Golf.

This is just a really short post, since I'm in the middle of writing a monstrous mini-essay. (Why do teachers assign homework over spring break? It's called a BREAK for a reason, people. Like, a break from the punishment they call homework.)

Anyway, my dad had one of those "OMG COME WATCH THIS PUTT" moments whilst watching professional golf on TV. The Masters are on, Phil Mickelson is tied for the lead, and my dad is so excited that I think he's going to start jumping up and down at any second now. Also, pro golf's leading Recovering Jerkface just missed two reeeaaally easy putts. IN A ROW. It's like the cardinal sin of golf. (Well, that, and leaving a putt short. Apparently.)

So Tiger misses the putt, and the crowd goes "Awww," and then he misses ANOTHER, and the crowd goes "Ahhhh!!" because they OMG cannot believe that he missed the putt!!

It's a valid concern. When stuff like that happens, it sucks really bad, because you fail at life. Twice. Within sixty seconds. Believe me, I would know. I golf, and I've done that before. SO not fun.

Golfers get upset over the strangest things.

UPDATE: Phil Mickelson just won the Masters. (Yes, it's a good thing. From what I've heard, he's a really cool dude. :) ) I think my dad might scream. Phil's his favorite.

Wow...

Oh my goshness, I am HORRIBLE at remembering to update this. Ack! *facepalm* Well, after reading this amazing blog, it motivated me to start writing more often. Yay for SparkNotes!

Which brings me to my next point: I'll probably be expanding out from just reading, since sometimes I don't really read anything new. I pretty much just reread my favorites (like this week... Catching Fire :D), so I actually am running out of material. (Gasp!) So most of my posts might be recommendation-less, but I guess I'll just put the random stuff that spews out of my brain onto the keyboard and screams at me to type up. (That was kind of graphic. Sorry.)

Just a quick note, if anyone cares- rereading Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins. Epicness at its best!

New Moon stuff

Nightshade hesitated, long-nailed fingers hovering over the thin silver keyboard plugged into the glossy computer. She had always wished for a device of her own; however, she was tragically forced into sharing a wonderful Mac with her family.

"Perhaps I shall write about the novel titled 'New Moon,'" she mused. She began to type carefully, but quickly tired of penning a blog post in such a ridiculous and absurd way. "Now," she murmured, "I shall return to writing in the plain, understandable vernacular of most Americans."

Okay, I seriously can't believe I have the capacity to write something as horribly overwritten as that. I'm kind of torn between pounding my head on a wall and laughing hysterically.

So right now, I dumped Twilight and skipped to New Moon, because I was SO INSANELY BORED with it. (This may or may not have to do with the fact that I was reading Dan Bergstein's Blogging New Moon posts last night.) While I was reading the prologue/preface/melodramatic paragraph that comes before Chapter 1, I decided I'd attack with a pencil and EDIT, as if Stephenie Meyer handed me the manuscript and said "Hey Nightshade, can you edit this for me? It's my new book and I need a proofreader."

I'm a brutal proofreader, by the way. BRUTAL. Especially with grammar and punctuation. And sentence structure. And a lot of other things... but that's beside the point. The point is, it's like rewriting New Moon. So here's the Preface for all NINE of you followers! I'll put the original text first. (Disclaimer: New Moon text copyright Stephenie Meyer 2006)

I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough. My legs seemed to move slower and slower as I fought my way through the callous crowd, but the hands on the huge clock tower didn't slow. With relentless, uncaring force, they turned inexorably toward the end--the end of everything.

But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

Alice had said there was a good chance we would both die here. Perhaps the outcome would be different if she weren't trapped by the brilliant sunlight; only I was free to run across this bright, crowded square.

And I couldn't run fast enough.

So it didn't matter to me that we were surrounded by our extraordinarily dangerous enemies. As the clock began to toll out the hour, vibrating under the soles of my sluggish feet, I knew I was too late--and I was glad something bloodthirsty waited in the wings. For in failing at this, I forfeited any desire to live.

The clock tolled again, and the sun beat down from the exact center point of the sky.

