What Child is This?

I know I posted already today, but I was bored. And I know you guys like it when I post, and Robyn suggested What Child is This...so I thought - why not? Actually it should be What Children are These, but as long as it works. The Children spoken of are currently in bed - all of them - because they're all sick to some degree except me. Our house doesn't seem to be able to escape it, and we're all hoping we recover to some degree before Christmas. Anyway, it's a weird feeling, to be up all by myself.

Today I spent putting ribbons on presents. It was fun, and I discovered just how many are from my grandma in Kamloops - probably ten or eleven. She usually sends money, about sixty dollars for each of us, which adds up to $300, so I guess Mom just got us a whole whack of family gifts this year instead of dividing it among us. I like it this way. I also have this weird-shaped one that I think might be from Best Buy, because when we were driving home from seeing Eragon there were bags from Best Buy in the back seat and Mom told me not to look in them. I wonder what it is, though? I'm not a really electronics person...besides the computer, of course...

Today was also the second day in a row that felt like Saturday, and seeing as tomorrow IS Saturday, I'm assuming it'll feel like it too.

Oh! And I was surfing YouTube, which I do occasionally, and found an eight-minute long clip of DMC. It's the Liar's Dice scene, along with the bits where Will steals the key from Davy Jones (a nail-biting two minutes if I've ever seen it) and tells Bootstrap Bill he'll come back and save him. Will's my favorite. I also found a critique of DMC by the host of Ask A Ninja, a very odd little video but also very funny. Kyle likes these. So if you want to watch it, it's -

here

Pretty hilarious, no matter how much he makes fun of it. "If you've never met Keira Knightley, she's a slightly more mannish version of Orlando Bloom." (I disagree, but still funny!)

~Sil

P.S. An oh my goodness, have there ever been great commercials on TV lately! Every time I walk down it's a commercial for the CBC showing of Return of the King or Curse of the Black Pearl, and occasionally Eragon gets in there too.

I've run out of ideas...

But feel free to suggest a Christmas carol I could have used for this post!

I've discovered I really like wrapping presents. Especially when there's lots of different types of paper and ribbons and stuff, it's quite fun. So I wrapped all my brother's birthday presents today, and all the ones I bought for various people yesterday. Anyway, if any of you ever want your presents wrapped, I'm here.

According to my sister it's Christmas Eve Eve Eve today, so Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve to everybody, and thank you for your comments on my song. I did win second place, out of five, and my award looks like this:

Pretty cool, eh?

~Sil

Feliz Navidad

I was just playing that on the piano. Interesting song. "We wish you a merry Christmas...with lots of presents to make you happy..." I mean, what kind of lyrics are those? Maybe Spanish people are just weird. Kidding.

And as Josh reminded me, I made up a Christmas carol spoof, for a contest on Arwen-Undomiel. I think it's sort of cheesy, but here it is. It's a spoof of Jingle Bells, by the way.

The Ring was gold and shiny
'Twas circular and small
Though its size was but tiny
Its power ruled them all.

Through many hands it passed
Of Maia, Hobbit, Man
When Frodo found it Gandalf said
"Destroy it if you can!"

Oh! The wizard went, by Valar sent
The dwarf and two men too
The hobbits tagged along behind
With the elf of old, it's true - yrch!

The Fellowship, the banded Nine
They traveled many lands
They strayed not from the narrow edge
With Fate held in their hands!

Through ancient Moria of stone
The party made their path
They exited there minus one -
While the Balrog had a bath!

The Steward's son, of Gondor
Was noble, tall and brave
The Uruk-hai, they shot him down -
Sent to a watery grave!

Oh! Seven split, bit by bit
Now Gollum has a part
Their journeys long, not in this song
In a book now called great art

Sauron died, Gollum tried
To bite off Frodo's hand
He only got his finger, though
Now Elessar ruled the land!

I don't think I'll win, though I may place - there were five entries, and currently the scoring is like this:
Johnny's Fan - 15 points
Me (Meldawen) - 12 points
Nurrantiel - 11 points
Kelenloth - 8 points
Drew's Destiny - 4 points

Johnny's Fan deserves to win, hers are hilarious. You can see all the entries -

here

And I went to see Eragon last night. It was way better than I expected. The best characters were Brom and Eragon, and Arya was also better than I thought she would be. In the book she's supposed to have black hair and they made her strawberry blonde, which was weird, but she was quite good except for a few lines that I thought didn't really fit her character. Murtagh was very good but he didn't get enough screen time, Angela was horrible, Durza was arguably the best of the bunch and Galbatorix was a little odd. Altogether I REALLY enjoyed it, though. Saphira (the dragon, for the uninitiated) was amazing, you totally forgot that she was almost completely computerized, and her character was exactly right. I wish it had been longer, though - too many important things were cut.

~Sil

My bad

I abandoned you all for a week, I'm sorry! It might have been longer, except Robyn started posting again and then my insanely competitive side decided that I couldn't have this. So in a weird sort of way, thanks Robyn!

Let me see...what's been happening...oh, I had my band concert, which went well. I didn't make any really glaring errors, which was good. The little kids were so cute! The one little clarinet kept squeaking. Anyway, I discovered that our first trumpet, Scott, is a LotR geek, and I explained to him how Feanor is an idiot because he hadn't read the Silmarillion. We talked about Dead Man's Chest, too. All the band people agree that it has to be Will and Elizabeth.

I also got all my Christmas shopping done, and I got to do some of it with Erin rather than by myself. So thank you for going with me, Erin, even though I'm pretty sure you don't read this. Oh, shoot, I was supposed to phone you today! And I'm babysitting tonight. Darn.

Another highlight of my week was the youth Christmas banquet, and I wore my twirly black skirt and a really pretty shirt we got at Designer Depot - sort of raspberry-colored with sequins. My shoes matched very nicely, too. We did a white elephant gift exchange - and Josh gave me Dutch Blitz for Christmas! THANK YOU JOSH! We've been playing it nonstop since friday. Right now Mom is playing with the kids up in the kitchen.

Ah yes, and my theory exam. It's been a week and three days since that. I can't remember whether I posted about it or not. Anyway, it went well, and I couldn't remember whether Allegretto was a little slower than Allegro or a little faster, and I put a little slower, which was good, because it was. So I'm hoping I get a pretty high mark on that.

~Sil

EDIT: On my gosh I can't believe I forgot - I'm going to see Eragon tomorrow! With Loree and Amilynn! I'm so excited, even though it doesn't look like it's a really good movie. Arya SUCKS and Eragon himself isn't that good. But that's not the point. I'm still really excited.

~Sil (for real)

Chestnuts hot dogs roasting on an open fire

We had hot dogs roasted in front of our fireplace for dinner last night. I like it much better than outside, it's not cold and you don't have to worry about sparks jumping out onto your clothes. I'm sort of wimpy that way.

Anyway, I know I haven't posted since six days ago - I just wasn't in the mood, I guess. Saturday was busy, I had a piano recital and then my theory exam and then an event for Mike in the evening. I think he'll be back from Ottawa for the next couple of weeks or so. This is our last week of school before the holidays, and last week of quizzing before two weeks of review, which is good. I got an outfit for the youth Christmas banquet - it's really pretty, I can't wait to wear it. It actually looks as though I'm not in much of a posting mood now either...so maybe tomorrow...

~Sil

We Three Kings

And here's a picture of them from The Nativity Story (New Line Cinema) which came out this month, I think:

It's got Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary, and (let me figure out how to spell it) Shohreh Aghdashloo as Joseph. No, my bad, that's Elizabeth. Oscar Isaac is Joseph.
The reviewers have not been particularly kind so far. The one that jumped out at me from the site I'm looking at (www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nativity_story) were "An effective pitch for Christianity as the dullest religion ever" - Las Vegas Weekly. And as I scroll down, desperately trying to find a halfway positive review from anywhere...anywhere at all...ah, here we go: "At a time when secular celebrations, including most films, have redefined the holiday as a meaningless and generic act of consumerism, 'The Nativity Story" reclaims its roots as a story of sacrifice and celebration.'" - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I've never heard of them either. Okay, so it's not a really ringing endorsement about the movie itself, but it was really the best that was there.

Everybody except me and my brother went to Shrek Saves Christmas last night, the Telus (Dad's job) Christmas play for kids. They got gift bags with water bottles and little Gund monkeys in them, and I stole one (I don't know which parent it belonged to, but I don't think they'll be missing it) and it is now wrapped around the lamp on my bedside table. They've got magnetic hands and feet, and the lamp is metal, so it works well.

What's today, December 5? So that means 10 more days until Eragon! And while we're at it, 170 days until PotC: AWE and 20 more days until Christmas.

~Sil

O come, all ye faithful...

Our church went out to Camp Nakamun yesterday, for the afternoon and evening. It was fun - I didn't actually do much besides play a few games (and it's maddening to try and play game with more than three people - everybody always runs off in every direction and then three turns in they decide they're bored and they want to go swimming) but it was still fun. There's a swimming pool there, and sometimes we skate but the lake wasn't frozen enough this year, and we sang carols after supper, which I always like. Mr Chute was sort of directing it, which meant that he tried to get kids/youth to come up and sing with him. Nobody did (they were all chickens) except me and Carissa and a little girl, Molly. I did God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. I was so tired by the time we drove home, but I had Pirates on the discman and I hijacked Dad's Blackberry. It takes a long time to do anything on Arwen-Undomiel with the Blackberry so I think I spent about an hour doing that.

The reason I was tired...I babysat until 1:30 am Saturday evening. I snacked, and read my book, and did some quizzing, but by the time midnight hit I was pretty tired, so I basically kept myself awake after that. I'm not sure how. I did get paid pretty well, though.

So, my brother is sick today....which means everybody's had it, I think, except me and my dad. Hopefully I don't catch it.

Edited to add: Oh, and as an aside, I happen to have won a contest today. It was a poetry contest on Arwen-Undomiel (see the link on the right side of the page) and actually, the poem was written for a different contest which is currently being judged but that I'm hoping to place in as well. It was a sonnet contest, which is why the poem is structured the way it is. Anyway, I thought I'd post it. It's about Lothlorien.

