Off To Essex Today!

Hey,

Today's my last day I'll be able to blog until...Er, August 24th, I think. Today we're going up to Essex, where I used to live. It only takes about two hours to get there. Where we're staying now is basically borderline south-east and south-west of England, and Essex is still south-east. We'll probably end up getting there so amazingly late though as my mother takes forever and a day to pack. The place we're staying is so pretty. It's a little one-story house on a farm. There's a big field behind the house, too, which I can enjoy unlike anywhere in the US because of the stupid mosquito's. And the farm has a dog, which runs around outside. <3

Since it's summer, I have the liberty of being able to talk about what I'm doing and not appear quite as boring, yes? Yes?!

Okay, Friday we went to a zoo around here(Around here meaning a couple of hours away). I decided to do my really pathetic habit of taking several pictures of each and every animal, nearly all of them blurry, to "capture the moment" even though it's not like it's my last time to go to a zoo or anything. The weather was so nice that day -- Most of the weather's been pretty on-and-off around here, but it was rather busy. Considering nearly everyone there was a mother with a baby, I felt sort of out of place. I also felt pretty sick of bumping into push chairs and hearing screaming in the "Please Be quiet; Nervous Animals" sections. And, I got unnecessarily annoyed with my sister as I normally do it zoos because she takes too long. You look for the animal, you find it, you look at the animal, then if it's doing anything interesting which it probably isn't you keep looking, if it isn't you keep on walking. You don't stay for ten minutes hoping you'll see young offspring doing something adorable! But, it was still fun, and I got a cool wooden lizard painted with the African-style colored dots on.

On Saturday we were supposed to go on a picnic with a couple of my mom's school friends. I'm guessing you know how boring it can be when parents get talking about "the good old days", right(To be fair I'm already talking about my "good old days"!)? It started raining so we ended up eating at one of the friend's houses. Their family is one of those old-fashioned, traditional, somewhat up-tight families, which is basically the dictionary definition of exactly what my family isn't. I remember being four or five years old and going there for the first time, and being creeped out by the hundreds of old portraits, but of course I'm over that now. The parents talked for a few hours about high school, Bruce Springsteen, and many weird and questionably "random" things in between. I was expecting to be sent away with the friend's daughter, a year older than me, which considering I barely know her would be the most awkward thing in the world. I'm so glad that didn't happen.

Yesterday we got to go see our grandparents for a bit, and later go rowing. That was really fun. But me and my sister had one oar each and my stroke was a lot stronger so we kept drifting to the left and bumping into people, but lots of people were doing that so it wasn't too bad. And I got ice cream. Cookies and cream, yum. <3

I heard Paparazzi, Lady GaGa's most recent single, and admittedly I quite like it, even if Lady GaGa is an "Expensive hooker" as a YouTube comment put it. That's what most singers are these days, it seems. It was the only song in the fifteen or twenty songs in the Top 40 countdown I liked(Yes, I did listen to it, for once!). I think I'm gonna get The Fame when I'm back in the US. Of course I could get it sooner but I don't think my mom or dad would be too impressed by the idea of disco sticks and such. See, I'm trying not to make a huge flippin' deal out of this music!

Also, I finished A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain yesterday. I'd got my head around the language, and did enjoy it. Even though the character was really pretentious and annoying, he was witty. I'll talk more about it some time.

Gotta go pack now because I left it way too late. I'll probably be able to CBox occasionally at friend's houses. I'll let you guys in on the summer excitement when I can.

Bye! <3

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!