The Secrets of Happy Families

I found an article on BigThink called "Discover the Secrets of Happy Families." It came with a video in which a man, Bruce Feiler, talks about why and how he wrote his book, "The Secrets of Happy Families." In his book, he wrote 200 ideas for families to try out because he didn't want to make a list of a few things families must do, and if he wrote 200 it would make it more obvious that nobody can do them all. His basic advice was that everybody is different. One parenting strategy might work on one child but not another. I know that this is true for my siblings and I. We all have very different morals and mind sets that make problems either harder or easier to solve. Feiler said that the secret to a happy family is trying. You can't just follow a handbook or do what your friends do. You have to make your own path. Obviously, I'm not a parent, but I've been told that I'm very maternal, so I'd love to just read a few of his 200 ideas in the future.

How Mindfulness Can Impair Your Mind

I read an article on BigThink called "How Mindfulness Can Impair Your Mind." When you are mindful, you are aware of what you are doing, and this is an overall good thing. It improves your behavior and well being and helps you break bad habits. However, being too mindful can keep you from learning many things that you learn when you aren't really thinking about it. In other words, babies first learn how to talk by listening. They don't know how to spell, and they aren't outright thinking, 'I'm speaking English right now.' This is why it is harder for people to learn a language later in life, because they are almost always mindful of it.

Deliver on 'Today'

I read an article on BigThink called, "Everyone Wants to Create the Product of Tomorrow, You Also Need to Deliver on 'Today.' Long title, I know. As the title suggests, the article was about how people are always trying to invent the next big thing without making the things we already have better. This is a very bad thing because in the end we all end up with worse products. The old is mediocre and the new is brilliant, and there is no middle ground. Without improvement, nothing ever comes out of anything except for a material product. No ideas, no inspiration. The article said, "To be successful, innovation requires both the planting of seeds and the pruning of buds....Leadership teams should contain a complementary mix of planters and pruner, or innovators and optimizers." I completely agree with this because, like society needs scientists and garbage men alike, a single project needs to have equal focus on all aspects, not just the new.

Dogs

For as long as I can remember, I have disliked dogs. I was terrified of dogs when I was little, even dogs like Molly, my Yorkie-Maltese. I wasn't the type of girl that had stuffed puppies on their bed. This fear of dogs gradually grew into an actual repulsion. Even though I can still pet my dogs and other peoples' dogs without gagging or screaming, I really would rather not. I can see why people think they're cute, and sometimes I can't stop myself from going "aw" when I see a puppy, but I also can't help but see them as the smelly, drooling, messy creatures that they are. I just can't help it. It also doesn't help that I'm allergic to dogs and cats. When I'm older, I know that I will probably be forced to get one by my future children, and no matter how much I will try, I will not be able to get them to look after it. That will probably be one of the biggest challenges in my life. I would much rather have a clean house and a turtle than a scratched up floor, a billion responsibilities, and a dog.

GPS Tracking Bullets

I found an article on BigThink called "GPS Tracking 'Bullets' Could Help Reduce Car Chases." Police departments and state patrol agencies are apparently testing out Starchase, which is a gun that they put on police cars and it shoots bullets that stick to the cars and can tell the police where the suspect is. The aim is to stop car chases, but so far only one out of four bullets are sticking to the test cars. Also, the system and bullets are very expensive, so it seems like there is still a lot of work to be done. I think this is great because car chases are really dangerous and not always effective, so this system can potentially make catching criminals easier.
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/gps-tracking-bullets-could-help-reduce-car-chases

Bye-Bye Buses; Hello, Driverless Pods

I read an article on BigThink called "Bye-Bye Buses; Hello, Driverless Pods." Apparently, there is a town in England that is starting to use electric pods to travel. People can order a pod for $3.20 using their smartphones and each pod seats two people and their luggage. The pods travel 12 miles per hour on a special roadway. I think this is completely insane but so cool. They expect it to be completely in effect by 2017, and it makes me think how close the future is. Everybody thought that by 2000 we'd have hover pads and robots, and this really isn't that far from that. To think that in four years, people can just sit in a pod and tell it where to go. I can't wait for this kind of technology to spread to the US, although it will probably get rid of the subways, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
http://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/poetry-is-the-essence-of-education

