Online.

I honestly could not figure out what to write about for the longest time. I've been sitting at my computer for quite some time finding plenty of ways to amuse myself while trying to write this post. So I figured, why not just write about the internet? Thus, I will be writing about the internet.

I'm not implying that I spend a lot of time on the internet and am completely antisocial... that's only partly true. I kid.

Anyway, I spend the majority of my time online in 3 places: Facebook, blogs, and YouTube. 

Facebook is really not that interesting, so I really don't know why I check it as much as I do, let alone at all. I guess it's sometimes difficult to see your friends a lot during the school year, so if I want to know what they've been doing lately, I can just quickly look at their Facebook page. Of course I could (and do) text them, but then it takes a while for them to reply (I'm guilty of this) and you can't see their face when your texting them, and this is starting to sound creepy, but you know what I'm talking about, right? No? Then clearly you have a life and don't spend enough time on your computer.

Blogs. I love blogs. I don't read many blogspot blogs, unless I know the blogger personally, because I find that unless they are a big-shot-internet-famous phenomenon, then they write about things that are happening to them or that I just can't always relate to. But I do really enjoy reading my friend's blogs (and Mrs. Cardona's, of course)! Some people take on an entirely different voice on their blogs and write about things they're sometimes too afraid to say in person. That's one thing I find so interesting about the internet. It gives a lot of people a feeling of confidence.  I've seen plenty of blog posts (and Facebook and  Twitter posts, for that matter) that just really exposed people's feelings in a way I really doubt they would have done in person. I really respect people who do that, because I don't think I ever could. Even though no one really reads this blog, or my other blogspot, or my Tumblr, or probably my Facebook, I would just be so insanely afraid to put myself out there. Even if you just explore some of our class' blogs, you can find people doing this. Caroline C. had a really awesome post like that about a week ago that was really, REALLY well written, as well as open and brave. 

So blogs hold a lot of my attention. Tumblr holds most of mine, because I'm more of a visual person. If you have never been on Tumblr, A) you don't know what you're missing, and B) go look at it right now. If want a tumblog to start exploring through, oh look! Here's a convenient link to mine! Tumblr's so kewl.

Lastly, YouTube. I spend far too much time on YouTube. I don't actually have an account, so I'm not subscribed to any channels, but these are the channels I watch/check regularly: JennaMarbles, NigaHiga, Charlieissocoollike, EpicMealTime (I'm such a bro), Smosh (and their second channel, Ianh), Kingsley and plenty of others. I also listen to plenty of music on YouTube. I discovered my love for Florence and the Machine on YouTube, where I found two of my favorite songs. I also discovered my very favorite artist, Ellie Goulding, on YouTube, then went to see her in concert about a month after I heard her music for the first time. I watch my friend Alex's brilliant musical talent on YouTube as well (I think Max was in one of her videos). 

But most importantly, I watched Starkid's video's on YouTube. That is where I basically fell in love with Darren Criss. The theatre company he is a part of has four full-length, original musicals uploaded to YouTube in segments: A Very Potter Musical, A Very Potter Sequel, MAMD, and Starship. When you find time, you should MUST watch them. If you don't you will never truly experience life to the fullest.

So sometimes, just sometimes, there's more than just cat videos on the internet. 

P.S. Who watched this week's episode of Glee? Can I just say Darren is a hobbit compared to Cory Monteith, as show in that scene where Blaine was all "menacing" and "tough". Also, the song they sang at the end? "We Are Young" by Fun.? I'm obsessed.

Through the Eyes of a Nervous Mother.

