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.

days off for thanksgiving are the best

Hi everyone



Once you get over the fact that this song is ballad-like and that the singer has the most whiny, nasally voice of all of the whiny, nasally singers in indie bands of this ilk, this song’s a nice one.

Guys, guys, guess what? It’s Wednesday and the week is over! At fucking last. Woke up today feeling very sick (5-6 hours of sleep for about a month or so, I would imagine is the main factor) even though I didn’t have much homework yesterday and basically sat around watching old Peep Show episodes for a few hours and eating food and not caring in the slightest.

I love thanksgiving. I don’t celebrate it, since I’m not American, but I love it. I don’t really know why my family don’t celebrate thanksgiving cause we see fireworks on the 4th of July and stuff. Bit complicated to get together, I suppose. And the rest of the family is a couple thousand miles away. The good thing about not celebrating thanksgiving is that it gives you much more free time. While everyone else is travelling and eating and being lazy and doing whatever it is people do on thanksgiving(ooh such a mystery to me), I get to stay in my house all day and eat and be lazy, but to a lesser extent I suppose to the thanksgiving-celebrators. Also a lot of people complain of crazy families at this time of year, same with christmas, which I don’t have. At all. Ever. My extended family’s so small, anyway. Additionally, no one in this family is particularly concerned about getting in the car at four in the morning the next day in order to buy half a dozen plasma screen TVs or whatever it is you crazy people do on black Friday. I’m really not sure. Is my foreignness showing too much? I’ll reel myself in. Point is, although it more or less works as the latter bookmark to the much-appreciated loveliness that is autumn, it’s still a holiday that really fascinates me, and I really enjoy this week even without celebrating it. Plus, I totally cannot wait to show my love for Christmas wholeheartedly without looking manic and weird. Much appreciated.

Naturally, not an awful lot’s happened this week. I’ve taken an English test and my now my teacher’s brought out her specialty: a crappy low-budget sap story with minimal relevance to anything we’re doing in class. Guys, it’s about overcoming adversity against all the odds. Try as I like, I cannot both watch this film and not be judgmental.

My algebra teacher has been out for some days now and the entire class has taken up their favorite in-class hobby again: mocking her. She’s...difficult to like, at least the way she presents herself in class. Also she does things like tell kids in class they have cute dogs, and then continue with “wasn’t there a dog in your car this morning?” when they act totally baffled. When they say that no, they do not have a dog, she continues with “oh. Guess I was looking in the wrong car this morning”.

Over the weekend I had to write a few paragraphs from the perspective of a holocaust survivor. We had to share them in class a couple of days ago. This...is not an activity that sits well with me, for some reason. Especially the inane ways in which sharing partners are decided. I don’t really know why it’s of such great importance that we should share with someone of the opposite gender. I would have chosen someone of the same gender, yes, but as we’re not editing I don’t see the big deal. Silly teachers and their silly teaching things. Oh, and we did a debate! The day when we were planning, news had broken that our much-hated interim principal is getting rid of coffee machines. God, I make this sound important. But still, that was all people seemed capable of talking about that day, as opposed to the validity of atomic bombings. (if this caffeine purge happens, how will the teachers react? At the moment they’re picketing in the mornings for better teaching conditions and stuff. I’m awaiting the day their slogan changes to “Contract & Coffee Now”). Ahhh aren’t I just painfully unfunny. Whatever, the debate was just catastrophically awful, although somehow our side managed to cobble together a winning argument. He did that thing where for five minutes only the quiet people can talk. And did I talk? Guess. He will never wear me down.

There are times, rather more frequently than most expect, where I’m basically fine with high school. I mean, if you ignore things like group presentations , early mornings, overcrowded cafeterias, and those knee-high socks all the jock guys wear, going there most days is fairly painless. However, one day a year I’m reminded of the existence of pep rallies. Certainly I’m always aware of pep rallies, it’s just easy to allow them not to feel real every other day of the year. And then you go to one and it’s as if when, at that point where you considered skipping the pep rally and you asked yourself ‘how bad can it be?”, that all the forces of darkness in the world combined their efforts to create the single most painful 90 minutes you’re sure to experience in a very long time. Is there a single person, cheerleaders and football players included, who feels any semblance of happiness from these things? I don’t know if this is customary for all high school pep rallies, but at our school there’s one crazy old lady in a clown costume who I’ve never seen anywhere else before going around shouting at people to plug in the fucking inflatable animals; she’s pretty into it. For everyone else, it’s another wasted period of time where the only things you can think about are about how unnecessarily loud the crappy school band are and how you really wished you’d just got the nerve to skip the damn thing. This year we even had pie-eating competitions and failed dance routines! Oh, it was a train wreck. I feel like when we warn incoming freshman against things like being scared and wearing their backpacks too high, we should mention pep rallies with similar warning. That or we let them suffer. I don’t mind.

Tonight I’m going to go to my friend’s house and watch American Horror Story. And, uh, that’s it. I look forward to sleeping a lot over the course of the next few days.

sunrise, sunset

hello hello hello

I’m in a Dear Hunter phase. Here’s a song.



Tell me that isn’t so beautiful. That’s the first song on the Blue EP. I’m not necessarily sure it seems like a blue sort of sound to me...I’d have gone with purple myself. Nevertheless, I love it.

Today has been the craziest week ever, homework wise, though I’m not entirely sure why. Well, that and the combination of nanowrimo, which I’m about 5000 words behind on unfortunately. I probably could have managed without all of that. But with it, not possible. I’m so glad this week is over. Next week is only two and a half days, thank god.

When we’re not working on grammar in english, we’re going on about collecting thanksgiving food for less fortunate families. The whole school’s doing it—it’s a good cause, etc. and I can’t complain. Slightly confused cause I had to go through hell, when we assigned foods I was out and my teacher can’t organize anything for the life of her, and it’s been a nightmare to establish just what I’m supposed to be bringing in. Sigh. I’m growing to dislike her more and more, and I shouldn’t because it’s all totally irrational, it’s just the coffee-drinking and the movie-watching and what have you. I could do without it. She was out today and we watched something about the Nuremburg trials (20th century debates and now here; just can’t get away from them). Doing nothing was good. It was one of those weeks where you seemed perpetually, endlessly busy, and just watching a video was like an amazing breath of fresh air, for no good reason. I’m so tired; I keep getting headaches.

Learning about WWII in 20th century is as depressing and generally dull as ever, with occasional bounds of information that are just unpleasant. I don’t particularly want to spend much more time on this damn war unit. We’re watching a lot of videos. Much to the appreciation of the class (and my sort of ambivalence), we watched Saving Private Riot. Or, the fast half hour of it, anyway. I can’t say i understand watching only a fraction of a film. Nor do I understand the idea that i really needed to spend any portion of my life watching continuous shots of people holding their internal organs in their hands to understand D Day. I don’t know how I’d rather learn this stuff. From time to time, it’s quite interesting, in a weird sort of way. I’ve always been a history nerd. It just has a tendency to get repetitive and all the videos, my god, they’re not helping us get anywhere. Over the weekend, we have to write about a real life holocaust survivor. I really don’t want to write any of this.

