[falls asleep on keyboard]

Well, as of six thirty this morning, I have officially proved that five-hour rehearsals SUCK. Especially if you have AP history terms to finish, and if you have small enough parts to have big gaps between your parts but big enough parts to not be able to get anything done (except scene and costume changes) in between. I mean, I'm AWARE that there's not even the occasional homework thing for the students in the pit (there, I admitted that it's hard for the pit as well. Happy, Jillster?), but there's still the fact that it kind of sucks for the performers too. We have to sing and dance at the same time, remember lines and blocking, and make sure that we get enough sleep AND finish homework in the little amount of time that we have in between!

Jillster, for the record, I respect your work and stuff, but I still don't know how you survive without free blocks. Remember to sign up for one next year if you plan on being in the pit again (or want to be in any show again. It is a General Rule of Thumb for any Student That Plans to be Involved in Any Show Week Ever). But it's a General Tip for any middle schooler who wants to sign up for the musical in high school: make sure you have study hall or a free block in which to do your homework for all the annoying teachers that assign lots of homework (and for all the homework for the other teachers, too). That is, if you want to actually SLEEP and not have your growth severely stunted and your temper fuse cut short.

But still, it's going to save you a LOT of time when you get home from rehearsal and you're all tired and stuff and you don't want to finish your homework.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

;)

Well, here I am. In the library. Blogging. Two hours before the commencement of the nine-o-clock rehearsal occurs. Oh, joy. This is going to be difficult. Show week always is. This week is when we start rehearsing with a full band, doing full runs of the show, and hoping and praying to whatever deities that we worship that we don't fail too much by opening night. This is also the time of full lights, full costume, and full levels of craziness. Also, eating dinner at school rather than at home. And trying to do homework between scene changes, scenes, costume changes, and anything else that might be going on.
Which is a lot.
Although I really like show week, this is usually the hardest week of the school year. With the all-grades show, there isn't as much pressure not to mess up. Not that there isn't any pressure not to mess up in the all-grades show. It's just there's MORE pressure not to mess up in the musical because there are professional musicians in the pit and we don't want to waste more of their time than is necessary. Also, they're PROFESSIONAL.
Also, there is the fact that our musical is normally really good. Except, for the record, this time isn't going to be really good. It's going to be fairly bad, in fact. Why?
Certain characters who shall remain nameless STILL don't know all of their lines. These people are significant enough to have a lot of lines, so it's somewhat excusable; however, they have all of THREE DAYS to make it right. Okay, three and a half. But still. The point is, normally by this point people would have all their lines memorized and would be held over pain of death and being cut from the show if they did not.
Also, we would have already had the platform built on the stage, when we only got it on Saturday. This is not going to go well. However, as my mom rightly said, normally a terrible tech week means a great opening night. HOPEFULLY that will prove true. There are also still some props to be dealt with, and some other annoying things that seem to happen during show week.
However, I think a lot of the time, all this stuff happens during show week in order to have a good show. But this still doesn't disprove the fact that this will be the HARDEST show week in the history of Show Weeks.
That being said, I'm going to go do some homework. Goodbye.

Rehearsal! (also, college)

Well, I'm not at rehearsal NOW. But I'll be going forth to attend rehearsal in approximately half an hour. So it counts. Sort of.
Anyhow, on Wednesday, we started the English electives for third quarter, and everyone in my class (SAT prep) got a Naviance account. Naviance is this online college-helper-finder thingamabopper that also does your personality profile (Jungian style) and career reccomendations and stuff. It is actually kind of helpful. Well, except for the part where the college consulor for my school put my GPA in as a 3.3 (as of now, it is technically around a 3.5, counting this semester), so basically the only school that I am smart enough to get in to (that I want to go to, anyway) is Longwood University. Not that I'm complaining. I kind of really want to go to Longwood. But still. So far, that's the ONLY school that I can reasonably get in to with a 3.3 GPA. Which is kind of discouraging, due to the fact that I want to go to college.
Hopefully it will have gone up to a 3.5 by the time I actually start applying... because it would really suck if it didn't, because I wouldn't be able to get in ANYWHERE.

school post

Well, here I am again. Blogging. And stuff. I have a free block from creative writing, and I should be using it to work on the preliminary research for a history essay, but I'm instead using it for slacking. I'm using all my slack-off time now instead of later so I can focus better on the essay. I know that it makes absolutely NO sense anywhere except in my head.
I'm also here to look up the proper spelling of "reconcilable." Which I actually spelled correctly, for a change.
The essay has to be hand-written, black ink, double spaced, one-sided, and written in 60 minutes or fewer, so that's why I need the spell-check. I should also be looking for quotes as well.
And it's almost 2:00, so I'm going to go and do that now, so I can NOT FAIL AP history. Because if I did, that would really suck. It would also be the only class I have ever failed ever.
And there is the slight danger that that might actually happen. And I REALLY don't want that to happen. SO I'm going now. Goodbye.
p.s. Does it count as failing the AP class if you pass the class but not the AP exam? Or if you fail the exam, do you just not get to use the AP credit to get out of history the second time?

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.