I'm back from Atlanta. But I won't talk about the trip now, since I don't have much time and I want to talk about Azine. The school literary magazine was released today, and I just got back from a reading. My "Forever a Nightmare" poem was among the works published, as were the pieces written by the other winners of the creative writing contest. We had a lower turnout for the reading than we had hoped, but there was still a fair collection of attendees. Tomorrow at lunch there will be a book signing which I will attend. Hee. I also read a poem that I had written on the spot, which was inspired by another poem in Azine. Here it is:
Child's Game
One, Two
Where am I going?
Three, Four
I've never been here.
Five, Six
Something's not right.
Seven, Eight
Who is counting?
Nine, Ten
Can't retrace my steps
Eleven, Twelve
Heart begins to race
Thirteen, Fourteen
What is crunching?
Fifteen, Sixteen
Bones!
Seventeen, Eighteen
Voice grows louder
Nineteen, Twenty
Too late to run
Ready or not, here I come!
I also would like to post various ruminations and ramblings from my unexpected free period today.
Dreams of dust/Cathedral
Hand blowing away/Laughing and crying
Headache/Crawling red
Tinkling music/Unwelcome impulses
Eyes rolling back in deer heads/Grins sickly and terrifying
Jacob Marley's jaw/Amadeus
Smoke and violins/Ghosts and mirrors
Legs begging to be snapped/Promise of impossible vengeance
Portraits/Bloodlust
Peripheral sneers/Nonexistent memories
Who is really behind the fourth wall?/What defines a nightmare?
If you were to die at noon tomorrow...
Would you want to know your time of death?
Or only that you were to die?
Or nothing at all?
Heads is life
Tails is death
But what if the coin
Lands on its edge?
Smeagol lied!
When a smile is seen
as a glower,
What does that say
about you?
Is anything more unsettling than
a properly grotesque wink?
In nightmares...
There are those who watch
There are those who die
And there are those who kill
Who are you?
If pain were pleasure,
Only the wise would survive
If you force yourself to look upon the horrid
Do you become stronger or weaker?
To break the mold a little, here are the two love sonnets I have written for class.
Love Sonnet
If you do love another, then declare,
For fruits of love may wither on the vine.
Those feelings sworn to secrecy do fare
Not well; what, then, am I to do with mine?
The risk I run in speaking out is high,
But so is happiness I stand to reap
Unless I find my feelings are a lie,
And then our friendship stands no chance to keep.
How shall I know if what I feel is true
While I refuse to give my thoughts a chance?
What one has once said one cannot undo:
So goes what makes a peril of romance.
My lot is at one time both blessed and cursed;
The happiest dilemmas are the worst.
Cheesy Love Sonnet
My love for you has flourished like a rose
A brilliant, glowing blossom seen by all
And with each passing day it further grows
But petals from my love will never fall
I told you that I loved you first at sight
Though I knew naught of courtship at the start
I drew my courage from your visage bright
Which now and ever dwells within my heart
A stroke of luck, the rarest of the rare
This beautiful relationship we tend
And with each soft, impassioned kiss we share
I swear to you our love will never end
To you I stand devoted through and through
There never knew a man a love so true.
While I'm posting...
Ode to Sweatpants
I’ve worn sweatpants
For ages,
At least since third grade.
Yes, I
Was a shorts-wearer for a time,
Switching to sweats on a cooler day, but
Eventually the bright city of
War Drobe was
Overrun and settled by those
Grey, soft, baggy, heavy
Sweats.
Those late February could have staked out my
Identity.
In time, legs for me became
A thing of the past,
And they were as the coins
In a magician’s palm, that one
Never sees, even though
They are known to be
There.
Recently,
Upon request, I
Betrayed
My sweatpants.
I wore jeans, and even though
Everybody said that they looked
Good,
I disappeared, becoming an
Anyteen. Dressing for comfort
And not looks, I am
Myself.
I banished that blue charade
Back into my closet
And returned to walking
The path I
Wear when I walk.
I need to take a shower now. When I next update I will discuss my life of the past few days. Then I shall begin the long and arduous process of blogging my two-months-overdue Death Valley journal!
Good night.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Free period
Pirate vs. Ninja
White Wolf vs. d20
Marvel vs. DC
Mac vs. PC
Forgotten Realms vs. Eberron
Star Wars vs. Star Trek
Nintendo vs. Microsoft
The battle of the geeks shall never end.
