My friend Maggie posted this in her blog, so I've taken the liberty of snagging it and posting it here. I'm not an avid reader like she is, but hopefully I've still read a few of these on the list. :) Anyway, here goes.



According to the BBC, the average number of books read out of this list of 100 books is 6...how sad is that!? Look through it and mark which ones you've read--hopefully its more than 6!

(to make your own just copy, paste and add an "x" to the books you've read)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ( )

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien ( )

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ( )

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ( gonna start it soon!)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)

6 The Bible - (x not in order, lol)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ( )

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ( )

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x)

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ( )

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ( )

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ( )

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read I think 5 of them)

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ( )

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ( )

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ( )

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ( )

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ( )

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ( )

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ( )

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ( )

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ( )

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ( )

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ( )

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ( )

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)

34 Emma - Jane Austen ( )

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ( )

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ( )

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ( )

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell ( )

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ( )

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ( )

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ( )

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ( )

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ( )

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ( )

52 Dune - Frank Herbert ( )

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ( )

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ( )

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ( )

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon (about 1/2... I should try again )

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck ( )

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ( )

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ( )

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ( )

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ( )

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (wow, didn't know this was a book...)

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ( )

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker ( )

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )

75 Ulysses - James Joyce ( )

76 The Inferno - Dante ( )

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )

78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ( )

80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x but abridged, I think)

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ( )

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ( )

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( )

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ( )

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ( )

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x in English, hopefully soon in French)

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ( )

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ( )

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare ( )

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (next year in French!)

so that's 14/100, more than twice the average but still not a whole lot. A few of these I actually want to read, but some of them just sound like... well, poop.

Anywho, that's all you'll hear from me today, I promise! Peace out, homies.

:) The boyfriend's shift on prom night is covered, so I am officially for really reals going to prom this year. Pretty dern excited.

I should probably write a poem for English, since that's my assignment for tomorrow. I always put off this stuff until the last minute.

I'm thinking maybe this weird spurt of depression is over for now. Hopefully. Today was really really really good. I went to a record store with my daddy and boyfriend, and then to a sporting good store, and then came back to my house to play Halo (the first one! we're trying to beat it, since I've never done so because I've never had an xbox/xbox 360). Then, we got some dinner, and then after eating we went back to Halo. What nerds, right? Haha. I guess it's nice that I've manged to find someone as nerdy as I am without being socially screwed over or hard to look at. (Yeah, ok, so I can be shallow sometimes.)

He just left, after we had a nice snuggle in the rain. I remembered how much I love rain. Summer is that much better due to the fact that there is so much rain. I like to leave my window open every night possible during the summer, and the best nights are when it's warm and rainy, so it feels good and smells good. (Evidently, the smell of "rain" is actually the smell of worms, so I guess I love the way worms smell.) Summer is a time when every time problem in the world melts away in the hot sun or is washed away by the pouring rain. It's perfect. I couldn't be more excited.

By the way, I have to add that (aside from live recordings and acoustic re-recordings) I now have every John Mayer album! Granted, there are less than five of them, but still. I feel pretty accomplished, since I LOVE John Mayer and all. (Shutup.) I'm currently listening to my newly bought copy of "Room for Squares." My second choice in the male population to my own boyfriend would be John Mayer (oh yeah, I could TOTALLY be with him, aside from the whole him-being-twice-my-age thing, and that whole I-have-not-met-him thing and such).

I think that's enough for today. I love you!

The boyfriend *might* not be able to get off of work on prom night... after he's already bought tickets AND I've already bought a dress. :[ Not to mention the fact that I really want to go... bleh.

To make matters worse, I think I'm going into some weird state of depression again. I just can't be happy and stay that way for very long. Not that much is happening. Maybe I'm just literally bored to tears. I don't even know.

I've got my first sunburn of the year. Woot. Walked around DT Wheaties (I don't expect you to know what that means unless you are one of my local friends) yesterday and then today I did some yardwork and I wore a tube top so as to not get weird tan lines for ... well. there it is again, prom. I can't escape.

I feel like complete and total crap. I don't even know what's wrong. I got pissed off at my mom today because she was laughing at the fact that I'm not very good at 3-point turns. I mean, she's my MOTHER. She's not supposed to laugh at me and make fun of me. It's not right. Instead of going to another neighborhood to work more on them (instead of just mine and the neighbor's driveways), I just went inside the house, into my room, watched "She's All That" and then took a nap. My mom woke me up from my nap about an hour ago asking if I was okay or if I was just taking a nap. I think she thought I was like sick or something. Maybe she was thinking that I was upset and that she should try to fix it. Yeah, right. Well, either way, she didn't do anything once I told her I'd just been taking a nap.

No more than 2 seconds after that, the boyfriend called because we'd been texting and he knew I was having a bad day. He thinks I think I can't come to him with problems. The truth is that I only come to him with problems when I know he's not busy. By busy, I mean at his dad's house (parents are divorced), at school, at a friend's house, about to hang out with his mom, and so on. He thinks I should just call him so that at least we can talk. What he fails to realize is that most of the time, all I need is a hug. And when he's out and about, he can't give me that. So instead of making him sad thinking about me being sad, I just don't tell him. I guess I've been kind of "standoffish" because of it lately. I can't help it that he's been incredibly busy. The last two times I've tried to hang out with him b/c I was in a bad mood (those being today and... 2 weekends ago?), he's been doing something with other people. He doesn't just drop plans for me, and that's fine, but he can't claim that he's always there for me when he's not. It's not realistic. I just wish people could be a little more realistic sometimes.

Ugh, this post is too long. I'm gonna play Sims.

*yawn*

Summer cannot come soon enough.

Yeah

Ummm... yeah, this is my prom/banquet
dress. It looks better when I'm wearing it, but I don't have a picture of that at the moment so you'll just have to DEAL. :)

Battle of the Bands was good except for the fact that one guy ruined a perfectly good Danger Radio song and another guy ruined a song by NeverShoutNever. :[ I like them (sometimes). But it was still good, and lots of fun. The boyfriend's friends' band won for most people there to see them (there was a running tally for who was there to see which band) and then they ALSO won overall when the judges voted. So that was sweet. They deserve it, considering the fact that they are awesome and all.

Hum. I think I should do my biology homework. Night, kids.

♥

Bah.

Basically my entire weekend has gone from one plan to another plan to an entirely different plan.

Originally, I was gonna go to the lock-in at my school on Friday night (9pm to 6am). Then, I would be sleeping for most of Saturday and homework/etc. on Sunday.

Yesterday, when the whole prom confusion happened, I decided not to go to the lock-in so that I wouldn't be exhausted at prom from staying up literally all night just before it. I was just going to go sleep over and watch movies at my friend Maggie's house.

I just got a call from my boyfriend telling me that the prom isn't until May 1. WTF? Evidently, his school does not know how to update their website. So now I could go to the lock-in, but it's an extra $5 to get a ticket tomorrow on top of the extra $5 from paying after Tuesday which was originally $15 (what I'm trying to say is that it would cost me $25...). I'm not willing to pay that much for a lock-in, so I guess I'm not going to that. =/

Sometimes, I just wish boys understood that they need to ask people straight-forward about what they think about something (in my case, going to prom... evidently the boyfriend thought I "didn't want to go") and then PLAN AHEAD. I don't like having my schedule rearranged like this, especially since all the stuff is time-sensitive.

Anyway, I should stop complaining. I'm still going to prom. I still have an absolutely AWESOME dress.

[just imagine there's a picture here of a pretty dress... this site is being stupid and not letting me upload one right now... I'll try to get one up later.]

Battle of the Bands for the boyfriend's school is tonight, so I must be off.

Bye

<3

Hmm

Evidently, ticket sales are going on all this week.

I just got my dress.

