23 December 2007

O tidings of comfort and joy

...Joy to the world, the Saviour reigns...
...Joy to the world with truth and grace...
...Rejoice! Rejoice in the Most High...

...angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing over the plains. And the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains...shepherds, why this Jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?...

...far, far away on Judea's plains, shepherds of old heard the joyous strains...

...good Christian men, rejoice with heart and soul and voice...

...joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies...

...it came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the earth, with news of joy foretold...

...O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant...

..."Fear not," said he, for mighty dread had seized their troubled mind, "Glad tidings of great joy I bring to you and all mankind"...

...thus spake the seraph, and forthwith appeared a shining throng of angels praising God and thus addressed their joyful song...

...on on they send, on without end, their joyful tone, to every home - dong ding dong ding... dong! Bong!...

...sing we joyous all together, fa la la la la la la la la. Heedless of the wind and weather, fa la la la la la la la la...


...have I made my point yet? Joy. Joyous, rejoice, joy. All those carols - tidings of comfort and joy, joy to the world. We went to some friends' house for dinner this evening, and driving back I was struck by how very, very happy I am. Just now. A few days before Christmas, when there seems to be an air of excitement pervading the air, and everybody has holidays and it IS peace on earth, good will to men. Joy. Tidings of great joy. Christmas is a time for us to be unbelievably, incandescently, forever joyful. Jesus came. He didn't have to. He came, and went from deity to human, and lived with us. Isn't that cause for joy, at the very least?

I can sing carols, and be happy. I'm happy when we see family, and sit around and talk, and just be content. Gifts are good. Gifts are a perk.

But could I be happy without them? I think so. Because I have the greatest gift ever given, and it's that Jesus came and died for ME.

Don't forget, this Christmas.

~Sil

"...and the Coke villain died and they all lived happily ever after. And that's the true meaning of Christmas."

22 December 2007

This is what happens...

...when you give me a laptop at two in the morning.

When reality fades to a vision of twilight
And dreams become one with the silver moon’s mist
Gossamer sparkles conceal what may or might
Be the beginning of something we wished.

Like ghosts of the phantoms of memories faint
The bright shadows beckon us on
We turn to look closer but swiftly they paint
An illusion of nothingness hither and yon.

So we walk in the silver light, dancing with stars
With eternity’s wind at our backs
Should a dream of a dream linger there – see, afar?
We’ll not trace it. Dreams leave no tracks.

The fairies’ laughs tinkle like crystalline bells
As they flit under luminous skies
They whisper of things lost in the mountains and fells
Of a dreamworld only we dare espy.

Feel the waking? Before your enchanted eyes
Bright shadows and dark moonlight
Mingle in dawn’s flush of dazzling skies
We cling to our fantasy, woven of midnight

But once more, till fairyland’s lanterns bring starshine
We’ll let the dream fade in a sunlit disguise.


(comments and constructive criticism appreciated!)

~Sil

*phone rings*
Mom: It says Maryland. Got any friends there?

19 December 2007

LAPTOP

Ladies and gentlemen (or, y'know, whoever's reading) I am typing this blog post on my. New. Laptop!!! And I think I'm in love. It's little and white and...well, whatever it is isn't quite as important as the fact that it's MINE. And I can sit on the couch and type my heart's content and share with NOBODY. That's right, nobody is using this thing besides me. Ever.

Oh, and it needs a name. Suggestions?

*Happiness*

~Sil

"Amy, when can I get on the computer?"
"NEVER! HA!"

16 December 2007

A piece of wonderful

That phrase (coined by Erin :D) describes today quite accurately.

You know how generally in books, when people get out of bed and are really grumpy, their day just gets worse from there? Exact opposite. I took about half an hour to drag myself out of bed, due to an exhausting (but quite enjoyable) evening washing dishes for a wedding. We started at 6:30 and weren't done until 11, but it was pretty fun. Anyway, I got my butt out of bed, and to church, where quiz practice went well and I didn't have to act in skit thing (BIG relief) because one of the Three Kings we needed was sick. Candy after church, because that's what we do at Christmas, and candy makes me happy. Then I actually looked good in our family picture. And THEN everybody except me went out in the afternoon, so I got to stay home alone and play the Nutcracker very loudly, and play Third Age.

Until Jamie (PotR) came on MSN with my Christmas present. And let me tell you, it's the most amazing Christmas present in the history of presents.

So I think most of you reading this know what Star Crystal is, and who Merrin is. Well. Jamie writes music. And for Christmas she gave me four tracks of a Star Crystal soundtrack. That she wrote. That was an hour and a half ago and I'm still grinning ear to ear. Merrin has a theme, the opening sequence has music, Vryngard has a theme, and our first romantic scene (Renegade Banquet) has music. I'm so going to be whistling Star Crystal music all week. It pretty much made my entire month so far.

I'll have Christmas banquet pictures when I feel like posting them, and I'll do our family ones...but I'm gonna go listen to Merrin's theme again :)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
^poster I made for Crystal

~Sil

"Some families are Amish - our family is hammish."

11 December 2007

I really have nothing to say

I just felt bad about not posting for so long. Seriously, I have pretty much nothing to blog about. Let's pick some things...

Reading Three Men in a Boat this week, for literature, and REALLY enjoying it. Very funny book. Also got some library books, finished Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner (interesting book about a young woman and dragons, gotta have dragons) and I'm now on Pawn of Prophecy, the first book of the Belgariad by David Eddings. I read that series a long time ago and am now rereading it.

New desktop! I've had my other one for so long. Old one <---clicky, new one <--clicky. Once I get my laptop I'll probably just set them to switch back and forth because I can't decide which I like better. One week, by the way. Yay.

And...that looks like it...I have youth Christmas banquet on Friday, meaning much dressing up (yay) and I shall have pictures to post, I hope.

~Sil

"I was very productive and went and did actual things in your absence."
"Glad to know I'm so distracting."

03 December 2007

It's December!

And that means Christmas carols and shopping and making very sure I wish people a Merry CHRISTmas and scowling at Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings cards and counting the days and getting sudden and very good ideas about presents and getting a laptop and holidays and last but definitely NOT least - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

Yeah, I'm excited. In case it was hard to tell. We went out to Camp Nakamun yesterday, which got me in a very Christmas-y mood, and sang carols and played games (Shadows Over Camelot!) and had yummmmmy turkey dinner. I have exactly nine more days of school before I start holidays. Which means 15 days until laptop!

Today was a bit up and down...I alternated between feeling unmotivated and feeling excited. I think I was kinda scatterbrained. Anyway, not much else to report. Excited Amy over here.

~Sil

Me: You can never have too many giggles!
Jessica: Well...you could at a funeral...

29 November 2007

Pirates

Okay, so I kinda skipped math today, but I spent a long time researching ancient piracy in and around the Mediterranean. For my research paper. On pirates. Go me. Anyway, it's fascinating. There were huge pirate confederacies all through the first millenium BC, up until the rise of the Roman Empire. Like, HUGE. The Aetolian League was a huge organization of pirates that acted as mercenaries, and then later Cicilia was a pirate base, and Cicilian pirates are possibly the largest known confederation of pirates in ancient history. These were all really nasty guys, of course, but being who I am, I find it fascinating.

A PIRATE IS...

a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.

a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright

a person or organization that broadcasts radio or television programs without official authorization

So really, is a pirate anyone who goes around pillaging and taking what doesn't belong to them, or is it specifically sea-based? Really, people like the Vikings could qualify as pirates if the definition were broadened. Whereas if you use terms like...

A CORSAIR

a privateer, esp. one operating along the southern coast of the Mediterranean in the 17th century.

another name for a pirate, from the Latin word for race, cursus. Corsairs were also known as racers and tended to use small vessels to attack, often ships much larger than theirs.

originally applied to the piractical ships of the North African Barbary states, but in English usage was often exptended to include any enemy privateer.

so a PRIVATEER is...

an armed ship owned and officered by private individuals holding a government commission and authorized for use in war, esp. in the capture of enemy merchant shipping.

a commander or crew member of such a ship, often regarded as a pirate.

Okay, so if you use a more specific term, such as corsair, privateer, or possibly freebooter, scallywag, buccaneer, do you mean pirate more specifically than you do when you SAY pirate?

Though really, this is all contemplation, because there's no way I'm doing a paper on everything that could remotely be conceived as being piracy throughout the history if the world. It would be, like, a million pages long. So it's fun to contemplate but I'll be sticking to the sea raiders definition. Heh.

[Added through a glass darkly to links, Valera Elenhathel from A-U's blog, and her NaNoWriMo journal. Very good, people should read]

~Sil

"Use the force, Harry!"

27 November 2007

At long last...

I AM GETTING A LAPTOP!

That's right. Me. With a laptop. Because in exactly three weeks my uncle is coming from Toronto and he's bringing his old Mac with him, which I am subsequently buying. I'm SO psyched. I'll be able to bring it places, and use it in front of the fire and on the couch and stuff, and I'll get SO much more writing done (always good). I'm practically glowing.

In other news, we finally have a decent amount of snow, which is deserving of a W00t W00t (because I don't have to shovel it, mwaha), making Amy an all-round happy camper. Yay.

~Sil

24 November 2007

Little things

It makes my day when (in no particular order)...

People tell me I'm pretty
I find something I thought I'd lost
Someone says they missed me
I come home and there's a fire in the fireplace
I realize that my dog and God will always love me, no matter what (Ephesians 3:17-19!)
I discover that someone cared about how I felt when I thought nobody had noticed
Everybody thought I was wrong and then they discover I was right
Someone remembers how much Melda likes dragons
I get an idea I had thought wouldn't come
God reminds me that He cares about the little things
I discover someone's been collecting Starburst wrappers just for me
I can't stop laughing about something, even after people start giving me strange looks
I see PotC posters in HMV and remember about that thing called a Christmas wish list
My dad knows more about popular music than I do
I can go to bed and drift off forgetting stuff that worries me and imagining scenes to put in a book
I make my dad laugh
I wake up and it's snowed
I complete a whole crossword puzzle without having to look anything up

~Sil

21 November 2007

Life in general

So...I have nothing to blog about again. There haven't been many huge oh-my-gosh-that-was-amazing bits of life lately...unless, of course, you count the quiz meet. Which was pretty fun, Southgate did well, and I kinda realized that I actually can make it to Great West this year. I don't know if I quite subconsciously believed it before. Anyway, I ranked 19th out of (I believe) 67 in division A, and assuming my score in the next one is about in in the top 12 or so (because it's only half of Alberta and therefore you need to place higher to retain your place provincewide) and top 25 in the one after that...I'm set for Great West. It's pretty exciting.

