DO NOT... I repeat, DO NOT read War of the Worlds at night.

It was creeping me out. Majorly. And I don't get creeped out easily.

Also, don't watch "The Great Game" while eating sugary objects. You fail to realize the severity of the situations that these poor people are in. 

...Or "Day After Tomorrow" late at night in the middle of winter. This movie is why I NEVER go ANYWHERE without a sweatshirt. It is probably THE most plausible horror story invented.

Hmm... Don't watch "The Puppetmaster" (ATLA) late at night in the people you're babysitting for's basement with the slightly emo ten-year-old who you are babysitting. (In my defense, the parents DID say we could watch a movie, and if that movie happened to be five episodes of ATLA, well, that was ok.)

On the flip side, DO watch the Decoy Bride. It has David Tennant in it! And Kelly MacDonald. And they eat cake in the MOST HILARIOUS WAY!

In To Kill a Mockingbird, I always picture  Boo Radley as Sohma Akito. Random, right? But you know at the end of chapter 4 where he laughs at Scout as she is rolled in the tire? That seems like an Akio thing to do. I like Akio. And Boo Radley. But I'm not done with the book yet.

This Rush song has a lyric that goes, "You didn't listen again". My cat was scratching the couch, so I could yell at my cat while singing that line. Isn't it great when you can

a) sing along to music you like

b) lecture people

c) yell at the cat

and at all the same time? 

Let's have a random anecdote from two years ago! "Why Ploofysama's The Last Olympians Book Has A Snoopy Stamp On It"

So at my school in sixth grade you have to answers questions for history class called EQs (essential questions), and they go in a notebook. So one day in Chinese the girl who sat next to me asked if she could copy my EQs. (She's normally a really good student, but her math class had a ton of really hard homework and we had a really big science project due that day, and a ton of English homework, and so on.) So I said sure and gave her the notebook, and kind of forgot about it. So when I got to History class, the teacher says let's take out our notebooks and stamp the EQs. And I look in my pile of stuff for my notebook, but it's not there. Fortunately, we had a sub that day who adores me (literally, I'm probably her favorite student, after her daughter, that is) because my History teacher is very strict and would never let me do this. I tell the teacher that I lent my book to a girl next door, so she says I can just go on over. The class next door is in such a state of tumult, no one notices when I go over to the girl, and ask for my notebook back. She says, "Notebo....?" And a look of pure horror appears on her face. She left it in Chinese (I'm sure you saw that coming). So I go back to my class, tell the teacher she left it in Chinese, and fill out my planner (which we use as hall passes) and go to the Chinese class. Unfortunatly, the door is locked, and I have to wait about 3 minutes before the teacher notices me to let me in. Then I ask if anyone has found a green notebook in here and they did have it, but in the meantime all the eighth graders are staring and giggling at me, and I was getting more and more embarrassed. I was gone for about five minutes, so when I came back, I had to tell the WHOOOOOLE story to everyone. My notebook does get stamped, but at the point, the boy who was stamping was laughing so hard he dropped the stamp and it landed on Ploofysama's (that's not his real name) Last Olympian book right on the medallion bit. So that is why Ploofysama's Last Olympian book has a green Snoopy stamp on it.

Highlights from my first full week back at Cornell. In no particular order:

•Having a professor who's willing to let the class come to nonsense conclusions like "Fantomina's suffering from multiple psychotic episodes" while discussing the texts makes old literature classes a lot more fun. But then I already knew Shannon was awesome from last year (she's the one that assigned Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for my freshman seminar).

•Our new theatre staff member (replacing Mark) is all kinds of awesome. Ditto for the theatre freshman. Also, chatted fonts with Jody for like ten minutes on Thursday #geek :P

•Our room is HUGE. AND IT HAS A SINK. SQUEEEEEE.

•A wasp got into our room on Saturday and buzzed around our fan for like three hours. We named en Cornelius. Then en fell asleep on the floor and we dropped a brick on en.

•Doubled the size of my iTunes library. Again. Jason Robert Brownnnnnnnnnnn! ...And that's just from Sarah's new CDs, we still need to swap digital albums. Sadly, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown managed to be rather mediocre despite having the MOST FLAMMY CAST EVER. 

•Watched ALL of SyFy's Tin Man with some friends on Friday night and now "Flying Chest Monkeys" has permanently entered my vocabulary courtesy of Sarah.

•College Hall got struck by lightning at like one in the morning and there was a fire and the bell fell through the roof and got destroyed. The thunder was like A TRAIN HAS JUST HIT THE BUILDING and kind of epic and it would have woken me up if I weren't already. 

•I've lost track of the number of times I've had a squeefest with somebody over the upcoming Chicago trip. Including Jim (our professor), even though he REFUSES TO TELL what shows we're going to see. It's like everytime I think I've grasped HOW AWESOME it's going to be, I find out that some OTHER really cool person is going too (which isn't hard, our whole department is basically the greatest thing ever) and getting even MORE excited and... yeah. 

•Apparently members of our faculty have connections with one of the actors in the War Horse tour (which I am seeing in Des Moines later this year), so he (and possibly other members of the cast, depending on how things fall out) is going to come talk to us and POSSIBLY arrange a benefit performance of some nature in the black box. #squeeingFOREVER

Basically... YAY. 

When are you going to Chicago? Let us know what show(s) you see. Sunday in the Park with George with music by Sondheim (I think you've heard of him!) is going to be there in October. I'm not sure of all the dates. And you can go to the Art Institute first and see the painting upon which the show is based.

Admin

I had auditions for the school play today.  We're doing Noises Off.  A nine-person show for a humongous drama club.  And I'm a freshman.  I'm so excited to fail! 

I went to the Zoology Fair,

The fleas and the mice were there.

The common loon

By the light of the moon

was making a rocking chair.

I just thought of this.  

The Chocolat movie score is really pretty.  Pandora brought it up.

I LOVE the music from Chocolat! Swiss figure skater Stephane Lambiel did a wonderful performance to it in about 2003. Look it up—the best Swiss Chocolat ever!

Admin

I just bought "It's Time" by Imagine Dragons.  I bought it because the Glee version was awesome and the iTunes preview of the original sounded even better.  And I think SC said something about that band.