THIS should have been called Über-geek....

Only the other day I was mentioning that 'I have no life'. This was refuted by my worthy compatriot, who has also been quoted as saying that my days don't end, they just slow down a bit.   I am definitely back in the insanity-zone....

Sunday we drove back up to P-town to RETURN the sink we bought two days before. This was after a pleasing interlude in the sink aisle at Home Depot whilst the three of us discussed the respective merits of various sinks. There was some heated debate over whether or not it was important to have a sink that is resistant to scratches, stains and grey marks from pans. I became quite fired up, and mentioned that I planned to write a manifesto laying out a 'Workers' Declaration' that the sole consideration regarding kitchen implements should be Utility and Function, not Aesthetic Appeal.  However instead of Rallying the Troops, I wound up laughing as we trailed through the store looking at countertop materials. 

Monday it was back to the daily grind of school and expeditions into geekery.  After school I went to a robotics meeting for the CHS team, and wound up staying the whole three hours. DIscussed video-considerations with the team captain.....there was a huge amount of things to be hashed over and planned out, and now I am engaged in making a short ad to air on the local community access TV station, and also filming the introduction of the robot at tomorrow's assembly. Yesterday I rendezvoused after school to film the voice-over for said advert.    Today I stayed at school the whole day, in order to be present at the robotics meeting after school and likewise the assembly run-through at lunch. 

Also on the way back from P-town I read over part of the infamous novel I wrote last November, and was surprised at how hysterical it was. Most amusing to read the incoherent copy I wrote at the height of the lack of sleep. And a couple of terribly funny lines that I honestly do not remember writing.... O.o  

Wednesday tech stuff:  I didn't know it was possible to be this much of a geek. I'm wearing a pair of earphones over my earbuds, am working simultaneously on two computers, have two flash drives in play, am downloading a codec for Mac and Windows...all this as preliminaries for editing an advert for robotics. 

I was given a .avi file of Team 997's winning match at the championship games at regionals. This is for use in making the ad to turn in to the broadcasting studio in the next day or two. The file plays with no trouble in VLC media player (a really nifty little free media player, btw...download here) but when I tried to import it to my editing program (Sony Vegas Movie Studio) only the audio was visible. The same thing happened when I tried to play it with Windows Media Player, or (switching to Mac) import to iMovie.  

I have heard this is a problem sometimes, and it requires fiddling with codecs. A little hunting on the internet revealed the VMS editing platform tends to have trouble with certain .avi files, and I found recommendations to download GSpot, a tiny application which diagnoses which codecs are needed to play the file.    Downloaded that...found that the file needed the DX50 codec, supplied by DivX. I downloaded a version for both Mac and Windows.    That is currently being installed, so we shall see.....


and because I have nothing better to do than my bio homework, here's this....
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Starting time: 18:38
Mood: geeky :P
Outside my window: sun on huge snow clouds
I'm thinking: I hope this codec works.....
I'm reading: Baha! Who has time to read?  Well Great Expectations, on and off...finished 1984.
I'm listening to: Scott's voice-over for the robotics ad  XD
I'm wearing: dark grey tank, black and white plaid shirt of me dad's, jeans with a TON of stuff in teh pocketses
Yesterday, I: went to robotics potluck :)
I'm excited for: Atlanta
I'm sad because: not sad :)
I'm hungry for: salad
The song stuck inside my head is: Another One Bites the Dust
I want: FinalCut Pro
I love: being awesome :P
I loathe: cold wet weather
This week, my goal is: to get the robotics stuff done on time

Life in the land of the Über-geek

Attempting to email a post from the school library, as the school servers don't allow access to me blog:  Entertaining things from math class......

[about some problems on the board]

"Should I talk about these?"

"No!"

'Do you understand them?"

"Nope!"

Students discussing how one of them was applying for a job:

"I feel like the whole useless-manager thing might be part of the problem."

"Don't call again, go in."

"I did."

"Well then let it simmer!" [with a simmering motion of her hand :P ] 

Discussion on 'what to throw into the air' as a height-of-projected-object equation: resulted in penguin. 

"Don't penguins do that, they push one of them into the water and then see if the whale eats it or not?" 

"Well the numbers I'd picked aren't going to match this scenario very well, I guess they're some hardcore penguins...."

Teh notes I took: 

Ex: A penguin is thrown into the air at 112 ft./second by his hardcore buddies from a 75 ft. cliff.    (A) Write the equation for this monstrous action.  (B) What is the maximum height Penguin reaches? When?

Answer: (The vertex! rejoice!)  

(C) When does the whale get him? (hit the water) (assuming the whale waits for in-mouth delivery) 

Debate as to whether the whale would be waiting patiently at nought height for the penguin: 

"Don't you think if there was a scuffle at the top he'd wait, 'Okay serve me up'. But maybe he's a crafty whale, waits for the whole lot to jump in." 

Later, learning about how long devision of polynomials gives us the synthetic-devision algorithm: There were gasps as the variables disappeared off the smartboard. "What! No put it back...stay there....that's better!" 

Kimes: I'm not just magicking it up out of nowhere!

Finn: ? Cause I feel like you are right now....

(warning: amusing, and lengthy)

The past two days have been pretty epic....Thursday we went up to P-town (the Big City). The morning started out with a nice bit of excitement: My mom saw my dad's ghost. The short version of the story is that he was still in bed, whilst my mom is convinced she saw his reflection outside, for quite a while.  O.o

On the spur of the moment we decided to drive to P-town.  I promptly demanded that I be allowed to wash my hair.....this was granted, with the stipulation that I not take very long....I wound up being the first person waiting in the garage, hehe. My hair was still wet....but behold, there on a garage shelf was, of all things, a hair-dryer......doubtless used for blow-drying the windshield prior to application of rain-repellant. Never one to miss an opportunity, I proceeded to blow dry my hair with it.  ^.^

In P-town we went to Ikea (Swedish furniture store) and bought a kitchen sink.....amidst direful warnings that it would mean the disruption of the kitchen for the next few weeks, in the style of the Great Sink Débacle of 2009, which saw the upstairs bath sink (my personal property) in disarray for WEEKS. 

