Thanksgiving

I want to write a post about everything I'm thankful for. Or, more accurately, everyone I'm thankful for. I have so many wonderful friends, and I have a great family. You guys are my life. ^^ Well, you and languages. :P

But yeah, you definately deserve a post. And someday you'll get one...

Shrinking!

Yeah, so I'm shrinking. I don't know where it's coming from. Hopefully I'm not losing height. Or bone mass. At any rate, between Racquetball, School, Work, and Gym Make-ups, I've been losing weight. Also not having time to eat is probably a contributing factor. I'm at 87 pounds now. 39.55 Kilo, if I'm not mistaken. Also, my shoe size has fallen to 2 and a half, Kids' sizes. Don't ask how that happened.

I'm shrinking! Muaaa!

O.O

"Hey mom, could you sign this form for me, so I can compete in the NVC? Yes, I got time off work. No, I don't have a Racquetball Game that day. Yes. Mhmm. I'll fax it tomorrow. And I just have to bring my permit and some pencils. Hmm? No, I haven't eaten since breakfast. I'll get a sandwich or something. No, that's fine, I'll make it myself. No, I have to finish my essay first. Wait, I think I already submitted it. Whatever. Math homework? You're kidding, right? Chemistry... yeah... I'll stay after for tutoring tomorrow. And I'll study for Gov at lunch, with Layla if she's not still angry with me. Otherwise alone. Yeah, it's fine. I don't have to start working the bookfair for a few more days still. God, I've got a killer Spanish test Thursday. I guess I'll find time to study tomorrow. Yes, I'll go in early to do my Gym make-up. Yeah, I'll shower in the morning. Yes, I'll let Tidbit out before I go to bed. Good night. Sleep tight."

General Listening

Music Picks for a General Listening CD:

Anima Libera
Rosenrot
The River
Andre Som Jeg
Ormurin Langi
Tasogare No Umi
Arabic Track II
Ariadiamus
Hijo De Hombre
If I Never Knew You (Thai)
Move Along
Avec La Foi
Eldamar
Ohne Dich
Desert Rose

Cocina Española!

This is the big one. The one we've all been waiting for! Miranda has to plan, prepare, and serve a five course Spanish meal. Plan:

1. Pan Con Tomate

2. Sopa De Pescado

3. Paella

4. Ensalada

5. Helado con Granada

Plan:

Day One: Plan Menu

Day Two: Shop for Ingredients

Day Three: Make Ensalada and Sopa

Day Four: Make Paella and Pan Con Tomate. Serve.

I HAVE: Olive Oil, Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Laurel Leaf, Chicken Broth, Short Grained White Rice, Lemon Juice, Oregano.

I NEED: Loaf of Italian Bread, Five Tomatoes, 500 gram Codfish, 500 gram Assorted Seafood, Two Small Onions, Chopped Parsley, Two Chicken Thigh Fillets, Fourth of a Tablespoon Saffron, One Canned Pimento, Twelve Medium Shrimp, Two Tablespoons Sweet Paprika, A Half Cup of Peas.

1. PAN CON TOMATE

Se ponen las rebanadas a tostar. Cuando esten un poco tostadas
(no mucho) se corta un diente de ajo por la mitad y se rasca por la rebanada.
Se corta también el tomate por la mitad y se restriega por encima del pan
hasta que quede suficientemente untado, y se le añade finalmente aceite de
oliva, sal y si se quiere un poquito de vinagre.
Se suele comer con embutidosvariados.


2. SOPA DE PESCADO

1. Poner el bacalao a remojo en agua fría, sin cambiar el agua.
2. Calentar el aceite y echar la cebolla pelada y picada, hasta que se dore.
3. Añadir el tomate cortado en trozos, sin las simientes. Freír todo durante 15 minutos, machacando los tomates.
4. Pasar la preparación por el pasapurés y reservar.
5. Echar en una olla el pescado y los cangrejos. Cubrir con agua fría, echar sal y la hoja de laurel.
6. Cocer a fuego vivo y cuando esté hirviendo durante un par de minutos, retirar del fuego.
7. Colar el pescado, eliminar la hoja de laurel y reservar el agua de cocción.
8. Poner el pan en remojo en un poco de caldo del pescado.
9. Eliminar las espinas y la piel del pescado y del bacalao. Pasarlos por el pasapurés con el pan.
10. Quitar el caparazón a los cangrejos y pasar el cuerpo y el interior de las cabezas por el pasapurés, con un poco de caldo de pescado.
11. Echar en una olla el tomate y luego el pimentón. Rehogar con una cuchara de madera. Añadir el pescado y el pan. Cubrir con el caldo de pescado.
12. Rectificar de sal, si fuera necesario. Echar pimienta molida.

