Taken from my Facebook notes: Response to Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

So I finished Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman for summer reading (since everyone in my seminar HAS to read it).

And...I kind of want to know how true everything he says is. I mean, he sounds convincing, but I don't want to just blindly believe everything he says because it just sounds TOO easy.

Even though it's not.

(Floods will be more common and more severe if we don't start working to alleviate climate change.)

Does anybody get what I mean? That you can pretty much say that saving the climate, preserving our planet's biodiversity, helping our national security, promoting growth in third world countries, taking down petrodictators, and other good things is economically viable in the long run? (Or maybe not THAT long...I didn't get this as much because I don't know much about economics.) That, and it's all interconnected and related to improving our energy system/pushing clean energy? AND it would give us a chance to NOT surrender "the next big industry" to China/India/another emerging giant?

Because (according to Thomas Friedman, who - by the way - I don't think I agree with on all of his points), if we do things like promote a tax on imported oil (or all oil...)/carbon emissions in general, create harsher emission standards (like for transportation), as well as make it easier for people to invest in solar/wind/nuclear/wave/etc R+D/production, it will:
- Promote a cleaner environment
- Spark competition between companies to become more "green", which will end up saving them money in fuel and become a selling point for when they want to hire people ("come work for us! Look at how green we are!")
- Spark capitalistic competition: for example, between automakers. Contrary to their whining, harsher emission standards does NOT cause automakers to go out of business.
- Encourage American alternative energy companies to stay American and not focus on foreign markets
- Keep American taxes going into projects that help the USA (coughcough not the Middle East)
- Help our national security (ie we don't have to bow down to oil-producers)
- Help our TROOPS
- Show a good example to the rest of the world, ESPECIALLY developing countries who want to "live an American lifestyle"
- Give us a foothold against cheap Chinese/Indian companies by preventing them from selling products that would not meet our higher carbon emission standards. Which would, in turn, force China/India to create their OWN higher standards to compete with American companies, (and so on) which would be better for the world...
- Help develop technology that could provide power to developing countries and villages, making it easier for people to stay in villages and not cram into unhealthy, overcrowded city slums. This would make it easier for people to get into the middle class AND would allow these people to focus on education rather than pure survival, which would increase the numbers of innovators

And other things...

(We can prevent urban decay and environmental decay at the same time.)

I mean, there are a ton of things standing in the way, such as the fact that a lot of the governmental bodies controlling various aspects of our energy policies aren't under the same roof - in order to get a central energy policy, you need to go to the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the EPA, the Department of Transportation, the US Army Corp of Engineers, etc. In that sense, China has a much easier way of implementing a clean energy system than we do...except that China isn't really doing that, either.

There's a lot to say about this, but I don't want to rant. I just want to say a couple things I found interesting (assuming everything Thomas Friedman says in his book is 100% true):

One thing...our troops. (Esp the ones in Iraq/Afghanistan.) Let's look at Iraq. Now, I don't support the Iraq war...but I do support our troops (as people). I admire that they are putting their lives on the line to protect us back home. I would like it if as few of them died in Iraq as possible, and I'm glad President Obama is withdrawing a lot of the troops.

What's really sad, I always think, is when a soldier dies in Iraq because of something like a car bomb. They weren't doing anything at the moment, and they just get killed. Or when they're doing something mundane...like transporting diesel. Why diesel? Because it's really hot in Iraq (like 121 degrees Fahrenheit), and the encampments can't use the Iraqi grid for energy to run their many air conditioners. For a long time, soldiers had to truck in so many gallons of diesel to run the ACs, and these soldiers in their diesel-transporting trucks would be easy, flammable targets for IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The US Army had to spend time, energy, and lives to make sweep roads of IEDs and send soldiers to truck in the diesel to run the ACs.

So the Army wanted to cut down on the amount of energy they used. Makes sense, right? They were able to save 40-75 percent on their energy usage just by insulating the tents with foam. They built on that design (using the foam insulation) to build large, domed temporary structures with that insulation, the capacity to sleep 40 soldiers (4x the average army tent), more ballistic protection thanks to the concrete in the design, and 2 mobile wind turbines and 2 sun-tracking solar panels in addition to a backup generator. Thanks to the wind turbines and solar panels (and the insulation), the tents can produce enough energy to provide power, air conditioning, and have a bit left over to give to a nearby village.

As of when the book was written, I don't think those structures have been implemented in Iraq or Afghanistan (since it needed to be perfected), but it's a good start. As Friedman said, you "buy one, get four free". You spend the money on the efficient structures, and you:
- Save lives by getting the diesel convoys off the road
- Save money by lowering fuel costs
- Might be able to give some extra energy to a nearby village, which might make the people in the village less angry at the occupying soldiers
- Might make the soldiers demand the same kind of energy-saving practices in factories/buildings in America once they come home. The same thing happened when the army was desegregated - why can't it happen now with energy policies?

(The above was summarized from the beginning of the chapter entitled "Outgreening Al-Qaeda")

So yeah...

There are a lot of interesting things to think about, like how if you don't focus so much on the "we need to save the polar bears"-type attitude and focus more on the "we need to save money and promote a healthy national economy"-type attitude, you end up saving the polar bears because more people will be on board.

Another chapter I thought was interesting was about how to get poor communities on board with "the green revolution". If somebody can't afford their house, they won't care about saving the polar bears. But if you put money into education and create entry-level "green-collar jobs" (such as working in a manufacturing plant for solar panels - which could lead to being a manager, which could lead to being an innovator, and which would be the stepping-stone factory job of the present), then you would stabilize more people. If people don't have to worry about feeding their families and getting evicted, then they can worry about the polar bears. And if you can kill the poverty bird and the disappearing-biodiversity bird with one stone? Um, why not?

(The passages about "green-collar jobs" are in the same chapter as above: "Outgreening Al-Qaeda")

So yeah.

(I don't know about everyone else, but I think this is worth protecting.)

It kind of seems too easy, this "saving the world" thing. Like if we have a good energy policy, too many things will just fit into place, and like how if we tell people that preserving the forests in Sumatra is more economically viable than cutting it down, we can both help developing economies and alleviate the strain on our planet. But it also seems so impossible, because this sort of thing CAN'T happen in the US government right now, and it HAS to.

I mean, I hate to be patriotic, but we NEED to be one of the countries moving forward into a clean energy system. Japan and Europe are already getting there and leaving us behind, which isn't THAT much of a problem right now - but what if China and India get there first? Then we would get left behind as China (or India) would become the new world power, and while that might be great for the Chinese - I'm American. I'm a plain, boring, whitebread American girl. While yeah, I wouldn't mind China becoming a clean energy giant, I want my own country to do well, too.

Because if we can jump ahead in our energy policy and create an economy that China can't compete in, China will find a way to compete. If we become green, China will want to become greener - India, too. And Japan. And Europe. And Indonesia, and everybody else. "Anything you can green, I can green better."

It's a competition that we can't lose - but, even though it's a competition, everyone has the potential to win.

...

But it's not happening, which sucks.

...Wow, that was long. Did that make any sense to anyone, or is it just late-night ramblings from a girl that doesn't really understand economics as much as the Palo Alto School District would have wanted her to? :)

(Sunsets are beautiful. Let's have the sun continue to set on a planet that's just as beautiful.)

Hey there, summer goals.

Okay, so...due to the fact that yesterday I finished my 11th chick lit book (which would be Queen of Babble in the Big City by the glorious Meg Cabot) and on Friday I got my DRIVER'S LICENSE, I'm going to do a little bit of a self-check on those summer goals I made back in June...

1. Write a novel - workin' on it...both...both of them. I started both of them before summer, but I figure that if I finish one by the end of summer (one of them looks like it will finish up by the end of August) and if I write a combined total of, like, 50,000+ words, I'll be good.
2. Go to the city on the train with my friends - ...man, I really need to do this...
3. Get my driver's license - OH HEY WHAT GUESS WHAT I HAVE. YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, I HAVE a piece of paper, since my actual license card still has to get mailed to me...but I WILL get it, and I'm sure the cops will be fine with my piece-of-paper interim license, so YEAH WHAT WHAT.
4. Watch a sunrise - ...maybe now that I have my DRIVER'S LICENSE, this will actually happen.
5. Take a picture under Hoover Tower - I seriously cannot believe Janice and I never did this. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US.
6. Read at least 11 brainless chick lit books - uh-huhhhhhh did this. :)
7. See Janice - OH HAY DID THIS TOO.
8. Clean my room - um, this is kind of vague...every time I clean it, it just gets dirty again.
9. Practice flute at least sometimes - I swear I'll do this.
10. Make sure to coordinate me-Cally-Brandy-Anna stuff so it actually HAPPENS - well, Cally-Anna-me stuff has happened, as well as Cally-me, Anna-me, and Brandy-me (ONCE), but all four? Hehe. Oops.
11. To get some sort of thing made to represent/remember "home" with - ummmmm...

So that's a grand total of...

In progress: 2

Done: 3

Not even started: 6

Now, I know the "not even started"s outnumber the "in progress"es and the "done"s (combined), but hey...it's summer?

Oh, and I actually have homework due the first day of class. Or, actually, the second day of class, since my seminar meets on Tuesdays, not Mondays. BUT STILL. Homework. Ew. (I should probably get started on that, too. I mean, I've read one chapter of one book, but...yeah. I need to do my homework.)

I hate wisdom teeth removal. End of story.

