Because all the worlds a stage ... and we rock it!

Clocks

2010-05-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

It's funny how clocks seem to run in the oddest ways. Sometimes it feels like they've stopped and will never continue on, leaving you stuck where you are for years and years. Then, you turn away for just a moment, and they spin out of control so that when you turn back, it's all over.

That's how my second semester of college felt. Looking back, it's astounding how much I accomplished. This semester included...

The hardest musical I've ever been a part of. West Side Story (we choreographed the entire thing in under a week. Yeah. Ouch)

(sadly, this is the only picture I have of me from A Bad Year for Tomatoes. Good picture, huh?)

My first full out teching experience (can I tell you how cool I feel on headset?)

A trip to California with some friends (Disneyland. Need I say more?)

And the most random and fun things you could ever imagine (Super Hero Stomp, Masqurade Ball, Guy's Night Out, Eccentric Dress Mondays, Freedom from Footwear Fridays, Everybody Switch Pants Day, etc.)

But, by far, the best part of this semester was the hilarious people I'm friends with. Every night we spent together was full of stuff that just wouldn't work in other groups of people. And I loved every minute. It breaks my heart to think of all the people who are leaving Snow College behind.

Some are graduating...

And some are off to serve the Lord.

But I know I'll have a great time with those who are staying next year.

But while the clocks speed ahead and take away the friends that I love, I know that new ones are waiting just around the corner and can't come until the clocks have hit a certain point. So, I guess I can let them march forward however they wish for now.

The Forgotten Carols

2009-12-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

My second show in college has come to an end. Along with one of the busiest weeks ever. Seriously, here's how my week went:

Sunday: I had to come back from Thanksgiving week early for final dress rehearsal of The Messiah
Monday: Choir concert
Tuesday: Tech rehearsal (for Forgotten Carols)
Wednesday: Final dress
Thursday: Opening night
Friday: Choir concert thing during the day (which were at the same time as my Acting class mock audition callbacks that I also had to be at) and Forgotten Carols at night
Saturday: Closing night
Sunday: The Messiah

This was all the week before finals, mind you. I had two big things in psych due, mock auditions for Acting, various math assignments, a tap final, and studying to do. It was a tough week.

Anyway, this show was a much different experience than Charley's Aunt. I loved it, but in a very different way. It was a lot of fun to make fun of this awful script so often. It was interesting to watch the choir and dancers suddenly join. It was amazing to watch people adjust as we only had four days on the actual stage before opening night.

Now, everyone's favorite part of a Dr. K production, DR K QUOTES!

"Let's get on the track!"
"I can't stand unorginized-ness out in the world"
"We'll start with the short ones first and then you can go frolic and play."
" 'I've had a lot of experience'. Good thing it's his wife saying that"
(Adam) "Where did this happen?" (Dr. K) "Bethlehem."
"Don't put the hat on him. It looks stupid."
"By their nuts ye shall know them."
"Go right...BOOM...meet Haskle or whatever his name is."
"You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait."
(Dr. K) "Why are you all dressed up?" (Nashelle) "I wore this all day!" (Dr. K) "That's disgusting."
(Dr. K) "What's his name?" (Adam) "Halifax" (Dr. K) "I don't care."
(Adam dancing on rehearsal table) "This...is a Sacred Place of Theatre!"
" 'He corrected YOUR english. That's funny!' ...I'll get him."
"Starting with virgins is good."
"Feel the Spirit...You see the Spirit? Feel the spirit?"
"You're a Heavenly Haskle"
"Take a tinkle break and come back and we'll float on a cloud!"
"If that means we have to overturn the world and reinvent the wheel, we'll do it."
"I'm not going to say anything smart."
"When I die, I want you to cremate me, put me in my grandma's music box, and put me on a shelf in the prop closet. Then every time you open it I can go 'Poof!'"
"I'm going to dance it for you"
"Imagine you're on drugs. And happy about it."
"It looks like underwear is going to jump out of there!"
"Make me tingle!"
"Run your sick scene lines."
"In this particular show, people just walk around and look stupid."
"I'm going to start sending you all nasty little messages of Facebook!"
"Shut up! I'm acting! ... Shut up! I'll kill you!"
"At first I thought it was a dry booger and you were trying to arrange it."
"I'm being irreligious."
(Dr. K) "I've got a hot...bath Sunday" (Alex) "You have a hot date Sunday! I'm coming over!" (Dr. K) "That's why I have to take a bath."
"Take a few pee minutes."
"You're awestruck, baby. Well, fakely"
"It's not crying, it's crying...wait."
"Get in there, kick ***, and take some names!"
"It was the devil punishing you for being jolly."
"Lets start this party you weirdos. You...special weirdos."
"Come on! I'm the old person and you're sitting around like the elderly in wheel chairs!"
"Are you tired? ...Coffee?"
"Any times the energy starts to drop, I'm going to sing church songs to punish you!"
"Stop playing with her...thingies"

Yay, Dr. K. He sure is entertaining to work with.

Anyway, on Friday night I ended up smacking my face against a pole. After the curtain call, we have a little song (which was a surprise to the actors. We all ended up standing there and mouthing "ding" and trying to look like we knew what we were doing) and then the lights go out. We had to get off the stage quickly so we could let the audience out, but to do that we had to go up the five-foot high platform of stairs we were standing on, go down the back side, and go between the two platforms the choir had been sitting on. The choir was hidden behind a scrim that we would have to duck under to get onto and off of the stairs.
Now, when those lights go out, I am totally lost without my glasses. I can't see anything. The first night, I almost fell off the platform. So, on Friday, the moment the lights went out, Alex grabbed my hand and was trying to lead me down the stairs. Once he was already under the bar weighing down the end of the scrim, he was afraid I was going to run into the choir platform and quickly pulled me behind him. As he did, my forehead right down close to my nose met the bar to a loud DONG!
It still hurts, but I've been trying to pretend it didn't so Alex would stop feeling so bad.

Friday night, after the show, we decided to have a 'girl's night sleepover' at Jenifer's apartment. It was sooo much fun. We got there right after the cast party and literally talked the whole night through. I got home at about 7 in the morning and hadn't slept a wink. There isn't much I can add to this story because, literally, we just talked. and talked. and talked. But it made me glad I know these people.

Then, Saturday it snowed. We have a tradition of driving the Denny's a few towns away after striking the set, but we decided it was probably too dangerous in the snow. So, we brought Denny's to us by cooking pancakes and bacon at Belinda's apartment.

We had to rehearse in the scene shop for a while. It was entertaining.

Several cast members got sick. This is me at the Saturday rehearsal during my turn.

I felt important having my name on the dressing room door.

Bus Stop and The Forgotten Carols and more Charley's Aunt

2009-10-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

So! Updates. I auditioned for a play called Bus Stop. I read the script before I went in and didn't like it a whole lot, but was still excited to see what happened. Bus Stop has officially become the first play I've ever auditioned for that I didn't make call backs for. I was disappointed at first, but then I remembered how long it's been since I've had the chance to do tech. When I tried to to tech at ISB, Miss Hanson somehow conned me into playing a small role instead. So, when I went to check the call board to check if Tech assignments had been made (they asked on the audition form if we'd be interested in tech if we didn't make the show), I saw a poster proclaiming "AUDITIONS FOR FORGOTTEN CAROLS". When I heard of the show the first time, I thought it was just a choir thing, but I guess it's kind of a musical type thing.

Apparently I'm the only person in this state who doesn't know the show backwards and forwards. I went into Dr. K's office to get audition material and he was like "Which song would you like?" I was like "Uh...song?" He looked at me for a moment and said, "How well do you know this show?" I told him that I had never heard of it before this. He seemed pretty surprised but handed me a song and sent me off to learn it. The song was pretty, but really really repetitive.

Now, many of you know auditions scare the ever living daylights out of me. Singing in front of people scares the ever living daylights out of me. So, mix the two together in front of a whole bunch of people I respect, and I was just about ready to turn around and run out the door. But, I sat down, tried to breath, and waited for the process to begin. Much to my surprise, Alex soon walked in and sat next to me with his audition material. Now, this kind of shocked me because anyone who made Bus Stop couldn't audition and Alex is one of the most talented actors I've ever met. I felt a bit better about not making Bus Stop at that point.

Dr. K did not help my nerves when he sat in front of us and said "You only have one short shot at this. Make it count because I won't give you another chance. Oh, also, you're auditioning for West Side with this too." The atmosphere in the room thickened very suddenly.

One by one he called people up to sing their excerpts. I was pretty mad when I realized the other female song was not only a prettier song with more opportunity for acting, but also the one the lead sings. But I waited for what felt like an eternity before he called on me to sing (yes, I was the second to last person). Putting on my brave 'acting' face, I walked up trying to look confident and trying not to let Dr. K see my legs wiggling like Jello. I took a deep breath (which was actually bad because I had tap earlier that day and my asthma freaked out so every time I tried to take a deep breath I would cough...) and sang what I could.

The next day, I spent quite a while standing just beyond where I could see the call board (of course it's at the end of this ridiculously long hallway. There is a door next to it, but it's always locked so we have to go the long way) and reminded myself how excited I was about tech. I took a few steps forward and, sure enough, there was my name.

The next day I was feeling much more confident. He had called back 5 boys and 13 girls (there are three roles of each gender). Though most of the girls weren't those I was used to seeing. Most of them were vocal majors. Now we were doing reading. Now we were in my territory! Though, much to my (and Dr. K's) surprise, most of those vocal majors had quite a bit of acting ability. He only had me read for the tiny role that I had sung the next day so I was sure I hadn't made it.

That night, I reminded myself again how excited I was about tech and went out and had a fun night (I saw two improv shows, went on a Denny's run, and watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit with my friends. I didn't get back until 4:30 in the morning). The weekend didn't last as long as I was afraid it would. On Monday, I was in my choir class when the realization that the list was probably up hit me. I kept trying to sing, but then I thought about how several people in that class had made callbacks and how much I hate looking at lists when other people are around. I excused myself to 'go to the bathroom' and ran to the call board.

There, in large letters, was my name. I got the part of Sarah. I'm only on stage for all of two double spaced pages, but I get a song. I'm also going to see if he'll let me play some of the extra roles. He might not just so he can let the choir do stuff, but we'll see.

Now, changing subjects, here are the production photos from Charley's Aunt! Yay!

Act I

Act II

Act III

Charlie's Aunt ... and my first kiss?

2009-10-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've been this saddened by the end of a show. At ISB, the end just meant I was done being berated by Miss Hanson for a couple of weeks. It meant it was time to get ready for the next show. It didn't matter what it was. It was going to be a bad show anyway. But here, I learned what theatre is really supposed to be.

College theatre isn't easy. It started at auditions. I felt my heart beat fast as I realized there were only four female roles and about forty girls auditioning. Stressed, I did what I could and, to my surprise, got a role! Then things got really stressful. We put this show on in a very small number of weeks. For each scene, we had one rehearsal to block it. Dr. K, my director, is very specific about blocking. He would stop us every other line or so and tell us what he wanted us to do. To my surprise, however, even though he had very very specific things he wanted us to do, he still left the character to us. We had total creative freedom as actors. That felt great. After our blocking rehearsal, we would run it once. The next day we moved onto the next scene. Once we were done blocking, we moved straight into Act runthroughs. By then we were expected to be off script. After a week of running the acts, we were into full runthroughs. Needless to say, we were all a bit panicked by the fast pace that all of this happened at. But...it was fun! I loved the whirlwind of theatre that surrounded me through the whole process!

With one possible exception, the cast was amazing. Since there were so few of us, we very quickly became the best of friends. We laughed together as Anita mentioned how odd it was to help her ex-boyfriend into his skirt. We watched out for each other and made sure no one walked home alone, even if it was just from Alex's apartment across the street. We jokingly teased each other for anything that we possibly could. And we spent hours playing Murder in the Dark in the Blackbox. I haven't had a cast that unified since, well, ever.

And the show! Holy cow, what a show! It was a show of real professional quality! Our closing night we felt the audience was so dead compared to the other nights. In all actuality, at ISB we would have been thrilled with that 'dead' audience. The other three nights I was afraid we were going to have some casualties from too much laughter! They laughed at EVERYTHING! I even got laughs and I'm not a funny character!

And I can't even describe with how professionally this theatre runs. It's insane. When I get backstage, there are always people waiting for me with props, to make sure my skirt is on straight, or to do whatever I may ask. If I try to help backstage, I end up being in the way. Everyone has a job and everyone follows that job. I act. Then I get out of the techie's hair. It's kind of weird. If something goes wrong, you mention it and it's fixed without hesitation. I say, "I'm having a bit of a hard time reaching the wrap when I go backstage. Could we just hang it on the other side of the cage so it's closer to me?" and they do better. They assign someone to make sure I have the wrap. Cathleen, the costume lady, says she wants the stage mopped before the show because the trains on the skirts are getting dirty, and the girl in charge of set crew says, "My crew come in an hour early tomorrow and we'll mop it" and all of them agree without question.

