My favorite songs: a(n incomplete) list

My favorite songs: a(n incomplete) list

me: why are you wearing lip gloss?
gillian: cause i like it.
me: but we're not going anywhere.
gillian: yes we are.
me: at three o'clock. it's ten am.
gillian: just go take your shower.

In No Particular Order

My Beautiful Rescue - This Providence
The Mixed Tape - Jack's Mannequin
One of Those Days - Joshua Radin
Vanilla Twilight - Owl City
Anthem - lady danville
The World Moves Madly On - The Weepies
Closer - Kings of Leon
Twenty Years - Augustana
Crack the Shutters - Snow Patrol
One Red Thread - Blind Pilot
Drive - Incubus
Fight Song - The Republic Tigers
Before the Worst - The Script
Bruised - Jack's Mannequin
Gotta Get Thru This - Daniel Bedingfield
Always Where I Need to Be - The Kooks
Debut - Fortunes Fall
Blue Eyes - MIKA
Fearless - Taylor Swift
Something - The Beatles
The Guy that Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind - Griffin House
Black Tables - Other Lives
Can't Let Go - Landon Pigg
San Francisco - Brett Dennen
Hands on Me - Vanessa Carlton
West Coast - Coconut Records
A Beautiful Mess - Jason Mraz
Assassin - John Mayer
Indigo - Tom Milsom
Sex & Reruns - Matt Duke
Wedding Dress - Matt Nathanson
Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel
Ohio - Crosby, Stills (and Nash and Young?)
Silly Love Songs - Paul McCartney
Wake the Sun - The Matches
Beautiful Soul - Jesse McCartney
Belt Loops - The Films
Rains in Asia - Jump Little Children
She Is - The Fray
Into the Sunshine - Julia Nunes
(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To - Weezer
Hand In My Pocket - Alanis Morissette
Fairy Tales - JoJo
I Want To Save You - Something Corporate
You and Me - Lifehosue
King Without a Crown - Matisyahu
Name - Goo Goo Dolls
Brighter Than Sunshine - Aqualung
Moondance - Van Morrison
1901 - Phoenix
Don't Forget - Demi Lovato
You Make My Dreams - Hall & Oates

To be added to later, perhaps.

Maybe I'm Amazed

Maybe I'm Amazed

I am so amazed by artsy indie kids who dress well and take beautiful photographs and upload them to flickr and always look nice in pictures and right coherently incoherent blog posts and have an impenetrable circle of like-minded friends. Also they have macbooks.

Anyhow, merry Christmas and such. In the Jewish tradition we had Chinese food this evening (delivery, of course) and then we watched some movies entitled THE LIBRARIAN. Capitals are necessary here because these movies were sort of Indiana Jones-like with a bit of National Treasure and crap thrown in. And then when we got tired of the movies we each separated into our respective areas of the house.



Personally I think I speak more like the Seattle accent than the LA one. But who am I to judge? And also - even if I click the same size selection for every time I embed a youtube video, the sizes are never the same.

And now I'm having a conversation on facebook with an old Jewish friend about how we spent our Christmases on facebook. And I'm thinking about how absolutely pathetic I'm sounding as I type this out. Oh gooooodnessss.

Portland and things

Portland and things

Merry Christmas and such. I got home from Portland earlier this evening. My mom and I landed at the airport and I called my dad from baggage claim. He and my sister weren't even at the airport yet so my mom and I stood around for a while. Then my dad, when he arrived, got very tense. He has no patience for bad drivers or stupid people or stupid bad drivers.

I really liked Portland. It was really cold, but I can get used to weather, I guess. I could totally see Powell's becoming my second home. And the people - everyone we met or ran into or bought anything from was just so NICE. I'm not sure I can even really explain that - it was just, like, hi how are you how's your day going can I do anything else for you? And apparently the entire state of Oregon has no sales tax. That's kind of exciting to someone who loves to shop.