Yesterday was packed with bits of randomness.....first thing in the morning (well, first thing when I got up which was not til 10) I came downstairs and found the kitchen in the predicted state of conniption. The new sink was on the table and there seemed an unwarranted lot of stuff sitting about. Despite this, I baked a chocolate cake, then went into town with my dad to buy cream for the frosting, and pick up the lawn-mower which had been taken in for repairs, and also take some stuff to the recycle.  

My dad was talking about hiring someone to install the sink....or rather to make it level, with boards on the side.....anyways: "Yes, they will prop the low side up with dollar bills, that's how much it'll cost..."

We first stopped at the Co-op, in order to deposit the recycle at the provided bins. Then decided that "Haha well since we're here, we'd better stop in and get some food...." and went and bought a lot of groceries. 

Then it was on to Trader Joe's (upscale grocery, for those deprived souls in the wilderness of whereever-there-are-no-Trader-Joe'ses).  We were just going in, in our identical signature Carlson bouncy walks, and both making amusing comments, when I spotted my grandmother's car parked out front of the store. We went in, found the cream and my grandma....she tends to ply us with food...anyways, we wound up all checking out together and there came the next bit of amusement.....my grandma was plying us with the goat cheese she'd bought, and we were separating out our cream, and the cashier was helping us.....we had four people all gathered round the paper sack full of groceries. My dad was starting to laugh, and I was chuckling (of course), and finally we paid and the cashier thrust another empty bag at us to divvy up the groceries among.  Our Trader Joe's has got a bit of an exit problem....there is a sort of little isle that the entire mass of people exiting the store has got to go through. One incident at the check-out, one dropped cheese, one over-excited grocery bag, and the whole place can pile up. 

Whilst in the store my dad bought a box of so-called "thousand-layer crackers".....little Asian treats that nobody except him likes. The first time he bought them (I quote) "I had to eat the entire box and not like them....then there were two left which somehow hadn't gotten into the recycle, and they were pretty good."   He admits that they have sort of an unpleasant taste: "...sort of like burnt fish...." 

The whole gather-round-the-grocery-bag episode remained in our conversation as we hit the high road again.    I commented that the incident would have been made more epic had there been a couple of high-powered executives attempting to leave the store at the same time, through the afore-mentioned little isle. Yes, I did actually say 'high-powered executives'. ("With their espresso smoothies in hand," my dad chipped in.) "Heading off to their power-lunch....isn't that what those things are called, power lunches?" Dad agreed--"Yes, power lunch....wouldn't it be funny if there was, say, some sort of advertisement....you have a couple of high-powered executives at a power lunch, and (just casually) one of them pulls out a power bar--" (insert hoots of laughter from me) "--and gestures with it--"  "Yes, shows the profits going Up, Up, Up!" (dad cracks up) "And as the shot finishes, the other executive propounds a theory: 'Yes, this is it, let's do this!'....and he takes a bite out of his power bar..." 

On to the next attraction: picking up the lawn mower. This is where we were, to quote my dad, 'snookered'. (A side note: the term had not crossed my path before yesterday, I requested my dad explain it to me, and he made general reference to 'billiards, but I never know whether to call it billiards or pool....you know, where you're supposed to put all the balls into the pocket except for the white one....'  Anyways, as far as I can make out from the authoritative Mirriam-Webster's Online, the word refers to being 'hoodwinked'.  Mmph. 

The way in which we were snookered was not at first apparent, it was left to my dad to relate it to me.....we pulled into the parking lot, and my dad paused to eat a Thousand-layer Cracker of Doom. In this split second of delay, of Hesitation, another car pulled in beside us: a Large Car, one could even say a Too-big Car. (The driver also honked, as if to presage his passage...at another car, I believe. It could not have been us, WE were harmlessly sitting there eating our Thousand-layer Crackers.)

"Oop! Look at that, he's going to get in there before us...."  My dad decided to wait in the car for an opportune moment to go in. I observed that the Too-big Car had a load of brush in the back, piled up. "You see all that brush? All piled up, with a bungee-cord? Well do you think [I was getting silly at this point] that he's going to get a brush-hog or whatever those things are, bring it out here and test it out on the brush? Seems quite reasonable, just like bringing along the camera when you want to see if it fits in the messenger-bag...or wait, I think I'm planning to bring the bag to the camera instead of the camera to the bag..."  "Yes, he'll try it out, won't stop until there's no brush in the bed of the truck, and the parking lot is just covered...but it's a Power-mower" (this, to tie in with the high-powered executives.)

My dad then proceeded to go in and attempt to get our lawn-mower. This is where he was snookered. I was told of this afterwards: I stayed in the car and ventured to eat half of a Thousand-layer Cracker, but did not get very far because of foresaid burnt-fish savor, and nasty after-taste. As I later said, "It doesn't taste too great at first, then about a second into it's not too bad, but then it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth." "Yes, it has a weak finish...." 

Dad came out: "Another cracker..." (I proffer him my half-eaten one)   [Talking about it later: "I had time to come out, have another cracker and file down a hang-nail..."]  

Evidently the first customer was indeed getting some sort of lawn mower.....it developed that he couldn't take it home with him BECAUSE of the brush in the bed of the truck.  Most amusing, really. 

Then the repair-store owner said not to use regular gasoline, the ethanol kills the engine...but recommended a little place down in south-town where we could get pure gasoline. My dad said he hadn't thought it served people, hehe.....you had to have a card. But no..."You can get in without a card if you go in the daytime, not at night...and not on weekends..." 

There had been some talk that we might drive BACK up to P-town yesterday, to buy a cabinet to go with the sink.....also rumors that I might be forced to go along....OH, THE HUMANITY....I really did not want to go, it meant a good 3 hours on the road round trip, and it's hard to listen to music 'cause the car is very noisy, and I can't hear the talk in the front seat very well, and anyway I didn't want to go up there two days in a row. But when the fam. requires that I come along for a Family Outing, well....

I asked my dad to 'lobby on my behalf'. 

