Well... that was fun.

Through my own silly fault I was ten minutes late to my Elements of Music final, so, sadly, twenty minutes later I was not the first one done. I tied with another girl. *Sigh.* I'd been so hopeful.

100+ books in 2010!

Seriously, I'm going to remember this year. Or, at least, I'm going to remember for at least two months. Yay feasible goals!

ENTER
READ(!!!)
WIN*

*It's like NaNoWriMo, except I don't think you get a badge. Just bragging rights.

MAGGIE'S BOOKS

1. Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace. (Oh MHL, you make me nostalgic for your childhood.)
   
2. Pretties by Scott Westerfield.
3. a novella by a friend of mine. (!!!)
   
4. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. (Oh GCL. I cannot say how much I love this book.)
   
5. The Enchanted Raisin by Jacqueline Balcells, translated by Elizabeth Gamble Miller. (Amanda Pearl read these stories to me when I was little, and I haven't looked at them in years. They've grown weird in the meantime.)
6. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman.
7. River Secrets by Shannon Hale. (Oh SH...)
   
8. Ice by Sarah Beth Durst. (Beauty and the Beast in the modern arctic... and then it explodes. My opinion might come later.)
9. Genesis by, um, God (also Moses). (NASB.) (At first I was asking if this counts, but I know it totally has to.)
10. Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. (More rereading from when I was youngerish. Also, RM's prose is like pudding. I'd elaborate but I'd probably just go on a huge tangent like she does all the time. Deliciously, I mean, but wow.)
11. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
12. Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card. (At least the third time through... I don't quite remember.)
13. Matilda by Roald Dahl.
14. Cathy's Book: if found call (650) 266-8233 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman; interior design by Cathy Brigg. (Interesting. Kind of fun.)
    
15. The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler).
16. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. (Never read it before.)
17. Horseradish by Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler). (Quite meh, bordering on lame.)
    
18. Holes by Louis Sachar. (Again.)
    
19. Cathy's Key: if found call (650) 266-8202 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weismann; interior design by Cathy Brigg. (This one wasn't as good as the first. It was half sequel, half anti-war diatribe, and Jewel was one of my least favorite kinds of unrealistic. She could and did get away with everything, and people constantly underestimated her, and she apparently didn't care about anyone but herself. Very annoying to read.
    However, it's still a very fun kind of book and I hope it becomes popular. I can see this style being really amazing.)
20. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. (Interesting and a nice style.)
    
21. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. (Oh my goodness. I wish I'd read this before. Oh my goodness.)
22. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. (Yes, again. I nearly cried both times. Oh my goodness.)
23. Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin. (The narrater is an autistic boy. Interestingish, but the plot's not amazing.)
24. Cathy's Ring: if found call (650) 266-8263 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman; interior design by Cathy Brigg. (A pretty good ending to the trilogy, but relatively. The whole thing probably gets about three and a half stars.)
25. Little Bee by Chris Cleave. (Totally the best cover ever.)
    
26. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. (Reread.)
27. Sold by Patricia McCormick.
28. Artemis Fowl, The arctic incident: the graphic novel adapted by Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin; art by Giovanni Rigano; color by Paolo Lamanna; lettering by Chris Dickey (originally by Eoin Colfer). (They seriously weren't meant to be graphic novels... yet I read the second. EC, why do I keep reading you? Aren't your books supposed to be for 12-year-old boys? Sigh.)
    
29. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. (Reread. When will August get here?)
    
30. Chiggers by Hope Larson; lettered by Jason Azzopardi. (Really, really lame. I should really stop following such whims as led me to pick it up.)
31. Graphic Classics Volume 4: H. P. Lovecraft by H. P. Lovecraft, some adapters, and a bunch of artists. (:D)
32. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal by Jeff Kinney. (Still trying to keep updated on kid's lit.)
    
33. Calamity Jack by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale. (Can definitely be stand-alone. Rather steampunkish. I liked it.)
34. Serenity Vol. 1: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, and Will Conrad.
35. The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, read by David Ackroyd.
    
36. Shug by Jenny Han.
37. Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby.
38. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. (Aaaaaiii. Loved it.)
39. The Screwtape Letters with Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C. S. Lewis. (Still so brilliant.)
    
40. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks, read by Marc Cashman.
    
41. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, read by Scott Brick. (I have trouble seeing how this became a movie starring Will Smith. What? Also, I liked Scott Brick. The reader really matters; I started Lawrence and the Arabs recently but had to stop almost immediately because what's-his-name that was reading it had an incredibly annoying voice.)
    
42. The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time edited by Barry N. Malzberg. (This was a very good collection. It has some big names, too. I may actually buy it.)
    
43. The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. (In which Mr. Hammar is promoted to Captain. Also, made me buy a full-price book from amazon.co.uk because the third in the trilogy is not freaking out in the US yet.)
44. Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. (Meh. The authors thought that every time a character came onto a new scene they had to reintroduce the nickname, and that was so annoying and pedantic and stupid.)
    
45. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness. (Aaaaaiiiiiii. Five stars of five. Patrick Ness, will you be my new best friend? You're my favourite.)
46. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale. (We have surprisingly few audiobooks; so if you see HP all over this list, that's because it's my go-to if I have to clean my room or such. It's really very handy to listen to something.)
47. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer, read by Enn Reitel. (I think it's better the second time through. I really am fond of this series.)
48. Ten Ways to Make my Sister Disappear by Norma Fox Mazer.
49. Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis. (Quite delightful. I'll probably read more Emma-Jean. She reminds me heavily of a character I had a few years ago, only Emma-Jean is nice. (Oh haha, I just realized that my characters initials were EJS. And I hadn't even heard of this book. Funny times!))
50. Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card.
51. Nightlight: a parody by The Harvard Lampoon. (Rather eh. It was too over-the-top to be brilliant, but it had some really awesome lines: "None of us were very good at saying good-bye. For some reason, it always came out good-BUH.")
52. Emma-Jean Lazerus Fell in Love by Lauren Tarshis.
53. Break by Hannah Moskowitz.
54. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.
55. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah.
56. Lovingly Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.
57. Through the Wardrobe: Your Favorite Authors on C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia edited by Herbie Brennan (includes authors Sarah Beth Durst (see 8) and Diane Duane). (It was really good. I mean, I didn't agree with all of them, but it was quite interesting and afterward I felt like reading the Chronicles again.)
58. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. (... which I then did.)
59. Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis.
60. The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C. S. Lewis.
61. The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis.
62. The Horse and his Boy by C. S. Lewis.
63. The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis.
64. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. (I've always really loved this one. Authors in Through the Wardrobe kept saying it's not as good because it's too overwhelmed by the biblical message—but I also love Revelations, so I guess I'm the odd girl out.)
    
65. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.
66. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. (Enjoyable, but not mind-shattering. I couldn't see Alex as human because he had no empathy. Ever.)
    
67. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. (Just getting ready for the imminent release of Mockingjay.)
    
68. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.
69. The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale. (I needed something comforting and funny during orientation, only it turned out to be a bad decision, as I almost starting crying in the cafeteria. I don't know what crazy thing SH did to me, but this book just kind of locates my heart and twists it. Also my funnybone, but in a non-painful way.)
    
70. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. (No official comment yet, except that it was surprising.)
71. Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer. (EC really just can't stop. I thought that *maybe*, since this is the seventh book, it might be the ending, but no way he's stopping here. I think AF is doomed to be an eternal series, and will eventually become unendurable. Until then, however, I'm still enjoying them.)
72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn. (Really fun, and clever.)
    
73. Push by Sapphire.
74. All But Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. (Yeah, yeah, I know, shut up.)
75. Skinny by Ibi Kaslik. (Don't misunderstand this novel: It's not about anorexia. It's about two sisters and how they related to their father. Also one of them happens to be anorexic. It's also just poorly written. About halfway through I found the need to check if it was self-published. (It wasn't.))
76. The Giver by Lois Lowry. (I'd forgotten how much I enjoy reading LL. I'm really glad I read this book and intend to actually buy it.)
77. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. (I noticed more flaws this time, but definitely still enjoyed it.)
78. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.
79. Messenger by Lois Lowry. (The further into these books I get, the stupider some of the first one looks. However, still cool.)
80. Going Bovine by Libba Bray.
81. The Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Capture by Kathryn Lasky. ((This and the next reviewish thing are Frankensteined from my 24-hour-read-a-thon notes.) Okay, this book just isn't that wonderfully-written. Too obvious about many things. It kind of throws its message at you. KL is too fond of her weird and made-up words. "Oh no, the bats are going to quank!" There's only so far I can take seriously. Oh, and KL changes person ALL THE TIME. I hated it. But it was still a fun book. Maybe I just like owls... dunno. Maybe it made me feel nostalgic. I haven' t read it in years.)
    
82. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. (I read a really good review for this ages ago, and picked it up randomly at the library because I was restless, and totally forgot what it's supposed to be about. It was... interesting. I'm not 100% sure I understand the her choice of places to have quotation marks. It really changes track partway through. Oh, and there's ickiness.)
83. Paper Towns by John Green. (Brilliant. It's about Quentin Jacobsen, but it's really about Margo Roth Spiegelman. It's in two parts. Part I sets up Margo Roth Spiegelman as one of those magic pixie dream girls you always hear about--in the noble tradition of Clarisse (Fahrenheit 451), Leslie (Bridge to Terabithia), and Stargirl (Stargirl). Always doing quirky things, always beautiful, always amazing... and then Part II deconstructs that image. And I did not know how it was going to end, in a good way.)
84. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.
    
85. Room by Emma Donoghue. (Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. So. Flamazing.)
    
86. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. (Breifly: Two boys called Will Grayson meet. However, it should be called Tiny Cooper, Tiny Cooper or Tiny Cooper and the Boys Who Loved Him or something. Yeah, it's not about Will Grayson OR Will Grayson; it's about Tiny Cooper. Also Tiny Cooper and one of the Will Graysons are gay, so. Warning, I guess.)
87. What Every Person Should Know About War by Chris Hedges. (For a class.)
88. The Gospel of John by John (God was there too). (ESV.) (For a class.)
89. The Gospel of John by John (God was there too). (ESV.) (Yep, twice.)
90. The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book 2: The Return of Meteor Boy? by William Boniface. (Quite a good sequel, and an excellent book its age-range (about ten, I think). I read the first one around August of last year and was rather grateful for the reiteration of plot points, although I know that if I remembered them I would be annoyed as usual.)
91. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. (Mary Sue alert! Chiyo/Sayuri is THE prettiest and THE smartest and THE kindest... and I'm not even kidding. That's the way the entire thing is. Everything always works out for her, overall. I mean, she's sold to be a geisha and her parents die and people are mean to her and everything, but you know she's going to be the best at everything she does and get her final goal and everything. Anyway, it was Thanksgiving break and I've hardly read anything all semester, so eh.)
92. The Book of Acts. (For school.)
    
93. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling. (I have to clean my room a lot.)
    
94. Sweethearts by Sara Zarr. (I really liked the premise, but I dunno... I actually can't remember what I didn't like about it. Or much what I did. It's a supremely forgettable book, apparently.)
    
95. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling.
96. A Little Friendly Advice by Siobhan Vivian. (You know, I kind of really like the cover. But I honestly didn't think Charlie's buttons were that brilliant.)
    
97. Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty. (I liked this more than I expected. A very cynical and interesting voice.)
98. Cut by Patricia McCormick. (Eh.)
    
99. Mary Anne's Makeover by Ann M. Martin. (I actually read this months ago but didn't want to admit it. Dumbest hour of my life, yes. Well, I was planning on burning it (for the heck of it) and didn't want to burn a book I didn't really know about. (I then lost it, so whatever.) But the shame of not making 100 would be greater than y'all knowing about my brain cell genocide.)
    
100. A plethora of baby/toddler books. (I read so freaking many I feel it must count.)
     

Best finds of the year: 21, maybe 25, 38, 42, 43, 45 maybe 70, 76, maybe 78, maybe 79, maybe 80, 83, 85.

SNOW

HAPPY EMOTICON, GUYS

iojiefnvweicnwenwep

You know those signs where you have letters you can arrange? And how it's amazing fun to rearrange them to say something witty? I was playing with one and some extra letters (A, A, D, E, E, E, G, N, N, N, N, S, T, and U) at Anna's old church and managed to spell

ANAN NEED GUTS

with only two letters left over. I'm still fairly proud of myself.

THIS is how much I don't want to do my homework.

This came with our bath mat and it was funny. Also I'm procrastinating.

3D Bath Mat
DIRECTIONS FOR USE

The mat is made of vinyl meaning it will remain soft, pliable and luxurious to the touch. It is easy to keep clean because it is machine washable.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Unroll mat and allow it to lay flat for 24 hours before using. Re-rolling mat on the reverse side may help mat to lay flat. It is recommended soaking the mat in a tub of warm water for 10 minutes prior to your first use.
2. The bathtub or shower floor must be clean and free of any dirt or oils. Do not use mat on a textured bathtub surface or textured shower floor since suction cups will not hold properly.
3. Before filling the tub, center mat carefully in tub or shower floor with suction cups on underside.
4. Fill the tub to the desired level of water. Firmly press on the entire mat surface with your hands by kneeling outside of tub on a clean surface.
5. Step carefully on the mat while holding a grab bar, edge of tub or a secure object.
6. Step firmly on at least 8 to 10 places for proper vacuum hold.
7. Your weight should firmly anchor the mat. If the mat is not firmly anchored, repeat the instructions.
8. After use, lift mat at one corner and peel back. Rinse mat thoroughly, hang to dry. Do not dry with hair dryer or over a radiator.

