I'm back! With...stuff! Yeah!

Okay, so I've actually been back for a week now, and totally forgot I had a blog. Oops! Anyway, in honor of my return, I'm going to show a new type of poetry I learned about today. Actually its just because I have no idea what else to do. But! Here it is anyway:

"Cut the bindings off of books found at a used book store. Find poems in the pages by the process of obliteration. Put pages in the mail and send them all around the world. Lather, rinse, repeat." - http://www.logolalia.com/alteredbooks/

Entranced, p.27 - Tim Martin


Entranced, p.2 - Tim Martin

West of Dodge p.2 - Nico Vassilakis

Mismatched SoCs: The Walls are White

. The Walls are White
. They’re Stained by the Light
It comes dripping down from the ceiling above,
My pooling eyes are soaking it all in
my feet are fading
sinking in the linoleum sea
the currents are running away with me
the frothy sea brine would feel quite fine
if it wasn’t so sharp
if it wasn’t so dark
if it wasn’t so hard to hold onto the line
with the waves crashing hard and the salt in your throat
with submerged coral slashing the pages you wrote
you’re screaming and thrashing but you’ve lost all hope
Be wary of tables:
Marked and designed to suit your crime,
They’ll swallow you whole and leave nothing behind
Your skin starts to rip and your bones start to grind
They eat you alive, but I really don’t mind.
It’s the silent weathervane that bothers me.
There’s no wind here.
. The Walls are White,
and the windows are weathervanes.
Here, the mirrors learn from your hair.
Does it run down your face? Do you drink it? It tastes like soup.
The final moments of a blood-stained memory
Link arms with the innocence of childhood
Everything is lost now.
Lost, lost, lost
in the white of the White Walls
Can you remember the White Walls too?
Where they came from?
The depths of hell hold the key to your cell.
We all know hell has White Walls
A pretty face with warts on the heart
It knows how to live and play out its part
And never stops singing, ringing, stinging,
Bats screeching and preaching,
The gentle sloth learns HTML programming
And becomes a ferocious tiger
With pearly white fangs
And pearly White Walls.
The tree’s final moments:
A seed planted in the blood-stained ground
Muddy blood,
Bloody mud,
A black thorned castle grows from the Earth.
His curved blade flashes.
The silver edge shimmers like mist.
A cloud of oil;
Oil as black as the blackest night
and the darkest wish.
The Tree’s final moments,
my final memories,
bloody ones.
Death
has White Walls, too.
Can you finally see?
The White Walls are closing in
crushing the light
I
can still breathe
but
the air .escapes
slipping through the cracks
I am
trapped
here with the White Walls
and the most free
I could wish to be
swimming outside
in the flowers and filth
the snow
and the shards of glass
a hay in a needlestack
holding hands
with the clock on the wall
. The Walls are White.
. The Walls are

On Connectogram

This one can't come out right on this page 'cuz of Blogger's stupid autoformat thing (AUGH) so I had to arrange it differently. Usually the 2 poems are side by side so thy can be read down or across. However, since I'm not allowed to do that, I have to put them each in turn followed by the connected poem. To see the "real" version of it, click here

Not my favorite work, but it was an interesting experiment. Actually the idea came from Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". Odd influence, even odder results. Written early 2008. Any questions? I might be able to answer them ^_^

Connectogram

Spidernet

An interlocking series of events
Each one fueling another reaction
Chemicals in a test tube
Boiling over and splashing everything
Too much!
How am I supposed to think
With everything in the world
Happening at once?
Every action I make
Changes tomorrow’s shape,
Every breath I take
Is a breath taken from a drier mouth
Perhaps I should stop acting,
Take my last bow, and leave the stage
For good.
Even that will change what happens.
I guess there is nothing I can do
Except go with the flow.

Interweb

Connected at the deepest level
Every reaction affects everyone
A raging river to the sea
Soaking all to the bone.
I need a break from this world.
The important things in life
Falling apart to the collisions
For every honking horn
Every step taken in the right direction
A line to a circle.
Breathing in the chaos of life
Thirsting for more.
Just pick up the pieces,
Broken and scattered in the waters
It can be put back together, but
Nobody knows how it fits.
No actions I can take to stop it,
The flow of the ocean.


Spidernet / Interweb

An interlocking series of events / Connected at the deepest level
Each one fueling another reaction / Every reaction affects everyone
Chemicals in a test tube / A raging river to the sea
Boiling over and splashing everything / Soaking all to the bone.
Too much! / I need a break from this world.
How am I supposed to think / The important things in life
With everything in the world / Falling apart to the collisions
Happening at once? / For every honking horn
Every action I make / Every step taken in the right direction
Changes tomorrow’s shape, / A line to a circle.
Every breath I take / Breathing in the chaos of life
Is a breath taken from a drier mouth / Thirsting for more.
Perhaps I should stop acting, / Just pick up the pieces,
Take my last bow, and leave the stage / Broken and scattered in the waters
For good. / It can be put back together, but
Even that will change what happens. / Nobody knows how it fits.
I guess there is nothing I can do / No actions I can take to stop it,
Except go with the flow. / The flow of the ocean.

