same small world at your heels

today's title comes from vanderlylle crybaby geek by the national. it's awesome and you're really dumb, fo' real if you don't listen to it:

i want a schnoodle.

and now i'm going to stop procrastinating and get back to my papers. plural. at least i have the rally to restore sanity to look forward to on saturday. anyone else going?

all round the fields of anfield road

i'm cheating with today's title - it's from the fields of anfield road. that's the lost liverpool mention you'll see in this post, though, i promise.

in rachel news...life has been routine. i'm getting used to things, i guess. i'm finally done with midterms (which crushed my soul and left me unable to look at either scantrons or thesis statements the same way again). i finally figured out the real reason that freshmen aren't supposed to take 300-level english classes - it isn't that the work is hard to understand (it's not) it's that there's so much of it. four papers in two weeks. same for the iranian film seminar.

but it's over! i was like this all weekend:

i had a bio lab from nine to noon today. i was going to be sad about it, but it turns out that the professor had to leave for some family emergency or the other at the last minute and left us these as a substitute for the lab we were supposed to be doing (more dna polymerization - yuck):

also, ahahahaha at caitlin in the background

that's right - i got to play with mr. potato head for three hours!

after that, the momster and husband number three showed up for what i thought was going to be a nice, casual lunch/giving-rachel-money/distribution of presents afternoon. wrong. so wrong.

they took me to A Bank. a bank. according to them, now that i'm 18 i have to know how to use them and deposit birthday checks and withdraw my own cash and things. it was horrifying. also, apparently husbands one and two and the momster had savings accounts for me and didn't bother telling me - so there was this whole to-do where they were calling the various Financial Advisers (doesn't that just sound hideously grown up?) and sorting out authorizations and secondary account holders and other adult things like that. i am apparently about to be trusted with my first debit and credit cards since the Great Spending Fiasco of 2008. wish me luck.

the point of this story is that i had to spend two and a half hours in a bank (on a very nice, sunny afternoon no less) being lectured on financial responsibility and how they are putting me on a budget and the dangers of impulse buying and basically being reminded in every way that i'm an adult and will one day have to take care of myself and know how to do things and...

no. just no. i'm freaking out a little. the momster and husbands one through three seemed to get that since there was a general consensus that i looked panicked and so the parental units who were at the bank in person took me to party city and we got my costume (i am going to be a cat since the pre-made disney costumes are either skanky or not very nice looking. we're making better ones over the summer for next year). i was slightly comforted by assembling the pieces of it. i now have a sparkly cat ear headband (and a fluffy version lent by michelle), a leotard, tights, a giant poofy tutu/tulle skirt, cat gloves (one of the hall-es is helping me sew on rubber pads to make them into paws), and a two foot long bendy tail (being sewn onto my costume by michelle). it's going to be great. also, to bring me back from the heights of Mt. I-can't-be-an-adult-I-just-learned-how-to-do-laundry-and-can't-even-drive-that-well-and-sometimes-I-forget-things-like-what-continent-Paraguay-is-in-and-also-my-own-name, the parents let me pick out costumes for them and the dogs, too. the human half of the family is now Minnie and Mickey Mouse. the lulus are going as a banana and a cat.

to conclude this little story: i still have a terminal fear of growing up and a slightly worrying addiction for costumes. also, when these two things are combined, i can manipulate some wonderfully embarrassing halloween photos out of my parents. i really can't wait for this year's batch.

other than that, i've been catching up on my reading and replying to letters. if you sent me anything last month, look for a reply in the next week or two.

in the morning at the top of the stairs

today's title comes from casimir pulaski day by sufjan stevens. i'm not listening to it right now, nor did i listen to it at the top of the stairs, but it was playing this morning. now i'm listening to stephen fry read some of oscar wilde's short stories. i don't normally like audiobooks, but i'll make an exception because...stephen fry. it makes me do this:

i've been pretty busy lately. i got into my first (minor) accident wednesday night. i got lost trying to come home on a back road from ashburn and ran into a gate at the alien testing facility janelia farms. i hate that place. there's a key-card-swipe/security gate thing and it shuts automatically if you don't have the key card. and it's on a one way street. i slammed on the brakes pretty quickly but there's still a tiny dent on the car. oh, and then i got to back up for a half a mile. so that? that is just one of the many, many reasons i hate driving.

after that i went home and did homework until 4 in the morning. oh, i hate school now. i can't wait until it's over. well, i can't wait until the part of school where we're still doing work is over. i don't mind all the free periods where we just play board games and cards (i learned two new games today and failed miserably at both of them). that was all i did today, since the momster surprised me by picking me up at 12:30 so we could get lunch and go to borders. well, i went to borders - she just did boring work things.

i feel like i'm slowly becoming nocturnal. i end up napping for an hour or two when i come home, staying up until 3 or so, and then catching a few more hours of sleep. actually, i guess that isn't really nocturnal. semi-nocturnal? i don't know. i still feel a little loopy.

i've got to go finish doing my laundry (that's right - i'm still working my way through the piles that built up during AP week) and throw some clothes in a bag for our s-la/meggo/jenibean weekend.

oh, and let's switch things up today. instead of posting songs, i'm going to share something even better: robert downey jr.