Poetry is the Essence of Education

I found an article on BigThink called "Poetry is the Essence of Education." It's about how teaching poetry is worthwhile because it is passing a basic, rhythmic practice from one generation to the next, from Dr. Seuss to parent to child. It said that education is comes from the Latin word, "educere," which means "lead forth." I completely agree with this because I always hear people complain about having to pay taxes to schools even though they don't have a child in that school. It's ridiculous because they don't even think of the fact that someday, the children that they paid to put through school are going to lead the country someday. They're going to be the people who adjust insurance rates and stack adult diapers at CVS and stuff like that. By giving children education, they are helping the people who will someday help them.
http://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/poetry-is-the-essence-of-education

The Conjuring

On Friday, I saw the movie The Conjuring. It was about a family that moves into a house which ends up being haunted, like most horror movies. I think it would've been a really scary movie if I hadn't covered my eyes the whole time. After the first time I saw this demon ghost on top of a closet, my only thoughts were "nope, nope, nope" and I covered my eyes whenever I knew something was about to pop out. The makeup was extremely effective and the plot was great. The only thing I hated was the music choice, because sometimes it didn't really fit and it just dragged me right out. Other than that, it was pretty good. Even though the general plot was cliche, the producers put their own spin on it.

The Zine

I'm pretty proud of how the Hallowzine came out. I wrote a story for it, made an ad and coupons, and helped with the layout, so I guess you could say I had a significant investment in it. I really liked everybody else's illustrations and writings, too, although I still haven't gotten the chance to read everything. I can't wait to find out how the people we gave them to liked them and how the next one is going to turn out.

Acting Workshop

The other day, I went to the acting workshop with James III. It was my first acting workshop, so I was worried, especially because I was given 10 minutes notice and wasn't prepared with a sonnet. Luckily, Ashley had printed out two different sonnets and gave me one of them. First, James III had us all introduce ourselves by saying our name, our favorite anything (food, color, musical, etc.) and what we know about Shakespeare. I've only ever read Romeo and Juliet, parts of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Merchant of Venice, and I've seen Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing in theaters, but nobody else was very far ahead of me, only reading the requirements for school. Then, he had us each come up with a sound and gesture that is over the top and we went in a circle and shared them. Then, he had us go through our sonnets and pick interesting words, think of what the word makes you think about, and find a gesture for the word. Then, people volunteered and performed their sonnets with the gestures. I was one of the people who didn't get to go because we ran out of time, but I was kind of looking forward to it. I don't know if we'll pick it up next time, though.

Paganism

I was telling my dad about The Wicker Man, and he said that the religion that they followed sounded more like Druidry than Paganism. He explained that Druidry followed Celtic traditions. I was very confused, so I decided to do some research. I found the most straight forward source that I could, which happened to be The Pagan Federation: http://paganfed.org/index.shtml. It turns out that Druidry is a branch of Paganism. Paganism is a very broad term that describes "a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion." Paganism has a lot of different branches, such as Druidry, Wicca, Shamanism, and Heathenry, which includes Norse, Northern, Odinism, Asatru, and Vanatru. There was so much information on this website that I couldn't read it all, so I just decided to research Druidry and save the rest of them for another day. I found a very interesting passage on the Druidry page: 
'O knowledgeable lad, whose son are you?'
‘I am the son of Poetry

Poetry, son of scrutiny

Scrutiny, son of meditation

Meditation, son of lore

Lore, son of enquiry

Enquiry, son of investigation

Investigation, son of great knowledge

Great knowledge, son of great sense

Great sense, son of understanding

Understanding, son of wisdom

Wisdom, son of the triple Gods of poetry.’

(Colloquy of the Two Sages- Celtic Traditional)

This passage, I feel, represents the belief in the connections and the circle of life that was represented in The Wicker Man. I definitely suggest that anyone who is interested in the branches of Paganism visit the website, http://paganfed.org/index.shtml.

The Wicker Man

Yesterday, we watched The Wicker Man (1973) and I liked it. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it, but I liked it. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand about the plot, such as why certain people denied knowing Rowan while others said they knew her but didn't know how she died, and then at the end it turned out that she wasn't dead, but the entire thing was a trick to get the police officer there to sacrifice him. I'm all for a good plot twist, but I don't think that it was necessarily executed successfully. I also didn't understand why it was so musical; there was an entire dance sequence with Willow dancing naked and banging on the walls, and the entire time, I was completely confused about what was going on. Then, there were little boys dancing spinning around a tree with their junk tied to ribbons, singing about nature and reproduction. I understood that it was a Pagan thing, but I didn't know why it was relevant. I was annoyed at the police officer the entire time because I didn't like how he treated the people on the island and kept talking about Christianity like it was the only way to live life. At the end, he sang a hymn while he was burning to death, and all I could think was, "Dude, take a hint, you are not getting saved." He had chance after chance to escape, but he didn't, and that was also kind of frustrating to me. I think that when the movie first came out, more people would've sympathized with him because there were more extreme Christians, but now, because everybody is so accepting, most people like the Pagans better. They outsmarted him completely, and although I don't agree with killing people, I thought that they were pretty okay people.