It was so sad to watch them tear apart one of the most incredible sets I've ever acted on board by board leaving us on an empty stage.

These costumes are insane. That red one weighs, like, ten pounds. You can't see very well because of the angle of the pictures, but we're all wearing insane bustles. Those are surprisingly hard to work with. I slammed mine in the door twice.

Getting ready. My hair was such a process. It took about two and a half hours. First Amanda (the girl ratting my hair in the first picture) got it all wet and blow dried it so that it would stand up at the roots. Then we ratted the ever living daylights out of it. That took FOREVER! It had to be super ratted so that it would have enough body to fit the time period and so that it would be strong enough to hold Matthew Jonathan (my hair piece). Then she would curl each of those little bits at the front. We would spray it with hair spray until it was soaked and hold the curling iron in there for about a minute. It was very monotonous.

They gave us a list of funny quotes by my director. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my list so I'm going to write my favorites here. Cuz, dang. A lot of them are really funny.

"I want to see your face as my face, okay?"
"Act like your undies are riding up your rear-end or something."
"What are you doing? Making love on stage?"
"You're sophisticated objects on drugs"
Nothing makes sense! It doesn't make sense! Make sense?"
"You're only as good as your best mucker"
"Be bushy eyed tomorrow or I'll be ready to kick some hind-enders!"
"Trust me. I've worn lipstick before"
"Dude, Frisco. It's a toast."
"It's too rumbly and bumbly and rich. It's like God having a cold"
"Pork chop? Cot port? No, Cork pop. Good"
"We all need some sleepy peepy deepy deepies"
"Evencio and Alex, you look like two wasps ready to mate!"
"Show me enchanting! No, that's not enchanting! I'll show you enchanting!"
"You just made my blocking look elegant!" (that was directed at me!)
"Well, do this!" *suddenly picks Tasha up, spins her around, and makes kissing noises*
"Adam, you smell good again."
"Be fat and pregnant!" (to Alex. Yes, Alex is a boy. Which plays into the next quote)
"Alex! Put your skirt down and stop playing with yourself!"
"I can see you are someon who will date Jack, not sell Girl Scout cookies! and they're not good Girl Scout cookies either."
"Knock it off or I'll have to teach you both how to stage kiss! You can decide who goes first."
"You look like Mother Oats or something. You're so cute it's disgusting" (also directed at me)

Now, the story of my first kiss

It all began on opening night. The show ends with Alex and I standing in a spotlight right after he announces that I've agreed to marry him. As the light faded with us staring awkwardly at each other, it became painfully clear to all involved that the audience was expecting a kiss. Not having the kiss made the end of the show too weak. It needed to be there. So, after the show, Alex and I had a very professional conversation between two actors about adding a kiss. We both agreed it would help the integrity of the show and he told me, "I'll talk to Dr. K tomorrow. If he's all right with it, we'll work it before the show."

The next day, I'm sitting in the dressing room having my hair done when I hear Alex's distinctive knock on the door. After establishing that everyone was decent, he walks in, grabs me, kisses me, and says "That's gunna happen on stage."

The entire room falls silent as everyone turns slowly to look at the two of us. After a pause, I say "My first kiss...how romantic." Suddenly everyone explodes. All the girls start punching him and telling him what a jerk he is. He starts freaking out and apologizing "I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" and I stand in the center of the chaos laughing. Cuz, dang. It was funny.

2009-08-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

So have I ever told you how ridiculously cute my niece and nephews are? Because, dang it's true.

I don't have a good picture of Miles. But he's cute too. Trust me.

McKenzie is way too smart for her own good. That little girl asks questions and expects real answers. It's a problem because a lot of the time I don't know the real answer. Like when we were driving back from the beach. Dave's GPS lost the satelite reception. Kenzie wanted to know what a satelite was. Cue long discussion. She kept asking questions until she understood. Which was hard because we didn't really understand what we were saying. Some of my favorite quotes from that conversation:

McKenzie: So, they're just floating in the sky?
Michelle: Yep. They're way high up in the sky.
McKenzie: Oh my heck. I can see them.

McKenzie: Well, what else do they do?
Michelle: Lots of things. They make your TV work (she mentioned some other things that satellites make work but I can't remember what)
McKenzie: So they just make things work? That's so not cool.

McKenzie: Well, how do they know where we are if they can't see?
Me: And now we're getting into rocket science...

McKenzie: But why didn't the box (GPS) get the messages?
Me: Sometimes the messages get stuck. Like, if we drive under a bridge, the messages might get stuck up there and not get to the box.
McKenzie: Huh? There's a bridge around here with a bunch of messages stuck on it?

And Carson is in the cutest phase right now. He has the most adorable speech impediment ever. And he is always on stage. It's so cute! Some of my favorite Carson quotes (ah, I wish I could put how he said everything into text. That was the funniest part):

During the whole GPS discussion, Carson took it upon himself to tell us everything the box said. But he could only remember part of it so it would come out something like this:
GPS: Exit left.
Carson: Daddy! Daddy! Eciz weft!

GPS: Drive point six miles then turn left.
Carson: Drive point!

GPS: Drive point nine miles then turn right.
Carson: Drive point again!\

-x-

Playing old Maid:
Brian: Okay, Kenz. You take one of my cards and hope you don't get the Old Maid. You don't know if I have it or not!
Carson: *rips card out of Brian's hand* OLD MAID!

-x-

After the kids were in bed, Lindsay made a cake. As we were taking it out of the oven, we turned around to see Carson hovering in the hallway peering shyly behind his white bangs. Lindsay went over and picked him up and asked him what was the matter. He whispered something to her and she had him tell us too.
Carson: *whispering* Can I have some cake?

-x-

We had filled the kiddy pool with water and were throwing wet things at each other. Carson was tired of playing and wanted to go inside. He told me to get out of the kiddy pool so he could dump it out. I ignored him for a while until he shouted, "I'm gunna dump this out. WITH YOU IN IT!"

-x-

After dumping the kiddy pool out, the kids started playing in the mud. Carson began piling the mud into a big lump.
Lindsay: What are you making Carson?
Carson: A pirate.
Lindsay: A pirate?
Carson: With long feet.

-x-

He had a peice of paper in front of his face.
Michelle: Where'd Carson go?
Carson: *swishing his hips back and forth* Do you see mine pants? Moving?

-x-

Kenzie said the prayer one night (the prayer itself was funny becauuse Kenz was eating as she said it). After the prayer:
Carson: Kenzie not clos-ed her eyes!
Brian: Did you close yours?
Carson: No. And I not folded mine arms either.

-x-

He's in that phase where you have to watch everything he does. All the time he goes "Watch" and you have to watch him do something or other. On Sunday his shirt was the same color as Daves.
Michelle: Carson! You and Dave match!
Carson: Watch...MATCH!
Dave: Woah, did you see it?

Miles is an adorable baby. He always has his little brow furrowed like he's mad at something. He smiled for the first time when we were on our way to the Cold Play concert. Michelle said it was because he was excited to see Cold Play.

So...now I'm in college. Weird. I'm getting tired of typing so I'll just skip to the part that's mostly on my mind now. Theatre.

Auditions for the show started on Monday. I did all the usual audition things: freak about cold reading, freak about what I was going to wear, freak about how early I should be, and freak. When I got there, I saw waaaay more kids in that audition than I was comfortable with. There are only four female parts so seeing the room so full made me nervous.
The director would call us up and have us cold read a bit. Since there were so many of us, I only got to read about half a scene. Which was discouraging. And the boy next to me wouldn't stop flirting with me. Okay, auditions are really not the time for that.

The callback list seemed to take all day to go up. I could hardly sit still through the entire day. Finally, my last class, Tap, rolled around. One of the boys who had done spectacularly the night before is in that class and after class he ran straight to the board to check. I was too nervous and wanted to look at it alone so I got a drink of water before heading over there. I ran into him coming back from the board. He told me my name was on the list.

So, callbacks came around. Thirteen girls. Still more than I was comfortable with. But I did my best. He had me read for the part of Ela several times. I started feeling pretty confident near the end that he had decided on me. He seemed to be double checking and making sure the cast he had chosen worked well together when he called me and another girl up to read one scene and stopped us almost immediatly. Then he had the other girl start another scene with a guy and stopped them almost immediatly. I was feeling cautiously optimistic when the girl next to me whispered that she thought I got the part. Then he said "Since there are so many of you, it's possible I missed something. If you want to read for a role that you haven't read for, I'll let you do that now." EVERYONE wanted to read for Ela! I don't know why they considered her such a desirable role. She doesn't even show up until half way through act II. But, unfortunatly, many of them were really good at it.

The next day I tried to convince myself that I wouldn't look until after my last class so that if I didn't make it I could just go home. The nerves were too much and I literally ended up sprinting from my first class to look. I scanned down the list and felt my heart sinking. Until I hit the very last name.

Ela Dellahay --- Amber Dodge

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2009-07-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done it again. I've let my blogging get away from me.

Now I'm in Utah, feeling almost like Thailand was a dream. Midway's basically the same. Heather's still Heather, the Zurmatt's still ugly, and people are still more concerned about Swiss Days than anything else. But I...I am different. Something just doesn't feel the same in me. I find myself unable to explain to my friends what I've seen. That a world does exist outside of Midway. That the centerpiece for relief society isn't at the forefront of the world's mind. Somehow, people just don't seem to understand. I've been asked multiple times how my "trip" was. I can't find the words to explain that it wasn't a "trip". It was home.

Of course, Midway has it's benefits. Even though the news reporters are spewing nonstop about how incredibly hot it is, the night air is cool and refreshing. The stars twinkle brightly in the sky, waiting for me to pick out constellations. The food has such flavor! And this funny little neighborhood is still one of the oddest place I've ever been. I've been watching Gilmore Girls and every time the town does something quirky that seems like it would only exist on TV, I'm reminded of Midway. We have our funny cast of characters. People seem to think decorating and dressing up are the most important things in the world for little town things (Swiss Days. Seriously, guys. It's not the most important thing on this earth and you're not actually Swiss). I laughed when I saw the police truck driving, once again, to the Kelsons. No...things really haven't changed other than a few new buildings and a poorly designed new High School.

But I will never be the same.

Miles

2009-06-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update on my life. I'm an aunt...again. My sister just had a super adorable little boy to go with her other super adorable little kids. These pictures are from her blog.

Love you, Linds! And your super adorable family!

In the service of her fellow beings

2009-06-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

I generally don't like to blog about sad things. I don't like to share my troubles with the entire interweb. But this seems more important than my usual frivolous worries.

Last week, my wonderful Grandma passed away after a wonderful 93 year long life. I'm not as good of a writer as Lindsay, so it's hard for me to do justice to this loving woman. Impossible even. But she enriched everyone's lives she ever touched. No one I've talked to can ever remember her committing a harsh act or speaking an unkind word. I know I can't. Every time we went to visit she would fill to the brim with smiles and run to the kitchen for ice cream. Even being as old as she was, she would always find feed us rather than having us feed ourselves. In fact, at times the way she fed us was a bit hard to swallow (Vinegar spinach salad anyone?) Sometimes she'd try so hard to make me comfortable I felt bad ("Do you want some strawberries?" "No thanks, Grandma. I'm fine." "I'll cut some up for you!" "Uh...I don't need them cut up." "They taste better that way *cuts up strawberries*" "Oh...thanks" "How about some melon?" "No thanks." "I'll cut some up for you")

One thing that always shocked me about my Grandma was the way her mind never dimmed in the least. At 93 years old, she put my memory to shame. I remember the time she was talking to Michelle about college. She proceeded to list every class she took her first semester of college. When she couldn't remember one, she exclaimed "I know there was one more...my mind is really going!" ...I can't remember the classes I took last semester.

The point of my rambling is that Grandma was the kindest woman I'd ever met. Every moment of her life was spent in service of others. She selflessly gave everything she had if she could just make one person a bit happier.

On Monday my friends and I went to see Up, Pixar's new movie (by the way, Up is amazing. One of the best movies I've seen in years). My sister warned me that there was a death of an old woman in the beginning, but because it was the last time my group would get together, I decided I couldn't miss it. I was suspecting the death. I wasn't suspecting how beautifully it would be done. I was in tears long before we ever saw the coffin. The montague of this couple's life reminded me so strongly of my Grandma and Grandpa.

For most people, a love like the one Ellie and Carl Fredrickson shared is only the kind that exists in movies. But for Clara and Arvid Dodge, it was real. Every time I saw them, they were together. They laughed with eachother, danced with eachother, and helped eachother with everything. If they were apart, then both of them would be waiting patiently for the time they'd be together again. Thanks to the Plan of Salvation, that's the case now. The parting is only temporary, and both of them know it and are waiting patiently for their reunion.

I love my Grandma more than words can express. I'm so grateful for the truth of the gospel so that I know I'll be sitting on her lap listening to her fascinating stories soon again.

And I can't wait.

Just a quick dream

2009-05-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Kay, I just woke up from an awesome dream. I need to write it somewhere, so here we go!