Other than that, life continues. I really want Christmas to come, mostly because I pretty much love Christmas...and the accompanying holiday from school/piano. No holiday from quizzing - at least, not much. I'm hardcore. This is about the time of year I go to church and mutter about how we're not singing enough Christmas carols. Go me.

Piano's also continued the way it mostly does...what's been happening (strangely) more and more this year is that I'll think I've had a mediocre, okay week and then I'll go into my lesson and she'll really like everything and be impressed and I'll be like "...okay? I guess I'm good with this." It happened a bit last year, but more now. I'm playing a couple of cool carols, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year in the style of Johann Strauss, and Sleigh Ride in the style of Haydn...so that's fun...

And I just finished an hour and a half solid of said piano and I'm zonked. So whatever I write from now on will make no sense whatsoever. Later :P

~Sil

13 November 2007

Phantom Grey

Well, I had nothing to blog about, and then the Aiel Reindeer suggested I do Phantom Grey. So I am.

Phantom Grey, you see, is a name that originated when my uncle got a new car. It was a bit dark outside, so we were looking at it out the living room window, and wanting to know what color it was, because it was hard to tell. So my mom asked, and he gets this funny look on his face and says, "Phantom Grey." So we all laughed about the funny color, but it instantly made me think of, well, the Phantom. And it just so happened that LDM was doing a Best RPG Idea contest at that point in time, so I came up with a story around the name Phantom Grey:

The name crept in among them. Nobody knew how…but one thing was certain: the night before the sudden assassination of the King's Heir, a daughter Silvryn Seilhera and the most promising Princess to grace Kytana's streets in a century, there had been no Phantom Grey. No whispers in the night, no mutters in the day.

Stories of him varied. To the nobles he was a dastardly villain, murderer of their precious Princess - a yarn said to have been circulated by the High Vizier, who now would ascend to the throne after the king's imminent demise. To the traders he was a thief and a trickster, a dancing shadow of moon and stars. To the children he was a bedtime story, a tale to be told in hushed tones by the fire. But to the peasants, perhaps most accurately, he was Phantom Grey - secretive and sinister but at times unexpectedly noble, a rescuer.

Events took their course, as events will, and presently the King did indeed die, and his Vizier ascended to Regentship until an heir was a come of age. There were several, nephews and nieces of the Royal family, and for a time all was thought to be well and good, or as well and good as could be under the circumstances.

But first one little niece died. Then the oldest nephew. And in the course of a grief-filled six months the rest were laid to rest by some disease that came like a thief in the night - like a phantom, though he was not its cause - and the Regent looked very much like ascending completely to Kingship and control over Kytana.

But the Phantom's strikes increased forthwith until the Regent could not so much as send a caravan to the nearby sea for salt and fish than they came tearing back, money stolen and prize possessions likewise spirited away. Strangely, the peasants endured no such hardship, indeed they almost appeared to be benefiting. And young men who would prove valuable to the Regent's army disappeared overnight, their families hard-faced and uncommunicative as to their whereabouts. Young women, too, left their kin suddenly while disapproving elders muttered about their duty to marry and bear children. And occasionally whole families disappeared altogether, almost always ones who were desperately in debt or convicted of some crime.

And the Phantom's power grew, even though none had ever seen him.

But so much more than the nobles or the Regent ever suspected was at the Phantom's disposal. In a great network of caves deep underneath the Earth's Teeth, a formidable mountain range skirting Kytana and separating it from nearby Vidyr, a growing community exists - and a devoted band of the Phantom's followers.

But the Regent is not content to sit docile, allowing what he now thinks of as his kingdom to have its resources sucked dry by some taunting rebel. He begins to arrest many, often on little or no charges. But some of his attacks have struck their target…and will the Phantom be next, to join the growing ranks of his imprisoned followers? To hang dangling from a noose as the sun sets, abandoning Kytana to a merciless usurper?

Find out.


And that was Phantom. His actual name is Phaerin Grey and he's the son of a high-ranking nobleman, but not many people actually know that. His second-in-command as of now is Jamie's Kjan Armadur, who's an extremely amusing character. In total the party of main characters consists of:
Phantom Grey, leader (me)
Eledhe Darkstar, resident mercenary and magic-user (me)
Kjan Armadur, second-in-command (Jamie/PotR)
Silvryn Seilhera, *supposed* heir to the throne (created by me, but played by Jamie/PotR)
[those are the main four, who've been there all through the story]
Jateyani Ralkaien, actual heir to the throne (though the characters haven't discovered it yet) (Nurrantiel Mashiara)
Ash and Threng, don't-really-know-what-they-are (Elenya and Nauriel Rochnur)
Jais, comic relief (LDM)
Belnarr, resident dwarf (LDM)
Falch'nus, convenient villain to be brought in when needed (LDM)
Dante Salone, who used to court Kjan's older sister. Actual profession: cartographer/guide. (Fencing Maiden)
and most recently:
Ayden Mandar, other possible heir to the throne. Gotta have possibilities. (zeh Reindeer)

Only the first four have been there all through, and the others have had bits where they've come in. I don't think I forgot anyone. Anyway, you can find the thread here.

~Sil

"You know, I think we're two of the only people who regularly adjust our schedules to suit that of someone diagonally across the continent."

08 November 2007

I actually have nothing much to blog about

I just figured it was time for a post. Let's see...what's been going on in my life lately...it's been mostly the same as usual. Nothing especially gripping. I kinda abandoned Mists of Avalon about 4/5 of the way through, because it was getting boring and I knew what was coming and I never like reading about the collapse of Arthur's court. Mordred also made me very edgy. And I really did not appreciate some of the weird romantic pairings she stuck in there. I prefer slightly more canon Arthur, thank you very much. Anyway, I started Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind. It's a really thick book, and at this point I don't know if it's quite worth finishing. It hasn't gripped me yet, and I've given it a good couple of chapters. Also started The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon by Isabel Allende, which is a bit more interesting. Other books by her have been slightly odd, but she's a good writer. Actually, I started another book last night, too - The Separated but someone whose name I don't remember, and probably isn't worth remembering. There are certain books that you open and immediately know you could write them better. This was one of them.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas. As in, really. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm totally in the mood for it. I was playing carols on the piano yesterday and wishing we were already into December. Ah well, I can wait.

~Sil

"Oh yeah? Well, I just de-voluntold myself!"

31 October 2007

Halloween

Okay, before I blog about what I was going to today, I really want to thank everyone for their encouraging comments on my last post - Stephen/zeh Reindeer, Josh, Mrs Stauffer, Robyn, Lady Kyleian and - last but oh my gosh certainly not least - Erin. I feel so amazingly blessed to have people who will support me like you guys...and occasionally make me cry. Not referring to anyone specifically, of course...but if I was I might name a certain dweller in a hole south of Cleveland. THANK YOU!

And seeing as today is Halloween - I figured I might as well post my opinion on a) why I celebrate Halloween, b) why I don't think it's wrong, and c) why I don't think there's a right or wrong about it. I shall start off by quoting my favorite pirateoftherings: "I'm not big on Halloween. I am, however, all for International Free Candy Day." That pretty much sums up my opinion in a nutshell. A couple Sundays ago we learned about the origins of Halloween from Pastor Bryan, and how its roots are in Samhain, a pagan holiday honoring the god of death, which eventually morphed into the day before All Saints' Day, namely All Hallows' Eve. Obviously, we do not celebrate Samhain, and would never dream of doing so. However, is Halloween really still the pagan holiday it originated in? Let's see. In the normal North American kid's Halloween, they make up a costume in October, maybe a movie character they like or a concept they think is clever, and they put it on on the night of October 31st and visit various neighborhood homes, which will be handing out candy. I've trick-or-treated since I was four years old, and I can say with certainty that I was always majorly excited for Halloween. Candy, right? Can't be a bad thing, really. Unless you're a dentist, I suppose. Anyway - there are definitely things about Halloween that I don't subscribe to. For example, dressing up as ghosts/witches/skeletons/demons/devils, etc, or decorating your house spookily. I think that's, whether we know it or not, glorifying something not affiliated with God and therefore not worthy to be glorified. Also, it scares the little three-year-olds dressed in clown costumes, and really, in my opinion it's all about them. So I guess basically what I'm saying is - do I think it's okay to celebrate evil things, remember pagan rites and subscribe to a religion I don't support? Of course not. I am, however, entirely okay with carving a pumpkin or two and handing out chocolate bars. There are no negative effects to be had from that, and it makes little neighborhood kids happy. Are people going to see Christians positively if we turn up our noses and keep our houses dark on Halloween? I don't think so.

At the same time, I can see why Christian parents wouldn't want to celebrate Halloween. It's not a Christian holiday in any sense of the word. It makes perfect sense to me why you might want to avoid that. Also, if straying into that kind of thing is a spiritual stumbling block (heh, my mom's phrase) for you, then by all means avoid it. Don't be tempted. Your opinion is just as valid as mine. I remember comparing it to Harry Potter books in youth Sunday School - some Christian parents are cautious about HP as well. I've read them all, enjoyed them, and they never hurt me. That's not to say they couldn't cause someone else to fall away from God. Sometimes these things are a matter of personal opinion and choice rather than right or wrong.