We got home (around 2 that afternoon) and found my mom thinking about P-town, and cabinets. I was in the kitchen, drying my hands, and I nipped into the laundry room and asked if I had to go with. "Maybe you'll go, and maybe you won't" was the reply.  O.o   Still clutching the kitchen towel, I hustled through the hallway, out to the garage, gave a squeak of dismay ("Daddy!") as I heard the unmistakeable sound of the lawn-mower firing up on the back lawn. I popped out of the door and waved the towel at him: "Mommy says she wants to go to P-town today and she wants to come cause she wants a cabinet for the laundry room" --gasp-- "and she says maybe I'll come and maybe I won't and I want you to lobby so I don't have to go...and the FROSTING...." I trailed off and cracked up: "I pop out and wave a towel at you....."  (Dad gets signature chuckly look on his face)  We went inside and I started the frosting as per mum's direction, as we wouldn't be leaving for a while. 

"You know, I foresee this frosting taking a long time" --meaningfully-- "This is the sort that takes a few hours of stirring while it cools.....oh and I'm going to make it softer this time...."  Dad: "Mmm! That's even better! How do you do that?"  "Just a higher ratio of cream to chocolate...." 

We wound up not going to P-town thankfully....my dad went off to town to get the gasoline, and I tidied the kitchen, dyed my hair, went shopping and bought t-shirts, and spent the evening chatting with Insane Buddy named Einar :D   I also spent a while trying to type up this blog post but kept getting distracted with email, multiple chats, Skype, facebook, and et cetera. Oh yeah: I henna-ed my hair again last night...came downstairs with my hair wrapped in a plastic sack.....ahh deja vu.  Lol. It's sorta more red, I think I'll redo it....

Did not get more than 6 hours of sleep last night and I am rather whacked today! 

In reply to Einar and Tragedy101

There were some rather interesting comments on that last post.....you should really go look at them. The upshot was my writing out rather an interesting comment in reply and I thought it had better not get buried....


hehe....






haha, thespian indeed ;) Ah well, Ron Paul is pretty much epicness incarnate..... WHAT'S THIS? A messenger-bag is NOT a purse...not even a man-purse.....it is a SATCHEL :D Yes I think it is a conspiracy too.....and I think Einar and Tragedy101 are in on it together.....they claim they don't even know each other.....'tis a lie. You two and a fair portion of my other friends are in CAHOOTS....it is a SCHEME to steal what little remains of my sanity.....it started last November when you rather blatantly failed to keep me from writing a novel in 30 days. This clearly is responsible for the downward trend we see between then and now, in my general sanity-levels...the sanity-score, the s-score.


Back before you-all started egging me on with cries of "Caffeine!" and "How do you do it!" and "I think you are going to take over the world" and the time-honored classic, "You're insane", I was well on my way to becoming a Normal Person. (Others may not have thought so, but humor me for a minute.)



NOW, all is different. NOW I ricochet from one piece of insanity to the next. NOW I lay awake working out ridiculous schemes involving airfares, school-skipping, and the infamous One Bag to Hold Them All. NOW I spend the majority of my life in one (or more) of four places: 1. On Chief Dephi  ....the place for all robotics info, where casual visitors are shocked to discover that FIRST robotics is akin to a cult experience (granted, a cult that involves wrenches and essay-writing) 2. doing math 3. programming 4. holding online conversations which are monuments of randomness/insanity. If you have chatted with me, you know what I am talking about.


A few samples of the random happenstances that drifted through conversations in the past days have included: Thomas Jefferson, lemmings, hunting, thinkgeek.com, mass hysterical laughter, conniptions, politics, faith, careers, Mac versus PC, and the rather epic quote reprinted with permission below:
O.o Someone on LotRO next room over just played Another one Bites the Dust on their Lute.



This is in addition to speculation on the true colour of my eyes (the case is not closed), the phrase *snicker*, trenchcoats, self-defense, rather an over-use by all concerned of O.o (albeit usually with good reason), discussion with a person I had seen only an hour earlier in person...as to another dear friend who had previously been rather whacked on Dayquil (having a cold), discussion of the pampering of filmmakers at last week's film fest, Nutella, and so on and so forth.


In short, I think we can conclude that it is YOUR fault. Not just you two, but really all my followers/friends/henchpeople who keep spurring me on to New Heights of Bethie-ness. THANKS A LOT.


:)

*twitch*

Hah I'm in a really weird mood........be prepared for randomness.  Here are two Facebook statii:


Sunday night:
 Little geek spaz-out: "YAY! Math! I love math! Where's some scratch paper?" Day not going too well, I happened to log into online College Algebra homework and now know what I'm going to do this evening before folk dance.
Oh and the scratch paper was the backs of robotics scouting sheets.......


Next day: 
You know you're a nerd when: you are bored on a Sunday night and get excited when you remember there's some online College Algebra homework that isn't due for a week or two....you proceed to finish it up....and then are disappointed it's all finished. Good grief I have no life.....


Yes, I was in fact rather disappointed that my math was finished.   ^_^ 


Yesterday evening I went out with some friends, for the first time in MONTHS....lotsa fun :)


I have to buy a bag for me trip to Atlanta....here  is the main candidate....you see it has to hold the video camera (HUGE), laptop Eddie, not to mention such little sundries as clothes and food. I refuse to have more than one bag (save the tripod bag) with me. Likewise, suitcases on wheels are out....it has to be carryable.....the strap has to be able to throttle me, inotherwords. The ideal thing is to have the strap of one bag conspiring with the strap of the other bag, effectively choking off one's neck. Good for long treks.   I have been told that the bag must not be allowed to imprint on Eddie (laptop) at a young age. 


Hmm I have just been called a hobbit.....this is awesome.....yes and random! Random, trademarked! 


Saturday we spent quite a few hours pruning blueberry bushes.  Facebook statii tell the story of the week: 
Several observations from the afternoon spent pruning blueberries: 1. Wear a sunhat to avoid burning one's vampirishly-pale skin 2. Techno is the best music to prune to 3. Hunting knives are better than clippers 4. Gotta blister on her little finger :D


quotes from dad: "Was there a pair of pliers in the pantry?" and "I'll glue it on and then you'll have a two-legged cow" me: "is that all?" "Instead of a one-legged cow..." [he was looking for pliers to take the glue lid off to glue the leg on a wooden cow cut-out] 


Top quotes of the past few days: 'Crap....I think I just swallowed glass' and 'Wow...I have just been handed a lime margarita' from two different people whilst chatting with them. Both were superbly random.      Oh and before you get too worried, the lime margarita was non-alcoholic and the glass has been taken care of   O.o


Other stuff: am wading through scholastic requirements for next year......looks like more College Now classes at the local high school are in order. I planned to take Trig at community college in the fall, then Calc, but it looks like it is very hard to get into classes there.....simply no room. I'll probably take the equivalent classes at the high school. 