As far as the two schools that we saw go - I liked Reed better than Lewis & Clark, but I'm not sure if I liked it enough to want to go there for four years. God, I'm so indecisive. I wish I could just skip college, wake up one morning and have a job and a life and everything.

Othernews: SAT scores gahhhhh. Stupid math. If it were higher I'd be fine. But with that score the way it is right now - college, at least where I'm looking, is a bit of a stretch. Also my nails are really long right now. But I've sort of traded biting them for picking at my cuticles constantly, so those are in a horrible state. Ah, well.

This made me amazingly happy.


Happy holidays. :)

You can't whisper secrets over the internet

You can't whisper secrets over the internet

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Portland for a few days. My mom and I are going to check out a couple of schools (Lewis & Clark and Reed) and go shopping and hopefully not freeze to death. At least I'm not over on the east coast right now, though; those temperatures are too cold to even think about.

This evening my mom told me that my text message count for the last month was one thousand something. My little sister's count was an astounding two thousand three hundred something. I really don't know how a thirteen year-old sends so many text messages. My sister said something like, "aren't you amazed at my social life?" But then I was thinking about it, and I realized - that's not really a social life. Communicating with someone via text message (or instant message or facebook wall or even skype) isn't the same as talking to someone in person. I have nothing against internet based-relationships, but I just can't comprehend really getting to know someone like that. And not even just romantic relationships - I feel like friendships that are based solely on online communication are missing a key part of their foundation. You can't whisper secrets over the internet, can you?

Anyhow, moving on. Today I went to the mall with Ellie and I bought way too many pairs of earrings. I really love the accessories department at Forever 21. Then I got home and sat around until dinner. I love that - just sitting around. But I know that because I've been sitting around all weekend, as soon as I get back from Portland I'm going to have to really crack down on my homework so I don't leave it till the last weekend of break.

Oh god, I'm already eager for summer.

Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday

G'day.

Michael: i never get something at restaurants that i can make..
Michael: HAHAH
Michael: and a grill cheese ma'm is preteen cooking 101
Me: yeah thats what my dad said
Me: but i like grilled cheeses
Michael: hmmm ur such a girl
Michael: niavety
Michael: and so esoteric
Michael: AHHAH
Me: esoteric is a good thing
Michael: oh
Michael: well it sounds bad

Last night I picked up my guitar for the first time. I spent about two hours with two different tuners tuning it, and I'm not totally sure if it's in tune, but I guess it doesn't have to be perfect. Then I watched some videos on fingering and frets and vocabulary and things like that. Alison explained chord charts to me and helped me with a c major. But it still sounds - off to me. Maybe my ears are just off? Anyhow, now I'm watching Greg Holden videos (I really do love him) and watching his fingering as he plays. The whole concept of changing chords while you're playing sort of mystifies me. Hopefully that will become clearer eventually?



Oh, Julia Nunes, why must you come to LA on a Thursday?

Today was a pretty lazy day. After the craziness of cookie baking yesterday, I slept in until around 11:30 then just lazed around the house for a while. Later on I watched "Say Anything," which I'd never seen before and really loved, then I went out to dinner with my dad. I love these quiet evenings where I don't have anything I have to do. Not having school tomorrow has just put me in such a great mood.

I really should repaint my nails.

Winter break, finally

Winter break, finally

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up and cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the counters, everything. Then a bunch of people are coming over and we're making cookies, cookies cookies. Then I'm cleaning the kitchen head-to-toe again. I like cleaning, sort of. At least, I like when things are clean.

This week at school was hell. But again, (and I'm sure I'll keep saying this) I shouldn't be complaining because it was my choice to take all these ridiculous classes. But I hate this. I hate school right now. I've never exactly liked school, and this isn't as bad as a few years ago when I actually seriously dreaded going to school... but I feel like if I liked my classes, the entire experience of junior year would be so much better. And instead, it's project after project, pointless assignment after pointless assignment.

