BACK!

Yes, I know, I haven't been posting regularly. I blame rehearsal.
Anyway, I had a four day weekend, but that didn't exempt me from rehearsal OR finishing important stuff, which is why I didn't post earlier. That, and the fact that I slept until ten instead of six thirty, and I finished my Gold Award DVD, and my thank-you notes, and had a voice lesson, and started my AP history reading. So, in short, the only chill time I had today was in the ten minutes between an AP article and my voice lesson. Yeah, not a lot of time.
Rehearsal is going well, except for the part where "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" still kind of stinks and the fact that some of the major actors *ahem*Sky*ahem*Arvide*ahem* still haven't finished memorizing their lines. But other than that, it's going quite well. I think we're getting musicians soon, which is extremely exciting. This will help us rehearse not standing on the (currently invisible) musicians while waiting backstage and for me to practice running around backstage like a maniac and randomly pulling off clothes (okay, not entirely at random. And yes, I do have a shirt on under the one I'm taking off. But I'm still not allowed to kill anyone while crossing backstage. Who ELSE will get Sarah drunk?)
Okay, I have to go eat now.
Goodbye.

yes, I still exist

Yes, I know that I haven't posted in forever. I have had rehearsal. And also homework. And also midterms. And stuff. Today's the last day of the quarter, so I have been kind of stressing about stuff. Like making sure that I do not get more C's than I need to. Aka fewer than one if I can. Which may or may not be possible, considering late work and my physics teacher's grading scale.
Speaking of grading scales, the superintendent of my school district is trying to standardize all grading, all teaching, and basically all of everything. In a way, this is good: this means that if I have and 84 in physics, that can be a B, not a C. However, apparently he wants to have all the classes be scripted, which is kind of insane. He also wants to make tests 75% of the grade of every class, which is kind of stupid. How can you test the creativity of someone's writing? How does one test one's singing capability? I mean, I can see why he's doing this whole standardization thing - so moms with kids at school A do not get annoyed that their kids at school B are getting 90% as a B while their siblings at school A are getting 90% as an A. But still.
And speaking of ANOTHER rant that I need to get out of my system: WHY ARE THEY CHANGING THE ZODIAC SIGNS? I am an ARIES, not a PISCES. It's REALLY ANNOYING! This is right up there in Cosmic Necessities with Pluto still being a planet. You can't just go and CHANGE something that's been going on for several thousands of years. It's INSANE!!!!
Okay, I'm done being mad at stuff now. I'm going to rehearsal. Goodbye.
HAPPY FRIDAY!

MORE MUSIC!

Well, once again, I have bought MORE MUSIC on iTunes (and now I am WAY below ten bucks on the gift card). And I'm EXCEEDINGLY happy because it is the two songs from '1776' that make me very happy: "But Mr. Adams" and "the Egg." Especially the part I just passed... Adams: I am only forty-one, I still have my verility/ I can romp through Cupid's grove with great agility/ but life is more than sexual combustiblity! I think a LOT of teenage girls today could do with that reminder... It's a masterpeice I say/ they will cheer every word every letter/ I wish I felt that way/ I think I can put it better/ now then attend/ as friend to friend/ our declaration committee/ for us I see/ immortality/ in Philadelphia city... Like that part too. Why? I have no idea. Partly because I can kind of relate to Jefferson not thinking the Declaration is worth crap - he WROTE it. He's ENTITLED to think that. And then Franklin says that he thinks they are going to wind up immortal. I guess they kind of did end up immortal, but this was written two hundred years after the thought might have passed through Benjamin Franklin's brain, so we'll never know.

Stand in the Rain

Okay, I know that it's not actually raining right now. I just felt like putting that in the title because I can. Also, my friend introduced me to an awesome song by Superchick called "Stand in the Rain," and I just got it on iTunes. And I'm now very happy.
Except for the part where I now have less than ten dollars of the $25 gift card I got for Christmas.
Anyway, in other news, I should probably be leaving now for reasons concerning homework and journalism.
Also, life. And grades. And stuff. And wanting to get into college.
Speaking of college, that is what my journalism article is about - how college is different from high school. And I only JUST got some replies for an emergency Supplemental Interview Facebook Message. (Oh, the wonders of my generation...) So now that I actually have two named references, I can actually finish the article. Which I should be doing right now. Goodbye for now. I'll post again soon. Hopefully.
If rehearsal doesn't eat my life, which it's in EXTREME danger of doing. It's also prompting me to wonder about my brother's wardrobe (I have to potentially borrow some of his clothing for one of my costumes).
So... yeah. Goodbye.