A side note....the most awesome combination of smells EVER has got to be really high-quality rose-water mixed with woodsmoke........


byebye folks!  Also, how many people actually read this, I wonder?  

New look for bloggie

Yeah, I redid the colours and header and all.....still having issues with me sidebar though......I've deleted the sidebar entirely, as it was just sitting down at the bottom of the page.

Weather is nice and sunny here.....all the pallid Pacific Northwest peopleses are getting their poor widdle vampirey skins burned.....

Spring break is upon us THANK GOODNESS  =D  I'm about ready for it......math test today went quite well.....hmm what else.

Other stuff is going well......anticipation for Championships....all you people on the East Coast should definitely come! Atlanta GA, April 15-17......free to the public :)   There will be robots, there will be over-excited geeky high school students, there will be rock music, there will be dancing to Chicken Dance.....all in the Georgia Dome.....it's gonna be awesome! :)  Still working out details with a couple of friends there......if you're in the area, do stop by! I'll prolly be mighty busy with a big ole video camera, but I'd love to see you if you're an awesome-person and not a creeper :)

my kaleidoscope life

Before class I write notes...to-do list for the day ahead, I think it helps me stay organized even if I never look at it again. 

today:

-call Amy Hunter  [community access TV station...about internship]

-biology HW 

-robotics DVD....script....

-May scrimmage?

-chicken feed

-scouting data: the plan

-camera!!

-Rise Against

"mathematically viable"! 

On the next page of my notebook there's an illegible first page or so of a short story....the first line is supposed to be in italic, but my hand-writing put that out of the question so I used an HTML tag.....hehehe. 

The weather has gotten a lot warmer today.....all last night I was chilled.....did the Garrison Keillor thing. '.....you get into bed and shiver in your little trench...it takes hours but inch by inch you finally get the whole bed warmed up and then....THE ALARM CLOCK GOES OFF'

Yes. Mmph.   Despite that, I had an insane amount of energy most of the day.....felt ready to fight somebody. Not angry, just a load of adrenaline....went for a walk/run when I came back from school. Geeked out and spent a lot of time on the big robotics forum......way too long in fact. Then I was absolutely thrilled to find that I was in fact still perfectly on schedule with biology, which surprised me because of all the stuff I've been doing. 'You know you're a geek when procrastination doesn't affect your grades.'  hehehehe 

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. 

As if things could get any more epic.....

Do me a favor and check out this link! :) 

Remember the film festival that I submitted my film to? Well this morning my Facebook homepage (I'm a fan of the film fest) sported a photo from Road to Freedom and an excerpt from the film festival blog. My film is one of the two local Young Filmmakers featured. 

!!!!!!SQUEEEEEE!!!!   I literally danced up and down for about ten minutes.  :) :)

most epic times :)

Facebook updates give a summary of the week:

March 1: Bethany is 'drilling holes in the robot to make sure it's not overweight'....i.e., shaving about 40 seconds off of the Chairman's Award video. Good times.

March 2:And now we hit "Render" and let 'er chug away all night! :) Ah the life of the video-editor.....

March 3:Tomorrow: Portland!! Three days of peace, love and robotics! :P [and hard work and really late nights]

March 4:Bethany is in a hotel room in Portland

March 5:YES YES YES WHOOO WHOO WHOO!!! This may rank as the best day of my life. No matter how we do tomorrow, today was WIN all the way.

March 6, 6:23 AM: Four hours of sleep, I'm twitching slightly. Add caffeine: today is going to be awesome.

March 6, 10 PM: Best weekend EVER!!!!! :) I am hoarse from screaming, I got four hours of sleep last night, didn't eat for 24 hours, and have run up and down thousands of stairs. Our team got into the finals which was really all I wanted. And we got the Xerox Creativity Award, for the third time...this is the first time any of our team members have gotten an award. GOOD TIMES.




On Saturday I wrote the following during a hiatus in the goings-on: (caffeine, adrenaline and lack of sleep will excuse all questions)

Writing this on Saturday, before the finals at the Autodesk Oregon regional. I want to capture the excitement right now, because regardless of how we do in the finals, we have had an EPIC season.

Thursday, after an early morning drive to Portland, we competed in the practice matches. Thursday's competition is really just practice and I have never seen such a slow start to the weekend; it was rare that we had a full 6-robot field, there were low scores and stalled robots. We did only so-so. I got a handle on the scouting scene: Wednesday night I had been up til midnight packing and getting scouting materials ready to go. Armed with laptop, spreadsheets and clipboards, I and my team advanced to the stands.....spent pretty much the whole day there, watching matches and taking notes. I kept commenting on the lack-lustre performance of most of the robots to my scouting buddy (new to the team) Hannah, and explaining the energy would be exponentially higher Friday.

Whoever not on the field was in the stands scouting (or being told to by me, hehe). We made friends with a few people from other teams: I do so appreciate the camaraderie and sportsmanship at robotics: everybody cheers for everybody, there is good-will and helpfulness all over, chiefly because you know that in one match you will be playing against a team you'll be buddied up with two matches later. Gracious Professionalism is the watchword of the day.

half hour later: Holy cow we just one our first match!!!! WOOT

hour later: we won once and lost once, and are waiting for our next tie breaker. one of the teams has called a timeout, and there is a huge mosh pit going on....YYY EMM CEE AYY! woot! :)
Gotta love the nerds and geeks dancing and rocking out!

Techno, rock, dance. ADRENALINE. 


Anyways, Thursday after the matches we had to stick around for a few hours until the pits closed, working on the robot. All our engineer-types were doing that,whilst our scouts curled up in the corner of the 10'x10' pit and tried to catch forty winks (trenchcoats make marvelous pillows).