We had the worst lab in bio this week. We were given the entire block to observe the effects of enzymes under various conditions, and it wasn’t enough, since I had to stay after school for upwards of twenty minutes to finish it. The teacher said it was possibly to do in this time space, but I’m not sure I believe her. As usual, I can’t help but be absolutely useless in labs. Hard as I sometimes try, I never have any real idea of what’s going on or what I’m supposed to do. I’m just vaguely aware somewhere in the back of my mind that time is short and it’d probably help my future in this class if I don’t make the people around me hate me. I can’t really put any of that thought or emotion into what I’m doing, though. The thought that I made slip up and make mistakes throws me off far too much. We had a quiz today(not good—my A has yet to make a comeback), watched the most unabashedly vile video about the digestive system any crappy educational video department could come up with, and over the weekend we have to write about the digestion of a thanksgiving dinner. Creatively. I keep falling asleep in this class even when I try my best not to.

We got tickets for Richard III! It’s in February, a Friday or Saturday of the last weekend or the one before. I’ve gone on about this for ages and I’m so excited that it’s finally happening. It’ll be good to go back to New York City for a while, too. The last time I went was 100 hundred degrees in July and I wasn’t as infatuated with it as I thought I’d be. I imagine, perhaps romanticize, that it’ll be better in February. Whenever I think of new york city I think of winter...but christmas time. So maybe I’m wrong and new york will be awful in february. The question keeps me interested in going.

Fun moment of the week: I was extremely busy a few nights back, and I’m not sure why, and I had to take a make-up piano lesson from a couple of weeks back and it was a group lesson. And I wasn’t told that I’d be playing in front of like ten three year olds? I’d like to emphasize that while I’m not a wonderful pianist, this group of students was random, not based on ability, and I am actually above everyone else there. Just to make sure you’re all aware of that. And it was embarrassing as hell but also absolutely fantastic because I played the Danse Macabre, a simplified version with a thousand and one mistakes and they still look at you like you’re a genius. And I played this other piece, Song of India by Rimsky Karsakov, and I was only marginally better at that because I haven’t played it properly since July or so, and the cutest Asian girl you could ever imagine says “that song reminds me of butterflies flying through”. Just that. It’s probably troubling to know how happier and how much more self-assured I was by those group of fucking kids when I walked out, but hey, there you go.

Fun, but long, day on Friday. After school I walked downtown with friends and an acquaintance. We looked at books, although I didn’t have money for all the Kerouac books I want (‘all the Kerouac books I want’ is essentially everything the guy ever did. I bought a few of them the next day, oh and Hemingway and Slaughterhouse-five.), ate at Bertuccis, all the usual stuff. After some friends left me and my best friend spent a half hour in CVS when it was dark outside cause we were gonna see the school do fiddler in the roof but couldn’t walk back in the dark. And it was funny cause we dropped him off and then he came back about two hours later, and we watched the Lovely Bones with our other friend and played that game where you put sticky notes with a thing on someone’s head and they guess what it is. Fun stuff, really.

I was impressed with Fiddler, which I saw the following day. They did RENT last year and I recall being impressed with the actors (still applicable), but less so with Rent itself. But Fiddler—wow, I really like that. I like the style of the music. It could very easily be a sort of bastardized style stolen from traditional music, but I can’t for the life of me tell, so for the time being I say it’s a really well written thing. I’ve always had a thing for pop music badly fused with various cultural sounds (see: Disney movies), so this sits well with me. I’ll look more into it, actually. I disagree that it’s too long, also. Hey, if nothing else, seeing Fiddler made me check the Fiddler Wiki page which led me to find this thing Bright Eyes did where they took the melody and chords and instrumentation of Sunrise, Sunset and added loads of crazy, frantic lyrics, and moments of heavy guitars and stuff. I’ll post it here sometime. It’s clever because of the way it distorts and twists the theme of the song into something kinda mad and paranoid and stuff. I’ve never known such a hit and miss band as Bright Eyes.

It’s almost December, which means first that Nanowrimo, thank god is almost over(and I’ll have been successful if I catc up on two days of writing or so), but also that it becomes cool to celebrate christmas around other people again. I love Christmas so much, I’m gonna order the Sufjan Stevens Christmas EPs and everything. But my point was—we made the christmas fruit cake this weekend gone by! It got me in the christmas mood. And in a few days I can watch the Snowman and play Silent Night and I will be at my happiest, sad as that might be.

Aaaand now it’s a Friday and I wanna watch In the Loop and eat ice cream, so good night all of you.

Tim Minchin Concert and Stuff.

mixed week.

Got a really bad headache on Friday so I stayed home from school. Which was good, I suppose, as I had to do a health project that day and I 'd been up late every day that week, and I don't think I could've handled it. I do the whole 'I don't think I could've handled it' routine a lot, I know, but this time it was most accurate.

I'm feeling much better now, particularly after a couple of nights in which I was not forced awake way before what is reasonable or comfortable. While apparently I have a science test on Tuesday, I'm gonna try to have a relaxing weekend. I would to try to care about this damn science test, but I'm almost beyond empathy. So tired. It's very hard to care when it's so nice outside, you know? Damn June. End of the year. I'll try to pull myself together for this science test, than give up and give in to two days of playing Sweeney Todd songs on piano, reading Lolita, watching old Disney movies, and playing Animal Cross(my revived love). Then I'll stay up on Monday as long as I can without the aid of caffeine.

So, I saw Tim Minchin last night. It was....hilight of...well, the year? Is that too wild a thing to say? 'cause it might just be true. I've been a huge(and really, a huge) Tim fan for about a year now. I got into, like, Canvas Bags and Predjudice last June and fell in love with his music and his lyrics and his amazing brain, and now I know and adore absolutely everything he's done. We got into Boston pretty late, and I couldn't bear to miss anything so I just about ran through Boston common and most of the theater area. Turns out we got there in bags of time--the theater, which I'd never been to before, is built like an old fashioned cabaret, tables in the front and waitress service and everything, so their main priority is to sell you as much pre-gig overpriced drinks as they can. Therefore, show starts late. The place is small and luckily his gorgeous grand piano was facing towards me, so I got to be very close up. We waited a while and the venue was very surreal so that's okay, but he came on and I kind of had a sort of moment of huge fangirlishiness. TIM. All big hair and eyemakeup and skinny jeans and NO SHOES. No shoes, everyone, it's amazing! And I was so close to him too. He comes on, plays around with the mic and what have you, and of course there's no one guy who has to scream "I LOVE YOU" and then "I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABIES". And then he opened with Rock & Roll nerd(always brilliant). He gets up, does a bit of dark, explicit humor that kinda is supposed to make you cringe, and he talks about, like, objectification and he's like "What if I got my cock and balls out right, now?" and the same man sort of screams in delight at the idea. He does a statistics joke(<3) THEN he plays his new song called Cont(ext)...I'll spare you the details, it's not on the internet yet but you need the element of surprise if ever you see it. Let me just say, it is very, very funny. Then he plays another new song called Thank You God, which follows the path of his other religion-bashing songs(The Good Book, Ten Foot, etc.) but it's good and it has one verse which is very, very clever. After he asks 'So, is anyone here interested in the game tonight? I mean, probably not...I tend to attract weird nerds, so probably not.." and some guy's like "what game?" and Tim's like "yeah...". then he plays if I Didn't Have You, complete with the famous Tim Wiggle, and I think he did you Grew On Me and then ended with Lullaby. It's hard to judge--he did a lot of standup, which turned out to be very funny, especially a little bit where he's comparing, like, the Quaran and Harry Potter, and it was good, and unlike the songs the standup is kinda hard to remember...bits stick out, yeah, but you can't remember everything. An interval, and then he played Predjudice, Confessions, Storm(' this is about the time of the night where most comedians would relax with something lightweight...so, this is a nine and a half minute jazz beat poem'), the Pope Song, and Darkside. He did a first enchore, with Drowned, and a second with Second Enchore(nach). More standup, too. Darkside's already amazing solo was lengthened a bit and it was even faster and more incredible, and then it kinda merged into Fur Elise for a second and I was like, oh my god, wow, genius. Overall I was blown away with just how good he was last night...I love him, his music, his songs, his everything. Go listen to him, now. I'm sad it's over. xD