Random Literary Update

Hello! I can't really remember the last time I did a proper literary update, and I feel like doing one now, soo... yeah. I also can't remember where I left off last time, so I may or may not have backtracked a little ways. SO here it is. (yes, it IS Nikita).


Chapter 3

Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “Faug sent you because you needed my skills, but you know enough now to fare well enough on your own.”
“But there’s so much I don’t know,” I protested.
“This is true,” Sparraben replied. “But I can’t teach you much more of the basics without making you an official apprentice, and I don’t think either of us has time for that.”
“As I recall, I had to agree to train with you in order for you to help me with Grampa’s mission,” I reminded him.
“But so much depends on you and what you’re doing,” he said, and for once, I thought I heard something that sounded like some degree of approval in his voice. “I’ve done enough here. I’m getting too old for adventures anyway.”
“I think you’ve just gotten too comfortable here,” I retorted.
“This may be,” he answered, “But at some point you’re going to have to stand on your own two feet. Do I think you’re ready? No, I don’t. But you’ve proven me wrong so often so far that I’m probably trying to protect you or something.” He said this almost sarcastically, but I wondered whether maybe he was trying to protect me or something… but I couldn’t think why he would have any reason to do that.
“But aside from my improvement, I’m still not as good as you,” I said, still trying to persuade him. I didn’t think I was ready to go alone, either, but I knew I wouldn’t if I didn’t get some help first. “You know more about everything than I do. You’re a better fighter than I am. What if there are three big tall guys who have cornered me and I can’t reach my bow and they have reinforcements coming?”
“Nikita, we’ve been over this.”
“But what if I don’t kick any of them hard enough? What if there are twenty by the time I get out? What if they have a mage, hmm? What do I do then?”
“You know what to do,” Sparraben sighed.
“Reveal that I’m an elemental and get myself killed?” I knew I could employ the power of the trees against an adversary, but I had only ever managed it once and it was by accident.
Sparraben was quiet for a while after I’d issued that statement. After a long, somber pause, he said quietly, “I never told you how your father and Grandmother died?”
I didn’t get why he’d changed the subject, but I didn’t mind. It hadn’t been bugging me, but I’d been thinking about it every so often. “No,” I answered. “How do you know how it happened?”
“I saw it,” he said quietly. “Both of them.”
“WHAT?”
Sparraben’s face was grave. “It happened on the same day, but about thirty years apart. It was two days before you showed up on my doorstep.”
I’d shown up on his doorstep two days after Grampa had died. There was no way it was a coincidence.
“Rhyda, your grandmother, needed to go outside the walls of Norasona to get some air and talk to the trees,” he continued. “I guess it’s an elemental thing, the need to be out in nature. Anyway, she went into the forest, to the stream not too far from here. She was talking to the water and making it do tricks – I don’t know why. I watched from a tree – I was practicing out-of-sight archery when she showed up. All of a sudden, an arrow flew out of nowhere and hit her in the chest, right in the heart, and went so deep the end nearly poked out her back. I always liked her. Not romantically, of course, but she was a lot like you’ll probably turn out – strong, spirited, and powerful. I’d given her a few months’ training when she was about your age, so I cared about her, and I was really, really mad when she was killed.”
“What happened after she was shot?”
“The one who did it came looking for his target, him and his buddy, talking about how good a shot the first guy was. They were big and stupid, so they were talking about their plans right in the open where anyone could have heard them, and I listened. They were apparently killing elementals for bounty from some warlord. The elementals had apparently stolen his glory, and now he wanted them all dead, even the single- and double-elementals like you and your father – a long-term grudge or something. Rhyda was probably one of the last full elementals left on this earth, and the warlord wanted his revenge on her kind.”
I was quiet for a moment, pulling it all in. “Did they get the arrow?” I asked.
“No, just the body,” he replied. “They left the arrow. I guess they thought if someone saw the arrow, they would assume it was one of mine. They must have known I lived nearby.”
“So do you have the arrow?”
“Yes, and the one that killed your father,” he said. “They’re the exact same kind, killed by the exact same people. I’m saving them for when I meet the ones who killed them. I cared about Rhyda, and I cared about her family.”
“How did you get my father’s arrow?”
“He died in almost the exact same way, just a lot closer to my cabin. He didn’t die quite as quickly as your grandmother – probably because the shot was just shy of any vital organs. The hunters came to look for him, but they saw he wasn’t dead and decided not to kill him there. I pulled the arrow once they left, and he had life left in him to walk most of the way back to your house, mumbling about his children. He was gone by the time he reached the edge of the forest.”
I nodded mutely. I knew where the story went from there; I could see it clearly in my head.
Dad had staggered all the way across Farmer Bag’s fields, which had greatly irritated Farmer Bag until he saw what condition the Destroyer of his Beans was in. Farmer Bag then half-carried Dad across the bean field and into our beet patch when Mum saw them from the cabin and raced out to help. Farmer Bag and Mum dragged Dad into the cabin, where we all saw – me and Jack included – how bad the wound really was when Mum pulled off his shirt to bind the wound. The most disturbing part was that Dad had been skinny enough that you could see his heart beating through the skin below his ribcage, and the blood came gushing out of the wound every time the skin above it fluttered with the beat of his heart.
Mum had wrapped all the spare cloth she could find around his middle, but the blood came out too fat.
I remember Dad’s last words to Mum, and I suddenly realized why Mum had been so cautious last summer when Grampa had told me to find Sparraben.
He had said, “Leanna… Sparraben… protect… Nikita… Jack… watch out… Rangers… heroes!”
Then, like Grampa, he’d expired.
Six years later, I’d taken the exact same course in the opposite direction, to seek out Sparraben in search of answers instead of departing his company with a mystery. It was almost poetic.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.
“You were too weak,” was the reply.
“Too weak to know how my father died when I saw him go with my own eyes when I was seven.”
“To weak, too tired to absorb the information,” he amended. “Now that you’re capable of handling a lot on your own, and you’re determined to go forth and conquer, you need to be warned: what happened to them could happen to you, too. You need to be on your guard.”
Be on your guard. That was the first rule of being a Ranger Trainee. Well, it was the second rule. The first rule was to Always Be Patient. The second rule was to Always Be on Your Guard. The third rule was to Never Disobey Rule Number One and Two. Seven months of hard training had pounded that into my head, but that still didn’t mean I was ready to go on a quest on my own.

