can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face

i hate that song. from the bottom of my heart.

you know that old game 'brick' or whatever when you bounce the ball off a little brick you control and when it hits the bricks on the top of the screen they disappear?? and the ball keeps bouncing around and the bricks keep disappearing. yeah, that's what that song is like. you hear it and it immediately gets stuck in your head. always. it's like a freaking disease. so it goes bouncing around your head with its stupid chorus and everything in your head disappears one by one as the song touches it.

then you have a majorly big presentation and everything in your head you had to say is gone except that stupid song thats still bouncing around. grr.

*Poker Face - Lady GaGa

we will still be friends forever

if you'll remember, in that post about friends fading into your past, i mentioned my best friend in 1/2/3 grade, nina. nina and i were pretty close. we were on the same softball team, in the same class for two years, she came to my birthdays, and we dressed alike on dress like twins day. but then i moved to santa cruz and kinda lost touch with her. when i moved to virginia she disappeared completely from my life.

so today i wake up and lo and behold i have a facebook friend request from nina! along with a note reminding me who she was and asking if i remembered her. i'm usually pretty good at remembering people i went to school with, and of course i would remember my best friend.

so anyways, it's great when you hear from long forgotten friends... gives you hope for the rest of your "memory friendships."

*Graduation - Vitamin C

fade away

it's amazing how those trivial facts that used to come to the top of your mind in less than a second get buried under the accumulation of other worthless facts until they completely fade away. example: i used to know all the professors in the harry potter series, along with a whole bunch of other stuff about that world. dorky? maybe... but still true. so last night i was doing one of the sporcle lists about the staff of hogwarts, and i couldnt for the life of me remember the history of magic professor (i kept thinking it was banes... it's binns :/) or the death eater who taught defense against the dark arts in the last book (carrow). i used to know those.

so i'm not saying that hogwarts professors are things i'll die if i forget, but it makes you wonder... what else have i forgotten??

*Could it Be Any Harder - The Calling

all they've seen of adolescence torn

so in my forensics class, we talk about child pornography a lot... because it's like the number one crime computer forensics deal with. that and terrorism. so of course we've discussed the new wave of "sexting."

for those of you that dont know what sexting is, it's when underaged individuals send inappropriate picture messages to each other's phones. it's counted as child pornography and if convicted, the people who would be facing charges are: the kids sending the pictures, the kids recieving the picture, and the parents of all the kids involved.

sexting is becoming really popular, if you havent heard. at the middle school my professor works at (she would never tell us which one, i have no idea why) they had two sexting cases just last week.

people have brought up the point that, if the kid is the one taking and sending the picture to another kid (usually their boyfriend or girlfriend) then it shouldnt be charged as child pornography. but the fact of the matter is, they are still kids. psycho kids, but kids all the same. when i was in middle school, sending pornographic pictures of myself to others was definitely not on my list of things to do. it was down there with get eaten by a lion, jump off the empire state building, and start counting calories. but apparently kids these days dont think the same.

of course you can blame the media for objectifying women, making things like this seem normal, and basically destroying "childhoods" by having kids grow up too fast. you can blame society for getting so far out of hand that so many people don't see a problem with this. you can blame the parents for doing a sucky job at instilling values in their children and basically just raising them badly in general. and you can blame the kids for being impressionable and stupid.

but should they be charged with child pornography?? it's a really serious charge if you didnt know. should all the people involved be marked as sex offenders for the rest of their lives??

the argument to let kids do what they want brings to mind an article i read a few months back. it basically said that kids should have the right to choose who they want to have sex with and when they want to. some group of pedophiles or other was complaining that by making age restrictions, they were infringing on these children's basic rights.

is stopping sexting infringing on the rights of children?? or should they be registered in the system as sex offenders?? both ways sound a little extreme to me. what do you think??

*Magnolia - The Hush Sound

if you never try, you'll never know

sporcle.com. play it.

me and the kid that sits next to me (he was the one that i mentioned in my very first post, the one that says i'm a dog person. yeah he turned out to be pretty awesome) anyways we spent the whole 3 hour class today playing this.

you seriously have no idea how much/little you know until you play this.

it's a bunch of lists you fill out << yeah my describing skills are amazing. but it tests on you stuff from the us states and presidents to disney villains. it's super addicting and great for procrastinating. *Fix You - Coldplay

stand by me

very cool video... recorded by unknown artists all over the world in a virtual studio. the recorders of the song really went to all the different countries and got random people off the street to add to the song by singing or playing an instrument. people thousands of miles apart all singing one song together... super cool.

*Stand By Me - Ben E. King

i think you're crazy

sometimes some people go way too far to make a point. dont get me wrong, i totally understand "doing what you have to" but i draw the line at eating body parts. i thought everyone would. apparently not.

on friday, a serb cut off and ate his own finger. why?? as a way to protest overdue wages. the good old days of strikes and picket lines are gone, folks. we have reached the age of cannibalism. apparently the gesture was supposed to reinforce his point that because they are not getting paid, they have no money for food. and what better way to show how desperate you are than to eat yourself?? it just cries out desperation to me.

in an interview, the dude said that while the employees of Raska Holding textile factory of which he was a union leader was discussing what to do to get noticed, a single mom said that she would eat her finger. of course Zoran Bulatovic, being the gentleman that he is, couldnt let her do that. so he did it himself.

now, let's just take a second to think about that. some lady said she was getting so hungry she could eat her finger, so the dude chopped off his hand with a hacksaw and ate it. i'm guessing he's never heard of the art of exaggeration. i'm pretty sure we've all said things like, "if i do bad on this test i'll shoot myself" or whatnot. have any of you met a guy that willingly shoots himself instead to spare you from doing it?? no. because most people realize that stuff like that is not to be taken seriously.

then again, the single mom might very well have meant to eat her own finger. apparently, the employees had gone on a hunger strike before they got desperate enough for this. understand though, they didnt go on a normal strike. they still came to work and did their jobs. they just did it hungry. doesnt seem like a very smart way to get noticed. and when youre complaining that you have no money for food, isnt every day like a hunger strike anyways?? how would the employers know the difference??

Bulatovic has said that they would postpone any other self-mutilations until after the talks scheduled for today with the government. for the sake of all the fingers being employed by this serbian textile company, i sincerely hope that the employees get paid. and fast.

*Crazy - Gnarles Barkley

call me lame

you know those moments in life when you realize that you're a total dork?? yeah... my entire life is made up of moments like that. today was a major one. i'm so used to talking to the same group of people that i sometimes slip up when talking to people who dont know me. so today i was discussing computers with an acquaintance. he wants to get a new computer and is looking for someone to sell his old one to, i.e. trying to force me to buy it. i've had my computer for 3 years and to him, that was way too long. so i say that i grew too attached to joe to change him before he's completely dead. for those of you who don't know, i named my computer joe when i got him. so the dude was like, who's joe?? that's when i have to say sheepishly, uhh my computer. to which he responded incredulously with, you named your computer joe? i thought only little kids name their stuff. after an extremely awkward silence, he stopped trying to sell his computer and thought i was really weird.

*Shining - Kristian Leontiou

call it stupid

remember a couple of posts back when i was listing things i hate and i mentioned people who ask stupid, irrelevant questions in class?? yeah, well i think today i found the guy that wins the prize for stupidest question and subsequent argument. so i'm sitting in class, right?? it's human-computer interactions and we basically learn how computers and humans interact. shocking, right?? so anyways the professor was discussing some failed attempts at user-friendliness. one of his examples was of a product that was so complex to use "you need another set of hands." obviously a fail.
so some oh-so-enlightened guy in the front says, in all seriousness, "well what if we had three arms and three hands, then it would be fine, right?? so it's not a complete fail."
my professor explains that "yes if we had three hands then it would be alright, but we dont."
"well i dont think you can say it failed then."
"but you design things for people in this day and age to be able to use. right now, people only have two arms."
"i'm sure someone somewhere has three arms."
"you design a product for the mass majority of people to use, not the exception."
"but since that person can use it, i dont think you should be saying it failed."
"but it did fail."
"not completely, that one person may have been able to use it easily. meaning it didnt fail."
at this point, some other dude decided to take a stab at explaining, "you dont even know if a three armed person exists to use the product, it failed as a product targeted towards normal people.
"so what youre saying is that people with three arms are not normal??"
by now, we were all pretty annoyed with him. i was feeling pretty sick and just about decided to leave class early. the thing is, he wasnt even joking. he wasnt trying to be funny, or clever, or disrupt class. he was really arguing the case of a hypothetical three armed person. of course, after the rest of the guys got involved in the conversation - with a few threats and words i wont repeat - he eventually shut up and sulked in a corner.

speaking of stupidity, someone was apparently sued for using a phrase in his (her?) blog. it was apparently the title of some random author's book. remember, this person wasnt stealing an idea of the author's. he didnt copy out a page of the book and pass it off as his own. he used a common phrase. since when could you copyright that?? he was instructed to put that little r in a circle thing and mention that the phrase was a copyrighted trademark of whatever the author's name was. he refused. so apparently if you say "that was then, this is now" "you don't know me" "go ask alice" "into the wild" "twilight" or any other common thing that's also a book's title, you are potentially a copyright infringer. beware.

on a completely unrelated note, oy with the poodles already. if you know where that's from, then you are a very awesome individual. if you dont, then you suck. if you google it then not only do you suck, but you also have no life.

