Three Days Until I'm Goin'

Hey guys,



How are we today?





I haven't actual talked about my life since Sunday, if you were to ignore Harry Potter. Unfortunately not much has been going on with me. My sister's friend comes round a lot and I'm stuck in my room, at least until I get the energy to get ready(Which can take an awfully long time). I spend my time listening to new music, guiltily watching shows on Disney Channel(It's not that I find them entertaining, more that I'm bored with most other things), and using my computer...Oh, and let's not forget, promising myself I'll practice piano later, which I keep forgetting to actually do. Yesterday me, my sister, and the friend went shopping for our school stuff. Doing it early is so much better. I quite enjoy the task, for some reason. I always spend too much time over it though. Does it really matter what color my pencil case is? Well, I guess it does to me(It's GREEN!). My sister was worse, however. She spent ten minutes--And forty dollars--On decorations for her new locker. All dark blue. I can't blame her, I too was quite excited at the concept of having my own locker to decorate. After a month or so she too will come to realise that putting pictures up causes people to stare(Particularly the animal pictures she intends to use), you will be carrying a pencil case so a thing for holding pencils there is unnecessary, the locker racks you buy will fall down under the weight of your books causing more chaos then before, and most importantly you don't have much time to make it all pretty anyway. But at least she's excited for school now! O h,and in the line at Staples I saw this little light thing on one of the cheap stands. And, it was called a "MrBrightside"! How awesome is that?



After that my sister and the friend made what they called "Raspberry Lemonade". Doesn't that defeat the purpose of it being lemonade, then? Today--Well, it's only the early afternoon--We went food shopping in the morning. It was my turn to do self-service, I love doing that. Later I think we're going to the center of town, getting more brace elastics from the orthodontist, and from the doctors these patches that are supposed to stop my travel sickness from happening on the plane. Yeah right, I'm too resilient for that--Which is quite unfortunate in situations such as this.



My copy of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee arrived from Amazon yesterday. I've read about thirty pages so far, a lot for my poor reading speed. I ordered another book, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen also as I couldn't really chose one from the reading list. I skimmed through that but wasn't too impressed. The general plot sounds alright but the writing style isn't too good. Granted, I am finding some of Mark Twain's annoyingly long sentences difficult to understand, but when I do get my head around it it's very interesting. And it has a lot of history in it which is great for me.



I'm in what I've decided to label as a musical slump. By that, I mean I can't find much I like. Well, to be honest, that was a few days ago. I've been listening to a lot of Keane. Go watch the music video for Bedshaped. It's so sad, but also so good. My other favorite songs at the moment are Mayonnaise by Smashing Pumpkins, Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feel Good Drag by Anberlin, and....um...(Okay, I'll admit it) Poker Face by Lady GaGa. The thing is, I dislike Lady GaGa simply on principle. But Poker Face is good, a couple of days ago I even got the guts to buy it on iTunes. That's hard for me with a song like that. Now don't get any ideas from this! I dislike the other of her songs I've heard. Okay, so Boys Boys Boys mentions my favorite band and that's cool...And the 'I wanna take a ride on your disco stick' thing in Love Game is amusing in a 10-year-old-boy way. Still, I feel my musical tastes dropping by the minute. Maybe I should stop it, I don't know...Anyone got any music suggestions for me? Something underground, preferably, or at least to those I know.

Oh, and has anyone checked out the single of the week on iTunes? I never payed much attention to it, but I was bored this morning. It's Fireflies by Owl City. I liked it. I played it a lot in the car to Stop N Shop this morning. My mother did not like it, at all, but my sister did. She's got a thing for synthpop music. It's really catchy, but just so electronic it's beyond mainstream pop music.

Gah, I leave for England Monday...I don't wanna go yet, oddly. It's something I look forward to the whole year. I need to get a load of music before then, I've realised, as I need to become familiar with the bands at the festival, and I won't be able to buy any songs until the end of August(I need to stop talking about music). And I wanna be able to read, and write, blogs. And I wanna be able to have my own space, something lacking when I'll be there.

Okay, enough of that. I'm gonna end this now, and return to my current universe of pop music, and long Mark Twain phrases I have to re-read to make sense of.

And My Plan Is Shattered(And Confusing Nothingess)

I didn't blog yesterday, and thus my 'Blog Every Day During The Summer When Possible' plan is shattered. It was gonna happen. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. I don't wanna spend 30 minutes to write the same things here every day. And more than that, no one wants to read it. Who wants to read my blog normally, for that matter?





Having to blog every day is almost as annoying as mosquitoes in the summer(Have you seen that Family Guy sketch?). Well, mosquitoes at the moment. Somehow my parents don't consider fixing the mosquito nets so there are no holes to be a top priority so we do have a problem with them. Clearly more importantly, we go out and look at lights and fireplaces and paint colors. That's what we did today. Due to a series of, er, unfortunate events, my sister's best friend and her younger brother had to come round yesterday, and stay the night. I feel I should do the part here of describing how mind-bogglingly annoying they were today, that's what most would do in this situation. But they're actually really easy to deal with. That's good because they have to come around here a lot at the moment.





