I have trouble thinking up titles, so live with this.

I have done many things since I last posted. In fact, I have probably become a better person and stuff. This kind of stuff happens when you least expect it. One night, you're you, and then you wake up the next morning and realize that you've become a better person overnight.

This is a partial list of what I did between my last post and this post.

In A Partial Week Of My Fine Life, I:

• Slept
• Watched Pokemon
• Listened to the child talk about Pokemon
• Played Pokemon
• Played Super Princess Peach
• Read many things, including but not limited to Bad Kitty, Lulu Dark Can See Though Walls, Scott Westerfeld's blog, The Schwa Was Here, and the latest issue of Nintendo Power
• Kicked the child off the computer
• Got kicked off the computer by the child
• Scribbled
• Scrawled
• Jotted
• Read a dictionary
• Saw the cousin
• Stared at the cousin's shoes
• Stared at the cousin's hair
• Stared at the cousin in general
• Saw my troop
• Was annoyed by how quiet the little Brownies were, conveniently forgetting that I was that quiet in third grade
• Was gloated at by Liss
• Threatened to beat Liss up if she didn't lend me her ARC of Leviathan
• Went to school
• Was bored at school
• Was supposed to play the clarinet in band
• Didn't play the clarinet in band
• Had a bad day
• Made sarcastic comments
• Giggled
• Picked up the cat
• Jumped on the trampoline in a swimsuit while the child sprayed me with a hose
• Sprayed the child with a hose while he jumped on the trampoline
• Wrote this list

Okay, the end. Wasn't that thrilling? I was just about thrilled to death while I wrote it, but I kept being distracted by the child's Pokemon in the background. There are lots of fight noises and "PIII-KA-CHUU!"'s and someone keeps laughing coldly in a monotone and saying, "Pokemon are not friends. You will never defeat me, Ash Ketchum." And, oh no, Pikachu just fell out of the sky into a pool of water! What will we do now? And oh my gosh, Ash just got attacked by a lot of roots.

Only-vaguely-paying-attention-to-Pokemon is much more fun than actually-watching-Pokemon. Unless Team Rocket shows up. I love Team Rocket. They, along with Captain America, are my homeboys. Team Rocket doesn't have a Wikipedia page of its own, which is just horrible, but here are the Wikipedia pages for Captain America and Pokemon crime syndicates. While I'm putting up links for useful Wikipeda pages, here is wikipedia.org/Asian_People.

I'm not sure what to write about today. I can make long lists and type up links to Wikipedia, but real writing is beyond me at this point. "What point?" you may ask. Well, the POINT OF NO RETURN, dear readers. See, I put that in capital letters and italics, to show how hyper-important it is. Michele Jaffe, who wrote Bad Kitty and I think some other stuff for the older audience, says iper-cool, which is like uber-cool, which is like hyper-cool. Anyway, back to the POINT OF NO RETURN. It is a point that can only be reached once in a multi-colored moon, and no one would like it very much if it wasn't so awesome and obnoxiously capitalized.

So I had this awesome dream that I was wearing a tie, leggings, my fab rain boots, and a black dress with a giant zipper up the front, much like the black robes Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts wear. It was great. I bet you all wish you could have fabulous dreams like me.

(Interval of who knows how many hours.)

Yes, I left this blog for hours and then came back to write on it. This is because I have a strange feeling that I should try to finish something for once in my life. I am now sitting here while my family watches hockey, wearing a purple plastic tiara that's too small for me, and reading a book that Meg Cabot woman wrote. Well, I was reading it. I had to stop now that I'm writing this.

I have other things to do now, like study for my math exam and fill out important papers for Commie. I also have something for English due eventually, but it's just a list of books I've read and I don't know when I'll be expected to turn it in. Oh, and there's a French final on Wednesday, but I've decided to be cocky about that and only study the night before. Don't tell Madame.

