yah so i'm back and i'm off again!

sorry for these quick posts......but tis late at night and I've gotta catch up with neglected sleep. 

The shows (all five of them) were AWESOME.   An intense striking of the set, cast party awesome, good times good times.  <3

Back to school [I am being extremely nerdy...beeky?]. Good.  I lessthanthree math.  

  Weather good. 

Robotics: tomorrow me dad and I pack, hold conferences with rest of team, pack food for epic expedition to P-town. We leave at dawn on Thursday and get back late Saturday. 

Three days of peace, love and robotics. Woot! :)  I am even now watching over the rendering (very slow) of the video required for Chairman's Award. HOURS of editing THREE BLINKING MINUTES of film. 

Life is good. I've got two dear friends who are really happy [you know who you are]. :)    Things are going well, nothing unpleasant looms on horizon, I'm not in anguish of mind or heart, SPRING IS HERE, you are all awesome and I love you and I'll see you in a few days! :)

awesomness

just a quick post at a late hour because i just got home from the most EPIC performance ever!!

opening night on thursday was really good, last night was pretty good [a few technical snafus, acting was always good], today's matinee was awesome for a matinee but there were a few more mess-ups, and tonight's show was EPIC EPIC EPIC.  House was sold out. Standing ovation. The audience was AWESOME, they clapped at every full stop and laughed at all the jokes (yes, R and J has lotsa funny shtuffs). 

the energy got really intense right before the show and never dropped. 

I AM HAPPY     ;)    =D

we survived the first two weeks!

Yesh my friends, it has been a long time. There's been a lot of stuff going on! But s'all good :)

We shall write this post under several heads! I think we need a table of contents! 

1. School

2. Robotics

3. Theatre

4. Whatever I feel like :P

So! School is going well. We had an awful lot of math homework all week, and I managed to not do any biology until Wednesday night, the day before bio class, hehe. 

On Monday night I declared, "Time for a weekend!" after getting home at a late hour. This sentiment was echoed by dad and friends. We had a consensus that Tuesday January 12th should have been a weekend!

We had a math test today, which I think I did rather well on (for me, in math, that means 80% or so). 

In culinary we had an event: catered a lunch for the teachers, Mexican food....very stressful but fun. 

I then proceeded to stay at school because it wasn't much longer til rehearsal. 

Which brings me to theatre, even though it's not in order. 

Romeo and Juliet progresses well, I have fun waiting about as I'm not in many scenes. Good times. Gotta love theatre. 

Robotics progresses even better. The kickoff was on Saturday last, and we have embarked on the exhausting 6 weeks of madness. We have a robot that drives, although it is last year's stripped-down bot with this year's controls, and we have a working device to kick soccer balls (part of this year's game). 

Yesterday I got to solder some electrical wires, and I've been hammering nails and driving screws to build a mock-up of the field. In short, departing from my ordinary course of business :)      

And we have a three-day weekend coming up.....I think this is a happy factor :) 

I am just now realizing how tired I am....sorry this post isn't very interesting! I love you all....leave a comment....leave a chat message.....  :D

holiday fun-ness

Now don't pounce on me for not saying Christmas, because I hate Happy Holidays as a greeting; it's just that the whole season from Thanksgiving to New Year's is one big round of one festival after another.

Let's see: First things first. Auditions for Romeo and Juliet went well (my week has been very, very busy). On Monday I gave my monologue which went pretty well, and did the dance audition which was VERY easy. Tuesday did not go so well: we did read-throughs and I was given a very small part, so I figured I wouldn't get a large speaking part. Did not go to call-backs on Wednesday; that night, however, the cast list came out and I'm a dancer in the ball scene. Fun stuffs! Hopefully the rehearsal schedule won't be too evil, and I get a pretty dress and get to be pretty much involved. I'm back in theatre business, I'm so happy!

Let's see. Wednesday afternoon I went to another (unrelated) theatre meeting; came home and spent four or five hours baking yummy stuff for various social engagements this week. The power had gone out in part of our kitchen: phone, light above the sink but fortunatley not the stove. Probably mice, chewing through wires. My dad was not enthused about crawling under the house; "You know, whenever there's an earthquake you just know that there was somebody under their house fixing something....do we need anything from the grocery store?" Hehe, that's a bit of a combination of his words with mine :)

Anyways, he and I managed to pretty much wreck the kitchen what with making cookies and pralines and Walnut Chocolates (ground walnuts mixed with powdered sugar, dipped in chocolate) and all sorts. There was an uncalled-for amount of hilarity :) As he spreads chocolate on the walnut-cake with a knife I ward off the waving knie-tip: "Almost poked me in the eye there!" "We're untrained, unskilled and dangerous." I was still up and cooking at ten PM...unheard-of.

