Happy Halloween

Today is awesome for several reasons:

1. It's Halloween! Candy! CANDY!
2. It's Friday, which means Crusoe is on tv! Pirates!
3. We've got a four day weekend! No school!
4. AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, NANOWRIMO BEGINS!!!

I am SO EXCITED about Nanowrimo it's not even funny. This is my... sixth? Fifth or sixth year doing Nanowrimo, and I'm totally and completely obsessed. This year I'm writing a sort of James Bond/Godfather parody called 73 Escapatoria, Or How Rob and Larry Saved the World. It shall be epic.

Between handing candy out to trick-or-treaters, I'm preparing for nano. That means setting my homepage to nanowrimo.org, filling up the water cooler (yes, I have a mini-water cooler) in my room, making my word count calendar (with columns for Word Count Required, Word Count Desired (2000 a day), and the empty Word Count Achieved), sorting through all my outlines and planning, and setting up the word document for my Nano.

I've never tried to blog during November before, so I'm not sure how this is going to work. I'll try to update you as much as possible on where I am in the story and everything, but I'm generally so insane during nano month that I don't know if I'll have time. Well, I know I won't have time, but I might end up blogging when I'm trying to procrastinate...

If not, you can follow my progress on nanowrimo.org. My username is eSCi. Go ahead and friend me, if you want!

Call me Rembrandt

I don't think I would be able to make it through English class if it weren't for doodling.

I doodle constantly in that class. I'm a terrible artist, don't get me wrong, but it's fun and I have decided to share it with the world. Let us critique my art.

Let's get the ball rolling with a picture of bears having a party.

First, I should mention that about 90% of my doodles are done in my homework planner, as was this one. You can see, crossed out above the drawing, part of my AP Enviro homework.

Now onto the art itself. I don't know where the inspiration for partying bears came from. This one was drawn during Spanish class, surprisingly, rather than English. I'm always slightly insane during that class, so it might account for this idea.

I should also mention that, no matter WHAT I draw, or when, I ALWAYS label it. The theory is that, after a few weeks, even I may no longer be able to tell what the drawing is of.

Do you notice the really warped arm of the bear holding a drink? What's up with that? And party-blower bear's legs are mind-boggling. I don't even know what's up with balloon-bear.

Ah, art.

The philanderer

So I was writing this English essay about "Hedda Gabler" when I realized that I had used the word "philanderer" about eight times. But I couldn't think of a synonym. I sat there for like ten minutes agonizing over it, but really I just wanted to type "man-whore" and see if the teacher said anything.

Finally I just tried to look up a synonym, but Microsoft Works has like a freaking PG Thesaurus and it doesn't have an entry for anything vaguely dirty. So I sat there for ANOTHER ten minutes looking up every word for "whore" that I could think of.

And then I realized, this is totally the weirdest essay I've ever written.



(As a matter of interest, I finally settled on the word "womanizer").

Cuteness overload

EDIT: I'm going to warn you in advance that this post is formatted like poo, but I really don't feel like fixing it, so... deal.


I GOT A FREAKIN PUPPY!!!!!

Look! Look at the puppy!

This Saturday my parents went out to take my older sister to the bank... and came home with a puppy.

We've been looking for a dog for ages, so it wasn't a TOTAL surprise, but I did NOT expect my parents to bring one home that day. THIS IS SORT OF THE MOST AMAZING THING THAT EVER HAPPENED, EVER.

She's a collie/labrador mix and almost eight weeks old. We got her from a "foster parent" at an Animal Rescue center, where she was with a bunch of other animals, so she's used to cats (as you can see in the picture).

My mom, as I've said, is Scottish, and she wanted to name the dog after something Scottish... She left my sisters and I to think of something--which was, of course, a bad idea. The dog went about two hours with the name "Skittles MacKilt" and another hour or so as "Bagpipe Dog". Finally my mom gave up on our creative ability and offered the name "Ceilidh", which is a Scottish dance. It's also Gaelic in origin, which means nobody can spell it--it's pronounced "Kaylee".

I know what you're thinking, though--how could I get a puppy and not post about it RIGHT AWAY? Believe me, I would have, but after we got Ceilidh I called all the MADers up to tell them, but I couldn't get hold of Sarah (curse you, marching band). I wasn't able to tell her until during Calculus this morning, and I didn't want to post on the blog until she knew... I wanted to tell everybody in person.

I mean, come on. PUPPY!

The inherent fantabulousness that is John Green

At 6:16 this morning I finished reading Paper Towns, and promptly burst into tears.

Now, it is a weird quirk of mine that I never cry at movies, but I cry reading books all the time. Maybe it's because I'm a writer, too, but the written word has always affected me more. I cried when Dumbledore died. Heck, when I was reading Deathly Hallows I cried when Dobby died and then didn't stop until about thirty minutes after I finished the entire book. I mean, I've come close to tears reading Terry Pratchett books.

