Song of the Day: Shannon Williams - Why Why

So I finished my local library's winter reading thing recently, and today my mother and I went to pick up our prizes for finishing it today. Since I'm a teen (insert cool music here), I got to choose between free teen books and a blanket, which is the prize for the adults. I looked at the books, and they were, how shall I say... out of my preferred zone of reading. And so instead, I went with the blanket. And based on the pictures, we thought it was a blanket one takes to bed (not like that), but it turns out that it's a (very wintery looking) picnic blanket. Oh well.

Also, I found a series on-line called The Autobiography of Jane Eyre! It's an adaptation of Jane Eyre, a book that I love, into a vlog series, in the same vein as (and inspired by, as the introduction admits) The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! And longtime readers of my blog (if there are any) will know that I absolutely loved that series, so I'm excited to watch this one!

Also, my mother checked out a book called The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax for me from the library. According to her, there's a tele-movie made of it starring Dame Angela Lansbury from Murder, She Wrote! I haven't actually looked it up to see if it exists, but if it does, then I really want to watch it! Speaking of Angela Lansbury and Murder, She Wrote,, I still haven't watched the Murder, She Wrote telemovies yet that I got on DVD. Though, to be fair, that's mostly because I'm busy as all get out at the moment. I feel like I'm in the third-quarter slump at the moment, where I'm getting a bit worn out with school. Thankfully, I have spring holiday coming up, so I can use that week to relax and rehabilitate and come back into the fourth quarter swinging.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Super Junior-M - Me

Finally, it's the weekend again! Last week was only three days of school, but it felt like twenty. I am bloody tired of school, and I have to do it all again starting Monday. Also, my Latin field trip to see manuscripts at a nearby university's library aws cancelled again because of weather, so we had to reschedule again for this week. Hopefully, third time's the charm!

Also, I've been researching dumbphones recently, because I kind of want to get one. I think my ideal dumbphone would either be the Blackberry Classic or the OG Motorola Razr, but the first one was affected by the Blackberry shutdown and the second only uses 2G (and 3G for one model), so that's off. (The 2G and 3G shutdown is so stupid, because 5G is kinda pointless for most people anyways as LTE is already so fast.)

But other than those two, three stand out to me: the Nokia 2720 Flip, the Nokia 6300 4G and the Sunbeam F1 Orchid. The first and second both run KaiOS, so they can run WhatsApp, but they can't use any other special messaging apps. Also, apparently the group SMS messaging experience on KaiOS is kind of bad, so I'd shy away from those because of that. But then the Sunbeam F1 doesn't have Whatsapp or any Internet at all, which is mostly good since I want to disconnect more on-the-go, but I do want some amount of connectivity that the Sunbeam doesn't offer. And if I want to go full pipe dream, then I'll say that I'd really like a dumbphone that could do iMessage (I might even like an Apple dumbphone), but that's pretty hopeless. But I do really want a dumbphone!

Also, my parents and I decided to go to Cracker Barrel for lunch today, and it was a very odd experience. I got the chicken and dumplings, with mac and cheese and carrots. I wasn't even able to finish the chicken and dumplings because there was so much, though I finished the other stuff and almost an entire biscuit/scone/whatever with some jam. It was really good! And probably really unhealthy, which explains why we don't eat at Cracker Barrel that often. Also, whilst we were eating, I heard Consider Me Gone, one of my favourite Reba songs, on the radio in the restaurant, and stopped eating to sing along. My parents were not amused, but I certainly was. :) Sadly, the store part of the restaurant didn't have any of her CDs, though. :(

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Super Junior - It's You

It snowed yet again! It wasn't as much this time. I was sure we weren't going to have school today, and pretty much ever school in the area cancelled, but my school and one other school didn't. I think there's a chance school might be cancelled tomorrow if it freezes over, but I'm not feeling the most confident about the chances. But oh well.