My mouth huuuuuuurts.

And it totally makes me not want to write anything, even though I should be working on those stories I wanted to finish this summer (which will probably happen for one of them, but not so much the other...ALTHOUGH I HAVE IT OUTLINED hahahahaaaaaaa yeah).

Instead, what have I been doing?

I've been watching illegally-uploaded-to-YouTube Kim Possible episodes. And ANIME. (In my defense for the anime, it was only four episodes (so far...since it's new) and it's from the only series I'd bother watching nowadays...and that's just because it was the inspiration for The Eleventh.)

...I have no defense for Kim Possible, though...haha, it was kind of cool since I didn't know they made a fourth season, so there are TONS of episodes I've never watched. Like...Kim and Ron? TOGETHER? SERIOUSLY? Didn't think they were gonna make a whole season with that! But they did.

Although I gotta say, I did like Ron/Yori... :( But they weren't "meant to be", like I guess Kim and Ron are (no duh, right?) Drakken/Shego kind of freaks me out now, though, even though I think I used to think they would be cute together. But that was when I was ten. Now that I think about it, it's kind of...disturbing. And they only have one real "moment" together - personally, I think Shego would be better of with someone else. And Drakken, but I can't think of anybody in the show who'd be good for him. I can with Shego, though.

But enough about that.

(Though I gotta add: FELIX/ZITA! Aaaaah adorable, adorable, ADORABLE! Also, Junior/Bonnie...hahaha, wow, they are perfect together.)

So yep.

I'm not even reading chick lit...I'm watching Kim Possible. DID YOU KNOW THAT SKY HIGH AND KIM POSSIBLE WERE WRITTEN/CREATED BY THE SAME PEOPLE? I did not know that, but now that I do, it kind of explains a lot. And Mister Barkin was voiced by Patrick Warburton! Hahaaaaaaa wow!

...So, um, why did I write this, again?

The Ramifications of Chick Lit

Okay, so I'm currently ~15 pages from finishing one of the two chick lit books I checked out when I went to the library again today (but forgot to bring one of the books back that I'd checked out before - oops!), and even though I was going to go to bed before midnight in an effort to shift myself back to a normal sleep schedule...I got sucked in and I couldn't stop reading! I have to finish it tonight.

So why am I writing this?

It's because I'm reading The Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer, which is partly about three woman vowing to lose weight and keep it off (therefore becoming sexier and happier and healthier and yadda yadda) in six months. And it's got me all enthusiastic to try the same thing, even though I'm not obese.

Or, like, I'm not obese but sometimes I FEEL obese. And not just the "ohmigod I just looked in the mirror and I'm SO UGLY why would anybody associate with me" kind of "I feel obese" because I'm pretty sure everybody feels like that. Or, at least, everybody who is female. You know. Mirror phobia and all that. (Or camera phobia for those of us who aren't ridiculously photogenic without trying...or at all...)

It's more like...I just feel heavy. And flabby. Like it's restricting my movement, weighing me down, giving me an unflattering figure, and making me breath harder just to do something normal. It's not like I don't work out - I started going to the gym again, so hopefully that'll help - but it's like...I dunno. I don't like it, though, cuz I don't FEEL good. Screw looks - this is something else.

So I'll cut to the chase: I have a "curvy tummy" as they say in Seventeen magazine, and it's getting in my way. I don't want this tummy! I want - er, well, I would LIKE abs of steel, but I don't think "abs of steel" and "Anne Ciccarelli" will ever go together - but I want something that doesn't feel like its weighing me down and splashing out everywhere. Especially now with all the fashions - they're so flowy around the middle and cinched at the waist. A curvy tummy does not work with these! So it's like I can never go to a store and buy something. I'm a bad shopper, but like, I got a gift card for Anthropologie and I really wanted to get something...

But nothing looked good! And while it wasn't ALL because of my curvy tummy - some of them just didn't work with my wide shoulders or were just kind of weirdly shaped to begin with - it doesn't help!

Then I went to Gap and saw a dress I LOVED. It's like my number one sin - dress lust. Seriously. I LOVE LOVE LOVE dresses, but I can never wear them without feeling like everyone's judging me or that they only show off the worst parts of me.

BUT I LOVED THIS DRESS. They had it in two colors, and I think I liked the two-tone brown one better, but the navy-and-black one was cute, too. I mean, if I could just find some cute brown flats, I could totally wear that brown dress! (Or I could just use black flats I own from band and wear the blue-black one...)

Except it was the absolute WORST kind of dress for my curvy tummy. I couldn't even try the stupid thing ON, even in the seclusion of the dressing room. I could just stare at it and luuuuuuust. It's like prom season all over again. I stare at dresses, but I never get to wear them. The last time I bought a dress that I actually WORE was for homecoming in FRIGGIN NINTH GRADE.

So I've decided!

Enough of not wearing dresses! Or, at least, not having a good tummy for dresses!

I want that brown dress! (Or the blue-black one, since I already have shoes for it.)

So...I don't know how...but I'm going to kill the curvy tummy. Or at least get it under control. I'm going to start each day by doing crunches until it kills me (er...maybe I'll just start off with 20 and work my way up...) And I'll do push-ups, too, although that won't help the tummy. But it can't hurt, right? And I'll keep going to the gym. Maybe I'll run in the morning OUTSIDE (I've never had enough confidence to do this since I can't run for more than fifteen minutes on a treadmill).

I dunno.

But I want that dress. Even if it has a 99.9999% of being horribly out-of-fashion in like, two weeks...I don't care. I at least want to be able to walk into freaking GAP and try on a dress I think looks cute.

Because I want to be able to wear a dress. :) Screw prom and Cinderella fantasies, a casual one will work just fine.

(Okay, now I'm going to go finish that book and GO TO SLEEP because it is waaaay past my bedtime. And crap, I should have written this in my journal...I wonder how long it'll be before I cave and just print out blogs and things? Haha. I'm just a fast typer! Can't deny that. :) Anyway...even though nobody reads this but me...bye bye! Sleep tight. I'll dream of myself in a beautiful dress I'll never wear tonight.)

About that novel...

So I decided to be more nostalgic this summer and write an "juvenile" story. Two of them, actually. ;) Of course I won't be posting about them, because they're embarrassing that way. Even though I'm an adult, I guess it's just hard to shake off the kinds of stories I liked to write as a child. After this, I promise I'll write more mature things.

But for now, I'm just gonna have fun and pretend I'm still a kid. I mean, hey, a novel's a novel, bottom line.

It'll be our little secret. ;)

Insomnia and Summer Novels

Alright, so I still can't fall asleep, so I worked on my novel for this summer...goal number 1. :)

And guess what? It's CHICK LIT! :D Best type of book everrr, even though romance hasn't really started blooming yet. (That's because...I dunno...I don't want to give it away? Actually, it's because I had trouble wrapping up Chapter 3. That's why.)

Yeah, so I'm taking a break from The Eleventh (even though I need to finish the second book) because The Eleventh got so wrapped up in my senior year...I need a break from it, too. I'll finish the draft of the second by the end of the year, and maybe get started on the third if I can (NaNo '09?)...but for now...noooooo. I'm writing harmless chick lit. :P I'm almost 10,000 words in, and although I don't have any outline written (which has me kind of freaking out) I have a good idea of where it's gonna go.

With the exception, of course, of the next few scenes. I think it's going to end up being kind of like Highness in the sense that the first draft is gonna SUCK due to its flailing-about nature, but hopefully it'll be salvageable. Maybe even enjoyable? I'm trying to get a spunky-type female narrator-thing going, since that's what contemporary chick lit is all about. Hopefully I'm succeeding.

Oh, and it's based off of my own experiences (haha, no). It's about a girl named Wendy Phillips who has an overactive imagination that ends up sucking her into movie plots as she watches them, in particular one movie: an action-adventure fantasy type called Glass Flower that stars her best friend's celeb crush. But the guy Wendy ends up falling for isn't the actor her friend adores, but the character himself - the standard charming action hero with the weird name, Cain Leafheart. But Wendy ends up learning that falling in love with someone who's just in her head has more problems than solutions, especially when she begins to lose the overactive imagination that gave her Prince Charming in the first place.

I either want to call it "Overactive Imagination" or "In Your Head"...or something else. I'm having trouble coming up with a title I like. :/ Oh well. I'll call it Overactive Imagination for tagging purposes...even though it's currently In Your Head in the document version. Heheh...working title, much?

But yeah...maybe I'll post the Prologue through Chapter Three here! :) Just for fun. Like a preview! Haha, yeah, I'll do that. (But I'm going to be lazy and not transfer over the italics...because I'm lazy. Hehe, sorry.) Here is the unedited first draft prologue...:

Prologue

I have always had an overactive imagination. It was just something that was a part of me - I personally always blamed it on being an only child with two parents working full-time. Plus, there being three of us, I was sometimes the odd one out. (Yeah, three-way conversations? They don't work.)

So, when my parents were out and I was stuck at home with a babysitter or at that after school program they signed me up for every year, I usually just had to dream up my own adventures to have. It wasn't to say that I didn't have friends, because I totally did. I was actually a really social kid, not "Miss Popular", but high enough up the social ladder to never be in a situation without someone I could be friendly with.

It was just that a lot of times, I was stuck in a situation where either I was by myself, or everyone else around me wasn't being as friendly as they could have been. (This happened a lot if my parents had to drag me to a company dinner or a dinner party with their friends, and I was surrounded by boring adults who would ask me my name, age, and what I wanted to be when I grew up before ignoring me completely.) So I had to make do with what I had, and what I had was my imagination.

