Predictive Text

So, if I were to title this blog post fully, it would be called: Totems Got Talent & the Predictive Text of My Life. Because for some reason whenever something clairvoyant or similarly hinting at a future time, I (rather than calling it foreshadowing) call it my "predictive text." Aren't we so glad to be in a modern age?

Memoirian Highlight: Totems Got Talent
The afternoon was a lazy bump on the log of my life (and as melodramatically cliche as that sounds, it was the only fitting introduction). I bummed around after I heard tennis practice was canceled, yet again, due to hurricane-like rains. Seriously? We've been outside for a full practice perhaps 2 out of 16 days of tennis now. Wonderful, wonderful Washington.
But the "gift of time," as Ms. Keeney deemed it, was thrust upon me, and I had only the inclination to do the responsible senior student thing: sit on my bed, reading and knitting. I probably should have worked on my portfolio or studied up for some test that would possess my soul in the coming days, but instead I just piddled my time away making string into fabric and finishing up the last 100 pages of Fool.
Eventually, it was time to rise from my aching seated position and wander off down the street to Sammamish High School for Ka-chan's Totems Got Talent show. Sometimes high school ideas are not bad, sometimes they are not good, but generally they are always fun to watch. So I loped from the bed to my car and drove in the direction of the sun, which, by the way, was directly in my face because I am too short and therefore the protective covering did not reach my eyes. I really need to get sunglasses - curse you awe-inspiring natural occurances!
As I reached the school, I was still wrapped up in my literary world, and so after I bought the ticket, I began reading in my seat. Frantically, and with a passion, I finished the final 20 pages of the book and was satisfied just as the lights came down for Peter and Ali.
As our hosts, they were a soft-spoken comedy act and just funny enough not to upstage the performers. There were many many musical acts - most of them amazing, actually. There was a violinist who really made the canaries sing with her performance of The Hot Canary (she won 1st place), a boy who used the entire guitar as both a percussion and strummable instrument (who won 2nd), and a tap dancing tiny chick who was sparkly and beautiful and I don't know how she got her legs to move like that (who took 3rd). The other acts were inspiring as well; both hiphop and interpretive dancers, giving us a feel for the entirety of the dance world, a bevy of singers from jazz choir and other hidden talent pools, speed painting and comedy from Ka-chan, Mr. Leffler going down on Mr. Kendrick (who was a judge, and actually super awesome with his obviously faked German accent and Diet Coke montage) and even a lip-synching Pokemon master - which may have been a little stretch for the judges. Other than Kendrick, the judges were Gingrich (an older man with a dry wit and a round intonation) and Renee (a blond woman who was clearly the "nicest" of the panel). Overall, the night ran one hour longer than expected, and I was set to marvel at the colored lights flashing on the back of the stage as my starvation muscles clamped down over my stomach. I hurried out to give Ka-chan a goodbye hug and then rushed home to garbanzo beans and dal.

Right now it's foggy outside, but I must tell you that the clouds will eventually part and perhaps we will see shining day this afternoon! I have now the conviction to go to Cheap Wine and Poetry, which is totally awesome because I love literary readings and am kicking myself for not being more involved in Hugo House as of late. Anyway, other than that, life is pretty much a monotonous hole that I'm trying to read my way out of (finished "Death of a Salesman" and Fool in the last two days - along with two knitted squares of variable difficulty)

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Haha...

I'm a little embarrassed. I had my blog post all written up the day before, had a ton of time during the afternoon, and then just came home after Totems Got Talent and fell asleep! Ahaha...
Anyway, here is the old post that was supposed to be from yesterday. My next post will be from today! Hoorah!