Yesterday(Flicking between topics here, at this moment, sorry) me and my mom went into town on the hunt for the Mark Twain book I must read. The book store had just about every else he'd ever written. We found my sister's book, though, and now we've ordered the book I need which will hopefully arrive by Wednesday, and if not I'm screwed as far as the possibility of finishing it by September 3rd goes. I'm a slow reader, I know. My sister had spent the afternoon at her other best friend's summer house in New Hampshire, so there was a long couple of hours between picking up the previously mentioned friend and her brother and my sister coming home. I was in a sort of "Should I be entertaining them somehow until my sister gets back?" dilemma. She eventually came back, with half a pizza and three baby mice. They'd found them around their house--They were trying to get rid of the mice via poison, and the babies were all that were left. So they stayed the night, one dead by morning, the other by the afternoon, the third by the evening. They can't survive without their mother, really. They need her for warmth, and mouse milk(Have you ever milked a mouse? It's something I intend to do before I die) instead of the cow milk we were giving them. I got to hold one of them, but now all I can think of is the possibility I caught fleas or some sort of mouse disease .



My sister's friend left early this morning for a synchronised swimming thing. I woke up by the pleasant sound of my dad ripping up the carpets outside my bedroom, and spent the morning in my room, basically. In the afternoon we went out, as I'd said, shopping for stuff around our home. we decided on the light my parents want in their bedroom, among other things. Then we got ice cream--My dad's usual reward for an afternoon spent shopping. The thing with having an accent no one understands is the misunderstandings that come with them can be quite interesting. Unless this place's serving sizing were jaw-droppingly large, the guy must have thought my dad had said something other than the "Small" that he had asked for. I should've brought my camera and taken photos. Damn.

After we came home(And after I washed out the remains of mint chocolate chip ice cream dripped over my hands and wind-swept through my hair) my friend's 2nd friend--The one who gave her the mice--Came over. We had a mouse funeral and under the idea that the friend was upset over the mice, her and her younger sister got to stay. We washed the mouse's old cage and played a rule-less game of badminton(Unfortunately, I got stuck on the team with the youngest child under the idea my age might make me somehow better than everyone else. It doesn't work like that, at least for me). They left at about six. Then at about seven the mother of the first child(Who due to said circumstances had been away from the children for 24 hours) came and had dinner with us. Like parents do, they discussed the Tour De France, the weather, and most things in between. They did talk a lot about school since my sister and her daughter are starting middle school in September. It's weird, when I think about 6th grade...I always think "My sister seems too young for that". I think from being the oldest I just imagine my sister as younger than she is. I can't imagine her doing current events, doing her homework in homeroom, staying up all night finishing(Or, more commonly, starting) projects, or going to dances, or gossiping about the latest dating gossip. Though it's gonna happen. It's weird. Anyway, my mother has some sort of idea that I shall be taking the bus next year, too. It's stupid, yes, but I've always been driven to school by my mom. And now when she stays up all night listening to the songs I bought on iTunes and she's tired by the morning, she thinks she can just send me on the bus. Hm. I don't wake up early, for a start. And, I don't like the idea of sitting on a bumpy bus surrounded by so many annoying middle schoolers, even if it's not for very long. I guess as an 8th grader it's better than being a 6th grader and being slightly intimidated at first, but I just know I'd be up at the front with the little shorties anyway. There'll be a lot more discussion from that with my mother in the near future.

Well, that was ten times as long as it needed to be. Back to nothing. Bye!

Why The Heck Must School Still Be Mentioned?

...Well, I suppose it's important, despite it being July now.



My grades for 7th grade came in the mail today. Here's what I got;



1st Term
English; A-
Math; A+
Science; B+
Social Studies; A
Gym; A
Spanish; A


2nd Term
English; A-
Math; A-
Science; A
Social Studies B+
Gym; A
Spanish; B


3rd Term
English; A-
Math; B+
Science; B+
Social Studies; B-
Gym; A
Spanish; B+


So...I think I can guess that the third term of 7th grade is the worst I've done ever. But, I was totally expecting that. I don't care anymore. Ever since I was five years old starting school, I was one of those teacher's pets. Quite frankly, it can be quite an exhausting path, and one that I don't wish to take up anymore. Though, I don't see how I dropped so much in math. My quiz grades were alright, and I only forgot one homework assignment the whole term. She does have favorites though, and clearly I was not one.

Thinking about it, it's more "Did" now, rather than "Does have favorites". It's so weird to think I'm not in 7th grade anymore.

Also, I found out which team I'm on next year(Explained in the post a few days ago). I'n on the small team--The one which everyone knows is worse than the big team. But nearly everyone is on the small team at least once in the three years of middle school, so it was gonna happen. I am on the small team with Adele and RAH, though. I got the letter about it...Some, "We're gonna have a great, productive year" stuff and a list of everything we need. This year for the first time, we have to read a book over the summer. The options for my grade are

- Nothing But The Truth by Avi.
- Witness by Karen Hesse
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
- A Connecticut Yankee by Mark Twain
- Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie

None sound too appealing, but I'm not at all a book-ish person.

