I have a week and a half more school, and I think I can do it. There was a low point a week or two ago, where I had lost pretty much all hope of getting decent grades* and was about ready to give up and lock myself in the closet until I graduated. Then, I started to study. To actually study, not just put my book in front of me and go check twitter. I did a little each night, I made sure I understood the practice questions, and what happened?

I got the highest score on the Chemistry test, raised my Calculus grade four percent, and relieved far more stress than I thought possible. Studying really isn't hard, if you just do it. And it's really gratifying. Who knew?

I've also started to get up unreasonably early, because I focus better at four o'clock in the morning. I really like getting up before anyone else, when it's still dark, and dressing in front of the heater so my toes don't turn into an icicles. Mornings have such potential. One has the whole day ahead of them, full of endless possibilities and time. So much time.

It's quiet, too. Sometimes, a train sounds in the distance, I don't know from where, but you can hear it, and the sky is blacker than when you went to bed (granted, it never gets very dark thanks to lovely Los Angeles light pollution), and the house is cold and still and every sound is all-encompassing and wholesome. And it isn't that I don't like sleeping, it's just that I like waking up more. Early to bed, early to rise, you know?

I guess I'm just learning discipline. Growing up. All that jazz.
Ohgawd. I don't want to grow up, what am I saying?


*decent=A. A is for Average. B is for Below Average.

I went downstairs to get my things, and cup of coffee a little while ago, because it was only six thirty and I was sleepy, and coffee is obviously the solution to that problem. I made my coffee, stirred it twice, and made a cup. All ready to head upstairs to start balancing chemical equations, I pick up my back pack. What do I find, sitting undernath? Underneath my bag, there was an excess of what can be best described as brown gunk. It had spread onto the table cloth and onto my papers. It was smelly.

It was not poop, I promise.

It was coffee. I had put my travel mug, which I thought was empty, into my back pack before I got on thee bus. Turns out, there were grounds in the bottom, and when I laid my bag on the table, the tiny bit of coffee goop leaked everywhere. Being the responsible young lady that I am, I started to clean my mess up.

In doing so, I pushed my bag a little to the right to take the table cloth off the table. This, in turn, knocked over the cup of coffee I had just poured, spilling it over the floor, the chairs, and the remainder of the table cloth. That took a lot longer to clean up, and my entire house smells like a hipster-infested Los Feliz, poetry reciting coffee house.

I might need to hire an excorcist.

See, that was way more frenetic and funny when it was happening. I am bad at writing funny and frenetic.
Read it three times fast, and run in circles while you do it.
That's what it was like.

That is not the sound of a Jewish newborn boy-child.
I just need my hair cut.

At my highschool's GSA meeting today, we were informed Westboro Church would be picketing our school, before class starts in the morning. These are the people who went to Matthew Shepard's funeral, as well as countless other events and organizations, like military funerals, synogouges, &c, with signs like "God Hates Fags."

My school has a very active Gay Straight Alliance. We're at least a hundred strong, and really do a lot of good. Westboro and their leader Frank Phelps caught wind of all the good we've done and have decided to tell us we're going to hell. Westboro is a hate group, just like the KKK, and are monitored by the FBI, with good reason. They don't just hate homosexuals, either. They hate everyone. Jews, Catholics, blacks, Muslims, immigrants, shrimp, you name it, they hate it.

It gives me a stomach ache even thinking about that much anger in one human being. How could anyone live with themselves, when they have all that rage and unhappiness inside of them? I don't understand it.

If you go to my school, I suggest using the back gate in the morning. If you have to use the front entrance for some reason, please, don't make eye contact, don't talk to them, don't even acknowledge their presence. They're narcissists, and giving them attention, even negative, is what they're after. Leave them to scream hateful things at themselves.

Most of all, don't hate them back. They don't deserve that powerful a sentiment. Pity them. Pity their backwards self-righteousness and their loathe for mankind, because with all that hate, there is no way they could live as full and contented a life as you could, whoever you are.

Winter's coming. The air has gotten chilly and everyone has broken out their scarves. It's exciting, the feeling that Christmas is coming, and the promise of candy apples and changing leaves --not that you get many of those in Los Angeles, but it's nice to dream.

I remember a night, maybe two Christmases past, when I had just gotten the six-hour Pride and Prejudice miniseries on DVD from my dad. I had never seen it before, only the 2000's version with Keira Knightly, and everyone knows how I feel about her. I'd read the book the year before, finished it on New Year's Eve, around ten o'clock. I had noted the time.