The setting was the best part. This place was AWESOME! It was, like, never ending LARP. These people had built a gigantic fortress ruins thing in a forest...okay, there's no way I can describe the total utter 1337ness of this place. But it was awesome. Trust me. So, a bunch of us decided to go LARP. We walked in and the enterance kind of felt like a Renecance fair. But LARPier. We pulled on costumes and walked on in. There were swords inside for us to take (they were actually giant pixie sticks...). So,we each grabbed a sword and headed on in.

As we were walking through the first area, which was all forest and increadibly creepy, these people started coming in from the other side. An epic sword fight commenced until everyone was laying on the ground laughing. "You guys are pretty good for beginners!" our foes shouted. "You want to teach us?" Brian asked. Apparently they didn't because they left. I noticed that at some point during the battle, my Pixie sword had gotten a hole in it. So, I ate the delicious sugar pouring out. Then I realized the case wasn't strong enough to be a sword alone.

At some point we ended up doubling back and going to the observation area because Brian wanted to do something with his sword (I'm still not sure what). As we were heading in, one of the guys was like, "Remind Brian that this is only supposed to be an OBSERVATION area and not to climb down." I was like, "Kay" and followed. Then I looked at the edge of the observation area. A huge wall dropped in a sheer cliff. I was like, "How the heck would we climb down?" Then I realized this was a really crappy place for an observation area because the part of the forest it was overlooking was really secluded. Then a racoon/badger ran by (I couldn't decide in the dream if it was a racoon or a badger. It kind of looked like some kind of freaky mix). There was some guy playing this weird bass type instrument in the corner. It had four strings and was really tall, but each of the strings ran down its own pole. Then I noticed that the pole was kind of a bell. You could pull it out and drop it on a supporting bar and it would make a pretty sound. I was like, "that's cool." then we left the observation area.

As we were walking, we found ourselves in an odd area that seemed like some kind of fair. There were children getting their faces painted, children playing carnival games, children running around. I was like, "Children's area" and we kept moving. That's when I saw it. Possibly the biggest inflatable slide in existance. I wanted to go down it, but I figured no one else would so I didn't say anything. Then Pie was like, "I'm going on that" and started walking toward it. I was like "Me too!" and followed him, happy that someone else was responsible for holding up the rest of our group and I was just a tagalong. We went to the side were you climb up when one child seemed to have gotten confused and came flying down that side. The guy in charge was like, "Woah! Lucky no one got hit coming up!" Then I began to climb. Pie was behind me as I climbed up these twising metal stairs. Finally I reached the top. To make it more 'safe', there was this weird metal contraption. You opened the door on this side to get in, then you open the door on the other side to get out. Just as I was climbing in the contraption (which was too small by the way), I heard a commercial playing at the bottom. It was for Full House. Apparently Stephanie was in trouble with the law for having taken a beach ball from the beach that she thought was hers. The announcer was like, "Can you imagine yourself at the summit?" (like, summit of the law or something). I was like, "Oh, I can imagine myself at the summit pretty well." Pie didn't say anything so I was like, "Did you hear that commercial?" He was like, "yeah" then he climbed into the little contraption. Now, please note I'm terrified of heights. I was holding on for dear life so I asked Pie to open the door. He opened it about half way and I realized he probably couldn't reach to open my half. Just as I was trying to figure out how to menuver myself to open the door, I woke up.

When childhood nostalgia doesn't quite turn out how you expect...

2009-05-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had that yearning to reminisce in your childhood? When you want to drag out that old movie you watched over and over and over again as a child and pop it in the VCR? Well, for me that favorite movie was The Brave Little Toaster.

So, ready for some childhood memories I stirred myself some warm apple cider (okay, maybe it was apple juice put in the microwave with some cinnamon in it), locked myself in my room, and began the movie.

The smile was warm on my face as I watched the five little appliances dance around the house having the time of their lives. But it began to slip as the air conditioner freaked out about how the master was never coming back and they had all been abandoned. It had been completely replaced with an 0_o expression when he actually blew up and died.

I shook my head and kept watching. But the movie kept getting more and more disturbing. I felt sorry for the flower that tried to make friends with the toaster and was left to wither. I was frightened when the vacuum seemed to have a seizure on the edge of a cliff. I was disturbed by the 'new' appliances convincing our heroes that they were obsolete. It seemed to out do itself at every turn!

You also have the opportunity to watch a little blender being torn apart for it's motor. You see sinister shadows of a man stabbing the thing with a screwdriver, ripping out chords, and snipping pieces off with our friends watching in horror the entire time. When the man leaves, you're left with the image of the screwdriver hanging off the counter and dripping oil. And who can forget the scene in the junk yard? You're able to witness cars singing about their glory days and then being graphically crushed into little tiny squares of scrap metal.

Though, by far, the most disturbing scene is the Toaster's dream sequence. There's no way to give this justice in words alone. You just have to see it.

Longpost is long.

2009-04-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

I've gotten into a rather vicious cycle when it comes to my blog entries. I keep finding things to blog about and putting them at the end of a list that has grown far too long. I keep thinking, "Yes, I'll blog about that once I'm done blogging about this". I keep trying to find fantastic ways to word my stories. Now, I've decided I'm going to ignore this want for eloquently worded entries and just post what I've been wanting to post.

Singapore
Once I finally got my Japan entry up (which was also cut down from my original shining ideas for it), Singapore tripped me up. I wanted to explain how fascinating Singapore is. How they fine you more for chewing gum then they do for smoking. How they fumigated the entire country so there are no more mosquitos. I wanted to describe how beautiful, yet empty, it felt. I wanted to tell you about my first glimpse of Singapore. How there were hundreds of ships on the sea. How the sky was so blue that, if you focused on the horizon, the waves blurred into the sky and the ships appeared to soar away.
I wanted to tell you all that in some way that was less redundant and more articulate. But you get the idea.

Much to my surprise this year, the other schools loved our show. It was arguably the best show there. Singapore's show also rocked, which is funny because last year we were the worst of the worst and Singapore was right behind us. The workshops, however, were awful. We had to listen to the workshop leader sing every day. Then we would play clapping games. The one time he let us actually try and put toghether a scene, he talked so long about it none of us had a chance to do anything.

And poor Marian was sick as sick can be. She couldn't keep anything in her stomach and actually ended up passing out one morning. When they took her to the doctor, without any tests or anything, he told her she was pregnant. We all got a good laugh out of that.

Chaing Mai
Then I went to Chaing Mai with my siblings. I missed out on the beginning of the trip because of that stupid school thing, but the day I got there, we went to Muay Thai. It was brutal and boring at the same time. It was fun watching the guys behind us get drunker and drunker as the night went on. I kind of wanted to shoot the musicians by the end. There was a drum, a little symbol type thing, and some kind of instrument that reminded me of a clarinet, but a lot more painful. It made the most hideous noises with no melody through the entire night. The last guy to fight, though, was amazing. He was this white guy who had so much muscle! He beat the other guy all the way to Timbuctu. At one point he did this kick that I swear was only possible in movies. He jumped in a kind of circle and kicked the guy in the face, then his other foot followed and kicked the guy in the face again. It was amazing. I had no idea that would work in practice.

The next day we went on a zipline thing through the forest. It was rediculously fun. And scary. At the highest point we were 300 meters up from the ground. Yes. That's very high up. As we were getting hooked into harnesses, I hear this conversation between David (our guide. The guy who was supposed to keep us from dying) and Whitney.

Whitney: So, how long have you been doing this?
David: This is my second day!
All of us: 0_o

Anyway, it ended up being way fun. Though I did have some problems with my height. I'd get to the end of the rope and I couldn't reach the platform. The people would grab me and try and pull the rope down to unhook me, but a lot of times they thought it was funny to let me slide back toward someone else coming on the line.

Here are some pictures shamelessly stolen from Michelle's blog:

Also, apparently I look like Harry Potter. One of our guides on Flight of the Gibbons was attaching my glasses to a rope so if they fell of they wouldn't fall all the way and he gave them back and was like, "Here Harry Potter!" (But it's always pronounced Hall-EE Pott_EH). I was like, "Oh, cuz I have glasses. Clever". He kept calling me that through the entire thing. He'd be like. "Whitney go! Okay, Harry Potter!" But later we were getting a foot massage. The lady kept kind of smiling at me and finally turned to the lady next to her and said "Harry Potter". Then, a while later, we were in Phukett and some guy working at the breakfast place at the hotel was telling everyone 'Good morning'. When I walked in he was like, "Good morning Hally Potter!"

So, anyway, after all of this it was time to go back to Bangkok. Being the smart kids we are, we decided to take the train. We ended up getting there an hour early because we thought it was farther away than it was. Then, of course, the train was two hours late. Yes. We waited for three hours. We went and found a bench to hang out on. As we were sitting there, this creepy guy kept coming up to us and talking. At first we thought he was just trying to practice his english since we were the only Farangs there. But there was something about the way he stared at our bags the entire way he talked to us that was a bit unsettling. And he KEPT COMING BACK. To ask us stupid things. At one point he started asking about our Passports and Visas. We were like, "Uhh...*grab bags*"

Then at one point Michelle and Whitney went to the bathroom while Brian and I guarded our bags against creepy guy. Whitney came out to wash her hands while Michelle was still in the stall. She looked up and saw some creepy guy (a different creepy guy, mind you) staring at her in the mirror. She kind of ignored it and, when she looked up again, it kind of looked like he was flashing her multiple times. But she didn't have her glasses on so she tried to convince herself he was fanning himself. All the same, she asked Michelle to hurry. That's when creepy guy #2 started walking into the bathroom. She turned to the stall and was like, "Michelle, we are leaving NOW!" When he realized she was talking to someone in the stall and was, indeed, not alone he left.

You can imagine how creeped out we were by the end of these three hours. We wanted to be first in line to get on the train so we could have our bags directly above us. So, when the train pulled up we RAN to the end. We were in cart three. So, we ran to the cart farthest away from us that had a big 3 on it. Just as we got there, some worker came and flipped the card around so it said 1. We were like, "GAH!" and turned around and ran back to the one that used to say one and now said three. Proud of ourselves for getting the front of line, we waited while they cleaned out the train. We stood there...and stood there...and stood there. Finally, about half an hour later the people finished cleaning the train. And then, of course, the train drove away.

We were like, 'Uhhh...maybe they're just turning it around on a different track?' So, we didn't want to go sit down and give up our first place status. So we stood there...and stood there...and stood there. At one point every single Farang (who were not all in the same group) got up and left simultaniously. We were like, 'What are we missing here?". A full hour later, the train comes back and lets us on. Yes. We waited at the train station for four and a half hours so we could get on the stupid train. Finally, we all found our seats and sat down, relieved. Of course, Brian's food tray didn't work, Whitney's food tray kept falling open on her, and Michelle's seat leaning was broken. Like, she could lean it back if she pushed, but if she took any pressure off of it, it would SLAM forward with a loud CHUNK! Any time she'd start falling asleep, it would CHUNK and wake all of us up. So she tried for a while to sleep on Whitney's lap, but the food tray kept falling on her head. Hah.

Anyway, I was worried about the heat since, apparently, the ride there by the three of them was very hot. But, let me tell you, heat was the last thing I needed to worry about. They had a very nice air conditioner. A VERY NICE air conditioner. That was CRANKED to full. And it was night so there was no sun peeping through the windows. It was FREEZING. I have never been in temperatures that cold without some clothes made for playing in the snow. Seriously. I honestly don't think it ever hit higher than 40 degrees farenheit. I have literally never been that cold before. They gave us 'blankets' that were really just towels. I've never been so glad to have a jacket. I pulled the strings on my hood so that the minimum amount of skin would be revealed. And I kept trying to huddle in a little ball on the seat to try and trap some body heat, but the seat was so tiny I didn't fit. So, I kept sitting on my feet and rocking forward onto the back of Whitney's chair. After about five hours of this my legs and feet were in a lot of pain. So I'd try and put them down, but the cold air would bite my toes. The entire train looked like some refugee movie. Everyone was huddled together under their meager blankets shivering like crazy. It was too cold to sleep, so we just had to sit there and suffer. Finally, as the sun started coming up and the train started at least being BEARABLE, though not comfortable, some worker came down the aisle and took away all of our blankets! She would not let us keep them. We were like, D:

Also, the food. When the lady came down the aisle with food, Brian handed her his little "Nuts will kill me. Are there any?" paper. She turned to the people sitting across from us and asked them if they tasted any nuts. Yeah. That's comforting. Not to mention it was so hot I couldn't even try to eat it. The very smell made me nausous. So, between the four of us, we had six dewberry cookies, half a pack of mentos, and a sprite. Let me emphasize this was not a short trip. It was about thirteen hours.

Phuket/Krabbi
Okay, I'm getting sick of typing and I'm sure you're getting sick of reading, so I'm just going to tell you the biggest thing that happened to me in Phuket.

I got lost Scuba Diving.

