Second Deadly Sin

I'm writing a little story right now. I should have realized this earlier and rectified the situation, but I think it's too late now. The story is in second person.
I think I like having it in second person. Now, we all know that second person is weird and bad and icky, but there's something about it in this context that just works so well. I'm sort of playing around with the chronology too, so maybe playing around with time and playing around with narration work together. Maybe.
Anyways, the story is called (as of right now) A Million Reasons Why. It has (as of right now) three parts. It will be published on the blog soon-ish, which means sometime before NaNoWriMo.
In other news, I've determined my wordcount goal for NaNoWriYe. It feels like a huge and terrifying number right now, but I've decided on a specific wordcount goal for every month, depending on what I'm doing. For instance, I do not plan on writing anything in December, because December is the month of sleep. On the other hand, July, August, and November are looking like pretty productive months. If you can't tell, I'm very excited by this prospect.
I have the excel spreadsheet to prove it.

In which I fail

I went to the movies today. I was supposed to be meeting some friends there, but I arrived late, and I looked for them, but I couldn't find them. So I watched the movie alone and wallowed in my loneliness.
God, I am so whiny.

I like this idea

I had this idea last night, and I'm not sure if it would work or not. I'm considering having my main character be in a relationship. Not a happily ever after type thing, but to contribute to the "I've messed up my whole entire life" scene. I like this scene quite a bit, it's the only one I've thought out entirely, and it inspired the whole thing.
I hate happy endings.

Figuring.

I wrote this out of no where a couple weeks ago. I think it kind of pulls everything in my life together, but I'm not sure if I like having everything in my life pulled together like that.

I think I like books because I am an incredibly lonely person. When I was ten, I had no friends, so I read books. I was lonely and sad and angry, and no one at all knew what I was feeling.
Except for them. I could go to them anytime, and they accepted me and more importantly, they loved me back. That's why I write. Because Holden will always be lonelier than you, Harry will always be under more pressure than you, the Baudelaires will always be less fortunate than you, and Anne will always be more killed by Nazis than you. That is huge and comforting ot me, and I think it's huge and comforting to other people too.

I'm nearly to the end of Travels with Charley, and it's making me think about one thing. You already know what that thing is, probably.
I'm thinking about home. Not home as a place, but home as a set of ideas that you carry with you. I'm thinking of all these schools that aren't here. They aren't going to be here, and if I go to them, I probably won't be living at home. How doe we create a home for ourselves outside of the place we've known? Maybe this is striking me more because I've always lived here, but it does make me wonder. If I moved to some other city, how often would I see my parents? How often would I see my grandparents? How do you keep in touch with people when you never see them? When you're old, do you still have the same friends?
God, this idea of moving is almost as interesting as the idea of going to college. It would almost be worth it to move someplace else and not bother going to college at all, at least not right away.
We're going to forget that I ever suggested that last idea.
In other news, it's Christmas break. I'm allowing myself the weekend to slack off a bit, but after that I have to study quite a bit for APUSH and finish my extra assignment from physics and finish my self portrait for art and clean my room. There's a novel that needs a hellava lot of planning too, but I don't know when that's going to happen.

This is my life.

"It harbored many northerners whose hatred was directed not so much at slavery as at blacks and who gagged at the prospect of sharing the newly acquired western territories with African-Americans."
That's a passage from my APUSH book. I had to read it at least three times before it made any sense.
On the next page, "The overnight inpouring of tens of thousands of people into the future Golden State completely overwhelmed the one-horse government of California. A distressingly high proportion of the newcomers were lawless men, accompanied or followed by virtueless women." Does that irritate you like it irritates me? The biggest worries are men who break laws and women who don't have virtues? Does that mean that they dare to do things that men can do without anyone blinking an eye?
I do believe that it's time to bring out my angry eyes.

Quote of the Month

"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."
Mark Twain

A Gulag Sighting

Seen Here.
I had never thought that gulags were the Russian version of walking three miles, barefoot, uphill both ways to go to school, but there you have it.

Who let you go?

I can't believe you said that. I always knew that I was the fuckup and he was the saint, but did you have to say it to his face like that? You knew he was going to say it to me, did it really take a genius to figure out that I would ask you if you actually said it? It's no wonder that I'm trying to get away from you, when you do things like this.
I knew all along that I needed to do better, that it would matter one day. You should have realized. You should have realized all along that no one gives a damn about who I am, the just want someone with the right numbers.
I don't have the right numbers, but you don't have to go around using me as a poster child for why you other people have to be better than that. You could have at least asked me.
Just let me go. It's too late to change me, I'm already too set in my ways and self destructive.
Self destructive to the bitter end.

I hate this.

APUSH is killing me right now, and it really shouldn't be, but I really do focus too much on the big picture. Little pictures are important too, but not too little, those are like writing and don't involve hand movement. Scratch that. They involve hand movement, but drawing should involve movement at the shoulder.
French is getting harder. Harder. Hah. That really wasn't funny.
I'm making bread. I like bread a lot. That explains a lot of things, including, but not limited to, the size of my ass.
I'm in love with my new novel. It's pretty close to Dean, and Dean is the perfect guy. I will hate it more than anything else at some point in the next six months. Things like this make me wonder if I have a problem. I hate that I can't keep liking anything. I want to like a novel. I want to be dedicated to the stupid thing.
Or keep liking anyone, for that matter. The last time I had any kind of real relationship was the summer before freshman year. Tragic, that is. I saw both of the guys I was in a relationship with in middle school in less than a minute today.
We're not talking enough in French, but we're talking more than we did in French II. We're talking less than we did in French I. All we ever did in French I was talk. That's why I was good at it. I'm terrible at grammar.
Physics is possibly my easiest class right now. But it's not easy. It's really hard. That wasn't funny either. I think it's very strange that I'm thinking of science as being possibly my easiest class. I'm not a science person. If I had been blogging in eighth grade, I would link to some things right now. I can't memorize anything. I know three phone numbers. I know my address. In terms of numbers, that is it.
I kind of wonder if I should ditch the art school thing altogether and go to some college around here and get a degree in history and then realize that I have no employment opportunities. What do you do with a degree in history? Do you teach? I could never teach history. Ever. I have no patience
I should have gotten my last essay back before I have to write the next one. I hate that a lot.

Clearly, someone needs to get out more.
Are you doing anything in the evenings this week?

Balloooon.

I've been having one of those weeks where everything is a shade of grey. It's post-NaNo, post-break, pre-snow. Then...something awesome made my day.That rhymes.I am very sure that these are the best balloons in the world.I uploaded a third of the pictures from this to flickr, then flickr cut me off. When you use the timer, you end up with a lot of pictures. Funny, that is.The other hilarious thing today? My APUSH teacher has a tattoo of a polar bear on his neck. Because that is a badass tattoo. Yes, it was temporary, but I think it makes his chinbeard work so much better.
And because I like random bits of Euro, Machevelli reference of the day. Yeah, the fic is craptastic, but I laughed at it. Are you someone from Euro, Dea de Verum?

Thanks

I'm thankful.
I'm thankful for my family, even though they can be irritating.
I'm thankful for the fact that I don't have to worry about the things that a lot of people have to worry about.
I'm thankful for the chance to get an education.
I'm thankful for my books and the places they can take me.
I'm thankful for my friends.
I'm thankful for my readers.
I'm thankful for my blog.
I'm thankful for QuizBowl.
I'm thankful for the art program at my school.
I'm thankful for my health.
I'm thankful for Debate, even if it hilights my hatred of research.
I'm thankful for my writing, because it makes it feel that, for just a moment, everything might be alright.
I'm thankful for the fact that my life allows me to spend all day sitting around, writing.
I'm thankful for the fact that I just won NaNoWriMo.

This is why I write.

Lisel just stole a certian somebody's varsity jacket. The owner of this varsity jacket happens to have lettered in band and quizbowl.
Any idea whose this might be?
Any idea what this someone would do if they found out that they have been mentioned in my novel?

Real titles are for losers.

