English Class: Part 1

Ahh, summer.  A time of freedom, junk food, heat, and, among other things, a tad of nostalgia.  Actually... that's probably just me.  Oh well.  My blog, my rules.  Nostalgia it is!

Of course, being me, I can't just simply have nostalgia.  No, I have 'Selective' Nostalgia.  I have no problem forgetting about geometry class for the remainder of my life here on earth, but I'm going to miss English 9 Honors for a while.  Thats just the way it goes, I guess.

Anyway, I've decided to further fuel my nostalgia by posting here on the blog some of my favorite things I wrote in English this year.  So here I go!  This first offering was my first ever assignment for english class, and it was due, I believe, on the second day of school.  Over the summer we had to read a fiction book, and the assignment was to write a scenario in which a character from our book met a real person, and use the scenario to describe the character.  My character was Marvin from A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. (Click if you don't know who he is, otherwise I'm afraid the following won't make much sense at all.)  Lets say my teacher's name is Mrs. Ecir 

“Excuse me, do you know what time it is?” Mrs. Ecir asked the man in front of her in the checkout line at the supermarket. The line was about twenty to thirty people long, and extended well into the cereal isle. The man turned around, but he turned out not to be a man at all. He had an abnormally large head, and was made entirely of polished steel. In other words, he was a robot. Mrs. Ecir starred in wonder. 

“Oh my!” She exclaimed. “What on earth are you?”

“Oh here we go.” The robot sighed loudly. “My name is Marvin. I am a robot with a built in GPP feature. GPP stands for Genuine People Personalities. Ghastly, isn’t it?” Marvin sounded very bored.

“Oh, I’m very sorry.” Mrs. Ecir said sympathetically. “Well, do you happen to know what time- ” Marvin cut her off with another obnoxious sigh.

“Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and you ask me if I know what time it is.  Honestly. Thank you the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation,” said Marvin, as he took a small step forward in the never-ending checkout line that stretched out before them. “Let’s build robots with Genuine People Personalities they said. So they tried it out with me. I’m a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you?”

“Look, there’s no need to be so touchy. I just asked you a simple question.” Mrs. Ecir said defensively.

“Sorry, did I say something wrong?” Said Marvin sarcastically. “Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don’t know why I bother to say it, oh God, I’m so depressed. Life! Don’t talk to me about life.”

Mrs. Ecir decided to abandon her grocery cart and get out of that store lickety-split.

So what do you think?  I was actually quite proud of it.  My teacher liked it too.  She actually read it in front of the class while standing right behind my chair, thus labeling me to my classmates as a person who

a) reads sci-fi books from the 1980s

b) probably writes better than you

c) blushes like you wouldn't believe

According to her "This girl is going places.  Want to know why?  Because she, unlike the rest of you, uses dialogue."

Did you get that?  How I used dialogue to talk about how I'm apparently going places because I use dialogue?  Because I used dialogue... and it was dialogue... never mind.

Red

For my next post, I shall transform into a somewhat stereotypical teenage girl talk about my hair.  For those of you who don't know, it's straight, brown, and a little past shoulder length.  I like to wear it in a sort of Juno-like pony tail most of the time, don't ask me why.  For the most part, I like my hair.  Pretty much every female I admire is a brunette.  Tina Fey, Hermine Granger, Princess Leia, I could go on.  

Although, I must admit, ever since I was about four years old I've wished my hair was red.  And I'm not talking about ginger red.  I'm talking apple, firetruck, cherry, ladybug red.  Actual red.  Why?  One word: Madeline.  

You know, that cartoon/book character?  The petite French girl who lives with a mysterious nun and eleven other similarly clad girls whos hair colors are not nearly as awesome as hers?  

Inexplicably, I've always wished I had hair that color.  The other day, in fact, one of my friends took a picture of me and photoshopped my hair into a glorious flaming crimson... pile of hair!  Oh, don't mind me.  I'm suffering from a horribly annoying adjective to noun deficient-proportion-type-thing today.

Anyway, I don't think I'll show you the picture here.  And no, it's not because I simply don't want to show you what I actually look like sans-sunglasses because it might ruin the fantastic mental picture of me you've probably conjured up by now of a tall, gorgeous, skinny model type person who blogs between her photo shoots and saving the whales.  Really, it's not.  It's actually because the dog in the picture isn't mine, and his owners might not appreciate him being on the internet for all the world to look at.  Nope, It's not the first reason at all.  It's for canine privacy, I tell you!

Musings on a Friday Morning

It's summer.  It's a Friday morning.  My radio is turned to one of my guilty pleasure radio shows, AT40 with Ryan Seacrest.  And quite a lot of random musements (if it wasn't a word before, it is now) are drifting through my brain, similar to float and jetsam bobbing around a quiet ocean awaiting the storm to come.

First of all, while I was being an internet stalker and looking at the list of websites referring to my blog, I came across something pretty... out of the ordinary.  Among the google results for teenage girls (Should I be concerned about this?) and the random combinations of letters and numbers that I've decided not to try clicking on, I found what can really only be described as a sketchy slavic search engine.  That's right, the Russians have found me.

The second of my most glorious musings isn't so much a musing as a pondering.  Ok, I realize that last sentence probably just made me sound about sixty years old.  My most humble of apologies.  But remember my wonderful neighbor boys from a few posts ago?  Back then I think there were just two... well, they've multiplied.  I've actually lost track of how many there are now, because they show up in random combinations.  But the neighbor boys have decided that pretty much every night they are going to have "HoboCon" in my front yard.  HoboCon means Hobo Convention, or a gathering of teenage boys who like to wrestle and pretend they're characters from Scooby Doo.