Also, the Script on Tuesday. again I have to remind myself why I'm so keen to see this band...this'll be the 3rd time ? and then, um, it'll be four if I see them at V(which is likely). No matter. I'm so excited for V randomly, now. Probably to do with, like, the new Arctic Monkeys album out on Monday, which is supposed to be amazing and that I'm so excited for. Also, new kaiser Chiefs album! I'll be seeing both of those bands at V...also Razorlight, the Wombats, Pendulum for the hell of it, et cetera. V Fest is always the hi light of the year, and I cannot wait.


From a non-school standpoint, there's nothing much else to say this week. I have a science test and a health project due Tuesday, sooo...basically the next two days won't be fun. And finals coming up soon, sarcastic yay.

Finished my art project early this week, basically got a day off then. Then I started to draw my house, gonna paint it in watercolors. When I'm not talking about music to the people at my table, I hate this class.

Nothing new in health, was only there for one class anyway. Can't even remember what happened. Oh yeah, a quiz, and then I was reading the entire time.

Science is evolution, organism populations, and working towards out final project, nothing interesting. We got a review packet for our final(not looking forward to it in the slightest, of course). But since this whole class has just overloaded me with information this semester, this makes it a whole lot more interesting. Test Tuesday, Im scared.

World Civ has not been a whole lot of fun, either. Talking more about slavery and watching a movie(had a sub on Tuesday, woo)and the scientific revolution and stuff, and then on Thursday we had to do this shitty debate, where the class was divided into two and then one side had to side with Locke, and the other with Hobbes. It was shitty, because it's really not the sort of thing you can back up or argue, as both sides are kinda wishy-washy and in my opinion rather outdated and, frankly, inaffective. My teacher's really into debates, though. Plus, he made me talk...I was forced to do the closing statement with some guy I've never talked to before, and it was an embarrassing, humiliating mess, and no one knew anything and I felt like we were just sitting there bastardizing the works of both Hobbes and Locke. What's doubly annoying, is while the teacher is of course obligated to not choose a side, he made very--and I mean very--clear which side he was on, and then basically ridiculed the whole class when we were on the other side. It's a problem with many a history teacher, I've found--really liberal and makes a show of being all open-minded, but secretly they're a liiiiittle bit of a bigot. Sorry all. It was a bit tiring, and we've done this whole to-do before in this class and it only serves to make me a bit annoyed and frustrated the entire time.

English! The essay I was writing turned out to be terrible, my teacher is gonna be severely disappointed. I had a grammar test which turned out to be surprisingly decent. Then we started Romeo & Juliet. I've gotta through the first few chapters r whatever, I guess it's pretty good but I'm honestly not paying anywhere near as much attention to it as I should be. Then we analyzed some poems and talked at lengths about sexual innuendo in the writing, to the point of it being irritating and tiresome, and luckily we aren't doing fishbowl activities yet, we're not being forced to act, and we get to watch some of the movie. It's like my dream read-through of a book. This class is currently good.

The Wednesday and Thursday morning were spent doing state tests. Science tests. Luckily, they were the only ones Im doing this year but, unluckily, it was terrible. Not that they were particularly hard, of course, but its just that for the first time, they actually matter...like, if I'd have gone back in time and told 8th grade me that they'd be up late the night before and got up early on the day to study for state tests, they'd think I'd completely lost my mind. Maybe I have lost my mind,just a little bit? Wait, no, I'm okay...I was at a distinct disadvantage, along with 50% of my grade, because this tested only on physical science stuff. Which I did first semester. Some of which, I haven't looked at since, oh, November. Im sure if I was taking this stuff early in the year, it would have been painfully simple. Alas, I struggled in places because I hadn't done it in so long...I'm sure I did adequately, however.

Since this is a smaller than average post, Ill leave you with a Tim song, okay?



12 days to go.

Alcohol, Dirty Malls, Pensacola, Florida Bars.

I haven't even owned Manchester Orchestra's new album Simple Math for 48 hours now, and I am completely and totally infatuated with this wonderful, beautiful, astonishing record. Really, Music Blogosphere, can we shut the fuck up about Odd Future for two seconds and start talking about this brilliant band? Because no one does, really. Not enough anyway. Every single song on this record is fantastic. Go listen to Virgin, now, because I've yet to come across anyone--anyone--who dislikes that song. Also, Deer is so...not what you'd expect from manch orch, but it's beautiful. Pensacola is great, too, and Simple Math, and y'know, the whole lot really. It's different from Mean Everything To Nothing. But don't worry, I love Mean Everything To Nothing also, so it's not too much of a departure from their old work. Manchester Orchestra are one of those rare bands at the moment where, not only do they make records that work and flow as albums rather than one song and then another(y'know what I mean, album-buyers, yes?), but it's almost like the albums themselves flow together. I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child flows into Mean Everything to Nothing, and now Mean Everything To Nothing flows into Simple Math and really, that's a vary rare things in bands nowadays. It's very rare that I just want to sit down and listen to a group's entire discography in chronological order and do nothing else...but this is definitely one of these rare times. So really, go buy the record. I strongly suspect you will adore it.