Yesterday was bio and math and that sort....then off to goat 4-H club in the evening. I came down with a cold sadly; but it's not too bad. I'm going to a piano concert tonight, tomorrow is the first event of the local chapter of Improv Everywhere, (a tea on the sidewalk) and I need to do some Christmas shopping ;)

I'm really looking forward to sleeping in this vacation!! And rendezvousing with neglected friends :)

I'm being eaten....

by algebra...the teacher was complimentary "There's some good work there, for not having had the class"....
I spent much of my Friday night working on algebra...particularly one problem which took me 45 minutes. Then on Saturday, with no snow in evidence but some very nasty driving conditions (read: solid sheet of ice on road) we got to the robotics meet at 11 AM. Believe me, the LEGO League robotics competition is a placid picnic compared to, say, the Portland FRC regionals! Fun though :) There was only one other person from our team, and only two other FRC (high school) teams there, but there was no shortage of help.
Me dad had planned to not stay any longer than necessary, but I decided I'd rather stay for 5 hours than go home and tackle the algebra! Most of the time I was working in the back rooms where the judges interview the teams on various aspects of their robot, teamwork and that sort. There were some other FRC peeps there, from Philomath mostly, and we had way too much fun in the intervals between groups of FLL kids coming to be judged.

I may have commented on this before, but geeks for the win!! At regionals in March I always notice how nice just about everyone is...as a scout I come into contact with a LOT of people and they are sweet and nerdy and funny (good combination, by the way).

Hehe, this year I'm finally on something of an even footing: engineering stuff is still out of my league (what's a resistor?) but at least I am not so entirely clueless. C++ is the code used for a lot of the programming so that helps :)
Chatted with aforementioned awesome nerdy people....Hitchhiker's Guide...computer science....math ("fun when you understand it")....admiration for my stock of batteries in pocket, and little 9-volt flashlight (SO cool..robotics people are unfailingly intrigued). Way too many jokes and fun for volunteer hours ;)

Then last night I was eaten by the algebra homework that I had so thoughtfully left til the last; also memorized my twenty lines of Shakespeare for the audition today. That's in a few hours o_O

On the subject of geeks, geekery and nerds, neeks, beeks, brains, and other intelligent things: let's talk. I think most of us would admit that we have tendencies to one or the other. Girls are afraid (really? are we?) of being thought nerdy....intellectual..."guys don't like girls who are smarter than they are"....all that jazz.
Lads: weigh in! Are YOU secretly afraid of being thought nerdy? What about nerdy/geeky girls? I have it on good authority that geeky guys like geeky girls....be aware that 90% of the few crushes I have had have been on nerdy guys...so fear not, thou'rt not despised by the entire female population...just the despicable cheer-leading type....give me the good programmer over the football quarterback any day! ;)

Let's get a nice big happy forum going in the comments, folks! hehe...tales of geekery...

Happy Advent!

Hoo boy. Long post coming up.

First off: I did not win NaNo. :( 42,618 was the final count.

*A big than you to everybody who commented and supported the frenzied author during the time of need, you're the best!! :) *


The weekend was ghastly. I went for 46 hours without sleep.

My second all-nighter on Sunday night did not go well. I decided to hole up in the pantry because my room doesn't really have a door and my parents would probably have heard the tapping at the keyboard.

The parents did not go to bed til kind of late so I sat up in my room writing notes on paper. Then I snuck downstairs with the utmost furtiveness and ensconced myself in the pantry.
I soon learned that it is very very hard to use a laptop without any other light in the room. I ventured forth in search of a lamp; failed to find one (this was about 1 AM). FInally I absconded with an electric candle-thing which worked passably. I also learned that it is almost impossible to read pencil by the light of the little flashlight I had taped to a baseball cap, miner-like.

Went out to get carrots, cheese and bread, and of course more coffee. I have come to simply loathe coffee, chiefly after the first all-nighter.

I kept banging away at the keyboard, engaged in a lot of sprints and word-wars on the NaNo forums where a small group of nocturnal peeps attempted to up the lagging word-count.

As I gulped down more coffee I had an occasional qualm about how much caffeine one can ingest before effects set in.... o_0

Around 4 AM I was dead, absolutely dead. I think I may have been falling asleep for nanoseconds between words. I believe I was beginning to hallucinate slightly. I left the pantry to go to the bathroom or maybe get some more coffee, I forget which. In the hallway I encountered my mom. She did not see me at first (I was so disoriented that I had turned into the wall believing that the hallway ran the other direction). She did however see the light coming from the pantry which I had failed to turn off. FInally saw me and made me go back to bed.

I got four hours of sleep and faced the next day with renewed energy (sort of). Went through school in a daze. Wrote crazily all Monday.
Around 3:30 that afternoon I had a rather brilliant idea to have another character come into the story. This did not boost the word count as much as could have been hoped however.

I degenerated into having one of my characters reminisce over how she did NaNo one time...got about ten pages out of that...every fifth word might have been spelled right.
Parents made me go to bed at 9:30 or so; truth be told, I was not unwilling, I was exhausted.

The story is maybe 75% complete at this point. I'm fairly happy with it, there were some rather nice scenes and quite a lot of side-splitting humor. I'm fairly attached to my characters. Won't have much time to work on it though :(


Other stuff: Yes, happy Advent! Can't believe it's so close to Christmas! The excitement is filtering through from Kendra, I think :P

Theatre news: I'm likely going to audition for Romeo and Juliet at CHS!!! I'm really excited. Auditions are December 14 and 15, the show is at the end of February. I'd love to have an acting part but I don't know if I can fit it i, I'd really like to do robotics at my dad's school and it's during the same time-window. Might be able to do tech or costuming or something though. I have to memorize some Shakespeare for the audition.