Cocer durante 10 minutos y echar en una sopera.

3. PAELLA
Heat pan, add two tablespoons olive oil, diced chicken. Season with salt and pepper, brown throughout. Remove chicken to bowl. Bring chicken broth to boil in a saucepan while browning onion, red pepper, and garlic in remaining olive oil in paella pan. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add rice, broth, oregano, and saffron to skillet. Boil on high heat, then remove. Arrange chicken and shrimp over rice. Scatter peas throughout. Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes until liquid is absorbed by rice. Cover with a kitchen towl after removing, let sit for ten minutes.

Salad and Helado are very easy. But this is still a lot of cooking for Pobrecita Mira! :D

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe...

I've been feeling I should read it for fairness' sake. But I'm too old now, and it would be boring. So, I decided to read it in Spanish! It's an... okay... story, but I am learning a lot of very Quaint and British Spanish. See?

Sin Embargo - Anyhow
Gozar - To have, take pleasure in
Repisa - Ledge, Shelf, Mantlepiece
Desempolvar - To Dust
Sordo - Deaf
Pañuelo - Handkerchief, Scarf
Rincones - Nooks
Una Lechuza - Owl
Tejones - Badgers
Zorro - Fox
Peldaños - Rungs, Stairs
Abrigos - Cloaks, Overcoats
Colgado - Hanging

This is Amusing:

http://www.ekran.no/html/misc/norway.html

Thanksgiving Break

This break has been wonderful - and very needed. After two blessed days of sleeping in, I still have a headache and I'm still fatigued, which goes to show how badly I needed them. Or something. Family crap just gets reshuffled- more happy times, more angst. Blah blah blah.

Thanksgiving was nice. We ate outside. In t-shirts. It's so warm it's like summer - I wanted to go swimming just for the hell of it, but the water was actually cold - like, spring water cold, and I didn't think my parents would approve, and I didn't know what would happen to me in water that cold, having never experienced it. So, without supervision or experience, I merely stuck my feet in.

Beautiful, albeit early sunsets, very blue skies at noon, amazing stars at night. Orion was blazing, and Cassiopeia, and Leo... Ah... you could even see the milky way. Words came into my head - I struggled to brush them away. You know how bright the stars are... and the Northern Lights. Feelings burn over my mind like a brief, rushing flame, and fall apart.

"Don't waste your emotion..." My dad says to my mom, fuming over the new next door neighbors at the lake. She's taken the opportunity to inform us that once THEY'VED moved in we won't see the stars so well. Don't waste your emotion is right... I'm so sick of living in a dream that will never come true.

I run inside, Tidbit runs up to me, the smells are all of Turkey and Pumpkin Pie, we break the bread as picturesquely as the famous tamale pictures... we don't fight for a little while... it's only an awkward time.

And the next day is thanksgiving... all the rich food in the courtyard, surrounded by cedar and pine. The lights play on the lake, white aspens surround the waterside, ducks drift across and hawks above... Tidbit growls at them from her bed, looking to us for protection. The air is strangely, unseasonably warm. I like it day to day, although it unsettles me...

Carl the exterminator comes by to brag about the deer he finally shot... 30 meters, he whispers, like it's a big secret. A feral cat looking suspiciously like a bobcat slinks around beneath a trailer. Cottonwood sheds flowers like snow over the hillside, as even the wind is warm on your back. Jackie wants to tell us all about peanut butter fudge when mom calls us in...

Stress And Turkey

Right. Forty Nine Emails later, we're done with our Government Report.

The only mistake, that we know of, may not even be a problem, is mostly my fault, and is a result of miscommunication. So yeah, not that bad. Layla thought we needed in text citations, I had no idea; I've only used them once in my life. So I threw them all in at the last minute... and...

00:27 me: dies

00:28 gwen: beat you to it. i'm already dead.

me: Oh my god

We just had the Gov thing

Right?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

:P

gwen: yeah?

me: Layla and I bandied over 49 emails about it

gwen: o lord

me: and then I find out twenty minutes before turn it in time that I need in text citations

RIGHT:.....

So I'm adding those and sending, adding and sending

Finally I compile it all into a master file and send it

00:29 gwen: yeah

me: But she freaks out and just wants to submit

So she ignores it

We don't know how much she got

And so we emailed Chazen and we're like

We're missing anywhere from 2-10 in text citations, but we think we have 95-100% of the bibliography. :D

gwen: lol

hopefully it'll turn out ok

me: And it's totally my fault and I'm an idiot

And it's Layla, for God's sake

So I can't even be like

00:30 Haha, remember the time you...

gwen: oh no worries - it's not like she NEEDS the grades.

me: Oh, but she DOES

She's cutting that grade closer than she's ever cut a grade before

She told me

gwen: lol

me: She's been sweating blood

gwen: difference between A and H?

me: What are you up to?

