tada! two easy breezy beautiful kick ass playlists for your enjoyment: GET PUMPED (energetic and lol-worthy) and GET PISSED (quieter and epic). Some good shit people, if I do say so myself. ;]

GET PUMPED!
1. Boys and Girls Action - Craig Wedren & Eli Janney
To prepare myself for the premier of Michael and Michael Have Issues (which was AWESOME!!!) I began watching The State and this is the theme song.
2. Stella - Craig Wedren
Another show by the same group of people as the first two I've mentioned. I just love this theme song so much! It's dancey and awesome!
3. Martin Scorsese - King Missile
Everything King Missile does is hilarious and a great song but this one is particularly weird and cool.
4.Anal Seepage - Joel and Alex Veitch of rathergood.com
I don't really know, actually.
5. Everyone Nose - N.E.R.D.
Weird video, awesome song! I seriously can't help but dance whenever I hear this! It's got a cool horn + stand up bass thing going on. Plus any song with hand claps I like. And they're saying "A hundred dollar bills achoo! Achoo!" not "A jew! A jew!" fyi. XD
6. Gangster Tripping - Fatboy Slim
The most dancable Fatboy Slim song imo. It's really cool and funky.
7. Poison - Bell Biv DeVoe
Um, greatest song every? I rock out every time this plays. And I always think of the Scrubs scene with Turk dancing and lip syncing to it. SO GOOD.
8. American Boy - Estelle w/ Kanye West
I really love this song! It's so catchy though! This is one of the staple songs that get stuck in my head.
9. Calle Ocho - Pitbull
One of the few Top 40s songs I like but I really like this one. Lots of Spanish. You just have to dance to it! I dare you to listen to it and not sway.
10. New York Groove - Ace Frehley
I first heard this song at the ending of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and it's an instant foot bopper. Wow. I sound old and lame. >.> But it's a great song! Even it it's sung by the lead guitarist of KISS... but we can just ignore that fact and appreciate an awesome song, no? :D
11. Baro Foro - Gogol Bordello
The staple Gogol finale song that can go on for hours and I never get sick of it! This is a great example of how GB sounds. Great jumping music!
12. Is That All There Is? - Cristina
A weird waltzy turned bluesy rock song with a crazy narrated story.
13. Institutionalized - Suicidal Tendencies
My parents actually knew two members of Suicidal Tendencies when they lived in California. This is the song from Iron Man when Tony's working in his basement. This is perfect yelling angry music.
14. Fire - Crazy World of Arthur Brown
From the Hot Fuzz soundtrack, which automatically makes it awesome. You gotta burn baby burn, before you can earn baby earn.
15. *Bonus Track*
A little snippet from the ST audiobook narrated by ZQ!

