Monday, January 25, 2010

A Predicament for Pondering

So I notice I have the issue of not updating my blog often enough. I used to a lot, but I'm not all sure what to write about for everybody to enjoy. I could just babble on tons of stuff if my friends were the main readers of this blog...hmmmmm...I guess I do have some updates though.
I celebrated five birthdays last week. Monday: Kira's Party, Tuesday: Edgar Allen Poe's Birthday (which I celebrated by finishing the creepy story I ACCIDENTALLY created. I'm not sure of a good title, though. I would put Elizabeth, but that's too plain. And I wouldn't want to call it "Practice makes Perfect" though it would totally fit the story, because then I would be afraid to practice the piano! Maybe I'll email it if you want to read it, as long as you don't think of me differently because of it, and you could help me with a title.), Thursday: Dom's little brother's birthday, which I didn't really celebrate, but found out about.
Friday and Saturday were the best days. Friday was Teya's astronomically amazing themed party! I learned a really fun new game there that would be cool to use later on for prompts and fun with Karlee or whatnot. She had a bunch of random playmobil characters in funny orders. A flaming haired man on a unicicle, a man in a catapult, a girl with coconut tree hair, a king riding a horse backwards, a queen in a rowboat with a pelican...you get the idea. And you had to write a short story to go with them. Fun fun fun! Except...my story...hehehe...very full of inside jokes and embarrassing on my case, though it made my friends laugh! :)
Saturday was Maddie's Murder Mystery birthday. Hehehe, so fun. We were assigned a character and had to come dressed up as them in late 1800's style. I was Jamie Ann Magillicutee (hope I spelled it write), the guy who died's publisher who was originally from Scotland. Whoo! After solving the case with clues, we played Miller's Hollow, which is like the murder game mafia to the max! Funnest ever!

I guess I have a few more updates...we started a section on the Holocaust in English, a very depressing yet extremely interesting topic. Because of this, I am reading one of Mom's book club books, the Hiding Place, a true story about a Jewish family from Holland. So far so good on that.
Another interesting school thing I thought I would be really bored with...we've just finished the Constitution Section in History, and all that three branches of Government stuff I thought I hated, and now we're actually carefully reading the Constitution little by little to fill in not word for word blanks in a packet we have on the different articles and sections and what they address to help us get an understanding of what they say. I am actually finding it VERY interesting, and along with other things we are learning about government and such, it will probably help me understand the crisis in America better. Who would have ever guessed I would enjoy this topic?!

Let's see, what else? Odyssey of the Mind is going well...hmmm...well, Wednesday is Fugal's Reader's Feast (Mrs. Fugal, our Principal's monthly book club where you go in and discuss it it a really comfy lounge in the office and eat food during lunch and they give you extra food), I guess I'll fill you in on that later. I'm excited to discuss the book. It's one my sixth grade teacher read to us and I ended up reading to Mom, "The Wednesday Wars!" Best book ever! I'll give you the scoop soon!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Tribute To Drama

Sadly, ever so sadly, Drama class has come to an end. I wish it were year-round instead of a semester. I am EXTREMELY sad, because we would always go to the auditorium, and have TONS of fun! I looked forward to that every day, literally. So, as a tribute to properly say goodbye, I'm going to write down ten of the best memories from that class, however hard it may be to choose favorites!

10. Freeze Tag: This is a really fun drama game that we only played a few times in class, but is great for parties with friends! Everyone LOVES it! Two people start a scene, and after at least 30 seconds, someone can say FREEZE, and they have to stop where they are. Then the person comes up and takes one of their places, and starts a completely different scene from where they're posed at the moment. SO FUN! I also learned how to play a different, though not as fun version of it called "Hitchhiker."

9. Burger King Whopper Commercial: This experience was interestingly pleasurable, but not necessarily rewarding. Four of us had free time because we had already performed something and everyone else was rehearsing to perform it that day, so we made a weird skit for fun. It was basically about a news reporter trying to make a commercial in third world countries for the whopper, along with some VERY interesting translators, camera men, and foreigners who despised the burger and began to drive the reporter insane. It wouldn't make ANY sense unless you had seen it. Well, one time while our teacher, Mr. Stokoe was grading papers and we had free time, one of my friends asked if we could perform it, much to the distaste of the rest of us, and it was a total disaster. Everyone thought it was stupid besides, but still...it wasn't really all that humiliating, just not good quality. Very...interesting...