:)

Damn damn damn damn damn.

So I just realized that there's NO chance of me going to prom. Ticket sales ended on April 3rd. Prom is on SATURDAY. :[

Oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain... hopefully something else fun will happen.






Screw it, I'm upset and I don't even care.

I seriously feel like there are two giant hands on my head, just squeezing it. It doesn't hurt, but everything feels very compressed. Allergies? :[

I felt like a 90s mom today at school (I wore this shirt/dress thing and... well that's the best way I can describe it - 90s mom).

In alphabetical order, I have these people following me!:

Allan (edited:oops... I fail at spelling sometimes)
Alphie
Jesse
Rachel
Lee

So props to them for not getting bored/annoyed (at least, not to the extent of blocking/deleting) reading my posts. :)

I wish I had a dopple-ganger that I knew in person. I've only seen one (two?) but never met.

More later. ♥

"Scheduled outage at 2:00AM PDT on Thursday (4/16)"

I definitely thought that it said "outrage" there and not "outage." I was all, "wha? blogspot is mad at me?" (oops, it's blogger now, not blogspot... maybe it's mad because I call it by the wrong name.)

On another note, I just got home from the boyfriend's house. We had fun. I got to eat some pizza puffs. I LOVE pizza puffs (aka pizza rolls or whatever else you want to call them). He starts his new job (yay, Oberweis!) a week from today. I tease him that now he can buy me presents. What I really mean when I tease him is this : I really want to go to prom, and now that you have some form of income, I'm hoping you'll buy us some tickets.

Is that really selfish of me? I feel like it is but... I dunno. It's not fair, I don't HAVE prom at my school (dancing = sin in the eyes of some of the board members of my school... one of the downsides to going to a Christian school). We've got a banquet for juniors and seniors only, but no prom. I love dancing (even though I'm terrible at it), so it makes me sad to think that my boyfriend, who goes to a school that likely has a relatively cheap prom to get tickets for (ghetto district, ghetto town, ghetto school... could I say ghetto one more time?), isn't willing to take me to prom because he just doesn't want to go. Now, the not having money to pay for it thing was legitimate... BEFORE he got a job, but now he's got plenty of time to save up like $100-$200, I'm sure. He's got until the end of MAY, which I would think would be fine.

Meh, I'm just spoiled and selfish.

I've been wanting to go to a prom for as long as I can remember. Up until I met my boyfriend, I never thought I'd have a chance in hell, considering how my school doesn't have it.

*sigh* Hopefully our mutual friend will hint around to him about how much I really want to go.

Sorry if I sound like a total brat in this post. I'm not trying to be that way. Seriously, though, I almost never ask anything of him, so now I'm kind of upset that the one thing I really want is something I can't have (at least, not at this point). He would get so much deposited into his account at the hug bank if he just took me to this one stupid dance. =/

BAH, I'll shut up now.

PostSecret

I think this sums up everything I'm feeling right now pretty well.

Thank you, facebook.

"and to be honest by the look of things your already insane anyways. "

p.s. new post in the artsy fartsy blog. I think I'll just do a little update on here every time I post something there.

I eat in the stairwell at my school. It's fun. I like it. My friends and I moved there from a teacher's classroom, where we had originally moved to from the cafeteria because it was too crowded. We are sort of nomads like that.

We have a pass to eat there, meaning no one else is allowed to. We got a pass b/c we got in trouble for eating there once. We make sure to clean up after ourselves, even the little crumbs. So far, it's been nice.

Sometimes, though, someone will bring a friend or a couple of friends who are not on the pass. These are people who (hate to say it) we do not like. (By "we," I mean the original 6 girls in our group. A couple of guys have joined us, and they are the ones who bring their friends.) When this happens, the stairwell gets too crowded and the conversation splits from one into two or three. Not fun. Usually, when the place gets too crowded, we'll leave. It's sad that we can't even been in our own spot.

Anyway, today was one of those days. Someone brought along, not only extra people, but one who used to go to our school but transferred out and her friend who had never gone to our school. The gals and I decided to leave (after waving the pass in their faces and telling them to leave, nicely, and them not listening). We walked around the school, and when we started heading back, someone told us that the people who were not supposed to be in the stairwell had gone in after we'd left and started lighting sparklers. Not only is it stupid, it's against the rules. The smoke alone could set off the fire alarms or the sprinklers (which flood the whole school). I know for a fact that the alarm was once set off by something on a bunsen burner in the chem lab, no more smoke than burned popcorn. Then there are those rules like "no fireworks etc. in the school" and "no lighters in the school" and whatnot. On top of it all, one of the guys who actually is allowed to be in the stairwell with us managed to be an idiot and burn his hand on one.

Needless to say, I'm pissed. My one sanctuary in the whole school has been compromised. This is the one place I have to be with my friends, the small group of people in the school that I actually give a rat's rear about, and another select few is ruining it, day by day. I hate to be so exclusive, but I really really really enjoy having time to talk to my friends and be with them without a hundred other people crowding around us, being annoying.

I set my facebook status to say something about how stupid it is to light sparklers inside a school, or any building. Next thing I knew, this girl was leaving me a message about how it was "no big deal" and how they didn't get caught so it "didn't matter." We went back and forth about it, I pointed out all the things that WERE actually a big deal about it, none of which seemed to matter to her. It seems to have halted to my response to her calling me "immature." Yes, I'm immature because I respect the rules and because I like to spend 25 minutes a day with my good friends. I must be regressing back to age 5 as I right this, eh?

Hum. To make a long story short: People should really think about what they do and how it might affect other people, especially in a public environment like a school.

LOL

This was my most recent word verification test:

hentied

Happy Easter! :)

I went to church this morning with my mom, grandpa, and aunt (it was at her church). It was a good service... kinda weird since I haven't actually been to church in a while. It's really hard for me to go to church and not hate it 90% of the time. I'm very picky. I don't like them too big or small, I hate it when they have everyone read something out loud at the same time, I hate the sound of organs (for the most part)... I just hate a lot of things about a lot of churches. And then there are church people... they tend to drive me nuts. It's really weird, because I'm a Christian and everything, but church... buh. I have chapels at school 2 days a week (sometimes 3), so I guess that's still good. Those I don't hate in the least (usually).

ANYWAY, after church we went to my aunt's for lunchie and it was yummy. We had lamb, and a lamb-shaped cake (which I frosted!) and some other tasty stuff. I then proceeded to take a nap, and then when I woke up, I had my 4th cup of coffee for the day (mmm) and then we drove home. It was kind of strange.

Now I'm at home, and I have to do some homework but I'm thinking it can wait for a little while, since all it is is reading for history. Shouldn't take too long. I think I also have to write a poem for English, but I believe that it is not due until Tuesday, so I'll be putting it off until tomorrow night. Yipee!

Strangely enough, I'm fairly sleepy right now. I need MORE COFFEE. Only not really. (Kidding about the coffee, not the sleepy part.)

Have a nice rest of your Easter (etc.)!

-me

Also I've updated my art blog a bit if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Well, actually...

I texted my sister to ask her if everything was ok with her. I told her that I didn't care if she didn't want to tell me what was going on, as long as I knew she was okay. It ended up being fine, well... she's okay, anyway. I won't go into detail 'cause she didn't want me to say anything to anyone and even though this is anonymous, I still would feel shitty for saying anything.

Weirdly enough, I just figured out that my boyfriend is the only person in the world that can make me feel stupid and inferior, and he doesn't even try to. I just don't feel good enough anymore, and I hate that about myself, because I never thought a guy would make me feel this way. It's not fair, he doesn't even try. He's just... smart. It's horrible, but sometimes I wish he was dumber... nah, not really, 'cause I'd hate him. But still...

