The Force is Strong With This One

Here's a great story! Okay, so there is now proof that I am a Jedi. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, this person got a pirated copy of "The Return of the Jedi" (btw, I do not condone pirating unless Johnny Depp is one), in Chinese with English subtitles. However, the subtitles were translated from the Chinese, so they were a little bit, uh, scrambled? Anyway, so they thought some of them were funny, so they put up all these screenshots from the movie with the weird subtitles. And here is the one that proves I am on the Jedi Council:

Yes, that is correct. According to the Chinese translations, the Presbyterian Church is the Jedi Council. And, logically, since I am Presbyterian, it follows that I am a Jedi. Pretty awesome, huh?

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Although, I could tell you some pretty interesting stuff about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Lewis Carroll, since I've been researching them, like, all day.

Actually, here's another anecdote for today. So, my dad had to go to Bakersfield for business stuff, and he rented a car for that (since it's a bit of a drive), and he came back this afternoon. So, he's dying to take us riding around in it because it's a convertible. Now, in the right circumstances, I'd be all for it. But I'd been in my pajamas all day (researching!), and it was a white convertible (yes, I'm really that picky. White, in my book, just isn't that cool. I like white cars though, sometimes. We used to have one), etc. But he convinces us to drive to In N Out Burger for dinner in the car with the top down. Anyway, so we end up going. Pretty much, the moral of this story is that driving down your own street in a white convertible with the top down and your hair flying all over (usually pretty unattractive), with your Dad blasting his music (usually he has pretty good taste, but this was pretty bad), does not make you feel that cool. But whatever. Cool is overrated.

I think the only reason to have a convertible is if you were driving through the coastal redwoods in Northern California. Or down Highway 1 along the ocean cliffs and scenery. But just driving down the freeway with the top down? The freeway? Not really my thing, I guess.

Anyway, time for me to write an essay on good old Clive Staples and company. Have an awesome everything.

PS: The Star Wars Chinese thing is at http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html. Have at it.

Come On, Babe, Why Don't We Paint the Town?

Okay, so I'm quitting the "picture everyday" thing. It's going the way of the random facts.

Anyway, it is exactly one week until I leave on my study abroad trip. And what do I still have to do? Let's see, I need to write two more 8-10 page papers (which I haven't researched at all), shop for all those last minute important trip things that you never seem to have, buy some new luggage, pack, make sure I really have everything I need, transfer music files to the laptop I'm bringing (yes, it's official), get a haircut (why not?), clean my room (because my mom will go crazy if I leave it messy for three months), oh, and let's not forget all those social things in the next week, including a barbeque, a baseball game, and possibly a tea party. Wow. So, there aren't enough hours in the day or something.

So, I might not post again for a while. I'm sure that's not earth shattering news for anyone. I'll definitely add stuff when I'm on the trip, so never fear.

Alrighty then. Time to... work. Okay. Bye now.

Being a Kid was Awesome

Did any of you guys read the book "Roxaboxen" as a kid? That was definitely the best ever. It's about some kids in a neighborhood in New Mexico and the make believe world they create (called Roxaboxen). And they have shiny pebbles for money, and a graveyard for a lizard that died, and they have "houses" and "cars" and the kids set up lemonade stands and stuff.

Anyway, so I'm the hugest dork ever (and unforgivably sentimental), so I'm watching home videos on a Sunday night, and I found some footage of our family's version of Roxaboxen. We didn't have quite as cool of a name, in fact, it's a pretty terrible name. We called it Greenfield. Actually, I'll take the blame. I named it Greenfield. But, I would also like to point out that I came up with the idea.

Basically, we rent a cabin in Truckee almost every summer, and (once I came up with the idea), we recreated the town of Greenfield in the large downstairs room every year. When I say we, I mean me and my two siblings, and my five cousins. Once we hit high school and could invite friends on our vacations, we had some friends in it too. And yes, I said high school. I'm really that cool.

So, we had a bank (that's my cousin Rachel in the picture - she was the banker. The table is the bank, in case you were wondering), a hair salon, a recreation area, a cartoonist, a marker salesman/auctioneer, a restaurant ($1 of fake money for a cup of goldfish - good deal), etc. At least, those were the original establishments the first year. I think it changed slightly every year. We had an inn, a library, an art studio, stuff like that.

