Prepositions are not things to end sentences with.

I now have trouble writing or saying sentences that end in prepositions. It just feels wrong in

my head. I have to write things correctly. Is this a good or a bad thing? Discuss.

On the other hand, I keep confusing homophones like they're and their. I feel stupid and

unworthy and horrible for about a second after I do it. Then I forget about it.

The temperature recently has reached over ninety degrees. This is unacceptable weather of the kind that will not be allowed in northern Canada when I move there. My dear family was stuck in the basement all day. It was boring down there, and it was boring and hot upstairs. I was convinced that Cassee was going to get heatstroke.

Today I made some beautiful art out of Mod Podge (well, that stuff. I don't know how to spell it), paper, duct tape, scissors with funny edges, and these awesome paintbrush/markers. Mother does not seem to appreciation my genius artwork. I can't imagine why. She just called it a collage, when anyone can see that it is obviously an abstract composition.

Ah, duct tape. It is useful for so many things, such as fixing ducts, holding together the fracturing bits of a failing relationship, and making clothing. Many people make prom dresses out of duct tape. I think this is mainly because of the Stuck at Prom contest that offers three thousand dollars worth of scholarship money to the winners, as well as money to the school that held the prom.

Look at the winners. Their dresses and tuxes are crazily elaborate. I don't even want to think about how long it took to make those. Or how much duct tape.

Tape.

Today, I will finish my hundredth book this summer. This is a frightening thought, and I don't know why. I've read thousands of books in my life, have never known which one was 500th or 666th or 729th, and have never cared. But now that I'm counting, it means something. I have a goal. I am working toward it. I have a record of ninety-six books I've read, and I can look back at them and remember.

Mother says I should keep writing down what I read after I hit a hundred. I've never done that before. I don't think I have the ability to keep track of these things. I always had to write up my stupid practice logs for band the morning they were due because I didn't write down when I practiced. Oh well. At least I actually told the truth about when I practiced, unlike some people.

Speaking of band, I quit. Spiffy is calling me a quitter now. So is Liss, but Liss just likes to call me things to annoy me. She spent the entire weekend calling me either Little Libsies or crotchety old woman.

We had a thrilling Girl Scout weekend, probably our last one ever. One of our members is thinking about giving up Girl Scouts. In most troops, I think that would be okay, but when you only have four members, a quarter of your troop leaving is a lot. Also, we don't do many things that you have to be a Girl Scout to do, like earning badges or going to Girl Scout camps. We just sort of meet and gossip and sell cookies outside Scrapbook Haven.

Not that I don't love my troop. I do. I love them more than I love nail polish and Gmail combined. Who else sings new lyrics to "You Belong With Me" in A&W or plays Apples to Apples in the car with Lego Building Blocks winning Chewy and Learning Spanish for Sticky? No one I know.

Anyway, we went on holiday up North. The drive was five hours of insane Apples to Apples and general craziness. I managed to spill several different food items on myself. Zoe's Aunt Franny kindly allowed us to stay in her boathouse, which was a shack by the water decorated with baskets, plastic furniture, and a bunch of little statues and things, which Liss named. The best part was a loft with a lot of old trunks and a vacuum on it.

We tried to catch fish in Crystal Lake for ages, but it didn't work too well because we were afraid to get swimmer's itch from the water. Finally, Anna got tired of that and sat down in the water to catch a fish. We also went swimming in Lake Michigan. On one side of a giant pier, the water was the color of puke. Liss has some other, ruder names for it. On the other side, it was clear and nice. We swam on both sides, and there was absolutely no difference.

What else did we do? That was about it. I read Liss's depressing book (Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins, #95. It's not actually out yet, but she had an ARC) and played mancala in rounds for at least an hour. Everyone called me OCD because I rearranged the pieces so they were with other pieces of the same color. Then they all started arranging them like that. OCD is not contagious, you know.

The weekend was really fab and stuff, but I have realized something shocking. Or, well, really not so shocking. This epiphany came to me while I was floating down a river on a tube, holding onto Liss's tube so she didn't float away from me.

I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who can spend a lot of time around other people and not lock myself in my room for a while afterwards. I mean, that's a little bit exaggerated, but private people such as myself have trouble living in a shack with six other people who aren't related to me for long. I know some of you would have trouble with it, dear readers. Admit it. You're not all bubbly, cheerful, extroverted types.

That's all I have to say. My next post, whenever it may appear, will be at least partly about my feelings toward my hundredth book. It might even include my hundred book list if I don't get lazy about typing it.