It started out innocently enough. First, I had basic imaginary friends. I never had a consistent imaginary friend, I just used whatever was around me. Sometimes it was a stuffed animal, sometimes it was an action figure, and sometimes it was a cloud up in the sky. Then, once I got older and could imagine things in my head, I would think up vague shapes of people to talk to. Eventually, they became clearer and ended up developing personalities, and I sifted through my very large collection until I found a few characters that seemed interesting enough to keep imagining up everyday.

Then I started getting into reading books, seeing movies, and every now and then playing a video game. That, as it turned out, was a mistake just waiting to happen.

As it turned out, my imagination on its own was completely harmless. No matter how real anything was when I imagined it up, it wasn't...you know. Real. It was just a tiny little figment of my imagination that I could throw away at a moment's notice.

But, apparently, my imagination worked synergistically with other people's imaginations. If a book was imaginative enough, suddenly I found myself staring at a vague shape that resembled the main character or villain, and they would only go away once I closed the book. It was the same with games - characters would begin to interact with me outside the screen, only leaving me alone if I turned the console off.

Movies were the worst - as soon as I started watching a movie, it was like I was in the movie. Sometimes my interpretation of the movie plot would end up drastically different than whoever I watched it with because I ended up basically seeing a different movie. (Apparently, adding just one character - namely me - could potentially change a movie from a sad ending to a happy one, as demonstrated when I single-handedly saved both Romeo and Juliet when I saw the 1968 film.) Heck, sometimes I ended up seeing a different movie if I watched the movie a second time.

But it only happened to me, and nothing that happened in the movie was permanent. I think I got killed once when I watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I was fine when the movie ended. That was always what happened - the movie would end, I would wake up from my movie trance, and everything would be normal again. It just made it unbelievably awkward to watch movies with people, since if they turned to talk to me during the movie, I wouldn't respond. In fact, I'd usually just stare up at the screen, my mouth open a little bit, looking a bit like I was about to have a seizure (that was how one of my friends, Nellie, described it).

I mean, it wasn't really much of a problem. I just avoided watching movies, if I could. In class, if we were going to watch a movie, I'd usually find some way to convince my teachers I had to go to the bathroom, health office, library, computer lab, lockers, or, once, across the street for coffee. And some movies weren't even worth trying to get out of, so I'd just watch them anyway. (If it got bad, sometimes I could close my eyes and avoid getting sucked into it.) I also learned that if I avoided big screens and dark viewing rooms, I could "snap out of it" much easier - so movie theaters became off-limits to me. I didn't care, though, since I had enough luck to land a group of friends that put shopping and trips to the beach before movies.

Really, though, it wasn't anything I ever had to tell anyone. It was just an overactive imagination that didn't go away when I hit puberty, like all my friends. So I kept it all through high school, and as I entered my senior year, I had just sort of gotten used to it.

Unfortunately, that was the year my overactive imagination got the better of me.

Which really sucked, because I had to focus on college apps and not failing my calculus class.

But whatever - it was nothing I, Wendy Yui Nakamura-Phillips, couldn't handle.

(Except the calculus thing. Oh my god, derivatives. HOW DO YOU DO THEM?)

The nice guy...

Okay, so you know how in romance novels/movies, there is usually a love triangle? And in this triangle, there is the "safe guy" and the "dangerous guy"? And how a lot of times, the dangerous one wins because the heroine just doesn't feel excited enough when she's with the safe one EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER?

Like...Twilight. Now, I'm going purely off the first book/movie (since that's the only one I've seen/read), but Edward is definitely Mr. Dangerous and Jacob is Mr. Safe. GUESS WHO WINS? GUESS WHO IS PERFECT FOR BELLA BUT LOSES ANYWAY?

(I think I am one of those people referred to as "Team Jacob"...but seriously! Who wouldn't want to hang out with a bunch of werewolves? Werewolves are super cool! Especially when the other choice is a family of dead people who watch you sleep.)

So...I finished one of the books I checked out of the library (part of the eleven chick lit books I am reading for my summer goals), and guess what? Mr. Safe won! I was so worried Lindsey would end up ditching Michael for Dustin, but SHE DIDN'T! That made me so happy in only a way that chick lit can. Aaaaaah...this is why I love summer.

(What was the point of this blog post again?)

(Also: why am I tagging this as a rant? This is a pathetic excuse for a rant. But whatever, it's my blog, I can do what I want. I feel like I've said this already...)

Summer goals?

So before, when I made my summer goals, I said that I was going to read more chick lit. Yesterday I went to the library to check out some chick lit, and ended up getting four books ("the Asian one", "the Southern cooking one", "the amnesia one", and "the one written by one of the cowriters of the movie Legally Blonde"). I'm now about 2/3 of the way done with one of them ("the Asian one"), so hopefully that one will go up on the master list of chick lit I've read soon. (Hopefully then followed by the other three in a timely manner, since I have to turn all of them back in on July 15).

I think that was the first time I'd used my library card in at least a year - maybe more...I was sort of afraid it wasn't going to work (the library card, I mean). I'm so bad, I never go to the library.

Actually, that's not true. I went to the library a bunch of times over the past year, but that was as a meeting place to work on projects with people. I don't think I ever checked out any books. I want to say the last time I checked out books was sometime during junior year when I was working on that project about Robert Fulton and Eli Whitney with Melanie. (I think that was when I had to replace my library card so I could check out those books and do research at home.)

Luckily, the card worked, and I was able to use those self-checkout things so I didn't have to interact with anyone. Plus, those machines are kind of fun. :P Yup...

I really should use the library more often...hahaha. Libraries are cool. You don't have to pay money but you get to read all the books you want. And those books don't end up cluttering up your room and taking up space. (In case you couldn't tell, I'm trying to go through my stuff in my room and get rid of a lot of it before I go off to college.)

So yeah...what was the point of this blog post again?

Summer 2009: Chick Lit

So I said I would read at least 11 chick lit books this summer. Here is a list of the 11 books I have read so far, and the day I finished them (roughly...some of them are guesswork):

1. Airhead by Meg Cabot - 6/13

2. Being Nikki by Meg Cabot - 6/14

3. Buddha Baby by Kim Wong Keltner - 6/19

4. Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews - (estimated) 6/23

5. The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz - 7/5

6. Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella - 7/6

7. The Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer - 7/9

8. Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella - (estimated) 7/14

9. The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer - 7/27

10. Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot - 8/1

11. Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot - 8/2

Still need to read: 0

DONE! :)

In lieu of BFS...

Here are 11 personal goals for this summer. Because you know how I feel about the number 11. ;)

(These goals, except for #3 and #4, are made up on the spot, by the way.)

1. Write a novel - because hey, why not?
2. Go to the city on the train with my friends - because I still haven't done this.
3. Get my driver's license - because I need to.
4. Watch a sunrise - because I still want to...
5. Take a picture under Hoover Tower - because I forgot to.
6. Read at least 11 brainless chick lit books - because that was how many books/plays I read in entirety in AP English this year, and, of course, it is conveniently my new favorite number.
7. See Janice - because I do it every summer, and I know it's a goal I'll make.
8. Clean my room - because I told my mother I would...
9. Practice flute at least sometimes - because I won't be quitting in college, apparently...
10. Make sure to coordinate me-Cally-Brandy-Anna stuff so it actually HAPPENS - because I don't want to not see them all at once this summer.
11. To get some sort of thing made to represent/remember "home" with - because I'll be leaving it.

Yep...

Google Doc Novel(s)

Alright, so earlier this year I had a problem. That problem came in the form of a 4th period Writer's Craft "workshop day", where we were to work on our final projects which were due the following week.

Now, I was a good girl, and I had loaded my notes and things onto a USB memory stick so I could work on it at school. Little did I know that USB memory sticks were too much the things of the future, and that the computers I would be using were old and decrepit.

In fact, they were too old and decrepit to be able to read my USB memory stick (that was shaped like a cute little surfboard with a Hawaiian-type hibiscus-type flowery print that was sort of flaking off). So I couldn't work on my creative writing final project...

And I was so incredibly bored.

I also realized that I didn't have any novel stored on Google Docs - I just had stuff emailed to myself. But I didn't have my NOTES emailed to me, and therefore couldn't work on the excerpt I decided I was going to turn in. (Which is lame and totally not topping Fairy Tale and grrrr yeah I know I already talked about this but it's my blog so I get to do what I want.)

So I've decided to start a chick-lit novel on Google Docs so that if I am ever stuck in that sort of situation again, I can at least work on SOMETHING.

It's also different enough from The Eleventh that I can use it if I want to work on something in between books, I can. (Even though I'm starting it now, when I'm not done with the draft of the second "book" yet. So I'm actually being a hypocrite.)

OH BUT I FOUND SOMETHING EXCITING.

It's a book called "The Hunger Games". I haven't actually read it, but I've heard it mentioned enough times to assume that it's selling. Which is GOOD, because I read a plot synopsis and it sounds reminiscent of The Eleventh (you know, about a bunch of kids killing each other, but with a story behind it and a happyish ending). So...you know...if it's doing well, then maybe if I one day publish The Eleventh, it might have a chance! Maybe!

Hey, it's publishing. A "maybe" is good enough for me, since I might not even ever get to get PUBLISHED, much less do well.