Anyway, I'm in a better mood now. Just got home from watching the boyfriend and some of his friends play Axis&Allies (WWII game...) and... well that was interesting. I didn't even take out my book at all! Managing not to get bored was an impressive feat, if I do say so myself.

Hum. Goodnight.

Ok ok so I watched Monsters Inc. the other day and I noticed this: Sulley's apartment, when you look at the windowed side of that front room or whatever it is, looks a lot like Linguini's apartment (from the same view) in Ratatouille. I wonder if Pixar used the same set? Or parts of it, anyway. Maybe I'm just crazy. It's just a bunch of windows, afterall, right?

Happy Good Friday, folks.

Starting Monday, we're not allowed to have peanuts or tree-nuts at my school. We can only eat them in the front office, which is tiny. Therefore, my friends and I are going to gather a large group of people to eat in the office and make it annoyingly crowded on Monday. My mom says we should do it every Monday because doing it just once wouldn't work, but doing it over and over again would. It's because people have allergies. Specifically, it's because of ONE kid who's going to be a freshman next year who is apparently deathly allergic to peanuts and tree-nuts. His current school (a k-12 school where I went from grades 1-6) is already nut-free. Now, I understand doing that in an elementary school, where most of the kids don't know better than to avoid their allergies and be careful about what they share, but a high school? This is a place that's supposed to be preparing kids for the real world, right? No one's going to baby these kids in college or in their jobs, making their environments nut-free? Meh, I'm ranting and I've been doing it all week, so I'll maybe post more about it at a later date but for now, I am done.

My mom just got off the phone with one of my family members. She sounded distressed. I heard her say something about "not saying anything" so I guess I don't get to know what's wrong. I know it's got to either be my sister, my aunt, or my grandpa, none of whom I would want having any sort of issue. I'm upset that I don't get to know, though. What would they keep from me? It must not be my sister, 'cause she'd tell me... right? :/ God, please don't let it be something really serious.

Ugh, now I'm upset.

I'll let these speak for themselves.

!!!

I scored 8th place in the National French Contest for year 2! (Everyone who took it and got 61 out of 70 correct scored 8th place). I am seriously flipping out. Last year I think I placed in the chapter, but this year I placed nationally! :D

I don't mean to brag... I'm just really excited. (This is going to look nice on college applications. Haha.) Mostly I just want another pin to attach to my purse next to the one from last year. I like pins. lol.

Also I got a giant photo of myself today. It was from the teacher that was taking pictures of my eye color. He had prints of a few other students. He's continuing the project by shooting MY BIOLOGY TEACHER! (Tomorrow, I think.) My bio teacher recently shaved his head bald for a school fund-raising thing, so I think that made his eyes stand out more (they're blue, like mine) so I think that's why my photo teacher is shooting him.

Semi-related: My bio teacher is the same age as my father. He's been teaching at my school for 28 years. My dad's been working at the place he works for like 29 or 30 years. Randommmm.

Okay I am done blogging for today. My best friend and I are hanging out tonight so yeah. Peace out, kiddos.

<3 me

by the way, what the hell do you DO with a giant picture of yourself?

Good morning!

I'm off to school.

Hope you all have lovely days!

(How's that for a short post?)

Cameras, Cameras, Cameras

I did a little digging today and found some more cameras.

They are:

Argus 75, which was made between 1949 and 1958. Uses 620 or shaved 120 film, I guess. Hoping to try it out! I really need to start making money...

Argus 100 35mm, which is just a point and click camera. I believe it's from the late 80s. I literally can't find ANYTHING about it on the internet. (I don't think it's anything special, though.) There's also a flash and a case with it... I don't know if it ever even got used. There are some coupons along with its box that say they expired in 1988. Sheesh.

Vivitar cv35. It's PURPLE as well as TRANSLUCENT! I think this was actually my first camera that was my very own, if I'm not mistaken. Plastic, point and shoot, built-in flash, no extra parts (i.e. lens caps etc.)- perfect for a 6-ish year old girl. I found a roll of film in it, which I rolled back into its canister before removal... mostly. The darn thing was making so much noise that I couldn't tell if it was done or not. It really struggled with the film take-up. I ended up opening the camera before I'd rolled up the film all the way. Hopefully some of the old pictures are saved, if at all possible. I wonder what's on there... I guess we shall see.

Anyway, sorry for the random camera babble. It's spring and getting pretty outside again, therefore I want to take pictures again. I went to the grocery store today with my dad, so I dropped off the 3 rolls of film I had (2 that I took yesterday with dad's SLR and the one from the vivitar that I found today). Overnight processing, so hopefully I'll be able to go back and pick them up tomorrow.

I analyzed a poem in English today. Evidently, I understood the meaning exactly as the poet had meant it. (I know this because after she asked us to suggest what it meant, and I offered the only explanation of anyone in the class, our teacher pulled out a book and read the words of the poet regarding the poem.)


Ezra Pound's
"In a Station of the Metro"

The apparition of these faces of the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

(That's it. That's the entire poem. 14 words long... 20 if you count the title.)
So that was cool. I think I became the star pupil for the day. Normally my teacher kind of... well, she doesn't generally like my ideas about things and so she mostly just ignores them with a "hm" and moves on to other things. It felt pretty good to be acknowledged, weirdly enough.

Nothing else really happened. I just talked and thought a lot about cameras.

I have the perfect birthday gift idea for the boyfriend!
(Too bad his birthday is not until September...)

I deem this post long enough. Goodnight, everyone.

-Norah!

I like to wear skinny jeans. You don't need to know why.

I'm recently addicted to Death Cab for Cutie's "Narrow Stairs" album. I never realized how great of a band they are. Maybe they really aren't that great but I just have mediocre taste. Oh well, it works for me. Listen to what you like most, right?

Also, you should probably check out French Kicks sometime. "Cloche" has to be my favorite song of theirs. Jangley guitars just make me want to get up and shake around a little.

Anyway, enough of my random music chatter. Maybe I should just make a post of all the bands I like and my favorite song by them at some point... IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER! Bahaha. I'll save that for a time that I don't know what to blog about, though. For now, on to other things.

The boyfriend came over tonight. Today was just one of those days that I could not be around him enough. I didn't want to let him go at all. It's not like we've gone long without seeing each other, or that I had a bad day or anything like that. I just really wanted to be with him today. I couldn't let him go when he had to leave... I just kept putting myself between him and his car so that he'd hug me again in order to move me. Sometimes I'm just weird like that. I'm glad that he actually likes my weirdness. Some people think I'm just a freak, I think.

We officially started independent reading projects in English today! I'm doing a book club with a few friends about The Princess Bride! :D Admittedly, I've already read about 250 of the 400-ish pages, but I've been holding off reading until this project just so that I could use it. The only requirements for the book is that it is at least 100 pages (easy) and by an American author, since that's kind of the theme of Junior English. Freshman year was classics (Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.), Sophomore year was Brit lit, this year is American lit, and next year there are options! Either AP, or Contemporary Lit or Shakespeare for a lit class, and then Creative writing or Writing Workshop as a writing class. I'm taking Shakespeare and Creative Writing. (Surprise, right?)

Anyway, if you didn't already know this, my FAVORITE movie of all time is The Princess Bride, and the book is (so far) BETTER. I can't put it into words. The movie really sticks true to the book, too, which is nice. I'm really excited about this project. We're also starting the poetry unit! Yay! :)

I want to go to bed right now so that I'm still feeling warm and fuzzy from the snuggle-fest tonight, so I will get going.

OH AND ONE MORE THING!