Lalala, I graduate tomorrow! ...WHAT?!?

So, I haven't updated in a while. Yeah...I have to try and get back on track, too much has happened and slipped from my mind to never touch the pages of this brilliant blog. So I'll just spit out some random stuff to try and cover 2 weeks:

I graduate high school tomorrow. OH MY GOD.
I leave for camp on Sunday and will be gone all summer. OH MY GOD.
I'm trying to get an apartment and a job for college in the fall. OH MY GOD.
I actually started to enjoy my life in the last couple weeks. OH MY GOD.
I cleaned my room. Its actually clean this time. OH MY GOD.

Now that I have the "OH MY GOD" things out of the way, here are some more random tidbits:

1) The "OH MY GOD" things kinda correlate to finger lengths, don't you think?
2) I've actually done some sort of social activity for the past 2 weekends. Its a new record!
3) I discovered Touhou, a crazy video game series. Its a scrolling shooter (like Space Invaders) only more insane. I like it for the characters and music, but the enemy fire is amazing. I can't describe it in words. Here are some screenshots, conveniently placed in one image file:


Plus, the characters, relationships, and plot are all highly developed. Its a series worth looking into, in my opinion. And I usually end up forcing other people to look at it by constantly talking about it or spamming their facebook profiles ;^_^ I'm so annoying...
4) I'm actually attempting to make friends recently, instead of hiding in the background.
...its not working too well. And I don't handle rejection well, either. So recently I've had severe self-esteem issues, to the point where I lock myself in the closet for hours and beg my stuffed animal overlords to make people like me. The problem is that I can't tell if people like me or not, so I automatically assume the worst. If I can just get over that...shoot, I'm being all depressing again. I have to stop that =/
5) I almost beat Brawl! Only 10 stickers left...
6) I suddenly developed a bizarre love for the accordion. I can't get enough of it. Seriously, like anything with an accordion in it is golden.
7) I kinda lost track of what I was doing, so I don't have any other tidbits. I figured I'd round off at 7 instead of 6 though, I like 7 more than 6.
8) I like 8 more than 7 though, so this is the real last one.

Alright, enough of my nonsense. I'm leaving for camp all summer (as previously stated), so you won't hear from me much. I'll be home on weekends and might post then, and camp might have wifi this year! Woohoo! But yeah, umm, THE END

*This post is dedicated to the one who got me back on the blogging track. You know who you are. Thank you, AL. (Al? XD) (Sorry, Ashley)

My parents are cereal killers

I usually have a bowl of cereal every morning for breakfast. Well not THIS morning. THIS morning my parents decided to throw out all the cereal. Why did they decide to do that? Because there was a spaghetti sauce leak in the pantry and some dripped on the box. Doesn't that seem just a little ridiculous? I mean, there was only like a couple drops on the box, and the cereal is in a plastic bag anyway, so whyyyy would they throw it out?!? So I had to have a sandwich for breakfast because we had no cereal BUT I always have a sandwich for lunch and I can't have two sandwiches in one day so my entire eating schedule EXPLODED! I had to eat a microwave pizza for breakfast!

Thank goodness I went to a barbecue today and lunch was saved. However, I failed miserably at Scene It. It was still a funderful time though. Thank you, barbecue-giver, for keeping my entire universe from unraveling at the hands of a breakfast microwave pizza. However, I was forced to eat cheese and crackers for dinner...

Another entry on some random ramblings? What is this blog coming to...

SoC: Shattered Seashells

Shattered seashells so fluid and flowing groaning and growing hardly shards but scattered cards slaves washed away by waves and graves so empty they teem so silent they’re screaming and shouting their outing to nowhere to go where and show where their flow ends to bend and twist and mold the gist of gold to gain in pain to shine glowingly and knowingly with wisdom of all time and trial and tribulation the tv station of static staring straight through the melty-brained child stars and felt-handed compact cars caught catching crowns in crowds of clouds that fade softly into the mist you quietly wade in.

Shattered seashells shaping hearts that beat at their own slow pace tick slowly off the clock’s face fall softly in the palm of your hand folding grains of sand to make music and light in the stomach of night to digest lest they rest eternally in the eyes of the sky god and his flowing fields made of salty silk and orange milk that is safe enough to drink and sink down to the shine and brine at the base of the stand of the globe and the silver hem of the robe that no one can wear lest they tear away from the world.

Shattered seashells and scattered bells are the battered hells of which Simon tells each time he speaks in his commanding tone you must retaliate or be sucked into his dark romantic dance and games of chance to waltz in the fiery flags of white-tailed stags repeating forever their final fatal endeavor to mix and match and spark a revolutionary love a wingless dove senselessly beaten slashed crushed and mashed to be trashed happily ever after.