Mirror Image

Recently, everybody in STAC had the assignment to make horror movies for Halloween. I was in a group with Ellen, Emily, Jessica, Austin, and Jessi. The movie was about a blind girl who is tricked into switching places with a demon that was trapped in her mirror. Jessi played the blind girl, Emily played her sister, and I played the true form of the mirror. Every day that we filmed, Jessica had to put a lot of makeup on me to make my skin look paler and my eyes look darker. I really don't like wearing makeup because I personally feel that I don't really need it and if I started to wear it everyday it would make my natural face look worse. Basically what would happen was, Jessica would do my makeup while Ellen was filming with Jessi and Emily, and by the time we were done with makeup there would be very little time to film my scenes. We ended up having to refill stuff, so I ended up having my makeup done about six times. On the sixth time, Jessica was sick, so I had to do it myself. Luckily, I had watched her do it so many times that I knew most of what to do. I did it myself in ten minutes, whereas it took her an hour because I was such wimp about eyeliner and mascara. It didn't actually look that bad. In the end, I was pretty satisfied with the film, except for at the end when Emily and I walked around  each other and I had to paw at her, I think I looked pretty stupid. Just saying.

Movie

I woke up this morning with a strong desire to make a film. With the horror movie that The Kindred Lips and I just made, I had a very small part. Although I helped with the plot and had a role, I still don't feel like I contributed very much. I really want to make a movie that I write, direct, and edit. As I went throughout the day, lines just kept popping into my head and I wrote them in Notes on my phone. Eventually, I looked at all of these lines and an idea for a plot came to me. Now, I just can't wait to execute it. The thing is, for my idea, I need to use voice overs, so I need to learn how to do that, and my crappy PC is practically broken and only uses Windows MovieMaker. I can deal with those things, though.

The Fair

Yesterday, I went to the New Hyde Park Street Fair. To be clear, I don't live in New Hyde Park, but my mom will do anything for eagle paraphernalia. Including walking down Jericho Turnpike in the pouring rain, which is what we did. 

The weather forecast said that it would rain Saturday night into Sunday, but as we drove to the fair at 11 am Saturday morning, it starting sprinkling. By the time we reached the vendors, it was a near-torrential downpour. My parents and I didn't have umbrellas or raincoats or anything, so we found ourselves walking down the road with as much soaking wet poise as we could. I felt so bad for all of the people without canopies and the people with canopies that were quickly being weighed down with water. I saw a man with dozens of boxes of picture frames frantically trying to shield them from the rain. 

On the bright side, I bought a blue flower crown, a yawning cat keychain, and a pickle for various discounted prices for my perseverance. My dad thought that after we were all already soaking wet, he would buy us umbrellas, which did not help much. After half an hour of swimming through the street, my mom found the man who was selling fleece jackets with animals on them, and when she bought her eagle jacket, we were finally allowed to leave. My mom and I ended up coming back later because my sister (http://jessicaiscurrentlyonfire.blogspot.com/) wanted a flower crown, too, and the sun was finally out. While there, we ate five-dollar Chinese food, and ran into Danny Magaldi (http://danielmagaldi.blogspot.com/) and his dad. 

On the way home, my mom and I passed a yard sale. I bought a mug with rainbows on it, but the best item at this yard sale was a near-mint-condition white 1963 Rolls Royce. It even had the steering wheel on the right side of the car and the lady was asking $15,000 dollars for it. My mom was seriously considering taking money out of her 401K to buy it and sell it to the guys on American Restoration.
And after this very interesting day, I went home to do my Chemistry homework.