And on top of that - I just feel like everything is sort of intensified this year, because we're all so stressed and running on so little sleep and stretched so thin that our emotional balances are all out of wack. I'm having issues with my friend right now, or lack thereof, etc. And it seems like "I'm really busy" or "I have a lot of homework" are really overused excuses right now.

I am so, so, so ready for this break. Three days in Portland, lots of sleep, seeing my friends. Hopefully catching up on tv and reading and... I just miss not having that constant nagging feeling that I need to be doing something. And it's totally gone right now, because I know that I don't have to go to school on Monday. That's an amazing feeling.

So moving on. I really dislike facial hair on high school guys. It just, like, freaks me out. I'm not even sure if this is something I can explain. It also freaks me out whenever I see anyone I know or have seen around school driving a car. It's probably some psychological aversion to growing up or something like that. But I'd rather hang out with Peter Pan than with some bearded guy any day.

Anyhow. I spent this evening at my friend's house pre-baking for tomorrow. Then I came home and my dad and I rifled through the fridge for a few minutes before deciding there wasn't any food in the house. He made me a grilled cheese, with actual cheese - all we ever have is American cheese, in its little pre-wrapped slices, but we had an actual block of cheddar. Then I went on skype for a bit with Dynahlee.

And now I should probably go to sleep. Happy winter break!

Part 2

Part 2

Here are all the things that you can't do.

You can't tell your friend that sometimes you wonder what she's thinking when she gets dressed in the morning. You can't tell your friend that sometimes you want her to just shut the hell up. You can't tell your friend that her essay makes no sense and isn't anywhere as good as yours.

You can't complain about your parents when you know that you have it so much better than anyone else. You can't admit to wondering what would happen if suddenly you just weren't here anymore, suddenly you did something so unlike yourself just to shock everyone. You can't say that you haven't had a crush on a guy in a long time because you've invented this fairy tale guy in your head who you're pretty sure doesn't exist at all.

You can't not do your homework, because that's not like you and that's just not what you do. You can't tell your friends just how much you worry that they don't like you. You can't tell them how much the words "you just don't understand" hurt, and you can't tell them that you're scared to death of being alone at school, at home, in life. You can't tell them that you're scared of failing and of not being able to do something right the first time and of not being able to communicate what you're thinking. Even though you know that everyone else is just as insecure as you, you can't let on that you are, because then everything will just crumble down around you.

And most of all you can't say that sometimes you just wish that that would happen, that everything would just fall apart, because then you could start again, do it all again, bypass all the not telling, not saying this time.

Part 1

Part 1

Here's why I hate high school.

It's cliched. It's a John Hughes movie but instead of ending it just keeps on going. You have to want to be like everyone else or else something's wrong with you. You have to want that happy ending and you have to wear Ambercrombie even if you don't know how to spell it and you have to always always always complain about the food unless it's pizza or someone else's mother made it. Or else you have to be different, but in that cool hipster sort of way that's so weird it's fashionable. And if you're that, you have to make it look effortless, you have to be fashionable without trying, you have to wear your dirty converse and preach your indie gospel.

If you're in the first category, you have to always be peppy and happy and you have to be witty and collect lots of facebook friends. If you're in the second category, you also have to be witty, but your facebook page has to convey a i-don't-care-screw-conformity attitude. So you shouldn't fill out the info boxes on your profile page, you should use really artsy profile pictures, and you should limit your statuses to either really funny things you randomly think of because you're just fabulous, or undecipherable song lyrics.

But no matter what you do, you have to have amazing friends to back you up all the way, because no matter who you are, people are going to judge you. And as hard as you try, you can't just not care what other people think. That's stupid movie crap, because teenagers, no matter what, they care. And that sucks, because you're going to get hurt and good friends are hard to find and harder to keep and sometimes nothing makes sense and you end up writing long rambling blog posts with lots of conjuctions.