      I saw him the second he stepped into the road, his unkempt slacks sweeping the ground as he crossed slowly. It was easy to tell he didn’t fit in with the rest of the impatient individuals that huddled at the street corners of Manhattan, waiting to cross the road; even if it weren’t for his disheveled appearance—his shirt sleeve torn off, and hair hanging in ratted dreadlocks around is face—it was obvious by his leisurely jaunt that he was not rushed.  He advanced comfortably until he stopped, right by me. Right in front of my daughter’s stroller.  I don’t like to assume the worst, but having grown up in Manhattan, and having run into plenty of people who shared his look, I got nervous. I glanced at the light, hoping maybe it would change, and whatever would happen could be avoided. But color remained the same so I looked back, my hands nervously wringing the soft handle. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the others standing with me looking anywhere but at the neglected man. One checked her phone, another played with his toe within his shining shoe. 

      The man remained stoic, and my nerves rose. I lifted my purse from my shoulder and jumbled through the mess until I found a neatly folded dollar. I extended it to the man, but there he rested, frozen, not even glancing at the pressed, green note. My daughter stirred in her stroller; she could feel the man’s gaze. It was unusual for someone like that to refuse money, so I moved forward, thrusting the bill closer to him, until finally, he reached very deliberately and lifted it from my hand.

P.S. This doesn't relate exactly to the story, but It relates to general compassion, so I figured maybe someone could find it interesting. I was bell-ringing for Y.E.S. with two friends at Byerly's yesterday, and about 45 minutes into it, we decided to go inside and buy something from Caribou to warm us up, so two of us went inside while the other stayed to ring the bell (there needs to be one person there at all times). So we were waiting at the counter, looking at the menu trying to decide what to drink, when a woman came up next to us. I told her she could go ahead because we were still deciding, but she said she was just waiting for her drink to be made. Then she asked us if we were the ones outside ringing the bell, and we told her yes, we just wanted a quick drink. She the said "Well, them I'm buying your drinks." We said it was okay, she didn't have to do that, but she insisted. She bought all three of us drinks, two hot chocolates and a latte. That is compassion. 

Positive Energy

1. Process analysis
2. Classification/division
3. Narration
4. Description
5. Definition
6. Comparison/Contrast  

You guys are so smart...

(I can definitely see how #1 could be description. I was a little broad with that one...)

Energy (or lack thereof)

Hopefully most of this makes sense, I'm running on a lack of energy right now from having so much fun at the football game last night. I'm using more of the superficial definition of energy for these, like having a lot of energy and being energized, as opposed to cosmic energy or more of the supernatural type of energy.

1. When someone needs energy, and they don't have time to sleep, they usually resort to consuming a lot of sugar and energy drinks. This usually starts when someone begins to get tired and lack energy, but must stay awake because they need to get something done (i.e. they need to finish a project or do a performance of a show) so they get an energy drink or candy bar, eat it, and then, depending on the amount, go a certain amount of crazy until they crash when the artificial energy wears off.

2. I find that while there are many ways to get energy, people usually go about it in two main ways. I like to call these ways "naturally" and "artificially". Naturally gaining energy involves recharging your body by getting a good amount of sleep every night, and giving your body the nutrients it needs by eating healthy food. Artificial energy is gained when one can't or simply doesn't sleep. One must then rely on manufactured foods such as sugar and energy supplements.

3. At 4 in the morning, most normal people just want to sleep. However, when you have a dozen 13-year-old girls at a sleepover in the middle of August, in a house without air conditioning, sleep doesn't happen. I think we went through a stage of exhaustion that night, but when we just COULD NOT sleep, we just stopped trying and woke ourselves up more. We were all but bouncing off the walls, playing truth or dare, shoving ice cubes down each other's pajamas to cool each other off. That was the only night I've pulled an "all-nighter".

4. When you feel energized, you know it. Your eyes are open wide, you're alert, and you don't feel that need to put your head down on the nearest soft surface and sleep for all eternity. You can actually comprehend what your teacher is saying, unlike those days where you get two hours of sleep and you're physically in class, but your brain is back home tucked in under your favorite blanket. 