Oh yes and I mentioned I went and fucking saw this band live on Tuesday in my last post, yes? Ugh, the nonchalance with which I said that...I had no idea just how brilliant the night was gonna be. Fun on a weekday, yes. O'Brother opened. They're a sort of wanna be grunge-rock-prog thing, in other wides it's pretty much a a solid half hour set of power chords, long hair, and head banging. Even if their music is somewhat unoriginal and same-y, it's too pleasing to the ear to pass up to be honest. Funnily enough, I'd seen them about a year ago, opening up for Manchester Orchestra again. I didn't like Manch Orch then...I went for Biffy Clyro(who, it just so happened, Tweeted on Wednesday that they were backstage at this gig. OHMYGOD. band I love seeing band I love with me in the room.), who were also opening at that earlier gig, and who I probably love a bit too much. I fell in love with manch orch after then. So anyway, O'brother was quite good, to be honest, though I'm not sure my parents were as pleased. Nevermind! Waited for too long(long night--legs and back in so much pain after). Cage the Elephant were co-headlining and after ages, they finally came on. Okay, I'm gonna swallow my pride here and say even as someone who went to this to see Manchester Orchestra, Cage the Elephant blew everyone else on the bill out of the water. I can't say I'm manically obsessed with their music, sure it's fun to listen to but I don't always find i too captivating, but they are phenomenal live. This is mainly down to the brilliant, adorable, and endearingly rock n roll lead singer that is Matt Shultz. First time I was introduced to Matt Shultz was on an episode of never Mind the Buzzcocks, shoved in between Stephen Fry and Matt Shultz. It's hard too look too impressive in between these two brilliant human beings, but what with his air guitar and over exaggerated southern drawl and extreme hyperactivity that was almost certainly down to chemical influence of some sort, he was wonderful. Same goes for tonight! Yay, drugs! Interestingly, Matt's ditched the platinum blonde hair and skinny jeans look, and has now opted to become a sort of Kurt Cobain doppelganger. In appearances, anyway. And very Ian Curtis in his stage performance. In a very superficial way, both of these blended in very well together, and he stormed through an amazing set, screaming, running around, and kicking balloons onto the crowed. maazing. They played In One Ear, 2024, Aberdeen, Tiny Little Robots, Rubber Ball, Indy Kidz, Ain't No Rest for the Wicked, and several others. The best moment was the ending--the oh-so-predictable but still remarkably enthralling stage dive on matt shultz's part. It was arguably one of the more interesting stage dives I've witnessed, though I didn't catch much from my angle. But oh, his poor oversized Blondie tshirt, it was absolutely ripped to pieces. Like, it was barely holding on by one shoulder. Amazing. Manchester Orchestra, while they did not live up to these levels, were brilliant nonetheless. Very loud and energetic and Andy hull is brilliant in every way. (Matt Shultz is the epitome of cool in an over sized Blondie shirt. Andy Hull is very much the anthithesis of cool in a Katy Perry t-shirt.)(Also, he kinda bitched at the crowd for crowdsurfing too much. 'This isn't the fucking Warped tour, so fucking chill out. I'm playing a slow ass song here.)(And he was grumpy because they ran out of time and someone dropped his guitar and not many people were interested in the new album, But good anyway!) They opened with the ever fabulous Virgin, and then continued with Shake it Out, Pride, 100 Dollars, In my Teeth, April Fool, Now That You're Home, My Friend Marcus, the River, The Only One, Simple Math, Everything To Nothing, Ive Got Friends, Pensacola, and Where Have You Been. I got a t-shirt and the night was incredible and now all I want to do is listen to the new album all the time.

Got myself sick with something or another, and got to stay off school Wednesday. Slept in till ten. Very happy with that. I needed it. Normally I can just about pull myself together the day after a gig, but I was too tired that day. When I say 'pull myself together after a gig', it sounds infinitely cooler than it actually is. It's not so much coming to school looking like Ke$ha as it is wearing a sweatshirt and being too tired to even bother with social communication the entire day, and then going home and having loads of sugar.

On Tuesday in art I decided with doing the seasons as my theme for my project. So creative, I know. My thing sucks, nothing I draw is even distinguishable, and I read through most of the lesson.

Health today was the most brilliant health lesson in the world. We did a silly little activity(minimal participation required, wonderful), and then went for a lap around the school. ('Let's go to the senior parking lot and see if we can catch anyone smoking pot'. My teacher said this was her hidden agenda). It was a nice day outside. We were supposed to go to the library but the computers weren't working, so we went to the caf and did nothing. Then she rounded us up and we watched a video.

Science is the usual nightmare. Taxonomy, animals, phylums, classifacations, et cetera. Luckily, on Wednesday people were able to seriously sidetrack the teacher with questions about frogs so the quiz got moved to Monday. Nevertheless, I seem to be completely clueless on just about everything and therefore will fail miserably. A fun weekend ahead of me, yes.

In World Civ we finished our video on Martin Luther and then went onto one about Joan of Arc. The Joan of Arc one was less interesting and slightly romanticized. Can we just establish that she wasn't some nonconformist feminist or whatever this made her out to be, as much as she was a lunatic. I'm sorry. She's interesting but she's not brilliant. We went to Debate Day, which was to some extent interesting. They discussed, 'Is the outdated technology at the school hindering education'? Short answer: no. When someone questioned the feasibility, money-wise, of updating all technology the arguing team went on about how this is just an ideal situation they're propsing, not reality. This is ridiculous because in an ideal situation, science quizzes don't exist, laxbros and Glee Kids are kept well away from me, and the caf is quiet enough for me to read. See, anything can exist in an 'ideal situation', silly people.

English is more Tale of Two Cities. I've had one vocab quiz and one test, both went reasonably well I would say, and more analyzing this poor book to death. Pretty basic stuff, for the most part, though. We've done one more fishbowl so far, but it was spread over two days and I missed one of them--very lucky. On the second, I went up twice! Admittedly I only go up when the other shy girl goes up, but at least there was a noticeable change in my behavior, right? The whole idea still bothers me because these aren't discussions, it's just quick fire saying whatever the hell comes out of your mouth, no matter what it actually means or if you contribute anything. So very shallow. I totally played into this, everything I contributed was so fucking contrived and juvenile but the teacher isn't the deepest soul out there. (for example, I misued the word 'sensationalist' at one point but she's the sort to think that I've at least heard the word, so that actually shows a good vocabulary or something.which it obviously doesn't). And she keeps going on about drawing parallels to like, Libya, and stuff and it's funny to watch fifteen year olds pretend they know a damn thing about it. (I really don't either, but at least I'm honest, you know? If you pretend to be knowledge on these matters to look good in some manner, as far as I can tell it's just disrespectful to the situation at hand). Sigh. Fish Bowls are the worst.

I've got a very stressful weekend ahead of me. Gonna listen to Single Math yet again, night!

I am nothing without pretend.

The house is dead silent, which I find disconcerting. my sister spent the night with her friends, and she just got home and now she's gonna be on skype for some hours still. my parents are seeing Gogol Bordello in concert right now. They won't be back for hours. I'm gonna listen to Noah and the Whale and blog.

Fact--I am the least cool person in my family.

It's so sadenning to me, the way I seemingly can only blog on the weekends now...really, it's quite upsetting. Because I love to blog, however banal the things I type tend to be. This year is going by so fast. I can't keep up. Time is slipping away and et cetera and nostalgia and all that. Don't they know these days are golden? Or something? Sigh. Truth is while one part of me is desperate for summer, the other just wants to drag this bleak, cold spring on a little bit further...Do you know how depressing my outlook on life is? Euphoria makes my emotional to the point of sadness. It's odd. I like to feel like I'm a changed person from year to year...It's a constant idea of knowing I'm shallow and misguidaded and unpleasant, but not kmnowing in what way exactly but knowing I will know in the future, and wanting to change who I am, and I hate feeling like I'm the same person I was on September and I hate the idea that I will have very few memories from this year. it's strange. Why can't I live life like a normal person? In the words of Simon Amstell--"and everyone's there, and they're running, and they're getting lost in the moment. And I'm going along with them and thinking 'well, this will make a good memory'".

I'm afraid when I'm let to my own devices and it's dark, I churn out this depressing angsty time-is-inexorably-slipping-away stuff. Maybe that's true for many.

Anyway, to counter this, the usual ramble about life.

