nanowrimo is done, thank god

So you know that really frustrating habit Kings of Leon have, where they either write really, really good pop-rock songs or really, really terrible pop-rock songs? yeah. Well my friend made me a mixed CD (my first mixed CD!) a couple days ago, and this was on it, and yeah..I was reminded of that.

Nanowrimo is over, thank god. I won! Got to 50k at about eight in the evening on Wednesday. It was surprisingly early for me. And I’d been having to catch up on a number of missed days work. It got tiring. Nanowrimo is a cool experience and I’d recommend it to anyone to try, but you do become completely worn out by the end of it. Thursday was hell because the last four weeks of all the energy spent on this crap came back to haunt me, and I was just a zombie for most of the day. I had no energy to do anything and much of the school day was spent trying to consume all the sugar I can just to keep me going. And I went to bed at nine, got nine hours of sleep, and I still woke up completely exhausted. I doubt I’ll have time to catch up on much sleep this weekend, either, because I have a quiz about cellular respiration on Tuesday and it’s the hardest unit in bio this year and I’ve literally been unable to pay any attention in class this week. I had no idea what was going on, at all. Well, actually no one has any idea what’s going on just because the material is so fucking complicated, but the majority of the class already has a benefit over me in that they were conscious, I assume, for many of the lectures. I’d just throw in the towel and make do with the D I’d be sure to get if I looked over the stuff for twenty minutes, but a couple of people expect me to do well. I’m not trying to be arrogant. I’m not smart and I don’t do outstandingly well in school. Somehow on the line, I might’ve gotten one or two passably good grades in that class and now there’s a president. How the really intelligent people at school cope with this, I’ve no idea. It’s frustrating how I just succeed something realty difficult, nanowrimo, and now I’m thrown into something also very very difficult. I can’t be granted a moment’s simplicity in terms of the work I need to do.

At least it’s December. It’s been a very warm November and with the change of the month I’ve moved from the “please don’t get cold and snow” mentality to the “I will be suicidal if we don’t get a good amount of snow by Christmas” mentality. I love December so much. There are gonna be a lot of irritating things to do in school. I have nightmarish memories of the science project I was doing this time last year. But! There are pretty Christmas lights and cookies and the malls are all gold and red and plastic Christmas trees. Advent calenders, too. Crappy Christmas movies. Christmas Christmas Christmas, basically. My aunt’s coming to visit in a few weeks and I have a holiday piano recital in a couple of weeks where I’m going to play a really embarrassing rendition of Silent Night. I am too sentimental and too attracted to things that are beautiful in a banal way. Hence, listening to carols and watching the Snowman every day this month.

A few days ago my mom spontaneously decided it would be a cool idea to go see the Boston Ballet do The Nutcracker Suite in Boston with my sister and aunt. I’ve never seen a professional ballet and I’m not very familiar with the show (except, like, the Sugar Plum Fairy, obviously. That was a ‘jam’ about two weeks ago for me, god knows why) but I do like the Tchaikovsky I’ve heard. I also love going into Boston, which is a totally underrated city by the way, especially in the evenings for shows and stuff. We got tickets for the 29th, I believe, and I’m super excited. Also, Kasabian released North American tour dates! Got tickets for March, at the House of Blues. I love Kasabian, and I love the new album. I’ve never seen them live before but they look like an amazing live act. The music seems to work very well for it. Listening to things like Fire live sounds too good to be true.

Today has been a crazy week. At least, for our school. Over the end of thanksgiving break, a story surfaced about a hazing incident that happened with the basketball team over the summer. I’ll spare you the details; it’s really unpleasant. Some then- juniors were being douche bags to some then-freshman. And it was pretty serious and it’s caused quite a stir. It also spread like wildfire. Before the week started, we’d had three or four local newspapers publishing short pieces on the incident. Mid-week, we’d gone statewide. And by Friday we’d been featured next to the kardashians on yahoo worldwide and had Fox news reports harassing kids leaving school for information. Because of the huge popularity of this story, anyone who I don’t know irl may actually know what I’m talking about. It seems a weird thought, but people have had relatives in, like, Costa Rica calling them to ask about what’s going on at our high school, so it wouldn’t surprise me that much. There isn’t a great stream of information coming from the school about it, so I’m thinking the whole thing will dissipate come Monday. Some people have been expelled, one of the victims has moved schools, and they’re still looking into the coach’s role in this. (secretly, I think the coach is annoying as hell, so i don’t really mind whatever consequences he may get). Our school is hugely into the sports stuff, and there have been some accusations that the kids who did this were still allowed to try out for the team this year. I don’t know. I don’t mind our town, but everyone else avoids it like the plague. Hey, we’re mentioned as one of the uber snobby towns in Catcher in the Rye and now, our basketball players are evil, yay. It’s been, as my biology teacher put it, a bit of a “rough patch” for our school this week.

