad life in any case, though one might begin missing human company.. but she could most likely stand to wait a while until the next screaming chick is tied to a pair of pillars and abducted. Besides, you deal with people every day.. but placing yourself in the care of adoring gorillas is a once in a lifetime experience. Jane Goodall spent years digging this type of thing.

Maybe it's a fetish or something.

I feel sorry for Kong, man. All he wanted was a friend...

It's also rather violent. I didn't know old movies could get this violent. The way the T-Rex dies.. ironic (live by the tooth, die by the tooth), but rather painful. (Let us say.. dislocated jaw). People falling off buildings and going splat, being eaten by Kong, being crushed under his feet. It's a bit bizarre.

Ah, yes, tis movie review day.

Saw Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail last Friday. It was... unfunny. I think it was because I've heard it quoted so many times, and was so familiar with it even to the point of having heard sound clips, seen clips/parodies/allusions to it/read scripts of some of the skits/seen the trailer. The few skits that were totally unfamiliar to me were fairly amusing, but the other ones weren't funny so much as random. It was really prettily filmed though with an awesome score and at times I even regretted all the jokes and such getting in the way of what would otherwise be an awesome medieval film.

Nonetheless, I want some coconuts.

Saw the Count of Monte Cristo over the weekend on DVD, and it's a kickass movie. I thought it would be crappy, but it wasn't. Oooh. James Caveizel is hot. Yay. Also starring Guy Pearce and the now late Richard Harris. :( They're all excellent actors except for that guy who plays Denglars who can't seem to do anything but scowl a lot and ham it up. You all need to watch it so that I can make fun of it with you. Well, watch it once in English, then watch it again in French with English subtitles. Try to figure out rational explanations for Alexander Dumas' ridiculous plotline. Go. Amuse yourself. But not in that way, Alex.

Ah, yes, tis movie review day.

Went to "Big Fat Greek Wedding" at the Regal with Nick, Ranwa, Lili, Stevie, and Anika.. actually, they went to the theater first, but I had rejected myself because Ranwa couldn't cram so many people in her car (since Barry had been wanting to go at first), and since I had already seen the movie and since I was broke. So I tagged along after Alex wondering if I could mooch a ride home from him but he was feeling sick and tired and cranky so no. Went to the lobby but GreekCo had left already so I walked to the Regal in the pouring rain without an umbrella and a moisture-absorbing jacket, but thankfully with a hood. Couldn't find anyone in the theater lobby, went downstairs without passing the TicketMaster or whatever you'd like to call the guy at the bottom of the escalators but still couldn't see anyone in the food lines, went back upstairs, checked the time on the big clock outside which said 12:35 and cursed myself for walking slow since BFGW started at 12:25, and camped out on the Regal benches to dry. But I realized that the clock probably hadn't been set for Daylight's Savings, asked a random person in the theater for the time and confirmed this. Figured GreekCo was probably around somewhere and checked the surrounding restaurants and found them at CalTor. Ranwa was nice enough to buy me a ticket- I owe her $6, though I could theoretically just give her my Emergency Pass.

Cleaned off Nick's salad (you unhealthy non-veggie eater) but on the downside had the aftertaste of onions in my mouth for the rest of the afternoon. Found RM dominating the theater, including Chris Lee who was complaining about the cold due to his shaved head. Liberally mooched off of peoples' popcorn and chocolate, watched the single movie trailer there was, and the first hour or so of BFGW, which was better the first time around but still funny. Was interrupted in the middle of the movie by fire alarm, forcing us up the stairwell with much cursing by the small number of non-RM people at our showing at us for prodding them to move. (Honestly though, how much of a safety announcement do you need to listen to? The gist is.. get out!) And out. When we left the exit it turned out we had come out from that small outhouse-like building across the street from the Regal, so at a loss for what to do we simply walked back into the Regal where throngs of people were (disobediently), coming up into the lobby on the escalators. This mass mingling of everyone in the theater was actually a pretty good social occassion, since a good deal of people were RM people like Mike Correll and I bumped into Erika N from Eastern, who I didn't recognize at first because she keeps her hair short now, but she recognized me. Noted with a bit of smug/selfish satisfaction that she isn't as pretty as I thought she was before. Though she wasn't ugly. Just .. different... looking. This was before the theater workers made us go back outside again. The firemen came, went inside, talked to the theater employees, went downstairs, came back up, and came back outside to the loud, though probably overzealous applause of the throng massed outside the doors for their brave heroism. I heard from random people that the cause of the "fire" was most likely burnt popcorn.

We were supposed to trade our ticket stubs for Emergency Passes (aka free tickets when we come next time) but I couldn't find my stub so GreekCo went down without me. I found mine eventually in my coat pocket, which is where Ranwa told me to look in the first place. Bah. Went downstairs, couldn't remember which auditorium to go into and went into the The Transporter by accident, and also felt a strong urge to wander into Veggie Tales, but was a good girl and asked for directions and finally ended up in Auditorium Number 8 where people were wondering if I was still alive. Yes, we did finish the movie despite Nick saying he was fated never to watch BFGW all the way through.

More perceptive people may notice that I've added Meg, Josh and Andrew's blogs to the links above. I also added Josh's AIM to my buddy list so that I can harass him on occasion.

I think it's amusing that The Snipers were a conglomeration of everyone's opinions. A bitter male war veteran sympathetic to 911 terrorists and a violent teenager...

Too many tests tomorrow..

Too many textbooks dragged home today.. I think I really will subcumb to the evil and use one of those incredibly square wheeled backpacks that scream IB!!!! from twelve miles away.

Have finished art masterpiece in physics: Angry Fat Goth Chick.

Puffy drew a most impressive picture of Saddam Hussein, though he claims it's Josef Stalin.

Also, conceptual designs for a Kiltmono.

You thought you would escape it, but you can't.

I've been having template problems, rendering me unable to publish yesterday.

All apologies.

So bizzare. Two helicopters roared directly over my head as I was walking home from school, and there was a cameraman at Wood Middle, where I get off the bus.

It's not that I think I'll get shot at school, despite the general reaction, it's just that there's a small chance I could get shot coming home from school because Wood is right across the street from the Bauer Drive Shopping Center and the gas station there.

But honestly, I just wish this would all stop so I can just go outside again.

I promised more Renfest blogging.. but not in the previous post. It's long enough.
Notes:

-I really suck at archery.
-Squire on a Wire! (Does he actually wear anything under his kilt?) It's the infamous Mike Rosman. He did a trick with.. uh.. throwing three blocks around and some stuff with a Chinese yoyo. And walking on a really low highwire.
-I saw Mimi the Mime on stilts. Didn't actually see her act though, much to my disappointment. I wanted to see fire breathing.
-Hack and Slash are comedy gods. I think I will stalk them now. STALK! STALK! I saw the crossbow show ("Shoot that fruit!") which is where their logo comes from, but I've yet to see the infamous "God save the Keg" ep.
-Johnny Fox scares me. ("I'm Juan Zorro in Spanish." "Ladies and gentlemen, water from India!") A swordswallower.. that sounds like some euphemism Alex would make up. I know you can swallow a sword, Juan Zorro, but can you swallow a- (Angie dies as the two people who read her blog attack her with flaming steaks on a stake.)
-Smoked turkey legs are tasty, but intimidating. They're too big. My mom took some home and made soup with them. Strange strange Chinese people.
-People dancing spontaneously to The Rogues (help me oh god). I don't know if they were hired.. If you guys were there we should've started up a mosh pit and dancing on tables at the Hart.
-Realizing most people were basically wearing sewed up drapes.
-What's up with the tartans? Are kilts Renaissancy? Eh? I mean, I have Scottish pride, but that's only a withdrawal symptom from The Rogues..
-Looking at bikini chainmail. I didn't know that Lady Kate was a Free Lancer or else I would've asked her about jousting.
-I REFUSE to yell huzzah!! I'm not.. that... dorky... arrrrghh... must not.. yell.. huzzah...

Renfest kicked butt...

Ahhh.... I've been happy the whole day just basking in the memory.

It was rather surreal though. Just walking through the parking lot towards the gate, I walked past the horse trailer ("The Knights of Valour: Canadian Jousting Champions") where one of the knights was putting on his armor, and he calls out, "I need my spurs!" That's not something you hear everyday..