Weather: is awesome. COLD and sunny. It started to frost almost as soon as the sun went down yesterday, and there are rumors of impending snow at the end of the week! I love this weather, I ought to move to Montana or something :)

Hay bales: I had to move a 60-pounder today, and I had the brilliant idea of backing up to the trunk of the car (where it was) and rolling the bale onto my back, holding it by the strings.

Yahoo: I got yahoo IM, me address is bethie_forty_two :)

2012: Shardhana left a comment inquiring my views on 2012....a very thought-provoking subject, hehe. Let's just say I am attending "2013" ;) I don't believe it will be the end of the world, BUT I think there could certainly be unknown repercussions, for one thing I've heard about solar flares picking up then, who knows. I don't know if that could result in some form of EMP which might knock out power/communications, in which case we would be in rather epic trouble.
I'm not worrying about it too much. Would love to see the movie, though! :)

we're done!

Ooog...where to start!

The show went very very very well.

Friday night's rehearsal (all 4 hours of it) went....that's all I can say, it went.....we had to deal with the fact that we had left it until 24 hours before the show to figure out the whole sword-fight deal. Finally decided to go with the sword-versus-pistol deal. I was in bed by 11 but was still awake at 1 AM :/

Yesterday morning, without enough sleep, I had to deal with various situations before dress rehearsal. I was able to locate a back-up for tech, as our techie was, sadly, laid low by illness. Hammered through lighting, stage crew, audio that morning: all without our main actor. Insurmountable problems prevented his being there. I had to deal with locking up the Grange afterwards and had such good times doing that. The dratted hasp on the shed door where the main key is kept is sticky in the extreme: I wound up punching it with my arm and elbow which got some attractive scratches. Note to self: always try kicking an obstacle before punching it.

Laid low at home for the duration of the afternoon. The show went perfectly, that's all I can say. I was horribly afraid I'd mess up my first lines (I had the first lines in the whole thing) but I didn't. After the dancing scene (Scene 2) I was so thrilled that it had gone well, and Dallan and I were so busy high-fiving each other after his next scene that he almost forgot to go back onstage :P

No slip-ups, no lines forgotten. All in all a very satisfactory performance. props returned safely to original donors, Grange tidied, etc.

After the show a lot of people (older, mostly :) commented on how they recognized the Django Reinhardt music we played between the scenes and in the dance scene, and were so excited to hear stuff from way back then :) which I find incredibly exciting!

I am fairly exhausted. Now it's on to Thanksgiving, and finishing up NaNo, I think I won't be able to do it :'(

As far as video: my dad video-taped it, I'm not sure what the quality is yet. I'll be editing that in the next week or two, leave a comment or email me if you might like a copy, or a copy of the movie Road to Freedom. Please note that I may need to charge shipping, I can't afford it otherwise :(

Duct tape was the motif of the whole thing. I was taping audio cables and extension cords to the floor, dancers were putting tape on the bottoms of their shoes to avoid slipping on the wood floor, I was repairing a rapier-hilt with discreet amounts, after the show I was packing up and found myself carrying a mammoth role of duct-tape. I've never used it much but I am now a fan :)

if anybody actually wants to hang around with a crazed theatre geek...

My day has been striped through with lurid melodrama. Actually that's painting the lily rather freely; but it certainly has been an interesting day.

Started off with me suffering the effects of yesterdays rehearsal. I am sore all over; I feel like I've been incrementally and gently ran over by a steam-roller. That ran like a silver thread throughout the events of the day. Started off to school at 10:30 as usual. On the way there I mentioned to my mom that it seemed likely Emily had had flu (she's been sick this week, as garnered from Facebook) and perhaps it was not such a great idea that I go to biology at her place this afternoon? My mom became worried and we wound up popping into my grandma's place (which is under construction) and I went upstairs to use the antique phone, as Grandma was out and we couldn't get into the lower part of the house. Got in touch, went off to culinary class. Nate was considerably subdued; his spirits seemed positively depressed. Poor fellow was starving himself for wrestling weigh-ins at lunch. Made stock with the turkey carcasses from the other day.

Off to biology: Emily hadn't had flu after all, yayz!
I was suffering from not enough sleep. Biology was hectic and long. I am in the interesting position of being the oldest (by a year or two or three) student there, and the most comfortable with the material we're studying, and the rowdiest. Which is crazy, as I am really not rowdy at all. They're just a very quiet bunch. I actually hadn't read much of the chapter in question, but flubbed through with no problem.

Off to my dad's school with Celi's mom. My dad then took me into town for yoga class, but not until we had stopped at the Co-op for some groceries. There was a posh Italian lady there passing out samples of fine olive oil and balsamic vinegar and such. "I feel pampered!"
There was another crisis in the milk isle when my dad collided rather emphatically with a lady who was going the same way rather swiftly. It was given to me to watch helplessly as this occurred, and then to choke in the background as he apologized.