My mother and I watched the entire six hours in one night, with chocolate and tea and a fire in our living room. The flu kept falling so periodically we'd have to pause the movie and clear the room of smoke so we wouldn't suffocate. I had had somewhere to go that night, so my mother called and said I was extremely ill and could not attend.

That was a nice night. I can't wait for Christmas vacation so I can do it again.

DISCLAIMER: This is an angry, badly justified and uncorroborated spew on art. Also, my AP Drawing class has given me a nervous tick in my left eye that I've had for a week. My opinion may be invalid, due to great amounts of artistic stress and panic.

I have an issue with Abstract Art.

We don't get along, for the most part. Mostly, well, because Mr Abstract Art keeps calling itself what it isn't. Art. Actually, he's Mr I'm Terribly Lazy but Vaguely Artistic and Unwilling to Better Thyself Through Rigorous Training.

Not all of him. Just 95%
Some Abstract Art is flipping brilliant. I like Pollack, and maybe even some other people. The best abstract art I've ever seen? It was in a children's art benefit, and it was done by a three year old. It had hollographic stickers and glitter. It was titled, "If you were a penguin, this is what you'd feel like."

And they were right. I totally felt like a penguin when I looked at it.
My main beef with abstract art --and "dark art," is that art should be beautiful. The world is mixed up and hopeless without some Plaster of Paris and piano strings adding anything else. Art is a refuge, a sanctuary in which one can hide from the ugliness of the outside world. It's a shelter of light and stroke and curve, and it doesn't have to mean anything. A naked lady reading a book is just fine with me. That's all I want. A beautifully lit, beautifully blended oil painting of some oddly naked woman.

The Impressionists understood that. Degas experimented with light and colour, used wild brush strokes, but he retained the beauty. It might even be more alive for it. Monet did not blend, but his waterscapes are brilliant and vivid and gorgeous.

But post-midcentury modern art?
I am not going to pay more than ten dollars for something that took less than a half an hour.

If I'm going to buy anything over a thousand, someone had better have slaved over that fucking canvas.

I used to be really into abstract art. I thought it meant more than classical, but really, if there's a big explanation behind it, I doubt the sincerity. Whenever I'm given a prompt that I haven't a clue how to answer, I write a big long essay with tons of explanation because I'm bullshitting.

And I am not paying ten thousand dollars for bullshit, thank you very much.

(Also: I am obviously a fascist. That is all. Move along. And get a hair cut, hippie.)

The last day of summer has finally, completely, irrevocably passed. The final night, I feel, should always be far more mournful or dramatic than it ever is.
Today was my first day of junior year. It was utterly unremarkable, but at least it wasn't bad. I only have one more summer vacation before college, though, and that's a place that I really have to think about, and really don't want to.

My schedule is nice, though:

AP US History
AP Drawing
Spanish 3
Honours Chemistry
AP Calculus
AP Language/American Lit.

APUSH is nice for the morning, and I got into Drawing, so all is well. Calc test on Thursday already. That's a bummer.

This is all. The end.
 

My father posted a link to a list published by Beloit college,  as a list of "observations that help to identify the experiences that have shaped the lives —and formed the mindset—of students starting their post-secondary education."

You can find the list for my graduating class (2011)  here. I personally found it extremely insulting, both to my personal intelligence as well as to my generation. The future of America is not something to be poked fun at, especially if you have failed to properly educate us.

I was so insulted, in fact, that I felt the need to write a complaint. Now, I don't often do this. When Starbucks gives me something other than what I ordered, I usually don't say anything. I am timid to the point of self-detriment. However, this list made me truly indignant, and I felt the need to write a complaint.

I share that complaint with you now. Here it is.

Dear Sir or Madam:

 

As an individual of the class of 2011, I found your "Mindset List," extremely insulting. If "Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre," then that is a failing of the American educational system, not the generation.

Frankly, if this is what an educational institution finds acceptable or worthy of a college admission, then there is very little hope for the American people. By laughing at your educational system's failings, you are perpetuating the problem of ignorance and misinformation, not solving it.

Not only is the list insulting to my own intelligence and cultural awareness, it is obviously biased toward the norms of a prior generation. You could make a "Mindset List" for the class of 1973, and those graduated in 1930 would find it revolting. Culture is transitory; I'm sure very few of the writers of this list have ever used an outhouse or had to light a gas lamp in order to read.

The list is assumptive and makes gross generalizations that any decent historian would baulk at. When it comes time to select my own college, I will surely remember the insult your institution has so nonchalantly thrown in the face of my generation.

