Silver Lining on a Passing Storm Cloud

Knowing my wonderful time management skills, last night was another wonderful all-nighter. It was spent on APUSH, no surprises there, more specifically on a main idea log and John C. Calhoun report. My teacher never said anything about the report, but I figured that if it were on the syllabus, I better do it anyway.

Last night was actually one of the better all-nighters that I've had. My friend Meghan was online in the same time crunch that I was in, so we kept one another company in the early hours of the morning as it turned from November 15th to 16th. We had a rather nice discussion, to include fascinating subjects such as Special K bars and Glee, and the homework finally ended for both of us at 3 AM. We told each other to have a nice 3-hour nap and that we'd see each other in English in a few hours.

Report and MIL in hand, I went into 5th period APUSH after dragging through English and nearly falling asleep in German to discover something extraordinary:

The Calhoun report's due date was randomly changed to Wednesday. Great news for everyone who didn't remember it, but I had stayed up all night to discover that I had two extra days to work on it.

Even though I wasn't totally pleased with how the paper turned out, I turned it in anyway. I just wanted to get rid of it. I suggested to Meghan that we make cookies while everyone else does their summary, but it sounds like she has other commitments. I wonder if there's any brownie mix for Mom and I to celebrate with, though.

Bad News: I've had 7 hours of sleep in the last 50 or so hours

Good News: I'm apparently ahead in APUSH and have devised a plan to stay at least one assignment (hopefully soon to be one chapter) ahead in case another scenario where I need to stay up all night comes around.

The most important silver lining of the cloud, though, is that I've made it through another thunderstorm and am still able to see the cloud and try and prepare for the next one.

Review

Okay, so I still have a ton of stuff on my to do list (actually only 4 things, but it includes 2 papers and a main idea log, so it isn't the quickest), and I have a few spare minutes I'm granting myself before going onto my next English paper. Not much happened today, as I was working on another paper all day, so here's a review of a movie I watched yesterday.

I took a nap yesterday afternoon, at after finishing my German homework at about 1 AM, I still wasn't tired. Figuring I'd just watch a little bit of The Crow to put me to sleep, I went on YouTube only to find that I couldn't immediately find the movie watching channel I usually referred to. Thus, I turned to Wikipedia, and after a bit of clicking around, found myself on Vincent Perez's page (He was Ashe Corven in the second Crow movie). His filmography was pretty impressive, though most of them were in German, Spanish, French, or Swedish. Apparently, he's multi-lingual.

The only other movies in English that I could find were Queen of the Damned, I Dreamed of Africa, and Swept from the Sea. I watched the trailers to all three and read up on the synopsis and figured that, though it seemed the most well-known and probably best, Queen didn't sound like a movie I wanted to watch at 1 in the morning. I Dreamed of Africa, though it seemed interesting, had horrible reviews, and even won the Razzie Award for Worst Actress. That left Swept from the Sea, which had favorable enough reviews, and a synopsis consisting of "Someone is shipwrecked knowing how to play chess, not how to speak English."

I really was surprised at how good it was.

The music, one of the first things I noticed, was phenomenal. It was by John Barry, who also did Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves. The cinematography was wonderful, and the location (Cornwallis, England) was complete eye candy.

The acting, of course, is what sold it. For a good third or half of the movie, Vincent Perez's character, Yanko, speaks Russian or nothing at all. Even without subtitles or lines, he managed to portray someone completely lost and alone in somewhere completely different. This was the first Rachel Weisz movie I've seen, and I'll probably look into others. Anything with Kathy Bates or Ian McKellan is bound to be amazing, so putting them both in the same movie (and often in the same scene) was cinematic perfection.

I'm currently looking for it on DVD, as it instantly became one of my favorites. Though the title originally threw me off (It reminded me too much of a certain "By The Sea"), it was a prime example of how you can never judge a book by its cover.