J Reviews... Death of a Salesman
I got my reading fix last night. Starved as I am to finish any source of literature, our teacher gave us Death of a Salesman yesterday to finish before spring break. Since I'm one of those annoying kids who feels that she must always be working and yet, when working, feels as if she should be doing anything but, I decided to start reading in class and got through the first 13 pages. Then, after our tennis match, I brewed a cup of tea and went through the other 99.
Death of a Salesman is an engrossing story. The stage is really interesting because its specifically broken up and there is a lot of transition with time and light, etc. It feels like the set of a movie rather than the stage of a play - there are constant changes and the observations are mainly on character building rather than real plot. I felt that the plot was very similar to Waiting for Godot in the fact that the people just kept spinning their wheels. They never really completed anything but talked a whole bunch. But, for some reason, this play freaked me out more than Waiting for Godot.
I'm not sure why, but the symbolism hit much closer to life in this one. Probably because it's not as hyperbolic of a setting and depicts a fairly realistic family dynamic - other than the fact that Willy Loman has some attractive mental issues that send him plunging into the past while he thinks he's staying in the present. I think the reason it scared me was probably because of those memories fading so easily into the rest of the storyline. It felt like there was no transition between what was real and what was fake; when that happens, it really raises the issue on whether that's how we see our own lives or whether it is just the world of the play. Perhaps I felt the monotony hit close to home for our situation at school as well. We work and work and try to make things happen, but we can't all be great people and there will never be someone who can drag us out when we're punch drunk and unable to keep our ambitions flowing. Ultimately, this play put a great emphasis on the individualism that Americans so enjoy - then Arthur Miller struck it down by showing that, in a lot of ways, we are reliant on other people and that we are just too afraid to talk about not "being someone."
Who knows? The final scene with Ben really scared me. I think it's because I didn't realize that he had even come into the scene at that point - I even thought that Willy was talking to some other person in the room. Then, of course, since Ben's lines are all memories of a dead man, I realized that he was speaking in generalities about prospects and having flat conversation with the wall. Strange.
Anyway, at least I got my reading fix down. I think it'll really calm me down if I take a few of those little indulgences every once in a while; two or three hours to read doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to fit into a weekly schedule, does it?
Maybe next time I won't freak myself out (but, if I do, it will probably be because I am thinking again...)

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Several other book reviews are also featured on my blog, including reviews of feminist literature.

Busy-ness As Usual

So many things happened Friday it was astounding. o_o
I haven't been this busy in a while, so it was refreshing to have that feeling of harried-ness this week. Well, maybe not 'refreshing' but it seemed more normal than my days of sitting around and having a prescribed schedule of nothing.
This week was the week of Interlake Live (our school's talent show), so we were practicing constantly throughout; I made cookies on both Wednesday and Thursday [for anime club to have a party - which was not really a party considering that all the anime club members were preparing for the talent show...] and then for the group to eat before we performed. Yes, I admit it, I am a baked goods enabler. But I also worked out extra much this week, so I feel as if I deserve it *is probably in denial*
Anyway, on top of this we were starting the after school practices for our drama performance next week [where I get to play a rape victim who is being interrogated by her defense attorney...] and there was a French movie called Un Secret, which was another war movie from SIFF that Madame got us in for free (though they were about different wars, both films that Madame chose were about children and conflict... strange.) I also approved my seat for a French trip next year, so we are going to have a great mid-winter break! But those were all leading up to Friday.