Oh, but when it rains it pours. Yesterday, the teachers of the town passed work to rule, which is going to be implemented come January. Some time last year it was proposed, as a way to cut spending, that 20% of the high school staff should be fired, ands the remaining 80% be given an extra class each year. Ever since then, the teachers have been fighting this. A few weeks ago, they started picketing outside each morning to oppose the idea. And that wasn’t working,so this was a plan that came about, and now it’s gonna happen. It’s all kicking off round here at the moment. The kids at the school basically hate the idea, and it annoys me because now they’re claiming that they care about the teachers (as my history teacher explained to me earlier today, the teachers don’t think they can handle having another class), even though almost no one have a damn about the teachers until it directly effected them. I’m trying to have an opinion on this, but I’m just sick to death of living in a school system who have absolutely no idea how to handle money. They’re like, yeah, let’s build new schools and buy new projector things and get nice computers and get a youth center and let one of the middle school health classes buy fucking bouncy ball things to replace their chairs (I kid you not), yeah that all works, oh but buy the way we’re getting rid of loads of teachers and they’re gonna give you shitty lessons because of it. I don’t know the details of it, but it just looks like the most reckless, self-indulgent spending you could possibly imagine and I find it difficult to care too much about any of this because of it.I doubt the work by rule thing will stay long and it doesn’t affect me as much as most people, anyway. I mean, it’ll just work out the way it always does with the school, in that someone proposes an idea to save money because they have absolutely no money, then loads of people get angry about it, then the idea is resolved, and it all works out that way until we built up to the committee feeling they have to make a genuinely awful change, like this. Whatever happens with this, the school will keep buying its shiny things and keep trying to change things after. It’s sad. Sad and irritating for all, involved, I think. Again—“rough patch”.

It’s interesting watching all the mundane things still happen around school with all this going on. All things considered, it hasn’t been a terribly bad week. I fell asleep during bio lectures, which I will regret when I’m frantically up studying the stuff late Sunday night. Watched videos about the Cold War and took a difficult quiz about World War II. Continued reading, discussing, and doing group work on a Lesson Before Dying. Still, I don’t understand the appeal of that book at all. Watched a slightly weird Chinese film during philosophy club. That's it.

Yeah, so, good night everyone.

i want christmas already, dammit

I'm just such a holiday person. I was talking about Halloween last post, and then my mom dragged me along to this craft shop to find pumpkin carving things, and of course they already have decorations and tinsel and stuff out, and I just remembered Christmas is one of my favorite things in the world. This year, I'm gonna buy Surfjan Stevens' collection of Christmas EPs and also watch all the Christmas movies I never saw when I was younger. Also, the Snowman every day in December? Absolutely.

I think from now on, I'm just make my life easier and put a song in each post to segue with even less effort. Knock yourself out.




I forgot this song existed until about five hours ago when it came up on shuffle.

Today was a half day for reasons no one in the school district is entirely certain of. However, it's wonderful cause we get these once a month for the rest of the school year, give or take a month or so. All I had was an english quiz, average algebra, a 20th century video(which I thought was mildly interesting, but then my 20th century teacher thought it was horribly boring. not to be someone who shouts about their nerdiness to anyone who'll listen, but that says something), and average bio stuff. Then me and my friends hung around the school for a little while and walked downtown. The place was full of middle schoolers, also when we had pizza a random clump of other sophomores evolved outside. We also looked in a book store and CVS, and went to the library. It was a good way to spend that part of the day.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on around me a worrying amount of the time at the moment because I'm so tired. If I ever go to sleep the day before the day I'm supposed to next wake up in, it's considered a good night's rest, even if it's like 11:45. I don't think I need much sleep relative to some people(which I hear is not a good thing--brain power needs sleeping power, and my lack of any need for sleep worries me, but I digress). It just occurred to me recently, reading back on things I wrote/did this time last year, how much more free time I had then. And I didn't even know it. I was told thins would get easier in sophomore year--perhaps not. Content might be easier--I have too many horribly flashbacks about stress caused by physical science work last year that nothing at the moment can really compare--but it takes up more time(see: my experiences spending multiple hours writing about cell membranes or bacteria or things each night). Also, I don't become interesting or creative or anything when I'm exhausted, let alone the much-sought after place where incoherency meets quirkiness in the face of pure fatigue. No, I move in quite the opposite direction, I develop this obsession with being hyper efficient. If I'm awake and there's time, I can find something to do--this tends to end up in things like me playing piano at midnight, and my mom wandering into the room to ask why the hell I'm playing piano this time, and I tell her how busy I'll be specifically over X number of days and about the perfect time slot available and everything. It's sort of a toned-down Dean Moriarty type thing I have going on at times like this. No matter. I think this contributes a great deal to my current inability to remember things, not little things, but 'vibes' and everything, autumn vibes, normal things, all sorts of stuff. True, Irene did rip most of the leaves off the trees in August so it's not quite as pretty as normal, but all the same, not to whine anymore about this when I could just, you know, skip some homework and sleep but I do miss having a marginally higher state of consciousness, if only so this time in my life doesn't seem like a total blur to me. Sigh.