This weekend was a productive one for me. Bought new editions of Q and the Word and and the new Cage the Elephant CD. Read Harry Potter, watched Lord of the Rings, avoided homework. Not looking forward to tomorrow--I've a monster of an essay to write, among massive amounts of other homework. And I need to catch up on piano. Groan. I want april vacation now. Two weeks to go. and then freedom and sunshine and listening to the Kooks to my heart's content.

I got a 73 on the science quiz! it a miracle, guys! The average was a 68! yay for scraping just above average! The world is wonderful, but learning about soil and landforms is not. Now we have to learn about water and my science teacher seems to have an endless supply of animals' skins to pass around the class, much to the dislike of many people and to the cry of 'oh god, not another one.' Where is she keeping these things? I have to do a book report. I was in the library late the other day hurridly looking through biology books. Settled on something about mavericks in biology. I don't particularly want to read it. Also we went outside on Thursday and it was surprisingly pleasent outside, though my group, less so. Someone hit a meter stick with all his might against the tree and it broke in two. Told the teacher he stepped on it.

We had a two-hour delay on Friday. Sleep has never been better. It's nice going through a day without the nagging feeling you're gonna pass out at any minute.

Monday and Wednesday in art continued the advanture of 'looking for my passion' in magazines that I don't particularly enjoy reading. I was getting pretty annoyed, as my teacher turned his nose up at every psuedo-artsy photo that caught my attention. I got to drawing a prism by Friday. Yeah, prisms, they're like my favorite thing in the whole entire world, obviously. No disrespect to prisms, mind, they're pretty damn cool, but still. He still doesn't seem impressed. Oh well. I'm not gonna draw a butterfly or a tropic rainforest bird like half the class.

Health, again, was the usual anti-drug runthrough, focus on alcohol this time. We watched a crappy video with English people in it, I was absolutely reeling in my seat. Drugs are bad and blah blah blah blah. Though we did a little game to test our knowledge on Thursday, and the ignorance of some people is unbelievable. these are popular people too! Aren't you supposed to go out on Fridays and get off your heads on illegal substances! It's freaks like me who are supposed to sit at home and watch star wars and think cigarettes are as hardcore as it gets! And yet I'm the one who knows what speedballing is, I know what drug classifacation marijuana is, I know what ecstacy's chemical name is, I know what the hardest form of cocaine is, and yes, I know that Meth is not a form of crack. (seriously to that last one, what the hell?). my god, guys...I know the world isn't ending because of this, but the lack of knowledge here was baffling.


I got a 96% on a world civ project about renaissance people whcih I'm very happy with because it took massive amounts of time to do. This week was basically us going over and over and over about the Crusades to the point where even me, as a history nerd with a focus on religious history, was tempted to fall asleep at times. Then we got assigned projects entitled 'POWER'(capitals needed), where we were divided into small groups and told to research the monarchies of powerful medieval civilizations. I got really lucky. Researcing about France is gonna be a ball! I reckon I got the most interesting one there, but I couldn't say for sure. I got out of Great Britain by the skin of my teeth. My teacher told my I could switch if I wanted to. For one, the freedom he gave me because of my nationality made me feel uncomfortable and alien. And two, I legitimately own half a dozen books on the British monarchy even though from a historical perspective, books simply listing monarchs are pretty dull. The nine-year-old me thought otherwise, it seems. Point being, I really should not be let anywhere near this part of history because I was just get sucked in and end up spending my days memorizing the entire British monarchy and stupid crap like that, and it'd just be bad and a waste of time and I'd get addicted. France sounds fun.

Oh yeah and we're drawing coats of arms, which is a nightmare times ten. I'll be glad to veer away from the European middle ages, actually. my teacher's a fun, decent, open-minded person but I don't like being singled-out when we're talking about the monarchy or government or whatnot. Don't get me wrong, many teachers do this and he's honestly one of the more knowledge on such matters, but it's still a tad frustrating. I know it's unavoidable, yeah. I shouldn't complain, I know.

the student teacher in English is completely inept at keeping the class under control. you know when you're doing grammar and you ask the class for an imperative sentence to use and their response is 'Suck this', that you're doing something wrong. Or when someone throws a calculator across the room. Deadly serious, it's funny but also pathetic. And now we're watching a movie? Wow, critical literary analysis indeed.

DOCTOR WHO. IN THREE WEEKS EXACTLY. OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS WONDERFUL. the new trailer looks wonderful. I'm a huge Whovian, you should know. I actually rather liked last year's series. I did have issues coming to terms with David Tennant being gone but I perservered...and matt smitth turned out to be rather good. as did Karen--I liked Amy. But no one beats Rose. I cannot, cannot get over series two no matter how hard I try. I took my Doctor Who waaaay too seriously in 5th grade. Unlike everyone else, I'm excited for the stuff about River. I never understood everyone's hate towards River...I'd take her over Amy any day, actually. Doctor Who reminds me of spring now, and warmth, and April vacation, and blogging. I loooove Doctor Who and cannot wait for its return.

Gonna go read and watch a movie late at night, hope the snow melts and all. Night.

so these last few days were pretty cool.

for one thing, I had a two day school week. just Monday and Friday. that in itself is the makings for a wonderful week, no matter how the bookends of it pan out. I reveled in the lack of finals for most of Monday. felt like doing a run through of all the HP movies(shrugs) and watching awkward clips of the Graham Norton show for far too long that night. it was pure, pure bliss. tuesday the same-ish also, nothing much to say there. ditto wednesday, plus overloads of DVD marathons, hot chocolate, and Iron&Wine, and eating out for lunch. it snowed again! so much snow lately. Thursday was a snow day. It shouldn't have been really. it should have been a two hour delay, that's what everyone was expecting. but what do you know, a snow day it was.

I don't hate snow days yet; most people around me do. People keep updating their FB statuses like "yeah, we know it's a snow day, stop updating your statuses about it!" and "I hate snow...I actually want a summer!" like they think they came up with it. snow days became unfashionable round here like a week and a half ago. whatever. It's not like you do anything in June anyway and US summers are like crazy long compared to most European places. so you get out on June 27th or whenever? wow. big deal. another three days of the teacher not caring enough anymore to assign much homework.

yesterday I realised my bedroom wall is running out of spaces for posters. I bought a copy of Factory and a gray butcher boy hat.

I found out my geometry final grade! I got an A, 95% proving that geometry is actually stupidly easy. These lost 5% were due in part to only one test, so the whole thing was kinda silly. Also, I got about a 92% on the final which is round about what I wanted(side note; because I studied for little more than two hours for this, and about eight for science, I will probably fail science. logic has not been a theme for my test taking so far this year). Apparently, the final didn't go so well for most people--I think the average was like the high 70s? Sorry if I sound like I'm bragging. Smart people called me smart because of this, which is something to keep oneself content for a little while. No news on other final grades yet.

the new semester started today and it was pretty good. After some scurrying around the school before the day began, I had art. Something quite noticeable about the art teachers here is that however talented they may or may not be, they appear not even remotely 'artsy', you know? my teacher is this guy who's retiring this year. He droned on and on the entire block, first about learning and the steps a child takes when drawing and then made us write our names various ways repeatedly and in the last two minutes he was like 'so, let's talk about the color wheel'. I sat with a girl from my geometry class and another from my spanish. No one in our class knows each other. we were silent the whole time. but it's only art.

