Bad News

http://effyeahnerdfighters.com/post/5012660612/submitted-by-statictransmissons

"Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts." - Marquis de Vavenargues


"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race." - Don Marquis


"There's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker." - Charles M. Shulz


Something else I liked a lot that you should read


Remember back in January when that agent asked me for my entire manuscript? Finally got a response yesterday afternoon-- after sending her a follow-up email. Rejection. (I post this and the following not out of a plea for sympathy but rather to keep you informed and hopefully amused.)


So I'm sitting there on the couch feeling mopey and depressed and my dad says to me "Don't be thinking about turning to drugs or alcohol. Are you thinking about drugs and alcohol? How long have you been thinking about drugs and alcohol?"
And I laughed and said "About ten seconds."


Then this morning he was trying to get me to drink some of his (decaf) coffee. "Do you want a sip of this room-temperature, horrible coffee?"
"Um, no?"
"I'm trying to get you to do drugs!"
"You just don't want to drink it yourself! You've been complaining about how bad it is all morning."
"I just want you to feel better. Oh, here we go--" He pointed at me and proclaimed "Feel-Better-igus!"
"You know, I don't know if Harry Potter jokes are going to do the trick right now."


At which point he shrugged and made a Doctor Who joke instead. The man knows me well. :)


So I think I'm going to do another editing swipe before starting querying again. At least I'll edit the end. The end needs work.


Today my Chemistry class came of age (the class itself. Not the people.) Something exploded, something melted, and acid went everywhere. Oh, and the bottom of a beaker literally fell off. (No one was hurt. It was mostly just funny.)

Irony And Sneaking

"The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past." - Andre Maurois


So I'm watching an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer this afternoon (Sunday afternoon, that is) partially because I like the show, partially because I haven't watched any in awhile, and partially for escapism. And what happened?


I ended up relating to all four of the female characters in the episode in some way, shape, or form, which would have been hilariously ironic if it weren't so annoying (I take that back-- it's hilariously ironic anyway).


That's one of the many things that makes it such a good show, though; it's relatable, or at least we viewers can pretend that it is, which basically amounts to the same thing. 


(Bones makes for better escapism than Buffy, since the central character of each episode is dead. There isn't much to worry about there.)


(CUT TO MONDAY AFTERNOON)


I'm merging these posts because the above was supposed to go up this morning but didn't for some reason and now I have more to say. Let's start it off with another quote as per usual.


"Is this real, or is this not real? I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. They say I'll heal, and learn how to deal...I have this memory that I loved you." - "Real Or Not Real" by All Caps, based off of events in Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins


If sneaking off campus for lunch without a pass is that easy, I should do it more often. I mean, seriously. It wasn't even sneaking; I just walked away from school.
Now, I wasn't actually sneaking off for lunch. I had my AP Chem exam today and was therefore let off early, and I had papers to prove it so I was allowed to leave and everything, but...I could have been just trying to get some ice cream from across the street or something and no one tried to stop me.


That's sad.

Link: Memento Mori

"Look back, and smile on perils past." - Walter Scott


http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/04/memento-mori.html


The above link leads to an article written by Cory Doctorow that goes along with my post about generation gaps. I thought it was very interesting and brought up several good points.
Coincidentally enough, I've also been dancing around the Little Brother PDF for my Civics book report, and...I'd forgotten just how awesome that book is.


As for other awesome things: Doctor Who last night was amazing. My grandparents are visiting so my grandpa decided to watch it with us having not seen "The Impossible Astronaut." At the end he looked at us and said "Did any of you follow that?"
My youngest sister said "No."
I said "Yes."
He said "Well at least someone did! I may have fallen asleep a few times in the middle."


Don't judge him for falling asleep, though-- I overheard him discussing the episode with my dad later. :)

An Important Milestone (not really)

“Religion is a response to revelation and different people respond to revelation differently. We cannot continue to assume that each religion represents only one set of ideas…It is not just one thing. With every revelation, some people respond by making the world better and some respond by making it worse… The revelation isn’t the problem. We are.” - John Green


I like that quote. I like that an awful lot. I don't know if I agree with it 100%, but...


