Who did I promise copies of FF7 other than Felicia? I have all the disks I need now, so I'm going to burn them ASAP.

And I now own the script to Branagh's Hamlet, complete with film diary and a section of photos from the actual production. I think I may die of geeky happiness.

I just spent about six and a half hours stripping all the wallpaper off our entire living room, and then cleaning up and rearranging everything. My feet and back are already telling me that there will be a price to pay tomorrow, but I'm getting sixty bucks out of it, and I feel acccomplished. Also slightly sticky, which a bunch of watered down wallpaper paste will do.

Go me!

Otakon pre-reg is open. I would like to put together a group to register by June 15th, however, I need to know who's going with me first - Michelle, Winter, I'm looking at you two. As of right now, I have no way of getting there and no place to stay, at least that I can afford, as certain people didn't actually bother asking what was going on and left me stranded, and nobody else has given me a straight answer as to whether or not they're actually coming. This is, hopefully understandably, really, really irritating. I would really like said answers, people.

...And now I've devolved into ranting, but I don't care ~.~

Yoinked from Yuumei:
First, write down the names of twenty people you know. Then read and answer the questions.

You can't look at the questions (or click on the cut) until you write down the twenty names you're going to use

1)Mara
2)Yuumei
3)Claudia
4)Clare
5)Jo
6)Brooke
7)Jesse
8)Marina
9)Elisha
10)Lily
11)Marion
12)Winter
13)Michelle
14)Jon
15)Mel
16)Skuld
17)Katt
18)Xeen
19)Amber
20)Liz

Read More?

So, technically is is no longer the 25th of May, but I just spent the last four hours rereading Night Watch while curled up until my giant lilac towel (it's as big as I am), so I feel I may be forgiven.

First and foremost - anyone who hasn't heard the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays, go and do so right now. If necessary, I can burn you the mp3 files myself and mail it to you - I love them dearly and will never forget their writer.

Second, anyone who hasn't read the Discworld books should, as they are also quite excellent, although I don't reccomend starting with Night Watch as though it is very very good, it is also somewhat atypical of the series, particularly in that it's the only one that made me want to cry. Many thanks to Katt for making me read them myself - I have done my best to spread the love.

As probably very few people have remembered, tomorrow is May 25th. This means it is both 1) Towel Day and 2) The Glorious 25^th of May (which only people who've read Night Watch will know of)

Good thing for me that my towel is lilac-colored XD;

Hamlet presentations went over surprisingly well - there were good bits, there were bad bits, but it was enjoyable. I have tons of photos, I'll share them once I've got them uploaded and edited and what-not.

Now...where to begin on talking about this year. Surprisingly enough, through all of my bitching and stressing and lack of sleep, it was really good. I had some really wonderful people in my class, and some wonderful teachers, and, well, I felt like I belonged, in a way I never have. I was pushed to my limits, past them, and it really showed what I can do when I need to.

I'll start with the teachers, it's easiest that way. Mr. Gagne was probably my favorite - he was such a huge shameless geek, and he was witty, which always made his classes a lot of fun. I'm happy he's going to be there next year. Then there's Mrs. Ferrell. I had my doubts at the begining of the year - she seemed nice, but without much inner strength to back it up. But she turned out to be a really great person, and I loved her class a lot. She's retiring now that the year is over, which makes me sad ;; But she promised to come back for our graduation next year. Mr. Barys - I hated his class material (mostly because I was bad at it), but I love him. He wears sandals all the time and is very casual and friendly and funny. Mrs. Bonneau was great too - she's tiny, and acts almost like a kid sometimes - she gets even more excited by snow days than we do. Mrs. Lang was nice too, even if I think I kind of frustrated her during RS - she was my advisor. We actually thought she'd be moving on to a different job next year, but she was offered a permanent position as of the day before yesterday, so she's staying, yay! Mrs. Dodge I had kind of a love-hate relationship with, as is evidenced by some of my posts here, but I think by the end of the year, I've grown to like her. She's leaving, too, and it's going to be wierd without her there next year.

...And the second part of this will come later, I think. I'm going to take a nap before Star Wars =.=

So, I was wandering around fic rec lists and came across this one, which is very beatiful, and got me thinking. I think, if I could have one creative talent that I don't think I really do right now, it's that I wasn't so damn tone deaf. Being able to draw well or write better would be nice, but music is more integral to me than either of those.