It's not like I'm anti-HoboCon, but sometimes it gets a little old.  So far I've pretty much managed to avoid feeding them, save for one unfortunate occasion.  My theory is that, like stray animals, if you feed them you'll never get rid of them.

I Did It!

Well, now it's official.  I have completed my very first year of high school.  And for a little more than two months I am free!  Free of homework, drama, tests, grades, lockers, cafeteria food, and waking up every day at an unholy hour of the morning.

I feel... the same.  Weird, right?  It's probably because it just feels like a Friday.  It'll probably sink in soon when I get to sleep in and don't have homework and just the all around summerness of life sets in.

I feel like jumping in the air.  Or running down the street barefoot and screaming.  Or putting on a twirly dress, standing in an empty field, and spinning in circles until I fall down.  Or dancing alone in my room and lip singing to cheesy pop songs, using my hairbrush as a microphone.

Cause I got a pocket got a pocket full of sunshine I got a love and I know that it's all mine oh! Whoah oh! 

Take me away! A secret place! A sweet escape! Take me away! 

Do what you want but your never gonna break me sticks and stones are never gonna shake me no! Whoah oh!

Take me away! A secret place! A sweet escape! Take me away! 

There a place that i go where nobody knows where the rivers flow, and I call it home. And there's no more lies and the darkness is light and nobody cries, there's only butterflies!

The End is Near!

A bolt of lightning dances across the sky, followed almost immediately by a menacing roar of thunder.  I drag myself across the gravelly sand of the beach, rolling to the side just in time to avoid being hammered into the ground by a falling coconut.  The heavens have opened their floodgates, letting forth a torrential downpour upon all who inhabit this desolate, accursed, island.  Suddenly, a voice shouts something inaudible, but my experienced ears easily pick up the tone of distress.  What fresh hell is this?  Looking into the jungle behind me, I hear the pounding of drums and the footfalls of a thousand hungry feet.  The cannibals have arrived.  I grab my bloodstained dagger from its tattered sheath and prepare to make one last fight for my life.  Panting heavily, I must hold the dagger with my good hand, the other having been mauled by a wild boar many weeks ago.  As an unmistakeable shadow falls across me, I prepare for the worst.  Gazing up into the eyes of the bloodthirsty savage who may very well be the last person I ever lay eyes on, I ready myself for my impending fate.  Just as the cannibal raises it's spear and prepares to skewer it right through my heart, there is silence.  No more thunder.  No more drum beats.  No more rain.  The lurid hue of the sky has transformed itself into a peaceful, luminous blue.  The cannibal readying itself to flay me alive looks to the sky as well, then lets out a throaty battle call, then runs with its fellow savages into the jungle just as quickly as they came.  My fellow castaways and I let out cries of joy, relief, and freedom.  The sun beams warm our still trembling limbs, as some of us leap and dance for joy.  It is over!  We have survived!

Sad Panda

Today has been a horrible day.  I feel like everything I've strived for, accomplished, and dreamed of has formed an avalanche that just came crashing down on me, quashing all that remained of my self confidence and hope.  Society has blown out the candleflame that is my passion.  Only oppressing darkness remains inside my once luminescent soul.

Not to be dramatic or anything.

By any chance, do you remember my post a while back where I mentioned writing a persuasive essay for english class?  We got them back today.  It figures that on the one essay of the entire year where I had almost instantaneous inspiration, a lot of confidence and an impressively unique premise, I would get a C.  Yes, that's right.  I got a C.  C for crap; and calamitous, catastrophic, conniving, crass, churlish, cruel, and cynical.

I don't really know what to do now.  It just feels like nothing is going right for me, not even today or this week.  Just...now.

I'm also upset about orchestra.  We had auditions for next year a while ago, and apparently I'm still in the same orchestra as I was this year.  Pretty much the same seat.  I guess it's okay because I wasn't fully expecting to get into symphony (the best one, I'm in the 2nd best one) but at the same time, I'm just tired of how no one in my orchestra seems to care.

So basically, I've been spending a lot of time listening to this weird indie music that somehow implanted itself onto my ipod.  I don't know where it came from, seeing as how I didn't buy it or import it from a CD or anything.  I don't even have enough energy to worry about how it got there.  But anyway, I've just been listening this one song over and over again.  It's pretty depressing.  (Both the song and the fact that I'm sitting like a lump in a corner listening to it repeatedly.)

I am a sad, sad panda.

Neighbor Boys

Neighbor boys are like cholesterol.  There's a good kind and a bad kind, and some people don't even have any. All I know is that I have the LDL of neighbor boys; not the good kind.  Confused?  Here you go...

Your Neighbor Boy is a Good One if...
-He's been your friend your whole life and one day the two of you will get married
-He's a cute senior for you and your friends to oggle at
-He doesn't stalk you

Unfortunately, I have two neighbor boys.  They're friends.  They're in my grade.  They stalk me.  Even though I've lived here all my life, I didn't go to school with them until I started middle school.  Which probably explains why they find me so interesting; they didn't know me when I was in elementary school.  I was the weird kid who played the cello and read books all the time.

Last Friday I was at a friends house after school for the rest of the day.  While I was there, the neighbor boys (lets call them Kevin and Chris) showed up at my door looking for me.  My mom answered and politely told them I wasn't home.  Later, they showed up again and knocked on the door.  As they were waiting, my dad pulled up in the driveway.  Lets just say finding two teenage boys carrying hockey sticks and looking for his daughter was unfamiliar territory for him....

Long story short, now they have decided that it's okay for them to show up at my door whenever they want something.  Like water.  Or a band aid.  Or dinner.

On the bright side, they're a source of entertainment.