But this was a different kind of crying. This was crying because I just had no idea what to do with myself. I finished reading the book, and for a moment I just sat there, while an internal battle of entirely conflicting emotions went on in my head. That's the way this book is. It's one of the most hillarious books I've ever read (I can honestly say that I've never laughed harder at a book in my life), and it has a sort of... jovial air about it. The word I want to use here is "romp".

But at the same time it's deep and moving and surpisingly powerful. You read it and find yourself thinking about human nature. It's almost philosophical in a way, and at times deeply symbolic.

And then of course it's a mystery, and an adventure, and one of those books where you're sitting there wide-eyed going "DON'T DO IT, QUENTIN! NOOOO!" With the humor and the tension and the drama and the sadness all in one, finishing the book leaves you with your emotions totally out of whack. And of course there's just the general awesomeness of it all. When I finally closed it, I wasn't sure if I should sing, cry, or do a happy dance.

I don't leave to go to school until 6:30 and I had finished the book before then, but I brought it to school anyway, so I could prop it on my desk and look at it's awesome* (by the way, I bought the yellow Happy-Margo cover). I went back and re-read the drunken beer-sword scene again. I laughed a lot the second time, too.
*"Awesome" is one of those words that can be used at any time, even when not generally condoned by normal grammatical rules. This is especially true when it is being used to talk about John Green.

I haven't read many good books lately (the last one being Nation by Terry Pratchett), but Paper Towns was freaking awesome. It may just be on my Top Ten list, now. And on a side note, I'm officially getting Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Let It Snow for Christmas. I mean, I knew John Green was awesome, but holy crap can the guy write.

WIN

I got a root canal today.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, wow, Staci, that really sucks. You wouldn't be entirely incorrect for thinking that (I just took another two Advil. Owowowow), but not only was the procedure itself not that bad, there's several factors associated with this root canal that are MADE OF EPIC WIN.

First off I have to say that for something that people make such a big fuss about, a root canal is a freaking snap. I feel a bit ripped off that there weren't at the very least dramatic flashing lights and weird beeping machinery. I mean, they make you wear glasses to keep water from splashing in your eyes and there's this crazy rubber shield thing in your mouth, but aside from looking unfashionable it's not really bad. You don't feel anything. This almost annoyed me (it's like when you get a cut that bleeds a WHOLE LOT, but is in itself really shallow. It's not that you want a huge gash or anything, but for all that trouble you feel like you freaking deserve one) until I realized that the pain comes after the procedure. Only four more hours until I can take more Advil.

Now back to the EPIC WIN.

The first is that I got to leave school early (about halfway through fourth period), and it took so long that school was finished by the time I got out. As luck would have it I didn't miss anything catastrophically huge, so I get all the benefits of NOT being in school without having to worry about making up a bunch of stuff.

The second, however, is what I really want to talk about. My mom, being as awesome and fantabulous as she is, felt sorry for me for having to get a root canal (I'm kind of numb--pardon the pun--to the dentist, but my mom hates them) and so after I got out I went to Barnes and Noble and BOUGHT PAPER TOWNS BY JOHN GREEN!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED!!!!

I was going to get the book for Christmas, but after hearing John read the prologue on Youtube I FREAKED OUT and decided I needed it now, but I didn't have the money to buy it.... And now, thanks to my root canal, I own it today! I'm refusing to let myself start reading until I'm done with my homework because otherwise I'll never get my work done, but it's really - freaking - hard. I have it downstairs right now, because I need to physically distance myself from it.

I'm almost done with my homework (I just have to finish up Calculus) and then I can read it! YAY!!

*Happy dance*

DFTBA!

Happy Birthday, Marshall!

O - m - g, I wrote this whole post saying Happy Birthday to Marshall because she's turning 17 today, and talking about my awesome Ghostbuster costume that I wore to her party the other day, and I totally FAIL and accidentally deleted it.

FAIL.

So Happy Birthday, Marshall! It's taking me forever to write this stupid post, but happy birthday!

I'm eating strawberry ice cream

I don't even like strawberry ice cream*.

*Note: When I was trying to write the title for this post, I kept accidentally typing "I'm earing strawberry ice cream". Like three times in a row.

I'm extremely obsessive in my running habits--I physically can't stand to skip a day running; it makes me feel lazy and unhealthy and then it takes me forever to get back into the swing of things. The problem is that running has WEIRD effects on me. About half the time when I come home from running the thought of food makes me feel sick to the stomach, and the other half of the time I just get really weird cravings.

Today it was strawberry ice cream. Keeping in mind that the only ice cream flavors I like are mint chocolate chip and cookies n' cream. (I say that tentatively. I am willing to be introduced to new flavors. Leave me your recommendations).

So now I'm in this weird situation where I really don't like the stupid ice cream, but I also feel oddly compelled to keep eating.

Ugh, this sucks.

Gumbo of stuff

Okay, so... I haven't posted in a while. I'm sorry. I've been BUSY, by which I don't mean "busy" or even "busy" in italics, but BUSY in all capital freaking letters.

