a slightly bronzer lifelong learner

i went tanning for the first time today. it was kind of a strange experience. i went today, on a seemingly random thursday, because at this one place it's only a dollar to tan on thursdays :) so i thought i'd get a little bronze for prom. i walked in there with absolutely no knowledge about tanning. i had never even seen a tanning bed in person before. they got me registered, i bought the little goggles (which really aren't goggles at all, they're just little plastic cups that sit on your eyes) and was sent to a room. there's apparently a radio in the tanning bed but i could not for the life of me figure out how to turn it on. so i just laid there for 9 minutes listening to the whirring fans. a few minutes in i realized i still had my watch and my bracelet on, so i just took them off and blindly threw them in the direction of my things. i should probably buy some tanning lotion or something but they don't let you bring in stuff you already have and i'm kind of broke right now.

in other news, i graduate from high school exactly one month from today. this is an extreeeemly exciting concept for me :) i'm kind of bummed to transform some of my friendships into long distance ones, but i suppose a long distance friend is better than no friend at all :) of course i'll make new friends in college but i don't want to lose touch with my friends in high school.

i was totally going to say something else but i forgot what it was...

so i have discovered this podcast that i am quite enjoying. i'm kind of a nerd and i like to learn about random things, which makes this podcast perfect for me. it seems that they just pick a topic and talk about it. they research it and come up with some interesting points. it's called How Stuff Works Stuff You Should Know (i'm pretty sure that's it, or close at least). the other day i listened to one where they looked into the possibility of retaining consciousness for several seconds after decapitation and one all about the science and the why's of tickling. i find it fascinating :)

i'm going to go eat some birthday cake...

easter has come and gone. it was a pretty good one this year too. not too busy, plenty of time to relax. lots of good food :) i even made a cake. it was a birthday cake for my brother, who turned 27 on thursday. everybody loved it. i was asked for the 6th time in the last few weeks if i was going to major/minor in culinary arts or go to college to be a pastry chef. i'm not of course, but it's a nice compliment. i think i'll just continue to bake as a hobby and learn techniques so that i can make cakes and cookies for my friends and family :)

i finally caved. i'm now participating in the "photo challenge" fad on facebook. not because everyone else was doing it. i'm doing one of the hardcore ones:365 days. do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture every single day?? pretty hard. most of my pics are taken right around 10:30 or 11 p.m. cuz that's when i remember to take one. the more i do it though, the easier it is.

i was driving yesterday and i came to an alarming discovery: a song that i love from my ipod is suddenly gone. nobody but me really touches my ipod so the chances of someone deleting it are pretty slim. i know i didn't. so i went to my itunes to look for it. not there. it's in my purchase history, but nowhere to be found. i find this extremely irritating...

internet withdrawal!

the internet is back!! at last!! i had no internet access for almost 24 hours because we had a blizzard last night. yay wisconsin. we had a stinkin blizzard at the end of april. THE END OF APRIL!!!! we had a 2 hour delay and everything. craziness. i was beginning to go a little crazy. but i'm back now.

in the absence of play practice, it seems like i have all the time in the world. today after school i even had a chance to stand around with my friends (which i could never do before cuz i didn't have a car). so last night with no play practice (and no internet!!) i baked a cake, made supper, actually ate supper with my family, did dishes (gasp!), made frosting, frosted the aforementioned cake, and then did some more dishes.

while i know that normally a play by play of my day is not what people want to read when they come to my blog, yesterday was real news for me. i went to bed shocked that i had accomplished so much on a weeknight. lately, i've been scraping by trying to get my homework done before 11.

the cake i made was for spanish because today is the anniversary of a failed revolution in Chile in 1851 (160th anniversary). we're reading this story about it. well we read it i suppose because we finished it today. it's called Martín Rivas. apparently it's like this big deal novel but we just read a short, abridged version. i enjoyed it. i like reading in spanish :)
so anyway, i piped "feliz revolución" on the top in red. the frosting (white base, red details) was strawberry flavored. it was a huge hit in my spanish class. my class of 15 (including the teacher) ate the whole thing. one of the guys practically licked the plate it was on. they said i should be a professional pastry chef. my teacher was like she'll have her own show on food network!

that's actually not the first time i've heard that. like 3 people said that this past weekend when i handed out the cookies we made for the play. while i think the whole pastry chef thing would be fun, i already picked a college and a major. maybe once i have my nursing degree, i'll go back and get a pastry chef degree (is there such a thing?) and open a bakery...