:P Yeah

gwen: an A won't kill her

00:31 i just finished that english essay

me: But hey, I sweat blood over it in Spanish, and I still have an A, and I'm still alive.

I should have donated it..

Oh!

gwen: i did it all in one sitting

me: Let's see!

gwen: ugh it's awful

but it's done

me: (Chazen should have given us until 2 am)

I did mine in one sitting, too

:P

Trade?

Nah

Not tonight

Later

;)

gwen: later, definitely

but i'm off to bed

me: Yeah

00:32 gwen: i'm exhausted

me: Me too

Love you, Gwen

Have a happy Thanksgiving

:D

gwen: love you more!!!

me: NO STRESS!

gwen: eat turkey

My Friends

I'm just flying. My fingers won't stop typing. Emails. Essays. Deadlines. Blog Posts. And my feet won't stop moving - Babysitting, Work, Racquetball, Service Hours..

I'm so busy I don't have time to stray from my default into dark and nasty thoughts. So I'm happy, exhausted, burnt out, rambling, wandering into walls and falling into wells, but happy...

And I love having Layla around.

I need Layla, see. I'm ashamed and I don't want it to be too obvious, but she's guiding me. Sometimes it may seem the other way around, and sometimes it may appear that we're walking hand in hand, but she's guiding me. I'm following her footsteps through the crowd, hoping to come out on the other side.

And Billie - As Layla said, you are our happy environment. Always be Billie. I know you're human... But please, be Billie. For all of us. :D

And I can't give anything but Cookies, so... I'll just keep bring those... I love you...

Anima Libera

Anima libera,
ti senti candida,
lassù nel cielo volerai
Anima libera,
sempre mi illumina,
nel buio dei pensieri miei
Anima libera,
sovente e magica,
sei la speranza dentro me
Anima libera,
leggera e unica,
nel cosmo azzurro brillerai
E non lasciare che,
paure inutili,
nascondano la luce in te
Io non ti scorderò,
io ti celebrerò,
col ritmo di questa canzone...

- Anima Libera, EMI

(Beautiful song, even more beautiful language. :D)

Whoohoo, It's Midnight!

Yay! I made it! I stayed up until midnight! Still going strong! Break out the Champagne!

Sham... Sham-pain for your real friends, and Real-Pain for your, your sham friends. Ha. Hah...

Right. It's not the New Year. And you finished your essay. Go to Bed, Miranda...

End to Understanding II

Not so great yet. Then again, not too terrible for a rough draft. I think I might be supposed to mix up the scarlet letter - crucible examples more. At any rate, here it is, feel free to ignore - I post it only for reference as it's supposed to be THE ESSAY of Junior Year... Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Turnitin.com found this site and said I was plagiarising from myself? :P

An End to Understanding

One shows us a community torn asunder with raging and impassioned allegations of the occult. The other tells the tale of two lives irreparably scarred by the ironfisted ruling for a brief moment of lust. The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne, tell two different stories with one ardent message, which stands today to warn us against the dangers of law untempered by both reason and human emotion. In both cases this admonition follows a simple arc of corruption and eventual failing over man’s judicial authority, beginning with an unbalanced influence of reason and emotion over the ruling of the court, molded by the strict puritan lifestyle. These unjust rulings extend to squander human lives and good intentions until ultimately and chaotically overthrown by either surrender or growing disregard of their magisterial power.

