in which i have an interesting week

Yes my friends, I am still alive and well. The past three weeks have been so incredibly packed that I really have to do a quick recap, although I'm sure you don't want another in-depth description of Performance Week and so on. 

Holy cow, only two weeks ago was the show...Romeo and Juliet. Stress and extreme fun and late nights. After three days to begin to regather my forces and catch up on sleep, it was off to robotics: that was just a week ago. Seems like it's been much longer than that, for several reasons. 

Everything still seems to revolve around robotics.....my playlist has been revamped to include a lotta techno and rock and so forth which brings on instant frenzied memories of the competition. 

I just realized that about 90% of the documents in my computer are related to robotics :D

Here is a link to photos from the event, because posting lotsa photos on blogger is annoying: you should be able to see these even if you don't have facebook. 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10970&id=100000304383220&l=3ea7f69df3

Let's see, what else has been going on. This afternoon is the opening of the film festival mentioned below. We also got an email listing the winners, and sadly Road to Freedom in not listed, which is a pity....but it's okay; I'm still happier than I've been for a long while. 

I'm going with the CHS robotics team to the national competition in Atlanta.....(not my team)...as videographer. An extremely exciting development.....I've got the skillz (and the certification) to check out the professional-quality video cameras from the local community access TV station located at the school. I've never been to nationals.....April 15-17...I have heard they are a circus. Period. I am über-thrilled. :)  The team unanimously agreed to have me come....(the student team captain was pulling for me :P) and should be a rather awesome experience.....first steps down the road to a career......woooot :)

Hmmm well that's the most of the big news around here....I'm recovering from a cold that's been plaguing me for a while, all the screaming in P-town didn't help either :P  It's what we call the robotics-scurvy, my dad has it too. 

classic epic times

The past week, but especially yesterday, was a classic example of Bethie's-family-craziness. 

Several awesome rehearsals of R + J.  Various situations at school (math class is doing a chapter on probability, which I have always failed at.)  Culinary class.....biology....one day I stayed at school about 9 hours, never came home after class because I had rehearsal after. 

Yesterday was even more frenzied than usual. Robotics 9--5, as usual on Saturdays. Grueling. We had to scoot out directly at 5 instead of lingering, owing to the fact that me dad had to get to a jam session at 6. He and some friends have had a couple of practice sessions and are doing some really fun stuff, rock, a little bluegrass, etc.   They've been recording, and are considering performing somewhere, maybe at parties or that sort. Fun times. So anyway we had to pack up dad's keyboard, into the van. 

Here we pick up a thread of another story:  I was still trying to decide whether or not I could get to Dallan's birthday festivities that evening.  There had been various problems with the schedule colliding with my dad's, and other things, and as of Saturday afternoon I wasn't going. However I started feeling worse and worse about it, and we worked out the situation. 

Promptly upon coming home from robotics I had to deal with the mother-hen situation: We still have only one chick; I think the other eggs are being laggardly.  The hen led the 

peep down out of the nestbox while I was gone, and I had to put them both into a separate cage, warm straw etc.   From thence we ran back inside. 

5:45 pm, carting the keyboard out to the car. We got into the front hall just as the doorbell rang.   We were positive it would be our talkative neighbor, who always pops by to discuss things with my dad JUST as we are either trying to rush out the door, or when he's chopping wood, or you name it. My dad, at the other end of the keyboard, said 'Keep going!' as I backed down the hall towards the door: as in, 'we're coming at our own swift pace'. Meanwhile I laughed hilariously and silently: such a typical scene, trying to send people off in different directions at the same time, pack the car, deal with the critters, and now there's somebody at the door.  :P   Well we got to the door, opened it, and got a happy surprise: it was a different neighbor from down the street (used to be a student of my dad's) and his girlfriend (who I know from dance and so forth)--great people both-- who'd taken us up on our offer to come say hi to the goats whenever they were in the area, and also to contribute to the local theatre :)  ...evidently there had been a battleaxe (unsharpened) from a metel-working place around here, and they thought it might be helpful to my theatrical endeavors. Needless to say, I was very happy with this!  Our house seems to accumulate props.... 

Happy reunion and they helped get the keyboard out to the car, then we went back to the goat cage as I figured out the transportation situation with daddy. Had a good time swapping country stories: tales of poultry-transportation, feral emus, and alpaca-snobbery ;P

They left shortly to continue their walk, as I hustled back inside to continue getting ready. I had decided that I had to go a bit late. But lo, we swiftly get a phone call from Eva.....the whole plan for the evening had been vague in the extreme, and whilst I knew we were meeting at the Chinese buffet in town, she thought it was at Dallan's place. Of course it was dark and silent when she got there, hence the call to me. Well she was about five minutes away from my house so we arranged a ride-share :)  

Rendezvoused at the restaurant. Lotsa fun. Half-dozen of us awesome people :)  After eating we progressed to the bowling alley. It was just down the street so we walked, lovely clear night. Definitely epic times, all of us either skipping, running, or playing follow-the-leader most of the way :D  Provided a nice spectacle for the passers-by.

