scarves and salaries

Well, I've finally finished the scarf I have been working on for about a week. If you condensed all the time it took (as I did) it only took about six hours to make. (I was writing all the times down because I want to sell it on Etsy. That would involve getting an Etsy account. But more on that another day.) The scarf is about 65 inches long and is butter yellow (I love that term.).

It's probably not the coolest scarf I've ever done (in fact, it's probably the most bland, if truth be told. I've never done a scarf that was just one color all the way through, and now I have.), but it'll probably be warm. I wouldn't know. I haven't tried it yet. If I sold it on Etsy, I don't think anyone would buy it if I listed the price by what minimum wage is in relation to how long I worked on it. (If I did that, it would cost almost 50 bucks. I don't think anyone would pay $50 for a plain, yellow, garter stitch scarf, however warm and long it is. Garter stitch is the easiest stitch there is.)

Anyhow, at least it's done, and I will be able to post it online... maybe... once I get the whole account thing running... yeah. But whatever.

But general poll: how much would you pay for a plain yellow scarf that was 65 inches long (five feet five inches, just for reference)?

The end for now.

Will write more later.

Maybe.

If I have something to say.

News And Stuff

Okay, in addition to all the (super fun) stuff I did on Sunday, last night I sent in a summary of what we did for the Unity Walk. There are also some pictures on the IYAG blog. They all can be found here. It was a lot of fun, and WE MET A NUN! (It was very exciting.)
I know my reporting skills aren't all that good yet, but that's because I did my first interview for journalism an hour ago. It was really cool meeting the new teacher, because she went to my school and had a lot of teachers that I've had. For example, my photo teacher in eighth grade, my English teacher last year, my Algebra 1 teacher, my first Spanish teacher, AND the teachers that I currently have for AP US and Physics. That was really cool. I still have to do the actual article, but it isn't due until Monday. (which means I'm going to be doing it tomorrow, along with my really hard Physics assignment and some stuff for Film.)
In other news, I have finally figured out what sort of thing I'm going to do for NaNoWriMo. And you will have to email me to get it. I'm not telling you my email because that's sketcy and most of you know me anyway, and are my friend on facebook.
So... yeah. And now, my friends, I must go and write my AP essay. Which I loathe with a burning, firey passion. And which sucks, even though I'm only 1.25 paragraphs into it.
Goodbye for now.

Hey Luke's Sister

Alrighie, so here's the deal: a while back, whilst mi amiga and I were having a movie marathon and watching the original Star Wars Trilogy back-to-back, we consistently put links on each other's Facebook walls about Star Wars during the few hours we were apart this weekend. This is one I found when I put "Star Wars Hey Soul Sister" into YouTube. It's a parody of 'Hey Soul Sister' by Train (and sung by a girl in the voice-over) that's supposed to be sung by Han Solo to Leia (at least in his head.) Anyhoo, you can watch the video here. I suggest you do that. It's a very funny video and the singer's really good. But here's the lyrics anyway.
Hey hey hey
You're dead on aim
Shooting troopers like a Nintendo game
Look I ain't in this for you
I'm trying not to think of you at all

A guy like me
Deserves a girl with spirit
But I'm in this for the money
I knew that when I met you
No reward is worth what I've been through
Your worshipfulness

Hey Luke's sister
You kissed the wrong mister
I will tell you though
He's your bro
Incest's not okay you know
Hey Luke's sister
I'm either gonna kill ya
Or I'm starting to like you
Tonight
Leia Leia Leia

Just in time
You're so glad I
Showed up unexpectedly
Sometimes I amaze myself
Don't put me on a shelf
You can't deny
You're so obsessed
You can't keep your hands off
My rugged untrimmed chest

I believe that you
Just can't bear to let a gorgeous
Guy like me out of your sight
Your worshipfulness

Hey Luke's sister
You kissed the wrong mister
I will tell you though
He's your bro
Incest's not okay you know
Hey Luke's sister
I'm either gonna kill ya
Or I'm starting to like you tonight

Excited by just a hug
No need to act so smug with me
No gangster
I'm no thug
I'm just the guy
You're dreaming of you see
There's a lot of scoundrel in me
In fact you like it just maybe
I can be so nice occasionally

Hey Luke's sister
You kissed the wrong mister
I will tell you though
He's your bro
Incest's not okay you know
Hey Luke's sister
I'm either gonna kill ya
Or I'm starting to like you

Hey Luke's sister
I'm either gonna kill ya
Or I'm starting to like you tonight
Leia Leia Leia
Tonight
Leia Leia Leia

part of the story!!

Okay, as I'm very bored and I have nothing better to do, here's the first bit of the creative writing story. I'm going to post as often as I turn it in (aka once a week), and as I'll probably be turning it in tomorrow or Wednesday, it makes sense.
I do have more, I'm just not posting it. Yet.
It will come, though.