I have to go move on with my exciting life now by going to the dentist and giving up Remi to the child.

Only four English words end in -dous: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

Isn't that just stupendous?

As of this very moment, I am listening to music, typing this post, watching my cat scratch herself, chatting on Facebook, and ditching jazz band. All at the same time! This is what we call multi-tasking, dear readers. I'm not very good at it, but I manage. Obviously.

I didn't blog yesterday because I was too lazy. I know I use that excuse a lot, but it's not just an excuse. It's the truth. Can the truth be an excuse? Wow, what a fascinating and pressing question. If I answered it, that would totally raise the profundity level of this blog.

The question now becomes: Do I want to raise the profundity level of this blog?

Of course I do! Did you think otherwise for even a millisecond? I'm ashamed of you. Gosh. Of course I want to raise my forking level of profound thoughts, if only just because I like the word 'profundity.'

The truth can be an excuse, because it all depends on the person who hears it.

Pretend you understand what that means. It'll make me feel better if you do.

Wow, I'm typing in sentences today, not paragraphs. Maybe I should type each sentence separately and make this post about a mile long and annoying to read. That would be fun! It would also kind of go against all my type like you mean it! English language rants...

The child has been waking up at the same time I wake up. Six-forty-five, but I usually don't stumble out of bed until at least six-fifty. He likes to wake up that early for some completely insane reason, even though his place of learning doesn't begin for another couple of hours after that. Every time I see him at the table next to me, I want to say, "Are you mad, child? Go back to bed!" Unfortunately, my mouth doesn't really work that early in the morning.

I wish I could sing. It's terrible, you know. I could write some lyrics, but they'd be useless because I couldn't write music to them and I can't sing them anyway. I get jealous of people who have skills that I don't. I'm just one of those easily jealous people.

People I am Jealous of:

• Singers
• Published novelists
• Small Asian figure skaters
• Figure skaters
• Hockey skaters
• Good dancers
• Really good clarinetists
• Really good instrumentalists
• People who are naturally graceful

And many more.

Before I forget, the Word! of! the! Day! Excessive punctuation! It's fun--for everyone!

Parry: deflect a blow.

And, to raise cultural awareness (I'm not sure how, but it sounds good), the Spanish word of the day!

Papel: paper.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you have a group of vampires. I say hypothetically because we all know that vampires are fictional. In my system we have vamps (dude vampires) and vampettes (chick vampires), because vampire just isn't gender-specific enough. Anyway, the vamp group. What would you call that? In Twilight, they're a coven, and I can't remember any names from other books. I like a clash of vampires or, like crows, a murder of vampires. Which do you like better, dear readers?

And yes, this is how I spend my time: thinking about names for fictional things.

Have fun with reality, infidels.

Look somewhere else if you want deep and profound thoughts.

I feel like there should be more profundity on my blog. I am lacking in profound thoughts. Lists: Yes. The English language: Yes. Profundity: Not so much. Oh well. At the moment, I myself am lacking in profound thoughts. Deal with it. I am.

The child is working on a poster project for school. His Mind Fair project, to be specific. My classmates will remember the mind fair as the time the cafetorium was filled with poster boards every year. Everyone else, just try to imagine a large room filled with elementary school students milling around, looking at poster boards with subjects ranging from "My Remote-Controlled Hoverboard" to "The History of Chocolate" to "Are You Really Shorter in the Afternoon?"

I made two in my six years at elementary school. My first, in third grade, was about sea otters. I have no idea why I picked sea otters. I didn't even really like sea otters. I wrote facts about them in Microsoft Word, printed them out, and glued them onto blue and green cardstock and then onto my poster board. I also brought an activity: a sponge in a bowl of water that was supposed to simulate a sea otter swimming. Someone knocked the bowl over and spilled water all over the floor.

My last was in fifth grade, only because it was required. I did "Harry Potter by the Numbers," (yes, I came up with it myself) where I listed things like how many copies were sold and how many years it took for each book to come out. It was only because Spiffy told me "Sporks: A Very Deceptive History" would be stupid. I still have that poster board somewhere in the bowels of the basement, I think.

The child is doing his on different kinds of gemstones. I'm not sure why he picked that. It's his choice, of course, so I can't complain. It's just a bit of a weird project. Gemstones. Beryls and emeralds, specifically. My favorites.