After getting back to the hotel we played the DVD that I had made for Chairman's Award. it was much approved, but the playback volume on my laptop was far too quiet.....this involved a lot of panicked talk of speakers, and I took a look at the rendered .avi file and raised the volume. The problem was solved finally by swtching to a different media player.....the standard Mac dvd player was not giving enough volume....VLC is far superior.....VLC is the best media player EVER....it's just about the only thing that will play AVCHD files (which was the format our new camera recorded in, to my initial alarm.)

Got into bed that night, late: "This is the best part of the whole day!" as I lay there groaning for a minute. 

Friday we did even better. Won most of our matches. During autonomous we were just about the only team to be able to score. Other tems were coming around groveling to us, although I only heard this by word of mouth because I spent the entire day in the stands, inputing data and team scores into the laptop. There was a lot of what we could call light banter around us. "I do not want to play patty-cake with the cement!"

At the end of the day we ranked about number 18 out of 61 teams....not bad at all. At the end of the day were the first round of awards: creativity in design, team spirit, etc. We were not expecting to get anything....mass hysteria when Team 956 was announced as the winner of the Xerox Creativity in Design Award. (Ironic, don;t you think, considering that a xerox used be a term for a photocopy?)

Last night we came out of there absolutely insane (or at least I was....maybe the coffee had something to do with it...) Mass euphoria pretty much.... Went to dinner (around 8 pm)


The first year I was marginally involved in robotics was 2006. My dad, as mentor, went along when our team went to the Sacramento regional...in fact the whole family. There was one interesting incident on the way....we were supposed to pack the control board (which is really, really important). We got about an hour on the road when "OH DEAR where is the control board?" We went back for it, very very glad we hadn't gotten to, say, Corning (California folks know Corning....we know and loathe it...hehe)
Our team did extremely well...placed 4th in fact (as a side note, another Oregon team took first place which made us happy). I sort of got hooked on robotics that year.....although the next year I wasn't involved. We won the Xerox Creativity Award that year....this year was the first time since then that we've won any awards.


In fact this feels exactly like 2006....from the really strong team, to the award, to the festive goings-on at dinner last night. Our team captain was building with sugar packets, and then there was what one of our mentors termed an "ice-breaker' when foresaid mentor managed to spill a lemonade over the table, and mostly over myself. the subsequent mopping-up process involved the whole team and loads of paper towels, and ice cubes slithering around under the table.

We got back to the hotel about 9, and met another team in the lobby and talked with them for a while, and firmed up potential alliance partners for the finals. Got into our team meeting around 10:30. By that time I was more or less exhausted and not inclined to view favorably the digressions....was nevertheless amused when one of our mentors did an impression our robot's jerky steering....then one of the other team members said, "I though that was the autonomous!" and we dissolved into laughter. I think possibly the quote of the evening was one of our Korean echange students, when we were discussing the intricacies of the scoring of the matches. As we argued over whether it was better to completely cream one's opponent or have a close game: "I think robotics is weird!"

The team cleared out around 11:30 and Sarah (our team captain and lead driver) and I holed up for some epic strategizing. I kept busy with the computer, entering scores, updating data, summarizing the stats on each team. Got done with that around 1 AM....the other two girls in our room had dozed off long ago. Despite exhaustion I was unable to get to sleep...around 2 I heard what sounded like a construction zone outside our window although it was probably just a truck backing up...good times.
I then went on to wake up at 6 AM.....do the math...I got less than 4 hours of sleep. Went staright to work on the spreadsheets again...coffee.....no breakfast....got to the competition early and started promoting our team. Then spent the morning in the stands.....ooogh...no food...I had too much adrenaline and not enough sleep combined to steal my appetite. At noon came the most stressful part of the the whole competition (for me)....giving Sarah the list of the teams we wanted as alliance partners in the finals.

We wound up not being able to choose teams, but one of the higher ranked teams selected us and we played in the semi-finals after lunch. Just the fact that we were able to play in finals was epic. We got eliminated after a few rounds but I am currently quite relaxed, don't have to worry about whether we are going to win or lose our next match.


Later still: Well that was epic! The final (or so we thought) round had a huge score on one side, and very low for the other alliance....it then developed that the winning team had had a penalty and was disqualified from that match.....hence a rematch.

Sunday night update: A local team wound up being on the winning alliance which is happy-making. We packed up after awards, tear-down in the pit, final farewells and then twas off. My dad drove Hannah and me home...he was dealing with some paperwork...got to the car and the battery was dead. We weren't parked close to the competition, no robotics people in sight. Amazingly we immediately found a helpful passerby to jump-start the car and we got off around 6:45 that night. Stopped at a health food store for refreshment and pursued our merry way home, amidst reminiscences over our epic 2010 robotics season.


Really I think this has been the most epic few days EVER for one reason and another. Now I am home, not much more excitement from here on out....well of course next weekend IS the DaVinci Film Festival, where my film Road to Freedom is being shown and judged, so who knows :)

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

Performance Week!

Wellwellwell it's been a while!  

I'm not dead yet.... :D

College Algebra/trig has been going well....so far it's just been 'review'  :P   But it's a good class...very small actually. The teacher is INSANE but very awesome :) and I've got a whole page of quotes from algebra...some from students but mostly Ms. Kimes  :)  It tells you something that she's got a little note on her filing cabinet: 'C___ High School,  ___ Kimes   Evil Cackle'   :D

Rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet are also going...well...ish. INTENSE.  Things got fast and furious about Tuesday of last week, with long rehearsals and lack of sleep.   Wednesday night I came home from a late rehearsal, did math, and around 10 PM I came to the realization that 'Oh crud we really should have competed for the Woodie Flowers award.'  (Robotics stuff: in honor of one of FIRST's founders, Woodie Flowers, it celebrates the mentor [robotics coach-type] who best embodies the spirit of FIRST.)  Well as usual our whole team was too busy building the robot to write an essay, and nobody actually thought of it except ME the DAY BEFORE the essay was due.   And of course I was finishing up Chairman's Award essay and stuff. 