But I was thinking. Since I'm writing a chick-lit novel on Google Docs, and I think chick-lit might be a more lucrative area (or at least one that's a bit less embarrassing to tell to my classmates...maybe...), what if I one day became an author...with two names! One could be my real name, and that could be where I would write chick-lit, and the other could be an androgynous (a la JK Rowling) pen name under which I would write science fiction or fantasy or whatever the hell I wanted.

Dunno if that would actually work...

But at least if people asked me what sort of books I wrote...

I wouldn't have to say sci-fi/fantasy, which I have determined is the most embarrassing genre to write in if you're a high schooler (HEY WAIT I'M NOT A HIGH SCHOOLER ANYMORE! I GRADUATED! AAAHAHAHA YES!) summer-before-college girl who is trying to be somewhat normal/likable/friendly/etc. Back in high school, if I said I wrote sci-fi/fantasy, people would look at me weird.

Now, I figure, as long as I stay somewhat in the realm of "realistic fiction" (which Overactive Imagination, the story I started on Google Docs, is kind of not...but hey, it's a "transition" book, so shut up), it won't be quite as embarrassing to tell people that I write for fun.

And hey.

At least now I have something to work on if I'm ever stuck with a computer with Internet connection but nothing for The Eleventh. Yay?

Things I Have Learned (About Junior/Senior Year)

I was going to make this a Facebook note and tag my friends who are going to be juniors and seniors next year, but I dunno if I will. So I guess I might as well post it here, since in case I want to put it on Facebook later, I'll just have to copy + paste it instead of try and write it again.

(By the way, I graduated yesterday. THAT MEANS I AM DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER. Yay.)

And here it is:

So I thought that I might as well help you guys out with your anxiety about junior/senior year by giving some helpful advice. =] little life lessons I learned at 2 am when I probably should have been asleep:

FOR JUNIORS:
- If your parents want to spend money to get you good scores: SAT tutors 1-on-1 seem to be more helpful than SAT classes.
- Retaking the SAT doesn't always raise your scores.
- This is the year you should start figuring out what subjects you hate so you DON'T take the hardest class possible in that area. It's not worth it. Go for the easy class. It's better.
- Staying up late doesn't help as much as you think it will. You'll end up forgetting more than you cram. Sleep instead.
- More sleep also means you will be happier. (See below.)
- Remember to have fun. Your social life/personal life will probably be a bigger deciding factor in the whole "good year/bad year" thing than however much schoolwork you have.
- Also: the more life experiences outside the classroom you have that are unique/life-changing/whatever to you, the easier time you're going to have writing that college essay, so get out of your house and do something cool.
- On that same note: it might be good to start thinking about college, or thinking about thinking about college. Don't stress about it, just think about what sort of things you want in a school.
- If you're in band: DON'T EVEN THINK about not going on that band trip. =]

FOR SENIORS:
- All those things about "having fun" in the above list apply to you to.
- The college essay isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. Just make sure you write about something that interests YOU, because then it will be more fun for the admissions people to read. Also, make sure other people edit it - namely, friends who aren't afraid to tell you what is wrong with your essay.
- Not kidding about this: spread out the work on your college apps. If you can, even try and do some stuff for the Common App during the summer. Start thinking about what you're going to write the essays about. You'll do SO much better if you don't leave it for the last moment.
- If a school you're looking at has Early Action (or rolling admission), DO IT. Even if you get in, you don't have to commit - and you get a feeling of relief that no matter what, you have a college to go to. And if you don't get in - no big loss. Plus it forces you to be on top of your college apps.
- Second semester senior year is a mindset, not necessarily a description of your classes. Keep that in mind.
- Also keep in mind that while, yes, you could get rescinded if you do really badly your second semester, you won't get rescinded if one A grade drops to a B. So don't stress about your grades, but don't slack. Just do enough so that you stay consistent with your first semester grades, but don't overkill it. Get some sleep. Have some fun.
- On that note: AP classes DO NOT stop after the AP. In some of my AP classes, I had more work during the last week of school than most other times during the whole year. So if you pick AP classes, be warned that you probably won't get much of a break.
- If you're in band: BAND TRIP. DO IT.

I kind of want it to be over now. (Rant time.)

So I have two more days of high school classes, plus baccalaureate, graduation, graduation rehearsal, senior picnic, grad night and I'm sure something I'm forgetting.

And frankly, I don't want to do any of it. I kind of just want to skip forward a week and a half to that Friday after grad, where I can just stay home and sleep. Chill. Have some me time that isn't taken away from homework. (Which is, in fact, what I am doing right now - taking me time away from homework. Because, you know what? I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. Yes, that's right - I DON'T CARE about my high school classes. Even the one that has work due tomorrow. Don't caaaaaaaaaaaare.)

And plus, I don't even think the grade I get on the homework that is due tomorrow will affect my overall grade. It's just...bleh. I know my teacher would be either:

a) predisposed to give me an A, because she thinks I'm the next great American writer, or,
b) predisposed to give me a B or lower, because whatever I end up turning in will NOT be the short story version of the next great American novel

That, and I don't think our overall grades are calculated from grades on assignments.

That, and I really, really, really hate the story. Like, I just don't think it's worth my time anymore, because I can't do it justice within the page limit while still filling all the plot criteria, "giving it a strong sense of place", giving the characters a clear sense of character development, and keeping my style intact.

Basically, it's the most irritating project ever, I hate the story I've written, and I just want to skip to next Friday.

Oh - and I'm quitting BFS this year, because I'm definitely not making my goals. Yeah, I'll be going off to college in September, so that's one, and I'll probably get my driver's license and contact lenses (and I might learn to put on makeup), but I'm not going to do anything else. I just don't see it happening.

I also flat out failed that goal to go "above and beyond" on my Creative Writing final project. I just turned in a lame excerpt with a quick drawing so it could have a cover. I mean, I guess the drawing is cool, but whatever. I'm not proud of it, and I was SO proud of myself with my project for Humanities last year. It just really pisses me off that I wasn't able to do anything I would be proud of for that class. And now that girl, the one who was in Humanities with me last year and is in my Creative Writing class this semester, has ended up right.

AND THAT PISSES ME OFF MORE THAN ANYTHING.

I really, really, REALLY hate it when somebody tells me I won't be able to do something, and then I end up not doing it. She totally said to me, "you're not going to be able to top your Humanities project," and I really, really, really wanted to prove her wrong.

And now she's right.

UGH.

Also, I got a writing award. Now everyone's asking me to read stuff I've written. That's kind of a problem, since I'm not serious about writing - I'm just writing drafts I have no intention of publishing. I mean - come on! They're SCIENCE FICTION. They're supposed to be fun FOR ME, but now it seems like everyone is judging me based on what I write.

For fun.

For ME.

If I wanted to publish, I'd write something more popular, since I'd only publish if I thought it had a chance of being worth it. Honestly, I've gotten over that dream of being a famous writer (though it was fun to dream), and now I just want to be able to make a comfortable living off of a job with a salary. I guess the recent economic crisis put my dreams in perspective - my family has been so lucky, and we haven't been affected by it too much.

That's what I want when I grow up. I want to be able to ride out tough economic times with a job I might be able to depend on. MIGHT. Writing? Yeah, that doesn't even have a "might" in it - it's just not dependable, unless you're the 0.0001% of published writers who make it big. I know enough statistics to know my chances of that are so small, I might as well not dream about it (like - serious dream. Goofy dreams are still okay). So it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable that I got a writing award. I mean - what writing? Nothing I've written deserves an award. My stories and speeches don't win things anymore. My poems suck, and I actually hate it when people say they are good. I don't work on them AT ALL. You should recognize someone who works hard on their poems, not someone who throws them down on a paper in 5 minutes to hand in for a class.

I know it's "show biz" (but not), and it's not fair, but really. I should just stop entering poems into contests - other people deserve to win them. Not me. I know 3rd place (last year) and honorable mention (this year) aren't 1st place, but I know that sometimes just getting an honorable mention with something you've spent a lot of time on can be an awesome feeling. It sort of makes me sick to see that something I spent 5 minutes on before never caring about the poem again is robbing that feeling from someone else. Because losing a contest with something you've worked hard on? Pretty damn disappointing. No matter how slim your chances of winning are, there's still that pang of disappointment in yourself, and that's the worst kind of disappointment.

So I don't know why I got the writing award, and it's killing me because I feel so damn guilty and uncreative now. Like I have to measure up to this wonderful woman who died (but published three books in her life), and then her family made the award in her honor and attached a scholarship, and then gave it to me this year. I'm not majoring in creative writing - I'm (planning on) majoring in linguistics. I might switch to psychology, anthropology, sociology, environmental science...something vaguely SCIENCEY. Not writing. NOT EVEN ENGLISH.

ALKSJFLKAJSDLFKJALKDFJALKJDFLAKJDFLAKJDFLKSADJFLAKJSDFLAKJDSFLAKJSFLKAJSDFLKAJFLKJSDLKF

...I'm frustrated. It's also late at night, and I haven't done any homework. I should probably just go to sleep and call it quits, since I have the block period to fix the story and edit it, but...I dunno. We have to read a page of it out loud to the class on Friday. And my teacher, bless her heart, seems like she's spent the whole year telling the class how amazing I am. Now I think they're going to be just like her, expecting a page-long excerpt of the next great American novel - when really, I'm just Anne.

Sigh.