Where once hobbit feet had trod
Under the fading mallorn's golden leaves
From journey over land abroad
They stopped for briefest of reprieves.

Where once a dwarven axe had rested
In soaring Elven city bright
Minds and hearts and souls arrested
A refuge still from Lands of Night.

Where now leaves fall into the water
Ripples spreading outward still
What could be called fair Valinor's daughter
Lothlorien, the Elven realm tranquil.

Still here in Lorien, lingering in silent praise
Still here are wistful memories of better, brighter days.

~Sil

Deck the halls with boughs of holly...

Fa la la la la, la la la la. And so on. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna have a Christmas carol title every day from now until Christmas. It seems fitting. Anyway, the reason for that one is that we have (sigh) gotten a tree, and it's set up in the living room. It's a fake tree, which I lobby hard against every year, but this year it didn't work. I guess it's an okay fake tree, not bad or anything. It's perfectly conically-shaped, and pre-lit, which I guess is a good thing, even though I like putting lights on.

I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now - I didn't wake up sick this morning! I was scared I was going to, and that would be bad, because I have Festival of Trees today and I really didn't want to miss it. Even though I am kinda nervous. There's also youth tonight and I do really want to go, if only to see my brother get duct-taped to the wall. I think it's kind of funny how the smallest three people in our youth group are all guys, though I guess it's not unusual.

Oh, and I can't get sick tomorrow either, because I have a babysitting job, and they have a big TV and all three LotR, and so I can't miss it! Oh, and the kids are good too. And not Sunday, because I don't want to miss quiz practice, but Monday would be okay. Listen to me, scheduling when I can get sick...

~Sil

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Okay, I'm aware that was sort of cheesy. Oh well. It did snow again last night, a couple of inches, which looks like it makes our snowfall total about three feet, but that's probably only because everybody's piled the snow off their driveways and sidewalks onto their lawns. I'm a horrible judge of depth, but looking out the window it appears as though the back yard has at least a foot all over it, if not more.

Anyway, the Eragon movie (December 15) has now been rated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), at PG. I have to say, I had kind of expected a PG-13, especially from Americans - if it's PG there, it might almost get a G here. Canadian ratings seem to be consistantly lower than American ones. This movie seems to be on a downward spiral...one would hope it's not a complete flop in the theatres. Personally, I think a lot of critics are going to call it a cross between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars - and for anyone who's read the books,

here (Star Wars)

and

here (Lord of the Rings)

are a couple of comparisons. Basically, in my mind Christopher Paolini (the author) used the basic plot of Star Wars and the basic setting and some names from Lord of the Rings. I mean, ERAGON? I ask you! Even looking at the title the most clueless moviegoer must think, "Hang on, haven't I heard that name before? That Aragorn guy in those rings movies?"
And yet...for all my griping...I know exactly how many days until it comes out. Sixteen.

But the day is progressing alarmingly fast and I have some serious quizzing that needs to happen, so leaving now...

~Sil

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Wow, I just looked at the temperature on the internet and apparently it is, at this point in time, -28 Celsius. Wow. I knew it was cold, but not that cold! And according to the newspaper, people in Toronto are enjoying +10 temperatures. I guess I can't complain, though - I wished for this for quite some time! And at least we've got at least a good foot of snow, if not more. Last Christmas we had a pitiful little dusting of snow, not even a centimeter.

Band performance coming up, at the Festival of Trees. It sounds cool, the Festival, but I'm nervous about the performance. There's one bit on bells that I don't know if I'm going to be able to do, even though most of my piano stuff is okay. You can hear bells better than piano, though. I really shouldn't stress, it's only one performance and it's my first one. We do have another practice, as well, and I'll have to see how it goes and decide what I'm comfortable with doing accordingly, I guess. Maybe step outside of my comfort zone a little, too.

To add to my earlier paragraph about weather - according to www.theweathernetwork.com, with the wind chill it feels like -40 degrees out. I'm staying inside today, thanks.

~Sil

Quiz meet

Well, I erred out. For the first time ever at a quiz meet. I guess it was due to happen sometime...especially in division A...but I still kinda wish it hadn't happened on my last quiz of the day in front of probably one hundred to two hundred quizzers/coaches/people watching. As my mom put it, though, most of the people in the audience probably went, "Ouch, I know how that feels" so I guess it wasn't so bad. I was pretty devastated at the time, though. Our team didn't win anything, but my brother was, I believe, third top rookie and second top B quizzer. So that was good. And Josh and Emily got some pretty serious awards as well. Congrats, guys. The meet was at Fort Saskatchewan Alliance, which means that all the quiz rooms were in portables and there was much running back and forth, which gets annoying. The next one is at Taylor University College in Edmonton, which will be better. I'm also going to know my stuff better for that one, and I really want to quiz out in A so I can be a bona fide A quizzer. I mean, I am already, but I would still like to quiz out.

Anyway, I didn't go to youth sunday school before church because I was pretty exhausted, but I did go to the service. Yesterday evening we went and made an advent wreath at the church for our family, and if they had let me do the flocking...well...I won't go there. There would be fewer clumps of dried white stuff on the wreath, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I keep having a strong urge to insert a happy smiley here but it's not going to happen - it's NOT.

Today I had to get up at seven in the FREEZING COLD to go babysitting, and when I got there nobody was awake to let me in, so I walked back home in the freezing cold to wait until they phoned, which they did. But it was rather annoying, because I wasn't early or anything. Oh well. I'm hoping to get my school done today before lunch so that I can watch Star Wars Episode IV.

~Sil

Pre-quiz-meet

I think we all have pre-quiz-meet jitters. But maybe it's just me. I feel like I can't settle down to do much, so I'm not even going to try and do piano right now - I'll do it on Sunday instead. I've been sort of studying on and off all afternoon but I can't really settle down to that either. I may practice my parts for orchestra bells later, as well.

How unsurprising....can't settle down to do this either! Ah well.

181 days until PotC: AWE

21 days until Eragon

~Sil

It's REALLY snowing

Wow, it's almost like a blizzard. Though I guess that's a pretty tame blizzard compared to what we've been known to have. I don't really want to go anywhere today, which is a pity, because I'm babysitting from 2:40 to 7:00 and then I have A team quiz practice at 7:30. Pooh. I'll have to try and get a lot of my school done this morning.

Piano yesterday was okay. One of my rare mediocre lessons, but at least we didn't do ear training, that would not have improved it. I need to practice harder this week. Band, however, was super fun, and I got to bring home the orchestra bells! I asked Bill (our director) about a part in one song that I didn't think I could do if I didn't practice it, so he said I could take them home with me. Our Festival of Trees performance is in a week, and we only have one more practice before then.

And me and Mom went shopping last night (I love shopping) and I finally bought some things I've been needing for a while, including a black shirt for our band performances and winter boots. I STILL haven't foung dress shoes, though, and it's driving me insane. I found this amazing, perfect pair of ballet flats in the clearance section at Sears, only they were too small in size 7, so I went to get them bigger, and guess what - they came in sizes 7 and 9. No 7 1/2, no 8, no 8 1/2. I was so mad. I would totally have bought them if they had fit. Grr. We're going to try and go out again before the youth Christmas banquet to get shoes and a dress. Because we both would like to get me a dress. So that'll be fun, especially when I have money!

~Sil

Missions trip

Last night at Bible study was really interesting, we talked about the missions trip this summer to Costa Rica. It sounds intriguing, I might like to go. Also, the price is going to be around $1200, but the church pays a third and the missions team pays a third and then you're responsible personally for the last third. I think I could get $400 between now and July, easy. The trip is July 8-16, give or take a day on either end for flights. According to Joanna it's about twelve hours of travel, but five hours of that (when she went) was sitting in an airport in Texas waiting for the connecting flight. I've never been on a plane, so that would be interesting. What else...oh yeah, I would have to get a passport, which I think is about another $100, and you have to be fifteen as of the dates of the trip, which is good, because I'm fifteen now. So lots of youth weren't eligible, and Loree was disappointed - she'll turn fifteen two months after the trip, and she wanted to go. Anyway, I was pretty interested.

Yesterday as a day kinda gave me a headache, though...I'm not naming names, but if a couple of my siblings could have made SLIGHTLY more of an effort to get along with each other it would have made my day a lot easier. ("Make him stop eating carrots like that, it's so annoying!" type-thing). I got supper on the table all right, but it's slightly nerve-racking when you're trying to get chicken out of the oven, clean up a whole bottle of ketchup that dropped on the floor and kind of exploded, and your quiz coach phones right in the middle of it. Boy.

Quizzing's going okay, though, I think I'm going to be at least semi-ready by Friday.

~Sil

Swimming

I know I haven't blogged in five days - apologies. I've been busy. So now for an insanely long post.

Trying to remember what happened on Friday...ah yes. Youth. We went swimming, which was fun, but only about fifteen people showed up compared to our regular group that's usually between 25-35 people. But we still had fun - I jumped off the diving board and got a bleeding nose, which was kinda embarassing, but it was okay. The guys thought it was pretty funny, but they're guys, and since we were swimming I could splash them. They splashed me back, of course. So that had me pretty tired for Saturday morning, which was quiz practice.

I don't think I've ever actually wanted quiz practice to end...but I did. My review was horrible, which was slightly mitigated by the fact that everyone else's was too, but it's still not fun to get more errors than correct questions. Especially when they're idiotic things like "Salvation is found where?" (in no one else) which is part of our theme verse for this year, and of course everybody remembers this besides me. Sigh.

Anyway, after that I went shopping with Juli (I don't think you read this...but hi anyway!) which made me feel slightly better, because Juli is very fun to shop with. Plus, the whole Pirates of the Caribbean display was 30% off at Claire's, so I got a notebook and a pin and a pen and a little keychain-thingy. I almost wish I'd gotten the little medallion replica, but when would I wear it? We also got pictures in those little picture-taking things, but neither of us knew where the camera was pointing so all four pictures had about half of each of us. It was fun, though.