~Sil

[someone wanna give me a quote? :D]

29 October 2007

Costa Rica Reflections

Okay, so I was rereading the journal I kept in Costa Rica today. Yes, I should have been doing science. That's not the point. Anyway, I was kinda thinking about how I didn't blog a whole lot about Costa Rica, and I think the reason was that I got back from that trip feeling like I had more questions than answers, and I'd discovered more negative qualities about myself than positive. It was an amazing experience, but at the same time, it was a bit...I can't think of the word. I'm SO glad I went, and I think my absolute favorite time of day while we were there was just before dinner, when we were all sorta hanging around, doing random things...just chilling. There was such a sense of family and fun and...I loved it. With those memories, though, I think that reading back I realized that I learned stuff I hadn't necessarily anticipated. At various times I learned I'm jealous, selfish, afraid, self-centered, high-maintenance, proud...I learned how flawed I am, how insignificant I am. It reflects so much on how I need God. I think part of the reason I felt so confused was that everyone I've ever talked to who went on a missions trip came back glowing and praising God and so willing to talk about how amazing it was and how blessed they were, and when I got back all I wanted to do was sleep. Really. It was an awesome experience, but I think I maybe subconsciously wondered what I'd done wrong, that I wasn't reacting like that. I actually had such a rush of Costa-Rica away-from-home-sickness reading that journal! I missed everyone so much.

Anyway - in one of our devotions while we were there, the guy who was doing them (Marco) said that in the grand scheme of things, a lot of the time it's the people who go on the missions trip who are more affected by it than the people they serve. It's true. And looking back, I don't know if I would do it differently. I think God meant for me to learn that about myself; I think he meant for me to realize just how pitiful my attempts to be self-sufficient are. I could have done without the lying in bed at night wondering who the heck I was - another big, and slightly strange, discovery was that my idea of fun is different from everyone else's, and my personality, and basically everything that I am seems incongruent with everything everybody else is - but it was really an invaluable experience, no matter how many crazy confused questions about myself I came back with. And also that it would be good to figure out a bit more about myself sometime.

It's actually a bit like some of my characters, the ones I've made up. I made them, therefore when, for example, someone says, "What would Merrin do if ___?" I should know right off the bat, right? But more often than not the answer comes up like, "Well, she'd think this, but she'd probably do that. I'm not sure what her perspective is on ___, she hasn't told me yet." Sometimes my own characters surprise me (Merrin wants to cry at the strangest times. Not even kidding. I'll be sitting there writing her and all of the sudden she's crying and I'll be going "wha...?") so is it really much of a shock that I surprise myself as well?

And there are my ruminations for the day.

~Sil

"No, you lived in a hole south of Cleveland for ten years. Elvis lives there now."

EDIT: A school assignment today was to describe someone in ten lines of iambic pentameter. I'm pretty sure the iambic pentameter went out the window early on (I like to say I just, um, altered it to suit my specifications) but as members of my family might appreciate this, I thought I would post it.

My sister is a curious piece of work
She tends to sing and dance with loud and very
Raucous abandon, to which we sigh and roll
Our eyes observing her try to replicate
That bizarre phenomenon that is popular culture.

My brother finds her trivial and trite
His eyes roll more than all of us together
We call him by the name of Ben the Irked
And should she utter long and loud a phrase
He grumbles and professes to be concentrating.

26 October 2007

Clothes!

I went shopping yesterday!! And, teenage girl that I am, got new clothes and am pretty majorly hyped about them. I'm allowed to be a typical teenager sometimes...especially considering how I'm mostly not. Anyway...got four shirts, a skirt, a pair of ballet-flat-ish shoes and (the most exciting part) jeans! As in, pants! As in, pants that FIT me! This may, in fact, be the first time in my life I have had two pair of jeans at the same time. My other pair is flared a bit, too, and these are semi-skinny-ish jeans, which makes for good variety. Also got a cute skirt patterned in white/grey/black and a shirt of similar material (but different colors). Those and the jeans were from Reitmans, and the shoes and another one of the shirts were from Old Navy, and then I got two AMAZING fuzzy warm sweaters from Stitches. They're SO soft. I'm pretty hyper.

So, after that fit of girl-ish-ness, in other news...

We got school off this week, which was a nice break. Got to do some reading, laze around, sleep in. All that good stuff. Started The Mists of Avalon, which is an...interesting book. As Arthurian stuff goes, it has a lot more of the magic-y side then some - I've read version that discounted the magic entirely. And I think there's at least some, especially talking Morgan le Fay and Morgause and Merlin and stuff. The family tree part of it is also a bit altered, but I suppose it is everywhere. In this version, Viviane/Igraine/Morgause are sisters, and Morgaine is Igraine's daughter. Igraine is married to Gorlois at first, but he dies and she remarries to Uther Pendragon. Arthur/Gwydion is her son by Uther. Galahad is also Viviane's son, and synonymous with Lancelet (which is how they spell it here). Morgause is married to Lot and has Gawaine that I know of. So I can keep track of it so far. I've also decided that I LOVE Celtic/Arthurian names. Stuff like Galahad and Gwydion and Gwenhwyfar and Uther Pendragon and Gawaine and Morgaine and...all of it...is so fun to say! I can just see myself wanting to name a daughter Guinevere (or Gwenhwyfar or whatever) and not getting a whole lot of support. Heh.

Oh! And cool thing - my teacher phones on Wednesday morning cause she needs my mom to sign something when I come in for my lesson, and it turns out that what she's signing is paperwork for someone who's giving out awards for top RCM exam marks. So I got 90 on my grade 8 piano, and am tied with someone else for highest Grade 8 exam mark in the Edmonton area. The prize is $100, so either we'll split it, or the other student's paperwork won't be in in time and I shall get it. So that's pretty cool - one of those things that makes you feel sorta warm and fuzzy inside.

~Sil

"I don't watch random things because of piano."
"What was the last inane television show you've seen that featured a guest piano player, Melda?"

16 October 2007

Election Time!

So, if you've been paying attention to the news (er, and if you're Canadian) you'll know that there's a Speech From the Throne and a new budget being voted on thus Thursday (three votes in the House Of Commons total), and there's a very good possibility that the Liberals will vote against one of the three. Meaning that Parliament will then dissolve, meaning - guess what! - an election. It's an exciting prospect, not just because I love elections (yes, I an a nerd, and door-knocking makes me excited) but because the Conservative Party of Canada is at about 40% in the polls, meaning that we could quite possibly attain a majority government this time around. Which, if you're hardcore Conservative (and I am) is a very good thing.

CANADIANS - watch the news on Thursday! You'll know if it's election time!

~Sil

"See, the fluctuation in my sound waves isn't visible with the naked eye."
"I noticed that when I observed your sound waves with my naked eye."

15 October 2007

Global Warming

I was wondering to myself what I would post about today, and simultaneously complaining to myself about the weather, because it's way too warm, and those two things combined...well. You can see from the title.

I'm aware that my opinion about global warming isn't the usual save-the-polar-bears, buy-an-environment-friendly-car, we're-all-killing-the-world type opinion, and feel free to disagree as much as you would like. Here we go.

First of all, I'd like to ask any of you out there who believe in the theory of evolution why you're worried about global warming. I mean, according to that theory, the world is always changing and species are always evolving, so even if the polar bears DO go extinct, isn't that part of nature? If the world really is warming, isn't that just part of the world slowly going from one stage to the next one? Personally, I believe that IF the world really is getting warmer (and I don't think it is, long-term) and IF species are going to go extinct - that's nature. To quote my mom, nature isn't a static thing. It's always changing.

As to why I don't believe the world is getting warmer, I have two reasons for that one. The first one is that, as I'm sure you'll discover if you ask your parents, scientists were predicting another Ice Age fifty years ago. Only fifty years ago. And now they're wailing about global warming. I don't know about you, but that makes me less inclined to believe them. The second one is that we've been recording yearly temperature averages for, oh, about a hundred years. Without going into how long the world has existed, that's a hundred years out of at least two thousand. We have no idea how worldwide temperatures fluctuated before that - NO idea. The same goes for polar ice caps. Sure, they may be melting somewhat, but how long have we been measuring their size? About fifty years. Again, out of two thousand. That doesn't strike anyone else as being a bit early to jump to conclusions?

I'm looking for feedback here, just so you all know - I AM interested in other opinions. In fact, I'm intrigued. Anyway, last point is all the guilting that goes on about releasing carbon dioxide into the air. Did you know that humans are responsible for a total of 2% of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere? Natural causes, such as volcanoes erupting, are responsible for 98%. We're not killing the world, at least not in that respect, the way everyone seems to think we are.

That would have made a horrible essay...I don't have much of a structure or a conclusion or a thesis statement, but bear with my randomly stated objections, guys :)

EDIT: HAH I managed to blog about my global warming skepticism on Blog Action Day, which is supposed to highlight environment-friendly blogs, without knowing it. If that's not hilarious, I don't know what is.

~Sil

"I'm sorry, Erin. I'm proud of you. In fact, I'll tell you what. I'll take you out for lunch. At McDonald's. Your treat, of course. I'll even pick you up - if you give me gas money."

12 October 2007

Quiz meet!

I'm off to a quiz meet this evening and tomorrow! Edson, Alberta. Quizzing on Galations chapters 1 through 4, and I'm pretty hyped. For you (uncool) people who don't know what a quiz meet is, it's a thing the Christian & Missionary Alliance churches of North America do, along with a few Baptists and other denominations. The majority is, however, Alliance. In Alberta, we currently have between 250 and 300 youth (grades 6-12) in quizzing, which means we memorize Scripture all through the year and meet five times throughout that year to compete on it. Here's a picture of people on our quizzing benches:



There's four seats to a bench (and therefore up to four people on a team unless you have a sub) and three benches in a quiz. What happens is that the seats on the benches all have triggers underneath them, so that depending on how/where you sit on it, you can control whether your trigger is on or off. The quizmaster (cool name, eh?) reads the question like this: "Question number one. Question: Paul, an apostle, sent how?" and the quizzers can 'jump' (eg get off their seats to make their trigger go on) any time during the question, but as soon as their light comes on the quizmaster stops mid-sentence. So you might get something like: "Question number one. Question: Paul, an apostle, se - Amy?" Notice how these people are leaning forward in order to have the best shot at being the first off their seat:



And that is quizzing. And I am excited.