We also had "kingdoms" outside. It started way back in the day. Rachel was really upset (she might have been arguing with my sister, Becky...maybe?), so I was trying to be the nice big cousin and make her feel better. So we hiked out in the back further than we'd gone before (actually, it wasn't very far, but we'd never really bothered to explore before. We kind of liked to stick to the same old at that point), and we found an area with all these baby trees. And there was a rock ("castle") sticking out of the ground in a grove of taller trees, so I gave the whole area to Rachel as her kingdom. That day actually ended badly, as Rachel got stung by a bee on the top of her head near the border of her kingdom, but the fad caught on and soon everyone had one.

Mine was next to the house, and I had two or three castles. One was a pile of rocks next to a young tree that I named Apple. I believe to this day that Apple is a great name for a tree. I'm still not sure what Gwyneth Paltrow was thinking. Anyway. And my other main castle was the cool defensive one at the top of a slope. We had lots of wars (in fact, that was pretty much all we did), so I'd stock up pinecones and tiny rocks and wet moss (there was a little dip in the rock, which I filled with water and moss - for some reason I thought wet moss was a good thing to throw at people). I had a pretty good advantage from the top of my little hill, and the rock was only scaleable on one side, so I was pretty good at war. Yay wet moss.

We also thought logs were horses. I don't really know what that was about. We'd go horseback riding in Truckee, then come back and look at logs and think "horse"? Well, we were strange kids. So we named a few logs, and if we were sitting on them it was like we were riding the horse. Yeah, I don't think that game caught on.

Anyway, lots of good memories from Truckee. I could probably go on about it forever. Therefore, I'm going to stop. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, and maybe it made you think about when you were a kid. Those were good times. Anyway, have a lovely day.

Good Morning Starshine!

This is a camel that I drew once. His name is Samarquand. Nina named him after some country that has a similar name. Hurray.

I'm supposed to be cleaning my room! Aah! People are coming over in like 46 minutes.

Maybe I should stop talking and clean then. I just figured I'd write something for today. I really need to stop updating pretty much daily, especially since nothing's new in my life. Okey dokey. Bye!

PS: Random. You know the part in "The Lion King" when Timon is like, "What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?" and he sings that song to the hyenas about eating Pumbaa? Okay, so I have that stuck in my head. Weird, huh? OK bye.

Posts Are Better With Pictures

I think I might add a picture every time now. At least, every time there's a picture available. When I head out to Europe again in about a week or so, I might be using some strange computers again.

Or I might not. More about that later.

Okay, so this is a picture from one of my favorite movies. Not only is it in black and white, but, I admit it, it is a silent movie. Yes, I'm just that weird. Anyway, the movie is called "The Son of the Sheik," and that handsome Italian man on the right is Rudolph Valentino, the Brad Pitt of his day. Actually, he died right after making this movie, and all these women killed themselves. It was the first time there was such fanaticism for a movie star (since movies were pretty new), and everyone got worried. That was a great history lesson, wasn't it? I think I'll move on now.

Back to not using a strange computer. So, my professors for my study abroad trip pretty much said it was a dumb idea to bring a laptop, so I figure, I'm not going to bring one, right? But then I was talking to my Dad, and he seemed to think it wasn't such a lousy idea. Instead of needing to get a bigger memorycard for my camera, I can put the pictures straight to the computer. Instead of getting a bigger mp3 player, my music can travel with me and I can change the playlist on my mp3 player as much as I want. Also it will be easier to write stuff up, although I don't think I'll be able to print it. And he didn't think it would add too much weight to my luggage. I think my professor brought his in a separate case and just had one more big thing to worry about. So, I think I might be getting a laptop.

Hold on, though. I don't want you to think I'm quite that spoiled. Especially since I got a computer for graduation. In theory, the laptop would go to my sister after I use it for the next few months, and it will be the computer she gets for graduation. So, I'm really kind of borrowing it. Obviously, I won't complain if I get to keep it in the end, but it doesn't look like that will happen. So yeah. Just going to use it for the trip.

Anyway, that's pretty much everything. My parakeet is psycho. Goodbye.

Look at me! Updating by email!

Is it really possible to update by email? Let me rephrase that. I know it's possible. Can I do it?

