Non-sitting duck

I have been passive for too long. I did nothing really special to celebrate my "middle school graduation" or any other "major milestones" in my life. Perhaps it's because I know that the things of this world are going to pass away eventually, but something inside me still makes me want to commemorate those events, somehow.

So, I will do something really spectacular by the time I graduate from high school. You know, so I can look back fondly and not say "oh crud all I did was procrastinate and eat junky school food man oh man how am I ever going to survive college." A few tentative goals...

1) Write a novel. Yes, I haven't actually FINISHED one yet. It's terrible! But don't worry, I've got an idea and a 12-hour flight (USA to Asia, woot woot) ahead of me, so I should be okay. I hope. The Lord knows.
2) Submit something to Teen Ink. Why not?
3) Knit Christmas gifts for my real-life friends this year. I've got a month of summer time. Let the knitting begin! (small things--I haven't got the time to knit full afghans)

Perhaps more! But 3 is a good number. Cue elementary school musical song time!

[music note] [music note] "3, is a magic number, oh yes it is...it's a magic number" [music note] [music note]

Have an awesome active (therefore, non-passive) summer!

A House Made of Au

TWO MORE half-DAYS LEFT!!!

ONE MORE FINAL-ish test TO GO!!!

HUZZAH!

iSpeed Post (AND SUMMER HOMEWORK!!!)

The last monday of the school year. Kind of ominous. No, not really.

I must study for my two actual finals tomorrow, and then I have a semi-final on Wednesday and no finals on Thursday, the last day of school! Huzzah!

Alright. I should get off blogger and get going on my chemistry fact sheet. Seriously! You can do the end-of-year reflection later! (just don't procrastinate on that...or else!)

Speaking of procrastination/homework, I actually have LEGITIMATE summer homework this year!!!! And I'm happy-excited for it!!!!! So much so that I am writing out the entire word "l-e-g-i-t-i-m-a-t-e" and resorting to Clique-like double word phrases!!!! The assignment: to do a study guide on A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and then choose another book from the list on the back of the assignment guide and write a characterization essay about it, using lots of textual supporting facts!!!!! Now, before you start thinking that I am some uber-nerd (um, not really, I procrastinate too much), I must tell you that I have never had ACTUAL summer homework before, that was ACTUALLY assigned by my school.


:-D No, smilies do not do my excitement justice. I must post:

From here, found via Googling "excited homework"

"I haven't been avoiding you..."

Sorry for neglecting you, blog! Man, the last post was LAST YEAR! And I am writing this on the penultimate normal school day of the school year! Huzzah! This has been a very bad blog about my high school experience. For nearly all of second semester, I have been absent! I will count that as my hiatus, and then try to be more faithful during my junior year, even if it means a sentence a day. At least during every school day.

Anyway, to conclude the post, I will make the conclusion that watching episodes of As Told by Ginger on Youtube does NOT mix well with blogging.

Adios!

The Beginning of an End

Note, it says AN end, not THE end. Because the end comes at different times for different things. For example, the end of Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign for world emperor-ship ended quite a long time after the end of those poor dinosaurs, who could no longer function in an environment that did not have the over-hanging water shield of sorts that gave them the humid antediluvian environment in which they thrived.

I thought it would be fitting to end this year with a post, seeing as I haven't been posting at all lately--school, life outside the Internet, my parents finally enforced their "no-Internet-until-we-get-home" rule with a changed password, take your pick. (although I still personally blame procrastination)

I've discovered the magic of allowing the desktop picture to change! Apparently this is also better for the pixels of your computer screen or something, because it allows them to give different areas of your monitor different brightness levels, or something. That did not come out as literate as it sounded in my head. Ahem, moving on...

2011 is almost here! Or is here already, depending on when this post is read. We have almost completed another revolution (is that the correct term?)/orbit around the sun! Huzzah! We must forget all of the bad things that people have done to us, and focus on trying to build bridges, clean up the environment, and hopefully do something BIG so that the poverty issue in environmentally-threatened areas of the world will be greatly diminished. For people, in the end, are more important than the trees, even though they are of immense import to our ecosystems.

But most important of all is their souls, for it does truly matter what you believe in, and no, we are not random bits of matter left over from a cosmic accident.

With that cheery thought in mind, I just want to wish the entire hemisphere of the world a happy new year's eve! See you in the year of TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN YEARS AFTER THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW DAYS/SECONDS/MONTHS!

Swan Lake

A great deal of ballet is hard work. And grace. And some natural ability also helps, too. But if you really love the art, and want to dance, then by all means dance. With your heart, your soul, and your mind.

I shall forever rue the day when I was a tiny second grader, griping about how ballet was too "slow" and"boring" (because, looking back now, it is most definitely not). But, I believe that every happens for a reason. Just because I'm not dancing ballet anymore doesn't mean that I can't enjoy it! Thank goodness for Anaheim Ballet.  Huzzah for ballet dancing! And most dancing in general!  And Chinese traditional dance (which is what I am fortunate enough to do)! But on to what I think was supposed to be the main part of this post.

The music of the Swan Lake ballet is so haunting, and mystifying, and just magical in general. It perfectly captures the hopeless feeling of the story, and the despair and grief that results in its climax. Because, like any good classic story, a character MUST die.

I think my sentiments can be fully described in the first part of this video (even though I can't understand a word the guy is saying, except maybe for a few cognates "prima ballerina" and such).

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING(MADNESS) MONTH!

As you may have noticed (oh tiny corner of the Internet), I haven't posted in practically a month! Bad blogger etiquette! But I offer a very reasonable reason for my absence...

I did it. I won NaNoWriMo. The official shebang. Not even the YWP thing, where you get to choose your word count goal (I was going to do 20,000, but then said, "why not just go for the big kill?"). I WROTE 50,000 WORDS that somehow resemble something that looks remotely like a very disorganized novel (seriously--I have the ending written out in the middle of the manuscript if you could even call it that).

I'm not really going to do anything further with my "novel". It's not my favorite story idea, and I don't really know how to finished fleshing it out. I wanted to do a different idea, but that would have required me starting the story all over at the beginning, and I already had a few things written out for that story.

I pantsed it this year. And here are a few things that I've learned along the way:

• Never pants a mystery novel. For me, anyways (tried that this year--yeah, didn't really work out). Always have an outline, and know who did it and all those wonderful secrets before you write the book! It will save lots of time afterwards, when you're staring at the screen and going, "Now how would my main character find out about...?"
• NaNoToons are really the most hilarious things to read when panicking about a flailing word count.
• Pep Talks can be fun! Except when they are from Lemony Snicket. Then they are exciting.
• Dares are there to be done. And to help you increase your word count!
• This can help a lot with your typing accuracy.
• Never procrastinate. This goes for school assignments and personally assigned things (coughNANOWRIMOcough).
• Do not neglect your normal life (aka school assignments and other deadlines) while attempting. Result could be fatal.
• I'm better at writing beginnings and endings than middles. Which is not that good, because the middles are the most exciting parts of the novel!
• Writing is awesome. 
• Writing is totally epic.
• I love writing even more than I did before.
• I am going to write a novel about NaNoWriMo next year.

And if you want to know what my "novel" was about, then check out this word cloud (word size based on amount of usage) courtesy of Wordle.net:

It will tell you all you need to know. (click to make larger)

Bonus points if you can guess what my main character's name is! (ahahahaha) :-)