Allow me to explain. (No, I take it back. Allow me to explicate. That is the coolest word ever.)

SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

Now that I've explained, let me catch you up on what I've been doing lately.

So recently I volunteered at my school's blood drive, right? (I'm not old enough to donate blood, which sucks.) Anyway I volunteer at my church's blood drives and stuff so I know how to work the canteen and everything, but they chose to put me on sticker duty. Sticker duty is where you walk down the line of people who are waiting to donate and give them certain stickers...one with their number on it, one for first time donors... And there's also one for people who are giving twice the amount of blood. This is cool, but in order to do it you have to be a certain weight. Now, since I'm Sticker Person, I have to ask people if they're going to give twice the amount of blood. I swear, NONE of them know about the weight limit. Which means I have to tell them. Which means I have to be all super awkward: "hey, do you weigh a hundred and fifty pounds?"

I can't guage a person's weight by looking at them! Do you know how awkward that is? The guys didn't care, but every single girl looked at me like I was some kind of axe murderer for even suggesting it. I just stood there with my stickers, cringing and going, "I'm SORRY, okay!! They're MAKING me!"

And I recorded another episode of the MAD Podcast--this time it was just me and Deborah. It's a pretty good episode, though. And, in keeping with the media analysis and discussion, I have three recommendations for you... A book, a movie, and some music.

First the book: I finished "Nation" by Terry Pratchett. It was spectacular. It's not like his Discworld series... it's a sort of parallel universe rather than an entirely fantasy one. But it still has the sort of trademark Pratchett humor and, like his other books, it's oddly thought provoking... It's an interesting book. I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say there are tree-climbing octopi that fall on people's heads, and the book contains the line: "This was foolish, he knew, but if you couldn't put your trust in gods, then trousers might do." I recommend it. READ IT.

Speaking of interesting, I watched the movie "Eagle Eye" this weekend. Hoollly crap that movie is the most implausible thing to have ever come from Hollywood. Okay, I take that back (have you seen the movie "Road Warrior"?) but it's still pretty darn unlikely. There's this computer which has the ability to take over military operations and everything, but in order to kill somebody (I'm trying not to spoil it for you) it creates this elaborate plan involving crystals and trumpets. And I'm sitting here like, ummm you just shanghai-ed a freaking military drone to go after some other guy, why couldn't you just do that again? Seriously? Trumpets?

But Shia LaBeouf was actually really good in it, and it had a few interesting twists. The action was good, the acting was largely good, and there was some humor thrown in for good measure. I'd recommend you go see it--it's the best of what's out right now, and it's worth it if only to laugh at its credibility. If you're not too concerned with believability, it's a very enjoyable movie.

And finally, I'd like to talk about wizard rock. Now as you know this blog was restarted from an old blog, which, in my infinite wisdom, I deleted by accident. On that old blog, I talked a great deal about wizard rock. But since those posts are gone, I'll refresh it for you.

Oh my gosh I LOVE it.

I might go into my reasons why some other time (or maybe on the podcast... I want REALLY badly to do an episode about wrock) but suffice it to say that wizard rock = <3. Anyway, one of my favorite bands is Ministry of Magic. I'd heard a few of their songs in the past and loved them all... just the other day, however, I really started listening and holy crap they ROCK. If you like wrock, and even if you don't, you must check out the songs "My Obsession" and "We Belong Together" (both of which they sing with the girls from the Parselmouths, another good band) and "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew" (which gets in my head all the time).

There! Now you have a book to read, a movie to watch, and a whole lot of music to wrock out to. I have officially written a freaking long post, so I better get off and do homework now. As I said, SCHOOOLLLLL!!!!

Fantastical!

My mom came home today!

She's been in Scotland the past couple of weeks and it's been mayhem without her. Seriously, nothing has been getting done. Danielle broke the dryer somehow so we haven't done laundry in ages, and I don't know how many days I've forgotten to feed the fish. And we don't have food. We've been living off cereal, pasta salad and cookies for two weeks now. Once I ate three bananas for dinner. I'm really glad Mom's home.

Anyway the fantasticality (definitely a word) doesn't end there. She brought stuff back! I now own a ridiculously cute sweater, unfathomable amounts of Scottish candy (which is waaaaaay better than American candy, by the way) and three new books: the British version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (so now I have all seven books in the American and British versions), the adult version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and - prepare yourself - TERRY PRATCHETT'S BRAND NEW BOOK, "NATION"!!!

I am so excited about this. Terry Pratchett is the freaking man. He's my favorite author and I have been Coveting (with a capital 'C') this book since it came out. I cannot wait to read it!!



-- Should probably explain - I'm half-Scottish. My mom met my dad when he was in the Navy and moved to America with him. She was in Scotland the past couple weeks for a wedding in the family and I am insanely jealous that I didn't get to go. I've been to Scotland loads of times but not very recently. It is easily the coolest place on Earth and I refuse to hear anyone say any different.