BEDSY Day 109 (Feb. 29th, 2012)

It's Leap Day, guys! Let's celebrate.


Okay, enough celebrating.

Still got that song stuck in my head.

Gonna go to bed real soon here. No homework tonight, thank goodness...

Last rehearsal tomorrow before opening night for "Charlie Brown".

Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits...:BEDSY Day 108 (Tues. Feb 28th, 2012)

All the songs from the musical ("You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown") are running through my head...including one where the kids sing about having to write a book report on Peter Rabbit.

So many songs...so little time, seeing as we open on Friday night. At least the songs are fun, though.

It's been a long week so far, with rehearsals going until almost seven every night. I'm tired, so I'm going to go read in bed for a little bit. And by read, I mean study for a government test I have tomorrow.

A book report on Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit...

BEDSY Day 107 (Mon. Feb. 27th, 2012)

Almost went to bed without posting. Oops....

It's been a long night, guys. Play rehearsal (I'm in the orchestra) ended at 7:20, but my mom and I still had to go help my grandma with something before we could go home (and eat dinner). And we blow a tire on the way over there...

Needless to say, we didn't make it over to my grandma's house. Instead, we sat on the side of the highway (in the cold) for an hour and a half, waiting for the tow truck. Luckily, we had a spare, so the tow guy could fix it up right there.

He finishes up and my mom tries to start the car...and our battery crapped out on us. Turns out we actually weren't supposed to keep our car running while we waited (even though the lady from the insurance company told us to). So we had to get jumped by the guy (who was super nice about it).

Then we went and got dinner...

Half-hour later and I'm in my jammies, ready for bed.

And the Oscar (Doesn't) Go to...: BEDSY Day 106, plus the weekend (Sun. Feb. 26th, 2012)

Yep. I'm bloggin' and watching the Oscars.

And this is yet another situation where I realize that I need to get out and see more movies. Haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominations. I've probably seen no more than 5 of the nominated movies in any category. Kind of a disappointment, I know. Considering how many excellent movies there are in the world. So that also means I'm not particularly happy or disappointed when a movie/actor/director wins or doesn't win.

That having been said, though, Hugo is cleaning house so far. I think they're up to five awards. And we haven't even gotten to the BIG awards yet.

And I still haven't even seen Hugo yet. I feel like I should be happy for this movie, but I'm not.

Mostly I'm just peeved that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 wasn't nominated for more things other than the visual awards (note: it lost two of it's three so far scratch that. Just lost it's third category. Eight films and not a single damn Oscar...Balls...). Is anyone else out there with me? Director? Best Supporting Actor for Alan Rickman? Best Picture? Hello?

Although my one disappointment was Deathly Hallows not winning Best Makeup. Seriously?! It's wasn't the, you know, battle scars or the goblins or the werewolf or even the makeup for the 19 years later epilogue?! They got beat out by someone who made Meryl Streep look older. (Not that I'm ratting on Meryl Streep. She's fabulous and deserves everything she wins.)

About the Best Picture thing...I'm writing this about 15 minutes before they announce the movie, so maybe I'll change this after they announce it...I'm watching a little montage about what movies mean to people...that there's this universal search for the movie that truly connects to people, that helps them realize something about their life, that touches them in some way, that truly, deeply connects them to the world (whether or not that world truly exists).

The Harry Potter film series (I refrain from calling it a franchise; it's so much more than that) has touched millions of people, children of all ages, around the world over the past ten years. Kids have grown up with the actors on the screen, beginning in their early school days, and ending when they are about to take off into the real world and make their own adventures. It's helped kids to believe in all types of magic, even ones that don't have to exist in a castle in the north of Great Britain. And if that doesn't count as a reason to give it a Best Picture nomination, I don't know what does.

(Ope. Jean Dujardin just won Best Actor for The Artist. I actually am really pleased with this one.)

That having been said. There are many of extraordinary films, actors, directors, composers, costume designers, editors that haven't been recognized on this type of scale. But they have still touched people beyond what they believed a moving picture on a television or cinema screen ever could.

(Aaaaaaaaand Meryl Streep just won for Best Actress. This woman needs more Oscars.)

