This Good Night

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:51:19 GMT

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:47:29 GMT

It's...7:38 AM. I move back into my dorm later today, I haven't slept yet, but the relocation from GJ is now complete. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Really. Particularly since I'd only gotten there a year ago. Um...sorry to my cult!(?) I ~~hope~~ promise there will be no more moving. It's LJ or bust.

I really should be packing, but that's not important as I have Sheldon to do all my heavy lifting for me. And by heavy lifting I mean carting my shit on the train and through Penn Station. Right now he's watching Devil Wears Prada, unaware of the gruelling labor that awaits him in only a few hours. Poor ~~serf~~ boy.

Stuff Coming Up: Review of The Golden Compass, which won't be pretty at all. For those who read the book and saw the movie, you know what's coming! Also one of Hedwig and The Angry Inch! Hopefully, I will have music to offer for download at that time as well. Coheed and Cambria in Madison Square Garden(!!!). The actual concert is quite a few weeks away but preparations begin immediately, because after paying tuition (~~I don't want to think about that~~) ticket price is going to be scraping the barrel bottom. Recount of how moving went, which will no doubt be very amusing and spekled with injury based humor, because Sheldon and I are both clumsy/lazy/accident prone people. Not necessarily all in that order.

So yes. BusyBusyBusy.

Predescessor To Relocation

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:10:54 GMT

It's been a while since I did a graphics post. Not surprising since I haven't really had much time for manips and icons with my workload. So I thought I'd throw together some SKU wallpapers and icons as well as a couple of my favorite model: Kemp Muhl. That girl is so unbelievable gorgeous, and it's not just that she's pretty but she has a really original and exotic look to her. She's absolutely fierce.

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This Comes With A New Nano

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:09:39 GMT

This entry is going to be mostly about music so you know what that means; DOWNLOADS! Yay! Remember to just right click, "save as" the links to get the music.

I'm gonna start off with Coheed & Cambria since, after being unable to get to Virgin for months, I finally go their new album "Good Apollo I'm Burning IV, Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow". This album just happens to emphasize exactly why I think they're so fantastic. Aside from the fact that they all look like the kind of guys who lived two blocks down from me when I was in high school (the ones I was afraid of as a freshman and then spend most of my time with after sophmore year), they also have some of the most original lyrics ever. As a bonus their sound is also fantastic; I love the blend of bop and rock that makes for a sort of softcore mosh pit atmosphere; Gravemakers & Gunsligers being a prefect example of this. And that's without even mentioning that they have their own graphic novel corresponding with their albums. I mean, The Amory Wars!? Artistic genius and I will argue with anyone who debates this fact. (ALLEN!) Hopefully they'll be at Warp Tour again this year and I'll actually get to see them.

Something that I did see however was Wicked The Musical and good God, I have never cried that much in public in my life. I'd already read the book so I assumed I was prepared, particularly prepared to mentally tear in down for the crime of being such a distant mutation of the novel. Instead I spent half the time laughing as Kristen's portrayal of the bubbly Glinda and using Trent's hoody as a hanky. Even though they threw Elphaba's relationship with Fiyero in way to early and blew it into a way bigger deal than it was in the book I had to cry my eyes out during I'm Not That Girl. Then there was Defying Gravity, which wasn't even a sad song, but when she was lifted up that was it, I lost it. This is because I'm a the human equivilent of a jelly dougnut--ordinary enough on the outside and soft and gooey inside.

And, of course, as I do every music entry, I have to close with two Guilty Confessions. That is, two songs that I am ashamed to admit that I like. The first is Last Night by Skillet. I absolutely love the song and spent a good week or so obsessed with it. I even went so far as to listen to more of the band's music. (The rest was typical emo crap. Well, whatever. Everyone has to have atleast one hit.) I can't even be sure what it is about the song I like. The female vocals maybe during the verses maybe? Or maybe it's my inner emo latching on? Scary thought.

The second is Get Low by Flo Rida. I resisted this song for a good long time but then Jadis trapped me in the car with her and played is four times. The next thing I knew I was downloading the track. It's catchy! That's the only defense I can give. That and the fact that I would love to see it as a selection for DDR....just because.

IB Free?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:07:49 GMT

So recently I was informed by one of my pet Sophmores that my old high school is compeltely changing the class levels. From now on there will be only three options: General Classes, CP Classes, or IB classes. No more Honors, no more AP. This more or less forces the more intelligent students to take IB. I have to say that this is the dumbest idea they have come up with to date!

For those who don't completely understand what IB is, I'll explain it:
IB was a program devised by some full-of-himself educational representative in an attempt to make himself arear brilliant by exploiting intelligent yet gulliable high school students. The process begins in sophmore year, during which you are fed a bunch of bullshit about the benefits of this program and the helpful college-like experiences that it will provide you with. (The hardship is mentioned but in a fleeting, scaled down manner which is always ALWAYS closesly followed by "but you can do it".) Which is a lie! Because nine times out of ten you can't do it. And eight times out of those nine you just say "fuck it" and you don't do it. But that comes later.

So then, in addition to lying to you themselves, the teachers and coordinators get current IB students to lie to you as well! They manage this by playing off the 'misery loves company' nature of humans as well as conveying that doing anything else besides telling prospective students that IB is "worth it" will result in punishment. (And fuck if they're going to get kicked out of IB after all that work just for your sorry, naive ass.) By the time this brainwashing is done, even when a few people do try to warn you, you laugh it off as overexaggeration and plow arrogantly ahead to your own personal lobotomy!