Today in Art, Mr. B and I were talking about colleges. This is most of what I do in Art now, I haven't worked on my project in a couple days. Anyways, he was telling me about this college that he found that says they're the only one in the country who offers a BFA in Curating. So that sounds pretty cool. He talked about the other college I was interested in, SCAD as well. He thinks that I'm not interested in SCAD because I'm talking about it from a purely academic perspective (the price, my chances of getting in, the programs they offer). Both of us realize that if I was really in love with the place, I would not be talking like this. I would be sort of gushing, like if I saw this building.This is the City Hall in Paris. Isn't it amazing?!?! Yeah, I know it is. And it looks so pretty lit up at night, and the whole inside of it was burned during the Paris Commune (Euro connection!) so the amazing restoration people made the inside all pretty again. Now, if I was one of these people, I would be giddy about this. And look at the ceilings!
Clearly, I just need to run around the world and look at pretty buildings. Does anyone volunteer to pay for this adventure?

Anyways, that led me to thinking about things that I would be getting really excited about, in terms of career plans.

1.Any kind of fiction writing job.
2.A job where they let me touch important old stuff.
3.Making a living off of this blog.

Now that we know this, I just have to figure out what I'm going to do about it.

Quote of the Month

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend..."
Neil Gaiman

My Family

I'm sitting in the living room, working on my novel, watching Glee (I originally wrote "gleeee") and my dad is playing fetch with my dog. This is how literature is made.
My dad throws the ball and it hit my chair, barely missing my head. He says "Oh Sam, I'm sorry. See Justin, when we almost hit Sam, we tell her we're sorry. When we almost hit you, we say shit, I missed."

Dear Character,

You suck. I don't like you. I don't like how you think of Lionel. He totally likes you, and you're just being a dipshit about the whole thing. I don't like the way you sound, I don't like what you talk about. I don't like you at all. I just want to be done with you already.
I don't know if I don't like you because you're a female narrator. As Justine points out, we probably wouldn't like Harry if he was a girl. Would I like you better if you were male? Should I make you male? Would that still work?
Huh.

Apparently

I have the humor of a boy who has gotten to the point where they know about sex and get dirty jokes, but haven't yet understood that sometimes you need to stop.
We were talking about l'imparfait in French today, which is a verb tense that means you did something or used to do something. One of those things was sleep (dormir is the infinitive, for the curious among you) so, being a generally curious person, I asked if je dormais avec so and so (I slept with so and so, I used to sleep with so and so) would mean just sleeping, or doing something else. Apparently it would mean doing something else, but you could also say that you went to bed with so and so. That's something you should keep in the back of your mind, in case you ever need to say that you slept with someone in French. Actually, that could come in handy.
And I just made the first dirty joke in my NaNoWriMo. I am consistently surprised by how long it takes for things like this to come up. Remember how I got to like, 20k in the Milton thing before I mentioned Machevelli?
My life is so interesting.

The Lovely Novel

I made this video a while ago. I hope you like it. I kind of sound like an asshole. The thing is, parts of it are actually true.

Why, hello Milton

I thought I had killed you off a long time ago.
Every once in a while a character comes along that has one distinct purpose. This purpose, of course, is to be a platform for my rants. Milton was that character. Lionel seems to be turning into that character.
The problem with characters like that is that they are crap. I have a bunch of character development stuff too, I'm just not really applying it like I should be. Grrr.
But at least I'm ahead of schedule.

Cracken of the Sea

So. My life is just being sort of nutty right now. This post will probably reflect that.

• Essays make me feel...Strangely alive. I had an essay to write for APUSH last night, and while I put it off, the whole thing made me kind of happy.
• The above is disturbing.
• I spent all of Art class today talking to Mr. B. Or rather, listening to him talk about me. Because parent-teacher conferences were last night, and my mom asked all my teachers (except physics and APUSH, probably) what carrears they thought I could have in their subject. Mr. B is basically thinking that I should do something that combines history and art and French. Like curating. At an art museaum. Probably the Louvre.
• But just sitting in the Louvre all day would proably make me really happy.
• Quiz Bowl, on the other hand, is not going well. At all. Mr. B (different person) thinks up a new way to study things every six months. The problem is, none of these ideas ever get followed long enough to see how they would actually work out, so we have these stunted studying plans. It's just messed up.
• I got a 93 on my APUSH test. I feel bad about this. That is wrong.
• My physics teacher told my mom that he expected me to do better in the class than I was doing. Because from my general demeanor, it seems like I should be doing better. Are you remembering what I'm remembering? Because this is too much like first semester of last year, when my English class was terrible. Just terrible. And apparently I seemed like I should have been able to do so much better and it scares me that physics might end up like that.
• If physics turns into something that's too much like english was, I will probably explode.

Je me parle

So. It's been a week since you posted.
I know. Sad, right?
Yep.
Well, I have excuses. I was busy. I took the ACT. And I had homework. And I was sick. These things take time.
Uh huh.
And I'm reading David Copperfield. I was telling myself that it was shorter than Anna Karenina, and if I can read that, I can read anything.
Why do you try to do these things?
And then I checked the back of the book.
Okay.
And it's eighty pages longer than Anna Karenina.
Niiice.
Thanks. I have APUS to do. God, that class just makes me
What?
It frustrates me.
If you took that long to think of it, one would hope that it would be a little more imaginative than that.
Shut up.

Genius

Best conversation I've ever had in my whole entire life
Justin: He used to live in that country next to Spain.
Me: France or Portugal? Unless he lived in the Mediterranean Ocean.

What? I knew geography at some point in time? Are you sure?
In other news, I took the PSAT today. It was worryingly easy. And now I'm doing my APUSH homework and realizing that the only way that I'm really going to learn how to write essays is by actually writing them. I'm thinking once a week until the AP test. Fun.

Quote of the Month

"If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." - Kurt Vonnegut

But Kurt, what if we don't have the nerve to go into the arts?

On My Mind

I have three things on my mind right now. They are copyright law, e-books, and primary documents. I could tie them together somehow, but that would be quite the strech, so we're leaving them linked by my lovely comma abuse.
Copyright law
I sort of feel like copyright law is becoming more and more irrelevant in the age of the Internet. I want to watch movies and listen to music for free. But, at the same time, if someone was stealing content that I made and making money off it, I would be pissed. In short, I should get content that other people generate for free, as long as I do nothing that would involve making money off it.
E-Books
I read the blogs of a couple agents occasionally. One of these agents had a post about the future of e-books. Before reading this, I was not a fan of the e-book concept (even though I've read novel-length works on my computer before) because it always seems to involve buying an expensive device that you can't even read all the books you want to on. I'm not particularly hard on my books, but I'd much rather ruin a four dollar used book than a two hundred and eighty dollar Kindle. However, he approaches it from a different perspective, which makes sense, considering that he's in publishing, not a reader. He thinks that this recession combined with changing technology will result in a rearranging of the publishing industry. This is similar to what I was already thinking, but he applies this to books instead of newspapers. I think that the newspapers that are going to be sucessful in the age of blogs and online news are the ones who embrace and use the changing media to their advantage. He thinks that the role of the publisher may no longer be editing books and printing them and sending them out to booksellers, but it will evovlve into more editing and marketing books. With e-books, one could self-publish very easily, but publishers would still be out there to edit and market a book, and many books would be more sucessful with the help of a publisher. I'm sort of warming up to the concept of e-books.
Primary Documents
Today in APUSH we got to hear about how we should participate in class more often. I participate in class, but during this talk I did my physics homework and pondered the reasoning behind my teacher's strange beard. A students use class time well. Later, we were finishing up this activity in which we read and analyzed a bunch of primary documents. I made a joke about how I was going to go home and analyze another group of primary documents and then write a DBQ. Just for the fun of it. The recepient of this joke thought I was serious, which made me consider actually doing this. If I can't sleep tonight, you know what you'll see on the blog tomorrow.

Drowning.