Also I hate the homework. But that's beside the point.

Je suis desolee

Je suis desolee

I just had a conversation with someone I haven't talked to for a very long time, complete with smiley faces and exclamation points. Oh god. I feel - okay yeah I know this is going to sound stupid - like my middle school self and who I am now are crashing into each other and are getting very confused. And I have a feeling this is going to bring up a lot of old crap. Or bring it up to right below the surface where it'll hover for awhile while we ignore it. It's strange. Yeah, it's strange.

Anyhow, now for my excuses for why I haven't blogged in a few days. Umm. Yeah. Okay. See I've basically been in a crappy mood. School is getting harder, which I sort of knew was going to happen... But I'm not going to complain about it because I know it's my own fault; I'm the one who picked these stupid classes in the first place. And also I'm having some friend issues which I'm not going to go into but basically I'm a horrible person and I make it impossible for people to get along with me.

I'm not expecting this weekend to be much better, partially because I have tons of homework and no time to do it, partially because my extended family is here for Chanukah and that's just one big ball of tense energy, and partially because I am just so frigging tired I haven't really felt like being happy lately.

Although I must say that this just made me laugh out loud. Thank god for the internet.

And a little anecdote: this evening I was watching Half-Blood Prince (blu-ray on the 72 inch, yay) with my family, and I was thinking about how much I love Harry Potter. And then I started thinking about how amazing it would be to be able to wipe my mind and read the books again. I can't remember how I felt when I was first discovering them, but I imagine it was amazing.

<3

Summer's really far away

Summer's really far away

Oh right, blogging. That's that thing that I'm supposed to do everydayish. Hello.

Today Alison sent me a very ecstatic text message about VidCon and then I watched Hank's new video and got very ecstatic myself. So somehow in the last hour or so I developed summer plans. Totally up in the air, not definitive, maybe I think we totally should plans, but still plans. It's exciting.

Then I told my friend Megan from Baltimore about it, and I said she should come out to California for it since we've been trying to get her out here for a visit anyway. If she could come that would basically make my summer. So, yay.

I also made basically no progress on my Scarlet Letter essay, so tomorrow night's really going to suck, because I'm going to have to crank out the whole entire thing. But really that's my own fault, so I'm going to attempt to not complain about it. Or the art history chapter I'm going to have to finish up. I hate art history chapters, they take forever. Ugh.

And today I learned that I'm basically not getting a winter break. Two days in Oregon to visit colleges, but besides that, I have three projects to get done. But Chanukah starts this Friday. I like Chanukah.

And now I must return to the Gothic period and exam the architecture of several churches that all look the same. G'night.

Moderate the noun or moderate the verb?

Moderate the noun or moderate the verb?

Unrelated title there for you.

This morning I woke up, wondered why it was so cold, then saw my mother standing over me looking grumpy. Then she said something and I mumbled something back and then she left. About ten minutes later, I got out of bed and got dressed in the dark like I do every morning. Then I went downstairs, where it was absolutely freezing. Twenty minutes later, I got in the car, where it was absolutely freezing, then a little while after that I got out of the car, where it was absolutely freezing.

At school, I shivered in the absolutely freezing for a while before I went into class. And that's basically how it was for the rest of the day - inside warm, outside cold, later rinse repeat. Finally school got out and I came home and did my homework. Then I ate dinner, did my homework, checked my facebook, took a shower, wrote this post. And now I'm thinking about how this homework-eat-sleep routine is becoming pretty regular for me, and I don't like it.

I haven't played farmville in two days. Now luckily I planted things that aren't going to die for a while, but I feel a little bit strange about not checking it, waiting for whatever I'm growing to be done.

Oh my god, I am ridiculous. And, you guessed it, absolutely freezing. (Also sleepy and grumpy and goofy and sneezy and thinking about Snow White and also that scene in one of the Harry Potter films where Hermione tells wrong that he has the emotional range of a teaspoon.)