The weather here's been terrible, pouring rain and everything. we've just been doing a bit of shopping lately. Yesterday I got the new Elbow album(Well, technically my mother bought it. But, she hadn't even hard of them before I played Ground For Divorce to her the day before, so it might as well be mine). My mom also got The Offspring's Greatest Hits album, and I got the new(Or, new-ish) Razorlight album. And I got John Green's Paper Towns in Barnes and Noble, and I'd noticed that Looking For Alaska was under that area's Required Reading List. I loved that one. Today we went to the natural supermarket in town. They have some great stuff there. They had live music, too. Well, it was a woman with her guitar probably there simply for the money, despite all the hippie stuff she played. And, today I started learning the bridge of How To Save A Life on the piano because I've got the chorus down. It's really quite simple after doing the chorus, it has the same rhythm, and very similar notes. After that, I'm gonna try to learn a very simple version of When You were Young, or possible Sam's Town. They'll be easy to find online. Other than that, I've spent most of my day playing Animal Crossing City Folk. The annoying thing about this game is when you leave it for so long(*cough* six months *cough*) the whole world falls apart so much that you don't want to start playing again. I've been getting money, planting trees, the typical meaningless stuff that I enjoy for some reason. Today I went to the city to get rid of my guy's--Brandon--bed head(Back to the "Whole world falling apart" thing). In the wonderful world of animal crossing, you can't of course just request a hair cut. You have to go through a whole personality quiz to find out your ideal look. This could be considered quite an offensive procedure, considering no one's hair comes out the way they wanted it, and it's normally pretty ugly. Today, Brandon had the 'luck' of ending up with what was basically a Robert Pattinson cut! Hopefully if animal crossing is as real life-esque as the reviews suggest, the hair cut will go away after Brandon washes his hair. Too bad not even Animal Crossing is that sophisticated.

The music today has been nearly all Elbow. It's one of those albums where all the songs sound too slow, too long, and too similar to the last one, but it's quite good once you get past that. they have some amazing lyrics, especially in Starlings, the opening track. I'll be seeing them at V Festival, so it's good to get to know this album.

Sorry for the lack of good posts recently...I know I said I was saving good posts for the summer, but now that it's actually summer I'm totally out of ideas.


Forgive me?

Summer. It's As Simple as That

As I've mentioned before and you've now doubt concluded by the title alone, it's now summer for me! Today was my last day, well, half day. We wrote letters to the soon-to-be 7th graders, watched School Of Rock(Which I've never seen. It's poserish, but high-ranked in it's poserish kind) and ate popcorn, cleaned out the remains of our lockers, cleaned the room a bit, and by eleven o'clock, after a hurry of yearbook-signings and slightly emotional farewells, I left 7th grade. I didn't really get the chance to say goodbye much(I feel guilty). One boy who I basically don't know said bye to me(Any idea why? It was kinda weird), and my English teacher told me how he'd be there at my first book signing when I'm supposedly a published author.



7th grade for me has been...As a teenage-ish year would go. It had it's ups, and its downs of course. And yeah I've whined a lot about it, but there were some really great times...



I've suddenly got the urge to do this, 'case I didn't do it for new year. Hoorah!



7th Grade High-Lights



1. The day in Spanish when the guys started throwing tennis balls. At the window, the door, people's feet, the general area of our teacher, even. My teacher has always said the typical "I have eyes in the back of my head thing"...And, well, that's such a lie. And it was at this point we came to turns with that fact, and decided to exploit it a little.

2. Correcting a quiz in English a few months ago. This person in question will take the nickname "J". We'd been asked to write the first and last stanzas of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and we corrected them later that class. J got up to give his I-forgot-to-study version of the Raven which went along the lines of "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I read, and a knocking at my chamber door, it was a raven, a sexy raven..." It was hilarious!

3. One day when having a team meeting where a few guys had been asked to get in front of everyone and perform after doing the 'talking while the teacher's talking' thing. They sang a Barber Shop version of In The Jungle. And, well, it was clearly well planned and everything.

4. A last period Social Studies class a few months ago...Well, it's difficult to explain. M continually said "Soooo mysterious" in a really feminine voice, the teacher drew K a 'pretty' girlfriend on the whiteboard, people were shouting, etc. The normal weird stuff(Oh my gosh, that's a such a band name! *writes down*)

5. Basically every homeroom ever. Even if my teacher considers us her worst homeroom ever, there's no taking away from the fact that we're all, every one of us, awesome.



7th Grade Low-Lights



1. Doing our projects on politics In I think it was, October. We'd been split into the two political parties, and split into smaller groups on specific areas of it. We got health care. Which was what I wanted, but I couldn't help but hate it. The day of the presentation was just boring beyond belief.



2. The day in April my English teacher made me read my "Ode To A Skunk Cabbage"--Weird, yeah--in front of the whole class. Badly written, sloppy, half-complete, etc. For me, I could be reading my favorite poem ever, and just the reading alone makes it rather scary. But something I've written? Something I've written really badly? Not. Fun.

3. State Testing. Isn't that on everyone's lists? For me especially the long-writing essay. There was nothing interesting, fun, or anything about that.

4. The day in math a few months ago where my teacher picked on me to answer a question that I wasn't ready for. And, then continued to insist I did know the answer. Hey, if she makes classes so relentless than can she blame me for being half-asleep at the time?

5. Playing keyboard at the very beginning of the year. I enjoyed it--Really, honestly, I loved it--but my partner was such a ...Grr, I need to find appropriate words to put here. Moron? Hmm. She'd come in every day, sit down on the left side, insist it was too loud, and turn the volume down to a point where no one could hear anything, and therefore couldn't practice, and therefore fail that. She clearly has something against me that I've yet to understand but she wouldn't let it go..