Afterlife

I found an article on Big Think and I think it is really, really interesting. The writer hypothesizes that if people knew that a little while after they died, an asteroid would destroy life on Earth, things like cancer research and engineering projects would stop. The only reason why people do things to help people is because they want to make sure that it will benefit the future of the world, but if the earth was doomed anyway, there is no point. The thesis is that the future existence of earth is our primary motivation to do work.
As a pretty nonreligious person, I find it hard to believe in heaven or other forms of afterlife, but I do agree that hope is a large motivator for me. I make art in the hopes that I will get better at it. I go to school in the hopes that someday I'll go to college and get a good job. If I knew for a fact that I would never get better at art or get a good job, I would probably stop. There is no use watering a flower that will never grow.
Here is the link for anyone who is interested:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-knowledge-of-an-afterlife-gives-existence-meaning

Crowdsourcing

http://www.palantir.com/engineering-culture/
I like the three guiding ideas: "The Best Idea Wins," "Nothing is Permanent," and "Keep Focused on the Mission." These are actually good rules to live by in general. "All voices are equal here—we hire people to have an opinion and be creative. We’re intolerant of politicking, ego, and power brokers. If your idea makes the most sense, that’s what we’re doing, regardless of the seniority or role of the person presenting the idea." This rule reminds me of STAC, because we don't tolerate people being assholes to each other.

http://www.palantir.com/life-at-palantir/
This seems like a great place to work. It reminds me a lot of STAC. You do your work, but you don't need to sit at a desk and frown at a screen the whole time. It seems like the employees at Palantir have very good relationships with each other, which is very good for getting work done because everybody is comfortable and happy. It seems almost too good to be true.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-tips-for-crowdfunding-how-to-raise-money-from-strangers/
I feel like these are the exact steps that Amanda Palmer took. She was passionate, compelling, interesting, smart... and here it is, all on one website. These tips are extremely helpful, because now I'm not as lost when it comes to knowing what we're going to be doing for this crowdsourcing project.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Visual-Assets-Guidelines-Part-1/9028077
I like how the Google template is so colorful, yet they are the same colors all over the website. The icons are really geometric, which makes a huge but subtle difference in how people perceive Google.

Knitting

When I was in the third grade, I took a knitting class as part of the Saturday Recreation program. I wasn't really good at it, obviously, because nobody is really good at anything at eight years old. On Friday, the 13th, I realized that I didn't like how I spent my free time watching TV on the couch, so I figured, if I did something productive while I watched TV, then it wouldn't be a complete waste of time. So I went upstairs, found some yarn and a pair of needles, and set to knitting a scarf. It turns out, I'm not that bad at knitting anymore. I think it may be because my fingers have become more nimble ever since I started braiding hair as a hobby. Since Friday, I have learned multiple stitches and two different ways to cast on. I still don't know how to knit anything other than a scarf or blanket, but that can be something to strive for. I also found out today that my mom's mother, who I've never met, loved to knit and crochet, which is unbelievable for me. I never believed the theory that some skills and interests are hereditary, but maybe some aspects of that are true. Although I'm not a very religious person, I'd like to think that my grandmother, wherever she is, is happy that we have something in common.

My Very First Library Post

For as long as I can remember, my mom has affectionately called my dad, a "wealth of useless information." I seem to have inherited his sense of curiosity, because I take great pleasure in knowing little tidbits of information that have absolutely no use except for maybe a conversation starter or creative inspiration. When I was trying to think of the type of website I was trying to discover, many different things passed through my head, because like many teenagers in my generation, it doesn't matter what website I'm on, I just generally enjoy the Internet. This was until I found this website: http://mentalfloss.com/

This website even better than my dad at spitting out things that you didn't know you wanted to know. To be honest, I had known about the mentalfloss YouTube channel before, but when I happened across the website, I was pretty excited. The YouTube channel makes videos such as "31 Strange Medical Conditions", "26 Weird Animal Mating Habits", and "37 Odd College Mascots." The website has entire articles based on these kinda of things. My favorite feature on the website is its "Most Interesting Fact Generator," which can be found by pressing the Amazing Facts tab. When you press the button, it gives you the type of fact that you would find on a snapple cap, but better. I have actually found articles about every single topic, from literature to pop culture to sports to history to art. Mentalfloss also has a partnership with Dos Equis, where they do a miniseries on How to Be More Interesting, like "How to Walk a Tightrope" and "How to Rip a Phone Book in Half." They also have a lot of different quizzes you can take for fun. If anybody is interested in Mentalfloss, you can go the website, the YouTube channel, or you can subscribe to their magazine. I personally believe that knowing a lot about nothing in particular makes a person wiser and generally more fun to talk to, and I think this website will serve as a big source of information that I can incorporate into my writing.