you think it's endless, endless, endless

today's title comes from sleigh bells' crown on the ground. i can't find a decent version on youtube so you're just going to have to look it up yourself.

my econ exams went well. kind of. the macroeconomics exam was fine, since that's the unit we just finished learning. microeconomics wasn't that bad, either...not until the free responses, anyway. even after travis and i murdered a tree printing off past free responses to study, this year's was still a mystery. i put down a few nonsensical terms and busied myself drawing pictures. lots and lots of pictures. my personal favorite was a goldfish rendering of the high school cafeteria map in mean girls - i made the asians sushi rolls.

at least our teacher fed us. it figures that my worst exam(s) would have the best food. my favorite parts were the costco box of twizzlers (i still have a bunch in my bag), peanut m&ms, and buffalo chicken kickers for lunch. food just makes everything better, you know? in the mean girls cafeteria hierarchy i think i might be one of the girls who eat their feelings. oh no.

blossom is my favorite. who's yours? also, do any of you even read the captions? can i just start saying strange things in these or trying to brainwash you via subliminal messages embedded in the photo/gif captions or... i'm feeling kind of pinky and the brain today. don't judge.

oh, look, jon stewart has a teddy bear. that's nice. watching the daily show is a horrible distraction when one is trying to complete homework. blogging and watching the daily show, on the other hand, makes any hopes of finishing homework nonexistent, so...at least i can accept my fate? which will probably include staying up to an unhealthy hour finishing it or waking up really early and finishing it or taking it to lit and finishing it?

i don't know, don't expect anything sensible from me tonight. all i've done today is binge on sugary snacks, take two giant tests, and nap. my brain is still warming up. or shutting down. i'm not entirely sure.

in case you hadn't noticed already, my preferred exam time music tends to have a lot of the same songs/genres as my nighttime playlists: quiet or acoustic or old. makes sense, right? who wants to sleep or study or slit their wrists shrieking "why me?" and cursing college board and everyone who runs it to, i don't know, rap or death metal or club remixes? not me. (well except for the title song. but that was part of my special New Music exception). so if today's songs seem sort of familiar in tone, there's a reason...i'm a creature of extreme predictability (or not. i'm not entirely sure about that, actually. the momster says i am, but most other people say i'm not. what do you think?) and i listen to the same playlists while i blog or put of doing homework or pretend to study or attempt to sleep. in this case, the playlist features a lot of someone s-la likes to call "ray lamontage". for future reference, his name is ray lamontagne. you've all probably heard of him since he's awesome and coffeehouse loves him. in case you haven't heard the correct way to say his name, it's ray la-mon-tane.

my favorite:

a cover! we all know my weakness for those (in case you're wondering, the cover songs smart playlist is at 989 songs). the original is (unfortunately) one of the momster's favorite songs, but we've managed to compromise on this version for the car (usually):

and another cover!

give them to the night

today's title comes from sunflower by low. i've been listening to it (and the rest of the album it's from) constantly this week. it makes for good "gee, i should probably study for APs, but i won't, so i guess i'll just listen to relaxing music and not panic instead" listening.

it gets bonus points for having the first youtube result for the song be a skins video, but since e4 (the channel skins is on in the uk) disabled embedding on any video featuring its content, you'll have to make do with the boring one instead.

i've decided that i approve of the alien rat dog haircuts after all, even if they did make cookie and lulu are extra-shivery in the cold. now i have an excuse to dress them up in cute little sweaters! also their neverending search for heat has made them even more cuddly than usual (as i type this lulu is curled on top of both my feet), which is always good. best of all, it's made the daily check for ticks that much easier; i took them for a run in the rain to the canoe launch and was able to pry one off cookie in seconds. shrieky, flaily seconds, but seconds nevertheless.

besides, lulu (the one that looks like a mixture of pinky and the brain) is actually looking sort of cute with her giant head and paws and floppy ears. i'd snap a picture of her, but...well, i already mentioned the sleeping on my feet, right? because she is. and my toes are extremely toasty and reluctant to return to their normal unheated state, so you'll just have to make due with a puppy from cuteoverload.

i don't think you're complaining too much about the lack of lulu. that little dude is adorable.

other than my acceptance of hairless rat dogs my beloved pets, nothing much happened today. i went to school, got tacos and starbucks, came home, read, wrote, and blogged. i'm so interesting, i know. i guess being boring is better than having something horrible happen, though, so there's that.

besides, the national's new album high violet was officially released yesterday. and we all know what that means: i had to go on a mass deletion spree from my iTunes to make room for all the glee songs and an official studio release of high violet there are finally high quality versions of their songs on youtube (and in my iTunes library). this is one of my favorites (and is probably going to be the first single from the album, so i guess it's their favorite, too)

here's little faith, too:

i'd post another one of my favorite songs from this album, but it's not available on youtube yet. it's called england, though, if you want to get it.

anyway, it's getting late and i have to be a good little girl and actually make it to an AP exam on time for once (this is my last shot! ever!), so i guess this is where i'm going to leave off. expect lots of depression and whining about hand cramps tomorrow.

the scene: a city after dawn

today's title comes from in sleep by lissie. i posted about it a little while ago. if you don't remember it, go youtube it, i'm blogging from my phone.