So you're signed up for IB. Great! You have a killer summer. Maybe you go to Paris, end up eating an expensive lunch at a cafe near the Eiffle Tower after going on a three hour shopping spree around the city. Or maybe you're in Trenton, working at a fishguts warehouse. I don't know. Eitherway you'r back in school come September. Junior year! And you're in IB! It starts off alright; you get a confusing ass schedule (does this say that I have American Literature and Chemistry HL at the same time!? Why, yes it does.) but that's okay because it's sorta like college! And that's your whole motivation for taking IB right? College! (if it's not, I don't know why the fuck you'd take IB unless you're just masochistic). So you prattle along, feeling superior because you are IB, the toughest course in the school, which makes everyone else INFERIOR to your sheer brain power. Even your friends in Honors! Honors!? What? Ha ha! Paltry!

THEN it happens. The first thing to hit you is the journals. THE FUCKING JOURNALS! They want one for each CAS activity. One for TOK. One for Theater Arts. One that you shove up your ass and twist. (Not really, but I won't be surprised if they later incorporate that into the curriculum). You spent more time writting in a diary then a thirteen year old catholic school girl! And the worst part. IT'S ALL BULLSHIT! You can't write "this is crap and I hate this" in your journal. So instead you have to strain to make up lies that don't sound too generic and repetitive. Then there's the work and it varies from class to class. I don't know about other people but I'll share my own with you;

History: OUTLINES! That was life in history. And not paltry little five-six page outlines. I'm talking TWENTY-THIRTY pages to be outlines. In one night, maybe two. But even if you're given two nights, you know you're not going to do it until last minute on the second night anyway. Be real.

English: THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS IN IB ENGLISH. Thank you.

Math SL: HA! HAHAHAHHAHAHA! OMG this was awful! I have one word for you: portfolios. Huge math projects that you have to do, showing ALL YOUR WORK and then submit to be graded by the IB department itself. You get about four each year. Between both of my IB years I did a total of three.

Theater Arts HL: For me, this was okay. That is because I've have Theater since freshman year and therefore my teacher so no reason to go back over the background crap that they require and just hustled me along into doing to projects that IB required. Which I enjoyed (except for the fucking JOURNALS). For those who have not previously had Theater Arts IT IS HELL! You will have to cover two years worth of Theater History spanning from Ancient Greek to present day in HALF A YEAR. Sucks for you.

Chemistry SL: Two years of chemistry; eight months. If you miss A DAY you will be lost permanently. There is no catching up, not even if you get the notes from a friend. Fucking film the class! And if the picture is grainy, fuck it. You'll still be lost.

Theory of Knowledge: I intentionally saved this for last. TOK is only a Junior year class. Why? Because they know that by the time Senior year rolls around you will be so jaded by IB that you might not even turn up to the class, let alone do the work. TOK is IB's flimsy and failing attempt at a philosophy class. It is pitiful and slightly tragic. It was okay for me, because I like writting, being cryptic, and the teacher adored me. Everyone else HATED it! Really it was a BS class which our later IB coordinater admitted had no affect whatsoever on failing or passing IB.

CAS: This is not a class but it is a necessary part of the IB curriculum, none the less. It's community service and activities mostly. UTTER BULLSHIT! Yet another thing, you will have to write journals for. You need a 25 hours in activities that fall into categories of Creativity, Action, and Service. Let me stress the fact that you need 25 hours in EACH of these three. And who decided what activities fall into what? Your CAS Coordinator! So if you do all 75 hours and your coordinator decides that an activity you did five hours in happens to fall into Action and not service? You're boned! (note: this is 75 hours each IB year. Which meant 150 hours after both years. Hurrah.)

Strung through all these classes are dozens of PAPERS, JOURNALS, PORTFOLIOS, and TESTS! And at the end of everything? IB EXAMS!

By my senior IB year I didn't give two shits anymore. I just stopped turning in crap.

So, for the sake of my poor pets still trapped in the educational hell that is high school, I'm urging them to start a petition to undo this atrocitiy. HA! LHS thought they got rid of me and I'm still causing trouble for the Board of Ed. It's nice being back in town.

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:05:26 GMT

Why is that no one informed me that college was going to take up all my free time, suck out my soul, then serve it back to me with barely passable grades? (except for in my English Lit classes) The Core? The Core sucks! It seemed interesting when I was observing Columbia University and now that I'm in The Core, I hate it. I swear on my Revolutionary Girl Utena boxset that if Frontiers of Science drops me below a 3.0 I will join the campus hunger strikers.

And all of you will join me.

Luckily for me, fall semester is over and I'm back at home with my only worries being paying for next semester and revising my list of classes. As well as decided on a major and whether or not I'm going to continue on with Japanese (which I really really love) or take the smarter route and go with Spanish (which I already half know).

Damn Core.

I ALSO(!) know that I have been neglecting you, my poor poor cult (totally Cricket's teminology), and to make it up to you I will supply humerous (and slightly embaressing) recounts of my escapades during my absense from the internet world.

But that will be later. Right now I have Chinese food and time to finish watching Strawberry Panic