I busted out my dad's 35mm SLR camera today. It's a Ricoh! lol. I have no idea if that is any good but that is what it is. I haven't used it for like 2 years, but there were 2 unused rolls of film in my camera bag so I used them up getting readjusted to the camera and taking pictures of the kitchen and the boyfriend, mostly. I'm hoping to get back into film photography. Also I remembered that we have this:





As far as I know, this camera is (at its oldest) from 1917. (There's a list of patents on the inside of the back cover but I didn't want to try and take that off again today... my dad and the boyfriend had to work together to pry it off. The latest date on the list was from 1917.) It looks like it takes 116 film which no longer exists (thank you, google) but it's possible to use 120 film or adapt 620 film for it (thanks again, google). 120 film is cheaper, so I'm thinking about getting some and trying it out. The controls are pretty simple from what I can see, although there is no light meter, a luxury I've taken for granted ever since I started getting into photography.

Sorry if that last chunk was really boring. I just get excited about stuff like this sometimes. It's probably fleeting, unfortunately.

It's now an hour since I've started this post. I want to sleep now! Bye!


p.s. Can you find the picture within this picture?
(I'm gonna try and make this work better during the daytime when I have better light.)

Because I can

I'm going to post 3 times in a day. Shoot... I should have been in bed an hour ago. What on earth am I still doing up?

Well here's the deal. I happened upon a certain blog, which had posted a meme in which a person was to tag 6 people and then post 6 things about his/herself that those 6 people don't already know. And this person who had posted this only had 5 people tagged and a request that if a random person (here's where I come in) happened upon her blog, that they make themself the unofficial 6th... tag-ee. So here we go. (I can't skip out on an internet meme when one catches my attention, no matter how hard I try.)

Here are my tags.

Allan
Lee
Jesse

Well, looks like I only have 3 people to tag. I need to start following more blogs. (Give me a break, I've had this for like a month.) I guess I will use the rule that the girl before me used: if you randomly happen upon my blog, feel free to take this little game and make yourself the 4th, 5th, or 6th person to be "tagged." Just leave me a comment or a link and we will be pals. :)

Aaaand my 6 things...

1) I used to cut. Bleh, I bet that's really typical for people to write in something like this, but there you have it.
2) My family is absolutely insane. Each of my parents were previously married to other spouses. My mom had a daughter with her ex husband, and my dad had two daughters with his ex wife. I was an accident and the reason for my parents' marriage. I blame myself every day for the fact that my parents are so unhappy a lot of the time. I've been dealing with it for the last year and a half.
3) I'm about a degree and a half colder than the average person (literally).
4) I shoved a kid who was on crutches, once. He deserved it. (You would have too, if you knew him.)
5) I was once sexually harassed on xanga by some guy in his 30s. I blocked him, reported him, and never told my parents. I've been a lot more careful since about who I talk to online.
6) When I don't know what to get someone as a gift for a holiday, I cook. I actually prefer to do that a lot of the time. It's fun (and I get to benefit from it, too). I really love to cook, actually, and I enjoy finding new and exciting ingredients. Once, I found this really great chili paste for something I made for my mom. I only use about a pinky-tip sized amount in anything I cook, it's so spicy, and I have a jar that probably holds 1 cup of it. I don't think it's ever going to run out.

There you go, 6 things you (probably) didn't know about me already.

Also this...

I'm going to be 17 when I graduate from high school.

I'd like to discuss my pita with you.

I got the blue Mountain Dew from the grocery store. Maybe I already wrote that here... too lazy to check right now. Either way, I'm really excited to have it. It's my favorite. I love love love it.
(And yes, it's got an actual flavor name but I just am used to calling it the blue kind. It's like Kool-Aid: You call it the red kind, not cherry flavored.)

My hair feels exceptionally soft at the moment. I know you wanted to know that.

Tonight, two of my good friends and one's boyfriend came over to my house. We ate and played Scene It (which I love about as much as blue Mountain Dew) and gossiped (bad habit, working on breaking it) and just generally chillaxed.

It's been snowing all evening/night. IN APRIL. What the heck? It's supposed to be spring now, isn't it? Please God, make the snow go away until DECEMBER. Pleaaaaase.

I think I'm going to go to bed to talk to the boyfriend on the phone and then get some sleep before school tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed the fact that I'm trying to cut down on the length of my posts. It's getting crazy.



p.s. Notice anything different about the image at the top and the image at the bottom?

Just wondering...

Is it weird that the first thing I do when I find a new blog to read is to look up posts made on my birthday just to see what was happening in the writer's life as I was adding another year to my age? So far, nothing significant. Still haven't found anything remotely close to being related to my birthday.

Guess what?

I share a birthday with Elvis and David Bowie.

AND ADAM T. SISKA!

Also with my best friend's brother, Dave.

And this girl named Becca who goes to my school and wears cute hats. She's a senior this year. She's nice.

I don't know why but I am thinking about my birthday now. It's not like its anywhere close to today. I dunno. What do you think about my birthday? (No, not yours. This is my blog! har har har.)

I think I'll be in France on my birthday next year. That would be pretty amazing. My dad's agreed to help me out in paying for the trip, and apparently I can actually access my saving's account to help pay for it, too. (I should probably save that for college, but considering it's only about $1000 anyway, it's not a big deal and I don't mind spending it to hack off 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the trip.) If I could get out of the country at least once before I'm 20, I'll be pretty happy. Not that I'm not happy now. I just really like the idea of getting out and (sort of) being on my own for a little while.

I probably sound like a spoiled brat right now. Maybe I am. Comes with the territory of being the youngest sibling, right?

Okay, here's something I don't think you know about me yet. I have three older sisters... well actually half sisters, but who's counting, really?
What's weird is that I'm really close to one of them (the one on my mom's side) and the other two are just like occasional pals (the two on my dad's side). I mean, I love them all. They're great people. It's just that I get along with the one better than... well, anyone in the world. She's the most important person to me. More than my best friend, more than my boyfriend. She's always been there for me, even when we used to fight all the time. She knows the shit I've been through with my family etc. Heck, she's been through more of it than I have and yet somehow she doesn't blame me for anything. I can't help but blame myself... but that's another story, right? Anywho, I just have to tell you how much I love my sister. She is basically the best person I've ever met in my life.

My best friend is like that too, actually. Maybe she and my sister really do sit on equal ground in my heart. I mean, this girl has been with me since I was 2 years old. She was there when my sister wasn't (having different parents often leads to one or both siblings having multiple homes. I only had one, but my sister had two). She can make me laugh no matter what. She is the strongest person I know. We act stupid around each other. We've gotten over every stupid fight we've had. We haven't had one of those stupid fights since we were... what, 7? (9 for her. She's 2 years older than me.) My best friend doesn't get mad when I accidentally hurt her in some obscure way. (We are kind of spazzy which leads to unintentional acts of violence sometimes.) We have about 2 billion times infinity inside jokes. I can tell her anything, and she's always got the right thing to say to me, or not say. We like to watch bad tv shows sometimes. No matter how often we go without seeing each other (which is sometimes a long time because she works a lot and we don't go to the same school... only did for one year, and never saw each other anyway.)

I guess I love them both a lot, and comparing them would be beyond stupid. So really, these are the two most important people in my world. I wish you could meet them. You'd love them, too. It's impossible not to. These two gals have really helped me to become who I am today. I wouldn't be who I am or love what I love if it wasn't for them.

I really want to go visit my sister in Georgia. Hopefully this summer I will be able to. I miss her so much.

Wow, this post got long. Sorry again. I'll try to shorten these. I just go off on tangents about one thing or another and BAM-long post.

Time to go to sleep now, I think.