Things To Look Forward To over The Summer



- Blogging, duh!
- Late night AIM chats with friends
- The new Harry Potter movie!
- Finding out which team I'm on next year(Each grade is split into two 'teams'; "East" the big team, and "West" the small team. Homeroom, English, math, Social studies, and Science are all based on that team, so finding out that is plays big part in your general happiness in the following year)
- Finding out which team my sister's gonna be on
- Swimming
- Going to England(Which includes the following)
- Seeing friends and family again
- Corner yogurts and Tescos ready-made tuna-sweetcorn sandwiches and microwavable chicken pot pies--Oh my!
- Lego Land. Don't judge, it's awesome
- The leisure pool near my aunt's that we got to every year
- Decently-warm weather
- Good ol' English late-night television
- V Festival' August 22nd and 23rd; The Killers, Oasis, MGMT, Snow Patrol, Razorlight, etc.
- And, possibly most important, the simple absence of school makes summer worth it.
- And, maybe even slightly more importantly than that, is that I'm really dreading 8th grade, and this is just a chance to forget about it ever so slightly.


And, I go back to school September 3rd...But, let's not dwell on that right now. It's summer! Sun happiness, freedom, friends, you know the general idea of it all. As far as blogging this summer goes...Well, obviously, it's still gonna happen. In fact, I'm going to try to make it happen every day. They're gonna be stupid, and boring, and same-ish, but it's really this time of year we all want to look back on most. I'm leaving for England July 20th and returning August 30th. About half of that is spent at my grandparents, when I definitely will have computer access about every day, so I'll be sure to make extra-short posts then. But, when I'm back where I used to live, computer access will be a problem. If I'm lucky, I could use my dad's computer, or blog at a friend's house, but of course I can't be certain. So, yes, just thought you might want to know that. xD





See ya,



Summer '09, baby!

1.5 Days Of 7th Grade Remain

Hello,

Ah, just 1.5 days left of 7th grade! Then I'll be *gasp* an 8th grader. Well, I don't know...I wouldn't classify myself as an 8th grader until September 3rd when we go back. But I guess I wouldn't be a 7th grader either. Oh well, at least school will be out for summer. Not that it feels like summer nowadays. Damn it, Massachusetts, can you do nothing right?

This week, of course, has been a very slow week. We had our last official academic classes on Monday, which involved reflections, making clay models, a fun quiz, and working on actual math work. Otherwise we've been moving between various special events, watching The Simpsons, stuff like that. It's been fun...Speaking of which, I kinda love The Simpsons right now. I've watched The Simpsons since before I could speak. I was the kid who'd take The Simpsons--Full of jokes I wouldn't understand for a long time--Over the Teletubbies, Sesame street, etc. Oddly, I haven't entirely become the illiterate, troubled child my relatives feared I'd be. Anyway, now I'm rambling(More than usual). We had our talent show yesterday! Talent shows are amazing, mostly due to the fact that the majority have no talent whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot to perform in front of hundreds of people... But, still. Two girls did the commentating between acts, and they were awful at it. First off, they were 6th graders. And while I've meet loads of really amazing 6th graders, the ones at my school at least are just...Unbearable, which is the Best aay for me to describe it. You know how you obsess over the idea of leaving elementary for such a long time, yeah? Well when you eventually get to 6th grade, all that anticipation makes you a bratty, dramatic child that 7th and 8th graders will probably hate. Most of the acts were off-tune singers(Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, The "It's Too Late To Apologize" song, the "Every time we touch I get this feeling" song, a couple of Indian songs, etc.), a few dancers in odd, matching outfits(Star Struck by Lady GaGa, and Just Dance by...yeah, Lady GaGa again), a few bands, and a guy with his Chinese Yoyo(He's in my homeroom, so I'd already seen it every day for a couple of months). Dominique--Her French name, not her real-- Was amazing, though. *applauds*. Yay for someone with actual talent!

Today involved similar, relaxed stuff. Watched The Simpsons first period, and took down my board outside the classroom with my "Year's best work". Second and third periods a girl's dad came in to talk about Islam. It was interesting, but it did you go on...And, he had about 15 slides of his presentation, which goes to show how much talking went on. And we sort of got hit, yet again with the impossible "Don't stereotype" message, which is always worth blogging about. Forth period I had Spanish...Our last 7th grade Spanish class, because I have gym instead tomorrow. Ah, how I'll miss it; The endless student-made speeches about conjugations, the lengthy clap-for-the-teacher sessions to waste time, the guys hiding behind my teacher's desk, the guys throwing tennis balls because the teacher is just that oblivious, the uses of "Fiestas" to waste a class, my teacher's actions showing she was about to have a nervous breakdown. Ah, yes, that's all something to miss. My teacher really isn't much of a party--Or, "Fiesta"--Person, so we drank the Coke and ate the chips left over from the last 8th grade class and watched Toy Story 2 in Spanish, while I sat at the table with a few girls obsessing over a music video on someones pink iTouch. Fun, I suppose. After lunch I had health. We played yet another game of "Relationship Bingo", which I got sick of after five or six plays. Surely, one can only put up with so much of silly games such as bingo. I ended up with a toffee that I literally just remembered I had, and am now licking and hoping it won't pull my braces out. For the last period and a half, we had to watch a 6th grade thing in the auditorium. The music classes had made their own music videos. You had a lot of "A day in the life of *school name" which involved shaky, almost sea sick-inducing camerawork and shots of people walking through hallways. A few made no sense at all. One was an excuse for a few boys to play Star Wars with wooden sticks('cause it's not like Adele has a stick just like it that that she hides behind the bookshelf in homeroom and fences with, right?). A few involved the elementary kids at recess...Mostly staring at the camera the whole time, and one with my neighbor dancing like the possible-ADD child she is. we thankfully got to leave early and have a team meeting because a girl in my grade was leaving today. I barely knew her, but long goodbyes are always emotional for me, and everyone else. Until the speeches go on for far too long.