Humans are fundamentally flawed creatures. Prone to error, they have two forces at their disposal which, used in tandem, can lead them on the course of justice. These forces are those of reason and of emotion, each of which must be tempered with the other, or they may just as easily lead to ruin. Such is the sad case of the Crucible and the Scarlet Letter. In the Crucible, reason is at fault. In a panic fueled by a growing mass hysteria, the long repressed emotions and selfish motives of the people of Salem come to surface with deadly consequences. The Putnams, for example, take advantage of the madness to feed their own greed. They have their daughter testify against a neighbor so they can take his land. As Giles explains, “If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property – that’s law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land! (101)” Abby, the orchestrator of the confessors, has her own ulterior motives. Having once had an affair with John Proctor, she believes he would marry her but for his wife Elizabeth, and summarily moves to dispose of her. As Proctor turns increasingly against her, she shows no hesitance in taking him down as well. Cold and calculating, she knows that as an ‘innocent’ young maiden, she will be believed. “And if they ask you why Abigail would ever do so murderous a deed,” she fairly asks Proctor, “What will you tell them? (158)” The irrational court that the hearings are held in allow lies to fester and spread like wildfire. Hale, the learned judge, is originally overeager and ambitious in his judgments, thrilled at some level to put his years of study to test on the field. The other judges, Hathorne and Danforth, are equally partial and unyielding of their control in the court. Spectral evidence, now considered an oxymoron, was fair game in the Salem Witch Trials, as the witnesses would testify to spirits visiting them at night or advancing upon them in the court. If Salem, then, was host to a courtroom turned circus, the Boston of the Scarlet Letter is home to one of ironfisted damnation, bereft of human tenderness. The inhabitants there condemn Hester to a lifetime as a pariah for a moment’s lust, and call it mercy in the face of the gallows she might as easily have faced. Perhaps they are desperate for a scapegoat, thirsting for someone to take notice away from their own petty sins in a society where no transgression is too small to warrant the gaze of hell. Perhaps they are simply jealous of the young, beautiful Hester Prynne, who with her skilful embroidery looks so different from their own “broad shoulders and well developed busts and… round and ruddy cheeks. (46)” With whatever cruel motive born from a strict and cold life, Hester’s neighbors advance on her ruthlessly, hurling towards her every weapon of humiliation in an attempt to break her spirit.

Sprung from a thousand cruel motives and envenomed by bitterness, the unbalanced and barbarous rulings of Salem and Boston could only ever bring about evil consequence. In their own time, both waste innocent lives and squander good intentions, transforming the pure and good to corruption and decay. In the Scarlet Letter, the judgment of man leaves a child to grow up fatherless, a woman to live in pain, a minister to lead himself to death with guilt, and a physician’s heart and soul to blacken with vengeance. Each would have had much to offer the world, if treated by it with more clemency and understanding. Instead, Pearl, the child of lust, grows up in a broken home to be a wild and strange child, forever separated from the companionship of others her own age by the sinful past that precedes her. Her mother Hester is a beautiful, clever, and kind woman who grows old before her time wandering in constant pain from the guilt and ostracism she endures. She may have given great happiness to a man and many children as a wife, or even to society as a giving and talented embroiderer. Instead, she is long ignored and avoided, and takes to wearing her hair pinned up in a cap, turning grey and lifeless before the eyes of Boston. Dimmesdale, her partner in sin, is also relentlessly tormented. Never strong, he lingers on in bad health and unimaginable guilt for years, tortured by the physician who subtly draws out the effects of his own poisonous emotions. A brilliant speaker and holy, god-fearing minister, Dimmesdale nonetheless realizes that if his congregation only knew of the sin he had once committed, he would be cast out and made nothing before them, unable even to repent through good works and service. The physician, Hester’s thwarted husband, is also cruelly affected by the judgment even as he is part of it. He is made to feel as though Dimmesdale has committed a crime against him which is grievous beyond reckon and utterly unforgivable. His mind is twisted to madness with dark thoughts, and is increasingly compared with the Black Man, the Satan of Puritan society, as he sinks further and further from his roots as a gentle scholar. In the Crucible, the waste of life and love is even more lucid, as throngs of innocent people are incarcerated, many even killed. Children are made orphans. Women are made widows. Men are made to live in their guilt for the remainder of their wretched lives. Rebecca Nurse, a saintly woman all her life, is excommunicated and hung. Giles Corey, an old man a bit rough around the edges but kind at heart, and well loved in a begrudging sort of way, is torturously pressed with stones in an attempt to force a confession from him. Even long after the bloodbath has settled, unpleasantness haunts the town. Few participants ever rest in peace, some losing family members to death and illness, others doomed, it seems, to wander in search of employment or contentment.

Such destructive and wasteful judgment can not, and does not, continue forever, although by the time the wounds have been staunched they have left indelible scars. In some cases, the overthrow of the law, or the events that set it into motion, are dramatic and violent displays of false surrender. Dimmesdale confesses his sins at last, before the eyes of God and his beloved congregation. Freed from his guilt at long last, and finally safe from the poison of the physician, he dies in a sort of peace. Proctor uses his last words in a desperate attempt to rally Salem and expose the madness and hypocrisy of the trials. He sends himself to hang, with multiple chances to surrender to the hysteria and save himself. He refuses to condemn others, or to lie about his own sins, but stands at last clean before all. “I have found my honesty, (158)”, he says, finally finding a cause worth confessing, and dying for in the lives of his wife and his neighbors. He goes on to the gallows, but he has made his peace and is, as Dimmesdale, somehow content. Not all shake off the law so furiously, but time, the great healer, brings many of them to break it in their own slow and steady way. They become numb to its decrees and begin to turn against it, and the law in turn falls without support. The townspeople, after a time, cease to see the red A that burns against Hester’s bosom. They explain it away as meaning “A”, for “Able” and begin to appreciate her talents and her strengths. The witch trials swiftly but quietly dissolve, and as the years go by slow amends begin to be made. These are little enough atonement, and pale beside the transgressions they seek to allay, but they are made nonetheless. In its own zealousness, the law had burned too brightly and too ardently, and in the end died away with a bang and a whimper.