My nail polish, which matches my plastic tiara, is coming off. I only put it on last night. Or two nights ago. The time blurs together in my mind, it really does.

I saw this fabulous surgical mask today, for protecting oneself against the swine flu.

I don't have anything else to write about. Here, you may have the first sentence I read when I pick up my book:

Scott was still just...Scott.

Haiku.

haiku: poetry

from Japan, that weird island

where they eat sushi

haiku start and end

with five syllables; seven

are in the middle

they are supposed to

make sense and show tranquility

in nature. mine don't

nonetheless, i write

this post in only haiku

to express myself

if you don't like it

i don't care. get over it.

kiss my fricking grits.

Cassee is prowling

staring at trampoline foam

she eats it sometimes

the child is outside

jumping on the trampoline

maybe he'll eat it

Mother is there too

on the porch, reading something

i am sitting here

my bones will decay

from a lack of exercise

eventually

it can't be too soon

i must finish my haiku

haikus? whatever

wikipedia

says haiku can be about

overt violence now

unfortunately,

it doesn't mention plurals

where is what i need?

i will write about

nature because nature is

an important theme

the birds are chirping

they are getting on my nerves

shut up, little birds

the grass is so green

i might have a heart attack

because it's so bright

writing about this

is hard from through the window

but i will go on

see my willpower?

i have strength and fortitude

i am determined

i used to love these

i always wrote them in class

it was 'cause they're short

i hated writing

but now i really love it

funny how that works

at least these things don't

rhyme. i can hardly rhyme at all

it is not my thing

the cat is under

father's foot. he stepped on her

she was not happy

the cat is funny

she makes weird noises, not meows

Mom says she burbles

i've written too many

haiku for my little brain

to handle right now

i need to finish

otherwise, my brain will melt

but i need one more

this will be so great

all who read it will be shocked

by how cool i am

blue potato cat

fishy ceiling haiku no

see Basho's frog leap

this was fricking hard

i really hate haikus now

they totally suck

see if i ever

do something literary

for you guys again

My first post in, like, a long time.

I haven't been posting. I'm sorry. I'm posting now. Are you happy?

All people should own a trampoline. I am not talking about those little meter-wide pathetic excuses for trampolines here. I'm talking about real trampolines, the kind that you have to put in the yard because they're way too big to fit in a house. Mini-trampolines are for wimps. Yes, I know I'm a wimp, but calling everyone else a wimp makes me feel less wimpy.

Trampolines are not just for usage the way they're intended. I know all the people who manufacture trampolines would be annoyed if they saw me mocking the rules that come attached to trampolines, but they shouldn't take it personally. I mock a lot of things. And it's hard not to mock rules like stay in the same position as you jump and look at your feet while jumping. I mean, do they expect people to jump up and down in straight lines? We'd look like idiots, not that the way we usually jump is less idiotic.

I should really write about the things that have been happening in my life, et cetera, but I don't feel like it. The end of the school year is quickly approaching on winged feet, like that god guy Mercury. Wasn't he the one with wings on his feet? I think things should approach on winged wings, but I didn't make up mythology. I wasn't alive back then.

Everyone can feel the awesome end-of-year vibe, especially the eighth graders. We were never really paying attention to anyone, anyway, and now we feel like we have an excuse: in just  ten short days, we are out of this place forever. I think that means that we need to listen more, in case our teachers have any last-minute wisdom to impart on us, but try explaining that to a bunch of thirteen-year-olds who just want to go home. It's like nailing Jell-O to a wall, not that I have ever tried...I have tried explaining things to bored thirteen-year-olds. It doesn't work.

In French class, Madame spent almost an entire hour detailing to us how the rest of the year is going to go down and passing out violently neon sheets of paper. I have a syllabus with me, actually. She called it that, not me. Let's see: it's bright yellow and written in a weird mix of French and English. The important stuff, like NO SCHOOL and FOREIGN LANGUAGE OLYMPICS are written in English. And caps lock. The boring, useless stuff, like all the homework, is written in French.