CAUTION: Not recommended for use on textured surfaces. Keep tub surface clean. Bath oils may reduce the Bath Mat's safety. Please be sure to use all safety precautions when entering and exiting tub/shower as well as when in the tub/shower. The mat is designed to help prevent sipping, but the effectiveness of mat depends on your use and care.

If I really wanted to go into it, "DIRECTIONS FOR USE" was underlined except between "FOR" and "USE" and on the list, "5" was italicized… but I don't know how to do that here.

SO I WAS WRONG, GUYS.

Dancing is actually NOT ALLOWED AT BETHEL.

NOT ALLOWED.

Not that I particularly FEEL like dancing when I'm at Bethel, but NOT ALLOWED! ARE YOU FOR SERIOUS??

This makes me wonder what we're going to do in Spanish class on Friday. We'd been scheduled to salsa, and I bet you can imagine how much I'm looking forward to that--awkward time with people I barely tolerate. At least I'm tall; then I can volunteer to dance the gentleman's part (since we're very low on guys in our block) and that will make things ever-so-slightly better. But can I get out of it altogether by saying it's unBethical? (Holly taught me that word today.)

This makes me want to start line-dancing or something right in the middle of campus to see what would happen. Would half a dozen security guards emerge from nowhere and tackle me? (This is what I've been envisioning. It's what I'd like to think would happen.) Something to contemplate when I feel like screaming.

I don't know if this is a happy or a sad day, Sis-'n. I know you'd count it as a reason to rejoice, but I don't like them infringing my freedom. If I want to kick my heels a bit, let me.

Siblinginess.

Going to make a quick Taco Bell run a few weeks ago, Nat and I went through the regular ritual of finding our shoes, coats, and hats. I reflected to myself on how funny it was that we seemed to be getting dressed up to go to a fast food establishment; I don't remember what we were wearing, but it was our usual nicish attire that contrasts us against our classmates.

"Margaret," he said. I looked at him and he smiled a bit, which (obvious to me) meant laughter over what I had just been thinking.

"I know." Agreement and a little smile of my own were all that was needed.

Does it take as long as we've lived together to be able to speak without speaking? Or perhaps the last two or three years we've grown closer? How many such exchanges have gone by without my taking notice?

I love you, Nathaniel.

AURGHNESS

I was very content with silently losing NaNoWriMo this year until I remembered my promise. Why did I have to predict myself so well?

If you look at my NaNoWriMo page and are worried about my word count, it's true: at this moment I have 3,091 words. It is now actually impossible for me to win NaNoWriMo, and I don't know when (if ever) I'm going to round up FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS. I really just CAN'T. *Kicks floor.*

D:!!

I MISS YOU. (You know who you are. The ones that I just saw this weekend. Who live at least four hours away.)

SPARKLE.

Shut up, Zeke.

Shut up, Ethan and Aaron. I'm not.

DON'T, Elizabeth!

I danced with Edward, you guys.

I need my waif and my orphan.

I hate you.

*innocent face*

Skirt.

*hug*

THESE ARE SAD TIMES.

Lala!

For those who don't read Pasto's blog, I guess.

Lala! You can listen to music for free (or for fee*)!

*HAHAHA

FOR SERIOUS, GUYS

WRITE A NOVEL
also for kids

50,000 words
30 days
Happy emoticon!


what if i don't finish it?
YOU'LL HAVE A NOVEL STARTED!
(nobody finishes everything. it's okay.)

what if it's not very good?
YOU'LL BE BETTER AFTERWARD!
(you don't have to show anybody. it's okay.)

what if this is a wonderful opportunity and i don't know how to thank you for telling me about this?
YOU'LL HAVE A NOVEL STARTED!
(thank you, thank you, maggie! you're so amazing! <-- like that.)

Happy emoticon!

yesterday
Spanish class ≠ entirely awful
!!!

I think this may have something to do with me sitting in a different place… one where my classmates don't pretend I don't exist. Of course, it would take some figuring to make this more permanent, because I was technically sitting in someone else's place. (My usual place had no chair.) She came over anyway so she could have her chat with the other girls, in English (not allowed), about shopping/clothes, and every time the teacher came near she would say a variant on "We're talking about Spanish, I swear." But I digress.

Could it be———is it getting better??

P. S. In Elements of Music, multiple girls now ask me directly about the homework. E. g. "Did I do this right?" "What does this mean?"

Bea

In Elements of Music, the one who chose a song from Once for that first assignment. She also wears awesome skirts all the time. Well, yesterday we both came to class in trench coats and hats. I complimented her hat, explaining it was my favorite color. (Mine was sort of reddish and could not be called straight-out orange, unfortunately.)
Her favorite color is orange, too.
:O

Unfortunately, her bag sports an Obama button, so unless she has an excellent explanation, our friendship is not meant to be. (No offense, Amanda. You don't count; I love you no matter how wrong you are. Emoticon.)

Question.

PHONE is to RING what BOOK is to ?

More bragging!

I now have both Thaxted from Jupiter from The Planets by Gustav Holst and Sabre Dance from Gayaneh by Aram Khachaturian memorized. (Note: This does not mean they are without mistakes. It merely means I don't strictly need the book to practice.) They both are arranged for solo piano by Christopher Norton, as was Montagues and Capulets. (And in my opinion, he needed better editing on Thaxted. It was written more confusing than it could have been.)

Next: Romance from Lieutenant Kijé by Serge Prokofieff*.

Oh, 20th century classics. You are so insane. I love you.

*This is how it was spelled in the book. The alternate version is Sergei Prokofiev, and I don't know which is considered a closer translation or whatever.

No, I keep a blog because I DON'T want attention.

(Title pretty much unrelated. From an imaginary conversation.)

Sorry for all this linkage, but it's in the rules for entering this giveaway that I must link it:

How Much Fabric? Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Anyway, it looks cool.

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon

I can't decide if I'll participate or not. I mean, if I'm actually going to take the risks that come with losing that much sleep and all. I will be reading, of course.

The picture is a link.

Tip of the Day

In Life……….

Shortcomings, Loss & Setbacks are INEVITABLE….



but…..

