Skit Idea

So, instead of falling asleep and enjoying a peaceful rest last night, I stayed wide awake daydreaming about a skit! Very random, I know.

It started off, I think, by me thinking about some of the, whatchamacallits, preformances at OAT's talent show.

It consists of:
Someone doing a very good job singing a very operatic song
Me not being able to sing
Who's on First-- a teeny bit of it
Unicycle
Mime
Unicycle AND mime
Violin-- if only!!!
Acting
Awesomely random hilariousness

T'was fun. :) I have it entirely planned out, maybe I should write it down. Particularly if I ever learn how to ride a unicycle properly with all the tricks and such.

Bit on Narnia

I was looking for articles to use in my HP research paper, and while searching for info on the HP article published in Gilbert Magazine, I ran across this blog with an article on Narnia. Read it here. Also, my friend Elena sums up her feelings about the Narnia movies, here.

Here's hoping that Voyage of the Dawn Treader lives up to our expectations. PC was my second-least-favorite Narnia book (the least being A Horse and His Boy-- but I still liked it). Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of my very favorites.

Bits and Pieces

• We have shown our house twice in the last two weeks. The first was a first-time homebuyer. They wanted to make an offer an a house that day. We were told they had a family and wanted a large house; perfect! But it turns out that their family is grown up, and they went for the $30,000 more expensive house that was smaller, had granite countertops, brand new carpeting and paint, and absolutely no privacy. Argh. We don't know how today's showing went. After having shown the house some 20 or more times this past year, moving seems to become less and less real and we've been living in perpetual limbo. :P 
• I got very little school done today because the people coming to see the house were late and we stayed out of the house for over two hours. That's two hours of hard schoolwork this evening.
• UNICYCLE!!! Today I rode two miles, up and down the Ozark hills of our neighborhood. Very tiring and it made my bottom go numb. I am trying to learn to idle and so far it has been an epic fail.
• Yesterday, while it was raining, and while wearing my very flowy skirt, I decided to hop on the unicycle. Aside from difficulties mounting modestly in a skirt, even with leggings, it is quite fun. Everytime I turned, I felt my skirt spin. :) The rain only made it more magical.
• I've been updating my art blog!!! www.shealynns-faerie-shoppe.blogspot.com Please check it out! And use the Navigation on the sidebar, it makes it much easier.
• As you will see on my art blog, I have been crocheting. I made my very first crochet cardigan, check it out! Click "clothes" OR "crochet" on the Navigation.
• Pride and Predjudice starts this week! Many of my very good friends are in it, I am very excited. Check out Fine Linen (the drama group)'s website for info:

http://finelinendrama.com/

*tear*

I am working on a picture book at the moment (okay, so I have the story and I have illustrated a grand total of... ONE PAGE). I was in the process of doing the second set of pages (they are two page spreads), when we had to show the house. So my papers got clipped onto an oversize sketchbooks and shoved behind the head of my bed.

Well, this morning I realized with a jolt, "I haven't worked on that for a week!" I pulled out the sketchbook (which somehow found its way to hiding behind my desk, not my bed), only to discover...

Someone had scribbled on it with blue pencil.

*tear*

Hopefully I will be able to go over that with a shadow... quite a dark shadow, but I don't want to start all over again.

Also, if I have never said so before, I will say it now: It is very difficult to draw people to look like specific people. Especially is said people are camera shy and aren't around all day. Oh, it is also very hard to draw three inch people... with thick chalk pastels.

You May Laugh...

Last week I finished my exams for Quarter Three. I barely survived. :) Learning the stuff is so much more enjoyable than studying and memorizing the stuff. My Theology test asked the most obscure questions...

Now I am starting Quarter Four. For the first time, History and Literature are sharing a book-- The Great Diolouges of Plato. The Republic is for History and other dialogues for literature.

This morning I got started on reading History. It is infinitely more interesting than Thucydides, and doesn't hop around like Herodotus. But it is insane. I have no idea how I am going to survive another nine weeks of this. Look at this quote from my work today:

"So then in general, in the use of each justice is useless, but in their uselessness useful?"

SAY WHAT?!

Edit: I have since figured out what that sentance means, and I now proclaim to all the world that Plato is rather cool. Socrates (he's the character in Plato, long story) has a delightful habit of turning everything upside down and inside out-- and I get to do that to him in some of my essays. :)

Unicycling Meets Ice Skating

I was looking online to see if there were any videos of backwards unicyling (a skill which still escapes my grasp!), and found something that simply astounded me.