That evening, I went out onto the slight porch of Sparraben’s cabin to talk to the trees. They had only started budding a few days before, which meant they would finally be awake enough to deliver some news. Winter for all trees except the evergreens is like an extended period of almost-hibernation – they were asleep, sure, but I was still able to hear them (sometimes I didn’t want to). As winter wore on, they got quieter, but I was still able to talk to Pine until the Big Snows came and I couldn’t get close enough to hear what he was saying.
“Hello?” I asked the trees, unsure if they would be able to hear me. It was a weird doubt – I’d been keeping the ability going on purpose, in the irrational fear that the elemental part of me would somehow die if I didn’t have regular contact with nature.
However, all I heard now was silence.
I tried again. “Hello? Oak? Ash? Poplar? Are you there? What about you, Elm? Cedar? Willow? Pine? Hello?”
There was no answer from any of the trees. Pine usually was good about answering when I called, even if it was to tell me, in his polite way, to shut up. I found his lack of response disturbing. The trees had specifically told me that their hibernation would end soon after they began budding, and in the fading light, I could definitely tell that buds and leaves and whippy young branches were present on almost every tree in Sparraben’s grove, but not one of them had answered when I had called their name. I could still feel the slight rumble of energy coming from the forest, but now it seemed sort of distant, like the energy in Sparraben’s Grove was detached from the energy of the rest of the Silvercourt Forest.
Then words came jogging out from a distant memory: the Forgotten Glen. The trees there had gone so long without the presence of something else they’d been driven silent.
That day, I had also found out that groups of trees were going silent prematurely; groves of trees were suddenly cut off from the energy of the forest when other creatures passed through them regularly and chattered to the trees.
The energy here wasn’t stirring at all, even though before the snow I was talking easily to Pine, and before that, to the entire grove. I’d heard them talking in their sleep until the Big Snow.
Now the energy here seemed to be cut off.
Nothing was stirring. The buds didn’t giggle; the leaves didn’t rustle; no trees groaned in a waking-up sort of fashion.
I had waited too long.