I got to yoga class barely on time and hustled into a room absolutely full of people. There were about 15 teens there, when usually there've been only 4 or 5 at the most. Yoga class was good; my cargo pants did not help matters however. I actually do not have any sweat pants or equivalent....not handy.

I came out of yoga at 5 pm and was immediately plunged into another situation. My mom was waiting in the car and she thrust a cell-phone and address book into my relaxed, energized fingers. It developed that Dallan had called with the info that I could pick up the swords for the play from Phillip. This proceeding necessitated a few phone calls on my part. When I got to Phillip's I was confronted with a positive arsenal of edged weapons. "Here let me just run and get one other thing--" I finally decided on a pair of blunt-edged stage rapiers and a rather nice short-sword (to kill for!! It is awesome!) and longer rapier with a very snazzy guard. The back of the car filled with weaponry, we wended our way homeward.

Now there is an email on my inbox suggesting that we dispense with the sword-fight entirely. I should have got that dagger....awk....costume.....shower....music....iiitt's Tech Week, folks!

a pearl necklace comes flying through the air...Dallan drops me on my head...yes folks, it's rehearsal

[EDIT Jan. 2011:]
This post is, without fail, every single week in my stats as a top-visited page. For some reason people have been reading this page more consistently than any other. WHY??!  Is there a link to it? Are you just attracted to the name? Or what? Please leave a comment, folks, this is keeping me up at night. =D
[/EDIT]


Wow what a rehearsal! awkgk

Got up at an early hour to take a test at the local community college, which I completely dominated. BEAST. With claws. And sharp teeth.

Rehearsal went okay...it was just really really crazy, more than usual.
There is one scene that I hate and loathe with a deadly passion. It's where Dallan and I are sitting on one side of the stage doing a mime bit, "in love", and he's giving me a necklace, and I'm all "Aww shucks how sweet" except it's all silent cause Adam is trying to come on and say his line. It's a painful scene to do because it is SO HARD not to crack up....at various times he has appeared to be choking me with the necklace. Today we had a different necklace (fake pearls, those poppit things--but it is too short) and it actually was kind of strangling me, which did not improve the general situation of gasping with laughter, seeing the audience cracking up, seeing Dallan go to pieces, being aware that Adam was losing it. Augh. Then D was supposed to be gazing romantically at me and he was hamming it up: his chin on both hands, big cheesy grin, ahahaHAHAHA teehee *sniff* *gasp* sorry.

Adam: It's hard to concentrate, there's munchkins running on and off stage all the time! [Eva had brought her brothers along to practice their parts]

Then Dallan and I were practicing our swing dance and trying to put some more fancy stuff into it. We were trying to recall all the fun 'tricks' that we;d learned. We couldn't. "Let's dial 911--Phillip" was the general agreement. [He was our dancing instructor]. But we didn't; muddled through it and stuck in a rather snazzy bit that involves Dallan picking me up [over the threshold thing] and then dropping me into the splits, which is oh so much fun in my evil high heels. There was an interesting moment when he came very close to dropping me on my head.

Then there was the issue (which I did not want to address) of the absence of any form of swords for the sword-duel. I think we have that straightened out.

Also the no-curtain; dealing with sound effects; trying not to laugh.

There was the truly epic time when Brandon and I were onstage saying our lines and a pearl necklace came flying through the air towards us, from backstage. (It was, in fact, the same fake pearl necklace that had been choking me earlier.) Eva, doing Director down front, calmly said, "Continue. I'm going to go back there and kill them."

A few times back we were trying to work with the mics (which have now been dispensed with) and Dallan is backstage and I hear a scratch-scratch noise coming through the amps. (I thought it was Dallan touching the mic but turns out it was his dad scraping some paint. ) Eva says, "Okay the scritchy-scratch noise, not so much". GASP hahaha

Then there was the fake cigarette and the question of when, if ever, it should be brought out in the "Splendid....nomnomnom....evil grin" scene (haha, only the actors know what I'm talking about :) There was the consideration that it was better if it were not 'burning' a hole in Dallan's pocket in the meantime :D

The issue of finding a trenchcoat for Vivian [me] in the first scene.....also a hat....

Brandon grabs Dallan around the neck and drags him over to me [as per my anguished demand] to practice the dance again.

Adam: If must be done, tis better tis were quickly (or something like that) as we deliberate going through it one more time.


huykcg! Can't believe we only have two more rehearsals! panic!

Friday the 13th

Interesting times :)

I had to rise at an unseemly hour in order to go to this craft show with my mom. I didn't want to go but had to in order to get to class on time. It was in an old grange, filled with middle-aged ladies and holiday crafts. I was outta there in about ten minutes. Went directly to culinary class.

After that I rendezvoused with Dallan [we'd previously arranged all the details] and started walking towards downtown. Fortunately the rain let up for most of the time. Eva had planned to join us but she called in sick alas. It seems like a lot of people were sick about three weeks ago, they all recovered, and now the next batch is ill. I do hope everyone is recovered by the show....

Anyways, we pottered around town for a while. Actually pottered is not really the right term, we walked quite briskly. On the train tracks, sometimes. Hit most of the literary spots in town: library, The Book Bin [used], Borders, Grass Roots which is celebrating their 38th birthday today. Actually the festivities were supposed to pick up around 6, so it should be quite lively over there about now :) Grass Roots is the splendid independent bookstore in town, a local legend.