5. Most people know of Einsteins famous equation "e=mc^2" (sorry, I'm in a bit of a rush, and I can't figure out how to get the squared symbol) which means "energy equals mass times the speed of light, squared". That is how science calculates energy. They say energy is "the ability to do work", which is very true outside of the science community as well. No energy usually means no work done. 

6. Energy can sometimes be similar to spirit. If you want to think a little more "out-there" and paranormal, a spirit and energy can be very similar ideas. But pertaining more to the everyday definition of energy, spirit is much different. If a person seems to have spirit they usually seem very peppy, and excited, often towards a specific event or idea. Such as spirit days or week at Wayzata, when everyone is so excited for Homecoming that they dress up in different, ridiculous ways everyday (guilty...). Energy is more of an overall feeling, like you can feel energized in general, but not really towards a certain event, person, idea, etc. 

Snow.

I know if you've looked anywhere on social media sites in the last 36 hours, you've probably seen that word about a thousand times, but I'm going to go ahead and use it some more.

Snow and I have a complicated relationship. Of course, it's gorgeous and beautiful and radiant and a whole bunch of other overused adjectives. I really enjoy photography and looking at pictures (even though I suck at actually taking them) and about this time, the internet just explodes with hipster pictures of snow. Tumblr feeds essentially turn into this multiplied by 1000:

(all pictures found here)

Of course, these are all gorgeous pictures, which is why I like snow. It just makes everything seem more pristine.

Until it starts to get muddy.

So in terms of look, snow's great. Other than that, it sucks. It takes me a solid 5 minutes to take off or put on everything I have to wear to school everyday in the winter to protect my nose from falling off it's so cold. You might be thinking "Hey! Don't blame the snow for that. The cold is at fault for that!" Yes, it's true. I don't start looking like Rudolph from just the snow, but wherever there's snow, there's cold weather. That's just how nature works unfortunately. 

Snow also gets in your way. After a few snow falls, my family has to shovel our driveway if we don't want to make an accidental snow angel while walking to the car. (You know, because we would fall because the snow was too deep and when you fall in the snow you make an imprint. I'm ashamed that I had to explain that, but I just read through it again and realized that not a very smooth train of thought.) I'm a lazy person. I would far rather be sitting on my couch drinking tea and watching "The Santa Claus(e?)" than shoveling, but unfortunately snow prohibits me from doing that. Also, snow just causes way too many car crashes. 

Basically, you can't win or lose with snow.

Ok, you mostly lose. 

First person to count how many times I used the word "snow" in this post gets to shovel my driveway. Just kidding, don't do that. 

Totes McGoats

X2, pg. 133

Slang, to me, it simply intriguing. If you listen to any conversation I have with some of my really close friends, you'd be disgusted by the amount of abbrevs (an abbreviation for the words abbreviation, it's like Inception for words) we use. Most of these spawn from inside jokes, and we rarely use them seriously. One of my friends and I actually keep a list of stupid slang words we hear that we want to try to use more often, just because they sound funny. This is some of the "words" we had:

Totes
Maybs
Probs
Fo shiz
Bomb diggs
Cool beans
Awk sauce
Btdubs
True dat
Errbody
Laters
Super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot
Supes
Presh
Bombdotcom
Rofl waffle
Yuppers

Swoon sauce
Dece
Supes awk
Awktopus
Yayzies

I'm sure if you heard me say any of these words, any respect had for me would go out out the window. And that's kind of the point. When I'm talking with my friends, we say stupid stuff like that for the purpose of making each other laugh, because that's what we do when we're together. I understand that there's a time and place for these expressions, though, and that's why you'll never hear me say something like bombdotcom in class. I would try to look into the origins of these words, but I'm not going to for two reasons. One, most of them are fairly obscure and ridiculous, even for slang words, and two, I'm 99% sure they all came from some video or meme somewhere on the internet. 