-Me

p.s. I hope you have somebody like my sister or my bestie. Or multiple people. Everyone deserves to have a perfect friendship with at least one person. I'm lucky enough to have two. Well... really three, but boyfriends go in a completely different friend plane for me. Maybe I should tell you about him later. We shall see. For now, goodnight.

The rest of my life was determined today.

Okay okay, so maybe it's not that extreme... or maybe it is. I took the ACT today. If you don't know what that is... well, basically it's a freakin' long test. I counted (I think) 215 multiple choice questions (English, math, reading, science - not an equal amount of questions or time for all of them) and then a 30 minute timed essay question. I think my essay ended up being 3 pages (1 and a half, front and back), which was 4 or 5? I think 5 paragraphs. The reason for the ACT is to determine what colleges you can get into, pretty much. You can get a score up to 36 (so 9 points each section, if I'm doing my math right... unless that's with essay, but I don't think so). I'm shooting for a 28. Average is (again, I think) 21-23? The schools I want to get into have a range of like 26-30 ish, so 28 would be just right.

AAANYWAY, I don't have much to write about today. My brain is kind of drained atm.

OMG WAIT YEAH I HAVE SOMETHING!

I went to a show last night (duh, you know that if you read the last entry in this blog). It was AAAAMAZING. They had a 2 hour set at a bar & grill. 26 songs (with a break in the middle). Mostly originals with a few covers thrown in. Their originals are all great. Lots of fun dancey rock music, a couple of slow songs (ballads? Nah.). The boyfriend and I were dancing to one of the slow songs and the singer (he's in 8th grade) looks at us and goes "oh, how cute" and I could feel my face go red. Everyone thought we were cute though, I guess. Haha. The entire bar heard/saw it. (This is about 1/3 people from teh bf's school, who I kinda know, and the rest are complete strangers.) Oh wells.

Ok ok so my highlight of the night: They played a cover of The Decemberists' Oh Valencia! !!! DUUUUDE. You have no idea how much I love that song. Not only did they play it, they played it well. I mean, they really blew it out of the water. I was so psyched. They did a lot of good covers, actually. Twist and Shout, American Girl, and a song by the Strokes which I don't know the name of were all on the set list. I seriously can't believe how great they were. But then you listen to their originals, and you're like "holy shit, they can PLAY! AND WRITE!" and yeah. I almost didn't stop dancing during the second set (the part after the break) except when I felt like I was gonna fall over if I didn't. I wish I was a better dancer. Pretty much all I can do is shake around a little.

Oh and you know what else? THEY GOT AN ENCORE! They actually didn't have an encore prepared, so they played this Irish dirinking song, which was for "all of you who out there who have been drinking tonight." Apparently everyone from their school band knows it. I don't remmeber the name. Everyone in the bar was cracking up and having a good time.

I can't imagine a better show. It was great, and it was fun.

And now, for realsies, I'm done.
Catch ya later, kiddies.

<3

Talking about apologetics and such is REALLY difficult. Sometimes I dread Bible classes at school, but I'm really glad I'll be taking Apologetics and Doctrine (or w/e it's called) next year. I need it, seriously.

On another note, I'm going to a show tonight! Woo! My/my boyfriend's friends' band is playing a gig somewhere near here so we are going. I'm pretty excited. Normally, they're not my style of music at all, but they're still pretty awesome. They're kinda... ska/rock/indie? I don't even know if that's a correct assessment of what they are, but that's the best I can do. They just make me want to get up and dance like there's no tomorrow.

School starts up again on Monday. Phew, only one more quarter. I think I can do it. All the hard stuff is out of the way now that 3rd quarter is over.

I really want to take a shower but these fireplace guys are supposed to be coming over today and of course I don't know when AND of course I'm home alone so I have to be ready to let them in to do the stuff they need to do. Also, it seems as though there might be something wrong with my "i" key. It keeps making this weird squeaky noise every other time I hit it.

Anywho, I'm gonna be done now. Peace out, homies.

<3

also...FEAR MY AWESOME PHOTOSHOPPING SKILLZZZZ! (Actually I'm not that bad at photoshop but I was too lazy so I just colored over my face!) This is the haircut that I got. The reason my part is flipped int he 2nd picture is because the 2nd one was taken in a mirror and the first one was not. So there you have it, my hair. I know, so so interesting, right? XD

Whoops

I haven't posted much this week. Whoops. There are two very good reasons for it, though.

1) It's spring break, therefore nothing is happening. My life is teh lameness.
2) I just got 2 new expansions for Sims 2 so I've been playing obsessively.

I was just thinking about this: what if court cases were based on equality of crimes committed against one another? For example:

Person 1 steals person 2's cat.
Person 2 steals person 1's dog.

Dogs are a little bit bigger than cats, so person 2 owes person 1 a little extra something (i.e. money or community service or something), while person 1 owes nothing to person 2.

OR

Person 1 kills the spouse of person 2.
Person 2 kills the spouse of person 1.

The crimes were equal, so they nullify each other and neither defendant has any charges placed on them.

I know, this seems really weird and it would never actually happen, but just think about if it did. How many more acts of vengeance would be committed?

In other news, I cut all my hair off. Well not ALL of it, but I cut it from shoulder length to... very much shorter. The back goes to the upper middle of my neck, the front I have normal bangs and they angle down to the back. I'm wondering if posting a picture would ruin this whole anonymity thing. Perhaps photoshopping could work its wonders...

What do you think? Do you honestly give a rat's rear what I've done with my hair?

Hum. I guess that's enough for now. Off to play Sims some more! Har har har.

-N

Kill me now...

College search = death.

Potential colleges (in state, that is):

Northeastern Illinois University
Southern Illinois - Carbondale
University of Illinois at Chicago (also Urbana, but Chicago moreso)
University of Chicago

There are more I think but right now my brain is college-filled mush.

I think I'm going to cry.

I just found a show in Chicago that I would love to go to. The Academy Is... is playing with Empires, two bands that I really like. (Tomrad who is in Empires used to be in TAI, so I'm kind of confused as to what is going on there. Apparently he got kicked out and it was bad.)

On the same tour, This Providence will be playing some shows with them. Not the Chicago show. That was what initially made me sad. Still, TAI and Empires together in one show would be da bomb. I looked it up and even though it's at a bar, it's an all ages show. How much better can it get, right?

Well I attempted to find tickets, but it kept giving me an error message. I didn't understand what it was, so I looked up the show on google. It took me to Empires's myspace page, which said this:
All Illinois and Ohio shows are sold out.

:[

SOLD OUT!

Guess I need to find another show to go to. (My mom promised me tickets to a show of my choice for my birthday, which was in January. I couldn't find any scheduled back then, so I'm looking now.)

Perhaps Hot Hot Heat's got something.

EDIT: No luck on the Hot Hot Heat shows, and here's another bit of sad news.
I found a show that is comprised of Taking Back Sunday (meh, they're okay), Anberlin (who I love) and Envy on the Coast (who I also love). Sounds perfect, right? Too bad it's in VIRGINIA! :[ dammit.

I know I said I'd write about The Godfather, but I don't want to right now. Maybe tomorrow or sometime this week.

I spent my day playing Sims. Holy shit, what a loser, right? Haha. What's worse is that I made an entire household of Questionable Content characters. I know they're not perfect and they're kinda hard to see, but you get the general idea. I might take better pictures (or actual screenshots instead of the default pictures) at some point in life and post them later, if I get that bored. Also, it should be noted that I ended up moving Sven and Raven out of their families so that I could move the guys and girls into one household.

Left to right: Wil, Marten, Steve, Sven, Angus

Left to right: Raven, Penelope, Dora, Faye, Hannelore

If this is some kind of copyright infringement, I'm really really sorry and I'll take these down asap. lol. I don't really think I'm gonna get in trouble for this, though.