*Shining - Kristian Leontiou

take me there

i want to go to new york this wednesday night SO bad. mainly because i really want to see one of the movies playing at the tribeca film festival. i followed the production of this movie the whole way through. what really sucks is that it would be so easy to go. take a bus up there during the day, watch the movie, come back. no one would know since i dont get back from class at prince william till around 11 anyways. plenty of time. except for the fact that i have a final group presentation 10 minutes after the movie starts. so not only did i get blessed with a crappy group in a boring class with a retarded professor, i also get to miss my movie. *sigh*

*Take Me There - Rascal Flatts

forget everything and remember

i love this song... clever lyrics. in case youre stupid, they all spell out FEAR. it's like a whole song made out of those poems when you use the first letters of your name.



*FEAR - Ian Brown

the superstars sucked into the supermassive

after years and years of saying, "i should totally get that and read it" i have finally read ender's game by orson scott card because of one very cool individual who lent it to me. it's a science fiction book and the first one he ever wrote. you can tell by reading it that it was a pretty big inspiration for stephenie meyer's the host. i also realized that card is obsessed with the word fart. i dont think i've read a single book of his that didnt have the word fart used at least twenty times. it seems to be a favorite thing for characters to call each other with a wide array of adjectives added on to make each insult unique. and its not like he uses fart in lieu of "bad words" because he still manages to cuss a little in all the books. he also uses in it phrases like "last one there farts in a milk bottle." like, really? how does he come up with that? i think he just really likes the word.

anyways, the book's title character is a little boy. he starts out six in the first chapter. i have this problem with books with little kid characters that do amazing things. my mind can't wrap around the fact that they're so young. like he'll be six years old and then suddenly goes to battle or whatever and in my head he's suddenly not six but i dont really see him as older either, and then the battle is over and he's six again. it's weird.

i heard that they're thinking about making it a movie, which of course i got excited about for like five minutes before i started dreading the day it would premiere because you know it's just gonna get ruined. some books are really really good, but they would just make really crappy movies. parts would have to be censored to get a rating that would let the book's intended audience be able to see it. you can't hear any thoughts that aren't spoken or acted out which changes the way certain scenes are viewed. i'm a big fan of movies and love seeing adaptations of books even when they completely destroy the book, but i think that i'll always prefer reading the book and seeing it however i interperet it rather than how someone else did.

*Supermassive Black Hole - Muse

telling my whole life with his words

i found this online and thought it was cool. you're basically choosing which authors you would want to write out different aspects of your life.

who would you want to write...

your childhood?
beverly cleary... i was a huge fan of hers in first/second/third grade. her characters had such normal lives, but they just never seemed boring.

your parents?
john irving... he may have been kinda screwed up, but garp was a devoted dad and knew that "kids are just perfect people until grown ups get their hands on them."

your best friend?
se hinton if i could make sure it was the outsiders style... the rest all seem to grow apart as they grow up.

your siblings?
can i use se hinton again? sodapop was cool. or cs lewis as long as none of them turned out like susan.

your education?
jk rowling... hogwarts for sure.

your first kiss?
walt disney... i dont care if he doesnt really count as an author.

your husband?
tough one. but probly margaret mitchell or razan... i'd be good with a rhett or a sirius. or nicholas sparks could work too i guess.

your wedding dress?
suzanne collins (the hunger games)... she's one of the few authors that write "pretty dresses" that actually look pretty in my head without me having to change them.

your enemy?
hmm maybe phillip pullman (the golden compass)... at least then they'll be interesting if nothing else. and i dont think i'd like a stupid enemy.

your job?
fitzgerald... his characters are all lazy bums with money. they can work when they want to but never really have to, and even when they do they don't. i could see myself living that life.

your home?
either jane austen - i always liked that era, and the huge manors were awesome - or jk rowling - i like her descriptions. or whoever wrote the moorchild, i read that in 6th grade and still have not gotten over the desire to visit the irish moors instilled in me from that book's descriptions.

your death?
ah i have no idea. i think a lot of writers can write death really well. maybe oscar wilde though cuz i was just obsessing over that death quote of his.

the greatest/most exciting moment of your life?
orson scott card... he comes up with some of the coolest things ever.

the worst moment of your life?
stephenie meyer... because i know everything'll end up okay at the end.

*Killing Me Softly - Roberta Flack

by tomorrow morning i'll have this thing beat

with the deadline of my forensic report mere days (or day and 2 hours) away, i decided that it was finally time to really start it. of course, now that i've spent almost two hours working on it, i feel like shooting myself. i really couldnt care any less about some fake muslim terrorist cell that may or may not blow up some dc bridge. there's too much small print and hex code i have to search through for evidence. grr. doesnt help that my room is hot and my contacts are dry but im too lazy to go get glasses.

ok enough ranting. today was fun... ish. i visited my old school cause my brother was part of a quran assembly. i've already been feeling nostalgic lately because of a project i've been working on (another headache but this one self-inflicted) and being back at isa made me realize how much i miss it. the people, the building, even the smell. it was kinda sad though how much was changing. i didnt know anyone in the english department. i only knew one teacher from the social studies department. and abla noha, who used to practically run the school, isnt in charge of nhs anymore. it was crazy. and when they were asking about girls i graduated with, it was sad how little i could tell them. it brings back all the sentiments in that other blog post i wrote.

at one point i saw my 8th grade science teacher. she was teaching a class full of children i have never seen before. and she asked them if they knew who i was (it actually wasnt as random as it sounds out of context) and they knew me. it was kinda creepy.

but yeah, i miss high school. especially senior year. i miss being able to see the same people every day. i miss going to the chicken place because we couldnt go anywhere else since none of has had cars. i miss the excitement of seeing razan walk in with the red/purple binder. i miss not doing homework but still getting good grades. i miss ceramics class. and english. and math. and physics. i miss isa.

UPDATE: i have decided i hate forensics. after 4 hours and 45 minutes of analyzing evidence, the muslim terrorists really are planning a massive attack against DC. im floored. really. i had no idea that was coming.

