Forever Feels Like Home
Looking back, now, I’m noticing that I complained quite a bit in the last post. I’ve been complaining a lot, actually. I’m going to try very hard to avoid doing that today, because… Well, basically because I feel like a jerk doing it. So I won’t. Watch me.
I’m actually getting ready for NaNoWriMo right now – which I will blog my way through, because I’ve heard of others doing that and I want to – and even though it’s not for two months, I’m excited beyond belief. I’ve just read last years (or what of it I could even stomach) and laugh at my own horrific display. I mean, beyond the characters that got older and younger at odd rates, the title of a book that constantly changed, the family tree of a certain family that I still don’t understand, and various scenes with no point other than raising my word count. I just have to find another NaNoWriMo Report Card, because I loved using it last year (it’s brilliant) and maybe scrounge up something that resembles a plot, and I’ll be set for NaNo08.
*Airpunch* Yeah!
Anyway, I’m being paged. Apparently we’re to watch Big Momma’s House, which is probably about as stupid as it sounds. But it’s a family-ish activity, so I’ve got to go. Tootles.
I’ve had a song stuck in my head all day – Through the Glass, by Stone Sour. I’d never heard of them before, but this song was on a fanvid (a great one, might I add) and I’m oddly attracted to it.
G’night.
~DreamingOfNothing
And Just Forget The World
And no, I haven’t posted in forever. I myself am horrified at my betrayal, but we are here now. Nothing can be done.
So, in compromise, I post now to tell you of the recent happenings.
I’ve read several books and seen several movies in my absence, a few of which I shall share with you. (Forgive me for my formal language and British tone – it will all be explained soon enough) They are:
Mamma Mia!
Evan Almighty
Around The World In Eighty Days (1989 TV version)
***SPOILERS FOR ALL THREE OF THE FOLLOWING FOLLOW***
I’ll start with Eighty Days, because that is the film I have just completed. It’s much better than the new one, sticking almost verbatim to Jules Verne’s book. And as Eighty Days is one of my more beloved classics and because Phineas Fogg is one of my favorite fictional characters, it was quite enjoyable. And 4 1/2 hours long. The plot twist is a twist in both the book and film, and for some reason, despite my having read the book 6-7 times and watched both movies, I still get nervous at the end because maybe this time Fogg will be an instant too late. As if Verne has changed the ending since I last read it. I don’t know. It’s a childish thing, but I first read it as a young child anyway.
Ironically enough, it has the same star character as another on my list. Pierce Brosnan (Irish actor of James Bond fame) is both Phineas Fogg and Sam Carmichael, from Mamma Mia! I am sad to inform you that his performance in the musical is not half as fine as that in Eighty Days, especially as he has no voice to speak of. Though an companion of mine would point out that his physical appearance more than makes up for his complete and utter lack of singing ability, I still find him lacking in the movie. It was about as deep as it appears – not at all – but was certainly a cheery presentation. Basically – if you’re looking for substance, look elsewhere, but if you’re just depressed and wish for something sweet and funny and cheerful that will probably leave the less profound of us smiling, this will suffice. If you, like some I know, also harbor a severe crush on Brosnan, you’ll probably like it too. It’s fairly Brosnan-heavy. But as I do not, I don’t think I’ll be seeing it again.
***TEMPORARY CEASE OF SPOILERS***
While I’m on the subject, I had a doctor’s appointment recently and during the apparently mandatory psychological evaluation, said doctor seemed unwilling to believe that I was, in fact, not gay. Now, brushing aside the clear affront to those of the homosexual persuasion of putting this question in a psych eval, I’m not certain what it was that confused said doctor so. Do I not act straight? While I admit that my clothing was rather loose at the time (long story that I will not go into, but to make it short – I’m ashamed of my figure or lack thereof at the moment and do not exactly want to be flaunting it to the nation) I still don’t get it. A non-sexy girl does not a lesbian make. As far as I know. If she had wanted to slap me with a depression label, she could make a case off of basic psych facts. However, she didn’t. And I’m not depressed, in case you were wondering. Not at all.