get pissed!
1. Breathe Me - Sia
This is most famously from the series finale of Six Feet Under. Those images with this song NEVER ceases to make me bawl my eyes out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el4eUKmLujg It's a beautiful piano piece with a girl singer.
2. Open Your Eyes - Snow Patrol
This song is used in the finale of ER season 12 and the first episode of season 13, so it's a pretty powerful song to me. I love how it builds up.
3. Doomsday - BBC National Orchestra
From the Doctor Who soundtrack (series 3 i think). It's beautifully haunting and repetitive.
4. Freedom Fighters - Two Steps From Hell
This is the trailer music for the new Star Trek movie. It's a very epic sounding song!!
5. It's Not The Same - Yppah
I think this song is featured in Numb3rs. Another kind of darkish, haunting songs and I really love it. It's electronic and drums.
6. Fingers To Fist - BIG A little a
The first few minutes are just xylophones or something, very fast, very cool. Then there's this chanting part. I just think this song is pretty wicked.
7. Teardrop - Jose Gonzales
This is an acoustic cover of the House theme song! It's very lovely. His voice is great.
8. Tokyo - The Books
I remember seeing an MTW know HIV/AIDS commercial with this song in it and the song just captivated me so I hunted it down and discovered an amazing and unique band with The Books. This song has a cool electronic repetitive riff played under like a Japanese air flight attendant.
9. Something Grown Together - The Flobots
By the band that brought us the Handlebars song. This song is simpler, only a sweet bass line, drums, and the guy. This is the kind of rap I like a lot.
10. The Tarantino Mix - Eclectic Method
You should watch the video this is from first! http://www.vimeo.com/4368246?pg=embed&sec=&hd=1 It's from a video mash up of all Quentin Tarantino film. They take every single sword fight swish, record player sound, gunshot... and play them all together and make a remix. There also notable monologues played over select soundtrack songs. The robbery scene from Pulp Fiction with the Kill Bill sword fights is my favorite part. This song is fucking wicked.
11. Mysterious Bruises - Art Brut
Me and my dad's favorite new song lol. It really relates to me though; i bruise super easily and often find myself with mysterious bruises. This song is fairly epic, wholly awesome, and has some great lyrics.
12. Superstar - Lupe Fiasco
This song is so earnest and cool! It's just him and a guitar. His voice is amaaaazing! <3
13. Friends - Flight of the Conchords
It's from FotC so you know it's awesome! An acapella jam that's fun to attempt to sing along with.
14. *Bonus Track*
Another bit of ZQ goodness!

Just got back from HP6 and yes, it was very very good.
However, it was so X-Men! The pheonix over the water at the end, the sabretooth looking guy in the field, and the ENTIRE scene with Dumbledore and Tom just screamed Magneto/Xavier mutant arguing. My mom's the one who turned to me and whispered that "this is so X-Men" actually. But it's ok. I like both movies. (X-Men is WAYYYYY better, duh, of course. NO argument.)

I feel like making a mixtape or playlist or something to post here, just because I love sharing music and I've gotten some awesome new stuff lately. Now, it's not going to be the highest quality shit, but the stuff I can't stop listening to, my pump up music or something. I'll get on it!

also, this icon is relevant to my interests:

I rode my bike to Meijer today to drop of the three rolls of film from the OBX because it is so fucking nice outside! Sunny, breezy, this is perfect mid west weather. Then I went over to Panera to get a drink and I saw Andy Pickle, Olivia Bullock, and her little brother. We talked for a while about porn museums in England and Malcolm X. Those kids are reaaallly smart. Speaking of, Toby is at Stanford right now taking a course about nuclear physics! No joke! That kid's only going to be a junior! wtfff. Oh, we also found out that me and mini-Bullock have the same birthday! Along with Malcolm X, Andre the Giant (which he took great pleasure in learning), Brandon Inge, and Pol Pot. ;P

Here's awesome for me:
Riding my bike home on a perfect weather day listening to The State's theme song too loudly. Yes. :]

revel in this puppy's greatness
i listen to this and the Stella theme on repeat.

I've started watching Star Trek The Original Series! Tonight I watched some classics: Amok Time and I, Mudd and they were fantastically hilariously awesome! Sam watched the part in I, Mudd where everyone goes crazy with the silent music and imaginary bomb and we were both cracking up. And the part in Amok Time with emotional outburst!Spock, I think I actually squeed!! <3 That scene is too cute.


My sand U.S.S. Enterprise! :D

Also, I love it when comedians crack up live or unplanned. John Stewart laughs sometimes during the "senior correspondent" pieces and Colbert sometimes breaks character. I'm listening to Demetri Martin's Personal Information Waltz and when Will Forte starts singing Demetri just cracks up! awww :]





bonus points if you've seen the colbert banana video! best character break ever! it's so funny when they "mess up" :]

my new favorite omegle conversation starter is to use the random article on wikipedia and pre-type a sentence about the article.

You: Did you know that the first mayor of Montogmery, Alabama was Samuel D. Holt in 1838?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

some people just don't understand! i'm bringing you the gift of knowledge and you just leave me?! :P If I get a school, I'm also like
You: Do you go to Brighton High School in Rochester, New York?
Stranger: no
You: Oh, me neither.

