take a leaf of paper and draw your mind

hello all

my mom brought back the new Bombay Bicycle club record when she came back from England. Also, journals and candy and stuff. I miss England like hell when I see things like this. Also, she got to spend November 5th(which I miss more than almost anything about that country) at Lewes. Lewes is a little village with no particular significance but they have these huge 5th of November shows there every year. Like, tens of thousands of people are crammed into this village, it's like one huge, terrifying, spectacular riot one day a year. In a way it sounds like something i'd like to go to, though it'd scare me also. Oh well.

Music time.



I hated this song at first. If you do too, I suggest you bear with it anyway. It really grows on you. also, great lyrics.

The English presentation was a nightmare. I think I might hate someone in my group. I try not to hate people, really, because it's usually just such petty things they do that annoy me. I know it's not worth it, but I can't help but become wound up by some of the things people do. Like, this girl in my group, she made cupcakes for the class. See my last post on why this is absurd and I hate it. Then, I am the one forced to hand them out to people. I, who had nothing to do with this nightmare. And when every single person in that room asks and laughs why are we doing this? I have to say “metaphoric significance”. Yes, it has metaphoric significance, guys. That was embarrassing. And she made me talk even though I had little to say during the whole thing and I’m not even going to go into, yet again, why this is absolutely awful. And to top it all off? I looked at sparknotes at one point a few days ago to see if I was going in the right direction(confirmed). Yes yes sparknotes is bad but i use it very infrequently and, most importantly may I add, I use it to check where I am, not to add extra details to what I have. Maybe that’s a silly distinction, but I want everyone to note that distinction before I continue. Noted? Okay. Well, something on Sparknotes was a reference to something, something specific, in the Torah. A metaphor. Fair enough, although that’s way above this level of analysis. And this girl, she takes this reference and fucking uses it in her discussion. She does not know the Torah well enough to make that ‘religious connection’ on her own, might I add. She’s someone who thinks and acts like she’s much more calm, much more intelligent than she could possibly be. I know everyone uses sparknotes to some extent, but within reason, because they have the brains to know that looking like her is not a good thing. And lying for your grades is one thing, I don’t care about that as much as lying to other people in your position. Most people who use sparknotes, they will be honest about it to others in the class when the teacher isn’t looking. This behavior, I could not care less about; it’s innocuous and I don’t mind. Lie to the teacher for a better grade, that’s fine, but be honest to your classmates. However, when that girl makes that statement in the discussion and other people come up to her and tell her she’s smart, she says thanks and nothing else. Here, we have someone lying not only to the teacher but to others in their own position in order to look better. That kind of behavior, to me, is the kind that’s really kind of vile and unacceptable, and it pissed me off so much that someone could lie in such a blunt manner in order to look like they have some sort of semblance of literacy or intelligence or, like, biblical knowledge. I hardly come off looking wonderful from this story for a number of reasons; I am aware of that. But that girl’s behavior is just completely awful to me, it’s hard to describe. In a way, I don’t want a good grade on this project. A C would ride fine with me. Give the awful girl what she really deserves, why don’t you, I’m more than happy to have my grade suffer because of it.

That bio quiz was terrible, absolutely awful. That was the only thing we did on Thursday and it made me very stressed for the entire following weekend. Got it back on Monday and it’s fair to say that it was more than low enough to lose me my A in that class. Today was a very bad day for me, all things considered, shitty bio and even more shitty algebra grade, too. We’re talking about enzymes now. We did an activity about breaking tooth picks, saturation point and stuff like that I think were the focuses. In a weird way, it was kind of cool. I want my A back, if nothing else than for my own self-esteem(which is embarrassingly based a lot on grades and stuff) to be back to the fairly stable place it was before.

