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Senior year comes to a close

2006-05-26T22:56:00.000-04:00

Today was my last full day of high school. I still have to take finals on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I only have to go in for half a day. It's pretty surreal, especially since all of the underclassmen are still in school. It was very bittersweet at school today; while we were all so excited to leave, it was still sad that we are in our last days of high school. At least that's how I felt about it.

The seniors were planning to walk out of class 15 minutes before the bell and parade around the halls shouting and cheering. Instead, the principal gave us all a nice little surprise by coming on the intercom 35 minutes before the bell and dismissing all of the seniors. Since I don't have a car or license, I still would have had to wait the half hour until school was officially was out so I could ride the bus home. I definitely wasn't going to do that, so I went and found my friends Amanda, Simon and Cassie, figuring we could hang out or something. We planned on going to Dunkin' Donuts to get strawberry Coolattas, so we all went to the parking lot. Amanda and I got into Cassie's car and waited for her to say goodbye to Simon since he had to go to work. 25 minutes later we were still waiting them to finish doing the things that couples do that should really not be seen by anyone else. At this point Amanda and I were getting anxious, so Amanda, who also only has her driver's permit, hopped into the drivers seat and drove Cassie's car in a big circle in the parking lot, hoping that she would realize that we were ready to leave. While she did realize this, she wasn't ready to leave herself. So, we got into Simon's car and drove to Dunkin' Donuts ourselves. This is probably the most illegal thing I've ever done, since neither Amanda nor I have our licenses and because I'm still considered a minor since I'm not 18 yet. This just made it more fun, especially since I was blaring Nine Inch Nails and freaking out all of the old people downtown by singing "I wanna fuck you like an animal" at the top of my lungs. When we got back, Cassie was finally ready to leave so she drove Amanda and I back to my house.

I had to mail a package of two CDs that I recently sold on eBay so Amanda and I walked down to the Post Office. While we were walking there, some guy in a truck whistled at me and then turned around to look at me while he passed. That was pretty cool, but I think it was only because I happened to be wearing a short skirt. Anyway, I mailed the package and then I bought a few things at the bead store so I can make a necklace this weekend when I'm bored. After Amanda's dad picked her up at 5 when we got back to my house, I fell asleep on the couch until 9 because I've only gotten a total of 17 hours of sleep since Monday night.

Tomorrow morning at around 7 my dad and I are leaving for our summer house in Maine. I will be there for the whole weekend. I'm working at the gift shop tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon, which I'm actually really excited about because I like working there and it kind of signifies the beginning of summer. Plus there are a bunch of cute guys that work at the restaurant and surf shop next door, so that's always a plus.

Anyway, I have to go finish packing for the weekend. I will blog again within a few days of returning home, probably. Adios!

A decent senior prom

2006-05-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

It's one in the morning and I'm still not very tired because I've only been awake for 10 1/2 hours. Yep, I woke up at 2:30 in the afternoon. That's thirteen hours of sleep, which I'm certain is a personal record. Last night was prom night, so I think that explains why I was so tired. Overall, prom was alright. I ended up being a bit of a wallflower, which actually doesn't usually happen. I only danced a few times during the last hour of prom. The problem is I'm really picky with the songs I will dance to: no reggaeton, no really awful rap songs, no songs that tell me what to do (i.e. the Electric Slide, Cotton-Eyed Joe, the Cha Cha Slide, and so on and so forth), and no slow songs (simply because I don't have anyone to dance with during these). This leaves very few songs that I actually will dance to, given that school dances are always hip-hop—dominated.

On top of this, I wasn't in the greatest of moods, which I had been expecting long before prom was even in the near future. It's simply because I didn't have a date. At homecoming I was able to get away with not having a date because it didn't really matter, but at prom it does matter. Everyone automatically assumes that if you go to prom, you have a date. The question is, "Who are you going with?" and not, "Do you have a date?" Two underclassmen asked me who I was going to prom with and when I told them I didn't have a date, they looked at me like I was crazy. At prom, the couples stayed together the whole time. While at the dinner table, the couples would talk between themselves and I was left having to butt into their conversations. They were all good about it, mind you, but I felt awkward. And of course I felt awful having to sit there alone at the table while the couples got up to slow dance. I'm no stranger to this feeling, though. My history of school dance dates is rather unfortunate.

The highlight of my prom night happened before we even entered the hotel. TJ pulled up to the entrance of the hotel in his Sunfire convertible (we arrived at prom in style; that is, until I ruined the moment by doing the following...) to drop Morgan and I off since it was pouring rain out. He stopped parallel to a car full of old ladies who admired me as I gracefully climbed out of the backseat, only to catch the heel of my shoe on what I assume to have been the seatbelt and fall flat on my face, skinning my knee in the process. What a way to make an entrance. I got up laughing hysterically, and it took me a while to stop. Luckily I was wearing a short dress, otherwise I probably would have torn a hole at the knee. My dress did fall right at my knee, though, so a bit of blood stained the hem before I was able to get to a bathroom to wipe it off. Wow, I am laughing right now just thinking about it. That's definitely something I'm going to remember.

Overall prom was decent. I didn't get to spend as much time with my friends as I would have liked since they were all mostly occupied with their dates, but I had a good time nonetheless.

Check out this article that I was interviewed for about college debt. I had an internship through my high school at Nashoba Publishing, a company that publishes several small town newspapers in my area. The reporter asked me one day if he could interview me for the story and I obliged. There was a picture of me in the paper that went along with the article but it isn't displayed on the site, which is unfortunate because it was actually a pretty good picture. It's kind of cool because not many people can say that they've been interviewed for a newspaper article before, even if it is just for a small weekly newspaper.

Anyway, I'm going to go try to go to bed now, even though I've still only been awake for 11 1/2 hours. By the way, even though it's already 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I've changed the date and time to 11:59 p.m. on Saturday since it's still Saturday to me because I haven't gone to sleep yet. Adios.

Songs from the Black Hole & Rivers Cuomo

2006-05-16T16:19:00.000-04:00

Something a little fishy has been going on with Weezer lately. Namely, Rivers Cuomo. A few weeks ago I checked his MySpace blog, as I usually do, and his most recent post at that time featured a tracklisting of Weezer's currently unreleased album Songs from the Black Hole (this post has since been deleted as well as all of his posts before that, which is a shame because they provided a very candid insight into his life). Before reading this post, I had never heard of Songs from the Black Hole before, so I decided to do some research. It turns out that Rivers began recording this album in 8-track form in 1994 after The Blue Album. It was never finished, but some songs intended for SFTBH were included on Pinkerton instead. The other songs remain unreleased, but some can be heard on the unofficial SFTBH website. They are actually rather good, and I would love to see the album released sometime in the near future.

This brings me back to my original point. Due to the recent activity surrounding SFTBH, I suspect that maybe Weezer is planning on releasing it sometime soon. Of course, this is only speculation. Rivers said that he would like to release the SFTBH songs but he is unable to because Geffen alone has the rights to his music. Perhaps this has changed? I find it unlikely, but I still have hope.

In the meantime, Rivers has been posting the sheet music and lyrics for some of the SFTBH songs on his website. My theory is that he's trying to keep his fans somewhat satisfied by posting sheet music because he feels bad that he can't legally release anything from SFTBH... or something like that. I mean, I would feel pretty bad too if there was an online petition with 1,000+ signatures in support of releasing my currently unreleased and highly desired album while I couldn't do anything about it, legally.

There's something else weird that I noticed. Perhaps it's nothing, but I find it hard to believe that Rivers would do something like this just for the hell of it, especially since he's an English major. In his latest post at his blog (keep in mind it may not be there a few days from now, since lately he's been in the habit of editing his posts and rewriting them completely as opposed to creating a brand new post) he has quite a few spelling mistakes, which I assume to be deliberate. I've noticed a trend of replacing some "a"s and "e"s with "i"s. See here:

I think the three male charicters were supposed to reprisent differint parts of my personality: i.e., the asceticism of Jonis vs. the party hearty aesthetic of Wuan and Dondo (Don Juan, get it?). The two main female charicters reprisented the two extremes in the types of women I was attracted to: Maria (rock chick) and . . . I can't remember the other girl's name but she was the good girl. I guess I've bin into irreconcilible dichotomies for a long time. Our robot "M1" was to be played by Karl!

This is really puzzling. Perhaps I'm overanalyzing it, but I feel like there has to be some reason as to why he would do this. Also, earlier in the same entry, he spelled "songs" like "sawngs". Uh... what?

I have heard rumors that Make Believe, Weezer's latest album, is also their last. I really hope this isn't true. Even if they don't record a whole new album, I'll still definitely be satisfied if they release SFTBH. Actually, what I want most is for them to go on tour again. I'm really angry that I missed their tour last fall. I can easily say that attending a Weezer concert would be one of the best experiences of my life (as would attending a Pearl Jam concert, but unfortunately I'm missing them, too; both of them are next week), and I hope that all of my opportunities for that haven't passed yet. I'm not sure of the likelihood of that happening though, since Rivers will be married in a matter of days, and musicians often retire once they get married. Plus, Weezer has been around for 14 years. I have a feeling they're all going to start settling down.

It's always sad when a really good band retires. It's a huge disappointment because you kind of assume (or hope, at least) that they'll keep making new albums forever. It's like that with Weezer. They've been around for so long and they're still so good that I can't really imagine them retiring. It's going to be a sad day for music when Weezer finally retires. I hope they'll still be around for a while, but in reality it's probably sooner than any of us Weezer fans can bear.

RAIN!

2006-05-15T18:03:00.000-04:00

I have never witnessed so much rain in my life, at least that I can remember. It has been raining almost non-stop for nearly two weeks now, and it's not supposed to stop until this weekend. It's rained so much in Massachusetts that quite a few schools were forced to close. Look at the flood pictures here and here. It's insane. Thankfully my area wasn't hit nearly this hard. We haven't had any flooding thus far, as far as I know, though I'm not ruling it out since we still have several days of rain left. Our basement is prone to flooding; it's flooded before over only one night of rain so frankly I'm surprised it hasn't flooded yet.

This past Friday was my senior class trip to Six Flags New England. Of course I was psyched because I had been dying to ride some rollercoasters and hang out with my friends. We planned to arrive at the park at 10 a.m. and stay until 4, which would give us plenty of time to ride everything that we wanted to... but of course we didn't plan on the weather ruining our plans. It was already raining pretty hard when we got there but we were still optimistic. We rode the Cyclone and were completely drenched as a result. This was where our optimism began to wane. We were wet and cold, but were still in a good enough mood for more rides, so we trekked all the way to the other side of the park, only to find the Mind Eraser and the Batman were closed due to the weather, along with many of the other rides. After we ate lunch we were so soaked and cold that we decided we couldn't last any longer in the clothes that we were in. We, along with half of the other people in the park, were in the stores buying dry shirts, pants, sweatshirts, etc. I bought a big comfy pair of man pants and returned to our bus in the parking lot to change. There wasn't one person on the trip that was miserable because of the weather, so we left two hours early. It was a really disappointing trip.

Prom is this Friday. Currently I'm still trying to work out my plans for before and after, and I'm beginning to think that it's a lot more stress than it's worth. It's bad enough that I don't have a date. Anyway, I need to avoid trailing off into something depressing. Graduation is in 18 days. It's going to go by really fast because I'm going to be really busy for the next few weeks until then. There's prom this weekend, and then next weekend I'm going up to Maine and I'll be working the whole time (which I'm actually really looking forward to). The weekend after that I will no longer be in high school and I will be attending graduation parties, including my own on that Sunday. I can't believe how fast this is all going!

I came across this blog the other day. I'm hoping it's some kind of sick joke but I don't think that's the case at all. I'm really disgusted by his post that compares the current Iraq War casualties to those of other American wars in the past. This "Big Brother" states that the Iraq War is, apparently, "a war we can afford." This comment really drives me over the edge. It shows a complete and utter disregard for the value of human life (though I suppose that's what war is, anyway). Comparing the deaths of one war to another does absolutely nothing. Each war is completely different, completely different circumstances with different causes and results. And frankly, it is not "affordable" to lose even one life, American or not. I don't understand how people like President Bush fail to see the importance of each and every human life.

Anyway, I should stop until I get too carried away. If any of you have been wondering why I haven't been posting as frequently as usual, I blame it on Family Guy. Ever since I found this genius website, I've been devoting several hours of my day just to watching Family Guy episodes. Time well spent, I think. After I finish all of these episodes I think I'm going to move on to some of the other shows and the music videos, too.

The season finale of Grey's Anatomy will be on soon, so I'm going to go get settled in front of the TV in time for it. Adios.

White water rafting weekend

2006-05-09T17:28:00.000-04:00

I am still tired from my class trip this weekend, even two days after I returned home. I didn't sleep much at all, so with that on top of the little sleep I get during the week anyway, I'm more tired than usual right now. Even so, it's worth it - for the most part. I had a pretty good time, which I'll recap for you below:

We left school at around 12:30 Friday afternoon and arrived a lot earlier than I expected (around 4) at the hotel. Amanda, Morgan, Cassie and I brought our things up to our room and then went downstairs to scope out the pool. Already half of the guys on the trip were in the pool and the rest of the girls were on their way down behind us, so we decided it would be best to wait to go swimming until later when every cubic inch of the pool wasn't filled with some part of our classmates' bodies. Instead we left the hotel and ate dinner at an Asian buffet down the street (the picture at left shows our rafting group at the buffet; from left: Simon, Cassie, Chris, Nick, Morgan, myself and Amanda behind the camera) where I had possibly the worst tasting pistachio ice cream I have ever had.

Anyway, upon our return to the hotel we decided it was time to go swimming. We put on our itty bitty bathing suits (honestly, mine wouldn't be itty bitty if I could help it, but unfortunately with my body shape I bust out of any and every bathing suit there is) and went downstairs again to the pool. Everyone else was still out eating dinner around the town so the pool was completely empty, thankfully. I hadn't worn a bathing suit in public in about a year, so luckily I had enough time to get used to being nearly naked in front of people before some of our other classmates began trickling in. We must have been swimming for three or even four hours, and I was in the pool for the entire time save my three quick trips to the bathroom. We were all quite pruney when we returned to the hotel room at 10:45. The picture at the right is of my friend Cassie and I.

After a few hours of lounging on beds with friends and boys (why is it that lately whenever I sleep over somewhere, I seem to end up doing this?) and a long discussion about girlie things that are too racy to put here [sex], we finally dozed off at 1:30, only to be awoken a mere five hours later so we could get ready for our white water rafting adventure. We arrived at the headquarters at 8, where they had prepared for us a large breakfast. After our meal we put on our entire wet suit outfit, complete with "booties". This was an interesting experience. Over our bathing suits we wore a two-piece wet suit (an overall sort of thing and a jacket type thing), a windbreaker, gloves, wet suit booties, and a helmet. Needless to say it took a while to pull all of these things on ourselves. Once we were finally all dressed, we boarded the bus that would take us to the river. It was quite hot and uncomfortable in the wet suits, but I would be thankful for them later because the water was only 40°.