In more coherent news, yesterday was Andrea's 18th birthday! We saw Brüno (lolololololololol) and went to Red Lobster and had cake at her house. Along the way, we stopped by Kroger and completely on a whim, I bought Loreal box hair dye because it was on sale for $1. Then me, Andrea, and Sarah went to my house and we dyed my hair! I was getting sick of my boring plain brown and I've been itching to go back to red (or at least have something closer to red XD) sooo:

from this:


to......


JK JK JK not that red. this is box dye, people. XD

( Read more... )

I'm home! And I already wish I was back in North Carolina. Or Germany. But hey, what's new? XD
Driving was fine. I finally got the chance to watch all the short films I've bought on my iPod. Die Ausreisser, Spielzeug Land, Dimmer, Six Shooter, In God We Trust, Consent, and Taking the Wheel (with John Cleese! <3). Short films are my new favorite medium! God, every one of them has the most brilliant and often haunting twist at the end! Plus, they help refresh my German. I'm also loving Arrested Development!

Last night we stayed at some hotel and ran around outside sprinting across the street for a while deciding which restaurant to pick up food from. :] Then me and Sam swam until 11 pm and then watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This morning we watched the Lindsey Lohan Parent Trap haha. So after driving for a billion hours, we stopped in Monroeville, Pennsylvania at a rest stop and I was just chilling outside by our car and I fucking saw a car crash! This pick up truck was turning right while a sedan was turning left and they just collided. The truck flew 3 feet into the air and when it hit the ground it was so loud, i thought something had exploded or something! Immediately all these people from the gas station we were at ran up to the cars but they couldn't get the car's doors open so a guy used a sledge hammer to break open a back window and he jumped right in there and came out holding a baby! It took a good while late for the EMTs to force the driver's door open and get the woman out and everything. It was pretty fucking scary. I was too nervous to drive for a while after that! Like, damn, it was so close! 100 ft. away, maybe.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. I got home and pretty much immediately went over to Andrea's house. I brought some Yum Yum's and we talked and watched tear-jerking RENT documentaries about Jonathan Larson ;___; But now everything's calmed down. I have shit tons of laundry to do tomorrow though. >.>

things to look forward to despite leaving the Outer Banks:
•developing pics of OBX
• Cleveland for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Tigers vs. Indians game
• Orientation at Wisconsin!

oh yes, also, i got the major injury of the week! usually it's jessica's dad, steve. he's always burning himself or some shit. but i got this massive gash on my right leg from cutting it on a random metal spike nail thing on the stairs in the pool :(


This pic is a few days old. Now there's some seriously huge bruising around both sides (i bruise super dooper easily) and i have band aid tan!
But it's all good! I'm a little burnt. And sorry all these are super crappy photos, I only have my iSight!

The Outer Banks has been awesome. I'm a little bit tanner and hopefully it won't fade within 1 day back in Ohio. Last night was so much fun. Us four kids chilled all night while the parents went out separately. First we went to a Chinese restaurant and Sam actually ate Sesame chicken! (he had a pb&j too though XD). We ate right across the street from the house we stayed at last year. We chilled in the Dollar Store for a little bit and bought 4 bottles of Silly String. Then we saw Ice Age 3. Now, I haven't seen either of the previous two but it's got John Leguizamo voicing a character and Ryder and Sam wanted to see it, so we did, and maybe it's because I just saw Transformers 2 and it was the most god awful movie ever, but Ice Age was AMAZING. It was the shit! There were enough "adult" jokes that me and Jessica thought it was actually really funny and it turns out GQMF Simon Pegg a.k.a. Shaun of the Dead a.k.a. Scotty a.k.a. my love was in it too! So yeah, I loved the movie a LOT and I kinda want to see the previous two as well now.