I was looking for something that I did last year at school. First, I checked the computer at school. It wasn't there, but I did notice how disorganized everything is in my files. Great. Then I check on the computer at home. It wasn't there either, but there's a possibility that it got deleted during the numerous reloads that computer has been through. I even checked some old stuff of mine, a story that must have been from seventh grade. It was terrible. That was when I realized that there was only one place where this paper would be. It would be in The Bin.
The Bin is where I keep all of the assignments I have done in hi!school (with the exception of my euro binder, because it has been deemed useful on a day to day basis. It's on my bookshelf.) I have this idea that I'm going to pull it out at my graduation party so that people can be in awe of it. I'm not sure why they would be in awe of it, but I know they would be. So I go in my closet, find the bin and open it. What's on top? The certificate from the time Justin and I got married. I failed that assignment. Digging a little deeper, I find my notebook from ninth grade English, a notebook from what must have been geometry, and some more failed assignments, these ones from research writing. Finally, I find it. My inch thick English folder. I open it up and see, to my surprise, more failed assignments. Pulling some papers out, I glance through them. Three copies of pieces of my research paper, the one that I did the bare minimum on. I pull out the paper I need, right behind that. Quickly, I put the folder back in the bin, put the cover on, and put it back where it belongs. Have to keep those memories trapped, or else who knows what will happen.
But they won't stay trapped in there, we all know that. They're going to seep out of the bin, and they're going to come looking for me. They'll come at night, when I'm rolling over and over again, trying to get some sleep. They'll come at school, when I least expect it. They'll come when I'm going for a walk, at random. I can't stop them now.
And what are they going to say? They'll tell me that I should have tried harder, that I shouldn't slack off like I always do. They'll tell me that I'm never going to be enough, never going to live up to their expectations, never going to get what I want. They'll tell me that I'm the perpetual underachiever. They'll tell me that I am impossible to change.
And I am impossible to change. They try to change me, they try to fix me again and again but it never works, and each time I get more stubborn, more set in my ways. Maybe it's just the way it's meant to be, maybe I'm just supposed to be the one who had so much potentional and failed so miserably. If that's true, at least I'll be sucessful at something, which is the status we're at now.

You. Yes. You.

I've been toying with this question for a while now. How do you react to what I write? I get some of it in the comments, but what I'm really curious about is more than that. I want to know what would happen if I asked every single person I know to read my blog and then saw their reactions. I don't want their feedback, because feedback is self-censored and boring. I want their honest reaction, what they really thought about it. I know this is completely impossible to do, but it would be the most interesting thing ever.
What would my brother's reaction be? He would think that I'm concerned with ridiculously dumb things, which is similar to my opinion of him.
What would John Green's reaction be? If John Green read my blog, I would die of excitement. So, if you are John Green and you are reading my blog, please tell me.
What would the people who came here looking for Henrik Ibsen and Gustavus Adolphus' last words think? They would be wondering how I found these last words and when I'm going to tell them. In time, in time.
What would Chris Baty think? He would wonder if this is what all NaNo participants are like.
What would Barack Obama think? He would think that, even if he wasn't really expecting the Nobel Peace Prize, it doesn't mean that the country is falling apart.
What would my teachers' reaction be? Some would think it's interesting, some would think I'm twisted coughdreskecough and need to get a job to occupy my mind. Except that I have a job. And my mind hasn't changed in terms of twistedness.
What would those people who write 300,000 word novels in a month think? They would point to this as why I have to put so much effort into writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. Because blogging can be a timesuck. But a fun timesuck, at any rate.
Did I write this blog post because I don't want to do my physics homework and am at a loss for what to write in my speech for debate? Yes. Go ahead, judge. Have I also been trying to make my characters for NaNo a little more 3 dimensional? Yes.
If you've read the same books I've read, you'd get the reference in this post's title. If not, that's okay. You probably read some perfectly fine books in their place.

Jour de la fusée

It was yesterday, and it was pretty awesome. However, not the best day of my life, as my teacher had said it would be.
My school was on the local news this morning for the football game of the week. If I had gotten to school at 5:30, I could have been on TV for having had pep. However, I do not like pep and could find something else to do at 5:30 in the morning. And we lost the football game to the team we've beaten for the past nine years. Oh well.
I have been doing more on the Milton thing today. That doesn't mean that I'm writing a lot, but it means that something is being written. Which is encouraging, but I really just want it to be November already so I can end this novel with "They all died. The end."
There are two blogs all y'all need to hear about right now.
The first is Fred's Blog. Fred is the director of the camp that I go to, and he's one of the most awesome people I know. Right now, he's going to Palestine as part of the Michigan Peace Team, trying to stop conflict without taking sides, very contrary to what our government feels is right. Good stuff.
The next one is ClubOrlov, which I think I've blogged about before. ClubOrlov thinks that the country is falling apart, and while he often sounds like a crazy person, he has a lot of interesting ideas. Today's post, about Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is quite uplifting. Everyone else says "Woah, no one ever gets the Nobel Peace Prize their first year in office! That's great!" and ClubOrlov says "Obama, you get a Nobel Peace Prize as a consolation for the fact that you'r country is falling apart and there's nothing you can do to stop it!"
I've been considering a sign off on my posts. HayleyGHoover has the whole Sexy/Unsexy thing, that one guy has "All the love in the universe." I need something like that. What do you think?

Shiny, That One Is

You know that idea? The one I had with the story every Sunday for a year thing?
It's happening. It's exciting and amazing and it's going to be awesome. And, I need one of you, my lovely readers. I need a volunteer. What do I need this volunteer to do, you wonder? I need an editor. I need someone who can read a story and say "Samantha, that character is a dumbass, and you need to learn how to spell "seriously". The story is tragic."
What would my volunteer get in reward? Well, I would teach them how to bottle fame and brew glory. They would gain my eternal love and adoration. They would get free hugs. They would get thanks in my Oscar speech. I would teach them the ways of the froomla. They would be internationally known as my protege. They would get to make cakes with me for the birthdays of dead playwrights who had amazing beards. They would learn how to say "beard" in French. They would get to listen to me rant about everything and anything.
These are rewards that money cannot buy, my dear readers. If you'd like to gain these sorts of rewards, you really should say so in the comments, and I would be eternally grateful.

...or something

"graduation didn't feel like anything
it's like dying in your sleep"
A friend said that to me today, and it seemed...profound or something. Because we can't live in the past and we can't live in the future, but what happens if you live in the present?
"And what is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaaneous.
"Was there time for her life to flash before her eyes? Was I there? Was jake? And she promised, I remembered, she promised to be continued, but I knew, too, that she was driving north when she died, north toward Nashville, toward Jake. Maybe it hadn't meant anything to her, had been nothing more than another grand impulsivity. And as Hank stood in the doorway, I just looked past him, looking across the too quiet dorm circle, wondering if it had mattered to her, and I can only tell myself that of course, yes, she had promised. To be continued."

Love?

I'm at a point where I'm wondering if I love it, or if it's just something that I like right now, but I'll feel differently in a few months or a year. I'm sort of talking about art now, but the question applies itself to everything in my life. Writing? French? Blogging? Running away? They're all things that I'm into (the idea of, in some cases) right now, but I'm not sure about them in the long term.
This goes back to Kendall.
Apparently for Furniture Design, they do let almost everyone in. Because it's all furniture, there aren't very many people who want to go into it. Like Auto Design, that's the only thing you do your entire time in college. I like furniture design. I like it a lot.
But really, I don't love it.
Do I love history? Maybe. Do I love writing? I might. Do I love French? I do right now. Do I love blogging? Sometimes I do. Do I love the idea of running away? I often do.
But do I love any of these enough to spend forever on them? I really don't think I do.
Sometimes, you hear people talk about passion. So and so is really passionate about something. It makes them happy. They can spend all day doing it, day after day. There's nothing that has ever been like that for me, and that makes me curious.

The thing

I just hit 30,000 words on the beast. Please do not comment on the fact that I've written 10,000 words every three months. Please to not mention that it has been recorded of people writing this many words in a day or two.
I'm happy with it.
When I think of my novels, I'm reassured. My first novel was terrible. I don't think I've opened it since December 2007, but I don't need to reread the thing to know that it's bad. I didn't actually reread my novel from November 2008, but I know what was wrong with it. There wasn't enough plot, the only thing I had was a premise, no conflicts. Conflicts make a better story, or rather, make a story at all. This novel is better, but it's still not what I would call good. The story doesn't flow right, the pacing is off, there's not enough actually happening. And it's not, you know, done.
But assuming that this pattern continues (historical patterns!), eventually I'll have a novel that is halfway decent.
And that's reassuring.

Do you know what today is?

It's a pretty freekin' big deal. It's October first. Le premier. This means that I am starting NaNoWriMo in a month. And that I have a novel with just under 30,000 words that I feel some sort of obligation to finish or do something with before I start the next thing. I'm planning this thing, and I really like it. It's an awesome novel. I'm not sure that I'm going to have enough to go off of in terms of planning (is this irony striking anyone else?) so I've been doing more of that. I'm in need of some names (male and female, first and last) for characters, so if you have any decent ideas, put them in the comments.
In other news, it's homecoming week. Or rather, it's nearly the end of homecoming week. This was the first day that I actually dressed up, wearing my maroon hoodie. It's class colour day. I do not go all out. Tomorrow's school colour day. I have not yet decided what I'm going to wear, but it won't be too exciting. And I'm going to the dance on Saturday. It'll be awesome. I have a dress. It's pretty. I think I'll even like, put on makeup.
In other news, I have Linux Mint. I love it a lot. It's like windows, only not craptastic. And I got a thing in the mail today about Ferris State. They sound interesting, and so I went to their website and checked out Kendall, which is the art school vaguely associated with Ferris State. They don't require a portfolio to get in to their Furniture Design (or Art History, but I don't care so much about that) program.
Just let that sink in for a second, then ask yourself how on earth they decide who they are going to let into the school. I don't know the answer, I'm going to ask my art teacher tomorrow.
While we're on the topic of answers, I have a story from APUSH to tell all y'all. The person who sits next to me in that class and I are sort of friends. As in, we talk often, but if I was bored on a Saturday, she's not really someone I would call. I would call the group, and they would do something exciting. But anyways, we have this thing to do that is like and unlike a green sheet at the same time, and I have a slight idea about how to do it. She spent half the block asking how to find patterns in history. I tried to explain to her how to do it, but she just didn't get it. Patterns in history are things that you see repeating, or emerging trends, or things that you know will happen again. That's what I told her, but she still didn't get it. In a few years, if I'm trying to think of a career, tell me that this is why I shouldn't become a history teacher.
Also, it's freeking cold here. I need to find a blanket or something.

Because I have a problem

The whole concept of the short story blog is sort of enchanting. It would be like 52 Stories, only they would all be by me. And it would be good to experiment with different concepts without the commitment of something longer. And it would force me to write when it's not NaNo time, something that, if you read my blog, you will realize that I'm not the best at.
What do you think? Will it go the way of Shakespeare or World History?

Nanowrimo...and...

I'm thinking about my NaNoWriMo right now. I have ten characters (well, I will have ten. Now, I have five) which is pretty much record breaking. I think the real purpose of this year is to make me a better writer. Their are more characters than I normally have, they should all be presented in somewhat different styles, and most importantly, there will be dialogue! And descriptions!
You should be excited too.
But I'm not sure if I like it. I mean, the whole plot is the sort of thing that could be good when done right and terrible when done wrong. I suppose that's true with most book concepts, but it's especially obvious with this one. It's a bunch of characters who are each linked to each other, but they don't see the bigger picture of how they're all linked together. That explanation doesn't make sense, does it? It's like a chain. The first link doesn't realize that it's linked to the last one, just to the second link. So when one person does something, they're affecting all the other characters, but they don't really think of that.
What do you think about that idea? Should I ditch it and write something that takes place entirely in one person's head *cough*Milton*cough* like I always do? Should I go the fantasy route, even though I don't really like to read fantasy? The exceptions to this are Harry Potter and As You Wish, which is considered urban fantasy, probably why I like it. The main issue with me and fantasy is that it too often avoids thinking of the characters of people who have normal feelings and normal reactions by just thinking that it doesn't have anything to do with reality. Or should I write science fiction? I've always sort of thought of that as an extension of fantasy...
Before I started writing this post, I had a very concrete idea, but now I have crazy random concepts swirling around me and not a clue what should actually happen.

Laws of the Universe

That, in short, is physics. Or at least what I understand physics to be about. I think I like physics because it all works, and it's solid. it's not some abstract concept that's all subjective. That's what solid is.
I went to a funeral home tonight, and that was when I realized that the laws of the universe don't always work. It was the visitation for my friend's dad.
The laws of the universe say that sixteen year olds don't lose their fathers. The laws of the universe say that really awesome people don't die. The laws of the universe say that people who can't handle that sort of thing shouldn't have to go. The laws of the universe say that no one should have to bury their child.
I know what you're saying. You're asking why I haven't realized this before. It's not like this is the first time I've known someone who died. Wasn't Steven's death more of a injustice?
That was breaking the laws of the universe too. Kids shouldn't die, and people my age shouldn't have their parents die. That just isn't the way it's supposed to work.
And how are you supposed to deal with that? Can you really get over that?
And now I have to think of something that I did tonight to write about for French, because lord knows I'm not writing about this.

Horrible

Two horrible things are happening right now.
I'm working on my Quiz Bowl thing. It's not going well. It's taking forever, mostly because the internet is a very big place with lots of exciting things. Much more exciting than the Civil War.
I have an idea. It's one of those ideas that's bad enough to actually do. It involves the internet and painful writing related challenges.

Let's face it

My default blog post format is a list. This is a terribly exciting list of number one things. Because I'm a winner.
Number one thing that worries me-APUSH, because I don't think we're ever going to get through it all
Number one thing that I am excited about- NaNoWriMo, because my idea is such a win. And if it wasn't for it, I would have started the thing already, but it sort of needs more time to...marinate.
Number one thing that made my day-Connie coming to Physics with me!
Number one thing that made my day yesterday- Fred telling me that my input was useful in writing this article about camp.
Number one thing that made my day the day before yesterday- Realizing that I had 199 volunteer hours over the summer.
Number one thing that I must finish tonight-My quizbowl thing. I'm presenting tomorrow, and it's...barely started. Woohoo for procrastination!
Number one thing that I must finish before Friday-My failed physics lab.....
Number one thing that I must finish sometime, preferably in the next month- That horrible story that is sort of the bane of my existence, but will not get out of my mind unless I actually finish it, and "They all died. Scar."* is not going to cut it.
Number one thing that makes me sad- Debate this year. It's just...eugh.
Number one thing that I have a one track mind about writing a bill about-Farm Subsidies. They're really really bad. Well, they're bad in the form in which they're executed in America, making corn much too cheap to grow, which causes it to be a huge part of the American diet. And then we send food to developing countries, which makes us look good, but completely ruins their economies.
Number one thing that I want people to shut up and make a decision about already- The healthcare debate.
Number one thing that I know all the freshmen will write bills about-The healthcare debate. Or there's the classic abortion bill, but I like to think that that debate might be done finally.
Number one thing that I should not be doing right now- Blogging.
*If you get that, please note that we should probably be best friends whose conversations are laced with Harry Potter references.

Quote of the Month?

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
Teddy Roosevelt
I actually took a picture to accompany this, but...let's just say that some ideas work better in my head than they work in real life.
Is it tragic that my biggest accomplishment in the past few days had been watching all of JK Rowling: A year in the life? And that I've written next to nothing on the story?
Yeah, that's pretty tragic.
I really need to blog about a bunch of stuff, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it. There might be a braindump in the next week or so.

Back to the Future

I really do love the Back to the Future movies. But they're not completly relevant to this post. Deal.

I started school yesterday. It was fine, pretty uneventful. My first class was World History, which made me nostalgic for Euro. Euro was amazing, but I don't think World History will be as good. But we watched a video today that said "From the office of Charles and Ray Eames" at the beginning, which made me a little bit more excited than I should have been. I mean, Eames videos for school!?!? It wasn't as good as I expected, and it had nothing to do with their furniture, which made me a little sad. Next time, we are watching a video about furniture, not get my hopes up with the Eames intro and have it be about scale.

And then I went to French. I haven't taken French since I was a freshman, and that's a longer gap than anybody else in the class. Win, there. Actually, I'm worried. But we got French names, and mine is Margot. Sort of like Margo.

It's the little things that matter.

And then I went to APUS, which should be a good class. A pretty small one too, only 17 people. We did this activity about a house that is now in Greenfield Village. Apparently Henry Ford was walking around, pointing at houses that he wanted to buy and haul off to Greenfield Village, and this house was one of them. His people took some pictures of the outside, took the walls apart, and sent it to Dearborn, where it sat in storage for thirty years. Then, someone finds it and decides to put it back together to display it. They have no idea what it looks like on the inside, because they didn't take any pictures of the inside. THEY DIDN'T TAKE ANY PICTURES OF THE INSIDE. Why would you do this? They had cameras, at the very least, they could have drawn out a floorplan or something. What was wrong with these people?