However, when my mother heard about this and my ratfink sister told her what my neighbors had said about my affection for various actors (none) – I had expected her to flip out. I am ashamed to say that my family doesn’t harbor the greatest feelings for gay folk. I don’t dislike them – do what you please, people of the world, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. The sexual preference of others doesn’t bother me in the slightest. However, my relations don’t share the same view, and I was fearing for my completely hetrosexual life. (Here’s the best part – I can’t even say anything about my current obsession about a certain fictional character and the awkward portrayer thereof, because I’m not supposed to know he exists. Sublime, isn’t it?)
It worked out, though. My mother was duly reassured that I wasn’t gay, and since I don’t think she believes that gayness even truly exists (I don’t know either) she set off to find me a face whom I would admit admiration for.
Feel free to insert own laughter here. It’s actually very funny now. But it wasn’t at the time.
Finally I gave in just because it was two in the morning and she didn’t seem ready to let up any time soon, and I’ve been teased about it for days. Now how is that fair, I ask you? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, that I don’t see what other people see, but I don’t think I’m gay. Good god, I can’t be. I’d be excommunicated, disowned, and never spoken to again by anyone I know. I’m not, I’m not, I’m sure of it. But it’s things like this that scare me half to death.
***CONTINUING OF SPOILERS***
The boy, in case you were wondering, is the oldest son in Evan Almighty, which was actually a pretty funny movie. And there are very few special effects, which seems impossible when watched. All of the animals and the gigantic, to-biblical-size ark are real, which is insane. You don’t fully understand how much work went into this movie until you see the extra documentary thingys after telling you about it. It’s ridiculous.
***CEASE SPOILERS OF ANY KIND***
Anything else? Well, my brother’s got headgear now and doesn’t respond well to being called Darla. It’s a pity.
My Lullaby. Maria Mena. I adore this song, I really do, even though it’s slower than Swedish molasses in January. It’s comforting. Especially tonight, when all I really want to do right now after bringing up stuff that’s been bothering me for days is crawl under my new blanket from Mexico and lose myself in my own personal drug: books or television.
I’m a nerd, I know. Don’t you say it too, Still Trying to Dream. I’ve heard it.
~DreamingOfNothing
No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye, I’m Late, I’m Late, I’m Late
Calling this point in time chaotic would be an understatement. (When I asked to have something to do so I wouldn’t get too used to being lazy before school started, God, I didn’t mean this!) Between unpacking and working on my high school transcript (sometimes partial homeschooling sucks. I hope all of you normal earth-bound homo sapiens appreciate that) and trying to figure out what on earth I’m going to do for the Untitled Contest, which I am determined to enter (as soon as I can scrounge up an idea worth more than an instant’s thought) and prepping for school, and the HarperTeen First Look book (Suicide Notes) which came in not five minutes ago, which I have to review by the first of September – not to mention the art exhibit and national parks that my family is intent on taking me to-
And then CBS programming begins my new seasons on September 24th and October 3rd (CM and Numb3rs respectively – and since CM was inconsiderate enough to stick the entire team in separate SUVs and then blow an undisclosed one up, I’m not postponing seeing the season premiere. Even though I know that’s just rewarding their nefarious behavior) in addition to the PSAT (Pre-SAT. Don’t even ask why I’m taking it after having taken the SAT twice) on October 21.
Yeah. It’s like that. I’ve had to suspend all of my library holds, so only the few that snuck through and are already in transit (Ink Exchange, Havemercy) are going to reach me before school starts.
So it’s been fun. A blast, actually. I’m supposed to be working on my transcript as I speak (basically, I have to write course descriptions for everything I do, then figure out how many hours I spent doing each course, and calculate credits from that, and fill them into the big Transcript Format and discover exactly how far behind I am and how chaotic the next year will be) but I couldn’t keep working on it. I’m taking a break to write this post, and then I’ll eat lunch.