Cherry Juice

I've found that people comment more often when I have pictures, so here is a picture of cherry juice for you. I didn't take this picture, in fact I found it on Google and I'm probably displaying it illegally here, but whatever. I've had cherry juice before?

Anyway, you don't really need to comment on this one, since I already know I'm not going to say anything interesting. Just know that I love when people comment.

Today I need to finish my essay, and I don't think I have 8 pages worth of stuff to say. And it's due tomorrow morning. So that's scary. I'll figure something out. Whatever.

And I'm craving juice. That's why I was looking up pictures of juice on Google, because it kind of made me less thirsty. That kind of sounds like porn. Okay, so I'm craving juice in a very nonsexual way. I'm just thirsty, okay? Gosh! How do I get myself into these situations?

Okay, going to get back to my essay. I've pretty much covered the points I want to make, and it's about 4 of the 8 pages. So I guess I'll just go back and add to what I've already written. Lovely. Bye.

I Wish I Could Teleport

Updating early in the day so I can focus on essaying. Kind of sad how I feel obligated to post something pretty much everyday. Whatever, it's something to do. I probably have a pretty boring life at the moment.

So, I was trying to type "Charlie" and I accidentally typed "Comiclie." I don't even know how that happened. The letters aren't even that close to each other. So that was a good story, I might tell it again sometime.

Alrighty. Definitely don't have much else to say. Unless I bring up Roald Dahl again. I wonder if I can be him when I grow up. That would be pretty awesome. Maybe I can be a children't author - I knew there was a reason I'm majoring in English! And I can illustrate my own books. Wait, I take it back. Being able to draw is kind of fundamental to that, and despite what others may have told you, I'm not that great of an artist. Whatever.

Definitely time for one of my trademark random remarks. Alright, so I remember when I was little, I read about these guys flying planes over penguins. They'd fly back and forth, and the penguins would watch them. Then they'd fly straight over them, and all of the penguins would look up and fall on their backs. I've always wanted to do that.

Okay, back to my essay. Over and out.

Fandango is...

So I finally finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I put it off because I planned to do my essays first, but then one thing led to another and I was accidentally reading it. Oops. Anyway, I'm done now, so I can focus on my essays. Hurray!

For any of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, I need to write three 8 - 10 page papers within, like, the next week. Basically, I'll be studying abroad in the fall and we're doing a lot of the schoolwork before we leave. And I've been procrastinating, so now I really need to do it. Hopefully I don't need to explain what Harry Potter is.

After I finished the book, I had my mom take me to the library to check out books for my first paper. I got a huge stack of them a while ago, but then I went on a three week trip, so I had to recheck them out. My plan was to get working on the essay right away, but I'm too easily distracted.

First, my sister made me some tea. I don't know why this is a distraction. But I like tea, so I thought I'd mention it. It was some loose leaf Persian Earl Grey (it's different from regular Earl Grey because they added jasmine - I don't know who "they" are), and it was pretty darn good. Anyway. Then I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because if I didn't I would never get my essays done because my sister would be pestering me every few minutes about going to see it. I figured I might as well get it over with. It wasn't bad. A little strange, but I mean come on. It's Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Freddie Highmore did a good job as Peter Llewelyn-Davies, sorry, I mean Charlie Bucket. He kind of did the same performance as he did in Finding Neverland. Oh, and Grandpa Joe is the guy from Waking Ned Devine. I think he's the coolest thing since sliced bread (wait, I don't really think sliced bread is very cool...hmm). There's something about Irish old men. My grandpa was one. So maybe I'm like one eighth "Irish old man." Hmm.

Anyway, back to Charlie. This one was a lot closer to the book (actually, I'll admit that I'm not super familiar with the original Charlie movie - I think I've seen it once?). Pretty sure that Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors when I was little. I think I have all of his books. My favorite Roald Dahl book is Fantastic Mr. Fox. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it's because all the animals dig their underground network of tunnels in the end of the book, and I've always kind of wanted to live underground. I have a thing for tunnels and cozy places. Remember studying prairie dogs and their dens? I was probably the only kid in my fourth grade class who wanted to live in one. And I've always thought that beaver dams are pretty awesome - they have the entrances underwater! How hardcore is that? I also like caves and stuff. And it looks like I'm exploring this topic a little too much. Alrighty. So I'm a freak. I'm probably part Hobbit or something. They're kind of like Irish old men. Another good one is Danny, Champion of the World. Sleeping pills in raisins? Genius!