I think it's time for bed now.

Today's Sunday but tomorrow isn't

Today's Sunday but tomorrow isn't

Dynahlee told me I should write my post tonight on how amazing my dad is and how lucky I am that I don't have to live with her parents. But I'm not going to do that, because then I'm going to get totally sappy and go on about how much I wish she didn't have to deal with any of the stuff that she deals with, because she's amazing and doesn't deserve any of it.

So instead today I'm going to talk about the contents of my brain. The things inside my head include, but are not limited to, thoughts about:
1. My name. Like, if I were named Madison I would go by Mad, or if I were named Jim I would go by Jungle Jim.
2. The future. Like, when I'm 21, or when I can drive, or when my hair gets three inches longer I will do/be _____.
3. Facebook profile pictures. Some people just have gorgeous pictures. I really can't even describe how jealous I am of that.
4. My own stupidity. See thought #3.
5. Things that make me sad. Specifically, the Civil War and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Also, Darfur, the ending of "The Notebook.

Those are basically the things that I've been thinking about for the last hour or so. These contribute to my lack of focus when it comes to homework and blog post writing. And my lack of focus within my blog posts. And due to that lack of focus, I am about to abruptly change topics.

Tomorrow is Monday. Like every other person on planet Earth, I do not like Mondays. I have in the past even focused an entire post on how much I hate Mondays, so I don't need to repeat all that. But I sort of would rather not have weekends at all, because knowing that Monday is right around the corner just makes them so much more unenjoyable. (Firefox says unenjoyable isn't a word. But it is. I think?)

So, I hope you had a good weekend. And a good week to come!

PS Look to the right! It's a pandora box! Yay. :)

Title Goes Here

Title Goes Here

I guess I should blog before I go to bed? I suppose today can be a list day. So, commence list of random things:

1. It is freezing in my house right now. I feel you should know that.
2. The SAT was really not as hard as I was expecting, which is a relief, I guess.
3. I didn't get as much homework done today as I wanted to. Tomorrow night is going to be stressful.
4. I realized that it's been 6 months since the beginning of summer, almost. That's so strange to think about. Stupid nostalgia.
5. I really want to stop biting my nails.
6. I feel like this list needs to be 10 things long. I've got to come up with some more things to put on it. My life is boring when I write it down.
7. It snowed in Baltimore and my friend sent me pictures. I wish it would snow here.
8. I'm excited for HBP on dvd. And DH trailer!
9. That reminds me - I never saw "Where the Wild Things Are." Humph.
10. "Don't Stop Believing" just came up in pandora. I think this is a good place to end tonight's post.

Goodnight. :)

Teenage Angst and Stuff

Teenage Angst and Stuff

I've been trying to think of a clever blog intro thing for a while, and it's just not happening. So I'm just going to start a bit rambly, alrighty?

So I didn't blog last night. I had a zillion hours of homework, which I was not able to start as soon as I got home from school because our carpet was being (loudly) cleaned. We couldn't go upstairs because the carpet was wet, so I was confined to the kitchen. I sat at the counter and did my math homework, and my mom sat at the table and read a magazine, and my sister sat on the couch and read a book. Then my dad arrived and sat on the fireplace ledge thing and talked on the phone. Loudly. As you can imagine, it was a very productive evening. (Note sarcasm.)

Tomorrow I'm taking the SAT. Then homework, volunteering on Sunday, and more homework. Fun weekend. (More sarcasm.)

Right now I'm on skype with Dynahlee and she's mouthing the words to "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and dancing like a creeper. Now I want to watch "10 Things I Hate About You."

But back to this week. Fueling the gossip mills right now are guys-asking-girls-to-formal-in-cutesy-ways stories. I love things like that normally, but there's this "why don't I have a boyfriend?" flu going around lately. One of my good friends now has a boyfriend, and no offense to her, but she's not exactly who we'd expect to be the first of our little group. That sentence was worded weirdly; hopefully you know what I mean?