I'm getting that creeping feeling that I am about to be crushed to death by reality and it just hasn't registered yet. Am I making any sense?
With the exception of bio next period, I only have one of each class left this year. The year doesn't feel anywhere near over.
I could be spending this time deciding on my three nominations for outstanding drama achievement this year. Charity (definitely!) gets one, as does--speak of the devil; Nomination #2 just sat down at the computer to my left. Twilight Zone, anyone? *ahem* I think I'll nominate Charlie as well; coming into the fall play with no prior experience and doing well enough to be cast in the rest of this year's plays as well is pretty impressive.
Guess that's decided. Now I have eight minutes until passing period.
Today we'll explore the pig's nervous system and perhaps watch some more Magic School Bus.
Makes you wonder how many fond parts of your childhood you would dislike of only introduced to yesterday.
PE today: Ultimate Frisbee. Play rehearsals keeping me off the field for a few weeks allowed my calluses to vanish. Now my hobbit feet are paying the price in blisters.
In six hours I'll be on my way to Atlanta. Between attending 50th anniversay celebrations and doing weekend homework I expect to have little if any downtime. At least Monday is memorial day.
Bio time.
White Wolf vs. d20
Marvel vs. DC
Mac vs. PC
Forgotten Realms vs. Eberron
Star Wars vs. Star Trek
Nintendo vs. Microsoft
The battle of the geeks shall never end.
I'm getting that creeping feeling that I am about to be crushed to death by reality and it just hasn't registered yet. Am I making any sense?
With the exception of bio next period, I only have one of each class left this year. The year doesn't feel anywhere near over.
I could be spending this time deciding on my three nominations for outstanding drama achievement this year. Charity (definitely!) gets one, as does--speak of the devil; Nomination #2 just sat down at the computer to my left. Twilight Zone, anyone? *ahem* I think I'll nominate Charlie as well; coming into the fall play with no prior experience and doing well enough to be cast in the rest of this year's plays as well is pretty impressive.
Guess that's decided. Now I have eight minutes until passing period.
Today we'll explore the pig's nervous system and perhaps watch some more Magic School Bus.
Makes you wonder how many fond parts of your childhood you would dislike of only introduced to yesterday.
PE today: Ultimate Frisbee. Play rehearsals keeping me off the field for a few weeks allowed my calluses to vanish. Now my hobbit feet are paying the price in blisters.
In six hours I'll be on my way to Atlanta. Between attending 50th anniversay celebrations and doing weekend homework I expect to have little if any downtime. At least Monday is memorial day.
Bio time.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The verdict
The part of the meeting about college I got very little out of other than some summer homework. The rest was discussion of upcoming senior business, such as the senior ball. I care not a whit about the senior ball; I do not plan to attend.
T finished reading through The Pillowman, but he said that it is just too dark to perform. Would that we were a college! Chicago got some negative votes in class due to being high-maintenance.
Still have about a half hour to kill.
Lately I have become interested in the Joker. I don't read any comics--what knowledge I have comes from Wiki and the Mutants & Masterminds boards--but I may have to conduct some more research on him. He did make the American Film Institute's top 50 villians.
On that note, I was surprised to see Nurse Ratched coming in at #5. She seems an unpleasant person, and lobotomizing MacMurphy was definitely over the line, but most of the time I was on her side.
I just overheard that there is a giant fire on the freeway.
One of the more interesting details of the "retreat" was a list of the ways we are perceived as a class. Apparently we are the "good" class, the "chill" class, and the good-looking class, and we have a lot of spirit . On the other hand, we are perceived as stubborn, apathetic, lazy, non-athletic, slow, duplicitous, promiscuous, annoying, and boring. I think we lose.
Thinking about this makes me wonder what my personal reputation is at school. Play reviews peg me as a long-time theater person, and I am obviously recognized as, "Wears Sweatpants all the Time," judging from the laughter that line gathered during the play, but what more? Do my classmates consider me cool? Boring? Funny? Annoying? Kind of creepy? Unknown? I really don't know.
I am told that SAT scores have been posted (I took the reasoning SAT at the beginning of May). I'm going to check mine now...
...Hmm. I shall need to wait until I can look up my username and password.
I think (I say think as it's impossible to tell without asking directly, and there is no way I'm about to do that!) that K (the freshman I've talked about a couple of times) is, for inability to think of better wording, moving on. That is something of a relief.