Also, in my drama class today, we had to perform a little scene set to a song. Mine was set to Gee by Girls' Generation, and in it, my character was going through shirts (I brought in some real shirts that I've outgrown) and trying to decide what to wear to go out with some friends. It was simplistic, but that's what they were supposed to be, since we only had a few days to work on them. I also finished my first painting of the year in art, even though it took way too much time in my opinion. Though, to be fair, most of that was me overworking stuff because I'ma bit of a perfectionist. And of course, whenever I'd try to correct something, I'd just make it a bit worse. But oh well. Now at least I'll know not to do it next time.

Also, I kind of feel in between the normal ho-hum of school and the normal ho-hum of holiday life. I honestly don't want to go to school that much, more than usual, but I suppose that I have to go to school. But yeah, I just wanna stay at home and watch some 7th Heaven and McLeod's Daughters and eat some nice snack food. Ugh.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: TVXQ - Hi Ya Ya

Happy Twosday!

Alas, my six-day weekend is almost up. Luckily, I don't think we had very much homework, which is good, because I absolutely haven't been paying attention to any of that. I've just been faffing about in general, and I just can't bring myself to work on a freaking six-day weekend. But then again, who can? If those teachers expect us to have worked, then they're absolutely kidding theirselves.

Also, my grandparents came to visit today! As usual, they had a few things to give to us. They gave my mother some old prescription bottles for some reason, plus some jewelry for my and my mum, including this lovely turquoise ring! It's absolutely beautiful :) Also, she brought some game called "Who Am I?" that's made by some brand called "Ridley's Game Room", and we played it for a while. My mum and I got most of the answers, but my grandparents only knew a few. (My grandpa kept guessing John Wayne for all of them.)

Also, I found this cool map the other day from Nat Geo that was made in 1969! It was just lying around our house and I haven't the foggiest idea where it came from, though. But anyways, on one side it has a map of Alaska, and on the other side, it has "the top of the world", aka most of the northern Hemisphere. Anyways, I showed it to my grandparents, and they pointed out some places they went when they went on holiday to Alaska a few years back. I wouldn't want to live there, but I do believe I'd like to holiday there someday. But I'd have to be careful not to go Into The Wild because I certainly couldn't last very long.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: M.I.L.K. - Come To Me

So this is the penultimate blog post of this six-day weekend. I've honestly kind of forgotten the... sensation? (I doubt that that's the right word) of going to school, and I don't want to remember it. But inevitablyyyyyyy (read that in Mariah Carey's voice), I'll go back to school. Luckily, it's not that long until spring break! Honestly, I feel like this year is way shorter than normal. Like, there's only a few weeks until spring break, and after that, there's only 6 or 7 weeks until the end of the school year. It's relieving, but also scary!

Also, I have both good news and bad news (and some odd news) regarding my family's fishy friends.

• Good news: We got two more fish recently, both of them a lovely yellow colour. I named them after certain elements of a project my best friend and I are working on, and that's all I'm going to reveal. It's a mystery! (insert echo here)
• Bad news: I found one of them dead last night. The poor lad was face planted directly into the gravel. I played that "In the arms of the angels" song (the cover by Westlife, of course) whilst we flushed him and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
• Odd news: The other new one is apparently adventurous. We got some fake grass so the babies we hope the fish have have a hiding spot so they don't get eaten, but the new one got stuck in that. I first got clued in when I was watching them whilst my lunch was cooking (I was waiting for water to boil for ramen), and I could only see two of the three surviving fishies. I thought the third must've died too (the other dearly departed fish took a while to pick out amongst the gravel, so I feared the worst. Also, according to my mother, if fish are going to suddenly die, they'll probably do it right after you get them). I tried to look around, and didn't see him until I looked at a very specific angle and saw some little fins. I looked from another side of the tank after that and saw him, stuck. I thought he was dead at first (we had another fish that died and we found him underneat that grass), but after I looked very closely, I saw his fins wiggling, which gave me hope. So I told my mother and she got some little stick or whatever and lifted the grass up, and he bolted out. Thank God! I just checked on them, and all three are doing well!