It’s only been a few days, just one long weekend, which is why there isn’t much to report from the school standpoint. That’s good, I suppose. Ah, yes, but on Saturday? I went to see Manchester Orchestra. And it was, genuinely, incredible. Like, one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. And I haven’t seen anyone in a couple of months at that point, so it was great. My third time seeing Manchester Orchestra. First time, the March before last, I went for the support band, and then I got their 2nd album for Christmas and fell in love with it. Then, saw them in may right before their third album was released. But between then and now I became totally familiar with all of their work and they became one of my favorite bands. We got there early and got a really got place to stand, and I got merch, and then the 1st opening band called White Denim came on. And technically they were good, but their entire set seemed to be one long guitar solo, so they weren’t really for me. The second band to come on was The Dear Hunter. Now, I have heard an awful lot about this band, and the vast majority of it is really, really good. Like, this-is-the-best-band-of-our-time type appreciation. And I’d never actually listened to them before, so I was really curious to hear what they were actually like. And they had one of those big, like, eight-piece bands with all these guitars and synth and stuff, and when they played it really was just a lot of sound to take in. It’s kinda prog and post-rock at the same time, if that makes any sense. They only played a few songs but the response was amazing, and they have this one track which I now know is called We’ve Got A Score To Settle, and you all need to go and listen to that asap. After the show, after Man Orch, I got their record(signed, no less, by two of them!) and was kind of puzzled at its astronomical price. But I learned later on that, among other projects this band have done (frequently pretentious and self-indulgent to an extreme, but worth a listen to all the same), their most recent venture was to release a set of nine EPs, each with the title of a color and four songs describing the emotions and imagery most people associate with that particular color. I had unknowingly bought the entire nine EPs as a set of three CDs, the entire thing titled The Color Spectrum. But I don’t mind because this is something that’s really, really worth listening to. So far I’m only really familiar with black, red, and orange, but I’m getting further into yellow and blue and green, and I’ll finish with violet, indigo, and white at some point. They’re genuinely quite diverse in their sound but they manage to keep everything tied together. Like, Black is rally intense and almost metal like in its sound, red is very much for the Manchester Orchestra fan, kinda still as angry and intense as black but more fuzzy and less intimidating, less synth too. Orange is as close to classic rock as could be imitated. Yellow is beach music, naturally, and as far as I can tell as far green and blue are kind of like Hawaiian, lo-fi things. Really, really great stuff. It’s pretty easy to see I’ve fallen head over heels about this band, and I’ve been listening to them obsessively since the gig, but I digress. Manchester Orhcestra remains the focus for the moment. And a good thing too, because they were every bit as amazing as the Dear Hunter! They opened with April Fool, arguably my least favorite song on Simple Math, but it’s kinda loud and easy to listen to, so it works. They played a bunch of Mean Everything to Nothing stuff after that, including Shake It Out(absolutely and totally wonderful in every way), In My Teeth, Pride(odd choice), and 100 Dollards(again, slightly confused, but I can’t complain). They played an awful lot of stuff from that record—they did I’ve Got Friends later in the night, which is one of my favorite Manchester Orchestra songs, and I think I recall them playing Everything To Nothing. Oh, and they do this really amazing live version of The Only One where it starts off very slow and continues for the entire song, except for the last twenty seconds or so, when they play it normally, that is, fast and energetic. I quite like that. After a lot of that, out of nowhere they played a song off their first album called Sleeper 1972. It’s melodramatic but I like it. And then, my god, they played what is not only my favorite Manchester Orchestra song, but one of my very favorite songs of all time. It’s called Colly Strings and it’s off the first album so they only play it very occasionally, making it even more of a gift to hear it live. And it was so perfect even though Andy changed some of the lyrics a bit, and it threw the crowd off, it was everything I always wanted it to be. And I never thought I’d hear that song live! It’s difficult to describe how wonderful it is to hear it in concert, and you know, I think the rest of the crowd agreed with me on that. It was a little bit impossible to top that for me, but they played Simple Math, Virgin(best live song), Pale Black Eye(underrated), Pensacola(there’s a bit where there’s no music and the band shout “alcohol, dirty malls, Pensacola, Florida bars” and it’s essentially the cornerstone of the song, and this time everyone knew this song and we could all sing along), oh and Dear. Dear was unforgettable. A lot of the crowd had started to clap as the song started, and the thing with Dear is they played it very slowly and were building it up and going faster and faster as things continued, although it’s not a particularly fast song anyway, and the clapping crowd were baffled by this and went on with their thing anyway. You know, large crowds of white people who can’t keep a beat clapping. In the second verse of the song, the protagonist of this song(Andy claims this isn’t from personal experience here) addresses “everybody who has paid to see his band”, and talks about how it still confuses him and he doesn’t deserve it and everything. And Andy changed this to “dear everybody who claps when they see my band/it’s fucking up our timing, you’ll never understand/I acted like an asshole cause it’s ruining this song/” etc. I love Andy, he’s so casual and funny and everything on stage. He seemed pissed at the crowd, claiming other bands can keep time but theirs can’t and that they’re not very good musicians or whatever. He’s insecure, but lovely. Oh, and they ended with River. River is a great song. And I came out of that gig totally infatuated with that band again, literally thinking it one of the best gigs I’ve been to. Absolutely amazing. Oh, and I’ve never been to a gig before where the group of college guys beside me shout “peace be with you!” after every song. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to the individual, I suppose...but it’s hard to deny that was a unique sort of heckling.