Physics should be good. My teacher is really into the idea of our class being a family (yes, this reminds me of freedom writers. Not sure if that's good or bad.) I was sort of in awe today when he explained how much he loves physics. It started out like "You guys are so lucky to be taking physics. Out of all the sciences, what? Chemistry, it's all based around the atom, and the atom is just modern physics. Biology, that's just classifying stuff. But physics, physics is everything."

And then QuizBowl, where I felt completly out of it. Just all unmotivated and horrible. Ehh... I'm going again tomorrow, and it has to be better than this!

I feel like I'm adjusting to school much faster than I have before. It's the second day, but it feels like I've been here weeks. Huh.

Reasoning

I don't really want to go back to school. I mean, it's nice to be on a schedule again, to have concrete objectives and everything. I'd like to see everyone again, to be back at quizbowl again. Classes are going to be good, I think. This will be the first time in Hi! School when I haven't had English first semester, first block. Funny.
So it really does sound like I should like going back to school.
But going there every day exerts this negative energy over me. I ignore it for a while, but tonight, I started thinking about it again. The conversation started innocently enough, my mom was asking me when I was planning to work next week. I was going to work on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. She tells me that she's worried about me getting home at nine on Tuesday and not having any of my homework done. I tell her that it's the first day of school, the homework usually amounts to bringing back a signed syllabus and academic honesty sheet. Not too hard, I should be able to work. But that's not what I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is that no matter how much time I have to do it, I'll never do it well enough. Hell, I'll probably just procrastinate and not end up doing it at all, that's how you fail classes that you should be good at. It won't be as easy as everyone else makes it look, and even when I give it everything I have, I'll fall short. I'm the one who had all the chances, who had everything going for her, and threw it all away. I'm the weak one, the failure. And I try to stop it, try to tell myself that I can change, but I'm stuck on the downward spiral, negative after negative chasing me. There's always that point, when that one thing sets me off and I'm stuck thinking of how horrible I am at everything I try, no matter what I can find a way to fail, to fuck it up. That's me, the fuckup.
I wanted this school year to start out optimistic. That's what I do, I convince myself that I can change, then I go right back to my old habits. But now, that hopeful veneer is blown early on, and I'm stuck here.

So of course I'm excited to go back to school.

The funny thing is, I felt totally optimistic an hour ago. I could conquer the (value) world. I was looking at colleges. I was figuring out the rejection rate for City Year. I was making big plans, getting all nostalgic for the future, then this thing just hits me. I can't be here right now.

Swoon

This is amazing. If you are live near me and are my friend (and happen to be in the market for a limo) I strongly encourage you to buy this. And drive me around.

In which I am completly insane.

I have just written what I consider to be the greatest paragraph ever. Of course, my opinion of that paragraph may change if I dared to reread it, but we're going to refrain from that for now. It's very ranty. It reads the same as 80% of my blog posts. We may be seeing a trend in the tone of my writing and blog posts, but we're going to act like my writing has an actual style, not just that of me sitting down at the computer and ranting.
I went to the movies twice today. The first time, I saw The Time Traveler's Wife. It was cute. I read the book, and although the book was confusing, I think the movie made more sense having already understood the plot. The second time, I saw Julie and Julia. It was captivating and it made me want to cook something. Did I tell you that I made naan last week? I did. It was good. I took pictures, but I'm not sure about the location of my camera, and even if I was, I'm much too lazy to actually get the pictures off of it.
I watched The Prestige on Saturday, and the whole time I was thinking about storytelling. The movie tells it all very interestingly, so that you don't really understand what's happened until the end. It's given me a lot of concepts that should be applied to my NaNo, but that depends on which plot I use. Really, I should find a way to work them into my current story, but... when we edit. Because I will finish the beast, and then I will edit it, and then it will be lovely.
Registration is tomorrow, and the very thought of it makes me sick. I really don't want to go back to school this year.

I couldn't tell you how many times I listened to/sang/hummed this song today. This isn't the original, but he has a cute accent.
I'm thinking that Apollo may be my new favorite character. He's like Milton, only he seems to know what he's doing, and he's more of a leader. And he has a different past and different relationships with people.
I guess he's really not like Milton.
In other news, I did some brainstorming for my NaNo this morning. As in, I wrote out 13 story ideas. They range from completely ludicrous (inanimate objects with feelings) to vaugely possible. And there's a lot of metafiction ideas happening, which will end up being interesting or horrible.
Also, these pictures are absolutly delicious.

The Difference.

When I was twelve, I wrote an essay about how JK Rowling was my role model. A part of me still wants to be her.
I just hit 20k on Milton's story.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is 257, 045 words long. Because I'm the kind of person who can only measure success in 50,000 word increments, that's more than five NaNoWriMos.

Kazoo

I just had this idea for a wildly interesting thing. What if you wrote something and could have a bunch of famous writers (some of whom are dead) read and critique it? There could be some sort of computer program where you could tell it to review your work the same way Ibsen would, or Poe, or Milton, or anybody.
Yeah, I'm actually awake at 7 am without anywhere to be. I'm worried too.

Quote of the Month

Because everyone and their brother is suddenly planning on doing NaNoWriMo.

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed."
Ray Bradbury

Haunting.

Yeah, I was wondering how long it would take before Machevelli got used in the story. I finally used it. Honestly, I'm surprised that I got to 13.5 without using it once. I actually used it 13,989 words in. The old man said it.
I'm not sure that Euro will ever leave me. And I think I'm okay with that.
We're going to have another question day soon! You're really excited, I can tell. Put your questions in the comments on this post, and they will be answered. It'll be fun.
I'm wearing this shirt today. It makes me happy. And I finally got a picture of the house I will live in. Someday.The people across the street may have been mowing their lawn and may have given me a funny look while I was taking pictures. Maybe.
ETA: OH MY GOD! Apartmenttherapy+Threadless=Threadcake.

I'm a winner. Basically.

I've been on quite a roll with the story. I've written about 800 words today, but I feel like I have the energy and ideas to write another 2000 or so, which was my goal for today. I feel like I've progressed in the plot by leaps and bounds, and that makes me very happy. We're approaching jazzhands territory. Milton has friends now. Friends! And a romantic interest! This is so exciting, right? Annnnnd there's enough plot to make things happen. I might actually reach novel length without using all the ideas between 30 and 40k. I am very muchly proud. Even though my father seems to think that it's a rip off of Catcher in the Rye.
The only reason I have to be less than happy is that the doctor wouldn't let me keep my teeth. Which I really wanted to. Because I think the tooth fairy would come.

Contained

The reuburbia finalists are up here. You should vote for your favourite. Or you should just vote for LivaBlox. Because it's pretty awesome. Also, it promotes smaller houses, which are always a good idea.
This is a clip about somewhere they are actually being used.



Worst idea? Let them Burn. What a fail. And it uses Devil's Night as an example? Devil's Night is not about making Detroit a better place, and it doesn't help anyone.

I just need to vent

I'm not good with people. Recent involvement in the group is the closest I've come to making friends in a long time. I was planning on sleeping over at my friend's house tonight with some other people, and we were going to watch the meteor shower. And it was going to be really awesome.
I get home this evening and ask my parents if I can go. I've slept over at this friend's house before, with their knowledge. They say no. I eventually persuade them to let me go, but they want to go and meet all my friends and make sure that there's other girls there. No one else's parents have ever done this. They say that I could have people over here, as long as we're quiet, and we have to have a chaperone if there are boys here. Yeah, we can have a sleepover, as long as we don't do anything and have my parents watching. That sounds like a fucking blast, doesn't it?
My mom is even staying downstairs and reading. Of course, she would normally be in bed by now, and I'm sure it's just a conincidence that she's down here and I want to go somewhere. I wonder if she thinks I'm going to sneak out or something?
I've never snuck out. I've never had alcohol without their knowlege. I've never had sex (hey internets! I'm just going to let the entire world know that I'm a virgin. There.). I've never smoked anything. I don't even know where to get drugs if I wanted them. I've never done anything to make them not trust me, but they want to meet everyone who's going to a sleepover before I'm allowed to stay.
This is why some people coughmiltoncough don't really have relationships with their parents.