Also, I just realized that I've read 15-20 books this year. Good heavens! I see where I got it from, though, because my mother loves reading, and has thousands of books. (I seriously don't know how we fit them in our house, because we don't live in a mansion, but we do. Luckily, we have shelves to keep track of the most important ones. But seriously, my mother has like, 12 copies of one singular book (same edition and all) about horses or something. It's kind of ridiculous. But oh well. I'd rather have too many books and a lot of choices than no choices whatsoever.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Girls' Generation - Flyers

So happy six-day weekend to me! School got called off again last night, and when I heard the phone in our kitchen ringing at around nine, I knew that the school cancelling was all it could be, so I freaking sprinted halfway across the to answer, and then proceeded to dance around and jump for joy. Yeah, I was pretty winded for a few minutes after that. But after not having and snow days for all of January or December, we've had five so far this month, plus two days off Monday and Tuesday as a short holiday. I think this might be the first time I've ever had a six-day weekend! Or at least the first that I can remember.

Also, I've been reading some of the Donald Bain Murder, She Wrote novels recently, but I bought one of Jon Land's MSW books at Barnes & Noble when I went there Monday. And honestly, it's certainly out-of-character for some of the main characters. I believe it was his second full book (his third MSW book if you count the one he finished after Donald Bain died), so it's understandable that he was still getting a grip on the characters, and I read one of his later books in the series, which was better, but it's still a little jarring. I suppose that I'll get used to it in time, though. But I think it's likely for the best of the series that Terrie Farley Moran replaced Jon Land, because from the one MSW of hers that I've read, she has a grip on the characters that's much more accurate to the TV programme and Donald Bain's MSW books.

Also, I had a humiliating incident happen to me today. I ran out of my Hershey's cookies and cream Chap-Stick , so I had to pop open one of the cherry Chap-Sticks that I got on my class field trip before the last barrage of snow days. One little problem: the seal on the Chap-Stick. After at least ten minutes of trying, I couldn't peel it off, so I went to my mother to see if she could peel it off. She pulled out a box knife and cut the seal off in about twenty seconds. So yeah, I peeled in vain. And then, y'all watch, this same thing'll probably happen next time I need to crack open a new Chap-Stick. Ugh.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Debbie Gibson - Who Loves You Baby?

Another snow day! There's supposed to be a winter storm system moving through tonight, and so my school is cancelled! Which is honestly kind of relieving, because I have a lot of little bits of homework and all that I need to do tomorrow. There's not a lot of big things, but there's a lot of littler things that I need to do soon, so hopefully I can knock some of that out tomorrow.

Also, I've been going on more and more Wikipedia binges (and TV Tropes binges) recently, and the collection of topics is absolutely eclectic, as they are wont to be. It's such a fun hobby for me, and I figure that if I'm going to dawdle around on-line, than it's best if it's at least informative. But at this rate, I suppose I'll become like so many other people and replace US history with random, useless information. But maybe it'll come in handy if I ever go on Jeopardy, or some weird extra-high-stakes pub quiz.

Also, I've been watching a lot of Supernanny again recently. I know that it's wrong, but sometimes I honestly find the tantrums that some kids on that programme throw kind of funny, like the 7-year-old kid who was sobbing because his parents wouldn't let him play M-rated games. This kind of stuff makes some things I've seen seem tame in comparison.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: A-Prince - Hello

Happy Valentine's Day! Today is the day where I, and many other people, are reminded of our singleness. Though since I'm still in school, I'm not too pressed about that. There's only three people I know in my grade (my grade is fifteen in all) that are in relationships, and tow of those are dating each other. Anyways, there aren't any boys at my school that I'm interested in whatsoever. If you're at my school, you know.

Anyways, these days in bio we're doing some interesting things. We've been learning about genetics, and we're measuring the growth of pea plants. After about two weeks, mine's already 42 cm! Also, we're doing an activity right now where we have to cut out a tonne of little things, colour them in, and then assemble them to look like DNA. It's quite a lot of busywork, in my opinion, and it's annoying and takes to long. This is probably the only thing in bio class that I haven't really liked, because normally I really like that class. But a good plant can bear the occasional bad fruit, so this isn't impacting my enjoyment of the class overall.