I think most of the people here who've known me for a few years know this, but for those who don't, I used to play flute. Well, I suppose I still do, technically, but I haven't had much time for it this year. I started in fifth grade, and I was in the concert band in middle school and the first two years of high school - not this year, though. I didn't like playing in band a lot, mostly because I didn't like a lot of my band, and I didn't like the pieces we played, but I liked, and still like playing pieces I like, on my own. And I like to sing, although I tend to be too embarassed and self-concious of how off-key I am in anything but church hymns and Christmas carols to sing when other people are listening, but if I know the words or melody to a song, I'll start singing along - drove Ben crazy when I was playing Kingdom Hearts. And through that, I'm always frustrated by the fact that I can't keep on key - I can tell when I'm off, but not how to fix it.

It's kind of strange. I've been surrounded by music a my whole life, pretty much. My mother sings fairly well, and used to play flute. My dad, like I am, is a bit tone-deaf, but doesn't care, and plays the guitar and banjo well. I grew up listening to 102.5, the NPR classical station. Music is comforting to me.

...Wow. I've been really introspective lately. I think it's part reading too many R/S fics, and the fact that school is ending, and that I've had a lot of time to myself recently - when left alone, I think, and this is both a good and a bad thing.

We had some amusing things happen in school yesterday, which I didn't get around to writing up last night.

-Mr. Gagne, after our last vocab quiz of the year, had a bag of slips of paper with things written on them. Some of them raised your grade, some lowered them, some could do either, and some didn't have anything to do with grades at all. Two read 'Raise your grade by 3d6' and 'Lower your grade by 3d6'. He actually had six-sided gaming dice to roll with him. This is why I love that class.

-Nicole was wearing a very long-sleeved sweater, so Mr. Menard tied the sleeve ends in knots, and then tied them together around one of the wood support columns.

-Carolyn was hiding in one of the lockers for some reason. Dunno why, but it was funny.

And I have ranting to come later. But I have my lines memorized. Yay!

Lotus WordPro, when exporting to HTML, is more standards-compliant than exporting from Microsoft Word. Pretty much all it doesn't do is put in a doctype delclaration or alt tags for images. I feel validated in my use of WordPro.

... Actually, apparently my hand-coded index page is more standards-compliant than some of the Word-exported files, which says something, as I have a tendancy to leave excess font and div tags laying around, or too few, and hack at CSS until it obeys me and stuff - it's a wonder my pages even work at all, sometimes. I also discovered today that if you export a PowerPoint file as a webpage, it only formats properly in Internet Explorer. Brilliant, Microsoft, absolutely brilliant. Just when I thought I couldn't dislike you any more. Honestly, if I could take Paint Shop Pro with me, I'd totally switch to Linux, or possibly even a Mac. Macs are far sexier than PCs. Except Alienwares.

And I just had to use nested tables, because IE is on crack (it was putting images on top of each other. I didn't think that was possible without div positioning). I feel uncleeeeean.

You know what I've always kind of wanted, for a great many years? A penpal. A real one, who I'd write letters to and who'd write letters back, and that would be our primary form of communication. I rather like writing letters, even if I'm rather awful at it, and even more than writing them, I like getting them. Probably because I almost never do. I can probably count the amount of personal mail I've recieved that's not a 'Happy Birthday/Christmas/Easter/Valentine's Day' card with a signature on it from a relative, that I've recieved in the last twelve months, on one hand. I think about half of that is from Ammie.

Back to the point. I've tried those penpal services a couple times, but it always ends up the same way - we exchange a letter or two, and then suddenly, nothing comes for me. I write, and recieve no reply. Forever. My entire fourth grade class had penpals - mine was a girl named Clare, who lived in England. She always decorated the margins of her letters in marker, and played the trumpet, I think. I saved all her letters, they're in a box (more or less) under my bed. For that matter, I save all my letters, although they usually go in the drawer in my desk. I've thought about writing her again, a few times. But she's probably moved, doesn't remember me any more. It makes me feel a bit silly, and a bit sad. Sigh. Such is my life, I guess.

...I'm in strange mood this weekend, it seems. I keep expecting it to be fall outside for some reason. I'm in a fall sort of mood I guess.