And for those of you who just looked at the time on this post, yes, it is 5:30. My eating schedule has been so messed up, you have no idea.
So I bid you all farewell. If I don’t post (or reply to emails, BlindinglyArticulate, though I’m working on yours next. Fear not) then don’t fear for my safety or health. I’m still here, albeit buried under the largest workload I’ve had since the time I tried to learn everything on the AP Bio test in a week. My word. (Before you ask, yes, I did actually just say that).
Have a wonderful day, all. Sorry for not posting at all for forever. Yes, you can pretend you care, invisible readers. Even if I’m not sure I should be using the plural to define y’all (is it ya’ll or y’all? Ya’ll looks right to me, but y’all makes more sense. I think). And if you have any ideas for me, BlindinglyArticulate, please share your thoughts. In an email, though, because I’m too paranoid to share my secrets here. *Insert hysterical, ironic laughter here* Even though I haven’t read your blog in ages before today. Forgive me, my friend.
I will convene and reconnect with you forthwith, Junior G-Man. Over and out!
Don’t ask.
~DreamingOfNothing
Tahoma
Haven’t been home since 5 am STOP Went to Mt. Rainier National Park STOP Just got home STOP Will catch up on comments, emails, blogging, and rest of life when no longer sleeping STOP
Goodnight STOP
~DreamingOfSleep STOP
P.S. I still haven’t finished Riding the Lightning STOP
P.S.S. Go Team USA STOP Especially Michael Phelps STOP
Gēchàng Zǔguǒ
Hi. I’m back. I really should be talking about vacation at the moment, but I’m a little hyped up about the Olympics after catching up on that (I’ve just finished the Women’s Gymnastics All-Around Final – thank you for streaming this stuff, NBC) so I’ll talk about that. In case I get off topic, I’m making a list of exactly what I want to talk about (mostly gymnastics):
Olympic Opening Ceremony
The Chinese Women Gymnastics Team
Jonathan Horton in the Men’s Gymnastics All-Around Final
The Women’s Gymnastics All-Around Final
I’ve been waiting a good week or so to rave/vent about this, so bear with me.
The Olympics opened with the singing of the national anthem (Ode to the Motherland) by a young Chinese girl. She looked like this:
She really is adorable, isn’t she? This in Lin Miaoke, a nine year old girl. However, that was not actually her voice used to sing the song. She was lip-syncing to the voice of this girl:
(Sorry for the picture quality. They are necessary to my point) This is Yang Peiyi, a seven year old Chinese girl whose voice was perfect for the role, but her face was not. This kid was basically told that she was not flawless, with her slightly rounder face and missing teeth, and as such could not be seen at the opening ceremony. Instead, her voice was stolen and placed behind Lin Miaoke’s face.
Now, both of these girls are the victims here. Unlike many opinions I’ve read of the story, I’m not mad at Lin Miaoke. This is so not her fault. Who I do blame, however, is the Chinese government. They told a little kid that she was too ugly for this part and pulled an international fraud because it would apparently kill them to be less than perfect. Which, apparently, Peiyi was.
What is this fixation on perfection? What is up with that? Now, the rest of the world just thinks that China is dishonest (which this move was) and obsessed more with their image than their people. An image which they just ruined, might I add.
While I’m on a list of grievances of China against their girls, I might go to the hot topic of the Chinese female gymnasts. As incredible as some of them are, I am loath to call them a women’s team for the following reason: Many of them are probably underage. The legal requirement for gymnastics in the Olympics is (I believe – don’t quote me) 16, which the passports of all these girls say they are.
However, there is doubt that they are that old. I’m not talking about their looks – my thirteen year old brother looks ten. But aside from their young appearance and actions (and the fact that the youngest looking, Deng Linlin, is missing a tooth) there is semi-proof that these girls are not as old as their government is trying to say they are. Many of them had previously been registered in other competitions or with the FIG (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique – French) with younger ages. With those birth dates, some of them could be 15, 14, or even 13. No one really knows, as the Olympic judges are unwilling to look too deeply into this team. I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s for the same reason that they’re underscoring American and European teams and overscoring Chinese ones?