~Sil

Heather: So what kind of stuff do you read?
Me: Well, I've done Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales and Hamlet.
[pause]
Bill: So...have you seen High School Musical?

10 October 2007

Mere Christianity

I was picking a topic out of the figurative Topic Hat, because much as I'm sure you guys would like to hear trivial details of my personal life (except not) I hesitate to ramble too much. In any case, this conveniently rose to the surface of my mind. Perhaps because it had already been up there.

Anyway, for this youth Bible study semester, we are doing Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Little bit of history - it was adapted from a series of radio broadcasts in 1943, and originally appeared in three separate sections: The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality. Pretty sure Mere Christianity is considered a definitive work on Christian apologetics.

So, at Bible study we're through the first section of the book, which started out with a explanation of the existence of something called Moral Law. This, he explains, isn't a law like other laws - law of gravity, laws of thermodynamics, etc - because it is not scientifically predictable. When you drop something, it will always fall down. It will never fall up or sideways because the law of gravity makes it fall down. Moral Law, however, is different. It's something we're all born with, and it's essentially an inherent sense of right and wrong. Everybody uses the words 'right' and 'wrong'. If someone steals something from you, that's obviously wrong, and even if you aren't affiliated with any religion you'll still call it wrong.

So by calling it wrong, you imply that there was a different thing that should have happened that would have been right. If you believe that there is no inherent good or evil in the world, then you really have no cause to be upset, because if someone stole something from you - "That was wrong!" Well, there's no good or evil in the world, right? You believe that, so why are you still upset? So, Moral Law is something everyone is born with. You could probably call it a conscience (incidentally, I'm very curious as to why the word 'science' is in 'conscience'). You can ignore your conscience, but it never stops being there. In fact, a way to tell if you're doing something right or wrong is if you're trying to justify it to your conscience. If it's right, you shouldn't have to convince yourself that it's right.

That was the first section. The second section, which we started last night, is rather more complicated. The basic gist of it is that evil is a perversion of good. Nothing can be evil without the good being there, because without good, evil would not be considered evil. Which goes back to what I said before. If someone steals something from you, you instantly think, "that's wrong", meaning you're comparing it to what it should have been. Darkness is just the absence of light; cold is just the absence of heat. For all you LotR junkies - it's like Orcs and Elves, or Trolls and Ents if you're really hardcore. The Elves existed before the Orcs, because Orcs are twisted, mutilated Elves. Same with Ents/Trolls. Also, Lucifer was originally good before he became Satan (like Melkor, who was good before he defied the Song of Iluvatar and became Morgoth). He was, in fact, an angel - and although what he did was evil, it was through a desire to be like God that he did it; through a desire to be something good. Personally, I believe this answers a question frequently asked by either non-Christians or people who have experienced a loss - why did God let this happen? If God loves me, why did ____ happen? And it's because we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that is perverted by evil. If Eve had never eaten the apple, and if Adam and Eve had stayed forever in the Garden of Eden, they might have lived forever. Because with no evil, maybe there was no death - and no need for God to separate himself from us, either. But since Eve/Adam did, there is evil in the world, and that means death and misfortune happen.

Wow, that got long. But I'm REALLY intrigued by this book, it's absolutely fascinating. Lewis effectively converted HIMSELF to Christianity - he worked himself around to it logically. I feel really lucky that he decided to impart such brilliant logic to us :)

~Sil

"The first thing they said to him was: 'You can die skydiving.' And the second thing they said to him was: 'You can die skydiving.' And the third thing they said to him was, 'IF you die skydiving, you take that responsibility on yourself.'"

04 October 2007

Thursdays

I love my Thursdays.
Dictionary
Thursday |ˈθərzˌdā; -dē| noun the day of the week before Friday and following Wednesday : the committee met on Thursday | the music program for Thursdays in April | [as adj. ] Thursday morning. adverb on Thursday : he called her up Thursday. • ( Thursdays) on Thursdays; each Thursday : the column is published Thursdays. ORIGIN Old English Thu(n)resdæg [day of thunder,] translation of late Latin Jovis dies ‘day of Jupiter’ (god associated with thunder): compare with Dutch donderdag and German Donnerstag.
That was random, but yes, origin of Thursday. See, on Thursdays I normally get to stay home ALL day (unless I'm babysitting or there's a board meeting). I know I'm a hopeless homebody, but I really enjoy it so much. Also, Thursday afternoons leave me either home alone or home with my brother, making the house lovely and quiet, which I also enjoy. This Thursday I do have to pick up the little boy I babysit from school and stay with him and his sister for a couple hours...but there are worse ways to make $20 a day. And the last good thing about Thursday - it comes before Friday. Which comes before Saturday. And those are probably my two favorite days of the week.

In other news...got Rondo Alla Turca yesterday and was SO hyped! It's a pretty hard piece but I've wanted to play it forever. I also updated my links to add Meril's Random Randomness (Aerlinn from A-U) and Inkhearties, which contains news about the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke. And I was grating orange zest last night and hurt my thumb. You know just how exciting life is when I'm reporting THAT. That's okay, I like a non-exciting life sometimes.

And in case not *everybody* has heard, though I would think you had - NATALIE AND BRYAN ARE HAVING ANOTHER BABY! (Bryan's our youth pastor and Natalie's his wife, for the benefit of those who are not intimately acquainted with my acquaintances) And, as the capitals indicate, I'm extremely excited about it. Oddly, I never remember being this excited for any of my siblings' births. It was always like, "Oh, mom's pregnant again. It better be a [boy/girl] because the last one was a [boy/girl]." Okay, maybe not. But you get the idea.

~Sil

[Jamie has been very funny lately, so I've quoted her twice]

Jamie: Oh Kjan. I really have no idea what I'm going to do with him.
Joy: I find it extremely amusing that you would even attempt to do something with him.
Jamie: Well, I haven't yet, which is probably the source of the problems. There's just no knowing what he'll do next, really.
Joy: I would have to agree. I've completely given up trying to predict him.
Jamie: So have I, sadly. I really don't think that's how the character/author relationship is supposed to work.

"So every now and then, I start to get the impression that I might be capable of passing as a relatively sane person. Then I get an idea that serves to completely and utterly disprove that notion. Something like "I should throw a fully-decorated pirate party next weekend" or "I should write a novel for that competition that ends tomorrow" or, most recently, "I should make my own Eowyn costume, despite having absolutely no prior sewing experience, no sewing machine besides my grandma's 40-year-old monster, and less than two weeks before Middlefaire.""

02 October 2007

Mary-Sues

The definition of the above: a fictional character (generally female) who is unbelievable in her talent, beauty, youth and spitfire personality. MY definition, anyway. See, lately on A-U, we've been discussing how to avoid making characters you create Mary-Sues. This test is very helpful, and names many characteristics that, when found in compilation, make up a Mary-Sue. However, where's the limit? At the end of the test it gives you a rough estimation of scores to help to determine whether or not your character is a Sue. But personally, I think a character without any of those characteristics is going to frankly be a very boring character. A Mary-Sue would, for example, be a 16-year-old who can pwn anybody, male or female, with any weapon you choose to name, all the while being extremely beautiful, spouting witticisms at every turn, and generally possessing a dark and tortured past that she 'keeps secret' but, strangely, seems willing to relate at the slightest provocation. She's probably also royalty a) in disguise, b) stolen away from her family, c) having run away from her family, or d) watched them get killed by [insert villain here]. Whereas a NON-Mary-Sue is probably into her thirties, isn't someone you would look twice at, has a decidedly normal past, no psychological problems, and therefore has about the depth of a kiddie wading pool. Personally, I would prefer the first character. So it can be rather increasingly hard to find the delicate balance where you're not unrealistic, but at the same time you still possess a degree of excitement in the character.

And I still haven't really decided where exactly that is. I think it varies person to person. Anyway, there's my snippet of introspection for the day.

~Sil

"I've decided I now hate anybody with the name Connell."
"Why?"
"Well, two of the recent anti-Conservative letters written lately were by someone named Connell!"
"Seems like impeccable reasoning to me."

28 September 2007

Shadows Over Camelot

Okay, I am seriously SO psyched. Just got back from youth and playing this absolutely AMAZING board game called, as the title indicates, Shadows Over Camelot (clicky lick for info). It's up to seven players and it's collaborative, meaning that you all play together on one team against the forces of Evil, which aren't played by anyone except a traitor, if you choose to have one. So there are seven knights: King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Galahad, Sir Percival, Sir Palomides, Sir Tristan, and Sir Kay (we played two games, and I was Percival the first time and Tristan the second time. You don't get to choose who you are, it's random). At the beginning of the game you pass out Loyalty cards, and there is a possibility that someone will get a Loyalty card that says Traitor. This means you're working WITH Evil, and you want to stab the other knights in the back. So the game starts out, and there are different quests that you use White Cards to complete, and Black Cards try to thwart you. There's...defeat the Black Knight jousting, defeat the Picts, defeat the Saxons (all three of which are ongoing), obtain Excalibur, obtain the Holy Grail, obtain Lancelot's Armor (all three of which give you a special item if you win them, which in turn gives you a special ability) and Defeat the Dragon. Every time you complete a quest you get a varied number of white swords, and every time you lose a quest you get a varied number of black swords. Seven out of twelve white swords win you the game, whereas seven out of twelve black swords loses you the game. We won the first time, but Evil prevailed the second time. It got so tense near the end!!! Four out the the seven of us playing actually ended up sacrificing themselves so that we wouldn't lose.

Yeah. Majorly hyper over here. I wonder how long till I settle down enough to go to sleep.

~Sil

"Arr. Bode thee well."

27 September 2007

Funnest Most Fun banner yet

I just finished a Nazgul banner/avatar set and I honestly had SO much fun with this one.




Played around for a long time with color settings and various layers (this banner, incidentally, has 16 layers, the most I've ever had) and I think I have a couple layers in there that were oilified and then decreased in opacity, which made the whole thing look COOL. I think about six of the sixteen layers are in the word "never", which has the font Copperplate on top of Scriptina in black and white, faded to various degrees. The one thing I wished I could have fixed is that it looks grainy in bits. It looks fine on my computer, but somewhere in the uploading to tinypic/photobucket something went a little awry. Oh well. It still looks okay.