After school me, my mom, and my sister went to the mall to find my sister a dress for her 5th grade graduation. We were lucky first time in Gap--Don't judge that--and after we got a few clothes for my mom, batteries, a karate outfit for my sister's Build-A-Bear, FunYuns, a Nintendo points card, The Fray's "How To Save A Life" CD that I'm listening to now, and a Killers documentary DVD. Not all found in Gap, of course.

I've spent nearly all afternoon playing on my keyboard. ACC rehab does the weirdest things, you see, including doing stuff actually sort of worthwhile. I used to play piano but stopped after we moved...I was always bad at it anyway. Yesterday I picked up some of those "My first piano and me" books and started playing. Embarrassing, right? After I got sick of those I started learning How To Save A Life off YouTube. I can fluently do the main riff, and separately play the bass and treble of the chorus. I haven't started on the bridge yet. Later I'm gonna try to write it down, which will probably help put the chorus together. I feel so accomplished. I've wanted to play this song on piano since I first heard it...And, okay, it's so easy it's unbelievable, but I'm amazed at myself.

Music this past few days...er, The Fray of course, Weezer, Blink-182, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cage The Elephant, stuff like that. Must listen to The Script soon.

Bye,

I'm Saving Decent Blog Ideas For The Summer

The title is the reason of all these 'updates'. I at least did a few interesting posts a few months ago, but not anymore...

This week's been one of the craziest of the year so far. Yesterday, as I'd explained on Wednesday, was my "Celebration Of Learning". It was so much better than last year. The math, as I'd also explained, involved us showing our Walking Rated tri-folds. By "presenting", I do mean standing there staring at the minute hand on the clock while parents come in, hoping their child was there. The nice ones ask questions, but that's rare. Events like this are the most boring things to happen in school. Especially because my math teacher--Trying her best to be friendly, which isn't in her nature(Children or otherwise)--who wouldn't let us sit down. In LA we read poetry, and disappointingly, when people finished reading we clapped in stead of the arty clicking thing you're supposed to do at most poetry readings. Oh, and what I've learned from this is "I will shoot you if you write a poem about war". I hate people who obsess over peace, quite frankly. we watched a video on some of the projects of the year, with all but one video not working. We did our walk-A-Thon, and I'd improved from last year! I ended about...10th to last. Better than my "Last place by a mile" place last time. There was also this thing where select people got to throw "Pies" at the teachers, and in the afternoon we had a long recess.

First period today we had Social Studies, and we'd actually started a new section with a week to go...Well, better than Social Studies last year, where we did Ancient India in two weeks, and Ancient China in four days, because my teacher had spent months on Mesopotamia. Literally. We'd started Islam. I thought it was so interesting. Except when my teacher brought up the post-9/11 prejudice we have against these people, which turned into Nazi Germany, which turned into Japanese people-Pearl Harbor, which turned into "We shouldn't have judgements about anyone". As much as you say "Oh, I get to know people before passing judgement", it's completely human nature to do so. I don't think there's any way for us to stop.

We had about 3/4 of science next. We talked about the food chain, and energy, and watched a slide show made by my teacher. It was interrupted because we had to go to a Parade in the gym. My sister's school principal is leaving this year, and this is the sort of dragged-out, babyish "Good bye!" thing that elementary schools tend to do far too much. This was taking place in our gym, despite theirs being literally next door(Connected schools) and equal in size. My school sat on the bleachers, looking as if we wanted no association to the teachers in clown outfits holding up plastic signs that say "Applause", and "Shh...". Honestly, we didn't, even if 90% in my grade went there only a couple of years ago. The grades piled in, one at a time, holding signs and wearing weird headbands and whatnot. The 400 people in my school, plus the 600 in her's, plus teachers, plus parents, led to a very claustrophobic atmosphere. A couple of middle school classes did embarrassing performances, including 8th grade Spanish with the song we'd tried to learn, and failed at, on Wednesday. Then each grade did their own performances. They were the sort of things put together in 15 minutes, poorly-performed, with teachers kneeling a few feet forward acting out the movements, with more enthusias, than each of their students put together. Even my English teacher, sitting a few feet in front of me, couldn't disagree when someone said "Ugh, this is taking forever!". We eventually got out of there after 2 1/2 periods.

I had health 5th period. Today we started depression and suicide, and we had to make a pie-graph of our last 24 hours, coloring each section with how we felt at the time. I took this far too far, ending up with twice as many sections as everyone around me. I had math 6th, and we were told to measure arts of the stairs around the building. Wouldn't you thing the measurements within one building, at least inside, would be exactly the same? It seemed really pointless. After lunch we had to clean up our journals in English for grading. Our teacher would ask us questions about what we'd learn etc. and talk about improvement. Luckily, I didn't get to go today. Phew!

Not much else to talk about. My 2nd ACC account got banned. They also replied to my e-mail, calling my notifications "Constant and unrelenting", which is of course an exaggeration. The ACC ruled are ridiculous. My sister's friend is at my house for the 5th time this week, and we went to Target to get tape because all the pictures on my wall are falling down. Currently they're on the other computer, watching "Beat It"; Alvin And The Chipmunks version(My sister and her friend, not the pictures on my wall). As for music, I've just been flicking through random songs on my iPod. My favorites at the moment are 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins, Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups, and Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by Cage The Elephant. Oh, in the Ain't No Rest music video, the singer is wearing these awesomely-colored skinny jeans. They're like purpey, reddy, marrony...They're awesome.