Reading Gatsby in English isn’t as great as I expected, not that I really knew what it was I was expecting in the first place. I suppose it’d be alright on a first-time read, it just gets a little tedious being talked at for a full 90 minutes. That’s more or less it. Occasionally we’re put into groups and told to analyze something, only no one really tries(not usually including me, mind), and we talk for 45 minutes and finish everything in the remain five or ten. It usually gives me a nice opportunity to do homework or something, though. Gatsby’s definitely a book you need to read more than once, at least for me. I don’t often re-read things, so the opportunity in itself is good. Even if I have spent most of the in-class Gatsby discussions reading JD Salinger talk about the Glass family from the back of the room. Which i suppose is pseudo-rebellious in a way that makes all the literature buffs shudder. I apologize.

In biology we’ve begin given another—another!—project, this time about diseases. I’m assigned the West Nile Virus. Can’t complain exactly, but at the same time after just finishing a previous bio project I’m not overly enthusiastic about it. Also, it doesn’t seem to have any particular relevance to anything else we’re doing in class, so it really does annoy me all the more. The class has too many labs, and my lab group is bothering me more and more by the day. I really am not proud of being someone who anonymously complains about their classmates online, really I’m not, but my god this girl in my group is insufferable. She thinks of herself as being uber scientific. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but she can be really obnoxious when she needlessly attacks the other members in our group. No one in our group is incompetent—however, we don’t pretend to have more of an avid interest in these things than we normally do. I’m sick to death of being ridiculed and sometimes practically verbally abused if I do one thing wrong or don’t get a sufficient grade, and even more I’m sick of her bluntness being excused as a side-effect of the superior intellect she claims to possess. And I’m basically cool wit being a total hypocrite—yeah, yeah, if I really am sick of her as much as I say, why don’t I just go join a new group etc. I don’t know. I get along well with the others in my group! There—my excuse! This whole thing really is making me hate these labs, though. Even cutting up pink pH-receptor jello which should be relatively fun, she has to draw out to feign some interest and grab attention from the teacher. Ugh, guys, psuedo scientists. Let’s all write free verse poetry instead.

This week I watched In The Loop, the movie based on the Thick of It, which I’ve mentioned countless times but only because it’s absolutely brilliant and hilarious and everyone should watch it no matter how little they know about British politics. It’s genuinely wonderful. The movie, too, you should see—it gets patchy and the plot line tends to drag a bit, but other than that it’s just about the perfect comedy movie. I don’t have as much time for music as I’d like, but I’v been listening to Smashing pumpkins and Manchester Orchestra and people, nothing particularly noteworthy.

Right, since tonight is gonna be an especially late night, finishing a 10-page research paper and all, and nothing really interesting has been happening to be lately, I'll end this now.

You Mean Everything To Nothing But Me

Manchester Orchestra on really loud on the CD player, at night, it's not that late but everyone else has gone to sleep. I have concluded this album is amazing. It's a relatively basic, straight forward formula. I usually veer away from the term 'alternative rock', as we all should, unless of course you don't wanna have a music discussion. ie someone asks what music you like, just say alternative rock. such as at the dentist the other day. I realise I don't classify things by genre much lately. I just list bands. or songs. I'm a one track person. anyway, Manchester Orchestra are alternative with a bit of country, and a kinda delicate-yet-somehow-very-fulfilling-at-the-same-time production.



note to self; naming more than, like, three producers somehow makes you the god of music knowledge in this mad world. must remember. in addition, don't become so tired that you can't spell 'manchester' first time round.