Flashback

Nothing happened today besides rehearsal and homework, and homework will happen more tomorrow. Therefore, here's a moment from Thursday's German II class that made me giddy:

One of my friends was trying to convince my teacher to raise her grade to an A+, and therefore decided to draw a picture on the board. It was the typical cutsy-stick-figure-outside kind of picture, but it really surprised me when she drew the sun.

It was blue, and she announced "That's a blue sun."

I have no idea if she knows it, but she totally just quoted one of my favorite movies (The Crow: City of Angels). Of course, pretty much nobody else has seen that movie (The Crow is sort of a cult movie franchise), so I didn't say anything. Still, after two tests in 1st and 3rd and one coming up in 5th, that did make my day.

Another late night

I hatehatehate all nighters, especially when I've worked the majority of the day before said all nighter. But tonight seems to be doing rather well in the stay-up-studying department. Tonight, I have to finish THIS:

- Annotate "A Modest Proposal"
- Study English tone words
- Finish packet on fragments (Yes, I hate it too)
- Study German
- Study APUSH by typing up review and knowing I know everything on it

My contacts are getting crusty, so I have to go take them out. I'm glad my bed is made and therefore I can't get under the covers---I might wind up studying there.

Tomorrow I have three tests all in a row: Vocab for English, Chapter 11 for German, and Unit 4 for APUSH. If Environmental Science put the chapter 3 test off for today, I think I would have to make myself sick.

So for now I'm just listening to a mix of Hayley Westernra, Ragtime, Avenue Q, and Glee as I work. I've noticed that background noise actually helps me a lot---as long as I don't have to keep clicking over to change it.

Speaking of Glee: tonight's episode was AMAZING. Probably the most intense one yet, and a real turning point largely for Kurt, Sue, and Artie. If you're not a Gleek, then you'll have no idea what I'm talking about...but otherwise, tell me what you thought! Was the entirety of "Defying Gravity" amazing, and the ending insanely sad?

Oh, and what is UP with Finn? I'm never sure whether or not to like him.

My geometry project

Wouldn't it be cool if that were a wallpaper?

Now gotta fill out the three questions that go with it, draw a mini-square on some graph paper, do my geometry packet, and transpose some chords into bass clef. Not an early night, but tomorrow's Friday.

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."

Gearing up for a late night

A couple weeks ago, I was up until four in the morning doing the most insane amount of APUSH homework known to man. I thought I learned my lesson about checking the syllabus and staying on top of things and getting ahead.

I'm getting ready to go on another one of those homework binges, exactly two weeks after the first one.

This so cannot become a fortnightly tradition.

Finding blogworthy moments in unblogworthy times

I've noticed that the reason I was able to blog so much last year was because my life was a huge chapter in Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club. I wasn't the happiest in 8th grade, and though suffering does make for some good blogging, and I do sometimes miss those posts, I don't miss them enough to make myself miserable.

On the contrary, being in high school this year has been a well-needed breath of fresh air. Tomorrow will mark the beginning of the second quarter, and I have yet to proclaim my scheme to drop out of school. That usually happened in the first two or three weeks for the last two years. Halloween was always the limit where I tried to adjust by, but now it's just another milestone.

Even in the better days, there are some moments that are worthy to go online, and today seemed to be one of Those Days.

Ever since Beauty and the Beast, I've had this bottle of liquid foundation that, though too heavy to smear all over your face, is perfect for concealer. Well...was, anyway. I was using it today and was putting it away and completely missed my makeup caddy on the door, and it fell SMASH on the floor.

Naturally, it sprayed out a fair bit of Classic Ivory all over the floor. Trying to clean up foundation is like cleaning soap or paint---if you get it off one surface, it sticks onto another. It got all over the sponge I used to clean it off the floor, then on the sink when I picked up all the pieces...on and on.

I tried to salvage some of it, nicking myself on a piece of cut glass in the process. I found an empty travel soap box and used a Q-tip to scoop gops of the foundation in...it wasn't worth it. If there's any glass in it, I'm going to be seriously mad.