One of our mentors has worked harder than anyone for the past 8 years or so, the team wouldn't exist without him.   Nobody from our team has ever been nominated for WF. I decided that if he can give hours of time, work practically a second job (that's what robotics is :P ) I can stay up and write an essay....

Thankfully there was a word limit, so it only took me about two hours. Writing an essay at midnight is a really exhilarating experience, as was getting up for school next day, Thursday. Rehearsal as usual.

There was a happy moment when I was curled up on the floor backstage trying to catch 40 winks when somebody shouted onstage, and I panicked, thinking it might be me needed, and sat up and banged my head on this pile of heavy metal thingees. Promptly cracked up. Later I managed to stand up directly under another hard boxy thing....fun times :)

 Friday our rehearsal started as usual at 3:30 in the afternoon. Cue-to-cue: the tech people are working on lighting. Actors say a line, stop. Wait. Wait some more. Skip to the end of the scene and wait some more.  Took hours to get through the first act. We were there til 11 Pm.   

It was also the first time run crew (shlepping sets and props and furniture) was actually working with servants (moving more shtuffs for scenes). 

As a Capulet servant, I (with 4-ish other servants) move these four potted trees on and offstage a LOT. Like after every third scene. We only started doing this in the past few days. Oh, and we're still acting in a couple scenes.  

Those confounded trees haunt my every waking thought. Before Friday's rehearsal I had been on top of things, and printed out a list of every scene and what had to be moved on stage. (We are now on the third revision of this important list.)

Run crew and fellow servants love me. There are a total of three people on run crew which is NOT enough. It got really exciting when the four trees blossomed to six, spread amongst us four servants (has to be servants because it's in the scene). 

And there's this miserable bench that I and another girl have to get on and offstage. There was one time when she wasn't there and I raced out onstage to grab it, to cheers from the techies in the audience....a great moment :) 

There was an issue getting home, so I got to hang round the theatre later than almost anybody else. My dad was working late on the robot and did not get home til 1:30 that morning. 

I dreamed all night about rehearsal, and those bloody trees! XD

Saturday proved even more interesting, with a second revision of the master-list, which has made run crew adore me :P   

 This time it was my turn to miss my cue with that blasted bench. Twice. The first time because I thought I had more time than I did, and was marshalling the troops for the next tree-moving bit. ARGH. Then I was all primed to make sure I didn't miss the next bench-scene, and took a SECOND to try and find tree-people, and BAM missed the entrance. Apologies all round, franticness. 

After about 1 pm I rushed cross-town to robotics scrimmage; big pre-competition thingee before the robot is boxed up Tuesday night. We did pretty well, except for a tip-over which resulted in something coming loose, and also the treads came off one wheel....thank goodness for epoxy! 

Stayed there til 7 when my mom came and rescued me from the deadly-dullness of standing-around-not-being-able-to-help-much (as was most of the team, it was just programming issues at that point.) 

My dad was really suffering, he couldn't help much either and was holed up trying not to fall asleep....commented that it was almost like being stuck in an airport at 1 AM.   He got home pretty early thankfully: 9:30. 

I went to bed at 8:30 and got about 12 hours of sleep...off to rehearsal at 1 this afternoon to find it had been cancelled :( I was really wanting to run through again with crew, those trees....Director was beyond enthused about my scene list and general preparedness, commented on my responsible-ness =D  which made me happy. 

and so we embark on the next project

Well well well....It's been busy!   

The four-day weekend proved only somewhat relaxing, but very fun.....Thursday and Friday was mostly taken up with sleeping and rehearsals/robotics. Saturday was a grueling 10-hour day at robotics.....most of the crew peeled off by 5 PM or so but one mentor and one other student and of course my dad and me stayed til after 7  O_o

After that it was off to a sleepover with my best buddy :) which was oodles of fun...we watched the second Star Wars film....stayed awake way too long chatting :)   Off to church next morning....then home where I proceeded to crash, and help parents clear branches and such over at grandparents' property......then to folk dance last night....good times :)

Today was the first day of the new semestre....you'll notice I spell it the British way....I just have one math class at CHS but it looks like a beast.....there were reviews from past students handed round, advice for us....and suffice it to say that the homework will be insane.......we also learned that the class (College Algebra) is one of the hardest math classes at school....yowps.  

This is going to be SO fun.   hehehehehehehe

Look for me tomorrow and you'll find me an insane gal.....heheheh. Rehearsals also go well. 

ADRENALINE

Just a quick and over-capitalized note from Bethie-the-Insane! :D

Today got back our math tests from last Friday (finals week....fun times). We graded them in class, as well as turning in our calculator project (have I actually not posted on that? The assignment was to use a graphing calculator to draw a picture of a cartoon character, using equations.....fun but lotsa work).   

Me calc proj. (Charlie Brown :)  turned out well.....glad to be done. AND the math test was AWESOME!!!!!!     I thought I did rather poorly on it.....but NO.........

WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!! 

COLLEGE ALGEBRA, HERE I COME!!!!!!

Came out of class and could not stop smiling XD  

Oh, and rehearsals are AWESOME :)  Three weeks til the show, yowp!   Tried on half of one of my two costumes yesterday, so puurtyy!  hehehehe    Blue tapestry-sort bodice. All the costumes are really awesome. It's so fun to be part of a huge production like this!!!!  We had a hysterically funny and awesome rehearsal yesterday, people running around with costumes, we've got a set onstage, balcony etc. and during the balcony scene bit they've got Romeo climbing part way up to talk to Juliet, and it was a really long scene.......the people watching from the wings were treated to the sight of the guy playing Capulet coming quietly up onstage with a long pole used in a later scene.....with Directorial approval, he later said.....well Romeo did not respond well to being poked whilst ten feet above the stage.........he just escaped falling off laughing......while the rest of the cast went into hysterics, more or less.....good times XD  

and with this, dear friends, I leave you......off to rehearsal! :P

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....

Lexan, hay, rehearsals, oh and let's not forget Gaelic Storm!