Prologue

All my life, I’ve heard stories of Shyasha Rinkari. She was a legend in her day; she’s still spoken of in plenty of places. The Lazy Dog, the pub in town, boasts that it was the location of the Crystal Quests’ beginning, where Shyasha Rinkari first met up with Faug and Valin Hyatha of Anana, and thus commenced the journey that would change our world.
Of course, it’s been a few generations since then. Although the land has not fallen into complete disarray, it’s not as good as it once was, according to Grampa. He says that Telsiel, the King, is starting to lose it. It would be rather hard for Grampa to judge whether King Telsiel was losing it or not, because we live on a farm in possibly the most boring part of Illindara in existence. Mum says that it’s Grampa who’s losing it, not Telsiel, but I like hearing his opinions, and I love it when he tells the stories of the Crystal Quest. Mum says most of them are made up, but I choose not to believe that. Why would he tell them if they weren’t true?
Grampa says Shyasha Rinkari has died; that she was killed when he was about twelve and he saw it happen. He also says, however, that she could come back to stay, just once, when the world had desperate need of her. Mum says that that’s the biggest pile of Goblin droppings that she’s heard yet, but I secretly wondered if the legendary Ranger could be brought back, and what kind of person it would take to do it. I often hoped that I could be the one who brought around her return, but I knew that was impossible. Mum would never let me go.
You see, my grandmother was an Elemental – a being that channels the rhythms of the earth, water, wind, fire, and ice, and can use those rhythms to their disposal. She was one of the last ones left, and she knew that it was going be a big risk in choosing mortality and marrying Grampa. But as she was an elemental, she could pass down her powers to her children – her oldest son was my father, who had an affinity for earth and water. He passed those traits to me and my younger brother, Jack.
Dad died when I was little, a short while after Jack was born. I’ve had to do practically all of the labor on the farm ever since. I love working with the land (I got the Earth affinity), but I hate the fact that I’m stuck here, barely literate and wholly uneducated, and this is where I’m supposed to stay, because Mum and Jack need me to help work the land and make the crops grow better.
Although I love the crops, I want to see the rest of the world, to actually learn something and have an adventure. By the time Grampa was my age he had escaped a dragon, fought off orcs, and met my grandmother. Although Mum insists that all of it is tosh, when she gets to be his age, she won’t have any stories for her daughter-in-law to call ‘tosh.’ I don’t want that to happen to me, and yet it was supposed to be my fate.
I think Fate has a way of fooling you, though, so it threw me a surprise on a sad day and changed everything. 


Chapter 1

Usually it was either Jack or Mum who looked after Grampa while I worked in the fields, getting browned and freckled by the sun. Every few months, I could be aided by a young man who needed a job, even though we could barely afford to pay him anything.
On my thirteenth birthday, which is in the middle of summer, I was out working in the fields with Mum when Jack came running out from our small hut, looking absolutely terrified.
“What is it, Jack?” Mum asked at once.
“It’s… Grampa…” he panted, clutching the stitch in his side from running all the way across the field to reach us.
“What about him?” Mum demanded, looking nervous. I was listening intently as well – Grampa had had a cough for quite some time, and he was getting to the age where a simple head cold could easily turn into the Blue Fever, and every day I worried that it would be his last.
“He’s… he’s…” Jack stuttered. “He’s going…” was all my brother could manage. My gut translated that into only one thing: death was coming for Grampa at last. My heart pounding, I started sprinting at once towards the cabin, outrunning my mother and brother easily due to the long stride I’d inherited from my father; my bare feet kicked up dark soil as I dashed across the field.
When I arrived in the hut, I had to pause for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Grampa was slouched over in his usual chair near the fire pit, but he looked worse than normal.
“Grampa?” I said hesitantly. He looked up at the sound of my voice.
“Nikita,” he grumbled in his deep voice, “come here.”
I obeyed at once. “What is it, Grampa?” I asked.
“All the stories I have told you are true,” he said, as if every word was costing him a lot. “It is your turn now.”
“My turn for what?” I breathed.
“Your turn for an adventure,” he told me, coughing several times. “Shyasha Rinkari will need to be woken again. I have a feeling…” his voice trailed off.
“Grampa?” my voice caught in my throat. He couldn’t be dead… not yet…
“Nikita, seek out Sparraben of Lianland,” Grampa said with a few more coughs that sounded like he was going to put out his stomach soon.
“Sparraben of Lianland,” I repeated. The name sounded familiar. “You mean… the one who trained Shyasha Rinkari?”
“He lives in the eastern end of the Silvercourt Forest. Tell him Faug sent you in the name of the Scarred Princess.”
“You knew Shyasha Rinkari?”
“Yes, girl, how did you think I learned about Sparraben?” Grampa snapped with a bite in his voice. “Shyasha Rinkari held him in the highest regard. He even gave Rhyda a bit of Ranger training…” Rhyda was the grandmother that had been an Elemental, and had been married to Grampa.
“Seek out Sparraben,” I prompted, nervous that I would miss something important, though I didn’t know what that might be. “And then what?”
“Tell him you need his help bringing Shyasha Rinkari back. He will help you from there. It is of the upmost importance that you do this. I fear the world will have need of a hero soon.”
“Faug, you can’t be telling Nikita things like this with your last breaths,” Mum snapped. I was so focused on remembering Grampa’s instructions that I hadn’t heard her and Jack enter the room.
“She needs to know, Leanna,” Grampa said. “Nikita, find Sparraben.”
“I will, Grampa,” I promised.
“Leanna, don’t stifle her so much,” Grampa told her, coughing again hard enough to actually pull out his stomach or some other vital organ. “Nor Jack. Jack, work hard, all right, my boy?”
“All right, Grampa,” Jack said.
Soon after Jack had made his promise, Grampa had a very hard coughing fit, and when it was over...
Grampa had expired.
I bowed my head so Jack and Mum wouldn’t see my tears.