Finally we arrived at the river, dragged our rafts down to the shore, hopped in and were off. It was much easier and less tiring to paddle than I expected (though my arms were a little sore the next morning). We were met with some rapids rather quickly and it wasn't too long before we were all wet. I had been worried that I was going to fall out of the boat, but I think it's a lot easier to stay in the boat than it appears, as long as you wedge your foot inside. It was really fun; much like a water rollercoaster. It makes those theme park rapids rides look ridiculously tame. Anyway, we were all still hot even after being splashed countless times by the rapids, so our guide let us jump in for a little swim. It was shockingly cold at first, even with our wet suits on, but very refreshing. Unfortunately after that I wasn't able to become warm again.

After about an hour of rapids there was another hour or so of just flat, calm water. After a while of floating along I was pretty bored and ready to go back and change into warm clothes. Eventually we returned to the headquarters again where we were served a meal of steak, various salads, and some kind of really good bread. We watched a slideshow of pictures from our trip (which we should be getting sometime soon, and I will probably post them here when I do). We went back to the hotel, and... this is where the interesting part begins.

The problem with our class trip is that we were way up in Maine in the middle of nowhere, where there is absolutely nothing to do. Some people went bowling (the main attraction of Waterville) and some swam in the pool downstairs, but we were too tired to either so we just ordered two pizzas and some breadsticks and hung out in our room.

By this time we were all incredibly tired from the little sleep we got the night before and from being tossed around in 40° water all day. We bought a ton of energy drinks so we could stay awake until our curfew at 1 a.m. At first I questioned why it said "Adult Energy Drink" at the front of the bottle; now I understand. These drinks are not to be abused. Everyone was guzzling them down and acting crazy, and after the high we suddenly crashed. Badly. Literally everyone who had been drinking that stuff was in an awful, depressed mood. I was extremely irritable and angry at everyone, and I was not unique. There was quite a bit of drama as a result. We finally calmed down just enough to settle in bed to watch TV. The combination of my complete exhaustion and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (a sick movie that I absolutely loathe and despise) put me to sleep rather quickly.

I woke up at 8:30 the next morning still grumpy from the night before so I took a shower and packed all of my things. We left at 10 and I slept the entire ride home while listening to the melodious sounds of Weezer. We arrived back at the school at 1:30 and I went straight home.

Despite my crappy Saturday night, I still had a lot of fun last weekend. It was great hanging out with my friends and I got to get to know a few people better. The white water rafting was good too, of course. I'm going to attempt to catch up on my sleep tonight but I think we all know by now how likely that is. Adios.

Quick update before class trip

2006-05-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

Because I haven't updated in one week and because I won't be updating again for at least the next three days, I figured I might as well write a quick, short post to update those of you that actually take the time to read this. I’m at school right now, and so far this week this is really the only time I’ve had available to blog. I have been incredibly busy, what with all of the papers due this week. I take two college courses through my high school, so I had finals this week and a paper in each class – one of which had to be 10-15 pages long (though mine barely broke 9). In addition I had a paper due in my World Literature course, and a rough draft for my paper in my Senior Project. For a short description, in Senior Project you get an internship in the area which you go to for one class period two days a week. At the end of the semester you are required to write a lengthy paper and perform a huge presentation in front of a panel of important faculty members.

Normally I would just blog this weekend, but I won’t have access to a computer. At noon today I am leaving for my class trip to Waterville, Maine (basically in the middle of nowhere) for white water rafting. Not your typical class trip. I’m not really excited for the white water rafting part (in fact, a few years ago I vowed never to go white water rafting after I heard several horror stories), but what I am excited for is hanging out with my friends (don’t worry, I will spare you the whole cliché of how this is one of our last times together to hang out as a group, and I love them all so very much, blah, blah, blah… you’ve heard it all before). It takes about five hours to get there, so from noon to 5 my classmates and myself will all be packed on a charter bus. This should be interesting. I brought my old school GameBoy Color so I can reconnect with my childhood and play Zelda: Link’s Awakening (good stuff, really) white attempting to drown out the sounds of the annoying, giggling girls behind me with Robert Plant moaning into my ears from my headphones. Yeah, I’ve been on plenty of these class field trips to know what to expect.

Anyway, the bell is just about to ring so I will sign off. I expect to have a lot more time to blog next week so I will certainly update everyone probably not after I get home on Sunday because I will be so tired but more likely on Monday after school. Ciao!

The general theme for today seems to be music (Part III)

2006-04-28T18:45:00.000-04:00

I have been severely obsessed with Voxtrot lately. Last night I listened to Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives; The Start of Something; and Raised by Wolves at least five times in a row. I highly recommend indulging in these free mp3s:

Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives
Voxtrot - The Start of Something

I really don't know what it is about them that makes them so appealing. Listen to those files and maybe you can help me figure it out.

I'm really frustrated that I didn't get to go to their show in Wellesley two weeks ago. It was pretty much the only all ages show in the area that I was remotely interested in. There isn't really much to choose from with all ages shows; they're all 18 or 21+, such as the 18+ Citizen Cope show my friend went to the other night, but of course I couldn't go because I'm five months too young. I couldn't go to the Voxtrot show because it was a school night and there was no way I'd be able to get all the way out to Wellesley, let alone get home in time. Oh well, I'm sure they'll come to my area again sometime within the next year as they are quickly gaining popularity in the indie community.

In the meantime I have been saving up money in my PayPal account, mainly by selling old clothes and other items on eBay, so I can buy a Voxtrot tee and a copy of their EP from their website. Go bid on some of my items, it's a worthy cause!

Moving on to my next musical obsession: Wolfmother. Their self-titled album is coming out this Tuesday, March 2 (the same day as the new Pearl Jam album, also self-titled), and I am extremely excited. I've already heard all of the songs on it one way or another, three of which were on the Dimensions EP that I just couldn't resist buying, but I still can't wait to own a hard copy of the full album (the problem is scraping up enough money to do so).
[photo credit]

All thirteen tracks are available to listen to on their MySpace, and I would highly recommend doing so. Only ten of the tracks are visible, but if you click on the 10th (Witchcraft [which, may I add, is an excellent song - one of the few, perhaps the only, rock song I've heard that utilizes a flute exceptionally]) and press the "next track" button, you'll be able to access the last three tracks. You don't want to miss them, because they're some of the best songs on the whole album: Tales, Love Train, and Vagabond. Hmm, apparently it's been fixed so twelve of the tracks are now showing... but they've removed Love Train! That's incredibly frustrating because that's my favorite song on the whole album (next to Woman). Oh well, you can download it for free here anyway:

Wolfmother - Love Train

Also, this week Dimension is iTunes Single of the Week, which means you can get it free - yes, free - on iTunes, so you better get on that if you know what's good for you.

Wolfmother is coming to the Paradise in Boston on May 31st, and guess what? It's 18+. I can't go. Boston venues just really want to keep me from having fun, don't they? Hopefully they will come back again soon, either when I'm 18 (which isn't too far from now) or with an all ages show (doubtful). They are gaining popularity rather quickly and I think it's only a matter of time until they blow up and gain Strokes status. The days of cheap shows at small, intimate venues are numbered for Wolfmother, which, although excellent for the band's success, is kind of sucky for the fans because this is the best time to see them; that is, when they're still playing at venues where you can stand up against the wall and they're still only a mere thirty feet away.

This blog is going to become dangerously long if I don't end it right here - otherwise I will just continue to ramble on senselessly about other random bands that I have it hard for (yes, that was indeed an inappropriate sexual reference). On that note, adieu!

A final decision

2006-04-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

UMass Amherst
Class of 2010

It's official: I'm going to UMass Amherst next year. I sent my deposit in yesterday. Ultimately what made me choose UMass over Simmons was because my good friend Morgan (whom I've been talking about a lot lately in my college-related blogs) will also be going to UMass, and we've decided to be roommates. That's pretty much the one thing that made UMass more appealing than Simmons since they've both been equal in my mind for a while. I'm really, really excited. I really like the fact that I already know some people there, and rooming with a friend will make the whole transition so much easier.

As excited as I am about UMass, I'm still really disappointed that I won't be going to Simmons. Half of me feels like I made a horrible decision, yet the other half is completely satisfied. I keep wondering if the Simmons half of me is right - what if I did make the wrong decision? My mom told me if I feel awful about my choice and I decide that I really want to go to Simmons instead, it is possible to stop the $400 deposit check that was mailed yesterday. I keep toying with the idea of this option in my mind. Simmons has been my first choice since January and UMass was my very last choice until a month ago, so I suppose it's only natural to be feeling this way. It's hard letting Simmons go. But I keep asking myself, what if it's more than that? What if these are gut feelings that are trying to tell me that I should choose Simmons? I really don't know, and it's kind of driving me crazy.

Despite all of that, I did make a choice - I chose UMass, so I'm going to stick with it. I'm not going to stop the check unless something happens to make me decide that I really don't want to go to UMass, and I don't foresee that happening. It's safe to say that UMass is where I will be this fall.

Anyway, I'll be living in Orchard Hill because that's where the Commonwealth College is. Commonwealth College is basically a fancy name for the Honors Program. TJ and his friends all live in Orchard Hill, too, so that's a bonus. I found a quiz online that ironically told me I would fit best in Orchard Hill:

Where on the UMass-Amherst campus should you live?

You should live on ORCHARD HILL. You are smart enough to be in Commonwealth College (a.k.a. the Honors Program for us alums) and you do tend to spend too much time in front of your computer. But when it rains, you're one of the first people on campus to be in the Bowl streaking through the mud. Do I hear a Bowl War coming on?
Take this quiz!

I guess it's meant to be, huh?

Anyway, moving on from college stuff for a bit... I am so sick of this Kline character. I disliked him enough when I blogged about him a while back, but now... ugh. He just completely disgusts me. What is wrong with this man? I want to know what his life was like as a teenager. He was probably the pathetic little kid that couldn't get any, at least that's the only explanation that I can come up with. I'm glad I don't live anywhere near Kansas, and I feel sorry for those that do... especially teenagers.

Well it's time for me to get ready for bed and all that. I'd like to get a good night's sleep at least once this week (good luck). Adios.

UMass vs. Simmons

2006-04-24T23:37:00.000-04:00

I have come up with a slightly complicated system to decide which college is best for me. I came up with twelve different categories (a sort of pro/con list) and decided which schools were more appealing to me in each category. In addition, I assigned points to each category based on how important it is in my decision. I kept it simple: 1-3, 3 being the highest. Before I show you the grid and the final result, I'll list each category and quickly explain which college won and why, and also how many points I gave the category and why. Make sense? If so, read on.

Boys: Yes, this is an important decision factor. I like boys, and it would be cool to have them at college. It's not that important though, so I only gave this category 1 point. UMass won this one, obviously, since Simmons doesn't have any boys at all.
Location: Extremely important. 3 points. I highly prefer Simmons over UMass in this category. I love Boston, but Farmland? Not so much.
Money: Another extremely important factor. 3 points. UMass easily prevailed in this category, since it would cost at least $10k less per year.
Prestige: Important, but not extremely. 2 points. Simmons, being a private school, is more prestigious than UMass.
Dorms: A factor, yes, but the state of the dorms wouldn't highly affect my choice. 1 point. The UMass dorms were decent, but Simmons, being a private school, has more money to spend and thus their dorms are better.
Academic Opportunities: Very important, considering I will probably change my major many, many times. 3 points. Although Simmons is very good in this category, UMass wins by a long shot. They have everything you can possibly imagine there, so you can pretty much do whatever you want, academically. Not only that, but I can take classes at Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire, or Amherst through the Five College Consortium if I wanted to.
Campus Activities: Pretty important, seeing as how I don't want to be bored on campus. Similar to the above category, there is an endless amount of things you can do at UMass.
Friends: Not too important, since the fact that I have friends there would just be an extra bonus. 1 point. UMass gets this category since I already know a few people there and Morgan might be going as well, while I don't know anyone at Simmons.
Campus: Again, sort of important, but it's only a small factor. 1 point. Simmons wins because it's small. UMass is really, really big... almost overwhelming. I am getting used to the idea, though.
Atmosphere: Pretty important, because I want to feel like I can fit in and be comfortable. 2 points. UMass takes this category, basically because I had such a great time last weekend and I can see myself just hanging out like that every day in college.
Size: A small factor. 1 point. Simmons wins because it's small, and like I said before, UMass is almost too big, though I'm quickly getting used to the concept.
Classes: Class size and such is important to me. 2 points. I love the fact that Simmons has small, intimate classes where the professors know your name. I don't feel so great about the massive classes at UMass and the fact that the professors usually will never know your name.

Now that I've explained all of the categories, I'll go ahead and show you the points table with the final count:

	Simmons	UMass
Boys		1
Location	3
Money		3
Prestige	2
Dorms	1
Academic Opportunities		3
Campus Activities		2
Friends		1
Campus	1
Atmosphere		2
Size	1
Classes	2
Total	10	12

Well, according to this method, UMass comes out on top by 2 points. I have used this method several times already and each time it either comes out with UMass as the winner or completely even. If I go by this, UMass is the better choice for me... and I think I will. Although I'm not completely sure yet, I'd be willing to bet that I'll end up at UMass this year (I've actually known this all along, way before I started applying to colleges and even when I still disliked it there). I just can't completely tear myself away from Simmons.

Anyway, in other news, my stubborn classmate finally gave in and decided to move to another chair. Finally I'm not stuck in the back corner of the room anymore - I'm in the middle of my friends and I don't feel isolated. I was even able to safely take a little nap today during a movie. Excellent!

Well, I'm exhausted right now because I only got four hours of sleep last night (don't ask me why, I don't even know myself). I really need to get to bed. Adios!

I enjoy college weekends (and college boys)

2006-04-23T23:58:00.000-04:00

As I expected, I had a rather interesting past few days while on my college overnight visits. Be prepared for a rather lengthy blog documenting my activities over the three days and two nights. Unfortunately, and as expected, I am now even more confused as to where I want to go to college, but I will address that later in this entry.

On Thursday afternoon my mom, Morgan, and myself drove all the way out to Northampton, or NoHo as the locals call it, to visit Smith for Open Campus. I really didn't have any intention of attending this school, but Morgan encouraged me to come along so I could see the campus and NoHo, and because it would make a UMass sleepover the next night possible. First we embarked on the requisite tour of the campus. It was rather impressive, but not quite enough to make me want to go there. Afterwards Morgan and I sat in on a 30-minute Italian discussion class, which was quite interesting. I have been wanting to take Italian in college for some time now, and after seeing what an actual discussion is like, I am even more determined to do so.

Soon after we dragged our luggage all the way to Hubbard House to meet our host, Lindsay. She was, of course, a lesbian (it's probable that half of the Smith population, at the very least, is homosexual), and, much to my chagrin, a Catholic. An interesting and rather rare combination, I would say. Her fiancé, Jess, was also staying with her that night and had been for a week or so. We ate dinner with them downstairs in their unique dining setup: instead of having the typical dining halls, Smith has a sort of buffet-style dining room on the first floor of each house (they also have houses instead of dorms). The food was actually quite good.