My band teachers also told us about the imminent end of our middle school careers. None of my other teachers have even mentioned it, though. I think this is part of a plan to not acknowledge that it will soon be over in the hope that we don't know it'll be over. Everyone knows, though. We have countdowns in our planners. I even tried to figure out exactly how many hours, minutes, and seconds we had left during English, but I did the math wrong somehow and gave up.

Speaking of my planner, I have many things I heard during my days just waiting to be put on this blog. I write things down. When school is over, I will carry around my little green notebook and take notes while people talk to me. It won't be creepy at all.

"Hamlet is a player."

"You're such a fruit! I'm going to call you 'grapefruit.' Or...'lemon twist!'"

I don't know why I wrote this, but "may result in severe closed-head injuries."

"I am obviously not cut out to be an actress."

Someone mentioned allergies in class, so:

"I have allergies!"

"I do too!"

"I have ADD!"

In French class, Madame gave everyone a word, which they had to stand up and say in front of the class. One person, I don't remember who, didn't say anything when it was her turn.

"What's your word?"

She didn't answer.

"It's 'bacon,' isn't it?"

Also in French class (have I mentioned that French is my most exciting class of the day? Everything is better in French), we had to compose some sentences. In French. This was because Madame wanted to show us how much French we really knew. My sentence was pretty much the most amazing sentence ever: Elle lit un livre parce qu'elle aime lire. She reads a book because she likes to read. Madame said something like, "Oh, isn't this a wonderful sentence?" Everyone booed me. I was offended.

The same day, someone else wrote a sentence that translates to: His selfish chicken hates the airport. I think "Selfish Chicken" would make a great band name. I think everything would make a great band name.

"It's not 'Knowledge Master's!' It's not possessive!"

"Could Hamlet be done in a space station?"

Heck yes.

"You could have everyone in Hamlet dress up as dinosaurs and call it 'Dinosaurs!'"

Speaking of Hamlet, Claudia and I spoke of it a lot in part two of her interview, which we finally got around to completing (read: I finally got around to completing) last night. This time, you'll get to see it in the way we actually spoke to each other over Facebook, as opposed to the way I messed with it to make it seem more grammatically correct and easy to read.

Claudia, Part Two (which I was too lazy to change the font of):

Me: I am interviewing Claudia for the second time. How long was it between these?

Her: A couple weeks I think. has the interview begun?

ok

throw dem questions at me

Me: What is your favorite color? I missed that question on your quiz.

Her: purple/violet

my favorite shade depends on my mood
lilac if i feel girly

dark dark violet if im depressed

Me: You don't just have one favorite color?

Her: oh no

when am i ever consistent?

i mean, really

Me: True. That's fabulous.

Her: i cant stick with one

just not possibel

*possible

Me: Are you reading anything right now?

Her: at the moment i dont have anything to read because i am waiting to go to the library

next?

Me: This is because of what the Sherm is making us do: do you like Hamlet?

Her: the character or the movie?

Me: I was thinking, like, the play. I'm sure you have opinions on the movie, too.

Her: oh yes i have opinions on the movie

it was so creepy in that scene

it looked like he was about to rape his own mother

did you see that?

Me: The whole thing was creepy, but that part was the worst.

Her: i was looking around at the class and everyone looked really freaked out

well except for a few people

Me: It was freaky.

Her: yeah

and remember that part where ophelia was touching that guy in the armor?

Me: Yes. That was bad too.

Her: Mike said something nasty when his class watched it.

it looked like she was touching his.....

you know

and of course the guy in the armor looked freaked

Me: Yes. It was just really weird. And nasty.

like the rest of us

he was scared

i hate that movie!!!!!!!!!

Me: I would have been scared.

Bring a book to class like Rennie.

Her: i have a new name for the sherm

the shermanator

rhythms with terminator

the shermanator

Me: Yes.