8. The Princess and the Pea Monologue: This wasn't as fun as most because it was a lone project, but we got to choose from among Mr. Stokoe's variety of monologues, and perform them. The funnest part about this was really practicing for each other. I hang out with all of the drama kids, which are the people that Stokoe likes best and always chooses to be in the plays. He just trusts them because he knows they can make chemistry together. While practicing, they gave me great advice that I can use later on. I sure love those guys!

7. The Love Pentagon Plus Two Segments Skit: This skit had to involve Courtship and Marriage, and we made a story with a king and queen, and their two sons' very soap opera-ish and difficult love lives. The king and queen were considered one segment in the namesake, and I was another attaching to one of the guys. This was how it worked (it makes this a lot easier if I use the names of the people even though you don't know them, hope you don't mind.) Colin divorced his wife Sydney who still loves him, and she gets betrothed to his younger brother Josh, who likes her. Maddie gets betrothed to Colin, who likes her. She pretends to like Josh, but then decides to go with Colin anyway because they both have money. When Colin finds out, he remembers he still loves Sydney, and saves her from getting married to Josh. That's when I, the poor peasant girl who is obsessed with Josh gets to marry him. Maddie, being the cheater she is...ends up with no one. Strange, right? It still gave us pleasure for the time...

6. Working with "Oh": For this, we got into groups and had to make seven different skits and we could say only the sound, "Oh" (or at least that was the sound for our group). I'm trying to remember all that we made. I'll try to list them:
The one boy in our group trying to flirt with us
The girls trying to flirt with the boy
Children excitingly raising their hands in a class (you know, "Oh! Oh! OH!!!!")
Riding a rollercoaster that kept going up and down, in which at the end Jacob and I who were in the front got thrown up on and shouted "OHHHH!" in disgust.
Accidentally running a person over and trying to give her CPR, and crying in despair when it didn't work...hehehe...
And last but not least...the coolest...singing Viva la Vida as a band! (you know their chorusey thingey ohohohohoh...ohohohohoh...it's hard to describe unless you've heard the song. It was awesome!)

5. Lip Sync Song: This also was a lone project. But it was really fun to rehearse. We got to dress up and lip sing to a song of our choice. I couldn't find anything suitable except for Popular from Wicked. But it was really fun to dance and do actions to it!

4. Red: This was a skit we got to do on Halloween day, in our costumes. It was AWESOME! We were at a psycho hospital, where we each had a different ability. The doctor narrated, going into each of our rooms one by one to get to know us. Jacob was Xavier (But went by X, like in germ-x), the germophobic, Teya was a girl who thought she was a witch with almighty powers, I was the girl obsessed with flowers, Maddie was the girl obsessed with glitter, Sydney was known as Emmy the emotional who had freaky mood swings and a creepy laugh, and last but not least, the girl who worshiped colors. This is where the title comes in. She had all the colors except for red, and she needed to get it somehow, which obviously ended up being...of course...killing people. When the doctor found out that Emmy and color girl (aka, Taylor) had escaped, she was the first one to die. Every time Taylor killed someone, she put a little more "red" (fake blood) on her cheeks. Then one by one she killed us all. Througout all of it, we had the lights off and a flashlight for spotlights. And Stokoe had some red lights which we turned off once someone died. Cool effect. And Sydney/Emmy who had escaped always did her freaky laugh behind someone in the audience. Funniest thing ever! When finally she killed Emmy, she could still hear the laughter and it drove her crazy, so she killed herself. It sounds gruesome, but it was a really fun skit. What was the funniest part was that Taylor couldn't get the facepaint off for over twenty minutes!

3. Fighting Scene: This one also sounds odd, but was defenitely a fun one. We had been learning lots of fake fighting stunts in class (best things EVER) and we had to make a fighting scene out of it. My partner was my new a growing friendship pal, Tanner (Sheide, not the other Tanner who's my friend!). Ours had the most dialogue, and Stokoe really liked it and said it added to our characters. FUN FUN!