Jousting could've been better though. The herald system was pretty bad, because he'd have to listen to what the other announcer was saying before summarizing it to us.. and it's like, dude, couldn't he announce it from an unrolled scroll or something so he actually knows what to say? And we had really short and dinky lists, and the knights were on Clydesdales, and for some reasons, the knights wouldn't spur their horses at the same time so you'd have one knight make it three quarters down the lists and the other knight only make it one quarter of a way down at a slow jog. Really really slow jog. And they'd shout.. battle cries or something, I'm assuming, but of course you couldn't hear them. It wasn't as dramatic as in Knight's Tale with people flying off their horses and the lances splintering (they'd snap, but they wouldn't shatter theatrically...) Sometimes during the pass they'd miss completely. You couldn't really tell one knight apart from the other (apparently, neither could the King, who announced the stats for the same knight twice in a row), and there were some incredibly ridiculous flags, (like the Canadian flag draped over one horse, and the Nascar flag, according to the perseon next to me, draped over the other.) But jousting, nonetheless, is pretty cool, especially since they aren't choreographed matches.

The first guy who made a pass during the 12 pm tourney got a lance head shoved into a gap in his shoulder plate.. they had to pull it out. He wasn't hurt, but it was quite a scene, you know, having like a foot of wood pulled from your body. The horses were sort of groggy in the first tourney, sort of trudging down the lists, and we got a four way tie for second place. Second tourney rocked, though our crowd was surlier than the enthusiastic 12 o'clock crowd, which made the herald feel really desperate to get us to actually cheer- but on the up side, the horses and the knights were actually awake. Green and gold (Ireland) got unhorsed twice in the 2 pm tournament, though the second time he had the sense to hang onto the halter for a moment before letting to. :( He was my favorite too just because he and his horse had great showmanship.. possibly because it was feeling fresh after taking a doody on the far side of the lists. The people in the stands looked sick, according to the person next to me. The people next to me kept making the most retarded comments.. ("The lances are wood?") The guy who went against him (Red, I think), in the next round, kept having his horse panic at the last minute and crash into the barrier ropes. Twice. In one of the earlier passes, one of the knights actually ended up grabbing the lance from the other one. Crazy. And one of the squires was awarded a point for catching a broken lance head as it snapped off. Nothing of significance happened at the 4 pm tourney. Too damn crowded. Now.. why did I go to see jousting three times again?

Other surreal things.. people in the Renny clothes. Not as dorky as I thought it would be- people actually make an effort to look good, except for random sad punk/goth teenagers in "historical" cloaks and studded leather. People would actually step up their presentation.. as in, people who didn't work there would start speaking in fake British accents and bow/curtsey to each other and address each other as "Milord" "Milady" and actually be civil. Surreal. Some of the cavaliers were really hot though. Wheee... codpieces.

Saw.. In the Cups.. the singing tavern wenches.
Saw The Rogues perform at the White Hart.. they're... a Candian Texan bagpipe group. Yes. They rock. Best music I've heard in a long time- I got the CD. And Royal Pyrates. ("I'm a rowdy soul I'm a rowdy soul..!")

I have to go.. more renfest blogging later.

Inspired by Jen...

And now for:

LINES TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT FROM IVANHOE THAT SOUND WRONG

Background info: The mysterious Black Knight has just fled the tournament at Ashby and has sook (is that a word?) shelter for the night at the humble hut of a rather worldly hermit who calls himself the Clerk of Copmanhurst.

They sat down, and grazed with great gravity at each other, each thinking in his heart that he had seldom seen a stronger or more athletic figure than was placed opposite him.

The hermit goes on to provide bedding for the knight. They have dinner. The knight takes off his armor, including his breastplate. The hermit pushes back the hood of his cloak. They both eat and get a little drunk, and before you know...

'I hope, Sir Knight,' said the hermit, 'thou hast given no good reason for thy surname of the Sluggard. I do promise thee, I suspect thee grievously. Nevertheless, thou art my guest, and I will not put thy manhood to the proof without thine own free will. [snip] If though knowest ever a good lay, thou shalt be welcome to a nook and pasty at Copmanhurst as long as I serve the chapel of St. Dunstan....'

This is why I don't trust the clergy!!! >___<

Had lunch bunch rehearsal for the first time today. I didn't think this stuff would be so frickin' hard. I was reading the music over Angela's shoulder and trying not to jump to the soprano part. I need the actual music so I can practice. It would be nice.

I have a lovely folder though. It once belonged to a certain "Janis D." Hmm.

Lunch bunch is tomorrow too.

And publicity crew starts on Monday. All my extracurricular stuff is starting, like, now.

Needless to say, no field trips. Blah.

On Sunday, I saw Joyce at the IHOP near RM, where she was working. (At the IHOP, not RM). It was like this.. this boy named Tai was me and my dad's waiter, and he was like, "Do you go to RM?" and I was like, "Yeah," and it turns out he's seen me around, and then I looked up and Joyce was working in the kitchen. It took me a while to recognize her because her back was facing me. I asked her today, and it turns out she works there on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. "American food," she commented, laughing.

What is it with me bumping into people from school outside of school all this week? Not that it's unpleasant, but it throws off my groove. People who I know from school ought to remain in school unless I hang out with them outside of school. If that makes any sense at all.

Came back from what I term Homecoming Dinner at Tara Asia, since I didn't have a ticket to go to actual homecoming. Everyone looked spectacularly nice. I remember what the girls were wearing, and since the guys probably didn't notice and girls spent so much time "primping" I ought to give them credit. Basically the first half of this blog entry is fashion commentary. Not very detailed though, for which I apologize.

-Elissa: Dark blue dress with black lace and a black necklace thingy, similar to those loopy tattoo necklaces but not.

-Janis: Black strapless dress that people kept commenting about and black gloves.

-Silvia: Red dress.. of some sort. Her hair was down, like in her senior photos that she showed me. She was sitting at the end of the table so I didn't really see her really closely.

-Lizzie: High waisted red dress with beading on the bodice, spaghetti straps.

-Cathy: Red dress, darker than Lizzie's, no beading on the bodice. It was sleeveless with a scooped neckline. I think. Nick B said that the two dresses looked exactly the same. Fool. It's not like the red dress pairing was planned.. apparently Cathy and Lizzie had both undeliberately both worn blue dresses to prom too. I say it's not a big deal- there are only so many colors in the world.

-Sharon: V neck sleeveless black dress, and she put her hair up, which is something I actually have not seen before.

-Dena: Black dress with silver stitching going diagonally down across the waist. She curled her hair, which made people comment that she looked like a female Tadzio. In a good way.

-Ranwa: Black shawl and a black dress.

-Ruchita: Lavender dress, which Sarah commented really complimented her complexion.

-Sarah (Gordon): It was black.. all the black dresses are running together in my head. She had curled her hair, and was commenting how much she felt like Emma.


We got 17 people... poor Alex left his ticket at home and had to get it, but he came back. The restaurant was rather crowded with .. everyone else going to homecoming (but presumably not the freshmen, who were rumored to be eating at.. Taco Bell), so we encountered craploads of people we know, like Carmel (in a short dress that looks black but actually turned out to be very very dark blue) and Lili (Sarah said she'd cut her hair so that when she put it in a bun it'd be small enough to fit into the metal spiral thing) and Polomma (purple dress with a high neck) so it took a while to get seats and we were scattered across this long table. My food was weird.. seafood (scallops, mussels, squid or something) in coconut milk.. it's the weirdest thing I've ever eaten, and Alex agreed when he tried some. I have notoriously bad luck randomly picking things off menus. I stole Nick B's bowl of rice and his cashews since he wasn't eating them. Um.. anyhow. Plentiful jokes about Nick B's lack of masculinity, which he tried to rectify by wearing sunglasses (which just functioned to make him blind indoors), and other bold women tried to rectify by attempting to attack him with lipstick, and threats of eyeliner and mascara. People made sexual comments about Alex "tying Nick's tie." Nick S moved to our end of the table to counter the overwhelming female ratio.

People were frightened by the prospect of red bean ice cream or green tea ice cream for dessert, so we relocated to Ben and Jerry's after trying to get Puffy to divide the check for us in his head, but he'd forgotten all arithmatic. We ended up dividing it wrong and Nick B ended up padding the bill by paying a twenty, but he generously declined offers by us to pay him back when we realized our math errors, saying that it was his parents' money anyways. How cavalier.

I should note that the Nicks were hella dashing tonight, possibly because Nick B didn't have stubble. Nick S was our resident photographer and Nick B gets brownie points for giving his jacket to Lizzie when she was cold. (It wasn't really cold, as it still feels like summer in Rockville, but rather windy, making me glad I was I had sleeves.) See.. I have this theory that modern fashion has it so that men wear jackets with their suits and women wear evening gowns with low necklines so that men are obligated to give their coats to the women. (Edit: Nick B says the jacket was Lizzie's to begin with. Well hell, I still stand by my 'jackets and evening gowns' fashion theory.)