Yeah, that's not scary at all. Visibility was horrible. We could barely see one meter. I was having a bit of trouble equalizing, and nobody saw me motioning to slow down since, you know, visibility was so bad. So, I just contented to follow a bit above everyone else and decend slowly. After a while, I lost all sight of people and was just following the bubbles. After a while of that, I lost track of the bubbles. I looked around for a bit and saw a flash of yellow. Great! Brian was wearing yellow flippers! So, I started following the yellow. About five minutes later I realized I was following a fish. You can imagine the sudden panick. I was in the middle of an ocean. Alone. I floated there for about ten minutes listening and watching. But, no matter how hard I listened or how hard I watched, the only bubbles and breathing I could see or hear were my own. Finally, I decided to surface and look around. I was next to this huge rock. And by rock I mean island. The kind you can't get onto because it's just a cliff shooting out of the water. At the other side of the island there were all these fishing boats that looked exactly like the one I had been on. I didn't have my glasses on so all I could see was that they were brown. Yeah, that was going to help me find my boat. I swam and swam and swam against the current until I finally got to the three fishing boats I had been swimming toward. None of them were mine and no one spoke english. So, I turned around and swam and swam and swam toward this huge snorkling group. I figured some of them must speak english. But they all looked like they were heading to their boat so I had to go FAST. I was wiped by the time I got over there. As I was trying to work up the courage to talk to them, I heard a voice behind me that was like, "You okay?" I turned around and, glory! It was my boat! "I got lost" I explained climbing on. About half a minute later I spotted the rest of the group swimming toward the boat.

2009-03-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

Notice anything different? Why, yes. I have been to Japan.

After landing, I was pumped to see me some snow! This is the first snow I've seen in years. Yeah...kind of lame. It was all dirty and stuff. There was very little snow around. I felt deflated when I saw that.

But as we drove, the snow got deeper...

...and deeper...

Until the fences began dissapearing beneath flurries of white and a smile began appearing across my face.

After driving for a while, we found ourseles at the Lake Sikotsu Ice Festival! It was on a big ol' lake. And it was FREEZING

There were lots of cool sculptures. That one on the sides was kind of a temple thing.

And this slide was fun. And wet.

But the coolest part was passing this really tall wall of ice, into this passage...

And finding this at the end. Those are icicles on pine trees. It was really pretty.

Shivering, I made my way back to the bus to find some of the guys enjoying ice cream.

Later we went to the Otaru Snow Light Path. It was very pretty, but we were all so cold it didn't last long.

The next day, it was time to go on a snowshoe adventure! I've never been a big fan of Snowshoeing, but it was pretty fun.

Then we did some sightseeing and went to the hotel. The hotel had an Onsen - a public bath! We were all excited, but we didn't go in the real bath since you're requiered to go naked. So, we went to the swimming pool instead. There were big slides and everything!

On Tuesday we went to experiance Ainu culture. Ainu are, like, a tribe. This guy on the right was really funny. He kept saying things really really fast and switching languages randomly.

These are the traditional tattoos of the Ainu. Why so serious?

Then we all made instruments. They kind of 'boing boing' when you pull on the string.

And so our time in the northern island was over.

Good bye Hokkiado...

And hello Tokyo!

Tokyo is the most bizzare city I've ever been in. There were all these interestingly shaped buildings and bridges. It was hard to get pictures because the windows kept fogging up.

First we went to a temple.

Then we went to Harajuku! I was super excited about Harajuku since that's the center of modern fashion. My favorite style that I'm getting into was born here. Unfortunatley, there weren't really any kids there in fashionable clothes because it was a school day. But I went to one of the cheap Lolita shops with the hope of getting this one really cute jumperskirt that I wanted online. When I got there, I discovered why the price was so cheap. It was horrible quality.

Then we went to Akihabara. Which was epic. There were walls upon walls upon walls upon walls upon walls of video games. It was intense! We spent a long time there.

The next day we went to Disneysea! It was AWESOME! I haven't been to Disneyland since I was very small. Wow, so that's what a theme park was supposed to be like. Everything was such high quality.

At 2, when we were supposed to meet, some of the Freshman were like, "We're tired. We want to go back to Harajuku and go shopping!" So, the teachers were like "Okay, then let's leave at 3." We were like, "wat?" It had taken that long to get through two rides because the lines were so long. We faught hard. Finally, they let us stay and sent the other kids with a different teacher. We stayed until the park closed down. It was amazing! There was one part where we went to a show. Of course, it was in Japanese. So they gave us these little mechanical things that were translation devices! They were like subtitles we could hold with us! I love Disney!

And that was the end of our Japanese adventures. It was awesome!

Random things that I didn't mention earlier!

Okay, I have to tell the the most painful part of the trip. We'll call him M. I swear there's something wrong with that kid. He asks so many questions. Stupid questions. Over and over again. Here are some excerpts from our conversations:

M: Have you ever seen this much snow before?
Me: Yep
M: Does it snow where you're from?
Me: Yep
M: Does it snow a lot?
Me: Yep
M: Is it cold?
Me: Yep
M: How much does it snow?
Me: About this much.
M: Does it snow every year?
Me: Yep
M: I've never seen this much snow before.
Me: hm...
M: Have you ever seen this much snow before?

(We had this conversation multiple times)

M: Why are you in Impromptu?
Me: ...I'm not.
M: You're not in Impromptu?
Me: No
M: Why aren't you in Impromptu?
Me: I don't know
M: Did you try to be in Impromptu?
Me: No
M: If you could be in Impromptu right now, would you?

Wess: So, what do you guys like to think about when you're bored?
Me: Okay, imagine this room were to flip upside down right now. What would you grab onto? (curtosy of Sierra)
Wess: Oh, that's awesome! Uh...I would grab onto this.
Me: Yeah, I think that would be the best choice in this situation. How about you M?
M: That can't happen.
Me: ...what?
M: If the earth were to flip around, gravity wouldn't change. We wouldn't even notice it!
Me: ...okay. But if gravity were to switch.
M: It can't.
Wess: ...We know it can't. But if it could.
M: Well, is the gravity coming from the core of the earth or the sky?
Me: It doesn't matter. Hypothetically speaking, if gravity were to switch, what would you grab onto?
M: What about the birds?
Wess: Birds?
M: What would happen to the birds?
Me: ...I don't know. They'd perch on the bottom of a tree branch or something. At any rate, they'd do better than you would. So what would you grab onto?
M: But gravity can't switch.

(This conversation went on for over ten minutes. We timed it)

Pictures!

They had vending machines with toys in them!

We had to dress in Yukatas one night. I felt like such a tourist.

These heat packs were amazing!

They had a Famicom in the hotel! But the controller was really small.

The Chocolate Factory!

We spent a lot of time in arcades.

This volcano is about fifty years old. It was a field and then one day it just erupted.

Everything in Japan is cute. Everything.

This is a bit hard to read. The sun was in an unfortunate place. It says:

NO!! smorking

NO!! (I'm not sure what that one says...)

NO!! tout

NO!! shoplifting!

The train was exciting.

Seven eleven and McDonalds

Japanese style room. We even slept on futons!

These arrows were odd. They were about every five feet and lit up. They just pointed to the road. Like, what? Is it supposed to be telling you where the road is?

We went to a car show.

There's so much randomness in this picture I didn't know what to make of it.

2009-02-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

I'm getting worse at this blogging thing. Sorry about that!

Anyway, what shall I blog about first? Well, my sister and her roommate came to Thailand! It's actually kind of really annoying because while I'm at Ms Hanson's useless rehearsals, Whitney, Brian, and Michelle are off on adventures. But that's okay. The time I do get to spend with them is fantastic, so it's worth it!

But, seriously, Ms Hanson is slowly making me lose my mind. I could tell she was planning to put me in the play with the girl who violently throws up all over the stage. I told her, "Ms Hanson, I can't do that. I'm too squeamish" but she was like, "Well, it won't be real vomit" and I was like, "I know. But I'll still probably throw up." She was like, "Just do it anyway". So, I went in the corner and stressed about what the heck I was going to do until Ms Hanson called us to each try the hurling. I just about threw up watching Phoebe and Sierra try. I had to leave go backstage and gather myself. Sierra brought me a water bottle after she was done, which was nice.

Anyway, I ended up with Shea being my husband and Marian and Kelly being the other couple in Life x3. I've never really gotten to act with Marian, so I was pretty excited! At first I had high hopes for the play. It had a pretty funny script. But, in trying to cut for time, Ms Hanson has effectively cut out all the funny lines. There's also no build. So, we're all snacking on Cheeze-its one minute, and freaking out the next. It's weird. Some of the lines don't make sense too. There's one part where Shea and I are talking and I say something and the baby starts crying. Then Shea is like, "Now you've made him cry!" But, I didn't say anything loud. There was build to that in the script, which leads to her shouting before he says that, but she cut that out. There's also a part where we're just kind of talking and Shea's like, "Everybody calm down! We need to keep a sense of proportion!" but, once again, we're not upset when he says that. It's really odd...Hopefully we'll be able to make the characters funny enough without the script.

But, a few weeks ago she told us we would be having no rehearsal on Tuesday. So, with aunts and uncles here we thought that would be a great time to go to the Floating Market. The day before, Ms Hanson changed her mind. We had to be there. So, we changed all our Floating market plans and had to be back at the school by two, so that cut out the second half of the day. In the car, I was panicking we weren't going to go to make it in time. Finally, we got to the school and I raced into the theatre. Ms Hanson wasn't there. 45 minutes later, she walks in and is like, "Sorry, give me five minutes". At this point, I was really annoyed. So, we set up the stage and the Life actors sat backstage while she ran Carnage. And we sat. And we sat. And we sat. Yep, you guessed it. She never rehearsed us. I sat backstage the whole rehearsal. I was pretty mad.

And now it's dream time!

I can't really remember the beginning. It had something to do with Animal Crossing and going to the city. But the city looked a lot like the one in Harvest Moon. Anyway, after that part that I can't remember, there was something about figthing battles for a resistance of some sort. I had these two friends who were with me through two epic battles that I barely remember before we met up with the rest of the resistance. One of my friends was talking to one of the resistance girls about their hats. The resistance girl was like, "I like to put things from battles I've won on my hat!" She had these crystal things on her hat. My friend was like, "That's so cool!" and proceeded to put things on her hat.

Then there was a giant white fuzzy monster in this giant kitchen! It was supposed to be my kitchen, but I was really small. Anyway, we couldn't figure out how to take the monster down and I knew we would have to do it strategicially. I went in there and started pretending to be the monster's friend. I climbed up on his shoulder and pulled out a bag of fruit loops. I fed them to him one by one in his tiny tiny mouth. Eventually, he got dizzy (because, apparently, Fruit Loops make you dizzy) and fell (which was scary because I was tiny and on his shoulder). I ran out to the troops and was like, "Go go go! Now!" They flew in and were ready to attack, but it failed. He was mad and got up and got ready to attack. We all jumped on this little car thing and were running away trying to think of another plan. As I was thinking, Chanele and her sister Brooke were there. They pulled food out of their bags and were discussing it. It looked delicious, but I was worried it would alert the monster. Then I thought of a plan using fluffy orange tabby cats like Pickles. I was worried about using Pickles, because the monster might have seen him in the house, but there was a major lack of fluffy orange tabbys in our resistance. Someone had a white fluffy cat, so I was trying to figure out some way I could sneak that one in there.

Then I woke up.

Life, the universe, everything.

2008-12-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

Kay, so a lot has happened.

Brian came home! It's, like, the best thing ever! I got so so so tired of being the only kid at home. I didn't grow up as an only child, so I'm not used to it. Geez, I missed him!

Christmas! Not so fun actually... I got absolutely no sleep all week. On Monday, I realized something was wrong with Brian's R4 for his DS (his gift for Christmas). I have no idea what happened, but it just didn't feel like working. I didn't want to be fixing it with him awake (since, you know, that would spoil the surprise) so I stayed up fixing it! I eventually got it fixed, though. Be proud of me.
Then on Tuesday I couldn't seem to sleep...
Then on Wednesday, Brian and I...uh...watched Santa decorate downstairs. We also watched Stardust (which I'd never seen before since when Colin and I went...it decided not to show) which was a really cute movie.
So, Christmas morning, I was feeling a little sick. I thought it was just lack of sleep. First I was all dizzy and my stomach kind of hurt. So, we headed out to go to the Missionary Party. We got on this big boat and had dinner and had a White Elephant gift exchange. When we got to the place where the boat was waiting for all the missionaries to show up, I started feeling /really/ dizzy while everyone was just standing there talking. Finally I asked if we could sit down. Then, I rested my head on my arms and tried to fall asleep but just my hands fell asleep. And then they wouldn't wake up. I shook them, I hung them down so the blood would rush to them, I tried a lot of things, but they just got worse.
When we finally got on the boat, I rushed to the bathroom. I ended up throwing up several times. Yeah. Not fun. Then, my stomach decided it wasn't done throwing up when there was nothing left in it. This caused it to start seizing up on itself. That was some of the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.
Eventually, it kind of gave up and I felt a little better.