Artist's Biography

               

Alexa Nicole Jellema, more commonly known as Lex, was born on November 22^nd, 1998, in Williston Park, a suburb on Long Island. As a child, she enjoyed singing, writing, and drawing,  and in the eighth grade she entered the English Scholars Program at Herricks Middle School and auditioned for the school’s production of Seussical: the Musical, in which she had a small role. In the ninth grade, she enrolled in the Student Television Arts Company (STAC), the gifted arts program at Herricks High School. Since then, she has explored film-making and has made several short silent films, as well as participated in the school play, Our Town.

                Lex spends her spare time reading and watching copious amounts of Netflix, as well as braiding her hair in different ways over and over again and hanging out with her friends occasionally like a normal fourteen-year-old girl. Someday, she dreams to finally discover her purpose in life, because she personally believes in some elements of destiny, karma, and wishful thinking and she will not let anything stop her from being happy. As an INFJ on the Myers Briggs scale, she is deeply idealistic, but as an Enneagram Type 9 wing 1, she tends to go with the flow more or less.

                Art has always been a way for Lex to free herself from whatever frustrated or saddened her, and she hopes to do that for other people, someday.

Them Heavy People verse:

They hold my head underwater and I can't breathe,

The cold, it hurts, but it seems to complete me,

I stop fighting and their hands let go,

I rise to the top and the sun makes my face glow.

Quarter 3

 During Quarter 3, I really got into film-making. When I first got into STAC, I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing because to my knowledge, I was only good at writing. If I wrote a book during my time in STAC, nobody would read it. I would be the only one without anything to really show. Writing is also really hard to do research on, because it is really all about your personal style. I started writing scripts but they would have been very difficult to act out because they were incredibly maximalist. I had wanted to delve into film-making for a while but I wasn’t sure of what talent I could possibly have. It says on my blog, “I was thinking about learning how to make films, but they'd just be mediocre anyway and I think I need more experience with a camera first.” It turns out, I wasn’t really that bad at making films. So far, I’ve only made two silent films, so in the fourth quarter I’d like to try to make a film with dialogue because that seems to be the next step. I’m a bit apprehensive about that because in silent films, you can give the actors direction while they’re acting, but when there is sound you have to trust that they’ll do everything right. I would think that it takes longer because you’d have to practice more before actually filming and rely on the actors to know what to do.

            My experience in film-making has been really fun so far. The actual filming is the most fun for me, because it’s not as frustrating as really getting it together. When you’re developing the storyline, you have all of these ideas and you can’t use all of them and you have to organize them. Towards the end of this quarter, I especially had a problem with organization. All of my ideas were scattered in my brain and I couldn’t seem to get them down neatly on paper. Writing little snippets on separate pieces of paper really helped me because I could rearrange them as much as I wanted. That seems like a really good method for me. Editing only took me a few hours in my first film, but with this second film it took a bit longer because the way I filmed was I got more footage than I needed so I wouldn’t have too little, but I was still rummaging for exactly what I needed. I was more proud of my first film than my second, but it sure isn’t awful. 

Film/ StacArt

My film has really changed from my original idea. The original idea was that there is a girl who ignores the people around her while she's immersed in a book, then tries to gain back their attention and forgiveness. Then, I got the idea to cut in pieces of her acting out the story in her mind. Now, it feels more like the plot is about a girl who reads a book and finds that she wants to be like the main character, while people come in and try to tell her to stop. Instead of apologizing, I think it looks like she realizes that she can't be like her and she needs to live in the real world, so she tries to talk to them. Honestly, I think I like this plot better. One of the things that actually contributed to this new plot is the song that I chose for it, "I've Got What It Takes" by Alex Day. It's all about trying to be something and working hard for it by yourself. I think the song fits this new plot amazingly well. I'm not sure if I am supposed to post the video here or not, so I guess I won't just in case.
I've gotten really into my StacArt project. Really, really into it. It's sort of like the Game of Life. You get to have a job, get married, and have kids, but only if you want to. At any point in the game, you can kill another player, and you can die from anything. You can even have pets. The idea of it was to make a more truthful version of the Game of Life. And to do that, I decided: there would be no winner.
At the beginning of the game, you randomly choose a gender, race, and sexuality. Each space on the board is one "year." For sixteen spaces, the oldest player makes all of the decisions for the rest of the players. On the eighteenth space, a player can choose to get revenge on the oldest player or help them out, depending on what they did. Every fourteen or so spaces, you get "Milestones." This is partially inspired by "Life" chips in Life. You choose a "Milestone" card randomly and get things like "Learn to Ride a Bike" or "Go Bungee-Jumping" or "Learn a Foreign Language." The spaces go around the perimeter of the board and meet back at the beginning, with a drawing that says, "YOU DON'T EXIST!" as your character did before the game. I'm not yet sure if this game will have money or not, but I'm leaning towards no. I like the idea of having a game where nothing has consequences. This entire game is obviously a work in progress, but I think I'll end up being really proud of it.