*Somewhere in Between - Lifehouse

the world will never ever be the same and you're to blame

so today, in case any of you didn't know, is shakespeare's birthday. if he was alive he'd be turning something like 445. i forgot the exact age but it's around there. if any of you have not read up on shakespeare's life, you should. he was a really interesting guy. while he was alive, his play were considered the SPAM of literature. amazing how much can change once you die. now he's like the epitome of a perfect playwright. his plays are awesome too. some people complain they can't understand the language, but i dont think it's that different.

anyway, aside from writing a whole bunch of plays that are still read, studied, acted, and plagiarized today, he also invented a whole bunch of words - words that we use everyday. that might have something to do with the reason no one liked his plays back then. how seriously do you take someone if he makes up every other word he writes?? how hard would it be to make a play of made up words?? ok still pretty hard, but whatever. here's a list of some of the words shakespeare made up off the top of his head. he invented over 1700:

Accused - Addiction - Advertising - Amazement - Arouse - Assassination - Bandit - Bedroom - Blanket - Bump - Champion - Countless - Epileptic - Fixture - Flawed - Generous - Hint - Lonely - Mimic - Negotiate - Obscene - Premeditated - Rant - Summit - Torture - Varied - Worthless - Zany

some phrases he started are:

All that glitters is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)
All's well that ends well (title)
As good luck would have it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
Be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)
Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)
Breathed his last (3 Henry VI)
Refuse to budge an inch (Measure for Measure / Taming of the Shrew)
Come what come may ("come what may") (Macbeth)
Devil incarnate (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)
Eaten me out of house and home (2 Henry IV)
Elbow room (King John; first attested 1540 according to Merriam-Webster)
Farewell to all my greatness (Henry VIII)
Faint hearted (I Henry VI)

you can read more here.

his stories are still being adapted to this day. lion king and lion king 2 are basically hamlet and romeo and juliet. lion king 1 1/2 is the story of the two guards from hamlet. i forget their names anddont feel like googling them. rosencratz and something else. she's the man is 12th night. 10 things i hate about you is taming the shrew. and this is not taking into account all the modern remakes of his plays like romeo and juliet with leonardo di caprio, hamlet with ethan hawke, o with julia stiles (remake of othello).

anyway, here's my favorite of his sonnets:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

*Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's

in the end, everyone ends up alone

"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace." ~Oscar Wilde

i love this quote. it's such a romaticized view of death. and if i didnt believe in the afterlife, i think i would be obsessed with death. it just sounds so peaceful. none of the obnoxious aspects of every day life of the living, just lying forever underneath the waving grass and listening to silence. i love the idea of listening to silence. it's something so rare these days. people are always talking, always moving. boredom is always just around the corner and everyone is running from it.

i don't get bored. i'll say i'm bored, but i never really am. i can sit by myself in an empty room for hours, and still not be bored. i'll amuse myself somehow, even if it's just staring at the blank wall in front of me and getting lost in the thoughts and stories running through my head. probably means i'm weird, but i'm okay with that.

back to the point, people are constantly thinking about the next thing. the next thing they'll do. the next thing they'll say. the next place they'll go. we are in a constant race against time, a race we'll all end up losing. i think this constant race against the clock is what makes the picture wilde paints so appealing to me. to forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace... how awesome does that sound??

on a less morbid note, today's earth day. so you should do something earthy. recycle or plant a tree or something.

mason had goats on campus today i heard. dunno what goats have to do with earth day. a friend swears they were only brought because mason is too cheap to mow the grass now and goats fit into the budget.

*Where Were You - The Fray

the coldest story ever told

i heard this on the radio on the way to school this morning. i like it more than the original.



*Heartless - The Fray

generate the music that makes you feel better

today was a blah day. gloomy. rainy. nothing really exciting happening. anyway, this is my get-happy song. it's so upbeat.




*Generator - The Holloways

i want a ticket to anywhere

places/things i want to see/do when i travel the world:

*the moors in ireland
*the castles in ireland
*take a hot air balloon over the swedish alps
*munich, germany
*venice, italy
*see the australian bush
*the great barrier reef in australia
*visit a rainforest... any one
*the colosseum in rome
*the south island, new zealand
*the taj mahal
*machu picchu, peru
*the great wall of china
*oxford university
*king's cross station
*south china sea

i'm sure theres more that i cant remember, but yeah that's a start.

*Fast Car - Kristian Leontiou

watch me lose the life that i got but never used

"He lay down fully dressed on his bed, not meaning to fall asleep yet. He just needed to think. About what, he wasn't sure.

So instead he thought about nothing. About things in the room. About the athletic trophies in a box in the closet. How much of his life was that? The shelves of books - so much time reading. Neither of them amounted to anything. He ran. He lost or he won. No one remembered a week later. And the books he read - what did that amount to? University people were always so proud of being readers instead of television watchers, but what was the difference, really? It was a one-way transmission. I read, but it made no difference to the writer. He never knew. And when I'm dead, what will it matter the books I read? My memory is where the book ends up, just like the TV show, and when I'm dead, that memory is gone from the world.

...

After I'm dead, my parents will miss me, sure, but then someday they'll die, and then who'll remember me? Nobody. And that's fine. Because it doesn't matter."

Enchantment, Orson Scott Card (pg 324-5)

you know those days when the fact that your life is getting shorter and shorter with every breath you take just weighs down on you? you know you're wasting your life, but can't seem to do anything about it? yeah, today is one of those days.

that quote from enchantment sums up my feelings of the moment pretty well.

because, really, what am i doing with my life? i've been around for a little over 21 years, and there is absolutely nothing to show for it. i go to college. i'll graduate or i wont. i'll get a job or i wont. i'll get married or i wont. is there any difference?

i think that might be one of the reasons behind my perpetual apathy. because there's really no point in caring about anything when, eventually, no one will remember me anyways.

i always wanted to be an author. that might gain me a few extra years of remembrance. you know, if i had a popular book or whatever. but i don't do anything unless i'm sure i can do it. so of course i'll never try and get anything published. that is if i ever got over my psychotic overreaction to people reading what i write. i'm definitely not going to get my name remembered from any inventions. i can't see myself making any scientific discoveries. ever. i can't make anything arty to save my life.

and in the end, the world is gonna be gone anyways, so maybe i'm going about this the wrong way. maybe i should screw the world and focus on religion. thing is, i suck at that too. there's no reason for my suckiness. i really do believe in everything. i have the time, ability, and resources to be a really good muslim. i'm just not.

i cant make myself care about anything until i start doing something worthwhile, and i can't do anything worthwhile until i start caring. ugly cycle. reminds me of that planet in the little prince where that dude drank because he forgot and forgot because he drank.

And I just want to get mugged at knifepoint

to get cut enough to wake me up

cause I know that I don't want to die

sitting around watching my life go by

and what we take from this is what we'll get

and we haven't quite figured it out just yet

because all of us are all too stuck

strapped to a chair watching our lives blow up.

This Week the Trend - Relient K

these lyrics sum my mood up too. i know you're not supposed to wish anything bad on yourself, but you know those people that have near-death experiences and come out knowing "what's important in life"? yeah, i need that.

*Out Through the Curtain - The Hush Sound

hate is a strong word, but i really really really don't like you

things/people i can't stand:

PpL wHo TyPE LyKe ThiS
people who let their dogs run around without leashes.
people who don't understand sarcasm.
people who believe that just because there's a brand name on it, it's nice.
bad drivers. or any drivers really lol. i love driving alone on a road when i'm the only car.
people who would rather watch the movie than read the book, unfortunately most of the younger population.
making small talk with random strangers. if you have an interesting conversation up your sleeve, then by all means come talk to me. but if we're standing outside an elevator soaking wet, don't tell me 'it's really raining out there.' i'm pretty sure i already know.
hair thats not on my head... like that's fallen out and is on my hand/floor/shower/brush.
people that mistreat/lose my books. just because you are an illiterate moron, it doesnt mean i am, and when you borrow my book to pretend you read, i expect it back in the same shape i gave it to you in.
overly happy people.
self-pitying people.
people who think they know what i'm thinking better than me, and when i tell them they're wrong, they argue with me.
parasite people.
people who ask stupid, irrelevent questions in class.
french and how it sticks so many vowels next to each other. i mean they have entire words made up of just vowels. what the hell.
feminists.
asking for help. i dont do it. not from friends, not from family, not from random strangers on the street.
people telling me what to do. i have a big problem with authority.
fobs talking english. if you can't, then just dont.
people who think they're so much better than the world and look down with disdain on every single person. i dont care if you dont like me, but others do. others who are, despite your belief, a lot better than you.
people hitting on me. i've been told i was weird, but getting hit on by sleazy guys does not flatter me.
decisions... i have no idea what i want in life and just can't make myself care. from my future to what to order for lunch, decisions are the bane of my existence.
incompetence... in myself and others.
cleaning.
any injustice towards kids. while i hate most people, i have a huge soft spot for children.
talking about myself. im a very private person, most people dont really know me. i cant even write about myself because someone someday might read it. i mean, anne frank's freakin diary was published. this is a big problem with my writing.
people that use umbrellas when it is just barely drizzling.
counting calories.
bad grammar.