Then I drove us over to the Putt Putt place that we went a few nights ago for Go Karting. We go to that same place every single year. :] Then Sam and Ryder paid for Putt Putting but we found a random club in the bushes I used a hunk of bark and we played putt putt with four people, three stick, and two balls. Much fun. ^^ We were trailed by this foreign couple and I really thought they might be German but they were definitely speaking French. Pooey. :P After ditching the found golf club back in some bushes, we played quarter gambling sliding games for sooo long. It was awesome, if hopelessly money consuming. Sam started with a dollar and got to a point where he had 15 quarters! But of course we spent all of it back into the machine. XI We got home at 11 and the parents were already home. Haha, lame-o's.

Yesterday during the day, we built the biggest "sand castle" we've ever built. There was this humongous hole and wall and shell covered mound. I was looking at it from the front and I see this flat curved wall with a pit behind it and people sitting behind that and all I see is

so, of course, I name our fort and carve "U.S.S. Enterprise" into the front! My inner geek was flipping shit, I was so excited! I took a couple of pictures. I'm so happy XD

But tonight's our last night and I'm bummed about leaving. This is such an awesome place the visit/live, everyone should try to go to the Outer Banks some time in their life! There's been plenty of billiard games, pool wrestling, body surfing, and tons of new inside jokes. Numb nuts, ear fly, karaoke, catch phrase, Jeremy, sno cone lady, Marie Claire, hot tub... I love hanging out with these people! So much fun, so much laughing, such nice weather! ..If very shotty internet XD

In other news, my dad...isn't quite on the Broadway boat yet:
*I'm listening to Nine People's Favorite Things from [tos]*
Dad: "I want more Passing Strange! That's my new favorite, more than 'This Show has no Title'."
Me: "It's [title of show]!"
Dad: "Look, I don't claim to be a musical theatre officianado! I didn't like musicals at all before you got into it. Now i find myself humming Oklahoma often! Marian the Librarian, that's an awesome tune."
Me: "That's the Music Man, dad."
Dad: "Oh, yeah, Music Man, now that's a show worthy of the name!"

Oh yeah, I don't have a camera and me and Sam were bored driving to we took some pictures with my iSight on my lappy toppy:

Alright, after two days of driving, I'm finally in our beach house in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Firstly, our house is AMAZING. Me and Jess' room has a door connecting directly to the hot tub. There's decks on every floor and stairs to every deck. We have a sweet pool and, of course, a private path straight to the ocean, which is about 100 feet away! :) I love hanging out with the gang so much! This year it's Emily, Dave, Ryder, Lori, Steve, Jessica, and my family again. Ten coolest Jews you know! XD

We're staying in Frisco this year. The ocean is PERFECT! Yesterday, the temp. was 89º and the water was 81º! so nice! As soon as we got to the house, all the kids just ran to the ocean and chilled for a couple of hours. Last night, the four of us kids played truth or dare and it was so fucking hilarious! Jess got into a fridge, sam put pool balls in his pants, Ryder licked said pool balls, I put my hand in a toilet.. XD I've missed these guys!

Oh yeah, we drove 15 minutes to the next city, Avon, for food, a live band, and THE best fireworks I've ever seen in my life! They launched them from the pier and everybody sat on the beach and they were HUGE and exploding directly over our head and they lasted for an hour. It was definitely two guys just lighting a bunch, running away, pause, lighting some more, repeat. But the finale, oh my god, there were so many fucking fireworks so fast so loud so awesome! Me and Jess stand by our idea that one launched too low and ignited ALL THE FUCKING THINGS at once and that's what happened. It was crazy cool though!

Now, I'm just gonna go head to the beach and get less white. :]

So, I just spent a bajillion hours compiling all these old photos of myself for madradhair because I've been growing my hair out for four years now and I have NO idea what to do with it! I can't stand boring hair on me ugh. But yeah, might as well post it here and put it all here too because I can XD

It's very picture heavy. Pretty much me throughout 4/5 years, 2005-2009.