After dinner we joined another Smithie, Kate, who also happened to be our tour guide from earlier that evening, and another prospie (yes, I have adapted to the Smith lingo quite well) and went to two concerts: an a cappella performance by several Smith a cappella groups and a small concert by the singer/songwriter/cellist Lindsay Mac. The a cappella performance was better than it may sound, though I was still rather bored. The Lindsay Mac concert was interesting, mainly because she is creative in that she plays her cello like a guitar, though I must admit that I enjoyed the free lemon squares that were offered to us more than the concert itself. I spent nearly the entire time quietly texting friends in my seat in the back of the room.

A few hours later we returned to Lindsay's dorm room, watched a movie, and went to bed sometime between one and two in the morning. When we woke up seven hours later, I decided to take my time to shower and get ready and such because there wasn't anything important going on that we needed to attend. We had already slept through the president's address and had no desire to attend any seminars or classes (I have been to so many of those already and would much rather spend my time staring at a wall than sit through one of those again), so there was no rush. Once Morgan and I were finally dressed and ready to go, we left campus and shopped around NoHo for a few hours. I left with many useless but wonderful items such as a John Lennon poster, a box of postcards that I will never send because I love them too much, and an extremely goofy ring. Money well spent.

Finally our time at Smith had come to an end. We boarded the bus to UMass and met TJ by the Fine Arts Center with our sleeping bags and duffel bags full of clothing and other necessities. We took the campus shuttle to his dorm at Orchard Hill, dropped our things off in his room, and went to hang out with his buddies. We went to the dining hall for a quick meal and then sat outside on the lawn, a few of them playing wiffleball. After this we moved to the basketball court for a friendly game of basketball. I only stayed for a few minutes because TJ, Morgan and I left to walk around the campus for something like a tour, and so Morgan could get some sushi.

On our way back to the basketball court, we noticed something a little bit out of the ordinary. There appeared to be someone sitting on top of the basketball hoop. Before we were close enough to visually determine who this was, his identity was confirmed by his bizarre freestyling while sitting atop the hoop, shirtless and swatting the basketballs that the others threw up to him. It was none other than Luke, the same guy who, during my last trip to UMass, was greeted by TJ with the question, "are you high right now?" He had to think for a bit before he carefully answered with a "no." I'm pretty sure that describes his personality quite well right there... you probably get the point.

After debating for a few minutes on how to get Luke safely down from the basketball hoop and successfully carrying out the plan in which he was to slide down the pole like a firefighter, we went to Fitzwilly's Pub in NoHo for Andy's 21st birthday party. Not only had I never met Andy, but out of the 26 or so people that were there, I really only knew Morgan and TJ, plus TJ's friends who were mere acquaintances. That was somewhat awkward at first, but after a few conversations I became more comfortable and I ended up having a really good time.

At midnight we returned to the dorms and hung out in Pat & Luke's room. At one point Luke tried to show us all his sexpertise by enacting his favorite sex positions on a cardboard box, one of which involved sending the box flying across the room with his crotch. I am still unsure of what kind of crazy sex position would require that, but I don't think that was the point of the entire demonstration. Actually I am unsure of what the point of the demonstration even was.

A bit later Phil entered the room, the stereotypical college kid that's always completely stoned and/or drunk out of his mind. That night was no exception. Apparently he is the main supplier of pot, booze, and other illegal substances in the dorm, especially to Luke. Luke left with him for a little while to get stoned, and Phil returned with a huge bottle of alcohol. Everyone called it a "forty," but thankfully I don't have enough experience with alcohol to know what that means.

At around 3 in the morning we decided it was probably time to get some sleep, so everyone returned to their dorm rooms. I have to say I fully enjoyed lounging on a bed with cute college boys and was disappointed when everyone began filing out the door. I was tired, though, and was ready to get some sleep myself, so I put on my pajamas, got into my sleeping bag on TJ's roommate's bed (to avoid confusion I should note that his roommate was away for the weekend), and quickly fell asleep.

We got up at around 10 that morning and packed our things. We met Morgan's parents and little sister at Bertucci's down the road, and after a fulfilling lunch of pizza, began the car ride home.

I definitely had a really good time this weekend. It made me certain that I didn't want to go to Smith, but at the same time it made me even more uncertain of whether I should choose Simmons or UMass. I have made more pros and cons lists, much more elaborate than the first table I made here, and each time they come out exactly even. Morgan and my mom have both suggested that I flip a coin. It's actually a good theory, because if I am disappointed with the outcome then I know I'm not meant to go there. This method won't work with me, however, because both of these colleges are equal in benefits and disadvantages, so essentially I would be disappointed with each outcome. I really like both colleges and I would love to go to either of them, but I can't for the life of me decide which one I like more. I have to send the deposit in by May 1, so I only have a week to decide. I don't know how I could possibly make my decision in that short amount of time.

Anyway, this has been one mammoth of a post. I think it's time to end it here, also because I only just remembered several assignments that I was supposed to complete over the vacation for school tomorrow. I should get going if I want to get enough sleep to function properly in school tomorrow (like that has ever happened anyway). Adios!

Boston, the radio, and a college weekend

2006-04-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went into Boston with my mom for a meeting with the Financial Aid Office at Simmons. I heard basically the same things I had already heard a bunch of times - Simmons tuition costs, different types of loans, etc. I originally thought I might be able to get more financial aid from them, even a work study or something, but apparently the aid that Simmons offered me is final.

We were only in the office for about fifteen minutes, and we obviously weren't about to spend only fifteen minutes in Boston, so we drove over to the garage in Boston Common and walked to Downtown Crossing. First we went into So Good Jewelry (yes, the infamous jewelry store from the trip that Morgan and I took to Boston a month ago) to look for some jewelry to go with my prom dress. Despite the enormous selection, I didn't find anything great. I came up with one necklace that was decent but $30. Needless to say we did not splurge and decided to look around elsewhere. We went to Claire's and bought a few pieces for a total of $14. Now all I have left to get for prom is a pair of shoes. These are perfect, but a bit pricey. As you can imagine, it's difficult to find gold sequined strappy shoes for cheap.

We also did a bit of shopping at H&M and Filene's Basement, so after a few hours I left Boston quite satisfied with a new outfit. I will probably wear it this weekend during my excursion to Farmland, aka Northampton and (namely) Amherst. Yep, it's this weekend. I'm leaving tomorrow at 11 to pick up Morgan and then we're heading straight to Smith where we will likely skip most of the activities planned for us to run around Northampton unsupervised. After spending the night there, the next day sometime in the afternoon we'll go to UMass Amherst. We're spending the night there, too. Morgan and I staying over a Friday night at ZooMass - can you imagine? I'll probably have many interesting blog topics by the time I return home Saturday afternoon. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

I think I've found my new radio station: WBCN. Although I don't like some of the songs they play, it's the only station I can find that's closest to my taste. I listened to it all day today. Earlier they were giving away Red Sox tickets (a home game against the Yankees!) so I tried to call in to win those, but alas I didn't even get through once. Just a little while ago they were giving away Strokes tickets, and even though I probably wouldn't be able to go, I tried anyway. I actually got through that time - I was caller 12, two short of the winning number. I had my home phone up to one ear and my cellphone up to the other, repeatedly pressing redial on each one. At one point both of them were ringing at once - it would ring in one ear, then the other, and so on - but it rang endlessly so after a few minutes I just hung up since they had clearly already picked caller 14.

It's been a long time since I called in to a radio station to try to win something so I forgot how much of a rush it is. You're so used to the line being busy that when it finally rings you get all excited thinking maybe you're the right caller. I think the last time I called in was back when I listened to rap. The rap/hip hop station in Boston is Jam'n 94.5, and every Friday they had a countdown of the top songs that week. If you called in at the end of the countdown and correctly named all of the songs they had just played you would win a prize. One night I was bored (much like today) and decided to give it a try. I wrote all of the songs down on a piece of paper and, after the last song had played, I dialed the number. I expected it to be busy as usual during radio contests, but instead it rang on my first try. I asked him if he had given away the prize yet, and he said no, so I read off my list and voila! I had won, easy as that. The prize: an XBox. That was the only good thing that came out of my brief affinity for rap. A pretty good thing, I would say.

Well, it's already 10 pm and I have yet to pack for my long weekend. I should get going on that since I don't even know what I'm going to wear yet. I have to choose something cute yet seductive because, of course, there will be boys at UMass, and cute yet seductive clothing is imperative in this type of situation. I'm referring directly to the type of situation in which a high school girl visits a college and attempts to impress the older, hotter, and more mature (ha!) college boys. Yes, that would be this situation exactly.

So, enough of my babbling. I will, of course, inform you all of my (hopefully) amazingly fun-filled weekend probably on Saturday on Sunday. Ciao!

Stoned: disappointing, save one detail...

2006-04-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

Contrary to what I implied in the previous blog, yesterday wasn't completely awful. Earlier in the day Amanda and I trekked to the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge to see Stoned, a movie about the late Brian Jones, the founding member and guitarist for the Rolling Stones who drowned in his pool only weeks after he was fired from the band.

I can't really figure out how I feel about the movie. I don't hate it, but I definitely don't love it either. It was extremely weird and confusing at parts. I quickly got used to seeing random pairs of often faceless breasts and, after being exposed to the image several times, recovered from the initial shock of seeing a flaccid penis on the big screen. Such can be expected of a movie about the Stones, especially Brian Jones, who was known for his lavish and self-destructive lifestyle in which he frequently consumed drugs such as marijuana, LSD, and cocaine.

The movie claims that Brian Jones' builder, Frank Thorogood, was responsible for his death. At the very end, before the credits, it is stated that Frank confessed to the murder on his deathbed. The truth to this has been debated, and has actually since been disavowed by several people that supposedly would know. His stated cause of death was "misadventure," probably highly influenced by his heavy drug usage. I suppose we can never be certain whether it was an accident or not. If they do open a new investigation, which the director hopes his movie will spark (though I find it highly doubtful), I wouldn't expect anything more than the usual dead ends. It will all remain a mystery.

I was also quite disappointed by the choice of music. I was expecting it to be mostly if not all Rolling Stones hits, instead most of the songs I had never heard of before. They were nearly all blues songs, which does make sense because that's exactly what Brian was so passionate about, and he had a huge blues influence on the Stones' music during his time with the band; however, somehow I don't think the song choices really fit with the movie. It could just be my own musical bias, though.

Probably the single best thing I have to say about the movie was the casting for Keith Richards' character. I really couldn't tell you if he resembles a young Keith Richards or not, and frankly, I don't care. You see... this man was gorgeous. I mean gorgeous to the point that I could have just watched him for the entire hour and forty or so minutes. There was a particular scene in which Brian was encouraging his girlfriend, Anita, to sleep with Keith (though, as you can imagine, he put it much more crudely than that), and they both embarrassingly refused (only to ditch Brian later and have two children of their own). I don't understand how Anita could have possibly refused. If I were her, I would have been in the sack with Keith before Brian ever spoke a single word. Okay, I realize that this Keith I'm talking about is only the actor that portrayed him in the movie, and I'm sure the real Keith Richards was never even half as attractive as the actor, but that's beside the point. It's unfortunate that he was only in a few scenes (one of which he was almost completely nude, save for a few unfortunate shadows in certain southerly places); I would have preferred the entire movie to be about him...

Anyway, I need to stop carrying on like a pre-teen celebrity-freak. I have to wake up early tomorrow, around 9:30. Yes, that is early. Give me a break, I'm on vacation. I woke up at 11:30 today. Anyhow I'll have another blog to bore you with quite soon, I'm sure. Otherwise you can nag me as much as you see fit. Ciao!

Depressing weeks are no fun

2006-04-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

Last night Amanda and I were supposed to go see a concert with The Sounds, Morningwood, and Action Action (as I posted about a few blogs ago). I'm not going to explain the whole story of why I didn't get to see them, partly because I've already explained it too many times to several club bouncers, a coat check girl, my parents, and Morgan, among others. Amanda and I ended up seeing several different bands at a completely different venue (if my memory doesn't fail me, they were Anberlin, The Fold, Jonezetta, Emery, and The Classic Crime). They were exactly the type of music that I don't like: screaming rock. Apparently it's being called "screamo". Some of them weren't terrible, but Emery was completely awful, and I must have checked my watch at least every two minutes during their 45-minute set.

Anyway, I am extremely disappointed that I didn't get to see the three bands that I wanted to. Actually, that's an understatement. I'm completely devastated, and it's going to take me a while to get over it. I can't stop thinking about how I so easily could have seen them but my disgusting luck screwed up my entire night. I was having such a good day before the concert, too. I should have known something would happen to ruin it. I don't have really good days.

My entire week has been going quite badly, actually. I thought the concert yesterday would have fixed it, but instead it just made it a whole lot worse. My week started off badly because all of a sudden I was hit really hard with the reality of graduation. It really caught me by surprise. I feel like everything is moving way too fast and I need more time. Just a few days ago my friends and I were discussing our plans for after graduation and how to make the most of our last month together before we go our separate ways over the summer. I'm not ready to face the idea that I will probably never see half of my friends again. Graduation is in 47 days. It seems like a big number, but I know it's going to fly by before I even realize it. I just want things to slow down so I can enjoy what little time I have left here.

At the end of each quarter we are assigned new seats in my World Lit II class. Since this is the last quarter, my teacher decided to be nice and let us choose our own seats. Previously I had been seated in the dead center of the room, and it was awful. Usually when I want to take a little nap during class I'll turn my head to whichever direction has the least amount of people so I have less of a chance of getting caught. When I'm in the very center of the room, however, each side of the room is equally stocked with people so it's rather difficult to close my eyes without interruption. It's only natural that on Wednesday, when we switched seats again, I chose a seat way back in the left corner of the room, quiet and hidden. I thought that seat was a good choice until I'd sat there for a while, when I realized how awful that seat actually is. It represents exactly how I feel about my life. In that seat I feel alone, isolated, and completely ignored. I only see the backs in front of me, and I feel invisible. I am sick of feeling this way in my daily life and I don't want to get that feeling from where I sit in class, too. Unfortunately those to the right of me are rather stubborn and refuse to switch seats around so I'm not stuck in the back corner, alone. I'll have to suck it up and deal with it for the next 47 days.

As depressing as my week has been, I do have a bunch of stuff to look forward to over the next few days. This coming week is April vacation, so I'll finally be able to relax (even though that dreaded 10-15 page paper will be weighing on my mind as I procrastinate as usual). On Tuesday I have a meeting with the Financial Aid Office at Simmons to figure out how the hell I'm going to afford their tuition, even with my scholarship, and basically beg for more money. After that I'm going to try to get my mom to take me to Downtown Crossing and possibly the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge to see Brick. From Thursday to Friday I'll be sleeping over at Smith College with Morgan, even though I'm definitely not going there because it's too expensive. From Friday to Saturday Morgan and I will also be sleeping over UMass Amherst and will likely be doing nothing academic-related. Please, it's a Friday night at ZooMass. What do you expect? Anyway, hopefully somewhere in there I'll be sleeping over Amanda's house, going to the movies with Siobhan, and/or taking a trip to the mall.

Well, I guess I had a lot more to say than I thought, huh? Well, I hope it wasn't entirely boring. I'll probably have another blog for you tomorrow; otherwise, feel free to nag me. As for right now, I think I'm going to go watch SNL. Adios.