Heh. Heheheh. HEHEHEHEHEHEH. That was horrible! And now for my version...

I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare- the ones where you have to run away, but you can't run fast enough. I seemed to move more and more slowly as I fought through the crowd. Unfortunately, no matter how much I cursed the clock, it didn't slow down.

But this wasn't a dream. And this time, I wasn't running to save my life. Instead, I was saving something much more important (if you can believe that).

Alice had told me that there was a good chance that we'd both die today. Maybe it would've been different if she hadn't been stuck in the car. But right now, I was the only one who had the freedom to get out and run.

But I couldn't run fast enough, so to me, it didn't matter that we were surrounded by enemies.

The clock began to strike twelve. I knew I was too late. I was actually glad that our enemies were hanging around, because if I failed in this, I didn't want to live.

Huh, that was a lot shorter than the original. Did you love it? Hate it? Think I could've shortened it a little more? Leave a comment with feedback- I'd love to hear it!

WHOOOOAAAA.

My little egg timer just went off and scared the HECK out of me. O_O

But disregarding my lameness, I've been rereading the first Maximum Ride book lately. I stopped, what with all the homework screaming at me, but it's sitting on my desk waiting to be read. I already reviewed Max (the fifth book), but I think I should do the first, too. :)

What I'm Reading: Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment. Like I said before, it's the first in the Maximum Ride series. (Yes, I'm sure. The series is set up really confusingly [WHOA, confusingly is a word?!], but this is the first.) In this book, Max and the flock are living in secrecy, unknown to anyone, but one day an old enemy shows up and kidnaps Angel, the youngest flock member. Now they have to go find her before a crew of complete psychos uses her for their experiments...

They were getting closer. Dim light filtered in through the woods in front of me -- a clearing? Please, please... a clearing could save me.

I burst through the trees, chest heaving, a thin sheen of cold sweat on my skin.

Yes!

No -- oh, no!

I skidded to a halt, my arms waving, my feet backpedaling in the rocky dirt.

It wasn't a clearing. In front of me was a cliff, a sheer face of rock that dropped to an unseeable floor hundreds of feet below.

In back of me were woods filled with drooling bloodhounds and psycho Erasers with guns.

Both options stank.

The dogs were yelping excitedly -- they'd found their prey: moi.

I looked over the deadly drop.

There was no choice, really. If you were me, you'd have done the same thing,

I closed my eyes, held out my arms... and let myself fall over the edge of the cliff.

Ooh, cliffy! :D

Erases on Film and Paper

The title of this post came from the little label on my eraser I got for art. Finally, an eraser that actually works well! *throws an eraser party*

Anyway, not much to blog about. Sorry. :/ 

Although I did start a new blog: http://notactuallyatwitter.blogspot.com. They're just little 'status updates,' like on Facebook or Twitter or Google Buzz (yay!) or something. Unless I find some more interesting stuff to blog about on there, it's going to be a total fail. But that's okay, because it'll occupy my time. :)

What I'm Reading: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. It's old, and the language is kind of hard to understand, but it's actually a really good book. (Assigned reading that I like?! Apocalypse!! *passes out*) It's pretty intense- usually, when I'm reading chapters that were assigned for school, I have a nice system.

1. Read the chapters

2. Throw book across room in utter confusion

3. Go on SparkNotes so I can actually understand what I just read

4. Rinse and repeat every time another chapter is assigned

It works pretty well, actually. (Nightshade + SparkNotes = LOVE) It sums up Frankenstein really nicely, because even though the language is somewhat understandable, Mary Shelley was even MORE in love with her thesaurus than Stephenie Meyer is. However, her ridiculously difficult language can sort of be excused, because it was written in the early 1800s and, well, people wrote stuff like that. (But for Stephenie Meyer, there's no excuse.)