The Crucible and the Scarlet Letter are sad stories, drearily hopeful at best, which illustrate the worst of human nature and of the institution of law. They serve, however, as a warning, not an epitaph, and to some extent this warning has been heeded. Today we learn about the Salem Witchcraft Trials in school, refuse to admit spectral evidence to our courts, and pledge never again to let such injustice rule our minds. Whether or not we have been successful, of course, is debatable, but our court system is different for having that particular dark smudge on its past. When we read the Scarlet Letter, we close it having a slightly different opinion on judging others and the good in others. Perhaps it makes us better people, perhaps we continue to go about our lives as before, but the warning stands, and it would be wise to heed it.

An End to Understanding

Alright, so... has anyone noticed a pattern where, the more homework I have, the more I blog? But I'm tricking it, see, this blog post will be homework.

So my essay, which I'm thinking about calling "An End to Understanding", because the two choices for style in Essay Titles are "Technical and Cold" or "Lame", and I like to go with "Lame" because I'm what the English teachers call "Creative". So my essay. I'm going to examine where, when, how, and why the law went terribly astray in The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible.

TENTATIVE THESIS:

The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne and The Crucible by Miller share a common theme: A gradual corruption and eventual failing of the power of the law. In both cases this starts with an unbalanced influence of reason and emotion over the ruling of the court, extends to waste and destroy innocent lives and good intentions, and is ultimately overthrown by surrender or growing disregard of their magestrial authority.

REASONS: The Court was Over-Eager in Judgement in both cases. In Crucible emotion ruled, without reason. In the Scarlet Letter law ruled, without human tenderness.

REASON VS. EMOTION

Coldness of Society, Self Righteousness - Women in Scarlet Letter, Judges in Crucible.
Need for a Scapegoat - Society at Large, Both.
Greed - The Putnams wanted land, Abby wanted John Proctor.
Jealousy - Hester was pretty, young, and skillful.
Mass Hysteria - Everyone flips in Crucible.


RESULTS: These judgements made in haste bring undue mental and physical punishment, a waste of innocent lives and good intentions.

Guilt - Hester and Dimmesdale feel extraordinary guilt, guilt is aftereffect of cruelty for Salem judges, witnesses.
Prejudice - People judged Hester at first sight due to her Scarlet Letter, people saw witches in every corner.
Condemned Innocents - Innocents went to the gallows or were pressed to death in Crucible, in Scarlet Letter Pearl was outcast and Hester and Dimmesdale felt more guilt than they deserved.
Waste of Goodness - Good people were killed, ending their potential for good permanantly. Town society destroyed, waste of much good. In Scarlet Letter Hester's goodness was only slowly recognized, Dimmesdale felt his own goodness would be nil if he confessed.


DOWNFALL: Eventually the extreme injustice of the law brings about it's own downfall as the rulings gradually lose their sway over the society or victims are driven to confess or surrender, breaking it's power.

Confession or Surrender - Dimmesdale Confesses to Adultery, is safe from Chillingsworth, is right with God. Proctor confesses to Lechery, weakening Abby's hold.
Eventual Acceptance - Time Heals all wounds. More peacefully, people give in and reaccept people, reversing ruling - Hester's A means Able. Witchcraft Trials shiver and die.

CONCLUSION: Unjust and short-sighted law, fueled by an imbalance of stark reason and tempering human understanding, brings about disasterous consequences for all those involved, and ultimately for the law itself through nullifying surrender or popular disregard.

Pay-Day

All my working and juggling has not been in vain! I'm at an all time low weight of 40.45 kilos. ^^

Photoshoot!

Yeah, to relax and et cetera, I took a shameless photo shoot.

Location: My Office
Camera: Cheap Web-Cam
Lighting: One Lamp, Sun Down.
Clothing: Lumpy Red Sweater
Hair: Lazy Pigtails, Unbrushed
Accessories: Earrings
Make Up: None
Props: Book, Coloured Pencil, Mother's Glasses

This Weekend

This Weekend I'm running like my feet can't bear to stay on the ground.