(Oh, God, The Artist just won Best Picture. I'm really happy about this. Only film made entirely in Los Angeles. First all black and white film to win since the twenties. Oh, wow....)

Anyway...I'm glad about the way these films were made; they were lovingly crafted, adapted in the best way possible for the amount of content with which the producers, directors, and writers had to work. You could tell that the actors and artists and technicians really loved working on these films. And that makes a huge difference in the final product.

They still bring about great memories of waiting months on end for the next trailer or the release of the actual movie. The camaraderie of watching the final film together and having an entire theater crying uncontrollably at any and all times throughout the entire movie. And still knowing that you had fun for ten years of your life, escaping into this fantasy world for a few hours.

That's what really matters.

BEDSY Day 105 (Feb. 23rd, 2012)

Thank goodness tomorrow's Friday.

It's been a long week, guys.

BEDSY Day 104 (Wed. Feb. 22nd, 2012)

The best thing that has happened to me, so far, to day is the discovery of saltine crackers in my house.

Other than that, it's been kind of an awful day.

I think I'm one of those people who's ubber sensitive to barometric pressure changes in the atmosphere. So much so that it can sometimes cause migraines. Really bad migraines...So this big storm rolled in mid-afternoon yesterday and raged on until late this morning. As did my migraine. And now it's sunny outside. I hate the world.

Sometimes, Nature can be such a bitch.

And then I caught some sort of stomach bug that made me want to barf whenever I consumed food. Hence the rejoicing that occurred upon the discovery of the aforementioned saltine crackers.

On the other hand, it gives me plenty of time to work on the ol' Hawaii blog. Expect that either today or tomorrow.

BEDSY Day 103 (Fri. Feb. 17th, 2012)

FOUR DAY WEEKEND!!! WOO-HOO!!!

Seriously, guys. I'm excited about this.

Sunday, my mom and I are going to visit the college I'm going to in the fall. That's also an exciting thing.

If you're wondering why I'm choosing to post on Friday this week, it's because I'm thinking of posting something big (something I've been promising to post for a long time) later this weekend. So I needed to end my regular blog week on Friday instead of Sunday.

Today's been pretty relaxed. We had a half-day at school so I got out at 10:25. Since I got home, I've been napping/watching movies. Probably will do some school work later. And watch this week's episode of Portlandia with my mom.

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Time Flies...:BEDSY Day 102 (Thurs. Feb 16th, 2012)

Tonight is a reading night. We're reading Pride and Prejudice in English right now, but I'm behind because I was gone for a day last week. So...I haven't exactly been reading my book. I'm a terrible student...

Not really. This week has been kicking everyone's butt for some reason. We're still about three weeks away from finals, but...we seniors are staring to get a bit panicky. Our senior presentations are due really soon ( I don't know how soon), but we haven't really been that  for them in any sort of way. So...That'll be intersting.

Of course, I don't think the fact that I haven't had a "normal" week of school since before Christmas isn't exaclt helping this whole situation, either. Time is going by way too quickly.

Didn't think I'dever say that my senior year.

It's been kind of true, though. I think about Hawaii and it seems like we just came back, but we came back almost two months ago. TWO WHOLE MONTHS! And it's only about a month until Spring Break...and then it's GRADUATION.

Guys, I'm not ready for this yet...

Sleepless Near Seattle:BEDSY Day 101 (Wed. Feb. 15th, 2012)

This blogger is deciding to go to bed early tonight. And, by early, I mean 10:30. I know, not that early, but it's earlier than I've been going to bed on weeknights for the past month. And I'm starting to feel it.

I need to develop a better sleep schedule. I stay up really late doing whatever, and then I have to get up early, and it just doesn't bode well for me. I've been exhausted all day, and I'm nearly burnt out by five o'clock. It gets really bad on nights like tonight when I also have to go back to school for a basketball game.

So, I'm making a promise. I shall be in bed no later than eleven p.m. on weeknights. That having been said, that means I have to post these blogs some time before then. It saves me from having to do a quick post at 11:30. Sound good? Okay.

As I mentioned earlier, we had a basketball game tonight. Girls. First round of the state play-offs. We won. We were actually lucky that our game was at home, so we didn't have to travel. Unless we make it really far in the championship, we probably won't travel, so this was most likely our one and only post-season game. These are more fun, though. The crowd gets rowdier. There's more at stake.