This weekend, I'm no doubt having my sister's friend round again, and on Sunday Adele and Matt are coming round because it's Brandon's birthday!

Bye,

Nothing Can Go Wrong When The World Smells Of Grass Cuttings xD

Hello blog-readers,

We had the grass-cutter, or whatever I'm supposed to call him, 'round today. Now everything smells like grass cuttings. I love that smell. It kinda encouraged me to take some pointless pictures of my back yard. I'd show them to you, but my camera is being difficult. DX

Today during homeroom I told Adele I wouldn't blog today, I'd blog tomorrow when I actually had something to write about(Celebration Of Learning). She told me that I'd then hype it all up and type about it in one paragraph. This isn't far from the truth I suppose. So, here I am blogging instead of enjoying the above wonders of nature today. And, I don't know if I'll blog tomorrow, even if there is a paragraph worth of stuff to talk about.

I decided to be spontaneous. From now on, I'm going to post with labels. Crazy, right?

Ah, where to begin today. I had Enrichment first period. I basically read Harry Potter(Instead of Looking For Alaska, which I've now deemed inappropriate for reading in school) some more in the learning-assistant teacher's room. The teacher kept trying to start up a conversation with me. She'd been doing this a lot ever since yesterday when she read my completed poetry book and told me I had talent. I had never talked to her before that. Partly because I think she's a dominating know-it-all, and because I typically look down on the role of learning-assistant. I mean, every one's complaining about *gasp* THE ECONOMY at the moment. My school's already cut Art down to two weeks per year, we're losing 6th grade Latin next year(I think, or the year after) and I heard we're losing our librarian, too. But in my eyes those are all twice as important as an f-ing Learning-assistant teacher. It's really silly.

I had a double-period block of Science for 2nd and 3rd. We worked on researching the pond-water organism, animal, and plant we found when we went out to our school pond last week. I had to wait twenty minutes because the computers weren't working...Well, the third one worked. I have a particular fondness of all things microscopic so it was a good assignment, other than the fact I had to do Nematodes. They're really nothing more than microscopic worms. I looked a little into Water Bears. Now those are interesting if not rather disturbing to me. Want to know something else? I'm also slightly scared of biting, blood sucking(Or what could look like that) insects and microscopic insects. Ah, I'm so weird.

Spanish was a fun class, kinda. We had to sing a song. One that was rather too fast for any 7th grade Spanish kid to speak, let alone sing. We were split into groups of four to sing in front of everyone. Where the heck was she coming from when she did that? Stuff like that doesn't make people sing any louder. But it was fun to hear some of the popular guys screaming their lungs out to the song, and adding in some non-Spanish babbling from time to time. One guy even got a guitar from the music room--Probably more to escape Spanish than to play along to the song--which, considering it was very out of tune, was hilarious.

After lunch I had health. We got to go outside, and we did the ol' "Passive, aggressive, assertive behaviors" routine. And, guess what, we even did skits! How much more of an uncreative activity could you think of, seriously? Once again, the popular guys make classes like Health and Spanish worth going to. There was one when these two people were either drunk or high(Hard to tell, really) and then go "Unicorn!!" and run and crash into the largest guy in my class. And, where these two guys were going out, and (Of course) the one who was twice the height as the other played the girl.

We got to finish with a double class of Social studies. We're doing yet more last-minute work for the celebration we have tomorrow. We were put into groups to make posters. Mine was on the Byzantine Empire. Tomorrow we have to quiz our parents on the matter. I'd warned my mother of this. without my help, she could go two ways; "I'm an idiot", or "I'm English and therefore highly intelligent, especially on all things European". Both ways I'd love to avoid if I can. In the 2nd half some people, not me luckily, got to scrape of the blue tape on the floor, that had been put down three or four months ago for a Geography activity. My teacher found out the most effective way of doing so was scraping with the erasers from the "Flea Market Pencils" she got for 25 cents last summer, that don't sharpen. It all got insane as it usually does with last period classes. While clearing up someone had left a picture of Jesus on the floor...And, well, I thought the whole "JEEEESUS ON THE FLOOR, SOMEONE PICK UP JEEEESUS OF THE FLOOR" act was rather amusing. As much as I complain about my school, there have been so many funny memories over the year.

Speaking of basically everything said I don't believe I've talked about the Celebration of Learning yet, have I? It's something my school does every year. Parents come in to see all the marvelous things we'd done. It's pretty much all done in the week or so before the event of course. Tomorrow we're doing some poetry reading, parent-quizzing, showing our tri-folds in math, and I have no idea what in Science. And then we get to watch a slide show in the auditorium, and then the Walk-a-thon my grade's done, then we get to eat hot dogs and such. I don't know what in the afternoon. Probably watching a movie or something. Whatever happens, it's better than last year which was standing by my Science project for two hours, walking a mile behind everyone else, and not being able to eat amazing food because my teeth were enduring braces-pain at the time.

A couple other points worth making...

