Rushed Tuesday Edition

Oh my. It's been nearly a month since I blogged here o__o

...how did that happen!?

Well, lately I've been busy studying for all my AP tests and the normal omg-I'm-graduating-holy-frickity-frack business that comes along with the end of senior year. Prom is next week! I'm looking forward to it, but I've yet to buy a dress. Heh. I'm like the only one among my friends who hasn't.

Uhm, anyway. I'M SO SORRY for not posting ): This shall be fixed!

See you next week!

Echo... echo... echo...

Hello? (hello... hello... hello...)

It seems like nobody is here. *looks around* Well, that's strange. I suppose... everyone's out and about having lives.

I've been doing BEDA this month on my personal blog. I considered VEDA, but I thought I'd be too busy to film and edit a video everyday for a month '~' Especially since I've got to work on a number of videos for contests. (Like this one, for Robyn Schneider's Knightley Academy series.)

Today's pretty exciting for me, the bookworm, because two of my favorite series are releasing books today. City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare and Where She Went by Gayle Forman. I just got an email saying that they shipped. At minimum it'll take 3 days to get here, but I don't have such faith in the postal service...

If you've been lurking around Twitterverse, or the youtubes, I'm sure you've taken notice at the sheer amount of Nerdfighters who are candidates for the NextUp program!? I've been really excited for everyone and voting everyday for so many! I'd list all of them... but there really are a lot of candidates, haha.

Here's wishing they do well!

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.

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!

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:

Playlist Tuesday

I love how my top25 most played on iTunes is actually a really accurate representation of what music I have on my iPod: Glee, musicals, youtube/internet artists, JPop... and Maggie Stiefvater.

Though I'm not sure why the first two songs have so many more listens than the others LOL. Almost twice as much as the third song.

I don't really know what this says about me as a person, though. Uh... that I listen to anything with great lyrics and a catchy beat?

I see you drivin' round town with the guy I love and I'm like... forget you! (Oo--oo-ooh!)

SHUFFLE!

Don't unplug me or or or just shut me out, please just love me with with your steel heart!

And that was a "I don't know what to blog about Tuesday" with Sandy! So. Uhm. Uh. WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DO YOU GUYS LIKE? Does it look like my playlist XP?

See you guys next week!

*somersaults in*

Emily, I wish you and your family luck. I am so sorry to hear about that.


I suppose my thoughts don't matter post Valentines Day, but here I go. I agree with Ellen and Rachel. A lot of my friends were bashing V-day, but I think it's a pretty harmless day. It's marketing/media that makes it seem like a couples only event. When really, it's just a day to spread more love, love, love.

Today was the Economics Fair! Where my partner and I debuted our thingrings. They sold out in the first ten minutes of the fair, which was TOTALLY AWESOME! There were a couple of people who came by after it sold out frowning that they missed out. The only downside is that we could've charged so much more for them if we'd known they'd be so popular! Even so, we ended up with a $71 profit, so I guess that wasn't too bad :D !

Now I have the Fine Arts Festival to look forward to! Auditions were rescheduled, so I'm having them tomorrow... which means I should really be preparing now! My posts will probably become shorter and shorter as the day comes nearer and nearer...

Hope you guys have an awesome week!

Still super busy D:

In fact, I may be even busier this week than I was last week /cry.

This week I have auditions for the Fine Arts Festival, which I mentioned in my last post. It's an all-day talent showcase, unique to my school only. No other schools in the district does this (and we have this in addition to the annual charity/talent show!) This year I'm in a dance group with my friends, as well as singing a Disney medley solo. I'm not too nervous about auditions, but rehearsals and auditions take out a chunk out of my schedule. Some days we practice until 7, oi.

I'm really excited for all these new things coming into my life, but at the same time very nostalgic and sad. I was just performing in LAST year's festival - wasn't I!? It's hard to fathom I'm graduating in a few months, and I'm a bit reluctant to be a big girl and venture the world quite yet.

Anyway, I'm still buried in this pile of work so I'll report back next week.
Signing out!

One hundred and one!

100 is a beautiful number. This also means we're 27% through our first year, a little more than a fourth! That's pretty darn awesome. I was touched that you guys liked my music video so much *___* Taking the time to say thank you!

I have a LOT of new things going on in my life. Fun things, thankfully, but very time-consuming. They come in three formats.
a) the Economics Fair
b) the Fine Arts Festival and
c) Chinese New Year.

I'll probably talk more about A and B once they come closer, but C will be this Thursday! The third of February. Though the actual day is well, a day long, celebrations last all through the month. My favorite part is probably the receiving of money part. I quite like money. But there are also some weird Chinese New Year traditions that I'd like to share:

1. You aren't allowed to wash your hair.
This is supposedly bad luck, like you're washing out all your good fortune or something like that. Again, this is a month-long thing, but the holiday's become Americanized so we only skip on the day of.