( suddenly... there is change! )

Alright, I did it! I am a high school graduate. :]
The ceremony wasn't too bad; I sat next to four of the funniest kids in our class so it was tolerable. Except for that damn stink bomb! Thanks guys, really. I sat on the isle so definitely got a whiff of that crap, yuck. XI But yeah, diploma with honors, and I got to wear the National Honors Society cord, I feel accomplished. :)

So it's grad party season of course. I got invited to over 30. I think a lot of kids just invited their entire facebook friends lists because some of these kids I haven't talked to in years or just flat out don't like! I've already gone to 8, had my own, then a 4-way party tonight that I'm only going for Louisa, then Cody's for Fight Club later tonight, and Ding's going away party tomorrow. I can't wait til these are over! I just want to go to the Outer Banks! It's weird, this will probably be our last OBX vacation with the gang, because three of us kids are going to college this year. hmm, it's freaking hard to believe.. But yeah, my grad party was so much fun! It was awesome to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a while. Everything was great. ^^

The Red Cross called today, all "Rayna we LOVEEE you so much! Donate blood tomorrow." So Kiley's driving me because I have no car to give blood at 6:45 tomorrow afternoon. I hope it goes just like the blood drive at school, because that was NOTHING. As soon as they were done I hopped up and ran around. I was fine! So today and tomorrow I'm just drinking water like it's my job. :]

Oh, I've recently because re-obsessed with Star Trek, thanks greatest to the amazing newest movie. I'm even watching The Original Series, which I never thought possible given my infaturation with The Next Generation! Who woulda thunk it?

• If people only like Liza out of respect as my mom says then why did she win the Tony? GRR go Will Ferrell!
• The performances on this show have officially made me afriad/disgusted with Shrek the Musical and Rock of Ages. yuck.
• But it's not like I don't like that kind of show! I am in LOVE with We Will Rock You! ..At least, when I saw it in Germany :]
• ALSO I am very very very sad that [title of show] lost out to Billy stupid Elliot for best book! ilu Hunter!
• ok, i'm trying, but even after watching these performances, i just can't get into Guys & Dolls or West Side Story! Don't sue me but I really think new Broadway is SO much better than old! (i'm trying i swear!)
• SIDE NOTE: during commercials, I'm watching Stand By Me. oh, wittle Wil Wheaton! <3 <3 <3 but so :( :( :(
• Aha, major mike mess-up during the Guys and Dolls performance! *sigh* just like high school!
• EEEEEEEEE john stamos is presenting and since he'll soon be in BBB they played Put On a Happy Face! just like high school! *tear* also, fyi, i totes got that "who's the celeb in the hs picture" question. go me!
• ;__; Gregory Jbara's acceptance speech is so touching!
• Wooo Karen Olivio!!!
• Holy F i love Next to Normal! even if i like Feeling Electric more :] haha, the lady who introduced their song! XD but god, best performance of the night!! And is just me, or are they playing the song way slower than normal? oh, who am I kidding, nobody here probably knows what I'm talking about :(
• hee hee it makes me more happy than it should that i'm leading a bunch of discussions on the broadwaysecrets Tony discussion page! i finally know my stuff ^___^
• ahaha NPH! i c wat u did thar! with the sushi joke. hahaha
• oh man, the in memoriam ;_____;
• ...hmm maybe. i do kind of want to see Billy Elliot...hehehe
• Are they playing Rosie as background music? whaaat? :)
• Do we really need this Legally Blonde number? Especially when there's so many other shows I'd like to see, so, could tolerate seeing! ugh.
• holy shit! that guys voice! shit, son!
• Hair won, alright alright.
• I didn't win the Tony photo contest, but Alice Ripley did win for N2N so I'm appeased!
• aw damn, the Billys are too cute! and irish lol
• Jersey Boys always makes me lol, idk warum.
• Well, in the end, my bbs N2N and [tos] didn't win. *sniff*

end of show! ..woah, i wrote a lot. sorry XD i missed the Tony's last year b/c of Germany and that's when I REALLY wanted to see them. this year was very enjoyable, despite the tech problems :)