Sunday morning quiz practice went WAY better, I felt good about it. Oh, we also discovered our teams for the quiz meet this Saturday - mine is Erin and Everett and I, which is funny, because that was my rookie team in my first-ever quiz meet, when we made it to the finals. So hopefully we can do that well again! There's a ton of review to be ton this week....ohhhh boy...anyway, I brought home a concordance, which is really helpful in making questions, and a box of pads. I don't know if I'll use them, but they're good to have.

And yesterday....*drum roll* we went swimming at West Ed!!! Dad's boss gave him the day off, and for some reason (unknown to me, though I'm sure there was one) gave him a giftcard for the Waterpark. So we spent about five hours there, and it was amazing, because hardly anyone came until about four o'clock, and there was almost no lineup for any of the slides. Very fun. And my sister went on the 'free fall' slide TWICE, which I found amazing, because I only had to go on that thing once to get completely terrified and swear to never do it again. I guess I'm not a daredevil type. I did, however, go on the blue toilet-bowl slide (it's properly called the Tropical Typhoon, but nobody knows what I'm talking about when I say that) and Dad came with me. It was fun.

So now I'm really tired, which isn't good cause I have quite a bit to get done today, including a few hours of quizzing. So I guess I should go now...

~Sil

Why can I never come up with something interesting to put here?

That's the question of the day. Right there. The other one is: Why do I always leave my piano theory until the last minute on Wednesday before my lesson? WHY? I can NOT do that this week, I have two sheets and a complete practice test to do. Not to mention I just realized my theory exam is December 2nd, which is slightly more than two weeks from now. Great. I need to work on those terms.

Yesterday was a good day...I got up early enough to get all the stuff done I needed to do, and even though I forgot my library card Mom still managed to get the book I had on hold at the library, which was a big relief. It's called The Lioness and Her Knight, by Gerald Morris, part of "The Squire's Tales" series. Very good books, written in the King-Arthur sort of era but not at ALL old or middle english - they're quite funny. Gawain and Kai are my favorites. I think they may have spoiled the old- and middle-english versions for me, however. I bet I'll find them incredibly dry now. Apparently there's a REALLY new one, too, which I must read. I think it's called The Quest for the Fair Unknown.

Band went really well, which made up for last week when it didn't go as well. We did one song that I actually have piano in and I thought it went really well, and then three or four others that I have tambourine/orchestra bells/general percussion in. For one of our Christmas medleys, I do sleigh bells, which sounds really cool, except I have to make the switch back to orchestra bells pretty fast. Anyway, I definetely think I'm improving.

Piano was good...but piano is ALWAYS good. We chose a List D song out of my repertoire, which basically meant that we flicked through all the slow waltzy/jazz-sounding songs until I found a fast one I actually liked. There was really only one - the other fast one had to be played in combination with a slow one for an exam. My teacher did say she's going to dig up another one for me to do, because she knows I like fast ones and there weren't enough of them.

~Sil

Last night was weird...

I had this really odd dream last night...actually, I had two of them. The first one was this weird dream where my mom and dad were both like ten years old and they and their parents were going on a plane somewhere, and my dad discovers this weird plan to do something or other with weird mutated animals. Very...weird. I woke up after that with a bleeding nose (SIGH) which I guess is going to be a theme this winter, again. Phooey. I got some on my pillowcase, which was annoying because it's only a year old and it's lovely and green and leafy but I think I got it in cold water soon enough to get the stain out, and at least it's my green one and not my grey one, because that would have shown up a lot more. But I really hate waking up at 6 in the morning and getting all woken up and then having to clean off the spots I got blood on before going back to bed. Ick. But I did it, and went back to sleep and had another weird dream, about how my grandparents had a summer camp at their house and I didn't know, and one of the counselours asked how old I was and I said "grade ten" and she said I looked way too old and maybe I would be able to fix it with makeup. Riiiiight then. So anyway, we had Christmas dinner at their house only they weren't there, and nobody would talk to me and I spilled gravy on this white shirt I was wearing. So, not a very fun dream. I did wake up kinda relieved that someone hadn't actually said I was 'way too old'.

We watched Corner Gas last night! It always makes Mondays better when we catch Corner Gas. This episode was about how the gas station was somehow not inside the town boundary line so Wanda goes into this whole thing about how Brent has to pay her way more, and every time he sees her she goes 'by the way...' and tell him he has to pay for new speakers in her car or something. So then this guy walks into the gas station and complains about how expensive the washer fluid is, because Brent had cheap red stuff but nobody would buy it, and they get talking, and it goes like this:

[Talking about paying people]
Brent: Well, I dunno, the gal who works for me just tells me what to pay her every now and then.
Guy: Tell me, did that last sentence sound stupid to you?
Brent: Yeah, just a little.

So that was funny. And Karin and Davis had this whole practical joke thing going that wasn't AS funny, but still funny. I always discover how the plot of that show has three or four different things going on at once, it's cool.

Uncle Darcy came to visit yesterday! (I do believe you read this, U.D...so hi) And we did stuff on the piano and talked about how some movie soundtracks don't translate well to piano, and then watched some of the old Shaggy Dog movie. The beginning was good but the end got sort of dark. By the way, to answer your question, orchestra bells look like this:



The ones I play in band are on a stand, a lot like a keyboard. You play them with mallets.

~Sil

Monday again

For lack of any other title, this post is...monday again. Mondays are always slightly depressing. I'm not really in the mood for a long post right nowm either.

Sooo....on Friday there was youth, which was "So You Want To Be On A Gameshow?" and it was quite fun - we all had alternate names (things like "Plays in Traffic" "Blonde Bob" "Shane O'Mac Daddy" "Bacon Bit" and "Pirate of the Rings" [me]) and played three rounds of game show - one was a play on "The Price is Right", the next one was a play on "Who wants to be a Millionaire" and the third one was sort of a mix of different things. We were on teams, boys against girls, and the girls won. Like they usually do. So then we had a draw at the end and I won this huge slab of Lindt chocolate, probably about a foot long. It's yummy. I think I have about half of it left.

Saturday we helped my aunt move into her apartment, which is a really nice one. I envy her, getting to arrange all her own furniture and decide how to organize her stuff. It was a bit annoying because the elevator was at one end of the building and the apartment was at the other, so there was a lot of carrying that had to happen.

And Sunday was quiz practice, which went well, particularly because I knew the chapter well this week, and we were there early and got mini pizzas. Haha! We did it! I felt very smug. At the beginning of the service there was a presentatino honoring all the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2006. There were 42. One of them was named William Turner, which I got excited about for a minute. Lots of them were really young (well, in the grand scheme of things), which is sad.

And that brings us to today, and I hope nothing's happening of importance cause I want to stay home.

~Sil

Are we back to Thursday again?

That seemed fast. But we are, indeed, back to Thursday, and I almost think I need a day to recuperate from yesterday, when I left the house at 9:00 and didn't make it back until 6:15. So being the introvert I am that made me really tired and kinda emotional. Which might account for the fact that I don't feel that good about band practice, but I think I'll wait until my outlook is less depressing to figure out why that left me feeling so down. So moving on...

I babysat two little kids at the church for most of the morning, and got my quizzing done while one of them was down for his nap and the other one was completely absorbed in her Littlest Pets and didn't seem to need me in the least. So that was good, because I ALWAYS get behind on quizzing on Wednesdays. Then after lunch I walked over to my piano teacher's house for 1:30 and had my lesson, which went pretty well as usual, she lent me a Christmas book and bought me another one (it's called Mozart Meets Santa). I did get my theory done, which I was pretty relieved about because I was up until 11 on Tuesday night doing it. All you public school people, roll your eyes, I'm sure you stay up until 11 all the time. There you go. Got it out of your system. Anyway, I was up until 11 and I got very tired.

~Sil

Hadhod

I was just reading the Silmarillion at breakfast and I discovered the most interesting thing - anybody reading this who is totally not interested in the Third Age videogame, Elvish, or Dwarvish, bear with me. So anyway. I was on Chapter Ten (Of the Sindar) and reading about how the Dwarves came over the Blue Mountains of Ered Luin into Beleriand. So then there's a big explanation of what they called the Dwarves - they called themselves Khazad, but the Sindar called them Naugrim, 'the stunted people'; or Gonnhirrim, 'masters of stone'. So anyway, they built halls and mansions for themselves, mined them out of the rock, and there were three of them - and each of them has a different name in Dwarvish, Elvish and the Common Tongue, so get ready. First there was Gabilgathol (Dwarvish) a.k.a. Belegost (Elvish) a.k.a. Mickleburg; second there was Tumunzahar (D) a.k.a. Nogrod (E) a.k.a. Hollowbold; and third (and this is where it gets interesting) there was Khazad-Dum (D) which is Dwarrowdelf in the common tongue, and Hadhodrond in Elvish. So I was kinda interested, seeing as the dwarf in Third Age's name is Hadhod (and we never knew whether to pronounce it "Had-hod" or "Hath-od" - soft 'th' like in 'then'). I flipped to the back of the Sil, where there's a dictionary of components to Elvish names, and it says that "Hadhod" is just "Khazad" sort of altered to make it Elvish-sounding. Those Elves. Anyway, I sort of came to the conclusion that if the Dwarves called themselves "Khazad" and "Hadhod" is an Elvish rendering of "Khazad" then Hadhod must mean "Dwarf". And I am aware that this is not extremely creative, naming your dwarf "dwarf" but it was fun figuring it out.

I feel better today, which is good, because I'm actually going to be doing stuff, unlike yesterday, when I wasn't. Bible study tonight, which will be slightly less fun than usual because Bryan and Natalie (and Ellie) are out of town. I love everyone else too, of course. I had a perfect attendance until last week, because it was Hallowe'en, which kinda sucks, but I did get to stay home and watch Gilmore Girls and eat candy. So it wasn't all bad. Plus I got to use Dad's Blackberry all evening between trick-or-treaters.