The game was intense, though. We were ahead the entire game by a lot of points, but it was a very dirty game. One of our girls got fouled so many times, I'm beginning to wonder if she broke some kind of record (team/school/league) for how many times she had to take foul shots. I love games like this. Will definitely miss them next year. That and sitting with my friend and making sarcastic comments the entire game. Yep, I'll definitely miss that.

'Night, all!

100 Days of BEDSY (Tues. Feb 14th, 2012)

I think I'd feel more excited about this if it happened on a non-holiday. But the fact that it landed on Valentine's Day is a bit odd.

It was a Valentine's Day (sort of) like any other. One of the office secretaries at school played cheesey Dean Martin music during passing today. It was adorable. There was much distributing of chocolates and roses and teddy bears. A guy friend of mine went around to a bunch of girls who meant a lot to him and gave them all roses. This here girl was a recipient of one of those roses. : )

Also, it was my best friend's 18th birthday today. She had plans to have people come over to her house and eat Chinese food. Alas, due to familial obligations, I wasn't allowed to go. Probably the worst thing about today...


But let's talk about the fact that I've already gone through 100 days of school. Plus the fact that I have less than 80 to go. Yikes. It doesn't seen all that long ago that I started this whole endeavor. I'm also kind of impressed that I've only missed one day in those 100 days (which actually makes me angry, knowing that I probably could have posted that day). I know I still haven't posted my Hawai'i reflections, nor have I talked about the three other books I've finished since the year started, but, hey...I'm only human. I'll get to it eventually. I promise.

Hope you all had an enjoyable Tuesday. See you tomorrow!

Plotting: BEDSY Day 99 (Mon. Feb.13th, 2012)

In which this blogger has been, as the title suggests, plotting tomorrow's event. Bwahaha...

Let's just say it involves colored markers, an instruction manual, and a music video on YouTube. Yup, that's all you're getting.

I always end up doing some serious planning on this night every year....

I suppose I should also mention that one of my best friend's birthday is tomorrow. That may or may not have something to do with the aforementioned plotting.

Gotta go back to the cave and finish my plans...*drums fingers together evilly*

A Modest Proposal :BEDSY Day 98, Plus the Weekend (Sun. Feb. 12th, 2012)

(In which I use a creative writing assignment for my English class as my entry. It's relevant. We're studying satire in English at the moment. I apologize on the quality. The majority of this was written at six this morning.)

It is no secret that today’s youth have a peculiar addiction to all things technological and media-oriented. Twitter, the micro-blogging site where people inform their “followers” of their day-to-day routines. Facebook, where it has become socially acceptable to stalk people to whom you have not spoken since high school. YouTube, the epicenter of “viral” videos of flash mobs performing the Party Rock Shuffle. StumbleUpon, the holy grail of adorable, captioned photos of cats and sleeping babies. However, it has cause a great disturbance in school work, family affairs, and social life. Face it, more adolescents would rather spend their afternoons stalking their exes and favorite celebrities and watching videos of a three-year-old rambling existential nonsense after a visit to the dentist than visiting with relatives or going to the movies with their friends. That is, if they still have friends after spending so much time on the internet. That is why this author proposes changes to the social habits of today’s teens through means of serious intervention by incorporating these strictly online phenomenons into real-life situations.

            Imagine sharing your most mundane thoughts of every waking moment with the entire world. Now imagine millions of people you do not know also know these amusing factoids about your personal life. In order to solve the Twitter addiction, in which teens inform their “followers” of their mental/emotional/relationship statuses, not to mention their location or their absolute loathing of the amount of homework they have, all within 140 characters or less. This is often the case for celebrity personas who share their lives on the internet. People are obsessed with knowing every minute detail of their lives. The solution to the problem is simple. Instead of virtually “following” them, teens will be required to spend one whole day with a celebrity. However, they cannot directly interact with them, just as they would not be able to through the Internet. They could only observe them and their daily routine from a safe distance away. They will be able to comprehend the fact that other people’s lives, no matter how glamorous they may seem over the internet, are just as boring as theirs and not worth the time. Similar tests were conducted at Yale in 2007 with lab rats and hamsters. These two animals were put into the same cage and given a hamster wheel for entertainment. Specialists have claimed over the years that the only reason rats use the wheels is so they can look and feel like the much more socially adept hamsters. However, when placed in the same cage, the rats realized that the hamsters never actually used the wheel anyway; it was all for show. The rats now know how boring the life of a hamster really is, thus giving validation to the Twitter experiment.

