obituaries and such

at the risk of sounding morbid, i'm fascinated by obituaries. i read them in the local paper, and i'm a dedicated Time magazine obit follower. besides your epitaph (which means "on the gravestone" in Greek), it's the only public writing of your life that will probably ever be. kind of tragic in a way, but true nonetheless.

i always feel bad for the little old ladies with amazing names that have nothing written about them except for their date of death and the names of their children. i think everyone should write their obit before they die, and include a story that epitomizes their experience in life.

this idea of peoples' stories also intrigues me. a few years ago my dad read a few chapters of the book Blue Highways to me (yeah, my dad reads to me sometimes. it's awesome). i liked it because ordinary people got their stories published. stories about famous people tire me after awhile, because i don't find them as inspiring. when i find out that everyday people have done amazing things, it gives me much more hope than when i find out that winston churchill did sweet things. (no offense to winston churchill.. he's a neat guy). i've started talking to people at my church, asking them about various stories i heard mentioned in passing. it's one of my dreams to write a book of peoples' stories, and i hope i get the chance to some day.

approximately 113

critical success!

no pants november is basically over. 'twas fun.

not only is tomorrow december 1st (25 days till christmas), it's the first day of second term. i usually feel inspired at the beginning of every term to be sure i'm a good student or whatever. i don't actually have any words of wisdom, but it's snowing right now!

also, i must remember to count how many days until senior year is over. just for kicks.

no pants november and other things

a few friends and i have decided to start "no pants november." not shaving is no fun, therefore, we have decided to wear dresses/skirts to school all month. when we say "no pants" we say it in a non-janky way. it's pretty successful so far. it'll be harder when it gets even colder and there's snow on the ground.

"tell the truth and run." -yugoslavian proverb

"the world isn't such a bad gig when you take naps." -random kid on facebook.. not sure if he made it up

i've start burning incense again lately. i burned a lot during the summer. you know how they say smell is most connected to memory? the smell makes me miss summer so much.

i've been reading proust questionnaires online.

and i'm still reading wuthering heights for ap lit. i'm shocked i don't hate it. gothic literature is kind of fascinating, though.

a lady named eileen at my church was telling me how she was a war bride. she lived in england and was working as a nurse when she met her american soldier husband-to-be. they got married in england in 1945. she was 19. they moved to the u.s. and have lived here since.

that's all.

mermaids and lampshades

we had to write poems for ap lit. and i actually wrote about things that i cared about, and i have to admit- they didn't turn out too bad. i won't post them on here, since they're rather personal. but yes, success with poetry. definitely a first for me.

aaaand now i'd like to post lyrics to an adorable ingrid michaelson song. i like the lyrics, plus she plays the ukelele, which is always appreciated.

don't you worry, there my honey
we might not have any money
but we've got our love to pay the bills

maybe I think you're cute and funny,
maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you,
if you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I,

[ Find more Lyrics at www.mp3lyrics.org/sqYM ]
well you might be a bit confused
and you might be a little bit bruised
but baby how we spoon like no one else
so I will help you read those books
if you will soothe my worried looks
and we will put the lonesome on the shelf

oh let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there you and I, you and I, you and I

oh, let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there you and I, you and I, you and I

that is all.

rainbowheavenyogurt

around third grade, my best friend and i decided to catagorize the different types of sunsets. we came up with three different types, and have never been able to disprove them. so here's our third grade theory on sunsets:

1. rainbow- this is generally found when the sky is clear. the portion of the sky, closest to the earth, is a reddish color, slowly fading to an orange, then yellow, then a trace of green, fading into a blue and then sometimes a purple. thus creating a rainbow effect. brilliant, right?

2. heaven- clouds must be present for this to occur. the sky is still a rich blue color, while the clouds become a gold color, and you can see light shining behind them, getting a sort of "heavenly" look to them.

3. yogurt- this contains colors that would be in that trix yogurt stuff. bright blue, purple, pink, and sometimes an orange-ish color.

surprise!

all of the sudden, this afternoon, i felt the uncontrollable urge to write on my blog. so here i am.

rainrainrain

it's quite humid and cloudy outside, so i hope that means it's going to rain soon. i love thunderstorms. they're so fantastic. i love being inside doing something, most likely reading, and hearing thunder and lightning. it makes me feel safe. oh hey, i just check edkcrg, and it looks like there's a tornado warning, and storms are likely tonight. woohoo! also, tomorrow i am interviewing berniece for my essay, and i am excited. she seemed really happy when i asked if she'd be willing to do an interview. oh! i will now rant about graduation. a particular band director told us the wrong time, so myself and several of my friends were late, forcing us to take the orchestra bus. i was mad for about two minutes, until i realized how funny the whole situation was (i'm too lazy to go into specifics). graduation was too long. the only part i liked was when the superintendent gave his speech about his mother-in-law, because it was really happy. it was kind of sad this year, because i actually have good friends that are leaving now. i don't think i said goodbye to any of them, either. i don't like saying goodbye. it sounds so final.

secret weapon no. one

i have an intense love for old books. maybe it's genetic, because my dad also loves them. there's something great about them, and i don't know if i can describe it very well. old books always have this great smell, and it's cool to know that someone a long time ago read it too. it's like a connection with the past or something. what i really love is to see the notes people wrote in them when they gave them as gifts. over spring break, i read gone with the wind (which, by the way, is a really great book. you should go read it). the copy i read was printed in 1938, and my great grandmother, erlene, read it to my grandpa when he was a little kid. i also found the bookmark they used, which was an old paper from the store they ran in iowa park, texas. (it was called bradford furniture and hardware co.) erlene also had a bunch of shakespeare plays that we have now, many of which contain her personal notes and quotes she underlined while reading them over sixty years ago. i also love to find old books at half-priced books. i found this haiku book there that had this note inside, dated august, 1965.

My dear Sister Rosannika,
Haiku is a Japanese form, but now and then an Irishman tries his hand-this, my attempt for you-
Warm summer friendships
Caressed by mountain breezes...
A silent "So long"
Fondly, Donna

isn't that great? i think it is. hurray for old books.

noi the albino

the other day, instead of doing my physics homework, i watched a movie. and it was definitely worth it (plus, my physics teacher didn't even collect it, so it was even better). but anyways, at first i couldn't decide if i liked it or not. sometimes i get the feeling that people say they like something because they think they should because it's artistic or intellectual or something. and because of this i always try to be honest with myself. and i think i really did like this one. it was definitely different from the american formula of chick flicks (see lea's blog) and any other american formula, for that matter.
this is when i give away the entire movie: the movie is mostly about this kid in iceland (it's also in icelandic, which is really cool) that is brilliant, but never goes to school. he meets this girl,iris, and they break into a natural history museum type thing and walk around a bunch of stuffed dead animals, hand in hand. pretty romantic, eh? they make these half-joking plans to run away to hawaii. his grandmother gave him those red picture viewing thingies (see picture) and one of the slides is this tropical beach, similar to where he and iris want to run away. eventually, everyone that is close to noi is killed in an avalanche, and he's left completely alone. the movie ends with him looking into the red thing at the tropical beach, and after a few seconds, the picture becomes real, and you can see the waves crashing onto the beach. i couldn't decide how i wanted to feel at the end of the movie. did he go to hawaii? did he stay in iceland and just have an intense daydream? is he happy now? did he kill himself? i'd like to think that perhaps he went to a tropical place to try to start his life over. but that's just me being optimistic.

estoy emocionada

summer is so soon. i think it's about... 13 days? somehow it seems like we went from february to may, and i missed everything in between. but i think i'm okay with that. i realized that i've had a fairly splendid year. i did better in school than i have the past two years (probably because of more ap classes), and i've definitely learned a lot more. i started reading a lot more nonfiction stuff (woo!), and i started learning some latin. i feel good about myself when i know i'm actually getting something out of getting up everyday. oh! and if you know me, you've heard me talk about my new friends berniece and sally. that's another thing i really liked about this year. i discovered how amazing old people are, and how much fun i can have with someone seventy years older than i am. also, music wise, i did a lot more. i learned how to play the trombone (and then joined jazz band), tuba, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and the e flat clarinet. and i started working this year, too. it's really great to be able to make my own money and not feel so dependent on my parents (although i still totally am, but whatever.) aaaand let's see. i can't think of anything else, even though i know there's more. i became better friends with a few people, which is always good. i think i'll stop there. but the point is, i had a fantastic year, and i am quite ready for summer to come so it can get even better.

para el verano

i am about to make yet another list. it will consist of a few of the things i plan on doing this summer.
-attend the national hobo convention (they even have a parade! and you can visit the hobo museum)
-watch more french movies (they all seem so good)
-ride my bike as much as possible (and it'll save money, too)
-see a few meteor showers (it always seems to be too cloudy when i try to see them)
-practice la tuba
-paint
-play intense amounts of scrabble with berniece and company
-go a week without shoes (just to see what it would be like)
-learn some russian (i like how it sounds)
-eat large amounts of fruitzen
-bake! of course
-go to a really good concert (i'd like to see the swell season, except everywhere near here is sold out. lame! or maybe see jaymay. that'd be amazing too)
-kite flying
-read all the books on my list (there are over one hundred.. so that might not be a realistic goal..)
-minimize (this is my biggest goal. i hate feeling weighed down by possessions. usually they're so unnecessary. yeah. i read a book about a guy that had 75 possessions. i don't think i'd be able to do that, but i definitely want to get rid of a bunch of stuff)

operation megabrownie

so we're doing service projects for ap psych. and the group to which i belong is going to bake brownies and distribute them to fifth hour classes all over the school. it should be a good time. brownies are delicious and such. anyways, my mom and i used some amazing estimation skills, and figured that one batch (twenty four brownies) will cost about $2.72. which kind of adds up when you want to make about 1000 brownies.. but i think it will be successful. you know, the whole feel good-do good phenomenon. maybe because of our brownies someone will decide to pick up trash (high five!) or save a kitten from being put through a paper shredder. maybe.

also, i have no idea what i want to do for my ap lang essay. i'm a fan of radio essays, especially with those little music clips during transitions. in fact, i had a dream last night that a bunch of people from this american life came to my ap us class, and that i got to meet ira glass. anyways, i'd like to do an anecdote of some sort, except i can't think of a good story. which is kind of holding this whole process back a bit. oh well, i'll think of something. someday.

mwwwarrgh

i'd like to say i'm one of those people that doesn't worry about ap exams, and doesn't put of their studying. but that would be a lie. this is the only time of year i get truly anxious. i feel guilty if i don't study (which still doesn't seem to prevent me from doing other stuff). this year, i have two more exams than i did last year. you'd think that would be a motivator to study more. nahhh.. i think i've studied less for these three collectively than the one i had last year. impressive! hopefully i'll be able to use these brilliant study skills in college in a few years. i've already finished the ap us exam, which was the one i was looking forward to the least. i didn't do much in class this year, so i assumed it would go terribly. and i was wrong, luckily. now i just need to get through these next three days, and my anxiety will leave, and i will be a happier person. unless i get hit by a car today. not that i'm going to go jump in front of a moving vehicle. this is probably my most boring blog post yet. who even cares that i'm stressed out about stupid tests that won't matter in ten years?

i think i'd be good for you

lately, i've been listening to mostly just folk. i'm not anti-other music or whatever...it's just been fitting my mood lately. anyways, i still have a guilty pleasure. and their name is weezer. i suppose it's not a truly guilty pleasure, or else i wouldn't be willing to admit it. so yeah, weezer. they're not even close to being the most amazing band on the planet. and yet i still love them. they have quirky, sometimes cute, lyrics, and really catchy melodies. it's impossible to listen to them without singing along. in my opinion, the blue album (1994) was their best album. although i'm a big fan of the song el scorcho (from pinkerton. apparently some of their songs are on guitar hero and stuff. i find this annoying for some reason, i'm not sure why. maybe it's the thought of them getting butchered? anyways, i already mentioned the fact that some of their lyrics are cute. there's something nice about listening to happy lyrics about how people are in love. i'm just a cheesy person like that, i guess.

do you believe looooove?

so my super stylish ’92 buick only has a cassette player. i have an ipod adapter dealy, but i find that to be really distracting while I drive, so i decided to switch it up. my dad has a bunch of old cassette tapes that, for some reason, he hasn’t gotten rid of yet. i went through them yesterday and found about ten or fifteen interesting ones. some of them have lovely 80s pop (supertramp, huey lewis and the news, etc.), while some have random classical music (mandolin solos, bassoon concertos, etc.). i also came across a mix tape that my parents got as a wedding favor in the early nineties. it’s quite entertaining. one side is titled “mary’s side” and has a bunch of u2 songs and a few other cheesy love songs, dedicated to her husband. The other side, “vince’s side” has an assortment of equally cheesy love songs, proclaiming his undying love and all that jazz. Although he does have some okay songs, so perhaps i can forgive him. oh, and i found a few decent greatest hits tapes, including the byrds, the hollies, and chicago. i was also pretty excited to find a bob dylan one too. all in all, it was a pretty successful cassette tape raid. so if anyone happens to hear me driving along with the song “higher love” by depeche mode blaring, just blame vince.

the clue of the whistling bagpipes

i loved nancy drew when i was younger. like, i wanted to be a detective when i grew up. i would spy on people and do other semi-creepy things like that. i guess it didn't seem creepy to me when i was seven, but looking back on it is kind of funny. so my best friend and i (i suppose i should keep her nameless? her middle name is irene.)would always hang out at my grandparents' house when we were in elementary school and early middle school. we would hide stuff, and talk about what people would think of it when they dug it up hundreds of years later. yeah, we were cool. so i went to my grandparents' with my mom for a few minutes tonight. and i remembered a particular note i had written and stuck in a random book, so i went on a hunt for it. i found it rather quickly, actually. i had stuck a folded-up neon pink post-it note, written in sparkly purple ink, in an old copy of macbeth (copyright 1911). i think someone got it for a gift, because written in pencil in fancy cursive is "feb. 3, 1922." so anyways, this note. i don't remember if i thought it was profound at the time, but i cracked up when i read it this evening. here's the note, word for word:

"Hi! This note was written by Caitlin Bradford on March 9th, 2003. I am in 6th grade at Franklin Middle School. I have a Hamster named KC. My favorite color is kelly green. I like pandas."

as we can see in this note, i was obviously a child prodigy, with many deep thoughts running through my head at all times.

diente de león

i've always liked dandelions. they're a nice color when they're new, and they look really cool when they become clocks (the wishing stage). so of course, i had to read the wikipedia article on them, right? apparently the name came from butchering the french "dent de lion," which means lion tooth (because of the zigzaggy leaves).also, in modern french, i guess they call a dandelion a pissenlit, which means urinate in bed. pretty appetizing, eh? they're supposedly thirty million years old, too. and they have lovely antioxidants! i still make wishes on dandelions. i make wishes on most things, except on 11:11. for some reason that seems stupider than other things, which i guess doesn't really make sense. but anyways, dandelions are one of my favorite parts of spring.

the powder blue dream

so in the dead of winter, i got a new bicycle. new to me, at least. i got it for free from someone at my church. i used to ride my bike everywhere in elementary and middle school. there was something i always loved about it, i guess. after i outgrow my first schwinn, i never got a new one (i'm not sure why). but anyways, when i saw this bike at church, i was really excited. i did a google search for it, and i found a nearly identical one from 1971. so i'm thinking i have an authentic retro bicycle now, which i find exciting. the only difference from the picture is that mine is a girl model, while this is a boy one. i found the picture on some guy's blog that restores old bicycles. he paid 75$ for his and had to do a bunch of repairs, while mine was free and in nearly perfect condition (except for the back brake pad.. i'll probably replace it sometime). it's name is maude (yeah, i name inanimiate objects). so today i took a break from ap us studying and rode it around my neighborhood. it was lovely. i'm thinking about starting to ride my bike to school, too, now that the weather is nice. the only problem is that my backpack is sometimes grossly heavy. but it might be worth it, considering i just spent a million dollars for gas filling up the tank in my car.

heyletstxtloljkttyl!!!

i hate texting.

very little is generally accomplished by it. sure, there might be a few good uses for it, but for the most part, it's just annoying. i think it's rather pathetic to be in a class where 75% of the class is texting (many times each other)while the teacher is trying to teach. do people really not care enough to at least pretend to pay attention? do they realize there are kids in the world that would give up their right arm to go to school? seriously. if you're going to text, do it some other time. and also, who has an actual conversation through a text? just call them. or talk to them in person. another thing i hate about texting is that it seems to tell the person you're with that they're not as important as the person you're texting. there are a few friends of mine that will text while we're hanging out. and it's like "oh, am i not interesting enough for you? sorry about that.."

disclaimer: if for some reason someone is actually reading this, and they text, just know we can still be friends. (unless you're a creepy stalker)

i'll be laughing at your silly little jokes

i make lists all the time. it's probably because i'd forget everything if i didn't write it down. i make lists of things i need to get done for school, things to do before i die, books to read, movies to watch, etc. so it seems appropriate for me to make lists of things on my blog, right?
a list of things i've been thinking about in the past sixty minutes
1) i was researching some intense jazz clarineting on youtube. i found this clarinet solo in the song "beautiful love." the guy playing is pretty talented, and i'm pretty sure he's only in high school.
2)at the moment i'm listening to noah and the whale. i'm a pretty big fan. it's folk, so it's pretty focused on the vocals. they have cute lyrics. and their songs are quite catchy.
3) i need to finish my other homework, too. i had too much homework today to hang out with my friend berniece and play scrabble, which is a shame.
4) i found out i can't go to honduras this summer. i applied to do this internship at an orphanage outside of tegucigalpa. they're having some leadership problems or something, so they're not having an interns. i'm upset about it, but hopefully it'll work out for next summer. now i'm wondering what i'll be doing this summer now that i won't be in honduras for a month.
5) i like daffodils.
6) i'm also wishing i didn't have to take ap exams.
7) seahorses are neat. and apparently they hold tails during courtship, which makes me laugh. they're also used in chinese herbology.
8) i want to have a pet duck someday. that would be really cool.i would name it tilly.
9) it'd be really fun to speak swahili. i've met people who speak it, and it sounds cool. elephant in swahili is tembo or ndovu
11)when i was little i had this picture book by remy charlip called Arm in Arm (A Collection of Connections, Endless Tales, Reiterations, and other Echolalia). it was just a book filled with random pictures and phrases. it made me want to be a picture book writer.
12) i like words that look like their definition. for instance: scofflaw, killjoy, layabout, fussbudget, smellfungus, etc.

a franciscan friar

when you're asking cheesy questions about people, the first one that's usually asked is "what's your favourite colour?" i never know what to say to this. it seems weird to actually prefer one color over all others, because you wouldn't want everything that color. pigs shouldn't be yellow, dirt shouldn't be purple, and no one would want to look at a red sky all the time. also, a lot of the colors i really like aren't well captured in things like fabrics or paints. they can only be enjoyed in person. like the color of clouds right before it's going to rain, and the color of grass in the morning. i especially love that color of clouds. it's not my favorite, but it's definitely great. i've never really liked sunny days. i usually find rain happier, for some reason. it seems like there's a lot more to be happy about when it's raining, for some reason. anyways, i guess i associate gray with happy things. and it kind of bothers me when people think of grey as a sad thing. i looked it up in the dictionary, and even mr. webster disagrees with me. "a: lacking cheer or brightness in mood, outlook, style, or flavor; also: dismal, gloomy b: prosaically ordinary: dull, uninteresting." i don't really understand what's so happy about sunny days.

why i would like to be seven again

1) school isn't very intense when you're seven. i mostly read books during school, and i definitely didn't have to worry about ap exams and colleges and such.
2) you have an excuse for being immature. you can say stupid stuff and do stupid things and get away with it because you're seven and just a little kid.
3) you still have recess.
4) you don't know about all the bad things in the world (well, at least, i didn't know about anything) you can be innocent and optimistic.
5) everyone is friends with everyone when you're little, and people don't worry about cliques and other stupid things.
6) you don't have to think about impressing people
7) boys have cooties, and therefore do not cause distress
8) people don't have high expectations of you, and they're just happy when you brush your hair and can add numbers well.

not a lovely night

so ms. fleer asked me to play bass clarinet in pit for the musical cinderella. i was all excited, because i haven't done pit before, and i thought it'd be interesting. it's interesting, i guess, but not the kind i was expecting. the music is really repetitive, and it gets stuck in my head for hours on end. ten minutes ago i saw youuuuuuuu. the prince is giving a ball! impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in maaaarriage. yeah. and the lyrics aren't even cool. they're cheesy and lame. the only cool part about the musical is that they have a remote control pumpkin (a pumpkin on a remote control car). oh, and the costumes are entertaining to look at. besides these two things, it's pretty terrible. it's weird, because i really love music, and pretty much hate this musical. the characters aren't well-developed, and their dialogue is really predictable. and the prince is a total ditz. in the disney version, the prince doesn't say much, so he doesn't have a chance to seem stupid. oh, and what is the lesson of this musical? pretty people are happier. i'm really glad lots of small children will come and get this pounded in their head. cinderella and the prince don't ever have an actual conversation. so three cheers for people that are attractive and shallow.

a dead bird

i went to chicago on friday. i have to say it was a pretty good time.

so there's a reflective sculpture thingy in millenium park. i can't remember what the real name for it is, but apparently people call it the bean. anyways, we were walking around it, and we noticed these girls screaming. a bird had run into it, and was dead on the ground. i found the whole thing pretty hilarious. i think that might make me a morbid person, but whatever. we went to the art museum after that, and i think that was the fastest i've ever gone through a museum. i'm a really big fan of art museums, so there was a bunch of stuff i wanted to see. we only had twenty minutes after the tour to look at whatever we wanted, so i had to quickly weave my way through the museum to find the paintings. the painting to the right is actually enormous. we have a coffee mug with this painting, so i've always wanted to see the real thing. i also saw some jackson pollock stuff, which was pretty exciting for me. there were a few other paintings i didn't have time to see, so i'd kind of like to go back some day. after the musem we went to this spanish restaurant, which was all right. i was too afraid to eat the octopus. the suction cups were still on the tentacles! we left after the restaurant. the bus ride home was a lot longer than the bus ride to chicago, and i eventually had nothing to do. this caused me to play pokemon for way too long. i guess i still don't understand the appeal of that game. and what kind of name is wigglytank?

paris, je t'aime

shockingly, this movie was called paris je t'aime. (paris, i love you). it was a fantastic movie. all these directors made short films, about five to ten minutes long, and they put them all together to make one movie. you don't really get the feeling that all of the films are connected until the very end. you're left with a satisfying feeling that all is right with the world, and anything that might not be completely right has the chance to get that way. some of the films are funny, some are sad, some are full of hope, and all of them have something good to get out of them.

one of my favorite segments was about a blind guy and girl that fall in love. i suppose i shouldn't say exactly what happens, but it has a montage of how they met, and the progression of their relationship, and there are some really cool shots in it.

one that i found really funny was this mostly silent segment. it's a boy describing how his mime parents met in jail and fell in love. it has a very surrealistic, cartoonish feel to it, which makes it really entertaining.

another one was about a couple walking around in a parisian cemetery. they get really mad at each other, and the guy some how gets knocked out, and the ghost of oscar wilde helps him get back together with the girl. it caught me completely off guard, because most of the other films are semi-realistic.

i need to work on my movie reviewing skills. but this movie was good. go watch it.

some optimism

i love the world. i really do. i mean, i know there are some majorly terrible things in the world, but it has some redeeming qualities.

i heard this quote once from a guy that did a lot of traveling. he was often asked how he made conversation with people in other countries, as they led such different lifestyles than he did. this is what he said: "He may not have a 50 inch plasma screen tv, but we both have a mother." everyone has a mom. brilliant, i know. but seriously, isn't that amazing? you and any one of the other six billion people in the world could talk about your mothers together (assuming you know the same language, but whatever). this guy also said he carried pictures around of his family while he traveled just in case. so the next time you're in another country trying to make small talk, just take out a picture of your mother.

there are a bunch of cheesy quotes about how "laughter is the language everyone knows" or something. i actually hate those kinds of quotes, but this one is true. i've taken care of kids that have only spoken one language, not always english, and i've found this quote to be true. all it takes is a funny face and they laugh. i think it's kind of funny that funny faces are universal, too. everyone thinks it's funny when you cross your eyes.

the moon. everyone in the world looks up to the same moon at night. we may see different stars, but we all see the moon. when i look out my window at night and see the moon, there's something comforting about knowing that at that exact moment there are millions of people (in time zones close to mine) looking up at the same thing.

i think pretty much everyone loves music. i mean, it may not sound the music we're used to, but there's music everywhere. something about it runs through our veins and we can't get enough of it.

i suppose i tend to be more realistic about things, but sometimes i just think about things like that and it makes me happy to be alive.

learning how to die

i went to texas for spring break, mostly because my grandparents live in a retirement home in abilene. the retirement home is filled with old people that love to see young people walking around in it. everyday i walked by to my grandparents apartment, i would see these two small old ladies playing rummikub. they always smiled, and once asked if i wanted to play, but i never had time. finally, the day before we were going to leave, i went and played with them. i had played a couple times before, but i didn't remember many of the rules. whenever i asked a question like "so, what's the goal of this game? how do you win?" they would either not say anything, or laugh and say "oh! haha! it's so much fun!" one of the ladies, lorine, had very thick glasses, and burped through out the whole game. these weren't small, lady-like burps. they were enormous frog-like belches. marie, the other lady, acted like they didn't happen, so i decided to also. marie had a hearing aid that she liked to fiddle with. she would turn a knob, and a very high pitched sound would errupt from her vicinity. apparently neither she nor lorine noticed or were bothered by this, but i had a hard time dealing with the sound. after a few minutes of playing, i decided to ask them some questions. i asked marie "so, have you always lived in texas?" she just answered with a laugh "oh no! haha! i was a gypsy! everywhere was home!" none of their responses gave me straight answers, but it was kind of fun that way. it's not everyday i get to play rummikub with old ladies that give me cryptic answers to questions. if you're not familiar with rummikub, you go around in a circle to take turns. lorine always went when it wasn't her turn, and marie seemed to have a short temper with it. "LORINE! it's NOT your TURN!" lorine would answer with a mumble, and five seconds later, both would be in good spirits once again. i spent most of my time with them laughing. it wasn't mean laughing, just laughing because of how out of the ordinary the experience was for me. i've spent a fair amount of time around old people, but they weren't usually like marie and lorine. at about 9:30, it was their bedtime. we said our goodnights, and they told me we could play the next time i came. it was odd, though. usually when someone tells me something like that, i assume it will happen. i don't usually have to worry about whether or not they're going to die in the next six months or so before we can actually do something. and then i thought, who will marie play rummikub with if lorine dies tomorrow? she'll just sit at that table alone, and she won't even have anyone to yell at and ignore their burps.