Suffering, Worry & Sadness are all OPTIONAL.



Be cheerful & happy always!!! Just take care of your health & family -

happiness will follow you wherever you go or be !!!

To all Star Wars fans!!

Imagine that A New Hope was split into fifteen-second increments, and each increment was given to a different person to recreate IN THEIR OWN STYLE. Then these new clips are put together to make a fantastic new version of the original movie.

Absurd!

I present Star Wars: Uncut http://starwarsuncut.com/

At the time I am posting this, there are 157 clips free for the taking, and one person can take as many as three clips. Go!

Thank you, thank you, Vati.

Did you know we have not only Katharine Hepburn's signature, but also a signed copy of Fahrenheit 451?

the road 'more traveled' by

I was walking from Spanish to Elements of music and the path split. I considered, for a moment, whether I should take the path everybody was taking, or the slightly wigglier and less direct one that passed by the gazebo. As usual, I avoided the gazebo (empty gazebos make me sad) with the excuse that twice I've gotten compliments when walking the way I walk.

As I've never taken the path by the gazebo, I didn't know how many compliments I could be receiving, and was wondering about that when a passing girl said, "I like your hat."

Win.

That is now Compliment Corner. (OFHP's Kompliment Korner? Oh wait...) Next time I pass someone there, I'm spreading the happiness. Like germs, only not!

If you wonder why I'm blogging when I should be in Elements of Music, we had a test today. I was out in fifteen minutes--and if I wasn't a slowpoke [lastname], I bet would've been first out. Of course, if I wasn't a [lastname], I wouldn't know all the answers so well. (See, I'm arrogant too. Laughing emoticon.)

Things I should remember when biking in the humid, humid midwest:

1. Do not bike when even a little tired; tired + sweaty + worn out + thick air = not paying attention = not good.
2. Be prepared to seriously need a shower; sweat abounds when there's too much water in the air.
3. Keep your mouth closed; gnats are gross. (Learned yesterday.)

me in the morning

shut up
you stupid crickets

Mythical Creatures

Blogger is annoying sometimes. Anyway, I think if you click on it you might see it better.

Pride.

After 6-7 hours of practice spanning 5 days, I can play the simplified piano arrangement of Serge Prokofieff's Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet at the desired tempo with virtually no mistakes, when I'm alone.

The Actor and the Housewife

by Shannon Hale.

I cried.



I curse my motherly feelings sometimes.

People at college.

There is a reason I wear my hat to Bethel almost every day so people remember me. There are few people whose names I remember: Paul, who wears a pink hat. (Like Elizabeth's.) Bridget, whose hair is dyed. It has rainbow colors like an oil spill. Kait, who I sat next to twice in Spanish. Maggie, because what are the chances we'd sit next to each other? And one girl whose name I think is Bea (short for Beatrice) who, for the first Elements of Music homework assignment chose a song from Once. (I was apparently the only one who chose a classical piece.)

A problem that comes up is that I judge my classmates on how hard they apply themselves in the class, and since a language is required, many of them in Spanish don't care. I'm still trying to find someone to sit with who will make an effort to learn something.

Witness my amazing post-wrapping-up skills! *flees*

First Spanish class = win.

(It was expected, though. Nat had this class yesterday.)

We had a substitute teacher! The main teacher is coaching soccer and will be starting next week. In the meantime, we could get started—if we had the right book! We didn't. There was a typo that made everybody buy the wrong book.

So he handed out the syllabus, and then we took it in turns to stand up and say, "¡Hola! Mi nombre es… [Maggie]. Soy de… [hometown/state]." It was riveting. Oh, and our assignment was to write our names on the piece of paper at the front of the class. He advised us to learn the alphabet, too.

Classes start today at Bethel.

However, I don't have any Thursday classes.

MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY
8:00 - 8:50 Spanish I
9:00 - 9:50 Elements of Music

MONDAY (I believe)
Exploring Creation through Physical Science with TQ and Snap's mother

TUESDAY
Teaching Oly'Anna's and Justinian's piano lessons

That's as far as I know right now. Tomorrow at 10 (after Spanish and Music) I'm going to have a voice lesson, and then we'll figure out a regular schedule. We'd set it regularly at 10 on Monday or Wednesday or Friday because that would be so handy, but that's when chapel is at Bethel, and while neither of us (as a teacher and a REACH student) are required to go, she is discouraged from teaching during chapel.

I just realized, I am apparently a Register Early to Achieve College Hours student. That's grammatically nonsensical.

---

Here I go again. This is unimportant. I merely feel obliged to relate it as it includes a few people who may read this.

I dreamed about getting an application from the tiny-branch library… they had this weird program going on where they took a character from three USA TV shows and that character was a librarian and also answered phone questions. My librarian was one of these characters, and she answered the theological questions. She got one while I was talking with her: "If the power's out and I'm scared, is God there?" and she answered, "Remember in Ephesians 5 when God says he is always there," and I was thinking, "That's not in Ephesians 5." So naturally I immediately asked her if the bread and wine of communion were truly Christ's Body and Blood or merely a symbol, and she did not answer. I digress.

One of the other characters doing the library thing was a villain, and I realized he was going to try to kill us all, so I got Nathaniel, Paul, Ethan and Zeke to come to the library to vanquish him. While I was getting them the library became multi-level and incredibly complex, with a few secret passageways for good measure. We were not very adept at navigating the labyrinth of stairways and books and seas and finding and fighting the villain. Nathaniel was useless, narrating us; Paul was comic relief; Ethan thought he was saving us all but really wasn't; and Zeke was the only one doing anything but I was the only one who could tell, even he didn't know. I was just kind of annoyed with them all.

Also I punched through about twelve brick walls.

I woke up before anybody actually won.

Three quotes.

Smart people were valued because they could solve problems, not because they could speak pleasingly about them.

"Oh," said Grace, sounding disappointed. "I'm sorry to year you say something so stupid."

… so instead of having a romantic encounter, she wrote about one. This is a common dilemma among English majors.

I found these on post-it notes around my room. The first two are from an Enderverse book, probably Children of the Mind. I don't even remember where the third came from.

Names

Wikipedia lists six Scottish forms of Margaret and they all look hard to pronounce:

Maighread
Mairead
Maisie
Marsaili
Mysie
Peigi

Why, oh why don't I know how to say you? This makes me sad.

EDIT: Okay, well, five of them look hard to pronounce. (FIVE.) Maisie is reasonably simple.

Incentive.

Forest Born is coming out this fall.

You know I've been looking forward to it for a long time.

You may also know I've been feeling apprehensive about this year's NaNoWriMo.