This is as interesting as my Saturdays get

2006-04-09T21:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a rather eventful day. My mom and I went prom dress shopping again to look for a new dress to replace the other one that I got a while ago that I no longer like. We went to a mall that I had never been to before, rather far away from us, in order to go to a specific store: DEB. I had gone to the DEB website before and found quite a few dresses that I really liked, so I figured I might as well go to the store and see what they had. I did go to that store in the mall, but it was pretty picked over so the only good dresses they had were in plus sizes. I ended up buying a dress at Charlotte Russe, pictured at left.

This dress is pretty much what I've been looking for. It's unique, it only goes a small bit past my knees, and it isn't too formal. Unfortunately I'm not sure if it isn't formal enough; I'm worried that I'm going to be underdressed. I'm going to try to dress it up with lots of gold jewelry and really elaborate, sparkly shoes, so we'll see. Another problem is the color isn't so great with my skin tone because it makes me look somewhat pasty (even more than I already am). Plus, the way it falls in the front, it kind of makes me look like I have a gut (and that's not just me being vain, it was my mom who pointed it out). I do like it, though, and I know no one else is going to have the same dress as me.

After shopping for a while, my mom and I met with my mom's close friend, April, and went out to dinner to some restaurant whose name I can't recall. After dinner we went to see the movie Thank You for Smoking. I had heard a lot of good things about this movie and had high expectations for it, which it didn't really live up to. It was good, though - funny, smart, and clever - but it wasn't really my kind of movie. There were many jokes in the movie that I found funny, but not funny enough to laugh out loud at. At least, that's my opinion. There were plenty of other people in the theater that felt differently. Although I didn't find the movie excellent, I would still recommend it.

At the start of the movie my mom whispered to me that Aaron Eckhart, the leading actor of the movie, also played Erin Brockovich's boyfriend, George. At first I couldn't see the similarities, solely because in Erin Brockovich he has a beard and a ponytail, but after a few minutes I clearly recognized him from his eyes and his dimpled chin. It's interesting to see an actor go from a rough, scruffy, and generally unkempt character to a clean-cut and conservative-looking character. I would never have known the characters were portrayed by the same actor if my mom had never told me because they are nearly polar opposites. See the visual comparison below:

At first glance they look like two completely different people. If you look closer, however, they start to look very similar. In these pictures (they were the most similar pictures I could find) I think it's the nose that gives it away.

I'm not sure why I carried on about Aaron Eckhart so much, but I think you all are used to my mundane blogs by now so I'll refrain from apologizing. Anyway, it's time for me to watch Desperate Housewives, take a shower, and do some last-minute homework (I don't think any homework isn't last-minute for me). Adios!

75 Bands

2006-04-07T16:37:00.000-04:00

The are supposedly 75 bands hidden in this picture. I managed to find the following 56 (admittedly with a little help from some friends):

1. The Pixies
3. Dead Kennedys
5. 50 Cent
7. Seal
9. Queen
11. Prince
13. Whitesnake
15. Gorillaz
17. The Blues Brothers
19. Eminem
21. Radiohead
23. The Police
25. Matchbox 20
27. Phish
29. Jewel
31. Green Day
33. The Lemonheads
35. Korn
37. Blur
39. The Eagles
41. U2
43. Deep Purple
45. The Monkees
47. Hole
49. The Roots
51. Yellowman
53. Cypress Hill
55. Cowboy Junkies
57. The BeeGees
59. Iron Maiden
61. The Streets

2. White Zombie
4. Guns N Roses
6. The Postal Service
8. Great White
10. The Sex Pistols
12. Dinosaur Jr.
14. Led Zeppelin
16. The Eels
18. Nine Inch Nails
20. The Rolling Stones
22. The Cars
24. Scissor Sisters
26. Smashing Pumpkins
28. Garbage
30. The Cranberries
32. Blind Melon
34. Red Hot Chili Peppers
36. Alice in Chains
38. Spoon
40. The Beach Boys
42. Black Flag
44. The B-52s
46. The White Stripes
48. Ratt
50. The Subways
52. The Black Crowes
54. Kiss
56. The Doors
58. Bush
60. Crowded House
62. Blondie

Can you find any others? Comment and let me know.
Note: I have added bands in bold to the list that people have pointed out in the comments. Bands that I have discovered after the original 56 posted are underlined.

I can't for the life of me figure out the significance of ~~the statue on the crosswalk,~~ the acrobats, the painting by the shop, the men on the rooftop, ~~the blonde girl chewing gum,~~ and a few others. Someone more musically knowledgeable than I must know these.

This is why you shouldn't speed

2006-04-06T17:25:00.000-04:00

Well, my hearing didn't go as well as I had hoped today. I went in about ten minutes early and waited for probably fifteen minutes. The actual hearing itself took only a few minutes, and it was in a small room at an oval table with a magistrate and not a judge as I had originally expected. The cop that gave me the ticket was not there, but another cop came in his place and read a statement that summarized what happened when he pulled me over. When it was my turn to speak in my defense, I said pretty much exactly what I had written in my last blog. The magistrate said that she would lower the fine to $100, and then asked if I would like to appeal and go for a second hearing in front of a judge. So, this is what it came down to:

Option 1: Pay the reduced $100 fine, while still having to wait until May to get my license.
Option 2: Wait until June 15 for a second hearing where it would be possible to not have to pay any fine at all, while still having to wait until May to get my license.

Either way I'll have to wait until May to get my license, but at least if I have a second hearing there's the possibility that I will not have to pay the fine. So, that was the unfortunate outcome of my hearing. I'm going to have to go back to court - and this time in front of a judge, not just a magistrate - in two months. This is turning into a long, annoying ordeal.

I've decided that I hate my prom dress. I tried it on again a week or so ago, and it looks awful on me. It just fits me terribly. Even if I get it altered, which I will have to do, it still won't look right. It just hangs there like a limp piece of fabric. I mean, it looks great on the hanger - it's really pretty and all - but on me it looks gross. I'm dying to return the stupid thing and find a new, better one. I'm going to try to get my mom to take me this Saturday to look for dresses again, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen. She says she doesn't know if she's going to feel like it or if she's going to have something to do. It doesn't sound too promising.

Well, that's it for today. Adios.

September 11, 2001

2006-04-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

When I saw Inside Man in theaters a few weeks ago, one of the trailers was for the movie United 93, about United Flight 93, one of the planes that was hijacked on September 11. This was the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, supposedly headed for Washington D.C. until the passengers forced the hijackers to make a crash landing. The trailer was very intense and difficult to watch, just knowing that it had actually happened to real people. I was nearly on the verge of tears for the whole trailer, so I can only imagine what it would be like if I were ever to see the whole movie. I'm sure I won't - I highly doubt I could handle it emotionally.

According to this article, I wasn't the only one affected emotionally by the trailer. I'm not sure if the New York theater was right for pulling the trailer, but I suppose if the trailer alone would stop people from going to the movies then it would be in the theater's best interest. On the other hand, who would avoid going to the movies just because of an upsetting movie trailer? As for the movie, I can't decide whether or not it is too soon since 9/11 to be shown or even made. Many people have not yet healed and are still extremely sensitive; four and a half years is a short time for something like this. However, I think some people need to be reminded of the event and how terrorism is still a huge threat to us, even four and a half years later. Plus, the film honors the passengers of United 93, commending them as heroes for attempting to thwart the hijackers' plan.

This op-ed article brings up not only September 11 but the death penalty as well. The author, who lost her husband on United Flight 175, discusses the possible death sentence for Zacarias Moussaoui, a man whose mug shot (pictured at right) you will probably recognize as it has been shown on the news many times. Moussaoui pleaded guilty to being involved in the September 11 conspiracy. I completely agree with the author's statement that although Moussaoui absolutely deserves the death penalty, he absolutely should not receive it. To put it simply, we would be stooping to his level. She asks, "Do we want to characterize ourselves as a nation committed to pure vengeance with nothing more to be gained?" Of course not.

Not only is this true for Moussaoui's case but for nearly all criminals sentenced to death. My opinion on capital punishment has never been solid; although I have always been against it, there are often cases in which I feel whole-heartedly that the criminal deserves to die for his or her action. However, this still cannot overcome the immorality and inhumanity (yes, that's a word, I even looked it up) of the death penalty. After reading that article, I have been able to accurately state my position on capital punishment: although the criminal may fully deserve death, imposing the death penalty on him or her would be equally evil. It is simply meaningless revenge.

Anyway, I don't usually blog this late, but I'm not going to be in school tomorrow because of my hearing so I get to sleep in a bit. Speaking of my hearing, I have thought a little about what I'm going to say in my defense, and this is what I've come up with:

I had just turned onto Central Ave from Groton Harvard Road and I had only traveled a few hundred feet so it's impossible for me to have been going more than 40 mph [The officer said I had been going 46 in a 30]. Also, I had not yet seen a speed limit sign, and the officer estimated my speed as he was traveling toward me from the opposite direction.

That's a pretty good argument, no? I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to win. If I don't, and even if they offer to lower the fine, I'm going to request a second trial. I really hope that doesn't happen because I'll probably have to wait another five months, and by that time, holy crap I'll already be in college. There's no way I'll want to be pulled away from some party at UMass or wherever the hell I end up just to go to a silly hearing for a speeding ticket. Let's just hope this works out in my favor.

Well, now I'm really getting tired, so I think I'm going to get ready for bed. I'll probably blog again tomorrow with the verdict of my hearing. Cross your fingers!

I am done with track.

2006-04-04T22:08:00.000-04:00

Well, it's official... I quit track.

Maybe it isn't official, exactly, since I haven't told any of the coaches or any of my team members that I quit. I kind of just stopped showing up.

The last time I was at practice was exactly one week ago, and that was the only day out of the whole week that I actually attended practice. On Monday, Amanda and I simply skipped. On Wednesday, I stayed after to work on a project, even though I had plenty of time afterwards to attend the remainder of the practice. On Thursday, I went out with some friends for Simon's birthday. And on Friday I wasn't in school at all because I was visiting UMass.

At first I had planned to go to track yesterday. However, we had a meet - the first meet of the season. I was unsure if I would be allowed to run since it had been nearly a week since I was at practice, plus I knew I was barely physically prepared to run. I ended up just going home instead, and that was basically the end of it. I figured, I haven't been to practice in almost a week, I've missed the first meet of the season, and I'm going to miss the next meet on Thursday (I will explain the reason for that later)... why bother continuing? Would they even let me?

Of course, the real reason why I quit track is because I'm just too damn lazy. My euphemistic reasoning, if you will, is this: why spend half of the free time I have during the last two months of my senior year doing something I usually do not enjoy doing? I suppose one could argue that I have nothing better to do with my time, so I might as well spend it doing something productive, instead of playing "Cake Mania" online for three hours straight, as I did today after school.

I admit that it probably would be a better, smarter decision to just remain on the track team and stick with it, but since when have I made better, smarter decisions? I am more comfortable with going home every day after school and sitting at the computer for hours rather than running for two hours straight every single day. Who likes running, anyway?

Anyhow, this Thursday at precisely 10:30 in the morning, I have my court hearing. Yes, I have been a bad girl. Well, it's only to contest a speeding ticket. It took them five months after the initial incident to send me the hearing date. Five months. I got the speeding ticket under my permit, and Massachusetts law states that one must have a clean driving record for six months prior to taking the license road test (so if you get your permit when you turn 16, you are allowed to get your license once you're 16 1/2 as long as you have a clean record; any citation adds six months from the date it was issued). Therefore, I have been unable to schedule a test thus far because it hasn't been six months since early November when I got the ticket. If it is stricken from my record on Thursday, not only will I not have to pay the $160 fine, but I will also finally be allowed to go for my license. Otherwise, I will have to wait until the six month period is over, which is about a month from now. Perhaps if they hadn't taken so long to send me the damn hearing date I would have my license already.

As for the speeding ticket itself, I would rather not go into detail about how it came about (not because I'm embarrassed or what not; simply because I have retold the story about seventy-two times and am quite sick of it by now), but I will say with little bias that it was unfair. I have spoken to several people - a few of them are very familiar with the system, since they were my Driver's Ed teachers - and they have all said that it is extremely likely that the ticket will be stricken from my record and that I should only have been given a warning in the first place. Overall I am optimistic about the probable outcome of the hearing.

The new Vines album, "Vision Valley,"was released today. I'm dying to get it, but I don't have much money. My first priority is to buy the newest Sounds album, "Dying to Say This to You,"as well as the self-titled Morningwood album because the concert is in a mere ten days and I must memorize the songs before hand. Plus, I'm going to need to save some money to take with me to Boston. It's unfortunate that I have so little money that I have to prioritize the CDs that I want. I need a job... but to get a job I need a car (well, and a license would be good, too), and to get a car I need a job. It's a vicious circle!

Recently in news:

Anyone with half a brain (and apparently that does not include most people) would have known this.
I had no idea the legal system allowed restraining orders on cats.
Walking under the many scaffolds in Boston has always creeped me out a little... and now I have a reason to justify it.
Apparently, due to the few hours of sleep I get at night, my mental state is similar to that of a drunk person.
Not quite recent, but... ewww.

Anyhow, it's off to the shower for me. Ciao.

Ah, college life...

2006-04-01T17:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my friend Morgan and I went to an open house at UMass Amherst. It was probably the best day we could have possibly picked to go because of the great weather - it must have been around 75° with a breeze, which is really warm considering we haven't had a day like this since before winter. Finally the weather is starting to match the season. Anyway, because it was so warm, the campus was crawling with students outside doing typical college activities such as tossing around frisbees or footballs and sunbathing on the grass. The whole thing was pretty much right out of a movie.

Anyway, when we first got there we had to go to the requisite opening ceremony/address/thing. There were booths situated around the perimeter of the room about the different majors, student organizations, or really anything else you would want to know about UMass. Morgan and I walked around the room and talked to a few of the students and faculty members that were behind the booths, but it was all about things that I had heard before. We were making our way to the chairs that my mom had saved for us when we were stopped by two plain-looking girls wearing ankle-length skirts. We spoke to them for a few minutes, and they were very friendly. As we walked away I looked at the pamphlet that they had given us, and I realized that they represented the religious organizations on campus. I promply got rid of the pamphlet as if it was coated with anthrax.

We eventually found our way back to our seats and waited for the opening ceremony to begin. There were, I think, three speakers and it lasted for about an hour. I had to struggle to stay awake the entire time. I have been to so many of these open houses that I am so utterly sick of hearing speeches by the college administration and faculty. It's always the same thing every time. Instead of paying attention to the speakers, I amused myself by looking around the room and counting the number of Hollister/Abercrombie clones I could see that were prospective students. Okay, so maybe I didn't actually keep count, but there sure was a helluva lot of them. It was kind of scary.

After the opening we went on a tour of the campus. It wasn't an entire tour since we only had an hour and the campus is so big that it would take a lot more than just an hour to tour the whole thing. It wasn't that special since I had already been on a tour last May so I'd seen everything our tour guide showed us. Like the opening speeches, I mostly just watched the students that were walking by us. There were millions of them. Well, more like 18,000, but close enough. I lost track of the number of attractive, dateable guys I saw, and it made me wonder if I really wanted to spend four years without boys at a women's college, even if it was in Boston.