Sick Days

So, I haven't been to school in a while, and I'm actually starting to miss it. I don't even know what's wrong with me; I'm just tired and nauseous and sore and my head is pounding and I feel like vomiting but don't. My doctor thinks it might be either a virus or my thyroid meds need to be adjusted, so I got blood drawn today. Blah, blah, blah. Not really interesting.

I've been watching a lot of movies lately. A few weeks ago, I saw The Human Centipede. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. There wasn't anything I wasn't prepared for. Three people are attached from mouths to butts. The more interesting thing to me is that they used to do this in concentration camps during World War II. They did a lot of scientific experiments there, like injecting dye into eyes to see if they'd change color and sterilizing people with hereditary diseases. These things were definitely horrible, but I find it kind of fascinating that Nazis would kill Jews in all different ways for research. Like, "We may be murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the name of religion, but hey, at least we're being productive.

On the subject of Nazis, I also saw The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It was incredibly sad. I was not expecting Bruno to die. I was thinking that maybe the mother would take him and Gretel away from the father, or maybe the father would find out that Bruno was friends with a Jewish boy and punish him, or even that Shmuel would die and Bruno would start asking questions about why Jews were dying. I have to say, I kind of liked Gretel's character. She was all feminine and nice at the beginning and she played with dolls, but she started going all Nazi-chic towards the middle. She started wearing her hair in double braids and she stripped her dolls naked and threw them in the shed. She's like eleven, and she went total badass in less than a month.
Lastly, I saw Letters to Juliet. It really sucked. I think you kind of had to speak Italian to really get it. My favorite part was the end when Charlie said, "I live in London, a gorgeous, vibrant, historic city that I happen to love living in. You live in New York, which is highly overrated... But since the Atlantic Ocean is a bit wide to cross every day, swimming, boating or flying, I suggest we flip for it... And if those terms are unacceptable, leaving London will be a pleasure, as long as you're waiting for me on the other side." There were some really funny quotes throughout the movie, but the whole "Romeo and Juliet"mushy-gushy-love-story-thing isn't really my taste.

Even In My Mind

My movie is called Even In My Mind because it is about a lonely little girl who draws a boy and he comes to life, but he is actually a horrible boyfriend and she ends up drawing a girl to be her girlfriend. So even in her mind, she can't make a relationship work. Although, she is meant to be about eight, so she's got time. I haven't managed to do that yet, and I'm fourteen. The song is Cough Syrup by Young the Giant and the caricatures of Matt and Jess are available for purchase. I wasn't able to download the movie here for some reason because Windows Movie Maker freaking sucks, so I guess you'll all have to wait until tomorrow.

Hungarian Dance Party

On Saturday, Ellen and her parents brought us into the city to a Hungarian dance event. We only danced for about ten minutes, but I noticed that the choreography really isn't very difficult (for somebody who actually has rhythm in their feet). It's very repetitive, but you have to pay attention for when you have to turn or change moves. Jessica was my dance partner, and at one point I just said, 'Spin me,' because that was what we were supposed to do, but she 'wasn't ready' so we ended up two seconds behind everybody else and it was hard to get back on track. Even after ten minutes, everybody seemed very tired. The dance was so fast-paced that it wore me out pretty quickly. We spent the rest of the night playing Bananagrams and playing a game that Ellen taught us called "Contact." In "Contact," a person comes up with a word and gives the others the first letter. Say, the word is 'gorilla,' The person says 'g.' The players go one by one, asking questions like, 'Is it a country in Central America?' or 'Is it the place where you put food wrappers?' and the person answers, one by one, 'No, it is not Guatemala,' and 'No, it is not the garbage.' If the person doesn't know the  word, but another player does, the player says, "Contact, 1, 2, 3..." and the players say the word at the same time. If they say the same word, the person has to give the next letter of the word. This goes on until somebody guesses the word.
From this experience, I would say that I learned a good deal about Eastern-European dance and word games.