Then I came home and started watching Animal House. No particular reason why. I just like that movie. I didn't get very far into it, though.

Anyway, my most recent distraction has been writing this post. I would like to say that I did write the introduction paragraph to my history essay. And it's pretty darn good, if I may say so myself. Not sure how accurate it is, but I have been glancing through some of the library books. Wanna read it? Sure you do!

Celtic monasteries have played a distinct and significant role in Western Civilization and in the Christian church. After the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the Irish monks performed the unique task of copying sacred Christian texts, then reintroducing them to continental Europe. But the Celtic monasteries had other distinct characteristics that set them apart from the institutions founded in the rest of Europe, such as their unusual formations when communities appeared around solitary hermitages, the concept of having an anmchara, and the placement of women in leadership roles. The isolation of Ireland and Britain from the rest of Europe allowed for their people to transform and personalize the Christian religion into a belief system that varied from the more traditional practices found on the continent.

Not too bad, huh? Don't answer that. I have a habit of thinking my essays are amazing. Anyway, time to return to my writing and churn out some more fantastic literature. Have an awesome, uh, whatever day it is.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Dentist appointment today. That was interesting. The dental assistant kept telling me that I had pretty teeth. I didn't even know teeth could be pretty. Maybe they teach you that in Dentist School. Anyway, I especially never thought that mine were pretty. They always seemed kind of beavery to me.

Otherwise, same old same old. Still having trouble starting my essays. Once I get started, it'll be easy. But I just can't do it. Turns out that no one I've talked to has finished any of them, so I'm thinking, "Oh, I'm not too far behind." And then I go get something to eat and read Harry Potter or something. I kind of feel like watching a movie.

I have all these taco sauce packets lying around. I don't even know why. They're just hanging out on my desk. They're the Taco Bell ones that have stuff written on them, like, "Mi salsa es tu salsa" and "Single Mild Sauce seeking friendship, maybe more." Maybe I'll make something for lunch that needs hot sauce so that I can actually use them.

Yeah, it's definitely time for lunch. I need to get the taste of fluoride out of my mouth. It's been nice talking to you, but I can hear food calling my name. Hmm...maybe that's a bad sign. Anyway, ciao.

The Vasa. Is there anything more hardcore than being a 300 year old wooden ship that was preserved in the Stockholm Harbor for centuries? Probably not. 

Let me translate for you: Mosquito Museum. That was definitely an odd place. 

This guy liked to play his fiddle naked by a waterfall. I think he's wearing something, though. I don't really get it. I saw him on a postcard. He's probably my hero. Wouldn't that be cold? 

I thought there would be like a line on the ground. And it was always snowy north of the Arctic Circle. But I was wrong. 

Check out the brandname. 

There was a puppet theater and we played with it? Heck yes we did. Good times. 

My (fourth?) cousin's dogs. The orange guy on the left yipped too much, but the one on the right was a sweetheart. 

I don't think I took a single good picture of these baby reindeer and their family, but this one is almost decent. They were just hanging out by the side of the road. 

Sweden is pretty awesome. 

Hurray for the sky. 

I think my great-great grandfather built this house? Maybe? Someone back in the day. The red house with white trim is really common in Sweden. It's everywhere. 

Check out the stairs on this thing! They made me really happy. I want to make some like that for my kids playhouse someday. Assuming my kids are more coordinated than me and can actually climb up stairs like that. 

You know the sample picture that's called "Blue Hills" or something? I thought this kind of looked like it. 

This is close to the area where my great-grandfather was born in northern Sweden. 

On the Inlandsbanan (train that took us north in Sweden), some musicians randomly took out their instruments and started playing. I was like, how hardcore can you get? 

Really white cloud. 

I think the point of this picture was the sky. 

Some building in Stockholm. I thought the sun in the water was pretty. Otherwise, pretty random. 

The ceiling at the Russian Orthodox Church in Helsinki. My mom really liked it. She was like, "It almost looks Celtic!" 

They have frisbee golf in Finland! It's everywhere! 

A monument for the composer who wrote "Finlandia." The big thing on the left is supposed to represent music (???), and they have his face over on the right. 

A church in Helsinki, Finland. 

This is where they have their song festival in Tallinn. Everyone sings in the Baltics. It's pretty cool.