So:

I'm not going to read Forest Born until I'm done with my novel. I don't know if it's going to be a Write-Five-Thousand-Words-and-Read-a-Chapter thing or just a Write-Fifty-Thousand-Words-and-Read-the-Whole-Thing thing. If I don't finish in November, well, I guess I'll have to wait even longer to read it. I'll figure it out later.

I really want to read it.

PAMA

Sometimes—particularly when I am experiencing a great deal of emotion—I have trouble sounding sincere over the internet. I have a lot of rampaging thoughts and I type some of them and sometimes they're the wrong ones, or they don't make sense without the ones that are only in my head. So, sorry if that happens. I'm working on it.

(This is not because of any instance in particular; I just realized that some of the things I've said in the past may not have translated well, and I don't want to give the wrong impression in the future.)

And here is the obligatory emoticon to show I'm in a good mood: :)

Don't Be Cool, Stay In School

I got my left ear pierced again. And then once more. Now all I have to do is swab it with alcohol three times a day for six weeks. Or two months, according to the lady who did it. She kept asking, "Are you sure you want it this way? Once I do it you can't change it. Are you sure?"

Okay, so my DREEM was like The Man Who Was Thursday, but entirely with circus freaks… Why do I post my dreams so often? I've heard it said that people telling their dreams is annoying. Is this annoying?

I'd like to get a job, but I need an ID. To get an ID, I need my social security card, proof of address, and a parent. Probably some other stuff too. Long story short, we had a fruitless trip to the license bureau and Mutti has decided that we might as well get me a driving permit, because it works and then we're ready in case, I don't know, suddenly we need a fourth driver for our three cars and the price of insurance for a minor goes down.

I'm not planning on actually learning how to drive yet.

We went to TQ and Snap's house to surprise OFHP for her birthday, and Pasto' G. and Dr./Mr. H., Snap and Erik, Anna and Matthew, Nick and Nat, TQ and I went canoeing, split up into those pairs. (Anna and Matthew were in a kayak, though.) Besides those wacky kayakers, TQ and I won two races, because our canoe was the only one with two females. (We held back in the third so we could soak Nick and Nat.)

Happy birthday, my OFHP! I miss you!

SOLA

I is has sad.

Lovely Child.

Last night Naomi had Susie (at the time 9 months, 26 days old) on her lap while she was on the computer and Susie kept kicking the laptop. While she did so I said "Kick, kick, kick…" in an attempt to make her smile. (She did.)

And then she said "Kick." She said it at least twice later.

I taught her her first word!

EDIT: Well, her first fully-pronounced word.

My Fortune.

Q. What is contain it everything?
A. Wisdom.

Forest-Born

I had this revelation a little while ago, and I just thought of sharing it.

The Goose Girl, page 6:

[Ani's aunt speaking:] "I've never known one with the gift of nature-speaking, though there are tales that insist it once was. I strain my ears and my eyes and my insides"—she tapped her temple lightly—"But I don't know the tongue of fire or wind or tree."

So I'm hoping Rin, the main character, has tree-speech. Wouldn't that be SO COOL?

Dreems in the plural.

I just really love telling peeple my dreems, I guess.

As we left NYC it was getting very late and I quite tired, so I cleared the back seat of luggage and lay down for an hour or two, I don't know, I wasn't watching the clock, and had the fairly uneventful dreem of Amanda Pearl's name being in the newspaper. She got into all sorts of shows—including fabulous Broadway musicals—and was nominated for Tonys and such and didn't tell us.

(If you're reading this, Amanda, I haven't won at Solitaire on the iPod since we left you, and it's not for lack of trying.)

Which reminds me. Amanda got an iPhone. She didn't want to have both an iPhone and an iPod, so she got a little mp3 player for the gym, and gave me her 30 GB iPod to replace my 4 GB one that no longer works unless it's actively being charged. ( :D )

As a sidenote to explain the above parenthetical message to those who have not been traveling with us, I started playing the Solitaire right away, and I won easily 50% of the games, whereas Amanda had hardly ever won any.

So the second dreem, once we got to the Days Inn and settled down. We were on a grassy hill, me and Nat and Zeke and Paul and Ethan and a gril scout trying to sell me cookies. (Before you comment, that spelling was intentional.) Zeke's and Paul's faces were kind of blurred. (Have you seen The Ring? Kind of like the faces in the photos in that movie.) I didn't talk to Nat much. Ethan had a full black Irish beard. Yes, his hair was black too. Actually, he didn't look anything like Ethan. He just was.

We were all doing whatever it is we do, and the boys started playing some sort of game or something while the gs and I watched. After a little while people passing by started yelling and throwing rocks at Ethan, and I had to explain to the gs that sooner or later, everybody hates Ethan. Sometimes it's his fault, sometimes not, but if you don't understand this then you will hate him forever. If you're smart enough to comprehend, you kind of get over it. She was a bit dim and couldn't grasp the concept.

Also I bought a box of trefoils and two boxes of junior thin mints from her, even though a box was now $5.25. (When I was selling it was $3.00, though soon after I left it quickly escalated to $3.50.) I was slightly disappointed that the regular thin mints had been discontinued, but the new ones were not bad. She had a selection of about three dozen variaties, and was offering free samples.

P. S. We're not getting home on Wednesday like I thought, it's Tuesday. If it matters.

Bis bald.

We're leaving for New York today. We'll be back next Wednesday.

July.

I failed JunNoWriMo big time. Even worse than Script Frenzy.

I am accepting reviews for Paul Dies to put on the back of Ethan Dies. If you want to give one, e-mail it to me. It would get you a discount like last time, only I got tired of charging so they're free. (That doesn't mean one person can take all of them, though. I'll start charging again if you get greedy.)

Since Sita came I've started memorizing classic Disney songs. So far I know

1. Once Upon a Dream — Sleeping Beauty
2. Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo — Cinderella
3. part of Cinderally, Cinderelly — Cinderella
4. A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes — Cinderella
5. Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho — Snow-White
6. Someday my Prince will Come — Snow-White
7. I'm Wishing — Snow-White
8. Pink Elephants on Parade — Dumbo
9. Baby Mine — Dumbo
10. Little April Shower — Bambi

Unfortunately, the book I'm using was published in 1979, which means it's missing some great ones, like Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

italicsitalicsitalics

Zub died.

also

I'm doing JunNoWriMo.

Spammers are idiots.

Well, they did confuse me with the subject line; I thought it was something else.

Nope, it was idiocy.