I keep telling myself I should actually make an iTunes account with which to purchase music, but I haven't done it yet. This is what we call laziness, dear readers. Dear readers. I like that. You are all dear readers now. Live with it. Anyway, the other reasons I'm putting off my iTunes account making are (a) Apple Inc. will be launching Project iZombie sometime this year and I don't want to give them more power over me and (b) my iPod would have some of the most random music on it, including:

• Disturbia (Rihanna)
• Barbie Girl (Aqua)
• O Canada
• La Marseillaise

It would be like tangible proof of my non-existant music tastes.

I am going to try writing while using as few contractions as possible. I think this will be hard for me and very strange to read. It makes me feel like my writing is a lot more formal, even though I am using most of the same words. The point of this is pretty much to help me see how many contractions I use in my daily life: a lot. I am going to write a post soon and try not to use contractions. It is kind of hard to write this way. I have to keep checking myself and writing two words instead of one.

I should start writing a word of the day! I love words of the day. We supposedly have one at my place of residence, but it ends up as more of a word of the week. Right now, I feel too lazy to come up with an original word of the day, so I'll write down the one of Dictionary.com. It's my second favorite reference website, after Wikipedia. I'm not sure Wikipedia counts as a reference website, though.

acute: serious; pervasive

And, just for fun, the Spanish word of the day! ¡Viva España!

pan: bread; loaf

Today in English class, I had an argument with Jaewoong and Michael about whether the book beloning to Jonas was Jonas's book or Jonas' book. I was telling them that it was Jonas's book, and trying (but not doing a very good job, apparently) to explain that only words that are plural can have only an apostrophe and words that just somehow happen to end in s have to have an 's. They didn't seem to believe me. Personally, I just think Jaewoong was arguing for the sake of arguing. Finally, they looked it up. I was right.

"English," said Michael, "is stupid."

"Sometimes, it is," I agreed.

That's why we love it!

Pseudocurses: Now with extra thoughtfulness!

I'm pondering several deep questions as I write. Actually, only two of them, and they're not very deep. It just makes me feel smarter to call it pondering several deep questions. Firstly: Why am I continuing to write stuff that anyone visiting this page can see? Secondly: Why don't people who write advertisements spell-check first? If you're going to, like me, post things on the internet, you might as well spell them right.

As usual, I have nothing much to write about, so today I'm going to sit and type all the things that come into my head.

I'm bored...I'm hungry...I can't think of anything...this is taking too long...why am I doing this...ooh, veggie sausages...this house is loud...yay, irritating Cassee...why is Robby humming...I want two sausages...no, Sluggy is a stupid name for a Magcaro...I don't care if it's level fifty-six, it's still a stupid name...

Wow, what fascinating insight into what I think about. I always thought that I spent my time thinking about important things, but obviously I don't. Please pretend that whenever I don't say anything, I'm thinking about the meaning of life, not vegetarian sausages. I usually have illustrious thoughts; I'm just, I don't know, having a bad thought day.

I think I'll tell you about the last book I read. It was probably Fruits Basket again, but I threw that off to the side before I was halfway done. I get annoyed when I read manga because the authors can do beautiful drawings and I get jealous. See, I've always wanted to do something beautiful, and since my art is crap, I try to write beautifully. I just don't do very well with that,  either, so I'm stuck writing sarcastically and hopefully kind of humorously. Wow, I'm getting so personal. Really letting out my feelings here. Now you know how I feel, even more than when I shared my thoughts about veggie sausage.

Anyway, the last actual book (book as in not manga) I held in my hands was City of Ashes. I was too lazy to finish it again, even though I keep telling Erin I'll do it. I read it this morning for an hour before I finally stumbled out of my room. That's progress. Then I read it again for a while and got to the part where Alec is a jerk about Magnus. That part makes me cry every time. I feel a list coming on...

Parts of Books that Make Me Cry Almost Every Time I Read Them:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Bellatrix dies
• Breaking Dawn when Bella kills and drinks blood from a mountain lion
• The Realms of the Gods when Rikash dies
• City of Ashes when Alec is a jerk
• Wide Awake at the ending (tears of joy)
• Freak Show when Billy doesn't get voted prom queen
• Annie on My Mind at the ending (tears of joy)
• And many more that I can't think of at this moment but will have me shedding tears the next time I read them.

Well, I'm off for a Family Fun Night in my place of residence. Au revoir, adios, farvel, Auf Wiedersehen, selamat berpisah, sudie, adeus, dovidenia, and just plain goodbye.