Today is an important day in the history of this blog as declared by Me, because today made April 2011 the first month in which I have gotten over 1000 views, which is made more exciting by the fact that it's come very close in 3 other months (December, January, and March). Not that I expect any of you to care all that much, but I thought I'd mention it. Also, thank you, since you're the ones who are responsible for that probably-irrational boost to my sense of self-importance. :)


Today is also important in that I actually did some research on my district's congressional representative (in the House) and discovered that he's actually doing a good job representing me/my views, according to the database I found. Yay for effective representative democracy!

(Although now I'm not sure what to say in my email to him for my Civics assignment-- I was intending it to be a persuasive letter, since one of the requirements is for it to be "concerning my views on an issue." Suggestions?)


In other news...


http://imnick.tumblr.com/post/3176839190


John Barrowman singing a Jack/Doctor slash-fic Wicked parody, courtesy of a friend of mine. Enough said. Go listen to it. It's seriously very, very awesome.


EDIT: I hit "Publish" and then went over to YouTube to watch the latest WheezyWaiter video and what was his about? How celebrating arbitrary milestones like numbers is a waste of time (it's his 500th video). Wow.

Where's The Mouse?

Today, Tuesday, I learned not to fill a post with random semi-interesting things going on in my life too early in the day, because odds are something more interesting will turn up within half an hour of posting it and then I have to schedule it for tomorrow and yaddah yaddah yaddah.


http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/04/born_digital.php

My dad sent the above link to me and said "I'm so stuck on this idea of the digital world accelerating and effecting the youth in such remarkable ways.   When I was your age they talked about a generation gap like it was a difficult concept that people might not even accept.   Now we have a generation gab between you and Oscar where his world is already substantially different than yours."


Oscar being my neighbor who was born in August. It's not just between me and him, though. A friend of mine teaches piano to 11 year-olds who don't know what a VCR is. 
At least record players are easily-recognizable so my generation can recognize them even though we've never had them, but a VCR is just a metallic-colored box. I guess maybe the thing of our generation is the white iPod standard-issue earbuds? Those are pretty iconic.


My dad's right, though. Progress is nothing new, but progress is speeding up considerably, and that is new. According to history, I shouldn't be that much different from someone 15 years younger than me, much less 4. Yet I am, and it's weird to think about.


I've always felt that I was born right on the boundary between two different "generations." I watched the TV shows all the 90s kids watched, but I didn't get a gaming console until all of my cousins' Game Cube games were old news (hence why I got it- ha). Harry Potter (which is according to Wikipedia part of "Generation Y") is my thing, but I was too young to be into Lord of the Rings while the movies were coming out.
Remember when I mentioned my 8 year-old neighbor asking me who Ron Weasley was?


There's even a slight difference between my sisters and I, and the oldest of the two is only 15 months younger than me. They use different slang and have different mannerisms and different idioms and different fads going around their school... I'm not supposed to understand my future children when they talk. These are my siblings. (So I may be exaggerating a bit in this paragraph, but it's just to get my point across.)


I mean, I don't think the "generation gap" is bad-- just a bit strange to think about.

March of the Elvi

"You know when you break up with someone, you start to forget what it felt like to love them. Every time you meet a new person it feels like all fresh and even more intense than the last time and you start to question 'oh maybe I didn't love them as much'. But no, like, that's not fair to those people. Like, you did have something special with those people."-Alex Day

George Takei, portrayer of Mr. Sulu on some tiny little show no one's ever heard of called Star Trek, heard about that "Don't Say Gay" bill I wrote about recently and tweeted the following: "In case you missed it : TN bill willprevent use of word "gay" by teachers. I'm lending my name: "It's okay to be Takei."


So now all the gay nerds in Tennessee can geek out while they're being oppressed.