Ideas

I really liked the ideas for the Scholarship dinner that were discussed today. The 'What the Fuck' box and the Thought Balloons are really fun, interactive things that people will see and want to be involved with. Also, I'm pretty excited that we'll be doing sketch comedy. I didn't really have any ideas during STAC, but when I got home I started brainstorming. This is what I have so far:
-How to make a sandwich from the flesh of your enemies. (a Food Channel-style recipe)
-Teaching a grown man with amnesia how to do things such as tying shoes, swimming, riding a bike, etc.
-A football game played on all fours and without the use of your hands to catch the ball.
I'm not sure what I want to do for my Inquiry. I might do writing, but I don't think I could do much research on that. I was thinking about learning how to make films, but they'd just be mediocre anyway and I think I need more experience with a camera first. I would really like to do hair; learn how to do really intricate, complicated hairstyles, but I've been told that that doesn't really count as an art form. Of course, anybody can do a simple braid or ponytail, but it really takes an expert to do a lot of hairstyles I see online.

Uneventful

Today, I didn't have anything to do so I just did my homework. I wish I had had my laptop with me so I could've worked more on my writing for the workshop on Wednesday, or my book so I could read more from my book for the workshop. But since I'm leaving early tomorrow, at least I'll get some extra time to do that.

Dressed for Stress

As it turns out, this week wasn't exactly as stressful as I thought it was going to be. After Tuesday, this week was pretty mellow.
I really enjoyed both of the workshops. I didn't expect critiquing peoples' writing to be that enjoyable. Like I said a few days ago, I'm not the type of person who is comfortable correcting people out of fear that they will get mad, but the workshop was a pretty calm and respectful environment in my opinion. I got some pretty good feedback on my piece and I hope that other people found my advice helpful.
The singing workshop was incredible. I'm really looking forward to performing it at StacLive. My favorite part of the song is when I get to go 'plup plup plup' although I have to practice that because I still am not entirely sure of the exact times that that happens.
Honestly, I am really hoping that I don't get sick until after February 1st. I really need my health for midterms and StacLive. I am already extremely lucky and surprised that I haven't gotten the flu yet. Usually I get it every year around this time.
I hope that everybody stays healthy, does well on the midterms, and enjoys StacLive, too.

Rushing

Today, I found out how busy I am this week. I have the singing workshop tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, and the writing workshop on Wednesday. I still have to critique the other writers' work, and finish the book I was given, and I'm just starting to feel very stressed with midterms coming up and all of the homework and tests I have this week. I'm not complaining. I'm really looking forward to the workshops, but I just have a lot on my plate. On top of this, I learned today that the StacArt project is due Wednesday and I had no extra time to finish it. All I had left to do required special materials, but I decided to use all I had available and finish today. I needed assorted garbage, so I called my mom and had her bring in various candies. I think everybody enjoyed that. I let everybody else eat them, I just told people I needed the wrappers back. I needed a plastic cup-shaped thing, and I was going to use a plastic cup, but I couldn't find one so I just drank all of my water and cut up my water bottle. I was going to use sandpaper for a cement sidewalk, but I ended up just painting the squares tan. Lastly, I was planning on using pictures of myself, but I ended up taking a picture of the red M&M from a wrapper and a picture of a random guy from the newspaper. Since I was hurrying myself to finish, I think the project was messy, but hey, it's something.

Writing Workshop

It was very, very strange for me to have to criticize the workshop leader's piece. It's one thing when you're at school dissecting other students' work or a core book. With students my age, I don't expect them to write at an award-winning level, so correcting their grammar or spelling or formatting is simple. Even with John freaking Steinbeck, you are able to either commend or criticize him, because, well, he's dead. It's not like he can defend himself. But when you are sitting in a room with a person and you have no choice but to tell him things that he did wrong, it is kind of nerve-wracking. I mean, if I were in the position of the workshop leader, I would want to get that advice, but as I am the type of person who hates hurting people's feelings, it hurt me to do so. Especially since he was 25 and I am only 14. It felt like I was in no position to judge him. I understand that criticism helps you and makes you stronger, but too many people get offended when people are only trying to help them with their work. Even though Alex told us to rip him apart, it was still uncomfortable because I'm not used to helping people by giving my own negative opinions.
I was not very proud of the writing I did for the workshop. Towards the end, I sort of just winged (wang?) it because I was sleepy and partly delusional. I quoted this guy named Alan Watts, really just because I found a quote from him while I was procrastinating. It didn't really have anything to do with what I was writing, but I tied it in anyway. Throughout most of it, all I was writing were my past experiences at trying to make friends. I hated how self-pitying I sounded. I think I tend to do that a lot, make people feel sorry for me because I didn't have many friends growing up. At first, I only told three stories from my early childhood, but I didn't have enough pages so I wrote one for every year of elementary school. I sort of ripped apart this girl named Lee Ella, but to be fair she was awful to me, and now she lives in Israel so it's not like she'll ever know, anyway. One thing that I think I did well, if I must say so is that I made my horribly embarrassing experiences sound humorous. I think that people like to do that when they feel bad for themselves. They feel like making a joke out of it will make them feel better, and like I said in my writing, embarrassing moments make for great stories in the future. Immediately after something happens, you think that you'll never tell anybody because it was too awful, but in a while, it's just a funny story.

Writing

Right now, I am on my six-and-a-halfth page of my writing for the workshop tomorrow. I had almost four pages done yesterday, but today I was reviewing it and I realized that I was running out of ideas for the topic, so I started over. I've been working since 6:30. I'm completely surprised that I've gotten so much done, even though not all of it is good to me. At least it's interesting, though.

Friday and Monday

I really enjoyed the trip on Friday. I loved the swings, especially because it is apparently socially frowned upon for people my age to go to playgrounds. I thought it was awesome how the ropes from the swings made the sheet move and sitting under the sheet was really therapeutic. Afterwards, my group went to this Ukrainian restaurant that Ellen knew about. I wish I'd ordered more ethnic food but I just got stuffed peppers, had some of Jess's Lithuanian soup and ate one of Shiana's pierogies. We ended up staying there for a while and then went to Sixteen Handles for frozen yogurt. Not the best plan, since we had to eat it outside. Then we met up at the theatre. I really liked the play, even though I've never seen King Kong before. I think it was better that way, since it lowered my expectations.One thing that I noticed was that the girl's voice actually sounded like Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
Today, IshnaSauce was trying to edit our video, but the old Mac in the StacRoom was very slow and took two hours to load, so we couldn't get anything done. Although, I am very excited about my very first workshop on Thursday.

A Resolute Piece of Pink Construction Paper

Today is January 1st, 2013. This general time of year is meant for giving, so I am giving you all my personal goals that I hope to reach this year. I wrote down ten of them, and I hope to achieve at least seven.

1. WORK TOWARDS MY GOLD AWARD. I'm a Girl Scout, as some may know already. I'm a Senior (I think) and I got my Silver Award last year. The Gold Award is an independent project that "reaches beyond the Girl Scout organization and provides a sustainable, lasting benefit to the girl's larger community." Girls usually earn their Gold Award in their Junior or Senior year.
2. GET ON THE HONOR ROLL. I just barely got on the Honor Roll in Quarter 1 with a 3.6667 GPA. In the past, I've gotten on the Honor Roll for one quarter per year. This year, I want to get on the Honor Roll every quarter. I think it might be attainable.
3. BE MORE POLITE. Although I think I'm a generally polite person, I realize that too often I take compliments without returning them, and I don't say bless you all the time, and sometimes I'm mean without thinking about it. I just want to be nicer this year.
4. GO OUTSIDE MORE OFTEN. I hate the outdoors, but I really want to experience more in the outside world. I want to take walks around the neighborhood, and learn how to, God forbid, climb a tree. Also, I might get my parents to buy me a quad to ride in Pennsylvania.
5. PAY MORE ATTENTION TO PERSONAL HYGIENE. Okay, don't jump to conclusions. I am a generally clean person. But this year I want to remember to wash my face every morning and brush my teeth three times a day like I'm supposed to.
6. NO MORE SODA AND COOKIES. Last year, I gave up soda, but I still caved every once in a while. But this year, I am going totally without and adding cookies to the mix. I have no self control when it comes to cookies.
7. LEARN THE NATIONAL ANTHEMS OF FIVE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. I just think that this would be a cool skill. I plan on mastering the Canadian, British, Scottish, Australian, and Guyanese national anthems by the end of the year.
8. READ TEN BOOKS. My reading has been sadly lagging lately. Enough said.
9. LEARN HOW TO COOK TEN MEALS SUCCESSFULLY. Cooking is a useful skill. I think that if I learn ten family recipes, then I'll be okay if I ever have to be on my own.
10. GROW MY HAIR OUT (NO HAIRCUTS). I love my hair. Part of my elaborate Gold Award plan involves donating my hair, which I was supposed to do last week, but I chickened out. I think that if I grow my hair out this year, I will have enough to donate without my hair being too short.

That's it. I'll be checking off the boxes as I complete them. Happy 2013!