ranting and arguements

Hello! Before I start ranting today, I just wanted to put something out: please note the timestamp. Yes, I was actually able to come home before 7 today, which means I can actually have a voice lesson today. Hooray!!! Anyway, in other news, I've been working on my novel. However, my characters have started arguing with each other and pissing me off. Is this normal?
They didn't argue a lot BEFORE now, which is making me wonder what's going on. What haven't they told me about themselves?
AAH!!!
I'm aware that all you rational people will think I'm going insane, but talk about characters to the next writer you meet, and if they have a similar reaction to when their characters start arguing, then please tell me (so I won't feel utterly stupid and also so everyone can learn whether it's just me or whether all writers get irritated when their characters start yelling at each other).
Anyway, back on topic.
Noveling.
I'm also way behind on my page count. It's not that important now that NaNoWriMo is over; however, I feel like if I leave my characters for too long, they'll start arguing worse than ever and I won't remember all the arguments and be completely out of sync with them and kind of die and never get the novel finished. Which would suck. A lot.

School Post

Well, here I am. Posting at school. When I could be reading. Or something. What is really annoying, however, is the part where I could not find the book I was reading that I got for Christmas - "the Lost Hero," by the guy who wrote the "Percy Jackson" series. I'm not entirely sure where it is, and I'm not very happy about it, because it's really good.
My friend and I were theorizing about the next book on New Year's Eve(the next one comes out this fall, and yes, we were theorizing, even though neither of us have finished the first one yet), and she thought that, since it's called "Son of Neptune," it COULD be following Tyson (those who have read "Percy Jackson" would know who he is), but I read ahead to just the last few lines, and I am pretty sure it is NOT Tyson, because he is son of POSEIDON, not NEPTUNE, and judging by the last line, they are two different people - there's a Greek-Demigod Camp (Camp Half Blood!!!) and a Roman-Demigod Camp (Name Unknown because it hasn't been revealed to those in the page 150-180 range).
However, the main reason that I am annoyed that I lost "The Lost Hero" is because it is a really good book so far, even though the first hundred pages or so were kind of confusing. Stuff has become LESS confusing, but I'm still kind of confused about what exactly Piper's dream was before she arrived. And I'm also somewhat irritated that she got claimed by Aphrodite. Why is there no Greek Goddess of Persuading People to Do Stuff?

Stuff and stuff

Well, unfortunately, I don't have any new literary stuff to show you. :( This is mostly because I have yet to type anything up. And also because, unfortunately, my creative writing teacher has decided NOT to do the 100-points thing, so I won't have any motivation to finish the Nikita story. Well, no motivation to make progress on it, anyway, especially with rehearsals and everything. The show goes up in four weeks, which means I'm now doing 7:00 pm rehearsals. And next week is 8:00. And the next week is 9:00. So please don't expect me to be posting very often over the next few weeks - all my spare time will be dedicated to homework and rehearsal. And also staying alive and all of that good stuff. And reading. And not dying. And stuff. So that is what is happening right now. So, basically, the Weekly Literary Updates will be going on hiatus until further notice. Unless people WANT to have a regular Weekly Literary Update or something. It would be nice to get some feedback. I like feedback. Feedback is wonderful. And now I am going to be going and doing some writing or some typing or some precalculus-ing. Or something to that effect.

2011!!!!!!!

First post in 2011!!! YAAAAYY!!! Anyhoo, I have nothing really to say except for "HAPPY 2011!!!"