I mean, my novels aren't even EDITED. Why are people so excitable? Why does everyone say I should just go publish them? WHYYYYYY? I'm just eighteen! I'm just a teenager.

Siiiiiiiigh.

Oh - and my speech didn't get picked for graduation. It stung, of course, but what really stings is the continual, "oh, Anne, you're reading a speech at graduation, right?" Yeah, thanks, guys, for assuming I was able to write a contest-winning speech. It's becoming a bit tough to live up to your expectations.

So...

I think I'm going to take a break from creative writing. Maybe for the whole summer. I'm just going to write in my journal, maybe write here with random things (like...I dunno...but if I feel like it, I'll post, since that's what blogs are for), maybe try and organize my life so far. Whatever I write, it's gonna be for me. And no more goals - even setting lofty expectations for myself can be hard when I don't meet them. I'll just play it as it goes, take each day as what it is. I'm not going to write a story, I'm just going to recharge. Take a break. Maybe tell people I've quit, just so they calm down a bit and stop bugging me. A white lie won't hurt anyone, will it? =P

I'm not a superhero.

I'm just Anne.

I'm okay with that - why aren't you?

(On that note - "Waking Up In Vegas" by Katy Perry is a super fun song to dance to when nobody is looking. It's oddly inspirational. And sooooo incredibly catchy. ONE PERSON DANCE PARTY TIME. =D Shut up, and put your money where your mouth is, that's what you get for waking up in Vegas! Get up, and shake the glitter of your clothes now, that's what you get for waking up in Vegas!!!)

OhmygodI'msobehind

Okay, well, according to the little graph thing on the Script Frenzy website, I should be at 70 pages if I want to be on-target to finish. I am currently at 57 pages, and I began the day with 53...and I've had 53 pages since about ten days ago (back when I used to be ahead).

See, you know how The Eleventh is made up of shorter sections (called "repeats"), and each book contains multiple repeats (three each for the first three books, and then two for the last one)? Well, back when I was still ahead with my page count, I was working on the first repeat in Incalzando/"Book" Two, which was Repeat 4. Repeat 4 was supposed to be the repeat in Incalzando with the most action (and the most characters, as only Sanura and Isamu don't show up), so I had it all perfectly outlined. The outline made it really easy to write, as I knew exactly where I was headed and I could just sit down and WRITE.

Then I finished it up, did a little party, and realized I only had half my page count. I began to write the opening scene for Repeat 5, but then didn't get very far...because I think I wrote a very, very, very vague outline up for it during class one day, but other than that, I don't really have a clear plan for it.

Now, I know this is pretty much how I wrote my first novel (whooo, Highness), but...I LIKE writing with outlines! It really helps, and I think the end products turn out better than if I write "by the seat of my pants". Plus, I feel like I'm more efficient, and I generally enjoy the writing process better if I have a "clear enough" basic outline with which to work from.

(Alright - between ending the previous paragraph I took a break to actually do some writing, and I am now nearing the end of the 58th page. I'm going to shoot for 60, and then go back to writing this blog post.)

Okay, now I have 60 pages...but I am still 10 pages behind! Arrgh, I wish I had an outline for this repeat. I guess I should at least go dig out my too-bare-bones outline that I wrote up in Creative Writing (while I should have been listening to my teacher read aloud a really depressing monologue written by another student in my class). Sigh...but I really want to win Screnzy - and then finish this scripted first draft of Incalzando by the time I graduate.

I guess if I can manage to get at least to page 65 by the end of today...? That might be a bit much, though, considering how much homework I need to get done before I go back to school tomorrow after being sick for two days. But if I can get to page 70 by the end of the school week, maybe 75 if I'm really diligent, then I guess I wouldn't be in a worse position than I am in right now. If I can get to page 90 by the time I leave to visit my future-home-for-the-next-four-years on Sunday, then I think I'd be enough on track to get to 100 pages by the end of Thursday.

So...I guess that's my game plan?

Oh hey...Screnzy...

I am sorry to say that I haven't made any real progress on any of my goals, except for sort of bugging my mom about contact lenses and FINALLY driving on the highway. Twice. Two different highways. I still have to drive again, though...I can't let "freeway fear" take its hold!

Oh - but I did get into college. Five of them, in fact. (Although I've also gotten rejected to two and waitlisted to one, and I still need to hear back from four more.) Two of the ones I've already gotten accepted to I really like, so now I need to choose between them - unless my top choice accepts me, which they probably won't since my grades/scores/etc. aren't great, especially compared to the other people applying there from my high school. That, and the whole 8% acceptance rate thing...yeah, I'm not getting in.

But yeah. Other than that, no real progress on the goals.

That, and Script Frenzy starts on Wednesday (the day after Ivy Tuesday/The Day of Crushed Dreams), and I dunno what to do. Buuut I have an idea!

See, Fun-1 (the goal) just says to DRAFT the second book, right? Well, I haven't made much progress on it...I've basically just written a "prologue", of sorts. But what if I wrote it as a movie? I was thinking about adapting my Screnzy screenplay from last year into a novel, since I feel that I'm stronger as a novelist than a screenwriter, and it would be like...the perfect outline. Sort of.

And it just says draft, right? Nobody ever said the draft had to be a novel. ;] If I want it novelized, I can just "rewrite" it as a novel later, which would kill two birds with one stone - it would make it a real novel AND serve as a first bit of editing.

So if I draft Incalzando (probably as a lengthy movie, as I already know how to use Celtx for screenplays), that serves as a way to still participate in Screnzy without killing myself AND fulfill one of my goals AND, you know, actually make some progress with The Eleventh...

Plus, who knows? Maybe drafting things in script-format before putting them into novel-form will actually become a good (yet weird) way to tackle the writing process.

Either way, I'll have a jam-packed April even without Screnzy, what with Fiddler/pit orchestra going into "heavy rehearsal", dress rehearsal, and show; my other (stupid) writing projects, both for class and for useless fun; college decisions and my own "college decision" (AKA figuring out where I'll be going next year); and ramping up for AP tests/finals. I promised myself that I would do Screnzy again this year, though, and I intend on keeping that promise. Hey, if they allow novel-adaptations for Screnzy, I'm going to say that it's okay if I use this second foray into the world of screenwriting as a cheater-route to draft Incalzando. ;]

Sigh.

I hope this works out okay. :X

I WILL WIN SCRIPT FRENZY, THOUGH. I managed to write a quarter of what I needed in two days last year! I can win this. I just need to be disciplined, and maybe use a web-based program instead of/in addition to Celtx (which I have to re-download, anyway). Hey, I do have seventh period free periods...might as well see if I can't use them. ;]

(Wake me up when September April ends.)

Funny Google meme

Yeah, so I don't really do the whole posting-notes-on-Facebook thing unless I really need to (I have never really needed to), so I figure...what the heck? It's not like anyone reads this little blog of mine. Who says I need to always post about a certain thing?

Oh, and since I don't use my real first name as my posting name, I'll just go with "Sara" like I always do..

So, here it is...the infamous Google meme:

Sara needs...
...to win sexiest veg! (...I'm a human?)

Sara looks like...
...a cross between Queen Victoria and the Vampire Lestat! (I never would have thought of that.)

Sara likes...
...to feel her boyfriend close. (I am single...)

Sara says...
...her prayers. (I am atheist.)

Sara wants...
...snow tires more than a gold watch. (But I live in a place it doesn't snow...)

Sara does...
...Barb's race! (What kind of race is this?)

Sara hates...
...LV, but it will have some BITE! (I hate Las Vegas?)

Sara can't...
...afford child support. (Uh oh...that's not good.)

Sara goes...
...USA! (But I'm here already!)

Sara is...
...a man. (No. I am female.)

Sara loves...
...Anders loves Maria. (I don't get it - am I in a love triangle with an Anders and a Maria?)

Sara should...
...'ve done more than dump him. (But I thought I liked to be close to my boyfriend? Google, make up your mind!)

So yeah.

Mindless fun. =D

Apparently, I'm a very sexy vegetable.

A little change of scenery.

I realized I've had the same template since I began this blog: the "Snapshot" one (not the "Snapshot Sable" or "Snapshot Tequila" theme - the honest-to-goodness "Snapshot").

I think it's long past time for a change, don't you?

So I'm going to pick a new template right now! And it's not going to be a cop-out change to "Snapshot Sable" or "Snapshot Tequila", though I was tempted to. It's going to be...hmmm...

How about I edit this when I pick one? ;)

Edit: I picked "Scribe" as the new template. It is weird having the sidebar on the left, not the right...but I guess I'll just get used to it! :)

Re: The Last Airbender (yes, again)

Alright, so apparently Paramount has recast the role of Zuko. Instead of Jesse McCartney, we have Dev Patel, the young man who played the lead role in the recent hit, Slumdog Millionaire. (A movie I have not seen but sort of want to, since everyone I know except one person loved it.)

So...um...good things about that: Patel over McCartney ANY day. Apparently he knows tae kwon do. This is a good thing.

Bad things about that: Zuko is pretty clearly from a Chinese-based culture, not an Indian-based culture, so we still have bad casting. It could very well end up being a token PoC role. Having a group of white kids save the world from a bunch of dark-skinned evil people is never a nice thing to watch in the movies. And, of course, the scary thought that M Night Shyamalan might end up casting himself as Iroh, which would be...there are no words.

So yeah, still not great. I think I might join the letter-writing campaign once I have two brain cells to rub together again. I want to be able to write an eloquent letter, not brainless blog babble.