while researching clips for the awesome, no really, i'm actually excited for something school-related, isn't that weird? film studies project i'm doing in lit, i came across a veritable gold mine of late 40s and early 50s educational films.

i know, i know - that doesn't sound all that interesting. certainly not good enough for an entire blog post (because i am, of course, a blogger of High Standards and only post about meaningful things like makeup and robert downey jr. and hair), but...well, just watch them. you'll see what i mean.

for example, there is the classic Boys Beware, which takes care to warn teenage boys of the dangers of hitchhiking. the 1950s sure must have been a nice time. nowadays most people aren't allowed to hitchhike because of the possibility of being kidnapped, raped, or murdered. back then the only danger was that you might meet a sick, diseased... homosexual. that's right. back in the 50s the biggest danger to hitchhiking teenagers was this:

anyway, here's the clip:

there's a companion video for girls, too. don't worry - girls, beware isn't about our risk of being killed by an angry lesbian. nope, it's about our risk of being killed by, oh, just about everything else.

after watching that you might be wondering why it was that just about everyone in 1950s america wanted to murder women. it's probably because of little films like this, which "educated" the modern man on how to deal with women.

there are a bunch of other clips in the related links on the side. watch them all when you have the time - they make for really fun car viewing.

oh, and in case you didn't notice, this is my hundredth post of the year! woo hoo!

look for another post from me later tonight - i'm going to go eat dinner and plan my lit and calc essays now. oh, and watch the daily show (don't worry - i know it's on right now, i've got it recording), the colbert report, and glee. i'm so excited for glee, it's a little unreal. the previews last week made it look like this episode is going to be hilarious.

oh, and while i'm sharing links i found in the car, here's one that left me a little horrified and a little hysterical. i love cracked.

i've been reading some texts in my dreams

today's title comes from gypsy part of town by gogol bordello. i'd post it for you, but i'm on a terrible school computer (it's a pc - blegh). travis is here printing econ free responses...again, because apparently the 600 sheets we printed thursday weren't enough. oh well, at least we recycle.

i have coffee. it's not even starbucks coffee (well, it kind of is, but the kind you grind at home, not the kind they make for you). it's even better, though. like, i'm not a big fan of going to, say, a restaurant and ordering the most complicated, picky dish on the menu with very specific cooking guidelines. doing that always makes me feel bad for the waiter, and then i overtip out of guilt, and then i see s-la and feel guilty for overtipping (she's my consumer conscience, it's great). i feel the same way about ordering something really complicated from coffee shops (except the drive-thru ones in ashburn and frederick, because we go there pretty regularly and they should be willing to suffer for our continued patronage...also, i like the word patronage. it makes me feel powerful and tyrannical and a little like kurtz in heart of darkness, all "exterminate the brutes"...only in this case the brutes would be bad coffee makers, i guess), so i actually like making it at home in the mornings, since then i could have my half teaspoon of raw, not processed thankyouverymuch, sugar and my coffee piping hot (and not left out and starting to cool) and just a splash of half and half. a splash, which indicates just tipping your hand for a second, not just dumping in milk.

...yeah, i'm a little compulsive. don't judge me. judge robert downey jr. instead.

this just in: travis doesn't like poor, abused robert downey jr. i know, i know. get the pitchforks ready. we're about to burn the witch.

the diogenes club

"There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion." 

- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Greek Interpreter

today's title is, surprisingly, not from a song. rather, it's from sherlock holmes and perfectly describes my idea of heaven right now. does anyone else want to join the lansdowne chapter of the diogenes club? i promise it's fun.

it's been a while since i've blogged (or, you know, actually been on the internet). i have a valid excuse, i promise! remember that seven school days i missed? yeah, i just made up all of my work, including two calc tests, in four days.

i am fully expecting congratulations and applause. i might not be able to hear that applause, but you better be clapping your hands at the computer screen anyway.

speaking of computer screens, i had a bad few minutes of it today when i finally looked at mine today. in the half an hour i had to wait for UVA to post its admission decision online i realized that i'd accidentally deleted my R2D2 icon for safari. it's okay, though, he's back. see?

 

hmm, maybe when i'm bored i'll just post a picture of one of the weird icons i've replaced my applications with. 

anyway, i've decided that i'm going to be a hermit this spring break. i'm tired and sick of people. so i think i'll just sit around and eat mint chocolate chip ice cream and read books for fun and enjoy having front teeth. you know, the important things in life. well, perhaps i'll occasionally venture forth from my den of iniquity lameness to spend time with people and shop and frolic in parks and take pictures and relearn how not to talk in run-on sentences and polysyndeton. perhaps. i make no guarantees, though. 

for example, i've promised jenibean that i'd come to her house bearing a duffel bag of junk food so we can music day and be silly together. also i need to escape the momster, who upon hearing of my various college acceptances alternates between states of happiness and my-only-pumpkin-is-leaving-me-what-are-we-going-to-do? and, yes, that last one really is a state of being. anyone who has met her will agree with me. she's very...emotive. however, upon reflection i've decided i will stay home and continue to hermit with my bag of goodies unless jenibean watches skins. 

who could resist a show that gives you scenes like this?

it really is the perfect show. also the soundtrack/the music editor's blog has introduced me to a lot of new music.

ah, music. you thought you'd get away from it, didn't you? well, too bad because i finally cracked the 13,000 song mark. currently i have this many songs: thirteen thousand and two. 