Moving on. We got this new song in band today called "Godzilla Eats Las Vegas." It comes with its own program notes to give to the audience so they know what the heck is going on.
The program notes are awesome and random and detailed. ("Godzilla rampages through the streets, trampling hysterical vegans. Cut to an army of Elvis impersonators marching to fight him.")


This concert at the end of May is going to be insane. We're also probably playing something that simulates the bombing of a German town called Dresden (and simulates it very well in Musical Form), and "American Elegy" for all of the people we've just fictionally murdered, among other things.

Quakers Are So Cool Like

"The emergence of the novel as a 'character art' very likely reflects the increase in self-consciousness that has been part of the development in our civilization." - Jerome Bruner, 1962


(Again, points if you get the reference in the title.)


So here's a snippet of what was discussed around the dinner table at our house Saturday night.


My sister was complaining that the pastor who taught her Wednesday-night class had been ranting about how stupid Jewish people are.
My mom told her that she didn't expect her to believe everything that was taught, and that she thinks you should basically find the religion that most-closely matches your beliefs, and then ignore all of the parts with which you disagree.


I take it a step further and think religion is a very, very individual thing, so big organizations with preachers shouldn't be necessary. People should read their own holy book, and figure out what they think about it. If at some point they decide to change their minds because they've realized something, they can change their minds. And I said as much.


She said that religion isn't just about the theology-- it's also about the community. Fair enough.


But that's what I love so much about the one Quaker Meeting I've been to-- the actual "religious" part is completely individual: everyone's sitting in a room together, but in total silence, doing whatever it is they feel like they should be/want to be doing for their own spiritual fulfillment. Yet they still have a community; there are activism committees and youth groups and game nights and all sorts of other things. Like-minded people get to spend time and talk with each other without squabbling over the details of the theology.


It was so cool: there was me (who for the sake of the post shall over-simplify and identify as an agnostic), people with Christian leanings, a Muslim woman, and probably a whole bunch of others who fell in-between and on both outside ends all doing our own spiritual thing in the same room together. A very diverse group, yet a huge feeling of community within that room (not to mention the community during all of the other activities I've participated in with them).


And that's what I think "organized" religion should be about.


My best friend tells me that she doesn't write any blog posts because most of what she wants to talk about is how awesome Quakers are, which isn't a Quakerly thing to do. I, despite loving all of the time spent at her Meeting, have no such inhibitions. So this is my plug. 


I realize (mainly through extensive Wikipedia-ing) that other Meetings are rather different, so please bear in mind that I'm just talking about my experiences in one specific establishment.

Slightly After 10 This Morning, I Rose. Alleluia.

"In poker, if people believe you have a good hand, then you have a good hand. In poker as in politics, perception of reality, is reality. That certainly makes conversations around authenticity a bit more multi-layered and complex." - Andrew Slack

Jeez, I should title posts with Doctor Who quotes more often-- I got almost a hundred views just from Google searches on that last one. Ha.


All right, so if you're a Christian who is likely to be offended by people behaving improperly during church, stay away from this post. Otherwise, read on.


Going to church with my dad is always fun in the sense that he whispers witty comments to me throughout the entire service. He has a large number of such comments on Easter.


For those of you who don't celebrate Easter as a religious holiday, perhaps you aren't aware that throughout the month or so leading up to Easter (Lent), the word "Alleluia" is not allowed to be spoken (which of course ensures that we do, because we're blasphemous children of Satan and all that).


On Easter, the word's taboo status is revoked. Also on Easter, our church prints every single hymn and piece of liturgy in the bulletins that are passed out at the beginning, because taking up all that extra paper is worth making sure people don't have to flip to the right page in the brand new liturgy/hymnal books.
So at the beginning of the service this morning, I counted how many times we were going to be saying "Alleluia." 


The total? 63.


My dad, of course, thought it would be amusing to only say/sing "Alleluia" when he wasn't whispering to me. Mid-hymn he had the brilliant (and offensive, and annoying, and hilarious) idea to sing them in a ridiculously bad falsetto (this began during the stanza marked "women only." He didn't want to miss out.)
I asked him "You do know you're not in a Monty Python movie, right?"