-Low-fat parmesan peppercon ranch dressing makes a surprisingly good substitute for mayonaisse in a bacon sandwich, although not good enough that I'd usually use it.
-I still fail at cooking bacon, even in a microwave. I gave up after four slices.

Should be working on costumes, but I feel like slacking instead XD; So I'm going to.

I still <3 Remus Lupin, very very much. Anyone wanna rec me some good Sirius/Remus fics :D?

Also, the seniors' graduation was tonight, and I went because I had to, even though I didn't want to, and it ended up being surprisingly nice. I think I was one of the best-dressed people there, and almost started crying once or twice during the speeches. I'm way too sentimental ^^;

...Think I'm going to bed now. Want to play FF7, but I'm having trouble concentrating, so sleeptime for me.

Mountain Dew combined with decongestants are not my friend. On the plus side, I can breathe out of my nose again, and am not choking on my own phlegm (it's even grosser than it sounds), but wow, am I twitchy

On the plus side, I think this essay is coming together a little better XD Still going to have to edit it over the weekend, though.

EDIT: It's not just my imagination - my heart-rate sitting down was up around 115 bpm during physics x.x

I have been seized by an overwhelming desire to play FF7 again, which is a bit odd coming in the middle of trying to pull together an essay about Horatio (I have a lot to say, I'm just having trouble pulling it all together). Maybe I'll go play in a bit, and hopefully will have better luck coming up with a name for my Turk XD; He's got most of a backstory and a personality, but no name ^^;

Also, to the people who I promised I'd send copies of FF7 - my install disk has disappeared, so I have to wait until Jon copies his to give to me. It will get done, I swear, but it may take a little while ^^;

To-Do List (mostly for myself)

-Hamlet designs (Wed) (Finalized, pretty much, and Michelle has them)
-Sixteen Ch 19 Problems (Thurs) EDIT:Make that eleven Seven.
-Conclusions for Engineering (Thurs) (I love being able to make things up believably)
-Magnet Write-Up (Thurs) (More or less. Some of the data is on crack, which I'll try to fix later)
-Horatio Essay (Mon)
-Update school site (Mon)
-Tech Writing article (Mon)
-Physics Portfolio (Tues)
-Five-page Spanish Paper? (?) (No longer exists. Yaaaay.)
-Engineering Website (Wed)
-Engineering Prototype (Wed)
-Hamlet Costumes (Fri)
-Memorize lines (Fri/ASAP)

(Real entry some time later x.x)

(This entry is probably going to get updated and edited several times as I go through the movie, but I can't resist giving commentary)

Probably fifteen minutes in so far, so first reations - I like Olivier as Hamlet, a lot. Which isn't to say I don't like Branagh and his white-blond hair and silly goatee and sexy sexy black coat, but wow, Olivier is a pretty-boy - I don't think Branagh could ever look that good in tights, or lounging. And he was six years older than Branagh when the movies were made - guess he aged very well. Or black and white hides better

The Laertes is also very cute, and looks the right age (was the right age, even), although he's got a slightly unfortunate 40's haircut.

Horatio, though....ouch. Looks fourty-five and has a reeeeally unfortunate 40's haircut. And so far hasn't matched Branagh's Horatio in acting (I like how he plays Horatio a lot, I just don't like his looks)

And Ophelia. Wow. She may turn out to be a good actress, but her hair and face make her look twelve or thirteen. Painfully so. It kind of makes me twitch.

More soon!

EDIT1: Best ghost scene so far, I think. Branagh overplayed it, Zeferelli (director for the Gibson version) underplayed it, Olivier hit a good balance in between

EDIT2: "To be or not to be" - I'm not actually sure which I like better, Olivier's, or Branagh's - Branagh's has a lot more emotion, which is good, but I like the staging of Olivier's better - it seems a lot more like the sort of introspection I feel it is, with him sitting by himself on the walls, looking into the sea, versus Branagh's wierd dagger thing.

EDIT THE LAST: Okay - I really don't like how the play scene was enacted in this version x.x Or actually, any of the versions I've seen, although Branagh's the best. Laertes proved to be good looking but a bad actor. As with Horatio, Branagh has the best acting, but they both don't look the part. I liked Olivier's Gertrude a lot, though, she had a sense of royalty I didn't quite get in the other versions. And Ophelia still remained scandelously young-looking, but had a good crazy-scene. I was also pleased with the duel scene, although a little wierded out by the tights with codpieces or whatever XD; But it was thankfully less over the top than Branagh's - I'm not sure what he was thinking with that chandelier move. So, overall, not bad. I think it was a bit better adapted than the Zeferelli, although having Horatio say Fortinbras's last line was really off. And Olivier, while he could use a little more emotion like Branagh had, manages to avoid one of Branagh's short comings - I'm sure he's a wonderful man, but all the scenes that I felt were overplayed, I got a sense of 'Lookit how awesome I am!' from Branagh, which Olivier didn't have.