Shattered seashells finally free sadly drifting aimlessly so empty and whole yet not quite in-between for you and I to find together with our hands melting and our fingers still crossed after all these eternities spent soaking in the seashells.

Deaf to all but the song (the useless picnic story)

So today, in honor of school ending on Wednesday, the IB teachers held a big congratulatory picnic. There were like 100 IB kids there, most of which I tend not to get along with. And considering I do poorly in large crowds anyway, it was a recipe for disaster when I decided to go. Mainly I decided to go because there was nothing else to do, and I didn't want a repeat of yesterday's disaster: eating only 2 blocks of cheese and watching SciFi channel all day. There was a Tru Calling marathon!

Anyway, I basically spent 3 hours sitting on the grass and not speaking to anyone. Usual picnic for me. Except I had this song stuck in my head the whole time, and it just kept playing over and over and driving me slowly insane. I won't share what song it is, since doing that is useless to the story. Anyway, now I have to babysit a dog for the weekend, and my mom thinks I'm going to jump out of a window in misery. Oh, I think I skipped some parts. Oh well, those parts aren't important to the story either. Actually the story isn't important at all anyway. Let's change the subject...or at least expound on a previously stated theme.

So, I get songs stuck in my head a lot. Sometimes it gets so bad that I'm driven mildly insane by the music playing in my head. However, its usually really entertaining, and the music fits the situation I'm in. For example, I'll get town music from Earthbound playing in my head while I walk home from school, and I'm entertained the whole way back. Yeah, usually when I get a song in my head it keeps me from getting ridiculously bored (with my meaningless existence). So, I guess having a permanent iPod in my head is a blessing more than a curse.

...I totally lost track of what the topic was here. Oh well.

THE END!

Confusion...

WARNING: Emotional content. Viewer discretion is advised.

So, I haven't posted in a while. Everything's just really confusing now. My last day of high school was today...I just wish I could join in with everyone else and their simple gladness that they're moving on. But something is holding me back, like it always does.

Its not that I'm glad to be out of the hellhole called Schenectady High, its just difficult to leave. I never had many friends there, but it was just...familiar. I could go there knowing I'd see certain people at certain times, knowing what teachers I could talk to about what subjects, just feeling comfortable. But its over. The whole routine, after getting to know my classmates for 4 years, and suddenly just having it all drop away from beneath me, its just hard.

I can't find the right words to express what I'm feeling, and its killing me. If I'm supposed to be this great writer, then why can't I find the words that matter? I mean, I have all these emotions that I could write about, but its like I can only write them when I'm not feeling anything. Someone I know from school wrote a note on Facebook (haha, this sounds so unprofessional) where he talked about how he always has this mask on so that nobody can hurt him. I kind of feel that's what I do...I always seem to get hurt when I try to open up, so I just sucked back into myself, never speaking or trying to make friends. I don't know if it was fear, or what else it could be. Now, I just don't seem to know how to open up anymore, even when I write.

Everyone always talks about how beautiful my poetry is, and how deep the emotions I expressed are...but no matter how much I get complicated, I always hate what I wrote, and even that I do write. I never want people to see that side of me, especially friends. And its weird, since what I write is completely fabricated. I guess its a double edged blade...I'm too scared to show what I really feel because I'll just get hurt again, but I still feel the need to write anyway. So I fabricate emotions in poetry, and then I hate it because it isn't real.

It feels like I built up this whole wall to keep everyone out, and once it solidified I wanted to bring people back in, but I just couldn't. Now I feel, well, empty all the time. Sometimes I even feel hated. But, I brought it on myself. I think the biggest enemy I have is myself. I'm always tearing myself down. Its almost like because its something I was practically raised with, I do it to myself for a twisted feeling of comfort. Maybe even a feeling of home. But what kind of home is that? Home should be safe...how can my pain bring a sense of home?

Sorry for the rambling...I don't know, I'm just really confused right now. Maybe when I'm not insanely emotional for no apparent reason, I can explain things better. Or maybe at that point I'll just be fabricating it all again.

*Prime candidate for therapy here*

Silhouette of a Draining Heart

I

Colors pour from my eyes
The sky’s silent, empty tears
Cannot wash away the stains I’ve made
The darkening rainbow of blood splashed across the sky
Runs down the fading brick walls
Pools in the cracked dog dish
Dries into the crimson velvet of your room
A solitary plume is left floating in the ice-cold water
Resting motionless in the gushing rapids
Soak in the flowing colors
Return them to my fingertips
I need them
I
need
them
~
Colors pour into your eyes
Bleeding through the canvas
Filling the rifts of your mind
Oil.
Your blood flows like oil.
Black sludge in your veins.
Is it colorless
Or all colors melded together?
The whites of your eyes are gone
Flown to the sun to burn away all trace
The light is fading
The rainbow is dripping away
Filling in the hollowed night
The colors bleed
Colors always bleed