Time to get new concealer!

Recap

I realize I haven't blogged in forever, and I do feel guilty. I've had several things that I've meant to post but have largely forgotten. I miss having my big archive.

So let's just go over this weekend.

Friday- Nothing happened on Friday, really. Fort Knox had a football game, which we lost (but scored a nice 36 points, which is a record for us) and I went to. Hung out with some of my freshman friends, who I never see anymore.

Saturday- Amanda's Quincenero!













I know, I need more practice with a camera. Still a lot of fun!

Sunday- Homework day. Blergggg.

Monday- A little more homework and then messing around with my theatre makeup:



Took about an hour to put on, five minutes to take pictures, and ten minutes to take off. Pretty happy with the result.

I'm still alive

But that's just because AP hasn't killed me yet. School has been INSANE, and I haven't even had time to go on IM more than maybe twice this week. I apologize to anyone who thinks I'm avoiding them---I'm truly not trying to.

I'm altering my schedule this week to give me some extra time to get homework done, so I'll hopefully have more spare time in the near future.

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.

What terrifies me

- Fires
- Spiders, cockroaches, and other such crawlies
- The THX Certified...certification preview
- The idea of AP classes

I really need to find my sheets for Plymouth Plantation so I can get that over with and start on Scarlet Letter. Between that comes 8 chapters of German, and typing up 14 chapters of German Vokabeln.

Oh my god

I'm done with middle school.

YESSS!!!

School Countdown: 1 day

I can't believe that I'm actually writing this, knowing that next time I blog (unless I do so at 6:20 in the morning when I'm eating breakfast) I will officially be done with middle school. Like, not just done with that one particular year of middle school. Done as in DONE done.

While at times it has been a really long year, for the most part (and considering the length of a year), it truly has gone by fast. This is one of those times when I'm not getting all sentimental-"Slipping Through My Fingers", though.

Rather, here's a better one:



So to kind of sign off...thank you, readers, for putting up with my rants this year when you probably had better things to do. Be ready for some posts tagged with "Summer"---this is the final "Spring"!

School Countdown: 3 days

Two orchestra concerts today. One tomorrow.

Griped about the dress code for a nice chunk of the evening. Probably what's most frustrating is that there is no way that hasn't already been approached to change the code. I used to be all passionate about can-we-wear-hoodies, but now if we could just untuck our shirts I'd be the happiest camper ever.

School Countdown: 4 days

And two of them (tomorrow and Wednesday) are Orchestra Concerts, so I won't even be there.

I feel insanely on top of things, as I have plans for the first week of summer to be completely set aside to getting my life back in order. I'm using my trusty Remember the Milk! to make lists of things I need to do, and I honestly can't wait.

Only four more days until I have to start writing "Summer" as my tag instead of "Spring"!

Happy Richard Shufelt Day!

That wasn't supposed to make sense. It's a Musical Theatre joke.

Speaking of which, the final recital was tonight, and the only thing that stands between me and the end of the school year is three orchestra concerts and the final two days of school.

From algebra class

"Kaitlyn loves to draw :3"

Making my spot in the world

I went to about ten minutes of the final school board meeting today, and they went over the results of the schools for the QAR (some school test-thing that proves that yes, we are a school). I was given a golden ticket forever ago to go and talk to them, and I did. I told them greatly about how there was a rather limited source of different levels of education and that I was typically bored in class.

One of the recommendations for Scott was "provide different education through differentiation." That's me right there, readers!

Upon finding this out, I did the usual victory-slam (like in Mean Girls where one arm is a sling and you fling the other arm into it).

Thing is, the slamming through the other hand/fist up...into my face.

Oh, and my German video got first at State! Mike got second, as we were, again, the only people to do videos. You'd think there would be more Berlin Film-Fest hopefuls in Kentucky.

For those of you who missed my movie, Schwimmen!, here it is: