Top 5 Records Presents - Obligatory End of the Year Post!

Wow, where did December go? It feels like finals week has just ended, but somehow it's the last day of the year and all. When school is out, it just feels like time has no meaning. I make the same to-do list for days and days, but just end up sleeping forever and then staying up all night on the internet. XD But one thing on my to-do list has a deadline, and here we are at the end of the year, so I can actually check this one off: End of the Year Blog Post. :D

Top Five Movies of 2010
I haven't actually seen a lot of the ones people keep raving about, so these are the top 5 of the ones I saw.

5. How To Train Your Dragon - release date: March 26, 2010

This was such an awesome movie, and not just for little kids, either. It was well-done, hilarious, and heart-warming. Overall it was a great movie, and a good time for everybody. :D

4. The Lovely Bones - release date: January 15, 2010

I went into this one expecting the worst, since I loved the book on which it was based, but it did an incredible job telling the story. The acting was pretty amazing - Stanley Tucci, has he ever been anything than amazing in anything he's done? - and the special effects and camera work were breathtaking. It was such a beautiful movie.

3. Kick-A** - release date: April 16, 2010

This was a freakin' awesome movie - kids being irl superheroes, a little girl just generally being a bamf, THIS GUY:

Yeah. Look at him. :D I was pretty decently pleased with this movie. Apparently they're making a sequel, though, and I don't know how I feel about that. =/

2. Scott Pilgrim VS The World - release date: August 13, 2010

Um, how freaking awesome is this movie? Answer: the most. :D It was so funny, and so sweet, and RIDICULOUSLY RIDICULOUS, and nerdtastic, and beautifully put together... I'm definitely buying this movie at some point. And also, Michael Cera! Come on! It's MICHAEL CERA.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - release date: November 19, 2010

You guys knew I'd pick Harry Potter for number one, didn't you? XD But seriously, this movie was the best movie of the whole series. They're all crap, especially the sixth one, but this one was... nearly perfect. It was heart-wrenching in all the right places, they got most of the story correct, the acting was even decent in parts. There was a scene, guys - there was a scene where I didn't hate DanRad. I KNOW. But it happened. There were even a couple of moments when EmWat was all right. And yes, there were a few things I would change, because they can never just get the freaking movies right, I mean come on, the book is RIGHT THERE, just READ IT and FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS, you don't even need to write a SCRIPT, but overall, it was a fantastic movie, and I cried forever and ever. But I would have even if it was horrible, so that's not really relevant. XD

RUNNERS-UP:
1. Easy A - oh, man, this movie was fantastic. It's seriously almost tied with HTTYD. I laughed, I was invested in the storyline, the acting was great... it was such a creative premise, too. I enjoyed it immensely.
2. The Social Network - this was a pretty funtimes movie, and it has Michael Cera's older dark-haired brother, Jesse Eisenberg. It was entertaining and well done, but I don't know if I would buy this movie. I might, though. I do love Facebook. :D
3. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - THIS WAS SUCH AN EPIC MOVIE. I haven't read the books yet, but I intend to because this movie was so awesome. Plus, sexy-Zac-Efron-lookin'-kid, Logan Lerman:

4. Youth In Revolt - not the best movie ever, but entertaining and sweet, plus, you know, Michael Cera. Even better, TWO Michael Ceras and one has a mustache:


Best terrible horror movie of the year - Splice. I don't even.
Runner-up - The Crazies. It was just ridiculous and irritating after a while.


Top 5 Best Albums and/or Bands I Discovered in 2010
I don't really keep up with music like I used to, so I don't pay a whole lot of attention when new albums come out, unless it's a band I'm really into at that moment. And most of those have been wizard rock or internet musicians for the last few months. XD I could probably do a better list if I paid more attention to the music of 2010 and had more time, but if you want to read that kind of post, I'll link you to my friend's blog when he posts it. XD

5. The Bird and the Bee - I don't know a whole lot about this band, other than they are ADORABLE. They came on my last.fm one time, and I was intrigued, so I downloaded their self-titled album, and I kind of love them a lot. :D Her voice is just freaking awesome, and I love how bouncy and adorable their songs are. GOOD TIMES.

4. Portugal. The Man - Their album Church Mouth is the one I'm most familiar with, and it. Is. AWESOME. A couple of friends introduced them to me on a road trip this summer, and I liked what I heard so I got a couple of their albums. They pretty much rock. That is all. :D

3. The Gregory Brothers - The Autotune The News guys! They're a real band, and they're REALLY AWESOME. Their voices are all just amazing, and their EP is five songs of awesomeness. I quite like them. They're a little folksy-bluesy-poppy-rockish, and it's a good time.

2. The Mountain Goats - Thanks, John Green, for turning me on to this band. They are just... basically, if Endless Mike and the Beagle Club and the Decemberists had a baby, it would be the Mountain Goats. Lyics and music like Colin Meloy, voice and style of song like Endless Mike. Oh man, this band is great. :3

1. Ministry of Magic's new album Magic is Might is the best album I have heard all year, probably. I cannot stop listening to it. It's amazing. Not only because I love Harry Potter and I love the Ministry of Magic, but also - the songs are just amazingly written, the music is so good, and it's just a fantastic album. Gah, I love them.

RUNNERS-UP
1. The Black Keys - I was introduced to them at a party this summer, and man, they are cool. The album Brothers is a pretty good album. I really like their voices, as well.
2. Freelance Whales - Darren Criss's brother is in this band, and while that's not the ONLY reason I got their album, it was a little of the reason. ^_^ But seriously, they're SO CUTE. And their music is REALLY good. They also sort of remind me of the Decemberists, maybe if they weren't so depressing and stuck in the 1700s in England (or on ships, as they often are). XD Really good, solid indie rock band.
3. Weezer's new album Hurley, though I haven't listened to it much... I listened to it all the way through a couple of times when I first got it, but haven't really since. But it was very good, and a lot of people have agreed, so I'm putting it on the list. ^_^


Top 5 TV Shows I Watched in 2010

5. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Oh, Joss. I know I'm like, seven years late or something, but STILL. I wish I'd been a fan when it was on. It's so good - even though I hate half the characters, it's still so funny, so interesting, so well-crafted, so unique... it's definitely one of the best shows that has ever been on television.

4. How I Met Your Mother - Ahhh, this show is soooo gooood. I don't even care what other people say, this show has been consistently awesome since the first season. It's had some not-so-great episodes, but even those were better than most shows' best episodes. I love this show, and I want it to go on forever. :3

3. Dexter - Oh man, Dexter is a great show. It's SO GOOD. I could have lived without season 3, but whatevs, all the rest of it is so brilliant it makes up for it.

2. Doctor Who - I AM SO GLAD I STARTED WATCHING DOCTOR WHOOOO. Oh my god, this SHOW. It is so AWESOME. IT'S RIDICULOUS HOW AWESOME DOCTOR WHO IS. And I'll leave it at that.

1. Community - Probably my favorite show right now, for reals. Even more than Glee or HIMYM, even more than Buffy or Doctor Who. It's SO FUNNY. You guys. SOOO FUUUNNNNYYYY. And so clever and well-written, too, it's not just stupid jokes. All the actors are fantastic, it never feels forced, it's always ridiculous but somehow seems plausible for these people, and it's still got the right amount of drama and romance and all that other stuff. :D It's truly a terrific show, and I hope it stays on the air forever and ever, as well. ^_^

RUNNERS-UP:

1. Glee - I'm not so impressed with the first part of season 2, but there were some excellent episodes, so I'm not going to write it off yet. :D Besides, it still makes me really happy, so. Yeah.
2. The Big Bang Theory - Funny, smart, nerdy, at times irritating, but mostly adorable and hilarious. This is a GREAT show.
3. Pushing Daisies - Awww, this show was so adorable. :3 I wish there had been more of it - Kristen Chenoweth was brilliant on it, and it was just such a cute premise. I really really liked this show. ^_^

Top 5 Books Read In 2010

5. Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson - This was such a cute book! Maureen Johnson is hilarious and a little crazy, but her books are so well-written, and her characters are so fleshed out, it's awesome. This is a really good sort of coming-of-age quest-type book, one of those teens-on-a-soul-searching-road-trip type books, and it's amazing.

4. Looking For Alaska by John Green - John Green's book are all sort of along the same vein, the teen-taking-a-life-changing-road-trip vein. This one in particular doesn't have a road trip, per se, but it's a kid going away to school and all, so same diff. XD But it so fully embodies the kind of memories and feelings that I want to have from this time in my life, and it's so sad and poignant and John Green is such a good writer... it touched me, okay? It might not be your favorite, but it's mine. ^_^

3. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - I just finished this a couple of nights ago, and holy crap. It takes a while to get into, but boy howdy, does it keep you turning pages once you do. SO GOOD. It's such an interesting premise, and you get so attached to the characters and so affected by what's going on in the book, you just can't put it down. I'm excited to start the next one.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Man, this series. THIS SERIES. Definitely the best series I've read in the last year, though really sad and kind of horrible. But it's so fast-paced and thrilling! It's like a quest but without the questing. It's AWESOME.

1. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - The sequel to The Hunger Games, I think I liked it better than the first. It was just so much more intense.

Okay, I can't think of much else to do a list of, and this has gotten really long, and it's 6:15 in the morning, SO... I will leave you with a few of my goals for 2011.

* Edit my NaNo novel and get the free copy from CreateSpace
* Get all As and Bs this semester (a C is okay for Math XD)
* Blog more!
* Finish our Twilight musical and film it
* Stop drinking soda
* Stop eating so much fast food/junk food
* Learn to actually play an instrument
* Start doing yoga and/or dance classes or something active

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you have a safe and joyous New Year's Eve, and hope 2011 is better than 2010. What are some of your resolutions or goals?

None of this makes sense or has a point. :D

Oh hey, blog. 'Sup? What's new with you? Oh, that's cool. Me? Ah, you know, schoolwork, hangin' out, wrote a book...

Yeah that's right. I WON NANOWRIMO 2010! :D! I finished on Tuesday, the last day, with 50,025 words. YEAAAHHHHHH! ^_^ This is my second time winning, out of four attempts. I'm glad I won this year 'cause 1 out of 4 is a terrible ratio of win. =/ BUT YAY I DID IT. :D I WROTE A BOOK!

Other than that, not a whole lot has been happening. Thanksgiving was good, excited for Christmas now... got like, a week left of school, so yay. :D I'm planning my garden for next year, so that'll be fun to blog about. I AM SURE YOU GUYS CAN'T WAIT.

I have a couple of things I want to make posts about, but if you guys have any suggestions I would be open to them. I feel like this blog is all over the place - personal stuff, political stuff, ridiculous stuff. XD I can't decide what I want to do with it. Ah, well. It's completely random and insane, just like me! :D

One thing that has been on my mind lately - those Facebook things where people post stuff in their statuses or change their profile pictures to "raise awareness" or whatever for different causes? What is up with that? How does putting your bra color in your status, without explaining what it means, do anything to raise awareness of breast cancer? Furthermore, who in this day and age is NOT aware of breast cancer? What does raising awareness DO? I mean, I could understand if it was like, a new thing or something people don't usually think about, or something happening in a different country, maybe... but I still don't see why people think changing their profile picture is going to make a difference.

Currently there's a trend going around where everyone is changing their photo to a picture of their favorite childhood cartoon character. It's supposed to raise awareness of child abuse, somehow. I don't really understand how, exactly. But it's happening. =/ Child abuse is a problem that there really isn't a good solution to. I mean, we as a country or a planet cannot police child abuse because it goes on in the home, and often there's no way of knowing for sure. The only thing we can do is what we have been doing - if you know someone is abusing a child, report it. Then get the child away from that person. And that's really all we can do to fix the problem. But we all know it happens, and it's really sad and everything, but what is Facebook going to do about it? How does this help?

I don't know. I just get kind of annoyed sometimes at the silly things people do. =/ But whatever - if you want to participate, that is fine. Good for you. If you really think it does some good, that's good, too. I hope it does. This is just my cynical grouchy old lady opinion. :D

Also: I really love the character Giles on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but I really hate the actor, Anthony Stewart Head. I think he's gross and dumb and irritating, but Giles is sexy and awesome and adorable. Does anyone else feel this way? O_o

Procrastination Station, indeed.

This is me not working on my NaNo novel! :D YAY.

You guys, I am so far behind, it's not even funny anymore. O_o I don't know if I can make it, but failure is NOT AN OPTION THIS YEAR. I HAVE to do it. I don't even know how I got so far behind!

The first week of November, I had a lot of stuff that I had to do for school. It was pretty hectic. But the very first day, I wrote nearly 2,000 words. I was like "I totally gots this, whatevs" and then I did my schoolwork and didn't touch the document until a week later. =/

That week, I added another 3,000ish words, a few hundred here and there, a thousand that night, and so on. It was progress, slowly and somewhat steadily. But I was still very behind. -_-

And then this past week! Miracles! I finally broke 10,000, even 11,000, and all it took was actually sitting down and writing! Who knew? I hit 11,100 and thought "Well, this was a good night! I'll take a break!" And then I didn't touch it again for four days.

Now I am up to 13,783, when I SHOULD be at 35,000. It is a huge, staggering gap, and I am determined to close it in the next couple of days. I have school tomorrow, but then I have a week off - yes, the holiday and family and working Black Friday, but STILL. SIX WHOLE DAYS in which I can close this gap. AND I SHALL. I am determined.

I can take some solace in knowing a few of my friends have given up, and a few of the people who ALWAYS win are behind, as well. I look to Kristina Horner (of the Parselmouths and ALL CAPS), four time winner, who is currently behind schedule at around 27,000, as my biggest inspiration - she's behind, but she never loses. And there's not so many words between us. I could easily catch up to her in a couple of days. And from there, I could easily catch up to NaNo's suggested word count. And from THERE, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to finishing!

When I look at it like that, it seems easy. But then I think "I'm writing all these words in a blog post when I should be writing my novel!" and I get all discouraged again. XD

Share your NaNo stories! Inspire me! Tell me how awesome I am for trying! Give me comments to read when I should be writing! :D

PS - also, would you guys be interested in a post about my Harry Potter experience? 'Cause I'll probably do it anyway, so just figured I'd ask. XD Do I even still have any readers?

NANOWRIMOOOOO.

So I haven't posted in a bit. =/ Sorry. November is a busy month - midterms and papers and whatnot, plus we are right in the middle of NaNoWriMo, so I'm a bit stressed.

This is the fourth year I've done NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which is a month-long sprint to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's pretty awesome. :D I've only won once, but this year I intend to finish, even though right now I'm horribly behind. =/ If you're interested, their website is http://www.nanowrimo.org, and you can follow my progress or friend me at http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/221272.

That's basically all I wanted to say. Life is going pretty well, but I've been busy, so I haven't had a lot of time for things. Hopefully when the semester is over and I've written my novel (IT'S GONNA HAPPEN I SWEAR) I'll be back with some interesting things to talk about. :D And who knows, maybe for Christmas I'll get a camcorder so I can fully pursue my dream of being internet famous! :D HOW EXCITING.

So I'll probably be back in a couple of weeks. :D Be good while I'm gone.

Attention, today's LGBT youth - It Gets Better.

If you have a Facebook or a Twitter, I'm sure you noticed that yesterday was the Spirit Day thing, where (according to Facebook) 27,990 people wore purple in honor of all the gay teens who committed suicide recently, as well as just to show support to the LGBTetc community. There have been several suicides recently, cases in which these kids were being bullied and picked on for being gay.

There's also a project on YouTube that's been going on since September, the It Gets Better Project, where dozens of celebrities have made videos telling LBGT youth that life gets better, that getting bullied right now sucks, but it's not worth killing yourself because as you get older, as the world becomes more accepting, and as you come into who you are and become proud of it, life does get better. I think it's part of or associated with The Trevor Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trevor_Project), which is also just amazing.

These projects are beautiful and awesome, and some of the videos in the It Gets Better project made me choke up a little, but the fact that they have to exist is sickening. The fact that children are killing themselves because their peers are so close-minded is just awful.

This subject makes me so angry. The people who say being gay is a choice, the people who don't want gays in the military or to be able to marry or adopt children, it's all just so frustrating. There are some things I'd like to say to those people:

First of all, IT IS NOT A CHOICE, YOU IDIOTS. Did you ever CHOOSE to be straight? When were you offered this choice? Birth? How can a baby make such an important decision? And I was never offered the choice - maybe I would have liked to be gay. God knows there are some things I would have liked to change, had I known we got a CHOICE. Were you also offered a choice on skin color, religion, gender? And why in the WORLD, with people like you walking around passing judgment on others for things they can't help, WHY would ANYONE choose to be gay? Or black? Or speak any other language besides English? With people like you making everyone who isn't JUST LIKE YOU feel like an abomination that doesn't deserve to be alive, WHY would anyone choose anything else? Also, sidebar - someone explain to me where the "God doesn't make mistakes" line of thought comes in.

Secondly, SHUT THE EFF UP ABOUT GAYS IN THE MILITARY, OH MY GOD. Seriously, there are people willing to go and die for their country, and you're going to tell them they can't? WHY? What could you POSSIBLY have to lose? I thought being in the military was just about the best thing an American could do, and here you guys are not letting everyone play. That's not fair. Women are allowed. Blacks are allowed. Asians are allowed. People not even from this COUNTRY are allowed, so why not gays? Woman isn't catching, and as far as I know neither are black, Asian, or foreign, so why are you so afraid that people will "turn" gay? Furthermore, what does being gay have to do with your ability to hold a gun, fly a plane, and drive a tank? The more people willingly signing up for war, the less likely your perfect straight-as-an-arrow sons will be drafted. Isn't this a good thing? Or do you just want to keep the glory of being in the military away from the gays? That's pretty selfish. =/

Third, Neil Patrick Harris and his boyfriend of like, five years, David Burtka, just adopted twins:



Look at these two. Just LOOK at them, and tell me that they shouldn't be allowed to be married, to be parents, to be IN LOVE. Look. Look at all the cute:



How can they possibly be wrong? :D <3 And there is just no argument about the babies turning out gay - I'm pretty sure NPH's parents aren't a gay couple. I don't think David's are either, actually. Hmm. How strange. I don't think Ellen DeGeneres was raised by two gay parents either, nor was her wife, Portia De Rossi. This is so weird! It's almost like the parents' sexualities make no difference on a child's sexuality! So, if we assume this is true, just, you know, based on all the evidence around us as seen in just about every single family in the world, then it simply CAN'T be true that gay parents would make a gay child! Wow. Learn something new every day, huh?

Seriously, though, it's just disgusting that there are people out there who treat their fellow human beings like this. In Sarah Silverman's It Gets Better video, she says that adults go around banning gay marriage and protesting adoption by gay couples and talking about gay people like they're the scum of the earth, and then they're all surprised when their children start bullying their gay peers. You're all shocked at the hatred and anger your children are expressing - WHERE DO YOU THINK THEY LEARNED IT? Why is it so bad to just let people be happy? Just let people love, whoever or whatever they want to love. How can it POSSIBLY hurt you if two men you don't know get married? What harm could POSSIBLY come to you and yours if two women decide to raise a child together? Do you really think that child will turn out any worse than your 14-year-old-daughter's kid?

I am so tired of hearing about these idiots. Listen, if there are any gay kids out there who happened upon this blog (thanks for reading, btw :D), pay attention: THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT HERE WHO LOVE YOU. There are people ON YOUR SIDE. There are people willing to fight for you, who've never met you but want you to be happy anyway, who never want to see you go through this pain. There are people you can talk to. Please, please, if you're a gay kid or teen being bullied at school, please don't hurt yourself. There are so many things out here to live for. And there's so much you could do. Please don't give up.

Personally, I am not homosexual, but inside, I am as close to a gay man as a woman can get. XD Many, many of my friends are LGBTs (is that a term? I guess it is now.), including one of my very best friends in the world. He is amazing and beautiful, and being gay is only a part of who he is, but without that part, he just wouldn't be the same glorious person. :D And neither would you. One of my other gay friends in high school once wore a dress to a football game, no joke. It was hilarious, and amazing, and he's just that kind of person. He actually dated my bff, and they were one of the only (possibly THE only) openly gay couples, and no one seemed to have an issue with it. And I live in South Carolina, y'all. =/

My point here is this: a) gay people are people, plain and simple; b) people who hate gays are stupid jerks and they make me sad and angry; c) The Trevor Project and It Gets Better are terrific projects and it makes me feel a little better seeing all the people who DO care; and d) if you are a gay teen being bullied, or, actually, ANYONE of ANY AGE being bullied and hurt, don't stand for it! And don't let them get you down! Talk to someone, tell on them, call the effing cops if you have to. Show them how much stronger you are than their close-minded words, and if they hurt you physically, I'm serious - go to the principal or even the police and get some help. And please, before you think about hurting yourself or someone else, please talk to someone. There are people who will listen, and people who care. Don't let the bullies win - if they keep winning, this world will never accept peoples' differences and we will all lose. =/



Go check out some of the It Gets Better videos on YouTube - Neil Patrick Harris's, Ellen's, and Sarah Silverman's are all good. Darren Hayes's (from Savage Garden) is good too, and YouTube's own Sassy Gay Friend made one as well. They are all pretty touching and emotional.

And here's the Trevor Project's site, where you can donate money, find helpful resources on suicide, and also find their suicide hotline number: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

TRIPLE RAINBOW AWESOME TOUR

Hey, remember that time when I used to update this? Let's bring that back. :D

Once upon a time, around 3:30 Monday morning, my friend Carmen and I set off for Washington DC for the Triple Rainbow Awesome Tour! :D It was a long drive. A loooong drive. =/

We get to DC around 12:30ish, having stopped to eat and getting lost once or twice. :D Then we still have to find parking, which is just ridiculous, because it was Columbus Day so forty thousand people decided to go to DC and just take up all the parking spaces. =/ A nice meter maid lady told us it was free because it was a holiday, but thanks to stupid jerkfaces who can't park, we just ended up paying $10 to park in a garage. We figured it was less frustrating, and thus worth the money and the walking. It wasn't far to the park, anyway, but then we decided to eat. It was around 2 (yes, it took us THAT LONG to park) and we had seen a Subway somewhere while circling looking for parking, and a security dude in an art museum directed us to Pennsylvania and 7th, which was really close! Yay! So we set off!

And then we got to PA and 7th and didn't see a Subway or ANY restaurants, in fact. =/ I asked a lady, but she thought I meant a real subway, not the food Subway, so that was useless. Then I got attacked by a bug. Then we found a Starbucks, rested, and decided to try a place called Au Bon Pain, I think. I was deeply unimpressed. It was $8 for a crappy little ham sandwich and a Pepsi, and I didn't even get refills, and they didn't even get it right. =/ Not a fan. Oh well. There isn't one here, so it's not a problem. :D

ALSO: walking back and forth between this place and Starbucks, there was a LEGIT CRAZY LADY. On the way past the first time, we thought she was talking on a bluetooth thing. She didn't look crazy. She wasn't dressed horribly, and she had a roll-y suitcase guy with her, but she was just sitting on this wall thingy talking to herself. It was kind of terrifying. =/

Then we hung out in Starbucks charging our phones for an hour or so, waiting for 4:00 to happen. We were sleepy, but by the time we made it to the park, I was pretty excited again. ^_^ And guys - I've never been to a YouTube gathering or a Nerdfighter meetup, and the other two wrock concerts I went to were kind of small, so it was freaking AWESOME to see like, 70 people in HP, Doctor Who, wizard rock, Nerdfighter, YouTube people, and generally nerdy t-shirts, all hanging out together and being awesome. There were two groups when we came up, and then by the power of the Sons of Admirals and Doctor Who, we joined together (two girls in one group were wearing those shirts and I went to compliment them and said they should come join the other group). :D WOOT. It was fairly awesome. Everyone introduced themselves, even though there were far too many people to remember names... it was fun.

AND THEN. The stars showed up! :D Luke Conard, Kristina Horner, Mike Lombardo, Alex Carpenter, and Jason Munday. Weeeee! :D We relocated to another bit of the park, and then the concert started. Highlights:

* I am TOTALLY IN LOVE with Mike Lombardo. Seriously guys, go look him up on YouTube. :D SOOOO CUUUUTE. :3
* ALEX CARPENTER WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE. Why didn't I love the Remus Lupins before now?! Everyone was right - he's pretty much a god. :D <3
* Jason Munday is frickin' adorable and played two songs I love, but unfortunately not California Dorks, which has been stuck in my head for about a squillion years.
* ALL CAPS acoustic was pretty good, and even though I was sad I didn't get to hear them/MoM in all their glory, it was a really cozy familiar setting, and it was really nice. :D
* Mike Lombardo solved my Rubik's Cube, which sounds like an innuendo, but it's just a fact. XD In one of his songs he says he can solve it in 2 minutes, and I wanted to see if it was true, and he didn't do it in 2 minutes so I felt bad, but he did eventually solve it so it was okay. :D
* Nerdfighters will clap at anything - parrots, fire trucks, some guy shaving in the park...
* Did I mention how cute they all are? 'Cause they are. SO CUTE.

I talked to Mike Lombardo, and guys, he is just so sweet. He's one of the sweetest guys ever. :D He was so nice to me even though I'm a crazy fangirl who was like "HELLO MIKE I LOVE YOU YOU'RE CUTE AND I LOVE YOU SERIOUSLY I LOVE YOU AND YOU'RE CUTE. I LOVE YOU. :DDD" And they were all pretty impressed that we drove so far to see them. ^_^ So that made us feel special.

Then we napped for about three hours in the rest area right outside DC on the way back to Richmond. Totally didn't even die. :D And then we drove home, and it was mostly okay, but the last 3 hours were just torturous. We were hallucinating and cranky and just wanted to teleport home. And we saw a weresheep. D: For reals. It followed us. ;-;


Anyway, so that was my adventure to DC for one day! :D It was a good time. People who performed:

Mike Lombardo - http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeLombardoMusic
ALL CAPS - http://www.youtube.com/user/ALLCAPSBAND
Ministry of Magic - http://www.youtube.com/user/ministryofmagicmusic
Luke Conard (ALL CAPS, Ministry of Magic)- http://www.youtube.com/user/LukeConard
Kristina Horner (ALL CAPS)- http://www.youtube.com/user/italktosnakes
Jason Munday (Skyway Flyer, Ministry of Magic)- http://www.youtube.com/user/JasonMundayMusic
Alex Carpenter (The Remus Lupins)- http://www.youtube.com/user/AlexanderCarpenter

Check them all out, they're all amazing musicians and really great people. :D

I like the internet.

I have totally failed at blogging this week, huh? -_- Oh well. What can you do?

I've been thinking a bit about social media stuff, partly because of my last blog and partly because everyone makes such a huge freaking deal when any part of the internet is broken. Of course, I'm just as angry when Facebook goes away or something, but people are always saying stuff about how my generation can't do anything because we're so wired up and always have our phones and iPods and whatnot, and honestly, I don't think that's true.

For the most part, yes, we're constantly texting or tweeting, checking Facebook or IMing, blogging or emailing (yeah, like anyone emails anymore! [that's a joke, I still email]). But that doesn't mean we don't know how to interact with people. It doesn't mean we sit inside all day and do nothing but stare at a screen. A lot of our time may be spent that way, but why does that have to be a bad thing? I spend a LOT of time online, but I still have irl (in real life) friends and hang out with them often. We do things that don't involve screens at all, sometimes, and occasionally we even go to that place without walls or ceilings, where it's all hot and bright and there's plants and stuff. But yes, I do text and tweet sometimes, and I have been known to check Facebook more than a few times a day (more than that, if I'm trying to do homework), and even sometimes remember to post on my blog.

And the internet, aside from being an amazing time-waster and source of "knowledge" and useful tool for pirating, is also a fantastic way to meet people and make friends. I have several friends I've met online, who I feel I know pretty well, from all around the country, and even around the world. Someone I would consider a very close friend lives in Wisconsin, and I've never met her. We've talked on the phone, as well as various places on the internet. In fact, I've made more online friends than I have friends at college, and I consider them to be just as important as my real life friends. So it's not all bad. It's not all posting pictures of drunk friends or updating everyone we know about what we're eating at the moment. There are some legitimate uses for the internet. And the internet is the only way I can communicate with most of my online friends, so yes, I do spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter, but it's not like I can't function without them.

That's what I feel a lot of people think about my age group - that we literally cannot do anything without our phones or laptops. And it's a little insulting, because not all of us are like that. A small percentage, yes, but not all of us. It just really bothers me. I'm a pretty well-rounded person, I think, and I read, I write, I like to play games, I do a lot of things that don't involve a screen or wires of any sort. And I don't think it's a bad thing to like video games, movies, or hanging out online. Honestly, I think as long as you can go without it, as long as you can function without it in your life, as long as it isn't your entire life, anything you like to do is okay.

I don't know. I probably shouldn't blog at 7 AM when I haven't been asleep yet. =/

Internet rights?

I failed at blogging yesterday 'cause I was busy with Real Life Things. O_o I know. It happens sometimes.

However, today I come to you with A Story. :D Apparently some kid brought a gun to my old high school and shot the security officer dude, and then I think made a bomb threat or something. The officer is fine, and the kid was taken away, but several schools had to be locked down because of the bomb threat. This whole story has circulated around Facebook today, and now people are passing links to his Twitter around, too. And this kid... let me tell you, he's a real winner.

I'm not going to post a name or a Twitter account, or quote him directly, but there were at least 15 tweets involving guns, bombs, and death of some sort. I just glanced over the first page, all the tweets before the shooting occurred, and as one of my friends put it: this probably could have been prevented. But that's where I find issues.

On the one hand, if the authorities had access to this kid's tweets, they might have been able to keep the shooting from happening. They would have had to have access to his location, full name, and school information, but they could have prevented it theoretically.

On the other hand, would it have been an invasion of his privacy? It's a public place, his tweets aren't protected, so anyone can see them. But his information, unless he makes it public, should be protected by Twitter, right? And he should be allowed to say whatever he wants on his own Twitter, right?

So what should be done about these kinds of situations? Everyone's always saying that the world has become obsessed with social media and the internet and instant everything, and it's true. I'm part of it, of course, and I love Facebook and Twitter, but even though they're on the internet I still consider it sort of private and personal. It's my own corner of the internet. And no one can tell me what to post, or not to post, and if I don't want you to have access, I don't think you should be able to see it, police, government, or not.

In a case where monitoring social media could potentially save lives, is it better to protect our freedom of speech, or to violate those rights but keep more situations like this from happening?

Pointless post is pointless. :D

I think I've decided I'm not going to blog every day in October. I was considering it, but it's very difficult sometimes to come up with stuff to talk about. And I don't want this blog to be just random nonsense, I want to plan out some really cool posts. Also, in November, I'll be doing NaNoWriMo, and I don't think I'll have time to keep up the blogging every day thing. So I'll take a break in October and get a routine going for blogging. :D

I know you guys care so much about that. ^_^

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I AM EXCITED THIS YEAR. I sucked last year, so I'm really excited to win again. Somehow I can't make myself do it any other month than November. =/ But I've got an idea for a plot already! I'm stoked. :D Are any of you guys doing NaNoWriMo? You should.
http://www.nanowrimo.org

So that's what I've been thinking about today, figuring out a schedule for my life. I need to have time for homework, blogging, writing, and the internet, as well as school, a job, and sleep. Then there's family times, hanging out times, helping around the house, and hobby type stuffs. Lately I'm having a terrible time managing my time, hard as I try, so I really need to just sit down and schedule it out. I like making schedules and stuff. ^_^ So yay.

ANYWAY, that concludes today's episode of Erin Babbles About Nothing In Particular. Whooo! Hopefully I will have something more important to babble about tomorrow. By the way, fall TV premiere week starts tomorrow! I am excited! :D

Today's post is made possible by SCHOOL. Where you LEARN.

I should probably start a segment called "Things That Annoy the Crap Out of Me." Or at least make it a tag or something. =/

Today's TTAtCOoM is college students who a) don't try, b) don't listen, or c) think that the classes should be really easy and they shouldn't actually have to write papers or do homework or, you know, learn anything. I mean, you're PAYING FOR THE CLASS. Why not actually do the work and learn the stuff?

My Spanish class is extremely annoying, for many reasons. It's a 101 class, which means that very few people have actually taken Spanish. That's to be expected - I don't have an issue with people not knowing Spanish right off the bat. BUT. When we do "Como te llama?" and "Me llamo ____" for THIRTY STUDENTS, by the time you get to the 30th, they should have some idea of what's going on. I mean, hearing the teacher ask every person before you "Como te llama?" and hearing EVERY PERSON reply with "Me llamo" and THEIR NAME should kind of give you a clue as to what you're expected to say. You don't even have to know what it means! It's repetition!

There's this girl in my class who was talking about how she wanted to switch out to a different teacher, because OUR teacher had the CRAZY IDEA that actually SPEAKING SPANISH TO US would help us learn. She was like "I hear that the 155 class is taught in English. I mean, she comes in here and starts speaking Spanish and I don't know what she's saying! We don't speak Spanish yet, jeez!" (Not an actual quote.) Apparently the 155 class spends the first few weeks just learning the alphabet. Yes. WEEKS. On the ALPHABET. I would die of boredom in that class. And seriously, what could you possibly learn in a class that spends so long on the basics? If you don't want to learn Spanish, DON'T TAKE SPANISH.

I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't be calling people out like this, but seriously. It really bugs me when I hear students complain about stuff like this. You're paying to learn, okay? So what if the paper due date gets pushed back after you've already finished it? You're done with it, who cares if you have to wait a week to turn it in? Don't complain about stuff like that. And don't be surprised if the teacher expects you to actually take something away from all the hours you spend in class. Why are you even here if you're not expecting to learn? There are lots of people out there who can't afford to go to college, and here you are wasting it. Why even bother going?

It makes me mad. =/ Unfortunately, not everyone in our country is able to get an education, and when I see people BS-ing their way through classes or not doing the work, complaining about the homework or tests or whatever (unless it's actually unfair, like the prof makes really crappy tests), it just upsets me. It's the same for teachers, too - teachers who don't teach right annoy me because I've paid to be here, and you're BEING paid to be here, so why don't we actually get something done in class, eh? I don't want to sit here for an hour and hear you talk about your life when you were a kid, or read in class for an hour, or have you try to trick us on the tests instead of just seeing what we actually know. It's stupid. It cannot be that hard to be a good teacher, really.

Bah. Anyway. That's today's blog post, the first official installment of Things That Annoy the Crap Out of Me. I'm totally making it a thing. XD

Boooo.

I'm extremely tired so this post will probably be very short. =/

I spent most of the day "working" on Twilight, then came and did my math homework, which took entirely too long. Then I applied for a job at Best Buy! Wouldn't that be a funtime? Fingers crossed, guys!

My sleeping is all out of whack again, quel surprise. But I'm about to go to bed and it's only 11:30, so maybe I'll turn it around again yet! :D My life is so utterly fascinating.

I really don't have anything to talk about, I'm sorry. Lame blog post is lame. =/ But hey, at least I didn't forget to do it! :D?

Bedtime internets. Goodnight.

I have nothing else to talk about. Besides, I love Doctor Who.

I got my Doctor Who shirt in the mail the other day, which made me do a happy dance of happy, and I wore it to school yesterday hoping I would make all the friends. Unfortunately, only like, two people commented on it, and one was already my friend. =/ BUT it doesn't matter because I love Doctor Who and wearing the shirt made me really happy. It has David Tennant's face on it.

David Tennant is the best Doctor, imo, of the three I've seen. I liked Christopher Eccleston too, but he was there so briefly I didn't get a chance to love him properly. Matt Smith is okay so far, but David owns my heart. ^_^ He's so cute and weird and his eyebrows are magnificent. Also "allons-y" is the best catchphrase, and he's so cute when he says it. I LOVE DAVID TENNANT.

As far as the companions go, Rose irritated me at first and then grew on me; Martha was freakin' awesome; I HATED DONNA FOREVER AND EVER; and Amy so far is all right, kind of annoying and slutty, but mostly okay. Donna set the bar pretty high for me hating characters on that show. I thought Rose was annoying, then Donna showed up. After that I was like, "Hey, as long as you're not Donna, you're welcome to be the companion!" UGH DONNA. She's just so whiny and nasally, and she's always bugging the Doctor about stuff that he can't do anything about.

One time they went to Pompeii, and Donna was all like "OMG Doctor we should totally save all these people from the volcano!" and the Doctor was like "We can't actually do that, much as I'd like to, because it's a fixed point in time and we can't go messing about with history 'cause it could totally destroy the world." And Donna was like "YOU'RE SUCH A JERK I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'D LET ALL THESE PEOPLE WE DON'T KNOW DIE EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DIE AND IT'S A MILLION YEARS AGO ANYWAY OMG YOU'RE SO MEEEAAANN." And the Doctor is like, "Look, I'm the Time Lord here, I know the rules, and it's my responsibility to make sure everything goes the right way. MAYBE I know a little bit more about it than you. So MAYBE YOU SHOULD LET ME DO MY JOB." And then Donna was all, "Whatevs, if he's gonna be like that, I'll save the people my own darn self." And the Doctor had to go and correct all her stupid mistakes and save the world from exploding. And that is why I hate Donna.

I'll give her that it's refreshing to have a companion NOT be totally in love with the Doctor, 'cause that's a little annoying. But Donna herself is MUCH more annoying than the others pining away for the Doctor - at least that has a vague sense of plot about it. Donna just irritates me to no end. =/

As far as season 5 goes, so far I like Matt Smith, though not as much as David Tennant, but he's doing a pretty good job. I kind of like Amy, whore-y as she can be. My favorite, though, is Rory, Amy's fiance guy. He's adorable and funny and I feel really sad for him, but he's a good guy. And I love him. And I want him to go travel around with the Doctor, too, because he's awesome. ^_^

I need to get a job so I can spend all my money on DVDs and shirts. I have a serious addiction to buying t-shirts and TV-on-DVD. XD

I'm from the future.

Another suggestion from my blog muse was to write a letter to the Erin of the Future. :D So here's my letter to me in ten years.

Dear 32-year-old Erin,

Hello! It's 22-year-old Erin, remember me? I'm just writing to see how you're doing, how life's going and all. I hope it's going pretty well. For Pete's sake, I hope you're done with college. If you're still in school, punch yourself in the face RIGHT NOW. I'm gonna know if you did it or not. =/

Am I married yet? I guess I hope I am - I mean, it doesn't matter if you're still single, I'm sure life is still awesome. But it'd be nice to be married by now. What's our hypothetical husband like? I hope he's handsome and funny, smart but not too much smarter than me, sweet and caring, with interests similar to mine. I'm not even going to ask if he likes Harry Potter, because if you married him, I'm sure he does. Did we have a Harry Potter themed wedding?! Oh, I hope so. If you didn't have a HP-themed wedding, punch yourself in the face again. SERIOUSLY. That's just messed up. (I'm pretty sure we had a Harry Potter themed wedding, or at LEAST some references here and there. Like the bride and groom figurines were in Gryffindor colors or something. Or maybe we served butterbeer. I'm sure we figured something out.)

Are you a famous author yet? Were you famous before your 10-year high school reunion rolled around? If you weren't, I guess it's okay. I was just looking forward to rubbing it in the faces of everyone who was mean to me. XD But hey, as long as we're a famous best-selling author now, I'm cool. And with pronouns like these, how could we/you/I not be?!

I hope we've had a lot of adventures and fun in our lifetime. When the time comes to write a memoir, I hope future-future-me has a LOT to write about. And I hope our life has been full of joy and happiness, love and friendship. I sincerely hope my parents are still around, and my sisters are close and doing well in their future lives. Let me know how things are going with you, 32-year-old self! I look forward to finding out all about you. :D

Love,
22-year-old Erin

I dream about sharks an awful lot.

I'm wearing fake glasses as I write this. You know, those glasses with clear plastic lenses that they sell in like, Claire's? I totally have a pair, and they have rhinestones on the corners, and they're awesome, and I'm wearing them.

Anyway. My blog muse suggested I write about dreams I've had, which is a terrific topic because I have the MOST CRACKED OUT DREAMS EVER. Seriously. My subconscious is a crazy person.

When I was little, I used to have a lot of recurring dreams. There were three or four dreams I'd have over and over - not for several nights in a row, but for years, with months in between them. It was weird. And they didn't seem to mean anything, either. There was one dream I always had where I was a little fish, just swimming around being a fish, and then suddenly I looked down ('cause fish can do that) and there were like, fifteen sharks in a circle directly beneath me. I'd race for the surface and they'd chase me and just as I was either about to break free or be eaten, I'd wake up. That sounds like it'd mean something, like being trapped in a situation or being afraid of something, I don't know. But I was little, like eight or so. There wasn't much going on in my life.

Another recurring dream from my childhood, which actually became something of an inside joke for me and my sisters: I'm hanging out in my backyard with my little sister, and we're running around playing or whatever. We get to the back corner of our yard, which is fenced in, and we look back towards the house - and somehow, the entire yard is made of ice. Like, not ice over the grass, it's MADE of ice. There's water underneath us, and we're standing on maybe a foot of solid ice. I'm trying to get my sister to go back to the house, when all of a sudden there's a whipcrack in the air and we look to the other side of the yard, which seems to go on and on at this point, and there's a freaking ESKIMO on a DOGSLED rushing towards us. He looks scary, so I start freaking out. Then my sister points out that underneath the ice, in the water, there are sharks. Apparently I was secretly scared of sharks, I don't know. But as soon as we see the sharks, the ice starts to crack. The Eskimo is getting closer, the sharks are right under us, and the ice cracks. Just before we were about to either fall or get caught, I'd wake up.

Pretty sure I had some other recurring nightmares as a child, but I've also had some amazing one-time dreams. XD They're usually funny and weird. This one time I dreamt about pirates, and I was hanging out with this ridiculously gay pirate, just eating mashed potatoes on his pirate ship. It was weird. I don't even like mashed potatoes that much. O_o

I also had a dream about ice skating with Neil Patrick Harris, then stumbling upon a human sacrifice, escaping it, and returning home to find that a bunch of wizard rock people had mailed me cookies and cupcakes.

I've had nightmares about Doctor Who (the Weeping Angels, need I say more?), Harry Potter (literally, one time I had the dream that's just flashes of green light, a woman screaming, and high cold laughter), and Buffy (the Gentlemen freaked me the eff out). I have dreams about famous people and people I know.

My dreams usually happen like movies - they're vivid, there's music and sound effects and crazy visual effects, and there's usually some sort of either completely insane or intensely epic plot. Like traveling from planet to planet via magic doors, being chased by terrifying Police who look like monks and want to kill you. Or delivering some magic musical instrument to someone in a school run by people I know irl, running up and down staircases that only go in one direction, mourning the loss of a girl I dislike in a Spanish class taught by one of my friends, all the while trying to get this made-up musical instrument to the right person so they can save us all.

My dreams are often the inspiration for stories, sometimes poems, and most recently a book. The ones with good plots, at least. Some of them are just insanity. XD So I kind of like having such an intense imagination, because as long as I dream, I'll have plots for books and stories. And being a writer is what I want, so I guess as long as I dream, I have a shot at my dreams?


... No. Let's just pretend I never said that. :D

Musings about the seasons and holidays and stuff.

I STARTED THIS BEFORE MIDNIGHT IT TOTALLY COUNTS :D

The weather today was fan-freakin'-tastic, so even though I slept through my first class (whoops) and did my Spanish homework wrong (I did it too well, actually), it was a pretty great day. I had lunch with some friends I don't see nearly enough, then hung out with my sisters, and it was just delightful.

I'm so excited that fall is nearing. Everyone loves the change from summer to fall, the arrival of the pumpkin-spice-everything, hoodie weather, apple picking if you're lucky enough to live somewhere where that's available, and most of all - the holiday season.

I don't care what religion or nationality you are, there is something for everyone to celebrate in the last few months of the year (Author's Note: this may or may not be true of all religions or nationalities). Thanksgiving is my personal favorite, mostly because it's got the best food. Seriously, it's not about the whole Pilgrims vs the Indians thing, at least not anymore. It may have started that way, but that's not what we think about these days. It's about being thankful for what we have, namely the delicious food we're about to eat. :D But seriously, it's a time for thinking of the less fortunate and being glad for what we have, and I think that's nice. It's a good holiday.

I'm excited for many things this coming fall/winter season. There are a few concerts coming up that I want to go to, there are some movies, specifically HARRY POTTER, the holidays, the weather... I'm mostly just ready for change. I'm excited for a few certain events, but really, I just love the changing of the seasons. It makes me happy. :D

Especially because here in Myrtle Beach, we really only have three seasons: semiwinter, OMGSOHOTOMG, and comfortable. Comfortable is my favorite part of the year. It happens twice - sometime in April and sometime in September or October. It really only lasts a couple of months, if we're lucky, but it's delightful. Leaving the doors and windows open, the crisp coolness of the air with the warmth of the sun... it's awesome. :D

Someone better start suggesting blog post ideas, or this Blogging Most Days in September thing is going to fail. XD

Don't make fun of me.

This Sunday evening, I find myself trying to read the rest of Huck Finn, study for a Music Appreciate quiz (I use "study" lightly because it's really not that hard a class), study Spanish, and apply for jobs, and then I remember I have to do a blog post! So move over homework and employment, I have STUFF TO DO ON THE INTERNET.

The hardest part of blogging every day is finding stuff to talk about. Especially since this isn't a personal blog, per se, so I don't want to talk too much about my life. I already have a blog for that. XD

So I'm watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which I will admit is something of a guilty pleasure, but I couldn't tell you why. All of these people are awful to each other, to other people, just in general. The girls are so disrespectful to their parents, who in turn are immature and annoying. They're all just... ugh. Whiny, obnoxious, idiotic, spoiled, pick your favorite.

But despite all of that, I find myself watching them for hours at a time. Why? What is it about them that is so fascinating? I mean, yeah, Kim Kardashian is really pretty, and they have, um, interesting fashion sense, and it's kind of fun to see all the fights they get into and stuff... but there's no real substance to the show. To be honest, there's no real substance to E! in general, but this show in particular is just ridiculous. I don't know why I watch it. =/

So that's one of my guilty pleasures, nonsensical as it is. What are some of yours? I have to go do homework now, and hopefully find a job before my unemployment runs out. :D See you tomorrow!

Short post today, sorry. =/

FIRST, an addition to yesterday's post - "I'S" DOES NOT EXIST IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. There is no instance where that's okay. It's Sarah's and MY birthday. This is Lisa's and MY new kitten. Pictures from my sister's and MY vacation. AAHHHH IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. It's like the I/me rule - take out the other person and see if it makes sense. Or you could just use your brain and realize that "I's" makes no sense and sounds ridiculous and is not a real word.

Anyway.

I don't really have much to talk about today. I don't want to talk about 9/11, but I would like repost a formspring response from Ed Blann, also known as Eddplant on YouTube/the rest of the internet:

What's your opinion on the 9/11 attack on America? I've always wondered what an English dude thought about it.

The events of September the 11th, 2001 were a tragic loss of human life, but I think worse than that is the response it received and the actions which followed it. The events encouraged a minority of Muslims to be more outspoken about their hateful beliefs, most of which are largely unfounded and have little basis in the Qu'ran, and worse than that led the governments of the world on a wild goose chase that has so far ignited more hatred and violence than it has abated.

By all means, remember those who lost their lives in the attacks on that day, but spare a thought for the tragic deaths since that could easily have been avoided.


I would agree, Eddplant. I am very sad for the families who lost someone, and of course I think we should honor the memories of the victims and the soldiers, but I also think that the following war and prejudice and everything else is just as bad, if not worse, and could have been avoided. Remember those who lost their lives for this country, but think about why.

GRAMMAR NAZI ALERT

I feel a rant coming on. No one's going to read all of this, and I probably won't have any friends anymore, but I can't stop it.

You know what really freaking irritates me? When I see things that are for sale, like t-shirts or posters or whatever, with SPELLING ERRORS ON THEM. Especially handmade things, because then it's like, what, you just didn't check before you printed up the t-shirt? Just assumed you were right and went ahead and made it? I mean, really, if you're trying to SELL SOMETHING to people, you'd think you'd want to get it right. =/

Also really annoying - when people misuse apostrophes. I'm not talking about not doing contractions wrong, which is ALSO also really annoying; no, I mean when someone shortens a word and puts an apostrophe at the end of it for no reason. Example:

"You" to "ya" is a new word entirely, not half a word or two words smashed together.
"Want to" to "wanna" is a new word entirely. It's slang, not a contraction.
NEITHER OF THESE NEED APOSTROPHES.

And it's annoying enough to see "When are ya' coming over?" but when I see "When are ya' comin over?" my vision fades to red and I just start banging my head against the desk. APOSTROPHES AREN'T THAT HARD. Seriously, here are the basic rules of apostrophes:

1) Contractions, which are SPECIFICALLY these formats: "can not" to "can't," "will not" to "won't," "you are" to "you're," "she is" to "she's." Obviously there are more contractions than these, but these are examples of the format. We all know the contractions, but we don't all know how to use them, apparently.
2) To show possession. This is admittedly a little tricky, especially with names that end in s. "Erin's book." "Kelly's room." "Chris' problems," SINGULAR. NOW, if it's a name that ends in s and there are TWO of them, it would be "That's the Chris's problem now." Some grammarians say that it doesn't matter which you use, as long as you're consistent.
3) To shorten words. 'Cause. Goin'. These are the proper ways of shortening words - if you are simply taking off a letter or two and not adding any more, you can tack on an apostrophe.

Chris' comment shows he doesn't understand what I'm sayin'. SEE. It's EASY.


And another thing, just because it irritates me to no end:
YOUR = POSSESSIVE. Your book. Your shoe.
YOU'RE = CONTRACTION FOR "YOU ARE." You're crazy. You're wrong.
If YOU'RE not saying "you are," leave the apostrophe out of YOUR word.

There = a place. Over there. There it is.
Their = possessive, belonging to people who are not you or me. It's theirs.
They're = a contraction for "they are." They're going. They're with me.
THEY'RE going to get THEIR books from over THERE. "The" is always first no matter which one it is.

THESE ARE NOT THAT HARD, WHY DO PEOPLE GET THEM WRONG?

I'm not trying to be stuck up here or anything, but SERIOUSLY. This is our NATIVE LANGUAGE. We've all been speaking it since we were like, two or three, at least. There is no excuse, short of a mental handicap, for not knowing the basic rules of spelling and grammar. I mean, really, they haven't changed for a while. And I'm not talking about hard stuff, I'm talking about CONTRACTIONS and HOMOPHONES.

I find it particularly delicious and hilarious when I see something like this on Facebook:

"i shouldnt have to press 1 for englihs, your in AMERICA, learn the language!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh, I love it when people do things like this. XD Except for the blatant disregard for all rules of capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. Three exclamation points, MAX, guys. But really, the fact that they're saying "learn the language" in English that is ENTIRELY WRONG, oh, it just makes the evil part of me laugh and laugh. And then I get really scared because what if one of these people is in charge of something important? They can't even spell the name of our language, how are they going to do anything else? Then my brain and my heart huddle together and have a good cry, while the evil part of me is still snickering away.

tl;dr version: LEARN ENGLISH AND USE IT PROPERLY. There's no excuse not to, and people won't make fun of you and call you an idiot if you can speak your OWN FREAKING LANGUAGE. Well, they might, but it'll probably happen less.

POEM'D

Lately all I've been working on
Is schoolwork and this stupid musical.
I'm tired of thinking about Twilight
But this show is going to be so cool.

I'm doing really well in school,
Which makes me really glad.
But seriously, this horrible book
Is making me go mad.

The other day I tried to write "those,"
And spelling's what I do best.
You know how I spelled it? Do you want to know?
T-H-O-U-G-H-S.

Seriously, Twilight is melting my brain.
I used the wrong "your" one time.
But we're nearly done, and once we are,
I'm sure we'll be just fine.

Turns out we're both really hilarious
And our song lyrics don't always suck.
If our actors are good, we might succeed
At being internet famous, with any luck.

So that is the story of our Twilight play
And the progress we're making is fair.
It's taken us a long time because, really,
We can't bring ourselves to care.

But we're doing a good job,
And it's going to be great,
Even though it's a product
Of immense hate.

I hope you liked my poem,
But I just remembered -
I have to go, but look!
I'm Blogging Most Days in September! :D



I am awesome.

Top Five Records - Book Edition :D

I missed yesterday because I was out doing things until like, 11:30, and when I got home I was just too tired. But whatever, I can still Blog Most Days in September! :D

So back in like... June or something, I did a Top 5 list post. One of my favorite movies is High Fidelity, in which John Cusack plays a record store owner who is always making "Top 5" lists. The first post was bands, and this post is going to be books. I will do a Top 5 Books Right Now, and Top 5 Books of All Time. 'Cause that shouldn't be hard, right?! :D

TOP 5 BOOKS RIGHT NOW

1. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
Yes, I am going to make series count as one. It's my blog and I can do what I want. :D But seriously, these books are amazing. They're set in a futuristic-y distopian society, and every year a bunch of kids have to fight to the death for the rest of the country's entertainment and as a reminder that the Capitol can do whatever they want and there's nothing the citizens can do about it. It's amazing, really.

2. The Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray
Ahhhhh I love these books! They're so good, omg. They're set in 1895 in a girls' finishing school in England, and there's magic and other worlds and monsters, and it's just fabulous. :D I love this series. It's the perfect blend of historical fiction, which I think is a good time, and fantasy, and it's well-written and funny and sad and just... awesome.

3. Paper Towns by John Green
I love John Green a lot, thanks to YouTube, but I hadn't actually read any of his books until just recently. Paper Towns is about a boy who likes a girl and randomly has one incredible night with her, but the girl disappears and leaves a bunch of clues so he can find her, which he does. There's all kinds of message-y things and stuff in it, but mostly it's just a really fun story with really adorable characters. It's got an epic road trip, too, which is always fun. :D

4. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
Another book with an epic adventure. I want epic adventures. =/ This girl is basically following her dead aunt's instructions, via the 13 envelopes, for an adventure all around Europe. It's sad and funny and weird and a really good story, and reading all these books about these amazing places and stories just makes the wanderlust worse. =/ But they're still fun.

5. The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
I haven't actually been reading these lately, but a friend of mine is and her talking about it is making me remember how much I love them. :D Another futuristic distopia, and another epic adventure. In a world where everything is computerized, where hoverboards and tracking rings are standard, and plastic surgery is mandated when you turn 16, a couple of kids run away to live in the wilderness to escape the involuntary brain surgery that comes with the operation. They basically just make you completely shallow and idiotic so you don't question the way things are run. Another book series that shows us a completely ridiculous future to sort of put the way we actually live in perspective. It's very good.

Yes, yes I do read a lot of Young Adult fiction. And I like it. And I also read real books, so hush. :D

TOP 5 BOOKS OF ALL TIME

1. Harry freakin' Potter series by JK freakin' Rowling
Do I really need to say anything?

2. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
I love this book. I love the epicness, I love the romanticness, and in recent re-readings, I even love the whole Civil War aspect. It's a classic for a reason. Ugh, it's SO GOOD. I love it. The end.

3. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Um, YES, I still love these books, and NO, I don't care that they're written for children. I love Laura Ingalls Wilder and I want to be her. These books are awesome - the 1800s were awesome, and I want to live like she did. I just basically love everything about these books as well.

4. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
I don't care what you say, I love this book. I need to read it again, actually. It's one of those books I could read over and over and over and still find new meanings and make new connections. It's just amazing.

5. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
This is one book that will always stick with me, primarily because it's awesome, but also because I had to annotate it for a summer reading assignment and my annotations are AMAZING. :D It was one of the first books about Buddhism that I ever read, so it's special in that way too.

BONUS 6. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This book is also awesome and amazing and about an epic trip and learning things, and it's another book I could probably read forever and still find new stuff in it every time. Oh my goodness, READ THIS BOOK.

I could probably make a Top 100 book list, but I don't think I'll do that now. I am too hungry now. :D But there you have it, a small sampling of books I like. What are your thoughts on them? I'd particularly like to hear what people think of the ones on the All Time list. Tell me your favorite books and why - go! :D

In which I prove just exactly how lame I am, in multiple ways!

Once upon a time, Doctor Who is an awesome show of awesomeness that is awesome. It's basically about an alien, a 900-year-old Time Lord called the Doctor, who can move around time and space in his spaceship which looks like one of those old fashioned Police Call Boxes in England. ANYWAY. So Doctor Who is awesome, but it is oftentimes TERRIFYING. For real, it's about every tenth episode or so where I'm like "OKAY, CAN'T SLEEP NOW, THANKS A LOT DOCTOR WHO." And then I have to watch another episode or read or something and then I'm up till 7AM and it's ALL DOCTOR WHO'S FAULT.

So there are some enemies that keep showing up, most notably the Daleks (ancient enemies of the Time Lords, they're little R2D2 lookin' guys with creepy squishy aliens inside, and their sole purpose in life is to take over everything and exterminate everything that isn't a Dalek) and the Cybermen (human brains minus the whole emotions thing, encased in a robot body, with the sole purpose to upgrade all other humans to Cybermen, and if they resist they get deleted), and they're fairly freaksome, but eventually you just get tired of them, so they're not so scary. BUT. Some of these episodes are just HORRIFYING.

There's an episode where they investigate a planet orbiting a black hole, and underneath they find Satan (yes, THAT Satan). That was scary. The one where the little girl was possessed by some crazy alien spore or something and was capturing people in her drawings - literally. There's one with a giant spider alien, so, you know, I LOVED THAT ONE.

This one episode called "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" where the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston - every so often the Doctor will get hurt and instead of dying he regenerates and comes back in a new body, which is how the show has been on for like, thirty years) and his companion Rose (ugh, Rose. I used to hate her until DONNA showed up, and then she didn't seem so bad. I FREAKING HATE DONNA, just so you know.) are in the middle of WWII London, where they encounter this horrible little kid with a gas mask on, who the other little kids call The Empty Child. He's just walking around everywhere with his terrifying gas-mask-face, going "Are you my mummy? Mummy? I want my mummy." AND IT IS SO SCARY OMG WHAT EVEN. It ends happily and everything, but for the most part, I watched the episode peeking out between my fingers. =/

But that wasn't as scary as "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead," where the 10th Doctor (DAVID TENNANT HE IS MY FAVORITE I LOOOVE HIIIM) and his companion Donna (I HATE DONNA) go to this library planet (the whole planet is a library - I know, I want to go there too) and discover that all of the people there are gone. There are some explorer people who are there too, and together they try to solve the mystery. TURNS OUT, these shadow creatures, the Vashta Nerada, are devouring people in like, seconds. Yeah. SHADOWS. As in, you can't see them until it's too late, and you have to stay in the light all the time, which of course is impossible because the ceiling is a glass dome and the sun is going down. So YAY. They are scary, too, because they make a sort of electronic ghost in the explorers' walkie-talkies, so after they kill people you can still talk to them and stuff. It's creeepy. O_o

But THAT isn't even CLOSE to how freaking terrifying the Weeping Angels are. Sure, I was careful around shadows and afraid to turn out the lights after the Vashta Nerada. But the Weeping Angels... I was legitimately too scared to sleep after I saw the first episode with them, which is called "Blink" and is in the 10th Doctor's time. And that episode even ends happily. BUT THEN THEY COME BACK.

First, let me explain what a Weeping Angel is and why it is so incredibly scary. They're statues of angels, usually with their hands over their faces like they're crying, but they're actually alive. And they're only stone when you look at them. When you turn around or close your eyes, even to blink, they move. And they move FAST. Like, if they're ten feet away and you blink, they'll be RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. And their faces get all angry looking, with huge gaping mouths and sharp fangs and angry frowny foreheads... they're scary bananas.

"The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" (I guess the two-parters are really what freak me out the most, huh) is in season 5, the 11th Doctor's (Matt Smith) first season. The Doctor and his new companion, Amy, end up on this planet where these soldier guys are trying to catch this one Weeping Angel in some catacombs. They're all wandering around and some are getting killed and there's all these eroded statues in there, and then it turns out that they're all Angels too. The Doctor figures this out by TURNING OFF THE FLASHLIGHTS and then turning them back on. O_O And also, Amy's in this trailer watching security camera footage of the Angel, and then it starts COMING THE EFF OUT OF THE TV. Turns out whatever captures the image of an Angel turns into an Angel itself, so any pictures or videos will eventually COME ALIVE AND KILL YOU. And Amy looks into its eyes, so I guess her brain made an image of the Angel or something, so she starts turning into one... it's weird. BUT! The Doctor tells her to keep her eyes shut so she won't turn into an Angel. KEEP HER EYES SHUT. WITH 50,000 ANGELS WALKIN' AROUND.

And then he decides it'd be a good idea to go traipsing around in a FOREST, and it's just generally terrifying. I guess it's mostly scary because they keep doing stupid things, but the Angels freak me the eff out. I can't look at statues anymore, but I also can't NOT look, just in case. Oh, Doctor Who, you have ruined me. =/ It's a scary show sometimes, but it is also too awesome for me not to watch it. :D

So yeah! That's my story about how Doctor Who is trying to kill me via heart attack. Right after I watched the 2-part Weeping Angels episodes, my mom nearly scared me to death by simply walking down the hallway. Her shoes were making scary noises and it was dark and I wasn't expecting her... gah, I'm a wimp. ^_^ But still. It's all Doctor Who's fault.

StickAid and Rambly-ness.

So in case you missed my entire interneting yesterday, StickAid (massive 24-hour livestream to raise money for UNICEF) happened! I stayed up for 37 hours straight, which is my new record, and then slept for about 13 hours, which was nice. I'm still tired, so perhaps I have not completely destroyed any hope of sleeping normally when school starts again. :D

I didn't mean to stay up for so long - I was just up late, and then the StickAID thing started and I decided I'd see if it was interesting, and it was, and then all of a sudden it was the afternoon and you can't go to bed at 2pm. So I stayed up and watched almost all of the broadcast. I went to bed about four hours before they stopped. I almost wish I'd stayed up for the rest of it, but I was so tired I just couldn't. But it was a good broadcast, very funny and entertaining, and all the musical performances were great.

We ended up raising over 20,000 pounds, DOUBLE the original goal. 20,000 pounds equals $30,896, so we raised probably 31.5 or 32,000 dollars. That is just mind-blowing, and so amazing to think about all that money going to help kids in the poorest parts of the world. It's awesome. Great job, Myles and Charlie, and all the people running the show and contributing, and AWESOME job, everyone who donated! And if you donated because of my promoting it, please let me know. I'd be so happy to know that all I did yesterday actually helped. :D

This was my first experience with the amazingness that the internet, especially the YouTube community, can do. I've seen videos about all the stuff the YouTubers personally are doing, and I've seen all the vlogbrothers' Project For Awesome videos, but I haven't been a part of it yet. This is the first time I've been a part of something so huge and with such an awesome goal. It's a pretty amazing thing. Seeing how many people there are out there who are willing to help the world makes me feel better about it, because we rarely see the fruits of their efforts in our lives, so we all kind of assume we're alone in wanting to make things better and therefore nothing we do will matter because we're all just one person each. But when you see all of the people, who are all just one person each, coming together to do something so fantastic to help other people they don't even know... it's just indescribable. I only donated $12 of my own meager amount of money, but if that $12 saves some kid from starving to death, or gets a community vaccinated, or helps build someone a house, that's awesome. I feel like I did a lot more than that, because I was so invested in it and the feeling of community was so strong, and that's another awesome thing about both charity and the internet - you're all complete strangers, but you've got something strong connecting you, so you feel like you're best friends with everyone around you. Or at least I do. XD

Anyway, I guess the whole point is that StickAid was a ridiculous success, and I am amazingly happy to have been part of it, sleep-deprivation and all. :D And I'm very excited for this year's Project For Awesome, because even if I don't make a video, I'll be able to be in the comments and promoting and stuff, feeling like I'm making a difference. Which I guess is less important than actually making a difference, but still pretty important. When I have money to spare, I will definitely be donating to charities, but I feel like getting invested in the causes and actually going out and doing things is just as important.

As a side note, I want a job that centers around the internet. XD I'm really good at it, and at knowing things that are going on, and networking, which means getting information from all kinds of places... I'd be awesome at promoting stuff online. I should find some company that needs an internet person. =/ Or maybe figure out what the actual job title would be first. XD

Saving the world via the internet.

So today has largely been devoted to Myles Dyer's StickAID project, which is a 24-hour live streaming benefit show that he does every year, this being the fifth, I think. This year, Charlie McDonnell is co-hosting, hence my interest. :D I never intended to stay up all night and day watching this, but that is what happened.

StickAID (http://stickam.com/blade376 - streaming live until about 7 AM EST) is basically this: Myles Dyer, adorable British internet persona, joined by several more-adorable equally-British internet personas and friends of his, is doing ridiculous things for 24 hours straight with no sleep while people all over the world watch, and donate to UNICEF. His goal is 10,000 pounds, and as of 6:27 PM EST, they already have 9,000. It's been 12 hours nearly, and they have nearly raised the entire goal amount, and this is the entire point that Myles hoped to make by doing this online streaming thing: the internet is a powerful tool, and in such a connected time, there is so much that we can do.

UNICEF, in case you don't know, is a world-wide organization that helps needy kids in all countries, which is exactly why Myles chose it. It's something everyone in the world can donate to, and it's something the whole world can benefit from. Five pounds, ten dollars, one fast-food meal to us can be a life-changer to a kid thousands of miles away.

This has been my first year watching StickAID, and it's been pretty amazing. I donated 5 pounds, which equals about 8 dollars, and I've been tweeting about it all morning and afternoon. It's been such a cool experience, because there were times when there were over 10,000 people watching the show at one time, all over the world, in all time zones. There were times when everyone was tweeting and retweeting, trying to make #stickaid trend, and succeeding. It was just this huge group feeling, even though it was 10,000 people across the entire world, and it was so cool. It's still going on, obviously, but I'm updating around the halfway mark, so I'm just talking about earlier this morning. They still have all kinds of crazy challenges and ridiculous stunts to do, so if you're bored later and you have a chance, check them out. And if you're not bored, but you want to do something to help needy kids everywhere, please donate. Even 5 dollars will be a huge help to some poor kid.

Here is the link to donate (the link to watch the streaming video is above): http://www.justgiving.com/stickaid2010/

You can use Paypal or a debit/credit card, and Americans can donate even though it says pounds. It's a very easy, simple process, and it will take you five minutes to save someone's life.

EDIT - WE DID IT! We reached 10,000 pounds! IN ONLY TWELVE HOURS! The internet is truly an amazing thing! Oh my god, this is so awesome. Keep donating, please! Just because we reached our goal doesn't mean all the needy kids will be taken care of. Donate as much as you can! Be a part of this awesomeness!

This still counts as a post on Friday.

Okay, so TECHNICALLY, since it's after midnight, I've missed a day, but since I haven't gone to BED yet, I'm saying the day's not over yet. :D Shut up, it's my blog.

A friend asked me recently why I decided to start this blog, and I thought I'd answer that question on my blog. :D There are really 3 main reasons why:

1) To work on my writing

I want to be a writer, and in order to do that, I need to write all the time and in all sorts of forms. I write poetry and stories for fun, I write essays for school, and now I'm giving blogging a go. There are some things I notice in my writing that I know I need to fix, and I'm hoping that with practice, and practicing in different styles, I can improve my overall talent and find my own voice with which to write novels and things.

