The man-whore is back

So remember how I wrote that essay a while back about Hedda Gabler? The one where I couldn't think of another word for "philanderer" and was seriously considering writing "man-whore"?

Yeah, that essay's back.

So for English class we have to do this literary criticism paper, and rather than writing a whole new essay just so we can insert litcrit, my teacher's letting us revise an old paper. And I was like... um, I don't remember any essays I've written. Like, all year. They were not exactly memorable pieces of work.

But I do remember the whole man-whore thing, even though I didn't really remember the rest of the essay. So I picked that one on a whim and I have spent the last HOUR sticking bits of literary criticism in and trying to smooth it all out so that they don't look tacked on (which they are). And yes, an hour is nothing when it comes to essay writing, but this is boring as poo. And I really want to just stop and go read some more of Corrupting Dr. Nice, and I can't, because this is due tomorrow and I WANT TO KILL HEDDA GABLER EXCEPT I CAN'T BECAUSE a) SHE'S FICTIONAL AND b) SHE ALREADY COMMITTED SUICIDE.

And I still can't think of another term for philanderer. 'Womanizer' is the best I've got, but now I've got the Britney Spears song stuck in my head, and that is not helping my mood.

Find a happy place.

Freedom is fleeting

Things that happened today:

1. It ocurred to me that Ghostbusters is totally my favorite movie. I marathon-watched both.
2. I realized that I watched an entire season of House in two days, and that makes me both awesome and exceedingly pathetic.
3. I finished my second book for the Book Challenge, proving my total nerdom.
4. I hit the 9,000 word mark in my NaNoWriMo.
5. I decided that I really, really do not want to go to school tomorrow.

Seriously. Do not want.

DO NOT WANT!

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!!!!

Ohhh poo

I missed two days of school last week. Generally, I don't approve of missing school days. It's a whole lot of unnecessary makeup work and in the end it's just a lot more trouble than it's worth. But Thursday and Friday of last week, circumstances conspired against me.

See, my mom is in Scotland right now visiting family. That's cool. But my little sister, Kelsey, goes to year-round school and she's tracked out right now, which means someone needs to stay home and watch her. Ordinarily this would be okay - my dad is going to stay home and watch her for most of my mom's trip - but my dad had to go to work Thursday and Friday last week because he was teaching those days (he's an instructor, he works with MRIs). So Kelsey was left at home alone. She's nine.

My older sister is in college and she can't miss any school, apparently. So it fell to Staci to babysit.

It's not the babysitting itself, mind you, that bothers me. Kelsey's pretty cool, most of the time. But I DESPISE missing school, and Thursday and Friday were the two worst days I could miss - I was supposed to take about a bajillion tests/quizzes and turn in a major lab assignment.

What that means is that now I am up to my eyes in makeup work and it's not looking good. I have to make up three tests, two quizzes, a freaking bajillion-question long webquest, and read the entire Scarlet Letter by Friday. That's in addition to all my normal work, and what with two huge anatomy labs and a couple assorted quizzes/assignments, this week has a pretty heavy workload already.

So naturally, rather than actually doing all that work, I decided to blog about it. Sigh. I suppose I had better go get started.

Erm, not cool

So, you might be wondering where I've been the last couple days. Ah, what a good question.

I've been busy being violently ill.

There's this horrible stomach virus going around my school right now, and this weekend both me and my little sister caught it... and - it - sucked. So now I'm sort of drained and vaguely out of it - you know, that weird, post-illness feeling? I haven't been sleeping well, either. Naturally my teachers decide to bombard me with all manner of horrible assignments right about now.

For this reason, this is going to be a super-short blog post. Because I have to go now. I have to go do homework. Veritable mountains of cruel, unforgiving homework.

What have I done to deserve this?!

Overheated

Hooollllllly crap, it's hot outside.

So today in my AP Environmental Science class we were doing this lab - measuring turbidity in the creek outside my school. But because of the DROVES of mosquitos out right now (thank you, hurricane) we were advised to wear long sleeves/long pants.

So I'm standing in the middle of this creek, trying to balance on a couple of rocks because my feet are completely submerged in water at this point and I'd rather not be up to my knees in it. And I'm pouring buckets of water into a nepholometer and it's HOT outside.

I did get a bit wet, but the lab itself was okay. The problems came later, when I went back inside.

My high school has three buildings (East, West, and what's technically the North building, though we don't call it that... I will for the benefit of the blog). Again because of the hurricane, the air conditioner was out in the North Building.

Like I said, I was wearing long pants and a long sleeved shirt.

Holy crap it sucked.

We actually had Spanish class in the stairwell because the air conditioner was working in there. But it was still awful. And then we don't have an air conditioner on my bus, either... and my bus ride home is an hour and a half long. By the time I got home, I felt sick from the heat.

Iiiiiiiiiiiick.