Oh, and one more note about the Silmarillion - Feanor has now graduated, he's a COMPLETE idiot. Honestly. He takes this unbreakable oath (along with his seven sons) that...what was the wording...oh, "...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the world Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession." Honestly, they're just big glowing diamonds. So they all depart Valinor along with some other Elves, where they were all living with the Valar, and end up KILLING some of the Teleri (sea-elves) because they refuse to give them ships to cross over. And even when they DO have ships, Feanor takes off with himself and his sons, and when his oldest (Maedhros) asks what ships they will send back for the others, Feanor basically goes "Oh, you thought they were coming too? [Snicker snicker] No, we're just going to abandon them over there to cross over the freezing-cold Helcaraxe and freeze their smaller appendages off and then arrive in Middle-Earth boiling mad at us." Well, he didn't really say the last part, but how thick can you get?

~Sil

Quote of the day: "Therefore Thingol took thought for arms, which before his people had not needed..."

Yup, things can be challenging when you don't have arms...

Blah

Mondays are always sort of 'blah' but today I actually feel kinda under the weather. Not anything serious, but I don't really want to do much more than lay on my bed reading or something. Which is good, because the majority of my schoolwork (minus piano) doesn't require much more than that. I don't really want to make my bed, either, but I'll end up doing that sooner or later if I want to lay on it all day.
I had the weirdest dream last night! It as about how my ring (The One Ring) came off and fell down the heat register and all the stuff it did, and when I woke up I was CONVINCED that my ring was gone forever because it wasn't on my finger. Also, for some reason, I was under the impression that there were a couple people in my room having a discussion until I looked around and there wasn't anyone. Dreams are weird. Anyway, I discovered my ring on the bathroom counter this morning. I must have taken it off last night to wash my face. Also, incidentally, I had a killer of a stomachache for about half an hour (it was 2:30 am, I know, I looked at the clock) eeeeearly in the morning, which was quite annoying, but I did eventually get back to sleep. Hence the reason I didn't get up until shortly after 9:30 this morning. Oops.

But on another note, I have discovered the many things I can do with my hair when it's straight. LIke pigtails, for example, which I can't do when it's curly because they look like little curly balls stuck to back on my head. I should really straighten it myself more often so I can do it properly, I like it so much.

Quiz practice on sunday was good, despite our head coach being out of town. She usually totally orchestrates the practice so we're a little lost when she's not here. Div A practice went quite well, I think my jumping is definetely improving. I jumped on an Interrogative question that was "It is necessary to what?" only I jumped right on "It is n -" and I still got it right, which made me pretty happy. I am really looking forward to the quiz meet...but don't I always?
After quiz practice I was helping in Soul School, which is the sunday school for kids ages kindergarten to grade two. They're always pretty funny in that class, so me and Matt (who was also helping) had a pretty good time.
And after that...I hung around talking for a leeeetle bit too long, it seems, because Dad went home in the van and Mom took the three younger kids in the car and me and my brother discovered we'd been abandoned. But it was okay, because we got a ride with my friend's mom.

And...I'm reading the Silmarillion for the first time in a while and actually understanding it. It's amazing. I just finished "Of the Silmarils" and now I'm on "The Darkening of Valinor". I've discovered that Elves are not perfect, as Lord of the Rings leads you to believe, because boy, Feanor is (to use an extremely modern term that doesn't really work for the type of medieval-mythology-style the Sil is written in - but oh well) a bit of an idiot. I'm still finding it a bit hard to understand, because there's only a map of Beleriand in the Sil and it's hard to know when they're talking about a place in Valinor and when they're talking about a place in Middle-Earth (because none of the Middle-Earth places have the same names, this is thousands of years before LOtR.)

~Sil

Sleeepy...

Youth sleepover. 'Nuff said. I got to sleep at 3:30 AM on a church pew, and woke up at 8:30. I'm too tired to do a long post, but I did do this quiz...

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

Yay me!

~Sil

Winter

It's snowing again. Yesterday we went shopping for winter things, like hats and gloves and scarves and things, but we didn't have much luck. I did, however, get some more Winnie-the-Poohs, which was good. There's a new series that has other Pooh characters dressed up too - so now I have Eeyore in a Tigger costume, and Piglet and Tigger in Pooh costumes. I kinda rearranged them on my wallet, because I had, like, seventeen on there and they were getting to be annoying. So I took off all the ones that weren't undersea-themed or brand new (like my Pooh characters). I now have...eleven on there. My three and then the orca, starfish, jellyfish, octopus, seahorse and the three dolphins. But I'm probably boring whoever's reading this to death so I'll stop now.
Other than that, not much happened yesterday. Which was okay. Tonight is youth, it's an overnight-er. So likely, nobody will sleep, and those who do (like me) won't hit the sack until three or four in the morning. It's going to be awesome, I loved the last overnighter and this time our group is much bigger. The guys will likely spend all their time playing videogames and floor hockey (BOOOORING) so I'm not sure what the girls will be doing, but it'll be fun.

~Sil

Music-y Wednesday

Wednesday is my music day. I have piano lessons and then band practice. I had one of those piano lessons where I play a piece and I think it's kinda mediocre and then my teacher starts gushing over the dynamics and how 'controlled' it was and I'm going "ooo....kay....". Which is always nice, since my practice week last week was not the best and I always feel good when I come out of a good piano lesson.
Then, at band, I was there really early like I usually am (and I like it) so I helped the director carry stuff, because really what he's carrying is his music stand, my orchestra bells (well, they're his bells, but I use them) and my keyboard, so I feel like I should really help him out. We talked some while I was setting up chairs and he was setting up the keyboard and bells, and I got to brag about my grade seven exam (not much, just a bit), which was good. So then, as I'm almost finished setting up, one of the directors from the other bands comes in sorta half-playing his clarinet and half-singing. I think I met him once before. Anyway, he's past middle-aged, maybe in his fifties of sixties, and he's a sort of Santa-like character. So he walks in and our director (Bill) and him sort of chat, but what's funny is that when Bill says "What's new?" he totally doesn't answer the question, but goes off telling this long joke about an old lady who put a dead horse in her bathtub so she could tell her husband what was new. And the whole time he's twiddling little tunes on his clarinet between bits of the joke. I really liked him, even though he was eccentric, and when he strolled over to see if our old piano (I don't use it, because it's too heavy to move) was in tune he played this amazing jazzy-sounding bit of music. I loved it.
Anyway, moving on to band, we finished warm-up and tuning really quickly and then rehearsed the one song that actually has a proper piano part, Cold Snap, which went well - I have this back-and-forth harmony with the alto sax, which sounds cool. But I'm much better at my part than Jason is at his, if I do say so myself. Then we did the one where I really don't do much, I play the tambourine for the first twenty-five bars and then nothing. I may play the triangle and the crash cymbals later on, but we don't have either, so it's just tambourine for now. Then we did Winter Fantasy, a medley of Good King Wenceslas, O Christmas Tree and Deck the Halls, which I have bells for. I actually did pretty well. I mean, I didn't suck. So all in all it was a very good practice, maybe the best yet, and then I came home and played Rummoli until after nine o'clock. We used Rockets and Smarties for poker chips, seeing as we have so many, and then at the end you got to eat whatever you were left with. I am a little behind on quizzing, however, but I won't stress (I WILL NOT) because it's only four verses and it's not the end of the world.

~Sil

This house smells of candy.

There's always a lot, with four trick-or-treating kids, and when one of them has an exceptionally big haul (it was his last year so he went a little crazy) it's nuts. They've been tossing a very generous amount my way, so I'm not doing too badly, on the whole. Mom made her yearly Hallowe'en joke about sand-blasting our teeth, and we watched Jeopardy and Gilmore Girls, both of which we don't usually, while we ate candy. Oh, and Luke and Lorelai (and Rory, for that matter, though not as much) are idiots. They're idiots. Luke and Lorelai are PERFECT for each other, but they don't seem to realize it, and it's maddening! I mean, real-life people would NEVER be so stupid! I guess it does make for interesting TV, though.
I saw some hilarious costumes - one kid was a kissing booth (I kid you not) and one was a whoopie cushion; and this duo came to the door, and one of them was Spongebob. So I said "Hi, Spongebob" and the other kid says, "I'm Death!" So they get their candy and off they go, while I start giggling maniacally at the thought of "Spongebob and Death" trundling along with their pillowcases in search of sugar. He actually looked very like a Nazgul (Ringwraith, Black Rider for the uninitiated. Er, Death, that is, not Spongebob). I should have suggested he start speaking in a screechy, hoarse voice and then he could have said he was one. There were a couple Darth Vaders (one kid explained very earnestly that he was Anakin in a sort of semi-Darth-Vader state; at least that's what I got out of it) and the usual Canadian Halloween costumes which are mostly torso-centered, so you see a pair of ogre ears or a pirate hat and you just have to assume that the rest of it is there somewhere under the winter coat. Sadly, no hobbits or elves or orcs (or humans, for that matter) were readily apparent. I need to be a hobbit next Halloween, so people know all the LotR fans haven't melted off the face of the earth. One pirate came to the door and asked if he could come in and join the party, after seeing my "Pirates! Ye be warned" sign. I have to say though, my costume was better than his and I wasn't even trick-or-treating.
Oh, so as is probably apparent, I stayed home from Bible study. My pumpkin was nothing special, because I couldn't find a simple enough pirate design so I did a sort of generic pumpkin-y kind of thing. We got pictures, but no digital ones, so as soon as we get them developed I'll scan them on Mom's computer and people who wanted them can see.

~Sil

Happy Hallowe'en!