I've been watching DVDs. Getting On series 1 is probably my TV hi light of the year. Or was it last year? that would make sense. Also, Mitchell and Webb continues to be absolutely extraordinary in a way I totally wasn't expecting. Heart David Mitchell. which reminds me, good god, as of tomorrow I'm gonna be behind on two episodes of Peep Show! It also means that tomorrow marks the end of Peep Show for another year. it went by so fast! Not fair! Every American show runs for like 3/4 of the year and a lot of Brit shows get 6 weeks(suppose we've got more stuff to fit in, as opposed to endless reruns of unfunny sitcoms and dramas so dull I question why anyone watches them at all. just saying). I'm on more of an anti-US TV rampage than I normally am. I apologise.

we got like a foot if snow, though not the 20 inches we were told of, and it was pretty fun. I love having my aunt here--I got silly vintage trinket things for no reason and went to the MFA. One of my trinkets is a skeleton key. and there was a coffee shop near the trinket place. dun dun dun. oh oh oh, and there was a Richard Avedon display at the MFA and it was sooo cool. I wasn't actually familiar with him beforehand but like everyone else I am a sucker for fashion photography and sleek art deco Parisians, so put together it was pure bliss. And I figured anyone who kinda revolutionised that is good in my book. I must look further into his 'work'(*shakes head in pretentious shame). my sister tells me I am a parsnip. today, I played an overly competitive game of Settlers of Catan for about five hours.

Everyone should listen to i Can Feel A Hot One. because it just came on and it's legitimately(sorry, I mean, 'like legit') one of my favorite songs.

so tomorrow is the last day of this year. oh this year. Tomorrow I'm gonna do a Top 40 which will actually take up enormous amounts of time, but I suppose I'll fit in some overly sweet nostalgia somewhere along the lines. Personally I'm a believer in The Music Speaks For Itself. 'tis a soundtrack of my 2010. can't say it's been a particularly good year or bad year. Was miserable through most of january. then I discovered Peter Doherty in february and he become an obsession. then I started wishing it was summer. then I saw Muse in concert. then, March slipped away. then, I saw Biffy Clyro. then somehow Biffy Clyro led into a few weeks of wishing really badly it was spring. then, it was spring and I slipped into that euphoria. then, school slipped by. then, I saw the Antlers. then I discovered Tim Minchin and listened to him for most of the summer. then, England happened. then, V happened. then, high school happened. then, stress happened. then, concerts happened. then christmas happened. then now.

that all sounded really depressing. trust me, I'm happy, in my own special way.

but tomorrow's gonna be amazing, though I'm frequently filled with a sense of impending nothingness afterwards. my aunt has to leave on Saturday. I love her to death and she kinda holds my turbulent family together these times. I won't see her again until July. then school starts Monday and it feels like it barely ended. I'm dreading it. Wow oh wow, am I dreading it. I normally like school until about now, and then it all comes tumbling down. I can't deal with the work load or the stress. and fucking hell, science! I'm gonna fail! like, seriously. no time off till february ugh, I dislike it rather a lot. I still feel half dead. wow.

I should go.

and a happy new year

I'm not a nice enough person to spread the Christmas cheer nor am I creative enough to post a pretty picture with some cutesy lyrics, so we might as well jump into the List Of Stuff That I Got.


- Infinity Land by Biffy Clyro
- Kings and Queens by Jamie T
- In The Aeorplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
- Kid A by Radiohead
- Germfree Adolescents by X-Ray Spec
- Cast of Thousands by Elbow
- Teen Dream by Beach House
- Two Suns by Bat For Lashes
- Mean Everything to Nothing by Manchester Orchestra
- Boxer by the National
- an end has a start by editors
- ihome
- new black converse(old ones are worn out and were low-tops. i still need new shoes.)
- Money
- bluey gray fingerless gloves
- a sort of weird picture of a tree by a local artist. it's kinda post-apocalyptic in a weird way.
- an alarm clock
- a jigsaw puzzle
- The Fast Show complete collection
- Getting On series 1&2 on DVD
- Fried Green Tomatoes on DVD
- Mitchell and Webb series 1-4 on DVD
- etc.

yes, I am spoiled. here's to commercialism. hey, it's my parents who get this stuff, not me. my mom was worried I wouldn't have enough stuff so she over purchased. I didn't ask for half the DVDs! regardless, I love my parents for getting M&W, because I've watched all of series 1 and some of series 2 and it's brilliant. I was never overly impressed with the more recent episodes I've seen on TV but these early ones are just great. especially all the Numberwang stuff. Must. Watch. Obsessively. and we'd tried to get Getting On before but to no luck. I do love Jo Brand! and the Fast Show I'm not familiar with, though obviously I've heard of it.