There was a nasty sticky bit of business involving transportation. But we worked through it and I am glad to be off my feet, we must have walked over a mile.

Let's see. What else is new. C++: yeaahh, it would REALLY help if my programming book were more recent than 1997....lol. Found a good tutorial online at cprogramming.com and got the classic Hello World program to work!!!!! Awesome!!

NaNo: started working on it again! I still loathe my NaNo Stats page though....hehe.

Theatre: our rehearsal on Wednesday was good. We had a certified Awesome Techie on audio. Am still trying to work out the issues of feedback. And the receiver takes 6 AA batteries in its mouth and goes NOMNOMNOM then ooops low battery.

Theatre consumes my every thought. It's getting obsessive. I look at random attic-stuff and say 'OOH! Audio cables!". Today at the craft show I spied a STAGE at one end of the Grange. Small, but serviceable with two entrances and a curtain. Mmm.

And AWWKKH I just remembered that I don't have the music for tomorrow's dance practice....argh....

Today was Talk Like A Brit Day! [heh..as declared by me :) ] I talked posh at intervals, lol.

award!

I've been awarded the awesome Lady Brainsample who regales us with tales from the far frontiers of stage life...a fabulously geeky-cool person! :) :) thanks much!

The Rules
1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger picture and post it on your page
2. Thank the person who gave it to you and link back to their blog
3. Write seven things about you that we don't know
4. Choose seven other bloggers that you would like to give the award to
5. Link to the bloggers that you choose
6. Let the winners know that they have the lovely award.

Seven things you may or may not know about me:

1. I'm reading The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy right now: Bk. 1. I finally know what all the fuss is about. You can bet I know where my towel is. For as long as I can remember I have maintained that the towel is the peak of man's invention. I could not live without towels.

2. I'm a doomsteader. Another words [to quote Pogo], I garden, save, scrimp, and expect the worst and am very happy doing so. :)

3. I fancy myself a connoisseur of esoteric music: right now [check out my playlist] I'm listening to a fabulous song by a Swedish group, Garmarna.

4. I can speak a bit of French, and I can read it pretty well.

5. I'm in touch with someone who can provide me with an XLR-to-standard 1/4" cable converter for theatre business. btw, I love theatre business! =)

6. Sword-fighting/fencing is one of my favorite things to do, but I'm really bad at it.

7. I think cloaks are the some of the most awesome things ever [right behind towels....how about a cloak made out of towel material? It could happen...probability two to the power of ten hundred-thousand to one against and falling]


Seven people to award this to:

Olive Tree
The Reluctant Dragon
Gwyniver
Bracie
Tinydancer
Bekah
Earwen

And oh yes, I'll try and post about today SOON! :)

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 :)

Are we witnessing Bethany's meltdown???

Yeaahh. Things are getting interesting around here. I phoned Eva Sunday night to try and arrange a theatre meeting for tomorrow. For some reason I began to crack up...I've no idea why...it was dreadful, I was holding the phone way from my mouth as I hooted with hysterical laughter, and heard Eva worriedly inquiring if I was okay.

This, of course, was after the interesting play practice where I could be observed gasping with laughter on the front porch....

I have been all but called ...creepy ...about three times in the last couple of weeks [including on this blog's poll o_0 ....speaking of which, go vote!!]

I find myself occasionally scary.

Is it possible to get high on writing?? The answer, I think, would be yes. Stories, journaling, whatever.

Yesterday at a Theatre Business meeting I had a latte [ONE LATTE, for goodness' sake!] and became extremely caffeinated. Caffeine doesn't affect me: usually. Not so yesterday. Coffee: it's a one-way portal to the Twilight Zone in a cup! [quote stolen from somewhere]

I had the shakes for two hours. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I glimpsed my mom in the distance outside our house. Dealt with a few emails regarding theatre stuff. Caught roosters and palmed them off on unfortunate people. Worked in the garden for an hour with clippers, mowing down the seasonal weed growth; chuckling or growling occasionally as crazy plans danced through my fevered brain. OH YEAH.

I await your thoughts with anticipation!

exhausted o_O

I can't do better than quote Josiah's FB status: WHAT A DAY!

So after market it was time for a spot [more like a few hours] of hauling and stacking firewood. Home for a minute and off to two hours of dance rehearsal at the Grange. For a miracle everyone was able to make it.
We blocked out the swing dance scene; learned some more fancy high-flying steps; tried to figure out important stuff like rehearsal dates, order of which pairs of dancers are in front at which time; ran to and fro [me]; exercised our thumbs afterward trying to deal with the question of rides home.
Then it was [for me] off for more wood-hauling. I am wooped, to quote Eva.

Am dealing with the unpleasant fact that there are only 4 more Saturdays for rehearsal before the performance. We really need to get our act together; I have to start tightening up on rehearsals; I think I need a megaphone.

I took this little beauty the other day.



















Ugh I am so tired.... had to cancel my happy Saturday night plans to WORK. Ugh. And I was done by 6 so it would have worked anyway. Meh.