and, in no particular order, here are three of the thirteen thousand (and two) songs which i listened to today. 

to begin with, i'm listening to this right now. because death cab is timeless and appropriate hermit music:

i was listening to this earlier, since i was reading sherlock holmes and it seemed appropriate:

and, finally, a song which i blogged about a few posts ago:

every single one's got a story to tell

today's titles is from seven nation army by the white stripes. they really should've just used this for the quantum of solace title track instead of the alicia keys/jack white mess masquerading as a duet that they ended up going with. still bitter? who, me? never.

so remember my great plan to beg, borrow, and steal cry my way into going to school today? yeah, that pretty much failed miserably. actually, it prompted a call to dr. emperor-from-mulan who nearly made me stay home on monday, too. which - well, let's just wee little baby potter explain my reaction to this:

so i stayed home. again. this time with a lovely little burn on my hand that actually isn't my fault. really, it isn't - it's the momster's fault.

most of you probably know that the momster's culinary skills are...questionable, at best. well, she tried to make pancakes for me yesterday to distract me from the Let Rachel Go Back To School offensive. in the process she set the entire pan of batter, the overhead fan, and parts of our kitchen on fire.

i know. 


anyway, i managed to put the fire out - hence the burn, which is actually quite tiny even if it does sting like you wouldn't believe - with our handy dandy fire extinguisher and now we're going to have to vacate the house saturday while some construction-type people replace the overhead fan and surrounding tiles and things.

also, the pan is completely unsalvageable. it's the real loss in this whole mess. well, that and my poor dogs' peace of mind since they both took off to hide behind the washing machine at the first shrieks of the smoke alarm and refused to come out until three hours after everything had calmed down. is it possible for animals to acquire their owners' neuroses? because i think mine have.

never mind, i have proof that it is possible. i went a-googling and came across this picture:

clearly the sensible cat's owner is an english teacher. blahbedy blah blah learned proper kitty grammar from its owner blah blah blah some more and - i'm right.

yes, i know. i was wonderful at proofs, i can assure you.

so last night was the season finale of skins. since you're all mentally deranged none of you have watched the show, i'll give you a brief overview. the show follows a group of friends through the british version of high school, known to those crazy people as college. the characters get more or less equal screen time since they all get one episode titled and devoted to them per season. oh, and the cast completely changes every two seasons since by the end of the second season they're all ready to head off to university or the real world or something. with me so far?

good.

anyway, the season four finale was last night. i had to practically sell my remaining good hand to find a live stream of it, but find one i did. and it was - well. i can't accurately describe it. so instead i'll continue wasting your time by blathering on about it until one of you watches the show so i can obsess over it with someone. also, it gives you scenes like this:

and this:

and this:

but s-la, you're still never, ever allowed to watch, okay? actually, you, too, banana. you'd both probably hate it anyway and that'd make me sad.

anyway, since the momster and i are both afraid of the kitchen, tonight's pizza night. in other words, i'm going to pull a hamtaro on some cheese sticks. and, yes, i'm fully aware that i just outed myself as an irredeemable nerd with that reference. it's okay. i've got a pikachu gif to make up for it:

okay, that's all for now. time to go attack the food.

in the blackest of rooms

today's title comes from - okay, seriously? if you don't know this song, i honestly don't know how we're friends. everyone knows this song. i'm pretty sure it's been covered on american idol, even. but i'll give you a hint anyway:

it's been a pretty ben gibbard sort of day, actually - lot's of complaining and a whole three bands playing on my ipod. and since two of those bands include him and the other one has his wife, i'm not even sure they should be counted separately.

in other words, i'm listening to brand new colony (acoustic) by the postal service right now. all i've been listening to today is volume two of she & him (zooey deschanel's and m. ward's band), a bunch of random death cab, and the forty song compilation of ben gibbard's various acoustic performances i got on tumblr. that last one's my favorite. he covers thriller. and avril lavigne.

just to get all the music news out of the way before i launch into my epic tale of doctorly madness and pain and suffering and things, i thought i'd address something banana brought up in a comment to my last post. the end of the boombox video? totally disgusting. old people are supposed to be asexual. just focus on the Important Parts. like this:

and this:

and this:

and how much i wish julian casablancas was ten years younger so i could stalk/obsess over him with a clear conscience, it's not fair that the last generation got him and all of the followills and all we got is stupid justin bieber and, like, the jonas brothers. ahem.

now, onto the doctor story...

you've all probably figured out that i'm sick. what else is new? however, a change is gonna come has already come. dr. cray cray has been replaced. the momster finally got around to switching our general practitioner to dr. omg-it's-the-emperor-from-mulan.

i'm not kidding, either. he looks, acts, and talks like the emperor from mulan. like, i was sitting their babbling on about muscle spasms and migraines and fevers and malfunctioning pain killers and he started talking about my freaking chi.

at first i thought that meant he was even crazier than the last doctor (and the momster definitely thought so, i wish i could've snapped a picture of her face), but then he wrapped it back to actual medical terminology and managed to work in the usual bout of drink-less-coffee-have-a-few-more-calories-stop-staying-up-so-late-and-for-christ's-sake-turn-your-brain-off-you're-probably-not-going-to-die-yet-you-crazy-bitch. anyway, the gist of it is that i'm supposed to stay heavily medicated (just the painkiller kind this time and not the "sing me a song about pineapples, mr. squirrel" kind) and at home all week.