Yes, I'm still bound and determined to spell it with an apostrophe. It's been contractionized from All Hallow's Eve to Halloween (and how skewed is THAT?) and I think it deserves an iota of recognition that it wasn't ALWAYS Halloween, and once possessed a name that made a bit more sense. But such is the English language.
Anyway, I do in fact have a costume. It's a white long-sleeved shirt with a navy-blue-and-brown vest, brown boots, a sort of dark multicolored bandana and gold hoop earrings (which I'm wearing now). Oh, and a belt with a sword stuck in it, if I can scavenge one from around here. I'm sure I can, there seems to be a plethora of toy swords lying around (did I use 'plethora' correctly? Or should it have been 'SEEM to be a plethora of toy swords'?). And today I'm going to get a large piece off that roll of paper we have lying around, rip it artistically, write "Pirates! Ye be warned" on it, and put it on the front door. I still have not decided, however, whether I'm going to Bible study or staying home. I tend to seesaw between both - last night I was completely convinced I was going to Bible study and this morning I woke up determined to stay home. I think I'll end up staying home, if only because of the fact that last year we only got about 50 trick-or-treaters total and this Dad got a box of 100 chocolate bars. So guess who gets to eat the leftovers! Me. I also don't know what to do on my pumpkin, whether to do it normally and then stick an eye patch and pirate hat on it, or attempt some fancy pirate design. Oh, I just seesawed, now I want to go to Bible study.

I'm actually on schedule for quizzing, I have the first eight verses of Acts 7:20-60 memorized, and I'm doing another eight today. Hopefully. But it's encouraging to not start the week off behind.

I think I'm going to go Google pumpkin designs.

~Sil

Daylight Savings

Actually, none of us were caught by surprise this time around. Though all the kids were up early, and seemed to have entirely forgotten that you need to be DRESSED and ready to go on Sunday morning before you can play Nintendo. So I got up about an hour after they did and reminded them. I'm sure they all think I'm absolutely no fun, but you know, a girl's got to be on time for quizzing practice! And we just about were, we were all ready at least ten minutes before we needed to go, but then the van had to warm up and Dad had to scrape off the ice (it snowed! Like, really snowed! About four or five inches!) and we didn't drive as fast as we usually do because the roads were slippery, so we weren't on time. Well, we weren't one time as in 8:45-on-time, but we weren't seriously late. It's a good thing there weren't mini-pizzas this morning though, for people who come on time, or I would not have gotten one.
We did, however, decide on our new quiz t-shirt design. I actually think I like the old one better, a lot better, but you know, I don't think anyone else really wanted the old one so it doesn't make much of a difference. And we were exactly divided as far as color goes, there were sixteen quizzers there, and eight wanted a sort of teal-green color and eight wanted black. I would want black if my design had gotten chosen (CIA, Christ in Action) but as it didn't (it did respectably well in the voting though) I would prefer teal. Anyway, I'm going to wear my old shirt a lot more now, because I love that shirt. It's got the Southgate logo on the front and then on the back a picture of a Jesus fish with an eye in the middle and underneath it the words "Becoming His Pupil" which I thought was really smart. When we were choosing it, one of the coaches we had then (Stephen) did a variation with the Eye of Sauron inside rather than an normal eye. I thought it was very sweet of him, but of course nobody voted for it besides me.
At the end of practice we got cinnamon buns and doughnuts, because it was Meghan and Sarah's birthdays. They're both born on Hallowe'en. We only got in about fifteen minutes of practice, but it was pretty productive practice, and I beat Josh up a lot, which is basically my quizzing goal in life. Eh, no, it's not, but he's been to Internationals so I consider it quite an achievement.

Oh, and then yesterday afternoon we (me and mom) had a lovely quiet three hours while the others went swimming. I forgot to do piano, though, maybe I'll do it twice today.

I should really post more regularly, so I don't have to do these giant ones. Anyway, the Photo Scavenger Hunt was pretty fun, and our team would have won except another team did some weird thing where they got two of the objects we needed in one picture and got bonus points. Phooey, I like winning. But the prize was a pizza party next week (which is the all-nighter) and Bryan just gave us all a pizza party, so it doesn't really matter who won. I guess (says the extremely competitive side of me). I got a bunch of the Polaroids we took, to scrapbook them, and I'm currently working on it. Oh, that reminds me! I have to email everyone from the quiz meet who took pictures and get them to send them to me.

~Sil

Strange

I keep forgetting to mention - I've discovered something pretty weird about myself. I was memorizing verses in Acts 7 on Wednesday and playing with little plastic toy soldiers at the same time and it went way better (the memorizing, that is) than usual. And then today when I was going over them I put away my laundry and played with a balloon and that worked, too; whereas if I just try and sit there with a book and repeat them to myself, I don't get very far. Weird, eh? I guess I have to be doing something else simultaneously for the verses to really stick.

Photo Scavenger Hunt at youth tonight. Basically what we do is wander around West Edmonton Mall taking pictures of things on a list. Not, like, specific things, but things like "The coolest thing in the mall" (the skating rink) or "The most light bulbs possible in one place" (a Christmas tree) or "Seven shoes". Last year we got most points for seven shoes because everyone else just took off seven shoes and took a picture, whereas we actually found a display with seven shoes in it and took a picture. Plus, our team only had three people (3 people = 6 shoes, in case you didn't catch that) anyway so we couldn't have. Oh yeah, and we're using old Polaroid cameras. This means two things - crazily expensive film, and only ten pictures per roll. And don't wave them to dry the ink!

~Sil

I love Thursdays

Thursdays mean I don't have to do anything...or go out anywhere...well, I still have school, but that doesn't really count. They also mean I can wear comfy pants and different-colored socks, because I haven't done laundry in a while. Oops. Unless we go shopping for my friend's birthday present today (which we might, her party's on Saturday and there's youth tomorrow night so we couldn't go then) I don't actually have to leave the house. Wow.

Band yesterday was funny, because everyone was tired (including Bill, the director) so we attempted Air For Band, which is arguably our easiest piece, and failed horribly. I kept thinking we'd stopped because in bits nobody would play at all and I'd be sitting there playing the dinky little keyboard all by myself. But it made me feel better, because I hadn't practiced a whole lot this week. So we got a couple Christmas medley pieces (I have bells in both), which are pretty, and sorta tried one of them. It went okay except there were long bits where I didn't play and I kept getting lost as to where to come in. Usually bells follow the melody though, so it wasn't that hard, especially since they're all traditional carols. I really should see if anyone I know has an unused set of bells lying around somewhere, because it would be good if I could practice. Oh, and as an aside we now have a french horn, because the first trumpet got one. He's not very good at it but that's okay - we have too many trumpets anyway. Four, including him, and they're all guys and they all like to goof around a LOT.
Piano went well...except I can't seem to grasp transposition for orchestral instruments and I keep doing stupid things that render the whole problem wrong. Sigh. Though my teacher did FINALLY see Dead Man's Chest, so she knows what the heck I'm playing out of the music book. She agreed with me about the end. 211 days until At World's End!

I'm finished Half-Blood Prince, and it was a lot sadder than I thought it would be at the end. I cried. And I'm sad that Harry isn't going back to Hogwarts, because I love Hogwarts, and I thought it was really stupid that he couldn't go to the final Quidditch match because he had detention. Honestly. Ron stopped being an idiot, though, so that was good.
I'm actually finished it now, but I started a book called His Majesty's Dragon yesterday. I think it was published in some places as Temeraire, actually. It was pretty good, but not long enough, because I finished it this morning.

~Sil

Half-Blood Prince

I think this week's going to be one of those ones where every single day somebody different gets sick. I like having a big family but whenever one of us gets sick it takes the rest of us about two weeks to recover. It's not that good for school, either, because they watch movies all day and it's really hard to concentrate - especially since I'm reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (#6) and it's really hard to put down. I'll review it when I finish it, but so far my observations are as follows: I like Harry a lot, he's more honest and he doesn't act like he's the only smart one around, two weird things have happened so far and for both of them he's told Dumbledore or Mr. Weasley immediately rather than trying to solve them himself. Also, Ron is a bit of an idiot at this point, and it's that part in the book (there always is one, in every book) where Ron and Hermione aren't speaking to each other. Never very comfortable. Um...what else...oh yeah, we've finally discovered that Snape never actually did reform and is currently spying on the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore, which disappointed me because I always wanted him to prove Harry wrong and turn out to be good. Oh well. And of course now that Voldemort's back there seem to be evil plots springing up like grass and I'm on tenterhooks that Mr or Mrs Weasley is going to suddenly die. Yes, I already know Dumbledore dies, guys. Somehow everyone I know who had read it before me didn't seem to be able to keep it quiet. Though I really would rather Dumbledore than Sirius, I wish he hadn't died in the fifth one. And last but not least, Malfoy seems to be in Death Eater-training. Lovely.

Had my science test I'd been avoiding yesterday. Or it feels like I'd been avoiding it, maybe it was just that week off school. Anyway, I left three questions blank because I really had no clue, so that wasn't good. I think I got most of the others right though. I wonder how I could enjoy science so much last year and then not like Biology so much (so far, anyway)?

Oh yes, and you guys were really transparent at supper yesterday, MOM and DAD. "Hm, I wonder how many kingdoms there are?" "So what kind of organisms are in kingdom Protista?" Though maybe you were trying to be transparent. Anyway, subtle was not the way to describe it! But don't worry, I still love you.

~Sil

I...am...exhausted!

But it's a good kind of exhausted. Cause there was a quiz meet this weekend and it was AMAZING! I'm still practically glowing!

First of all, Southgate was unbelievable. We had five teams and four of them (including mine) made the two three-team finals (which means teams placing 1st, 2nd, 3rd quizzed against each other and teams placing 4th, 5th and 6th did too). I think we ended up with first, third, fourth and sixth places. It was amazing. So all but four of the Southgate people got team awards. Then there were Top Rookie awards, which means that the top ten kids who are just starting quizzing get awards. My brother got the VERY top, which was so amazing, and my friends Josh and Emily got second and fourth, which was equally amazing, because this is their first year doing ANY kind of quizzing.