How is my backpack mangled? Let me count the ways:
1. The grip has snapped off.
2. One side of the handle is permanently stuck in the "down" position.
3. The rubber has come off both wheels.
4. The metal of the wheels is crumbling away.
5. The bottom of my backpack is fraying open in multiple places.
Despite the cries of those around me, I will not scrap my backpack before the year is up. It has not yet caught fire or been dragged into a Lovecraftian pocket dimension, and we only have a couple of weeks to go.
Leaving.
T finished reading through The Pillowman, but he said that it is just too dark to perform. Would that we were a college! Chicago got some negative votes in class due to being high-maintenance.
Still have about a half hour to kill.
Lately I have become interested in the Joker. I don't read any comics--what knowledge I have comes from Wiki and the Mutants & Masterminds boards--but I may have to conduct some more research on him. He did make the American Film Institute's top 50 villians.
On that note, I was surprised to see Nurse Ratched coming in at #5. She seems an unpleasant person, and lobotomizing MacMurphy was definitely over the line, but most of the time I was on her side.
I just overheard that there is a giant fire on the freeway.
One of the more interesting details of the "retreat" was a list of the ways we are perceived as a class. Apparently we are the "good" class, the "chill" class, and the good-looking class, and we have a lot of spirit . On the other hand, we are perceived as stubborn, apathetic, lazy, non-athletic, slow, duplicitous, promiscuous, annoying, and boring. I think we lose.
Thinking about this makes me wonder what my personal reputation is at school. Play reviews peg me as a long-time theater person, and I am obviously recognized as, "Wears Sweatpants all the Time," judging from the laughter that line gathered during the play, but what more? Do my classmates consider me cool? Boring? Funny? Annoying? Kind of creepy? Unknown? I really don't know.
I am told that SAT scores have been posted (I took the reasoning SAT at the beginning of May). I'm going to check mine now...
...Hmm. I shall need to wait until I can look up my username and password.
I think (I say think as it's impossible to tell without asking directly, and there is no way I'm about to do that!) that K (the freshman I've talked about a couple of times) is, for inability to think of better wording, moving on. That is something of a relief.
How is my backpack mangled? Let me count the ways:
1. The grip has snapped off.
2. One side of the handle is permanently stuck in the "down" position.
3. The rubber has come off both wheels.
4. The metal of the wheels is crumbling away.
5. The bottom of my backpack is fraying open in multiple places.
Despite the cries of those around me, I will not scrap my backpack before the year is up. It has not yet caught fire or been dragged into a Lovecraftian pocket dimension, and we only have a couple of weeks to go.
Leaving.
B&D
My only classes today are biology and drama. The afternoon will be eaten up by a junior "retreat" in the Center for the Arts. I have doubts about how useful it will actually be.
Bio was rather morbid today. My lab partner (who shall be known as Musical) and I exposed and labeled parts of the brain today while discussing circumstances under which we had died/killed in dreams. Musical cut back skin and located brain regions while I removed the skull...one...bit...at...a...time. It's like an eggshell, only more annoying.
Yesterday evening I finally saw our spring play from a third-person perspective. This time I wasn't horribly ashamed with my performance. That may be because the play completely shatters the fourth wall, so I allowed myself to be more natural onstage. Too bad the recording lost the Conspiracy Scene. I really wanted to see that.
From discussions in drama class, Cuckoo's Nest looks like the lead candidate for fall play (grr), but the Drama Advisory Board will have, if not the final say, the final say among students on Tuesday.
Speaking of drama, I should get going.
Bio was rather morbid today. My lab partner (who shall be known as Musical) and I exposed and labeled parts of the brain today while discussing circumstances under which we had died/killed in dreams. Musical cut back skin and located brain regions while I removed the skull...one...bit...at...a...time. It's like an eggshell, only more annoying.
Yesterday evening I finally saw our spring play from a third-person perspective. This time I wasn't horribly ashamed with my performance. That may be because the play completely shatters the fourth wall, so I allowed myself to be more natural onstage. Too bad the recording lost the Conspiracy Scene. I really wanted to see that.
From discussions in drama class, Cuckoo's Nest looks like the lead candidate for fall play (grr), but the Drama Advisory Board will have, if not the final say, the final say among students on Tuesday.
Speaking of drama, I should get going.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
So much for the weekend update.
I'm stuck at school for another 24 minutes, so here's the quick and dirty update of my life.