Oh, also, I was given a part in the CC play. She just won't tell me which part. We're doing two plays (since, you know, we only get 45 minutes as it is, let's cut it down to 20!) They're both by this french lady. They're called 'God of Carnage' and 'Life x3'. They have potential. A LOT more potential than Blood Wedding *shudder*. To be honest, I'm really relieved she put me in. I was fully expecting her to pull a Callum on me. She's decided to hate me lately. I don't know why, but it's getting REALLY frustrating. Everything is my fault. I had the nerve to be allergic to the metallic wig she bought for me, I made the horrible mistake of asking if she needed help with anything (how dare I bother her with insignificant things), and there weren't enough umbrellas so I gave mine to Marian (how rude of me. Anyway, Miss Hanson had just been saying that the only person who 100% NEEDED an umbrella was Marian). I'm not even sure she's noticed she's doing it. But it's not just me (which I'm kind of releived to say). Other people have noticed it too.

I had the weirdest dream a couple of nights ago! It was about 'The Increadible Observable Fish'! With a title like that, you know it's going to be good! Basically, the goal of the game was to observe this fish and get out alive. I'm not sure why. It just was. It started with me in this pretty garden. Green trees, lots of flowers, little ponds. It was nice. But there was something sinister in the air. Walking down the path, I was like, "This isn't too bad!" when I saw a bunny. It had caught a fish (not the increadible observable fish, just a normal one) for its dinner (apparently bunnies eat fish). I was like, "Awww, it's a bunny! I bet it's face is really cute. Hey! Look at me!" So, it looked at me. Its face was half fish. Or robot. I jumped and started running away too fast to get a good look. I spent the next little while trying to forget about it but also trying to decide if it was a fishy robot, or a roboty fish. And if it was half fish, was it cannebilism that it was about to eat a fish?
plot gap
This part was really weird. It looked like it was animated with clay. But we were standing in this building, about to head into the frightful game of 'The Increadible Observable Fish'. There was this air duct that we were supposed to jump in. There were these three girls and this guy who looked like Yoru from Shugo Chara:
but more serious. The oldest girl told us that the shute wouldn't go very fast. We hopped in. She was wrong. It went really fast. When we hit the bottom, there was a sign that said something along the lines of "It would be awful to die before your nineteenth birthday". The oldest girl looked at it, gulped and started running off. A narrarator, who sounded a lot like the narrarator from Pushing Daisies, said "She would know. Her ninteenth birthday was two weeks away."
The Yoru character ran off and I was left to my own devices. There were people with guns shooting people trying to get through to observe the fish. It was really long and epic. Eventually, I got to the area where the fish was. There was no protection and lots and lots and lots of guns. I ran for it. Then I woke up.

All hail the dead puppy girl!

2008-11-29T08:19:00.001-08:00

Tonight's show went crazy. So many things went wrong. On purpose...It was intense.

-There were these two stagehands who constantly make out back stage. It gets SO annoying. They have this little stairwell (the one that leads to the fire exit) where they spend all their time eating each other's faces off. We got so sick of it, we decided we'd put an end to it. Sierra told them that Miss Hanson was looking for them during intermission. While they were away, we ran in there and dumped water all over the steps. We really wanted them to sit in the water, but Mr. DuBois found the water first (Kelly quickly said he accidently dropped his water bottle). Chiaka was the funniest. We told her what we were planning so she wouldn't be worried when we ran in with buckets of water. She was like, "Do what ever you want, but make sure it doesn't touch the props." Then we found her backstage snickering to herself. Then at one point she passed me and was like, "We have hot water too." For those of you who don't know Chiaka, it's really fun to see her willing to pull a prank or something. She's this perfect girl who's always got everything under control. Rediculously under control. Seriously, I think she has magic abilities.

-Every night Sierra and I have had movements we've had to work into the show (I'd demonstrate, but it's kind of hard to do with text. At any rate, it's REALLY hard to work things like that in my character). Tonight we had three. It was really hard.

-Sierra actually managed to squeeze a "That would be wigga-wigga-wack" into one of her lines

-At one point Eliza says, "Do my clothes belong to me or to colonal Pickering?" (Pickering pays for the clothes at the beginning). Higgens says, "What would Pickering do with your clothes?". Tonight, Raf (who plays Pickering) ran on stage in a skirt. It was brief, but the whole audiance saw it.. They laughed. Really hard.

Oh, also, apparently I'm fameous at NIST (one of the other international schools in Bangkok). I'm known as 'the dead puppy girl'. Their drama teacher was the guest director at CC (yeah, we went all the way to Manila to be taught by someone from Bangkok). At one point someone asked me how I make myself cry. I was like, "Oh, I dunno. I just go backstage and think of dead puppies and stuff..." They came to the show. When I came on stage, I guess the director turned to her students and was like, "That's the dead puppy girl!

Because I'm bored.

2008-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

I was playing on Youtube and thought I'd share some of my new favorite videos!

The future in exercising

A warning to us all

Well, excuuuuussse me, princess! (Warning: Really annoying)

Slinky cat takes the stairs

So, I just had the weirdest dream...

2008-11-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

I was playing DS and I guess I dozed off during some of the between-the-action things (admittedly, even the 'action' parts of this game aren't very...'actiony'). Anyway, onto the dream!

It started when we were going home to Utah. I was really upset because my parents had been like, "Okay! Let's go home!" without giving me any warning. So, I didn't get to say good bye to my friends.
Driving through Midway was sad because EVERYTHING had changed (all these new houses and areas and stuff). I even saw one sign that said, "Welcome to Park City!" I was like, "Midway's gotten that big?"
So, we went to church for a fireside or something. I sat there sniffling for a while...

PLOT GAP

Now...I was still in the changed Midway area...but I was kind of elsewhere too. I had met a bunch of people and joined this group thing. I guess they got a lot of new members every so often and were thrilled to have us. We were almost like the Lost Boys. It was pretty fun!
Suddenly, as I was adjusting to the group, the leader girl was like, "Okay, guys. Get ready for whale feeding!" Everyone was like, "Aww..." and I was like, "Whale feeding?" She explained to me the main purpose of our group. Feeding this particular giant whale.
She told me to find something of mine that I would be willing to part with to feed the whale. My pile of stuff pretty much consisted of shoes (holes in them), Pickles' favorite toy, and a little plastic red thing that looked like a baby toy. I couldn't give up the shoes (I gotta have shoes!) and I didn't want to throw away Pickles' favorite toy, so that left me with the baby toy. But I felt bad because Marian had given it to me for my birthday and she was there.
But, finally, I decided to go with the toy. I tried to make a big deal out of how much it sucked that I had to give up the toy for Marian's benefit.
And, now, it was time for whale feeding.
We all piled in our little car...boat...thing and drove to the river (which we lived on so I don't know why we drove there). We stood on this wooden platform and waited for the whale. As we waited, the leader girl told me to hold out my offering when he comes. I'd know when it was okay to let go.
The whale came up out of the water and began to inhale like crazy (like Lord JabuJabu in Ocarina of Time). Everyone ran up, let go of their offering (so it would suck into the thing's mouth), and ran back. My baby toy made a pretty noise as it got sucked into the whale's mouth.
When the whale left, everyone was like, "All right. Now the hard part."
We climed into the bus/boat and got ready to go. Everyone was a bit pale. I was like, "What's going on here?" The leader lady explained it to me.
She told me that we couldn't just feed the whale. Now we had to be rammed by the whale (I don't know why. It made perfect sense in the dream). Basically, we would float there and wait for the whale. It would eventually come and ram into us (hard). We would abandon ship as fast as possible (I mentioned how expensive it must be to get a new ship every day. One of the guys was like, "Yeah, that's why it's not a very good ship."
The drive to the place where we were to be rammed was different than the drive to feeding it. This time, everyone was quiet. And, I noticed, everyone was wearing their seatbelts. I scurried for mine and realized my foot was caught under the guy sitting in the seat in front of me. I tried to pull it out discreetly, but he was like, "Dude, this seat is taken!" I was like, "You're sitting on my foot!" and he was like, "Oh. Sorry." He let me have my foot back. So, I bucked my seatbelt and watched the road go by nervously.
We made it to the river thing and drove into the middle of it. Everyone began bracing themselves the best way possible. I was like, "Now we just wait?" the guy next to me was like, "Now we just wait." One of the guys in the front was like, "DRAAAMAAATIIIIC!" but nobody really laughed.
As I sat there, bracing myself, the thought occured to me that maybe this was a dream. I decided that, indeed, it was a dream and that meant I probably wasn't going to see the car/boat rammed by the whale. Which was kind of sad since this was the climax of the story.
Then I woke up.

All Hallow's Eve

2008-11-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes. I know what you're saying. "Halloween has been over for, like, a week!" Yeah, well...deal.

It all started the Saturday before Halloween. Sierra, Ben, Isa, Stephanie, and I went to be a part of Sierra's sister's haunted house for Thai orphans. I really regret not getting a picture. May I say, I was pretty dang scary! I was wearing this dress:

(I'll make a post about my dresses later when I stop being lazy and take some pictures). I put my hair in half-pigtails, ratted them up crazily, and put really really long black ribbons in each pigtail. I also put some intimidating make-up around my eyes and knee length black and white striped socks with lace along the top.

At first they were like, "Why don't you be the patient the doctors are operating on?" I was like, "Okay" and they proceeded to lead me to a table covered in fake blood. Uh, no. I'm sorry, but I am in love with this dress. Did they really expect me to lie down in a bunch of red?
So, I ran off and joined Sierra and Stephanie in this room with an intense strobe light. You can imagine how tiring that got after a while. Constant flashing is quite painful!

When the kids came in, I poised myself like a ballerina porcelain doll. As they walked by, I would try to lurch suddenly toward them, but it didn't really work because they were in such tight groups there wasn't enough room for me to do that without hitting some people (which was against the rules).

One guy walked in and, once he saw me, shouted "FARONG" and walked on. I was like, "what?" since, you know, most of the people in there were farongs.
One little girl entered the room, saw me, and said in a thick accent, "beautiful!" and grabbed me by the arm. That kind of freaked me out!
One group that seemed especially wound up came in, saw me, backed up blindly, ran into Sierra, freaked, and ran out. I got a big laugh out of that one!

For the second half, someone stole our room, which I was unhappy about since I quite liked my setup. So, the people in charge asked me to sit at the table with the mirror and act like the girl in The Ring (brushing my hair and stuff). Yeah, because me with my short mussed up pigtails totally looked like this:

Anyway, the brush was covered in fake blood which was also going to drip on my dress. So, I positioned myself and angled the mirror so that when people turned the corner, they would see the reflection of my face in the mirror. Keeping a neutral face and letting my eye makeup seem more intense in the lighting, I would stare at them in the mirror and turn my head sharply when they'd get close. Then, when they weren't really looking anymore, I'd stand up and stare at them. Occasionally someone would look over their shoulder and see me standing. That scared them!

The best was when Isa, who was in the room in front of me, would scare them so they'd back in without looking at me. They'd turn around and be like, "Gah!"
At one point, some stupid kid was all 'tough' and not afraid of me. He stared defiantly into my eyes for a while but, when I stood up, he ran into the next room really fast. Isa and I laughed about that for a while!
Then there was this guy with a fancy camera who really looked like he knew what he was doing with it. He took, like, six pictures of me. He took one in the mirror that I really wish I had asked for!

I also got lots of people afterwords wanting pictures with me and telling me I was scary ^-^

Then came Halloween! It was pretty dang epic. We dressed up as Zombies (I know, clever costume) and stayed in character the entire night! We groaned and limped and remained unfocused. It was awesome! We were famous by the night's end!

There was this one lady who, as we came moaning and groaning up the driveway, said in a southern accent, "Look! It's mummies? Mummies...mummies..." and then some guy behind her was like, "Dawn of the Living Dead!" and she was like, "Yeah! Dawn of the Living Dead!" When she dropped candy into my bag, she was like, "Did you get a gee-tar while trick-er-treatin?" (note that I took a ukulele and when we would knock on a door, I would zombie strum the thing and we'd all sway)

We also went into this haunted house. As we entered, we found ourselves wondering where the scary was. Not a single person jumped out to scare us. We were like, "uhh..." Then, when we exited the haunted house, we realized why no one was left in there! Every single one of them was stone-cold drunk. Some lady walked up and grabbed Isa and I around the shoulders and was like, "These guys found friends! They found friends in there! There were friends for them in there!" because, I guess, we were zombies and so we felt right at home with all the monsters (or...styrofoam tombstones since that was pretty much all that was in there.)

We were so tired by the time we got to Ben's house. It's quite a ways from Sierra's and we limped the whole way. We got in and were like, "water! Give us water!" then, pretty much the very second we left, it started to rain. Hard. We had already made our way around this little path and we were like, "Ah! Now what?" Sierra ran toward the little playground and was like, "shelter!" then she turned around and ran back and was like, "metal!" So, we tried to hang under this tree, but it started dripping. That's when we noticed we were right behind Ben's house. So, we climbed over the fence and went back in.