In the ORIGINAL Frankenstein story, it's even freakier than all the other "actual" versions that are out there. Victor Frankenstein has a nice childhood, skipping through flower meadows with his BFFs and hugging puppies (figuratively). But then he goes off to college and gets obsessed with anatomy... When he creates the infamous monster, the stuff that actually happens is WAY cooler than all the Mary Shelley wannabe writers out there (yeah, they exist. Probably). I give it 4 out of 5 stars! (I deducted one star for the crazy writing style.)

Remove by friction.

Random title, I know. I just looked around my desk and saw this "erasable" highlighter that says "remove by friction" on the side. I thought it was funny... by the way, it doesn't erase. So don't blow your money on erasable highlighters, because they really don't erase well. Believe me, I tried it myself. :P

Anyway, I'm still taking an attempt at Twilight... I haven't had much time to sit down and actually go through it in detail, so I'm just through chapter 2. So far, I've done chapters 1, 2, and a bit of a later chapter... 7? 8? One of those. Still excited for Chapter 13 (the one where they're in the meadow and Eddiekins sparkles for Bella)! I haven't reread THAT part in a while, so it will be extremely entertaining. >:D

Also, I'm officially ADDICTED to unrelatedcaptions.com. It's seriously an amazing site! I just sent an email to a bunch of my friends with a bunch of unrelatedcaptions.com links... they'll probably be quite annoyed with the spam, but at least they'll be entertained when they view the links. :D

What I'm Reading: Nightlight, by The Harvard Lampoon. It's actually a group of a few people who collaborate to write parody books (like this one). It's amazing and about ten million times better than the original Twilight! :D When I read it, I couldn't stop laughing. My family thought there was something wrong with me... but that's okay.

In THIS version of Twilight, Belle Goose abandons life in Phoenix to live with her window-washing dad in Switchblade, Oregon. She quickly discovers Edwart Mullen, a strange germophobe whom Belle is absolutely convinced is a vampire. After all, he DID save her from a speeding snowball...

"About three things I was absolutely certain.

First, Edwart was most likely my soul mate, maybe.

Second, there was a vampire part of him- which I assumed was wildly out of his control- that wanted me dead.

And third, I unconditionally, irrevocably, impenetrably, heterogeneously, gynecologically, and disreputably wished he had kissed me."

FREEDOM!!

Freedom is MINE!! MINE, I SAY!! I'M DONE WITH FINALS!! AH HA HAAAAA *manic laughing*

Heheh. Anyway.... XD

Obviously, I'm now done with finals. Just finished late this morning, and now it's late afternoon and I have nothing to do. And I am perfectly happy. Actually, I wanted to teach myself how to harmonize (my voice is weird), and I was right in the middle of getting started when the rest of my family decided to arrive at home. It was like, Great. An hour of solitude, and the second I try and do something that I'll only do by myself when no one's around? They come back. Okaaay.

Whatever, I'll try it again... um... some other time?! O_O

What I'm Reading: Dork Diaries, by Rachel R. Russell. It's way below my reading level (it's actually my sister's book that she got when we were at B&N), but it's actually a really good book. (Infinitely better than Twilight, too.) It's kind of like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but it's a girl telling the story (instead of a guy). It's reeeaaally funny :D

Highlighting Twilight

So right now, I'm in the process of rereading Twilight and adding snarky little comments in pencil. I'm counting how many times...

1) A form of the word 'murmur' is used

2) A form of the word 'glower' is used

3) A semicolon is used (they're awesome, but if you overuse them? LAME.)

4) Edward's physical traits are described

5) Edward tells Bella that it's dangerous to be around him

#5 isn't applicable yet, since I'm only on chapter 2 and they haven't spoken yet. But so far, in 1 chapter plus one page (a total of 29 pages), there are...

1) Murmurs: o

2) Glowers: o

3) Semicolons: 15

4) Descriptions: 18

5) Dangerous: (N/A)

That's right, folks. And the physical descriptions are only on TEN pages. Scary, I know. Unfortunately, I'm not to chapter 7 yet, so I can't rewrite much yet (plus, I'm in the middle of finals). I'm especially looking forward to commenting on chapter 13- the chapter where Bella and Deadward are in the meadow. >:D

What I'm Reading: Twilight. Duh. Didn't you read the rest of the post? ;)

Ew, finals...

Bleah, sorry I haven't posted in so long... I just kinda lost motivation. :P Unfortunately, I may have to put the Breaking Dawn stuff on hold because I have finals coming up. I mean, Christmas break was nice and amazing and relaxing, but once I get back to school? INSANITY. So for the next four weeks or so, anything outside of school will be pretty much nonexistent. My finals schedule is a bit like this...

~Drag myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:40 AM

~Somehow get in the car and to school on time

~Attempt to stay awake in my morning classes, both of which pound finals material into my head

~LUNCH! 25 MINUTES OF FREEDOM! HOORAY!

~Back into the death trap of afternoon classes (still trying to stay awake), both of which attempt to engrave finals stuff into my brain

~Get home and procrastinate for an hour or so

~Procrastinate some more while "studying for finals"

~Actually start studying for finals at like 7:00 PM

~Stay up until approximately 1:07 AM frantically trying to cram as much information into brain as possible

~Go to sleep at about 1:30 AM and repeat the whole thing. And repeat again... and again... and again...

On a lighter note, I finished the WHOLE Cirque du Freak series! (*sob*) I read... er... one of the later ones, and I got super depressed and was like "Why should I even keep reading? ___________ happened... there's no meaning to reading OR writing... the world is ending..." But then somehow I got the motivation to keep reading. (The fact that my best friend threatened to murder me if I didn't finish the series soon helped a lot.) :D

What I'm Reading: Sons of Destiny, Cirque du Freak Book 12!! 8-O It was AMAZING! I cried! A lot! Uncontrollable crying/whimpering/rolling around on the ground in the fetal position is a sign of a very good book. If it can evoke strong emotions, it means the author did their job right. Darren Shan did a little TOO well... (just kidding) :D

Twilight...?

Okay, I have to say this: I don't like Twilight. Not really. I mean, sure, it's a sorta-decent book, but OMG-worthy. Maybe OMG-these-characters-are-so-lame-worthy, but not OMG-this-is-amazing-worthy. I don't know WHAT I was thinking earlier, posting about how Twilight was good. (Did I even say that? I honestly can't remember. Wow.) But last summer (2008), when I first read Twilight, I'm a little ashamed to say that I was one of those crazy fangirls. Not anymore, though, because I've seen the light. Er, the come-back-to-Kansas light. (Get it? Like... come back to Kansas now, Dorothy... enough daydreaming... ah, whatever.)

But I'm not just ranting about my annoyance with Twilight. Nope, there is actually a REASON for my rant! (That's pretty much a first.) I was on SparkNotes yesterday (ew, I HATE Paradise Lost) and I noticed that one of their writers blogged about Twilight. He was reading the series for the first time, and blogged about each chapter as he read it. It is absolutely THE most hysterical book review I have EVER read, and it inspired me! I'm pretty much going to do the same thing. Differences- I've got a different viewpoint (being my own person and all), and I've read the series before. Get ready for some pret-ty long blog posts!

I'm not sure if I should do the whole series or just some of the books. Leave a comment and tell me!

Also, I was talking to my sister, and she brought up Disney Princesses. Okay, I must say that I pretty much went off on a crazed rant about all the princesses (well, almost all). Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and almost everyone else. (Can't really touch Giselle, because Enchanted was so awesome, or Tiana, because The Princess And The Frog comes out today and I haven't seen it. Besides, it looks awesome.) But really, some of those darn princesses are so... passive.

So I'm doing the Disney Princess rants first, then the Twilight review. I'm going to do the princesses in chronological order (the order in which their movies were made- Snow White first, etc.), and hopefully by then I'll have gotten enough opinions to start my Twilight review.

Oh! Almost forgot. Song of the moment: Viva la Vida, by Coldplay. Book of the moment: Still Cirque du Freak! Just finished the fifth and sixth books this week and they were even more amazing than I expected!

Also, I just changed the template. I saw it and thought OMG PRETTY DOTS and just had to change it. :)