plus, my dad got Black Adder on DVD and I cannot wait. now I just need to get into Faulty Towers and the Office(UK version duh which, if you were born in the US of A, you probably aren't aware is the original Office). When will my rampage through British comedy end?(never).


as for music, it all sounds great through my parent's big CD player which I never get to use because it's always playing Simon and Garfunkel or ironic Lady Gaga remixes as of late. Biffy Clyro's is an obsession--my God they were amazing back in the day. rip biffy clyro's good music. screams and guitar that changes tone completely every thirty seconds, yes yes yes! Neutral Milk Hotel is as my mom repeatedly tells me "quite good, but a bit folky". Elbow and Bat For Lashes as expected. Manchester Orchestra good but with an abundance of talk of God(speaking of that, I'm giving Dawkins another chance and reading God Delusion. just started. not bad.). Beach House is very good indeed. plus, elbow finally have a new album out in march I just discovered, and they had better tour this country. I looooove 'em.



christmas day in itself just rocked. I watched the queen's speech for the first time! I opened presents and watched DVDs the entire day and listened to music. boxing day, ie day after if you're not British, I went for a walk, realised I was under dressed, came home, watched DVDs, and ate. christmas cheer indeed! We got about a foot of snow and it was super windy.



today, I braved it and went out in the snow. my aunt wanted to see some of the inane American book shops and craft shops that may or may not have been mentioned in conversation recently. I got a box, a new Spin, a new Q, and we got a board game of some sort. also, pretty colorful buttons. jesus, too much stuff on december 27th of all days. then a donut and dunkin donuts trip. *shrugs* it's interesting the things one picks up on when they're new to the country. yeah, I should know. but I'm pretty used to this whole country now, to some extent which doesn't involve the crap I get about my accent at school, minus the food and the TV. I eat Pot Noodle and haven't watched US TV for pleasure in months.


anyway, christmas warmth and all that. it's been a really, really good christmas as enthusiastic as I don't sound! I love my aunt being here and I love the food. we're still fighting our way through the turkey, which is nearly done, I can tell, because it smells amazing. it's fun being totally lazy sometimes, right? just being at home with the family and doing fuck all. I'm going to go away back to this jigsaw puzzle we're doing, which is minus a picture(it's a mystery etc.). then, I'm gonna eat my body weight in things with higher sugar content, then I'm gonna play Cluedo, then I'm gonna read, then I'm gonna watch the color purple, then I'm gonna go to bed.



rest of the week, probs to Museum of Fine art, eating out, sledging given the chance, Concord, what have you. busy week. oh, it's like being a tourist again.



so, yeah, good night to you all.

silent night

I'm waiting for my aunt to get here and I'm thinking, oh snow, how you torment me. There's a good...powdering of the stuff out there right now. Capturing my attention and my hope(in vain) of a properly white christmas. Europe stole it, I have concluded. A foot of snow, England, really? Kinda want it back now. Dunno if you heard, but heathrow were having problems with it. Yesterday's Virgin Boston flight didn't go and things were looking pretty worrying back there for a while. Luckily BAA(or whoever is dealing with this gigantic nightmare) pulled through for us, and my aunt's in her way. apparently heathrow was quiet--hard to imagine, right?-- since like two thirds of flights were cancelled. I feel bad for those people.

Can't wait to start the Christmas traditions tomorrow. Came home from school in said irritatingly minimal snow, looked in my kitchen and wow, what's this? Orange juice? Iced tea? Pot noodle? Fancy Whole Foods hippie yogurts? Foreign chocolate? Must be a dream. I love my parents. Tomorrow's my last school day of 2010 and on Friday I'm gonna go shopping and bake and blog and eat baked potatoes. In many ways I prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, I realise. Plus, duh, Saturdayy, gonna rock. We got our tree up and it's all decorated and super pretty, and there's only one present under the tree. For me. From my sister. because she's cool. plus, mum got me this big book of Christmas songs too play on piano. I can play water down versions of all of the basics, except We Three Kings seems to be missing. I have a very very simple copy somewhere. Anyway.

So last week of school--a science quiz(90%, thank god), another science partner quiz, a math quiz, a spanish quiz, another spanish quiz, and a math test. WHAT IS THIS? oh yeah, and a science presentation tomorrow. to quote jez of the new(and wonderful, naturally) episode of Peep Show, everything is "triple fried fucked". everybody's presentations are better than mine will be because my topic's boring and I'm scared in front of crowds and my partnerias vile and has to be reminded to do things like capitalize the bulletpoints on slideshows. ugh. and he didn't do a damn bibliography for his pictures. stupid.