 

Bowling was lotsa fun, I did really badly (had beginner's luck the first time I guess :P  ) but I still had a fabulous time  as I am not really competitive, hehe.   

I had not planned to go to the movie afterwards with the others as it would be very late and I wasn't too interested in what they were planning to see. However as the evening progressed I had such a good time that I did not want it to end ^^  and then they decided on Sherlock Holmes which 

I'd heard was very good.   Called dad and negotiated. Cell phone issues to the max.   

Jubilation on my part when I at last convinced him that it would be okay if I got home after midnight, etc.   In happy mood we set off (by car, this time) to the movie theatre.  I haven't been to a movie for months....happy times....I don't think I've ever gone with friends, come to that. 

Raced in there just after 10 PM for the showing of Sherlock Holmes. 

Here we are outside the cinema:  sadly our group had pared down by that time. Back to the four peeps that did crazy stuff last fall  :D

And now to the movie review, which will be brief.   I've only read one Sherlock Holmes book, and if you're keen on movies being true to books you may not like this film. I however enjoyed it no end. Definitely PG-13, heh. Some violence but I 

dunno, that never bothers me ^_^ 

Really visually enjoyable film: 1800s London....some stunning scenes at the docks, etc.   The pace was, I thought, perfectly judg

ed. Classic thrilling climax and really good ending.   AND the score was fabulous.   Go look it up right now please. Actually I should put it on my playlist.... I think it's my theme song at this point.....perfectly sums up the brilliant insanity which characterizes me  :D   >:)  You notice Sherlock Holmes wasn't very modest either.....And there was some great Irish music for parts.....The Dubliners I think.....woohoo...

In short, look into this movie, use judgement; if you're going to see it, it deserves to be seen in the theatre. 

Got home around 12:30, then it was off to early church service around 7 AM .....so fun, hehe  

Improvisational theatre class/meeting thingee this afternoon, lots of fun theatre games :D

I have had a splendid weekend.....NOW it's on to conquer the next week....

life in the land of the mixing console

Oh, good times. Yesterday we had a splendid dance rehearsal as evidenced by the accompanying pics. Perfected some snazzy tricks. Talked music. Tried to fit all seven of us onto one tiny flattened cardboard box [very interesting]. Felicity did a nice impression of a faun. Phillip did his very best "cat hacking up a furball". Dallan managed to flip me over his back without landing us both on the ground [as I did when attempting it with the hapless Felicity last week].

After that I discussed audio; came home and meandered upstairs to my dad's stacks of speakers and other stuff and..."What's this? A mixing board?!" It's an old Fostex x-26 muli-track tape recorder but I'm pretty sure it can be rigged to be a mixing board of sorts. I spent the evening curled up on the couch with it in one hand and the manual in the other, trying to get my brain around the concepts of "AUX" and "LINE/MIC" and busses and so forth. I'M A TECHIE!!! Oh yeah. Spent a looong time in Wikipedia today trying to figure things out.

The day's score has been a hot mix of '30s French jazz/swing [Django Reinhardt's "Minor Swing" for example] which I am sifting through for the play. We decided that Beatles, happy as they are to dance to, were too much of an anachronism. This is going to be one enjoyable performance.

We have plans for some sort of duet during scene change, there's a couple of duels [we do not think too much about the fact that duels were definitely out in the '30s], there's a sketchy spy in a trenchcoat, a beautiful German spy queen [haha] as played by me, there's two happy-go-lucky good-hearted [if blundering] British lads. Oh 'tis epic. All you folks in the area, come to the performance! The 21st of November: we shall trot the boards at the Western Star Grange....

I just realized that Friday's post was my 100th....appropriately titled "The times they're gettin weird". :)

You will find a new poll in the right sidebar. Also I finally got around to doing some much-needed rearrangement and house-keeping on ole bloggie! Check out the awesomeness. Also my new playlist! Hehe, gives you a sample of what my iPod set to "Shuffle" sounds like :)

Erin go bragh

Walk away, me boys
walk away , me boys
and by morning we'll be free





Been listening to more Flogging Molly and I'm feeling pretty Irish.

I tootled around in Photoshop this afternoon and made this bit of awesomness:

It's me own lovely foot in a pointe shoe; is the tattoo not awesome? I've got only the one pen that works on skin and it had an incident after going through the laundry the other day.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to take a photo of your own foot that's not terribly distorted.

So I posted on Food Freedom at Carpe Noctem, go check it out!!!

her eyes were the color of insanity

Ahem....somebody has been listening to Flogging Molly.....and getting up too early after a crazy night.....and realizing she didn't need any coffee......who needs caffeine when you have adrenaline? ??!!!! o_0

SO yeah.....the crazy night referred to my dreams, of course. I think it was after I woke up the first time, at 5, that I dreamt about various people that I know, a fellow blogger who I've never met, being inside a story, a torrential rainstorm in Mississippi, a murdered cat, ten on to the next attraction: off to the farmers' market where we encountered a very long dachshund with the face of a beagle, and more inter-personal stuff. My last dream before waking was that I was single-handedly fighting three other people including a robotic taser or somesuch......armed with nothing more than a hefty chunk of wood. I won. Oh yeah. *thumps chest*


This, dear people, comes a few nights after I dreamed that I had to hire a bodyguard. For myself. It was some sort of Agatha Christie-ish mystery, there was this coat that must have had something valuable concealed in it because everyone who took charge of it got knocked off. It also involved a sketchy part of my town, at night. And I was pretty scared, knew if I went home alone [oh yeah, I think I was in a dorm or something, not at my home] I would be killed. Hence the bodyguard. I don't remember what happened after that.

