Short post.

Hey guys. I'm sorry I've been so out of it these past couple of months. I meant to post an actual post today, but I ran into some family troubles. Again, sorry! I'll see you guys next week.

Just another Magic Monday

Excuses!
Last week I was in Hawaii on Monday. It was a band trip. While people were wondering where my post was, I was conveniently far away from cyberspace, chillin with some very nice people from my country, and several from Australia.
The thing about Americans is that we love to misrepresent ourselves. Individually, most of us are pretty average. We're not actually fat. Most of us don't eat at MickeyD's for dinner every night. In fact, I would be willing to guess that most Californians (at least the ones in Hawaii with me) eat much more tofu than McDonalds. Just saying.
However, when you get several hundred of us together, there tends to be a certain group dynamic. People are loud, and possibly a little outspoken.
Nonetheless, all of our group members seemed to make friends with people from other places, which was lovely to see. Now we're all desperate to take a trip to Australia.

A new love! (well, several, but this is the big one)
Pole Vaulting.
It rocks. It's been so long since I played any sort of sport that I forgot how nice being fit is. Also, vaulting itself is awesome. It's something I can tangibly improve upon. generally, improvements come more slowly than I like. But with this I can always see my improvements. More than that, I can feel them. I know I've done well when I have, and there's no uncertainty like there is with school work.

Matters of Business:
1. Everybody should vote for Will Grayson Will Grayson for that award thing. Hm. That was supposed to sound a lot better.
2. Maybe we should all communicate a little more outside of the posts...Maybe.

That's it for now, folks. Enjoy your week!

Oh...And next monday I'll be in Canada. I don't think there'll be a post. Sorry!!!!!!!!

Another uneventful Tuesday.

Spring Break has ended, and I am back in school again -sigh-

I haven't been able to fully keep up with the blog lately, and I feel like it'll be a while before I can again. I'm being swept by so many new things! Including housing applications, scholarships, school work.

I feel even more determined to work harder because I just received news that I've been denied FAFSA. My mom didn't take the news very well, but I've been very (strangely) apathetic about it. It's not like there aren't other sources of money to be found. It'll be okay. I hope anyway.

I haven't really got much else to share, except that I bought a new pencil box that I am quite fond of.

It's Alice in Wonderland!

Laaaate post of lateness.

I never thought that the first time I posted late would be when I wasn't even busy, LOL. I'm on Spring Break at the moment, and have been out of the house every single day since it started.

I'll backtrack to Wednesday, the Fine Arts Festival. It went very well! I sang, I danced, people applauded. It was a lot of fun! And my dance group is planning on doing something for Senior Spotlight too.

On Friday, we had Pi(e) day in calculus in honor of 3.14.
Mmm. Pie.

On Monday, I went to see Charlene Kaye in concert. My cousin is her manager, so I went half out of support. But Charlene is awesome, and I love her music regardless. She sang a lot of new things. I only knew Dress and Tie, which she sang last.

Tuesday, I saw Red Riding Hood. I wouldn't suggest it to anyone else. It wasn't very good. It was shot very well, sure, but I like plot > visuals.

Today I went to the rodeo with my cousins. It was exhausting, but exciting! We poked at animals, we ate fried everything, we rode rides. While we were looking at Elsie (the Borden cow) she started power peeing into her stall. It was awkward yet funny at the same time... I can at least say I've seen a large mammal urinate now.

And now I am way too tired to report anymore. Hope you guys are doing well!

Musical Musings

I just bought Nevermind the Furthermore by the Remus Lupins and I'm blown away once again. One of my favorite wrockers has always been Alex Carpenter, but after listening to the same songs of his for a while, I sometimes forget why I like it so much. He is just such a great musician. The lyrics are what get me. They are poetic in the way I want poems to be.

We've been doing poetry based on the Westward Expansion movement in history/english this week and I've been sitting there doodling, waiting for a poem that doesn't rhyme. Don't get me wrong, I love rhyming poems, when they're done well. I don't like when, especially a serious poem, doesn't rhyme right and ends up sounding trite and ridiculous. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme people, don't force it!

Back to the Remus Lupins, I'd listened to a couple of songs on Nevermind the Furthermore and I suddenly realized that there was a lot of rhyming involved. However, unlike my classmates, these songs managed to use rhymes in a natural way. Maybe the music helps things flow better, but I feel like rhyming is a potent tool. Use it well, it is powerful, use it badly you risk massacring your message.