Concerned,
The united nations development program (UNDP), in conjunction with the society for family health (SFH) and the European Union (EU), is giving out a yearly donation of US$1,000,000.00 (One million united states dollars) as a specific Donation/Grants to 5 Lucky international recipients worldwide, this is to assist against terrorism Note: All beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from over 100,000 internet websites, mini mart shops cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased something from. Be Informed that no ticket were sold, you are required to fill the form below and email it to the office of our Executive Secretary with the below contact for qualification documentation and processing of your claims. You are to contact the EXECUTIVE SECRETARY with your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747,E-900-56).
=====================================

FUNDS RELEASED AND VERIFICATION FORM
=====================================
1.FULL NAME ............................
2.CONTACT ADDRESS:... .........
3.CITY/STATE:......................
4.COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:..................
5.PRESENT COUNTRY:..............
6. MARITAL STATUS :............
7.NATIONALITY.............
8.SEX...........
9. AGE /DATE OF BIRTH: .............
10.TEL/FAX NR:.................
11.OCCUPATION :.....................
12. WINNING EMAIL ID:..............
========================================
CONTACT PERSON,
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY: Mrs Emmanuella Dickson
E-MAIL ADDRESS: mrselladickson_undp01@yahoo.com.hk
========================================
Respectfully
Mr. Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary General
NOTE: SEND RESPONSE TO (mrselladickson_undp01@yahoo.com.hk)

I didn't even read past the part about giving me a million dollars to stop terrorism. Yeah.

Also I'm doublechecking any subject line in the future. Spammers may be idiots, but they're getting smarter.

P. S. Also the grammar isn't even correct. Ha ha ha.

What is wrong with me?

You know how people talk about how one scene in a particular movie—be it Bambi or Pride and Prejudice—that made them cry? (Granted, almost entirely females.) And if not a movie, then a play, piece of music, literature, or something of the like?

Never happened to me.

Never.

It's not like I'm an overly dry-eyed individual in other respects. So why don't I? Am I not drawn into the story the same way? Is my heart a dramatic chunk of ice when it comes to fictional characters?

So a big fat prize goes to whomever can find/create something that will make me cry. (Out of grief for something in the story, not something it reminded me of, or out of happiness (good luck with that one, though; it's taken marriage and birth of immediate family members to do that in real life), or beauty, I suppose, and the like. No cheating.)

Look at the button!

Adventures in baby-sewing is having a pattern giveaway.

Margaret wins at the game of Library.

I went to the library yesterday, and

1. I brought my bike lock!
2. I brought my books to return!
3. it was open!
4. no assassins!

I had a lovely time browsing books, and I even was brave and talked to three librarians. I asked one about looking up what prize I'd won in the bookmark contest (I didn't go to the ceremony), but he had to do something else so I talked to a perky lady. After that I asked the perky lady about volunteering, and she got perkier and gave me an application and a list of things I might be asked to do. A few minutes after she left, the third librarian approached me with a hopeful look on her face and said, "Are you volunteering? I have a special craft that you could help with, and even if it was just a few hours for a few weeks, it would be a big help."

And then I sat on a couch for a while and half read, half watched a boy (about one and a half, I'd guess) playing with his parents. (Or his kidnappers, I suppose, but I hope not. He was cute.) His mother was expecting and looked quite far along.

Anyway. Success! I am happy with this library.

The books I got from the library:

1. Do androids dream of electric sheep? by Philip K. Dick
2. A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess
3. Interview with the vampire : a novel by Anne Rice
4. Chalice by Robin McKinley
5. Empire by Orson Scott Card
6. The Host by Stephanie Meyer
7. The Graveyard Book by Niel Gaiman
8. Anne Frank : the diary of a young girl translated from the Dutch by B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday ; with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt

1, 2, 3, and 8 are classics. 4, 5, and 7 are by authors whose other books I've enjoyed. 6 has been recommended to me by several.

There is no doubt that The Host is better than the Twilight saga in many ways, but Stephanie Meyer has not learned from her mistakes. (Perhaps they need to be pointed out to her.) There was a plot point in Eclipse that I could not believe actually got published, and I dearly hoped never to see anything like it again, but lo and behold! It was in The Host, just different enough that you could pretend it was not the same.

If it was only that I would still like the book very, very much, but there was another large flaw I couldn't get past: Mary Sue-ism. Are you all familiar with the term? If a character is labeled a 'Mary Sue,' (or 'Gary Stu' or 'Marty Stu' or whatever variant you like) that means the character is unrealistic.

WIKI TIME.

A 'Mary Sue' (sometimes just 'Sue'), in literary criticism and particularly in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as "Mary Sues" is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the "Mary Sue" character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an "author's pet".

I made bold the one phrase because that is where The Host's main character 'Wanderer' falls most short. I won't go into detail, but if you've read it I'm sure you can see what I'm talking about. If not, maybe I need to read it again, or maybe we should compare notes.

Anyway, other than that, it's a good book.

Less than success with the library again.

I was going to pick up one more book to replace the one I'd returned, so I prepared for another little bike trip. I had everything: the bike lock/chain, a sweater, a water bottle, my library card, my helmet, shoes worthy of biking, the whole thing.

EXCEPT.

The library is not open on Saturdays.

Maggie went on a trip to the library.

On Tuesday after Oly's and Tinny's piano lessons Anna came over and we biked to the library. (River Park Branch, the roundtrip of which is just under five miles, I think.) I didn't know that library was within biking distance; I kind of got carried away and got eight books. (One of them Anna had checked out before and was lending to me because most of the copies are checked out all the time.)

On Wednesday I decided to do something silly, so on Thursday I biked back to return one book.

I forgot my bike lock. Again.

So I handed the library's book to a lady that was going in with a plea for her to return it for me, and I went home again without much of a rest, which got me a little more tired than I would have liked, but it was fine. As soon as I got home I put a chain and a lock on my bike so I wouldn't forget next time.

I wasn't going to blog about this, but Monica practically begged me. (Are you happy, Potato Head?)

Hello, Dolly!

Louis Armstrong is hilarious.

I got a bloody nose just before the 9:00 service. It was a little surreal, thoroughly annoying, and overall unpleasant. Other than that, though, Easter was simply lovely. It gets better every year.

I am about to collapse. Good night.

I HATE BEING TRICKED

That was real mean, Shannon Hale. Real mean.

:O

http://oinks.squeetus.com/2009/04/hollywood-bound.html

aha!

Now I get it. Maybe.

Sometimes people wonder how our ancestors could be so clueless and unnecessarily cruel, towards, for instance, African-Americans or Jews.

Maybe they just didn't understand that they are people too.

Logic Puzzles

I'm reading a book on logic. It's called "aha! Insight" by Martin Gardner.