As for life in general...I started Harmony 3 on Saturday. So far it's not that bad, we're writing soprano/alto/tenor/bass voices, and you just have to make sure you remember all the rules. Keep your common note, make sure the leading note rises to the tonic, etc. I feel very sophisticated, being in this level of theory. Hehe. Piano's good too, currently playing grade 9 Colors of the Wind (hard but very pretty), a Gigue by Handel, Sonata in C- by C.P.E. Bach, and Sonata in C by Scarlatti. AND I'm going to start Ronda Alla Turka (Mozart) next week, which I'm insanely excited about because I've wanted to play that piece FOREVER.

Yep. Stuff's good.

~Sil

"I spent the afternoon cleaning out my wound."
"Your WHAT?"
"My wound."
"Oh. I just thought that if Kyle had a womb, something would be seriously wrong."

24 September 2007

More banners

Life's good, but not overtly interesting - so more banners! (If you click on them they bring up Photobucket. Not sure why)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

None of them are really complicated, but I'm rather proud. They're fun to make, too.

~Sil

Me: "You have been responsible for the death of one Meldawen. You will be notified regarding funeral fees imminently."
Chris: "Hang on, she's implying that there's more than one Meldawen!"
Jamie: "Wow, can the undead reproduce?"
Chris: "They spawn."
Jamie: "Oh, true."

18 September 2007

Robert Jordan

Best selling fantasy author Robert Jordan has died of a rare blood disease aged 58, it has been reported.

Jordan - whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr - wrote the "Wheel of Time" series, which sold millions of books since the first - "The Eye of the World" - was published in 1990.
Full story

I'm in shock. I spent all of this summer reading Wheel of Time, up to book 11, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened in the twelfth one - and now will there even be a twelfth one? Will we never know what happened at the end? It's so hard to believe that the end is just going to hang there, and we'll never know. Someone else could write it, I guess, but it won't be the same. Age 58. I think all of us expect to live longer than that. It really makes you think - what am I waiting for? I can't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next year or next month - so what am I waiting for? Why am I still in the mindset of 'When I grow up'? I'm almost grown up. I could be writing right now, writing fantasy novels, or whatever I'm going to write - so why aren't I?

It's a little...weird...to think about.

R.I.P., Robert Jordan.

~Sil

17 September 2007

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I finally saw HP4 last night. Watched it on my dad's laptop with my brother. I actually really liked it, better than the previous three. But as always with movies based on books...they cut out parts. The Quidditch World Cup was all of about five minutes of the movie! I LOVED that part! And it showed the train coming into Hogwarts and the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students arriving pretty much simultaneously. There was kinda more of a time lapse than that. But I really liked the people who played Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum, even though Krum looked about twenty, and he's taking fourteen-year-old Hermione to the ball...cue eyeroll. Ben kept complaining about how he didn't like the new Dumbledore as well, but I think I liked him better. More like Gandalf. Harry was so small! He's the same height as Hermione, and Ron and Fred and George and even NEVILLE were about a foot taller than him. It's kinda cute.

I've also decided that I am SO a Harry/Hermione shipper. They're so much cuter than Hermione/Ron. All the angst about the ball was done very well, I thought. I liked how they kept the line - "Hermione, you're a girl!" "Oh, well spotted." It's so interesting when they fight. I sound callous, but it is. The challenges were COOL. I love the special effects in these movies.

It's kinda weird how I liked Hermione so much more in this one. I thought she was a bit meh before, and I still think her hair isn't curly enough and she's too pretty, but I liked her a lot better. Ron was better too. I'm really curious to see the fifth one now.

~Sil

"The only proof that humans came from monkeys is BEN!" - Carissa

10 September 2007

Random things, none of which are important enough for a title except the first one. Read it.

Today I shall be blogging about random things. Get ready.

First Random Thing: Today is the International Day of Hugs (or something). I think this is because September 11th is tomorrow. So, you know, hug someone today! I still can't get my head around the fact that 9/11 is six years ago. It still seems so huge in how we remember it that it's hard to believe how long it's been. I remember everyone being freaked out about buildings being blown up, but not really understanding what was happening - I was ten at the time. So there's another reminder - remember the Twin Towers tomorrow. It didn't affect most of us, but it did for many, many people.

Second Random Thing: I made my first banner!



Click on it to make it bigger. It's not technically my first one, but the first one I'm actually proud of. I've done others that I didn't like so much, but I REALLY like this one. I'm really very proud of it.

Third Random Thing: I got new piano books! The grade 9 ones are really extremely large. The repertoire one actually has a spine. It makes me feel important. I haven't looked through them much, but piano lessons start again on Wednesday, so I'll be working out of there a lot.

Fourth Random Thing: Youth starts again this week!!! I'm so excited to have Tuesdays and Fridays back, and all the awesome people at Bible study to rant to (er...I mean...talk to). First Friday youth event is wide games, which is pretty much my favorite type of youth event ever besides the Pirate night and maybe the Survivor night.

Fifth Random Thing: I got Facebook! After grumbling for a while about how it's not homeschooler-friendly, I basically decided I was missing out and lied about my age so I could sign up with no network. It's actually really fun, and sorta addicting. I'll always love my Arwen-Undomiel best, though!

Sixth (and last) Random Thing: My arm really hurts. I'm serious. Nobody is taking me seriously because they ask WHY my arm hurts, and then I have to tell them that I was playing the AWE game on Wii and I was overenthusiastic, but it really hurts! It hurts to write and play the piano and anything involving doing anything with my right hand and I'm really annoyed. I know it's my fault...but some sympathy would be nice...

~Sil

Elegost: we don't have a submarine car.
Me: you're not cool without a supmarine car. [OKAY, so I typoed. Sue me.]
Reindeer: well, I'd actually prefer a submarine car, Melda, but you can enjoy your supmarine car
PotR: it drives on land, drives under water, and prepares your supper all at once!

06 September 2007

Gloaming

That's the word of the day. Gloaming. The definition of it in my Dictionary application is:
gloaming |ˈglōmi ng | noun ( the gloaming) poetic/literary twilight; dusk. ORIGIN Old English glōmung, from glōm ‘twilight,’ of Germanic origin; related to glow .
And yes, I got it from Beowulf.

Speaking of which, as Reindeer said I might, I found a guy named Eomer in there today, along with several interesting parallels to The Hobbit. See, the reason Beowulf has to kill the dragon is that it's terrorizing the land because a thief stole one of its treasures - a goblet. Ring a bell, those of you familiar with The Hobbit? And then, when Beowulf and his men go out to fight the dragon, they 'press-gang' this thief, against his will, to be their guide. Again, like Bilbo in The Hobbit. I thought it very interesting. Oh, and I found the phrase 'prince of the rings'. Precursor to 'The Lord of the Rings', perhaps? The 'prince of the rings' described there is Beowulf himself, but the phrase is certainly very similar to Sauron's title.

Seeing a I'm a nerd...I have more vocabulary words. These are actually from my vocabulary-building book, Word Power Made Easy, and they're all personality types.
Egoist - someone concerned only with him- or herself. The phrase "look out for number one" comes to mind.
Egotist - someone who brags overtly about his or her own accomplishments and isn't interested in those of others.
Altruist - someone who thinks others are more important than him/her, wants to know how they're doing, what they've been up to.
Introvert - (yes, this is me all the way) someone who prefers to work alone, prefers the company of one or two good friends over a group, has trouble with cooperative projects. Introverts spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think of them. An introvert may seem unsocial, but their greatest desire is to be accepted and liked. All that is mostly paraphrased from the book, and the last sentence, which made me laugh, is: "You may even be a genius, or eventually turn into one." Go me! A genius!
Extrovert - polar opposite of an introvert. Extroverts make great teachers, counselors, administrators or insurance agents. Extroverts are the life of the party and never worry about being embarrassed. They like to be with lots of people and their personalities are 'turned outward' (as opposed to an introvert, whose personalities are 'turned inward'.)
Ambivert - I read this and thought of a lot of people who are ambiverts. This makes sense, as an ambivert's personality is like the personality of most people. They're at neither extreme, and have introverted and extroverted tendencies.
Misanthrope - hates people (including themself?). Thinks they're all no good immoral *insert bad word*s.
Misogynist - hates women. Likely was wounded/scorned/crossed by one in the past and thinks they're all bad.
Misogamist - against the commitment of marriage, and thinks it's an institution rather than a freedom.
Ascetic - like a stoic. Thinks everything that glorifies the flesh - e.g. makes you feel good - is bad for you. Abstains from pleasure.

Those all fascinated me. I really like personality types. I'm insanely easy to define most times, but they're fun anyway.

~Sil

"I have Irish heritage."
"I have Ukrainian heritage."
"I'm part mushroom."

05 September 2007

GIMP!

For lack of anything else to post (that's really of much interest) I am going to, alas, brag about myself. It's sad fact.

Anyway, to elaborate, I have been playing with GIMP lately. It's, like, something Image Manipulation Program. I forget what the G stands for. So this basically means that I can make graphics. Or, heh, try to. So far I've only really been doing avatars, which are small 100x100 px images and therefore easy to work with. You use avatars on MSN, AIM, forums, message boards...that kind of thing. So far I've done:

Aragorn
Arwen
Eowyn
Frodo
Galadriel
Gandalf
Legolas
Sam

I am personally of the opinion that they're not half bad, though there are far more experienced graphic makers out there. I'm also attempting Haldir, but he's not really done, and he's not cooperating so far. And I haven't exactly progressed to banners yet, but maybe I'll get there.

School = good. Life in general = nothing to report.

~Sil

Reindeer: "I'm shaking the desk, I'm laughing so far."
*pause*
Reindeer: "Hard. Not far."
PotR: *envisions Reindeer sitting at desk and laughing while it bounces away down the street*

04 September 2007

The legendary first day of school

I've never really understood the hype about the first day of school. For me, the first day of school means we're out of holidays, and nobody's really ready to have them stop, but we set to with probably more energy than we have for most of the rest of the year. So that's kinda different from what I assume it must be like in public school - you know, you're seeing friends again, you're figuring out what your teachers are like...um...stuff? I totally have no idea, but it's interesting to examine the differences.