why yes, i am a snobbish artist.

so i want three different artists to study for my paper. andy goldsworthy, jackson pollock, and yet to be decided. i was reading about christo and jeanne-claude, this husband and wife artist duo. i went to their website, and was reading some stuff about them. they were the ones that surrounded an island in pink fabric. there is a section of their website called "common errors," and it's probably one of the most arrogant sounding things i've read in a long time. in the process of trying to clarify how they really feel, the end up making the reader so annoyed that they don't even care about the fact that christo and jeanne-claude don't use their last names, and that they always pay their workers. they keep sounding like they're trying to separate themselves from other artists, like the others are inferior compared to the magnificent christo and jeanne-claude. they're also too good to use e-mail, apparently, so i'm not too worried about them somehow finding out that i think they're lame. not that they would even care. they're much too advanced to care what a seventeen year old kid thinks anyways. i will now cut and paste a section of this lovely creation.

The Game of Errors: There are six errors in the following published short sentence:
"Christo wrapped some islands in Florida, off the coast of Miami in Key Biscayne with pink plastic."

1.-2. Christo and Jeanne-Claude never wrapped any Islands. They surrounded the islands. Most journalists do not understand the difference between wrapping and surrounding even though they should know that the United Kingdom is surrounded by water, it is not wrapped in water.

3. There were eleven islands surrounded, but because in two occasions 2 islands were surrounded together, there was a total of nine configurations on a span of seven miles.

4. Not off the coast. Off the coast would be in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Miami Beach.

5. It was in Biscayne Bay in the heart of the city of Miami, between Miami City and Miami Beach. Key Biscayne is miles away from there.

6. Not plastic - FABRIC, woven polypropylene is a man-made fiber, and is woven. Plastic usually refers to a film, not woven. For instance, women who wear nylon stockings are not wearing plastic stockings.

(all italics were done by them)

anyways, the whole thing annoyed me so much that i'm not doing them as my third artist. i'll try to find someone who doesn't think they're above everyone else.

"Christo was born in Bulgaria NOT IN SEVEN OTHER COUNTRIES"

isn't that nice.

Error: "The easy life of an artist"
Not quite so. Christo works an average of 17 hours a day – 7 days a week. Jeanne-Claude is a bit more lazy – only 12 to 13 hours a day. They do not take vacations.

the art of cake making

i love baking cakes. there's something great about it, greater than eating it. (although i like eating cake, too). it seems weird that all these random ingredients could come together to make something so tasty. i don't like using mixes, though. there's some weird preservative-ish taste to them. whenever i make chocolate cake, i use the recipe on the back of the cocoa can. it is as follows.

2 cups of sugar
1 and 3/4 cups of flour
3/4 cup of cocoa
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt

so now you mix all of those together, but you can't mix them tooooo much, or else the cake won't turn out as good (i don't know why this is true, but it is).

2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

then you mix all these into it.
finally,
1 cup of boiling water

you have to be really careful when you pour in the boiling water, because the mixer will slosh it out if you're not careful, and you may suffer uncomfortable burns. your oven should be at 350 degrees. in my oven, it takes about 31 minutes for it to get done. the can says to wait ten minutes before you take the cakes out to cool, but i've found that twenty minutes is more accurate, and ensures that the cake comes out in one piece. you should wait about an hour for the cake to cool completely before you frost it, because if you frost while it's still hot, the frosting will become runny and gross.

okay, now it's frosting time. woo!

1 stick of butter (it needs to be really soft, so you should leave it out while you put the cake together. if it's not soft by then, microwave for about thirty seconds)
2/3 cup of cocoa

this is where the can doesn't give you enough information. you have to beat the cocoa and butter together until it's really smooth before you add other ingredients, or else the frosting will be weird and chunky and not attractive.

3 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla (it's really important not to forget this)

you add these to your smooth mixture, and then you have lovely chocolate frosting.

mmcake.

lego haircut and polka-dot dress

i was looking over my blog posts, and i realized what a huge nerd i am. this blog mainly consists of me talking about random stuff i read about on wikipedia. how thrilling!

since i have nothing to say, i'm going to ramble. not that i don't ramble all the time anyways, but whatever. i'm listening to seabear right now. they are nice. and they are from iceland. i had a slight obsession with iceland in middle school. i did a project on an icelandic bridge with my friend once, and there was one website on the internet about it. somehow we still got an a. i was listening to that one british band earlier hadouken! and i can't say i was a big fan. but somehow that got me to urban dictionary, which is always sure to make me laugh. i read the definition of an indie person. and it did indeed make me laugh. it confuses me why people always try to label people and fit in a particular stereotype. (i completely realize i called myself a nerd in the first sentence of this post.) but anyways. what if people just did what they wanted to, and didn't worry about whether or not they were cool? life seems to be more interesting like that. although people probably need stereotypes, since we have a need to catagorize stuff and all that sort of thing. oh, i ate guacamole for dinner. it's probably one of my favorite foods. for easter dinner, my mom wanted me to make sugar cookies, and they turned out pretty well. we went on a quest for an egg-shaped cookie cutter, and we couldn't find one. so i bought a butterfly shaped cutter instead. i need to learn some new synonyms for cheesy. i had my first stick shift lesson on saturday, and it went smoothly, for the most part. i drove somewhere today using stick. it was exciting, sort of. i'm bird/cat-sitting for this old couple for a week. they have a very grumpy orange-ish cat named ellie that likes to make odd noises. the bird is named handsome sam, and he also makes odd noises. i sat around their house for awhile, and noticed that the sound of music was on tv. i really like that movie. and it makes me cry everytime. most people i know either love that movie or hate it with a deep burning passion. when i think of hating something with a deep burning passion, i think of john steinbeck's books. i don't understand why people say he's a good writer. he sucks. i should end this on a positive note. i've been reading an andy goldsworthy book, and it's kind of interesting. i like life.