Among other things, it was also determined that everyone in the church was decidedly Team Edward-- they seemed pretty keen on drinking blood.


His Facebook status this morning was: "Alleluia! Another day I have risen. Now that I'm getting older I've learned to appreciate each new day and the ability to get out of bed every morning. Each new day is a gift. That's why we call it 'the present.'"


When we got to church and picked up said bulletins, we saw that the covers read "Our Redeemer lives." My dad immediately said "Cool, they've already seen my status."


I'm sure you're all wondering what my mom thinks of this-- perhaps I shall write a not-all-that-personally-detailed post regarding her views tomorrow.

He's Hot When He's Being Clever

Ok, fair enough. I mostly just wanted to use that as a title for a post (although cleverness is attractive, of course). If you caught the reference, you just won today's imaginary non-prize. Congratulations.


I actually want to talk about something else.


So very, very early this morning I read this, which links to another related post I read very, very late this morning after I woke up (because I'm a teenager, which means I have weird sleeping habits.) They deal with the bloggers' experiences with mental health...problems? Issues? Conditions? I'm not sure what the politically-correct and/or most-polite term is. They deal with mental health. Let's just go with that.


I encourage all of you to read both of them, but in case you're too busy gearing up for the Doctor Who premiere (who am I kidding, you all watched it online this afternoon just like I did) to read it, I shall now quote from the end of it:


"So, hopefully by now you agree with me that I am pretty screwed up. I want you to do that not because I desire pity, which would be fairly hurtful, but because someone this screwed up can get into a PhD program, be genuinely and exuberantly happy a couple times each week, and manage rudimentary human interaction to varying degrees of success. So, if you feel screwed up too, hopefully you will agree that it is possible that the ok life is a possible outcome."


I'm not going to write a soul-bearing post like both of those brave, admirable people did. If you really want to know all of my internal insecurities and whatnot, you basically just need to find my most abstract, "philosophical" posts, and read in-between the lines. I don't use personal examples with any of those, because I don't believe a blog is a place for people to freak out and ramble about their personal problems, nor do I feel particularly comfortable writing about mine in a non-freaky-outy sort of detailed way.


This is more to say that I appreciate those posts in more ways than one, and I think they both have important messages regarding self-awareness and working through things.


Because, gosh darn it, I do feel screwed up and insecure and all of that other totally un-fun stuff, and I'm sure you do as well from time to time.


So there are my thoughts on those posts. Now for what I want to add.


I think it's important for all of us to remember that everyone else on the planet has their own strengths, weaknesses, and difficulties. Everyone else on the planet has his or her own internal conflict and pain. And we have to keep that in mind when interacting with others, take it into consideration, and be as supportive and forgiving as we can without significant damage to ourselves. "Respect others as you would have them respect you" or something of that sort.


(Off to watch the Doctor Who pre-show before watching "The Impossible Astronaut" again-- with my family, this time. Allonzy.)

An Abundance of Quotes Part 15

"You can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them." - some John Green book


"It's simple to love someone, but it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud." - Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me


"There is nothing to fear but fears themselves, such as monsters, rejection, food poisoning, redundancy, monsters, and Oxford commas." - Craig Benzine


"If you want to spit out brilliance, try spitting things out." - rock4ever95


“WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.” - Maureen Johnson


"Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody." - Mark Twain (Yes it can *cough* Doctor Who *cough*)


"We are often told that we are what we eat. In our world since the printing press it might be more accurate to say we are what we read. How each of us digests what we read is a mystery. And what people read is sometimes as puzzling as what they really think." - Daniel J. Boorstin, 1989


"Let others be ashamed who have buried themselves in books that they can offer nothing for the common enjoyment." - Cicero, 62 B.C.


I know there's a fair amount of love-related quotes in there. It wasn't intentional. I just stock up on them for awhile in order to make an AoQ post.