Memorable quotes from the night:
Little girl who couldn't say her rs: "You're weird..."
Stupid little boy: "I'm not falling for it."
Marian's entire golf cart: "AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Rachel (on the golf cart): "Marian! You had better make this thing go faster or I'm going to shoot you!" (or something like that)

Oh, Sierra also almost killed a child. She scared her into the street in front of a car.
It was pretty fun!

After ten years, I've finally done it.

2008-10-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

Yes. I finally beat the best game ever created: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Over the years, I've tried to finish it multiple times. But every time something got in the way. In the beginning, it was Jabu Jabu's belly. It was disgusting. And I couldn't find my way around. Hey, I was seven! That's a pretty hard-core game for a seven-year-old!

Then, I tried several more times. I got really far once. But then I kept getting bored trying to do the same stuff I had done before. I finished the first half of the game a good eight or nine times. A few years ago I was like, "Okay. This is rediculous. I'm going to finish this game!" So, I started playing again. I got super far. I was going to finish! Then...we moved. And we left the 64 behind. So, I had to start over again (downloading the game onto my Wii).

I finally got all the way through this time! There were some times I wanted to throw the controler through the screen and watch that stupid fairy go up in sparks. There were times I wanted to take that master sword and jam it down Link's throat. But, fortunatley, that's not an option in the game. So, I just played it instead.

I maintain my belief that this is the greatest game ever created. It's absolutley spectacular. The graphics (for 1998) are beautiful, the world is huge (something fairly new when this came out), the puzzles are clever, and the plot is fascinating.

Though, I do wonder how the heck this game got an E rating...

This stuff's enough to give any child nightmares.

WWW Woes

2008-09-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

Why is this so hard? I don't know where to go for Week Without Walls! I really REALLY want to go to Japan - but no one wants to go with me! I don't want to be all lonely. Marian wants to go to Greece and I want to go with Marian...but I don't want to go to Greece! I hate sightseeing. It's so boring. So, what do I do? *sigh*

Dreams!

2008-09-11T22:52:00.001-07:00

So, I've had a couple of dreams. Let me tell you about them!

So, first there was this guy. He really wanted to go out with me. He asked me week after week to the big dance (because apparently we have a big dance every Friday). One day, I found him at my house. I was upset. I went downstairs and complained to my mom. She was like, "Just go with him once" but I was like, "Then he'll think we're going out and I'll have to go with him again and again and again and again!"
Suddenly, there was a different guy standing outside the glass door waving at me. We were super heroes, you see. He was like, "Amber! We have to go! Emergency!" I was like, "YES! Escape excuse!" and ran out to meet him. My powers keep changing throughout the dream, but at this point one of my powers was making my body light in the wind (like in Shugo Chara with Amulet Heart). I made myself light and grabbed the guy's hand so we could fly away. The annoying dance going guy saw me and, to my surprise, it bothered me. I wanted to explain, but we were already up, up, and away! I looked back at the super-hero guy and was like, "How odd. 20 minutes ago I didn't have any guys to be confused about...and now I have two."
We kept flying and passing these big, square tombstones that were from a previous battle. The villain had somehow tried to kill everyone and had made tombstones for them, but he didn't succeed. I wondered if there was a tombstone for me since I was at the battle. They were passing us in alphabetical order and I was waiting for my name to pop up. The tombstone that was supposed to come before mine had a guy sunbathing on top of it. There was no tombstone for me.
We landed a ways away. The super hero guy was like, "Let's take this!" and grabbed a little beat-up buggy type thing that looked like it belonged to Robin. We jumped on but, when superhero guy tried to start it, it just backed up suddenly. I was like, "I'll take care of this" and used my powers, which at this point were something to do with electricity, to start it. We drove to this big, really cool indoor garden thing. The last of the civilians were fleeing and the room was left full of super heroes!
We darted in to help. There was a villain there who had the ability to turn sticks (like, the kind you get off of trees) into monsters. This part was visually really cool! The sticks would turn into these people - generally pale or blue skinned. The girls were wearing torn Lolita dresses and the boys had nice pants, a dress shirt, and cool striped vests. A bunch of these monsters started toward us and we backed up as one. I accidentally stepped out of my shoe and noticed there was red in it. I was like, "Is my foot bleeding?" but I didn't have time to worry about it. There were too many monsters.
I reached into my pocket and found a button. I threw it at one of the monsters and it got distracted by the shiny. I was like, "Ah-ha! They get distracted easily!"
The villain, I guess, hadn't known that either. She was like, "Cool!" and stopped the monsters. She turned to us and said, "Okay, how about we try and distract them? I'll send five, and you five throw stuff at them three times. Then I'll stop them...hm...maybe I shouldn't be doing this...oh well! Ready?" I started searching myself for stuff I could throw. I had my hat, and I could break the buttons off my jacket, and the one shoe that I still had... "Go! Throw something!" We did. After a while she was like, "Throw something else!" This went on for a while before the villain got tired of it and sent more monsters to finish us. I had two running after me - a pale girl wearing a blue Sweet Loli dress that she shouldn't have been wearing because she was fat, and a smaller girl wearing a purple Sweet Loli dress that was too big for her.
Two was too much for me to handle! I saw Sierra standing over by the side doing nothing so I was like, "Sierra! Help me!" she just stood there. "Sierra! Help me!" I guess she thought it was a joke because she just smiled. "SIERRA! HELP ME!" someone else was like, "Just help her, man!" So, Sierra grabbed the fat one. I grabbed the little one and pushed her back really hard. Somehow she got caught hanging on a laundry line. This part was also really cool visually. Her dress splayed out in the wind as she hung there and I was like, "Ohmygosh. It's the cover of the book!" because I guess we were in a book. I was like, "I caused the cover of the book! That's so cool!"
Then I woke up.

Next dream!

I can't remember all of this dream because it was insanely long. But I know we were on a mission of some sort. There was a big group of us trekking through the mountains. We came to this mansion on top of a hill "We should set up base there". But to get there we had to climb this insanely slippery, muddy slope. Evenutally everyone got up, but all this stuff was still at the bottom. "I'll go get it" I sighed. I slid down the slope, put on a bunch of the clothes that were left, and climbed back up. "Okay, someone's sweater...a backpack...pair of shorts..." it went on for a while as I slowly stripped other people's clothes off and gave them back. Ben delightedly took a picture when I was wearing some guy's swimming suit on top of my own clothes.
It took several trips to get everyone's stuff. The last time I slid down, there was all this Mario stuff. Like, a star and a Fireflower and stuff like that. So, I gathered it all up and went back up the slope for the last time.
Plot gap!
4 of us were trying to break onto this spaceship looking thing that had landed near the mansion. I guess that was our mission. Once we got on, we were met with quite a disturbing sight. There were thousands of people sitting in these chairs, all wearing white, and just staring forward. There were several levels of these chairs. They had been brainwashed. We tried to sneak on, but were caught. The 'caretakers' dressed us in white and left us waiting to be brainwashed. One of the other girls turned to me and was like, "Try to think of the thing that matters most to you. Maybe they can wipe our minds, but they can't touch something so deeply etched into our soul". I tried to think of my family.
Plot gap! There are lots of these, unfortunatly.
I'm not sure if we escaped or what, but we were trying to stir up rebellion. It was hard to convince the people of anything because they had the minds of a six year old. One who doesn't listen. Since we had been dressed in white, the 'caretakers' had a hard time catching us. We'd just take an empty chair and stare vacantly at the seat in front of us. I set up base on an empty chair on the top level.
Slowly, the rebellion was growing. We convinced people by weaving intricate tales of their old home. Of the world. We told them about grass and trees and even the muddy slope I had to climb. But nothing convinced them so thorougly as rain. They loved our stories about rain. Rain would bring bits of their memories back to them. Each time the 'caretakers' caught someone actualy thinking, it would be right back to the mindsweeping. But, slowly, it was getting hard for them to keep up. We had sacrificed a lot to get here - one of the original 4 rebels, Scott was his name apparently, had been brainwashed multiple times and even shot once.
Plot gap. This is the suckiest gap. I can only imagine how awesome this part was.
We won! Somehow we had crashed the ship and all the people were free. They were looking at wonder at their surroundings and re-discovering family members. I, myself, found my little sister who had been captured at a young age.
Suddenly, water started falling. I looked up to see if the ship was leaking, but found myself lookingn at dark clouds and listening to thunder.
It was raining.
I burst into tears as everyone looked to the sky. I hadn't seen rain for years. Suddenly, I realized it was my sister's birthday. I told her so and a little kid came up to me. "Hey, why is it your sister's birthday?"
"Why? How come?"
"Because the day your sister was born, my mama was captured"
Then I woke up.

Gah! Not again!

2008-09-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

Kay, so my hotmail account has sent out another mass-email that wasn't from me. So, I disabled the account (at least, I think I did. Hard to say, really)

So, you won't be able to reach me at purpleplayingpenguin any more. It's gone. Now, if you want to e-mail me, it has to be at bibliobihullabaloo@gmail.com

Just a heads up!

Best day ever

2008-09-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today was a wonderful day! First, it was alternate dress day. So, I got up and put on my lolita-ish dress (well...sort of. It's not really as cute as it should be. "Lolita inspired" if you will). So, all day I got all kinds of 0_o looks! And I was like ^-^! It was great!

Then, after school, everyone was going to RDA. But I didn't really feel like it. I was tired, it was hot, and I didn't want to get horse unmentionables all over my new dress. So, I wandered over to the new Manga Club. I was a little hesitant to go because I was afraid it would just make me miss Colin and Britta. But, it wasn't like I had anything else to do. So, I entered the room. First thing I noticed: there were a TON of people there! I was late and they were already watching an episode of something. I wandered around the room and ended up sitting on a desk at the back because everything else was already taken. After we finished that episode (I'm not sure what it was from...but it was funny), we discussed what we should do as a club. It was epic. Everyone understood my obscure references and had references of their own! We decided we would watch Anime (big surprise), have frequent days for gaming, and make our own manga! I get to be a writer! We even discussed what we should do for Munch n Music! We were thinking of doing a cosplay cafe to raise money for the club. Then we might do Hare Hare Yukai for the show!

I left that in high spirits and played N + while I waited for everyone to come back from RDA. Shea, Sierra, and I went to Sierra's house and hung out for a while. We threw stuffed animals back and forth and laughed a lot. After a while Ben and Isa came and we talked about random crap for a while. The entire conversation was funny and smooth running. To me, it seemed like the best conversation we've had since our friends left. There was so much laughter my stomach hurt by the end! Then Ben tried on my floofily slip. Here's the scary thing: it looked normal. Like, really. It looked like something he might wear. So, he kept it on for when the kids from JIS came (Sierra is housing some kids for the Jazz festival). We were able to keep completely straight faces as Ben paraded around in my slip and Sierra's scarf. When they asked him about it, he was just like, "Oh, I just felt like wearing it today". They believed us for a while. The second the door closed behind them so they could change their clothes, we burst into laughter. It was really funny!

When they came in for dinner, we forced them to intermingle with us by taking up every other chair. So, the entire dinner was loud and funny as we all discussed random things. Oh, and at the beginning Sierra's dog, Chewy, came in. She jumped in one of the guy's laps and promptly peed all over him. After dinner, we went up to Sierra's guest house and discovered that all of them except one had DSs. So, we played Mario Kart for, like, an hour. It was epic. They're really REALLY good.

And, so, here I am. Pleased with the best day I've had in a while.

DON'T CLICK THE LINK!

2008-08-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

Sooo...today I logged onto my e-mail and got this message:

Hey friends:
We are wholesale company which can offer you laptops, digital cameras, videos, GPS，cell phone, mp4, game console and many other electron products. We can offer you both highest quality products and best price. Also we could give you favorable discount if you order more. All of our products are brand new and original; if you need any help, please contact us.
*insert links*

Well, no. I didn't get the message personally. Apparently, I sent the message to everybody on my contact list and it didn't make it to three. Except, I didn't actually send that message. I don't know where it came from or who sent it, but it wasn't me! So, if you get that e-mail from me, don't click the links. Goodness knows where they lead and what viruses they may contain.

So, I changed my e-mail! Now you can e-mail me at bibliobihullabaloo@gmail.com

Oh, also, does anyone know how to change your blogger e-mail? I tried and it said "You can not associate a Gmail address with your Google Account." -Um...what? Isn't Gmail set up with Google?

In other news, school tomorrow. Ew.

I wrote a sucky story! Are you proud of me?

2008-07-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah. There was this writing contest on this website, so I figured I'd join. There were six possible prompts you could get. Throwing dice decided your fate. I got this:

Uuuh...so...apparently I can't post the image. But here is a link.

Anyway, the story is really cliche and poorly worded and short and not suspenseful at all and just generally fails at life. I wrote it in half an hour at 2 in the morning. What do you expect from me? And I have nothing better to do with my life than to share my fail story with you all. So, here we go!