Friday, Racquetball game. Immediately after school. Opponent's a sour natured girl, who won't shake hands properly and frowns and whines and tells all her friends I'm cheating for having good positioning. I go from this to Babysitting, no time to change. They jump on me and want to play tag and have milk and dinner and the little baby wants to poop and scream and run around and Grace wants to jump from furniture to furniture, that's not allowed...

I sing to Nate as I rock him to sleep, I sing "Into the West", it's what comes into my head, and he falls to sleep in my arms and I kiss his little face on his soft cheekbone, and a little eyelash is there. It's dark and long; not from a baby's eye. So the wish is mine, and I wish that someday...

Memory fades out, I dream of the National Vocabulary Competition, and making Sra. Altadonna a ball of stress and nerves, and we get there just in time, and sit together, Laura and Christy and I, as it all begins, and up on the stage there's bright lights and dry ice and a noise like thunder and the first girl goes up, and it's not even Vocabulary but Geography, and I don't know if she even get's it right - what does that buzzer mean, after all?

It means wake up, up I get, I shower, go down and shove a strawberry crepe down my throat and take the highway to work, barely get there ontime, half asleep and with an arm throbbing from Racquetball and Baby-Changing and forty new dollars in my pocket and it's payday and I get a 400$ paycheck, so now I'm rich but I have to shelve books all day...

Home again, it's out the door, to Arabic Church - I've turned it into my Government service project as well. Little kids climbing and kicking and screaming, Alleh, Daniel, Daniela, Eva, Evaline, Mary, and a new little girl, and we watch the service, it's interesting, and we eat some food, and we're home again, the house is cold and empty without Mom or Dad or Melissa or Tidbit.

Asleep - for longer, but not long enough. I skip Racquetball practice to write the Government essay, Angie hasn't even done it, for all that. Due on Tuesday at midnight, I want to get my English essay done tonight, perhaps it will happen. Lovely times at Layla's house, such nice smells and golden colours and a bird hits the window and whirls about with a wounded wing scattering decaying leaves about it.

Dark and Deadly Kaos, Smooth and Simple Peace... I look forward to Thanksgiving, and to Christmas, and to next year being a Senior, and College, and seeing the world, and meeting someone I want to spend my life with, and having adorable little dark haired children, and then quite suddenly I don't want to go forward any more - the tunnel plummets onward to the end of my life. So I sit back, and concentrate on the minute - what do you have to do RIGHT NOW, this very minute. What's due in the next? What's important?

And I decide blogging. :D

Brief and Burning

It's November, so the sun is completely set by about 5:00, and most day's the weathers nasty so it's dark from about 3 onward. But my, when the sun comes out, is it bright! Looking out the window is like looking straight at the sun, and the street just glows. But not in a good way. And it gives me a headache. ;)

Danish?

"Miranda, quick, what's a language that starts with a D?"
"... Danish?"
"Yes! Okay, do you speak Danish?"
"No... Why?"
"Because I was online searching for something, and the little preview thing was in English, and then..."
"Ohh... I can read Danish, if that's what you mean."
"Yay!"

(She hands me a paper)

"First off, Kelling, this is Swedish. Second of all, it's not the story, it's the history of the story. See, here it tells you about the translation..."

Snapshots from Bitter November

Me stuffing my face, fresh out of the shower, and a little hyper after the poetry slam, in that order.

Poetry Slam

The Second Annual, First Biannual Poetry Slam was today. That is to mean; last year we had the first one, and, with the incentive of extra credit, it was a resounding success. So this year we mean to have two. Today's was barely worthwhile, but barely does rightfully imply that it was worthwhile all the same. The Open-Mike was a neat addition; Layla read "Tech Support" and took the slam - not as powerfully as Haoran did last year, but it wasn't an original piece. Haoran also scored again; as did Alex, Angie Gao, Connie Tsai, and Billie Liao. There may be a rule that no white people can win. No, I don't mean just to whine by saying that; although there are only two or three white people who entered. Ah, well.

I got nice comments on my poem, but didn't score to well from the judges. That's fine by me; my poem was short, snide, sarcastic, biting, pointed, composed in less than ten minutes a year ago, and thrown into the competition at the last minute to even things out. It also probably didn't help that the group it made fun of and cut down WAS poets, teen-poets to be specific, so it's less than ideal to enter into a teen-poetry-slam, if you want to be pragmatic. I'm sure I've posted it before, but here it is again to freshen memories;

I wear the mask that grins and lies,
It lies to hide my awful eyes,
It grins to mask my pitted skin,
The sight of which kills lesser men.

I may look sad, I may look cold,
But if the mask were backwards-rolled,
I'd stand still changeless before thee -
In dear-bought truth, the mask wears me.