II

The colors of our eyes mix
Running down our faces
Our waltz splashes through the dense black of night
Your hand melts in mine
Go back to the surface, rip through the mud
Before the wrinkled satin dress tears
Into the sun’s fiery grasp we dance
Violet
~
Color
Color is nothing
Dark
Color is everything
The dark shatters
Violet
Violet shines through
The mirror shatters
Shards of violet
Pulsing in violet
Color is violet
Each pump of my heart resounds
A deafening violet
Vi-o-let
Violet is everything
~
The final chilled drop falls
Our dance sinks into the earth
Our eyes have faded away
A violet rainbow fills the sky
Scraping against the hallowed night
The colors bleed away
Colors always bleed away

Communet

One day for spite
We each had to write
A poem a peer would read,
The teacher grinned
Like we had all sinned
And set our thoughts to bleed.
Our pens delayed
But soon we obeyed
And splashed our pages red,
By symbol’s face
We wrote such a pace
We should all have been dead.

Now I, a child
So meek and mild
I never spoke a word,
Wrote with such strength
At such a length
I knew I must be heard.
My paper beamed
My word-voice screamed
With soul I never told,
A dazzling show
Of joy and woe
A masterpiece, behold!

And then it was time
By rhythm and rhyme
To read each other’s works,
I felt like a king
Since my poem would bring
Sound to my voice where it lurks.
The papers were passed
My heart beat too fast
Nervous to take to the stage,
So now here’s my crown
I’m left looking down
At the words that plague my own page.

This post is about...screw it, I'm tired

So pretty much every day in Journalism I spend the whole class on The Onion. Its awesome. That's pretty much all you need to know. That's also pretty much all I'm going to write for now. Oh wait, here's my horoscope:

Aquarius Jan 20 - Feb 18
Don't let negativity win out today, even though it probably will, because you're a worthless human being who most likely doesn't deserve to be happy!

Social Anxiety! Oh joy!

Okay, so I've had this crazy mash-up of good and bad fortune happening all at once and in congruence with each other over the past couple days. I'd rather not explain the whole thing, since its really complicated. Imagine Needful Things by Stephen King, and that could give you an idea of how complicated the combination of events was. Luckily, all the fortunes added together had a positive sum. Hurray positive sums!

Anyway, our final project in Psychology involves researching some sort of psychological issue and presenting it to the class. The teacher assigned me Social Anxiety. Not as exciting as some of the others, but she either chose it for a reason or there was some sort of huge coincidence - that's right, after researching it for hours, I discovered that I have Social Anxiety. It hasn't been diagnosed or anything, but it seems pretty obvious to me (and like everyone else). So...yeah, it explains a lot. Look up more info here (if you want): http://www.socialphobia.org/

By the way, Thursday the 28th was my gerbil's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALISBURY! I think it was 7 people who wished him the same, but its not like I was counting or anything...

Yeah, that's it for today.

From my notebook

These are a couple of rhymes I jotted down during History class. At the time I knew what I was doing with them, but looking at them later I'm not too sure. I wish I wasn't so easily distracted, then my stuff would be more interesting...


Double Edge Words

Your crisp twisted truths tear and rip through my stomach
Like swallowing thorns just to get some cheap chuckles
You know I'd cry stop in a million flavors
But fish hooks are lodging themselves in my knuckles

You sleep in the daylight and conjure these poisons
They plague and devour our garden's sweet song
The hummingbirds swim in cold puddles of acid
And hope that the rust in their throat isn't strong

A changeling made of soup and silver
Built too high to touch the earth
Your bloody eyes change virtues to lies
And curse the values of birth

Alphabeta

A traveler to the star-splattered sky
Breaking backs along the way
Careful not to trip the alarm
Digging deeper in the well
Every step closer makes the road longer
Fountain stopped flowing
Gaining by losing
Hungry on a full stomach
Ivory keys on a self-playing piano
Jump forth to give an answer: another question
Killing the cat over and over
Laughing at the insanity crowded around
Manic to reach the destination
Never closer than when started
Open fields close
Pacing the university halls
Questions plague and pressure
Running from the build-up
Sky’s limit is a drop of rain in the ocean
Truth will elude
Universe hides it
Varying its wavelengths
Winter’s reflection shimmers
X’s value
Yonder lies the intellectual’s downfall
Z, the end, unattainable.

The same can't be said for History...

Yeah, we bombed our History presentation today. Our group had to do a skit in which we change something that happened between World War 2 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our subject was the failure of the American atomic bomb to detonate. An interesting topic, but due to a failure to cooperate, we ended up doing improv. It was the worst presentation in the history of my school career, to put it lightly. There was only one presentation that could potentially be worse, one in 9th grade involving owls and permanent trauma. I don't want to talk about it.