It’s been good to have this long weekend, Friday off and everything, although homework now awaits. Good music will assist me.

this song is like an 80s movie

guys

this song

it's like every 80s teen movie thrown in a blender and made into a song. excuse me for thinking it's brilliant. and for writing like this is tumblr.

so, uh, school. my life. what's been happening. I can't really summarize the whole thing in a cohesive manner.

We're reading Hemingway in English which is...kind of okay. It's war stories. I have no taste in books! Let's embrace it! I spent the first week of school lost in On The Road and everything's seemed so dull since. Everything about me is an affection, eh? Again, let's skip round this point and pretend I've got anything to say. it takes a lot to interest me in a war story, and not even Hemingway has that power, generally. I wanna read his other stuff, though, cause it just seems like the sort of thing you should read, you know? However, I'm kind of okay with all of that nonsense because the class is a literary wasteland as it is. the inane teaching style continues! We're forced to write poetry about these stories. Forced to write poetry. This is something that should never, ever happen. Like, ever. Nothing good ever comes out of forced group poetry-writing sessions, and the teacher knows it. However, she does seem irritatingly willing to display this train wreck AB-rhyme scheme poetry all across the room. other than covering up the walls, which are a shade of blue reminiscent of bad bathroom design, I don't see where she's coming from on this. Oh, we draw pictures too. Despite my teacher's hope that she can suck some creativity out of before the school's collective 9:30 caffeine buzz sets in, the result is usually forty five-minute long discussions about anything else. When we get to chose our own groups, the results are usually good; I end up with two girls I sort of know and am sort of ambivalent about, and most of their discussions revolve about how 'Asian' their families are, and I nod and smile at that. And I can usually read and whatever at these times. When we don't get to choose our groups, the result is a highly tedious class filled with occasional awkward almost-conversations with people I don't know. The people around me get to class early, and are a curiously comical bunch, in a really contrived way. Think Friends. Yeah. At least, that's how they see themselves. Sigh. Luckily, we're reading Gatsby soon(finallyfinallyfinally though it's only been like three weeks) which might just be the pinnacle of my year.

Algebra is usually filled with sly, sarcastic comments on the part of everyone around me, but the teacher gives us breaks and I can read. My parents, after open house, dew scribed my teacher as 'extremely weird'. My teacher has mistakenly given me a 100.0 average in that class.

and the pseudo-politicized debates rage on in 20th century history. The focus seems more to be on current affairs than the actual 20th century. For all I hear(and ignore) politics at school and what have you, it seems very few people actually walk the walk about this stuff. the whole class tests the limits of my teacher's knowledge. Unlike most history teachers and their beliefs, who I've rarely had good experiences with, he's actually okay at not being completely biased. We're supposed to have an actual debate soon. And, we're switching seats on Monday. Maybe I won't get stuck sitting next to a bigoted, stupid person who never shuts up and shows up to class twenty minutes late to class every day and thinks it makes her look all out-there to the teacher. and maybe we'll move on from the fucking economy one of these days, because this is pretty much the only area of politics where I can summon absolutely no interest and the extended discussions about it are surely killing me.

then in bio, we do labs and talk and proteins, and I'm struck by a niggling paranoia that everyone in there hates me. no matter, I suppose. I got an above average score on a test so all is well.

