I really wish some people didn’t take Halloween so seriously. No, not the middle aged women that start to think that they’re witches, or the kids that get way into the ghost thing. It’s the spiders! Just because it’s October, doesn’t give them the right to crawl all over the place. You see, today I was burning tons of CD’s for my mom’s work, and as I was reaching to take one out of the tray, I saw a fairly large spider crawl out of the computer. There are spiders living in my computer? I would really rather be ignorant of that.

While it’s Halloween, I would like to take the opportunity to talk about evil people that try to kill you. Well, maybe they don’t actually want to hurt you, but I always think that they do. Whenever I’m in the car alone, waiting for a parent to get back, or walking down a street that’s, shall we say, less-than-crowded (like the downtown mall on a slow day), I assume that everyone else is trying to kill me (yes, even the 8 year old kids playing fiddle/flute/according). I think it goes back to all of the murder mystery shows I used to watch - it really gets a person paranoid.

Science fair is and evil institution. Don’t get me wrong - I love science, just not science fair. Unlike most people, I was suckered into doing something with conductivity with different salts. Sounds harmless enough, except it involves sending about six different frequencies through the solution, taking down the voltage and ampage, making the solution more concentrated, repeat. Do this about 35 times, enter all of the data into the computer, and do the entire thing three more times! It only took me about three hours to do a fourth of it, but it was so boring. I didn’t even use any science to do it - start with science fair, take away the science, and your left with fair (and I think fairs are some of the most boring things ever invented).

Until after the trick or treaters have robbed us blind,

#m

I am appalled by the lack of Japanese language classes in Virginia (or anywhere, really). I desperately want to learn Japanese, but anything that I do to try to learn such as getting a textbook doesn’t help, as that’s not the way that I learn. And as luck would have it, they don’t offer it at CHS (there isn’t even a Japanese club! I mean, really).

Anyway, Halloween is tomorrow, which means we’ve have to buy candy for the the trick or treaters (in other words, for us to eat until tomorrow night). I had a really good costume of Samara from The Ring last week, but I never got a picture of it before I had to return it, unfortunately. I have fond memories of last year’s Halloween - the first few days of November was the first time I had ever been to Manhattan. This is a good time of year, October is the last month I ever have to mow the lawn, it starts to get cool, and we always get a bunch of short breaks which I love. Of course, this is also ladybug season.

I don’t know which parts of the country get affected by this, but here in Charlottesville, ladybugs terrorize the houses and infest the window sills, eventually dying there and leaving unpleasant piles of dozens of dead bugs on the floor. This year however, I decided to document this occurrence for the whole world to see.

Believe me, there were MANY more than just these. 

Can you count how many ladybugs there are? 

The picture on top is my collage of the ladybugs that were actually in focus, and the bottom displays the sheer terror they induce, or at least would be if you added the additional dozen that are flying around the room.

I am so sorry that I haven’t updated forever. These last two weeks have the been the last before our play, and I’ve had rehearsal almost every day. Not only that, but my teachers seem to have decided that the best time to give me the most homework I’ve had so far this year on the week that I get less than 4 hours at home a day. Anyway, next Wednesday is theoretically the only day that I will need to stay after school again.

Speaking of staying after school, Wednesday we had to stay until 8:30, so I didn’t get home until 9. I spent the following 4 and a half hours working on my Tomb Book (a project on Egypt for History). That was basically my life for the past week. Even with not having a waking moment to myself, I didn’t get all of my homework done - I had something missing in all of my classes yesterday except for Chemistry.

In other news, the election is in only four days. Of course, I doubt that we will actually know who won for a while after that. While I’m talking politically, today I finally got my Al Weed shirt! For those of you that don’t know, Al Week is running against incumbent Virgil Goode for Congress in Virginia. A political group that I am a part of at school made some shirts that say “Weed for the people” on the front and “Al Weed for Congress” on the back. But, I got mine today, so I can now be one of the dozens of people that roam the halls with identical shirts.

It think that it is absolutely hilarious when there are commercials for HDTV’s on. They show pictures of people surfing on light blue waves and tennis matches, and they look so pristinely sharp and colorful, it makes you want to buy them. But let’s just rewind a bit here: isn’t it my tv - my old cathode ray piece of crap that I’m supposed to hate - making those white crests and sand that look so pleasing? So why exactly do you need a tv that costs 30 times more and burns out in three years, when the tv you have right now would appear to be fine?

I have wondered this for a long time. If you pull out one of your hairs, does it grow back? I know that you have about five million and don’t lose that many, but they must add up. You would think that they must though, because people pluck their eyebrows, and it’s not like a one time thing. Ah well, just another mystery of life, I guess.

Later,

#m

iTunes is indisputably the best legal download service at the moment - I use it. But I now find myself spending much more on music than I ever did before. Of course, I’m listening to more music than before too, so it kind of works out. Why can’t Apple be so generously system with all of its software? Though I must say, the part I love the most about it is simply the previews of tracks you can listen to. Personally, I think that having the actual CD is worth the few extra dollars.

Today’s link is one I found a few months ago is very cool, maybe not as a way to find other artists that you like (we have iTunes for that), but - you know, I guess it really doesn’t have much of a point, but I still think it’s pretty awesome. musicplasma, besides sharing part of my screenname allows you to search for a musical group, and see other artists with similar styles. It was really surprising to me to find links between my newfound electronica/dance artists and ones that I listened to before I switched styles. Anyway, check it out.

I really hate that stores close early on Sunday. Yes, “when you were a kid, they weren’t open at all on Sundays”, fine. But how about they do this. Instead of letting people off early that day, why not give them that day off. Have, say, the people that get Saturday off work on Sunday? I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve been in town on a Sunday, only to find out that wherever I was planning on going closed literally three minutes ago. True, I’m not an expert at this and don’t know half of what’s actually going on, but it sure looks great on paper, doesn’t it?

Tonight there will be a debate at our school between the two main candidates for the 5th district. I have a fair amount of homework tonight, but I also don’t have rehearsal, so hopefully I can get it all done and go.

#m

First off, I’m already more than 60% done with PE, so I’m very ecstatic about that. But on Monday while we were running laps, I was really the only person on one side of the track. That in itself isn’t so surprising, but when I looked behind me, I saw a truck driving directly behind me at an alarming distance. It turns out the truck was just driving to the middle of the football field to repaint the lines, but I became quite paranoid about cars. I’ll probably have nightmares about drive by shootings tonight.

On Thursday, I had my first pep rally. Wow, they drag us out of class (which is very difficult procedure, considering there are 1200 students), make us watch 6 people eat whipped cream in a contest, and then watch the competition chearleeding team for about 2 minutes. For the amount of time I had to spend on cramped bleachers, I would have rather had another 30 minutes of history. I did to hear a very funny thing from one of the cheerleaders after their cheer though. She was talking about how great that was, and that when she was up there - “Oh my God, my heart started beating!”.

Yesterday we had a Homecoming assembly, so we got out of another 30 minutes of class, though this time it was PE so I didn’t mind at all. It was boring however, as we just listened to someone announce who was on the Homecoming Court, and what their achievements were. It was especially annoying as the other people in my PE class spent the entire time commenting on how hot the people on the court were. I really hate PE.

Sorry, I’ve been on bit of a blogging break this week, which might continue slightly into next week, but I’m still here, and I’m not stopping.

#m