What's looking like being my most interesting subject currently (unless I do end up doing a University of Athabasca course in English) is a Study of British Literature. I'm currently on Beowulf, which is fascinating, especially considering how you can liken it to LotR. I expected it to be sorta dry but it's actually not. I can't say I'm quite sold on Beowulf himself yet - though admittedly, I have a liking for characters who don't proclaim their own virtues quite as widely as he seems to - but maybe he'll grow on me. Interesting things I picked up on include the use of the word mearas in Old English, which means horse. In LotR, the Mearas are legendary horses gifted with speed and beauty. Shadowfax is called the Lord of the Mearas. I also recognized a parallel between the Golden Hall of Meduseld in Rohan and Hrothgar's hall Heorot in Beowulf. Yes, Hrothgar is the name of a dwarf king in Eragon. I suppose it's a nod to Beowulf, but it feels a little pretentious for Christopher Paolini to have it in there. Perhaps it's just my general skepticism for Paolini - when I write a book, it will be better than his. Also, Old English sounds a LOT like Rohirric. I think Tolkien had quite a lot of influence from this particular source.

Haven't started piano or youth yet, and we're just getting into quizzing, but I'm sorta not as depressed about school starting as I was. Which is good.

~Sil

"The Balrog wouldn't be so scary if he didn't have little beady eyes and horns and those big hooves and a long tail."
"You mean if he looked more like a bunny rabbit?"

27 August 2007

One more week

Yup...a week from today will be my last day of summer holidays. I'm kind of clinging to these last days of doing nothing. I'm very good at doing nothing, really, I don't get bored at all. Not to mention the fact that I chewed through eleven Wheel of Time books this summer, all of which are about 800 pages. A lot of doing nothing was spent reading WoT.

And then there was Costa Rica, which was absolutely huge. It was a really incredible experience, and I think I'll remember it as the highlight of this summer for a long time. It was really neat to get to know people I hadn't before, and experience so much I'd never seen - and cool to see how it really is the same everywhere you go. I'm convinced that you could drop me into any church anywhere and I'd know instantly what it was. God loves you the same no matter where you live or what language you speak or how much money you make, and it really showed.

Not that sixteen really feels any different from fifteen, but I had a birthday this summer too. Sixteen would technically mean I can drive, except for the fact that I'm, er, not. Heh. So I think it was, by and large, a successful summer.

BTW, loving the comments, guys, and keep them coming (you set a record with that last post for most comments I've ever had)- but I'm firmly convinced that Drow pwn. That's just the way it is. Ha.

(EDIT: I updated my links. I now have Moose Boy's Blog and the Abyssal Void. But I won't keep the latter unless you're nice to me, Reindeer. I.e., unless you decide to stop correcting my typos. Ha.)

~Sil

"If tomorrow you see tennis balls falling out of the sky, yeah - that's me. Sorry."

19 August 2007

A detailed treatise on Drow and Aiel

Disclaimer: If you haven't read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan or Forgotten Realms by R.A. Salvatore (well, I'm told he wrote the best ones) you won't understand a word of this.

If, however, you are a certain personage who goes by the moniker 'A Reindeer' or 'Elegost Eruaphadion', pay attention. You are about to be pwned.

The whole reason for this blog post, you see, is that there's a bit of a war being waged between the four of us - me and the Violent One (aka Samantha, aka Lady Dark Moon, aka LDM, aka Lady Fudge Moon) against the Reindeer (aka Stephen) and Ellie (aka Chris). Ellie and Reindeer, you see, are sadly misled and think that Aiel are better than Drow. LDM and I do try to correct them, but they're somewhat resistant. Like black-veiled Aiel (ha)(see below).

I'll take pity on those not acquainted with fantasy, I guess. For a little bit. Somewhat. So, Drow are dark elves. You know, an elf like Orlando Bloom plays. Elf. Legolas. Remember that term and name. Now imagine Legolas with dark skin and white hair, and glowy red eyes (or lavender if you're imagining him as Drizzt, but we'll get to that) and you have a Drow. Also, reverse all Legolas's moral inclinations (again, unless you're Drizzt). So we now have a white-haired, dark-skinned elf with no moral standards whatsoever, but still pretty darn cool and capable of pretty much pwning any existing opponent, because dark elves are basically the best weapon-users you can think of. Plus, they're not human, and therefore have better reflexes/skills/all-round superiority. For more info on Drow, go here.

(Still taking pity. Don't you love me?) Now, Aiel, on the other hand, are human. You all know what humans are, I hope. If not...well, we won't get into that. But if you're not human, could you get in touch with me? I'd be curious to discover what you are. Anyway, Aiel are a desert-dwelling, nomadic sort of people, who are somewhat legendary and famed for their skill with weapons. They can be identified by their taller-than-average height, blond or red hair, and pale-colored eyes. When preparing to kill, they wear veils, and the phrase 'like a black-veiled Aiel' is a comparison used in the rest of the world to mean someone stubborn or belligerent. For more info on Aiel, click here.

First, let us examine who would win in a fair fight - an Aiel or a Drow. A Drow's preferred weapon will vary, but it's almost always enchanted somehow, and an Aiel will use short spears with sword-like blades. Aiel have fast reflexes. Drow are elven and therefore have SUPER-fast reflexes, not to mention a cloak that can make them invisible and magical abilities. Some Aiel do have magical abilities, but not the ones that fight. Drow are nocturnal, and therefore would be at a disadvantage in fighting during the day, but Aiel are not nocturnal and therefore would be equally disadvantaged at night. Drow, however, don't need their eyes to fight. Along with super-fast reflexes, they have killer instincts. It's impossible to sneak up on a Drow, so don't try. The main character in the Dark Elf Trilogy, Drizzt Do'Urden, kills a basilisk at one point without using his eyes. He has the help of his panther Guenhwyvar, granted, but he does fight without looking. I think it can be safely concluded that a Drow would win against an Aiel.

There's also the element of sheer coolness. Aiel look like this. Drow look like this.

...need I say more? Drow are pretty much the epitome of sheer coolness. They have magic and enchanted weapons and cool-colored eyes and black and purple armor and, despite being somewhat backstabbing, are elven and therefore as attractive as any elf you care to name. I won't, as I think the obvious comparison is...obvious. Aiel have spears and veils. Whoop-de-doo.

Ahem. So. After that bout of utter pwnage, in other news...Sarah got me a birthday present! It's the greatest little card with a parrot going "Ahh! Walk the plank!" and then inside, "Best as we can tell, that means Happy 16th Birthday!" and lip chap and a lavender-scented candle. I left the lid of the candle off last night, and woke up and smelled lavender. I liked it.

Oh, and just as a general invitation to anyone reading, I really wanna go see Stardust. So if you want to go see Stardust with me, then please say so, because I don't want to go by myself.

~Sil

"I hope you get your birthday present tomorrow. Suspense is killing ME, and I know what it is!"

12 August 2007

Old habits die hard

Except this isn't an old habit, and it has therefore died. Yeah, I'm trying to get back into blogging. Not sure how well it's working so far, but I guess we'll see.

SO. Last weekend was my birthday (well, my actual birthday is Monday the 13th, but the festivities were last weekend.) We went to the Calgary Zoo, which was fun, and met a black bear who we dubbed Winnie-the-Poof. And stayed at a hotel and a bunch of fun stuff. I wanted to bring a hotel bed home with me, they were SO COMFORTABLE. Oh, and we went to Boston Pizza for supper (after hunting around northeast Calgary for half an hour trying to find a Red Robin) and they gave me free dessert because it was my birthday. I liked it.

So yeah, now I'm sixteen. My parents got me a cool expensive-looking watch, which I like a lot better than other watches I've had. It's an achievement, because I'm unbelievably finicky about my watches. Gramma and Grampa got me $100, which I will likely use to buy the At World's End piano book, and save the rest for a computer. Jamie snail-mailed me a present from Texas (I love you, Jamie!) but it's not here yet. Samantha made me an amazing really pretty blend with I think Photoshop, and Chris RECORDED HIMSELF SINGING ON HIS GUITAR! I was so hyped after he sent me that. He has the most awesome accent EVER.

This last week has been pretty uneventful. I'm looking forward to being at church on Sunday, it seems like I haven't been in AGES.

Oh, but we're watching all three LotR (extended, of course) again, and now Will gets to watch. I'm really impressed with how much he understands of it. So that's cool, especially since those movies are pretty much the best ones ever made. I also got the four Forgotten Realms books I bought off Amazon, and am learning all about Drow (dark elves) and Drizzt Do'Urden and the Underdark and cool stuff.

But I'm dying in Third Age. It's driving me crazy. I canNOT get past the stupid Oliphaunts on Pelennor Fields! They keep killing me no matter what I do! I need to look up a walkthrough or something because nothing I try is working. It's so annoying.

Generally happy over here, though.

~Sil

Me: *wails*
Stephen: Aiel wouldn't wail
Chris: She's a Drow. Drow wail.
Me: You guys are mean
Chris: Careful, you might drow-n in your own tears
Stephen: Oh my goldfish...that was sooooo lame...

08 August 2007

Quotes!

Well, I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, what with trying to sum up in a blog post how Costa Rica went and how my summer's been and what's happening with my birthday coming up, and so on and so forth. So, knowing that I'm keeping all of you waiting, I decided to do a blog post full of quotes. Because I have a TON of them. And of course, I shall highlight recent events ans stuff.

Let the quotes begin!

--->Cyber-Quotes

[Me]"So I'm a bigger ickle WoT paradox kitty who got sold on eBay?"

[Me]"Coffee makes my nose feel funny."
[Chris, aka Elegost Eruaphadion, my cyber-friend in the UK]"You know, when you drink it, you're only supposed to tip the mug so far..."

[Me]"You DO love me!"
[Jamie, aka pirateoftherings, my cyber-friend in Texas]"No. You're just a good source of entertainment."

