tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26596685248525395342024-02-20T21:39:27.656-05:00Elf Army WritesWritings, ramblings, readings, and reviewselfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.comBlogger556125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-6999464412512617402015-12-31T20:37:00.002-05:002015-12-31T20:37:30.098-05:00Books I Read in 2015
Whoooooooooo 2015 books!
Disclaimer: All of these ratings are awarded based on how much I would recommend the book--not how good I think the book is. I'll add the authors of books with ** or above, and provide links to and reviews of *** books.
NF = Non-Fiction, which in this case I'm using to mean non-narrative NF. Books that read like fiction, even if they're true, don't get theelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-76630503535749563942014-12-31T19:26:00.001-05:002014-12-31T19:26:11.046-05:00Books I Read in 2014
Welcome to the annual Elf Army Writes book review post of 2014! Yay!
Disclaimer: All of these ratings are awarded based on how much I would recommend the book--not how good I think the book is. For example, Fifty Shades of Grey has 2/3 stars because while it's a ridiculous book, it's also (in my opinion) fantastic erotica. I'll add the authors of books with ** or above, and provideelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-69522398465458486842013-12-31T18:55:00.001-05:002013-12-31T18:55:30.100-05:00Books I Read in 2013
*** = GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW
** = I would hand this book to you
* = I would not tell you to put this book down if you picked it up
= Don't bother
**1984, by George Orwell
**American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
*Anatomy of a Boyfriend
**Anatomy of a Single Girl, by Daria Snadowsky
*Anthropology (NF)
**Bossypants (Narrative NF), by Tina elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-57420854180835898352013-06-26T02:09:00.002-04:002013-06-26T02:09:48.902-04:00Two Books, Not Alike In DignityI know I've basically abandoned this blog for more than a year now, and I don't know if anyone uses Blogspot anymore, but I wanted to write something that matches up more closely with what I've been doing here than on Tumblr.
Spring of 2012, I compiled the Cary High Speech and Debate Handbook, which was essentially 120 pages of inside jokes with some debate jargon and pictures thrown in. I elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-53249263396628365972012-12-31T23:28:00.001-05:002012-12-31T23:28:30.296-05:00Books I Read in 2012
I don't rate books in these posts by quality, really, but just as me recommending things to people, so keep that in mind.
*** = GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW
** = I would hand this book to you
* = I would not tell you to put this book down
= Don't bother
172 Hours on the Moon
**A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
**A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness
&elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-29882536043898710832012-10-27T10:37:00.002-04:002012-10-27T10:37:38.577-04:00In Which I Write A Post"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." - a five year old named Karl
God, I haven't posted in months. Sorry about that. A combination of school, Tumblr, and life got in the way.
Things going on with me:
Full schedule of AP classes
Applied to college
Got accepted/am officially going to UNCG
Working on a production of As You elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-14562194442099323492012-08-25T16:48:00.000-04:002012-08-25T16:48:10.305-04:00Thoughts on Neil Armstrong"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." - Will Durant
Alternate Title: In Which You Realize Just How Massively Nerdy My Childhood Was
I do not remember a time before I knew Neil Armstrong's name. My dad's first memory is watching the moon landing with his siblings, and many of my early ones are him teaching me things about outer space--important events, the order of the elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-78401934622212427792012-08-18T23:39:00.000-04:002012-08-18T23:39:04.517-04:00What I've Been Doing With My Time"Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer
Back in May, I was asked to be on the board for the independent theatre company two of my friends were starting. The first show would be Romeo and Juliet, and they wanted me to stage manage. I said yes. There was a little bit of a rocky start, but we got things rolling and everything elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-83062802145892658562012-08-05T10:26:00.001-04:002012-08-05T10:26:15.159-04:00The Birth Order Book, by Kevin Leman"I don't read self-help books. On any given day my self seems to need so much help that 200 pages of cheerful advice and end-of-chapter exercises miss the core of my dilemma. The real question keeping me up at night is this: What the hell is a self anyway? How did I get one and why is it so damn desperate for help?" - Adam Frank
Naturally, that is how I start a post about the self-help bookelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-51679807050244389392012-07-23T11:10:00.000-04:002012-07-23T11:10:17.273-04:00Crazy Thoughts From the Beach"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." - Mark Twain
Late last night I was standing on the picnic table on the back porch of the beach house my family's renting for the week, looking out over the ocean. And I thought about just how freaking amazing the world is.
The universe is enormous. There are stars 13 billion light years away. We live here. We live on a elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-88096411698943077292012-07-22T01:58:00.001-04:002012-07-22T01:58:16.644-04:00Hazel"I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but I still keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out." - David Sedaris
I just got back from a week of intense philosophy-learning at debate camp in Oklahoma (hate Kant, love Rousseau), and that was very interesting and full of adventures, but I really want to talk to you guys about one of the people I elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-45806534581017074722012-07-07T18:04:00.001-04:002012-07-07T18:04:38.862-04:00The Universe in a Single Atom, by HH The Dalai Lama"The most important point is to ensure that science never becomes divorced from the basic human feeling of empathy with our fellow beings. Just as one's fingers can function only in relation to the palm, so scientists must remain aware of their connection to society at large. Science is vitally important, but it is only one finger of the hand of humanity...What matters above all is the motivationelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-22402775880776074862012-06-22T11:31:00.000-04:002012-06-22T11:31:57.519-04:00This is a Post About Love"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." - Game of Thrones
(Title in reference to this song)
Last week my friend was telling us a story in which a man told a bunch of teenagers he knew for certain that they'd never been in love. Now, I'm inclined to believe that he's probably right, but it still made me think.