Her: yeah

Me: The problem with that is that it's weird to spell.

Her: next question?

Me: Food.

Do you have a favorite food?

Her: it changes on a day to day basis, like my sense of reality and sanity

Me: Is that healthy?

Her: im not sure

but i cant do anything about it

Me: What did you eat tonight? Did you eat tonight? I'm asking about food because I'm hungry.

Her: i ate... ummmm...

i cant remeber

*remember

oh wait

. 

i ate a caesar salad

yeah

thats what i had

Me: Exciting.

I actually have to leave now to eat food and do various other things.

Her: yeah

ok

will my interview be on by tonight?

Me: Probably not, sorry. I'll hopefully work up the energy to post tomorrow.

And look at this! I did post today! I amaze myself. However, it was not because I worked up the energy. It was because I stayed home diseased today and had nothing better to do. No one should say stayed home sick. Stayed home sick is not as awesome as stayed home diseased. My diseased caused me to lose sleep by waking up and wanting to vomit, feel not hungry, and feed tomato soup to the cat. She ate it, too. I have sat around all day sleeping and talking to Liss, my little diseased friend.

Broadcasting live from my room.

My room, ma chambre, or however else you want to put it in any other language you know (I only know two) is obviously the best place to hide in the event that multiple future former fifth graders attack my house. Future former fifth graders, by the way, is a term that I took and modified from Freak Show. I like to call them that not because I'm bitter about them but because I love the alliteration. Future former fifth graders. It really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

The child has two friends over for his birthday, which was yesterday. They are downstairs beating each other up with Nerf guns. Have I mentioned my opinion on Nerf guns? Nerf guns suck. They are not toys; they're weapons. Look at one. The child has a Nerf gun that shoots rounds of bullets. You can load ten or fifteen in at once. That thing scares me. Forget violent video games: Nerf guns are exposing our nation's children to violence.

A few days ago, I experienced the joy of the lovely Commie counselors coming to visit me. Yes, me personally. The man's name is John. He reminds me of Strite, and I don't know exactly why. It must be the way he calls people dude or his weird mustache. I forgot the woman's name. You would think this would be important to me, given that she'll be one of my counselors for the next four years, but I forgot anyway.

Commie-counseling was fun. We got to skip The Sherm's class, which was a bonus, and I hung around with Eva Hattie, Lauren, Spiffy, and Patricia. Liss was there, but she hid in a corner and didn't talk to me much. My classes will go something like this: geometry, Intro to Lit (it's required. I want to take Journalism, Women's Lit, and a grammar-type class where I can learn to diagram sentences. I'm really looking forward to English classes!), FOS 1 (also required; it's the weird Commie science program), World Civ & Economics (mandatory), French 2, and band over at Pi High. It's a full schedule which involves many classes I was forced into taking and shuttle-bus-ing myself to and from Pioneer several times a day.

The main thing about Commie schedules that's different from Pi High is forum. Or is it Forum, with a capital F? I don't know. Let's call it forum. Forum is, I gather, like a more fabulous version of homeroom. Instead of sitting around boredly waiting for your next class, you sit around eating...or cooking...or talking about deep and profound things...or running around playing Frisbee. Also, you go on trips on Forum Day.

There are multiple forum leaders, who are pretty much teachers who also have forums. We are encouraged to pick the forum leader who is right for us. For example, if you are a strong and manly athlete who is only here to, say, lick feet, you might not want to pick the man John described as "a geeky nerdy Shakespeare Star Wars geek nerd." On the other end, if you think that description sounds like the teacher you want to have around for the rest of your high school career, you might not want to pick a forum with an athletic focus.

By the way, I did not come up with the feet-licking thing. Liss did. If you thought it was nasty, go bite her head off.

I went through the list with these guidelines.