I wrote that all that two days earlier. Sorry. where was I?

Oh yeah, presentation sucked. My geometry teacher's pissed at me. Spanish wasn't super straightforward. throughout the week, I've basically been falling asleep, failing stuff, watching nothing interesting go on, be the only one I know with serious amounts of homework. gym was cool this week. first, because Tuesday we played matball against the juniors and seniors and God knows I like to see cocky fourteen year old boys go all embarrassed and shy after someone beats them at sports, so I basically had a field day. we played pick up sticks in spanish, too.

THEN, last day of school last block, was absolutely incredible. There was this giant matball game that I don't think anyone watched, and I found out we didn't have to be there. there was some concert going on elsewhere, so me and a friend kinda walked off with some people to see that. then, I found this other friend in my gym class and she's like "Martin Johnson's here! martin Johnson's here!" all fangirlish. He's the singer in Boys Like Girls and he went to our school and yes I'm aware that gives away where I live, but no one who reads this cares. So, while everyone else went in to see the concert, my friend saw this group of people hanging around down the hallway so we walked over to them. And lo and behold, we look into the band room, and there he is. Bearing in mind, I don't actually like this band nor was I particularly familiar with his appearance, and I'm not ordinarily bothered when someone finds an English book with his name in it. But truth is yes, I'm very very pathetic, and yes, I did suddenly develop a desire to meet someone I dislike because they are a famous musician who is reasonably attractive and he was, y'know, right there. don't judge me. he walked out and all these other girls crowd around him. out comes my friend's phone. everyone's kinda gone fangirl/ape at this point, a real famous musician in the flesh! I was so in that mood to if I'm honest. my friend talks to him first, asks for a picture. My being me, I have to prep myself for five minutes to say a word to him. and then I'm like "Can I have a picture with you?" and he said "of course you can". DID YOU HEAR THAT? Wow wow wow wow wow! And fuck yes I got a picture. With him. Oh my god, how amazing is this?(only downside being I'm gonna have to start pretending I like his shit band)

Now that that's all out of the way, I'm going to have to state the obvious; it's Christmas eve! My 2nd favorite day of the year! Now that my aunt's here, things are going great. It was amazing finally getting out of school and sleeping. I feel totally awake which has become such an odd sensation. Yesterday after school we went into town with my aunt to this gift shop, because we go there with her every year and it's always closed. I got a necklace with a creepy moon thing on it, and I love it to death already, somehow. After dinner, I watched a musical version of A Christmas Carol which I've always loved, and nearly fell asleep to it.



And today was of course, fantastic. My family and I made a gingerbread village in the morning, then we made the icing for our cake, and iced it. (so much food). after lunch, we made paper chains--too many in fact-- andfinished decorating our gingerbread village. I made one I penned The Jackson Pollock of Gingerbread Houses, which my aunt similarly penned The House Of The Village Eccentric. It was so much fun to make. Then, we drove around our town looking at the pretty lights, which I love every time. then we made yule logs and mince pies. in essence, another perfect christmas eve. I loooove this holiday, so much. currently I'm sitting around with my family, at the moment, and it's wonderful. my sister is trying to paint a pineapple. yaaaaaay.

I'm not very interesting tonight but I wanna get back to what I've been doing. so I apologise. I'll get back to you on Boxing Day I hope when I'm all excited-out.

Good night.

Oh yeah, merry christmas, of course.

like a house of leaves moments before the wind

I'm here singing along to my All Time Low CD. Not very cool but I'm not bothered--easy listening, i guess. that and Blah Blah Blah by Kesha and Villagers' debut. I wish I still had time for music.

This week I got a D on a math test and a C on a science test. If it was possible for one's self esteem and/or confidence to be bi-polar then mine would certainly be just that. Simply put, not a good week in that respect. I do technically know the math stuff, really. In my math class my teacher just started doing Plus Quizzes and Tests, which she's given about five kids in the class. I'm kinda the bottom of the top, shall we say. the test was hard, really it was. or I'm dumb. either way, I fuck up on this test and I go from a ninetysevenfuckingpercent to an A minus and I had a quiz today which I didn't do well on. that wasn't even plus. dammit. And science was simply a disaster. Hello, B Minus. Goodbye high honors. And I was prepared! But I got a 75! Grrrr! Then I had to fuck up my science essay. my dad likes this stars stuff and in the end he was like, okay I'll just do your citations go do your math homework, which works out very well on my part. still, I was too tired to move and so was he--goodbye good grade. and maximum 150 points on that project, my God, I'm so screwed. gotta throw a presentation together by Wednesday. anxiety returning. hello old friend.