I don't have a good word verification word today. I think I may take that bit from my blog and make it into a once a week or every other day thing, because sometimes I just don't see good ones. Sorry if that's the only part you like.

I'm bored now.

A swift kick in the head, ninja style,
Norah.

p.s. I don't know what to write in my essay about why I want to go to France with my school. I mean, I know I'm pretty much guaranteed in, since I will be a senior next year AND I'll be in advanced French, but still. I don't want to accidently screw it up. This trip has been a big deal to me ever since my freshman year.

p.p.s. Want to know something strange? When I was watching The Godfather yesterday, there were some parts spoken in Italian. Some of them were subtitled, others were not. I managed to understand about 50% of what they were saying in the non-subtitled parts because of the French that I know. Evidently, two people can communicate somewhat decently if one speaks Italian and the other French.

Anniversary: part two!

At 1pm today, I went to teh boyfriend's house and brought with "comfy stuff" per his instructions. (Comfy stuff I took to mean pajamas, a pillow, a blanket, and the stuffed kitty he gave me for our six months.) When I got there, he had set up a table with candles on it, his iPod playing Frank Sinatra music, and a couple plates of salad. There were also two wine glasses and some sparkling grape juice (yummy!) for us. There was also a vase with four carnations in it. They were three orange and one white. (Orange is my favorite color!) He is a sweetheart, I tell ya.

So we ate salad (with Italian dressing) and then he brought us some ravioli and stuffed shells and we each had one giant meatball (lol, they were hugenormous) and that was yummy even though I could only eat like half of my plate. I have a small stomach, evidently.

And then after that, he made me close my eyes, only to open them in order to see...

THE GODFATHER!

You see, we'd been planning on having a Godfather marathon for some time now, but never got around to it. Now the Italian food makes sense, eh? Haha. Anywho, we made it through the first one and I decided that one was enough for a day. Not that I didn't like it... the Godfather is a sweetaction movie, but it's so long and the plot and characters are so intense that my brain couldn't handle another one in a day. Let alone two more. So we're postponing watching the other ones until another time. After that, we had desert- French silk pie! (Apparently, teh boyfriend had accidentally taken the gun and left the canoli... whoops.) It was om nommy.

After that yummyness, we decided that no anniversary of ours would be complete without VIDEO GAMES! We played a good chunk through Halo (the first one!) on Co-Op until it was almost time for him to take me home. We snuggled a little (shutup, haha) and then he took me home. Overall, it was a perfect day.

I guess tomorrow I might post about The Godfather or something along those lines. Have I mentioned that this week is my spring break? Hoorah!

And I know you've been looking forward to this:
WORD VERIFICATION WORD OF THE DAY!
Today's word: eugis

John: How do I get to the gas station?
Billy Bob: Eugis take a left at the big tire and you're there.

Wishes for your own happy anniversaries,
Norah

p.s. One time, I was at a McDonalds in southern Illinois and I overheard that same conversation that I gave you in the word verification word of the day thing. Hello, rednecks. (Yep, I'm allowed to make redneck jokes. My dad's whole family is made up of them.) Ever been in a funny situation like that?

Anniversary? What?

Yesterday was my boyfriend's and my anniversary. A whole year of us being us. It seems kind of crazy, actually. Most high school relationships last, what, a month? A few months? A year just seems like such a long time. (Not that I'm complaining! It's been a wonderful year!)

In celebration, we went bowling with two of his friends where we had one of our first dates. To most people, this seems really stupid and not at all romantic, but for me it was perfect. That's just how we are. We do things that are fun in order to celebrate happy times. Apparently teh boyfriend has something planned for tomorrow as well, but he won't tell me what. He knows it drives me CRAZY when he tells me about a surprise but then won't tell me what it is. I'd rather just not know there is a surprise so that I don't have to wait and wonder about it. Oh well, only a day more of thinking about it.

I don't want to bore you with the mushy details of our relationship, but I will say a few things. I know it sounds stupid, but I am 99% convinced that he is the person I want to be with forever/the remainder of my life. I understand that we're young and kind of crazy, but things like us just don't happen every day. I don't want to miss out on something amazing just because it happened to me a little earlier than most people. I am, without a doubt, completely in love with him. And with that, I am done being a sap.

Last night, as I was getting ready to leave his house (we had gone back after bowling to chill and so I could get my backpack, etc.), teh boyfriend's mom came and was saying bye. We were making the usual chit chat (I love her, by the way. She is AWESOME.) and then we started talking about college. She's from Michigan, and she had taken teh boyfriend to Kalamazoo college this week for a visit. She said something about how nice it was there, and then she said this:
"If you guys go there together, you'd be right near most of my family."

I'd just like to highlight two things here.
1) Together? Maybe she realizes how serious he and I really are. And she likes it? I know she likes me, so I guess this makes sense.
2) Near her family? Meaning... near our family? (Teh boyfriend and I have talked on multiple occasions about getting married... I wonder if she's heard us or just figured it out.)

So... that just kinda threw me for one. Teh boyfriend's mommy is no dummy. She knows what's up. (lol) She's just so adorable. :)

I guess this has been a really boring, rambley post for anyone reading this, ya? Sorry about that. I need to work on shortening my posts. Then again, it is my blog, right? So essentially I could write 5 pages every time and it wouldn't really matter. Anywho, enough is enough. I'm officially on spring break! Yay! :D

WORD VERIFICATION WORD OF THE DAY!
rewer

Hans: Geez, our that river is so polluted. It's disgusting.
Franz: Yeah, it's a real rewer.

Off to plan a girls night,
Norah.

p.s. What is everyone doing for spring break?/What did you do for spring break? I'm staying home, but hopefully I get to hang out with my girlfriends some. They're fun, yaknow. We watch movies.

p.p.s. Speaking of movies, you should check this one out.

It loved to happen.

I took this picture on my 14th birthday (which was January 8th, 2006, in case you wanted to know. I was a wittle freshman! haha). At the time, I had no idea what the phrase meant. I just knew that I liked it. I liked that someone had taken the time to etch these words into the sidewalk that I was now walking on, there for everyone to see. I liked that it wasn't placed anywhere big or significant, just something you'd notice if you glanced down at a particular moment. I liked that I saw it when I was with two of my best friends in the world.

I looked up the phrase today. It's attributed to someone named Marcus Aurelius. I looked him up on Wikipedia, and I guess he was one of the "Five Good Emperors" of Rome. I'm not sure where/when he said (or wrote) the phrase.

No one seems to have a definitive answer as to what "it loved to happen" means, however it seems like it means "it was inevitable." But... there's something deeper behind it. Whatever it is that happened... it REALLY happened. It happened with so much effort, and it loved happening. This thing was not preventable. I guess we could say this about a lot of things in life, good and bad. It could be applied to something sad or unpleasant, like wars that had no other way out. But I like to use it in the positive way. It just works better in my mind.

For example, my best friend in the world is awesome. She is funny, smart, creative, and just overall a great person to be around. And I just so happen to live across the street from her. I met her when I was two years old, right after I moved in. Our meeting didn't just happen, it loved to happen. I believe 100% that there is no possible way I wouldn't have met her, because I know there is a reason she's in my life. No one could have been a better best friend for me.

So I wonder if anyone else has their own take on this, or if they've got their own situations that loved to happen. I'd love to know.


One last thing...
WORD VERIFICATION WORD OF THE DAY!
Dectefea

Jenny: Oh I love your dress, but what kind of material is it made of?
Laura: It's dectefea, a hybrid between lace and silk. It's all the rage in the fashion world, these days.