*Hate - Plain White T's

if i'm ugly then so are you

since i have nothing better to do, here's the ugly yeti episode i mentioned in the last post:



*Ugly - Sugababes

and she laughed in my face

in my complete and utter boredom and inability to sleep, i went and caught myself up with all the new shows on take180. it's a pretty cool website if you've never heard of it. they have three shows going at a time which are updated with a new episode every week. each episode is 3 minutes or 180 seconds long. hence the name. since theyre obviously really short, it's a lot easier to follow these shows than real tv which i seem to have had a falling out with (from watching 5 shows a night i've limited the shows i follow to LOST and skins, aside from reruns that are always playing in the background of like family guy). anyways, i'm still not sure of the new shows, mainly because i have a strong aversion to change and i liked the old ones, but they're pretty funny. spoofs seem to be the theme this season with take180. theres one show that is literally just spoofing other hit tv shows and movies, they did 'two and a half watchmen' and 'ugly yeti' episodes so far. then there's this show called i <3 size="2">*Dancefloor - The Holloways

i'm so tired but i can't sleep

since when did birds start singing at 4 in the morning?? i couldve sworn they used to wait for daybreak. maybe it's just today. it seems like the cosmic powers of the universe are all working against me to keep me up tonight, between sick brothers and cold brothers and birds and car alarms and neighbors... i just want to sleep.

*I Will Remember You - Sarah McLaughlin

a new fantastic point of view

for the first time in over a decade, disney is coming out with a new princess. and for the first time ever, she's a black princess. yup, Tiana from New Orleans is the princess starring in the new disney princess flick the princess and the frog. she's also the first modern disney princess.

the reason for this revolutionary decision?? michelle obama, of course.

despite the fact that i'll probly be tarred and feathered for saying this, to be perfectly honest i am very sick of the whole obama family. the parents, the kids, the dog. tv, radio, magazines, posters, clothing... you cant turn around without coming face to face with one of them.

but i digress. disney has a black princess. very cool, but i dont really see the big deal. making it a big deal kinda has the opposite effect with me than it's supposed to. why should it be a big deal?? why should it get articles in the paper?? it's the same thing that annoyed me about the presidential campaign. why does the race have to be such a big issue?? it reminds me of this scene in some italian movie we watched in a class last semester when they were all excited because a little black poodle could walk on its legs. "it's almost human" they exclaimed. it was a very unsubtle stab at racism. but that's what this extra attention to race reminds me of.

*A Whole New World - Aladdin

time, where did you go?

another year has sped by, and it's once again the 18th of april. this may come as a shock to some of you, but me being born 21 years ago was not the only important thing to happen on april 18 (which by the way is the 108th day of the year, 109th if it's a leap year).

here are some cool things in history that happened on my birthday:

1025 – Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland.
1518 – Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland.
1775 – American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements.
1783 – Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began.
1880 – An F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100.
1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
1902 – Quetzaltenango, second largest city of Guatemala, destroyed by Earthquake.
1906 – The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroys much of San Francisco, California.
1909 – Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.
1912 – The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
1924 – Simon & Schuster publishes the first Crossword puzzle book.
1942 – World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya bombed.
1954 – Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
1958 – A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country's first President.
1983 – A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.
1988 - Sarah Kabli was born.
1996 – In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.

so yeah, a lot of natural disasters and deaths and stuff, but the first crossword puzzle! awesome.

Some famous people born on my birthday: America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Conan O'Brien, Eric McCormack (Will from Will & Grace), Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch).

*Time - Chantal Kreviazuk

you give until there's nothing to give

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink form voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

*Fall For Anything - The Script

got caught up in your talent show

i first heard of susan boyle in a friend's blog, she then spread to the facebook statuses of at least a dozen people i know, conversations with the jazz drummer bus driver, and the most viewed on youtube. so i wasnt exactly surprised to see the first article on digg be about her. read the article, it's a good one. it basically reiterates what was written in my friend's blog, that the human race generally doesnt believe ugly people can have any talent, but with one qualification. it's only "ugly" women that can't. men can look as hideously unattractive as they want, and their talent for anything wont be called into question. and by "ugly women" we obviously mean the ones that dont fall into the hollywood mold.

my favorite part of the article was: "Susan will probably win Britain's Got Talent. She will be the little munter that could sing, served up for the British public every Saturday night. Look! It's "ugly"! It sings! And I know that we think that this will make us better people. But Susan Boyle will be the freakish exception that makes the rule. By raising this Susan up, we will forgive ourselves for grinding every other Susan into the dust. It will be a very partial and poisoned redemption. Because Britain's Got Malice. Sing, Susan, sing - to an ugly crowd that doesn't deserve you."

it's completely true. from now on, if someone is called shallow or judgemental, they'll just say, "but i liked susan," and that will make everything ok. you supported one "ugly" person, so it doesnt matter what you do to the rest of them, you are already a saint.

*Wisemen - James Blunt

growing up and growing old

there are less than 24 hours left before i turn 21. i dont know if this is mixing in with anxieties about life after graduation or if i would have felt the significance of this year anyways, but it just seems so old. it feels like "becoming a real adult" so much more than 18 did. probably because, in my house, 18 certainly did not mean me 'becoming an adult.' i doubt 21 will either, but whatever. it's still a step forwards into the future. which i'm sure should be considered a good thing, but at the moment it just freaks me out.

thing is, i am so not 21. like mentally. i don't feel like i've grown up all that much since i turned 15. sure i've grown older, but not up. there's a monumental difference. so, faster than i would have liked, i'm turning 21 and graduating college (almost). my whole life, there's always been something for me to work for, something i didnt really choose. graduate highschool. graduate college. now i have to choose my own next milestone. and anyone who knows me knows how great i am with decisions, so this might just turn into a fiasco.

i'm sure that sunday morning i'll wake up and all my feelings of oldness will disappear... kinda. but this whole future stuff is really make me anxious.

*We Intertwined - The Hush Sound

he's having a smoke, and she's taking a drag

my favorite no smoking ad ever. i found it when i got into all the take180 web shows a while back. its awesome.



*Mr. Brightside - The Killers

waste the day away

it took me 3 hours to make the cover page for my forensics report. it only says confidential and my name. but i had to find the perfect font. in the past 52 minutes, i have added the words 'table of contents' to the first page. the thing is, i am incapable of doing a project when there is still a week until it's due. i know i wont have time to do it later because i have four other projects due at the same time, but that doesnt help. i have to procrastinate.

this article has a list of questions you should answer to put off working or studying or whatever youre procrastinating. here are my answers:

Name the two candidates who received the most votes running against Vladimir Putin in the March 2000 Russian presidential election.
Gennady Zyuganov, who got 21,928,468 votes, and Grigory Yavlinsky, who got 4,351,450 votes. Putin got 39,740,467 votes in case you were wondering.

Where do they keep the original fossil of archaeopteryx?
at the Jura Museum in Germany. It's the oldest known fossil bird, presumably the link between birds and dinosaurs, just in case you were wondering.

Disney’s annual profit is equal to the total gross national product of how many island nations?
Their revenue in 2008 was $37,843... you can go compare.

What would your first dog have looked like with green fur? Purple?
i never owned a dog, but i'm sure it would have looked great with purple or green fur if i had had one.

If you ran for president, whom would you pick as a running mate?
umm someone who knew something about politics or government since im pretty much clueless. so mai or arwa.

Who were the eight baseball players who constituted the Black Sox of 1919?
William Thomas "Sleepy Bill" Burns, Billy Maharg, Pitcher Lefty Williams, Centerfielder Happy Felsch, Shortstop Swede Risberg, Thirdbaseman Buck Weaver, Utilityman Fred McMullin, and one of the best and most popular stars ever, Leftfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. They were part of a whole big baseball scandal about throwing games.

How many times is the letter “o” printed in this newspaper?
i dunno about the paper, but on that webpage, there were 279 o's.

How many beat poets had their works published between 1950 and 1959?
There are 5 main ones: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Diane DiPrima. beat poets were one of the "rebel artists" of the 50s.

Who owns the photo rights to the pictures on your textbook covers?
i'm too lazy to look at all my books, but my telecommunications text book cover picture belongs to Tamara Dean.

How many cameras were used to shoot the film “The Last Starfighter”?
i'm not sure, but there were 300 scenes containing computer graphics in the film, each frame of the animation contained an average of 250,000 polygons, and had a resolution of 3000 × 5000 36-bit pixels.