But at least rehearsal is going pretty well....

cheese, culinary class, and cargo pants

Life has been a bit scattered-and-random lately. On Monday night I was too discouraged to write, my parents had just decided I couldn't take the theatre class that I'd been so looking forward to :(

Yesterday I perked back up again. We made omelettes in culinary arts and that was fun. My group went the whole nine yards and made a nice ham-and-green-pepper sauce, which was awesome, but we were the last ones cleaning up. :)

Off to rehearsal at 4, at the Grange. That went. That's all I can say, it went.
We are still ironing out details. Eva and Dallan came over to my house afterwards and we had fun getting a costume for Eva for RenFaire, and discussing Faire in general. Played with the goats and went walking. Dallan stayed to dinner and we watched a recording of what I still consider the best play I ever wrote/acted in, Anne of Green Gables. 'Twas epic.

Today it's 73 F and raining a bit. I am feeling vaguely influenzal, hopefully that won't develop, I am NOT going to be sick before renfaire!! I'm still hungry though! I think it might just be allergies.

I submitted my [rather epic] film Road to Freedom to the local film festival, in the Young Filmmakers' category. Woot! First film fest! I've got a contact there, who liked my submission to the Fast Film Project last spring and encouraged me to go for the big one. fingers crossed....

Tomorrow is the first of our weekly bio. classes. There's about 6 students, all homeschooled, mostly a bit younger than me and all shy/quiet [I think--I don't know them all]. It'll be interesting. Kingdom Phylum Class Order.....

H School [henceforth abb. HS or CHS] is also interesting. The fashions are [gotta say it again, sorry] so interesting!! Ninety percent of the population is clad in denim below the waist, of course. But even that ranges from my conservative boot-cut Levi's from Montana [*heart*!] to skinny grey jeans to black holey concoctions. A lot of the styles are things I'd never wear, and would cringe at in the stores, but I don't know: people look good in anything. Maybe I just like looking at people. I've always thought that artificially-colored hair is rather awful but I've seen some girls with blonde hair dyed with a couple of pastel colors just at the sides, and it actually is kind of nice. [Ahem...don't freak out please, I'm not planning on dyeing my hair.]

So that covers "culinary class" but what about "cheese" and "cargo pants"? Well I was just thinking about how much I like cheese, is all. And cargo pants is what I'm wearing right now [POCKETSES!!! Love em!].
Yeah--pockets. Starting with the filming this spring I have started to carry stuff in my pockets all the time. Big ole knife [except not at school, which kills me] clipped onto the side, pencil, iPod sometimes, rubber band, string [little random tail-end, and a lovely ball of high-quality waxed stuff], needle-nosed tweezers for splinters, lighter [two, on my birthday. SO handy for lighting candles, and it means you're never without a fire-source. Just don't try to light a bunch of birthday candles and expect that the lighter will be cool enough to put back in your pocket.] um yeah, where was I....audio cables sometimes, converter, watch [that's when it's not attached, ninja-like, to my belt loop], band-aids, paper, and for the sake of this discussion I just added two paper-clips, a second lighter as I think my main one is running out of steam, and three aaa batteries. Nice, huh?

One time I found one of my mood-rings in my pocket and had NO idea how it got there. Then of course I couldn't find it again.

Jewelry is another variable. I never used to wear anything, ever. Now I wear a cross, or an amber pendent which I got in Germany, or a string of jade beads which my dad brought back from Thailand. There are a few other assorted things, nothing very valuable, but nice. Right now it's this cool wood-bead-and-stones thing. I like it.

Oh yes, I've got the most fabulous costume for renfaire!!!! Scottish-inspired. There's this nice green plaid jumper-sort of dress, over a black skirt and white puffy-sleeved shirt. Add a knife, wide black piece-of-awesomeness belt, and I'll be good to go. Except there are no pockets....

*bounce-and-squeal!* Wednesday Market today!!!! Yay!

Welcome back to Rochelle Blue!! Fare-thee-well to J. William!!!

Oh yes, I just remembered that I mentioned I'd do a special each Wednesday, Reader Wednesdays. Ths time I want your thoughts on fashion [ordinary clothing, not Haute Coture which is too weird]. Leave a comment!!!

Also I recalled the role-play which I started and did not continue with: It will come back, I'm just not sure when. :)

Yep

Well you're all waiting for me to say something, aren't you.


I'm taking classes for college credit at a local high school, is all. Culinary Arts and theatre. The CA class is for College Now credit---how awesome is that, credit for learning how to cook! I was just going to take the CA class but today [first day] after I discovered that the jewelry-making class I'd signed up for was filled, we decided theatre would be cool. The peeps in theatre are SO friendly!! Maybe it's a symptom of theatre-peoples in general, I don't know.

So today was my first day. Rather intense. I was dropped off at the appropriate time only to discover that due to the r a n d o m schedule, I only had culinary today and that wasn't for another hour. I trotted back over to the main building and chilled in Counseling and Accounting. I've gotten mighty familiar with that room, that was where I waited many times on Wednesday and Thursday whilst we were figgerin' out my schedule.