Making myself write this before I crash and forget half of it. There will be photos later, as a bunch are on my mom's regular film camera.

Friday, as soon as I got home from school, I ran, burned my and Mara's masquerade music in five minutes flat, and then we piled seven people and their luggage, including a full-size Wolfwood cross. We got stuck in traffic, but managed to make it to the hotel, where we met up with Mara, and went and picked up our badges while my mom parked, and we waited for our rooms. Mara informed me that Nicole told her that morning she wasn't coming, and thus Mara's shoes for our walk-on were still in DC. So we ended up running out to Chinatown at 8:30 at night, and bought a pair of wodden sandals, which we have to rip the sequins off the straps of. So that was Friday.

Saturday, we woke up, put on our wedding kimono, and headed down to get judged. We got lots of fangirling from people, including staff, and managed to win a hall contest ribbon apiece in fifteen minutes XD; After that, we met Yuumei and browsed the dealer's room while waiting for Claudia to show up. Mara and I bought tabi to replace our missing ones, and I got two volumes of Fruits Basket. Claudia came, and I left them to go grab her and show her where registration was, and by the time we were done with that, we had managed to thouroughly lose Mara and Yuumei. So we went up to the room and hung for a while, before they showed up and we sat around more, and then headed down to the masquerade.

The masquerade ended up being pretty awesome. There was some confusion with the groups lining up, but it got sorted out quickly. The seating began on time, the pre-show cosplay band (Bad Luck), was excellent and both started and ended on time, and the masquerade started on time. There were a few sound difficulties, and three groups that didn't show up, but Ada gets mad props for managing to organize everything nicely (spaced out skits and walk-ons), and having a masquerade that ended fourty-five minutes early. It would have been even earlier if the awards ceremony hadn't dragged on and on and on - the Kagome with the backpack talked far more than anyone was interested in hearing. There were a couple of really excellent groups - in no particular order, the Lynx and Harle were so awesome, the Rikku totally deserved best novice craftsmanship (and the Vash with her was tremendously funny), the male persocom skit was really clever, the Haku was awesome, the Vampire Hunter D group was really excellent, and the Gundam Wing group which disappeared at the last minute was OMG good. Now, of course, comes the usual bitching about the awards. Most of them were very well deserved. The only couple I didn't was the Atashi (that's how you spell it, yes? The bunny things from Chobits) has a really boring skit, and the CCS group got way more craftsmanship awards than they desevered. But all of the costumes I really liked got awards too. Mara and I got a Judge's Award from one of the craftsmanship judges ourselves (Big thank you to Brooke, too, for that ^^ You winz as well <3). We then went to the 'wedding reception', at Gyuhama, had huge amounts of sushi, and Mara, Yuumei, and Claudia went back to Claudia's house.

Sunday was both more, and less eventful. Michelle and I put on our Cain outfits, and wandered around and bought stuff in the dealer's room. I ran into the Seishirou I met two years ago, and got him to buy me yaoi XD We also played one round of DDR before the gaming room closed. We also met up with Claudia, Mara and Yuumei. Claudia was supposed to just get her stuff and leave, but tried to stay, which resulted in what could be accurately described as a blazing row, with me trying to slam the door on her, before Claudia got forcibly dragged from the room. So we ended up sort of wandering around. We tried to find the EGL picnic and failed (we discovered later that it had been moved, and their sign proclaiming this was confiscated by security - it was hanging on the wall there >.>), so we browsed the stores in the Prudential Center and Copley Place instead. The rest of my group drove home after this, but I stayed with Mara and Yuumei and wandered a bit more, before we all took the train back to our respective homes.

So, Claudia's mom aside, it was largely a very fun con. I ran into a lot of people I had met at previous cons, which was very nice, even though I didn't remember some of them (Sorry, Duo ;;!). It was kinda wierd being in a new building, but I think I'll be used to it by next year.