Environmental Science, oh my God. way to ruin a potential perfect 2nd semester, science. i hear the teacher's a 'mean lady'. she ran out for something for the first ten minutes. came back, talked about her many turtles she keeps in the classroom(with the water filter things that buzz relentlessly, much to my annoyance) then gave us like seven handouts saying things that differed very slightly. also, the subject matter looks more dull than what I'd expect. makes some of physical science look wonderful. it's more focused on, say, geology and the structure of the Earth than I expected. how very naive of me. my class makes up for it. most number of people I know/like a bit relative to class size, I'd say.

after my new 1st lunch block(10:40? wtf?), I had history. or world civilisations, as it is called, but I would prefer to call it history. our teacher used to teach at my middle school. he's quite intimidating and very abrasive, but y'know, he gets stuff done. he only spent a half hour on contracts and books(they're like six inches thick.) and then he dived right in there. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM. YES. SOMETHING WAY INTERESTING. I am secretly a history nerd. it's just in middle school all I did was ancient history and US history. they have their good points, but to be honest both of those are pretty low down on my list of parts of history I find interesting. I flipped through my enormous textbook, while he's talking about tolerance and the spreading of culture and how no one was familiar with the term 'polytheism'(*cough*mixed level classes *cough*), and I'm thinking this is the COOLEST STUFF EVER. and guess what, I hadn't already done it to death already! so we're starting on this whole religious thing, focusing mostly on Islam, then why do the European middle ages, African middle ages, monarchies, the European renaissance, the French revolution and I was all like, this is freaking incredible. plus, very little homework. yes yes yes! xD

last period english. english is almost always my favorite class so I can't really complain about too muc here. the teacher seems nice, as does my class. she just gave us books and talked about stuff then made us write stuff about ourselves, then read. she seemed intent on knowing everything about us. I hate those 'get to know you' questions because they ask such inane stuff and it's not honest, cause you wanna give an impression. mine didn't turn out quite right. I was all like "Mark Z Danielewski! And Edward Scissorhands! And punk!" and then I was like "dogs! and vanilla ice cream! and spring". whatevs. she gives a lot of homework. and four books? that's kinda ridiculous. and horrible to carry home.

so that was my new semester, in a very long winded fashion, health in stead of art monday. monday morning is the quest of where the room is, since I've been given like three different room numbers.

finally, I saw Black Swan today and I totally loved it. do not come to me for movie opinions, unless you want them extremely juvenile and misinformed and generally ignorant of movies. I'll just stick with saying it was great. :D

so now I have homework to do again...hmm. okay, that's it for now.

Bye

did you do it for fame did you do it in a fit did you do it before you read about it?

I just watched parts of Who Is Poly Styrene, an episode of The Punk Years, and then listened to Roxy Music, The Au Pairs, Velvet Underground, and the Stooges for an hour. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing or what is happening to my music taste lately.

now for good measure, to All Time Low I go.


today was another snow day. most people didn't want one so they could be done with finals, but I was really not ready for geometry so I think it was probably for the best. it does ruin my four day weekend, but I get Tuesday and Wednesday off anyway so it doesn't really matter. if you exclude June, we have more time off school. plus, all I have to do this weekend is study! in other words, nothing! This weekend is super amazing though this doesn't feel like a snow day.

This afternoon I listened to a lot of Elbow and Ke$ha and flicked between reading Alice Sebold's Lucky0--and being so, so jealous of her amazing writing schedules--and Peter Doherty's Book of Albion and being so so jealous of his creativity and complete infatuation with his whole Good Ship Albion thing he's been spinning since like '96. mygoditissoooooenglish. I mean this in a good way, really I do, I could go on for a long, long time about my, to be honest, not insubstantial knowledge of British music and how Peter Doherty, through all his skirmishes, played a very important element in all of that because it's really interesting, but I won't. all I know is, I will never be as cool as Peter in any way. fuck it, I want to talk about art films and London and pork pie hats and gin in teacups and I don't care how pretentious that might make me. He's amazing. Read his book. NOW.

oh yeah, then I tried to come to a conclusion about Noel Gallagher's new group, Beady Eye(result; please shut up and go away, Noel, and let the Britpop and post-punk revival stragglers die a natural death), went for a walk in my snowy back yard, and relived my childhood via Ratchet and Clank and really nerdy walkthroughs of Jak and Daxter.

this weekend is the same. Hopefully mall tomorrow or day after. stay in, stay up late and watch Edward Scissorhands over and over. researching stuff about V Festival(fest I go to) lineup, which is gonna be released for real in little over a month. Rumours are spreading. I cannot wait for the festival, too, literally I cannot. Eminem and Arctic Monkeys headliners? plus REM, Rihanna, Paolo Nutini? Oooh, yes please! Especially Arctic Monkeys. I totally adore them, but I've only seen them once, at a place in Boston the December before last. I was second row and two people fell on me. My parents had to pull me out. All in all, I wasn't very aware of the concert. I know, a summer festival with a crowd roughly ten times as big will be no better but the energy will be great, I'll be with friends, and people will know the songs more. Trust me, it'll be euphoric. and oh yeah I've made it through the Prodigy, headlining V on their home ground('this is our fucking party' I remember being a sort of theme for the night) so anything else is nothing.

so other than the mall I need to get more music mags, study, and begin operation Convince My Mother To Let Me See Black Swan, for tueday or wednesday. it'll be exciting. :D

oh yeah, so The Kills, whom I'm starting to love, finally released some tour dates for their new album. I wanna go see someone live, so I thought this would be a good idea. I check the dates, and there's a Boston one and I go to the website and of course, just my luck, it's 18+. to add insult to injury, it's the day after my birthday and I would have loved to have seen them. I feel like I'm gonna see no one this year. I'm hoping for Florence again towards the end of the year, Kasabian if I'm lucky, Elbow if I'm even more lucky. sad stuff. moving on.

right, so I'm gonna go watch something on TV, but I leave you with Tired Pony 'cause I have a thing for completely bland pop rock songs. also, I love the video.




Bye :D

Homework Has Made Me Go Peep Show Cold Turkey(Almost)!

Hello.

You know what I miss? Being bored. Having time. Doing nothing. All of that. I'm having a particularly difficult time with homework lately, I'm not sure why. Yes, everyone is sort of struggling with keeping up with its enormous amount, but I in particular seem to be having problems. In terms of time, especially. Okay, so I do sort of do homework on and off during the day, but still, it's not that bad and I started at 2:55, finished at about eight oclock. And I had study hall today! This. Is. Madness. In fact, forget that, this is unhealthy and ridiculous. Perhaps it's the fault of the classes. I could go into an easier class...but I don't think my self esteem could forgive me. It sounds silly but I couldn't live with that.

And this is why I'm on the verge of tears, losing my mind, panicking, and half considering giving up entirely. I cannot do this.

Hell, guess what, I was having a panic after I'd finished my HW, and my mum knows of my new obsession and how indulging it would help me feel better, she was like "Okay, we can watch an episode of Peep Show later". And do you know what I said? I said "I don't think I have time, but maybe". Becuse that is the truth. And when I, who can average four or five episodes of this show on a day on a weekend, cannot fit in one episode on a weekday because of homework, then you know something has gone seriously wrong. and it's very sad. I miss my daily Mark Corrigan fix. But more I miss the knowledge that that fix is a given--depdent on nothing.