the earth is like a child that knows poems

easter. i have memories of running around on easter in fancy yellow dresses. today i wore a thick scarf. it's supposed to be a great spring day, matching the feeling of what we celebrate today. these past few weeks, i've been trying to be patient. i love snow, and all that, and i try to enjoy whatever comes at me. but today, i really wanted spring. so, after i bundled up for church, i grabbed a jar and a daisy. i decided that if spring wasn't going to come today, i would carry a little bit of spring around with me. it's probably a very cheesy thing to do, but i don't care. carrying that daisy around made me really happy, and i got a few wistful glances. a lot of other people wished they had a daisy to carry around, too.

the other day i was thinking about how weird clapping is. why do we make that sound when we're showing we like something? i find it kind of obnoxious and bizarre. apparently it's been around practically forever, and it was really common in ancient rome. there were degrees of approval that they could show, and i guess snapping meant you liked it even more than if you clapped. oh, and deaf people clap by waving their hands in the air.

fun fact- in indonesia, instead of rock, paper, scissors, it's earwig, human, elephant. as wikipedia says "the earwig is able to climb into the elephant's ear and drive it insane, while the human crushes the earwig and the elephant crushes the human."

put it in your pantry with your cupcakes

i would write this in times new roman if i was a decent person. but i'm not.

anyways, the other day i suddenly thought of the question "who invented times new roman font? was there just one guy that made it up?" apparently there is such a man. and his name is stanley morison. the font was first used in 1932. he also worked for a paper called the pelican press (a lovely name for a newspaper). If for some odd reason this topic is fascinating to you, feel free to read the book On Type Designs Past and Present: A Brief Introduction. Or perhaps The Typographic Book, 1450-1935: A Study of Fine Typography Through Five Centuries.

and here's to you, stanley morison
Jesus loves you more than you will know.

i've also been thinking about language lately. so of course, i consulted my good friend wikipedia. because of the english and spanish i know, i can communicate with approximately two billion people. that's a lot of people. a third of the entire world population. i suppose i know how to say things like "hello," and "you are purple" to a few more million people. but that hardly counts. there's not really a point to this at all. it just struck me as amazing that i could have a conversation with that many people.

nevermind

surprisingly, there isn't a lot of academic writing about the history of sandcastles. the only thing i could find is that egyptians probably made sand models of the pyramids before they built the real thing. hardly enough to write a paper about, however. the history of snowmen was also rather difficult to find. they've been around since the middle ages, according to some sources.



so i guess i won't be doing my paper concerning the history of these two things, which is kind of unfortunate, as this was the part that interested me the most. i think i'll probably focus more on the andy goldsworthy type of ephemeral art. i read about this environmental art, and they have a museum organization thing all about it, which was useful. i also found a website full of links to articles from art journals and such, specific to environmental art. i feel like i've made some progress. if i include any history, it will be the history of this environmental art movement. i'll also focus on the goals of the movement, and probably talk about the major contributors.

marcel proust and his questionnaire

the proust questionnaire. it's essentially a list of questions. marcel proust (his full name is Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust) made it popular, but it wasn't invented by him. according to the reliable source of wikipedia, it was popular at the time to answer questionnaires like these at fancy dinner parties and such. he answered them in such a different manner that it drew attention to himself, and i guess the trend caught on. npr did an interview with cookie monster using the questionnaire, and i watched it the other day on their website (+14 nerd points for caitlin). it takes about two minutes to get to the actual proust-ish part. anyways, some of proust's answers were way more interesting than mine would be. for example-

in what country would you like to live?
one where certain things that i want would be realized- and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated
the quality you most like in a man?
feminine charm.
the quality you most like in a woman?
a man's virtues, and frankness in friendship.

there's this one question that was kind of interesting to think about. "if you died and came back as an object, what object would it be?" for some reason, the first thing that came to mind was a can opener. but that would definitely not be fun. maybe the pen of a really famous writer or something. or maybe the guitar of some great musician. a telescope, a camera, or a dollar bill.

fascinating fact- proust spent the last three years of his life in a cork-lined bedroom.

and now for a completely unrelated topic. someone was talking about karaoke the other day. the word karaoke comes from the two japanese words for "empty" and "orchestra." but i realized that i've only seen someone do karaoke once, and it was in honduras. we had just left this village, and we stopped at this old restaurant on the coast. i witnessed an old honduran man sing a spanish love song, and not particularly well. during the song, several other old men joined in with the singing, and it was unlike anything i have ever heard (perhaps not in a good way). i had completely forgotten about this event until about two days ago.

le ballon rouge, and other assortments

first of all, i would like to share the quote of the day:

"well, me and my detectives are much more well-educated."

second, i would like to share that i met a waitress today named pebble. i can safely say that, besides the cartoon character, i've never heard of someone named pebble.