Recent exploits include drilling through a 1/4 " steel plate, dealing in nuts and bolts, cutting Lexan on a saw and getting Lexan dust all in my hair and clothes (Lexan is really tough clear plastic/polycarbonate.....we LOVE Lexan! :P) , and being very possibly the most energetic person at folk dance the other night......two hours of dancing and by the end I was still bouncing with adrenaline.....throwing jumps and hops in where there were not supposed to be jumps and hops....at the very end the teacher put on the music for a really fast Israeli dance and WHAM came another adrenaline rush......about half a  dozen of us teens who had performed it last year went off doing it......good times :D

But of course I spent all day Saturday at robotics, and also Monday: when other people enjoyed their three-day weekend, I had a one-day weekend......declared Monday night after getting home from an 8-hour robotics day, "Time for a weekend!"

Came home and had to deal with hay for the goats, this involved a lot of hay getting down my back. One of the goats had got out in the day while we were away, and mum and neighbor heroically dealt with the crisis. 

Rehearsal today: I am frantically trying to balance robotics with theatre. I desperately want to be in the play, but the rehearsal dates are lining up poorly with the final few weeks of robotics.... :(  

Then we have a baby chick out in the henhouse, I was lax about egg-collection and the hens got broody. We will shortly be overflowing with baby chickens and I'll be trying to palm them off on people. 

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

Perhaps pedantic

 A quick note from the frozen North! Except it's not frozen.....we've had rather warm weather. Warm and very, very damp. 


My weekend proved harassing: lots and lots of math. Saturday afternoon I went to the second performance of Mary Poppins.....came home and did about 6 hours of math. Went to bed around 11 PM (late for me) but could not get to sleep: at 1 AM I decided that I was hungry and a carrot, some goat cheese on bread, and a cup of hot cocoa would be just the thing. And of course I had to check Facebook while I was up, went back to bed and set my alarm for 6:30 next morning, so as to get the math out of the way early.  On less than 6 hours of sleep I continued through the day, and by evening was slightly high from lack of sleep, and inclined to become enthused at the smallest provocation. In this mood I attended the last (for that weekend) performance of Mary Poppins. 

The show was fabulous, by far the best of the three that I saw. By the first scene I could tell it was going to be a good show, the energy was high, the audience was awesome. I remained positively bouncing with excitement the whole time and started a standing ovation at the end :D 

One of our little errands earlier in the day had been to go to Staples and buy a flash drive, to replace the one which went missing before Christmas. That was a lengthy process and I am now the embarrassed owner of a PINK 4GB flash drive. There was an interesting sequence of events that led to our getting it much cheaper than the identical black one. At least it is a dark, metallic pink, not bubble-gum. Ergh.   It needs a name now.....I think it may be a he.....

Another little highlight of my weekend involved chasing an escaped goat through the mud while Siamsa (Lord of the Dance soundtrack) played in the background.   I had neglected to fasten the gate while getting hay for the goats and of course Fiona made off across the yard at top speed. I slid in the chicken-yard mud and almost miraculously avoided getting any mud on my trenchcoat. Twas truly epic. 

I am feeling more nerdy every day. How embarrassing to decide, in what may be my last year of high school, that I actually sort of like math and might want to be a computer programmer! A little late, don't you think, considering that I barely knew how to use a computer at age 11? 

I haunt the counseling center at CHS, hunting down interviews with officials, trying to iron out the National Merit situation. Note: if you ever qualify for National Merit, do NOT pass it up for any reason! You will regret it and spend your life hanging around sketchy hallways attempting to schedule alternative means: like retaking the SAT.....      

And it would be very handy if I could decide whether I want to be a writer, theatre geek, or computer programmer, or event planner. 

Math was AWESOME today, the teacher is splendid, the energy is high. Conic sections! woot! 

AND my programming book finally came in at the library :D 

A quick note: a beloved follower commented on my use of brackets.....hehe, long story! It began with my messy handwriting and the fact that parentheses look like a C, sort of. Hence I made the switch to brackets and it carried over into typing [as you can observe in this painfully obvious example]. 

I promise, sometime soon we will have a Trenchcoats United award......   >:)   Meanwhile, the name is Copyright!! :P

Did YOU wear your trenchcoat with pride today?

Bethany wants to say goodbye

I feel like I'm making the preparations for my own funeral: putting all my earthly affairs in order, saying a last goodbye to friends, explaining that I will be in a better (?) world. Explanation: school starts Monday. 

I got behind on my math yesterday, so today I have 6 lessons to work through. Please cue loud music and adrenaline. 

Last night I went to the opening night performance of the local AAA Theatre's show Mary Poppins.  Very impressive and a fun show. Am going to the matinée show today, and the evening performance tomorrow. 

This week I have a number of things: goat 4-H club, and on Saturday is the robotics kick-off, at an unholy hour of the morning. And oh yes, I was just reminded that there is still that blasted biology quarterly test to study for and take. :(   Hopefully rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet will start also. 

I shan't be able to resist posting from time to time, because my blog is my journal more or less, but it probably won't be often. So farewell folks, it's been good knowing you  :)

*exits stage left humming 'Chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim cheroo'* 

end-of-year Tag

Here's an original tag by the author of "Oh crud!", "The Whoops Factor revisited", "One, Two, Go!...and there's just one thing", " 'Hysterical Laughter' is my favorite quote", "CRUNCH is the new normal", "For the Win!", "Nom-nom", and other sundry works of genius: in short, none other than Bethie.

Please feel creepily compelled to steal this tag.
Remember: Bethany knows where you live and she may hunt you down, and POUNCE....and then ship you off on a freight train to Detroit.....

So!

Funniest moment: good grief, one can't really choose, can one? Likely something to do with the movie:

- "Ahem! Audience, quiet please, we are about to make a major mistake!" (Joseph)

-"Dallan, stop talking on two! That's Bethany's job!" (Sophie)

-Adriel's enthused gestures in the background: "Sorry! I was explaining something!"