How many doors are there in the MultiCultural Center?
there are 500 million multicultural centers that come up on google. i'm gonna take a guess and say a lot though.

When George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, was it chunky-style or smooth?
smooth. he invented over 300 uses for a peanut, a fact i learned from abdullah's research project.

When was the first edition of your last math book published? How many pages did it have?
1999. It had 398 pages.


it was like an online scavenger hunt to find all of these. who knew you could learn so much from procrastinating??

*Wake Up Call - Relient K

we used to be friends, but i havent thought of you lately at all

ever wonder what happened to those people that you used to know?? the friends that you never really bothered to keep in touch with. the classmates that you went to school with for years and never really bothered to find anything about. the distant relatives that you spent every day of a summer with and then never saw again. i'm not talking about the old friends that you touch base with every couple of months because you both have gotten so busy. or even the ones that you wish you stayed in touch with, but always forget to email. but the people that you never think about.

i graduated highschool with 15 other girls. 15. not a huge number, not too many to stay in contact with. and yet, there are only a few that i actually stay in touch with, and even fewer that i see/talk to regularly. i hate to admit it, but there are a lot, probably the majority of the class, that i rarely even think about. sure, when i get nostalgic i remember them, "the good old times" and whatnot. but even then, i only think of my memories of them - not really them. i dont wonder about where they are now. i dont think about calling to see whats been going on in their lives. i have fond memories of most of them, but that's it. memories. they are part of my past, dont exist in my present. its sad. and thats only from my senior year. i think back to all the friends i had, all the people i used to know. jerrica, nina, and julia my best friends in first and second grade. mandy from third. i had a huge crush on a third grader when i was in second grade, and now i dont even remember his name. i think it was blair. katie and stephanie spent nights at my house in fourth grade. we were in girl scouts together. now, i dont even know if they're alive. my elementary isa days, my manarat friends... most of these people never just flit through my mind. i have to dredge them up from my slowly fading memories of the past.

it's sad how these people used to mean something to me. they used to be a big part of my life. and now, they just barely exist in my world.

*We Used to be Friends - The Dandy Warhols

the rain is coming down like oh cats and dogs

so today was raining. huge, cold drops that hurt when they hit you. of course, mason flooded and i spent the day walking through ankle-deep puddles. but the place you notice the rain the most (unless you're from a certain family that is afraid of melting when rain water hits them) is on the road. have you ever noticed how people seem to forget how to drive the second it starts to rain?? it doesnt take much, a simple drizzle will send drivers into a panic. cars won't go faster than 25 mph on a 40 mph street. brake lights seem to never turn off. people swerve into lanes, forget about turn signals, stop signs, and basically everything else that they ever knew about driving. i dont get it. it's a little water people. not that big of a deal. when you cant see in front of you because the rain is coming down so hard, panic. until then, turn on your windshield wipers, ignore the drizzle, and drive like you normally do.

*Let's Get Married - Archie Star

hey shut up, hey shut up

i'm sitting in the cafeteria, eating my french fries and watching the news. it's relatively quiet, with most people either watching the tv or studying and whatnot. and then, out of nowhere, the loud and obnoxious voice of billy mays is shouted across the room. and he is loud. i mean, seriously dude, for the love of god, shut up. or at least turn yourself down. did your parents never teach you the concept of an 'inside voice'? and can someone please tell me why every single product is suddenly being advertised by this obnoxious man??

no i do not want to buy your mighty putty.

i don't want kaboom.

i don't want oxiclean.

all i want is for you to shut your face and get off of my tv screen.

for the sake of my sanity, please just go away.

*Andy You're a Star - The Killers

i'm floating far away

since i have a bunch of projects that are due any day now, of course it makes sense that i would leave joe at home and bring a book instead on a day that i am on campus with no class practically all day. so i finished the girl who could fly. good book, worth a read. it was written by victoria forester which, if you remember, is also the exact name of the girl tristran goes to get the star for in stardust. i thought that was cool.

anyways, in the book, piper (the main character) can fly. big surprise. she starts out just being able to float aimlessly and then teaches herself to fly. there's a big difference between floating and flying, as the book will explain.

do you know how cool that would be?? to be able to just say "I'm as light as a cloud, as free as a bird. I'm part of the sky and I can fly" and then just float up in the air... to soar up through the clouds and visit the stars. it would be awesome. so much more convenient than airplanes, except i suppose you couldnt carry much with you.

unfortunately, tomorrow i actually have to start some work. at least open the file for my forensics project and download the programs. i cant wait for the summer.

*Overweight - Blue October

do you realize?

the titles of all my blog posts as you've probably realized (unless you're incredibly dense) are all lyrics from songs in my itunes. the songs they come from are at the bottom of the post. here's the not so interesting story of why i started doing this.

while writing my first post, i was listening to music - something i do quite often. the lyrics kinda matched what i was writing so i used them. same thing with the second. then i decided to see how long i could keep this up, using only songs from my itunes library to title my posts. i dont really know why but im gonna lie and say it was a psychological experiment to see the effect the music i listen to has on my thoughts, or the other way around. if i can find songs to match everything i'm posting, then there is some connection, right?? ok probably not... but music does play a big role in a lot of our lives, and lyrics can be amazing.

sometimes when im on the bus listening to my ipod i'll hear a lyric and think 'i should write a post on that' and write the whole thing out in my head. most of the time, though, i forget about it by the time the next song starts and it never actually gets written. i'll admit, though, it can be pretty hard to find a song that will match, and after skimming through the titles on my music i basically just choose anything that'll even kinda work.

*Do You Realize - Flaming Lips

i will be chasing the starlight

amazon is one of my favoritest websites ever. i swear i can spend hours browsing through the things, looking at lists people have made, reading recommendations. i'm not a big shopper in real life, but browsing through amazon online is something completely different. i think my favorite thing about amazon is how they recommend things for me. i love it. and their recommendations are just so smart, especially since i can mark what i want to be used in recommendations, what i didnt like, what i bought as a gift, etc.

i just finished stardust by neil gaiman today, one of amazon's recommendations. a friend had recommended it a few years back, but i had completely forgotten about it. anyways, i thought it was pretty good. in case you havent heard of it (it was made into a movie too which i have yet to see), it's about this dude Tristran Thorn who lives in the town of Wall which just so happens to lie on the boundary between our world and Faerie (yeah a magical world in case you didnt guess). so anyways, tristran is in love with victoria forester. one night, they see a star fall and vicky promises tristran anything he wants if he brings her that fallen star. so tristran goes off in search of the star, one of three parties looking for it. so yeah a couple hundred pages of adventure happens and they all live happily ever after.

it was a pretty short book (only 248 pages) and went between the three parties searching for the star although it focused mainly on tristran, so it kind of skimmed the surface of a lot of the story - there were a few 'ten weeks later...' in there. there were also some really cute parts, too.

one of my favorites was **spoiler alert** <digression> personally, i don't mind spoilers. to me, a good book will be compelling if you know the ending or not. < / digression> haha IT humor, i'm such a dork. so the quote... "He found his hands twining, almost of their own volition, into the star's wet hair. He wondered how it could have taken him so long to realize how much he cared for her, and he told her so, and she called him an idiot, and he declared that it was the finest thing that ever a man had been called" (pg 236). **end spoiler alert**

anyways, the other book i got was the girl who could fly. i just realized that it was recommended because stephenie meyer liked it and i had bought the twilight saga. it's funny how much influence she has over her fan base. anyways, thats the end of my book rant of the day.

*Starlight - Muse

things aren't what they seem... makes no sense at all

so i'm sitting here in fenwick (the mason library) something i actually do quite a lot, mainly because i avoid the jc like the plague. anyways, as much as i like fenwick (yeah im a dork i really like library atmospheres) i have to admit that college libraries annoy me. they're usually pretty huge compared to most libraries. stories of row upon row of books. heaven right?? not really, because college libraries seem adamant about shelving only books that do not really deserve reading. i recently found one little area on the fourth floor that housed fitzgerald, wilde, and the like. i was ecstatic. but other than that, we have books on economic theories, books on computer manufacturing, books on psychological theories... all 100% educational, dry, and probably never opened. i realize it is a college library and therefore required to be stocked with books that we may need in our classes (like the binded boredom i just mentioned), but does that really mean that you can't put anything on the shelf that people may actually want to read for fun?? i also realize that most people have too much work to have time for reading. i also realize that reading really isnt as popular as it once was. but this is a library. and there must be someone else on campus who wouldnt mind checking out a normal book for fun every once and a while.

you know what else annoys me?? when there are literally only two other people besides myself on the computers (which means that there are over 20 free computers) and people choose to use the computer right next to mine. that means you mr. i-apparently- have-a-shower-phobia. gosh. use a different computer.