We went walking to.. uh.. the homecoming place, singing really loudly (Nick B, anyways) but since there weren't many songs all 17 of us knew, we ended up singing the Star Spangled Banner spontaneously until we cracked up laughing when people who passed us, like cops, gave us funny looks. I must say we actually sounded good though. Ranwa suggested "Onward Christian Soldiers" but none of us knew that and none of us were Christian. Puffy and Nick B broke into "Hava Nagila" and Puffy sung three verses of Battle Hymn of the Republic (he knows all five, but he stopped, mercifully). Barry was prancing around clicking his heels together. When we got to the homecoming place, most of the girls pleaded fatigue due to walking around in heels and went inside, while a handful of us continued wandering around the block singing loudly and badly. I think we did that again until we came back around in a circle. So.. me and Puffy went around the block.

Again.

It's actually a lot more fun than my blog is making it sound. We encountered Josh going to homecoming with his date, who advised us on his devious ways of getting into the previous homecoming dances without a ticket, but Puffy declined because of moral issues and I declined because I wasn't dressed for the occasion (Brutal but true.) J Ro argued that since Puffy was already using stolen chopsticks from Tara Asia as afro picks, he was corrupted already, but Puffy didn't buy it, so we went on our way. Puffy later imitated being a geisha. I walked him to the Metro. I was being picked up at 9 and we still had 15 minutes left, so he walked me back to Rockville Town Center. And then he went back to the Metro.

Yeaah. So that's my story.

Went to the UM open house, bumped into a lot of Eastern people. Like Rob... and Amy Price. And Eric Shansby, Stephan (something), and David Einstein all sitting at one table. Some girl from RM was there cuz she was wearing her senior shirt, but she's just some girl I see in the halls.

College open-houses are mind-numbing.

It was sort of funny seeing RM on the news last night... they were covering our homecoming game and float, and they interviewed Tyler as a sort of representative for our school (!) and had Amy and Kristen and other people on, you know, doing "normal" stuff. It was sort of funny. You know, sort of as a "Montgomery County conducts business of usual in the face of roaming murderers with high powered rifles." Walt Whitman was on too, but during a different (but similarly-themed) subject.

The news people have been consistantly mispronouncing "Montgomery," much to my annoyance. Everyone knows you pronounce it "Mungummery" and sort of mumble it, not "Mont-gom-er-y." That's just silly.

Today's Title:

Smells Like School Spirit

No prep rally today. I was sort of disappointed, because unlike other people, I actually like them. We get shortened periods and I'm also a shameless sucker for pagentry. Yay! Brass instruments! Crowds and people yelling! Whee! Anyhow.

Finally auditioned for lunch bunch. It was sort of a spur of the moment thing. I'm in concert choir as an alto. I come on.. Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'll have such a hard time remembering.

Some news person was filming our school as we were let out. And I'm like.. why?

Today's Title:

Youth of the Nation

On a lighter note, I must say that Andrew Durfor is duct tape GOD!

I never thought of him as a really spirited type of guy- I just think he's using School Spirit days as an excuse to wear duct tape. Yesterday he was a Monty Python knight with duct tape armor and complete with clonky coconut shells. Today he was a duct tape lobster. Don't ask me how that works.

Homecoming dance tickets are sold out, to both my disappointment and relief, since I won't need to toss away $19 and then search for a date and clothes. I am, however, still coming to Tara Asia, much to your collective disappointment.

I never thought we'd actually need Code Blue at school. It's not that I usually leave the building at lunch or stay after school anyhow, but just having security standing grimly around the doors and herding us around was intimidating. Who'd shoot people up at Leisure World??? I won't be so melodramatic as to say that the black shadow of violence lurks wherever I go. More like a smudgy grey chiaroscuro. I go to the Togo's (sandwich place) right next to the Aspen Hill gas station every day for lunch in the summer, and my mom was like, "Nooo! Don't go to there! It's dangerous!" and I was like "Yeah right, it's a gas station." Well guess who was wrong. These places aren't so geographically close to me, but I go to them on a regular basis it still feels like people are being murdered in my backyard, and my backyard is all over the news with caution tape around it and bullet holes and flowers in memorium. I wonder how first graders feel that seemingly every year they start school, there's always some Annual Random Act of Senseless Violence.

Needless to say, Spirited Away at White Flint is cancelled.

I suppose I don't have much to complain about in comparison to a good deal of other people.

As it is, I don't suppose anyone except people in this local vicinity really care very much.

Today's Title:

Children of Abraham

Is Mr. Baron Jewish? I keep thinking he is, even though there's actually nothing to indicate it. It's just that he "looks Jewish" to me, which is absurd, because Jewdom is a religion, not a race. But nonetheless, I keep catching myself thinking that he looks Jewish.

Physics has become the highlight of my day with Puffy, Hank, and Josh.

"Coulomb! Coulomb! NAAAANOOOCCCOOOULOMB!! Microcoulomb! Coloumb, coloumb!" -Josh imitating a flock of coulombs and other related imaginary avians nexting in Puffy's hair.

And also hearing them improvise beat rhythms by banging on the desks and harmonizing to this tuner thing Mr. Martz had. It had something to do with electricity and magnetism, but I wasn't paying attention. Another thing. Mr. Martz doesn't really care if we pay attention.

Madrigals sounded obscenely good in English for the creative part of Madame Bovary presentations... I think this is one of the reasons why music remains so popular.. there's so much you can do with just the human voice. It makes me wish I'd sing with other people. Maybe I could audition for lunch bunch after the next concert, since it seems sort of late now. Or not.

Today's Title:

Philadelphia

This is the story of my life, so it's hardly a new thing.

I thought in middle school I'd be happy if I could just find a group in the cafeteria that wouldn't get pissed if I sat down with them.

Sometimes, (and when the subject comes up in my mind, all of the time), I think Nick is growing distant from me which is not frightening or surprising, but a little bit sad, because he's my best friend and doesn't know it. We hardly talk, and when we do talk there's not much to talk about. I know I'm not pretty or smart or very interesting or unique because somewhere else there's someone else who has everything I have but packaged in a sparklier way. I wonder what happened to our original group of friends, because it seems I can never spend time with people and be untouched by a distant sort of loneliness. Nick and Alex have newer, ever-expanding circles, Andrew is more social than ever, and even Puffy has his core of.. um.. mates. With me, I still rely on the same people, still talk to the same people. But they don't talk to me. I live in a snow globe and watch everyone else's life go by, and watch everyone drift into new affiliations and relationships overnight or over years (mostly over years), and watch Nick date various dark-haired girls whose names start with A.

Piled into Alex's hippie van with Alex, Nick B, Nick S, and Josh, and went to Josh's house to watch Gallipoli afterschool, not because I'd intended on going, but because I had rushed to hand in my EE to the IB office and missed the bus. Sarah G and Christine came in a seperate car. I've been testing out a theory that when guys are together they seem to like talking about dicks a lot, though this is a bit hard to observe because of a Schroedinger's Cat thing.. guys are simultaneously talking and not talking about dicks until you observe them. But the theory seems to hold water even when I hide on MUDs and people think I'm male. Nick B got markedly cruder once he stepped into Alex's van. We got fairly unperverted as we entered Josh's house, and after we started eating pizza and the brownies Mrs. R had baked us (yay!) we got into a discussion on post-modernism and moral relativity...

The movie was all right. I dunno. Certainly not what I was expecting.... it wasn't really a war movie, but more about a group of people who're in a war, if that makes any sense. The battle scenes didn't start until fairly near the end- Sarah and Christine actually left before the battles started because Sarah had to leave by 4:30 and Sarah was Christine's ride. Alex kept pointing out 'gay' scenes. It didn't help that the movie starts out with two men yelling, "Deeper! Faster!"

Christine and Sarah were confused as to why we were all cracking up. And I personally noticed that there were a lot of gratuitous crotch shots where the camera would just linger on a guy's crotch. And also, lots of bad 80's synthasizer music instead of a sweeping orchestral score you would've expected. And campy pre-war idealism that got on my nerves because I didn't think anybody would be that stupid... as someone said, "Do you know why they're so eager to join the war?" "To get out of Australia!" Me and Alex got to yelling, "COO-EE!" a lot, which is actually a lot of fun once you get over the cheesiness of yelling something like that. Took Alex some time to realize which character was the younger, handsomer, 1981 Mel Gibson.

Came back from Maggie's surprise birthday party, with all the usual people like her, Dong, Stella, Jonathan, Snow and the rest of the bridesmaids from her wedding, and Mr. and Mrs. Tea. It was amusing how Dong tricked her into going into the community center that we'd decorated and everything- he said he had a stomach ache and REALLY had to use a bathroom.