Right now I'm gonna blog on both(both as in plural, yes--www.mykingdomforonelastdance.blogspot.com) blogs and listen to The National's High Violet with my big headphones. and it will help. I'm not exactly sure what Matt Berninger is singing about a lot of the time, but all I know is he seems pretty down, too, and he is a baritone so it is very comforting.

The ironic thing is, I may hate school when I'm a t home, but I like it when I'm there. Actually, I like it a lot. In some ways the classes are killing whatever self confidence I had before, but today I brought my iPod on the bus, I read my book in the both vile and relaxing experience that is lunch and my lunch table, only got slightly bored in physical science, found geometry moved easily and fast, and Spanish isn't half bad. I like the classes. It's kinda testing my introvetrtedness but it's easy to fight back, and waking up is a pain, but it pays off. I quite like my teachers. And study hall or gym at the end of the day. it's good. The only thing I'm seriously worried for is Wednesday without study hall, when I have piano, and I don't know what I'll do.

I have had no time for piano and I feel very upset, because I was moving so well with it last year. I can only blog some days. I can't spend time finding new bands online. I haven't had the chance to draw all week. I haven't done guitar in forever. Some days I can't even read. In these afternoons, I am a bt miserable.

Oh, I am a whiny teenager, aren't I?

Anyway, it doesn't help to have a crap week because I had such an amazingly relaxing weekend. Saturday I went to the mall with my family and Natalie's friend. It was mostly for the friend but the mall is the only thing of a very commercial nature(except some of the onternet, I suppose) that I can stomach right now and I haven't been in a while and it was really fun. I looked around the clothes shops but didn't buy. On an other note, it's getting weirder and weirder, mainstream fashion, sort of. Also, while I will never forgive FYE for not having Libs or Babyshambles or Peter Doherty(a February '10 obsession, FYI), I do give them credit for Jonsi and Freelance Whales. I've only had the chance for FW so far but what I've heard is profoundly beautiful. Give me twee lyrics any day, I don't care! Wire my heart to your synthesizers please. Your music is so beautiful. Also, I got a smoothie and got out of the house. Oh, and on Monday me and my mom went fruit picking I can't beleieve I don't do it more, it's one of my favorite activites, I guess you could say. it's great being out in the summer sun, picking rasberries, looking under peach trees, and then we got icecream and the farm is so...farmlike and so absolutely folksy and lovely. I'm in love with that place. The sun says it's still summer--so, in my book, it is.

One thing I've mixed feelings on. Could the stores please stop saying it's autumn? Because it. is. not. autumn. yet. I don't like autumn that much. Okay, I suppose there's something stunning and hypnotic about the leaves, halloween, the nice weather, fruit picking again, goingfor walks, all of that. Autumn was amazing for me last year. actually, what am I saying, I love autumn. Love it. But it's not summer. Only I can see something as beautiful as autumn and think "everything is...dying", right? It's just I can seriously barely handle the winter I hate it so much and from January, February, to March, I don't know what I'll do. it's a good thing it's only September.

The only other news is that I've spent the week opposing the common 21st century idea of 'feminism'. I really wanna discuss it so much but I'm done here. I haave organge juice, music, and the internet. In 8th grade I would say time to kill--now I would say time to savor. I hope next time I write here I'm in a better mood.

Until then!

- Naomi

I'm Tireeeeeed.

Hello,

I'm a little out of it right now. For some reason for the last few days I haven't been too bad getting up for school and going to bed and things. And I don't think I'm jet lagged anymore, I don't feel it anyway. And then two hours ago I just kinda collapsed on the sofa I was so tired and feel asleep for two hours. I know it's very cool as a teenager to have silly sleeping schedules, but I am not liking this. I had so much to do tonight! That's two hours gone! It doesn't even feel like anything at the moment, I have a headache and I'm so exhausted, I dont have a chance to catch up on my reading, start my music blog, watch Peep Show again, go exploring the bands in the pages of the NME, or something. I'm really upset now. I used to love my nine to twelve Internet time followed by one episode of something on TV. But I just don't think I can make it. But what can I do? Ugh.

While day one was great, I've been definitely having a case of Second Album Syndrome with the last two. First off, on the subject of homework, I am most definitely not a happy camper. Monday was pretty bad, Tuesday was something else. I was struggling with math quite a lot at first, and I had to study for Spanish and I had science a little bit, and I needed to go get some more paper(mostly just to get out of the house, admittedly, although I spent most of the time outside the house in a panic). I got into the I'm So Stupid thing which is inconvenient and frustrating while doing homework but also wastes a good amount of time. I literally didn't have time for anything else that day. Maybe like a half hour to an hour online, that's it. There comes a point, surely, where the amount of homework one has becomes not only annoying, but unhealthy, right? If I didn't have time to do anything I liked...that can't be right, can it? How can anyone do this? How does anyone make it through high school alive? The work load is killing me right now.

I have two friends on the bus, and one of them is in my Physical Science, Spanish, and lunch with me. And don't get me wrong I like him, but I'm missing the independence that for me came with middle school in that I wasn't followed around by someone half the day. I've spent so much of the last few days talking to him or someone in the hallway, and frankly it's driving me a bit crazy. I'm excited for this weekend just so I can be to myself at last. Gaaaah. I'll bring my iPod on Tuesday(long weekend, woo). I'm sick of being talked to for the moment. I brought my book in to lunch today. It was worth it. Lunch feels long in high school, but of course it isn't.

OH WAIT. Just so you know, while I like Blogspot, it can be unbearably annoying sometimes. Like last night, where as you recall I was fighting to urge to collapse at my keyboard, I finally wrote out the damn post, and then Blogspot decided to save only to here. Silly Blogspot. Maybe it was a sign--it's 8 in the morning now and it's finally the weekend! Also, I'm not so tired anymore. So hello again!

Anyway I finally found the short route to Geometry yesterday! Finally! I finally understand this place. Classes are same old. Science isn't that interesting but I'm actually keeping up at the moment and geometry isn't that boring for Geometry. Notice how the combination of physical science, geometry, Spanish, and gym is pure, pure evil. I dislike my Spanish class a lot and I don't get to sit where I want anymore but I'm not struggling as much as I thought i would. I had a quiz yesterday on some basic stuff and I didn't do great(hey--no time to study!), but at the same time, I didn't completely fail either. the middle ground is where it's best to be, right?

I've always dreaded gym, because all I've ever known is dreading gym. But the high school gym we have isn't that bad. Mostly because it isn't gym, admittedly, but still. Yesterday we walked round the ropes course they have out there. It's nice that they have such a thing, but no, I will not be using it if I can avoid it. that stuff stresses me. It will not stress me as much as middle school volleyball, but it stresses me nonetheless. Afterwards we played some get to know you games that involved talking to people and that was that. Also, big moment for me, I had my first proper conversation with someone not from my school. okay, so a conversation for me probably isn't a conversation for you, but it was a moment nonetheless. She said her school was full of stupid people and she likes music. Um, kinda sounds exactly like me. She's in my study too. It should be fun.

Earl was supposed to go by where I live. No show! I wanted apocalyptic dramatic weather! Not fair!