At the beginning of the school year, I always react weirdly to everyone around me. I don't do camp or anything much in the summer, so I'm not very social. I'm definitely an introvert, so this works out nicely. I'm not the most introverted person you'll ever meet or any ting, but I'm definitely sort of uncommonly introverted, I would say. at least based on how people behave at school. This I reckon is the reason why, when I'm thrown back into this highly social environment, it can be sort of startling and bewildering for me. Sometimes I really rather like having people around me(granted, it's sometimes in a sort of Dean Moriarty-like way, which is shameful, but I digress), and other times I can sort of panic and all of a sudden I decide to live my life as a recluse in rural England and nevereverever see anyone ever again. I'm always at one end of the spectrum or the other, and until I can become accustomed to it again, which can take up to two months, I can go through these horrible cycles. It's...irritating. It characterizes autumn, and the beginning of school is usually cool, but it's iterating all the same. it's the main, melodramatic point of general annoyance for me at the moment. Fucking leave me alone sometimes, people.

I saw Bill Bailey recently. He's a music comedian dude. He's no Tim Minchin, but he's very smart and funny and interesting. The venue didn't sell out so our seats got upgraded! We were ten feet away! His show was sort of weird combination of a lot of topics, but it was very good so I would highly recommend it. And then it was this sort of fair thing in the center of town recently, and the stalls weren't very good buI i saw a bunch of my friends do their Show Choir thing so that was fun. We hung out downtown, then I got a bagel and a Coolata, and came home. They had music, weird Beatles cover bands and folk groups and that sort of thing. I don't like seeing people I vaguely know outside of school, but remarkably managed to tolerate it that day. also, there were puppies.

My favorite things at the moment are the Thick of It, the Inbetweeners, Kerouac, Fantasia, the National, and I'm in a weird phase where I just wanna listen to Nirvana's In Utero constantly. Man, I hadn't listened to that album in three years. It's an amazing record. Autumn's almost here! I went to a Greek festival one weekend, but all the other weekends I just watch TV and read and buy books and watch Doctor Who and hang out with friends and put off all homework until Sunday night.

That is all for now.

things got weirdly busy

So, I was gonna blog while I was in England some more, but then the internet got shitty, and then I was gonna blog right after I got back, but then things got busy and stayed that way, and then it turns out it had been a fortnight since my last post. Thus, I present to you a post about the time I spent in an England, in an uncharacteristically concise manner. sort of.

I got to hang out with the friends I mentioned in my V Fest post a couple times. I think they're the only family I know where the term 'family friends' really applies.I went round to their house and played weird video games. Then, we drove to this park near where they live. It's all play equipment, but it's great, really dangerous in a way you rarely see anymore. trust me, it's cool.

We went to the zoo for my sister's birthday. god, that was tedious. I don't like or understand zoos in the slightest. Since it was cold and rainy, rather than unbearably hot, the animals were pretty active, which I guess was cool. despite this weather, the people there didn't seem particularly perturbed. that's the ultimate problem with zoos for me, as it is, unfortunately, for many public places. I suppose that's to be expected.

My splurging on whatever CDs and DVDs tickled my fancy continued throughout the remainder of my time in England. I'll say it once I'll say it again; HMV is an amazing place. I bought Tim Minchin, Metronomy, the Horrors, and finally--finally!--the new Wild Beasts record. All I would highly recommend. oh and speaking of music, congrats to PJ Harvey for winning the Mercury. She wasn't my favorite but Let England Shake is a good record, she totally deserved it anyway.

I bought new brown Wellingtons for V! I got to wear them in the end, which is odd because I was sure I wouldn't have to, and was buying them just to be certain, as I do so frequently. They were good quality, too, so it was worth it. This was done the day before V, which was extremely cold and wet. In the mean time, we got texts from our mad friend going out and buying baby clothes for a baby that isn't hers. We saw those guys again in the morning, too. we went for a walk and talked about crazy costumes for the festival.

After V died down, we took a trip to the town I used to live in. It's a little English village so yeah, it's basically the same as it always was. We went to the post office and down this country walk that was right by my house. And my old school! Which has gone to hell, as it's under new leadership and stuff. I find it rather unnerving going round where I used to live, as I sort of feel like I don't belong there at all, crazy as that may or may not seem. I feel intimidated. Also, I hate seeing people I know in public, especially people I haven't seen in ages, which is very likely to happen there so I was in a panic for a lot of that. I still sort of miss that place, but it's getting better every year. The people in our old house haven't changed it too much, too, which in itself is very comforting. We tried to get into the V site, but it was blocked off for more than a week after the fest ended. We ended up just driving around little villages, and I listened to Cat's Eyes. And oh yes, clothes! I'm judgemental so I like to compare the clothes in America and England, like I did last year, even though my fashion knowledge extends to oversized t-shirts and going "ooh look at that picture! Miu Miu shoes!". Last year I recall saying I liked England's clothes more; this year I side with the States. English girls like to wear floral patterned everything at the moment. I got a weird top with a swan on it that made me feel like the girl in Crystal Castles. And then I got stripy skinny jeans! Oh god, stripy skinny jeans. I shouldn't be let near clothes, I just can't be trusted to make good decisions.

I didn't see many old friends while over there, but I did get to hang out with these two girls I used to know. One I went to school with, and was friends with, the other I saw only a few times a year but we always got on well. I hadn't seen the latter for three years. She is now that most endearingly gregarious of people: a drama kid! I had to try to talk musicals. Although actually the worst bits were talking school, particularly cause I felt so distant from all of the stuff they do. Not that I want to do GCSE's, big tests scare me to the extreme, last week my mom proposed the idea of my taking the PSATs in October and I went off on a teenage Temper Tantrum for most of the day. but all of the stuff that goes with the GCSEs, with being in the last year before Sixth Form, all of the menial elements of British school life...I wish I was part of it. It works, to some extent, the other way round too, though. They seemed to love the fact that I actually take "one of those yellow buses" to and from school. Also, we did this weird hippie thing involving the special powers of particular stones. I was surprised by how well us three got on, considering all our differences. Overall, a good day.

Spent one day in London. Train ride in listening to Elbow--beautiful record, though has obtained some scratches, god knows how, I've been careful with this disc. The old London rooftops are great. Because of the Olympics next year, they're doing all these renovations so London's tricky to move around in. I went to the Natural Science Museum! I haven't been in about ten years, we looked at crystals and stuff about space. Then, we hung around Harrods, and I looked at magazines, vintage movie posters, and the crazy expensive clothes they have there. Then, I went to the hard Rock Cafe! Which in itself isn't that great a place but I'm a stupid music geek. Lastly, my sister dragged us to Hamleys a half hour before closing time, and I lay in a heap in a state of semi-consciousness in the teddy bear section.

Here's something I like almost to the point of a fetish; historical reenactments. and a less edgy fetish there never has been. There's this manor house round where I used to live that does those circa Tudor, Elizabethan, and WWII at various points during the year. They have people dressed up inside the house, and then stalls and shops--making cheese, beer, etc.--in the surrounding area. This time round people were getting their Tudor on and there were about 150 of these actors wandering around. It's not like their big Elizabethan reenactment, where they have 250+people and it's amazing, but still it was pretty damn cool. Best people were the minstrels who wandered around the grounds, creepy alchemists in the woods, and the drunken layabouts having a party in the small brewery who attempted to slur some innuendo at us as we wandered past. I know, I know, romanticizing medieval Europe is all too easy when the sun is shining and you're just watching people play weird string instruments and such, but in reality those times weren't good, we've established all of this. Still, I just love the idea of being a Tudor for a day, you know? I could picture myself getting involved one day, if at the ridicule of everyone I know, except you basically have to talk to the general public, which is hardly my forte, is it? Damn my vacant social skills! And damn you, 2011. I just wanna pick herbs and bake bread and wear weird clothes all day.

I finally saw the Inbetweeners movie! Overall, pretty good. The Inbetweeners is very lovable, even when it's not at it's funniest. It's all about capturing a teenage sense of humor, and in this they did it brilliantly. the ending was very cliched, though, which is my main complaint. much as I love the Inbetweeners, a sequel would be awful.

Our last day wasn't good. Heathrow was hell. Yesterday's flight was cancelled cause of Irene, so they were trying to get twice as many people in. Tickets were a mess and it took an hour to check in, even though there were five people in front of us when we got in line. Also, I'd been quite sick for most of the week and was getting very anxious at everything. Not Heathrow at its best. The plane ride was okay though.

I know these posts are very late, I've written stuff already and I'll get that up soon.

She's Thunderstorms.

it's Monday evening. I've still got science homework and an english essay to do, so I'll make this week's entry as brief as I can possibly manage.

Shitty weekend overall. The weather was awful and I've been doing homework the entire time. Six school days to go, can you believe it? I certainly can't. Next time I talk to you here, I'll be in full blown final studying mania. Not fun.

Two redeeming elements of the weekend. One, the final Doctor Who. I don't have the time for a full-blown list of every thought that went through my head(there were a ton of them) but I will say that I loved the episode and, while tumblr basically revealed everything that happened prior, I thought the twist was amazing and am in love with how Moffat writes things. One of the best episodes yet, and naturally, one of the most confusing as well. I am going to miss this show like crazy over summer, really. But at least this means I'm actually looking forward to September now, right? Right. Also, a couple of friends came round and we made Doctor Who themed t-shirts, tardis blue spray paint and all. I basically just copied the design of the tardis onto a tanktop and it looks shitty but it was so much fun. I loved that.

Second thing. The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Cbosky. Oh. my. god. One of my new favorite books? Yes. My favorite YA novel ever? Totally. (though obviously the second one is not really a difficult thing to achieve in this day and age...but still, the book fucking rocks). As it's being made into a movie and it's pretty popular already, I guess it's likely you've read it, but if you haven't, you need to, because it's one of those books that kinda changes your life. In a cliched, contrived way. But still! I love it. So go read it.

I saw the Script on wednesday! It was, to be honest, a whole lot of fun. Plus, the venue was absolutely amazing. it was basically a huge tent, kinda like the dance tents you get at festivals, and all around it was just like a festival, with crappy food places and ice cream stands and what have you, but it was amazing too. except it's better than a festival, because at night when you look outside the tent, you see a fucking city. a city with awesome lights and everything. so that was gorgeous. Plus, I saw a handful of people from school there! Safety Suit opened, and they were terrible, and the next day at school I had to pretend they weren't terrible because my sort-of friend really likes them. And pretending they were good was very, very hard. The Script were fun though--they played Science and Faith, Before the Worst, Talk You Down, Break Even, the Man Who Can't be Moved(always amazing), Dead Man Walking, You Won't Feel A Thing, Nothing, We Cry, if You See Kay, Rusty Halo, and a few more from the new album that I'm not familiar with. It was a good night. Also since I'm so in love with the venue, I got tickets to see the National there in September. I'm excited!

Time for a school runthrough.

I have two art classes left to go, and then a final. Thank. God. I really do hate this class. I was an idiot when doing my course selection for next year, and I'm up for two art classes if I don't get into Chemistry. (chances of getting into Chemistry are minuscule). I have to opt out of one of those, or I will die. Or opt out of both--there's a second English course you can take, and it's not much fun, mostly just writing essays, but I think I'd take that over art. Plus, a bunch of people I like are taking the English thing. Whereas art could be anyone sophomore through junior, and I can just imagine being in a class which I despise. Anyway, point is the people at my table have exhausted about all opportunities for stupid conversations, and now it's just boiled down to the cycle of 1. Say you're bad at art 2. Have someone say you're not and 3. Repeat until the bell rings. I want to get this done as soon as possible...I am literally gonna rush through my last project, and what does it matter, according to my teacher nothing I do is okay anyway. No big deal. The final(which is Friday), is a written thing, I think, and my teacher didn't teach us a damn thing. Fun. It's lucky that Art is gonna be my first final, partly because it means I don't have to be properly awake at that point, and partly because I want to be done with this class ASAP.

Health! My teacher was pretty pissed that I'd missed my presentation slot, but it turned out okay as I just went on Tuesday instead. She was unreasonably impressed, mostly because of a few rare statistics, but it's not like the presentation was actually good. I got a 95%. Then on Thursday & Today we talked about sexual harassment, shitty high school movie from the 80s and all. Today was an interesting one, though, I guess. We were put into groups and asked to make a list of things that prevent sexual harassment, date rape, et cetera. Inevitably, the first idea to pop up was "well, don't dress like a whore" and, guess what, I held my fucking ground against that one. I mean, I almost always try to go with what I believe, but it's kind of hard in that situation, especially as I am not particularly familiar with either of the girls I was with. But I was all "no, that's victim blaming" and eventually our group never wrote that down cause of me. And, best thing is, one of the girls wasn't familiar with victim blaming and why it's bad, so I got to spread some knowledge on that front. Sadly the health teacher disagreed with me on this opinion, but oh well. I just wanna alter society for the better, you know. My final for health is midmorning on Friday. I'm not too worried about it. my final schedule turned out really nicely this semester.

The science test turned out well enough--an 89. After a slew of lukewarm grades on handouts and tests, I'm just hoping I can do well enough on the final to keep my grade an A. If I do that, I'll have all As this semester. The good thing is, we finished our final environmental project this week. Turned it in today. my portion was decent, and everyone else's looks good. She grades very easily on projects and what have you--we're about guaranteed a good grade. Apart from gym, this is my most hate class of the entire year, I really need to just get through biomes, cram for the final, and leave. I need to be done with it. We have a really complete study guide for the final, and we get to see the essay questions in advance. Also it's next monday, so I have the weekend to just study that. if I get an A on that, and at least a B on the final project, I'm guaranteed an A. I'm like an A minus at the moment, so really it isn't too much of a stretch. I need to make more of an effort for this last week, though.

it's good to know we're ending the year in World Civ with a really fun topic--the French Revolution! We started it last week, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, to be perfectly nerdily honest. We started with a movie, as always, which was good enough, and then we did the whole 'does the end justify the means' thing: a discussion which only serves to make me a bit angry. Nevertheless, I perservered through that, and then we began our final project. This is in place of a final, thank god, and I present it in my last ever freshman class, next Tuesday. I'm in a group of six. I'm basically with three decent guys who I don't know very well, one irritating dick, and one stupid, vapid idiot who went four days thinking we were working on the American Revolution, rather than the French one. (how can anyone even do that?) There's no information on what I need to find, and I'm about done anyway, so I get to read the entire time. This is my World Civ life through to Wednesday, I believe. I guess it's a good way to end this class.

In English, we absolutely raced through Romeo & Juliet. The packet questions can be answered in the before-chapter summary, and there's a key on the left side of the page that translates some of the harder sections, so I honestly don't properly read this book. That's a bit embarassing, I know. While she said we wouldn't act out big parts of it, we did spend massive chunks of time doing that, and I had to play Benvolio at one point. I honestly don't know what sort of things she expects us to find in this play. If we do an essay on this, I will cry. Oh, we spent a whole lot of time watching the movie of it, too. Basically, the last week has been something of a breeze. We reviewed grammar the entire time today, I worked on my own and listened to funny conversations. It was a very nice class. I have a portfolio thing due Wednesday, which I haven't really started, but after that the class will be easy. I liked the way this class worked; I will miss it. my final is on Friday...I just need to review grammar, get some meaning out of the books we've read via Sparknotes and Wikipedia, and then I'm done.

So, that's about it. Summer fever is kicking in, naturally. Though, being me, part of me doesn't want this year to end. I'll say it again: I'm a nostalgic mess. But then again...nowadays I DO just wanna play Animal Crossing, make a collage on my bedroom wall, and construct a summer mixtape for some person. So maybe I do want summer.

Still, I'm gonna miss a ton of stuff.

But then again...England in August, and maybe Niagara Falls in July, and July 4th and sunsets and warm weather and sleep. Hmm.

I have stuff to do. Night everyone.

Hey There, Sister Wife.

The title is of no relevance to anything...it's an Alex Winston song. It's not amazing but it makes me happy.

most amazing day in ages.

It was the Seniors' Last day on friday, so most of the inanity of high school life was intermittently interrupted with parades of screaming, shouting, shirtlessness, and general obnoxiousness. Ah, what do you expect. Health was boring--a quiz, then several people's projects. I read through most of it. Science, nothing, my teacher talked about turtles and how she wants to be reincarnated as a groundhog, then she was forced to reel herself back in and talk about evolution or whatever. (pfft, all that natural selection shit, who needs to know that when you can talk about the complications of domesticizing a bear?). Lunch was interesting too, though the senior prank was weak. Stealing all the chairs from the cafeteria, really? Then throwing water balloons and confetti everywhere. Hmm, I'm not impressed. At least it got me outside for a while...all seniors dressed for the beach, and blasting Katy Perry somewhere. Fun? I don't think the other non-seniors enjoyed this, but I did, in my quiet, distant way. World Civ, we talked about slaves and whatever, nothing interesting. English, we went over poetry(next unit. Not too excited) and edited these Tale of Two Cities essays we've had to do. So I got stuck with the writing prodigy, but she's cool and that's okay...I don't really have any proper like friendfriends in English--like her and one other girl I'm familiar with. Good enough. At about 1:30, a stampede of seniors made their way through every hallway...one guy had a vuvuzela(ah, remember last July? Time flies.), another decided to walk into my room, blow a whistle, and then leave. We joked that if someone were to peek out into the hallway, they would be rapidly pulled out into the flow of the crowd, like in a cartoon or whatever. There was a noticeable difference when they'd left. The seniors are gone...no more seniors...three and a half weeks left for me. Shit, guys, this year is almost over. Shit.

Evening was a amazing. A couple of friends and myself spontaneously decided to go downtown for the night. it was the usual--saw a few people, saw some drunk seniors screaming out of cars, saw about a dozen policeman hanging around looking out for said drunk seniors. We went to CVS, ate out in Bertuccis, walked around, I rang a giant bell after like ten tries, then hung around like the creepy teenagers we are in a deserted, gorgeous Catholic Church. Oh my god, the night was amazing and it feels like summer and I love it all. Life is wonderful. I will die over summer if I don't see these amazing people enough--that is all.

So yeah, it's also hot here for the first time. It's really hot and it's late-ish. Hello, summer, nice to see my favorite season again. It's been too long, too much rain and snow. I don't think it's very, y'know, cool to say summer is your favorite season...but whatever.

School. Health! Nothing out of the usual. I have my Bipolar project due Wednesday, but it was moved to Friday due to mid-week state tests. Yay, since I haven't exactly started it yet. it was the usual talking about birth control this week, the teacher obviously struggling to counterbalance the requirement to talk about that stuff, when really she wants to scream at us to just not have sex. Ha. In addition, I have decided that it is impossible for anyone to become so mature, that seeing someone put a condom over their arm(while asking you to write down a list of 'steps') is no longer funny. Really. We followed up an activity we did the week prior, where we draw a 'perfect partner'. Turns out, we did this because 'if we do not know what we want now, we will never get it'. Kinda confused, as I thought we were basically being told not to look for anything? Huh.

Art, nothing out of the usual, more focused on doing butterfly painting things on my folder than working on my actual art project. However, there are no longer any insipid, stupid conversations for me to secretly laugh at, because some guy that everyone hates has joined our table(he wanted to be away from the potheads at his previous table) and the girls at my table want to be mildly unpleasant to him. Turns out, he's nowhere near as annoying as the regulars at my table are, so whatever. He's actually a decent person, the others are the weird ones.

Science, we're doing this huge group project that counts for 6% of the total grade. Six percent! Luckily it's easy, and if I do well on this and do well on the final, I'm basically guaranteed an A. The people in my group are mildly irritating(and I'm supposed to be feigning friendship with two of them)and I don't wanna write about trees or whatever. Le sigh. We went out for the last time to our environmental area some time during the week. It threatened to rain the whole time, but it never quite got there luckily. But it was still cold then, and wet, and it wasn't fun. Also I have to do physical science state tests next Wednesday and I know nothing.

World Civ has been extraordinarily dull this week...we finished some activity from a previous week, watched a movie about colonists, and talked about types of colonies. my god, this is so far away from the history stuff that interests me. My teacher kind of rambles a bit, but remarkably he manages to ramble about the same shit at different parts of the class and never notices. I took a quiz on this stuff at some point, but I honestly had no clue about anything...first failed world civ quiz? I think so. I'm failing a lot lately, I've given up on school. Now we have to talk about slavery, and we're not allowed to be even remotely cheery about it. And we have to watch a shit movie about it. So many movies in this class.

English, finally finishing up Tale of Two Cities. This week's been a blur. Grammar, grammar, so much grammar, test on Tuesday + I know nothing. The essay wasn't fun...but we got all of Thursday to write it in class, which made for an exceptionally pleasant class. A few more fishbowl activites, one I got 100% on, the other 85%. My teacher's been impressed with my stuff lately, I guess I really 'got' Tale of Two Cities. I wasn't very good--everyone else was just very bad. They hadn't a clue what was going on. Literary skills by proxy? I guess so. But not really...and now there's more pressure for the damn essay. Also, we start Romeo and Juliet next week. For preparation, I have to spend the weekend analyzing shitty haikus. Ugh.

Not a whole lot else to report for this week. It's a long weekend which I hope to spend well. No Doctor Who this weekend. Listening to CocoRosie and reading Plath. It's been good, though.

Tim Minchin next Saturday, too.

Anyway, night.