 

Connor K. Novy

Perhaps I am just being over sensitive, but when a college makes me cry for half of an hour, I usually make it a point not to go there.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about Acres of Books closing in Long Beach. It was a big, labyrinthine building with rows and rows of second hand books. It became a cultural heritage landmark in 1990, and last year the city forced it to sell the property, though you won't hear that from them.

This got me thinking about how Borders and Barnes and Noble and Amazon are monopolizing the book business, and slowly strangulating the small time American bookstore. Now, I shop at Borders and Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The book you want is always there, and its easy to find and that's really, really tempting. You need to find a novel for school by tomorrow, and all you have to do is go to the nearest mall and find it on the neatly organized shelves.

I've also never checked a book out of the library on my own (My mother and I used to, when I was learning to read, but that doesn't count.), partly because I can't bear to return them, and partly because I can just order it off the internet. Why check a book out and remember the due date and get it back on time, without writing in it or turning down the corners of the pages (both of which I am guilty of)  when you can just order it off Amazon and go on with your business?

Because it takes the community out of reading, it really does. People read silently, and sit by themselves with their paperback volumes and never talk about their experience because there is no one to talk about it with. In Borders, you can't ask the mousy clerk behind the desk if he things the book is good, you can't ask for a rare or out of print volume, and if they don't have it, they're not going to find it for you. Books are full of ideas that should be talked about, considered. People should have varying opinions of a novel, and they should be free to debate their position with others. In Borders, a reader finds his book in the dustless shelves, and escapes from the big flickering fluorescent lights.

There is no community, there is no sharing. Reading becomes isolated and ideas stagnate. And out of all things that should stay mobile, it's knowledge. Without it, not to be alarmist, fascism and narrow mindedness take the opportunity to flourish. Culture slows to a halt and progress becomes moribund.

So we have to decide whether we prefer convenience or culture.

I like to do one of these every few years.
This is my third or forth and, I hope, my most honest.

•  

( At Sixteen Years )

This week, I read A Room with a View by E. M. Forester. I'd stolen the copy from my Spanish teacher, (it was just laying there in a big box of books and it was only a Dover Thrift Edition, and no one was reading it, anyway) and started it on the first day of last semester, but I never got passed the first chapter.

 

The Merchant Ivory film had come to the top of my Netflix queue, and though I had always meant to read it before watching the movie, I watched it last Saturday night. It had Julian Sands, who I can't take seriously, but I admit he was good, though not what I imagined George Emerson to be. And it had Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, together, which made me catch vapours and faint.

 

But the book is what we are here for.

 

 

( It is Fate that I am here, but you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy )

 

Let me tell you a story.

So, I get up at three thirty this morning to get some writing done. It's three thirty in the morning, so I decide I can justifiably use the pint mug to make some coffee before I start.  I toddle off down stairs in the dark, careful not to wake the mother or anyone else as I enter the kitchen. Happy as a clam, I head to the sink to refill the electric kettle (best invention ever, by the way) and what scares me half out of my wits so badly I jump back and cower for a full minute?

A big, brown hairy spider, easily as big as my thumb including the legs, trying to get out of my sink, that's what.

It was some kind of recluse, I'm pretty sure. The legs were very recluse like, and yes, I know, there are no brown recluse spiders in California, but there are desert recluse and Cuban ones. Trust me, I googled it. The thing is, the body is really, really dark, and those two are lighter. We've been having a problem with these spiders, I find one or two a week hanging around the moulding in my room, just waiting to eat me when I sleep.

Anyway, after I've regained my composure, I look back in the sink. There he is, crawling about the edge, trying to get up the side and slipping back down. I felt a little  bad for him, he looked so frantic, but then I remember turning on my light after two minutes of darkness and finding his brother next to me on the pillow and I stop feeling so bad and get the teapot.

Deathly afraid to get near enough to squish him (those buggers move fast, let me tell you.) I throw some old tea on him until he's wet, but it doesn't kill him. I need to fill up the kettle still, so I look around for something else to drown him with. The dishwater in the side sink is full, so I pour that on him and he goes tumbling across a wave and, I can only imagine, into the drain catch.

After staring at the sink for a while, I go make myself my coffee and hurry back upstairs to write two thousand more words (10k mark! Whoo!)

Do I feel bad about murdering another life form in such a terrible and inhumane way?
Answer: No. They're scary and they make my ankles itch, little rotten biters.

Fucking spiders.