this was my reaction:

since if i miss the entire week i'm going to have to take exams in all my b day classes - calc, lit, and physics. it's just not going to happen, okay? i'd rather go to school all "HI GUYS, I'M DOPED UP ON PAINKILLERS LIKE YEAH, ENOUGH TO SING MILEY CYRUS LIKE YEAH" than take those three exams. so thursday night i'm going to institute a campaign of whining, crying, and screaming "think of my education!" and "think of all the starving kids in Africa who don't have any education at all!" at the momster so i can go to school friday.

reread that last paragraph. that horrified "why would you want to go to school?" face you're making at the screen right now? yeah, that was basically my reaction. sacrifices must be made, though.

this really is the worst time for Operation: Read Instead, though. my fingers have been twitching toward the remote all day, especially since i'm still too blegh to run/work out. i've been reading and listening to music nonstop to make up for my lack of television. i just started villette by charlotte bronte.

oh, and i've been writing. it's been weird trying to get back into it after a few months of nonstop homework. i miss february. this month just seems so long, you know?

anyway, this post has gotten pretty long. i'm just going to stop here, especially since the painkillers have made my fingers sort of numb and typing kind of crazy. that is my defense for all the typos: the meds made me do it, OKAY?

i'll just leave you with this, it made me laugh:

rhymes with ick

so my day was pretty awful. random muscle cramps and a fever last night lead to me being knocked out (who knew the dr. cray cray pills would come in handy after all?) until...five o'clock, actually. let me clarify  that: five p.m.

so i missed school today. surprisingly, that's a really, really bad thing. now i have to go in super early to make up that stupid calc test and i can only miss one more b day unless i want to take exams (i don't). life: it's depressing. luckily i had this to cheer me up:

oh, julian casablancas, don't ever change, okay? i'm not even kidding. just stay exactly the same forever and ever - dorian gray managed it, why can't you? oh, you don't want to enshrine your soul in a painting? well too bad.

that's the other thing i've been doing for the whole four hours i've been awake: rereading the picture of dorian gray. i really want to see the movie version with silly prince caspian ben barnes as dorian.

for those of you still undecided about watching skins (jeni), here's yet another reason why you should get over british televisions' unique definition of censorship and watch anyway:

this is from season two. chris is basically the best character on the show. besides cassie. and maxxie. and tony. and effy (oh my god, effy. her last episode just about killed me). besides the episode this is from is all about the school's attempt to put on a show...called Osama: The Musical. i know.

anyway, i'm still feeling pretty awful (and have to continue studying for calc since the makeups are usually a billion times worse than the regular tests) so i'm going to cut this post short. goodnight, moon all you cray crays.

where in the world is carmen sandiego?

you probably don't know where carmen sandiego is (unless you're playing the game right now, in which case i congratulate you for managing to play and read this at the same time) but i'll let you know where i am: the ashburn keller williams realty office. that's right, i'm helping the momster with more paperwork since her secretary's still sick. she's still in a meeting so i'm just playing around on the computers now. they're nicer than the school computers but more complicated - i just don't understand windows. i miss my compy. here, in honor of mac owners everywhere let's just take a minute (or ten) to appreciate the wonders of apple computers:

today wasn't very eventful. a Certain Person got my hopes up with hints of a visit today and then never came. i totally felt like the little, let down kid in disney movies whose parent never, ever makes it to the baseball game in time. i was horridly depressed for an entire seven minutes. then i realized i still had a whole box of thin mints in my purse and immediately perked right back up. today's been a snack-filled day, actually. we had goldfish in yearbook and i munched on twix bars during gov. mona and i got to the halfway point in the thin mints while she saved my calculus grade during early release.

s-la might want to look away now. i'm about to share my incredible love of mumford & sons. and after that i'm going to obsess over skins some more. really, steffi, you might just want to stop reading here.

well, now that she's gone, let's talk music. specifically, mumford & sons. they're fairly well known. not on, like, a lady gaga/britney spears/that-devil-child-cyrus level, but they've been building up a decent amount of buzz on blogs (actual music blogs, i mean, not just the random whiny teenage ones like...this one actually. although now that you mention it, this whiny teenager did mention them a few times between december and february, since i put them on at least two playlists i posted. if PCs weren't the most evil things in existence and i could actually use windows i would look the posts up myself, but otherwise you'll have to take my word for it or do your own search of the...oh my giddy aunt, has it really been 177 posts? geez.)

but back to the music. mumford & sons are a british folk/rock band. and that's not one of those weird genres that some music blogger made up just to appeal to hipsters like, i don't know, classic electro indie rock/pop or dubstep. it's actually a fairly accurate label - to me, at least, they really do sound like the love child of, like, the entire cast of skins an orgy really is the only thing left to do on that show it is so ridiculous and i love it the cute british boy from what a girl wants (that movie where amanda bynes realize that she's the embodiment of every romantic comedy aimed at teenage girls ever) and kings of leon when they were still drunk crackheads a bunch of hillbillies. don't ask me how i reached this conclusion. i'm not an actual reviewer (but listen to them anyway so i can send you all loads of text messages filled with nothing but exclamation points and DID YOU LISTEN TO THE LIVE PERFORMANCES YET? and other caps locky text), but i think i more or less formed my opinions from the fact that they use an acoustic guitar and a banjo and in, like, every song ever and still sound awesome. i keep hoping they'll pull out a cowbell on their next album.

wow, that paragraph was terribly rambly. blame the PC. i have to go now, so go youtube them yourselves. or wait about half an hour and when i'm done doing real life things i'll post some more.