I just hope that if they make the Fire Nation all Asian Indian, they alter the culture so that it is more Indian and less Chinese so it would look less blatant. I also hope that if they're doing "visual contrast" (sigh, my late night idea from last week looks so distasteful now), they at least make the Earth Kingdom Chinese. I mean, if they're not going to make the Water Tribe INUIT (or at least DARK SKINNED like they're supposed to be - and I'm not going to even bother mentioning the Air Nomads), they should at least make one group of Avatar people get the right bunch of actors. Here's to hoping some little Chinese-American girl can snag the part of Toph in the next movie so at least ONE of the not-formerly-evil heroes can look the way they're supposed to.

And I'd just like to say...Dev Patel would be a pretty good Sokka. He's got the ears.

BFS Update: February 8

Alright, so I did like NOTHING for these this month, but it's February and I'd rather not do my homework now, so once again, I bring you the BFS updates! Here we go:

BIG:

1. Get into a regular exercise schedule - yeah, need to do this.
   
2. Better eating habits - I cut out chocolate from my diet but went back on January 26 and stayed back...and I still have horrible eating habits! So this isn't good, either.
   
3. Get into college! --> Graduate from high school! --> Go to college! - yeah, so I'm doing well with this one, of course! ;) I actually have the "get into college" one pretty much finished. I haven't gotten in anywhere yet, but I've done everything else - every single form is in. So now I'm just waiting. That's good.
   

FUN:

1. Draft the second book in The Eleventh before high school graduation - I started this! I outlined the fourth repeat during the past week and have about 1000 words written. My goal is to have maybe 15-20k by the end of the month...February is kind of a busy month for me. =X
   
2. Watch a sunrise from a high vantage point - need to do this.
   
3. Do something "above and beyond" for my creative writing class final project - still thinking. I have an idea, but it's only that - an idea. I'm in the class, though, so I'll try to absorb ideas and such while I'm in it.
   

SCARY:

1. Learn how to put on makeup - need to do this.
   
2. Get driver's license - I have been practicing driving! I have like...5 hours...which isn't good (since I wanted to have, like, ten by now), but a five day weekend is coming up. My goal for the five-day weekend: drive everyday for at least half an hour, and drive for an hour on at least two of the days. Ideally, I'd want to get 5 hours in during the weekend, but we'll see.
   
3. Get contact lenses - my mom said she'd call and get information, but I'm not red-ing this until she calls, even though I guess TECHNICALLY I've made progress.

Total:
- Not started: 6 (2 big, 2 fun, 2 scary)
- In progress: 3 (1 big, 1 fun, 1 scary)
- Completed: 0
- Failed: 0
Overall goal:
- 6 goals total (progress: 0/6)
- At least one in each category (categories filled: none)

Avatar rant: another note...visual contrast?

I thought about something as I was flipping through some websites about the matter and not going to sleep like I should.

Apparently Shyamalan (the director) wants to show the four countries as being different ethnicities, more so than animated show does.

I am totally fine with this - I actually like the idea of visual contrast, since it builds upon the "eye color" thing the animated series had. And since it IS an adaptation, it makes sense for changes like these, as long as their done well.

If I was the director and I wanted to do this, which I might if I were the director, and for some reason I could only do a casting call for Aang's role in Texas...yeah, Noah Ringer might be great. He's (allegedly) really good at karate, and he could probably be trained to be really good at bagua/"airbending". And hey! The last airbender, right? Wouldn't it look really cool to have one Caucasian boy look visually isolated amidst a sea of people of other appearances in order to symbolize Aang's cultural isolation? You know, since his whole people just got genocide-d by the Fire Nation, and all.

Personally, as long as Noah Ringer was good (and I didn't see...Perris? was that his name? first), I would probably go with my above idea. Make the Air Nomads Caucasian. There are plenty of cool Caucasian actors out there you could grab for flashback appearances of the Air Nomad monks. It could work.

After that, I would probably cast people who either were or looked somewhat like they were Inuit. Yes, I understand that compared to other ethnicities, Inuit actors aren't overwhelming Hollywood like the Caucasians are, but there are probably some who would be interested. I'm sure that people with more similar likenesses to Katara than Nicola Peltz. Perhaps those of Southeast-Asian or South-Asian descent?

Considering the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom look fairly similar on the animated show, if Shyamalan wanted to increase the visual divide between the two, he could make one predominantly East-Asian (there are a lot of Japanese-American, Chinese-American, and Korean-American actors out there, you know) and the other...not. Maybe the Earth Kingdom could be more Chinese, and the Fire Nation could be more Phillipino. Or if Shyamalan wanted to go further, he could adapt one of them to be more Indian, as the idea of the avatar originates from India.

It is fantasy. I'm sure the fans of Avatar wouldn't mind it so much as completely whitewashing all the major roles.

Just a thought.

Speaking of animation...

Okay, so I know nobody reads this, but I need to rant a little bit about the controversy over The Last Airbender's recent casting choices for the lead roles of Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko.

And yes, I am on the side of the people who made Saving the World with Postage (AKA "Aang Ain't White"). For record's sake...Aang ain't white! (And neither is Katara...Sokka...or Zuko.)

Now, there are a lot of arguments going around on many different points, and I'm going to voice my opinion on a very, very, very small portion of them. I might rant again on another post later, since I may or may not be possibly interested in a future job in something that may or may not ever relate to something like this. (How's that for circle-speak?)

I shall be focusing on the issue of both racism and double-racism in the casting decisions and responses to them...and I'm going to first say that I am a super-extremely-pale Northern European-descent (and a bit o' Northern Italian, which ain't a tanned, dark-skinned area, by the way, but that's where I get my last name) female teenager. So yes, I am white. I also live in an area where a large percentage of my classmates are of Asian descent, with the majority being Chinese-Americans. My best friend growing up was Chinese-American, and her parents were immigrants. I spent a looot of time at her house and with her family eating real Chinese food, hearing Mandarin spoken left and right, going to Chinese culture festivals, hearing live Chinese music on traditional instruments (she played the...I want to say guzheng, but I'm not sure if that's right), sitting with her and staring in awe at her extra Chinese school homework (and Chinese writing on it) next to my just-for-fun reading books, and all that.

This is why I want to learn Mandarin more than anything, and I'd be fine going to China for study abroad even though Japan is probably my first choice (since I actually know some Japanese...but I think China is my second choice right now). If it weren't for the fact that my school didn't have a Mandarin program when I was choosing a foreign language to study (and assuming it would have worked with my schedule every year), I would be in my sixth year of studying it. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out...instead, I studied Japanese, the only Asian language offered.

Anyway, enough about me:

Point that I shall respond to #1: why are you complaining about having white actors for the parts? That's racist! They should be judged on their acting ability, not their looks.

My response: wow, stop being naiive.

Actors are judged for their appearance all the time - not always their acting ability! This is especially true with child actors (who would be/should be playing the major roles of The Last Airbender, since the characters are children/teenagers). When the cast list for the first Harry Potter movie came out, nobody said anything about Daniel Radcliffe being a good actor. They said things like: "he looks exactly like Harry". Now, for The Last Airbender, I could give them credit if Noah Ringer actually was the best suited for the job for his martial arts, as apparently, he's a really good karate fighter. But that's a big "if" - what about this kid who not only looks quite a bit like Aang (and could be easily coached to act like him), but is also very good at martial arts? He even matches a lot of Aang's style with staff fighting (of course, this is to the eyes of an ignorant white girl.) He's even pretty much the right age! Other than the fact that his skin could be viewed as a bit too dark for Aang (which doesn't detract much from his visual match to the character) and that he doesn't have gray eyes (colored contacts?) he might as well BE AANG. And what about other boys who probably could have compared well, too?

Also - Jesse McCartney for Zuko. McCartney is not a very good actor, and...martial arts? Zuko has a TON of fighting scenes in Avatar, so what are they going to do for The Last Airbender? He was clearly just put in here for the pre-teen girls...

Similarly to Jackson Rathbone, who was quoted as saying that he could just tan himself and shave the sides of his head to look like Sokka. Okay, Sokka doesn't have as many martial arts roles, and I've heard good things about Rathbone's acting (he wasn't bad in Twilight)...BUT SERIOUSLY. Weren't there ANY good dark-skinned people who could do the same thing?

No idea about the girl who plays Katara, but she doesn't look like she could do convincing tai chi/"waterbending" and not look ridiculous. And again? Dark-skin? There wasn't another girl out there, maybe of South Asian descent if they couldn't find an Inuit girl who wanted to go into acting (as there are a lot more Indian-Americans than Native Alaskans just because India has such a large population and Alaska doesn't), who could act just as well as this girl? Seriously?

My main response: only tell me they were the best actors if you actually viewed the casting process and came to that conclusion on your own. You've only seen the final outcomes. Don't talk to me about the ones who were turned down being "not good actors" if you don't know who they even are.

Point that I shall respond to #2: but the voice actors are Caucasian! Why do you care if the people who portray them in the live action movie are also Caucasian? Acting ability is all that matters!

My response: there is a big difference between our sense of sight and sound.

Most animals rely mostly on one sense; not all senses are created equal. In the majority of humans, that dominant sense is that of sight. Only in people who have extremely impaired vision or blindness does another sense start to dominate the playing field (and yes, that sense usually is hearing).

