*Rejoicing*

Okay, so the longest post of my life was not entirely lost after all! I managed to find it saved in drafts under the edit option on the dashboard, and it published the second time. That's the blog with the Happy Halloween heading. I think it really is the longest post I've done yet. Anyways, if your blog ever gets deleted...there is hope yet.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone! Last week was sort of a big week in terms of school--lots of tests, projects, and essays due. So, I guess it was sort of hard for me to get in the Halloween mood. But now that it's Sunday....I'm excited. At this point, I'm dressing up as George Weasley. Not for trick-or-treating, but my mom said that I can't decorate the house as Hogwarts if I don't dress up as a Harry Potter character, so I figured this might be a good chance to take my HP7 costume for a test run. George Weasley is the only prominent Weasley character (red hair =  must be Weasley) that doesn't either get married or die. I nearly cried when Fred died. And I didn't want to be Ginny, because she (and her relationship with Harry) bugs me. At the end of the series, I somehow couldn't imagine him getting married and having kids (with wildly creative names, I might add). I imagined him going back to Hogwarts and teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Anyways, that's the deal. I believe I shall dress up for Halloween for many years to come.

On hat projects:
I loved seeing what everyone came up with! Personally, I thought that it was a great project...so much fun. Congrats to everyone.

On concentrations:
So, as of this point, I would sort of like to do mine (and I think I might have mentioned this in an earlier blog) on hidden faces as a puzzle. Not at all like that one concentration we saw while scoring. More like the face in the teacup I did over the summer. Or, if that doesn't work, confusion, maybe? If anyone has feedback, it would be really, really appreciated. Thanks!

More on HP:
So, a couple days ago I took one of those personality quizzes on facebook just for fun. It was "What Harry Potter Character Are You?" I got Snape. This made me sort of happy, because he is my favorite HP character next to McGonagall. Why? a) his tragic love story is rather touching; and b)all the nasty things he says to Harry I find amusing. Plus, in the movies he has a cool voice. I spent a whole summer two years ago trying to imitate it. Anyways, then I took another personality quiz. I was reading through the description, when I came to the words "You are not a nerdy person." I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. When I told my friends about it the next day, they snorted, cracked up, and told me "Congratulations. You managed to cheat the system." Oh, my.

You have got to be kidding me. I just spent an hour writing the longest post of my life, and then when I tried to publish it an error message popped up. "We are sorry for any inconvenience," it said. When I hit the back arrow to try to return to my post and attempt to publish it a second time, the post was blank. It was a rather upbeat post, I might add. First thing I did when I woke up today: clean up cat puke in the dining room.

Self-portraits/spiders/Harry Potter

For the last few minutes, I've been searching for spider pictures online. If I come into class tomorrow looking like death, it will be because I had spider nightmares all last night. I could definitely not handle a concentration on such a thing. At this point, very few things will get me over such a fear.

In response to Zoe's comment on my last blog, what I described referred to a Harry Potter reference in my first blog. It also took me six tissues to clean up the spider, contrary to what I said earlier. I accidentally smashed the spider to smithereens, so their was some...ah...dust to clean up.

Finished my hat project, by the way. It's hiding in the depths of my closet where my cat can't get to it (nor anyone else). At this point, I'm rather paranoid that something will happen to it. My self-portrait, on the other hand....it hasn't really been getting anywhere for the past week. I'm really nervous for the critique tomorrow, because I'm not happy with it and everything's way out of proportion. Up close, it's not so noticeable. But far back...and I'm cringing. Going to make some last minute adjustments, but most of the stuff that drives me crazy isn't really fixable....

Bleck....

Today I worked up enough courage to clean the spider off Hawaii's Best Spooky Tales 3. It required 3 tissues and a great mastery of my gag reflexes. Anyways, now that I can pick up the book, the big table I do my art on is looking spiffy clean and ready for my hat project! Which is where I'm headed next....

Well hello....

Well hello everyone. So I am experiencing a bit of a predicament...with my self-portrait project. All of the proportions are way off! My head is bigger than everything else and my arm looks puny. It's incredibly annoying. Now I'm not really sure what to do. I'm tempted to take an exacto knife to it and cut out the arm, move it over just a smidge. But that sort of reads like disaster....When I went into this project, I was determined to do a self-portrait that actually looked like me. Thwarted again. It is my goal, before I die, to do such a thing. Anyways, I've been sort of disappointed with the way my last few projects turned out. They've all had this "If only I had done this..." air about them. But alas, perhaps the hat project will turn out okay (that, my friends, is hope).