That's Some Musical!

so i'm enjoying this whole theater thing. we've done 4 shows so far, and we have our last one today. while i'm glad i got to do it, and at times i was exhausted from the time it took, i'm a little sad to leave it behind. i will always have the memories though. that's part of the reason we decided to make a video. hannah and i were sitting in practice one day and she turns to me and says we should make a "blooper" reel. so we just started filming in practice. we're in the process of editing right now and it's taking forever. it'll be so worth it to have this though.

it seems to me we have no ordinary spider

it's time. all our hard work, all the hours, all the drama, and all the makeup comes down to tomorrow morning. we perform for the first time. two shows. full house each. in case you were wondering that's about 1400 people total. the area grade schools all come to watch when we do children's theater so it's going to be packed. i'm so excited i can barely contain myself. my call time is 7:50 tomorrow morning. although i'll probably be there at like 7:30 anyway. i have paper and markers so my dressing-room-mates and i can make signs for our doors. i'm going to stop at the gas station on my way to school to pick up a bag of gummy worms for my friends and me :)

a perk of this is that i don't have to go to any of my classes. i do get to go to early lunch to show off my makeup that looks like an old lady :D

little miss muffet all tucked in her tuffet

title: so our microphone/sound guys for the musical are still getting the hang of things at the sound board and don't always turn our mics off (or on!) when they're supposed to. so yesterday, 3 of the girls had girl choir dress rehearsal so they came late to practice. the guy who plays homer zuckerman (jake) says to one of them "well look who's here, little miss muffet all tucked in her tuffet!" by the time he got to muffet i realized that i could hear his voice coming through the tv that shows the auditorium. his mic was still on. all our directors/ orchestra pit heard that. it was quite possibly the funniest thing that happened all week :)

prom season has begun. i got a dress (which is purple and gorgeous by the way) i asked a guy (who said no) and my back up "as friends" date asked a girl who said yes (who is my friend and they'll be cute :)

my mom and i went dress shopping last weekend. well, we went to this consignment store for prom dresses but all the dresses were like $200. so then we just went back to deb. i tried on (again) the very first dress that i had seen on the website and loved. and it looked much better the second time around. oddly, it's the same size as the blue dress that didn't fit. i still owe my mom $75 but it was so worth it cuz it looks amazing :)

my friend coltyn and i made a deal that we would both ask who we wanted to ask and if they both said no, we would go as friends. he wouldn't tell me who he was going to ask, but he guessed who i was going to ask. so i called the guy (who happens to be coltyn's best friend). he didn't pick up. so monday morning, he comes up to me (with coltyn and another friend in tow) and is like you wanted to talk to me? so i was like yeah do you want to go to prom with me? after floundering for a bit with i don't know, it's kind of early, and i don't know you that well, i suggested he could think about it and get back to me. which he didn't do until friday. he brought coltyn and another friend with him to say thanks for asking me to prom but i don't think this is going to work. i'm sorry. i was just like it's alright. he's adorable but super shy so i didn't push it.

in the midst of all this i spent a total of 14 hours at play practice in five days and 2 hours painting sets. today i'm about to spend a good 6-8 hours at dress rehearsal. i'm kind of excited to be fully costumed and made up. although that means i have to wear my contacts so i look like a freak (not really it just feels like it). i'm pretty sure not a moment goes by that there is not a song from the musical stuck in my head. that's ok though. at least i can remember the words when i have to sing them :)

be!...our!...guest!! be our guest, put our service to the test!

today i had an amazing experience! i saw Beauty and the Beast live! it was awesome!!! we were way up in the top balcony but nobody's head was in my way :) and we could still see almost the whole stage. i know almost every word by heart because i've seen the movie fifty billion times. even i didn't know how much i love this story. as the opening chords started my eyes actually started to tear i was so happy. the music was beautiful and the actors were brilliant. i swear, theater is the only time 3 hours goes by in a heartbeat :)

p.s. thanks mom for taking us :)

april fools day

it comes every year. in the past i have devised a multitude of pranks including tearfully informing my friends that i was moving away, telling my sister that i broke something of hers, etc. this year i was too lazy. i briefly considered coming up with one, but then i fell asleep.

apparently internet culture is far more invested in april fools day than i am. i didn't know this until today actually. turns out participators include google, youtube, hulu, ebay, and apple. (by the way this information is courtesy of my friend coltyn, as i would never have found these myself)

google's april fools jokes include "gmail motion" with a video about how now you can stand in front of your computer making motions that will completely replace keyboard/mouse. also, there was apparently some nonsense about an alien invasion but i can't find it :(

youtube's was not that funny. it was viral videos of 1911.

hulu's was impressive i thought. when you go to the website it takes you to an "older" version. cerca 1996 i believe with shows that were popular that year and an older looking page. there are links that say "take me back to the future!!"

ebay's was cool. they created a "pirate ebay" (pirate bay) at http://thepiratebay.org/

who knew this non-holiday could be so fun?