The next problem to address is the so-called “Facebook addiction” of the recent generation. Almost as bad as Twitter, but ten times more interactive. People can post pictures of themselves, their friends, their families, play mind-enriching games such as FarmVille, and openly stalk their one-time high school boyfriend. They can also post their “status” of what they are doing at the time (similar to Twitter, but the character limit doesn’t exist). However, due to what is known as the phenomenon of the “Me, too” generation, most of the activities on this site have been characterized as narcissistic or attention-seeking from the individual user. That is why this author proposes a new rule of Facebook, to be implemented immediately. When updating a status, the user must include some positive remark about another user. That way, the site becomes a tool to encourage people instead of tearing them down. Such as an example would be “Had fun today at the beach. Shirley, I like your shoes”. Users feel much better about themselves when they know they increased someone’s self-esteem by mentioning them in a status update. These measures will soon extend beyond the world behind the computer screen and transition into real-life. People will begin to complement one another right and left and think next to nothing about themselves anymore.

Finally, we must tackle the problem of YouTube overload. One can only handle so many videos of sneezing baby pandas and renditions of Rebecca Black’s iconic, award-winning song “Friday”. However, watching these videos has become a regular pastime for teens, taking the place of reading, doing homework, talking with friends on the phone, and even playing video games. People are simply taking greater pleasure in watching someone crash on their bicycle or fall off a trampoline. To reverse this problem, the solution is simple. For every video watched, the viewer must endure a similar, humiliating circumstance to that of the video they watched for the same duration of the video. For example, if they watched a two-minute video of someone pogo-sticking unsuccessfully, the same fate shall be bestowed upon them. The same goes for watching the music video for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies—you have to do the dance—or watching that age-old classic from the Muppets, “Mahna Mahna”. And yes, you must sing the song for the full three minutes. If this poor subject can endure endless views and comments regarding a moment’s poor judgment, the viewer can surely endure something similar in the comfort and privacy of their own home.

Three different sites, three different preventative measures toward social media addiction. Through this, teens will hopefully come to the realization that reality, in fact, is better than the internet.

BEDSY Day 97 (Thurs. Feb. 9th, 2012)

Felt really sick last night, so I stayed home from school, thinking all I needed was a few more hours of sleep than I had been getting the past few weeks.

I slept until one this afternoon. And continued to sleep periodically throughout the day. And I'm still exhausted.

And I still have a but-load of homework to complete. Meh...

At least tomorrow is Friday...

The POTUS and the SOTU: BEDSY Day 96 (Wed. Feb 8th, 2012)

Re-watching President Obama's State of the Union address from a few weeks ago. Have to do this big worksheet and write-up of it. I've got pretty much all of it filled out, except...

I can't figure out which important figure head decided not to show up (that's one of my questions). Got the suit colors of the Speaker of the House and of the Secretary of State, as well as who delivered the Republican response to the speech, and the different proposals Obama made...Just can't figure out who decided to go AWOL that night.

Thank goodness for Google...

Redemption: BEDSY Day 95 (Tues. Feb 7th, 2012)

Remember how I was all depressed about our jazz performance in yesterday's post?

About that.

We had our concert tonight (the shortest concert we will ever have) and we played all the songs we played at the festival.

Except this time there was less suck. Much, much less...Performances overall were much better, much cleaner than those that happened on Friday. We still have a lot of work to do, but still...

At least it's a start.

Humble Pie: BEDSY Day 94 (Mon. Feb 6th, 2012)

Remember how I was all optimistic about our jazz festival in my post yesterday?

About that.

We got our recordings back from the judges and listened to them...four times. No bueno.

One of the few times I glanced around the room (assuming the typical hanging your head in shame stance accompanied with grim and utter defeat), I could see the disappointment etched clearly on my classmates's faces. They knew what was up. They knew we sounded like crap. That's not how we're supposed to sound. Not this group of kids.