-Phillip trying to whip around in the climbing-out-the-window scene, when Eva enters, and catching his pistol on the table while his vest pops up in the back :D

-The Key Episode (hehe Eva! :P )

-of course, the oar snapping off when Eva tries to push off from shore, while the crew struggles helplessly in the blackberry vines

-"You're trying to make it look like I actually LIKE her or something!" (Joseph)


then there were other priceless moments at rehearsals for Top Hats:

-Eva's impersonation of the 'dozen bored dancers', combined with my mention of "we'll cut out the 'charming little pieces' line"

-Dallan's infatuated grin, chin on hands, whilst gazing at me across the table on stage


Other funnies:
"Zesty mint flavored fake blood! And Tic-Tacs..."
"Here's an opportunity to sound lame, let's not take it"
"OH CRUD"
"There is rain puddled right under my sleeping bag." "Well you'll have a water-bed!"
"Oh right, I'm supposed to act shot now!"

classic Epic Times: surreptitiously handing off stage weapons before Top Hats, the Hazelnut Incident, 46 hours without sleep during NaNo whilst blasting music successively louder, swimming in a mountain lake, filming a scene after midnight, seeing a bison walk down the road towards us, trying to prop up the tent for the movie with a twig, white-balancing with the back side of a sheet of music for the score for the film using the light from a candle!


FIRST: program successfully written and compiled, mp3 player, Macintosh (LOVELOVELOVE), film shown at film fest, feature-film accepted to film fest, time to read Hitchhiker's, play directed, all-nighter, theatre audition, time at public school, time liking math, BIG birthday party, physical manifestation of anger on unrelated inanimate object, novel almost completed, friend's novel published, song to mean something personally, standing ovation, tip for a waiter out of own pocket, really nice pocket knife, time in semi-finals at robotics regionals

Most nostalgic songs: the entire soundtrack for Road to Freedom!

Best group hug: at the end of my birthday party, or maybe after filming the ball scene.

Favorite memory: TOO MANY!! birthday party, premiere of Road to Freedom, cast interviews day, RenFaire, Halloween weekend.....

Major Hits: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Eddie (laptop), raw tofu, trenchcoat, Gaelic Storm, folk dance, Montana, C++, goats, robotics, t-shirts, ivy, blogging.

2009 in review!

Here goes for the epic review of the year 2009!

January--April: I, with a mostly-highschool-aged cast and crew from C-town filmed the epic movie 'Road to Freedom'. I wrote the script in the fall of '08, but we wound up adjusting lines down to the last shoot :P
Historical costumes (Revolutionary War-era), an elaborate plot, lots of sets, and other such things made this truly a 'life-work', hehe.

Huge amounts of good times, and memories of unrestrained hoots of laughter as actors tried to remember their lines, the oar snapped, the lamp went up in a blaze of light, the camera was forgotten, the candles burned down over many-hour shoots, people forwent important engagements in order to get to the shoot, the hapless boom-rigger let the microphone droop into the actor's face, the long-suffering actors 'died' again and again as the Director grew ever pickier, the actress tried to remember which costume she ought to be wearing, the cameraman climbed on top of a podium with the $1000 camera to get the best shot, the dancers rehearsed their dances (to their own humming, sometimes), people dragged themselves to shoots whilst on the verge of death, the cast and crew battled rain, cold and hail (and irritating sun) to film the outdoor shoots, actors spilt root-beer over their costumes ("I thought it was EMPTY!"), and other pleasing little adventures occurred.

February: half the cast including myself came down with flu, we filmed the first major scenes of the movie, I 'pulled a Bethie' and added in a 24-hour fast-film competition with the local film festival, and participated in robotics competition (über-geek-out).

May 1st: we filmed the ball scene for the movie, which involved about a dozen extras in addition to most of the cast and several crew members. As the Director (me) was one of the dancers, another facet of interest was added to the few days of craziness in preparation for the epic scene.
The scene took seven or eight hours to film, although most of the cast peeled off earlier than that: the insane crew of about six people gave a standing ovation to each of the others as they left......Without aid of caffeine, in fact on the effects of adrenaline only, I managed to bounce with energy throughout the whole grueling shoot. We wound up with a group hug and (at least on my part) a profound sense of 'freedom!" hehe.

I finished up editing in May, and on June 6th about a hundred people were treated to the world premiere of Road to Freedom.

Middle of June: I became part of the blogging world!!

At the end of June we went off on our road trip to Montana and Wyoming, coinciding with my 'style change' to Western.
Various incidents on this trip have been posted about at length here on the blog, for your reading enjoyment :)


Of course we have a few ongoing things, like folk dance, 4-H, and the continuing Education Saga. In September (two days after school starting), I registered at the local high school for a few classes, to the eternal surprise of the die-hard homeschooling part of me.

At the end of the summer I embarked on yet another theatre business project: 'Two Top Hats and a Spy', as written by my compatriots. Rehearsals for that took all the fall through Nov. 21st. It was my first time being director of a theatre production rather than a film, hehe. We produced a very nice show positively imbued with 1930s atmosphere.

In November I was crazy enough to participate in National Novel Writing Month: 50,000 words in 30 days. Note: do not attempt to do NaNo in the same month that you have a show! It tends towards insanity. I got within about a thousand words of my goal: my stats page showed an exponential growth in the last few days of the month: I pulled a few all nighters (46 hours without sleep, I do believe). A snapshot of me at the end of November would feature me tapping madly at laptop as 1930s French swing music played on iTunes (a holdover from Top Hats).

In December, with my life returning to sanity, I decided to go for the gusto and add in another class at CHS: Advanced Algebra, in hopes of being able to transfer to College Algebra by the next semester. The catch being that I had missed 3/4 of the semester-long class! This resulted in some classic geek-out moments, like a few days when I was trying to work through the math book (to catch up) at the rate of four hours a day.

I also auditioned for Romeo and Juliet at C, and got a part as a dancer in the ball scene. Plans to participate in robotics in between rehearsals are still looming large for the new year.

Somewhere in the fall I decided that computer programming would be a good thing to acquire, and promptly got a few imposing volumes out from the library. Have not gotten very far with that, but programming remains one of my favorite hobbies.

The second style change came (subtly) in the fall, and Bethie now sports a rather darker image with overtones of extreme geekery. Trench coat and lots of important stuff in pockets.



Ongoing projects include trying ever harder to make people laugh, attempting to become still more geeky, mostly failing to rendezvous with buddies, and taking pride in keeping everyone guessing about what is actually going on in my head.