We then returned to the campus center for a session about the Commonwealth College, which is basically a fancy name for the honors college. We had a little time to kill before it began, so we looked around the campus center for a while. There were more booths set up in this area, but instead they were for people selling things like jewellery and clothing and also for some student organizations. As we were walking past, we were stopped by two - yes, two, seperately - students asking us if we wanted to join the College Republicans. I politely smiled and said "no thanks," but inside I was laughing hysterically. Too bad I don't have the balls to laugh hysterically in their faces. Imagine, being stopped by religious folks and then republicans all in one day!

After shopping around for a few minutes, Morgan and I went back downstairs for the Commonwealth College presentation. I barely remember what the woman was talking about because I was dozing off the whole time. Finally when that was over we went to hang out with Morgan's boyfriend, TJ, at his dorm. I met a few of his friends, one of which Morgan decided to write a lovely message on the whiteboard on his dorm door that said, "Patricia wants your balls." Thanks, Morgan. I managed to wipe off part of my name, but the rest of the message remained, and it was quite simple to figure out who supposedly wanted his balls. Amusing, nonetheless; all in good fun.

Anyhow, we stood out on the balcony off of the common room with a bunch of people for a while. We just sat around (on the couch that they had carried out from the room onto the balcony) and laughed about random things. It was actually really cool; I kind of felt like a college student. I probably learned the most about UMass and college in general in that hour of hanging out with TJ and his friends than from all of those stupid speeches and seminars at college open houses.

Overall I really enjoyed it, and I ended up leaving with a much better impression of UMass than I had before. In fact, I actually really like it now... which I didn't expect at all. As far as my college decision process goes, I've pretty much ruled out Mount Holyoke and Smith because, although I would love to go to either of those schools, they're much too expensive. Now it's come down to Simmons and Boston. So, to help me decide, I created the graph below. I assigned points to the two schools in each category (with a maximum of 10 points per category).

	Simmons	UMass
Location	10	0
Boys	0	10
Education	10	5
Money	0	10
Total	20	25

Well, according to this graph, I would be better off attending UMass. But it's only a five point difference, and... I don't know, I really can't decide. I'm pretty sure it's all going to come down to money, and if that's the case, it will be UMass. I've actually expected to end up at UMass for a long time, it's just that now I'm more okay with it. Plus, Morgan has apparently decided that she's going there, so it would be really cool to go to college with a really good friend of mine. I just really, really want to be in Boston. That's basically what's keeping from finally deciding on UMass.

Anyway, I think that's about all for today. If I were witty, I would write something amusing about April Fool's Day... but I'm not, so I'll have to leave you with a simple "adios."

Thank you Newfane, VT

2006-03-26T12:02:00.000-05:00

I found this article the other day, and it really piqued my interest. Newfane, a small, classic Vermont town (pictured at left), held a town meeting during which citizens voted 121 to 29 in support of impeaching President Bush. This unsurprisingly stirred up a bit of a ruckus; the town has been receiving countless angry e-mails and phone calls, and some yearly visitors have vowed not to return.

I applaud this town for what it has done. Not many people have dared to stand up to this administration in a way that would garner attention, like Newfane has, and I'm glad to hear that finally something is being done. It's highly unlikely that Newfane's vote will actually lead to the impeachment of the President, but that is far from the point - the town has already made an accomplishment: it has started something. It has brought attention to the issue. Perhaps now other towns will follow suit, or, at the very least, questions will be asked, ideas will be rethought, and decisions will be revisited. All that is needed to start a revolution of sorts is for a small action like this to be taken. Hopefully Newfane has inspired more people to take action. This is just the beginning.

Unfortunately Newfane has had to pay the price for its actions, but I think it's completely worth it. However, I think it's ridiculous how some people have been reacting to this. Refusing to ever return to the town in protest does not accomplish anything. In general, trying to punish the town for this does not accomplish anything. A lot of people have simply made themselves look ridiculous - for example, the anonymous person that called the town clerk, saying, "A little Socialist town like yourself is a disgrace to America." This kind of comment outrages me. To call a town or a person Socialist just because they disagree with the President is ludicrous. It's like accusing them of treason - something that some of these critics have actually done. As Americans we have a right to voice our opinions, even if that means speaking out against the President. The citizens of Newfane have simply exercised this right. They have done nothing wrong.

Yes, this move was a bit risky. Yes, they will have to suffer for it. But, as I have said, I think it's all worth it. They have earned national attention, and although that isn't necessarily what they wanted, I think it will turn out to be a very good thing. Maybe not for the town itself, but for people who, like myself, agree with their decision. Now people have taken notice, and hopefully that includes President Bush himself. He needs to know what much of America really thinks of him, something he hasn't realized yet. I know it's more than doubtful that Bush will ever be impeached, but at least this is bringing some much-needed attention to the issue. Newfane, Vermont deserves a huge "thank you" from all of us.

College acceptances!

2006-03-25T23:43:00.000-05:00

I wrote a whole blog for today... and then I checked the mail. Finally, all of my college letters have come! Here are the verdicts:

Smith College: Accepted!
Mount Holyoke College: Accepted!
Wheaton College: Wait-listed?!

I really can't believe I got into Mount Holyoke. I definitely didn't expect to be accepted. I also definitely didn't expect to be wait-listed at Wheaton. I don't understand how I could have possibly gotten accepted at Mount Holyoke but not at Wheaton. Ah, well, I don't care about Wheaton anyway. That was a safety. But now that I've heard from all of my schools, I'm not so sure about my decision now. Simmons is still my first choice, but Smith is starting to really appeal to me. I haven't visited Smith yet, so I will have to soon. Plus, Smith is giving me about $16,500 worth of grants (plus a few loans). With those grants, and with my $10,000 scholarship to Simmons, Smith and Simmons are going to cost about the same amount of money for me to go there - roughly $20,000 per year. This makes my decision so much harder. I think Simmons could have given me more money (the didn't even give me a work study, but Smith and Mount Holyoke did), so I'm probably going to have to meet with Financial Aid and try to get them to give me more money so I can go there. As for Mount Holyoke, I really like that school, plus it's pretty prestigious, but I don't think I would go there. First of all, it's the most expensive, even with the $13k or so in grants that they're giving me. Second, it really intimidates me. That's one of the strongest feelings I got when I visited a few months ago. All of the students are so smart and the teachers are brilliant, it really feels out of my league (so I feel a whole lot smarter now that I've been accepted, haha).

So, now I have to choose from Simmons (my first choice), Smith, Mount Holyoke, and UMass Amherst. This is going to be a lot harder than I expected. My choice is probably going to come down to financial issues. I'm going to have to make some kind of chart of how much each school is going to cost me per year after all of the grants and loans and everything.

Oh, and I also got accepted into the Simmons Honors Program... so that's more good news. Plus as an Honors student, you get $500 a year to spend in the Simmons bookstore on books and things. Pretty cool.

I went to the movies earlier tonight to see Inside Man with Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster. It was easily the best movie I have seen in theaters so far this year. It's a million times better than it appears in the previews. I'm really hoping that Spike Lee will win an award for his role as the director, and Denzel Washington and Clive Owen for their performances as well. It was a really great story with such an intricate, twisting plot that really made you think. One of the best parts was the comic relief - it came at just the right times, and it wasn't lame, it was actually really funny. The camera angles were awesome (and I don't usually notice that type of thing) and really enhanced the movie. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to reveal anything, but everyone has to go see this movie. Don't even wait until it comes out on video - see it in the movie theater. You won't be disappointed.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Since I had already written a whole blog before writing this brand new one about my college acceptances, I'm just going to post that one in its entirety tomorrow. Adios.

The Sounds are cool and sleep is, too

2006-03-23T21:08:00.000-05:00

The Sounds
with Morningwood and Action Action
Boston, MA: April 14, 2006

Remember the other day when I wrote about how I was pissed that The Sounds were coming to Boston with Morningwood, but I couldn't go because it was an 18+ show? Well, after I wrote that blog I got a strange desire to check the Ticketmaster page again. Well whaddayaknow, "ALL AGES" was written at the very top of the page. Go figure. Anyway, upon seeing this I basically started freaking out. I knew I absolutely had to go to this show. Several different plans were made, changed, and scrapped revolving around this show, until I finally worked it out and bought them yesterday. I am so excited. This is something that I've been wanting to do for a while - go to a show in Boston. April 14th needs to hurry up and get here.

I have a valid excuse for not blogging so far this week: track. Yep, it started this week... for real this time, not the optional captain's practices that were held last week (the ones that I only went to one of). It seems I have already started a routine: after two hours of practice I'll return home a little before 5, go on the computer for an hour or so, eat dinner, watch tv, fall asleep on the couch, etc. I have been extremely exhausted this week, especially today. I've been trying really hard to go to bed early (as in 11-11:30) but for some reason I just haven't been able to do it. This week has been kind of busy schoolwork-wise, but I still shouldn't be going to sleep as late as I do (which is usually somewhere between 12 and 1). I really need to get into the habit of going to sleep earlier. Last week I did, and I was amazed at how much better I felt during the day. It's crazy what a good night's sleep can do to you. After being so used to being so exhausted during the day, it felt incredible last week to not be tired, and all I needed for that was an hour or two more sleep than usual. Unfortunately since I haven't been getting much sleep this week I've once again forgotten what it's like to not have lead eyelids and to not yawn every three minutes. Starting next week I'm really going to make an effort to change my sleeping habits because it makes a huge difference and it's definitely worth it.

I've been thinking of this prom dress thing a lot. I haven't gotten the chance to try mine on again yet (the only opportunity I've had is after track practice, and there's no way I'm getting in my dress when I'm all sweaty), but I have been looking at it every day. I still can't decide if I like it. I've looked through some of my magazines that feature prom dress sections and I've decided that I'm really into Greek-looking dresses. Elegant dresses in colors like ivory and seafoam, sometimes with jeweled embellishments or golden trim, are really standing out to me. Hopefully I will get the chance to go to the mall again sometime soon just in case I find any dresses like that that I want instead of the one I have now. I did see several Greek-like dresses in Lord & Taylor but most of them were either too embellished or didn't fit me correctly. I love this dress (it isn't very Greek-looking, though), but unfortunately there aren't any Rampage stores anywhere near me. Poo.

Oh my. Gee, Mr. President, is there anything you will do?

Hmmm... and people wonder why I so adamantly support gun control laws...

Well, I'm really tired and I still have a bunch of stuff to do (homework, shower, etc.). I'm not sure if I'm going to track tomorrow... I've been planning on skipping tomorrow's practice because I'm really tired and I need a day off (the first week of track and I already need a day off... kind of pathetic), but I actually kind of want to go. I'm not sure. But as I was saying, this is all I have time for today. Adios.

It's prom season already?

2006-03-19T19:37:00.000-05:00

I was successful in finding a prom dress yesterday, though it took a while. First we went to Macy's, and although I tried a ton of dresses on I couldn't find one that I didn't think was gross and cheap-looking. After wasting a few hours there, we went into Lord & Taylor. Immediately upon walking in I felt rather out of place because of all the designer things they had there, but as opposed to Macy's, I saw tons of dresses that I really liked. I must have tried at least 20 dresses on, most of them too expensive for me to buy anyway, and I ended up narrowing it down to two: both blue, one knee-length halter with rhinestone trim around the neck, and the other floor-length with beaded embellishments. Although I liked the halter better, it showed way, way too much cleavage (usually I don't mind this, but in this case there was an overwhelming amount of flesh showing and it was just not appropriate), so I chose the other one, shown at left but in light blue (a much better color than the melon pink in the picture). I'm still not sure if I like it, though. First of all, I don't like floor-length dresses, and this dress is pretty much as floor-length as you can get (it will actually need to be hemmed quite a bit). Also, it tends to just hang on my body like a limp piece of fabric. I want something that hugs my curves (as cliche as that is) because that's what is most flattering for my shape. I'm going to try it on a few more times to finally decide if I really like it; otherwise I'm going to return it and try to find another one. If I do decide to keep it, I will have to have it altered a lot, mostly to shorten it so it's not dragging on the floor and also around my torso so it doesn't just hang there as much.

This is absurd. Do we really need to mention the war in Iraq at every possible opportunity? Next they'll be suggesting a moment of silence during Desperate Housewives. I'm also wondering how Stein considers failing to honor the troops during the Oscars "spitting in the face of Americans." Apparently we should all be deeply offended, but it seems he is the only one. He's making a big stink about nothing and needs to focus his attention elsewhere.

Yesterday I got my financial aid package from Simmons. They're only giving me $4625 in loans. They did already give me a $10,000 scholarship, but it's still not enough for my family to afford it. My scholarship basically takes care of room & board, and with the loans there is still about $21,000 worth of tuition and fees to pay each year, more than my family can afford. I have applied for several scholarships so far and I will be applying for more in the future (though most of them I know I don't have any chance of winning), plus there are many local scholarships that I will be applying for as well. Hopefully I'll win some scholarships that will lower the cost of college for me, but I know if I do, it will not be a lot. I'm going to be deep in debt when I graduate.

Right now I'm supposed to be working on a paper that's due tomorrow in my World Lit class. Basically I have to analyze the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley - something I have no idea how to go about doing. My teacher simply gave us the assignment without explaining how to do it. I don't think she realizes that none of us have done a literary analysis paper before and we have no clue what we're doing. Right now my lowest grade in all of my classes is World Lit; a B-. I know that's not a bad grade, and I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm pretty satisfied - I expected to be doing worse. I'm slacking off a lot... and I don't really care, seeing as how it's my last semester of high school ever, and I've already gotten into college. Just as long as it doesn't drop below an 80, I'm all set.

Anyway, I should probably get to work on that paper now. If I want to keep my World Lit grade 80+ then I'll have to get a decent grade on this paper, which means putting a decent amount of effort into it. I guess that means I'll have to end this blog. Ciao.

The general theme for today seems to be music (Part II)

2006-03-17T21:17:00.000-05:00

Today I listened to my entire Weezer playlist. That is, almost all songs from their five albums (I have 49 songs on my computer - I left out a few that I don't like from their first self-titled album). It's about 2 hours and 45 minutes long. I'm not sure exactly what compelled me to listen to them in the first place, since I haven't listened to anything Weezer in quite a while, but I'm glad I did. I forgot how much I love those guys. I'm really bummed that I missed their concert in Boston back in October, which was probably their last ever concert in this area. I would have loved to see Rivers Cuomo. Lately I've just been listening to The Von Bondies, The Subways, Living Things, The Strokes, and a little bit of Pearl Jam, so it was nice to hear something different for once.

Right now I'm listening to the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album "Show Your Bones" on their MySpace. I like their single "Gold Lion" a lot; it's really different. I might actually buy the CD when it comes out, but it depends on if I have enough money (at the moment, I don't) and if there aren't any other CDs that I want more (at the moment, there are). I never liked them until recently; I didn't even like "Maps" much when it came out a few years ago (or was it more recent?). It makes sense that I like them now, though, since I'm really only just getting into indie rock.