2. You cannot buy shoes.
More bad luck stuff. The word for "shoes" in Chinese also sounds like "misfortune." I don't buy many shoes but...

3. You cannot but books.
THIS IS WHERE I DIE. The word for "books" sounds like "lose" - people don't want to "lose" their money, their good fortune, or whatever... which means I suffer for a month because my mom refuses to buy me any new books.

See you guys next week!

Boring day today.

*stares at blog post*
*looks down at keyboard*
*back at post*
*sighs*

I have nothing of interest to share today ):
Though I am very excited for the 100-post meebo chat next week :)

I mentioned this before but I did enter Ministry of Magic's music video contest! Threw something together last minute and uploaded my video on Sunday. I waited all Tuesday for Luke to post the results, but eventually had to go to bed so I didn't see it until the morning after.

Happy to say that I landed third place! (See my entry here.)

It's only been a week since then, but my excitement has long since died down XD... Or maybe the disbelief has taken root even more strongly than before.

See you guys next week!

Books of Awesome

This was hard to narrow down. So many books that I love, love, love!

1. Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, The Demon's Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan, Graceling series by Kristin Cashore
--> The three have action, adventure, humor, romance, fantasy: all the things I love most

3. If I Stay by Gayle Forman - made me cry, made me rethink what I felt about life. Beautifully written. A book about love and a book about choices.

4. Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins - absolutely breathtaking, shocking, and haunting. This is the only series that made me cry the second time around reading it.

5. Shiver series by Maggie Stiefvater - unique prose, well-written, funny, and makes you laugh while you cry

6. Stolen by Lucy Christopher - I still get shivers thinking about this book. It's so psychologically intense. I know the ending will make me cry, but I still reread it over and over again because it's so beautiful.

7. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine - the book that first inspired me to become serious about writing. Loved the main character, the writing, the story.

8. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss - has an amazing message delivered in a cute format.

9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - I am not a big fan of classics, despised reading Wuthering Heights and I got bored halfway through The Scarlet Letter, but Jane Eyre is so intense - written so very well. The two leads bounce off each other, have so much chemistry, you can't help but keep reading. I'm very excited for the movie coming out!

10. Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols - I don't read much contemporary, but this book is extremely well-written, the characters are so well-defined and have so much chemistry, and the dialogue is hillarious!

And some books I've recently read that were really awesome:
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (made me laugh so hard!)
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (beautifully, beautifully, beautifully written)

PS. Does anyone have a goodreads account? It's a cool site where you can win free books and keep track of the books you've read. You can add me as a friend here, if you'd like :D

I think last week's posts were abducted by UFOs.

Happy Tuesday!

I went and reposted my post from last week, but I don't know if that did anything o_O Emily's post was saved as a draft, so that needs to be posted. Let us pray that the aliens will leave our blog alone this week so we won't miss anything!

The state of my room reflects the state of my mind at the time. Right now I have papers all over my floor as a result of a) this stupid research paper that is stupidly stupid and b) preparing to shoot my entry for the Ministry of Magic music video contest. The stupidly stupid research paper actually requires a lot of my attention, so this post will be realllly short.

The other day my friend posted on her facebook status: I feel like we're running down roads. Some people already know where they're going, others are just following a road already laid out for them. I don't know which road is the best one.

The best answer to this would probably indeed be found in Rachel's post: "Everybody ends up somewhere."

And then following up after that, "I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful." (Psst. Happy belated National Alaska Young Day.)

I wanted to suggest a theme for next week; a book week theme! Because I know we all love to read, but the only book I know we've all read is Harry Potter. So, next week, I think we should each post a list of our top 10 favorite books or something of that nature...

And speaking of books, today is awesome because I started reading Jellicoe Road and so far it is amazing.

I must confess...

First Tuesday post of 2011! LET'S GO.

Confessions;
1. I worry that, if we continue this blog for another two years, the title of our blog wouldn't be applicable because I'll be 20...

2. Sometimes I won't like something purely because a lot of people do. I just like being contrary. And there's also the fun of discovering something totally indie that nobody else knew about.

3. The year 2011 feels especially surreal to me because this is the year I graduate. When I was younger, this year was some abstract date in the future and now... it's here.

4. Though I've had my license for over a year now, I am still terribly afraid of driving. I don't like the idea of all the responsibility. (Translation: I am a wimp!)

5. I get really irritated when people post clichés as their facebook status. I get even more irritated when someone else comments and says, "Wow! You're really deep!"

Resolutions; (which are much shorter!)
1. Finish manuscript for #TheNovel
2. Finish editing my nanowrimo novel
3. Updated my youtube channel at least twice a month
4. Read 130 books (to beat 2010's goal)
5. Make friends and be less awkward.

Goodbye, 2010.

I'm feeling a bit depressed because I just watched Kristina Horner's last video on 5AG... and I know this week will be very sad after watching the other girls' videos as well.