Milton

He's currently sitting in a stranger's house, reading. He has recently eaten a piece of bread with peanut butter on it and marveled at how normal this house feels while the rest of the world is empty and screwed up.
I need some help from you. What does Milton look like? As with all people who I don't know in real life or see pictures of on a regular basis, I imagine him looking astonishingly like me. But Milton shouldn't look like me, because that is weird. This is where you come in. The story has no physical description of Milton, and it should have something. Tell me (in the comments) what you think Milton should look like. Be descriptive. Be a winner.

The Interwebs

I'm thinking about the internet and how it blurs the line between fiction and reality. More specifically, I'm thinking of Paige Railstone, publishing, and John Green.
DJ Railstone intrigues me. Am I more real than she is? I, after all, am not a DJ and have never been to Estonia. Her life is probably more interesting than mine is. She has more internet presence than I do. She has more fans than I do. Is she real? Am I real? Or am I an effort by myself and the people around me to create something that fills a space? This concept is making my head spin just a little. If Milton had his own website and facebook and twitter, would he be real? If Hogwarts was a real castle with real students going to school there, might Harry Potter be real?
Publishing is interesting. I really don't think that novel legnth fiction is dead, but I think that it's changing. I think it's possible that it would be normal to read most books on a FanFiction.net type website. Everyone could publish things and make money off of them, but the ones being the most sucessful would be the ones who have the most readers, getting the most advertising revenue. I'm not sure if this site would be free to read or not, but if it was, you've got a lot of your copyright issues gone right there. Still, the idea of never having a paper book to hold and read and hi-lite (okay, I can't write in most books, but some people do) sort of bugs me. And yes, I think it's cool that the internet messes with things that have been the same, physically, for hundreds of years.
John Green makes fictional characters real. It's not his writing, although that's good. It's stuff like Omnictionary, having facebook pages for fictional people, having nerdfighters, having the school in Looking for Alaska be remarkably close to a real school. This is really cool. Authors like John Green and Jackson Pearce (although her book isn't out yet, so I have not idea how real the characters will become) feel like real people, and that is really, really cool.

Adult

At camp, I was an adult. Not a teenager who had been granted permission to do something out of the ordinary, but a full fledged adult. I was responsible for other people. I got up early. People looked up to me.
I think I like this. At least, I like the camp version of being an adult. I think it has responsability without so much stress. That's the kind of adult that I think I need to try on every once in a while, just to remind myself what it's like.
And I got to drink counselor coffee. Which is hilarious.

Rebecca

I finished Rebecca (the Classic tale of Romantic Suspense!) last Saturday. It was really good.
What I thought was sort of strange was the DeWinters' relationship. Mrs.DeWinter feels like she'll never fit in at Manderly and is sort of distant from her husband in the beginning of the book. Then, she finds out what happened to Rebecca, his first wife, and everything is suddenly better. If you found out that your husband killed his first wife, wouldn't it make sense to be a little bit freaked out? The only thing she was worried about was him getting caught.
Also, Rebecca was sleeping with her cousin. Creepy!
Also, am I the only one who would go to someone's home before getting married to them?
Also, Manderly sounds absolutly amazing.

Reunited

I had a most excellent time at camp. I was a counselour at pioneer camp, which was for fourth through sixth graders. I could write ten more posts about what I learned, and you'll probably see them in the next month or so. But really, the exciting part is this:
My pants are back!
That sounds very strange, so I'll explain a little more.
Last year, I went on a kayak trip to Grand Island in Lake Superior. I had all my clothes packed in plastic bags, and my the bag that contained two pairs of shorts and one pair of pants went missing. So I wore the same pair of pants for the entire trip. It was gross. I had written these pants off as lost. Last night, the people who went on the kayak trip this year got back the assistant director of the camp, who went on the trip, had found my pants when she looked in the hatch of the tandemonium. This made me laugh. A lot. This is wildly awesome. It's like getting new clothes, but without the trying on a bunch of stuff part. Here's some pictures. Because I'm a fan of pictures.Also, commies know how to party.
Also, I have trouble knowing how to react to some situations. So, for right now, we're just going to act like everything's okay, even though it might not be. Right? Right.

Amazing

Yes, I did laugh my head off at this.And this website is about living without money. The guy is a crazy hippie, but I think he has some interesting ideas.

It's baaaack!

Things that need to become popular again:
"Flapjacks"
Cloaks/capes
Zombies
Calling people. On the phone.
"Not!"

A very bad idea

At some point in October, I will probably have the following conversation with someone I know. If you are that someone, please respond accordingly.
Samantha: Guess what?
You: What.
Samantha: I had this great idea for my NaNoWriMo!
You: Let's hear it.
Samantha: Okay. It takes place right after the seventh book ends, but it disregards the whole epilogue.
You: You're writing a novel length Harry Potter fanfic?
Samantha: It'll be awesome, I know. Anyways, it's going to be right after the seventh, and it's going to be this angsty DMHP thing going. It'll start out with Harry feeling like he has no more purpose, because he's already defeated Voldemort, and then Draco will be regretting everything he did during the war, and then they'll meet and have this sort of reconciling, where they realized that they have no reason to be hating each other. And the-
You: Samantha, this is a really dumb idea.
Samantha: What, do you have a better one?
You: Yeah. Remember Milton? Isn't he awesome?
Samantha: Well...yeah. But the real problem with Milton is that he never talks to anyone.
You: That's because he's the only character.
Samantha: That's his fault, not mine.
You: What? Just give him some friends.
Samantha: The whole book is supposed to be happening in Milton's head.
You: Do you ever listen to yourself and realize that you sometimes sound kind of dumb?
Samantha: Do you ever listen to yourself and realize that you're a bitch?
You: Ouch.
Samantha: Sorry mate.
You: You can't pull off saying "mate".
Samantha: This is why I need to write a novel length fanfic.
You: It'll sound bad in that too.
Samantha: It's just that...
You: What?
Samantha: The world needs another ridiculous Harry Potter pairing.
You: The world just doesn't need you to write it. What you need to do is spend some quality time with Milton. You aren't writing a DMHP fic. It will end badly. They always do. Go read some, and notice that they always end the same way, and it will never be good.

Readers, I know what you're asking. You're wondering why I must be stopped. Here's why.