First Snow - St. Louis Style

In summer I've spoken of how the water comes off the river and raises our heat indexes to the roof with the humidity levels. Well, the moisture takes a few breaks in fall, but comes back again for the beautiful St. Louis November - which is here in full force after a strangely warm day last friday (we're talking hiking-in-tanks weather).

What I mean is - wet, and quite cold. Not VERY cold, for if it was any colder of course we'd have snow, but it FEELS colder because it wraps around you even as water, and it's raining, and it's very windy, and it all sort of permeates you to the point that when you go inside, you're amazed at how fast you warm up until you realize that's because you had imagined yourself thoroughly drenched.

But yeah, the forecast is snow tonight or tomorrow; may not stick, but should be there. There have also been reports of snow today; little flurries amid the freezing rain. May or not be true, and is far from picturesque, but it's there.

Icon Picture

My Icon pictures doing something creepy when downsizing so that one of my eyes is all white and kind of scary. I'm replacing it with a blacked out eye. Sort of equally creepy to think about it, but not if you don't. ^^

No reprieve

I admit, there is no crushing pressure anywhere. Not from grades... to be honest, I care more about them now, but they are the same as they've always been - satisfactory. Not my best, but satisfactory. Work is going swimmingly, and I like it. Tidbit's alive, and on the mend. My family sucks, but they're not like abusing me or anything, and they love me, they're just loud and angry and 'used up' or whatever. I REALLY need to get my license, but that's hard to manage - Racquetball can quietly take the backburner and that's life...

So no, no crushing pressure. But no reprieve, either. Nowhere to hide. Not in free time or immaculate grades or in friends or even in family. That's what's cutting into me.

Emails are really the only thing I have. And that's little enough - and a guilty pleasure in reading.

Memories

When all that is left to us are memories. They are not faded, but vivid and fresh as the day they were conceived, and painful and bitter.

New Picture

I've replaced my profile picture with this years official school picture:


P.S. - It may seem as though I'm being emo in my latest posts. I am NOT. I am MOST DECIDEDLY NOT. That would totally be breaking my promise to self. ^^ That is all.

Snake Agent

I'm reading an interesting book right now, called Snake Agent. I don't think the titles all that amazing, but at any rate I'm almost through it and it's... refreshing. Very creative and different and all that good stuff. It's got a somewhat a-christian-morals view on Heaven and Earth and Hell and all that, but still manages not to feel like an entirely guilty read, and I think the main charectors hearts are in the right places. I know they are; they try their damnedest to do what's right.

And it's just so much fun... the descriptions are amazingly vivid, and the world is strange, but so confidently laid out you don't quite feel frightened. Which was a problem in Snow Crash, a somewhat similar book I read. You were never at all at ease in the world... you were somewhat in awe of the charectors who were. But Snake Agent's just a tad bit more approachable... and that makes all the difference.

I'm also reading "A Child's First 1000 Words - In German". It's very useful, but the designs the same as "A Child's First 1000 Words" (In English), so I get some funny looks toting it about. Ah, well.

I love my job! I can find so many books there. ^^ I think one must use a library the same way one uses a Thesaurus - if you don't remember, as I think that was a blog post from a year or more ago - that's by looking just for looking, and not to find anything in particular. Otherwise you will likely be disappointed, but if you just explore, you find all manner of goodies. ^^

Reflections from the Backwaters

How quiet the lake is this time of year... how still the water, bright the sky, and the stars, and the campfire, and the sun on the waves moving beyond the pines. And how sharp the pain, I wake to rediscover every clear morning, when there is nothing but calmness and stillness and a different sort of pacing to keep you from it. I may live in the hopeful future, or in the nostalgic past, in it's combined pulchritude and putrefaction.

I'd rather not live this way, but I've only found so many ways of changing it - stress or business or the dearest, brightest joys.

And something else has changed... I was watching the stars, and I wanted to drift off again. I could feel the heavens calling me, like times before when I've sat within myself and felt as though I was going off into the edges of the world, seeing the sand falling in Africa, and the rivers of Russia, and the Yellow Sea, and the waterfalls and parrots of South America, and felt rooted to the earth, and so inexplicably happy... this was blocked from me.

So I stop watching the stars, and I stop tending the dying fire, and I go inside and turn on Springsteen, and my mind whizzes off, buzzing with the imagination so strong this time of year. And I want to write... how I want to write... about the things that are important; like honour and bravery and love... not about the dust my own emotions have become. I can write and become something bigger than myself...

I'm not proud of my depression, you know...

It does hurt less

It does hurt less... every day it hurts less. But it still hurts a hell of a lot.

It's hardest waking up.

Conversation with Self

Better Half: Don't be emo. You have the puppy; she came home; she's on your lap. You're going to the lake this weekend. Besides; you're strong, you can juggle work and r-ball and school, no problem. You're grades will be fine.