Nero: I WANT SPOCK TAKEN OUT RIGHT NOW!
Andrea: I want Spock taken out right now too!
Me: I want to take Spock out right now. If you know what I mean. ;)

I just saw Star Trek with Dre, Sarah, and Alex and it was awesome. AWESOME. I enjoyed it as a Star Trek movie and just a plain movie. Simon Pegg was hilarious, Zachary Quinto was perfect, I didn't mind the Leonard Nimoy cameo, it was a super great movie. Except for Andrea fake puking every time Spock came on screen because she only like Chris Pine Kirk, the character. PSHYARITE XD

But my friends are so great. A bunch of people came over this afternoon and we played cornhole and did crosswords and watched Clerks. I got a Spock glass, a Yum Yum gift certificate (lol! yay), a Watchmen poster, some wicked yellow sunglasses, an Iron Man pillow that plays your iPod (which I'm using right now :] ), iTunes gift card, and some makeup. <3

I just got a Macbook for my 18th birthday! (which is technically tomorrow :] )
That new computer smell... *sniff*
I'm in love. Not sure what I'm naming it yet. But it's beautiful!
I'm fucking happy as shit. I'm pretty much done with all the hard stuff about high school! All that's left is presenting the projects I lost so much sleep over this weekend. But all is swell!

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 11200

How many hours or days of music: 29 days, 15 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds total time.

Most recently played: "Open Your Eyes" from Feeling Electric

Most played: "In The Waiting Line" by Zero 7

Most recently added: "Sore Arms" by Break of Reality

Sort by song title

First Song: "A-N-N-A" by Freundeskreis

Last Song: "->" by Final Fantasy

Sort by time

Shortest Song: “I Feel Like Myself" from Were the World Mine (0:06). It's spoken. Shortest song with music: "Untitled" by The Residents, "Mysteries Of The Universe Unraveled" by Man Man, and "Sing!" from Were the World Mine, all (0:09). Also, I just want to mention "Horrible Theme" from Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog (0:10). Because I can. ;P

Longest Song: I have an audiobook, "Without You" by Anthony Rapp (1:27:06). But the longest song song, is "Pulse Sections-I-X-Pulse" by Steve Reich (56:31) and "Black Spider 2" by Mogwai (30:27). Those are some long ass songs!

Sort by album

First album: ABBA - Gold - Greatest Hits

Last album: !!!

First song that comes up on Shuffle: "Kids" from Bye Bye Birdie (omg, how weird is it that THIS song came up? XD)

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 77
Life - 115
Love - 471
Hate - 36 (But most of it was an Arctic Monkeys album with "Whatever" in the title)
You - 1008 (woah)
Sex - 48

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/xgelvw
1. Commentary
2. Strike
3.10 Dollar Solo
4. Better (Than Neil)
5. It's All About the Art
6. Zach's Flavour
7. Nobody's Wants To Be Moist
8. Ninja Ropes
9. All About Me
10. Nobody's Asian in the Movies
11. Heart, Broken
12. Neil's Turn
13. Commentary (Reprise)
14. Steve's Song

I ripped the audio from youtube videos for all of these because there's no CD available of Commentary, the Musical! from Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog yet and I NEEDED to listen to it! So yeah, I've you've seen DHSAB, then this is a must have. They all just make fun of each other while singing amazingly awesome songs. Perfect! :] I especially love Better Then Neil, Zach's Flavour, Nobody Wants to be Moise, Ninja Robes, and Neil's Turn. ^__^

Yeah, I can't stop listening to this, Tunak Tunak Tun, Break of Reality, and Fairytale by Alexander Rybak. I'll upload a playlist as soon as I'm finished with my Existentialism in Monty Python project for philosophy!