(Yeah, that one was kinda lame.)

Hoping that something in your life has loved to happen,
Norah.

p.s. Do you have keychains on your keys? And if so, which is your favorite? Mine is between my story of Chuck Taylor and my little wooden guy wearing a hat.

Ok ok again with the multiple posts in a day but I promise this will be short.

I had to write a huge paper for English this year (not huge size-wise so much as grade wise... it was only 1800 word minimum, so about 5-7 pages, but if you don't get at least a C then you get summer school and get put into a special English class next year, etc.) Well, the papers were turned in on the 3rd. We got them back with COMMENTS on Friday, but not our actual grades because our teacher wanted us to do a "self assessment" about how we thought we did before we were given our actual scores. I gave myself "some kind of B" because I thought my paper fell into the B category.

In reality, I got a 96% !!! :D I am flipping out right now. It's 11pm and I just went yelling across the house to tell my mom. I'm not trying to brag... I'm just so insanely HAPPY right now. I honestly thought it was just a mediocre paper. I feel like I'm gonna pass out or something, this is NUTS.

Sorry, you probably don't care about this but I don't know where else to say it. I just want to express my excitement.

(This post turned out a bit longer than expected... sorry about that.)

With happy happy thoughts,
Norah

p.s. Maybe my teacher is not such a Litzar after all.

Edit: Here's the rest of this entry.

Hello, world! Today, I went to school. Exciting, I know.

Skip to the bottom from here if you don't want to know about me getting shot. I'll put the whole story in black, so just skip the black part if you want the quick and dirty version of this post.

Anyway, after school, my long-awaited "being shot" actually happened. You see, it all started about two weeks ago. I was walking down a stairca
se to get to my biology class on time, when the photo teacher at my school (I took photo last year and he is really cool so we are palsies) said, "Hey, Norah, I want to shoot you sometime!" and I said "Oh...okay." And continued on to biology. During the two weeks that followed, he and I talked a little bit about when I was going to be shot. We finally nailed down a date and time - right after school, today. I went to his lab after school with a couple of my friends (I was a little nervous since I had no flippin' clue what was going on) and he had us come into the basement of the Fine Arts Center with him.
NOTE: To all you folks out there who don't know what my school is like (which I would assume to be the majority or all of you), this request was NOT creepy in any way. You see, the upstairs of the FAC at my school is an auditorium, while the downstairs is art classrooms. It's not just some funky basement.

So we went down and my teacher had me stand in front of a red backdrop while he fixed the lighting. The camera was a couple of feet away from my face (at most) and he told me he was trying to get my eye color perfectly. EYE COLOR! So that's what it was. You see, when people first meet me, a lot of the time they'll say something about how cool my eyes are. I'm not trying to brag, that's just how it is. I guess the color is pretty unique (it's a mixture of blue, green, and gray with little flecks of gold, depending on what l

ight you see it in) and the shape sorta makes them pop a little more (I've actually convinced people that I am one sixth Japanese because of the shape of my eyes... no joke. I am not at all Asian that I know of.) So he took a bunch of shots of my eyes (well really my face but the depth of field was so short that only the front of my face was actually in focus) with the red, and then with white, blue, and orange backdrops. It took all of about 40 minutes and then we were done. He showed me a couple of the shots and I think they're gonna turn out really sweet.

After we were done, he asked if we could possibly shoot once a week for a little bit. There was another guy there who my teacher shot too, but I think it was for his shirt because it was turquoise and his eyes are pretty blue. So I didn't feel quite so awkward.

So now I am about to get ready and head over to teh boyfriend's house. That should be fun. :) That's all for now, kids. Oh and...

WORD VERIFICATION WORD OF THE DAY!
Litzar

Billy: Man, our English teacher is so strict.
Johnny: Yeah, she's a real Litzar.

Lemme know what YOU think Litzar means!

Always blinking when the shutter closes,
Norah.

p.s. What would you if you were in a school-wide chapel (or assembly, if you prefer) that was extremely boring, and you had only had a purse (or backpack) filled with pens, a phone, some scraps of paper with not much room to write on, and a camera? I chose to draw this:


p.p.s. Sorry that these are sorta crappy pictures. I had to photoshop them for lighting etc. but otherwise that's exactly what it looks like. You can even see remnants of the reminders from days past. (Ink does not wash out of my skin very well, especially from this one particular pen that I was using.)

These posts are too long but I swear this one is interesting...

Seriously, who makes up these word verifications?

For some of the comments I've left on various blogs, I've had to write:

-dersh
-sions
-hanartl

among other strange words that I doubt appear in the English dictionary. (I don't think these are real words because my spellcheck keeps telling me that they are not. Plus, I've never heard any of them before...)

I think I'd like to make these words a new part of my daily vernacular (which is a wonderful word, by the way). And so, without further ado, I present...

WORD VERIFICATION WORD OF THE DAY!
Today's word: Dersh

How is this word supposed to be used? My guess would be something like this...

"Herbert slipped in the rain and landed in some mud today."
"Aww, that poor dersh."

Got a better idea for its usage? You should leave it here. I'm thinking maybe this will become a regular thing. I post enough comments to find these crazy words daily.

Hoping you have a hanartl day,
Norah.

p.s. I have a friendship bracelet (well... I made it myself... but I was with my best friend and she made her own and we both wear ours all the time) made of the Rainbow Bright colors. I'm thinking maybe I should post a picture eventually.

I know I know, too many posts in one day.

I just wanted to tell you that you should check out Bear & Kitten. That's a link to the first strip. It's a webcomic. It's adorable. It's hilarious. And it is STRANGE. :D I likes it.

Seriously though, if you think it's one of those cutesy websites with pictures of small furry animals, you're wrong. The artwork is cute, yes... but the story is just... hahaha yes.

Just check it out, okay?

While you're at it, why not tell me if you like webcomics? And if so, which do you like? And if not, would you like me to recommend some? I read a few.

With a hearty pat on the shoulder,
Norah.

p.s. Yep, I am procrastinating on that laundry folding. Gahhh.

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I just finished all my English homework.
(All being two whole assignments, but still, I'm happy!)

Gonna go fold some of that laundry now. Oh joy.

Hopefully teh boyfriend is coming over tonight. Keep your fingers crossed for me, kids. I miss him a lot. :(

With a shimmy and a shake,
Norah.

p.s. I just realized that I could be entirely profane in this blog and NO ONE would ever know because NO ONE I know reads this. Well... my friend Maggie might... she can if she wants to, but she's the only one who's got the link. So... maybe I will swear sometimes, if the mood strikes.

It's official. I have WAY too many close clothes. Let me break it down for you.

Load 1- Jeans. Yep, an ENTIRE load of jeans (plus one pair of corduroys).
Load 2- Blues and greens.
Load 3- Blacks and dark grays
Load 4- Whites, light grays, and socks that aren't blue, black, or red.
Load 5 (to be washed next, since the whites are in now)- Reds, Browns, and Oranges.
Load 6- Everything else (basically stuff that got leftover when I was making my color loads plus things I couldn't figure out the right category for).

SIX LOADS OF LAUNDRY? At least it's all stuff that I actually wear... I do plan on going through all of this and pulling out at least 1 box worth of goodwill giveaways. Maybe more? Also, it should be noted that I put off doing laundry until I have absolutely NO clean clothes left.

Like you really want to know about my laundry situation... oh well. Sadly, this is probably the most interesting part of my weekend.

Good news is that I already know what I'm going to wear on Thursday! (The other days of the week, who cares? Thursday's the important one.)