The decor was actually really nice for a community center. It was a nice shade of pink inside, with elegant fan lights over the bay doors, and it had a wooden dance floor where Jonathan's younger brother was being the DJ, and a kitchen over by the side. And there were long tables set up each with a bowl of real white, pink-edged roses, and around the room, a table with the potluck food, and tables with plates of fingerfoods, which Snow emphatically kept her babies from eating. Stella, having had come back to the house earlier to get some photos of Maggie, had put them on display as a collage on a white ribbon-covered board, where everyone got to look at semi-embarrassing pictures of Maggie as an elementary school kid in Hong Kong, and as a teenager with 80's hair, and my dad in the 70's, and Stella with bangs. There was a turtle pinata with a carnation on it, and there were "Happy Birthday" balloons (just normal baloons with happy birthday written on them, not the foil type balloons) floating against the ceiling, and when someone tall would grab one down, the kids would end up playing with them.

There was some really good food, and I had a Margaritaville Tequila, though I don't quite understand whether it's actually a margarita or actually a tequila. It was actually pretty good- I was getting worried that I wouldn't, by the time I'm 21, find an alcoholic beverage I'd actually like. We had Maggie go at the turtle pinata blindfolded with a broom handle, but she'd end up like hitting the ceiling, and Dong goaded her into thwacking a roll of paper towels he held up, then pretended she'd hit him by screaming when she hit the roll. It was pretty hard to aim because the pinata kept swinging around after each hit, so it's not like she could necessarily have hit it even if she swung in the same place each time. She actually did manage to hit the turtle after a bit but she never did break it, though she broke the string that attached it to the ceiling so that it fell the the ground, and ended up stepping on it. In the end she just ended up tearing it open with her hands.

It was a really cute turtle. The bad things about pinatas is that you have to break them.

All the kids there got the candy. It's really weird.. I think of my sister as being relatively young and with it.. early 30s.. but a good deal of her friends had brought toddlers with them to the party. It's a bit freaky seeing that all your sister's friends are parents.

Thre was some obligatory dancing on the dance floor with some really loud techno music that annoyed my mom, she being the oldest one in the room. My dad had left earlier because he was going out to dinner, and Mr. and Mrs. Tea had left because Mr. Tea had had major surgery a few weeks back and didn't like staying out late. There was some older stuff too like Song Sung Blue, From This Moment On, and Truly Mad ("I want to stand with you on a mountain.. I want to bathe with you in the sea.. I want to lay like this forever.. until the sky falls down on me.."). I got involved in the macarena and the YMCA song, and I coerced my mom into dancing to something. Can't remember what. When we left, they were doing The Hokey Pokey.

Anyone who wants to watch Spirited Away at White Flint on Friday at 3:45, contact me. I think we're going to walk to Rockville station and take the Metro to White Flint, then walk to White Flint Mall. Rightyo. Matinee tickets are $5.50. Come. It's going to be a good movie.

Because of the riots, the field trip to the Smithsonian has been postponed until the 11th. Chingada.

Textbook History

The yellow highlighter trails neon butter
on gunmetal print.
The wind turns paper leaves.

A pink cardboard
rebound covers the rubel as fall
covers an unstable Earth.
Over the wide girth of Mr Thomas
writing, the war is on.

First piece of Palmer fanfiction. I want the IB to take over fanfiction.net. That's my goal. I'm not really this pretentious in my writing- I was parodying something. Kudos if you know what it is.

I don't understand Madame Bovary's financial situation. I mean, yeah, in general, she has a lot of debts and she goes deeper into debt as she keeps buying crap and not paying Lheureux back. But what's up with all these IOU type promissory notes? They're IOUs, but how come they keep getting bigger? It annoys me that I don't understand this. Hell, I'm not even sure what I don't understand.

I know that's not the point of the novel, but still.

I'm so pressed.

It would be a lot easier to draw my teachers if I actually knew anything about drawing facial structure.

Wow, my Palmer sucked.

I haven't sucked that much since..

okay, that just sounds wrong.

Apparently, my e-mail service, as of the 30th or so, wants me to pay.

Like hell.

So, what new service should I use, and what name should I register under?

I felt that I should expound on how utterly stupid my classes are.

Wow, the Dig was hella fun. Amazingly, not many people got lost on the drive to Needwood Mansion, though there were jokes about Andrew being late because he was the one compulsively telling people to come early. But he came at 8:59, much to our collective disgust. Rode to Clarksburg on a van driven by Heather, where Mary, Rachel, and Rob babbled endlessly about English history and royal sucession.

The dig involved walking around a field of what Mr. Hines identified as orchid (or orchard, I don't remember) grass.

Mr. Hines swung a metal detector around in the super tall grass, and we all got really wet and muddy, and felt like farmers. My group was Mary the Freshman and Rachel and we tagged along behind Mr. Hines, trying to only step on the grass that the person in front of us had trampled and joking about crop circles. Rachel, per usual, spent some time picking wildflowers and putting them in her hair and we asked Mr. Hines about them and other plants, and amazingly he could identify them all. Apparently plants are his other hobby. He knows everything, like Andrew. It scares me. Ah, morning blooms that close up when the sun sets, and poke berries, used by Native Americans to dye things indigo... I like fields.

We didn't actually do much, except for me being the Labelling Wench because I had legible handwriting. I suspect the only reason we existed was to carry stuff, like the bucket with trowels and the clipboard and and sharpies and plastic bags and orange plastic flags and the shovel and the soil color book. (The IB has this habit of calling books by the names of their author, so this wasn't the "soil color book," it was the "Munsell." It's a bit pretentious.) Most of the time, besides breaking up large clods of dirt with the trowels, we just sat in the grass which grew up higher than we were, watching butterflies. (Except this time when people on dirtbikes sped through.) I tried to do some mad digging, but I didn't had boots on and Mr. Hines was a lot better with the shovel than I was. Sometimes we walked along the farm trail, but most of the time not, and we were joined by another man who's name I feel like I ought to know, with a GPS, and whose shoes kept setting off the metal detector because he was walking next to Mr. Hines. We did find a horseshoe that took forever to dig out because the soil was scrabbly, with earthworms (which Rachel was irrationally concerned about- it's not like cutting them in half kills them) and a bunch of rocks. Damn rocks. we found a 2001 penny (don't know why we catalogued it, but anyhow) and various beer cans, an unidentified chunk of metal, possibly a chain or a clasp or something, a toy gun, the ubiquitous nail that is the bane of cataloguers everywhere. (Mr. Hines was like, "But it's a handmade roseate 18th century nail!"). At one point we just ended up walking in a circle back to where we began, and where the metal detector went off like crazy. Turns out there was a barn or something near there. We joined up with the other groups, with Pouya, Rob, Danish, Mandy, Andrew, Gina (sp?), Karen and someone not from our school who's name I didn't bother to get, and they had sifters. So our finds started getting mixed up because it was really Mr. Hines and the other organizers that were doing the digging. But anyhow.. overall, we (all of us, not just my group) found also.. a metal handle for something, a glass bottle, a sickle blade ( Rob was really excited, thinking they were daggers), another horse shoe, a miscellanious hunk of iron, a bolt (which I found in the sifter, but other people dug out), the stem from a clay pipe, another sickle blade, and the barn's spring lock. We found more in those last ten or so minutes than walking around the rest of the field for two hours.

From Brunching Shuttlecocks..

(Refrigerator Magnets: Ratings.)
Poetry Sets: The perennial problem with these is that they don't have enough "plain" words like "an" and "the," so my poetry ends up sounding like Tonto attempting to seduce the Lone Ranger. "Moon shine through window. delicious breeze caress skin. surrender." In retaliation, I disassemble other people's poems and create the most banal sentences possible. My favorite so far: "I will join the hair club for men."

Today's Title:

Kate Nagel Eats Glue

I usually assume that anything I care to say in Chinese I can say in Mandarin as well, so when we were supposed to tell a story in Chinese class I told a joke, except really badly and no one understood me. I told it to Joyce in Cantonese, and it made her laugh, and she told the class in Mandarin, and it made them laugh, and I told Willis in English, and it made him laugh too because he wasn't paying attention the first two times. It's sort of discouraging that my Mandarin is so bad. I like talking to Joyce in Cantonese, though this is more of a necessity because her English is bu tai hao. I think in taking foreign languages being bilingual is a major disadvantage. I'm so used to understanding what people say all the time that I get discouraged easily when I don't understand what people say or when I have to struggle to get a point across verbally, and it's like banging my head against a brick wall. I keep thinking that I've improved and then someone says blahblahblahblah in Mandarin and I feel like an utter retard. It's frustrating talking even to Joyce sometimes because while she's not as fluent in Cantonese as I am, so when I'm explaining some stuff in English, she doesn't get what I'm saying, and I can't explain using English terms to her because that's what she's having trouble with in the first place. Let the brick wall headbanging begin.