Later, whilst talking to the theatre teacher I was getting more and more excited, I think I've found my niche. Stopped in at Staples for supplies.
I do so love rolling-ball pens. Not ball-point, which I loathe. I found a lovely 5-pack. Mmm.

And thanks to the latest follower, the awesome Lady Brainsample, a fellow theatre chick! Check out her blog Cease Repining!

I am in the middle of baking my birthday cake. The usual plans to bake it with my grandmother fell through, owing to a severely disrupted house due to major renovation. I love carrot cake!!!!!! It's been a birthday tradition as long as I can remember.

Yep. It's been good. Don't expect anything more out of me for a while. Big party tomorrow.

Internet Exploder, walnut-chucking, and other fun stuff

Yesterday was busy, to put it mildly. Started off in the morning with Co-op Sale Day, and a few other bits of business. Then back home, over to my grandmother's where I taught her how to leave a comment on my blog, and back here bearing fruit to take to rehearsal.


Rehearsal was at 4. Rehearsal went well. Rehearsal disintegrated into mass sword practice around 5. [We had our Guest Instructor, Phillip, present specifically for Instructing us in sword-play, requisite for one scene of the play.]


Us four [Dallan, Phillip, Eva and myself] stayed late--very late--doing various fun stuff. A frisbee was involved for a lot of the time. And we chucked walnuts at tree-trunks, endeavoring to crack them [actually I watched that part--I am very unskilled at any sport involving a ball, disk or anything of that sort. Although I just yesterday learned how to throw a frisbee and was told I didn't do badly. Woot!]

There was a flurry of telephoning. My cell-phone [actually it's more "the family phone"] was with my dad at work, so all four of us were forced to rely upon Phillip's phone.

Dallan: I need to call my parents. Eva: I'd better call my mom. Bethany: And I'll need it too!

At one point the last cookie was in debate. Dallan and Eva dashed inside: question marks from the others: Bethie, who heard it all: "They converged upon the last snicker-doodle."


Back into the Grange where we listened to music for the swing-dancing scene, and did some card tricks. Eva regaled us with a story of how she got lost, ran out of gasoline, and was broke with no cell-phone. Dallan served lemonade, marketed as "strong" but dismissed by me as "wussy" [I am infamous in my tolerance of sour stuff]. We discussed Converse as a shoe, coolness factor, and good idea [subsequent on seeing Phillip's new pair], and ran around barefoot on the grass outside.

I, of course, told of my little jaunt to the Grange last Saturday, on foot, and how when I got there I heard a pounding coming from inside and wondered what it was coming from: this was enlarged upon by the others: "Are you sure it wasn't a pounding coming from inside your head?" "Bethany, what were you doing the night before? Was there any sort of a party?"

The Hazlenut Incident was mentioned and related to Phillip by we three who had of course been present.
There was some arm-wrestling: epic fail, on my part. But I'm getting better.


About 6:45 Eva, being a dutiful young woman, felt it incumbent on her to depart, to help with the peach-canning at home. There was more sword-fighting [we use non-lethal weapons, by the way. Solid chunks of aluminum]. There was a foray across the road to look at the sheep. There was one pleasing little incident involving the electric sheep-fence.


More discussion of fake blood for the stage ["Zesty mint flavor!"]. A good way to simulate a knock to the jaw: take a mouthful of Tic-Tacs and a little fake blood [must be Zesty Mint flavor] and presto, there you have a nice mouthful of broken teeth.


The remaining half-gallon or so of lemonade was polished off by the two lads, who declared themselves "Blub!" This reminded me of a Pogo Possum cartoon and I promptly mentioned the name. They started backing away from me uneasily. Pogo Possum is known only to the few, the weird, the awesome.


Plans were made for the epic party coming this Saturday.


Pretty soon Dallan opined that we had best begin heading our separate ways. This proved less easy that it sounded, and involved a lot of use of the cell-phone. It turned up that Phillip did not have a ride home, and Dallan's parents were less than eager to head all the way into town again. I broached the matter to my parents and they pounced happily upon it, since we are moving various lead-like bits of furniture preparatory for a new floor, and a strong-arm was in demand. Finally got everyone home around 8:30, and stopped in at the Co-op again, as I had neglected to buy a nice goat-milk Brie earlier in the day.
Fun stuff!

Oh yeah, Internet Exploder [I did not make that awesome name up :)]! IE is....how do I say this nicely?.....yeah. You know what I mean. It sometimes treats webpages like pop-ups---opens about 2 million copies of a page and freezes up....nasty...I'm trying to switch to Firefox but that's having issues too....ugh.

Did you want the last of the Brie...? The last! How much was there?!

Drove to Eugene today. We went to Borders Books, and Trader Joe's [the two main attractions in Eugene]. At TJs I selected a nice creamy Brie, and a carton of Greek yogurt with honey. I managed to consume the greater part of the [sizeable] chunk of Brie on the way home, with chips.

When we got home there was a flurry of calls regarding various theatre affairs. My mom, picking up the phone for the third time, said "Bonjour", assuming it would be for me. It wasn't; it was somebody else entirely. I went into hilarity.
The upshot of it was that my friend and co-conspirator Eva is coming over in half an hour, to discuss matters, before I head off to FOLK DANCE!!!!!! The first folk dance in quite a while. Yayz!