Let me explain further by moving to the next item on my list. Jonathan Horton competed in both the Men’s Team Final and the Men’s All-Around Final. I really need to watch both these competitions in full (what I did see was scrounged from variously placed television screens in various casinos, from what vantage points that the “must be 21 to be within however many feet of the gambling area” allowed) but from what I saw, he was completely messed over. His performance was far above par, and yet he ended the competition in ninth place. The judging had been horrifically biased against Team USA the entire day (and I am not just saying this because of my nationality. I’ll get back to this) but this was really over the top. I thought that that was the worst the judges could pull at the time, and was incredibly angry. Ranting about it for days.
Well, that was before the women’s all-around. The American Team sent Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson (the official bet for gold) to the final, as each country can only have one. China sent Yang Yilin and Jiang Yuyuang. In the vault, the first event, Jiang fell and both Americans performed admirably, with only Shawn stepping a little far on the landing. There were a bunch of other events which I would like to properly cover, but since it’s midnight and my parents have the idea that they’re taking us to another national park in the morning, I’ll just give you the highlights. Maybe later I’ll get to the details.
In balance beam, Jiang almost fell three or four times, but recieved the same score as Shawn Johnson. She now stood at sixth place, which is incredible when looking at her performance. Shawn did an almost perfect balance beam, and the underscoring raised eyebrows even among people from other countries. When Yang Yilin also received a largely inflated score for her routine, commentators and spectators began to question the objectiveness of the judges.
At the end of the day, however, Nastia Luikin performed absolutely perfectly in nearly every event and so, despite the underscoring she received on every single event, she won the gold medal. Which she absolutely deserved. Shawn Johnson took silver and Yang Yilin bronze. In the end, the judges couldn’t twist the scores enough to keep Nastia from her medal, and the only people who were really screwed here were people like Anna Pavlova, a Russian gymnast who fully deserved the bronze (and who was also underscored, might I add).
So, while I’m glad that Nastia and Shawn were able to beat the opposition (from both gymnasts and judges) I’m still not happy about the Olympic bias. And that’s with all of China’s fraud aside.
I also wanted to talk about Team USA and Michael Phelps (not to mention my vacation) but that’ll have to wait for another day. G’night, Vietnam.
~DreamingOfNothing
What We Do For Ourselves
Here I am again, O Fortunate Ones. It’s 6:29 in the morning, and through some miracle I have beaten everyone else awake. So I shall inform you of the latest happenings.
And quickly summarize my vacation log, at least until someone wakes up. I still have half of Riding the Lightning to finish, so know that you all are more important that finding out what happens in the CM ep I only halfway finished last Friday.
Day 1:
After going through Las Vegas, we went to Zion National Park, which is actually quite awesome. It’s cool in that there are awesome mountains, but also the whole place was originally settled with Mormons, so all of the mountains and stuff have names like Angel’s Landing, Court of the Patriarchs, Altar of Sacrifice, Zion Canyon, the Virgin River, etc. The park was originally named Mukuntuweap, but as you can probably guess, that wasn’t incredibly popular. So we saw some of that, and that was really cool.Then, we went to the Tipis where we were staying for the night. A Tipi! They were incrediblely incredible, being made out of leather and painted with Kokopelli and buffalo and with dreamcatchers inside. Dreamcatchers are really some of the most beautiful, human-made things I’ve ever seen. They’re wooden hoops that have a almost spider-like webbing inside with feathers attached at various random points, designed to catch bad dreams to kill them come morning and to hold good dreams until they’ve played out. Not like I actually believe this, but the webbing captivates me. It’s elegant.
Anyway, we were there. And my sister complained constantly about the flies. She had been so excited to come, but now she was like, “I didn’t know there’d be bugs!” *Snicker* I do like to make fun of my sister at any opportunity.
And there we slept.
