meorae

Carol. The best drawings so far are these wonderful sketches. Before the announcement there was a lot of amazing art as well. Such as this or this or this or this or this or this blinking portrait or these doodles or these. I remember a lot of these being good as well. And this lolcat silliness based off of these models.

For fic, this series of letters (scroll down for the links) is good, especially for being completely written in under 24 hours. This is the first long fic to be completed, and although I've only read the first 4 chapters, it's really good so far. Another fic by the same author as the previous one is good as well although not actually Albus/Gellert. A lot of short fics/drabbles have been posted within the last few days to grindeldore but none of them stand out as amazing. And then these are just two funny posts about it.

And now I should get back to homework and college apps...

I haven't updated this in almost a month... I've been sick recently (just like everyone else in the world), I missed six days of school and am still struggling to catch up in a few of my classes. Three weekends ago, Pam tackled me while we were playing Frisbee and I sprained my ankle. I know of like 5 other people who have screwed up their ankles in the past few weeks... That same weekend, I came down with some sort of stomach bug. I didn't want to deal with both of those at school, so stayed home for three days until the stomach thing got mostly better. The following weekend, I'm still not sure why, but I developed vertigo and got to deal with room-spinning goodness and feeling like I was about to fall over or faint every time I stood up or tried to walk around. Again I stayed home for three days. I've managed to catch up in most of my classes, but am still behind in Physics and probably did badly on that Psych quiz I made up.

And in the mean time, I've had a shopping cart left in my room, which was then turned into a giant platypus by Carol and left on my front porch, done horribly on a Physics test, aced a Calc test, become a National Merit Semi-Finalist, postponed my SAT IIs until November, and avoided thinking about college as much as possible. I've also come to a few realizations in the past few weeks, but I don't feel like writing any of them down just yet.

Thankfully it's a three day weekend. And as it's half-an-hour until the 7th, Happy Birthday Giulia!

( Carol's Questions )

Most of my friends seem to be having trouble with their schedules or overloaded with work and I feel weird about having a wonderful schedule, with 5 teachers and classes I love already, and little to no work assigned yet. There's a programming group assignment due next Friday, a Psych project due the 17th, a calc test on review stuff and an in-class essay on Kite Runner on Wednesday, but otherwise my only homework so far is some Physics problems. Morgenbesser and McCarthy are awesome, Tobin seems wonderful so far, Camelio seems nice enough and I like Duranceau as well. I mean how can you not like a teacher who, on the first day of school, invites the class over to his house for pizza Monday evening? I don't know what to think about White/Flynn yet, but people who had her in Sophomore year didn't like her. I also seem to have lunch with a bunch of people. Plus all of the depleted Caf Crew has been hanging out after school with what could be a few froshie recruits. And they haven't worked out directed studies yet, so my study today was in the cafeteria with Pam, Carol, Alice, Heather and Pete. Pam and Carol sang the duck-billed platypus song loudly 5 or 6 times throughout the period.

My sleep schedule hasn't reverted back to school timing yet, so even if I go to bed by 10, I can't fall asleep until 1 or after. Means I've only gotten five or six hours of sleep the last two nights, but whatever. I've never had as many teachers and classes I like before and with at least one or two people I enjoy talking to/working with in each of them. This year seems like it will be amazing. I'm not sure how my clubs will work out, though, seeing as I'm head of math team and secretary/vice-president of SAVE Club so should try to go to every meeting of both of those and am also a member of National Honor Society. The three of those will probably overlap in annoying ways, not to mention the Whose Line Improv club meetings.

And now to go to bed and catch up on lost sleep. If anyone's going to town day, stop by the SAVE club booth and say hi. I think I'm supposed to be manning it for much of the day.

I'm back from vacation. Vacation was good although my family always seems to clash when we're together for long periods of time. Driving out to New York, we stopped by Tanglewood and listened to the practice for a bit before driving for the remaining 5 hours to get to our hotel. In New York, we took my grandmother out for a picnic which was all well and good until the lightning, thunder and rain started. It was right above us for a good half-an-hour and we had to wait it out as mom prearranged for the bus service to come back at a specific time due to my grandmother's wheelchair. The next day, my mom spent the morning with her mom while my brother, dad and I went to the Corning Museum of Glass, like we always do. We watched a couple of the glassblowing shows and also wandered around the museum for a while. The Glass Flowers exhibit was beautiful and the flowers were amazingly intricate and realistic. If any of you are ever around Corning, New York you should visit the museum.

In Maine, the first night and day were rainy but we played hearts in the Gathering Place and managed to stay dry. The Gathering Place sold trail mix which was amazingly good and I think my family got 10 or 15 bags of it throughout the trip. We went hiking and kayaking and stargazing (we saw some shooting stars which were the start of the Perseids) and my dad and I saw a dolphin while we were kayaking and a squirmunk (my brother came up with the name because we couldn't decide whether it was a baby squirrel or a chipmunk) tried to get into our food. We made s'mores on the two nights we lit fires and battled our deflating air mattresses until my dad went out and bought three new ones.