Also, what are your opinions on the background? It's my belief that summer is decided by weather not by school so technically it's still summer and I needed something summery. it's either that or the brown one with birds. obviously that'd fit in with the title more, but who knows? The background fits in with how I feel right now--relaxed, summery, happy, happy to be doing nothing whatsoever. Happy happy happy. I've no plans for the weekend yet. Beach maybe. Today I'm probably going out for yet more CDs. FREELANCE WHALES, PLEASE. The question is, will anywhere sell them? I'm guessing no but it's worth a shot. I think my sister will have a friend round too. I just need to get out of the house. I haven't been anywhere for recreation since we got back, and I'm a bit bored.

So until another jumbled, horrendously bad blog post. See ya, world!

- Naomi

Oh. Well, hello there.

Hello there.

Just so you know, I'm not good at the opening post/All About Me thing. Never have, never will be. First off, I'm a pretty boring person. A lot of people say that, but trust me, I am. I mean, really, what do I actually do? Let me think. My name is Naomi. I'm English but I live in Massachusetts now. I'm 14 years old and I'm about to go into 9th grade. High school. I hate school, too; I keep blogs to complain about it, mostly. I also keep a blog to write. I like to write, a lot. Here, journals, at school, whenever I get the chance. Naturally that makes me a reader, too, I suppose. I do the 20th century classics thing mostly. Orwell, JD Salinger, Harper Lee, Twain, all those goodies. And some older ones, like Dickens and Hawthorne. All of those types of people. Your pretty run of the mill listing there. When I'm not reading or writing, I'm absorbing myself in an equally run of the mill music life. I'm 14, okay, what do you expect? I like boys with guitars and synthesizers, mostly. You know...Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Biffy Clyro, Babyshambles, Editors, Elbow(from which this blog gets its stupid name), Florence and the Machine, Franz Ferdinand, Joanna Newsom, Jonsi, Kasabian, Keane, Kings of Leon, the Libertines, MGMT, Paloma Faith, Peter Doherty, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Snow Patrol, , hat sort of thing. oh, and I'm an indie girl; kinda hovering between hipster and not, which is awkward. I often like to write about music, too. I don't like many movies, most I do have Johnny Depp in them, but I have a mad insane relationship owith UK 'telly'. Obsessions include but are not limited to Peep Show(Um. Marry me, Mark Corregon?), Mock The Week, QI, Nevermind The Buzzcocks, would I Lie To You, Doctor Who, That mithcll and Webb look, have I Got News For You. Yes, PANEL SHOWS. oh, I could watch them all day. And I certainly will at one point. I don't have much else going on, you know?

Anyway, that's about me to a t. Not that it matters--no one reads these things and even if you, you'll catch the gist of what I'm about pretty quickly. I'm like a living anti-climax, right? I find it difficult to sound enthusiastic on these things. iIam, of course, it's just tricky.

to be fair, i'm a little distracted right now. I'm super tired. I've had a mad few days. Over the weekend I had a sort of family gathering, all 16 of us, and I was so busy I couldn't have time to go online at all. I love family gatherings, we haven't been totally together for four years. Me and my family went out on Saturday morning and we came back and my cousins C, who is 18, and A, who is 16 came round. I saw A last year. She doesn't seem to change, except somehow I outgrew her this year. C just proved to the world that he did catch the 140 IQ gene that runs in everyone in the family except me by getting a brilliant A level results, and he's off to university for physics. I haven't seen him since he was 15. Now he has a ponytail and army boots and staring eyes. He's scary to be honest. And a total smart Alec too. After one uncle and one aunt arrived and we had dinner and apple crumble(my favorite ever) and first we measured peoples pinky fingers for the sake of it, we had a quiz and a drawing competition and all he drew were dots. No one took it seriously. Also on the downside, our parents decided to have a kids' drawing competition and my sister can be a wordimnotgonnasay sometimes. Attention seeker to the extreme. the fact she can draw better than me doesn't help. By the way, that was just the beginning. Where did this attention seeker Natalie come from? her plan was to make out that she can speak publicly, does crosswords and plays chess regularly, draws the whole time, plays Croquet, and is clever and witty. it's weird, because the real Natalie watches Spongebob and goes on Facebook all day and wakes up at midday. Somehow they didn't notice her crap and she was like the baby again(still is, really) and I looked like the pathetic older sister who can't really do anything. Although, that is sort of the case. Anyway, that made it up and down. That and my grandmother. I like my grandma, really I do, but she is liberal and extroverted to an extreme, which in itself makes you twitch after 15 minutes of convo, but then she has this fascination--no, obsession--with all things education. Colleges, really. My cousins Chris and Alex who came later are 20 and 22. I played croquet with their dad, by the way. I sucked, We lost. But it was fun. Oh yes, I got to go out in a Mini! It was really cool! Anyway, education is all my Grandmother wants to talk about. Alex mentioned something about a phd and she misheard and had a sort of euphoric moment when an extension of education was prosed. he is not, in fact, getting a phd. But all my grandmother cares about is how is school going, where will this lead you, where are you planning on going, etcetera. It's tiring. My 16 year old cousin isn't going down this Science-Math Degree Douchebag route so my grandma's ruled her out entirely. That makes me next in this conveyor belt of unverisites. Which kinda sucks. no, I won't be a scientist. No, i don't know what I'll be. No, i'm not gonna chose between the arts and the sciences. And you quickly lose the will to fight it anymore. She's also very stubborn. While she does now think my sister is heaven on Earth, she still wants me to talk about school and such. I'm tired of all that. I really wish we didn't have to do all of this. Sunday as good, all 16 of us together and we played outside and did a quiz and joined in conversations, but me and my cousin had to escape into the other room for lunch. No one seems to know how fucking annoying the college thing is. i wish everyone, all my cousins, were young again and we didn't have to go through this. *wistful sigh* Wasn't it yesterday I ran around chasing my cousin Alex with an inflatable banana? Now he's getting a computer science degree and has facial hair. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN.

Today's been stressful, though. School, I'll have you know, is starting tomorrow and it's all I can think about. High school, even. I missed the orientation and in between having too much to do, we got to look around and get my lock. The place was both simpler and nicer than I expected. I got a great locker, it's on the edge in its row and right by some stairs. the layout is super straightforward and I'm really excited by the freedom of all of it. My schedule for tomorrow reads physical science, then Spanish, then Geometry, then Gym. Which is gonna suck. At least i have study hall instead of gym the other day. First term is gonna be rough. Actually, it's all gonna be rough--I'm, getting used to that. i shan't be making friends, I imagine. I'm just to hope I have classes with people i'm okay with. i'm worried, of course, about homework, waking up(ugh. gonna miss that!), the winter, the nervousness, etcetrera. Also, I have to take the bus this year. The last two years my mum drove me. Can't anymore. That kind of terrified me, and no one's telling me anything about it. So I will DEFINITELY do something wrong tomorrow afternoon, if I make it that far. Busses are too stressful. I can't wait for the day I can actually drive to school. But anyway, I need to supress supress supress. Summer is over. A new year awaits. I'll just pretend I'm not miserable about it! Yaaaay! Welcome to my world!

- Love and kisses and I'll change the layout soon I promise, Naomi