The Most Words

Well, I've officially set my record for Number Of Words Written Creatively In One Sitting (well, at least the record since I started counting. Which was the last time I was writing anything creatively. At which point the record was set. But that's beside the point.): 1222 words. HOORAY!! (Well, subtracting the words 'prologue' and 'Chapter 1', it's really only 1219, but still...) Anyway, the point is, it's a lot. And I don't think I've done that many words in quite a while. And I'll show the story to you. Once I get more than 2 or 3 pages in. Which'll be soon. Hopefully. I have to turn it in to my creative writing teacher first, though... (I'm using it for credit this week. You actually have to prove you're making progress on something in her class...) So... yeah. IT WILL BE UP SOON, I SWEAR!!
In other news, why didn't I see more of you at the 9/11 Unity Walk today? (Not that I actually know who reads the blog because nobody COMMENTS...) But anyway, it was a really good turnout, aside from the confusion at the beginning where I ended up with no shoes on and my scarf on my head INSIDE the Gurdwara (spelling?) instead of with my shoes on and with the scarf not on my head OUTSIDE, which was where we were doing our shindig.
Also, at the end, one of my amigas did a speech. And it was amazing. Because she's freaking BRILLIANT at public speaking, as I learned today. (YAY FOR HER!!!).

Anyhoo, I'm leaving now. I have nothing more to say.

WOOHOO!!!

I'm EXTREMELY excited right now, simply because of the fact that IT'S FRIDAY! Seriously, you have no idea how excited I am right now by the prospect of not having to wake up at seven tomorrow morning, and also to get some serious knitting done. And I get to go on the roof! (it's gutter-cleaning season, you see.) Also, I have WRITTEN MATERIAL that I will show you. Later. Which means it's probably not going to show up for a month, or at least until I have around five pages. Which is three pages away from what I have now. And... yeah.
Anyway, I'm also EXTREMELY excited because on SUNDAY is an event which you ALL should attend because I SAID SO! It's the 9/11 Unity Walk, and this group that I'm in is doing a fundraiser for Miriam's Kitchen (I think there's a link in an earlier post), to which you should all bring travel sized shampoo, unopened deoderant, and men's socks, and go along and feel one with other people.
YAY!

school again

We started to do actual stuff in school today, and it turns out that 11th grade probably won't be as stressful as I thought. On the other hand, I didn't have AP US or Physics today, so there's probably a connection...
However, I DID do a five paragraph essay in English (which was my first class, by the way), got hugged in chorus (long story), and, best of all, wrote about a cat attacking something without the usage of the words 'pounce,' 'claws,' 'scratch,' or 'hiss.' There was one other Forbidden Word, but I forget what it was. Some people read theirs, including the teacher. It was hilarious, by the way. I think it was supposed to be funny, and it worked. It was in first person and was a scene where the cat attacked those little sparkly balls (that's what she said), and it was probably one of the funniest pieces I've heard. Mine wasn't as good simply because I'm really bad at doing lighthearted written things. Not sure why.
Anyhow, I think I might actually be sort of glad to be back at school. I'm weird, I know.
But I think I'm actually sort of psyched... maybe?

argh!