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There's only one problem with being a mad genius: It doesn't exactly pay the bills. That's how I wound up trying to force a needle into a squealing five-year-old's arm. I had only the best intentions, I assure you. You see, I became a doctor as a matter of survival. The expenses of villining can be...extravagant. Besides, “Dr. Diabolical” sounds a lot cooler than "Mr. Diabolical" or "That Diabolical Guy", don't you think?
"Will you hold still?!"
"You'll never take me alive!" I was growing weary of this fight. In one quick movement, I gripped the little girl's shoulders, leaned in close to her face, and whispered, “At this point, I couldn’t care less if I gave this shot to you alive or dead, but either way you’re going to have it. You’d better hold still if you value your life.”
“Dr. D?” A nurse had appeared at the door.
“I’m busy.”
“You have another patient waiting for you in your office.”
“...fine.” After jamming the needle into the little girl’s arm as hard as I could, I set about the mundane task of checking in on my next patient. What would it be this time? Some teenager who can’t move his hands anymore because he played too many video games? Some stupid kid who swallowed a penny? Yawning, I opened the door.

I almost dropped my clipboard.

Sitting there, in my office, waiting for me...my arch nemesis: Admiral Admirable! I ducked behind the door, grinning from ear to ear. I couldn't believe it. Months were spent trying to track this guy down and here he comes, skipping in to my office on a silver platter! Well, actually he was sitting on the paper doctors use to keep things sanitary, but it might as well have been silver. After hastily putting on a surgical mask to hide my face and smoothing back my distinctive green hair, I walked boldly into the room.
"Are you Dr. D?" The fool had no idea.
"Yes. I'm Dr. D. Now, what seems to be the problem?"
"Last night, I think I broke my wrist saving a bus full of young children! That fiend, Dr. Diabolical, was trying to vaporize them with a high-powered laser!" Funny, that's not how I remembered it. As far as I recalled, he had been trying to hide behind the bus and had tripped on the way.
"That's very admirable, Admiral."
"Yes, it is. It's a good thing I was there."
"A good thing, indeed. Now, does this hurt?" I jammed my pen as hard as I could into the darkest part of his bruised wrist.
"GAH! Yes!"
"I see...and this?"
"OUCH!"
"How about this?"
"STOP!" I smiled behind my mask.
"I'm sorry, was I being too rough?"
"Nothing's too rough for me!"
"Good...so, Admiral. I'm sure it must be frightening to be a super hero, what with all the villains about. Tell me about it."
"Fear? I don't even know what fear is!"
"Don't know what fear is? Well, what about that brilliant man who broke your wrist?"
"Dr. Diabolical? Oh, please. That guy couldn't smart his way out of a paper baaAAAUGH!"
"Ooops. I slipped."
"Anyway, That Diabolical Guy isn't nearly as smart as me. He should be glad I teeched him a lesson!"
"Yes...well, I think we should take an x-ray."
Hopping on the scale, I flipped the light switch three times and waited for my secret laboratory to emerge behind the medicine cabinet. "Follow me."

I thought the Admiral's eyes were going to pop out of their sockets as he walked behind me through the lab. "This is where we do our testing. We put the x-ray here so that it wouldn't give the workers cancer. Take off your shirt and lie down on this table."
This was just too easy.
"Now hold still while I strap you in."
"Why are you strapping me in so tight?"
"To make sure you don't move. No matter what happens."
My hands were beginning to shake in anticipation as I stuck monitors to his bare chest.
"What are those for?" His eyes were beginning to darken with realization.
"I want to hear every. last. heartbeat."
"This seems a little extravagant fo-mmph" by the time I had covered his mouth, my breath was coming in uncontrollable bursts.
"For an x-ray? Maybe a little. But I want to make sure nothing goes wrong."
He had realized his mistake. The heartbeat sped to an alarmingly satisfying rate. "Oh, dear." The surgical mask fluttered to the ground, revealing my manic grin.

"It appears we're going to have to operate."

------

Yeah. Reading it again I'm having second thoughts about posting it at all. It really does fail. But, oh well. It was fun to write. I love prompts.

So, yeah. That's all.

Life as we know it

2008-07-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

So, I had a dream the other day...it wasn't as cool as Britta's Ninja Theatre dream, but, you know, I have nothing else to write about.

So, a little background. My 'best friend since second grade' back home, Wendy, is training for the Olympics in cross country skiing (2010). She's pretty dang serious about it, too. She's at this boarding school that's all like, "We'll train you" and stuff.

Well, in my dream, apparently it was 2010 and Wendy made it. So, I began my trek to Canada so I could watch. As I was walking, this kid (who I apparently knew) runs up and starts trying to shoot me. I was like, "What the weird!" and ran. I go to hide at my home (Ha, he'll never find me there!)

Well, I guess I got tired of the Olympic idea because I went to school the next day. I was wearing that new Lolita-ish dress I had a tailor make for me a while ago in real life.(but it didn't quite turn out how I had hoped...) I was with this guy who was apparently my best friend when that gun guy shows up again! But this time he has a tazer gun. He tazers my friend who's all like, "Run!" and I turn around and tear up these stairs at high speed.

But the guy's still after me. This was a really scary scene. The guy was all, like, faster than me. So, he catches up and grabs me and whispers in a menacing voice, "Aw, what's wrong Amber? SCARED?" and he pushes me up a few steps so I keep running. He catches up and grabs me again and rips the back of my dress so the tazers would hit skin rather than cloth and he's like, "Don't like to be manhandled?!" and pushes me again. Then, I get away and I run out of the building and into this big open field. I keep running and he chases me. Then I jump into this river and try to swim accross really fast. When I get to the other side, he's already there, but he doesn't know that I am. He looks confused and is looking the other way like he lost me. So, I try to sneak really quietly back into the river but he hears me splash and looks at me. Then I woke up.

Soooo, apparently if Wendy goes to the Olympics, I'm going to be attacked by some crazy kid with a tazer gun on my trek to Canada.

Kay, so I FINALLY watched the Avatar fanale today (don't even make me describe how hard it was to get it). Eh-pic. Everything was like, "FWOOOSH!" and "WOOOAH!" and the fights were like "SWEESH!" and the jokes were all like, "HAAAA". Everything was so awesome it deserves to be capatalized.

Hm...what else? Oh, well, I've decided to draft this girl named Phoebe Lewis into our group. See, she's moving here and she's in theatre. I sent her a message on Facebook and she replied and she seems nice enough. Let's just hope she's not actually any good at theatre. My chances already seem to be whithering without a new threat. Unfortunatley for me, she has some pretty theatrical pictures on her Facebook. She looks experianced -_-'

Dream World!

2008-07-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I went to Dream World (amusement park) with Britta, Isa, and Ben. It was intense. First thing we see: Tour bus full of Chinese people. Second thing we see: Some guy with his socks pulled way up. Third thing we see: Not a ticket booth. There were these windows but they were all empty. So, as I liberally applied sunscreen, Ben wandered over to this little room labeled 'Information'. Yeah, you buy tickets there. Not the ticket booth. Don't be silly. It was an awful lot less for Thais, so we spent a while scrambling for our school IDs before we finally had the little bracelet things on. Then, it was time to enter!

We ran over to the entrance where there were these guys wearing bright orange and blue outfits standing under a big gate with all kinds of cogs and gears and castle things and other cartoony stuff was spinning around in greeting. As we walked through the gate, one of the guys in the oh-so-fashionable outfit greeted Britta with an oh-so-fashionable "Hi, beautiful"

Feeling oh-so-creeped out, we wandered into the love garden which looked rather suspiciously Alice and Wonderland-esque. Cute couples sat on benches taking cute pictures full of cute little hearts. And then there was some fat kid sitting alone on one of the benches and grimacing at his mother's camera.

The rides opened at 10:00. By which I mean, we went in at 10 and didn't get to ride anything until 10:30. The first ride we went on was called the Spider, and it was uber-fun. It was especially fun to watch the guy in the cart next to Britta and I frowning and glaring at us the whole time.

Then we went to Space Mountain, a clear rip of Disney Land's Space Mountain. It was quite fun and dark. And we screamed when these suddenly lit up above our heads unexpectedly. We went three times in a row before the Chinese tour group came and got in line. Then we left for this orange roller coaster (except, I could have gotten this chronologically wrong. Hard to say). It was the kind where you have your feet dangling and it was pretty fun. But the guy who was strapping people in kept staring at me with this creepy smile.

Then we saw this haunted house. We spent, like, an hour trying to convince Ben to go in, but he refused. So, Isa, Britta, and I went in feeling oh-so-brave. Until we saw that we would actually have to walk. Britta chickened out and left Isa and I to fend for ourselves. It was what you'd expect from a theme park haunted house. The gears of the fake monsters were louder than the scary music. But the fact that we were walking creeped us out. But in a different way than the entrance guy and the orange roller coaster guy. That was a more...slimy creepiness.

And the Pirate Ship! I love those things! But the second time we went on, there was this weird guy on the other side of the ship who, every time the ship would go up, made the sound of a howler monkey on steroids.

Then we went on the Super Splash! Our very own Splash Mountain rip-off...but shorter. Man, we got really wet. And then we went and stood where the wave would hit us when the other people would ride down. It was a big wave. Really. But we did miss out on the Grand Canyon (Rattlesnake Rapids for you Utahns). It was closed. Which sucks because I love those things.

And, of course, the FAIL RAIL! It was this monorail that went the speed of The Heber Creeper on a bad day. It was ridiculous. And the compartments were the size of a computer screen so our knees jammed into the seat across form us. It took us on a lovely tour so that we could see the air conditioners, a bucket, and the broken down Grand Canyon. And then there was the driver. He kept staring at us with these HUGE eyes. At this point I began to wonder if creepiness was in the job description. So, naturally, we went on the Fail Rail twice.

Other activities included the Giant House (A house that was giant. I think it was supposed to be the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk), an action show (there were these guys in SWAT uniforms and explosions and other testosterone filled stuff. I got endless amusement out of the graffiti on the wall. They had all these 'cool' things that made you think of rugged and hard core. And then there was a door (secret hideout entrance, perhaps?) with this stick-figure-esque thing with a mask appropriately labeled, 'bad'), and shaved ice (banana flavor was magical).

But the crowning moment for me was Snow Town. It cost an extra 150 baht, but was so worth it. It was basically this big fridge with ice that would pass as snow because the top was shaved a bit. According to the thermometer, it was -3.5 degrees Celsius. So it was jam-packed with all these people shivering in the corner. They had a little tubing hill that I just couldn't get enough of. Except at the bottom, there were these guys who were supposed to stop you from running into the wall. But they clearly haven't had a lot of experience with ice so whenever I went down, I either ran into the wall or had them stop me so forcefully I'd fly out of my tube. And the boots were funny. You had to wear their boots, because obviously, going into snow, you need boots. Except the boots were rain boots. Absolutely positively NO insulation. All boots are not created equal. I haven't been able to get such a full breath of air since the last time I had a winter, two years ago. I could have stayed all day. But everybody else was getting cold so we only stayed for, like, five minutes.

Then, at the end of the day, we realized how small the park was and how we'd already been on everything five times. So, Isa and I sat on a bench staring at people as they passed to see their reactions until it was time to go home. Ben and I went to Britta's and ate AMERICAN TOP RAMON!

It was the closest to an American day I've had in a long time.

E3

2008-07-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

So, as many of you know, E3 is here. You know, the HUGEGANTIC gaming convention. It's awesome. Though, this year has been odd. Here's my rundown of the companies' press conferences:

Microsoft

So, pretty much the main idea of Microsoft was, "Take THAT, Sony!" They did a pretty good job this year. But the biggest shock was them taking Final Fantasy from Sony. Yep. Xbox 360 is releasing FFXIII. Crazy.

Sony

I think Sony had the best press conference this year. It just seemed to flow. I've never had a Sony System so it's hard for me to compare it to other years, but I thought most things they did were awesome. The biggest thing that caught my attention was their statistics. Rather than rambling on about them like Nintendo did, they put them in a level of one of the games they're releasing. It was a really clever way to get through the boring stuff.

Nintendo

I was pretty disappointed in Nintendo this year. Okay, majorly disappointed. Being a rabid Nintendo fangirl, I felt like this year they punched us (the core gamers) in the gut, left us sitting in the mud, and told us our moms said hi. I fear Nintendo may be compleatly deserting it's core gamers. I've been one of the people defending Nintendo's decision to market to casual gamers, but this was just too much.
Remember a year or two ago at the end of Nintendo's E3? Smoke and lights filled the auditorium, cool music flowed through the speakers, and Shiguru Miyamoto ran onstage with a Master Sword and shield. Yes, a new Zelda. The audiance burst into applause and jumped to their feet as everybody's favorite game designer proudly announced The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It was awesome.
Now, fastforward to a few days ago. The audiance was half asleep from the LOOONG presentation of facts and figures when, once again, the lights dimmed. Smoke filled the auditorium and lights danced through the air. When suddenly, the lights revealed something on stage: Miyamoto in something awesome? No. Some guy with a mohawk waving the wiimote and nunchuck around like an idiot. Yes. Wiimusic. That was their big hook. It's a stupid toy (not a game) where you press random buttons and it playes music for you. Not like Guitar Hero. It requires no skill. You literally just press buttons.
The lady presenting a lot of it also got really annoying. Talking about puppies and hurting her wrist. It got old. Fast. And the smiling! They were just so...happy! They were like XD :D :) :>
Not to say everything was a blow. The new Animal Crossing looks pretty good. But it's just Animal Crossing. It doesn't really look all that different from the last ones. And the new addition to the Wiimote looks AWESOME. It's now causing 1:1 movement. Which, though the game they're releasing it on looks like more minigames targeted and soccer moms and children, has great possibilities for the future.
Also, after the press confrence, they announced the #1 awesome thing: Pikmin 3. Yes, they officially announced it now. But they didn't spend any time on it. Someone had to ask them, "Are you making another Pikmin?" and after debating if they could tell us or not said, "We're making Pikmin."