Theatre: The Complete History of America (abridged) went off very well. Some people even said it was the best play we had done in a long time. There was not, however, a review in the school paper, which miffed me. Strident, Presence, and Penguin all came to see it, which I really appreciated. My schedule has been and remains cramped, so I don't have much time to reciprocate with the various shows friends are/will be in.
Writing: I am currently working on (both for creative writing) a one-act play (and by one-act I mean five pages. Pfft.) as a standard assignment (almost everyone else chose to write a children's story) and another ten-page short story as my honors project. I don't like this second one as much as I did Lucid, but it has some promise. The play is about a guy who's been wrongly placed in a mental institution and plans with the help of the man in the cell next door to escape. At the end of the play we learn that he really is crazy: his accomplice is just a figment of his imagination.
Classes: I've taken my APs for Spanish and calculus. We're dissecting fetal pigs and watching The Magic School Bus in biology. Instestines really aren't as gross as one might think. In drama we are looking over possible plays and musicals for next year. Pillowman and TLI are still in the running, and I plan to look up the rights and cast breakdown on Footloose when I get home. In Modern Chinese History we are talking about Tibet and gearing up for a debate. I have a few hundred pages of POWS to grade. Fun.
Life: Next weekend I will be going to Georgia for my grandparents' fiftieth anniversary and grading said POWs. Disappointingly, I did not make it into the summer Ashland seminar. My optimist side tells me that now I have time to fulfill next year's community service requirement by helping out Cal Shakes. The rest of me tells my optimist side to shut up already. The cast party after america Abridged has put me in a Disney nostalgia mood, so if I have any free time I'll be working my way through old favorites. Last night I watched Mulan. Nothing tonight unless I clear out my work at hyperspeed, but next on my list will be The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Ten minutes remaining.
One possibility that came up for the fall play was One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's all right as a movie, but I really don't see us putting it on stage.
I'll cut it here. Bye!
Theatre: The Complete History of America (abridged) went off very well. Some people even said it was the best play we had done in a long time. There was not, however, a review in the school paper, which miffed me. Strident, Presence, and Penguin all came to see it, which I really appreciated. My schedule has been and remains cramped, so I don't have much time to reciprocate with the various shows friends are/will be in.
Writing: I am currently working on (both for creative writing) a one-act play (and by one-act I mean five pages. Pfft.) as a standard assignment (almost everyone else chose to write a children's story) and another ten-page short story as my honors project. I don't like this second one as much as I did Lucid, but it has some promise. The play is about a guy who's been wrongly placed in a mental institution and plans with the help of the man in the cell next door to escape. At the end of the play we learn that he really is crazy: his accomplice is just a figment of his imagination.
Classes: I've taken my APs for Spanish and calculus. We're dissecting fetal pigs and watching The Magic School Bus in biology. Instestines really aren't as gross as one might think. In drama we are looking over possible plays and musicals for next year. Pillowman and TLI are still in the running, and I plan to look up the rights and cast breakdown on Footloose when I get home. In Modern Chinese History we are talking about Tibet and gearing up for a debate. I have a few hundred pages of POWS to grade. Fun.
Life: Next weekend I will be going to Georgia for my grandparents' fiftieth anniversary and grading said POWs. Disappointingly, I did not make it into the summer Ashland seminar. My optimist side tells me that now I have time to fulfill next year's community service requirement by helping out Cal Shakes. The rest of me tells my optimist side to shut up already. The cast party after america Abridged has put me in a Disney nostalgia mood, so if I have any free time I'll be working my way through old favorites. Last night I watched Mulan. Nothing tonight unless I clear out my work at hyperspeed, but next on my list will be The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Ten minutes remaining.
One possibility that came up for the fall play was One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's all right as a movie, but I really don't see us putting it on stage.
I'll cut it here. Bye!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Plans
Tomorrow evening my parents and I are headed to Pasadena to see some old friends. Those friends include my parents' theatre director from college, so I'll be wearing a shirt that compares my dad and me in drag (more on that when I discuss the play at length). His dress is from Candide.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Yay!
After two weeks of being shut off, are are back on the air--er, Web! We have no idea what the problem was or why it suddenly vanished.
And now we are going to bed. This weekend we promise a full-scale update on our life and a return to speaking in the singular first person.
EDIT: The blog may be functioning again, but "remember me" is still shot and bleeding.
And now we are going to bed. This weekend we promise a full-scale update on our life and a return to speaking in the singular first person.
EDIT: The blog may be functioning again, but "remember me" is still shot and bleeding.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)