Pick an artist and fill in the blanks with clever song titles by that artist

My Artist:
Cake
Are you male or female:
Pretty Pink Ribbon
Describe yourself:
Rock'n'Roll Lifestyle
How do you feel about yourself?
Tougher Than It Is
Describe where you currently live:
Ain't No Good
If you could go anywhere you wanted to go:
Arco Arena or Alpha Beta Parking Lot
Your favorite form of transportation:
Long Line of Cars or Walk On By or Convoy
Your best friends are:
Up So Close
What's the weather like:
Carbon Monoxide
Favorite time of day:
Strangers In The Night
If your life were a TV show, what would it be called:
Thrills or Open Book
What is life to you:
Haze of Love or The Distance
What is the best advice you have to give:
Commissioning A Symphony in C
If you could change your name, what would it be:
Daria or Jolene or Ruby Sees All or
Your favorite food is:
Mr. Mastodon Farm
Thought for the day:
Where Would I Be?
I would like to die:
When You Sleep or Comfort Eagle
My soul's present condition:
Waiting or Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
My heart's present condition:
Is This Love? or Multiply The Heartaches
My mind's present condition:
Never There
The faults I can bear:
Sad Songs and Waltzes or Shadow Stabbing
My motto:
I Will Survive or Never Never Gonna Give You Up or No Phone
My favorite color is:
Cool Blue Reason

It might be because it's 12:30 and i'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally tired, but i'm crying because of this:

Alright people. This is the beginning of some major (good) life changes for me so I felt the need to update!

• I am going to attend the University of Wisconsin - Madison this fall. I'm really excited. I'll be going the farthest away from Toledo than any of my friends, but Sarah will be at Valpo and Dylan will be at University of Chicago, so we can have Chicago weekend trips. I'm also the only person from my high school going there, so it will be an entirely fresh start. As much as I love my neighborhood and high school, I'm hugely nervously excited and looking forward to the new environment and living on a lake in a capitol city!

• Graduation is in 6 weeks. Holy shit! I've already been invited to 12 grad parties and I've got mine to plan as well. Some of my family from Chicago is coming here for my graduation, so i'm really excited. But this time also means I've officially got "second-semester senioritis." oh well. :D

• I went to Florida for Spring Break with Andrea and it was so much fun. We stayed at her dad's house and got to use his super fancy Audi all week :] I met her Colombian family and they were so cute and funny trying to ask me questions in English!

• I'm going to prom with Dylan. Today I spent 4 and a half hours at the mall (!) and got a mani/pedi, kicking red and white high heels, a new bra, mascara, and eye shadow, so I'm completely ready :] And then the day of next Saturday, I'm going to Backstage to get my hair done. Then pictures at the Toledo Museum of Art, Prom at the Toledo Zoo, and Afterprom at Southview. I love all the kids at my table (Nora, Toby, Dylan, Sarah, Kiley, Alex, and Steve) and I'm a little glad we're escaping the potential drama kids so it'll be a really fun night. I just hope Andrea still hangs out with us!

• I saw Toni Morrison and UT last night. Overall, her speech was good. I really liked the beginning when she talked about her books and the decade they're set in, and the end when she talked about art and poetry. But pretty much her entire speech was about the war and change and fuel sources and it just really frustrated me! I GET IT. I try to watch the news everyday. I read the newspaper. I read stuff online. I watch pundits. I take government class. I'm politically active. I volunteer. I went to see a Nobel Prize winner of Literature speak. Do you think I wanted to hear about literature? YES. I didn't want to hear 20 minutes of preaching to the choir shit. She didn't say anything I didn't already know or agree with.
I know that she's 78 years old, so I understand that in her shoes, time is of the essence, we need change now, that's what's important to her. And I'm sure I was only really made because I'm reading Tuesdays with Morrie right now so I've got that whole dying person's philosophy angle and in philosophy class we're learning about fearing death/life after death, so her speech was just like, ugh, triple whammy!
But yeah, hey, extra credit for English class that I don't even need.

• I'm Mrs. Merkel/chorus in Bye Bye Birdie, which is less than two weeks? oh my god. right. we'll keep working on that. XD