"has that window been open the whole time?"

nothing much happened today. i woke up (on time), had breakfast (for once), had lunch packed for me remembered to eat lunch, and then played taboo for an hour during early release. today's title actually came from the game. we, being loud, obnoxious, and occasionally filthy-minded (okay, that last one was mostly confined to tess and i), were a little horrified to realize that one of the classrooms facing into the senior courtyard had its windows open. specifically, the classroom directly behind the table we were sitting at.

you know how i always say i hate life? i'm pretty sure it's made the decision to hate me back.

in slightly related news, buzzer club today was hilarious. i can't really post the story on this blog (well, i could, but it wouldn't be a very good idea), but i thought i'd post about the fact that the story exists so you can all remember to ask me about it. because you're all that interested in my oh-so-boring life.

gina already posted about how awful calculus is, so i won't even bother. someone still needs to come up with a label for her. (i'm looking at you, s-la, you're the best at naming things). here, i'll even present you with an incentive to come up with something (since i can't threaten to hold your books hostage anymore)

isn't he pretty? i love robert downey jr.

i'm listening to wild world by cat stevens, mostly because sarah was listening to it when she borrowed my ipod and i like the song too much to change it. predictably, i have homework to do. in a surprise twist, though, i'm actually going to do it at home. shocker, i know. i'm trying to kick senioritis' butt. wish me luck?

things i learned today

1. spill orange juice on your jeans in the car
2. show up at school two minutes late
3. forget what day the juniors have sol testing 

in other words, i woke up half an hour late this morning, rushed through a shower, grabbed a glass of orange juice on the way out the door, and attempted to towel dry my hair with a wash cloth in the car. 

sadly, even with all of these sacrifices to my morning routine i still ended up at school at 9:02, two whole minutes after i was supposed to be in class. so i went to the attendance office for a pass. and found out that, as a result of the stupid juniors and their stupid writing sol, my lit class had been moved to another room, which - of course - no one knew the location of. you see, our lovely main office only kept a record of which stolen classrooms the oh-so-precious baby juniors were supposed to report to, not where the Displaced Seniors were supposed to go. 

so i spent half an hour chilling in the main office only to learn that my lit class had been relocated to the library. 

there's a three word phrase that sums up my reaction to this statement but it's a little profane so i'll stick to the acronym: fml. 

there, i'm done being bitter and whiny. someone sent me this link today and i thought it looked pretty cool:

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

you know what else is pretty cool? 

reverend and the makers. they're a band out of england, they toured with oasis (before the brothers gallagher decided to pull a mean girls and have a girl fight with each other), and spend their time being awesome and making music. see?

other things i liked today? 

also, i'm incredibly thankful for operation: read instead. before giving up the telly (ha, british people have the best words) i used to watch the daily show all the time and now i'm glad i can't anymore since i found out at school today that rpattz (you might know him as eddie c. from Those Crappy Vampire Books, or merely as FootFace for the strange shape of his head on tabloid covers) was on last night's episode. whew, that was a close one. i might actually have been tricked into watching FootFace simply because his interview would've been sandwiched between my two great comedian loves - jon stewart and stephen colbert. 

"you have flapper hair"

today's title is courtesy of s-la, in reference to the New Hair which you might remember me mentioning on friday. lately my judge of a good haircut has been based on one factor: what it looks like first thing in the morning. sadly, i was too blegh this morning to snap a picture, but i did take a nap when i got home from school today (why, yes, i am that boring) and had the presence of mind to snap a picture. in other words, here are your before and after shots. form your own opinions on The Hair.

(after school: don't i look cheery? yeah, i didn't think so either)

 (post-nap bedhead)

in other news, my ipod is on its way to the apple store, after days of waiting. i neglected to accompany it since the last time i went in there they greeted me by name. in other words, i've broken one too many gizmos and thingamees to feel comfortable setting foot in an apple store for the next two years.

today was a mixture of boring and horrible. in other words, i went to lit, calc, and physics. lit sans a teacher and calc with a quiz (thankfully it was a partner quiz, though, so thank god for stephanie) were both horrifically boring and physics was an exercise in endurance. you know those classes where you have to pinch yourself to keep from drifting off? that's physics for me.

thankfully things have started looking up. this is mostly because i'm on frappucino number two of the day, but also due to naptime, series four of skins, and fleet foxes. oh, and i finished my homework early for once.

i think i'm going to cut today's post short - i've got some reading to catch up on. top of the list? nightlight, that twilight parody i blogged about way back when.

never gave a thought to an honorable living

today's title comes from yeasayer's madder red. it's a great song, check it out.