Well, today was the first day of junior year, and now I know the rumors are true - it's going to be THE HARDEST year ever. It's not only going to be because of the fact that I'm going to have about a million pounds of homework, or the fact that the junior girls are the Senior Play Joke (almost every year, it's the same thing: 'Hey, that was easy!' 'but not as easy as THE JUNIOR BOYS/ GIRLS!!' (this year it's the girls, and it's not really true. Just saying...)). It's going to be hard because in creative writing, we're doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, during November.) That isn't the bad part, though. The bad part is the fact that, although we're going to have to be pushing our writing comfort zones during NaNoWriMo, my friend double dog dared me to do a romance novel, and I said I would. I DO care about romance in my stories; it can be a very good plot point. HOWEVER, I don't think I'm capable of writing 10000 - 15000 words on the matter, much less do it in a MONTH.
Great. Just great. :P

before the weekend starts...

Okay, the reason I won't be posting tomorrow and maybe Sunday is because I'm going to be out of town for perhaps the most exciting weekend EVER (or at least the weekend I look forward to the most every year). It's with my church (yes, my church, again), and it always happens Labor Day Weekend. The one difference this year is that, once again, I'll be accompanied by Fred. The new thing this year is that I'll also be accompanied by George. Yes, I happen to have named the video camera and my digital camera after the Weasley Twins. BUT THE POINT IS, I'll be documenting the experience, and I'll hopefully get the video (after doing some editing and condensing an hour or two of film into the space of about ten minutes, and accompanying it with music) up here, once I finish it and figure out how to upload videos onto the blog. HOORAY!
Anyway, in other news, driving has become less traumatizing, and I should be going now, depending on when my mother finishes watering the plants. (Strictly speaking we should have left an hour ago, but that's beside the point.) Anyhoo, I'll try to get some sort of literature aside from rants up here when I get back. That's assuming, of course, that I can think of anything to write while running around with a video camera, but you never know.
Okay, going now.
If anyone is reading this, please comment on it. So far, nobody has, and it makes me very sad. :(

IYAG and awesomeness :D

Well, as we're 11 days from the service project, and it's the next service project I'm doing, and I need to do publicity, and because I feel like posting, I'll tell you this: COME TO THE 9/11 UNITY WALK ON SEPTEMBER 12th, 2010! It'll be awesome. According to the website, it's from 1:30 to 4:30. You should also bring toiletries, hygene products, unopened hotel/ travel-size shampoo, and male socks, and drop them off at the Miriam's Kitchen station by the Gurdwara, because my IYAG group will be there, and we'll be collecting it all and donating it to Miriam's Kitchen, and it'll be amazing. And you should all come and walk, regardless of your faith (even if your faith is that you don't have one), because nobody wants another 9/11-type event. Because that would really, really, REALLY suck. And I don't think anyone wants it. Unless you hate the US. And if you do, come anyway.
YAY PEACE!

Ah sweet mystery of... SEPTEMBER?!?!

I can't BELIEVE it's September already. That means I have a mere six days (counting today) of freedom from school. I still have to finish my AP summer work, even if it turns out I didn't get into the AP class. If I didn't do the work and got into the class, I would die at the hands of several people (namely my mom). If I don't do the work and don't get into the class, then all is well. But if I do the work and don't get into the class... that would just be annoying.
So what am I doing with the last six days of freedom, you may ask? I'll tell you: Preparing for school. I'm not kidding. I still have to get some notebooks and stuff (I already have enough pencils), and I still have to get all the new clothes that my mom will force me to buy, but the main thing I'm doing is prep for my gold award and SAT prep. I know the month between now and the test will probably fly by, but still... does having to do SAT prep in August seem like overkill to anybody else?
Honestly, I don't know what to think of junior year, aside from this: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M A JUNIOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!















































*runs and hides behind something large*

more college!

Well, I went on my first two official college tours today. I feel really old. And I'm still a teenager. It'll suck when I'm sixty. Anyway, so far, college has seemed less daunting. Note the key word, "LESS." It's still VERY daunting. I have the SATs still to conquer. Well, first I have to actually start 11th grade. Then I have to start doing the SAT stuff. Not that I haven't already started studying, or anything. I'm going to be SO glad when all of this is over.

But on a much happier note, my seeds are doing really well. And I know that's completely irrelevant to college. But I don't care. Two bean plants have sprouted and two more are making their way above the surface, and about six radishes have sprouted. I'm extremely excited. I can't wait for the day when I can eat them. Maybe there's a scholarship for bean-and-radish growing. Or a scholarship for growing a cantaloupe. Granted, I think you'll have to provide a photo of said cantaloupe. And prove that that five-year-old in the photo is actually you.

Speaking of photos (this follows a train of thought, I swear!) Family Camp is coming up! And that means I'm going to be taking a BUNCH of photos and videos and stuff, and hopefully figuring out how to upload videos onto here. Maybe.

Anyhoo, as it's kind of late, I'm going to go to sleep now. Night!