(so true)

Its been a pretty sucky day overall...I could complain about it, but I'm trying to stay positive in spite of this crushing depression (it fluxuates day to day; today it has rendered me catatonic). So looking on the bright side, it rained today! Some people may see it as a hindrance or inconvenience, but personally I love rain. Its just one of the most beautiful weather situations in my opinion. Take it how you will.

Ah well, back to work.

English presentation...went well? Hurray!

Well I figured my English presentation would go terribly. Much to my surprise (and pleasure), it seemed like everyone in class really got into my adventure in lateral thinking...thing. Considering my past presentations in English, I was the luckiest person alive. No angry mobs or anything! Although my presentation didn't go exactly as planned, it was awesome.

Basically the presentation was a competition to see who could answer the most puzzles. At the beginning, I said "The winner will get a Charmander" and I pulled out a 4' stuffed Charmander. Part of the trick was that it involved lateral thinking - I was actually going to give away a small Charmander figurine, about an inch or so tall. I never actually said I would give out the giant Charmander, so it would be fine...until an angry mob formed and chased me out of the county. However, the bell rang before it came to that, so no angry mob!

The class did 4 of my 32 puzzles (much smaller than I thought) but they really got enthusiastic over them. Well, at least it seemed that way. And since Sean is still working on them in Journalism, I figure at least someone found it interesting. Hopefully I get a grade reflecting not my oral performance but the students' interest...

I guess that's it for now.

Sunset is at hand

Now we stand with coarse waves lapping over our ankles
Arms outstretched, fingertips praying to scrape the horizon
You say if we reach it you’ll never let go
You’ll hold my hand and drift silently away
But I know your hands are buttered and your heart is set
I’ll be left alone, my feet molding to the coral
Watching you fade as the sun swallows itself
And I’ll wait in the dark
The clammy palms of ghosts caressing my cheeks
Vampires thirsting to trace the fearful tears down my face
Chanting in their wooden voices a history of mistakes
I listen to these twisted thorns of the future,
Cursing as my hand embraces yours.

Pota-toe

So I have another ingrown toenail. It sucks, since I already had one on the big toe on my left foot, and I had to undergo 2 surgeries in order to keep my toe from ripping itself apart. Now my right foot is infected and the toe is slowly swelling like a ripening strawberry. Its totally gross, because every time you touch it pus and blood start squirting out and it hurts like hell.

In order to prevent gangreen and the following rotting of your toes, you need surgery to remove the segment that is growing in wrong. However, my parents don't seem to realize this very well. In order to prevent too much pain or swelling, you can soak your toes in epsom salts or just plain water. My parents firmly believe this will cure it. But its not like soaking your toes in water will prevent your toenails from growing. So my feet are getting steadily worse, but my mother is determined to avoid surgery in any way possible. Its only a matter of time before my feet end up like this:

(not my feet, just so you know)

On a lighter note, I reached Chapter 2 in Mother 3!
...ugh, I'm feeling too sick about my toes to say anythign else.

The red one with the huge mouth, its the Ultimate ChrisStenzel! I mean Chimera.

I recently started a new file on Mother 3. This news is big enough to count as an entire 4 paragraph post on its own. Really, because all I can think, breathe, eat, and pump through my veins is Mother 3 when I start a new file. Even when I don't play Mother 3, I'm usually subconsciously Mother 3-ing continuously in everyday life. Like I'll play Mother 3 songs in my head during class and tap out the beats with my pencil, or institute Mother 3 characters into books when they get boring, or even use Mother 3 quotes as responses:
"Can you help me with my math homework?"
"I'm sorry, Mike, but that's called sexual harassment these days."
"But my name is Andrew..."
Anyway, in my opinion Mother 3 is the best video game ever made. I'm just going to stop here, I'm too busy playing Mother 3 to post about Mother 3 on this blog.

By the way, Mother 3 appears 11 times in this post. Its an important fact to know.

Rainflash

Leopard shining through milk,
Spittle on the windowsill.
Tearing pink tissue,
Slipping softly forward
With kettle corn thoughts.
A dripping faucet.
Liquid sunshine falling
gently,
Cotton soaking in the light
And dripping gray
Upon shingled umbrellas.
Muddy waters,
Pooled pavement,
Sinking ships,
A glass mirror.
Remembering.

Leopard shining through milk,
Spittle on the windowsill.
Gathering the light.
A blackening carousel,
Crunching against
Clashing mountains.
Gloom on the outside,
But warm by the fire.
Soon started,
Soon over,
A string on my finger,
A moment.


Original "found poem" haiku:

Rain Leopard shines through milk
Spittle on the windowsill
Tearing pink tissues

Creative Writing; A Shift in Site

I'm a writer, but I tend to dislike everything I write. Is that normal? Guess it doesn't matter. My parents and teachers tend to shower my work with cascades of compliments (dislike), my friends tend to grunt and play video games (like). Hmm.