But now it's time for me to brag. Because that's what a blog is for, to talk about yourself, right? So anyway - you have six quizzes in a meet, not counting the finals. And you need four correct questions to quiz out. So I got four correct and none wrong in EVERY SINGLE quiz, even the final, and I got first place over everybody. Like, everyone. And I got a medal! And I love it so much! And that's without the fact that we won our final (which was the teams placing 4th, 5th and 6th), and I had the best team ever and...sigh...I keep reliving it over again, it was such an awesome day. Next quiz meet is going to be even better because I'll be in A...and strangely, A is a lot more relaxing because I'm not worrying about getting perfect or anything, I'm just trying to get off my seat as much as possible.

I should really get going on school, it's almost lunchtime and I've only done piano. Oops.

~Sil

I found it!

My friend helped me look on tuesday evening and it was behind the information desk. Whew! Now I have my nice little book back again, and I'll know not to take it for granted. So, I celebrated by memorizing five verses in Acts five last night around 11 o'clock. I couldn't sleep. I wonder if they stuck - I only have five more to memorize and then I'm done the chapter, which is good, because I need to quote chapters four and five to someone before tomorrow evening. So today will include a lot of quizzing. And a lot of studying for science. I wouldn't mind it if there weren't fifty-five MILLION (okay, exaggeration) vocabulary words each week and they didn't expect me to be able to tell off the top of my head whether a bacterium lacking a cell wall is in class Archaebacteria or Mollicutes. Or if a gram-positive, non-oxygen-producing photosynthetic bacterium is is phylum Firmicutes or phylum Gracilicutes. It's not like I'm considering biology as a lifelong career! All I want to do is write books!

Grrr. Um, so what else is happening today...ah yes, we're going shopping for Hallowe'en costumes at Value Village. I think we need to put together two pirates, one for me and one for my sister, and I still don't know what my brother's being (probably a hockey player. My, how creative...) and we already have a Spiderman costume for my littler brother and a princess dress for my sister. I have an idea for a pirate hat if we can't find one - I'll make a paper hat and spray-paint it black, and maybe find a skull-and-crossbones sticker and put it on the front, and voila, you have your pirate hat. Also, if we can't find exactly the right things, all we really need to do is get two or three belts and sling 'em around sort of haphazardly and there you go. Like this:



You'll notice he's got at least three belts there, sort of across each shoulder and around his waist. I also thought that if we can't find pirate boots (very likely) we can just get some semi-pirate-looking ones and put big cuffs on them. Like this:



Even rubber boots might work, with some alteration. I'm getting rather excited about this. I might also get some feathers and stick them in my pirate hat. Maybe even black eyeshadow...Jack is always wearing black eyeshadow.

But enough about that! Josh asked me for the snow ice cream recipe earlier, so here it is, for him and anyone else who wanrs it:

2 eggs, beaten
2 C. milk (I use powdered, it works fine)
1 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp vanilla
Flavoring to tase (it's really good by itself, so I've never tried flavoring)
Bucket of fresh clean snow (that works out to about two gallons, I find. Any amount around there will work, though, and if you want more flavor, use less snow)

Beat eggs and milk a VERY VERY large bowl. You may want to use a pot, even. Blend in sugar. Add salt, vanilla and other flavoring (if using). Combine with snow and mix well. Freeze for at least an hour and a half. May omit eggs and substitute 3/4 C honey for sugar, though I find this doesn't taste as good.

~Sil

More snow

I wonder why I always seem to title my posts about the weather. Strange. But yes, we got more snow. Everything that came yesterday melted, but this stuff looks like it might hang around for a bit. There's not very much, probably about a centimeter, but enough to make things look white or white-r than they were before. I hope we get a nice big dump before Hallowe'en.

Speaking of which, I still want to be a pirate, though I'm think I won't be a character specifically, just to make it slightly easier to find a costume. I want to do a skull and crossbones on my pumpkin, too, but I'm having trouble finding a pattern. Maybe I'll just make one up and hope it works.

My little orange Acts booklet is missing and I'm pretty worried about it - that was the best book EVER, I spent so long doing the map of Middle-Earth on the cover and I mack-tacked it really well and...I don't want to lose it. I'm going to look at the church tonight at bible study, and I really hope it's in the lost and found or lying around somewhere, because I don't want to lose it. I don't even know if they're selling them anymore, which would be horrible. But maybe I'm just overreacting and it's under my bed or something. Sigh.

To cheer myself up...this was posted on Arwen-Undomiel yesterday (thanks Luthien of Lorien, even though you're very likely not reading this, thanks anyway):

THE STUPIDITY OF THE WORLD AND HOW CANADIANS RESPOND.

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?(UK)
A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA)
A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto-can I follow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? (Sweden)
A: Sure. The grizzlies love fresh snacks.

Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed Beaver. (Italy)
A: Let's not touch this one.

Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax? (UK)
A: What is this ATM? We don't use cash. We use animal pelts and beads.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada? (USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to your North...oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (France)
A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? (USA)
A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? (France)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse with horns. (USA)
A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

That made me laugh, especially the one about the ATMs.

~Sil

It's snowing!

Yeah, and about time, too. What is this, Hawaii? No snow until OCTOBER SIXTEENTH? I guess we'll at least have it for Hallowe'en. Dad bought three pumpkins and one of them is mine - it's going to have a skull and crossbones on it. He also got candy. I still don't know what on earth I'm doing that night. There's youth bible study, which I might just dress up as a pirate and go to; or I could stay home, dress up as a pirate and give out candy; or go to my friend's house. We were both going to be pirates, so it would work. 220 days until PotC: At World's End! I'll have to ask tomorrow evening if we can dress up on Hallowe'en night at bible study. I mean, I'm sure they'd still let me in if I was costumed but it would be nice if other people did the same thing.

We're back into school now, after last week's holiday, and the quiz meet is this weekend. My team is Debra and Daniel, which rocks, and we have a total of five Southgate teams, which is bigger than I can ever remember us being. So that's cool. The quiz meet is at our church, so we're meeting there on Thursday to set up and then on Friday for some quizzing in the evening. I'm in the youth band, which is doing five or six songs. It won't be as fun as last time, I don't think, when there were only four of us singing. Now there are six, and all of them are girls except one. Plus, in the one song we were totally off-key for more than half of it and I don't even LIKE that song. And we didn't get to do Shout to the North, my FAVORITE song, because the guitarists didn't have music. I have been able to sing higher lately, though, which is good. I still have to jump an octave down on the choruses of songs sometimes, but I'm getting better. I can barely hear myself at all, though. So yeah, it won't be as fun as last time.

It's still snowing. I hope it snows all day, then I can make ice cream. This is where all you picky "oh no - GERMS!" people cringe and tell me I'm killing myself slowly. This is also where people like Steven Chute start going "You see, when snow comes through the atmosphere it falls through a layer of smog..." and all such annoying stuff. I like snow ice cream. And Erin, I hope you don't mind me quoting you (sort of) but - I'll call you after I die, and if it's because I ate snow ice cream, you can sue me. There. That's my little snippet of plagiarism for today.

~Sil

I'm alive!

I haven't been abducted by aliens or anything, I'm alive. I just get lazy during holidays. And I'm not really in the mood for a long post right now, so this won't be overly lengthy.

We're currently visiting Josh and Emily, which is fun, and we're going to have a quiz practice tonight. We also might go shopping, play some games, all that jazz. We're heading home around five tomorrow to make it to youth on time (or slightly late). Saturday quiz practice is this weekend, and I can't say I'm really caught up, but as long as I review chapters 2 and 3 I should be okay.

Band was fun yesterday - one of the trumpets played Pirates music! I was pretty impressed...and we played the one song to which there is an actual piano part (gasp!) which I'm still having some difficulty with. I tried to say no to that lady who wanted me to sing but she didn't seem to want to take no for an answer. It annoys me. Maybe I'll just avoid her.

~Sil

Weeeekend!

Ah, this is what I went through five weeks of school to get to! The first day of a...let me count...ten-day holiday? Nine-day holiday? Something like that. Anyway, we're going to visit my grandparents tomorrow (and their grand piano. It's calling to me, I can hear it) which will be awesome, and then Josh and Emily on wednesday after band! Yay! And I'll be back in time for quizzing saturday practice and youth couch games (Animal Whacking Game! Woot!).

Speaking of which, youth last night was pretty fun - we all made pizza and salad and cookies. I ended up doing a pizza all by my onesies because Jessica and her friend were doing the salad, Matthew and Ben were doing their own pizza and Jeff and Caleb (naughty sponsors) ran off with our cookies and I never saw them again until they showed up with a goopy chocolately mess that they said was cookies. But we ate them anyway. And then nobody wanted to eat my pizza! And I thought it was really good, it has pepperoni and ham and black olives and a lot of cheese and basil sprinkled on top because there was some left over from the pizza sauce. And of course, while we were eating, all the guys agreed that Orlando Bloom was hunkier than Johnny Depp. Which he is. But it didn't make much sense.
Then after supper we feebly attempted a few games (Wink murder and The Mexican Square-Dancing game) but they didn't work out so well, so the guys and some of the girls played floor hockey and some of the other girls who didn't want to (like me) wandered into the sanctuary and fooled around on the piano. Michelle played random chords and I made up a melody on top, which was fun, and then I played He's A Pirate and drew a pretty sizable audience (EVERYONE loves Pirates music). I love that song. Oh, and I finally found out what's happening with youth band, which was good, and suggested some songs to do.

So today all that needs doing is for me to convince my mom to take me shopping for various things, including winter dress shoes, and chores. Which I would actually rather not do.

~Sil

MORE rain.

It's raining. Again. Honestly, if we have to have precipitation and it has to be freezing cold, why can't it be snow? Snow is pretty and fun to play in and it makes us feel all nice and winter-y. But rain just makes you look out the window and think 'Eurgh'.

Anyway. Today's my sister's birthday, and here I was going to say that I'm a little tired of her bursting into tears every time something doesn't go her way because it's her birthday, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without sounding snobby. Oh wait, I just did. I can't exactly blame her for being disappointed that her friends couldn't come over and mom couldn't pick up the lunch she wanted because the van had a flat tire, though.