Also, I went to the mall today! I stopped by Barnes & Noble first. I looked for the new Murder, She Wrote, but they didn't have it. I did get another one that I didn't have, though. I also looked for some other books I want, including Ann Reardon's cookbook, that BLTs Taste So Darn Good Pearls Before Swine book, and another specific mystery book. They didn't have any of those, but I did get another Pearls Before Swine book, as well as the first Strange Planet collection. I also managed to get the Murder, She Wrote four-movie DVD set, 30% off! (Or actually, 40% off, because we're members.) I then went to the Vintage Stock store (I seriously love that shop), but they didn't have any of the CDs or DVDs I wanted. They did have a Switch game I want (Paper Mario: The Origami King), but we didn't get it because there wasn't any discount or anything. Then I went to Target and picked up some concealer, and then we went home.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: A*Teens - Can't Help Falling In Love

I have an essay outline due Monday, but other than that, my weekend is free! Free as a bird! Free as the second cheap handbag in a two-for-one deal at the outlet malL! Except for one teensy weensy little thing... the Super Bowl.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly the sporty type. But unfortunately for me and my mother, much of my dad's family is. My cousin's birthday always falls near the Super Bowl, so he merges his party with the Super Bowl. And my parents and I have to show up, otherwise it'd be rude or something. It doesn't help that they yell at the TV and keep the TV on loud volumes. So I'll have to deal with that tomorrow. But at least I get my family's cooking! And my family on both sides has some darn good cooking,

Also, my mum got the DVD of the first season of Kim's Convenience from the library today and we started watching it! It's a really nice show. Normally, I don't like single-camera comedies without audiences, but this one manages to do it rather well! I still wonder what it'd be like with the audience, though. Anyways, I rather like it!

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: ABBA - Don't Shut Me Down

I got my booster today, at long last! My mother had been putting it off for a while, but we finally dropped by the library today and I got my third jab. It was really rather uneventful. I checked out a few books about iPods and stuff whilst we were there, as well as two films: one about Britney Spears and one about the Backstreet Boys. I'm excited to watch them!

Also, I'm getting kind of tired of school. I feel like even though I just had a lot of snow days, I'm just starting to get into the ho-hum routine. Though, to be fair, I feel like we're still in that uneasy period, where our grade's can go up or down a lot with just one quiz or something, as opposed to the second half of the semester, where grades are more stablized. This can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on your grades. Honestly, part of me wishes that grades from semester one wouldn't reset for semester two, but that could also be a blessing and a curse. Oh well.

Also, we finally finished watching Groundhog Day in my drama class. We'd started a few days before Groundhog Day, but the snow days delayed our finishing it, as well as technical difficulties yesterday. Anyways, it was a good movie! Although that one disturbing montage (if you've seen the film you know) gave me some pretty major heeby-jeebies. But I especially loved the ending. Happy endings always make me, well... happy!

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: BULLET TRAIN - My Buddy

So I guess I'm back into the swing of things. But I've had an abnormal amount of subs this week. First, I had a sub yesterday for French, and I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to help him get a powerpoint up on the projector. My French teacher was back today, though. And then my art teacher was also gone, so the band teacher subbed in. I believe my art teacher is also back, though. I ran into a bit of a sticky situation, though, because the art room ran out of turpentine, so I had to do the best I could with just some paper towels and a bit of water. I did surprissingly well cleaning the pallettes, though my results with the brushes were underwhelming. Anyways, I had the cool sub for Latin this morning as well, and my Latin teacher has confirmed that she'll be out for the rest of the week, so we had to reschedule our planned trip to see an ancient manuscript that a local organization has on hand.

Meanwhile, my VERIVERY season's greetings got here yesterday! I already have the photocards and all that sitting with the rest, though I need to figure out how I'm going to organize and display them. I might need to tweak my current system. Also, the desk calendar inspired me to actually clean my desk! Or at least the part where my computer and lamp and all that is, because I haven't the foggiest how to solve a problem like my desk's shelves. But the rest, although there's still some stuff, is much cleaner! I think that it's officially no longer pile-of-stuff-cluttering-my-mind status. Woot woot!