Anyway, at a teacher's suggestion, I started keeping a wiki of my works, for some sort of organized file I could look back on later. However, the recent changes in pbwiki.com have made it difficult to keep my wiki working. The main reason I even started that wiki was so people would read it. And, well, nobody read it, so that was kinda useless. Sure, nobody reads this blog either, but why have 2 seperate pages that nobody reads when I can have one? Easier to manage, at least. So yeah, I'm going to start infusing my writing into this blog. Hurray for making decisions!

...that's about it, I'll probably start off by adding my older works in as seperate posts, then see what happens from there.

Adventures in Lateral Thinking

Acting on an anonymous phone call, police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like, but they do know that his name is John. Inside the house they find a carpenter, a lorry driver, a car mechanic, and a fireman playing cards. Without even asking his name, the police immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?

This is an example of a lateral thinking puzzle. Lateral thinking puzzles are solved by thinking creatively rather than thinking by analytical steps. For example, when asked which side of a chicken has more feathers, the analytical approach would be to examine each side of the chicken to decide which has more feathers. However, the lateral thinking answer would be the outside: it is technically a side, and it has more feathers than the inside (hopefully). So do you have the answer yet?

For the final English project I had originally planned on creating a short film about The Tommyknockers by Stephen King, but due to complications (no actors, script, or camera) I'm changing my book to Mind Benders: Adventures in Lateral Thinking by David J. Bodycombe, and I'll probably subject the class to dozens of mind-breaking torture puzzles like the one at the beginning of this post. I'm sure it'll be fine...considering anything would be better than presenting a non-existing movie. Harumph.

Figure it out yet? I'm not one to spoil answers, so just try to get the answer yourself. And don't cheat! Not that I can stop you, or anything.

Digital Aging

I stumbled upon this digital painting called "Last Men on Earth" by Wojciech (Voytek) Nowakowki, and I absolutely love it. He's an amazing artist, check out his website: http://www.voytek-art.com/

This particular image made me immediately think of 3 things: First was the collapse of Skyworld from Kid Icarus, the second was the collapse of Laputa from Castle in the Sky, and third was a more abstract swirl of philosophical images concerning humanity and its fate. To avoid seeming too dorkish, I'll just avoid all three of these images and talk about something completely different.

One of the English presentations someone did involved Pop Culture Jeopardy, with the generation gaps facing each other (the teacher against the whole class). Categories involved Game Shows, New York Times Best Seller List, VH1 Reality shows, the Digital Age, the 2009 Oscars, etc. Everyone in the class pretty much knew everything, except for the teacher...and me. I knew almost none of the answers, which did nothing for my self esteem. I tend not to think about how seperate I am from society, but events like these force the truth to surface. How am I supposed to relate to my peers if I don't even know what the heck a "tweeter" is? Its no wonder I have so few friends...

Well, what are my options?

1) Spend years in intensive study on every potential pop culture reference someone may make. Impossible! This pop culture thing is so rapidly evolving that if you don't already know everything up to this moment in time there's no way you'll ever be able to keep up! This must be why girls are always gossiping and texting - to keep up with current popular events so they don't lose all their friends. Sigh.

2) Fake it - make up pop culture references and hope they pertain. "Did you hear Brittney has flat feet? Seriously, she's like a duck!" Nevermind, that's a terrible idea.

3) Give up on ever understanding culture, and potentially ever having peer-group friends. Possible...very possible. Who needs these lazy, arrogant, backstabbing people as friends? Though I may be 18, I have the digital-age abilities of a 70 year old, and therefore should remain in that social group. Ah, who am I kidding...I do need these backstabbing friends! Its so weird that no matter how cruel teenagers can be to each other, I still feel a need to belong. I mean, I've seen people laughing it up and being totally friendly with someone, and the instant they turn their backs they say the nastiest things about each other. Like no matter how hard you try, there will always be something to damage your reputation, but you have to keep trying so you get a good reputation...It doesn't make any sense! We're all just tearing each other down to build ourselves up, but we don't seem to realize if everyone is busy destroying, nothing can possibly be constructed!

BAH! I give up! I'll just become a hermit who hates everyone.

Creature ConGraduations

My original plan for this blog was to post something every day, just as a break from real life. However, I haven't posted in a couple days because my sister graduated on Saturday (hurray!) and I was doing chores all Sunday (ugh), so I figured I'd drop a message down while I'm on a school computer "doing work". My graduation is coming up soon too...its oddly depressing. Oh well.

...well, I can't really think of any interesting stories to tell right now. I'm a little overwhelmed from the weekend's happenings and exhausted from reading all night. Right now I'm on John Saul: Creature. Its pretty cool so far. I really relate to Mark Tanner, a nature-loving kid who is pretty much shunned because he doesn't like sports. Saul's style is good too, and keeps the reader's attention with the action and changing point of view. I can't really draw a solid conclusion on it, having only read 88 pages out of 377, but so far I would suggest this read.

I never really liked football...

Posters...kinda.