I didn't have to go anywhere yesterday! It was awesome! I laid around all day in comfy clothes and finished Beauty (by Robin McKinley) and started the first Harry Potter. I still haven't read the sixth, and for a while I didn't really want to, but now that it's at the library I figured I'd read the whole series over again, just to get the appropriate nuance before reading number six.

Youth tonight - Cater to Yourself. We're making our own supper from scratch. Pizza, salad and cookies, I believe. We're also having pizza for supper for my sister's birthday, which means I get pizza twice in one evening! Awesome!

I'm not really in the mood for a long blog post right now, I don't think. I'm gonna go watch Sky High again.

~Sil

Busy!

Oh boy, can you say no free time? I even made a schedule for myself today and assigned all the things I needed to do a time. Quizzing got an hour, math got a half hour cause it was a test (it'll likely take shorter than that) and I think I'll do piano this evening because I want to watch Sky High this afternoon. The kids (don't mind me, I call my siblings 'the kids') got it from the library. And just now, I killed two birds with one stone by doing my english assignment on my history text. I was taking notes. Go me. Maybe I can read a little bit this morning - I got 'Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast' by Robin McKinley from the library, and it's a really good book so I hope I have some leftover time to read. I also had Eragon and Eldest on hold, but only Eldest is in, which is annoying because I wanted to read Eragon first. I also got a biography of Peter Jackson, an autobiography of Sean Astin, Bored of the Rings (a parody of LotR. I'll try not to be offended) and one other one that I think is called Understanding the Lord of the Rings. Normally it wouldn't take me very long to do all of those but I have a feeling it'll take me a good long time now that life has kinda started up again.

Piano and band yesterday. Wednesday is soon to be my music day - piano lessons, then band, and pretty soon I'll have youth band practice in the evenings. I think. Piano was one of those days - I felt like I had a really bad practice week, and then I go into my lesson and my teacher's going, "Wow, that's so awesome! You're doing really well, keep up the good work!" and she seemed astounded when I said I only practiced four days. I guess it could be worse! Band was kinda boring, I played warm-up stuff and listened to them tune, and then didn't really play much else until the end, when I did tambourine for one song and lamely attempted orchestra bells for another. Yes, it's the same layout as a keyboard, but it's way different in that your playing technique changes drastically. It was interesting, though. And I did Accidentally in Love with our drummer, who is autistic. It went pretty well, though I was a little annoyed that they seemed to expect me to have the accompaniment perfect in one week. I have a life. And it does not revolve around band. Sorry, Robyn, but it doesn't. Oh, and then, just as I was walking out to meet my dad (who was driving our brand-new leased 2006 Impala and wearing his suit! No, I wasn't exceedingly proud...heehee...nobody else's dad looked so nice...) a hurried-looking sort of person accosted me and asked if I'd be interested in learning a song to sing at the Christmas concert. She'd never met me before, just sorta shoved the music into my hands. Yes, me, sing. I don't think I'm going to say yes, because I have a really low voice and I've never sung alone in front of people, and I'm sure there are way better singers than me out there, they're not hard to find.

At youth on Tuesday we played a hilarious game where we tied balloons to our ankles and ran around trying to pop other people's balloons while not getting our own popped. Me and my friend almost won, but not quite. During bible study it was slightly hard to pay attention, the guys were being silly. Next time I'm going to sit over by the people who actually want to listen. I should really post every day so I don't have to catch up on a bunch of stuff every time.

I did it again, left science too late. Phooey. I should really get on that.

~Sil

P.S. EDIT: I forgot Ellie's baby shower! Silly me! It was last night. I finally got to hold her, even though she was a little fussy, and I think Natalie liked all the baby gifts. Mine was pretty unique, I made chocolate chip cookies and put them in a nice little canister Mom got from IKEA. She actually bought it for herself but I really wanted to give Natalie something and there was nothing else to put the cookies in, so she said I could use it. Mom's present was a knitted rainbowy-colored super soft little baby poncho. Ellie won't be able to wear it for a year or two, but it is so super cute. She obsessed a lot about the size and the proportions, but I think it'll fit fine. Me and Erin and Loree and Jessica and Debra all folded tissue paper. No, that makes it sound too passive. We dueled over the tissue paper. Natalie eventually just tossed it in our direction and hoped that the floor didn't get too messed up. It was fun.

It's October

And everyone is in Hallowe'en mode. If anyone still spells it Hallowe'en... all the stores I've gone to have said Halloween and I want to climb up and insert one of those apostrophe stickers from Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Oh well. We went to West Ed yesterday and the littler kids wanted to go into the Disney store, so me and my brother wandered around going, "Pirates...pirates...pirates..." and somehow hoping the piratey stuff would call to us. We found it eventually, but there wasn't much there - Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow costumes for little kids; cheap action figures (the Bootstrap Bill one wasn't bad, but the rest were mediocre); lunchboxes that I suppose were somehow supposed to look piratey but didn't, they looked more ninja-y; and funniest of all, pirate pillows that you could plug music into. They had a picture of Will and Jack on them, and had a little speaker. Boy, I bet the quality was GREAT, too. Bit of sarcasm there.
Anyway, pretty much the reason I wanted to go to West Ed was that there's a Jacob Outlet there, which is like Jacob except way cheaper, and I got another pair of cords. This pair is a really nice light green. I think I have more pants now than I've had in, like, the past five years! Dress pants; black, green and tan cords, one pair of jeans, and navy comfy pants that make me look sporty when I'm actually not. Fun fun fun. We also went to Blessings, because I had $35 in gift certificates for there, and I got the Casting Crowns Lifesong CD as well as a thing called Revolve that is basically the New Testament in magazine form. So that was fun. I love shopping when I don't actually have to spend any money. I also deposited the money that's been sitting on my dresser for a week or two, which was kind of a relief. The bank branch was closed, but if you inserted your bank card in a little slot on a post by the door, it opened! It was pretty cool. Boy, I just realized how that makes me sound like I have no life at all. Don't worry, people.

Quiz practice went well, and I won a package of licorice from the draw. This week is Acts 5 - 42 verses. Hopefully it's not as bad as last week. I did get a bit of a head start yesterday. After this week we have two weeks of review before the quiz meet.

Oh, and we went out for supper at Wendy's last night too. I had a salad, like I always do, and a bite of my brother's super-spicy chicken burger, like I always do, and then ate all the ice from the drinks, like I usually do. Then I got a nice long time on the computer when we got back and talked to my friend on the phone (and I reminded her to read this. So you better be, Erin!). I'm actually not having as much of a problem with the phone as I usually do, I used to hate it so much.

One more week of school and then we get a week off. We're visiting my grandparents for Thanksgiving, and I really want to leave on Saturday so we can stay two nights (and I'd miss quiz practice, but frankly, I'd rather visit them) but the plan seems to be that we leave on Sunday after church and stay one night. Phooey. One night is never enough. Then on our week off we're visiting our friends in Edson for wednesday-thursday-friday (though I don't think we're arriving until wednesday evening, and I'd like to leave on friday early enough to get to youth at 7 because it's couch games and I love couch games). Saturday quiz practice is the weekend after that, and then a week later is the quiz meet. Fun stuff. I have to remember to call and say what days I'm not available to babysit, I keep forgetting.

~Sil

Dad's Back!

Yup, we picked him up from the airport yesterday at precisely 4:53 pm. His plane was delayed about 23 minutes, it was going to land at 4:30, which was annoying. Anyway, we're all very glad he's back. And he brought presents! I got a CD of Handel's water music, which I'm going to have to listen to...maybe while I do quizzing...that would be cool.

Youth was last night, and it was table-top game tournaments. Ping-pong, pool, air hockey and fooseball. Oh yeah, and Golden Eye, an N64 game. I entered all of them, and got to the second round of ping-pong and fooseball and then lost. Air hockey and Golden Eye I didn't even make it to the second round, and in pool (which I have never played before in my life) I made it to the third round because the second guy I played (a sponsor) sunk the eight ball off his first shot! It was...amazing. I rather like pool, I've decided. Anyway, it was fun, and the winning people got cool trophies Brian made that light up.

Today is theory class, which I have mixed feelings about...we have to go over modes again, which I really don't like, and probably some other stuff. Terms might be fun though, and we will get cookies. I really want to go shopping tomorrow! I hope I can...

~Sil

Odd?

Here I sit, at the computer, with a fleece blanket and a Slurpee. Does that seem odd to you?

But that's not what I sat down to say.

Several interesting things happened today, the first of which being - my piano lesson. My teacher gave me a little band pep talk, which cheered me up, and we tried unsuccessfully to get through my whole lesson. It didn't work. It never does. I did, however, show her my Davy Jones and Two Hornpipes PotC pieces, which she liked, and my Emma and Pride and Prejudice pieces, which she also liked. We took a quick look at Sonata in G major (Beethoven) but not a real long one, and then I sat down to do some quizzing outside while my sister had her lesson, which I'm afraid didn't go as well. I always feel bad for her, because I don't think she really likes piano that much even though she's obviously talented. She also super super SUPER sensitive to any type of criticism and my teacher will not hestitate to criticize you until there's not tomorrow. Which is the mark of a good music teacher, but not really very good for my sister. Anyway, I never know what to say, because I'm quite different from her and I don't really experience it the way she does.

Band was awesome, I had a really good time. We got a new piece called Early One Morning in which I get to play tambourine, triangle and crash cymbals (yay) and I'm going to do two duets at the Christmas concert with our main percussionist, whose name is Dylan. He's autistic. They're a song from the Muppets and Accidentally in Love from Shrek. So that was pretty cool. We rehearsed Cold Snap, which was SO awesome because I have a piano part and it sounds really good, especially with the saxes. Thankfully, we did not rehearse Air For Band, which I am not very good at, or Modal Song and Dance, which I am okay at but not real good. I also learned that we actually have an imbalance of high instruments to low, not low instruments to high as I had originally thought. So I need to rethink some of those piano parts, to make it so that I play more low stuff. The director brought a keyboard for me this time, which was good except that the chair was too low and the keyboard was too high, so I had to sit on my knees, which isn't the best posture for playing. I also learnt, to my annoyance, that a piano is considered part of the percussion in a band. I mean, please. Can you have a career playing the triangle? No. Can you have a career playing piano? Definetely. All our trumpets are guys and they goof around a bit.