2. Shakespeare Scenes: For this one, we had to get with partners, and choose one of Mr. Stokoe's scenes for drama depending on what gender our partner was (aka: 2 girls, 2 boys, 1 girl 1 boy). My partner was my friend Chase. We hadn't really been too much of friends before then, but we sit kind of close together, and he had started to try and talk to me. He's a way cool guy. Anyway, we chose Act 2 Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hehehe...the script was in a packet that already had actions to go with it, and Stokoe watched our scene to give us tips on how to perfect how we did them. Interesting movements for me...I was Helena and Chase was Demetrius. It was the part where he was trying to find Hermia, and Helena follows him and expresses her extreme almost obsessive love. Let's just say my actions involved head-bonking, leg pulling, leg grabbing, tripping and so forth. We were teased for it a ton...well, actually the mostly watched people who rehearsed by others who always goofed off. I think that's actually what got Tanner and I talking, because he always teased Chase since he would get all red and defensive when he fake-teased us. Ah...good times, good times. I still think I have the whole thing memorized, Chase's lines and everything! "I love thee not, therefore pursue me not..."

1. America's Got Talent: This was a quick skit we did on the very last day. Even though a lot of other skits had probably been more memorable, this one was just hilarious! I hope you don't mind I just use names again even though some of you don't know these people. I was the host, Zoe and Chase were judges, that when falling asleep, I had to wake up...funny funny...Maddie had a staring contest with someone. Hayden did beat boxing. Melissa and Sarah did a duet. And...this one was the funniest of all! Tanner's bird calls! He was a shy nerdy character that did a bunch of random calls, that kept us even in the show bursting out laughing, however hard we tried not to. The funniest was when he said, "Okay Grandma, this last one's for you. This is my impersonation of the flamingo." Then he stood on one foot, pretended to flap wings and made the most hideous noise ever. I almost fell to the floor. Later when our skit was over, we heard the Mr. Stokoe had been crying he was laughing so hard, which is REALLY saying something for him. SO FUNNY! Now Tanner is officially Bird Man.

Hope you enjoyed and weren't too bored by my long but beautiful-to-me memories. It will surely take me lots of time to recover, but I look forward to using drama as just fun with friends, or for other purposes later on. I've developed an extra strong love for it this year. Love you all, hopefully I'll write soon!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Whoa!

Wow, has it really been over a month since I last posted?! Ah! Well, I'm kind of busy tonight, and who knows what the last week of the semester will bring me homework and studying-wise! Well, Christmas and New Year's stuff will eventually come! But since it will take so long, I'm too lazy.

Sadly, I haven't written in Charm at all this entire Christmas holiday. Mostly because family was over, and my break was shorter than usual. Unlike last year when there was NOTHING to do at Grandma's house so I always had my flash drive around my neck and sat on the couch with Dad's laptop, writing over 10,000 words that holiday. Sigh, maybe someday.

Merlin Season 2 has drawn to a close, but since there's still plenty more to the legend, especially on Morgana's part, it's certain there will be a third season, and it is said to come out in September instead of last year's November. Whoo!

Also, I have finally gotten my friend to watch Lord of the Rings (she has no more excuses now that she's finished Merlin) and she REALLY did not like it. I guess it's too depressing and fantasy violent for her. Oh well...let's see if I can force her through them. The end is definitely worth it. I cry every time. But ever since then (and plus the fact that I got all three movie soundtracks for Christmas)I have really been in a Lord of the Rings mood. I've been wanting to re-read them, because I just read them to be able to watch the movies, and now I actually want to remember the stuff I read. Plus, in the back of the last one, there are a thousand appendixes with all sorts of cool information. I think I've already written about that. I could seriously learn all of the dialects of elvish from that thing! Which is why, if I can find the first one somewhere (Stephen threw ours away :p)I want to reread them, and then be a nerd and go through all the appendixes. It will probably actually be a lot of fun!

I've also started one big roleplay with a few friends over email. It's a sci-fi/fantasy mix on a different planet. Whoo...

I'm struggling to think of other news besides Christmas and New Year's as you can probably tell, so I should probably head off. Until next time...

Laura <3