I also want to buy the new Sounds album, "Dying to Say This to You," which is coming out on the 21st, this Tuesday. So far I've only listened to the songs they have up on their MySpace, and I like all of them, especially "Song With A Mission." The main reason why The Sounds are so unique and appealing is because of the lead singer's voice. They are all from Sweden, so her voice is really interesting... rather difficult to describe. It was the very first thing that I noticed when I first heard their songs, and it's still the one thing that stands out to me the most. There aren't any other singers like her, and I'm sure that's exactly what's been giving the band so much attention.

I was very amused to hear the Morningwood song "Nth Degree" on an American Eagle commercial yesterday. I wonder what their fans think of Morningwood being associated with that type. As for the song, in my personal opinion it's not their best, but it's catchy and pretty much perfect for a single. I can see why it made it into an AE commercial. My favorite song of theirs is "Nu Rock." Anyway, they are coming to Boston on April 14th, and they're opening for The Sounds at Avalon. I would absolutely love to go to that show, but I can't. Why? No, it's not because of the date - it's actually at a perfect time, right at the beginning of graduation. Actually, (to allude to an earlier post of mine) it's because the show is 18+. Fuck. Another 18+ show that I can't freaking go to. Yeah, I'm pissed. I need a fake ID or something... ah, I definitely don't have the balls for that. I suppose I'll just have to continue to mope at home.

The Subways actually got a good review of their performance at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston a week or so ago. Not that I'm surprised or anything - I mean, The Subways are rather awesome and all - but (and again, to allude to an earlier post of mine) they really didn't sound so awesome on Leno not too long ago. I will assume that pre-recorded live isn't nearly as good as live live. Which, of course, makes complete sense - live music is amazing, almost no matter what it is, even if it generally sucks otherwise. But I still don't like Charlotte much. I can't get over how ridiculous she looked shaking herself around like that. Though I suppose that would look better live live, too. That kind of thing really isn't very fitting on Leno.

Okay, I can't finish this blog without talking about Voxtrot first. I like these guys a lot. I've noticed a lot of buzz about them lately, and for good reason. Their songs are really catchy and although they are definitely radio-material, they're unique so they don't fit into that boring mold of usual radio songs. They're coming to Wellesley on April 11... it's the one concert that I want to go to that's actually all ages, but I can't go because it's a school night. Figures, huh? Why do I have such shitty luck with concerts? Argh.

Well, somehow I managed to post an image for every single paragraph. Quite an achievement. Anyway I think I'll stop rambling on and on about music. I really could go on forever, but I'll spare you. Tomorrow my mom and I are going to Burlington to look for prom dresses. I'm really picky so I'm not sure if I'll actually end up finding one, but I will certainly post something tomorrow or Sunday with an update. 'Til then, adios.

Amsterdam is my hero

2006-03-16T17:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I stumbled upon this article during my daily perusal of boston.com, and it gave me quite a laugh. To give you a short summary, the article discusses Amsterdam's practice of including a video as part of the immigration entrance exam. Would-be immigrants must buy a copy of this "racy" video that includes images of two men kissing and a topless woman on a beach. I think this is genius. What an excellent way to keep out radical conservatives that clash with the general political mind-set in Amsterdam. This will ensure that immigrants will not threaten the values that the citizens of Amsterdam hold. Of course there are many people that understandably oppose this rule. Yes, it's a bit radical, but I think it makes complete sense. I'm not sure why anyone in opposition of what is being shown in that video would want to live in Amsterdam, anyway. If you don't agree with it, then don't go there. It's that simple. The video requirement is to make sure you accept their culture before you try to live there, and if you don't accept their culture, then why would you want to live there in the first place? Unfortunately, it is a bit pricey. The package, which includes the movie and is used to prepare for the entrance exam, is $75, while the exam itself is $420. Needless to say, you'll have to really want to go to Amsterdam for all that. I think that's what they're aiming for, anyway.

P.S.: After reading this, my friend Morgan just pointed out to me that Amsterdam's entrance exam is $420... as in 4:20 (or 4/20, depending on which definition you choose to support). Hahaha. Coincidence? Hmm... either way, that just made my day.

It's already Thursday, and I've only gone to track once so far this week. That was on Tuesday. I didn't actually practice with the track team that day, instead I went with my friends Amanda, Morgan and Simon and we pretty much went off and did what we wanted... which was running to Wendy's. Yep. We ran to Wendy's and ingested all of the calories we had just burned off from running there (I had a large Frosty), and then burned them off again on the way back. It was pretty awesome, actually. It just goes to show that - in the words of Morgan - we are "THE FATTEST PEOPLE ALIVE." It wasn't a great workout (I'm sure we could've done a lot better, starting with the removal of the stop to Wendy's), but I was still pretty sore on Wednesday, and I'm still rather sore today, too. Yesterday, on Wednesday, it was snowing so we decided not to go (actually we were just being lazy, we simply used the snow as an excuse). Today none of my buddies were going so I just decided to go home. I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I really need to do some running because track begins for real next week and running just once this week in preparation doesn't cut it.

The other day when I went to Newbury Comics (it was actually a while ago... last Saturday, when Amanda and I went to see 16 Blocks) I purchased the oldest Strokes album, Is This It. I don't like it as much as their newest album, First Impressions of Earth, but it's still rather good. The only two songs I recognized from the album were Someday and Last Nite, which were both singles. Last Nite is the best song on the album, and it's still played on the radio frequently because it's just that good. I've noticed that compared to Is This It, Impressions is generally heavier and even fuller-sounding, if that makes any sense at all. There is a significant difference between The Strokes as a new band versus The Strokes as a band that has been around for a few years. They have certainly developed and evolved. I still have to get their second album, Room on Fire, which I've heard is their best album, but I haven't seen it in record stores.

Anyhow, I've run out of semi-interesting things to discuss, so I think I'll go fill my grumbling belly with last night's leftovers. Ciao.

A movie marathon of sorts (spoilers)

2006-03-13T19:16:00.000-05:00

Somehow this weekend I managed to watch three movies in 24 hours. I'm not sure exactly how I managed to do so, but I enjoyed it. My best friend Amanda slept over on Friday night (it was a spur-of-the-moment plan; she was originally just going to come over after school for a few hours as usual, but then I invited her to sleep over, too, and surprisingly she was able to) and my dad took us to the video store to rent some videos. I ended up getting Monster and Frida (this was completely my decision; Amanda refused to provide any input in the choices, which she regretted after watching Monster).

We watched Monster first, which was based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute turned serial killer. It was incredibly disturbing. A few people have asked me whether it was good or not, and I really don't know what to say. I'm glad that it was already replaced in the "Movies Seen Recently" section because I have no idea what I would rate it. Aileen (Charlize Theron's character) killed seven men over the course of the movie, although not all of the murders are shown. The first murder was absolutely justified, and I'm sure anyone in her position would have done the same thing. This particular man picked up Aileen, a prostitute, from the highway and brought her in the woods to supposedly have sex with her. Instead, he knocked her out, tied her up, raped her, and poured rubbing alcohol on her wounds. Before he was able to carry out his ultimate plan of murdering her, Aileen somehow managed to escape and shoot him several times with his own gun. This ordeal severely affected Aileen's mental state and lead to her commit the six other murders. Each killing was less and less justified, especially the last in which her victim picked her up from the highway not to have sex with her but to help her. He died while begging for his wife and children. Aileen was ultimately arrested and sentenced to death.

As someone who is against the death penalty, I of course do not believe she should have been executed. However, this is one of those cases that I'm not completely sure. The first killing was justified, yes; the others, however (at least the others that were shown in the movie), were not. But most importantly, Aileen was not in a healthy mental state, and I think she could have easily plead insanity. On the flipside, I also think that she should absolutely have been held responsible, which she was, so in that case the insanity plea is not possible. In the end I'm still not completely sure of how I feel about this, except that she was undeniably a threat to society and nothing less than a life sentence would have been acceptable. Of course I am only going by what I saw in the movie, and obviously the real story was probably altered a bit for Hollywood. For example, in the movie Aileen's girlfriend was Selby (Christina Ricci's character), but in reality her girlfriend was Tyria Moore, who looks nothing like the petite and attractive Christina Ricci and has been suspected of being involved in some of the murders.

I'm not sure if I would recommend Monster, but if you do want to watch it, be prepared to be extremely disturbed.

The next day, on Saturday, Amanda and I went to the mall to see 16 Blocks. It was pretty good, but not excellent. It was somewhat predictable and boring at parts, and the action wasn't extremely thrilling. The ending was bordering on too sappy and perfect (though I'm not complaining; I like happy endings). What really sold this movie for me was Mos Def's character, the witness that several cops wanted to eliminate for fear that his testimony would ruin their careers. His character was a little annoying at the beginning of the movie (which was intended), but by the end I absolutely fell in love with him (also intended). He is one of the most lovable characters featured in any of the movies that I have seen recently. The character was perfect, and Mos Def did an excellent job portraying him. I did enjoy this movie, though I would probably only recommend it as a rental.

Amanda's parents picked her up from the mall, so when I returned home I watched Frida... and I absolutely loved it. This is definitely going on my list of favorite movies. It was long, but it was a great story. Frida Kahlo lead an amazing life and she was an incredibly interesting person. A lot of the things that happened to her were and still are taboo, such as her and her husband Diego Rivera's communist beliefs, her occasional lesbian trysts, and her affair with communist leader Leon Trotsky. The movie was completely honest and did not try to hide or sugarcoat the truth. Also, her paintings usually depicted scenes from her own life, so several times throughout the movie a few of her paintings were amazingly and accurately personified. One of the most ironically beautiful scenes in the movie was the trolley accident that greatly affected her health for the rest of her life. The last shot of the scene showed her sprawled out on the floor, bloodied and covered in gold leafing from a painter on the trolley. After the accident she was nearly crippled, with 11 fractures and several broken ribs and a broken spinal column, among other injuries. An iron handrail had impaled her abdomen, piercing her uterus, leaving her unable to bear children (which she realized after a particularly gruesome miscarriage). She was in a full-body cast for months, and would often experience relapses later in her life which would leave her hospitalized for months at a time, and also causing her to undergo nearly 35 operations (including the amputation of all of her toes on one foot due to gangrene) throughout her lifetime.

Overall, Frida was an amazing movie and I would recommend it to anyone. Salma Hayek was spectacular, and no one else would have been acceptable for this role. I really want to buy the DVD so I can watch it again.

Anyway, now that I've written more about movies than I ever thought I could, I shall move on. Today track was supposed to start. And it did, but I wasn't there. I was planning on it, but none of my friends could go and this week's practices are optional anyway, so I just decided to stay home for today. For one last day. Besides, I hardly got enough sleep last night to allow me to function properly in school, let alone survive a whole track practice. Tonight I'm really going to try to get to bed by 11, because less than 7 hours of sleep would not be a good idea.

Well, this post is long enough for a few days, I believe. Hopefully I will still have time to blog regularly once I start going to track. Until then, adios.

I Heart Boston

2006-03-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a half-day at school so my friend Morgan and I went to Boston. First we went to Harvard Square in Cambridge, where we ate at Fire and Ice, and then we took the T to Downtown Crossing in Boston. I spent literally every last dollar that I had, out of the $85 that I had brought with me. We did tons of shopping. I bought a few pins at Newbury Comics, new black shoes at Payless, some Urban Decay eyeshadow at Hootenanny’s, an “I Heart Boston” t-shirt (which I have always wanted), and two pairs of earrings. One pair I got at a massive jewelry store that had more earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and hair clips that I have ever seen in one place in my whole life. It was insane. The walls were lined with jewelry; so much so that it was overwhelming. Plus there was a really gorgeous Spanish guy working upstairs. That’s always a plus. It was pretty much the best way I have ever spent my half-day.

We spent a lot of time just walking around and going to random stores, while laughing about the most random and not-so-funny things that had happened. At one point, while we were on the T, I had sat down but Morgan didn’t want to because she didn’t want to sit next to strangers. I kept telling her to sit down but she wouldn’t, so finally, frustrated, I said, “sit down, Kramer!” Yes, I called her my dog’s name. I have no idea where that came from. Also, when I was telling her how I would probably forget where I parked my car, I said, “park my guitar.” I think I need to take speech lessons. Then there was the "man in the cage" incident... I would explain it, but I think it would be lost on everyone else. I'll spare you.

I just found out today that track starts this Monday. It was supposed to start on the 20th, but The Powers That Be decided that because the weather was so nice (I’m not sure who decided 40-degree temperatures were “nice”), we could get an early start. Normally for the first few weeks of practice we do circuit training inside in the gym. However, we won’t be doing that this year. Apparently we’ll just be running around the track. Now, this is really awful. I didn’t mind circuit training because it got me in shape and prepared to run outside. Now that we’re skipping the circuit training and just starting to run outside, I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to get in shape. Plus, since I’m not in shape already, I probably won’t fare very well during practice outside on the track next week. I certainly am not ready for track to begin on Monday, and I wish they didn’t spring it on us today. It’s too short notice. I’m also really going to have to start going to sleep earlier. Lately I’ve only been getting five to six hours of sleep a night, and if I’m going to have to get a lot more during track. I’m already exhausted enough with these few hours of sleep as it is, if I don’t get more sleep I won’t be able to function during the day. Track is exhausting. I’m really not ready for it to begin.

I mailed my Simmons Honors Program application yesterday. After all that whining I did about how I couldn’t think of anything to write for my essay, I felt like kind of a moron when I realized it wasn’t that hard. I just opened Word and started typing, and the rest of my essay came out pretty easily after that. I wish I had started it sooner, but at least it’s in the mail now.

I’m at school now, during my free period (technically… it’s a long story I’ll save for another blog someday) and since I have nothing to do I decided I might as well do something somewhat productive. I haven’t been able to blog a lot lately because I don’t have much time (and I’ll have even less once track starts). During February vacation, when I made this blog, I had tons of time on my hands so I was able to blog every day. Unfortunately that’s not the case now so I can only blog a few times a week. Hopefully I won’t lose track and abandon this blog.

Anyway, that’s all for today. Ciao.

Blogs are bad for procrastinators

2006-03-07T16:15:00.000-05:00

As I type this, I am practicing the one thing that I do best: procrastination. However, it's not just some silly homework assignment that I'm neglecting; it's my application to the Simmons Honors Program. It's a shame, really, since all I have left to do is the 400-500 word essay. I tried to start it last night - really, I did. Well... as long as you would consider opening Word and staring at the blank page for a few minutes before closing it "starting." I really need to get the application in immediately. The "priority deadline" has passed (March 1) so now I absolutely need to get it in by April 1st or they won't accept it. I'm not worried about making that deadline, but I do need to submit it as soon as possible because it's a rolling admissions type thing - first come, first serve. I'm fairly certain that I will be admitted into the program, but I need to send it in soon to make sure. Unfortunately my stubbornness and laziness is preventing me from doing so.

Perhaps I would start if I could actually figure out what to write about. I have chosen which prompt to respond to (the first out of two), but I have yet to decide what exactly my response will be. The essay question is as follows:

The Honors Program encourages students to experience life in another country. If you were to study abroad for a month or a semester, what country would you prefer to visit and what would you hope to learn from your experiences in another culture?