As part of my New Year's Resolution, I DID work for two hours on my novel.

And by "two hours," I really mean "an hour and a half," once you factor in the distracted looking around/ watching tv/ going to the bathroom type stuff.

Now I'm waiting for my parents to start griping about moving my knitting or my notebook or something off the couch because company is coming. But they haven't yet, which is kind of odd, but whatever. I guess they think that the room still looks acceptable from yesterday, which is fine by me. I'm TOTALLY cool with that. I just want food.

And also to have the motivation to force myself off of the computer/ tv and into actually doing something productive. Like noveling. Or knitting. Or something.

Even though I did "two hours" of work on my novel, I didn't really get that far. Okay, I did almost four pages. But that isn't a lot. I should've done more. I WANT to finish it. The reason I can't is the fact that there is the annoying thing called the TV that keeps getting me distracted. And the room that contains the TV is also the warmest one in the house. And it's also where I hang out a lot, and I didn't really feel like moving.

And so now I'm going to work on my novel. Goodbye.

Last Post of 2010 (probably)

Well, as usual, I have nothing really to say. I haven't really thought of any New Year's Resolutions, aside from finishing my NaNoWriMo novel and figuring out how to knit for a living (or at least to get enough money to have a decent amount of spending money for Switzerland/ Italy) and actually to FINISH KNITTING something BIG. Like a sweater. Or a dress. Or something. And stuff.
And to be healthier and stuff.
And to work on voice more so I can sing better and get a better part in the musical next year.

And, although I really don't want to, my parents (namely my dad) will probably murder me if I don't get a move on and change into something decent for dinner tonight (we're going to a Japanese place, like we traditionally do for New Year's Eve).

And I really don't want my dad hovering. He hovers far too much as it is.

So I'm going now, and I'll see you all (or at least post stuff to you) in 2011.
If I don't post again in 2010, that is.
Which isn't likely.
Anyway, goodbye for now.

Gold Award :D

I know that it's been several days since I last posted, but whatever. I've been spending the last few days finishing my Gold Award stuff - I'm still not entirely done, but I anitcipate an hour of work left to do before I can officially deem it "Finished" (here meaning "I've done all the paperwork, and now I have to wait for my letter of reccomendation and some signatures so I can send it all to Council").

So I'm very excited because, if you count a Gold Award Speakers thing that my troop did last year, I've been working on this for a year. And counting.

I'm ready to finish, honestly. I spent FIVE HOURS on a video yesterday.

This was partially because, until approximately thirty minutes ago, I had drastically underestimated the time I had spent emailing people, so I THOUGHT I needed eight more hours when I really only needed one. Or something like that.

For the record, it IS possible to spend seventeen hours emailing people for projects. I've done so. It was actually 17.833.

And I thought I'd only done 10 hours. If I spent five minutes reading/ writing each email (for some, that's a BIG allowance, for others, it's far to little, so it balances out), it works out.

Museums and crazy stuff

Well, as I had nothing better to do (and I wanted to go anyway, as it's 20-30 minutes away from my house), I went to the Museum of Natural History today. I've been there many times, but I still felt like going because it's the SMITHSONIAN, and there had to be at least a FEW new exhibits since I last visited when I was ten, right?
Well, there WERE a few new exhibits - there was this really cool one about bones (complete with weirdly healed rib fractures and bullet holes in heads), one about insects (not AS interesting, probably because there were fewer Random Insect Facts than there were Latin Insect Names, and also there were no bullets-in-ribs in the Insect exhibit), and one about the origin of humans, which was really cool. It also informed me of the coolest Fun Fact of the Day ever: apparently, humans are 85% genetically similar to mice and 75% genetically similar to chickens. Now I have a VERIFIABLE excuse for ever calling anybody a chicken.
There were also the regular exhibits - the one on dinosaurs/ prehistoric shindigs, this one on mammals, and the gemstone one (yes, the Hope Diamond is still there).
There was also this really cool exhibit on underwater stuff, and there was this crocheted coral reef. It was perhaps the coolest thing ever - it even had crocheted jellyfish.