2) To write about Important Issues

Recently I've become very interested in keeping up with things going on today, like politics and environmental issues and whatnot. I figured a good way to keep up with these things, to voice my own opinions and views, and to maybe strike a spark in other people my age, would be to start a blog focused on political things. After a few posts, though, I decided to branch out. I want to share my opinions on all kinds of things, not just political issues. I wanted to be able to talk about whatever I wanted, but still with the same sort of goal - to be educated and keep up with things going on around me, and to maybe educate someone else.

3) To be INTERNET FAMOUS

I don't really expect to become famous through this blog, but it would be cool, huh? :D I've decided that internet fame would be the best kind of fame, because you'd get the best bits of being famous without the insanity of never being able to go anywhere or having to have bodyguards or whatever. So if I'm going to be in any way famous, it'll be through the internet or as an author. 'Cause you never hear about crazy screaming mobs chasing after authors, no matter how famous they are. :D You just have to watch out for the crazy obsessed sociopaths, and you'll be fine.

So yeah, those are my main reasons for creating this blog. Mostly the first two. XD I really just love to write, and I love to express my opinion and hear other peoples' opinions on things. And with my recent interest in discussing politics and religion and all this controversial type stuff, I thought perhaps this blog could end up making a difference, even if it's to change one person's mind about a certain issue. That would be really awesome to me. On top of that, if I gain some sort of insight about my writing through these posts, that would be awesome as well. And as added bonuses, it's fun, it's an easy way to get in touch with people, and it means a legit reason to spend more time online. XD

Adventures in Girlyness!

Second day of Blog Every Day in September (my official name for it until I come up with a better one...) and I've only got an hour and 20 minutes left. XD I'm totally awesome at this.

So I got my first manicure and pedicure today! I don't usually do girl things, like getting my hair and nails done, but my friend wanted to have a Girls' Night thing and so we did it. Honestly, I probably would have saved the $40, but it was an experience, and it was kind of fun to be pampered. :D But it made me think about beauty standards and all the stuff women do to be pretty, and I just don't know how I feel about it.

On the one hand, there's the whole extreme-measures-taken-to-look-hot-for-men thing, which really does bother me at times. I mean, if you want to wax and tan and paint yourself for you, that's great. But don't do it specifically to impress a man, or any one else, for that matter. There's nothing wrong with any of it, just with the motives behind it. Because it seems like every product aimed at women is telling us that we're not good enough just by ourselves - we need layers of makeup, intending to make us look "natural," we need special products for our skin under all that makeup, we need perfumes and certain clothes and shoes, and it just all gets ridiculous.

Let's be clear - I don't care if you wear makeup or heels or short skirts or whatever, if that's what you like. If that's what you feel good in. I just hate how it's marketed, how all the ads seem to say "hey, just change this certain thing about you, and then you'll be totally hot!" I sometimes wear eyeliner and do my eyebrows, because I feel like just a little color is enough to accent my eyes and all that nonsense. :D But I don't feel the need to wax every hair off my body or paint my entire face every day.

On the other hand, sometime I do feel like I'm not girly enough. I mean, I don't style my hair, I don't get all dressed up in current fashions, or even match all the time. I'm just me. But maybe if I tried a little harder, I'd feel prettier or better about myself. And I feel like that feeling is a direct effect of the way things are advertised to women. Because I wear unfashionable clothes and don't spend hundreds of dollars on making myself hairless and tanned, I feel like I'm unattractive, and that is unfair.

I think it's unfair that all of this stuff is marketed towards women to make us prettier or whatever, but so little is aimed at men for the same thing. I mean, men have what, razors and cologne and... what else? Clothes, sure, but it's not such a big deal for guys to wear jeans and a t-shirt every day. It's just not the same for men. Women put so much effort into looking beautiful and put-together every day, and it just doesn't matter as much for men. =/ It's a little unfair, and it kind of implies that women need so much work, and men are just fine aside from needing to shave and smell nice.

But whatever. I guess the whole point of this blog is that I don't know how I feel about these things. "These things" includes mani/pedis, hair salons, tanning beds, makeup, and fashionable clothing and shoes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being into these things or doing them because you like them. There's nothing really wrong with doing it to be more attractive, it just kind of bugs me that the entire industry of products for women is aimed at making us more desirable for men. And that men don't have to do the same stuff, which isn't fair. And I guess that sums up my flippy-floppy feelings on that subject. :D

EDIT - Wow, I just read through this, and holy crap, could I say "feel" any more often?! O_o Jeez. I guess I'm channeling Stephenie Meyer. XD

Blog Every Day in September!

One of my friends challenged me to blog every day in September, so I'm going to give it a go. :D It will probably be boring, and I will probably miss a few days, but who knows - I might make it, and I might even still have readers at the end of it! ^_^

SINCE it is September 1st, a very important day indeed, I am going to talk about something pretty personal, more personal than anything else I think I've mentioned on this blog.

I love Harry Potter.

No, like, REALLY love. Like, go-to-conventions-dressed-like-a-witch love. Listen-to-music-about-Harry-Potter love. Somehow-manage-to-relate-everything-in-my-life-to-Harry-Potter love. I have a Harry Potter related tattoo, and I plan on getting more. I have a special shelf in my room for my Harry Potter books, which includes the series, the two textbooks JKR published, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, six theory-type books about the series, and a textbook from a real college from a course about theology in Harry Potter.

I have another special shelf with all of my memorabilia: my HP glasses, the Marauder's Map, two plastic Snitches, a crystal ball, a Magic-8-Ball-esque Sorting Hat, two packs of HP Uno cards, a stationary set, three collector's bookmarks, two snowglobes, a Time-Turner, the cloth bag from a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, my two House ties, my Gryffindor scarf, and a toothbrush. That doesn't include my 2 wizard rock T-shirts, four cast T-shirts, and two hoodies. Or my Chocolate Frog cards, my House Crest pins, my wristband from the book release party, my posters and wallscroll, my pins from the 7th book release and the 4th DVD release, and my less-awesome HP glasses. Then there's the notebooks and folders, the towel, and the plushie Snitch and Time-Turner necklace hanging from my car's review mirror. Oh, and I almost forgot my replica of Hermione's wand, that actually lights up. AND all the board games (six HP board games, I think?), including Wizard Chess and a LEGO set. Aaaand also the video games. Oh, and my Quidditch goggles! How could I forget those?

Okay, I think that's all. And wow. That's actually... quite a lot of stuff. :D And I'm proud of that, thank you. I am not in the LEAST bit ashamed of owning so much HP stuff, or wanting a full HP sleeve tattoo, or listening to more wizard rock than regular rock. I am proud of my nerddom, and of my obsession with this series. It's a huge part of who I am.

I didn't actually read the books until the third one was coming out, and at first I'd kind of written it off as a silly kids' series. When I read the first two, though, I was immediately hooked. Not as crazy about it as I am now, because the first two books are the least amazing of the seven - they're still awesome, but they're more stand-on-their-own, less about the backstory and character development. So when I read 3 and 4, which really start telling you who these people are and what is going on, and the story starts getting really epic, it became apparent that this was something that would stay with me forever.

My first book release party was the fifth one - and I stayed up all night to finish it, crying for hours over Sirius. My friends and I talked about Harry Potter all the time. In fact, I firmly believe I would not be best friends with my bestie if it weren't for this series. The midnight showings of the movies became totally reasonable excuses for falling asleep in first block, and in fact, some of my teachers understood if I did.

The summer of 2007 was a very important time in my life. The fifth movie was coming out, and as that was my favorite book, I was very excited, but more importantly, the last book of the series was coming out on July 21st, 2007. The very last installment of my beloved series. People would die, Harry would face Voldemort, everything would end. The months leading up to July 21st were filled with speculation, hopes and fears, and endless, endless conversation about our boy wizard. And then it came. And then came the months of "why?" and "I wish that ____ hadn't/had happened," and "I miss _____." I have cried more over Harry Potter than anything else in my life.

I don't know why exactly I feel so strongly about this series and these characters, other than the obvious: a) it's an amazing story, b) the characters are all so awesome and so well-developed and everyone's individual story is fantastically told, c) it's one of the most popular series of my time. I do feel like my being in the thick of it all had a lot to do with my loving it so much. I was THERE. I was at the final book release party. I was in the theatre at midnight. I was part of the Harry Potter community, almost from the beginning, and among us there is a bond that cannot be broken, a feeling of camaraderie, even with someone you've just met. I'm not the only person who feels this way, and that in and of itself makes me love the series more, for making some of my favorite memories and bringing some of my favorite people into my life.

So yes, I am a huge nerd, and yes, it's probably really lame that I know birthdays and who married who and whose kids were born when and all this stuff that's not in the books. And yes, it's probably kind of pathetic that a 22-year-old is still this obsessed with a book series. But you know what? I love it, and it makes me happy, and there are many intelligent, amazing, influential adults older than me who feel the same way I do.

NERDFIGHTERS!

PS - as I'm tagging this entry, I'm amazed to find that I have not actually used a Harry Potter tag yet.

PPS - and now I'm ashamed to find that I have, in fact, used a Twilight tag before I used Harry Potter. =/


EDIT - Okay, I posted this, and I read over it, and I don't feel like I stressed the last bit enough. I know I am a huge nerd, and I am proud of it. Loving Harry Potter like I do doesn't make me pathetic, though. Maybe you think it's weird, or you can't understand what I see in this series, but loving something - anything - with everything in you does not make you pathetic in any way. I don't care if it's books or music or motorcycles or YouTube videos or cats. If you love something so much that it fills you up inside and makes you want to cry from pure joy, so much that you can't help but smile when you think about it, and you think about it all the time, and it consumes your mind and your heart and your soul... if you love anything that much, you should consider yourself lucky. And it makes no difference what it is. If you're happy, it doesn't matter who thinks what about it.

And I am extremely glad that I have Harry Potter, and that I've been able to have the experiences I've had, and meet the people I've met through our love of this series. I'm extremely glad that I was part of all of this. And I will always have a place in my heart for this amazing story that's been with me for half of my life.

And there's nothing pathetic about any of that, thank you very much.