That's a pretty easy prompt, right? Right. Well, it would be if I could actually figure out what I want to say. I am leaning towards writing about how I have the most random desire to learn Italian and, afterwards, visit the country. However, I have also thought about visiting a Spanish speaking country (namely Mexico, Spain even) because I am already somewhat familiar with the language. Either way, I'm not sure if I could write 400-500 words (about two pages of double-spaced Times New Roman) about it. Sure, I could bullshit it, but I have not yet mastered the art of bullshitting so whenever I try, my bullshit turns out quite, well, bullshitty. Not quite up to par for a college honors program. Hmm. What to do...

Well, I could continue procrastinating... yes, sounds like a plan.

This is probably the last blog I ever thought I would be linking, but - surprise! - I actually agree with her latest post. She discusses an amendment that would prohibit the desecration of the US flag. Because she can form arguments much better than I can (minus the anti-"progressive-leftist hippie leftovers" remarks) and because, yes, I am still being lazy, I'm just going to order you all to read that blog. I'm not going to discuss exactly how I feel about the American flag, mainly because I have several staunch conservative friends that read this blog that would surely disown me if they were to read how I truly feel, but I will say that I [obviously] completely disagree with this proposed amendment. I think it is completely useless and frivolous, and just another pathetic attempt at patriotism.

Well, I'm done for the day. I suppose it's time to get started on my essay. Wish me luck.

The Subways suck live, and I wish I were 18

2006-03-04T21:14:00.000-05:00

I watched The Subways last night on Letterman, and I was pretty disappointed. They didn't sound so great. It was all in the vocals. In most of their songs, especially Rock & Roll Queen (which they played last night) they have the half-singing/half-yelling sort of vocals, which can be difficult to get the desired sound. Billy, the guitarist and the lead singer, does the majority of the singing/yelloing and does a decent job of it as well. They also have Charlotte, the bassist, who occasionally chimes in with her own singing/yelling, especially in the chorus. It's hard enough to get the right sound with one person singing/yelling, but with two people doing so simultaneously it can be quite challenging - if it's done correctly it works well, but if it's done incorrectly it sounds pretty awful. Essentially, they have to be dead on. On their CD, Young For Eternity, it works very well and it sounds quite good. Of course this is because they had a while in the studio to make it perfect as well as all the necessary equipment. On Letterman, though, it didn't quite work out for them. Billy sounded decent - not great, though - and Charlotte... well, Charlotte ruined the whole thing. She sounded awful. Her voice completely clashed with Billy's and made it really cringe-worthy. Plus, she acted like a total moron on stage. Whenever she would step back from the mic she would shake her head around like she was having a massive seizure or something. It was not attractive (Billy was actually quite attractive, though. But that's besides the point.). Oh well, I still like them. Their CD is rather good.

I really hate not being 18. I've got 7 months to go, and I've already missed out on a ton of things simply because I'm not of age yet. Mainly, shows in Boston. There have been so many great bands that have played in Boston recently or will be playing in Boston soon that I can't go to see because the shows are usually 18+, sometimes even 21+. I missed the Living Things and Hot Hot Heat, and I will miss The Subways on March 8 and The Sounds on April 14. It's really disappointing. The really great thing about indie bands is that they're not so well known so they will often play at smaller venues with a really cheap cover and they will tour frequently, unlike the more mainstream bands that will only tour once a few years at huge venues with a high ticket price, and, depening on the group's popularity, will sometimes be sold out. Unfortunately most of the small venues that indie bands play at will only have 18+ or 21+ shows, which really sucks for the younger kids like myself. Basically the indie scene is awesome, as long as you're at least 18. When I'm in Boston for college this fall I plan on going to a ton of indie shows since there are great bands playing all the time. I'll just have to wait two months after the term starts since I don't turn 18 until October.

Voxtrot is actually playing an all ages show on April 11 in Wellesley. I really want to go, partly because it's one of the few all ages shows I've heard about in this area recently. Unfortunately it's a school night - a Tuesday - so I doubt I will be able to go, but I'm still going to try. I just have to figure out what time it starts and ends, and if I'll be able to get my mom to give me a ride (doubtful) since there isn't any public transportation from here (the middle of nowhere) directly out to Wellesley.

Well, this weekend is going to be pretty boring. I did nothing to do today, and I've got nothing to do tomorrow but indoor soccer. I woke up at 1 today. Yep, 11 hours of sleep. I feel like I need another vacation already.

That's all for now. Adios.

My blog lives up to its URL

2006-03-03T22:49:00.000-05:00

After a whole week of blogging every single day, it feels kind of weird to have missed two days in a row. I do have a valid excuse, though: I've had tons of stuff to do this week for school and college junk. Granted, I didn't even end up doing half of the things I had to, but... I'm still using that excuse. I'm still working on my Simmons Honors application. I still have to write the 400-500 word essay - of course I saved the worst part for last. That isn't really a long essay, but it's still going to take some major motivation (the kind that I currently am lacking) to get my ass into gear and start working on it. My original goal for finishing the entire application was today, but seeing as how it's 9:14 pm right now and I haven't even started the essay, I'm thinking I'll have to push it back until next Friday. Isn't it wonderful how procrastination works? Hopefully I will be able to finish it next week, but judging by what my teachers have been planning for us lately, I'm not sure if I'll even have time. I certainly didn't expect my second semester of my senior year to be this way - it's so much more stressful than it should be.

Today sucked. I found out yesterday that The Strokes tickets were to go on sale today at noon. Naturally, I was extremely excited. I would go with my friend Morgan, and we would surely have an awesome time. I planned to rush to the computer lab to buy the tickets as soon as the lunch bell rang (approximately 12:07). I asked my mom if it would be okay (since I would have to use her credit card to buy them online and pay her with cash) and at first she didn't have a problem with it, but then she began asking how I planned to get into Boston. I told her we would take the train, but she explained to me that it would be really complicated and we would have to switch from the train to the subway at some point, and it would take a while to get there. I went online to plan out how to get there and how long it would take and such. Ultimately, it came down to this: it wouldn't be much of a problem getting there because we would have enough time to figure it out, however on the way back it would be a lot more complicated. We weren't sure what time the concert would be over, but we guessed around 11. We would end up having to rush to take the subway in time to make the last outbound train of the night from the train station, and especially since we weren't familiar with the subway it would be a whole lot more difficult for us. Plus, my mom wasn't too keen on having to pick us up at the train station in town at 1:20 in the morning on a school night. So, alas, I won't be able to go to the concert. It really sucks because I was looking forward to this so much. I don't often have the opportunity to get out of the house, and I just really wanted to go somewhere with my friends and have fun. Blah. Oh well. I'm trying not to dwell on it so much.

This Thursday there's a half day so Morgan and I are going into Harvard Square after school. We've been planning this for a while, and I can't wait. This is one of the few opportunities that I get to to go out and have fun. Also it will be cool to see where I will probably be hanging out often while I'm in college in Boston come this fall. We might go to see a movie at Lowes in Landmark Square, depending on how much time we have to spare. I really want to see Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Transamerica but I don't think they're playing on the date that we're going. Munich is, which I would like to see, though it's nearly three hours long and we definitely don't have enough time for that.

Not only did I not get to blog much this week, but I hardly got to listen to any music, either. Not even the radio. (I did get to listen to my Palm Zire on the bus in the morning, but that doesn't count because I do that every morning) I think the last time I listened to music was on the weekend, maybe Monday. That's pretty awful. Well, I'm trying to make up for it now by listening to my favorite playlists. So far I've gone through The Subways, The Von Bondies, Living Things, and now I'm listening to The Strokes (even though it does kind of make me want to smash things out of frustration from not being able to go to the concert). I doubt I'll get to listen to all of my favorites tonight, which include Wolfmother, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, and The Rinse, but I think this will do for now.

Speaking of The Subways, they're going to be on Letterman tonight, so I think I'm going to go get in the shower and get ready for bed and everything so I don't miss it. I apologize for the completely uninteresting blog (well, just look at my blog URL), but for some reason it seems that my life has become incredibly boring since vacation ending, even though I didn't do anything at all doing vacation.

Anyway, that's all for today. Hopefully I will come up with something more interesting to discuss this weekend. Ciao.

P.S. Gross gross gross!!

Please, Boston, be creative!

2006-02-28T19:57:00.000-05:00

According to this article, Boston might be getting its own Walk of Fame, modeled after the original in Hollywood. Boston's Walk of Fame would honor artists (which includes actors, musicians, etc.) from the Boston area, and would be located in the Theater District. Supporters claim that this would attract more tourists, and would make the Theater District more "vibrant" and would bring more "pride" and "excitement." As for the design, some people have suggested that there be lobsters or codfish instead of the traditional star.

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I think it might be kind of neat to add something new to the Theater District, such as more glitz and glamour. But then again, Boston is known for its historical image; why change that? Something like this might not fit in with the cobblestone streets. Also, I wish we could come up with something more original instead of something that has been copied many times. I don't want Boston to be just another city that hopped on the bandwagon - originality would be much more valuable. And while the lobster or codfish design might be quirky and unique to Boston, it's still a bit tacky. Overall, I don't think Boston should attempt to cash in on something that's been overdone and is bordering on cliche (I realize the "e" should be accented, but for some reason those characters won't work here). I'm all for bringing more pride and excitement to the Theater District, but perhaps if someone were to come up with something more creative, something that hasn't been done before, I would be more supportive.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep this blog short because I have a lot to do tonight. I already mailed two scholarship applications earlier today, so that's one thing I can cross off my to-do list. I've also decided to apply for the Honors Program at Simmons, and that application will take a bit of work. I'll have to write a 400-500 word essay and another shorter essay. The deadline for "priority consideration" is tomorrow, and they won't accept any applications after April 1. I really would rather have met the priority deadline, but I didn't decide to apply to the program until very recently. Ideally I would like to finish the application tonight so I can mail it tomorrow, but that probably won't happen unless I stay up late, which I'm going to try really hard not to do since I've been exhausted over the past two days from lack of sleep.

I also have to study for my History test tomorrow. I did study the amendments yesterday, but I still probably couldn't tell you half of them off the top of my head so I will have to do a lot more studying tonight. Plus, I haven't even read Chapter 2 yet, which is what half the test will be focused on. Yeah, I'm kind of behind. I'm always completely lost in that class. I'm awful at History.

Well, that's all for today. Nothing else is new. Hopefully I'll have more time to blog tomorrow. 'Til then.

My lack of sleep and the art of Alfonse Mucha

2006-02-27T20:54:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day back to school after vacation last week. I decided to get it off to a great start by sleeping for only 4 1/2 hours last night for no good reason at all. I could've been in bed by midnight, 11:30 even, but for some reason I just didn't do it. When 12:30 rolled around, I decided instead of going to bed I would make my frozen pizza for today's lunch. Since that would take fifteen minutes in the toaster oven, and since I had already shut off the computer, I decided to sit down and watch the last half of the season finale of Celebrity Fit Club 3 (which, I admit, is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine). This was a bad decision. Fifteen minutes later my pizza was done, but of course I had to watch the end of the show. I made myself a bowl of cereal and, afterwards, two slices of cinnamon toast. I was in bed by 1:15.

I don't think I fell asleep until 1:30 or 1:45 though because, as I have for the past few nights, I was unable to fall asleep right away because I kept thinking about the upcoming track season. It's really making me nervous, mainly because I'm worried I won't be in good enough shape for the start of the season. No, I know I won't be in good enough shape. I keep telling myself that I should go out for a jog or something, but I know myself too well - I'm way too lazy to do that. Plus, it's way too cold out. Yeah, that's my excuse.

Anyway, the moral of the story is (or was, before I got way off track) that I'm exhausted right now and I can't wait to go to sleep. Unfortunately I have to study all 27 amendments because I have to know them for a test by Wednesday, and as of right now I only know, like, six. School hates me.

Well enough rambling on about my lack of sleep and such. The other day I discovered this blog, entitled "70s-child." Aside from the fact that he's one of the religious fanatic types that I can't stand (see how he bashes an innocently hilarious comic strip in his February 26th post), I really enjoyed browsing through all of his archived posts. He posts mainly 70's things (hence the blog title), and even though I wasn't around during that time (though I wish I could have been) I love looking at some of them. He's posted a few Alfonse Mucha posters, who is one of my favorite artists. His work is from the late 19th century, but it experienced a revival during the 60's and 70's. He did a lot of posters, including advertisements for products such as cigarettes, rum, and food. If you look at his posters, I think you can see why - they seem to fit in with that era somehow, even though they're from decades earlier. I've noticed how a lot of his art features elegant, almost goddess-like women with circular designs around their heads. I have a huge print of this one in my bedroom up in Maine:

My mom bought this for me I think at some type of flea market for only a few dollars. I plan on taking it with me to college this fall and putting it up on my dorm room wall. I would love to get some more prints, too, and possibly frame them. I would also love a print from this exhibit of rock posters at the MFA in Boston (I think they're pretty expensive though). It would be really cool to go see that exhibit, and I think my mom and I might be going some time soon. I don't usually enjoy going to art museums (well, depending on what the art is... some of it is interesting), but I have been dragged along with my mom so many times over the years because she's basically really big on art (she's an art teacher, she went to Mass College of Art, and she would paint frequently if she had the time).

Well since I keep getting way off track and because I've been writing this blog for literally three hours (I keep getting distracted) I think it's time for me to just stop typing before I become entirely unintelligible.

But I do have one quick thing to say: I have to clarify my last post, because it seems I got off track and lost the main point. Basically the whole reason why the Kansas law is so absurd is because it states that any sexual activity between minors (those under sixteen) is considered abuse, even if it is consensual. It is ridiculous to consider consensual sex abuse, no matter the age of the participants, which was my main point that seemed to be lost on a few people.

Well, that's all for today. Adios.

Sorry, Kansas teens, but I feel awful for you.

2006-02-26T14:05:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, during my daily browsing of boston.com, I came across this op-ed article. In short, it's about a law in Kansas that states that sex involving minors (even if it is consensual between two minors) is illegal and is considered abuse. The main proponent of this law is Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline (pictured above). To get a good mental picture of what Kline stands for, picture me... and then the exact opposite of me. And there you have it. He's a Republican, an adamant pro-lifer, and so on and so forth. As you can imagine, this article did not make me very happy. The article states:

"The Kline Theory goes something like this: If sexual activity between teens is illegal, there's no such thing as consensual sex, and thus every act is harmful. These acts, by the way, include 'any lewd fondling or touching of the person . . . with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires.' In short, healthcare workers have to rat on 15-year-old sexual criminals who are lustily and mutually 'abusing' each other in the back seat of a Toyota."

This is actually kind of amusing. I wonder if he realizes how many teenagers are made guilty by this law? Kline is one of the many politicians that have an overly idealistic view of the world, and, in this case, the lives of teenagers. It is completely unrealistic to expect teenagers to God-fearing, law-abiding citizens with no desire of sexual activity. The only theory I can come up with to explain his wacky notions is that he has forgotten what it's like to be a teenager... or, perhaps more likely, he simply couldn't get any as a teenager and is now extremely bitter. I imagine him saying, "if I couldn't get any, no one else will!" Haha. Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of.