Because Statistics is such a Poof class, at the end of the period I was Student of the Week and introduced myself to the class. For some reason the class thought I was hysterical and one girl asked if I thought about being a comedian. It's glue. It's not that funny, and I can't be funny on command in any case. I'm boring most of the time, and I can't think of anything to say to the Bivalves or at Alex's Parties. Elsewise I'd have more friends.

I'm quite excited about my field trip next Friday to the National Gallery of Art, and then to a Chinese restaurant, though Mrs. Barret had issues with the last part when she was signing my permission slip. Yay! Milla's going too! I love my Chinese class field trips, except that normally I don't have anyone to talk to on the bus.

....

Well, okay, going with Milla means I still won't have anyone to talk to on the bus.

But I'd enjoy her company in any case.

Yes, I have signed up for publicity crew.

Now what?

Palmeritis! I'm asking you all to flood www.fanfiction.net with Palmer fanfic, preferrably slash. I mean, maybe just poems or something. I know I wrote a poem with Palmer in it, and Jen says that people write poems about Palmer in Spanish.

Jung-fu! A fighting movie involving deep probing of the subconscious mind.

Thursday's Title:

Belgium Is A Country

So, on Thursday, I was coloring my map during lunch (I actually don't see why this is immoral. As long as your homework is done before the class where it's due and you don't do it in other classes, it doesn't matter what part of your free time you use to do it.) But I didn't get to eat lunch. Ah. But archaeology had a pizza party. Still didn't entice me to volunteer for the Harvest Festival though I'm tempted to go just as a visitor. I hate little kids.

Sort of strange because Gordon asked Angela to go to homecoming with him but not. ("This is a failed attempt to ask you to go to homecoming with me." -Gordon to Angela) Since technically Gordon didn't ask, only failed to ask, Angela didn't answer the non-question, and I spent some time with Angela debating it. Andrew said that Gordon actually did ask, but in a guy's form of asking, which apparently would be by not asking. I understand. Anyhow, Angela arranged for me to go to homecoming with Gordon and I thought this was okay, though I think someone ought to tell Gordon about this.

Spent some time for some reason talking about sandals to Jason Hall, who we found in band practice on our futile search for Malex so that I could mooch a ride, and found it a minor annoyance that Angela would respond when Jason was addressing "Angie" and I would respond when he was addressing "Angela" so we'd end up answering things at the same time. I went home on the Rideon after Jason got creeped out by this Twinangie-ness and stumbled away in a dazed stupor.

Quote of the Day:

Rob (in history, pointing to an itty bitty piece of map I didn't color): Hey, you didn't color in Finland.
Me: Who cares about Finland??? (turn around to find Milla walking in)

Let me tell you about my week.

Okay. So.. belatedly, Sunday was fun. Meg hadn't seen Titanic yet, so we watched it, and me and Alex ended up making silly "COMMUNIST!" interjections throughout. As usual, Andrew had scientific nitpicks/explanations for everything. Rob played Risk.

Today's Title:

Athenian Hemlock

Quote of the Day:

"I'll beat you to death!" -Silvia's mom, in Mandarin, to Silvia's little sister at dinner.

Eh, it was a cultural thing, and much was lost in translation.

On Monday, I turned on the tv in the middle of a Voyager rerun, to find the intrepid crew of the Voyager in the middle of a hoedown. They faced down such evil intergalactic threats such as toothless old men with banjos, sugar cookies, devilled eggs, and scantily clad Southern women horny for Tom Paris. I don't watch Voyager so much for the quality of its acting (ha).. but for that amusing "What the Hell???" factor that makes our beloved entertainment industry as great and noble as it is today.

It was a rather crappy day to start out with. In Chinese we had to finish up translating a poem about 911 into Chinese, and the sickening tackiness of it had me pissed off well into second period. The thing on the end saying "send this to at least 10 people! DON'T BREAK THE CHAIN!!!!!!!" did not help. I didn't have my math homework done, and it happened that, not having collected homework in the previous three weeks, Ms. Gesterling decided today would be a good day to do it. Now, if I had checked my planbook toroughly and realized that the homework was a worksheet and I didn't need the textbook to do it, I could've done it during the morning announcements, or even during the six minutes between classes, but no, I saw the textbook excercises in the planbook and somehow my eye skipped over the worksheet problems. Third period had me nervous over my TOK presentation, which we did not get to finish because at the beginnning of the period Ms. Sullivan had spent fifteen minutes grilling Herschel, who was in the previous group that hadn't finished yesterday. I was immensely satisfied to overhear Herschel bitching about it during archaeology later. Since Nick is going on a college visit tomorrow, we gave Anya Nick's part to finish, meaning that tomorrow we get to see Anya Kouklova wearing a pair of sock puppets alternating between a falsetto and a bass. Stayed after school for Archaeology, which involved the spilling of various soft drinks in room 215, and.. cataloguing. -_-. The cataloguing group before us left us with a generous gift of rusty nails. Ironically, Rob and Gordon and I had been cataloguing that very same bag last year and had meticulously avoided the nails, hoping the next group could do them, but with me getting the same bag two years in a row, I ended up staring at nails anyways. Andrew came over and tried to explain to my group of bewildered novices and myself the difference between rusty fencing wire, rusty electrical wire and rusty barbed wire, though all I got out of it was that barbed wire has barbs. As I was leaving my E.E. advisor sprung on me to tell me that I'm 1000 words under the lower limit, I need footnotes, a works cited, a title page, and an abstract by next Friday.

But the latter half of the day was much better. After archaeology I bumped into Silvia in the school's front lobby, and she said she could use a ride home, so my mom gave her a ride home, and she decided that since I was sitting in a car right in front of her apartment that I might as well stay for a few hours to study for the physics test. So I did, though honestly I think I could've studied more efficiently by myself. We did a lot of talking though, which was really great, and it was sort of amusing how my mom called Alex asking him for Silvia's phone number to call me, and Alex told Silvia on Aim. Silvia told me, and I called my mom, who was surprised that all of this could have ensued within a span of 30 seconds. Stayed on with Silvia's hyperspastic five year old sister, who was immensely amused by my TOK sock puppets and we had loads of fun removing and retaping the puppets' round paper eyeballs in different places on their faces, and making new eyes and clothes for them. This is the only use TOK has ever been to me. Later wadded up the socks into a giant ball with ponytail holders, and played Sockeyball with Silvia in her front yard, like volleyball but with socks. Silvia's sister was annoyed at us not playing with her, so I went back to playing Socky with Cindy while Silvia played real volleyball with her dad. Silvia got on the phone with Josh and I ended up playing chess with Cindy until her attention span died, and then won a game of Chinese checkers. I stayed for dinner, though I felt awkward about it, and sort of weird trying to talk in Mandarin, but it was nice anyways. It was rather a pleasant afternoon and evening, and I wish I could hang out with people more.

The sock puppets will need new eyeballs because the tape adhesive is going.

Dave Barry like you've never seen him before. The last 911 angst you will see on this blog, I promise you, at least maybe until next year. But I felt it was necessary.

Today's Title:

September Mo(u)rning

One year later.

I said goodbye to my mom this morning before she left for work at the Department of Justice, and spent the rest of High Alert Day hoping that nothing would come of it. Abstractly and morbidly thought that perhaps as my Patriotic Duty I ought to accessorize myself according to the daily alert color. Today, orange, tomorrow, red!

I spent a goodly portion of the day getting eerie flashbacks, amazed that it still resonated so much. During TOK after the badly executed memorial service, (Skanksville? "Roll on"?) the class just sat there encased in a solid block of silence.

There are so many deer in Rock Creek Park, but they're rather scrawnier than movies would have you think. No majestic stags or anything. I've been walking there with my mom for the last four days (Saturday, Sunday, yesterday, today) in the late afternoon and evening, and we haven't ceased to see deer.

On Saturday was one that dashed across the path around the middle of the trail and disappeared. I also saw a water snake too, from a bridge. And one dead crow. Yayfor West Nile.

Sunday, three deer slunk through the woods by the middle of the trail, one buck and two does.

Yesterday, there were nine deer spottings, though very possibly they were the same deer. One doe with a fawn eating grass as we went into the park, two bucks later on by Rock Creek in a grove of trees, in about the middle of the trail, one fawn with prominent dapples and another dark-coated, un-dappled deer of some sort further back in the trees, and when we were leaving, one doe with two fawns (not dappled as prominently as the earlier ones.) The weird thing is that they weren't afraid of us; they stood around watching. Also interesting to note that the forest is so much cooler than outside.

Today.. six total. My mom's friend was with us as well, so that may have been the reason why the deer were more cautious this time. As we were going in, a doe with a fawn ran away from us. I think it's the same one... Later, going in, two deer crossed the path in front, and also ran away. When we were coming back, a doe was looking at us from behind the trees, along with another doe behind another tree. It was especially nice today, because it was so windy... it makes it feel like the whole Earth is alive and the trees are breathing.

Do you know? I'm reading five books at the same time and it's fairly annoying. Long Fuse, Madame Bovary, Building, Midwife's Apprentice (which Lianna recommended in the library), and When Knights Were Bold. Let's just get Long Fuse done with.. I'm so sick of it.

I resent being called a Yank.

Today's Title:

Attilla the Hungry

You know you grew up in the 80's if...
and also..
The Original Child of the 80's List

It disturbs me that I can spell when I type, but I can't spell when I write things out with an actual pen. Like for my econ terms list, I mispelled "resourses" twice.

God.

Ask Stalin!

The advice column.

Urgh, I need sleep.

Electronic Games Banned in Greece

Arrrrrrgh.

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands...

I like this poem. Even though if you were existentialist you could write a commentary about the pointlessness of this man's life, but anyhow.... I wish I had more time to read stuff like this for fun.

You know what annoys me about drawing portraits for peoples' MUD characters (art contest)? They're so damn bad at describing them.

Blonde hair, blue eyes.. good, good.. it's amazing how little people will describe shapes, which is actually what you need, and talk so much about color. Ideally, your descript should be detailed enough so that if I were to leave this picture in black and white you'd still know that it was your char. I know the color of the lips.. but I need to know if they're full, or long, or thin, or pouty.. I know the eye color, but I don't know if they're upturned, downturned, narrow, almond, squinty, close together, deep set... eyebrow shape, which is pretty damn important, I know nothing of.. Nose.. I can't draw noses anyways, so it shouldn't matter. Still. 'Small' isn't gonna cut it.. this is a description used by every other female character as standard procedure because girls don't like to think of themselves as.. well.. having noses. For women (they think), at best, their noses don't look half bad, and at worst, it totally screws up an otherwise half-decent face. Cheeks? Hair? At least say if it's straight or wavy or curly or shoulder length or if she has bangs or something.

If all you have for your char is a blonde haired, blue eyed girl with a tan and average breasts and hips, you could just find a random picture online and it'd be more worth your time.

I like walking home in the rain. It's quite refreshing, because the sky is silver, and it brings out the wet green of the grass and dark trees. And it feels clean, and the rainwater pours past you in torrents over the sidewalk, because I have the privelege of walking through a hilly area home from school.

I miss people. I don't get to talk to them.

I don't have classes with anybody, and it makes me lonely sometimes. People are always singing at lunch, and I'm not with them, and Nick and Rob and Puffy are always talking to other people.

Why are me and Alex talking about who we think are hot guys and gay sex?

Shpachee went to New York City with her family and my mom was rather annoyed that they didn't tell her so that we could go with them, because she knows Manhattan like the back of her hand.

Personally, I'd prefer not to go to NYC this time of the year anyhow.

I have a new mattress because my old one had holes in it. This one's bigger and firmer. It feels weird. I've taken the liberty of changing my Star Wars bedsheets to something less totally retarded.

I need to take them Episode One posters off my door too. I have some strange, hideous work of modern art up right now, but hopefully I'll actually get a real painting. I mean, a real print of a painting. Er, a real poster of a print of a good painting.

Because on any given day on a weekend in Montgomery Mall you will always see someone you know..

-Alexis Kim at Victoria's Secret. I don't really enjoy the prospect of shopping for underthings at the same store as someone who's infinitely thin.

Adults are boring. "Hey, let's look at stoves! Ooh, gutter cleaners!"

This Friday, I taught myself how to play the waterglasses. This is when you take a set of drinking glasses, and fill them all up with different amounts of water, and run your finger around the rim to play a note. I tuned a set of eight cups to E Major. I would've preferred C, but the lowest note on the cup (when empty) was low E, and the highest (when full) was high E, so I didn't have much choice. I should've used taller cups. I can play quite a bit, but for faster songs it's easier to just hit them with a pair of chopsticks, like a xylophone. I also need something to hold the glasses down so they don't slide around on the table. Suggestions?

You know, Death in Venice reminds me of American Beauty... middle-aged dude sick of his job, finds meaning from a divinely beautiful person who also happens to be grossly underage, undergoes a positive change, then dies.

Also went to White Flint Mall. Hurray for Metro.

Because on any given Friday in downtown Rockville you will always see shitloads of people you know..

-Mr. Thomas and Mr. Evans at CalTor. I spent a lot of time avoiding them.
-Kira, Alex D, and Pouya at Potbelly's.

Yup. Greek Wedding was good. But I got to Regal early because I was taking the bus, so I spent 30 minutes before the movie in the arcade shooting strange zombie things, and innocent police officers. I hate those stupid 'hostage/innocent' types in FPS's. I mean, GEEZ! These people ought to know that I'll shoot anything that moves!

I'm going to watch "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" at 12:10 on Friday at the Regal. Anyone want to come?

Excellent. Went to the field in front of the Washington Monument last night to listen to the US Army Band play. The 1812 Overture with live cannon fire! (and that live cannon fire smell.) That's some uplifting music for you. I never knew that classical music had this capacity to put crowds on their feet.

I've taken the liberty of signing Nick up for an e-mail newsletter that sends him a Shakespearean sonnet every day.

Don't thank me.

Let me tell you about Friday.

Went to the Natural History Museum with Shpachee, because museum-hopping is a hobby of mine. The elephant statue in the entrance hall had been renovated, so that you could no longer pick up a phone plugged into the plinth and listen to the audio documentary about pachyderms.

Had a precursory look at the modern Mongolia exhibit, mostly because we had to walk through it to get to the Dinotopia exhibit, though there were interesting reconstructions of yurts. The Dinotopia exhibit seemed more like a total plug for the miniseries instead of an actual point of academic interest worth being in a museum. Even so, the parts of the exhibit unrelated to the semi-crappy miniseries were great; James Gurney really deserves his reputation as an artist. The architectural miniatures were really shoddy, but the paintings.. it was great to recognize them from the books, except the originals were so much richer, and at their original size, you could pick out an amazing amount of detail. Of course, the best ones in the exhibit were the best ones in the books.. Waterfall City, Canyon City, World Beneath. And Chandakar, which isn't in the books. I think it's sort of strange and a bit disturbing that I get a more spiritual experience from reading fantasy books and walking through Rock Creek Park than from going to church. Though if atheists are to be believed, it's only a matter of picking the best work of fiction.

Uh, some Southeast Asian history stuff and the African cultures section. And the pre-Ice Age mammals exhibit, which I thought Alex would have liked. It was quite a novel experience, because as a little kid on field trips I'd only look at the dinosaurs. Giant sloths! Giant elk! Mammoths! Giant armadillos! Pigdogs! Thin rhinos! Tiny horses! I saw the dinosaur exhibit too, which I've seen once or twice before, but it was still awe-inspiring when you're actually aware of the size of these things.

We would have watched Cirque de Soleil (with Shpachee mocking my bad French) on the IMAX, but it aired at 5:45, so we just left and went to Dupont Circle by Metro. We were trying to walk to Georgetown but we got lost, but it was still pleasant getting lost in a non-touristy part of DC. It was actually quite quaint, with brick houses and windows with shutters and gardens, and we went into an actual general store, the type that sells everything. Shpachee said it was like being in a book because it was so quiet. But we did get to Georgetown eventually after getting a bunch of retarded directions.

Chili fries at Johnny Rocket's, a retro diner with a soda fountain and jukeboxes and oldschool "Coca-Cola" posters plastered over the tile walls. Chili fries get really squishy and gross halfway through, and they are possibly the unhealthiest food product in existence, but they were still good. Shpachee wondered how they could be considered a side.. who'd be hungry enough to eat anything else? I ordered some Mr Pibb (with no dot after Mister) because it's a running gag on 8-Bit Theater, then realized that a webcomic was affecting my consumer decisions. Freaky.

Went shopping (or Looking, since we're too poor for Georgetown) at Commander Salamander and Urban Outfitters and United Colors of Bennetton and American Eagle and other places that sell useless but expensive articles of clothing, such as....