My mom's annoyed at the school 'cause of the homework load. can't say I disagree. all I do after school is piano once a week and guitar on the weekend, and I'm up all night doing homework. no wonder I'm fucking up on a semi-regular basis now; I'm tired. Tired beyond reason. Not a normal fatigue, no, just a general exhaustion at the overwhelming magnitude of...stuff. yes, because that's so eloquent, right Naomi? well, you get my idea. I want to be done with this last week before Christmas, because physically doing anything is killing me. It kinda feels like I've no time for anything anymore, not even music or books or TV, which is pretty sad because I've been rocking that whole premature middle aged "my life is slipping away" thing at the moment, and this only makes it worse. Sigh. High school.

Shining light of hope is a possible snow day on Monday. At the very least, yes, we get snow! I've gotten so adapted to white Christmases it'd feel weird without one now. to think I was worried--bah. around eight inches. lovely. and a day off school, please.

I finally got round to getting a Christmas sheet music book. Can already play simple versions of a few songs. I used to be able to play Walking in The Air but I need to re-remember. speaking of that, my mom got The Snowman DVD for me, last copy in the store, and I was pleased because A.) I didn't think such a find would be possible and B.) the film is beautiful. That was one of my favorite songs when I was younger. I was more musically oriented than I was aware when I was younger. that and Brother Bear and Kaiser Chiefs. anyway, point being, it's starting to feel like christmas. We're getting our tree tomorrow(none of that plastic crap. see my last post.) and I see lights everywhere and there will be snow. I'm seeing my aunt on Wednesday. this time next week I'll be watching a DVD with my family and eating baked potatoes and making mince pies. traditions. whoever says Christmas is overrated in the name of their angst is moronic--Christmas is the best.

oh, I saw Weezer on Tuesday. basically amazing. I do love Rivers Cuomo and his fantastic nerd rock. The place I saw them is this spectacular crumbling wannabe opera house. It has these little balconies with a name I don't know that stick out from the sides. those little boxes, you know the type. and at one point Rivers climbs on top of them while singing Pork and Beans, and then he climbed from these boxes to the balcony(or, was pulled up. the gap was like his whole body length.) and then sang all of Beverly Hills in the balcony, where I, on the floor, couldn't see him. it was wonderful. They played hits, had an intermission, made some guy come up with a power point of Weezer's history( total nerdgasm right there) and then played the blue album back to front. I've never seen a band perform an entire album, and it was interesting. sadly I was falling asleep for some of that. Dammit high school, you ruin so much. But I got to walk through Boston in my River Island concert boots and my mom's old jacket like I'm from My Chemical Romance pre good music. It was snowing a bit then, too.

relaxing week apart from all that, although in fairness the stress was about 95% of my week. gym was super great today. teacher read my tired mind and let us do anything. we played four square and blasted christmas music. I still dislike girls in my class but oh well. Me and these people in study are reading my crumbling copy of the Color Purple which I'm rereading because I love it to death, and they just end up grimacing. it's disrespectful, and funny in a sick way.

OH, House of leaves! It's a book my Mark Z Danielewski who wrote Only Revolutions. I went fangirl briefly about it in October. Fact; OR is awful compared to this book. it's 700 hundred something pages long, rather crazy, and took more than two weeks for my slow brain to finish. the day before last, I closed the book with some sadness. It was the sort of book that i would love to go on forever. the book's super complex, very deep, very interesting, very weird, very, well, good. and so beautiful. as much a horror story as a love story and deeply fascinating. plus, the guy's such a poet. title quote.I don't know, I like it. read it. you won't regret it.

I'm gonna spend my evening with Guy Garvey's sultry tones(did I just say that) and my latest obsession that is fashion blogs. like everyone else.

good night.

Leaves the Unbearable Music And Then Goes(He's Like The 1980's)

I finished NaNoWriMo. successfully. 50,004. Yaaaay. I'm pleased and a friend owes me a cookie for it. I was getting so tired of it. Now, I just have to get through Oh My God I Never Want To Write A Single Word Ever Again December. OMGINWTWASWEVD.



My first day of the month was met with a headache, a piano lesson, two tests, a weird gym class, too much homework, and an advent calender. Hey guys, 24 days until Christmas! it's shame I'm in the mood now, I'll be all vibed-out by the big day. I just don't want snow yet. The place I used to live in England got snow already, albeit a few centimeters and everyone's going so crazy. I love how the adults are all like "There is NO CONCEIVABLE WAY I can get through this inch of snow to get my kids to school!". they won the snow race for once. Good for them. They can take it. White Christmases are wonderful, but white Marchs are not.