Everything felt surreal. He had defeated Voldemort two weeks ago, and the very idea of that seemed impossible to Harry. He had wondered, for a very long time, weather this would ever happen, and here it was. It had happened. He had won, and now he didn't know how to react. He'd imagined this before, he'd thought of how he would win, what everyone would think of it, what everyone would do. The one thing he hadn't imagined about it was what he was supposed to do afterwards. What happens when you're the boy who lived, you're the one who was alive mainly so he could save everyone from Voldemort, and Voldemort's dead? What are you after that?
Ever since the night he won, Harry had taken to wandering the corridors at Hogwarts. It was a strange sort of nostalgia that he had for the school. This was where he was first exposed to magic, where he had met everyone he knew, where he had saved Sirius, where he had watched Dumbledore die. Hogwarts was his home more than anywhere else, and now that he didn't need to stay there anymore, where was he supposed to go? He couldn't go back to the Dursleys', even if he wanted to. He couldn't go to the Burrow, he would feel wrong, butting in on their family right now. He could go to Sirius' house. No, his house. This was a good idea, at least he could be alone there, he wouldn't have to be around the people who were so amazed with him. Yes, that was what he would do, go spend some time at his home. He started on his way up to Gryffindor tower to gather his things.
~~~~~
Draco was walking down the corridor, contemplating everything he had done. He had killed. That one word, killer almost defined him. And he didn't know if he wanted to do it. Ever since he had become a Death Eater, he didn't know if he had done anything that he really wanted to. And now, now the Dark Lord was dead. He didn't have to do what someone else wanted, but at the same time, he couldn't do whatever he wanted. He couldn't betray the other supporters, but he had no desire to be one of them.
"Malfoy" A voice said. Draco looked up and saw Harry walking in front of him. Out of all the people who could still be at Hogwarts, Draco didn't expect Harry to be one of them. Harry hadn't even turned around, he was still walking, looking at the stone walls with fascination, as if he had never seen them before.
"Potter" Draco quickened his pace, while Harry slowed his until they were walking beside one another.
"It's weird, isn't it? Weird to still be here, when everyone has left." Draco was rather astonished, it seemed as though Harry wanted to have an actual conversation, not just throwing around accusations and curses.
"Not that weird for me. For you, it's weird that the Weasel and Mudblood aren't here."
"They're off celebrating, I guess. Well, not really. Ron's brother died, so that puts a bit of a damper on the festivities."
"Ah." Draco paused, staring at the floor "I've been wondering why you did it."
"Why I did what?"
"Why you were so set on killing the Dark Lord."
"I didn't have a choice."
"You always have a choice to make." Draco responded, almost instantaneously.
"Okay, then why did you choose to be with Voldemort?"
"I was meant to. It's a family thing. And really, it didn't seem that bad."
Harry chuckled and immedietly regretted it when he saw the look on Draco's face. "How can Voledmort not seem that bad?"
"We had the same goal as you did, Potter. The only difference is that you won."
They were silent for a bit.
~~~~~
Harry had never thought that their goals were anything alike. The Order wanted to preserve peace, to keep people safe, to let the muggles live. Voldemort wanted to kill people ruthlessly and seize control.
"No." Harry said softly, and then a little louder. "No, no they don't. We stood for everything good and you stood for just trying to topple that. I understand asking for forgiveness, but saying that your people were just as good as mine were is just ridiculous and wrong."
Draco was abnormally calm. "But what if we had won? What would you be saying then, if history was viewing us in a better light, if we were the ones writing the history books? You would be wishing you were on the winning side, Potter.
~~~~~

If you actually read all of that, I am very sorry. The reason I need people like you is to prevent me from doing stupid stuff.

POOP.

Well, this just sucks. You know the canoe camp that I'm going to next week that is going to be superfabulousamazing?
It got canceled.
There were three of us signed up for it, and we had all gone to CIT together. And then one of us backed out and they can't run a camp for two people. So I'm going to be home all of next week.
Grr.
I plan on spending as much of the next twelve hours reading fanfiction and drinking tea as possible. This is as close to watching chick flicks, wearing sweatpants, and eating ice cream as it gets.

Huh.

That's the vauge title of the day. I hope you like it.
This is where they should have filmed all burrow scenes. It's pretty much awesome.
Also, I saw a car that I want and can afford. It's as old as I am. And then I found out how much the insurance would cost. Car insurance is freekin' expensive. As in almost-twice-as-much-as-the-car-expensive. Poop.

This is worrying

Yes. This is a trailer for a video someone is making about how much they love Sarah Palin. Yes. Be afraid.

Paused

I hit the pause button. And now I'm wandering around while everyone else is frozen in place. I don't think they can see me and I don't care if they do. And I run and climb and scream and laugh and it's amazing. And I throw a rock at a window. It bounces off. I punch people, I just bounce back. And it all stays the same and it's comforting. But at the same time, it's scary. It's not supposed to work, the pause button. None of them, nothing except for play is supposed to work.
But even when it's going okay, even when you hit play, it's scary. It's really scary. Because with play comes the questions. Questions that are hard to answear. Not "Name the author of Ghosts" or "What's the capital of Bangladesh?", I can answear those. These questions are like "Will you ever be anything?" "Do you want to go on?" "How are you going to get out?" "Will you ever get out?"

And that's what really scares me.

Ten Kinds of Awesome

Harry Potter is. And now I'm going to go watch the fifth movie, because it's very blurry in my head.
Thing that was awesome:
The flashback scenes. They were all in this sort of green light that made the orphanage feel like the depressing place I imagine it to be, and I thought it was sort of interesting to see a not-as-old Dumbledore.
Thing that scared me:
When they're getting the horcrux, they're trying to go back, and there's this shocking hand grab. I kind of screeched.
Thing that was strange:He was wearing a suit the whole time, except during classes. And everyone else was wearing jeans, and no one thought that was odd. Also, I kind of want the slicked back hair again, like it was in the first two movies. I also thought it was weird how he seemed to wake up in the hospital wing right when Harry and Dumbledore got back, and then he got up there...and was wearing a suit. If the guy who you are out to kill is there and venerable, do you waste time getting changed? No. You go kill him.

I feel very sorry for the kids who will read Harry Potter and never be able to go to a book or movie release. It would be so wrong to have heard how the series ends without having read the books as they came out. Tragic. Soul crushing.

Quote of the Month

"This boy will be famous. There won't be a child in our world that won't know his name. There will be books about him, he will be a legend." Minerva McGonagall

What?

Has it actually been more than a week since I blogged? Yes. Maybe. Yes.

Monday
Go to orthodontist.
Find out I must have my wisdom teeth out.
Get pissed.
Do other stuff.
Write a letter.
Try to make a video.
Youtube has matinnce.
Damn you, youtube.

Tuesday
Work.
Work on world history stuff.
Think that it's monday for quite some time.

Wednesday
Wake up on couch.
Don't remember falling asleep on couch.
Serve lunch.
Plan epic escape.
Make dinner.
Plant salad box.
Plan more epic escaping.

Clearly, I am planning an epic escape. Where to, I'm not sure. Somewhere I can live in a tiny house and walk everywhere and have a cute garden. Because the cute garden is of utmost importance.

This is funny

A truck just drove onto my lawn, hitting a stop sign and a tree. This is funny. But I am not laughing, because my parents would give me *that look*.

News

I've been at camp for the past week, being trained in how to counsel children. I had a lot of fun. I kayaked across a lake. I slept outside and saw a million stars. I joked about stealing cheese from the Baptists. I got annoyed at another camp's bell. I was amazed by a pepper. I led people. I ate an otter snack. I got a bite from something on my eyelid. I was amazed at some people's ability to pay such attention to stupid things. I put my entire group through a tire. I got mosquito bites on my scalp and the backs of my upper thighs. I understood all the Bob Ditter jokes in the world. I had a lot of fun. You can see pictures here (the Counselor in Training one). I'm planning on going to Canoe Camp. There are scholarships available. Anybody want to come with me?
Michael Jackson is dead. Today, almost 16,000 children died from hunger related causes. Which is a bigger deal?
I got started on the WH stuff today. I am strangely proud of that, even though it's not that big of a deal. Whatever.
Hilariously stupid people: Yesterday, we had family over at my house for my grandma's birthday. My great-aunt was one of those family members. I don't really get along with her for numerous reasons. We had sponge cake for dessert (there is a dessert comment for another time) and she goes on this crazy rant about how the cake is upside down. In her mind, one should take the cake out of the oven and flip it over. She then states that the part that was on the bottom in the oven is now on the top, and this is wrong. Please note that she has assessed the status of the cake wrongly. The cake is currently placed on a plate in the same orientation as it was in the oven. My grandma says that yes, we generally flip this kind of cake, but it tastes the same upside down as it does right side up. My great-aunt goes on to say that my grandma is the only person there with a brain. Please note that she is yelling about a cake. Also note that she has previously baked a cake that had a similar consistency to sawdust, as several reviewers have stated. And people wonder how I feel about having all my family near me.
In other news, I'm seeing Food, Inc. tomorrow. This is what vegetarians watch, people. Dorky vegetarians, that is.

Father's Day?

So this is Hank's latest video.

Watch at 1:33. The dads whose parenting is bad, whose sons end up murdering half of Leningrad?

Eww.

I had finals today. I did decently on my Commercial Art presentation. I think it was too short, it kind of felt like I got up there and said "Uh, hi. This is my room. It is modern. Yay." My civics final was worrying. I thought I had a 93% in the class, but I actually had a 90%, so I really need an A on the final. It wasn't that hard, but....I need an A.