Anyway, there's a puzzle that might interest y'all:


Gloria, a young lady from Arkansas, is visiting in California. She wants to rent a hotel room for a week.
The clerk was very unpleasant.
Clerk: The room is $20 per day and you have to pay cash.
Gloria: I'm sorry sir, but I don't have any cash. However, I do have this solid gold bracelet. Each of its seven links is worth more than $20.
Clerk: Alright, give me the bracelet.
Gloria: No, not now. I'll have a jeweler cut the bracelet so I can give you 1 link a day. Then when I get some money at the end of the week I'll redeem it.
The clerk finally agreed. But now Gloria had to decide how to cut the bracelet. She was in a dilemma.
Gloria: I have to be careful because the jeweler is going to charge me for each link that he cuts and for each link that he joins when the bracelet is put back together again.
After thinking a while Gloria realized she didn't have to cut all the links because she could trade pieced back and forth. She couldn't believe it when she figured out how many cuts the jeweler had to make. How many cuts would you make?

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

ANSWER.
Only one link need be cut. It must be third from one end. This makes three pieces of 1, 2, and 4 links. And these are sufficient to trade back and forth so that each day the clerk gets one more link.

Two aha! insights are needed to solve this problem. The first is to realize that the smallest set of chains that can be combined in various ways to form sets of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 links is a set of chains with 1, 2 and 4 links; that is, with numbers in the doubling series. As we learned in the last problem, this is the power series that is the basis of binary notation.
The second insight is to realize that cutting only one link divides the bracelet into this desired set of three chains.

I got this one fine (after a time). But the thing is the following problem:

The problem generalizes to chains of longer lengths. For instance, suppose Gloria had a chain of 67 gold links that she wanted to cut and use in the same way she used her bracelet—to pay for 67 days, one link per day. The cutting of as few as three links will do the trick. Do you see how? Can you devise a general procedure that solves the problem, with a minimum number of cut links, for a chain of any length?

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

ANSWER. Provided by Nathaniel.
Alright. The maximum number of different lengths that can be rendered from one length by three cuts is seven. This is if you cut and remove three lengths, none of which are next to each other or at an end of the chain, and reattach none of them.

Let's figure out how many different combinations we can make with different lengths of chain (not counting zero as a combination):

1 length : 1 possible combination
2 lengths : 3 possible combinations
3 lengths : 7 possible combinations
4 lengths : 15 possible combinations
5 lengths : 31 possible combinations
6 lengths : 63 possible combinations
7 lengths : 127 possible combinations

You can either come up with this list the hard way, or you can realize that each step up necessarily is the previous step multiplied by two, plus one. For instance, the only possible combination for 1 length is:
A
For 2 lengths,
A, B, AB
For 3 lengths,
A, B, AB, C, CA, CB, CAB
And so forth. With each step, it's all the possibilities of the previous step, plus all the possibilities of the previous step with the addition of the new variable, plus the new variable alone.

So. From what we've done so far, it looks like it may be possible. 7 lengths renders a maximum of 127 possible, unique combinations—and we only need 67 combinations.

However, the ONLY way to render 7 lengths from 1 with 3 cuts is if three of the lengths are 1 chain long. So, let's see how many possible combinations we can make with different lengths of chain, if 3 of them are the same:

1 length : N/A
2 length : N/A
3 lengths : 3 possible combinations
4 lengths : 7 possible combinations
5 lengths : 15 possible combinations
6 lengths : 31 possible combinations
7 lengths : 63 possible combinations
8 lengths : 127 possible combinations

1 and 2 don't make sense. 3 is this:
A, AA, AAA
4 is:
A, AA, AAA, B, AB, AAB, AAAB
And so forth. As you can see, it's the same pattern as before, just removed by one place.

So. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make 67 different combinations with fewer than 8 lengths, if 3 of them are identical. Furthermore, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make as many as 7 different lengths unless at least 3 of them are identical. Finally, it is IMPOSSIBLE to allow for 67 different combinations with fewer than 7 different lengths. Therefore the problem is not soluble with as few as 3 cuts.

My question is: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Can you provide any holes in Nat's theory? They don't have the answer in the book.

In 1999,

My (paternal) Grandma Ann was interviewed by her children so her story could go in a huuuge book called 'The [namehere] Family' which I believe my Mormon relatives made. It has extensive family trees in it.

Anyway, I liked this part about her and Grandpa.

Clint had decided that he wanted to get married, I think, not too long after he was in the service. But he was having those malaria spells, and he was in no condition to get married. He was living with his folks. I know he wanted me to marry him more than I wanted to. I had doubts about loving him, but he didn't seem to have any. When he asked me to marry him, I think I was at my parents' house. I remember saying to Clint, "I don't know if I really love you," and he said, "Maybe you will learn to fall in love."

(They got married in June of 1945.)

Script Frenzy is about to start.

Who else is doing it?

(I have got to start posting real lengths again.)

Shannon Hale just released the cover of Forest Born!

Here! It's one of the ugly new ones, but still!

(She says this book doesn't get a classy-cool cover. I think I might sue.)

children: 6. boys: 1.

Congratulations on Cillian Joseph! I can't wait to meet him!

I got my hair cut Wednesday before last.

Now it's about shoulder length. Pictures forthcoming, I hope.

Happy Friday the Thirteenth.

Well, I've finally done it.

I dreamed Anna's wedding.

It was terrible.

I told her to let me help plan it, but she wouldn't let me, and it was all her fault.

I shall describe the ceremony: I was wearing a suit jacket. (?) To placate me Anna had given me a corsage, but it was kind of smashed. And then Anna came, and her dress was all wrong. It was part black, and it was kind of tight and had excessive lace and it was really horrid. (The skirt was kind of like this, but uglier.) And then, during the service, there was a skit. It was a really stupid skit, too. Pretty much Anna and a bald guy took turns showcasing clothes, presumably made by Anna.

Also in real life my voice teacher gave me a song that would be good for liturgical dancing.

Addendum

to this post.

I don't care how angry you are. If you don't want her to feel like smacking you right in the face, never patronize or condescend. Never.

Adventures of a Babysitter

Freddo told me not to feed him lunch because he wasn't not hungry. I told him that it wasn't lunch time yet, so why don't we wait till then and see if he's hungry? He promised me he wouldn't be.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations Pasto', Mrs, DoRena, Zach, Nick, Monica, Sander, Oly, Tin, Freddo, and Gerhardt, on Katherina Marianna Regina Felicity. (Did I get it?) We can't wait for pictures.

Wordsworth

contrived to eat my entire grilled-cheese sandwich because I was foolish enough to bend down to pick up a candy wrapper he had undoubtedly unearthed from the trash. Needless to say, I berated him with simple insults of "Bad dog!" and, as soon as I got a grip on his collar, put him into his cage without so much as a kind pat. And then I made another sandwich.