spoiler- i'm basically about to give away the entire plot
i watched a movie yesterday called "the red balloon," or "le ballon rouge," as it was originally called. when i was younger i had a picture book version of this movie, and i always loved it. the other day my dad mentioned that he watched it for a film appreciation class in college, so i decided to watch it. it had hardly any words, so the visuals were even more interesting. throughout the movie, the boy (pascal), is accompanied by a red balloon he finds tied around a light pole. it's kind of a magical balloon, you might say, as it follows him around the city of paris. eventually some boys corral the balloon to a hill, and stone the balloon to its death. after the balloon dies, all the balloons of the city are suddenly unleashed, and fly to the boy. the movie ends with the boy floating away over paris, holding on to an enormous amount of balloons. i figured that the balloon was some sort of symbol for goodness, and i read later that some believe it's alluding to Jesus. (fun fact- at one point the balloon is kicked out of a church). there's something about this film that's really great though. go watch it.

sandcastles, maybe

i like sandcastles. i'm not sure why people make them. why don't they make snails or trains out of sand? for my research paper, i'm thinking i may do something related to ephemeral art. ephemeral art is art that isn't particularly permanent (like sandcastles). andy goldsworthy kind of fits into this because of his style of sculpture. environmental art in general is interesting. this isn't a controversial or important topic, but kind of fascinating. well, to me at least. and maybe that's all that matters. why do we always make castles of sand? or men made out of snow?

also, apparently there's a math equation to determine when the sun will set. i've never thought about that before.

cos(ωo) = (sin(a) - sin(φ)×sin(δ))/(cos(φ)×cos(δ))

a mars sunset. another thing i've never thought about before.

anyways, back to andy goldsworthy. i found some quotes that would be interesting to use. the documentary about him would also be useful.

"the stones are objects for contemplation: the more you look the more you become aware of the journey each stone has made."

"a snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. i use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels."

"as with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, i'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal engery of the stone."

perhaps a bunch of nonsense, but interesting nonetheless.

octavius the great

i bought a siamese fighting fish about a week ago. i decided to buy it for deep symbolic reasons,(and by that i mean i liked how pretty its colors are). it's cambodian-coloured, meaning it has a lighter body with really bright fins. the most interesting thing i found about them, is that in the wild, betta fish usually don't become bright colored unless they're mad. i'm kind of glad i don't turn fuschia when i get mad. oh, and they puff out their gills if they're flirting. i wasn't aware that fish flirted. is that even a scientific term? anyways, i couldn't decide what to name it. it was between shostakovich (one of my favorite composers) and octavius (i mostly just like the name, however he was the father of augustus). i picked octavius because it's more fighting-ish sounding, (another deeply symbolic move on my part).

lately, octavius seems really lonely. he just kind of sits around, or whatever fish do. at first i felt guilty about putting him in a vase in my room. what right did i have to do that? what if he was happier in that mason jar at the pet store? i decided feeling guilty about a pet fish was borderline ridiculous, considering there's no way to give him a better life. but back to the loneliness. there's no way to really solve the problem. siamese fighting fish will eventually kill another male betta if they're sharing a tank. so he would be killing the one thing that could bring him happiness. and then it made me sad, because in some ways, i'm just like that little fish swimming around in a vase in my room.


“There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”
-Ernest Hemingway

top ten reasons why physics is a waste of time

since few will ever read this, i feel like i'm justified to spend a few minutes complaining. if you have a problem with this, i suggest you click one of my links and leave quickly.


i hate physics with a burning passion. it's dumb, and no one can convince me otherwise. i will now make a list of reasons why i possess such a deep hatred for it.


1) i'm never going to use this is my life after high school. seriously. we had a question not too long ago "if the most powerful nuclear power plant heated up the arctic ocean for one thousand years, how many degrees warmer would the water be?" that makes me want to bang my head into a wall repeatedly.


2) my second reason is too mean to put up here, but know that it's another good reason to hate this class.


3) it's not even slightly fun. i'm okay with reading some stuff for classes. sometimes it might be interesting. but it's not fun to figure out how fast a child hit the ground after jumping from a second story window.


4) why would you ever want to measure something in joules? or newtons, for that matter. that just sounds dumb.


5) it's during second hour, and i always fall asleep. therefore, i associate falling asleep with physics, i think.


6) i want this to look like i have more logical reasons for hating this class than i actually do.

special topics in calamity research

1) since i previously posted about Andy Goldsworthy, he was the first thing that came to mind. i'd be interested to learn about his motivation for creating art, and how he started with his particular style.

2) i've been listening to this song named "swans" by a band named unkle bob lately. (unkle bob is a super lame name for a band, but whatever). i'm guessing it would be really hard to find information on it, but it would be interesting to me to find out the history of swans in society, the symbolism of them, and why they have the symbolism they do.

3) i really like e.e. cummings, and i've heard his style described as "avant-garde." i wouldn't mind reading more about avant-garde poetry and learning about the history, style, etc.


i may end up doing something completely unrelated to any of these topics, so we'll see.

an ecclesiastes of sorts

andy goldsworthy is an artist that makes amazing looking art out of nature. he doesn’t use any “unnatural” material in his art, so he’s not polluting when he just leaves his art places. i suppose you could describe his work as “organic.” i watched a documentary on him once, and it showed his process in making his installations. to make the sculpture in the picture to the left, he would have to sit there for hours, holding icicles together until they melded together and stayed in place. he had to go through several failures before he reached the finished product. after it was finally completed, the sun came out, and it lasted for only a few more minutes after that. i couldn’t help but wonder if he had just wasted five hours of his life creating something just to see it fall apart in front of his eyes. people create things all the time that don’t serve a particularly important purpose, and i suppose none of it will last forever. so was this “art” a complete waste of time? was the Mona Lisa a waste of time? is art a waste of time?