And now onto Harry Potter. For anybody who hasn't already predicted this, there will be mention of Harry Potter in every one of my blogs up until the movie premiere. And then probably throughout the rest of the year. Anyways, I was writing an essay for English last night on transcendentalist ideals and trying not to be sarcastic when I noticed something rather odd. As I was proof reading the paper, all of the h's and p's and r's suddenly ran together, and I was reading Harry Potter over and over again. Hurry became Harry. No exaggeration. Can't say I liked "Into the Wild" very much, but hey, kudos to those that did. By the way, I went searching for pirate/Harry Potter garb today. I've got a red and gold tie sitting right next to the computer at this very moment. My dad never wears it anyway. He despises ties. For any major hp fan out there, tickets went on sale Tuesday afternoon at Bridgeport! So many people are going to be zombies on Friday....

P.S. Fleur! Read the books! Heheheh.

To start things off...

So, I have to write a poem concerning chaos for creative writing. Chaos is me trying to write a poem. And also my brain when I don't clean my room every week (white carpet + black cats = lots of vacuuming). All the little scraps of photos I used to make my family portrait are shoved under the bed. I've got a bin of markers sitting on top of a stack of textbooks, and on top of that, the styrofoam head for the hat project. Cluttering my desk, I've got a torn up old schedule with thumbnail sketches on the back, an old book with a handful of pages spilling out, a packet of sticky notes, a French-English dictionary, a stack of notepaper, a coffee cup full of pencils, toothbrush and toothpaste for my cat (apparently he's got the beginnings of gum disease), and a stinky pre-calc book. It is somewhat chaotic.

Along the semi-same lines, there's my self-portrait project. Now, for the poor souls that I tried to explain it to, I shall try and clarify here. Two nights ago, my brother affectionately called me a germophobe. I don't know why he should think it a cutting insult, but that's what he tried to make it...so I laughed. It's true. Among family and certain friends, the common perception is just that. I don't think straight if I let, say, my room go unorganized for too long. At school, I imagine the germs floating through the air and squirming on my fingertips after touching a computer keyboard. Which is why I tend to wash my hands a lot. Originally, that was what I intended to do my self-portrait around. But, because I wrote about spiders in my blog, the "common perception" shifted. Actually, the way my portrait is turning out doesn't fit exactly with the first idea, so the spider one is tempting. It's the one that's gotten the most pressure, though part of that, I think, is that I didn't really explain to people what I was going to do before I started. Not well, anyways. The other common perception is "Harry Potter fanatic", but I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do. I guess we'll see what happens this week. Good luck to everyone!

one big happy family cont....

So...I crumbled. Running around the house and taking pictures "unawares" was just too tempting. After explaining to my family that it was for an art project, they were a bit more receptive, but not particularly thrilled. Even my brother let me get one or two including his face--never mind that he looks annoyed--and a few others that feature his hand. The latter, I have to say, is my favorite. He despises getting his picture taken, and in most of our family photos he is either nonexistent or making a really pretty face. This time, it was my mom making the pretty faces. When I entered the kitchen with my camera, she proceeded to shake her spice jars at me and grimace. I am reminded of Snape from the fourth Harry Potter movie. She then turns away and pretends to ignore me. But never fear, I got some pictures. Then, after dinner, my dad and I were heatedly discussing United States foreign policy during the Cold War (yes, Howard Zinn) and I sort of wish that I had gotten a picture because it's one of his favorite things to talk about. As for the rest of my family, I tracked down our black cat Spike flaunting his disdain in the yard and Cocoa Poof (our other cat) drooling in the linen closet. It's disgusting. I still want to get them all together for a big group picture, but Poofy is just too much of a coward to come out from under the bed. As a side note, I still have not watched Harry Potter 5. Perhaps it is knawing away at my sanity--the good majority of which is counting down the days until November 19.

one big happy family...

Lately, I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with something for the family portrait project. I keep thinking that it would be kind of fun to get out my camera early in the morning (like 6:30) and run around the house, taking pictures of my family unawares. But then, that would be cruel. At 6:30 in the morning, my dad would either be reading the newspaper or at work, I would be eating breakfast, and my brother would be sleeping (Waluga schedule change). My mom would be making coffee all zombie-like. You can hardly ask her something and get a coherent answer before she's had her coffee. Plus, she would never EVER let me take a picture of her in her pajamas, unless, of course, it was "unawares". And that would be mean.

On a completely unrelated note, every night last week my brother watched a different Harry Potter movie. I guess he's preparing for the seventh one or something, but his marathon is killing me. I walked in on the best part of the fifth book in movie form and didn't even remember it. I thought that they had cut it out or something. Anyways, I was suddenly struck with an urge to dress everybody up in Harry Potter hats and then take a photo. It was really, really tempting. But then I decided I was the only one in the family that obsessed, so I didn't. My dad hasn't even read the books. I believe that one day I shall sneak it into his luggage as he heads up to work so that he'll be stuck with it until Friday. Oh cruel, cruel thoughts.