I read a total of six books throughout our vacation: The Tipping Point, Siddhartha, The Kite Runner, The Dark is Rising, Cordelia's Honor and Hawksong which, with the HP books brings my books read this summer up to 13 and makes me done with summer reading.

We drove home to a message on the answering machine for me from an Army Recruiter and no schedule... I guess they're sending them out alphabetically, but I'm impatient and want mine.

I had a weirdly realistic dream last night. It started out with me waiting for my dad in a car at night. He came back with a couple of maps and some food, mentioning that our plane would leave that time the next night. Over the course of the dream, I realized I was going to Australia with my dad, although I never figured out why we were going. My dad mentioned something about the plane ride only being an hour long and that I should pack a book to read. I protested that Australia is halfway around the world and that it should take a lot longer to get there. My dad said no it isn't, it's right here (and a map magically appeared showing that Australia was just a quick hop away from where we were). So we went home and I went up to the tv room and just sat there staring at the blank tv, thinking I should find out how far away Australia actually was and waiting for my dad to be ready to leave. Eventually, I realized that it was late and got up to look for my dad. I ended up downstairs where the mail was on the radiator and noticed something from the high school that must have been my schedule on top. I picked the mail up and somehow lost track of my schedule while going through the rest of my mail. The front door opened and I looked up to a crowd of talking people with my dad in front opening the door. Behind him I saw a bunch of my teachers (seemed to be most of the science and math department) who I came to the conclusion showed up to give me my schedule. My mom and brother walked downstairs and my dad closed the door on the teachers. And then I woke up.

It's obvious what I've been thinking of recently, including the fact that I haven't been on a plane since before 9/11 (as we used to go to see my grandmother in Indiana but then she died when I was in third grade, so we went out for her funeral and then a year later went out for my cousin's wedding. But since then I haven't been on a plane. 8 years with 9/11 happening in between...), that I want my schedule (which I assume I'll get Monday), and just general thoughts about school and applying to college (the teacher in front of the crowd was Morgenbesser, who I've vaguely been thinking of emailing sometime soon to ask if he'd write me a recommendation). I'm not sure where the Australia part came in though... Maybe something to do with Hugh Jackman's upcoming movie Australia? No idea. But that was one of the longest and most realistic dreams I've had in a while and the way my recent thoughts combined into this random dream amused me once I woke up.

Other than that, fandom's gone splodey, so I've backed up my journal with lj book which is amazing, and copied all of my entries to greatestjournal with antennapedia's transfer script. I am meorae at greatestjournal as well and other than fandom journals, have friended Elisabeth and Vanessa over there. If any of you have greatestjournals, friend me? I'm not leaving lj, seeing as fandom is not the only reason I'm here, but I am setting up at greatestjournal to follow the fandom people who are. As my brain sees links to interesting software thingies and I must clicky, I'll be using Semagic to post to both lj and gj at the same time from now on.

I'll be in Western MA for the weekend - retouring Amherst and Williams (I saw them with my brother 2? 3? years ago, but don't remember them) and touring Smith as well.

Ugh. Leaked DH book posted online. Must resist. I think I'm gonna avoid the interwebs until after I've finished reading it Saturday morning. Bear, stop encouraging me to read it now or I'll hurt you. But why, I ask myself, why not read it now? It's only four days early. I have self-control, I have self-control.

Two things.

First, for those lucky people applying to college this year, the Common Application for fall 2008 admission will be available tomorrow.

Second, Labyrinth is being shown for something like the next week at the Kendall Square Cinema.

I was thinking of getting a permanent account. I have the money sitting around in my bank account (and for that matter in my wallet as well), I've been here for three years and will most likely stick around through college and grad school (and 7.5 years of paid time is equivalent in money spent to a permanent account) and for the most part, I like livejournal.

Livejournal is my home on the web. It's where I'm connected to my friends in real life (although now that is facebook as well), where I have access to interesting discussions and information in random communities, ljs and rss feeds, and where I have access to fandom. I used to lurk in fandom through archives and forums, but now when I read fanfic it's either on lj or linked to from someone's lj and all the discussions I read are in communities or livejournals.

But then I think about it and this is completely a marketing scheme to make money by creating interest due to the time window (much like facebook gifts). Plus, I have to think, do I really want to invest that much money in a service that sees nothing wrong with suspending journals for listing certain interests until fandom gets up in arms about it? And then there's the fact that it would just be weird. Looking at the page for gifting paid time, I'm the only one of you that I know in real life with a paid account.

I don't know who I'll be in two years, much less seven. And I don't actually know how I'll spend my time. Is it worth it when I haven't really taken advantage of my paid account? The answer is no. If I still like livejournal, I might get a permanent account during the next sale, but not during this one.

You have no idea how ridiculously happy this makes me - it's a programming language based on lolcats.

Someone just linked to a site I found a long time ago, but then after I brought it up in a conversation with Elisabeth (and maybe other people, I don't remember), I couldn't find it again. The site's The Brick Testament and it's the bible quoted verbatim and illustrated with legos.

And then fandom_counts, with its profile in 23 different languages, has almost reached 30,000 members in just a day. Oh fandom, how I love thee. Go join if you consider yourself part of any fandom.