I was putting tags on old posts…

When I realized I never fulfilled my promise. So here goes.

It was a mystery about the murder of a princess whose name might have been Juanita. The main suspect was the maid who might have been Caroline, and there was also a cat, maybe Almond. Her name slips my mind, but it turns out the killer was the victim's older sister, for no reason I can remember. I was taking to long to write it and I chickened out by deciding it wasn't very good. Sorry.

Just like Rachel D.

Should I get a haircut?
	No, you should grow it out more.
	No, you should keep it how it is.
	Yes, you should take off a few inches.
	Yes, you should get it medium.
	Yes, you should get it short.
	Other, specified in a comment.
pollcode.com free polls

EDIT: I am going to close the poll now, after a week. The votes stand thus:
Zero votes for each "No, you should grow it out more," and "Yes, you should take off a few inches."
One vote for each "Yes, you should get it medium," "Send 10 inches to LOL =D," and "medium with lots o' layers."
Two votes for "No, you should keep it how it is."
Three votes for "Yes, you should get it short."

I've deduced (with help) that 10 inches would make it "medium," which means medium and short are tied. I guess I'll just see what I get. After all, I didn't vote.

---------g------------g
---------g------------g
---------g------------g
---------g------------g
---------g------------g
---------g------------g
g-------------------------------g
-g-----------------------------g
---g-------------------------g
------g-------------------g
----------gggggg



Rachel D told me to "draw myself". Is this close enough? (I did this in about two minutes, including finding the right symbol, so I really don't care if it's off-center or inaccurate or anything.)

My subconcious thinks (knows) Nat's an idiot.

It started with a wedding. It was either Walter or Michael getting married, and in the past few hours it came to me that it was probably Michael, and Walter was the creep. A great deal of the dreem was taken up with Michael and his bride being happy, something like skipping through wildflowers.

Sita was there, and she was normal except instead of "yes" she said "star."

And finally, it was Sander's birthday. We made him a huge quilt with lots of pockets in which to put his presents, only Nat made me give Sander two pairs of my shoes; my newish brown ones and an imaginary pair of brown church flats, and I liked both pairs very much. I tried to argue with Nat that they were womens' shoes and wouldn't fit Sander, but Nat kept saying, "It's a fashion statement."

Mommy's home!

:D

(I would have posted earlier, but the internet was broken.)

In other news, I found my purse. Of course, I didn't really say much it was lost, so I'll not feel slighted if you don't all congratulate me. Of course, in typical Maggie fashion, I lost it when it was sitting in plain sight… in the spare bedroom. *sigh*

Also the kids/teens in New England are very lucky.

chaotic DREEM

There was a wedding at our house and we had a lot of guests: Mommies with little babies were almost literally everywhere. We had Sita breaking/losing everything and being generally cute. We also had this weird little playhouse for Frederick and Gerhardt, who had inexplicably changed sizes. A random student of Dad's that I met briefly yesterday was there with the salad she had yesterday. (It looked really, really tasty. I mean, this had olives and dressing and fresh mozzarella cheese and everything. (Everything except for tomatoes.)) I asked her for the recipe about four times and she got really annoyed with me. And she left and I still couldn't remember what the salad was called or anything, but then I found I had the recipe in a bookmark on my little computer. (About the size of a binder.) And then Annalise tied her sheets together and climbed out the window.

I saw Jesus on a watermelon!

And the Eiffel Tower.

It's WATERMELON Art!

my absolutely favorite color

Is Crayola's Burnt Orange.
Number 23 on Wikipedia's list of all Crayola colors. (Which, by the way, rocks.)
Second favorite is 76, Mauvelous.

Eighth Contest!

But first, the results from the seventh contest:

GRAND WINNER

• A cat and a bucket of melted ice to use as protection from muggers. (Robin)

(Although don't you call 'melted ice' 'water'?)

So this contest is… a cover for my story!

Might as well, you know.

Don't look! A novel!

Fourteen chapters and an epilogue, available upon request NOW.

For the record, I hate it now.

Remember, any sort of comment at all is helpful.

one day in Semland...

I complimented a professor on his hat. (Bowler, looked like.) This was one of the professors that reminds me of Vati, a bit. He said, "Oh, what a sweet girl you are."

This was after a day of being asked if I was a Semwife.

It made me miss people who know me.

It also made me laugh.

Wordsworth

thinks he's a cat.

DREEM and also playing house

It was more of a nightmare, really. It's understandable.

Both the pastors were gone, which is already a bad start, but they didn't get a very good substitute. I only DREEMed the sermon, but while he was preaching he was also eating and he wouldn't stop. He tried to incorporate the food into his sermon, make it all symbolic, but it was all just a little awkward and weird.

Today we had a Voters' Meeting after church. Now, usually Mom holds a nursery for children four and under, but she wanted to attend the meeting (of course), so I took over. While we were playing house one of them insisted on playing the Mommy. Why?? When I was little, playing the baby was the glamorous part. That and playing the dog. (I played with my cousin, and we played "baby," or "dog-person," as we called them.) Whenever we played dog-person, Rachel insisted on being the dog. Oh, I got to be the dog sometimes, but mostly it was her, until I threw a fit and refused to be the person again, and she wheedled that this was the last time and next I could be the dog, and that happened over and over again. Then I got bored and started dying. (The person has to die three times before they're dead, in which case you have to switch.) Sometimes she'd try to save me, but I kept being the victim of shooting or screen doors or something.

Also we'd take shoelaces (extras, not from our shoes), tie them together and then around the waist (we weren't allowed to do it around the neck), and leave the dog tied to the piano bench while we ran errands. This was a very important part of the game.

the order in which I learn numbers in French

one
two
three
four
five
six
ten
hundred
thousand
seven
nine
eight

Wordsworth

(This is basically the same thing as on Nat's blog.) So... this is Wordsworth, Wordy, or occasionally Wordsy. He is adjusting well to his new name, his old being the rather boring Henry. I mean, Henry's a nice enough name for a person or a possum or something, but... anyway... If we'd gotten a dog that was all black or all white, 'Brown' would've been a consideration, partly for Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, and partly for dumb humor. We had 'Poe' on the list until I realized it sounded like 'No'. And he was almost 'Lovecraft,' but... obviously, 'Wordsworth' won. ('Byron' was there too.)

*cough* I have to eat something right now. I'll finish this later.

I present to you:

Mrs. Severely Sunburnt.

Happy New Year!

I got better. I'm still a little tired, but then again, when am I not?