[Chris]"You know, if we ever do meet up, we're going to need sedatives purely for the Canadian."

[Bilbo Baggins, but more recently Jamie]"Go back? Not good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!"

[Samantha, aka Lady Dark Moon, my cyber-friend in Georgia]"One of the first things you'll learn from being in one of my RPGs is that I never care what you do as long as you don't...randomly grow a third arm...or something..."
[Jamie]"Does that mean I can bring in the pet whale?"
[Samantha]"No."

[Jamie]"I don't speak Tur fluently, just enough to get by."

[Me]"Tell me, since when do demented Aussie street kids have any similarity to ELVES? She's disgracing the elven name!"

[Me]"Aw pooh, I never showered."
[Jamie]"Pfft. Extraneous."
[Me]"Yeah, well, you don't have to smell me."

[Veronica, aka Haldir o' Lorien, a cyber-acquaintance of mine from Toronto(!)] (Warning: quote only understandable by Tolkienites) "Favourite Tolkien character: Haldir, for sure. Being a guard doesn't make him unimportant! And why else would I make him a fan site? :-P I also really like Thingol... but there is only so much that one can put on a Thingol fan site."

--->Costa Rica Quotes

[Erin, at Salt Lake City airport]"We can't say the b-word, or they'll think we're t-words!"
[Joanna]"What b-word?"
[Erin]"The EXPLODING b-word!"

[Tired Amy]"Amy hasn't sleep in long time."
[Tired Erin, regarding bunk beds]"Do you want bop or toddom?"

[Bryan, before a team meeting]"All prisoners accounted for?"

[Erin]"I'm artistic, okay?"
[A slightly deaf Bryan]"Erin's autistic?"

[Me]"I've decided I need to marry a Kendath Turner."
[Bryan, deaf again]"Amy's marrying a turd? I can see it now. Mrs Amy Turd. And the kids would be little turds."

[Erin]"Poquito. Like a toe and thorn. Poke-ee-toe!"

[Erin's low point of the day]"I got coke spilled on my favorite skirt."
[Everett's low point]"I spilled my coke!"

[Erin, during Kyle's Inventing Saga]"What did I invent?"
[Kyle]"Nothing. You lived in a hole south of Cleveland for ten years. Elvis lives there now."
[Erin]"Did I have a cat?"
[Kyle]"No. That was before I invented cats. They used to be catdogs, but the catdog kept trying to chase itself. So I decided they'd be better off as two animals."

[Kyle, still during the Inventing Saga]"Hey Graham, remember that day you invented the dishwasher?"
[Graham]"You invented the dishwasher?"
[Kyle]"No, you did."
[Graham]"Oh, I did!"

[Me, again, during the Saga]"Who invented the sign?"
[Kyle]"That guy in the car in front of us."

[I don't remember who said this]"It's the unspoken rule of San Jose. All graffiti must be in Portuguese."

[Me. Saga. Or was it Erin?]"I'm gonna spontaneously combust over here."
[Graham. I think.]"Oh yeah, Kyle invented that a few years ago. We haven't found a use for it yet, but he did."

[Bryan, sick]"On the upside, Imodium is delicious."

[Kyle or Tyler, whispering]"I have tylenol."
[Kyle or Tyler, whispering]"I have ibuprofen."
[Jessica, unsure what's going on, whispering]"I see dead people."

[Random airport official we made up]"Are you carrying a bomb?"
[Kyle's apparent fix-it-all phrases]"Si! Gracias. Donde esta el bano?"(Yes! Thank you. Where is the bathroom?)

[Jessica]"Spiderweb, spiderweb, I'm gonna kill the spiderweb."

[Kyle]"The best way to know if drywall is done is to lick it."

[Graham]"Can I sit here?"
[Erin]"No."
[Graham]"Jerk."

[Tyler]"Amigito."
[Joel, our Latino little brother]"No no, not little friend, big friend! Big!"

[Jessica]"The Scobster's gonna eat me!"

[Don't remember]"Will you join our political party? We give one donut for four hours of exercise!"

[Me]"I have dibs on anyone's dessert they don't want!"
[Bryan]"Kyle doesn't want his. He told me."
[Kyle]"Hey!"

[Bryan]"If there's a pond, or a fountain, or a deep gorge anywhere near Erin, someone tie a rope around her. Or take away her camera."

[Me]"Can you clarity your deity?"

[Jessica]"Feet are sexy."

[Bryan, after Erin and I abused alarm clocks]"There should be a society. People for the Ethical Treatment of Alarm Clocks."

[Erin]"The paint won't come off my hand."
[Bryan]"I think that means you're going to die."

[Erin, re Bryan]"His wrinkles iron themselves out, he has no body odour - what next?!"
[Me]"His teeth brush themselves?"

[Me]"I've discovered a new talent of mine!"
[Bryan]"What?"
[Me]"Spinning people in circles underwater!"
[Bryan]"Oh. I was hoping it was flying."

[Bryan]"It says, if you get it in your eyes, to consult a physician. If you get it in your mouth, you should consult a mortician."

[Jessica, re a cute stray dog we saw every day]"It's the dog!"
[Jorge, driving truck over bump]"There WAS a dog."

[Bryan]"So. In the parking lot at 7:30 am."
[Various people]"I thought this was a vacation!"
[Bryan]"It is. You can stay up as late as you want."

[Bryan]"See, rice and beans makes me think of rice and bugs."(silence)"Enjoy your meal, Erin."

And those are my quotes! For Costa Rica pictures, go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Aelynnrylis/CostaRica?authkey=OekI_ozHRfI

As a last snippet of news - I got my exam mark. NINETY! ON GRADE EIGHT ROYAL CONSERVATORY PIANO!

No, I'm not excited. Not in the least. Couldn't you tell?

~Sil

23 June 2007

Adjusting

...yeah, it's been a while. I'm not gonna apologize, cause it's my blog and I can post as often (or not often) as I like, but here I am again. Life's been a bit weird lately, what with school and piano and youth and quizzing all ending, and summer starting, and us renovating the main floor of our house and my dad switching jobs and...yeah. Costa Rica's coming up alarmingly fast, and I'm simultaneously insanely excited and a little disbelieving that this is actually happening to me. I mean, last time I was out of the country was Montana, when I was five. So the idea's sort of hard to adjust to.

I've had way more time for reading lately, though, so I'm on the sixth Wheel of Time book. The romantic pairings are starting to make me roll my eyes. Rand (main-est main character) has, no joke, three girls after him - Elayne, Daughter-Heir of Andor; Min, who's normal except she sees auras around people that foretell their destinies; and Aviendha, who's still in denial that she loves Rand at all. Lan/Nynaeve is ridiculous lately, some SERIOUS misinterpretation going on there - it's actually a lot like Merrin/Kendath (go here if you don't know what I'm referring to, though really, the story doesn't get good until about page 41 or so) who may or may not have a K word in their immediate future before LDM leaves second week of July. I mean, granted, Merrin and Kendath are only 19 and 26 whereas Lan is 50 to Nynaeve's 25, but they're remarkably similar other than that. Also, we've determined that Beauty and the Beast is a lot like Merrin/Kendath. But I'm rambling. Back to WoT. Oh, and Galad and Gawyn both love Egwene. Rand also seems to have lost every moral inclination he ever had. Perrin hasn't, though, and is (gasp) actually MARRIED! To Faile! Fun stuff.

I'm also rereading Mara, Daughter of the Nile, and remembering how much I like it. First romance book I ever enjoyed. Also, I was recognizing in some surprise that Sheftu is quite a bit like Phantom Grey. Sheftu has a rather more dangerous air about him, admittedly, but they're both leaders of a rebellion and everything. It's cool.

So yeah...my life's slowed down a lot. I do have pictures of our renovations, though.

The kitchen table's in the living room currently. Notice how we've lost the wall in between the kitchen and living room. Better picture of that. We've also lost the wall by the back door and the wall by the front door, and are considering also losing the bit of wall left between the front door and the kitchen. From the other direction. This week my dad's putting in laminate flooring, which looks like hardwood but isn't. So that's cool.

~Sil

"Thanks, but I prefer to eat my own cucumbers."

16 June 2007

Well.

I have no exam stories this year. Which, in case you hadn't noticed, is a VERY GOOD THING. It went really well, I played my pieces almost perfectly - I mean, minor slips, but nothing I haven't done before - and the only area I'm pretty sure I definitely lost a couple of marks is ear training. And I only messed up the melody playback, which is worth a total of two marks, everything else was good. The examiner was this really nice Chinese lady who totally made me feel so comfortable, it was pretty awesome. So I'm quite happy about that. It's so nice to have it over!

~Sil

"Does his mother call him SpongeRobert?"

14 June 2007

Does it work both ways?

Something weird just happened. I sat down and played all of my exam pieces - all six - exactly the way I want to play them tomorrow. This might sound lke no problem to all you non-musical people. But I started at the right speeds, didn't have one memory slip, and I'm pretty sure I had some good dynamics in there.

So. My question now is - bad dress rehearsal, good performance. Does it work both ways? Good dress rehearsal, bad performance?

And strangely enough, even if it does work both ways, I don't even know if I really care anymore. Because, really, what is a music exam on the grand scale of things? Even a grade 8 RCM music exam? I've said it so many times before - the whole reason I do piano is because it's fun. Not because I want a career in it, not because my parents make me, but because I like it. So why am I so scared? Honestly, this is one person's opinion of my playing/technique/ear and sight on one given day. I'm not petrified for every single one of my piano lessons, and they're pretty close to the same thing. Why am I more scared to perform in front of one person than I am in front of, oh, fifty people? Just because they're giving me a mark?

That sorta strikes me as silly.

~Sil

"Kill the butter!"

11 June 2007

Life's slowing down

Yeah, stuff's kinda wrapping up...haven't got much school left, piano exam this Friday, youth's over...leaves me a lot of free time. I like it.