*Burger Queen - Placebo

i won't put my hands up and surrender

so umm heres another drabble i wrote awhile ago... i just remembered it.

I don't find there to be much room in my life for sympathy. Weakness tends to annoy me. I loathe self-pity. Feeling sorry for yourself is unforgivable.
That is not to say I turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the struggles of others. I am not heartless. Everyone is fighting their own personal battle every single day. The ones who deserve sympathy, but don't ask for it. The ones who keep fighting long after everyone would understand if they just gave up. The ones who refuse to just lay down and admit defeat. It's those I admire.


i noticed that i love writing sentence fragments. i dont intentionally write them, but lately, my writing has been littered with them. maybe because we were always told not to write them in school. maybe because most of the books i've been reading lately employ the fragmented writing style. maybe because i got used to drabbles, and when you're limited to 100 words, every word has to mean something. whatever the reason, sentence fragments are awesome.

*White Flag - Dido

i never thought you were a fool, but darling look at you

we've all come across some pretty ridiculous court cases... the lady who sued because her coffee was too hot, the people who sued mcdonalds for making them fat... you know the ones. but these are by far the most ridiculous ones i've heard of yet. granted, some of these were a long time ago, but i mean, people had brains then too, right??

in italy, some farmers noticed that their crops were destroyed by a family of moles. the logical thing to do would be to get some pest repellent stuff, put up some traps, or otherwise try to dispose of them, right?? of course not! why get rid of the moles when you can sue them?! yup, they took the moles to court so that they "may be able to show cause for their conduct by pleading their exigencies and distress." the moles even got a lawyer so that "they would have nothing to complain about." the prosecutor brought forward farmers to witness that the moles' activities made it difficult for them to pay their rent. the defendent went with the "circle of life" defense. the judge ruled that the moles be banished immediately with an extra 14 days "granted to all those which are with young, and to such as are yet in their infancy." after 14 days, they were to be excommunicated.

in brazil, a group of friars took termites to court for eating through the walls of a sacred monastery. the termite's lawyer went with the defense that the friars were lesser beings than the termites because it was the termites' land first. the termites were going to win until the monks decided to compromise, and they, like the moles, were excommunicated. the sentence was read aloud to the termite hill.

in switzerland, a rooster was taken to court "for the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg." the rooster pled not guilty. without anything else to reference, the judge referenced the bible. it was decided that the rooster was a tool of the devil and he was burned at the stake.

a bishop in switzerland also sued leeches for infesting a pond. apparently there were too many of them. they were brought to court in a pile and told they had three days to evacuate. when the leeches did not comply with the court order, it was assumed they were possessed. the church performed an exorcism, which killed all the leeches, thereby making the court ruling kind of moot.

*Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of - U2

strange how hard it rains now

so this song was on a friend's blog and i have decided that i love it (thanks razan). it's one of those sad songs that i'd listen to on repeat while riding on the bus watching the world zoom by but not really paying it any attention because im too lost in my thoughts. but yeah... i like it.


*Rain - Patty Griffin

all i want is you, will you be my bride?

tv shows get away with the most hilariously outrageous things... like foreign wedding traditions. we've all seen the show where the foreigner gets the girl to walk around the kitchen table with him, or to kiss a goat and say something in swedish with her, or do the hokeypokey backwards or whatnot. then they exclaim, 'yay we're married!"

while i doubt any of those are based on fact, there are a bunch of strange wedding traditions, some of which people still do today. a kid in one of my classes a few semesters back did a presentation on them. pretty interesting stuff. For example:

scottish soon-to-be brides are taken by surprised and covered with "foul substances" like raw eggs, random sauces, and feathers and then paraded around the town.

a german tradition is for the family to break a lot of dishes and have the bride and groom clean the mess up together. another german tradition is to hide the bride and have the groom try to find her to see if they really are meant to be. kind of like a fortune telling game of hide and seek. married german couples also have to saw a log in half together.

in some indian traditions, the groom doesnt wear his shoes to the altar, but rather leaves them at the door. throughout the ceremony, the bride's family tries to steal the shoes while the groom's tries to protect them.

a tradition brought from africa with the slave traders is "jumping the broom." they literally jump over a broom lying on the floor into the new stage of their life.

ancient rome is where we got the saying "tie the not." brides' girdles were fastened with lots and lots of knots which the groom had to untie that night.

italians started the tradition of diamond engagement rings because they were thought to be made by the "flames of love."

ancient egyptians started the tradition of wearing the wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand. it was believed that veins in this finger came directly from the heart. so the love from the heart would go down into this finger and be trapped in the neverending ring and never escape, ensuring a loving marriage forever.

the honeymoon goes back to the times when a groom would kidnap his bride and keep her hidden for one moon cycle (a month) in which they would often drink lots of honeyed mead.

in the past, jealous men would try to steal the bride from the groom. he would hold the bride off to the side with his left hand so he could use his right to sword fight. the tradition of the bride standing to the left is still held today.

there are even poems about the day and month you get married on and what color dress the bride should wear:

Marry in white, everything right
Marry in blue, lover be true
Marry in pink, spirits will sink
Marry in gray, live far away
Marry in green, ashamed to be seen
Marry in yellow, ashamed of your fellow
Marry in black, wish you were back
Marry in red, wish you were dead
Marry in tan, he’ll be a good man
Marry in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl

Married when the year is new, he'll be loving, kind & true,

When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate.
If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you'll know.

Marry in April when you can, Joy for Maiden & for Man.

Marry in the month of May, and you'll surely rue the day.

Marry when June roses grow, over land and sea you'll go.

Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bred.

Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see

Marry in September's shrine, your living will be rich and fine.

If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry.

If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember.

When December snows fall fast, marry and true love will last.

Monday for health,
Tuesday for Wealth,
Wednesday the best day of all;
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no luck at all.

A January bride will be a prudent housekeeper, and very good tempered.

A February bride will be an affectionate wife, And a tender mother.

A March bride will be a frivolous catterbox, Somewhat given to quarreling.

An April bride will be inconsistent, or forceful, But well-meaning.

A May bride will be handsome, agreeable, And practical.

A June bride will be impetuous, And generous.

A July bride will be handsome, But a trifle quick-tempered.

An August bride will be agreeable, And practical as well.

A September bride will be discreet, affable, And much liked.

An October bride will be pretty, coquettish, Loving but jealous.

A November bride will be liberal and kind, But sometimes cold.

A December bride will be fond of novelty, Entertaining but extravagant.

*All I Want Is You - Barry Louis Polisar

it's so strange, i can't believe it

there's this thing called change blindness that we all suffer from that i find absolutely fascinating. basically what it is is that your brain will not notice even the most obvious changes if it does not see the change take place. now, of course this doesnt mean we dont notice anything just because we dont see all the changes. but our brains cannot process everything without exploding into a million pieces, so it just doesnt pay attention to some changes and then lies to you and says that it was always like that. yes, your brain lies to you. it actually does it a lot... get used to it.

don't believe me? harvard, along with a bunch of other people, did an experiment about change blindness:



here's a cooler video of essentially the same thing, but i couldn't embed it. by the end of the video the people seem not to notice some really obvious changes. this is because their brains just dont find them relevent and dont process them. you can see, though, that the third party observer notices the change. why? because their brain is doing nothing more important at the moment than watching the conversation take place.

weird stuff.