When we're young, we can't be trusted to know when we are or are not in elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-56197428957434864062012-06-16T10:17:00.004-04:002012-06-16T10:17:52.147-04:00A Comment
"Personally, I'm largely in favor of knowing things, but I think what sucks about being forced to learn a whole bunch of things you aren't directly interested in and don't see any inherent value in and don't need to know is that it makes learning things sort of terrible. Like, I don't think there are very many people who _really_ only care about either mathy things or languagey things. I think elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-79785463525861176732012-06-13T21:05:00.002-04:002012-06-13T21:05:51.007-04:00I'd Like to KnowI have a friend who once wrote an entire essay (for English) about how he doesn't understand why he, a future engineer, needs to take English or be required to read certain books. I have another friend who's annoyed that important college-entrance things like the ACT require him to do math, even though he wants to go into theatre, which isn't exactly math-intensive.
Personally I'm on the side inelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-18370112666848924152012-06-12T23:49:00.003-04:002012-06-12T23:49:52.504-04:00I Dreamed a Dream“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” - Terry Pratchett
I love how dreams are something we can all relate to and talk about, but they're the most intensely private things we have.
We can talk about the "chased but can't run" dream or the "naked in public" dream and almost everyone has had those elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-48027475213812213582012-06-08T18:52:00.001-04:002012-06-08T18:52:23.896-04:00A Blog Post (About Summer and Things)"A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation." - Mark Twain
Graduation was today, and the valedictorian's speech referenced Lord of the Rings, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Stephen Colbert. Needless to say, it made me very happy. Although I do have a lot of senior friends I probably won't ever see again, so...I'm somewhat less happy about that.elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-60989141112706642642012-05-24T16:00:00.000-04:002012-05-24T16:00:46.712-04:00We Are Everywhere"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." - Jack London
I've read a lot of things in various places in the wonderful wide world of the Internet about how history curricula often overlook LGBT(and all the other letters) history entirely and how that's an enormous problem and so on, so I was pleased when the video we watched in class today actually mentioned the elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-8113865624555172442012-05-12T20:56:00.000-04:002012-05-12T20:56:32.974-04:00To Kill a Mockingbird, My English Teacher, and Terry Pratchett“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.” ― Terry Pratchett
My English teacher has a lot of quirks when it comes to books (which is probably in the job description, but bear with me). For instance, she cannot go into a book store without buying a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and then giving it to either a student or a random elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-61955059280147315902012-05-07T16:09:00.000-04:002012-05-07T16:09:01.044-04:00Music 2012“Still though, I think if you're not self-obsessed, you're probably boring.” ― Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers, you make me feel so validated. Thanks to aliceling (whose blog is amazing and you should go read) for the quoteIt's been a year since my last music post, so I thought I'd give you all a new look at things. The top 10 in my iTunes isn't terribly accurate, since most of that is what I was elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-31961744664945780402012-05-03T22:59:00.001-04:002012-05-03T22:59:25.881-04:00In Which Prom Is A Thing I Talk AboutYou read books or watch movies or whatever and they make prom out to be this massive thing that's the pinnacle of your high school career and you look forward to it for weeks and you go to the spa and get a full-body wax because it's prom also you intend to have sex with your boyfriend so a visit to the spa is apparently necessary. Combine with stress, anxiety, and alcohol. Stir.
Or at least elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-17143330410905401332012-05-01T21:23:00.000-04:002012-05-01T21:23:11.404-04:00Better Than Obama (or at least snarkier)Earlier tonight, President Obama gave an address from Afghanistan.
I only watched about half of it and have absolutely nothing to say on that topic.
I only watched about half of it because the first "real" post on Corrected Proofs had just gone up, and it was far, far more entertaining so I read that instead. I am a terrible American. Truly I am.
Corrected Proofs is a project two of my elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-81501470877310828732012-04-25T19:52:00.001-04:002012-04-25T19:52:43.006-04:00In which I am extroverted"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." - Jack London
I really love the process of getting to know someone.
It's different when you've grown up with them. You experience things along with them as they happen. You get a text or an email or a phone call, and you exchange thoughts about it. It's exciting in its own way, but it's comfortable. It's normal. You know&elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-72080166559423670732012-04-24T20:34:00.002-04:002012-04-24T20:34:42.362-04:00States 2012Welcome to the blog of 2012's novice Lincoln Douglas debate's North Carolina state champion.
Which affects absolutely nothing other than me and my team's happiness and ego.
But really this entire weekend was essentially the greatest of my life. Tournaments are over for the year, though, so now I'm sad. Not so much for the end of the debate season as for the end of the Spending Entire Weekends elfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2659668524852539534.post-88654779923490863322012-04-19T17:22:00.004-04:002012-04-19T17:22:59.762-04:00Oh hey look a bunch of quotes“Children become readers on the laps of their parents.” - Emilie Buchwald
"Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better." - Unknown
"Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves." - Pete McArthur
"There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognizeelfarmy17http://www.blogger.com/profile/09127074008716633538noreply@blogger.com0