Meanwhile, I still regret my choice to take AP Calc next year. But I let my family guilt me into it (a specialty in my family) and the only non-AP math option is Quantitative Reasoning (what even is that?). Seriously, I get my school is supposed to be more academically challenging than most, but I don't think we need to only offer AP versions of Calc and Stats. And that's pretty much the only subject that doesn't have those options. Seriously?

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Super Junior - Miracle

And alas, the five-day weekend is coming to an end. I have to return to school tomorrow, and for a five-day week nonetheless. Going from a four-day week to a five-day week after getting a day off is rough, so what are we supposed to do when we go from two days to five days? This is going to be a looooong week. Oh boy.

Also, I got a baguette today when my mother went to the shop for the first time since the storm. And my mother encouraged me to "eat it today" before it can go stale, which led to me taking the baguette, and then, whilst she was watching, taking a huge bite out of the thing. (Or at least as large as I could.) She came over with her phone after that and made me do it again, whilst taking photos on her mobile. God willing, they won't end up on Facebook.

Also, I finished the thing for my school's readers awards, having read three of the twelve or so that were options.. The first one, a meetcute thing where these two people travel across the US together, was my favourite. (it's called Field Notes on Love, I'd recommend it a lot!) Then the second one I read, I Know You Remember was just pretty weird, and I didn't like the last one, The Field Guide to the North American Teenager that much either. But even if I enjoyed only one of the three, I at least get the pizza and free stuff. Win!

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Super Junior - Miracle

I'm having a five-day weekend! Today and yesterday were also cancelled for the snow, so I've been able to laze around reading, watching TV and watching YouTube all day! It's been pretty sweet. I just wish I had some snow pants or something so I could've gone out sledding in my yard. (My family's backyard is freaking amazing for sledding a short distance, as part of it has just enough of an incline for sledding to be fun!) I also plan to make a little snowman soon, on the deck rail or something. Anyway, it's been lovely!

But speaking of school, something not very lovely happened: my school repealed the mask mandate and decided to only "encourage" them. God save us all, and thank God those of us who are sensible have been double-vaxxed and some of us boosted. Some nearby schools had a few students protested after they revoked their mask mandates and they got the district or administration or whoever to reinstate them, so I wonder if my school will do something similar. I feel like it was probably done to appease the rich conservative donors. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to some Super Junior lately and I love it! I think I may have found a new music group to start loving. Their music, at least the stuff I've listened too so far, has a really lovely sound to it that just feels homey and nostalgic. It makes me feel happy :)

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!

Song of the Day: Frank Sinatra - Let It Snow

Happy snow day! That's right, a significant winter storm system is moving through the area right now, so we have a snow day today and tomorrow! I did a lot of reading today, and other than reading the book I'm reading for English, I did precisely zero homework. Which I really need to do tomorrow. I have an English project (I have to compare the book and movie versions of Into The Wild) that I need to figure out some way to finish. I'll find a way (I always do) but until then, I haven't the foggiest.

Also, I have a sort of saga to relate to you all. So for Christmas I got a crap tonne of Murder, She Wrote books and two Apple gift cards. Well, I was looking for the one worth more the other day, but I couldn't find it with the rest of the gift cards. We looked all over, but couldn't find it, and so we gave up. My mother did find three unopened Murder, She Wrotes still in the original bag, including one that I've wanted to buy anyway. So I was leafing through that, trying to see if there was a prologue, when I noticed something sticking out of the bottom. It was the gift card!

Anyways, I went on that field trip yesterday! We went to a drugstore to get some ice cream (and I picked up two Chapsticks, too). I was going to get a milkshake, but they ran out of milk right before I got to the front of the queue. And then they restocked it right after I ordered. Ugh. But oh well. My best friend and I got to laugh at some wine mum signs. And the museum was pretty cool as well.

Anyways, that's about all I have to talk about at the moment, so I'll talk to y'all next time. Bye!