Bad:

• eccentric
• athletic
• fully actualized

Good:

• English teacher
• unorganized
• food

I ended up picking a woman whose first name was Tracy. I think. I completely forgot. This is an important decision that will matter to me for the next few years, and I forget what I decided. Oh well. I can always switch out if our viewpoints don't connect. Did anyone actually say that? Dear readers, some of you were there. Please tell me what they said.

Last night was our OH MY GOSH OH-SO-EMOTIONAL LAST CONCERT AT SLAUSON EXCLAMATION POINT. Yes, it was quite emotional. That was why I used caps lock. Before I report on it (just the facts, infidels; just the facts) I must bring to your attention a great injustice to band geeks, orch dorks, and choir freaks. On the announcements this morning, they did their usual play-by-play of the sports teams' accomplishments.

"So-and-so scored Slauson's only five points, so we lost the basketball game 30-5! Go so-and-so!  What's-his-name, what's-his-face, and that blonde kid did a really great job defending our hoop, and the rest of the team was pretty fab too!"

Good for them, I say. It's very nice getting your name read out over the announcements, and everything. I'm just bitter that they didn't even mention that we had a concert. I mean, the baseball team plays at least every other week. We have, what, four concerts a year? Less? A little acknowledgement would be nice.

Last concert. I wasn't as sad as I thought I'd be. I was having too much fun to be sad. It was an awesome concert, like a party or something. I stayed to watch the orchestra and choir perform too, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had three lovely pieces: Amparito Roca, A Song of Hope, and Red Line Express, a jazz piece composed by us. Before you think we're amazing composer types, I must set you straight. It was about three different jazz riffs layered on top of each other. There were also chord changes involved, but our teacher wrote up the entire thing for us.

Amparito Roca is this fantastic piece that everyone can't help humming everywhere. It's pretty fast for us, with a lot of nasty sixteenth notes, but it's fun to play. I didn't do very well, mainly because I don't practice...but I played all the important parts. Sort of.

Red Line Express is fairly boring, but I really enjoyed playing it just because I managed to play at the exact same time as the person next to me. There's something really awesome about being in a group and knowing you're doing the same thing as someone else. It's like dancing (except the macarena. I refuse to do that dance the right way).

A Song of Hope is a really depressing song, in my opinion, but it was cool. It sounds good and stuff. I don't have much to say about it.

After we were done, we wandered over to the doors and stared stalkerishly at the choir as they sang. You have seen nothing until you have seen fifty or so eighth graders in black and white spilling through doors into an auditorium. The guys had this awesome song, Poison Ivy, with the funniest choreography I have ever seen. There was a clap-slap move (I made Sam teach me; clap-right-left-clap-right) and this thing where they did a punch-the-air kind of deal and went "HUNH!" like karate people. All the choir girls in the crowd with me knew the song and choreography, so they sang and danced along.

Orchestra played a very long song, a shorter song that was as hopeful as A Song of Hope, and the James Bond theme song. I can't say much about them. I think I was giggling in my seat half the time and futzing with my glasses the other half. What can I say? I have no excuse. I love band more than I love orchestra.

I used to want to be this woman when I grew up, but now I'm considering being this woman or possibly this woman. I just like putting links in my blog because I have it set up so links turn an attractive shade of purple.

Yeah, that's it. I have exhausted all my creativity for today. Interviewing should really commence soon...I have a list. Do you want to see it? Of course you want to see it.

Interviews:

• Claudia Part Two
• Liss
• some lucky person out there who has yet to say they want to be interviewed!

Remember, I'm very lazy and might not want to interview you when you want to be interviewed. Also, I don't only do Facebook interviews! I can interview you over Gmail or even face-to-face! Don't ask to do Morse code or smoke signal interviews. I'm only down with flag signalling during the Civil War. 121222212212121121122! If you're lucky, that means I love you, infidels! If you're not lucky, it just means ...Infidels!

This post is short and Claudia-centric.