Quote of the Month

The products of a twisted mind could be our end, but they have equal ability to be our new beginning.

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." -Alfred Whitney Griswold

All planned out

"I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing."- Oscar Wilde

Today
Work on the Goddamn Bio Review of Pain and Agony
Write a little bit of the story
Go to the AP show

This weekend
Find someone to hang out with
Plan WH testing out

This summer
CIT!
Camp! Have I told you how I love camp even more than zombies love brains? Another post.
WH studying!
Finishing that damn novel
Going to King's with friends and buying all the books I could read in my whole entire life

Next school year
APUSH! So exciting!
Edit that novel

After I graduate
City Year!
College. Maybe. Somewhere.
Epicness.
Move somewhere exciting
Paint wherever I live a grayish blue and own a lot of books and have a wonderful vegetable garden and spend all day doing what I want and being fabulous.

Are you Okay?

Maybe. Not really sure.

I wasn't going to blog today. I have too much homework, and I have this bio test tomorrow that isn't my final, but it's still a pretty big deal.
That bio test is the reason I am borderline not okay.
I'm getting a B in bio. An 81%. And then I have 2% extra credit (!) and I have a test and a project to do before the final, which is worth 20% of the grade.
So if I get a really good grade on this test, and a really good grade on this project, and a really good grade on the test, then I could get an A in this class. I want that A.
Understandably, I'm a little freaked out about this test. And it's sort of paralyzing. And I know I want to do well, but what happens if I don't do well? Then I'm screwed. Well, not screwed, but I'm letting them be right. Other people seem to percieve me as someone who is really smart. And then they find out my grades and decide that because my grades aren't awesome, I'm a dumb kid who hangs out with smart people. Someone in my bio class told me this (in less words) today.
And that pisses me off.
Because I don't think being good at school automatically makes you smart, and I don't think being smart automatically makes you good at school. I sort of think of them as two vaugely related entities.
I think I'm reasonably smart, but not that good at school.
And yeah, you could explain that away by saying that's how dumb kids make excuses for their stupidity.

Just. Just... Nothing.

I want to do this if I grow up. I feel like it's like running away, like just pulling a Margo Roth Spegielman and just leaving and not turning back and it sounds so wonderful and free and right now, that is what I want to do. And that's why what I'm saying makes no sense, is because that kind of free is too hard to say.
And now I'm in school and then we're going to have summer and then I'm going to be a counselor and that is going to be pimpin' and I'm really excited about it. And I'm glad that I'll have something to do this summer.
Have we mentioned my extreme fear of 11th grade and how that relates to college and the future and how they want me to make concrete plans that don't involve leaving and never turning back.
I don't really want to go to college. But I'll probably end up going anyways, because that's what you do.
I'm having a sudden flashback to Accepted, when he says he doesn't want to go to college, then his mom says that you have to go to college, because that's what you have to do, that's the way that the world works.
Okay. I have this friend who says some things a lot ("Brown Kids", "Retard") and during school today, she was saying this. Then someone wanted her to stop saying brown kid, and then I said that getting her to stop saying brown kid is like getting her to stop saying retard, it's never going to happen, and then like three people attacked me for saying retard. And it bugged me, because I didn't say it like that, but whatever. It's done.
I need to get working on my euro project. I'm thinking that I haven't been working during class because class is not in the middle of the night. That's pretty much when I work best.
Eshwar says that he's the coolest kid ever. I'm not sure if I agree. He's in my personal bubble. Justin wants a mention too. Not my brother. The other one.

Why I am so far Behind...

I'm sitting in Euro. Justin is lecturing about the personalities of days of the week. I think he should teach history. He does plan on teaching history, so that will be pretty funny. He's just decided that Monday is male. I don't feel that monday is really male. Monday is really androgenous to me.
Anyways, I haven't gotten anything done this block. But I really feel like it was still useful, more useful than Bio was. I have a lot of crap to do this weekend. Civics crap, Bio crap, Euro crap, life crap, working. Working is pretty hilarious. I sell earth poision. 'Tis fun.
Annnnddd...
I finished reading two books last night. Because I have no life, yo. Wide Awake-Levithian, and The Cold War; A New History
Awesome wildly exciting thing I found out yesterday: I'm going to be a counselour for at least one week this summer. The dean emailed me yesterday, and I'm going to go to Pioneer Camp. It will be pimpin'. Church camp...

Woah

Twenty years ago. Pretty interesting.
I feel like there was a hell of a lot of history that I totally missed out on.

AHHHHH! SO EXCITED!

My purple carrot seeds have arrived. Just in case you thought it was something important to the rest of the world.

Baby Muffins!

I made mini muffins. They have bananas. I like them. But I left them in the oven for a little too long. Like, they're not really burned. But almost. I am wondering if it would be weird to get one of these as a tramp stamp. Yes. Probably. Eames Chaise? I am finding pictures of giant windows for commercial art. I have 150 square feet of windows in the room I'm desigining. I'm writing in short sentences. I'm finally working on my bio review.

Feel the Epicness

My hair is dark brown. Really dark, actually. I actually think it makes my skin look lighter/pinker. I'm not sure why.
I had a really fabulous day today. I got my practice ACT score back, and it was decent (but I didn't get a 40 like I really wanted to). And then I went home to work on my Bio (I finished like...two questions. Going up to do more when I finish this.) and then I was getting ready to drive my brother somewhere, and Makena called me. We ended up finding a four-leaf clover and wandering in downtown Ann Arbor doing fun and exciting stuff (and taking 30 minutes to find a freeking parking space). And then I went to Andrea's, and we got into shenanigans. Actually, I showed her my pot garden. And then we called people. We went and picked up Makena and Manogna. And then we went back to my house and played ping pong. And then we made an epic fort. And then we drove to Target and bought things and stuff. And then we went back to my house and dyed my hair. And then we watched the first episode of Power Rangers. And then I drove everyone home. And then I ate seven crackers with cream cheese on them. And then I sat down to write this blog post.

WANT

To make awesome ninja furniture, like this guy.
Egg noodles. Especially when they're cold.
Yes, if I had an iphone, I would have to get this. It would make my life.
This guy to come to my intentional community.
Because these would make me giggle every single time I see them.

Yuck

I ate a ton today. And now, when I really should be doing more homework, I feel like sleeping. Or puking, for that matter. And I've gained five pounds since...well, I don't know when. Awesome.

Stuck in List Mode

This article continues a question that I've been thinking about for a long time.
Today I've...
Answered 230 questions about my character and what coworkers think of me for Panera. If I'm going to be earning minimum wage, is that really necessary?
Whined about my mosquito bites and the giant blister on my toe.
Thought many times about my Civics project.
Thought many times about my Commercial Art project.
Driven around my city. Nothing fun, just running errands.
Eaten several cookies worth of cookie dough.
Actually baked cookies.
Eaten too much.
Watched YouTube videos.
Slept in. Until ten. If sleeping in is ten, you know that the man has taken control of your sleeping patterns.
Considered my future.
Built a scary amount of a five year plan, in the spirit of Joseph Stalin.

Big Plans

My day was pretty epic. Et tu? Non. N'est epic pas. See my ninja French skills. I'm taking French III next year. It might be useful to learn a little more of that.
I've decided that if I grow up, I'm going to change my name to something like Sun Ray and build awesome kickass ninja houses like these. But I'm going to live in an old house with very little excess junk. If you come over, you're probably going to have to sit on a pillow on the floor. Just warning you. I'll let you stay there if you participate in my "let's be crazyass hippies and grow weird vegetables (PURPLE CARROTS) and have fun" lifestlye. You should come to my crazyass intentional community.
Anyways, I got new shoes. They're not nearly as comfortable as my old ones, even though they're the same. Maybe they're just not broken in enough? Probably.
I'm off to find some purple carrot seeds.

On My Mind

We're in bullet point mode again.

• I'm thinking about dying the middle layer of my hair. This probably won't happen, but I'm just visualizing it. You think it would look good?
  
• I drove my great grandma around today, and I'm just noticing how much she's loosing her memory. She didn't remember her address, and she told me the same thing three times in 20 minutes.
• I'm trying to write that thing again.
• I have no life.
• I'm reading Ghosts, and I like it. He actually says what he means and doesn't try to have this crazy hidden meaning stuff, which makes me happy. Either that, or the crazy hidden meaning is just too complex for me, and it's all over my head.
• I'm starting to think that I have some sort of writing long things disability.
• My aunt gave me money for my birthday, and she gave me a lecture about how I should use it to buy a study book for the ACT. WTF? If you're so into the idea of me buying a certain book with that money, why didn't you just give me the book?
• I rode my bike today, and it used random muscles that I don't use for any other purpose. I have never noticed this while riding a bike before.
• Oh yeah. Bio Review of Pain and Agony. Didn't work on that at all.
  

Huh?

I was in Commercial Art today, and I turned in my drawings, along with a paragraph explaining everything in the room. The substitute teacher looked at it and asked me if that was all I wanted to add to my room. It wasn't empty, but she seemed to think that it needed more stuff. It was kind of puzzling. If it's an ideal room, why should there be clutter? That's what my ideal house looks like, smallish without a lot of excess.
Why do people like their stuff so much? Stuff really isn't that great.