Live Journal

2008-07-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

So, my friends have decided we can only look at each others' blogs if we're on the same website. And they've adopted livejournal. So, now I have two blogs. But they'll be the same. I'll just copy and paste my entries from one into the other. But I like this ones layout waaaay better. So...yeah. Here's my "livejournal" in case you want to look at it (I'm not sure why you would. I literally copied and pasted the entries on this one to that one)

http://bibliobhulabalo.livejournal.com/

Musical!

2008-05-31T01:18:00.000-07:00

The results are in! Next years musical will be My Fair Lady! What do I think of this? Well...I'm not sure. I love My Fair Lady! Eliza is a to-die for role. Except for one problem. She's also the ONLY role. So, basically, I'm either the lead or chorus. There's nothing in between. Except for a couple of non-singing roles.

I'm also worried about our extreme lack of guys. This show needs a whole mess of really strong guys that we don't have. We have a couple of super-talented guys, but not enough. Also, they're all basses (at least, all of the ones I've ever heard sing). We don't have tenors in theatre.

I've been given a shopping list. I need to find a bunch of stuff. My main concern is shoes. She wants character shoes that are ankle-high and lace up. It's hard to find shoes in my size! I'm also worried about a plain straw hat. I've already been looking for one for Colin's birthday (he wanted one) and couldn't find one. So, now I REALLY need it and am no closer to finding it!

Anyway, I imagine I'm going to spend a lot of time over the summer polishing my Cockney accent. And my British accent. Gosh, after Christmas Carol I was like "YEAH! No more Cockney! w00t!" So...out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Even more picture fun!

2008-05-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

Shortly after posting all those pictures, We ended up taking up almost an entire day taking more pictures. So, here are some of the highlights!

It all started when we started talking about what our weapon would be if we were assassins. Mine would be razor-lined cards. I'd say something like "Go fish" before tossing the weapons at my victims. After the deed was done I'd say "Here's my card" as one card fluttered softly to the floor. Then I'd disappear in a flurry of cards!

Colin would have an umbrella. The top and ends would be daggers. And he'd enter creepily like Mary Poppins. Before departing, he'd say, "I hope I didn't leave you feeling...under the weather"

Britta would have a scarf. It would have glass shards all throughout the fabric and the little fringies on the end would be little bits of sharp metal. She'd say, "Prepare to be 'scarved' for life!"

That's when I noticed how very green Britta looked. So, we started playing with the color recognition thing on Colin's camera.

We tried doing it with the blue that I was wearing...but it didn't work very well.

So, I went and found some other blue stuff.

Then we went and found red stuff for Colin. But we couldn't play with color recognition anymore because his camera died and we had to use mine.

Then we noticed how awesome an orange picture would be with Pickles. So, that's what we did!

It all just exploded from there.

All right, it's official.

2008-05-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

I've decided on my future. I'm going to win American Idol, become rich and famous, star in any show on Broadway I want, become a fabulously wealthy author, and then maybe I'll buy a ferret.

But, seriously, it seems like a great idea to me.

More picture fun! w00t!

2008-05-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't believe how magical the Coke factory is! It's like visiting Willy Wonka's chocolate factory! But with more accountants.

Another one of those freak theatre storms.

Um...creepy?

Think of all the stories that could lead up to this picture! It's inspiring!

Leap for joy!

Britta the bully

This picture = epic win

*PUNT*

Random picture fun!

2008-05-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

Trying to make contact with our shadow friends

Being emo makes me happy!

Fun with Colin's camera

Shea

Isa, sporting a lovely Phoenix Wright refrence.

Me sitting on the ceiling. I have mad skillz like that.

Uuuh...blogger freaked when I tried to add more. I'll try again later...

Also, just out of curiosity, is anyone actually reading this blog? Because I feel like I'm talking to myself...not that I don't do that normally, just sometimes it's nice to know.

Video games! w00t!

2008-05-06T02:55:00.000-07:00

Kay, so pretty much the purpose of an online blog is to spew about video games and the like. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to spew about the most recent games I've been playing. Yay!

The World Ends With You

This game = epic
You can't argue with math.
The gameplay is smooth and, well, awesome. Incredibly hard. You see, you play as two characters at a time and you have to fight with them at the same time; one in the top screen, one in the bottom. So, you've got to keep track of what's happening in both screens at a time. It's pretty intense. The character design is (except for Shiki) awesome. I love Neku's headphones! The music is good, but does get a bit repetitive. Admittedly, sometimes there's too much dialog. There have been times when it felt like "Just let me fight!" as they were having their friendship speech. But all in all, I'm hooked. I've almost finished the game and can barely put it down to let the DS charge (but you even get points for putting it down!)

In the end, I give it 9/10

Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with friends

Man, what a weird game this is! Seriously, what the heck? It's just so...happy. All the time! I'm not exaggerating. Like, you completely mess a recipe up, end up with 0 points, and catch the pot on fire, and it STILL gives you a happy little message: "Not too bad!" The optimism drives me crazy. And the cooking makes no sense. "To stew this lobster correctly, blow on it!" I also keep unlocking things that I have no idea what to do with. I get items and presents and stuff. But I have yet to figure out where any of these items go or what I'm supposed to do with them. But it is entertaining to listen to the really thick Japanese accents in the English voices (I don't know why, but they recorded the English audio in Japan. So, the voices end up something like "Cuk-ing mama tu: Dinneaer wees fends!" and "Lesultsu" (results))
All in all, I give it 4/10

Mario Party DS

This game is pretty much what you'd expect from Mario Party. Boring, repetitive, and addicting. Nintendo should have given up on this whole series long ago. But, they continue to trudge on. If there's one thing we've learned from Nintendo, it's that they'll never back down. Ever. I blew through the single player mode no problem. It was super easy. Now I don't know what to do. Hopefully my friends will get it soon. Then maybe it'll be some fun.
At any rate, I give it a 6/10.

Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart has always been one of my favorite series from Nintendo. It's just fun. That's all. My friends and I spend hours upon countless hours playing the DS version. So, I was pretty excited when this version came out! Still the Mario Kart we all know and love, but the Wiimote adds a new level of difficulty. See, you hold it like a steering wheel and actually steer! It's really fun! But one super stupid thing about it is drifting around corners and getting little boosts and such. You can put that on automatic. And even if it's on manual, you only have to hold one button to initiate it. How stupid is that?

I give it 7/10

Suddenly lacking...tear

2008-05-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

So, late a few nights ago, something monumental happened. I dare you to guess what it was!
...
...
...
Okay, so I can't hear you guess. I'll just tell you. In the dead of night, a band of Ninja Mobsters struck through the back door and took all of our stuff so they could buy World of Warcraft credit.

It all started at, oh, eight in the morning. Mom came in and was like "Oh, I slept in. I'll take you over for second period." At this point I was like, "HECK YES!" especially since second period was free so I didn't have to go until lunch. So, I was sitting in bed, playing my DS, when suddenly mom comes in. "Do you have my laptop?" I felt like that was a silly question. If I had the laptop I would be ultimizing my ability to surf teh interwebz and play video games at the same time. "No..." I said, tearing Bowser to shreds. "We've been robbed." "Huh?" "We've been robbed."

Going downstairs, I discovered the muddy footprints and the open door. My Monk-like detective skillz kicked in suddenly. "This is not normal," they screamed. You see, Noi had washed the floor just last night and, as far as I could tell, she was able to remove most large muddy foot prints.

They took...well...pretty much everything. Two laptops, two wallets, two cell phones, GPS system, camera, camera lens, jewelry box. But you can tell they weren't very smart in that they left my Wii. Which is the awesomest thing in the house.

Luckily for them, they stayed clear of my room.

Giggles in the rain

2008-04-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been an eventful two days. The day before yesterday, the rain began to pour. The streets flooded, the animals took cover, and the little naked children started running through the streets. But, apparently, Nichada (the town-type thing that the school is in. All of the kids live there. Seriously) got the worst of it. It all began yesterday morning when I woke up at 9:30. Now, I don't know about you, but that sent some warning bells off for me. I usually wake up at 4:45 for seminary. I was planning to sleep in. Sister Phelps had called the night before and told me she was canceling seminary because her power was out. But that didn't mean 9:30! I wandered out of my room and down to the computer room, thoroughly confused. When I got there I looked up the ISB website. Apparently, there had been a pretty serious storm and school had been canceled. They had no lights and the main library and theatre had taken some pretty extreme damage. Which was just great since the current show I'm doing backstage work for, Animal Farm, opened today. Yeah...

So, no school. Heck yes!

From speaking to my friends, apparently Nichada's been struggling with power. Not, like, a power struggle. Like, electricity kind of power. You know? Anyway, parts of Nichada were without power for twenty four hours!

Like I said, Animal Farm opened today. When I arrived at school, there was still no power in the theatre. But it all turned out okay. After the show, Colin and I, after an insane struggle of "No, let's do something" "Nah, lets not" "Let's go to Sierra's!" "Let's go to Ben's!" etc., got sick of the confusion and just went to my house. After playing some video games and failing at some sewing, we realized that it was raining once again. It was about this time that Colin, Brian, Lindsay and I decided to go to IT Square! Yeah, good idea! Let's go driving in Bangkok at night in the rain! Well, you can only begin to guess where this led.

We eventually made it to IT Square (it's a mall, by the way) but everything was pretty much closed. So, at this point we figured we'd go to Tesco Lotus and take Colin home. When we got out of the mall, we turned right. How the heck we ended up on a completely different road while driving straight, I'll never know. At any rate, we got lost. Hopelessly lost. We fought and fought with the GPS system, but it was raining too hard. After half an hour of wandering, the GPS finally found the signal! There was much rejoicing. It decided to take us straight to ISB. So, we skipped Tesco and started following the directions. More wandering and struggles. We had a general direction, but it wasn't perfect. And we couldn't see a thing through the rain. After a while, two girls just suddenly materialized in front of us! Brian slammed on the breaks and the next thing we heard was, whump!

Yes, someone ran into us. We pulled over and got out of the car and into the rain. A Thai lady was there who had been riding on a motorcycle before the collision. Colin and I looked at each other in the back seat with a rather "what the weird" feeling. There seemed to be no chance at communication. She spoke no English and we spoke no Thai. There was also a nice dent in the back. We had no phone. Mine had died. Lindsay and Colin and I got out of the car and wandered in the rain, looking for a phone. Finally, we found this random girl who had been talking on her phone. We did kind of a hand signal for 'phone' and she let us borrow it. As we waited for the lady to talk to dad, we ended up waiting in the rain. I was soaked by the end.

Finally we piled back in the car and continued on our way. We were pretty tired at this point. Looking carefully, very very carefully, down the road, we began to turn. Only to end up face to face with another car. We had looked the wrong way. They drive on different sides of the road in America and Thailand...

So, after several near-death experiences, we finally found ourselves at home. And through it all I couldn't keep back my smile and my giggles.

I love the rain.

Yeah, it's a blog.

2008-04-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

So, my sister has finally forced helped me get a blog. Now, as I'm sure most of you know, I fail at keeping stuff like this up. So, we'll see how it goes.

Um...hm...I seem to be dismally short on witty things to say. Well, I guess I could tell you about my life in case you're one of those creepy people who don't even know me but are reading my blog anyway! (I'll add pictures later...if I feel like it)

I'm the youngest of four children. My oldest sister, Lindsay (who happens to be the one to set this blog up in my honor) lives in North Carolina with her husband, Brian, and their two cute-as-a-button kids McKenzie and Carson (though, I've never understood that saying, cute-as-a-button. Since when are buttons cute?)

My second oldest sister, Michelle, lives in Utah and is graduating from college. It took her a while to graduate because she got distracted by her career goal of becoming a synchronized swimmer. But that didn't work out so well. So, now she's going to teach theatre to high school kids.

My brother, Brian (a more different Brian) is in Germany serving a mission! You all wish you were as cool as him (I say you because, obviously, I'm even cooler. I've even been described as 'awesome-tastic')

My dad is the Mission President of the Thailand Bangkok Mission. So, my parents and I live in Bangkok.

Um...Oh, me! I should tell you about me!

My interests include music, theatre, being awesome, video games, Anime, teh interwebz, and ice cream. I imagine that's pretty much what I'm going to be talking about here.

So...yeah. That pretty much wraps it up.