Anyhow, I'm being all stupid teenage girl and I just want someone to ask me to formal. I feel like that girl in "Sixteen Candles," minus the cutesy happy ending and red hair. But I'm being silly and I want that happy ending. Gahhh, teenage angst and stuff.

And now I shall be off to continue talking to Dynah and to finish this "25 things about me" tag note on facebook and to hopefully maybe I doubt it go to bed early tonight. Happy Friday.

PS I hear it snowed in Houston. I want snow. I think.
PPS Apparently I'm now doing BAAD instead of BAD. My bad. /lamejoke

The Future?

The Future?

Guys, today I made a discovery. (It has nothing to do with the fact that I might be listening to Relient K right now. Don't judge. Pandora operates without my consent.)

I think that needs more emphasis. A DISCOVERY. I decided what I want to study in college. Well, sort of.

See, I've always known that I like writing and I like reading and I don't like math. But tonight I was reading about Lewis & Clark University in Portland, Oregon, where everyone likes what they're studying, and they like learning for the sake of learning, not because they need a degree to get a job to make money. And that is exactly the kind of college student/person I want to be: someone who enjoys their homework because it's on something that they like.

So I was reading about all these happy people and their beautiful campus with its beautiful trees and I started thinking about all the things that I love and want to make out of a career. (Sadly, Nerdfighting isn't exactly a career.) I've determined these things to be creative writing, English, history, and architecture.

Obviously I can't major in all of them - and my mom told me that architecture majors might be a bit rare at small liberal arts colleges - but somehow I suddenly feel like I have a direction, or close to one maybe, and that's a good feeling.

My mom and I are going up to Portland over winter break to look at schools, and while I'm not exactly that excited about going to college and moving away from home and all that, I'm already anticipating absolutely loving Portland. It sounds gorgeous and bookish and it's on a river, for goodness sake. I mean, just look at this or this. I love it already.

Happy second day of December!

Possibly bad at BAD

Possibly bad at BAD

Kate the Awesome has taken on the weight of BAD this month, Blog All December. I'm going to attempt to do this with her because, as noted, she is Awesome, but I may have to resign myself to BAAD, or Blog Almost All December. We shall see, my dears.

I'm not going to attempt to write extremely coherent posts, as by the end of 6th period everyday I'm usually totally drained of any coherent thoughts I may have possessed. So December is going to be a sort of journal entry month, with some lists thrown in there, possibly.

To start us off, some thoughts on my pants.

The left knee of my jeans has a giant rip. (And yes, I bought them like this. I know, "how much did you pay to have someone else rip your pants for you?" and all that.) This giant whole, which is not totally open as denim fiber spans its open space, seems to be growing. One possible reason for this is that I like to sit cross-legged/Indian style in my desk chair since it has no arms and isn't particularly comfortable otherwise. But besides that, these are on of my favorite pairs of jeans, so they get washed at least once a week, usually. That can't be helping either. I guess if the knee completely rips open then I buy a new pair? Or possibly a patch.

I noticed a minute ago that my one-year anniversary on Blogger was two months ago. I figured I should point it out, although actually it makes no sense, as my blog has posts on it from January of 2008. Hmm. Oh, I see now. My October post says I just transferred my blog from elsewhere. Okay.

In other news, I have failed NaNoWriMo most efficiently. I wrote about 600 words the first day, a horrible start, and then on November 2, I decided that what I'd already written was crap and so I started again. I got about 10,000 words into that before I took about a 3 week break. Then on the day before Thanksgiving, I looked at my calendar and decided I could totally write 40,000 words in 5 days. I wrote 5,000 words that night, and now my novel sits at 15,000 words. I never realized how many words 50,000 is until I tried to write that many.

Emerson's "Self-Reliance" is calling to me, or rather my English grade is, so see you tomorrow, I should hope.