I have been banned from AnimalCrossingCommunity.com. Just to let you know. Well, I don't know if it's a perma-ban. I got a violation point added to my account for something I did--And got reported for previously--Over a month ago. Something's gone clearly wrong, and now I'm banned. But, you might want to send a PT to SoulNotSoldier. *winks*

Music's been up-and-down. I'm annoyed at Fuse for not properly updating their Top Ten Alternative Countdown yet. Posting the same thing but with a load of interviews does not make it any enjoyable...Well, Brandon was actually mentioned in an MGMT interview. God, just update it. I've been listening to The Script, Kasabian, and MGMT for the past few days. I want that Kasabian album, the new one. And I also found out Arctic Monkeys have a new album out in August.

See ya,

Oh My Gosh, I Have An Awesome Weekend Planned(This Is NOT Intentional Bragging, I Swear)

Hey. Er...Like, nothing has happened recently. Might as well talk, anyway because I promised. Okay, when did I last post? Wednesday, Thursday? Wow, that's like forever for me. I think I'm rather obsessed with blogging.

The last two days of the week were alright. We had to work with the world's most insane class schedule--Courtesy of my science teacher--for the last couple of days. It made, and many would agree, no sense. It had to be shifted so we'd have extra time for our Math/Science projects. I wasn't too happy about that. Through a combination of laziness, carelessness, and my extremely dependant personality, I'm left jobless most of the time. I'd done the absolutely bare minimum for science, which no doubt contributed to it. I was more than happy to outline pencil marks in Sharpie, however, which is what I did the whole time. Friday was the worst from a boredom point. There were no computers left, and I'd been told to pick out the colors to use on the wings of the thing. Our group weren't even good at that, surprisingly, because we had one of those fashion-obsessed "I think I'm so cool" girls. Wouldn't she be able to match colors properly? Apparently not, which might explain why she's no where near as cool as she thinks she is. Our tri-fold looks like rainbow-colored vomit, or will do when we glue them on, and we're no where near as far as we should be. Fun. xD

The other day I got an e-mail from ticketmaster.com. I'm following a load of bands on there so they tell me when they're coming to Massachusetts. Wanna know who, this time? PET SHOP BOYS!! Cool, right? Well, I don't know, I think it is. Except, it's Saturday September 5th, the day after my 4th Killers show. House Of Blues. But oddly enough my mom said yet to the whole idea, and so...Another concert it is! It's gonna be the best weekend ever, except maybe V Festival, and we'd probably spend the rest of Sunday in Boston anyway. Funny story, actually, tickets came out on the 12th and I'd forgotten until the morning of the 13th. Even though they'd been out for over 24 hours, we still managed to get general admission! The Killers sell out in ten minutes, and Pet Shop Boys, after a day you can still get tickets to get right to the front? Shows how big they are, I guess. xD Anywho, I still look forward to it, even if I only have one album. I'll look into them more. Aaaaaah...<3

Yesterday I went into Barnes And Noble to buy a book. How bizarre is that? Actually it is rather weird, for me. The last book I bought was Oliver Twist in December because it was during a power cut and I had nothing else to read. I read about one chapter. I was on the hunt for Looking For Alaska by John Green. The only reason I'd wanted it was because John Green is a totally awesome YouTuber. Still I'd heard good reviews on it. I'd never ventured into the endless void that is teenage literature before now. These days, teenage literature is basically synonymous with "Twilight" which might be why. But considering I'm loving this book, I might bother to again...John has a unique way of writing, one that I can't really explain. A nice way of putting things, I suppose. I've been re-reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows at the moment but I by far prefer this one. I considered continually reading the book last night while trying to get to sleep...Well, honestly, I was hoping to fall asleep with the book in my hands. It'd make me feel far more accomplished than I actually am. xD

Time Spent Reading; About 24 hours

Pages Read; 66(A lot for me)

Today was a usual day. We went to this place a while away that sells English food. The whole isle of candy is my number one weakness, and I came out with far too much. And, he was playing Black Eyed Peas there today. He's usually playing some 80s rubbish(I'm full of contradictions, I know), like The Human League(Who you'd know as the "Don't you want me baby?" song from the Swiffer Wet Jet commercial, by the way), Right Said Fred, etc. I was slightly worried for him...Odd. xD

Music this week's been interesting. I've been repeatedly watching the Top 10 'Alternative' Music Videos on Fuse this week, because I was hoping for A Dustland Fairytale...Sadly, not there, but good anyway. I got this big addiction to No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand because of it. Actually I've spent a good deal of the week watching Fuse. The Offspring, The Fray, and Foo Fighters, specifically. And Green Day, but that was because there was nothing else on. Green Day get on my nerves, especially Know Your Enemy which I'm sick of hearing all the time. I've also been listening to Red Light Company(Who I recommended on iTunes. Silly iTunes for not having them already.), The Script, Chameleon Circuit, Kaiser Chiefs, and Snow Patrol. Good stuff.

PS, today I went on my Twitter for the first time I'm forever. I'm LoveBrandonLove if you want to follow me.

Those are really the only points I think are worth mentioning. God, this post sucks. Ideas...please?

Stupid picture time...

I'm Not Just A Metal Mouth Anymore...I'm Also An Elastic-Band Mouth(Plus more) xD

Hey,



So...Tuesday marks one year of having braces, there or there abouts. Because I got them two days before the Walk-a-Thon at my school, which is the 18th this year. Today I went to get the colors changed for 'em. I've been happy, because I'm "nearly done" with braces, how ever long that might mean. There were really only a few teeth that had issues, though those issues were big. But they're looking surprisingly good now, if I do say so myself. Today I got these elastic band things, that attach from the hooks on my molars to two canines. They're apparently, like, small practice ones before I get bigger ones. They don't hurt, surprisingly, but I can only open my mouth half way now. And putting them in was a pain...But, this means I'm kinda closer to getting them off. It's supposed to be, I think, Januaary-ish time. Only 3/4 of the time it was originally supposed to be.