I am a materialist. I like things. I like owning things, buying things, wearing new things. Of course, the older these new things are the better. As I start to actively, regularly write, I find, like I do for any new activity, that I need some sort of paraphernalia.
The girl obviously wants a typewriter, you think, she's such a silly romantic little thing.

Not so. I have one, it's blue. It's also extremely cumbersome and despite multiple attempts, I haven't a clue how to use it. My computer is just find, though slightly distracting, and I do very well with pen and paper, too. (Though, I would love a stationary set.)


( Hi! I'm an American teenager, culled by consumerism for the majority of my life! )

As of today, I am getting up at four in the morning* to write, because i am awful at starting things in the afternoon. From four to five thirty, I've written a thousand words, and I'd had just over a thousand beforehand.

Granted, I'm not writing at the moment. I'm posting on livejournal, and looking for a word count widget, all of which is quite auxiliary. However, if Stephanie-fucking-Meyer can get a book deal I can, too, blast it.

Oh look. The sun is coming up.


*four in the god damned morning.

I saw Mr. Bird at the Greek last night. It was not nearly as mind-blowingly life changing as the first time, but that is to be expected. It was still pretty spectacular. I memorized the set list, but won't repeat it because I'm sure everyone has heard it enough times already, and I wouldn't want to bore. He did, though, sing Sweetbreads, which is just about my favourite song in the entire world, and he doesn't usually play it (ever.). In fact, he played almost all of my favourites. I was so happy I wanted to cry.

The marvelous Ms. Barranti at Through the Looking Glass accompanied me, and I'm sure she thinks I'm a vapid teenager now, because I can get a little emphatic when listening to Andrew Bird. I apologize for that.

My fervour for Mr. Bird can be likened to teenage girls and the Beatles or Elvis. I try to be very mature and adult outside of school, but this is the one part of my life I allow myself to be completely juvenile and overzealous. At least I'm not fawning over the Jonas Brothers like other girls my age, as Chialynn pointed out. The artist I chose to devote myself to whistles and plays the fiddle. And boy, can he.

To tell the truth, kiddies, I've been watching Bones. (It's on hulu, go buffer it.) It's pretty great. Strong, neurotic female lead, that guy from Buffy, dead people, what could be better?

Actually, I seem to like a lot of television series that are centered around dead people. Dexter kills people, Bones finds killers, and, well, in True Blood, the main characters are dead. Does that say something about me?

(I also tend to watch a lot of television at the end of each school year. Now that school is out, I'd totally be doing it all day if it wasn't for that silly community service I've been doing.)

I am done with school. Finals are over.
Also, not biting my nails is pretty much successful. I don't want to jinx it, but I haven't bitten in two weeks. My pinkie nail is gorgeous.

I am also a reverend, thanks to the Universal Life Church, which will be handy in my vampire killing and demon exorcising exploits. You know. Just in case. You never know. Now all I have to do is learn Latin and how to shook a gun, and drive a stick. And then I'll be set. (You know. Just in case.)

Rhubarb has been consumed, as well, and it is pretty freaking fabulous. Thank you, Chialynn!

And that's it.

I've never had rhubarb, which is evident from the tweetversation between @chialynn, @noirbettie, @novysan and me. See, it's never been put in front of me, and I only buy things of my own accord are bottles of water and rice cripsy treats (what? I'm in highschool!) and it looks vaguely vegetable-esque anyhow. Not that I won't try it. Garrison Keillor sings about it, and I pretty much go out and buy or do anything Mr. Keillor says.

Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

So, I'll be figuring out ways to get my pudgy little hands on some rhubarb this summer. I will also be sewing up a storm on Saturday when I should be studying for finals on Monday. Oooohhh wellll.

Speaking of school, we had a Calculus test today, and the last quarter was open forum, which is like a group test and you can ask anybody anything. And people asked me things, and I could answer in complete sentences that did not include, "I haven't a clue."

It was kind of great, and it was all thanks to my good friend who is a year ahead of me in math explaining the easy way to find derivatives. Yeah, so then that happened.

And now, onto the Unschooled Genius portion of today's show.

I love crafts. I love sewing. I love making things. The thing is, I don't actually know how to do it. True, I can make a pretty marvelous sauteed vegetable dish or curry, and I can knit intermediate level patterns, but I don't actually know how to sew. I've been wingin' it. My recent twitter-crisis over the Dress sort of brought to light all my completely inadequate skills as a seamstress. Now that I've admitted to myself that I don't actually know anything, I think I have somewhere to start. Somewhere to learn from.

It's like admitting you have an addiction before you can reform, but you know, backwards.

Alright. Done.  Ciao.