I'm a member of LitMag (our school's literary magazine). Not just a member, but the student editor! Ooohh, ahhh...although I don't really do anything more than I have for the past 3 years as a member. However, I did get to make some awesome posters advertising the best school club ever! That being LitMag, in case it wasn't clear. Anyway, we put these crazy posters around the building and nobody seems to notice, although I did hear one girl say "That squirrel spider thing was weird, who would make that?" It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

A couple days later, one of my teachers pulls me aside after class and asks me if everything is okay. I ask why, and they say that they saw my posters and thought I might be under some sort of emotional distress. What?!? They're not like cries for help or anything, they're just weird posters I made to get attention! I ended up seeing my school counselor about it. Again. I end up seeing her a lot for random reasons.

So, there wasn't really a point to this post, I was just bored. The end!

Doors, windows, and maniac squirrels

People in my school seem to have a real problem with opening doors. Its amazing to show up in the morning and watch 3,000 kids attempt to pile through one open door when there are 3 other closed ones right next to it. Same thing in between classes too, it takes like 2 minutes to walk down one hallway because there's only one door open at the end of it. How hard can it be to open a door, people? Whatever, I can't get started on this or I'll end up ranting about how much the human race sucks. I do that too much...

So I was sitting in Journalism class and had a flashback! Those are always fun. Note: Journalism is divided into 3 1/2 hour segments, the middle one being our lunch period. Just one example of how the schedule in our school doesn't make any sense. Anyway...

This one time everyone left Journalism for lunch and our teacher decided to leave the windows open in the room. You see, the weather was really nice, and the smell of moldy crackers in the room was not. Hopefully something wonderfully magical would happen and the smell would dissipate by the time we got back. And everyone knows wonderfully magical things don't happen when windows are closed. Duh.

So after lunch ended, I made my usual mad dash back to the Journalism room (on the opposite end of the school from the cafeteria) and managed to get back at about the same time as the teacher. He opens the door, we walk in, and this one girl that was with us starts screaming for seemingly no reason. "What's wrong?" asks the teacher in a slight panic, and the girl screams: "A SQUIRREL IS EATING MY BOOKBAG!" And sure enough, there was a squirrel sitting on her desk, nonchalantly chewing her bag straps off.

Now, I don't remember exactly what happened next, but I do remember that the result involved 5 desks, 2 bookshelves and 1 student collapsing, along with the destruction of once-perfectly functioning curtains. As more students slowly filed into the room, everyone kept saying the same thing ("What the ****?") followed by referrals for the use of poor language in class. Ahh, that was a fun 4 minutes of my life.

The moral of this story? Open doors, not windows! Or maybe the moral is just that squirrels are hilarious. Either way works, I guess.

On Dinosaurs and Pokemon: a short entry

Today I read a friend's status on facebook discussing how cavemen killed dinosaurs with bows and arrows. Now, I don't mean to be picky, but the latest living dinosaur was 65 million BC, and the earliest living humanoid was 7 million BC. Therefore, he is WRONG. Not to mention bows and arrows were used by Native Americans, not cavemen. Plus, I highly doubt these ferocious predators would lose to a bunch of monkies who can't even tie their own nonexistant shoes. I mean, come on, even if you tried to pass that statement off as creativity you'd fail. Cavemen even standing a chance against dinosaurs is complete fantasy. Pirates, on the other hand...

Anyway, I recently started a new file on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team for GBA. I love this game! Its so much fun, although most people seem to think its just an abomination. These people, however, probably never even played through it twice. Pssh, what losers. Sure, the dialogue is a bit infantile, and the plot leaves a lot to be desired, but for a game designed for 10-year-olds it rocks on a general basis. Its like Legend of Zelda with Pokemon! Or maybe not so much. The point is that this is my 5th play through, and this time my all-star team is a Meowth and a Squirtle (which means I'll probably be mutilated on the forest levels). Although I just started, I already know Squirtle will be my favorite partner out of all 5 play throughs. He's just so damn cool!The only way he could be cooler is if he had a pair of sweet shades.

^ so cool ^

I wish I had a brigade of turtles who fought fires and wore cool shades like them there guys. Then I'd be the coolest kid in town! Or maybe just the coolest kid in my house. My house with 1 kid in it...nevermind, I don't wish that at all. (YES I DO!)

So, uhh...zee you necks dime!

Ethology

I absolutely adore animals, although I only have 2 pets myself, a gerbil and a cat. Salisbury Steak and Sprite Stenzel, respectively, although they are not named after food. Sprite was a stray we picked up while moving to our new house (when I was 5 or so), named for her elusive nature: a sprite being either 1) a small or elusive supernatural being, or 2) a large, dim, red flash that appears above active thunderstorms in conjunction with lightning. She was aptly named for eluding the disasters that befell every other cat in the Stenzel household. The last of her kind...