Worse Half: But they'll YELL at me... ;_;

Better Half: Well, keep blogging about it. That helps every time.

Worse Half: ...

12 Weeks

Time limps by like the winner of the special olympics. I've been in school for 12 weeks. That means it's emo grade time. My grades have taken a hit from Greece. Not an irreparable one, but a noticible one for this grading period. I think I can bring my parents over to that idea at the lake. Unless they see it here first... but I don't think they read my blog.

And I always get the funny idea that if they did, they'd understand what I was getting at and my point of view and everything, probably because I just write it exactly how I feel it with almost no censorship. And thats mostly names, and when something would be equivalent to starting a rumour.

But yeah. I don't need there pressure. I'm pressured enough myself. And super stressed out. And a little depressed. I thought it would go away when family problems calmed down. Maybe that was just a mask. Gah, I feel a bit trapped. But yeah, I know how important grades are. Exactly so. I don't think they're all important or worthless. I actually think I have a pretty good idea, and I worry, and work hard, and stress, and study, and cram, and cry, and all that.

So yeah, I don't need the parents angst on top of it, not when it's half founded in doubt, and not when I have a good idea of the situation and am reasonable confident I can bring the grades around by the end. Besides, I always do. ;)

Notwithstanding, Grade Guesses:

English - B, because of Essay weirdness. Should get back to an A.
Chemistry - B, nice and solid. Hit mercifully not applicable.
Math - C, nice and solid. I had hoped to bring it to a B. I can do it on the final, I know I can...
Government - B, should be solid and stress free; and that's the goal.
German - A, nothing to say here.
Spanish - A, but is it high enough for an H? I've done well on projects and tests, and participation, but I've missed a homework assignment. O.O, today, actually, and it was a horrible accident.

Total: AABBBC
Goal: HAABBB

I'm two and a half away from goal. That's not impossible at all. I can do this. :D

State of the Union

Life's been queerer than a clockwork orange. I permit you to read between the lines...

I've fought my family. I've sort of won. We're acting a little warmer again. I've come out of my school slump. It's in time for science, not for math. I've gotten invited to several youth leadership conferences everywhere from good ole' Washington to Russia or China or Slovakia. The Democrats took control of the House. No one knows what's wrong with Tidbit. But she's come home. Layla's admitted she desperately wants to go to Harvard. Billie's fighting the assumption that, as an asian, she'll do pre-med. Racquetball's started and mixed lovingly with my job and school like Hummus and Saffron and Oatmeal go together. It's getting colder, slowly. It's very wet. I've heard the Democrats took the Senate, too. There are still a ton of leaves on the trees for this time of year. Today it was randomly 70 degrees. I wore my Norway! Shirt. Britney Spears is divorcing Kevin. Agnese laughed at my Italian. Walaa smiled at my Arabic, Amelia at my Aramaic. Bush admits the losses are all his fault. Layla's sick of studying. Charles won't admit defeat. Erin brought bagels for our Chemistry class. Rumsfeld resigned. Sara was practically doing cartwheels. We knew before the Government teachers. Or our parents. We've been studying the fall of the Berlin wall. I've shelved "Raising Bison for the Broken Heart", and "The Ugly Truckling", and "A Mind of It's Own: A History of the Penis". We're on Revelations in Bible Study. In Spanish we study food for two hours right before lunch. But we got to try Pomengranate. Stem Cell Research passed... despite the lies about cloning. The Cigarette Tax did not pass... life limps forward. I've forgotten more Latin than I think I ever learned. The sky is blue, the leaves drift across like... dry leaves. There's not always a metaphore.

War of the News

I've got major major Tidbit-related bad news, so I'm going to clutter up my life with a few points of minor good news for now.

A.) I'm out of my math-science slump. I would call it a grade slump, but I never really slumped in Spanish or German, and I'm still slumping as mildly as before in English and History. But no, I get what's going on in Math, and I went to tutoring*, and studied with Stephanie for the Chemistry test, and hopefully did pretty well on it.

B.) Arabic Church last night was fun. I think I'm actually learning some things! Not much, but a little. I know about 7 words now, and I notice them when they come up, and can sometimes guess the context. And I started learning the alphabet, because right before leaving, I opened my book and learned "m", and then I was delighted to recognize it. Then, as we had to draw thanksgiving oriented pictures with the kids, I managed to write "Shokran" or "Thanks", in Arabic! I was so proud I showed it to everyone.

* - This was fun, as I'm a member of the organization that was tutoring, and I show up and they're like, "Alright Miranda, go find someone (stupid) to help..." and I'm all like, "Yeah... About that...."