I asked a few of my friends (not just the ones I use these ridiculous sayings with) what colloquial words they used and what they thought of slang in general. All of them said that slang doesn't really bother them, and they use it a fair amount. Some specific words they use are totes, gonna, wanna, deuces (hahahahahaha) and wtf. I am guilty of using all of these, so......

Moving right along to the second bullet point of this X2, there have been plenty of instances when I have said something and immediately recognized its stupidity and told the person I was talking to to never let me use that again. I mean, if you said anything from the list above, wouldn't you have the same reaction? 

One if the expressions I use the heck out of is "totes". I really don't have an explanation as to why I use it so much, I just do.

Words that are overused just become space-fillers to me. Like my overuse of totes has led it to become meaningless to me. For example, if someone says something in a conversation and I don't really know how to respond, sometimes (if I know them well enough that I find it ok to sound absolutely uneducated in front of them) I'll just say, "Totes McGoats." And I have absolutely no clue as to why I keep using it. I really don't.

On to the final bullet point. I already kind of said this earlier, but all of the teenagers I asked really didn't mind slang as long as it wasn't offensive to anyone. I didn't ask my parents in an attempt to avoid the half-hour lecture I would've promptly been given. 

I guess I don't really know what I'd tell people to allay their fears about their slang use. I mean other that telling them that if you actually have a fear of your "naughty habit of using slang", you need help. 

I know this whole post probably makes it seem like all I do is talk like a twitter-obsessed, uneducated teen girl. I promise you this is not the case. Psh, I don't even have a twitter. But seriously, when I use stupid expressions like that with my friends, it's in a mocking manner. We do have semi-intelligent conversations from time to time as well. SEMI-intelligent.

p.s. When I attempted to spell-check this (ohemgee, spellcheck?! yea, I know it's not going to solve all my problems, but it will catch things like the fact that I spelled "expressions" wrong...embarassing...) the amount of yellow highlighter nearly gave me a heartattack until I remembered half the words in this were not actual words.

Show Week, Ladies and Gentleman.

I feel like at least one of these open-topic blog posts that I write should be about something completely spontaneous and random. I shouldn't just write about things that are happening in my life, even though I'm obviously thinking about them because they're actually happening.

Yea, maybe I'll try that next time, because this week, I feel kind of obligated to talk about what's happening this week for me. Mostly because it's basically the only think that I will be spending time on other than school.

BRIGADOON (that's the fall musical for all of you who pay no attention to school events or the giant posters hung all around the school)

Basically everyone who I tell about the musical has never heard of it, which is understandable. I mean I'd never heard of it until Mr. Doering announced that it would be the show this fall. Mrs. Cardona knew though. Props to her.
Anyway, the story is about a small town called Brigadoon, in Scotland, that disappears every night, and then reappears 100 years later. But that 100 years is only a night for it's inhabitants. I know that's confusing, but stay with me. One day, two Americans who went on a hunting trip to Scotland, stumble upon the town on the one day that it is there for 100 years. They get acquainted with some of the townspeople (some more than others...) and...well... I don't know how much I want to give away, so I'm just going to leave it at that. But there's plenty of amazing singing, fun dancing, and phenomenal acting, so everyone should come see it :) (OH MY GOSH AN EMOTICON!?!@!%*(@%&#!!!)

If you guys want to more about the movie version, click here. There was also an article about it in the school newspaper on Friday. You can get tickets and more info on the school website here. 

This week the cast has rehearsal until sometime after 6:00 tomorrow (I feel like it's like 7, but that's probably way off. I should probably check after I post this),  rehearsal until 9 Tuesday, the senior citizens performance Wednesday, and then shows Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It's going to be a long week, to say the least, but totally worth it. I wish I could tell you about all of the fun traditions we have and what goes on backstage, but I think it's best if what happens behind the scenes, stays there.
I really some of you decide to go, and that I see you in the audience!

P.S. I've been keeping up with the blog I chose to follow at the beginning of the term, and WOW! The photos on the blog have such a spread and are just really amazing. You should look at them here!