When you watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, it matters less that "the voices sound Caucasian" because the appearances of the characters clearly are not. They a sort of fantasy amalgamation of various Asian cultures (not just East Asian) and Inuit cultures - there are probably more cultures influencing the world of Avatar, but the obvious ones are, well, Asian. If you see someone who is Asian and hear someone who is white, chances are you'll probably perceive the person as Asian more than white. Besides, I'd like to make the argument that an American accent from an Asian-American sounds an awful like an American accent from a European-American, and this is an American show. They're going to have, for the most part, American accents.

With live action, the actor needs to be able to match the physical appearance, too, because that's usually how people remember them. When you meet people, how do you remember them? Do you remember their voice or their appearance? Again, sight over sound. Live action actors can't rely on animators to make their appearance for them; they have to provide it themselves. That is why actors need to be able to match appearances, too, not just act.

Also: in the case of a brand-new screenplay being made into a movie, casting can be more lenient because there is no appearance to match. Unless someone's appearance is crucial to the script itself, such as if someone mentions them as having blonde hair in a line, the casting should be based on acting ability. However, in the case of Avatar being made into a movie, the characters already have preexisting appearances that people know about. This is the same thing for movies based off of people's lives - if somebody was going to make a movie about the life of, say, President Obama, you probably wouldn't want, say, Tom Hanks to play Obama in the movie. And why? "He doesn't look like Obama." That would be why.

Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko, and everyone else in the animated series already have appearances. People are going to say things like, "he doesn't look like Aang", if Noah Ringer doesn't match Aang's appearance. Guess what? They are. (I refer you back to the Saving the World with Postage blog.)

My main response: sight over sound. If a character has a preexisting appearance, then the actor's appearance needs to match. That's show biz, kid.

Point that I shall respond to #3: the character's look white - look at Aang's eyes! They are round and gray. That is definitely not Asian...they look white to me.

My response: you do know the eye color thing is a symbolic reference to the bending skills of the character, right?

And not all Asians have straight black hair, "olive" skin, and "squinting" dark brown eyes. Yes, quite a few Asians do, but not all. Not even all East Asians have those traits, and those are probably the Asians you're thinking of when you say that.

Round eyes are a stylistic trait generally put in with animation to show psychological immaturity and young age. Aang is a twelve-year-old boy during the show, so his eyes show his age and wonderment at his surroundings. His eyes are gray because the gray color represents the Air Nomads. Similarly, the Earth Nation has green eyes, the Water Tribe has blue eyes, and the Fire Nation has orange eyes. Wait - orange eyes? No humans have those, right? Obviously, Jesse McCartney can't be Zuko. He doesn't have the right eye color!

Also, the characters do look Asian (or Inuit, etc.). Cartoon characters don't look like real people with just their physical features; their clothes and surroundings show what sort of people they should be. Toph is introduced wearing Chinese-styled clothing. Toph might as well be Chinese. Similarly, Aang's surroundings at the Air Nomad temples, his style of dress, and his idealogy is very Tibetan/Nepalese. If Aang were from a real-life area, it would probably be from the Tibet/Nepal area of the Himalayas.

Not Texas.

My main response: the eye color is irrelevant, the eyes are stylistic and shown for children, and other physical cues show what "culture" the character is when the character is an unrealistic-looking cartoon.

Anyway, those are some points I wanted to address. This is nowhere near all I wanted to say, because I feel strongly about this, and I'm not exactly sure how to argue well. Or even how to end this post. But I want to refer people to this photo/screenshot essay from the Saving the World with Postage blog as a final comment, I guess, because it really lets the animated show speak for itself.

Avatar is a stunningly gorgeous piece of American animation. For its demographic, it has a well-crafted plot with compelling characters and a very imaginative alternate reality. It manages to appeal to minorities in the United States while appealing to the majority, it shows a vast array of people of different ethnicities from the world of Avatar, and managed to - get this - make a lot of money. Yes, white America (my family included), an American-made animated show with very blatant Asian influences managed to make a lot of money in America. And it did this while still maintaining a high level of quality!

I'd also like to point out that most, if not all, of the writing in the show is actual Chinese. That's pretty blatant. And awesome. Because written Chinese? It's really cool. You know, in my opinion, and all.

And I care about this because I was excited to see a well-imagined, well-written, well-animated, and well-acted piece of American animation that, you know, had a plot. And did well. And had Asian influences, especially those relating to Hayao Miyazaki, who is, you know, really amazing. I really like Avatar, and I don't have many complaints about it. I was excited for the movie. I'm not really excited anymore, because the all-white casting sort of ruins some of the main themes of the show, though I want to see how the movie pans out. I'm hesitant to hand over my money to watch it, though.

I hate poetry. (And other things!)

Yeah, I'm writing something for my blog because I don't want to annotate another poem. I think AP English Literature has taught me that no, I don't really like poetry all that much. I mean, actually, I think it can be cool...but noooo, I don't like annotating six poems a night and then beating them to death the next day during class discussions and tests and whatnot.

Can we go back to novels now? Or can we please do a compromise and read a nice play? I didn't mind Hamlet quite as much (aside from all the nit-picky tests we had on it that I all failed). But the poetry? ANOTHER intensive poetry unit, with a third and maybe a fourth coming if that's much long it takes you to get us "AP ready"?

So yes, I hate poetry. I sort of dread when we do the poetry unit in Writer's Craft (AKA creative writing class).

Oh, and yes! I am FINALLY taking a creative writing class! Okay, so basically, nothing we've done yet is really all that new ("first thought" word vomit free-writing, which is the basic principle of NaNo, and microfictions, which we did in 10th grade a bit and I do all the time in Calliope club), but it's so much fun. I think I'll benefit a lot from it when we work on longer (short) pieces, because I think that's where I could use the most work. I think my microfictions and late-night-I-don't-know-any-better poems are better than my more substantial short stories. And novels, of course, but that goes without saying.

I'm still thinking of ways I can do a "Humanities final surpassing final project" for that class, but since he hasn't actually officially told us the specs for the project, it's feels somewhat pointless. I sat next to one of my friends on the bus during a band event who was in Humanities with me (and is now in my Writer's Craft class), and she said it couldn't be done.

Well, my oboe-playing friend, it CAN be done, and it WILL be done! I SWEAR IT!

(It's a BFS goal, and it's one of the ones I know I'm going to obsess over because it's not that painless but very time-consuming. But that's okay, because I will wow the class with my better-than-Fairy-Tale project, I know it.)

I'm thinking something that's sort of like a scrapbook, and where the ten pages of writing are crumpled up and you have to find them to piece together the story. I was thinking about calling it "Demon Book", and the demon book is a character/object in the story...and it eats people! And the project itself is going to be like a replica of the demon book from the story itself. It makes more sense in my head, and if it's physically more than ten pages, then I don't know if he'll let me do it.

Or I might do a short sequential-art-type thing in color, and that will be more amazing than Fairy Tale because...of...the pictures. I don't know, though, since Fairy Tale was a full-on 12k-word novella (I'M CALLING IT A NOVELLA, IT'S NOT A SHORT STORY. SHUT UP.) that took up 40 pages because it had 30 illustrations (plus a cover doodle and little pen doodle of a butterfly on the one two-page spread that didn't have an illustratin). And 26 of those illustrations were in color! So yeah.

...I just flipped through it, and I'm like, "wow, knowing me and my teacher's limits on the project, this is going to be hard to surpass," since I can't exactly go for volume. And volume was what made Fairy Tale...well...Fairy Tale. 100% A-grade work.

Heh.

We'll see.

Oh, and I think Wall-E should have gotten the nomination for Best Picture, not just Best Animation. But whatever, the Academy is made up of snobs who don't generally like animation...or "kids movies". I just hope it wins Best Animation (it totally deserves it) and Best Original Song ("Down to Earth"!). And if it got nominated for Best Score, I think it should win that, too, if not just for "Define Dancing".

BFS 2009: Elucidation

Alright, so just so I know where I'm going with these...just a little more on my goals for this year, since it's a little early for a real update on them. :P (Only January 3!)

BIG:

1. Get into a regular exercise schedule: so I want to work out a lot, basically, so I don't get into the habit of being flabby, pudgy, and gross! I don't want to worry too much about the "weight loss mentality", since I'm not overweight, I just want muscle tone and stamina. So for this, I'm going to really try to make the effort to go to the gym at least twice or three times a week during the school year, and whenever my dad goes (six - seven days a week) during the summer. Also, no matter what, I want to get into the habit of doing crunches and pushups daily. I will start with ten crunches and ten pushups everyday during January, and then increase each month by five until I am doing fifty of each everyday! (At least, heh.) I figure I should at least do these, and work out at the gym...and then once I get better at running, I will run outside! I want to run outside, it seems really nice. Especially considered to a boring old treadmill in a YMCA basement. :)
   
2. Better eating habits: just like the above goal, this has two parts to it for now. One of them is a repeat of what I did a few years with soda - I just stopped drinking it, even though I pretty much got a soda every time my family went out to dinner (sometimes once every week!). I'm going to do this with chocolate, because chocolate is a slippery slope "gateway" for me. Once I start eating chocolate, I can't stop. I will binge on chocolate, or move on to other snacks when I shouldn't be eating or should be eating something healthier. So for BFS, I will start by stopping...eating so much chocolate. I will allow myself to eat chocolate only one day a month. The other thing is snacking - sometimes I snack so much when I am home! I really should only eat during mealtimes. The only exception is I don't eat much for breakfast or lunch at school, so I usually eat when I get home. I will ONLY eat a small yogurt or a piece of fruit, though, and nothing until dinner after that. Hey...it's a start.
   