*Falling for the First Time - Barenaked Ladies

dream every night that one would come true but only bad ones ever do

so i've been reading my brothers narnia every night before they go to bed as a way to get them into books. right now, we're on the one about the Dawn Treader. if you dont know which one that is because you dont read narnia, well then you suck at life, but you'll still be able to follow along this post. i read a chapter or two a night and tonight's chapter was the dark island or something like that. let's take a moment to commemorate the literary genius of Lewis.

in this chapter, the narnians and pevensies and eustace are at sea and come upon what seems at first to be an island. coming closer, they realize it is more like a mist. upon reaching it they realize that it is darkness. absolute darkness. they sail into it and find a stranger who is completely petrified of the island. he tells them that it is the island where dreams come true.

you, like the people on the dawn treader, may think 'wow i'd love to go there.' but then the stranger qualifies his statement, saying it's not the island where daydreams come true, but dreams. it only takes everyone half a second before they are trying to get away from the island as fast as they can.

i love this part. to most people, lands where dreams come true are paradise. 'like a dream come true' is only used to describe something amazing. but the narnians fled. because, think about it, out of the dreams you can remember how many of them are about stuff that you want to come true?? yeah i've had good dreams, but most of mine are weird, pointless, or terrifying. if i got to that island would i rejoice??

would you??

probably not. a good dream may come true, but so would the bad ones. and when you come face to face with the scariest things your mind can muster, are you really going to have time to enjoy the good dreams that came true?? pretty soon, all your dreams would be bad ones. it only took half a minute for this to happen to the narnians. fear is a powerful thing.

the point is that i think this is the only book ive read in which an island where dreams come true is a cause for people who met dragons, slave traders, sea serpents, and invisible enemies without batting an eye to flee. and i applaud him for that.

*Out Through the Curtain - The Hush Sound

the audience just claps and cheers

some random cool circus trick. imagine being able to ride a unicycle... on a high wire! when i join the circus i can let him teach me.



*Lions Roar - The hush Sound

the lions roar and young men soar

today my sister and i took my mom and brothers to the circus. it was all of our first time, surprising since we're pretty old. anyways, it was a lot of fun. i wasnt a big fan of the animal acts - who knew i had an animal rights activist hidden away inside me. but i thought they were more cruel to the animals than fun to look at. seeing a line of elephants struggle to bow down and roll over made me wince in sympathy rather than cheer. elephants and horses and tigers shouldnt be doing those kind of things - cool as they might be.

i also decided to add another thing to the list of things i really want to do but never will. join a circus. i dont even have to be one the performers, though having a talent like that would be pretty awesome. but just travelling around all the time with them would be cool. i'm a big fan of the traveling. going places - anywhere at all - is awesome. driving in a car, flying in a plane, sailing in a boat, i don't care how, as long as i'm going. it doesnt even matter where, cuz its not the destination its the journey itself that im obsessed with.

and circus people have to be the most interesting people ever. i mean, they come from everywhere, travel everywhere, and can do amazing things. that in itself is enough reason to join a circus. imagine talking to a man who can juggle on a unicycle, having lunch with a tightrope walker, getting coffee with a wild animal trainer. who wouldnt want to do that??

hmm maybe this is the answer to all my problems. instead of worrying about what i want to do with my future, i'll graduate and join the circus. isnt that like the epitome of running away from responsibility?? works for me...

*Lions Roar - The Hush Sound

soften a bit until we all just get along

today was the last day of i-week (international week for those who don't attend mason), well at least the last day that i'll attend. theres still tomorrow and saturday night. but anyways, while this week had some fun moments, it was nothing compared to other i-weeks. and you know why?? because countries just don't know how to play nice. last year, east turkestan was represented for the first time. the chinese didnt like this and boycotted the week. no one knew this until after the fact when the chinese embassy started to attack mason.

so this year comes along and mason decides that any country not recognized by the UN will not get to be represented. so of course countries like palestine, kurdestan, east turkestan, etc all started petitioning. after a lot of commotioning, they got the university to change its rules. instead of having a parade of nations, they would have a majorly less cool parade of cultures. instead of hanging all the flags in the jc, they'd hang a randomly selected group and hang the rest at mason hall. stuff like that.

unfortunately, a lot of the countries got screwed over. while the i-week leaders assured everyone nothing was based on politics, it was pretty clear this was not the case. some countries were blatantly favored over others. in the randomly selected flags, not one unrecognized state was represented. and india was represented twice. the ones that were supposedly hung in mason hall... yeah hey were never put up. in the dance competition, most people thought pakistan should win first. they were awesome. but shockingly, the judges (two of which were indian) didnt think they deserved to place at all. the kurdestan student organization was harassed by a turkish student who didnt think they had a right to be proud of their culture because the UN didnt recognize their country. things like this happened throughout the events of the week.

our generation prides itself on how open minded and progressive we are. and yet, on an extremely diverse college campus, we couldn't even let each culture express itself the way it wanted to. we were broadcasting cultures this year, not countries, and even that was too much. i dont even get why the country thing is a problem. is anyone attacking your country?? no. so let them have their own country if they want to. it's not hurting you.

*Over My Head - The Fray

i'm getting so tired and so old

*yawn* that's all i feel like doing this morning, besides going back to bed that is. it's amazing how tired i am. i think its a sign of the imminence of my aging. along with my dying metabolism. it's sad. but i used to sleep for 4 hours a night. every night. for a year. sometimes less. i never once woke up really tired feeling like i just cant get up in the morning. last night i slept for five and a half hours. thats an hour and a half more than four in case you cant count. and i feel like a zombie. i had been talking to a friend about this the other day. he was complaining that he needs at least 10 hours of sleep this year to feel rested. more than he ever needed. and you know why?? because we're getting old. we all are. i am turning 21 in 9 days. last night me and another friend were saying how our 20s used to seem so old. now that they're here, it feels young. but old at the same time, you know?? eh i'm not making any sense. i blame it on the sleep.

*Open Your Eyes - Snow Patrol

the future freaks me out

every time i open my email i'm flooded with emails about my graduation. buy your cap and gown. apply for grad school. get a job. i still have a semester to go, a notice someone didn't get when they put me on the graduate listserve. but thats not the point. the point is that every single time i see one of those emails, i panic. like for real panic. i'm going to graduate from college in eight months. that's less than a year. and half of that time is spent vacationing. and i have no idea what i want to do with the rest of my life. none at all. and it seems like everyone else i know is on a path to somewhere while im treading water.

i'm 99% sure that i'll end up in grad school, but only as a way to procrastinate entering the real world. i have no idea what i would study. yeah i'm interested in computer forensics and have thought about that, but can i see myself out there in work force doing that? not really. i can't see myself doing anything. i was not made for the real world.

even the people i speak to who are having trouble with the whole school/life thing right now know what they want to do. they have some vision of the future that they're trying to get to. they have a goal. i am goalless. i have always been goalless. that's probly why i dont get worked up over school. it's never really been a goal of mine to graduate with good grades and a good degree. i'm really only going to school for my parents and the fact that there's nothing better to do.

i like school. i'm good at it. i don't stress, don't get overwhelmed. it's all routine. yes i complain about it most of the time, but honestly, i don't really think i want it to end (hence the grad school). i have the mentality of an 8 year old, and where do 8 year olds belong? in school. not out in the workforce doing god knows what.

i have been very fortunate in life so far. i have never had to get a job, never really had to work at anything. i have been very sheltered. but now, in less than a year i'm supposed to leave the safe harbor of academia and enter the real world. and i am in no way prepared.

so when i get emails inviting me to a graduate's bruncheon, i do not think 'oh yay a way to celebrate my achievements.' i think 'oh crap now what am i supposed to do?'. as much as i complain about the present, i dont really think i want the future.

*The Future Freaks Me Out - Motion City Soundtrack

it's so beautiful, our lunacy

a little over three years ago i stumbled on this song and decided that if i did drugs, this would so be the song i got high too. i just found the music video today, and my opinion of the song hasnt changed.



*Disconnect the Dots - Of Montreal

paranoia is haunting you

being an IT major has made me paranoid. seriously. learning how easy it is to hack into a system, spoof an account, steal an identity, stalk... it's made me very paranoid about what i do on computers. for example, my credit card was declined today at chik-fil-a. why?? i have no idea. i used it last night and it worked fine. i'm sure there's money in the account. it isn't expired, hasn't been exposed to magnets. it just wouldnt work. i wanted to check my account, but i didnt have joe with me and was too paranoid to use the library's. yes, i know the library computers are pretty safe since no one can download anything onto them and there was no one around to look over my shoulder to steal my account information. but i kept hearing my professors' voices in my head, and i couldnt do it.