I've never really said it, though I think it's really obvious judging by my lame-o posts, but I just discovered the world of Nerdfighteria this summer, got into ALL CAPS at the start of school, starting watching 5AG at the beginning of November, and am now entering into the wizard wrock world. Oh, and how could I forget - I started this awesome blog collab in August.

When I joined the ning, I was just in awe about this place that was so full of awesome I desperately wanted to be a part of it as soon as I could.... and so, here I am.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't been too good with being involved with this blog. I throw together posts last minute, skip around, sometimes I don't read your posts. I think it's harder to be together in a blog than a vlog, because a blog requires you to mindfully participate whereas you can just sit and watch a vlog. (But hey, considerably, for our first time I think we're doing pretty good. We're almost at 100!)

But that isn't a good excuse. So in 2011, I really want to start being active with this blog - although I suppose I'm 5 months too late in that, huh? I feel like I owe it to everyone, though, so I'm going to try. This is my resolution for the new years.

I know there's been a lot of confusion lately as to what we're doing. I've got a number of ideas that I want to share with you guys. I think we need some sort of communication to keep outside of this blog so we can stay on track, since apparently discussing things on the blog doesn't seem to be working out. But as it's the holidays, I think we can worry about that later. I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas. See you in 2011!

Merry Christmas!

I'm wondering if we can push back the Creative-Exchange thing even further, because I've been really busy as of late and am not sure if I can come up with something next week. If we do push it back, can we make next week about the Confessions theme that we never got to doing?

I stayed up late last night so I could watch the lunar eclipse, but I ended up not able to see it because it was so darn cloudy =__=...

I woke up on last Friday LATE. I missed the launch of #p4a and was in a panic for the next couple of hours until I uploaded my video. I forgot to eat until my parents came home and found me crouched over on the computer with this face O___O in mad spamwow commenting mode.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch the livestream of Saturday but WOW. The videos on the p4a youtube page make it look amazing… and it makes me feel lame for missing the livestream.

This is my first year participating in #p4a, and I never knew it was such a big an awesome and amazing thing. At least, it definitely was this year. It's mind-boggling to think that so many different people can come together for the sake of awesome!

Anyway, if any of you guys made a P4A video, I'd love to watch it! (Even if it's a bit late now, haha...)

I hope you guys have a happy holiday! Cheers!

A bunch of things on a Tuesday.

I find it funny that the week after Ellen said: Yay! Everyone blogged this week... this week's Monday is missing, XD... IS THIS PUNISHMENT TIME? *evil maniacal glint in eye*

I think Emily's idea is cool. We should go through with it *nodnod* and it would be cool if we did it next week, so it'd kinda be like a Christmas-y thing? If there are no nay-sayers, we should post our exchanges next week, yes?

As of today, I'm officially on Christmas break. THANK GOODNESS. These past few weeks of school have probably been the most painful and excruciating I have ever faced D: My poor grades reflect my agony!

Is anyone planning on making a video for Project for Awesome? I've chosen a charity (Amnesty International) but I have no idea what to say about it. *scratches head* Help?

Also, I've been obsessed with the three music videos the Ministry of Magic has put up on youtube. The House Song has been stuck in my head all week. ALL WEEK. (I'm a Ravenclaw myself, btw. I don't think we ever asked each other what house we were in during that HP week- so WHAT HOUSES ARE YOU IN? [/random.])

Despite being on break, I actually have a lot of things to do (all Christmas related, haha!) So I can't blog for long.

DFTBA,
Sandy.

Another Tuesday...

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE. SO VERY COLD. D:

I'm quickly mass-replying to everyone's post here because... I can.
Emily, that journal thing sounds like a cool idea. Good luck!
Maggie, I don't think you're being punished... yet? Unless you missed three posts already? I don't think anyone is keeping track. And that old man is...strange.
Ellen, congratulations on completing your NaNoWriMo goal! *showers and applause*
Rachel, if you did do that - what would you send off to people?

I think the confessions idea is interesting, and it would give people ideas for punishments >D For example, I now know Ellen is fixing to get a microphone so if she ever gets three strikes, then we could force her to record something embarrassing >D (Or something like that. I don't meant to pick on you, it was the first example I saw/thought of.)

Speaking of punishments, I think we need to set up some sort of system to keep track of strikes. Like... can we add some sort of box/module on the layout or something? If nobody else knows how to to that, I'm willing to try.

And lastly, has anyone seen the latest vlogbrothers video? Because... I'm totally in it >D Try and find meeee!

Thankful.

Things I am thankful for: (I know it's only Thanksgiving in the US, but as a resident I have a right to blog about it!)
1. The Internet - for bringing me so many awesome things. For example? Youtube. This blog. Nerdfighters. Music. Books. The world. Just... everything.
2. My parents - for dealing with me even though I am a brat.
3. Books - for providing me with mindful (instead of mindless) entertainment.
4. Harry Potter. 'Nuff Said.
5. Numbers - for making this list very neat and very organized.

PS. Unrelated, but I think everyone should watch this. It is made of awesome, I promise.