Salisbury Steak is another story. I had to purchase a subject to experiment on for an AP Biology ethology project. Ethology, as you may or may not know, is the scientific study of behavior in (living) organisms. Every year at our school the AP & IB Biology students have a major ethology project in late May / early June, as sort of a last hurrah after the major bio exam. In order to perform their experiments, they need some sort of living organism (obviously) that the school doesn't provide (obviously) and that they have to take care of once the experiment is done (obviously). They also have to keep their "subjects" in the school's science lab until the experiments are done, which I consider rather unfair to the poor li'l critters. But I digress.

Anyway, I decided to BS my project because I was lazy and had senioritis (going on 3 years). So I purchased a box of Dixie paper cups and decided to record what a hamster did with them. Probably the worst project in school history, with no set time frame or control groups or anything. What will a hamster do with cups? Ooh, how exciting! I dragged my parents out to Petsmart (the Pet Smart Pets Mart) and moseyed on over to the 'small rodent' cage to pick out some random hamster.

And there he was. Not a hamster, but a tiny little gerbil staring up at me with his puny paws up against the glass. "Take me home?" his big watery eyes begged, and I was helpless to refuse. Within mere seconds I was the owner of a baby bundle of panic and mayhem. But how was I to know his evil ways? He was just so adorable! So I took the little guy home, set him up in a fish tank (not full of water, I'm not that insane), and set on the impossible task of naming him.

Skip the migraines, trashed notebooks, and 8 days, I ended up picking Salisbury: the city 13 kilometers south of Stonehenge. Or the capitol of Zimbabwe. Either way worked, really. I bring him to class, excited and proud to have picked out such an exotic name. My friend Jeff asks what his name is. "Salisbury!" I declare proudly.

"Oh, you mean like the steak?"

And suddenly my whole world crumbled. Everyone I showed Sal off to asked the same thing, over and over. And no matter how much I denied it, there was no shaking that extra "Steak" from his name. So now I had a gerbil not named after a mystical and mysterious construction of giant stones, or the exotic capitol of a far off land, but a common food item. Crap.

My only option was to twist the words around: 'Salisbury Steak' became 'Salisbury is not a Steak', then 'Salisbury likes to eat Steak', and my favorite, 'Salisbury would totally win in a fight against Steak'. Finally a name set: 'Salisbury, not like the Steak'. Despite this small victory over his oppressors, 'not like the' slowly diminished away until just 'Salisbury Steak' was left. And, well, it stuck.

So there you have it: the story of how my gerbil got his name. The actual ethology project is a whole other (incredibly long and painful) story altogether...maybe that will be related later on.

Mubber's Day

I don't remember when or where this happened, but a while back some kid wished me a Happy Mubber's Day. When I inquired as to what a 'mubber' was, he merely replied "Why, one who mubs, of course." I gave him a quizzical glance, so he added: "Well, you're the mubbiest person I know!"

This confused me, to say the least. Was this 'mub' a verb or an adjective? It couldn't be similar to 'bread' or 'pickle' (you can have a pickle/piece of bread or you can pickle/bread something) since 'mub' was used as a verb and an adjective instead of a verb and a noun. It also couldn't work similarly to 'smile' (smiling or to smile). It could have worked if instead he had said something such as "you're the most mubbing person I know", but the "mubbiest"? No way, Josie.

Maybe 'mub' worked in congruence with 'wet' (the wettest or to wet) but it didn't seem to work out well, considering that being the wettest involves being wet instead of wetting others. However, since 'wet' seems to be the closest living relative to 'mub', I'm forced to go with that conclusion. Maybe this individual was actually wishing himself a Happy Mubber's Day, and I was an unfortunate victim of a mubbing.

Or maybe 'mub' is just 'bum' backwards.

One-Man Movie Marathon

Once again I found myself stuck home alone on a Saturday with nothing to do. In the spirit of adventure, I broke out the movie bin and picked up a few at random. So my Saturday schedule went sort of like this:

Woke up
Ate breakfast
Watched Lilo & Stitch
Watched Castle in the Sky
Ate lunch
Watched Edward Scissorhands
Watched The Fox and the Hound
Ate dinner
Haunt the internet until now

I must admit, though 3 of them were geared towards children, it was a pretty awesome selection of films. You can't go wrong with Hayao Miyazaki, and the Disney sandwich was a nice touch. Edward Scissorhands is one of my all-time favorite movies as well. Last year I watched it every day for a month beacause it was so good...and I would have kept going, but my parents weren't too happy that I was "passing up homework for entertainment" or some junk like that. I think they were just jealous that I could recite every line by heart.

Although one-man movie marathons usually turn out pretty well in my case, it would be nice to actually hang out with friends on weekends once in a while. Not that I'm whining or anything, since I did get to hang with friends yesterday. We played Super Smash Bros. Brawl for about 3 hours. Like we always do. Maybe we need a new group activity, like Mario Kart, or maybe Mario Party. What a humorous comment that was.

Alright, that's it, I guess.

Am not...

A new frontier...kinda

Well, its a blog. And I started it. And that's about it. We'll see how it turns out...