remember how i've been worried about yearbook this week? our deadline is tomorrow, but i don't feel fussed anymore. to begin with, i managed to make my story a little better during early release today by getting the apples to apples table to give me better quotes about deadlines/college applications. s-la's was my favorite (and i'm sorry i spelled your name with a ph! i come to early release from a class with stephanie! it's hard to keep track of spellings when people never use your full name anyway). on a slightly related note, i would just like to inform Certain Persons that metal/screamo/doom metal is in no way related to the music i listen to. not even a little. my music (and all three thousand seventy-two genres which itunes tells me comprise it) refuses to associate with that sort of crap and would prefer to never be mentioned in relation to it ever again. especially since metal (excluding every time i die and slipknot) is the one genre i will never, ever listen to or like in any way.

after early release, gina and i stayed after school and worked on our spreads. it went a little like this. or this:

that's the art room (where the literary magazine meets), and i'm wearing one of the floral dresses i got with s-la. we spent a good fifteen minutes or so interviewing (i love interviewing yearbook and newspaper people - they always know how to give good quotes) and spinning around while standing atop chairs. it was pretty hard to get all the way around at first - i was mostly flapping my arms and looking silly until tori took pity on me and spun me. and then gina and i spun backwards around the room a few times since there was nothing else to really do.

this really is just the worst week for deadlines - there was a staff meeting today, so we couldn't get sholly to give us the keys to the camera room, and spring sports tryouts are this week, so cory couldn't stay after to help out. well, that and the 8492853 homework assignments and tests that all magically happened to fall within this oh-so-short five-day span.

in case you couldn't tell, i'm a little bitter. let's cheer ourselves up, okay?

and, my personal favorite:

it's getting tragic now

so today's post has actual points and topics and things, but i thought i'd just start off with a question. you know when you're dunking cookies in milk and the cookie breaks off and sinks to the bottom? yeah, that just happened to me. three times in a row. and the momster was just in the kitchen to give me a weird look for getting a fork out to fish my cookies off the bottom of the cup, so i think i'm going to have to resign myself to losing those three cookies forever. my woe, it's a tangible thing.

(standing in the way of control - fat segal)

topic the first: life sucks. then you go to yearbook. and slit your wrists. today was pretty awful as far as deadlines and homework are concerned. our yearbook spreads are due wednesday and gina and i have...nothing, actually. well, we have our stories (i finished mine today), but that's just about it. i have this prediction that most of this week is going to be spent on yearbook things. yippee.

(as serious as your life - four tet)

don't worry, this post has happy parts. like this:

this, in case you were wondering, is the cast of skins. it's a show on the e4 channel in england which the momster bought to cheer me up because operation: read instead was kind of killing me this weekend. it's not a show that would ever be on american television (and i do mean ever, since the fcc would possibly implode if it had to deal with the things this show gets up to), so i'm not counting it. don't judge me, i need some form of outlet.

(star guitar - the chemical brothers)

remember how i said that the secret life of the american whatever is the most unrealistic, pointless excuse for a television show i've ever seen? well, think of skins as the answer to it. they have real problems! and those problems aren't usually tidily resolved at the end of the episode! people screw up and are different and look healthy and...i love the british. i really do. everyone but steffi needs to start watching skins, like, right now. (s-la, sorry, but they're so far from g-rated that you'd be better off staying away)

(totally wired - the fall)

also, the music is awesome. i love that their music directors blog about their song choices - it makes finding things so much easier and the things they have to say are pretty interesting. i never really thought about why television shows use the music they do. actually, all the songs i listed today came from my brand new skins playlist. 

(up where we belong - joe cocker)

so that's all for today. i have to go do my lit, physics, and calc homework. what joy. 

dear world...

homework sucks. i really don't want to go back to school tomorrow, especially since i've somehow become nocturnal after not waking up before noon for the last week and a half.

on a happier note, i'm going to have, like, a four-hour day between the delay and d-lunch/early release. so i think i'll just pull an all-nighter, come home, and nap.

i'm listening to little lover's so polite by silversun pickups. it's pretty good.

i saw steffi did a post about twilight i thought i'd share something that made me laugh. i really hope google never reconsiders their search suggestions:

i'm sure you've been waiting for this (with bated breath and quivering lips)

(can you guess why i used this picture?)

today's post is going to be a little different. instead of throwing in a paragraph about what i'm listening to and why i'm listening to it at the end of the post, i put my itunes on shuffle and am going to include whatever comes on during this post. i think it'd be pretty interesting if you could figure out why i like certain songs or artists. even if you know me, i think there'll be a few surprises.

(shoot your gun - the 20-20s)

so remember when i was excited about finishing the yearbook spreads due before break? or how i thought that meeting this deadline would be easy to meet because cory, gina, and i only had one spread due?

yeah, i was wrong.

(shadowfeet - brooke fraser)

it turns out that when you have a spread on activities that happen before school, getting pictures and interviews for said activities has to happen...before school. that time when you have to wake up early. and not forget your homework in the kitchen and turn around on three minutes from hay road to go back and get it. and remember to check out cameras the day before you show up at 8:30 to take pictures.

now, i know what you're all thinking. it probably goes something like this:

but gina and i honestly didn't think it would be this hard to coordinate everything. so far this one spread has required more crazed text messages, preplanning, and actual effort than the last four did. combined. (i do believe in italics! i do, i do!)

our infographic ideas for it are pretty awesome, though, so hopefully the result will be proportional to the effort placed in it. and even if it isn't, gina's layout design for the spread is one of my favorites, so maybe people will just be happy with that and not bother reading/looking at the infographics.