Anyway, to continue dissecting Kline's baffling beliefs, I quote the article again:

"The healthcare workers sued, and the recent trial produced some pretty odd exchanges. When lawyer Bonnie Scott Jones of the Center for Reproductive Rights put Kline on the stand, she asked if anything beyond kissing was acceptable. Is oral sex performed by a boy a reportable crime? Yes, said Kline. Oral sex performed by a girl? 'I'm not certain,' he said."

In order to avoid being completely infuriated by his response, I am simply going to laugh. Hysterically. Basically Kline claims that oral sex performed on a girl is definitely a crime, while a blowjob is not. I don't even know where to begin. What is this, Africa? Where, in some regions, it's considered unacceptable for women to experience sexual pleasure but perfectly acceptable for men? This is sexism in an awful way, and it's leading to the radical belief that (as I discussed a few blogs ago) women are here to please men. It's completely outrageous.

Moving on from Kline, here is radical feminism at its worst:

"There was also the testimony of Dr. Elizabeth Shadigian, best known as a stalwart of the abortion-gives-you-breast-cancer misinformation campaign. She said that teenage girls are always the victims of sexual activity because 'there's always a power differential between a boy and a girl.' When girls have sex, they aren't doing, she said, 'they have been done to.'"

This, folks, explains why I identify myself as only a slight feminist in my blogger profile. Shadigian's above statement is absolutely ridiculous and complete hogwash. I can't believe there are people out there - women, even - that believe this. How can anyone possibly claim that girls never have sex for pleasure, because they want to, but because they are forced to? I know girls whose libidos (and consensual sexual experiences) greatly surpass those of many boys that I know. Plus, teenage boys should be given more credit than that. I think it's safe to say that the majority of teenage boys would not take advantage of a girl for sex, which is what Shadigian implies that she believes in her above statement. She is another example of someone who completely misunderstands the teenage psyche.

I suppose all we really can do is laugh at the complete absurdity of these people. That, and be thankful that we don't live in Kansas (and be sorry for those that do).

P.S. I fully endorse this blog.

Indie films: yay or nay?

2006-02-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, as I was browsing through my lovely new issue of JANE magazine, I came across the movie review section and found a movie that I would really like to see. It's titled "Stoned," and the synopsis reads:

"Biopic of debauched 1960s rock icon, Brian Jones, the charismatic guitarist who founded the Rolling Stones but was fired in 1969 and found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool a few weeks later."

As a Stones fan myself, I am quite ashamed to admit that I didn't even know this man existed (in my defense, I'm sure there are many other people that didn't know either). Anyway, I watched the trailer and it seems very intriguing. Not only is it about an era that I wish I could have experienced, but I'm sure it will feature some awesome music, too. Unfortunately, since it's a foreign indie-type film, it will have a limited release here in the US, so I'll be lucky if I ever get to see it in theaters. I'm sure it will play in some small movie theater in Boston somewhere, but the chances of me going to Boston just to see this movie are slim to none.

While we're on the topic of indie-type films, I can't decide whether or not I like them. I have seen some that I have liked, and some that I have not liked at all. For example, I really enjoyed The Motorcycle Diaries and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Those were both really good, although I admit I am fairly biased with these films seeing as how I like almost all Spanish films, especially if they feature Gael Garcia Bernal (my favorite actor, pictured directly above) which both of these do. But Spanish films always seem to offer something different that American films just don't have; some kind of substance that I can't exactly define. I think they're more meaningful and real; they don't attempt to hide or mask the truth, and they're completely frank and open (especially Y Tu Mama Tambien and Maria Full of Grace). I also love listening to Spanish, so that helps too.

On the other hand, an indie film that I really did not enjoy was Me and You and Everyone We Know. This movie was completely lost on me. I didn't understand the plot, the characters, or basically the entire movie. It was really odd and disturbing, and it just didn't make any sense to me at all. One of the many storylines focused on two teenage girls, I believe they were fifteen, that were so unlike any teenage girls I know or probably will ever know. Basically what happens with them is that they meet a man who writes dirty things to the girls on a sheet of paper that he tapes to his window, which they see when they walk by his house every day. One day he writes something about a blowjob, so in order to find out which of the two girls are better at it, they find a boy from school and offer to perform oral sex on him if he tells them afterwards who was better. After determining that they were both equally skilled in that area of expertise, they decide to go to the older man's house to have sex with him (keep in mind that this is a gross, perverted thirty-something guy that they hardly know and that has been saying completely inappropriate things to them). When they ring his doorbell, he hides and pretends he isn't home, and after waiting a few seconds the girls run away, laughing and smiling. What the hell? How is this realistic at all? I won't even go into the part where a little boy, probably about six years of age, has numerous dirty conversations with a grown woman online. Yep. I really did not understand this movie. If someone could explain it to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

Anyhow, later today I'll be going out with my dad - the first time in a very long time, longer than I can remember. I think he's taking the opportunity to do so because my mom is away in Florida. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing, though I think he said something about going to the Ninety Nine and possibly a movie afterwards. He's trying to get my brother, Eric, to go, but Eric is being really reluctant. All he's done this week is sit at home and play video games, and I think he's only showered twice. It's really gross. I don't see how you could spend an entire week doing that.

Well I'm running out of things to say for today's blog, so I suppose I'll leave it here for now. Ciao.

Meet Patricia's feminist side

2006-02-24T17:20:00.000-05:00

Today I watched North Country. I don't think I have ever cried so much while watching a movie. It was really heartbreaking. The things that Charlize Theron's character, Josey, (and the other women that worked in the mines) had to put up with were sickening and disgusting. The women were regularly called names like "bitch," "cunt," and "whore," among others; there were incidents where these words were written on the walls of the women's locker room in human feces (and the women themselves were forced to clean it up); there was one incident where several men tipped over a Porta Potty with a woman inside; and not to mention the daily ass-grabbings and crude, suggestive comments. There was one scene in particular that moved me to tears, in which Josey attended a union meeting where the members were allowed to speak in front of everyone on the microphone if they so desired. Josey attempted to talk about what she and the other women in the mines had to go through daily, but the men hardly allowed her to speak. Instead, they harassed and heckled her, telling her to "get the fuck out of here." The few women that sat in the back remained silent, not making a single attempt to help her for fear that they, too, would have to put up with that same harassment.

It really infuriates me that things like this have happened and are still happening in our world today. How can people be so cruel and ignorant? Everyone should see this movie. Although it's about the sexual harassment of women, it's really a lot more than that - it represents all types of harassment, whether it be for gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, and so on. Incidents much like the ones portrayed in this movie occur every day, under the radar, usually going unnoticed. It's awful and inhumane. How can people treat others this way and genuinely believe that they are doing nothing wrong?

Another thing that this movie made me think of is how women are objectified in the media. I'm sure you hear this all of the time and are probably rolling your eyes because you're sick of it, but it's really true. Women are portrayed like slabs of meat, designed to cater to men's sexual needs, and it's disgusting. Think of the majority of rap music videos. Most of the visuals are nearly-naked and fully-oiled women in thongs and tiny bikini tops, shaking and gyrating to the music. Come on. This is teaching boys that it's okay to portray women in this manner and to think of them as merely sexual objects. It's completely unacceptable, and I can't believe women allow themselves to submit to this image. Some of them call it "female empowerment." Oh really, female empowerment means stripping down to nothing and shaking your ass in front of men so they can get off? Yeah, something is definitely wrong with that picture.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not conservative in any way. It's not like I'm against showing your ankles, wrists, or thighs and midriffs for that matter in public. Please. My cleavage has seen the light of day many, many times, so it would be pretty hypocritical of me to preach about how wrong it is. In short, until butt cheeks are involved I probably won't have a problem. Sexuality certainly isn't a bad thing, it's just when women are portrayed in a bad light the feminist side of me comes out and, well, I get pretty angry... as you can see.

While we're on the subject of sex (sort of), I bought a magazine, JANE, during my little excursion with Siobhan yesterday. While reading it after I got home, I was shocked (not in a bad way, mind you) to find several articles on sex (and not the whole "10 Ways to Please Your Man" garbage. Please. Can you really see me reading that crap?). Now, you have to understand that I have been reading girly teen magazines for years. I'm talking YM, CosmoGirl!, and Teen People girly teen magazines. I really don't see how I survived reading that crap for as long as I did. It is extremely taboo to discuss sex in those types of magazines (otherwise they will receive a slew of angry letters from the mothers of pre-teen readers), so usually as far as they go is your typical STD/STI info and answering questions like "omg what is this icky stuff in my undies?!" So you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon an article in JANE entitled "How to build a sex library." Finally, I have entered the world of mature magazines for women that discuss sex honestly and frankly. Thank god. (Granted, it's really for twenty-somethings, but I only have two and one-half years to go until I reach that age, which is close enough... right?) I am so subscribing to this magazine.

On a side note, I heard "Bom Bom Bom" by the Living Things again today on WAAF. Yeah, this is good, but can't they play any other good songs?

Check out this slice of genius.

Anyway, that's all for today. Ciao.

The general theme for today seems to be music

2006-02-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

Today was somewhat eventful. I went to the movies with my friend Siobhan, and we did a little bit of shopping afterwards. Because there really aren't any good movies out at the moment (i.e. Date Movie and Big Momma's House... what garbage), it took us a while to decide which movie we wanted to see. We narrowed it down to Firewall and Freedomland, and after flipping a coin for the final decision we found ourselves watching Freedomland. It was a decent movie; interesting, but somewhat confusing because of the many plot lines. Overall, I would probably only recommend it as a rental.

After the movie we went to Newbury Comics. I really wanted to spend a while in there, since it's one of my favorite stores and all, but I felt bad because I knew Siobhan didn't like the store much. Actually, she made it blatantly obvious before we even went inside by stating that the store scared her because it was "weird". So, we were in there for probably about five minutes, and I left with two new CDs: The Subways and The Von Bondies. I have listened to each album once so far and although I wasn't completely blown away, I was pretty impressed. Lately I have been listening to The Strokes' "First Impressions of Earth" a lot, so they do have a lot to live up to. That's a really good album. I really like "Electricityscape," surprisingly because it's heavier than the other songs, and "Vision of Division," because I can't resist drumming on my desk whenever I hear it. "You Only Live Once" is really good, too.

While we're on the subject of music, I have really been in love with Wolfmother lately. They're the kind of rock & roll that supposedly died years ago. It's really relieving to know that it is actually still possible to recreate the best music from the best era without completely screwing it up and making a mockery out of it (which is the fate of most of the recent bands that have attempted this). Wolfmother, I think, is flawless, and not only have they succeeded at recreating the best aspects of rock & roll, but they have added their own delicious spin on it as well (also, I absolutely love how they make a reference to Jimi Hendrix in "Dimension"). I have been stalking their MySpace profile for a while now, hoping maybe they'll decide to come to Boston (unlikely - I'm sure they would only do that if they were doing a national tour) but so far their only tour dates are a bunch in the UK and some at SXSW in Texas in March (which a whole lot of the bands I like are going to, especially The Rinse) as well as a couple on the west coast. They do seem to be growing in popularity quite quickly, though, especially after being featured in Filter Magazine (which is how I heard of them) so I'm hoping that a national US tour might not be too far off in the future. I would really love to buy their CD, but it costs about $27 because it's an import, and I'm really not willing to spend that much money on a CD, even if it is Wolfmother. I'm hoping it will be released in the US at a lower price soon. Until then, I'll have to deal with my low-quality mp3 files.

Speaking of tours, The Strokes are currently touring the US... and most of their shows have been sold out. According to their website they are coming to Boston on April 25th, but the tickets haven't gone on sale yet (the date is TBA). Whenever that may be, I'm sure I'll be speed-dialing Ticketmaster and refreshing the website simultaneously the very second the tickets go on sale.

On a side note, I caught the end of "Bom Bom Bom" by Living Things on WAAF today. Maybe there is hope for American radio after all.

Well, I think I've blabbed enough about music for one night. Adios.

My not-so-fabulous return

2006-02-22T18:39:00.000-05:00

So I guess this is my return to the blogging world. I can't say exactly what has sparked it... though I'm sure it has a lot to do with my latest obsession with Pink is the new Blog (though I won't be blogging about celebrity gossip). I've lost track of how many times I've created new blogs, only to abandon them again... and I'm sure that this blog won't be an exception. It's just a matter of time until I grow bored of blogging and decide to leave this blog floating along aimlessly through cyberspace until it's deleted by The Powers That Be. I do have to laugh at the absurdity of this new blog, especially the name. Pineapple? Come on. What was I thinking? Clearly this blog is destined to fail. I'll give it a month, tops.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be blogging about here. I suppose whatever crosses my mind while I'm bored and in a blogging mood. I can ensure you (wait... who exactly is "you," anyway? It's not like anyone will be reading this, at least on a regular basis) that each post will be utterly and completely random.

Last night I rediscovered the radio. I also remembered why I stopped listening to the radio in the first place: my taste in music is so wide yet so picky that I can never find a single radio station that I like, plus half of the music that I enjoy isn't even played on the radio. Anyhow, last night I remembered that I have a stereo in my room (even though I see it several times a day each day of my life). I turned it on and I was amazed by the beauteous noise it emitted, since the surround sound of the stereo is much more attractive than the boring concentrated sound from my computer (which I have been using for who knows how long, ever since I abandoned my stereo). I browsed through all of the radio stations and set nine that sounded somewhat appealing to my presets. After an hour or so of switching back and forth between all nine of my presets, I remembered why I stopped listening to the radio in the first place. It's really frustrating to go through all of your presets, listen to half of a good song, scroll through them again once it's done, listen to the last ten seconds of a good song, and so on and so forth. This is my radio experience. I did hear a few Led Zeppelin songs, which was fun, and I admit to dancing around my room to a few other good songs, but that's about it. The problem with the radio is that they don't play any good indie music, which is what I've been really into lately. The only kind of rock music they have is classic rock (which is good but annoying after a while) and hard rock (which is never good). I seldom hear a good song that is in neither one of those categories... for example, I heard The Strokes' "Last Night" and a few good Weezer songs. That was nice. But overall, the radio sucks, mainly because it is ruled by corporate America; namely rich CEOs that only care about making money off of brainless teens and tweens with awful taste in "music".

Anyway, to avoid launching into a rant that will get me nowhere, I should change subjects now. Simmons is cute. They called me today. Well, it was a sophomore asking if I had any questions. Since I only had 2.5 seconds (the longest time one can say "umm" without sounding like a complete airhead) to think up a decent question, I asked her about the freshman dorms... which is actually something I've been wondering about for a while. Of course, after I hung up I thought of a bunch more questions I could ask... i.e. the quality of the cafeteria food, popular classes, etc. Most importantly, I should have asked about the honors program. I have thought about applying, but I'm not sure if I'd want to do it. I think tomorrow I'm going to call and ask to speak to a student about it.

By the way, I am completely obsessed with my Simmons sweatshirt. I have worn it every single day since Saturday, and I plan on keeping it un-washed for as long as I possibly can... as gross as that sounds.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. I will probably blog again tomorrow (because I usually blog a whole lot the first week of having a new blog, and then after that I gradually forget about it). So, yes, see you (who?) then.