-Sweaters knit from really thin material. Too thin to actually protect from the cold, too thick to wear by itself, liable to fall apart 30 seconds after you buy it.
-Shirts you wear over your actual shirt. So.. not really a jacket.. but not really a shirt..
-Halfling shorts. Known as such because maybe they'd be decent on a hobbit. If you combine two of these shorts to create a pair of SuperShorts, you'd maybe have a pair of shorts for human girls that'd come down to the middle of your thighs.
-Teenytiny TankTop. I thought it was a purse, until I picked it up and realized the bottom was open. You could stitch it closed, and it would be a purse.
-Pants That Are Too Tight On Me. Pretty self-explanatory.

Tried to walk back to Dupont station, got lost again, collapsed in a Starbucks near the station after we found it, drank some super expensive tea, went home, got picked up by my mom at Twinbrook, went home and ate corn on a cob and generally hung out.

And that was my day.

Quotes of the day:

"Let's have phone sex with the elephant!" -Me about the old elephant statue in the Smithsonian with those phones. Maybe this is why they renovated it.

"Is this the way to Reagan National Airport? I need to get off at Gallery Place. Is this the way to Gallery Place?" -Old out-of-towner on the Metro with luggage, despite repeated instructions to just get on the damn train when it comes, and get off when the station says "Gallery Place." It's not that hard.

I was walking to the library, but decided what the hey, and wandered around randomly and got lost in the suburbs and went in circles until I stumbled upon St. John's church, and found my way to Aspen Hill Library anyhow. It's a good feeling, walking around randomly on a summer day. Very time wasting, but fun.

More.. about.. Saturday. I to the Keniworth Aquatic Park in DC, which was possibly the most ghetto park I've ever been to. It wasn't like, even a real park. There were some pools, and mosquitos, and dying water lilies and lotuses. Most parks have a trail or something.. this was just like.. some sort of lakey areas you find next to a highway. I dunno, maybe I expect parks to be more wooded or have gazebos sitting around.

I think it's rather sad how one part of DC can be really ghetto, and you cross a bridge, and (Capital Hill music starts playing here) you've got like Union Station and the Capital and CNN and Fox headquarters and the Tidal Basin. And the American Gas Association or something. But my dad said that the area was starting to improve economically anyways, because of its proximity, and I guess you could see it, from the new shopping centers and stuff. It wasn't that ghetto, just more ghetto than what I'm used to. Which, being in like the top 5 most prosperous counties in the US, no doubt gives me a damn skewed perspective of what's rich and poor. (I don't feel that it's skewed because it's my perspective, but given my environment, it probably is.) I worry about this.

But Jesus Christ!!! It has kiosks for public libraries!!!

So I was with my parents on the Tidal Basin for a bit, but of course the cherry blossoms were gone. I was like, "Hey, what's that pretty building in the distance over there?" and my mom was like, "Arlington National Cemetary." And I was like, "Oh." And she was like, "Want to go look?" and I'm like, "No," because I wasn't in a funerally mood. I felt sorta stupid though, cuz I was essentially pointing to a cemetary and going, "Oooh, purrrty!"

My mom knows a lot of cities real well.. she can find her way around Hong Kong and New York and DC because she's lived in all of them. I think it's bloody amazing. And then we went to the Jefferson Memorial, because when we were there last year, the steps facing the Tidal Basin were closed for renovation. I really don't see why they have to make a statue of him so big. I mean, in real life he was probably just a normal sized guy. I don't know.. this.. giant statue thing.. seems too Ozymandian for a man who encouraged democracy and shnitz. Sure, he did a lot of great things, but there's no need to have generations of people after him peering up his giant bronze nose. It sort of.. defeats the purpose.

BTW, you can see the White House across the Basin from the memorial. I had a camcorder, so I zoomed in a lot, feeling a bit like a voyeur.. I think it's funny that in Hong Kong the people there were amazed that the White House was actually in DC and you could go in it and drive up to it.

I'm all movie-riffic this week. Alex's party was on Saturday. I guess I should blog about it.

I was sorta disappointed that Nick and Jennypoo didn't come. :(

Oh, Silvia, thanks for the movies.

I saw.. um.. Rush Hour 2 and Matrix. It was cool being able to understand Jackie Chan in Chinese, though some of their translations were strange. ("Get the black dude!" changed to "Get Li's friend!")

Plus.. yes.. it was my first time watching the Matrix (shut up, yes, I am deprived), and it was hella funny. I wouldn't choose the blue pill though unless I really liked jello.

Alex kept making gay comments throughout both movies. ELROND!

Some short DDRing. Yeah.

I saw "Elizabeth" on VCD. It was a pretty bad quality VCD, but the production was good I guess, if incoherent. I just looked at the pretty clothes. There was some gratuitous sex and violence... I had no idea what was going on. It was like.. Catholic something.. Protestant something... some people are burned alive.. some guy gets shot by a crossbow.. stabbed by spear.. tortured by sticking a torch where it shouldn't go... head chopped off... body pounded by rocks in the ocean.. sex in transparent material... French dude crossdresses... Cate Blanchett acts bewildered..priests yell "HERESY!" a lot... Rennaissance dancing with bells.. codpieces.. I dunno. I think the plot was about how lots of people wanted her to marry them, and she didn't. The end. I checked Palmer to see what was going on, and I still didn't understand. Good soundtrack though.

I had this bizarre dream. Ok, I was dreaming that I was going back to school, except the school was really weird looking. So I was walking through the halls, which were purple for some reason, and I saw Andrew (who was, in my dream, wearing a grey shirt and khakis.) And Andrew was being sarcastic and snarky and said, "You gained weight." I was really pissed off at him. So I looked down at myself and for some reason I was still in my pajamas with frilly shorts, and I thought, well, you can't really blame him for making fun of me because I look so damn stupid. So I continued walking, and I walked into a room with a bed, and drawers and stuff, and I realized that it was my bedroom, except purple. And I thought, "Why is my bedroom at school?" It seemed that since I was in my bedroom I really ought to go to sleep, but I knew I shouldn't be sleeping.. in my pajamas... at school... so I left. Then I went outside and walked down the stairs at the front of the school's main entrance (I know there aren't stairs, but this would be like the old Blair's entrance) to this expansive grassland with hills and shnitz, and Nick was walking with me.

And I was like, "Hey, Nick! You know what! I'm dreaming right now! I'm doing that Lucid Dreaming crap!" (It was difficult to say because for some reason in the dream I had a really hard time getting words out of my mouth. It took a lot of effort for me to speak).

And Nick looked around and was like, "No way! How can this not be real?"

So I said, "Well, it's my dream, so I should be able to change the outcome. Watch."

There was this blue stone statue of a cherub or something as an ornament on the stair banister, and I tried to turn it red with the force of my mind. But it stayed blue. Nick was noticing that nothing was happening, so he was being smug about it.

But I wasn't about to give up, so I said, "Think about it... why am I at school if it weren't a dream?? It's... probably only August 8th or something.." (I didn't know the precise date but I knew that it was August.)*

And Nick was like, "Nooo... It's September 2nd."

And I'm like, "Wait, huh? What happened between August 8 and now?" Also, it seemed sort of weird to me that it was the first day of school on September 2nd, because we go back to school on August 27.

And Nick's like, "Remember? We went to the science fair and you were stirring this blue chemical in a beaker and it exploded, and you were unconscious for several weeks." And come to think of it, I did remember. Now, by this time I found it so hard to talk so that I was just thinking things, but Nick was still able to hear me. I thought, Gee, Nick, if this isn't a dream then how come you're telepathic? but he didn't hear that. So he won his argument that my dream was actually real.

Then we went onto the grass, and Rachel was sitting in the grass under a tree. And she was playing with some New Age jewelry she had on, which was two necklaces with an amber or copper wire (it was that color) heart pendant on each one, and she held them up for us to see. And she said something profound that was similar in meaning to Poe's quote, "All we hear or see or seem is but a dream within a dream." Except she was talking about hearts and miracles or something mystic, but she was making the same point. And I was like, "That's a good quote," because it was, and she seemed happy with my approval.

And then I woke up, thinking, "Ha, Nick! It was a Lucid Dream!"

*I was really wary of school dreams, because I'd already had a similar dream before, except it was a nightmare because it was full of Ms. Martin. On the school bus in the earlier dream, I'd asked the same question. Why am I going to school in July.. and the reply was that they'd pushed the first day of school earlier, without me knowing. I'd been trying to pinch myself on the bus to make sure I wasn't dreaming, but of course when you pinch yourself in dreams without actually pinching yourself, it doesn't actually wake you up. It bloody hurt though. So I was resigned to the fact that I was going back to school in late July.. but then I woke up. So I was pretty sure my brain was playing tricks with me again during this new, Nick-infested dream.