My sister got Mario Party 8 for her birthday, so we've been Wii-ing that lately. Pretty fun game, some very creative mini-games and new worlds and stuff. And more female characters. We've played three or four board games and in every single one I'm Peach, Susie's Daisy and Grace is Toadette. It makes for less fighting over who's who, which is nice. Ben was mad that there was no DK, but he'll live. I've also (finally) made it out of Moria on Third Age. Currently trying to find my way through devilishly confusing East Emnet Gullies, which is near Rohan, and have met up with (sigh) the elf scout Aranel and his pals. No matter how much research I do, 'Aranel' still means 'princess'. A name for a MALE elf. Pfft.

Home renovations are going on...knocking out a couple of walls on our main floor, which is sorta cool, and my dad's home from work for the next few weeks. So other than a dentist appointment on Thursday which I'm actually sort of scared for - never had a cavity filled before - and my piano exam on Friday which I'm PETRIFIED for, this week's fun. As soon as that's all done I'll be even better.

~Sil

"What's an autobiography?"
"It's a book about a car."

07 June 2007

Last piano lesson

...was yesterday. We had a sort of mock exam type thing. I'm sure it had a purpose besides making me horribly nervous, but it definitely accomplished that if nothing else. Had a completely unexpected memory slip on my first repertoire song that I was SO mad at myself about, but I guess it was actually good other than that...missed a cadence on ear training but all year I've been missing cadences so I guess it's nothing new. And the Sonata. This is where I sigh inwardly. I seem to have two options for the sonata - either play it the way these weird teacher people want me to play it, which is about as fun as washing dishes, or play it the way I would prefer to play it, which I actually enjoy. The problem with my way is that I go too fast and the problem with their way is that I get bored and it lacks a certain 'spark' my teacher says it has when I play it my way. Bleh. So I'm supposed to find something in between for the recital.

And just cause I can...my musical pictures, images or stories I connect with songs, are:
Study #1, Rohan: This one's easy because it's from a movie, so I think of the Rohirrim or Eowyn standing at Edoras, and a lot of wind. And the flag ripping. Though that comes more toward the end.
Study #2, Cappriccio: I renamed this, it is now The Masked Juggler. He juggles throughout the song with varying patterns and color, and at the end he drops all the balls and disappears. This is probably my favorite piece out of the six so I had fun with it.
Repertoire #1, Solfeggietto: Renamed The Mouse in the Bedroom. I had a piece in grade 2 once called The Mouse in the Coal Bin that sorta sounded like this one (if I remember correctly, which I'm not sure I do) and it does sound a lot like a mouse running around.
Repertoire #2, Sonata in G: This one didn't get renamed because it was going to be some boring thing about dancing. So I just think of dancing while I play it and all goes well, except I go too fast. SLOWER dancing.
Repertoire #3, Puck: This one was really easy, as it sounds exactly like a mischievous little elf running around pulling people's hair and stealing their pocket watches. Shakespearian. And the crazy running up the piano at the end and and the end of the first section is him laughing.
Repertoire #4, To The Rising Sun: Again, easy, because it basically sounds like what it is. I'm not actually a huge fan of this song, I only picked it because I didn't like any of the other options, so I didn't expend a whole bunch of energy on it.

Right now I just want my exam to come so I can a) get it over with and b) stop playing these pieces! Argh!

~Sil

"Four wieners and a shrub, please."

04 June 2007

Aimlessness

No bad puns. I mean it. If my name happens to sound like the word 'aimless', it's really not my fault.

But yeah...I feel really restless and generally lacking a point in life at the moment. Bleh. I was all set up to go babysitting and then it turned out I didn't have to, which left me a whole afternoon to pretty much...do nothing. So I wandered around the house for a while without settling down to anything and eventually decided to do a blog post.

Pirates of Dark Hold Keep was on Friday, and it was fantastic. Best youth event of the year. Picture of me as a pirate, with Sarah also as a pirate. Debra with our 'treasure'. It was an amazing night, I had SO much fun. Bryan with his awesome piratey accent was SO cool, and the amazing piratey sponsors. I brought home a whole load of piratey stuff, including plastic gold and silver coins, a picture of Calico Jack Rackham's ship, apparently named The Bloated Porpoise (which is going up in my room) and a bunch of chocolate.

Helped set up for the penny carnival the youth put on for the Sunday school kids on Saturday, and got ice cream cake into the bargain, and had the quizzing wrapup Saturday evening. Quizzing is officially done until next year. Youth is ending this Tuesday. Piano is ending this Wednesday. Wow, and I think I'm aimless NOW.

Sunday we had the penny carnival, and I face-painted adorable little kids. Then I got to see more adorable little kids at my sister's dance recital, all dressed up as candy (there were peppermints, lemon drops, cookies, sugar crystals...I'm sure more I can't remember), which unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures at. Sadness.

And...today has been unremarkable. So far. Maybe something fun will happen this evening.

~Sil

"There's a slight butt location problem."

30 May 2007

Jack the Monkey

I'm in a weird mood, so the next character who gets a review is Jack the Monkey. I honestly think he was the funniest part of this movie besides Jack (not the monkey) and his Jackish lines. And actually, the monkey who plays Jack is a she! (To avoid confusion, Jack-not-the-monkey will here on in be referred to as Jackie. You know, like what his dad calls him.)

First of all, it has the cutest little outfit in Singapore. Flat conical hat and all. And it turns the wheel for a little music-playing thingy, and sets off a firework with the parrot. But undoubtedly the cutest bit with Jack the monkey was on the ship to world's end, where he's on a barrel covered in icicles and shivering. To do this, they used a) a ton of makeup and b) a barrel that vibrated. How ingenious is that!

And have I ever mentioned the weirdness of Geoffrey Rush? See, he's Barbossa, and he's firmly convinced that audiences view a movie screen from left to right. He's also firmly convinced that in any shot inclusive of him, Elizabeth and the monkey, he must be on the left side. Because who's going to look at Barbossa if they can look at Elizabeth and the monkey? And the funniest thing, particularly in CoTBP, is that he manages it almost all the time!

But back to Jack the monkey. He gets shot out of a cannon, too, which is debatably the cutest shot in the movie, and at the very end Barbossa (Barbossa!) talks baby talk to him. If I haven't been just recovering from tears at this point I would have laughed my head off. I'm sure there were many more adorable shots of Jack the monkey, but I can't remember them. So enlighten me, guys!

~Sil

"Put me under pepperoni."

29 May 2007

Elizabeth Swann Turner

Elizabeth's....Turn! That was a really bad pun. Excuse me. Anyway, yes, Elizabeth in AWE was actually the best Elizabeth out of all three movies. She had a wide range of emotions and she didn't do any pouting (heehee, Erin).

Also, she can fight while wearing VERY little. I was amused by her large arsenal of weapons upon entering to see Sao Feng, particularly the blunderbuss that she got from WHERE? That thing was as big as one of her legs! Though admittedly, that's not saying much. Anyway, she ended up going in dressed in something amounting to an undershirt, and still swordfought - and escaped without a scratch! That's talent for you.

Next bit with Elizabeth that I liked was on the journey home from World's End, where they sail through a whole bunch of dinghies bearing people who died at sea. Elizabeth's father is one of them, and I really liked how frantic she was and prepared to jump over the side in order to get to him, because it sorta showed that she still loves him despite how they fight for different sides. And then, of course, Will hugged her while she cried and I just melted, I thought it was so sweet. Will = love.

Elizabeth does a lot of being-in-charge this movie, being the captain of a ship and a Pirate Lord and eventually the Pirate King, and I don't know if it really quite works for her, but she made an awesome speech partway through. I can't remember where, but it was very inspirational. I used to have it on my desktop background.

There's a very...interesting...scene with Elizabeth and Sao Feng, where he thinks she's Calypso and she ad libs it very well once she realizes how he's misconstrued things. I mean, when you have Elizabeth and Tia Dalma, which one are YOU going to assume is Calypso? Exactly. Anyway, she's really only saved from being kissed by yet ANOTHER guy by an explosion, which I think is a blast of cannon from the Dutchman.

Then she and the Singaporean crew get thrown into the brig of the Dutchman, and Elizabeth comes across Norrington. She's sorta mad at him, I think because she blames him for having something to do with her father's death, and it has an impact on him because he helps them escape. And dies in the process. Someone on Arwen-Undomiel...I believe it was Ánië Súrion...pointed this out yesterday: Elizabeth kisses four guys in the course of end of DMC/AWE, and they all die almost immediately afterwards! She kisses Jack at the end of DMC - he dies. She comes very, VERY close to kissing Sao Feng (or did she actually kiss him?) - he dies. She kissed Norrington - he dies. And lastly, she kisses Will - and he died. Yeesh, by the end of the movie it's a lucky thing Will is immortal or he should have been verrrry concerned at their kiss on the beach!

It's amazing. The next scene that jumps out at me for Elizabeth is just after Will is stabbed - and this is because I covered a lot of the Elizabeth scenes with Will's post - and she's pretty much frantic. Now this is very interesting. Elizabeth's trying to keep Will alive and Jack is standing there with the heart, all ready to stab it - and next thing you know he's used Will's hand to stab it. So, as I'm sure the Sparrabethers have already decided, did he do it for Elizabeth? Did he do it for Will? I think Elizabeth's words from DMC came back to bite him. "There will come a time when you have the chance to do the right thing." And the chance came - and he did! I loved him right there. But what was with Jack and Elizabeth floating off on a weird air-balloon thing made out of one of the Dutchman's sails? Bit weird.

Anyway, I liked Elizabeth a lot better in this movie than in DMC - though the fact that she wasn't wavering romantically between Jack and Will may have had something to do with it. And it's a testament to her character that she was faithful for TEN YEARS with no husband. Though she did get her happy ending!

Okay, just to interject because I'm not sure everybody caught this, it IS A happy ending. See, Will has to captain the Dutchman for ten years. But if his true love on land is faithful for ten years, when he comes back the curse is broken and he passes on the captaincy of the Dutchman. So they waited ten years, but then Will could come back to be with Elizabeth and Will the 3rd.

~Sil

Will: "I told myself, 'Think like Jack.'"
Jack: "And this is what you arrived at? Lead Beckett to Shipwreck Cove so as to gain his trust, accomplish your own ends? It's like you don't know me at all, mate."