Friday: A Zoo of Crazy Experiences
1. The newspapers came in that morning; however, the publisher didn't put the center sheets inside the outside sheets so we were scrambling to do it ourselves and got through it halfway through first period (fortunately, my teacher was giving a free period since we finished our essays so I only missed Hungry Hungry Hippo)
2. There was a Darfur presentation during both my 3rd and 7th periods. Though I saw it twice, the information was really scary both times. I saw familiar faces of leaders from the Dalai Lama conference [Ingrid Mattson and Desmond Tutu] on the video, and it was explaining how all groups must come together to stop genocide. We got pages on how to help, but sometimes I just feel that we are insignificant in the face of Chinese oil interests and other global factors. Also, I feel that some people don't appreciate these things enough to care about people outside of their own immediate area. *sigh*
3. On a completely contrary note, that day was the awards assembly of the year. Right after getting out of class, we headed to the gym where the jazz band was rockin' out and the seniors were cheering their way out of high school. All of a sudden, my name is called and I receive the Harvard Book Award o_o Totally unexpected! The first principal of Interlake, an aging man in formal attire, presented me the award [I felt so silly afterwards because I had dressed up in my SakuraCon schoolgirl outfit and floppy hat to advertise Interlake Live that day :P] However (though I hate to be grain-of-salt) they spelled my name as 'Alan' and not 'Alam.' Some people will never change.
4. We got our yearbooks in a mad rush after school and I got to push through the crowds and say 'Hey, I'm a big woman and I need to get through!' Haha.
5. Brittany (I hope that's how you spell her name...) came out of the past to visit Molly and she was touting a nearly-one-year-old baby with her. He was so cute! We went looking for Molly, but didn't find her. At least it was nice to see someone still around after all those changes.
6. Interlake Live practice! From 3:20-7pm. We stayed at school the entire time and I gave cookies and had JamJam deliver me macaroni and cheese. ^_^ We were moved from the upper gym to the classic commons area by another group of performers, but it was all good because then we went to rehearsal and threw a mini party/yearbook signing. After a while we had some conflict with whether performers could sit in the audience (we got to after paying, stupid jerks making us run around and ask fifty people -_-)
7. Interlake Live! Kita got to come and watch Math and I do some crazy cool things [he was playing the piano while I danced Hare Hare Yukai - not both at once] My parents were there too, which was awkward during some acts... people sometimes think that they can just do the most illegal dances up on stage and it'll be ok. *shakes head* Most of the dancers were good, but one girl... Oh well, to each their own. I loved basically every singing person, because I didn't know that they could sing that well until this moment o_o All in all, our performance seemed really short once we got up there, and afterwards we all got to go out and scream to relieve tension. It was awesome.
Finally, at the end of the night, they addressed the fact that Ivan [one of our students] was murdered and that the event was to support his family through. I am glad to have given money to them, and to help out with their cause, because it's really sad to hear the crazy immigrant story and have it be cut down. People in that difficult situation do not just 'mess up' on their own.

Overall, Friday was a crazy day and there were a lot of things going on that even I cannot list all of them [although I have tried to the best of my ability - hence the length of this post]. But, as much as I love being able to do stuff at school and whatnot, I still am thinking towards the future.
Perhaps more valuable than the Harvard Book, Goldstein gave me a Native's Guide to New York with some places marked in it that she thinks I should visit. In my head and in my heart, I really want to get out of here so I can go experience some new people and new things. Maybe, after that, I can come back and be alive again and rejuvenate the school with my industrial-strength luster. But for now, I feel like the seniors as they yell their last goodbyes.
Just a week and a half to go!

Expelliarmus (And Other Weird Spells We Still Remember)

I may be crazy, but I guess some things happen for a reason.
Yesterday was a medley of celebration and fear as we sashayed about town to commemorate the sun's awakening, our upcoming Hare Hare Yukai performance, and some general life demands. Instead of working hard, I flounced about and tried to have some fun for once. Today was the same, except with a bit more work and a little more personal benefit. Walk for Aidan was quite awesome, and then I went to the trainer and hauled ass (literally, we worked on glutes today) as beginning my exercise/dietary goals. Then afterward I dozed and felt horrible for a few hours and finally decided to go to The Hairy Baby and loved to watch the strangeness and the common themes that flitted through a surrealistic setting [also, I love Monster - he sculpts busts! (again, literally)]
Now I'm sitting at home thinking that I should be able to devote 2 hours to myself every day. One for general exercise and well-being, the other for writing and creative thought. Just because... I think I've let my life go to other people or other commitments too much [I would say lately, but it's really been all year] And so I'm going to start working on myself again, because (as my trainer would say) I've 'fallen off the wagon' in terms of appreciating the fact that I'm an 'artist' and a human being. I'm going to have to push to the end of the year in some things, but I can't believe how much time I spend sitting around thinking to do something and then either being too scared or too stressed to do it. It's something I really need to get rid of - hesitation.
And thus, with that effervescent glow about me, I'm going to retire to my bed. Goodnight.