I haven't been able to remember most of my dreams recently. But I do have a tendency to be either being pursued by or fighting something. The aggressor varies from the British soldiers of 1776 to the Communists to cannibals to unknown random people. One night I'd just read the short story [oh drat. WHAT is it called?!] that involves a cast-away on an island being hunted for sport by an elderly Russian gentleman....really creepy, anybody ever read it?



Or wild animals. Cougars, house-cats after my chickens, rabid dogs, pythons.



My dad opined that being chased probably indicates insecurities. I guess it's good that recently I've been fighting, not running away. Yeah, my greatest wish [one of them] is to be able to fight and defend myself. I'm stronger than most girls [really buff arms meheheee] but still pretty wimpy compared to guys. :(

This summer I sort of obsessed over combat and self-defense and such.

Today we have Bio. Hehe, it's pretty funny really. One of the guys in the class I have seen twice outside of class, and both times have been extremely random. First was at the library, when Eva and Dallan and I were there. He didn't know us at the time, just Eva. So she's over at the drinking fountain, talking to him, and we come up looking like our crazy selves [I was wearing my epic red plaid skirt] and it was really awkward because it wasn't evident that we were together.
Then after RenFaire Dallan and I stopped in at the Co-op to grab some dinner. Now the Co-op [I love the Co-op!] is the sort of place where people do not really turn a hair at the sight of someone wearing a long black skirt, peasant blouse, Scottish dress, accented by a wide black belt with a knife hanging off it. That's what I was wearing, and very sunburned. So of course we had to say hi. I am the sort of person who does not care a twit about going out in costume. My sense of humor has developed nicely in the last few years. I really don't care too much what people think. MWAHAHAH. It's my superpower.

Siamsa and Victory can still make me positively rabid. And anything by Gaelic Storm.

Await the next installment of Bethany's epic adventures!!! Hugs, people!!

OH YES. You remember how I said one of my friends was wating on some important info? Well, he got it. *dances up and down, grinning madly*

Yay! I've hit my stride again in blog-posting! Maybe it has soemthing ot do with the fact that I am listening ot the ever-present Lord of the Dance soundtrackl! excuse sp. errors

exhilaration for no reason

So I was listening to three Lord of the Dance soundtrack songs on my mp3 player while I was cooking dinner just now and I got completely psyched up---breathing speeding up, sweat breaking out, wild gleam to my eyes---and had to listen to them again. Awesome.
Three songs you must listen to: Warriors, Victory, and Siamsa, all by Ronan Hardiman/Lord of the Dance soundtrack.
I just downloaded Victory today, and a Gaelic Storm song [another good group]. Fun. Oh yeah, and Euchari by Garmarna, a Swedish or suchlike group.

I also took time to download and watch The Celtic Zuccinis, a nice little piece by Bracie and Ophelia......hysterical, you must see it! here

I just cooked a nice pot of rissotto, for the monthly potluck at the Grange. Yum yum.....zuccinis as the foundation.

Bio was good, it's a nice group of peeps.

At culinary today I managed to freak out a couple of people. I recalled that "whoops, I'm not supposed to be wearing ear-rings" and just totally ripped them out [clip-ons, of course]. A gratifying expression of shock was the result >:-)

Ooh darn, I just looked up "The Call" [the credits song from Prince Caspian"] and now I find it's ALBUM ONLY???!!! :(

Running off.....cheers, folks! I'll be back!

County Fair

My dad and I went to Fair yesterday evening.
The weather had fortunately cooled down--I was very glad to be wearing jeans, as the coastal wind picked up around 8 and we were sitting on the bleachers.

We wanted to see Lady Antebellum at 8--were worried about being able to get seats, so we went at 5:30 and also saw a country group from California, Whiskey Dawn, perform. They were pretty good, did several classic country songs.

We wandered around, looked at my stuff in the 4-H building--my water-colour of a maple leaf (extremely detailed) got Champion, as did one of my photos, which I was excited about as the judge had not seemed terribly enthused about it on judging day! I'll post pics after fair is over.
Then into the animal barns--well, really just the goat barn. I saw people from my goat 4-H club, and the mum and sister of one of my dear goats.

Lady A was very good--I do wish I'd known their songs better than I did.
The traffic was dreadful, took about 15 minutes to get out of the parking lot. One the way out we saw two random guys fencing with what appeared to be real fencing swords, and of course I had to hoot and wave at them. Not the sort of thing one sees every day!