On a bit of a more serious note, we went to McDonald's for supper today (that's not the serious thing, even though I don't really like McDonald's) and I read in the newspaper an article about a 20-year-old woman who got sentenced to ten years in jail for murdering her newborn baby. First, let me point out the inconsistencies here. So, you can get sentenced to ten years in jail for killing your newborn baby, but if you'd had an abortion a DAY earlier, not only would you have gotten off scot-free but the government would have paid for it. Does anyone else see something radically wrong there? As you should be able to tell by reading this, I am rabidly (okay, not rabidly, um...avidly) pro-life and I think all that pro-choice stuff is...ahem...how 'bout I don't finish that statement. How is it okay to murder a baby, whether it's inside a woman or not? How is that baby not a person? How come one day it's free to kill a baby and the next day, apparently after it's been born and is officially a person, you can be sentenced to ten years in prison? Can SOMEONE in society make sense of this whole pro-choice worldview? Because I think it's a feeble attempt at justifying something that can't be justified, by people who are too ashamed to own up to their mistakes. Pretty soon it'll be legal to suffocate a two-year-old because they stole your last chocolate bar. Pathetic.

Sorry. Got ranting there. I could have gone on for a long while yet, but I won't.

~Sil

Annoyed!

I keep losing jewelry! Last night I took off my jacket when I got home and my necklace got caught and the clasp came off, so I know it fell somewhere in the house but I can't find it. It's annoying. So today all I wore was earrings, and I might wear my little treble clef necklace, just because piano is today and band is today and the only way that thing's falling off is if someone comes at it with a pair of scissors.

Keep the comments coming, guys! And for those who asked (or maybe it was just one of you...), here's some info on middle children. The writer of the book, Kevin Leman, says that middle children are conundrums, and he even has a chart that describes how their personality traits can be contradictory. So, for example, on the one hand, middle children can be lonely, quiet and shy OR sociable, friendly and outgoing; impatient and easily frustrated OR laid-back. It's quite interesting, and a combination of all the traits he lists fits my sister (middle child) perfectly. And I mean perfectly. She's sociable and friendly, but shy at the same time, impatient and easily frustrated but not very competitive. It's amazing. According to him, middle children are the hardest to read of any birth order.

Youth last night. We played a game that was, for lack of a better name, called "Who's my Neighbor" which basically meant we all sat in a circle and made sure we knew who was sitting beside us, and someone was in the middle. So the person in the middle points at a person sitting down at random and says, "Who's your neighbor on your right/left?" and if they don't answer within five seconds, they're in the middle. But if they do answer, then the middle person says "Do you like your neighbor?" and if the person sitting down says yes, then everyone has to get up and switch seats, and the ensuing chaos means usually that a different person gets left in the middle, because there's one more person than there are chairs. BUT, if the person sitting down says NO, they have to give a reason ("She has glasses" "he's wearing a hoody") and all the people who fit that reason (who are wearing glasses or a hoody) have to get up and move.
So that was fun. Then we did Bible study, which was really thought-provoking. I quite enjoyed it. We also got our 30 Hour Famine prizes (FINALLY) and I got a baseball cap. It's cream-colored with 30HF on the front. Which was good, because I needed a hat.
And we almost have our youth band organized! So that's exciting.

I'm looking into a couple of computers, one an Apple IBook and one a Macbook. The Macbook one costs $30 more, but I'd get free shipping, and according to my uncle it's a really good deal. Except I don't have as much money as I need yet - it's $1079. So I'll have to do some saving, but I think I only need another $100 or so.

Dad's home in two days!

~Sil

Little bug?

I think there might be a little flu bug going around - my sister's stomach wasn't feeling that great last night and neither was mine, and apparently my brother wasn't feeling too good either. We all seem okay now though, so it must have been just some weird little thing.

And sadly, my other little blue star earring is indeed lost. It's really too bad, I only wore them for about a month. And they were from this cool place called The Plaid Giraffe where I went with my aunt and uncle. And what good is one earring? I did have kind of a cool idea that I should get gold hoops and wear them with my Elizabeth Swann costume at Halloween, to make me look more piratey. She doesn't actually wear them in the movie - call it artistic license.

I came up with a design for our new quizzing shirts this year, and I personally think it's kind of cool. I don't think any quizzers read this, and they're not supposed to know whose is whose, so I think I'm safe to say what it is. It's CIA in big red letters, and then underneath in smaller ones it says "Christ In Action". I also had a neat idea for this upcoming quiz meet - The Little Orange Book Awards. You see, all our little Acts booklets this year were plain orange, whereas in past years they've had pictures on them and there wasn't much opportunity for decoration. So I thought it would be fun if people entered their decorated books and we decided which ones we thought were best. The only thing is, I don't know if people would enter. I would have to make it pretty simple, I guess.

Oh, and I finished The Lost Colony! I started reading it again, too, but I'm reading this book for school called The Birth Order Book, about how your placement in your family affects your personality. According to it, firstborn children are: conscienctious, well organized, serious, goal oriented, achieving, people pleasers, believers in authority, perfectionist (haha), reliable, list-makers, critical, scholarly, self-sacrificing, conservative (of course!), supporters of law and order, legalistic, and self-reliant. That pretty much describes me to a T! I would post a review of The Lost Colony but nobody I know has read it and it would be really hard not to spoil it. So I'll wait.

Dad's home in three days! If he were on the phone he could tell me exactly how many hours until he's here. I think he misses us just as much as we miss him!

And last but not least...I was rather proud of my outfit today. I've become quite creative lately. Just thought I'd say.

~Sil

Earrings

I have good earring news and bad earring news. The good news is - I bought two new pair of them. One pair is dangly and silver with little blue stars (I'm a sucker for blue and stars) and the other pair is just dangly and silver with little sparkly bits. The bad earring news is that I think I may have lost one of my glow-in-the-dark blue star earrings that I got for my birthday. I haven't looked in the van yet, so it may be there, so I guess there's still some hope. I need to buy an earring holder, they're getting all tangled up with each other in the little box I use.

I also bought the fifth Artemis Fowl book yesterday! Well, actually, my friend took me shopping - it was her birthday present to me - and bought it for me. I'm about three-quarters of the way through, and it's pretty good! Artemis is finally experiencing adolescence, which is amusing, but he should be fifteen - he was fourteen in the last book and I'm older than him now. Holly is Captain Holly Short again, and I was pretty scared that Butler was going to get incapacitated for a bit there but I think he's okay. There are two new characters, Minerva (who is another genius, aged twelve) and N-degree-1. He has a little degree circle in the middle of his name but I don't think Alt codes work for Mac so I can't make one. He's a imp, and hopefully he'll get a real name soon! Mulch doesn't have much of a part in this one, which is relieving - his explosive flatulence, luminous saliva and multipurpose beard hair were getting annoying. Foaly is, as always, the technical consultant that sits back at base and manipulates the cool technology. Root is still dead, which is sad, I was hoping he'd come back to life, but Wing Commander Vinyaya has more of a part. She's cool.

Quiz practice on Sunday went well - I think I may have talked too fast while I was doing the summary, which makes me glad I don't have to do it every week. I sent the quiz directory to my coach but it came out wrong on her computer and none of my nice formatting worked, so we need to redo that because much as I know we needed a quiz list, Futura and a nice equalized table is much better than Courier with a haphazard sort of table. Plus I have my pride! If I'm making a quiz list, it's going to look GOOD. Anyway, we did some scorekeeping, and I learned stuff I didn't know, which was fun. Then I went shopping with my friend, which was also fun. I saw some nice earring holders at Icing (by Claire's - apparently it caters to the 'mature teens and young adults' more than Claire's, which could also be called Cheap Jewelry Central) and I want to go back and get one.

Oh dear, it's almost ten and I haven't done any school. Oops.

~Sil

Hobbits!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BILBO AND FRODO AS OF YESTERDAY!

Yes, I know I didn't post yesterday. Sorry. But I did do my science test and I think I got a decent mark, even with all those annoying definitions. And I got some quizzing done. So it wasn't all bad. I mean, that wasn't all I did, but those were the major things.
Today I'm going to practice that band music more - it's pretty hard and I want to have it close to up to speed by Wednesday. By the way, I'm playing Air for Band, Modal Song and Dance, and Cold Snap. That was for the benefit of Robyn. Air for Band and Modal Song and Dance are, in my opinion, pretty boring, but maybe that's just because I don't have an actual part. Just the condensed score. Cold Snap is cooler (er - no pun intended!).
Oh, and I forgot the funniest story! Me and my friend Daniel babysat four kids on Saturday night a week ago, and there were two girls about five or six and two boys about three or four. Anyway, they were really rowdy, so I told this story about a tiger who had dentures and his friend the leopard stole them. Don't ask. Anyway, it was totally off the top of my head, and then the mom of one of the little girls comes up to me on Tuesday evening, whhen she had running club and I had bible study, both at the church, and says, "That story was amazing! Aoife repeated the whole thing to me before she went to bed!" (Aoife's the little girl. Pronounced Ee-fa.) Which took me totally by surprise, but it was gratifying. A good sign for someone who wants to write books, too!

Anyway, we went to the corn maze last night, and it was way easier than last year. Fun, too. I got really muddy but it was still enjoyable, and, as should have been very predictable, my friend and I got asked if we were twin sisters. We laughed and said no, but we should say yes sometime and see what happens. Might be interesting! We always get asked at quiz meets at least once, so there will be opportunity.
But I'm going to go now, because I REALLY need to get that quizzing done and I'm kind of hoping I might be able to get to Jacob today and see if they have any of those awesome cords lefts.

~Sil