What a fantastic couple of days. :)

I had a fantastic birthday on Friday. I made time to enjoy toast with lemon curd before going to AP Psychology. After that, we were excused from class to go to the rehearsal for our Halloween "Wizards and Witches" concert. I wore a Snow White costume and every six-year-old in that auditorium thought I was actually Snow White. It was adorable. The concert itself went really well, too.

After the concert, we were excused from classes for quite a bit longer, so I went and picked up my paycheck. I then headed home with my friend Stephanie to make some amazing sweet and sour chicken we got at the grocery store. I then had to hop back up to school for pre-calc and gym, which would've been bad if I had been at school all day, but I was refreshed enough to get through my quiz. We ended up having a free day in gym, which meant not having to change, but I was disappointed that we have to wait until next week for "progressive relaxation", which sounds right up my alley.

After school, I just kind of bummed around. I made really good pork tacos, went to the library, and watched Amelie, which is all I really wanted to do. :)

Saturday was great, too. I slept in for the first time in quite a while, and then spent the afternoon completing my college essays at the Steaming Cup. It was "Live Clue" weekend, so watching the people/characters run around all day was pretty entertaining. It's also totally fascinating talking to people in character, too; I had a totally serious conversation with Shaggy, Velma, and Daphne from Scooby Doo. I love playing along like that.

Anyway, I ended up finishing my main Common App essay on Saturday, and the Beloit supplement essay today, so I have my Beloit and Lawrence apps fully in, and I just need to finish my supplement section for Knox. I'm pretty excited; the UW apps should be easier,

After submitting the stuff that night, I went out for Thai food with the family. We came back, had an amazing, homemade, mint chocolate ice cream cake, and then my mom gave me the most amazing pair of cowboy boots! I'm really looking forward to wearing them, and hopefully I'll somehow find a way to get a picture of them. I really wish I had a camera...

Overall, a great weekend. :) Now I need to get through these three days before the five-day teacher's convention weekend; I'm visiting Beloit, coming home for Halloween, and then going to Chicago for a night! It's going to be another good weekend, provided that I can push through this week...

achoo.

(I'm not actually sick, luckily. Just a little cold.)

So...that big post I promised last week? About that...

School has been crazy. (Work too.) I spent the rest of last week writing a comparative analysis paper for AP English about two Flannery O'Connor stories. Her stories all have extremely gory endings that contain religious messages conveyed through symbolism and allegory. It's really interesting, but I hit a few walls while trying to write the essay, which wasn't too great.

I'm also trying to finish writing my college application essays; who knew it would be so hard to get into college? I'm trying to submit all my private school applications by Sunday...we'll see how that goes. I need to do early applications so I can get scholarships.

We had our first orchestra concert last night, and it went so well. We got a ton of compliments, which doesn't always happen. We're playing for elementary school students during school on Friday, and we get to be in costume! I'm borrowing this adorable Snow White dress from my mom's friend...I'll try and have someone else take some pictures. I would love to show you both that and the auditorium; lots of stories about that another time. It's also my birthday; I'm looking forward to missing classes, performing in costume, and getting a 70 minute lunch period.

More later, seriously!

Good Morning

I am currently sitting on my couch in my pajamas, typing on my laptop, eating lemon curd, drinking milk, and listening to 88.9. It's "academic focus" day, which means seniors get to stay home and work on college apps or visit schools. I'm planning on camping out at the Steaming Cup all day to get college essays and my AP English essay done. I'm just really happy about today and I had to share that with you. There'll be a larger post soon; I have some photography I found that I would love to share with you.

Dear America.

(More like "Dear Ignorant Portion of the U.S. Population." But you know.)

Almost a year ago, we had a presidential election. People came out and voted, the votes were tallied, and Barack Obama received the majority according to the electoral college. In January, he was inaugurated, and he's served as President for the past nine months. He hasn't started another unnecessary war, created a national youth group named after himself, or sent the police to kill racially impure citizens of our country. So, why do you keep acting like he is?

I've seen President Obama compared to Hitler in many different ways, and I don't understand this at all. Most who claim this argue that he's asking the whole country/world to worship him, when he in fact is simply doing his job. Those who write songs about him (sorry for posting a Fox News clip here), claim he should stay president forever, and praise him are doing it because they like him, plain and simple. He's not asking people to worship him, he's just promoting the changes he talked about in his campaign and people like what he's doing. I know, especially for those who are my age or younger, it's hard to remember a time when our president wasn't a complete moron. It may seem strange to many of you that we could actually elect a president who can present himself with intelligence and be liked by other countries, but it's happening again.