Apparently, my sore throat isn't strep, but I've got to gargle salt water. Shnitz.

Royal Stag of Buckkeep, Royal Stag of Baratheon. Now, is it just me, or is it kinda weird that two different authors could nominate the lowly deer as the heraldic device for the royal family? I mean, what's so regal about deer?

Does royalty have ticks and a tendency to stand in the middle of roads and get run over?

I'm reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin right now because people repeatedly says it's good. I'm a bit wary though because it's the first book in a series- I hope it's stand-alone. It's good, but it's sort of cheesy... it's very similar in tone to the Farseer Trilogy. You know, gritty "Fantasy Realism" (I invented that term, but now that it's been invented I'll use it a lot), Sex and Violence, a Nameless Evil, People Bickering Over the Succession, the Seven Kingdoms (like the Six Duchies except, LOOKIE! There's another one for Ye Olde Discount Prices!) and of course, Lots of Bastards.

(National Bastard Day- where you show your appreciation for all those bastards who Saved The World.)

Went out to dinner for my sister (Stella, not Maggie)'s birthday at Tokyo Tapei cafe, basically just across the street from That's Amore. Really good sushi there and Chinese food. But it sort of sucked because my brother-in-law wasn't talking to her, because she had accidentally shrunken his favorite pants in the wash. I think this is really stupid.. for God's sake, it's your wife's birthday dinner, with her family.. please get over the pants that she ruined accidentally. They were really good silk pants though.

Would you do this if they were your pants?

Also, I have a sore throat for some reason. I got presents... it's sort of funny- it was Stella's birthday and I gave her a present, but because I'm the youngest one I get presents on every occassion anyhow. Hmm, I got a bracelet with little turtle-shaped beads that my she brought back from her and Jonathan (mr. I'm-not-talking-to-you-cuz-you-insulted-the-honor-of-my-pants)'s anniversary trip to Mexico, and a frog doll and some chocolate from Maggie.

Which Royalty Are You? Find out! By Nishi.


Whatevah.

This is not a very good quiz.

You know, digging through my wallet, I'm finding ticket stubs so old that they're actually interesting. There's a ticket stub from the World Trade Center Observation Deck (Hell if I know which tower), dating from 1998, and I have my Syntagma Square Metro ticket (interesting- the Greeks do call it a Metro instead of a subway. Like us.) and I have a pair of Final Fantasy stubs from Hong Kong last year.

Went to dinner with my mom's friend and her daughter Marie, which is why I had to excuse myself from watching a third movie. I was actually a bit grateful, because there weren't that many good movies to pick from in the first place and after two (movies, not necessarily good), it was like, oh ugh. It's sort of depressing that Marie and her mom are going to Hong Kong for two weeks- Marie speaks very bad Chinese, so that she speaks half in Chinese and half in English, which I found annoying me slightly even though I knew she couldn't help it. I mean, she could've just spoken all in English since we all understood it anyways. When she's going to Hong Kong she's going to be living in a hotel. This is what depresses me about the whole affair- with her horrid Chinglish and her living in a hotel and her mother having to consult a map to get to even the most obvious landmarks (this was what the dinner mainly was; my mom showing her mom places on a map), everyone's going to treat her like a foreigner. She's going to go to Hong Kong and (in my imagination, because what else would you do in Hong Kong?) visit the giant bronze Buddha statue on Lantau Island, Ocean Park with its shiny new roller coaster, Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Park, Central with its pinnacles of modern architecture, and the Jumbo floating restaurant, and when she gets home she's going to talk all about how pretty Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour is at night, just like a tourist. And in general, just have a wonderful time, which is all good for her.

I'm not any less American than she is, but somehow when I get to Hong Kong, because I can speak Chinese fluently, suddenly I ought to be a genius on the proper greeting of your ancient grandparents and strange distantly related cousins by blood or marriage, and when I go to church I ought to be able to make pleasant and witty conversation with my cousins' fellowship despite the fact that I've never met most of them and I haven't even been in the same hemisphere for the last year, let alone belong to the same religion or read the same language or watch the same tv shows. You know why I suck at foreign languages? It's because I hate sounding like such a retard all the time- I'm native level in Chinese, and I still can't get the words to say what I want them to say.

Saw K19 with Jen at the Regal. I didn't enjoy it- one doesn't "enjoy" nuclear-submarines-gone-wrong flicks, but I thought it was a good movie, unlike Stephen Hunter from the Washington Post, who always disagrees with me. It was very nervewracking. In a dramatic way. Also, besides wanting to strangle Harrison Ford for his silly Russian accent and his character's complete moronity (SEND OUT THE LIFEBOATS YOU FOOL!), though this wasn't because the acting was bad, but because I wanted the other characters to live so badly. Newspaper reviews aren't as good as I expect them, though the general consensus is that it's a good movie. I've read up on newspaper reviews later that Ford and Qui-Gonn's (quiet you) characters were total rip-offs of two characters from "Mutiny of the Bounty," which I have not read. Newspaper reviews also say that the movie was a total rip of Das Boot. Which I also have not seen. I think reviewers should "shut their pastry-hole."

Had lunch at Potbelly's afterwards with Jen and met up (accidentally) with Polomma (sp?), who was there waiting for Veronica (Not the Bivalve) to see two movies. So Jen left cuz her mom came to pick her up and I watched "Master of Disguise" with Paloma and Veronica. I think it's impressive that it got unanimously bad reviews, which is even worse than Battlefield Earth. And yes, it was bad, basically basing itself on.. let's see... offensive jokes about Italian accents, farts, and hideously big butts. Seriously. The farts were so predictable that after a while we were like.. 3..2...1...FART! And we would get it exactly on cue. I was like... why did I pay $6 for this??? Why??? But the credits/ stuff after the credits was hilarious, aside from the actual movie being bad.

"I am Gluteus Maximus! Are you not entertained???"

Have been discovering the joys of Final Fantasy 7 again, but have completely forgotten the storyline. This is the thing with RPGs.. by the time I'm halfway (or just a quarter of the way through), the story has become so convoluted that it just doesn't matter anymore. Same with anime serieses. The thing is, I can remember the areas and the characters quite well, just not the storyline.



Go and read 8-Bit Theater. It's a really good online comic based on FF1. And the art is surprisingly good.

"The difference, in short, between offending Christians and offending atheists is this: Many times, when you offend a Christian, it's because he sees chocolate ice cream on the ice cream shop menu and he hates chocolate, or his children love chocolate but he hates their chocolate. Common sense would dictate the offended Christian to not order chocolate next time or not let his kids eat it. When you offend an Atheist, it's because the shop only serves chocolate and MAKES HIM EAT IT. "

I've been having blog errors, so that even though I published, nothing would show up on the site. Fine now, but still annoying... it basically means that no one's gotten a chance to slog through a week or so of my ranting.

By the way, Alex&Nick... Powerpuff Girls is not showing at the Regal, severely screwing up my plans. I checked with Fandango- there are only two theaters within a 40 mile radius of Rockville that're showing it, so it seems too much like a pain in the ass to see it on the big screen. Maybe when it's on DVD. Are you people interested in seeing Reign of Fire at the Regal though? It's got the The Two Towers trailer showing in front of it. People say it's bad (Reign of Fire, not the trailer) but it looks interesting in any case.

Or I could just scrap movie plans and people could go to a Gundam Wing watching marathon at my house.. hmm?

I'm being quite healthy and stuff. Lots of DDRing. Saturday.. walked with my mom through Rock Creek Park to Lake Needwood, which I think we'll start making a weekly habit. I saw two deer in the woods that looked extremely frail and skinny. I really haven't seen deer that close up before. And when we left, there was a dappled deer that crossed the road and by the road, was suckling three fawns. And in Lake Needwood I saw a watersnake that drew back into the water when I came closer. I considered poking it with a stick, but that's the type of thing that wins you Darwin Awards. Oh yeah, that's wildlife viewing for me.

And then there was Alex's party. Lost overwhelmingly to Alex in Apples to Apples.

Andrew is sickeningly good at DDR, but complained about being too big for the pads.

Sunday. Went swimming at the Montgomery County Aquatic Center, which I hadn't been to in a few years. The kiddie pool isn't as exciting as I remember it being. And yes, apparently I still have my phobia of deep water. I refuse to swim in water deeper than 8 feet or so because it freaks me out. The water there got as deep as 18 feet (at the diving section) and it was so unnerving for me to see how dark a shade of blue it was. I honestly don't think that the type of phobia therapy where you're exposed to what you fear really works for me, because I used to learn swimming in water 12 and half feet deep, diving in it and things, I'm still as freaked out by it was I was then. Only now I'm taller, so 'neck height' is higher for me.