Day 2:
In the morning, after leaving awesome!tipis, we went back to Zion. Saw more of the same neat stuff, even though it was an oven (you have no idea my respect of the Mormons who tried to live here. I wouldn’t want to be settling there in a suit and long dress). Then moved on to Bryce.Now, Zion just has amazing mountain things. Bryce is a canyon with these things called Hoodoos, which is pronounced as it’s spelled and look about as ridiculous as the word does. They’re towers of rock rising out of the canyon as the rest of the canyon erodes around them. We met a really nice and informative ranger there who was talking practically nonstop to us the whole time because he was so excited that was actually cared about the geology of the place (he’s a geologist). Bryce has to be, so far, the coolest national park I’ve ever seen (seconding to Yellowstone’s mudpots and hot pools, though. Those were really something else. Thousands of degrees).
Little story from Bryce: We were looking at some of the hoodoos (having just bid our ranger farewell) and planning to catch the shuttle back to where our car was parked. In Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyon, there are shuttle buses that take you around the park, and since a lot of places have terrible parking, it’s easier just to park near the entrance of the park and take the buses around. However, the bus line we were on only ran until 5.
So at 5:30, we’re stranded seven miles from our car, needing to get out of the park and get to the Grand Canyon so we could see it the next morning (it’s a good three-five hours from Bryce to GC). Long story short, my father had to hitchhike a ride back to the entrance of the park to get the car. It was a nightmare then, but now I’m laughing.
We slept in a hole in the wall that night. The beds were made of stone, and the only reason why we didn’t get eaten by cockroaches or bedbugs was that they couldn’t stomach it either.
Day 3:
On the third day,we went to Grand Canyon National Park. And when they call that canyon grand, it is. The thing’s a mile deep. A mile! And it looks it. It’s just… Just so big. Impressive. I took over 1000 pictures of the canyon, and I still don’t think all of those will be able to capture the impressiveness of it.One other thing about the Grand Canyon: There are so many people visiting from other countries. As of the fifth day (when I’m blogging this) I’ve counted Arabic, Japanese, German, Swedish, British, Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Greek, and a few I couldn’t identify.
To be continued…
The family’s waking up. I’ll catch you up more later.
BTW, Airman is an awesome book. I’ve finished Part 2 now, and I hope to finish it today.
Goodbye, Adios, Adieu, Ciao, Shalom.
~DreamingOfNothing
Of Thee I Sing
Okay. First internet access in the month of August. God save the queen.
I’ve been keeping a vacation log in my notebook for the past three days (including today) but as I don’t actually know that I’ll have time to transcribe all of this right now, I’ll transcribe it later. You’ll just have to wait for all the juicy details.
Reader’s Digest Version: I was in Vegas – 9:34 AM August 3rd. Zion National Park – 3:27 PM August 3rd. Bryce National Park – 5:51 AM August 4th. North Rim of the Grand Canyon – 8:03 AM August 5th. South Rim – A few minutes ago. This is the first time, out of all of those places and the space inbetween (though I’m assuming that there was cell service in Las Vegas, but we were only there long enough to get out of the airport. We’ll be checking out anything worth seeing there right before we leave. We’re just wiping out all the National Parks first.
So now I’m sitting in a dark car, listening to both my siblings complaining about my father taking a long time checking in, My Country ‘Tis Of Thee playing from said check-in building, and The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread on audiobook. And typing. I am a splendid multitasker.
The story (Henceforth shortened to Despereaux, instead of the full long title) is actually quite good. I’m seriously looking to see if it is a children’s book written by yet another of David Handler’s pseudonyms, as the style is incredibly reminiscent of Lemony’s. I’m enjoying it.
Ah. We are now at the hotel. I may be able to return this evening, edit this post, and add a bit more info, but if I don’t… I bid you good day until I am next able to connect.
Adieu. Which means farewell, and is most certainly not a comforting thing to hear from your mother when you are going to be sent to a dungeon. Even if it is in French.
Forgive me. Quoting Despereaux.
~DreamingOfNothing