I also think that many people are turning President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize into something larger than it is. Not to say that a Nobel Prize isn't a big deal, but they award them every year, and for many different reasons. He actually seemed a bit confused when he was awarded the prize, along with a lot of Americans. ("To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve it.") However, I feel we need to look at this from a European (Norwegian, specifically) perspective, because that's the perspective the committee had. While President Bush was in office, most of Europe looked down upon the United States. Our president and vice president were both children of big corporations, which made us a more strongly capitalistic nation than when President Clinton was in office. Though capitalism is alive, kicking, and socially acceptable here, it's not that way in Europe, or at least not to that extent. To Europeans, the switch from President's Bush's big oil-promoting capitalism to President Obama's focus on the working class was quite a contrast. Obama has also done a lot of promoting peace in the Middle East, advocating for women's rights, and raising the minimum wage, among other things. From a European perspective, I can definitely see how the Bush to Obama transition makes the U.S. a much more peaceful player in international affairs, and would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on that.

Essentially: stop drinking Haterade for breakfast and look at the facts. You'll be surprised at how much of what you hear from the media/pop culture is actually false, especially when it comes to politics.

Peace,

Renée

Spirited

It's been a crazy week, as homecoming/spirit week always is. Monday started off with impromptu chants of "Toga, toga, toga..." on White Out day, and everything got crazier from there. Wednesday was Decade Day; I had been waiting to wear my 80s dress for four years. (It's kind of unfortunate that everyone thinks 80s=Flashdance though, because nobody dressed like that.) Anyway, it's pretty much been a full week of not paying attention in class due to the weird energy that homecoming week brings.

I'm not going to the game (our team never wins and it's always so cold out!) or the dance, but I have really enjoyed this week. It's an opportunity to dress up; I'm wearing red tights, black flats with white polka dots, and a beaded beret right now (school colors are red and black), and I'm loving it. The pep rally is this afternoon, and though I'm not a huge "OMG SCHOOL SPIRIT WOO SENIORS" kind of person, it's always fun to watch the dance-off, the pie toss, and the football team's cheer/poms routine.

I'm also seriously looking forward to the homecoming court. One of the senior boys is gay, and decided to wear a dress, makeup, and hair extensions for today and tomorrow. A lot of people are really angry, but we voted him in, and I'm so proud of the senior class for doing that. Not too many people have the guts to be who they truly want to be in high school, especially when what they are is gay, and I really admire him for that.

An added bonus: classes are shortened from 47 minutes to 38 (apparently we can't do round numbers?), so I'm off to AP English already!

Broken

So I went to the Oriental Theatre this weekend to see Capitalism: A Love Story. The theatre was beautiful and the movie was fantastic. (More on that later. Moore on that later? haha.) Before the movie, I was standing in the lounge next to the bathroom, planning to take an outfit picture and some pictures of the theater. I turned my camera on, however, and the screen looked like it got smashed. I don't know what happened, but I don't have a real viewfinder, so there's almost no way I can use it. I feel like I had ten times more things to take pictures of this weekend, and no digital camera. I'm pretty frustrated. I'll probably end up using the camera my family is going to buy for a while, and then saving job/birthday/Christmas money to buy a Canon Rebel, which isn't that bad. I'm just really frustrated. It wasn't an overly expensive camera, but we went to Germany together, and I took good care of it...R.I.P.

Irony, Among Other Things

The senior class's votes for the "most likelies" were counted today, and I apparently was voted "Female Next Bill Gates"? I'm a bit confused by this. I'm not particularly good with money, and I'm not really popular. Also, I'm (possibly notoriously) not a huge fan of capitalism, which is what made me find this to be so hilarious. I've come to terms with it, though, due mostly to the fact that Bill Gates is a really awesome philanthropist. I'm probably thinking into this too much...

Anyway, school is going really well. I'm loving my English class, though the teacher is "spoon feeding" symbols and themes to us in every story we read. We're in an introduction/short story unit right now, so I'll accept it; I know not everyone is as up to speed on their literary terms as I am. We read "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway earlier in the week and I really enjoyed it. Hemingway doesn't get flowery with things; rather than going on for pages about a character's emotions, he will just say "She smiled brightly at the woman." and let the reader actually think about the meaning. It's really refreshing. We also read "Rape Fantasies" by Margaret Atwood, which is actually a hilarious story that's barely even about rape. It explores the balance of reality/fantasy, men/women, and sex/rape. It was really good.

I also got asked to be on the school newspaper. There are only four or five people on it (for now) and we're going to do it online. I'll be sure to post a link!

This is the contact print for my first photography project. (There was water on the glass; the negatives aren't actually that scratched up.) I'm really excited to work with these in the darkroom. I love medium format film.

That's all for now. I wish I could blog more, but school is kind of a priority, and college apps are driving me crazy...