This looks like ice skating/ice dancing-- on a unicycle. Ice skating already has a great coolness factor... but this unicycling has an even greater one, in my opinion. :) I've seen videos of mountian/cross country/extreme unicyling, but I think this looks prettier. :)





Pairs:


Hope you enjoy!
It should be an Olympic sport... :)

Another Chesterton Quote!

Lots of new posts all at once, after a long absence, eh? lol. Please take a moment to read this amazing quote from G.K. Chesterton. I am enjoying Orthodoxy immensely, even though I am currently in the middle of... three other books, and about six other books for school. :) Can't have too many books, can we? Just pick up the one closest to you, and read away. Besides, Chesterton is one who you read a chapter or two, and then take a break and really think about it.

To the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true. A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken. A man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass. It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see the irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all. In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dullness of life. This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

So, I am really quite terrible about this whole "reviewing" thing... I love reviewing books, movies, games, etc. but keep forgetting. So the reviews you readers get are going to be rather short, random ones...

Awaking, by Claudia Cangilla McAdam, (edited by one of my favorite authors, Regina Doman) is a story about a girl who finds herself transported back to Jesus' time... She is now a Jewish girl-- could she really have ever been an American teen in the twenty first century? But Ronni/Seraphina knows what will happen to Jesus. And she believes she is meant to stop the crucifixion.

Most Bible-time-travels stories are rather... well, boring. But Awakening isn't. Ronni's story is intricately entwined with Biblical figures. I learned alot about the Jewish culture and little facts about the Gospels that I hadn't known before. Best, the story is genuinely exciting. I always love a book that leaves me asking for more.

A quick and easy read that is entertaining and enjoyable. What could be better? :)

Skateboard Crash

Poor Will. He busted his lip, skinned his nose, scratched/broke his glasses, and banged up his hip. Here's the story.

Today I pulled out my unicycle for the first time in months (winter is not a good time for cycling). Within an hour I got my freemount down, did several figure-eights up and down our hill, fell over as I tried going backwards, and managed to idle for six full seconds.

Then the boys came out to play. I decided to go for a distance ride, and started pedaling up the very steep hill. I turned around and spotted William. He was riding the ripstick (a kind of skateboard, but oh so much cooler) up the hill, just as fast as I was cycling. We raced to the top (I barely beat him), and then I crossed the street and continued my trek through the neighborhood.

I had gone at least half a mile and gotten my legs very sore. Then, suddenly I heard a strange noise. It wasn't a car... It sounded like plastic wheels on rocky pavement. Well, it was, and it was Will. He had ripsticked (skateboarded?) all the way, following me. I was going downhill (quite a long and tiring ordeal on a unicycle), and William shouted that he would beat me.

Well, he zoomed on down. And down. He gathered up a ton of speed, and once he was ahead of me, he tried to get off (realizing he was faster than he meant to be and that he would likely fall off).

So he veered off to the side. He said he was trying to land in the neighbor's grass, but instead he did a magnificent summersault onto a steep driveway. I think he'd hit a rock.

His face was bleeding. I handed him my unicyle, told him to sit still (of course, he didn't... he walked home), and sprinted all-out, reaching our house in record time.

He's okay-- he busted his lip (thankfully no harm to his braces), and scraped up a bunch of his skin. He is milking it now, of course. Drinking milkshakes, watching movies.... :)

At least he will have an amazing story to tell when people ask about his scraped up nose. Going full speed down a hill on a skateboard, I ask you! Unlike Ben, who broke his foot simply by walking on that old floor by the theater's bathroom two years ago...

A Walk to Rivendell

How's this for a New Year's Resolution that has actually lasted?

Don't believe me? Will you believe me when I say it is Lord of the Rings related?

Yes, I am such a geek that turning exercise/P.E. into a Lord of the Rings adventure suddenly makes it much more exciting.:)

A group of my online friends from the Fairytale Fourm and I are Walking to Rivendell. Please see our blog, HERE. (And I'm rather proud of the background I made for it...)

We keep track of the miles we exercise (see the explanation post on the blog, it explains it all) and plot our journey from the Shire to Rivendell, following the path of Frodo and the other Hobbits. We chart out our miles on a map of Middle-Earth. The journey is 500 miles.

You heard that right! 500 miles! I'm getting close to 100 miles now :)

The idea is to have a goal of at least ten miles a week, and our Fellowship writes a story on the blog in keeping with that. However, no one has been posting and I got tired of being the only one to do so... Even if no one posts on the blog, I am still going to travel all the way to Rivendell.

I printed out the map and charts (see the blog's explanation page, again). Every now and then I pull out The Fellowship of the Ring, find the place where I am, and read that bit. The "three days passed in dreary wetness" bits are not fun, but the bits about Tom Bombadil or Bree are hilarious. :)