Wishes of a non-laundry consumed life,
Norah

p.s. I FINISHED PAINTING MY KNEE-HIGH CONVERSE! (I think... who knows, I might do like a million more things to them...) Pictures to come soon. :D All I have to say is that I think they're pretty sweet and I don't care if other people think that they are absolutely horrendous because I really really like them a lot. So there. :P

I can't explain to you how much I love Chuck Taylors. (Taylor's? I guess they are a product of Chuck Taylor, so they would be his, but they are also plural, right? But Taylors' isn't right... I think Chuck Taylors is the best option... tell me if you disagree.)

Eventually, I'll take/find a picture of my favorites. Also, I'll be sure to finish painting my knee-highs and post a picture here. Maybe this will become a shoe blog... I hope not.

Hello, world.

Last night, my best friend in the world came over to my house. We went to Target (to pick up her paycheck), then to the back (to cash her paycheck), then to Chipotle (to eat yummy yummy yummy delicious foodstuffs) and then to GameStop (to look at the games, of course)! It was wonderful. :D We drove back to my house and basically spent the night playing Wii games and just being stupid. Video games and stupidity are definitely common factors in our hangouts. She slept over and then we spent the morning playing Wii and I invented (at the suggestion of my bestie) a pizza bagel! Well... I probably didn't actually invent it but I made up how to make it all by myself. haha.

So now she is gone and I am about to start... well, continue... cleaning my room. Oh joy. Most of my laundry is washed, minus I think 1 more load? So basically I just need to make my bed and do some overall tidying. (Yep, I'm your typical teenager - I love food and video games and my room is a mess.) I don't think it'll take too long to clean up. Most of the time spent will be folding my baskets upon baskets of laundry. (Of course this all just makes me want to go shopping... what a girl...)

ANYWAY, happy spring!! It's officially here and I couldn't be happier.

Also, today is March 21st. That may not be a significant day to you, but it is to me, and here's why:
On March 21st, 2008, there was a girl who was invited to go to a local venue to see her friend's band play a show. She decided to go, even though only two of her old old friends were going. The girl was basically ignored for the first half hour or so, and nearly left early, when a young man walked up to her and asked (ever so eloquently), "Who are you here to see?" Well, the girl was confused. She didn't know that young man at all and wondered why he was talking to her. She decided just to talk to him anyway, and they ended up becoming fast friends. By the end of the night, the girl and the young man had exchanged phone numbers and were sitting on a couch with his arm around her shoulders. They hugged goodbye and from that instant, the girl knew that she really liked the young man. (Yep, that quick!) A year later, those two crazy kids are happily in a relationship with one another (he didn't ask her out until the 26th, though).

I'll give you an interwebs cookie if you can guess who that story is about. :)

Anyway, you're probably bored, and I need to get cleaning, so ta ta for now!

Always here if you want to talk,
Norah.

p.s. Here's a picture!

I actually did my English homework! Hooray!

In other news, I'm getting pretty excited about senior year. Here's why:

1)No math class.
2) No science class.
3) Shakespeare.
4) Creative writing.
5) All sorts of art electives that include (but are not limited to) graphic design, ceramics II and drawing.
6) Less dealing with the annoying sophomores (I hope).
7) Trip to France (on my birthday, no less)... hopefully, anyway.
8) I should have my license by then (since I can legally get in on April 8th).
9) I'll be really figuring out what I'm doing with my life (which I believe will be something in linguistics).
10) Advanced French!! (Which means less annoying people who don't want to be there *coughcoughABBYcoughcough*)

Yep. I'm pretty stoked.

Sometime, I may rant about how much I hate this one girl named Abby. I don't care that I'm using her name here b/c there's no way in hell she knows about this blog, and even if she does, it's not like she'd know it was by me or about her. But I'll save that for another time. For now, I think I'm going to bed.

Air kisses,
Norah.

p.s. Have you ever classified a "good hug" versus a "bad hug" with your friends? I have.

Good morning. :)

I just realized I may have had to do a take home test for history last night... I came late to class when my teacher was explaining it so I'm not sure when it was do. Fingers crossed for Friday!

Hopefully everyone has a good day today. I'm just shooting for not death-like in the history department. Ever the optimist, eh?

High fives all around,
Norah.

p.s. Sometimes I sit on the floor in my family room in front of our mini-library and read the children's books. They're on the bottom level. Also, they're some of my favorites.

Am I going to post here EVERY DAY?

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

To be entirely honest, my life is going really well right now. Whether this is a long term thing or a two day thing, I'm not sure, but I'm enjoying it either way. Two whole days of sunshine and happiness have gone by. I must say that it's been quite excellent.

I'm currently listening to "Music from Degrassi: The Next Generation." I'm not sure if there are multiple Degrassi albums (for every season?) but I'm listening to the one from 2008. I know, Degrassi got lame after (nvm... insert spoiler here from a few seasons ago), and yes some people just find that show to be lame in general, but it was fun to watch. Oh Canadian teenagers, how I envy you and your exciting, dramatic lives. This album is a compilation of quite a few artists that I am fond of as well as some crap that I don't like and a few that I don't know. I'm not sure why I'm writing this here... but anyway, that's that.

I'm reading The Princess Bride right now. It's definitely become one of my favorite books even though I'm only 250 pages in (I think that's around halfway). The Princess Bride is my favorite movie of all time, so it just makes sense that I'd like the book, right? Well... I guess that logic is flawed since book movies tend to stray from their books, but still, that was my logic in choosing to read it. I'm thinking of putting off the last 200 or so pages for about 2 weeks so that I can use it for my independent reading project coming up in English, but... well it's not like she'll care if I read the book that week or three weeks ago, right? RIGHT. :D

You probably don't care about any of this, do you? What do blog readers like to read? Do I need a theme? Should I just keep writing whatever I'm thinking at the time? Should I refrain from posting poems? Hum. So many questions. SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

Just kidding. I feel like I don't use exclamation points enough. It's quite sad. Maybe I should use them more often. Let's try it! Ohh, that looks nice! I'm really liking this! (Okay, it's getting a little annoying now, right?)

This post is officially declared LONG ENOUGH! GOODBYE!

Hugs and more hugs,
Norah

p.s. hello there!

I like this site so far. I've figured out how to find people with interests in the same things as me, so that has been pretty fun to explore. That sentence doesn't read well but I'm too sleepy to try and fix it.

I watched the movie Pretty in Pink on Friday night. It was an ok movie but the ending... well I don't want to give anything away, but John Hughes, WTF? That was just lame. I do like some of his other movies, but Pretty in Pink made me make a frownie face. I don't like doing that.

On the upside, today was magnificent beyond belief. I don't think I stopped smiling for more than 45 minutes (a very exact amount of time due to the fact that all of my classes are 45 minutes long, and one of those classes includes trig). It was (I think) 65 degrees outside! Which is amazing for me. This time last year, there was snow all over the place. I'm hoping it's gone for this winter. I love snow... just not in any month but December. So the weather was great, which put me in the best mood ever, and I had TWO classes with substitutes, one of whom is my FAVORITE substitute teachers ever, so that was fun. I wore my awesome new socks from the boyfriend's aunt (yes, she makes me socks and I like them a lot!) which was also lovely.

Of course, no perfect day is complete without a visit to the boyfriend's house. I visited with him and his mom. He kicked my hiney at checkers but I owned him at Candy Land! Booyah. His mommy made pasta that was yummy. I love her. She's awesome. Ok ok I love him too... but his mom just makes my day sometimes. Is that weird?

I feel like I'm writing too much. I think I'm getting overexcited about having a blog again... and... readers? :O whoas.

I shall leave you with this!
(I promise this isn't becoming a photo blog but today I just feel like leaving a picture.)

Love always,
me.

Superman statue in Metropolis, Illinois
(aka COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!)