3. Get into college! --> Graduate from high school! --> Go to college!: This one is pretty self-explanatory, don't you think? ;) I've already sent off my applications to all my schools (all twelve of them), with the exception of the payment to Eugene Lang College (of New School University), since they don't let you pay online (annoying...). So other than just sending off the midyear transcript report thing, I'm pretty much done on my end...it's just a waiting game until March/April. Then it's just a matter of waiting until graduation...then waiting until college itself! I can't wait! I'm so excited! :)
   

FUN:

1. Draft the second book in The Eleventh before high school graduation: I drafted the first book for NaNo this year, and I want to make progress on the series in a timely manner. Since I'll be a "second semester senior" starting in two weeks, I figure I might as well channel my senioritis into someting fun - the second book! I'll probably break it up into smaller-than-NaNo chunks, so I don't overwhelm myself...but who knows? I'll be starting this up in the second half of January, when finals are over.
   
2. Watch a sunrise from a high vantage point: I've ALWAYS wanted to watch a sunrise from a good vantage point. I live on the west coast and I'm kind of a night owl, so I have two reasons to see plenty of nice sunsets...but there's something special about sunrises. So I want to see one. REALLY see one. I want to watch the sun come up!
   
3. Do something "above and beyond" for my creative writing class final project: Last year during second semester, I had Humanities for my English elective class, and there was a creative final project assigned halfway through the course. Some people did the whole project the weekend before it was due (or the night before - it was due on a Wednesday for my class). I, on the other hand, started it about five weeks before (since I had Screnzy for the first four weeks) before the due date, and sort of outdid my entire class...I wrote a 12k-word novella incorporating the concepts we were assigned, but I didn't stop there. I then illustrated it! With color...pencils! 30 rather large illustrations (24 color + 6 graphite with color border for the concepts) plus a cover doodle. It was called Fairy Tale, and it earned me (I think) the only 100% grade in the class. So now I'm taking my school's intro to creative writing class, and I know there's some sort of final project involved...and I kind of want to outdo Fairy Tale. I don't know how (or if I'll be able to), but I want to do something "above and beyond" for this class, too, since Fairy Tale was basically the pride and joy of my junior year. I want something like that for senior year, too. :)
   

SCARY:

1. Learn how to put on makeup: This is me being ashamed that I've never worn makeup...except for nail polish, and that's only a few times. I only have two colors! Anyway, I don't really know how to put on makeup, and I figure I really should know how (I'm almost 18 - I should be able to put on makeup). So one of these days I'll ask someone to help me out with the whole makeup thing...and I'll try to make myself wear it, too. You know. Actually put some effort into my appearance...sometimes...a little. I'm really bad at this...so it's a little scary, since I'm afraid I'll embarrass myself.
   
2. Get driver's license: Another shameful thing. I should have done this over a year ago...I just got my permit in September (almost two years too late), and I've only had one lesson (out of four) and don't practice much. I REALLY SHOULD (borderline need) to get my license before I go to college...so that means practicing! I'm rather scared of driving, but I need to bite back my fears and do it. The more I drive, the better I'll get, and the less scared I'll be...so I'm going to try and practice at least three hours a week (like start out with half an hour six days a week, or something...)
   
3. Get contact lenses: This is because I started wearing glasses full-time at the beginning of this school year, and most people wear contacts...I'd like to be able to look like I used to, without the glasses, if I choose to (without becoming "blind", heh). It's kind of a scary concept to poke my eyes (and I hate going to the optometrist for some reason - I always feel self-conscious or embarrassed and I don't know why), but I really should get contacts. It's fairly easy, since I've already told my mom I want contacts, and I think it's covered in our insurance. So I think we just need to call up the optometrist and order them...or something like that. The nice thing is that I think my mom will do much of the work of GETTING the contacts...I just need to, you know, figure out how to start wearing them. And then wear them. Except not on Mondays, since I have to get up extra early and can barely brush my teeth, let alone put in contacts!

So yeah...those are my expanded goals for 2009. Who knows? Maybe I'll get all of them this year, instead of 6/10! (Or, in this case...6/9, since that is my basic...or 7/9, which is like basic + one?)

Wish me luck? :)

2009: The Year of Big, Fun, Scary Adventures

Alright! So I have nine goals this year, three for each...word...?

And here they are, in their most basic form! (After about three minutes of "careful" deliberation.)

BIG:

1. Get into a regular exercise schedule
2. Better eating habits
3. Get into college! --> Graduate from high school! --> Go to college!
   

FUN:

1. Draft the second book in The Eleventh before high school graduation
2. Watch a sunrise from a high vantage point
3. Do something "above and beyond" for my creative writing class final project
   

SCARY:

1. Learn how to put on makeup
2. Get driver's license
3. Get contact lenses

I tried to go easy on the "fun" ones this time around...

Oh, and my overall goal is this:

In order to be a BFS Winner for 2009, I have to complete six goals, with at least one in each category. So it'll be a little harder than last year...but then again, some of them are fairly doable. Big-3, I'm looking at you. ;) Hopefully Fun-3 should work out for me, same for Scary-3. So I guess the 3's should be my basic ones in each category...funny how that worked out.

So yup.

Here's to a BIG, FUN, and SCARY 2009 full of many adventures! :)

Brainstorm for 2009...

Okay, so it is January 1, and I want to make some big, fun, and scary adventures for this year. I know it's going to be a year of BIG, FUN, and SCARY changes no matter what I do (and I can't wait), but I want to add in some of my own.

So I figure that I'd just use this for brainstorming/coming up with a list, since that is sort of what this blog has turned into...I think I blogged more about BFS during 2008 than about what I was writing (which was what I made this blog for originally)!

Anyway, so I'm going to take a few minutes and just brainstorm some things I've wanted to do, and then use that list to pick from for my "official" BFS goals for 2009. Alright...so here I go:

• Get into a regular exercise schedule
• Even if I don't go to the gym, at least do some crunches and pushups (or something) at home
  
• Be able to run a mile in under 9:00 (I've only done this once before in my whole life, and that was in seventh grade! And I don't run anymore...)
• Eliminate chocolate/"junk food" (but mainly chocolate) from my diet except for on my birthday, my mom's birthday, my dad's birthday, or my graduation day (hey, I did it with soda at the beginning of high school)
  
• Stop snacking when I am at home! Only eat three meals, and maybe a small afterschool snack (like a yogurt since they give me calcium/those bacteria that help your stomach)
• Draft the second book in The Eleventh before my graduation from high school!
• Learn how to put on makeup! It's so shameful - I'm almost 18, and I can only manage to put on nail polish. Speaking of which, I need to obtain some black nail polish. I can never find it, and I want some for band concerts!
• Get my driver's license and practice driving A LOT. I barely ever find time to practice, and I NEED to get my license before I leave for college. This is another shameful thing...I should probably practice everyday, but I need my parents, and that's a bit tough...so maybe at least 4 hours per week? I'm not sure about this, but I want to get my license in the summer at the very latest!
• Get into college and buy myself a sweatshirt as a present :)
• Graduate from high school! And then go to college in the fall! :)
• Learn how to be more composed - I laugh a lot, and I'm going to turn 18 this spring...I need to learn how to be more like an adult. And I'm going to start by learning how to stay composed even if I want to laugh uncontrollably.
• Sign up for a FUN class once I get to college. Something new and exciting!
• Take/assemble pictures of "my home", whatever I consider to be part of "my home", and put them into some sort of album (at least on my computer - I don't need to actually print it out, I just want it to be a "complete" album) to help me remember the good times when I go off to college
• Watch a sunrise from a high-up vantage point :) (no clue when/where I can do this, but I've always wanted to)
• Do something "above and beyond" for my Creative Writing final project, just like I did for my Humanities. In fact, I want to do something that "defeats" my Humanities final...even though there are more limitations on the Creative Writing one (so it will be harder)
• Spend a day with one of my best friends (who lives in Canada)! We've done this every single year since we met, and I don't want 2009 to be any different
• Go up to the city with my friends, either by car or by train. I've never done this...
• I want to take purikura pictures with my friends again! I've only done this once in America, and I have so much room in my sticker book for it...I want to fill it up with pictures of me and my friends so I can bring it with me to college (since it's tiny, so it won't be a big deal)
• Start writing in my 15th journal by the end of the year? Maybe? I'm nearing the end of my 9th, and I ended my 4th at the beginning of 2008...
• Move out of my house :)
• Buy a sweatshirt/other gear from my NEW SCHOOL! (Which may or may not actually be...you know...THE New School...University...EUGENE LANG! Ahahah wonderful name.)
• Get contacts...
• I suppose I should try to relearn Japanese? Since I couldn't take it this year...but I will DEFINITELY take a language this fall, even if it isn't more Japanese (I reallyreallyreally want to learn Mandarin)
• Even though I don't really draw much, I will draw every main character in The Eleventh...separately (no cheating with Clanae + Arach in the same picture, for example)
• Do some sort of...thing? To make my second semester fun. Like...I dunno! But something second-semester-y :)
• Write something not-short-story-like that could take place entirely in the real world AND present day (like for Screnzy or NaNo or something)

...Yeah...this took me, like, all day, since I couldn't stay at the computer for long.

I'll do another post with an actual list.

...Later... :P