An End, A Beginning, And One Big Cliche?

Hello guys,

Well, I'm back from England...Yeah, it was cool. The plane ride was better than most, though it was a fair bit longer than most...Not that those two are at all connected. Completely disconnected, if anything. I ended up watching two episodes of The Simpsons. two episodes of Family Guy, Coraline, Star Trek(Half of it, anyway), That Mitchell And Webb Look, a documentary about Sir Allen Sugar, and listened to some Lady GaGa too. So it was cool other than the missing of the wonderful Mock The Week and Nevermind The Buzzcocks on the list. Sad. DX

But, I'm here now; Remarkably un-jet-lagged, thirsty, and sliding around on our new hard wood flooring. But, that is pointless like a lot of things. This post actually has a purpose!

I've been thinking...How long have I been writing this for? 15 months or so? Not this specific post, clearly, but this whole blog. I may not be that good at it or that interesting or anything, but I love doing it. But, from now on I'm going to stop writing here...

BUT WAIT! I've made a new blog; www.soulbutnotsoldier.wordpress.com . Yes, yes, Wordpress! I've been reading a few Wordpress blogs lately. I seem to be prefer the look of their pages. More organised and professional and stuff. So, I thought I'd give it a go...You know, new day, nearly a new school year, new style. I'll continue my regular blogging habits there and see how it goes...

Sol this blog is now no longer in use. Rest in peace, Can You Read My Mind, as I send you away to the vast Blogger graveyard. Hopefully, hint hint, some of these blogs readers will hop on over to my new blog, so there's not much difference in there.

Last post here...DONE!

- Naomi

As Anti-Social As Ever

Hello blog universe,

Phew, after the never-ending blog epic that was my last post, I almost thought I wouldn't have worked up the energy quite yet to post...But, somehow, here I am!

Actually I still don't know if I have the energy, I'm simply doing this out of boredom. My aunt, uncle, and one of my cousins are over at the moment. Let's reiterate; My boring, math-y, genius cousin. His FUN, humorous, hitting-with-giant-inflatable-bananas(hehe) brother is still up in York enjoying doing whatever it is students do, before seeing Bill Bailey this evening, which not only makes the day sort of suck, but makes me totally jealous of him. Gawd, my stupid Drake And Josh-esque cousins are so annoying. So I'm here.

Yes, I guess I am being rather unnecessarily anti-social, but I cant say I like family do's and such. The purpose of them is simply to compare who looks like who the most and go off on strange little discussions about, in our case, education. At the moment my sister, dad, and aunt are outside playing croquet. Now, I know what you're thinking! And, no, we are not all outside drinking tea and scones in a pretty garden and laughing and being generally English. Tt's cold, windy, and has before involved at least one player nearly being the victim of another's fury in the form in a mallet across the head. That and the devilishly difficult course on a sloping-hill that leans towards a busy road would make it something more like Croquet; EXTREME!

The one positive event of the day was, before going on a walk, we all got our own little performance in the form of my uncle playing his bagpipes. Yes, yes, "Every family has one" and shizz. This was my dad's idea for his 50th birthday as he has an interest in peculiar instruments. Considering he's only had two lessons and a lot of people probably couldn't even blow enough to make a sound, he didn't sound too bad once he'd fixed all the pipes and knobs and such. And even when he did sound bad, as apparently said fun cousin once said, "That's what garden sheds are for"!

- Naomi(Short posts are fun, aren't they?)

PS- Read this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8228053.stm -- music fans and weep. Another legend bites the dust, I guess. I can't wait for a heart-felt reunion in fifteen years time.

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!

July 5th 2009

Okay, prize for the most uncreative blog title in the world goes to me, you know...



To be honest with you, Ive put no thought into what into what I'm gonna write here. And, to be even more honest with you, I'm kinda looking forward to those few weeks in England when I can't blog. I swear I haven't 'gone off' blogging, but I've been doing about every-other-day blogging since...well, I think it was just before Christmas. A break from the things we love reminds us of how much we love them, right?



The weather's finally been getting nice, after days of rain upon rain upon rain. Today was beautiful actually....I think after two years, I'm finally getting used to the weather in this country. I can actually stay outside for more than five minutes now without feeling like I'm dying in the heat. Well, that's one season down; I still hate the winters. The thing about being English is a ground-in dislike of 95% of all the weather you will ever get. We beg for snow and when it comes there's not enough of it, when we get enough snow it's too cold, when it's summer it's too hot, etc. But, let's move on...



Today has been just kind of slow. I'm in the habit of waking up really late(Even if I don't go to bed late) which wastes so much use able time. The morning was spent in a 'heated discussion' with just about every member of my family. It all started over my sister on Animal Crossing, but I actually can't remember what happened after that that caused such an argument. In the afternoon we made smoothies made of pineapple, mango, and passion fruit. wW have a 10-page book of smoothie recipes, and it seems my sister just picked out the first she saw for no reason. Turns out she doesn't like mang at all, or passion fruit that much. I'm also not a big fan of either fruits, but it still tasted alright. And we made Cinnamon buns--Not real ones, my family's too lazy for that, the Pillsbury all-you-have-to-do-is-cook-them ones. Those things taste surprisingly good, most things that are packaged to last normally taste bad. Oh, and I finally found my tennis racket that I've been looking for for weeks. It was way at the back of the basement, by the pieces of wood with nails sticking out of it, broken bags of beans for the beanbags, and plastic pieces of food we had to play with when me and my sister were, like, three.



As far as the last few days have gone, nothing has happened. Again, thanks to me and my whole family waking up far later than we should. Yesterday we went on a wild goose chase for a rug. But, it wasn't anything like Target or Sears , we had to drive an hour to a place, which is both expensive, and has a very limited range. So, it was too bad it was closed for the weekend, right? They could have at least said so on the website. And, yeah, I know it's July 4th weekend, but some shops are open so it's hard to find out. Then we were dragged around Lowe's to look at lights, me and my sister singing Best of You by Foo Fighters most of the time because we were bored. I'll be so over-joyed when the whole house is finally completed. The last people left it in a terrible state, not just falling to bits, but the decoration was awful. I'd heard they had a large family of teenage guys, but the wallpaper was horribly, unbearably feminine...Pink, and frilly, and lacy, and the kitchen even had pears and stuff on the wallpaper. One's decoration does say a lot about about the person(As the furniture commercials claim), and I can imagine the previous family being the creepy, anti-social, unnaturally-intelligent but insane family you tend to avoid just 'cause it feels right. We're fixing that(but I daresay our reputation isn't much better) but it is quite annoying, Knowing my dad however, as soon as the house is complete he'll find something else to do. My father is the sort who comes home to paint the walls, not watch 'the game' like most.

I haven't done much else...Reading blogs, writing, sudoku, and other stuff. I can now say I completely know How To Save A Life on the piano. It's difficult at first, working out which parts the bridge comes into. I tried singing along earlier. I can't sing, but it was fun. I've been thinking what to learn next...Mr. Brightside looks a bit too difficult for me to learn right away, but Sam's Town looks at the right level. Either that, or I'm learning Starlight by Muse, or Yesterday by The Beatles.

Byee,

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!