I am trying to decide what to wear to folk dance, too: my [current] red plaid wool skirt [one would think it would be too hot, but it's pretty short] with grey t-shirt, or perchance one of my long plaid shirts over my hand-distressed blue-jean cut-offs. Hmm....we must consult with Vienna on this.....does anybody else on here read Pogo Possum cartoons??????!!!!!

I just had the most fabulous idea for another award, too. :)  For all Sydney Carton/Tale of Two Cities fans [particularly fan-girls :P] out there! Coming soon to a blog near you!

Take 2

Yes, allow me to present....um, whatever it was that I was going to present. I hit Publish instead of Save, whoopsies.
Thank you to my 3 new followers!!!!!!! Liberty, Cassie, and Kevin Atteridg!!!

So anyway,  my polls are indicating that the general populace (my beloved Readers) would like More Humor, More Photos, and More Writing. 
There is a two-way split between More Posts and Less Posts.  I assume that some want to see more of my briliance, and some think I am overloading their dashboards.
 I am glad to see that no-one requests that my posts be marred by any more seriousness; that would be a gloomy day for all of us, me not least.
Also there is demand for Bethie Getting Nostalgic, and More Mentions of Other Bloggers.
It is with that last request that I comply with now.

Some may have noticed that my last post [scroll down!!!] elicited an interesting string of comments [read them!!!]. It even inspired a post by the splendid Danzibar, on a topic which my readers [specially the older element] will find interesting. Also my good friend Scotland has been posting recently on the same subject. I invite you to check out the well-thought-out and somewhat philosophical musings in their latest posts.

I will endeavor to mention a few blogs each post! The more comments you've left, the more likely it is that your blog will be mentioned! :)

Lessee. Yesterday was not even typical of the random excitment associated with Bethany-the-amazing. Friday night I had resolved to walk to the Grange in the morning, to help out with the work/paint/etc day which began at 8 AM.
The Grange is about a mile from my house, if you take the picturesque shortcut over the fields.
At around 3 in the morning I was awakened by excessive rainfall outside my window and decided to be wimpy and not walk. [remember that I have never bicycled in my life]  But when I arose at 6:45, I was as determined as ever to cover myself with glory [and rainwater] by walking.

I did.
The rain had thankfully slacked off a little. I encountered a coyote at one point, but nothing else untoward occured. The folks at the Grange were, as predicted, awed [heh] by my fortitude. I wielded a paintbrush there for a few hours, and then my dad picked me up and we headed to farmers' market, in the rain which had picked up a bit. Got another flat of tomatoes, which occupied me all evening. Stopped in at the natural foods co-op and got some chocolate, then over to Dairy Mart for cheap cream.

I came home for a quick lunch and then it was off to the Grange again, for play rehearsal. That went well and swiftly.
After that we did a few more miscalaneous things and I came home to deal with the tomato-sauce making. I also had to deal with roosters in the plural. Catching them, in fact. Not fun.

Went to Home Depot and the co-op [again] in the evening. Bought some cheese-curds yum yum!
Then I stayed in the blog world way too long, checking peeps' blogs, and replying to comments on my own. I switched to the New post editor-----does it have spell-check?? I can't find it!! Gah!

The weather is being nasty. It's pouring rain and chilly today. My dear friend Eva is, alas, camping. She is being rained upon. I do not envy her the joys of pitching a sodden tent, attempting to dry things out after being rained on all night, huddling in the van trying to stay dry. I speak from the pinnacle of painful experience.
It's windy, too. This reminds me of one happy incident that I was thankfully not a witness of. 'Twas during the last week of school, when I was taking a few classes at a private school. We had just got done with Mini Sessions and one group had gone camping.   At the final assembly the teachers were regaling the appreciative crowd with anecdotes.
The boys' camping group: "We remembered the tents. The tent-poles, on the other hand, were left behind." [Hilarity from the audience] "We were trying to rig things up with duct-tape"

I do so hope that it is dry next weekend, for my birthday festivities. There is to be a Party of Special Magnificence, on Saturday night. I wish you all were here!!!!!
I am not a flower-buyer, but I intend to pick out a nice boquet for myself at the market on Saturday, one of the lovely brilliant orange-and-pink-and-yellow concoctions sold by the little Peace Seeds stand that I emoted about in my last post.

Lots of excitement!

Have been running around all day, cooking tasty goodies for two of my friends who came to tea this afternoon. That was fun. Half an hour before they arrived I got a phone call from a fellow committee-member from the Grange, asking if we could have a committee meeting regarding the PLAY. Still waiting to get that figured out, and I've an email sitting in my outbox waiting to be sent to the very large group of people who want to be involved in this production!! "A Highland Fling" by Myself. Which is sitting in Word, waiting to be worked upon!! The script has to be revised a great deal, mostly to accommodate all the other people who want in. I'm getting excited!! Stay tuned for in-the-moment updates! lol



And MAY I ask, who else is answering "survivalist" to my latest poll?? Come forth and let us wear our tin-foil hats with pride together! lol, I thought I was the only one! I'm noticing that no-one is "gregarious"---[it means "likes to be with other people" :) ]