I suppose that's my review of music that turned into a rant against my classmates and their lack of rhyming skillz. Have a good week everyone!

Quotes!

Sorry about last week guys, i've started pole vaulting, and i don't have a large amount of time on my hands.

Anyway, today I thought I would quote some of my favorite lines from books. Original right?

" When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you stopped suffering when they did". Looking for Alaska
"Death is the one thing that one should be absolutely sure of as it's happening." Everything is illuminated
"You shall love thy crooked neighbor with thy crooked heart" The collected works of WH Auden, VI
"Humorous is the only truthful way to tell a sad story" EiI
" This is fear, I have lost something important and I cannot find it, and I need it" L4A
"She always knew he was a fiction but believed in him anyway" EiI
"'You are dying', Brod said, because it was the truth, the all-consuming and unacknowledged truth, and she was tired of saying things that weren't the truth." EiI
"With hands raised to the heavens, to the men who aim the spotlight" EiI
"If her soul ever leaks, I want it to land on me" Getting the Girl
"With writing, we have second chances" EiI

Sorry for all the Safran Foer, that's just sort of how it turned out. There were more, but a lot of them were entire pages. For example, the entire book "the little prince" Should be put in this blog. The same is true for many other things. Night everybody!

Panicked Musings

I hate missing what I'm not paying attention to.

I mean in class that's kinda-sorta annoying, especially if the teacher calls on you or its on the test next week, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean the big stuff, the kind of stuff that once you see it you start kicking yourself for not noticing it in the first place. It's like one of those mind illusions, you first see all the splotches, but as soon as it kicks into place that it's a familiar shape you can't stop seeing it and wonder how the heck you could have missed something so obvious:

I can't see the indiscriminate splotches anymore, all it is is a cow, even when I look for other, non-specific and non-defined shapes.

The same thing happened with my friend. She pushed me away this past week in a hurtful and abrupt way. As implied by the word abrupt, I didn't expect it. Then I do what I always do which is to start to analyze things to death. I'm great with that with life's problems, yet literary analysis just doesn't seem like my forte, that's a conversation for another day. So I started thinking, stressing and analyzing, going over our friendship, trying to see what I missed. It vaguely came to me over the course of two days. I stopped seeing the splotches and started to see the cow, or more accurately, the elephant in the room. Now I've got an elephant, and I need to figure out how to guide an elephant to safety. Did I mention I'm the mouse in this equation?

I know this is sort of vague, but I want to respect her privacy. 


Also, sorry about missing last week. I don't even know what happened.


-Emily

Tuesday Quick Post!

My dad just asked me if I wanted to eat, and I'm too nervous and anxious and terrified to stomach anything so I said no. Tonight's dress rehearsals for the Fine Arts Festival and I am totally not ready ;_; and the show is TOMORROW.

Anyway, I'm just leaving you with a spiffy video I just encountered. (Why yes, I do love stopmotion <3.)

Age of Information

The other day for dinner, we had some shrimp fried rice. I went to grab some orange juice, but when I turned around my mom slapped the drink out of my hands.

HER: No! That's bad!
ME: !?!?!?!
HER: Orange juice and shrimp is BAD! It makes poison!
ME: ...Mommy, where is the science in that?
HER: I read about it! Someone died from orange juice and shrimp!
ME: But how?
HER: The orange juice and shrimp have a chemical reaction and --
ME: Your stomach has chemical reactions all the time and you don't die from them
HER: -- and made a poison and KILLED PEOPLE.

Following this, I promptly googled "orange juice and shrimp" to see what would came up.

First I found a forum that told this story about a woman who ate a Vitamin C tablet before eating some shrimp. Somehow the Vitamin C reacted with chemicals on the shrimp to create the poison As which caused her to bleed out of her eyes.

I happened upon an article next, which said that the eye-bleedy woman story was a HOAX and COMPLETELY made up. Not only that, but it was an email that began circulating way back in 2001! I had been suspicious that this was some sort of strange house wife gossip, and when I asked my mom if she read this in an email she refused to admit it... only confirming my thoughts.

It's times like these I really see the disparity between generations. My mom, still relying on email for communication, immediately believed the forwarded message from a friend. My initial reaction was a raised eyebrow and a google search.

I wonder if that makes me more resourceful or more cynical than she is.

In the end, I still didn't get my orange juice D: