NaBloPoMo: Day Four

I'm considering redoing the format of my Blog. Probably not this month, though, since I'm already going through with this NaBlo thing.

But anyway, I've lately been on this huge journey of self-organization. I've tried for months to keep my room clean and schedule under control, but often find myself throwing clothes in front of the bathroom door and procrastinating on homework with things such as FaceBook, DeviantArt, Blogger, etc.

In all desperation, I decided to face humiliation at school by carrying THIS around:



Obviously, I don't look like a very cool reader (Unlike my friend Mark, who's currently carrying around Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club) but I have to admit, it's been working. I decided to not procrastinate today, and though I didn't get EVERYTHING done, I got everything totally important done, and it's only 10:20. I'm giving myself 10 to 20 minutes to finish my laundry and clean up/get ready for tomorrow, and then I'm calling lights out. 10:45 might not exactly be considered "early", it's a better deal than the going-to-bed-at-Midnight deal that I've been doing for the past few weeks.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"[If you see someone with gum], stop everything and go tell a trusted adult."

Scarlet Letter

Well, if I were Hester Prynne, then my scarlet letter would be "P". I'd have these amazing thoughts on how to make it the most epic "P" ever seen in Boston, but then five minutes before the public shaming, I'd have forgotten to make one. Thus, I would totally cut one out of a piece of felt and safety pit it onto my shirt. "I'm ready, Mr. Dimmesdale!"

Aside from the prologue, which I've heard to read last, I finally finished The Scarlet Letter at around 10:30 tonight. For as much moaning as I did about it, I have to admit that it was actually a pretty decent book. Actually, once I got into it, it was rather good. Good in a strange, almost non-English type way, but good anyway.

I believe the only way I survived was LoudLit.org, who have a podcast on iTunes (Podcast=free) that is completely just chapter after chapter of Scarlet Letter. I would listen and read along with it, and it clarified things so much better than trying to just do one or the other. Best of all, I would get a chapter done in 20 minutes clean.

For the longest time, I had to suffer my way through by trying to imagine the libretto for the non-existent Broadway version. By the end, I came to thinking, and have decided that the music would be written by Rogers and Hammerstein, who, aside from Sound of Music, write some of the dullest show music I've ever heard, to go hand-in-hand with the dullness that encompasses much of the book. When it starts getting interesting, they can go to Sound of Music mode.

Patrick Wilson can be Dimmesdale, Philip Quast as Chillingsworth, and Judy Kuhn ought to be Hester. Just because we can, Bernadette Peters will be Mistress Hibbins. As for Pearl...Elle Fanning. I know she's not a singer but I've run out of names.

Home again, home again

One French movie (I've Loved You So Long), a disk of Two Towers appendices, most of Life of Pi, 16 hours, and two days of driving later, we're home from Florida. Time there seemed to rush past, and now I notice that there isn't much summer left. How that that have happened? I still remember the last day of 8th grade, walking out of the building and having two months ahead of me. Now we're down to less than one.

Hopefully the school year will go that fast? I still have a nice chunk of summer work (Scarlet Letter, moments sheet, and four chapters of German) but I have officially decided to make room enough to read the last two Lord of the Rings books before summer ends. It's too late to learn to play guitar before school starts, but I want to accomplish something.