(bottle it up - sara bareilles)

oh, and i'm thinking it's time gina got her own label. i don't know what yet, though. it took me forever to find the post i linked to at the beginning because it didn't have a yearbook label, so i went through and labelled everything properly. i'd be kind of sad to have to go through and label all the gina posts, but i suppose one must suffer in the name of organization. besides, i've actually finished my homework before midnight - how better to celebrate than by blogging and catching up on all my recorded shows and movies?

yeah, i know. my life: it's boring.

(when doves cry (cover) - damien rice)

speaking of shows i've recorded, the new episode of make it or break it on abc family is at the head of the queue. go ahead and judge me, since i freely admit that my favorite television shows are the most ridiculous. proof? i watch jersey shore. apparently the rolling stone staff does, too, which is the justification i use whenever someone tries to call me on it. however, i will never, ever (and you can quote me on that, mr. frost) watch the secret life of the american teenager. just hearing people try to describe the plot to me makes me want to wash my brain out.

(amon hen - howard shore)

i did record last night's premiere of chuck, though. i've heard enough people tell me about how wonderful it's supposed to be that i couldn't resist.

of course, now that i've said that, i'm going to watch it and be hopelessly disappointed. such is life, right? although i'm thinking it's a good sign that the cast is so pretty and the episode opened with a flashback. it makes things easier to underst- holy james bond briefcase, batman. the scene with the television started out funny and has turned interesting. although i would really hate to have scenes relating to george bush flash through my mind every time i turned on the news.

(better off dancing - the donnas)

(kerosene - miranda lambert)

i'd blog more but my day was pretty boring. school. learning (of a sort). homework. as per usual, i felt like the AP government vocabulary was a slight to the collective intelligence of the senior class. half of the terms overlapped with terms from the last quarter of apush - do teacher's really assume our attention spans are that short? are our brains supposed to auto-erase knowledge after a span of six months? i just set my email account to do that - yay auto-emptying trash and spam boxes! - but i don't think it's possible to recreate the effect in my mind. oh, and the other half of the terms could be defined using common sense and a basic knowledge of current events (CIA? cold war? gee, what's next, "define: president"?)

(slow dance - senses fail)

okay, this post has dragged on forever. i'd like to say this is proof of my ability to write about any topic however uninteresting (in other words, my 'blogging is an academic exercise' essay for random scholarships fastweb likes to email me), but we all know that it really just shows how much i excel at bullshitting.

i'm going to drag this on just a little bit longer to impart one last bit of news. i hit the ten thousand mark on itunes today. actually, that was a lie. i bought my ten thousandth song last night but then i had to go through my library and cull the songs i no longer like/see myself listening to. i thought i'd pass my excitement on to you: if you guess what songs 10,000 - 10,009 were (well, the album or artist, anyway) you get to pick the topic of my next post. i'll even pull a j. k. rowling (oh, how i miss her, i wish she'd write something new) and give you a hint: RDJ.

(sons & daughters - the decemberists)

oh, and excluding the length of this post, how do we feel about the new format? keep the shuffle songs or go back to the original here's-your-giant-run-on-sentence-of-music-go-ahead-and-skip-it-steffi paragraphs?

(dramamine - modest mouse)

this is the last thing. really: the cast of chuck has its own car commercial! with ipods! and they're adorable! i need to download seasons 1 & 2.

"please don't say cahoots anymore, it's disturbing."

long time no see, blogger. a long time for us, anyway. homework and inevitable sleep-marathons brought on by chronic insomnia contrived to separate us last night.

we had a two hour delay this morning because of the snow. i was pretty annoyed, actually, since that meant i had to wait til 2:50 to leave. at least we've worked it out in gov so that the next time we have a delay we'll have d lunch and be able to leave at 2:20, which is a little bit better. still - delays. blegh.

i'm rereading poisonwood, this time for references to colonialism. i'm actually pretty excited for my lit project - after all, colonialism. i'm sensing an opportunity to take tons of pretty pictures and maybe even trek to williamsburg and get some re-enactors to post for me. also, on a fourth (fifth? i don't even know any more, but the first time i read it was the summer before sophomore year) reread rachel is somewhat more tolerable. at the very least i can now appreciate the inadvertent hilarity of her perspective. man oh man!

i'm forcing myself to take the writing of Untitled Book slowly. when i binge-write my writing usually takes a hit in quality, so slow. slow and steady wins the race against that darn rabbit. i'm not entirely sure why one would race a rabbit in the first place, but i mean for my book to win the race anyway.

the gilmore girls episode where paris loses her editorship of the yale daily news and rory takes over is on right now. it's on my favorite scene right now. i'd describe it for you, but i think it'd be better for all of us if you just watched it instead:

to all of you who've never seen this show - start watching. aren't you feeling inspired now?

i'm thinking of reorganizing the communist book collective. i really want to read st. augustine's the city of god, but i don't feel like i'll understand it completely unless i have someone to talk it over with and make me read it slowly. anyone in? as communists we are welcoming of all new readers.

oh, and i'm listening to lisztomania by phoenix.