This is an interview with Claudia. I had no idea when I randomly interviewed the cousin that this interviewing thing would catch on. My own mother even asked me if I was going to interview her, but I have to wait until I can think up some good questions that make her sound like a tyrannical dictator. (You have been warned, Mother. Oh, and I'll ask them to Father too.)

Facebook interviews lack the lovely little Facebook-isms that make Facebooking so fun. People put spaces between sentences. It's like semicolons for people who don't use semicolons.

Me: Okay, the interview has now begun. Forgive me if I spend a long time thinking of questions and less time asking them.

Her: Okay. I have a new motto.

Me: What is it?

Her: Actually, it might be a slogan. Idk [sic] It is I excel in excellence.

Me: Do you know how to say that in Latin?

Her: No. I don't speak Latin. I could say it in pig Latin, if that helps.

Me: That's fabulous.

Her: Yes, it is.

Me: Figure out how to say it, please, so I can record it on my blog until 12/21/12.

Her: Why until 12/21/12?

Me: Because that's when the world will end.

Her: So I've heard. In Latin or pig Latin? Wait, is this on record for the interview?
Me: Either works. Everything has been on record since I said it was on record.

Her: But you never said it was on record.

Me: Fine, since I said the interview had begun.

Her: I'm a pretty pathetic interviewee. Is that what one calls someone who is being interviewed?Me: I guess so.

Her: Or would victim be more appropriate?

Me: You're not as bad as I am at interviewing.

Her: Thank you. I guess. I feel like I should say something witty, but I can't think of anything.

Me: I'm going to put this on hold for a moment because I'm getting tired of typing everything twice. 

(Break of approximately five minutes.)

Me:Okay. Interviewing again. It has commenced.

Her: Ok. Yeah, in german the verb for 'to drill ones ears' or like pick your ears is ohren bohren,

pronounced like oren boren, and that was always weird for me.

Me: Why is there a verb for that?

Her: I think thats how it's spelled. I don't know why. Because the german speakers of the world enjoy drilling their ear.

Me: That is yet another reason the child is not taking German.

Her: I dont know why I'm in French and German if I've always wanted to go to Spain. Oh well.

Me: Because French and German are better languages?

Her: Maybe. I'm very sad.

Me: Oh no. Why?

Her: I now own all the Arsenium flairs on Facebook so I can't get any more until someone makes one.

Me: How many are there? Also, explain him to my readers.

Her: There's like five flairs. Where should I start? 1) He's my favorite singer. What else?

Me: I don't know.

Her: Ummmm... he's from Moldova, which is like tied for the best country ever. Ummm...he's hot...uhhhhh...he has the best voice, its all smoky and deep.

Me: Tied with what?

Her: Oh, with Iceland of course.

Me: Iceland is fab.

Her: Oh yes. But that's off topic.

Me: There is no topic.

Her: Oh, Arsie plays some mean Moldovan folk music.

Me: By the way, it doesn't bother you if I fix up everything you say so it conforms to standard English, right?

Her: I thought Arsenie was the topic. What is standard but a relative measure of what is regular? Hey-- what's wrong with my English? Besides the lack of caps and apostrophes and commas. I only do that for speed's sake.

Me: Nothing. I just like caps and apostrophes and commas.

Her: Ok. Back to Arsenie. Did I say that he's hot? And he has the awesomest accent. I don't know many people with accents as awesome as his.

Me: I don't know many people with accents. I have to stop now. Maybe I could make this a two-part interview or something.

Her: Ok. We could put up Claudia part 2 another day.

Me: Okay.

Her: I don't have a nickname, do I?

Me: No, you don't.

Her: Ok.

Me: This is something that needs to be corrected.

Her: Yes, yes it does need to be fixed. I'm listening to a good song in French.

Me: Wonderful. Okay, the interview is now terminated.

You will never learn what exactly the song she was listening to was unless you ask her.

I should really write more, but I don't want to.