*The Dutch Courage - The Spill Canvas

will you forgive us and give us one more try?

cassandra clare's mortal instruments series. i want to read them, but dont really want to buy them. and of course the public library chooses now to fail me. my friend told me about this series about a year ago. apparently cassandra was writing a harry potter fanfic - a draco/ginny ship - that she had posted on fanfiction.net. it got really really popular and then people started noticing that most of it was plagiarized. like pages copied word for word from books/movies/whatever. and then she started writing her own book. i think that mightve brought more attention to the whole plagiarism thing. anyways, according to my friend who read the fanfiction as it was written and then read the mortal instruments trilogy, the trilogy was almost exactly like the fanfiction. of course the plagiarism thing was changed, the names changed, and i'm guessing the harry potter world taken out, but the plot line was the same. she took the fanfiction offline, but people were still suprised that after being caught with blatant plagiarism she was still being published.
main thing is, i want to read the books, despite the fact that i havent really tried very hard to get them for he past year.

*The End With You - Box Car Racer

music makes the people come together

i was going through my itunes today because i had homework to do and of course organizing music is more important than my grades. anyways, i was looking at my top 25 and was surprised that all the songs on it were actually my songs. my old ipod was used by other people more often than me. half the music i put on for others i never even listened to. and since these people had only two songs each that they liked on my ipod, and they listened to them repeatedly throughout the entire bus ride, my music was pushed further down the list. but with this ipod, no one but me ever listens to it. and i realized that my top 25 is very undiverse.

1. your guardian angel - the red jumpsuit apparatus
2. boomerang - steven strait
3. half lit - steven strait
4. never said anything - steven strait
5. smart in a stupid way - steven strait
6. sweet tangerine - the hush sound
7. house lights - steven strait
8. i've just seen a face - the beatles
9. fix you - coldplay
10. where we went wrong - the hush sound
11. the man who can't be moved - the script
12. breakeven - the script
13. we cry - the script
14. one thing leads to another - steven strait
15. stuck in a moment you can't get out of - u2
16. this is for keeps - the spill canvas
17. we intertwined - the hush sound
18. this is living - steven strait
19. love is gone - david guetta
20. before the worst - the script
21. anybody there - the script
22. pure example - steven strait
23. the end is where i begin - the script
24. i'm yours - the script
25. the dutch courage - the spill canvas

see?? its like the same 5 bands/singers repeated a million times.

*Music - Madonna

they don't learn but still they think they can teach

so after a day of doing absolutely nothing, i realize that i have homework due tonight. homework i havent started. homework i just found out about two minutes ago. now this wouldnt be such a big problem except that its for my security class. my professor for that class is useless. completely incompetent. she knows absolutely nothing about anything. and yet, she likes to think that she's decieving us into thinking that she's some kind of computer world god. she spends the whole 3 hour class talking about her children or telling us to memorize what acronyms stand for. someone really needs to let her know that out in the real world, memorizing what a bunch of letters stand for really won't help anyone. as long as you know what it does or is used for you're good to go. oh wait, we did. and she insists that her success is all because she knows that SHA-1 stands for Secure Hash Algorithm version 1. she'll read a point off of a slide someone else made and ask us if any of us know what that is or means. at first, we thought she was just fishing for participation. but no, she really was asking what the most basic things were. her favorite phrase: why dont you google that. if we were in one of the rooms without internet connection, i think she'd die. anyways, despite being a complete waste of space in the classroom, she likes to assign incredibly complicated homeworks that she doesnt even understand enough to explain. apparently, she likes to learn new things through our answers. so now i have to go suffer through a homework because mason has apparently become so desperate for professors that they'll hire anyone, despite their incompetence.

*Reinvent Myself - The Holloways

the tv's on, he's connected to the sound

i was talking with my sister and brother-in-law today and remembered this clip. a friend showed it to me a couple of years ago. anyways, he does a great preview man voice.

*Flavor of the Week - American Hi-Fi

there's nothing for the kids to do today

i say 'where's waldo' and it's like a wave of nostalgia. cue the wavy fade out into memory. we all remember searching for that little man in the red and white stripes at circuses, parks, and busy city streets. you would think that anyone dressed like that would just jump out at you. but for some odd reason everyone in those books wore stripes, most people wore funny hats, and everything in the background was varying shades of reds and whites. not to mention how crowded they all were. for something so integral to our childhood memories, it's hard to believe that there are people that havent wasted hours of their life searching for waldo or looking for seven paperclips hidden within the pages of an I Spy book.

but, believe it or not, there are. a whole bunch of them in fact. i spoke to a group of girls who didnt even know where's waldo books existed. "i thought it was just a saying from a movie or something," one said. children who have never been introduced to waldo?? granted he's hard to find, but... seriously??

but these same children all had email addresses at the age of 5. they all had cell phones way before i even thought of getting one. they all spend the hours they should be looking for waldo chatting and surfing the web. they play sports through video games, start lemonade stands online, and even pop virtual bubblewrap! for many kids these days, the days of fresh air and nature are just stories from the past of 'old people.' sure everything is still out there, but you can get it all inside your house too.

when i was young, i was never online. ever. true, it didnt really exist back then the same way it does now. but i spent time travelling back in time to egypt, playing doctor to trees, and starting very unsuccessful lemonade stands where our only customer who wasnt family was a lady who stole our lemons.

yes, technology is great. it has done lot to further mankind and whatnot. but at what cost?? is it even really worth it??

overdramatic?? probably. but children these days should experience what we got to experience. sports. games that don't use any type of screen. imagination. my childhood was amazing, and i cant help but feel that kids these days are missing out. they have their whole lives to immerse themselves into technology, but there is only so much time that you can jump off the couch and try to fly without looking completely insane.

cliche as it sounds, children are growing up way too fast. and where does that leave waldo?? hiding at a circus waiting to be found with no one even looking. poor waldo... :(

*Nothing for the Kids - The Holloways

can't you see that you're smothering me?

so i was talking to my sister and we were discussing the obnoxiousness that is people. well, one obnoxious aspect about them, namely the way people read too much into things. i write something and automatically it's written about me or about someone i know. i say something random and it's a subtle response to something someone else said six million years ago. everything has ten different shades of meaning, and usually none of them are right.
if i write that a girl jumped off a bridge, it does not mean that i have suicidal thoughts. it does not mean that i'm mad at someone and am hoping that she'll jump off a bridge. it does not mean that i feel like a bridge and people are jumping off of me while i'm stuck in one place. it's just an imaginary girl jumping off an imaginary bridge. that's it. i'm not saying that it can never mean anything, but unless you know for sure, don't read your own thoughts into my words. sure, you can read it and think, "wow that's exactly like my great aunt mary," but odds are that was not my intent. so don't tell me it was. last i checked, the world did not have access to my mind, which means that unless i choose to share with you every thought behind every word i write or thing i say, then you really have no idea what i mean by it. think whatever you want to about it, but know that they are your thoughts, not mine.


*Numb - Linkin Park

the double vision i was seeing is finally clear

today, as i was leaving class and walking towards the bus, my contact escaped! i swear it just jumped out of my eye out of nowhere and ran away. i looked for it... but it was gone. so then i had to drive home half blind. i was a menace to society. ok not really, i drove perfectly fine but still...

*Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5

where oh where have the smart people gone?

i was listening to the radio this morning - the kane show on 99.5 - when he plays this recording of a lady who called the police because she was locked in her car. yes, you read that right: in not out. there's a family guy episode where brian is listing examples of peter's stupidity and he mentions the time that peter locked the keys out of his car - you see a flashback of peter sitting in the car staring desolately at the keys which are sitting by the street. you laugh because its hilariously stupid. no one can be that dumb. apparently, they can. this lady called the police saying her car wouldnt start and she was locked inside it, nothing electrical on the car would work. what did the police call answering lady suggest? trying to unlock the door manually. genius! the lady locked in her car says doubtfully "well i'll try that" and voila she's able to escape her car! she goes on to say reassuringly, "i'm all right." really?? you called the police because you were locked IN a car. doesnt sound all right to be. sounds like there are too many stupid people walking around in this world. anyway, she called AAA and got home safely.

*Stupid Girls - Pink