So, I guess I should fill you in on the more important stuff of the past couple of days. Yesterday I had a Spanish field trip! I'm sure my teacher is disgusted to her core at herself that we've spent some time without the textbooks; We've been working 100 miles per hour with Spanish work because we're so far behind the other two middle schools in town. Granted, we were only going to the next town over. First we went to this Mexican restaurant that everyone seemed to know, and that I'd typically I'd never been to before. We had chips and salsa, burritos, and these honey and sugar chip things. Yum. Oh, and I actually have a decently amusing story to say! The girls at my table; Me, B, Br, M, and Ma(Like the anti-stalker nicknames?) went to the bathroom. While I was waiting for them, Ma says "Oh, they've got hand sanitizer", so her and B, oddly, spent a few minutes discussing it. Afterwards, M says "Guys, it's toilet cleaner..." which it indeed was. Thinking about it, why would they put a hand sanitizer dispenser so low-ish to the ground? The funny part was going out and telling the prissy popular girls and seeing their faces, though. Never gets old. xD Afterwards we were going to go to a gallery with Mexican photography. We'd been split into our two Spanish classes, the others were at the gallery first. According to the texts my friends had been receiving, the driver had somehow got lost during the five minute drive from one destination to another, and we turned up late. And Hallelujah we did. The only photography I like is the colorful, weird-looking modern photography; I can assure you there was none there. Black and white pictures of flowers and Mexicans and tiny houses...Gah. We'd gone to a gallery last year, too, and having every little "And this could symbolize..." of each picture painfully dragged out doesn'tm ake things better. It was actually only about 15 minutes, hoorah. xD

Today in health, we got two "Singing telegrams" from two music groups. I love how the teacher gives vaguely noticeable themes to it. First we got Island In The Sun by Weezer(YEEEEES!), played by the one group who got the drum kit and electric guitars. Then we got a group of boys who song the "Feelin' Hot Hot Hot" song, if that's its name, extremely off-key the whole time.

And third period the band, orchestra, and chorus(Featuring none other than Adele; http://www.thatdarnadele.blogspot.com/) had their spring concert. It got me out of English. The orchestra went first, they sang Hallelujah off Shrek. I love that one, always have. If Shrek was a little lighter on the Smash Mouth I'm sure I'd have bought the soundtrack by now, if it's available...*shrugs*. Then they did Blackbird by The Beatles. This will seem so weird to Americans reading, but in England most schools are required to do at least some singing...Well, actually a lot of it. Everyone hated it, but in 4th grade we did a Beatles medley. This was one of the songs we had to do, and I still like it quite a bit. But school does sort of ruin just about everything, like Beatles songs. Also they ended with something I didn't know, and don't want to know. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the band or orchestra songs were called, though I doubt you care. The first two of the orchestra were by a German, if I remember correctly. All three ended with something not too impressive, with a sort of...Background "History of this country" speech by my Social Studies teacher. Weird, right?

And, to add to the immense drama and craziness(Yeah right...) of my last couple of days, today the hamster got out of its cage. It's currently in the spare bedroom, so it's not like it ran around the whole house. But it got under the bed, and it wouldn't come out. I had to help; Plastic hamster ball, flash light, and part of a carrot in hand. My sister was too traumatized to do a thing. she dropped a piece of brocoli on its head yesterday and now she's certain the thing hates her and is gonna go rabid and bite her finger off if she goes near. That went on for an hour before we had to go to the orthodontist. When we came back it was no longer under the bed...So, we looked around and it was in the corner under our heating-system rail thing(Whats it called?). It took so long to find because, as I've always said, it looks like a piece of fluff. It wasn't moving, and I was the assigned "Poker". Thank God, it wasn't dead; Merely asleep. Hamsters are nocturnal, you know. So then it spent some time under there, running before we could catch it. Then over an hour behind a drawer, that we couldn't get it out from. We had to wait for my dad to get home, and get it out by tipping the thing over, with a wall of pieces of wood around the drawers. Finally! This will no doubt happen again, but hopefully not soon. That hamster's evil, I'm sure.

Music? Er...I got The Script's album, I've probably mentioned that, and I'm listening to it a fair bit. It sounds kinda mainstream-in-the-working but they haven't got to that point in this country just yet. They have some sweet songs, though. I haven't listened to my Beatles album I got yet. The Killers' video for A Dustland Fairytale released yesterday(It's already 7th on iTunes music videos!), and it's been non-stop listening ever since. I might do a sort of "review" of it some time(Would that drive you crazy, the fangirling? I'd keep it to a limit.). The only review I've found so far was really negative("When in doubt, let's pick on Brandon Flowers' music, yes?". I hate journalists). It's cliche, but it had to be. It's pretty, and sweet, and kinda sad too, but it all turns out alright. Watch it. It's soooooo cool. And Nevada-y guess. And at the moment I love Hallelujah, as mentioned earlier. I've got a slower version by someone else on my iPod. It took some getting used to but I prefer it to the Shrek version.

Wow, that was choppy...

Bye,