I told you guys yesterday that our jazz groups were never our strong suit; they never have been. They've never been bad, but they've never been especially spectacular like some of the other groups we heard on Friday. We've always had tremendous success with our concert and marching bands. We in this 'generation', (for lack of a better word) of students have been very fortunate in not having to experience a truly bad performance, one with too many regrets to count from every single person. Sure, every performance, you may have something you need to work on for the next time, and those precious few performances where you felt you gave your 110% and have no regrets whatsoever.

But you can still have those performances where you just wish you could do the whole thing over again. Looking around, I could see thoughts going through people's heads, behind their eyes, questioning themselves about why they didn't do better as the judges' voices cut through our unintentionally developed egos. We were so accustomed to doing well all the time that the rules we'd come to live by had, for one moment, been taken for granted, and it bit us in the ass.

I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by a group of highly talented musicians. I really am. But talent doesn't always cut it. Putting out a worthwhile product takes focus, ownership, committment, and energy. Not a single one of those things can ever be compromised.

We may not have entirely deserved all of the comments we received. but we sure needed them.

After a few minutes of silence, we'd come to the collective conclusion to do better, as ambiguous as that sounds...though sometimes it's all you need. We discussed ways to improve our performance in the long run.

Apologies were made all around. Everybody had something they needed to work on (even me). No one person is to blame, though. It's a group effort. All the time. One band, one sound.

Books read: 4

All that Jazz: BEDSY Day 93, plus the weekend (Sunday Feb. 5th, 2012)

Got Super Bowl XLVI Post-game show going on in the background. If you didn't watch that...oh, man. What a game. These men (all of them) sure put up a hell of a fight. In the last thirty seconds, Patriots were, literally, five inches away from winning. Twice. Defense was incredible on both teams. One of the best games I've seen. Half-time show was fantastic as well. Madonna still has it. Congratulations, Giants, on the 21-17 win.

In other news...

We went to our one and only jazz festival on Friday, which lasted all day. We did...decently...which is alright, honestly. We aren't a school that focuses solely on jazz. There are plenty of schools that focus entirely on their jazz programs and their concert/marching bands leaves something to be desired. Which is okay. To each his own...

More than anything, the festival was a learning experience, as it should be. Through listening to all these different groups from around the region, we got to hear some good things...and some not-so-good things. Overall, a good, but long, day filled with fantastic jazz music. What a way to start the weekend....

Food Shows: BEDSY Day 92 (Thursday Feb. 2nd, 2012)

One thing I've noticed lately (and by 'lately', I mean, the past eight months or so)...

I watch a lot of cooking shows. And other food shows in general.

But I don't mean the homemaker-y, working class-oriented, diet-seeking shows that profile easy, cheap, gluttonous (but oh, so delicious), and, at times, ethnic foods.

I mean the competitive cooking shows.

Many a night this past summer I stayed up until 2 in the morning watching various episodes of Chopped on Food Network. For those who have never watched it, Chopped brings in four chefs from around the U.S and makes them compete against each other for a $10,000 prize. The catch is that they are given a basket of random (and I mean random) "secret" ingredients before the start of each round, from which the chefs must produce a satisfying course to be reviewed and tasted by a panel of  judges that consists of culinary aristocrats.

This process continues for three rounds (appetizer, entree, dessert), one competitor getting eliminated (or "chopped") if their dish, for whatever reason, is unsatisfactory.

The other catch is that the contestants usually have a half hour or less to produce each dish.

Don't even get me started on Iron Chef: America. Those guys have serious guts...

I don't know why these shows appeal to me so much, seeing as I don't cook at all...Perhaps it's an unconscious way of absorbing culinary knowledge that will, someday, come in handy.

Until then, while I do like the occasional beef stew, I'd rather not have it infused with grape schnapps, Cheez-Its, and Korean chili paste.

BEDSY Day 91 (Wednesday Feb. 1st, 2012)

It's already Frebruary, guys. Where has the time gone...? Graduation is four months from next Wednesday...

Boy basketball game tonight. Just got hoe a little while ago. Now gotta go do the rest of my homework. Got a chemistry test first thing in the morning.