So that's my thoughts on Christmas. Oh goodness, I want Peter Doherty's Book Of Albion. I'd die for it. That and, oh wow, I want a new romantic jacket. I found a purple one in my mom's closet(we're doing a fashion show in Spanish and our them is 80s. But that gets a whole other paragraph, nach) and it was cool, but of course I can never wear it for fear of humiliation. Because I'm dumb. At least I cannot wear it at school and whatnot. I want a black jacket with gold button things. OR a Libertines one, but those are probably super rare thanks to them. And I want high top Converse, either navy or olive. And, whoa, LEGWARMERS. I've no excuses for that. Why am I rambling?



I had the best piano lesson today--it was pretty fun, my teacher said I'm doing really well. So that's something. On the way back from that, it was raining hard and I listened to Peter's Grace/Wastelands. My rainy day music, but it rarely rains 'round here, since we're lacking in atmosphere( those sound like really shit lyrics in the first verse of a first song of an imaginery record. All happy-like). I like his chord changes.



my favorite keys are, major--F sharp. Minor--F sharp. I realised this the other day and I was like, hey, that's a bit odd. F sharp is both one of the happier majors and one of the sadder minors. They do their job. See Tim Minchin's F Sharp for more slightly self indulgent music nonsense.


Anyway, oh yeah, I saw Brandon Flowers on Friday and it was AMAZING. He played the entire album, which I believe is a first in a live show, and he looked amazing, and he's an amazing performer. And the whole flamingo hotel room stuff is silly, but lightly fascinating. I love him live--seriously, there's just so much energy in him when he's live, it makes the whole thing completely spectacular. Plus, he played Losing Touch, the first verse of Human, and BRIGHTSIDE. I wasn't expecting Killers songs, honestly, so I was in awe when I heard those. It's been nearly two years since my first Killers show. To hear Brightside live again is just weird. part of me is telling me that this is the song that kinda kickstarted my entire middle school music tastes, and that it's euphoric hearing again. Another part of me treats it as a totally different song, because so much has changed between now and then. Brightside is basically a song of memories for me. A Memory Song. They're so odd to hear live. Overall, awesome. I have photos to add somewhere when I have the time.

And I fiiiiinally saw Harry Potter.There are many other internet people to give your more interesting critiques, go read these. I thought it was overall quite good, generally true to the book, all the usual stuff was fine. The book's boring bits were in the first half, I thought, so it suffered from that. There were too many random awkward bits to try to lighten the incessantly dark mood. Also, I miss Hogwarts and all its various people. But overall not bad, not bad.

All I've done so far in school is almost fail two tests(probably), learn that my Spanish teacher's going to talk endlessly in Spanish, and suffer through gym. Fashion shows. In Spanish. Oh, hell. And 80s? I mean, come on, is there anything more boring? 70s pretty please, that's the best decade. Punk and disco and salmon pink, yesyesyes. And everyone in my group hates me because a.) I don't have half that neon crap and b.) If I did, there's no way I will willingly wear it in front of twenty other people. Mark Corrigan has talked before of "not wanting to die of anxiety" and it makes me smile, but that's my exact headset--this thing needs to happen without my anxiety killing me. And everyone's like "wear a leotard...and tights...and leather jackets...and those poofy shoulders" and I end up staring daggers and raising my eyebrows. Like, really? You expect me to wear those? No fucking way. Nooooo way. Growl.

And of course there's gym when I lately become treated as almost sub-human for not talking as much as other people. The Curse of the Introvert. Hey, I am kinda almost normal too. I do have a brain. So shut up. Four square and swear words under my breath.

Oh my God, Peeeepp Shooooww!! Oh My God oh my god oh my god oh my god oh wwooooooooowww. There aren't enough words to say my feelings on this. One, David Mitchell is still fucking adorable. Two, Jez and this new girl will be super interesting to follow. Three, SUPERHANS, I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH. Four, International Superhans Day should totally be an actual thing. Five, Superhan's Birthing Tips made my day. Six, I'm weird for knowing that the burger king scene was the first scene they filmed. Seven, the title is from the show and I love it. Eight, why is it when you think you know a lot about birth, there's always so much more out there to be learned? Nine, Sophie gets weirder every series. And finally, that last scene was wonderful. I've never seen mark happy...ever! It was so beautiful like that. I can't believe it. Made my day yet again.

Also, go watch the new Killers vid. Pleeeassse.

Happy December. 24 Days.