Steamers are sooooooooooo stress-relieving, it's insane

Before I begin with more trivial, of-no-interest tidbits, I just thought I should let the world know that

I'M ON SPRING BREAK!!!!! FOR TWO WEEKS!!

See, this is the great thing about my school. (Aside from everything else I love about it, of course.) We start a hell of a lot earlier than most schools, and sometimes end later, and have longer school days, but we get more breaks in between. And longer spring breaks, thank the divine Parents. I get to party for sixteen days until it's three weeks until Cabaret (what's wrong with THAT picture?!?!?!? *submits to minor spaz attack thinking of how far behind we are on dance numbers*), almost true MN spring, and time for English and Math all over again.

Anywho, anyway, anyhow, anypoo, this past weekend, my first few days of my much deserved break after FINALS (*shudder*), I spent sleeping, going to quartet with only the second violinist and our coach (who just happens to be a cellist), and removing wallpaper. Yes, with steamers, hence this post's title...........I'll let y'all in on a little secret. If you're going to be removing any wallpaper from any room of your home, use steamers. They are a Godsend. And make sure you've got back-up people in case the idiots before you put the paper on wrong and it peels off the wall as easily as that cement-like glue from CD covers. Mine, thankfully, was applied correctly, and therefore we finished not only my room, which is pretty spacious (for those of you who don't know me), but our downstairs bathroom in LESS THAN 24 HOURS. It was amazing. The Pay-Rents were happy, and I was happy I made them do it this break--if we'd done it in the summer like they'd been planning on, we all would have died of heat stroke. (My room is the hottest in the house--that says it all.) And for another secret, taking off that stuff is a wonderful stress/anger-reliever, oh lord. You steam the crap out of it, and it peels off in enormous strips you can rip to shreds, and THEN you take your scraper and scrape the crap out of the rest of the wallboard you just steamed almost clean. Of course, you have to be careful not to actually rip through the plaster or wallboard or whatever you've got, because that would just be inconvenient, but other than that, it's something everyone should do when they're angry at some point. So that was my first weekend of break.

Since then, I've been getting in touch with my retro/vintage side--HAHAHA that was a JOKE for those of you who know me.

(For those readers who do not, I believe my life's purpose is to bring back the bygone eras, specifically the 1860's (Gone With the Wind, anyone???), the 1880's-90's, and the 1940's-60's. Especially the 50's. So really, I'm always in touch with that retro side, because that's practically my ONLY side. In a nutshell, I think the truly good fashions are out the window and far from home. So I guess I'll have to fix that.)

But I did watch Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which is both funny as hell and sobering, and Now and Then, and they together got me in that old-timey-thinking mode that I sometimes get stuck in. So today I wore my jean capris, a red short-sleeved shirt tucked in (don't worry, it would be acceptable to even the harshest fashion police--I do NOT look frumpy), these adorable little red sandals with white polka dots, a blue headscarf to keep in my hair, and my most outrageous red, rhinestoned, cateye sunglasses. And I went to the dentist. HA.

Enjoy life, dahlings. I'll be up north for a few days, so have fun wherever you are! *Muah*

~Josie

Stringwood

Wow, that might possibly be my most boring blog post title yet. Then again, for those of you who haven't heard my numerous stories revolving around my awesome, challenging, somewhat dorky, and altogether SWEET string quartet camp............well, "Stringwood" is a pretty interesting word for a post title.

Lately, I figured I should write a bit about this camp, since I think about it at least weekly, if not more. Something about the two summers I've gone has really stuck with me, which, considering I never dreamed I'd ever be going to some random two-week summer camp where I play my viola five hours a day, makes me stop and blink for a nice second. I started viola when I was in fifth grade, and originally wanted to play the violin...........HAAAAAAAAHA. I wouldn't trade playing viola for any other instrument........except maybe cello. Here, I'll let y'all in on a funny orch dork thing: every string-player wants to be a cellist. I swear to the heavenly Parents. Just recently I've fallen in love with the sound of the cello. I think it started this past summer, in early June, when I went to Stringwood for the second year in a row. The cellist in my quartet--an all girls quartet, mind you, which got to be veeeeeeerrrrrrrrrry interesting--was super super super amazing, and occasionally we practiced in the same room. Well, she would play the Bach cello suite--you probably know it, it's incredibly famous, not to mention GORGEOUS--and one other piece, and I would literally just stop practice myself to listen to her play. It was the most beautiful thing I've heard in my life, no kidding. It's like..................ah, I don't know, I can't describe it, really....only string-players can fully understand what I'm talking about. But that's okay. Everyone else can just imagine it all. :-)

But anyway.

Stringwood is, in a nutshell, a two-week string quartet camp in the southern part of the state where the only thing on your car's GPS is white space. More specifically, it's where you eat, play your instrument, have free time, practice by yourself, eat, have majorly fun group activites such as rock climbing or looking for wildlife, play some more, eat, maybe play a little more, and then have either free time for two hours till bed OR do the night activities, which are my favorites, like the night hike or the bonfire or just lying on the ground and watching the stars form the constellations. And all that's NOT counting the "field trips" you get when you perform in the towns or get to go to a LIVE RADIO SHOW (thank you, Stringwood '08!) and all that amazing jazz. Or classical. Whatever. (Pardon my lame string jokes--they're just too much fun to pass up.) So there's your introduction to the place I called home for two weeks out of my past two summers; I'll have more on it later. Man, do I have some great memories from SW!!!

By the way, the attached pic is from my first year.........and even stalkers wouldn't be able to depixelify (?) (me likey said word) it enough to see who's who, so yes. :-)

~Josie

Heh heh heh....

So not to be stalling working on my Science notes sheet for my final in 50-odd minutes, but you know what bugs me??? When people put up wrapping paper on other people's lockers for their birthdays and write things like, "Love u 4ever! Happy b-day!" It just looks DUMB. I mean, I can understand writing nice little messages there, but things that no one will care about in a week aren't worth using up Sharpie for. Yearbook messages are another story for me--I start planning what to write seven months in advance, so if you do the same thing you're only as geeky as me...

Wow. That was a relatively short rant on my part. Probably because I'm itching to get back to my Science notes sheet.....Yes, that was said with a certain amount of sarcasm, but in all honesty, this is the one final I'm kind of excited about for several reasons:
1) Our AWESOME teacher uses everyone's name in the exam, and he always makes the problems with people funny.
2) Every letter F is a joke. Which....erm, doesn't really help much, but it'll still be entertaining.
3) The whole thing is multiple choice. It always seems to me that if there are lots of different parts, especially on something like a French test, my brain has to work overtime to switch between all the questions and what I need to do to answer.
So yes. AND I'm über-proud of my notes sheet we can tape to the back of our periodic table, so.....YES. NO. MAYBE.

~Josie

Semper ubi sub ubi

So as I was decompressing from finals studying just now--oooooh, while I'm on that subject, time for a tangent: does anyone ever have it happen where you're going along with something big like these finals, typically for school, and you feel all depressed and oddly off, but TOUT A COUP ("all of a sudden," for those of you deprived Spanish, traditional Han Chinese, or Portuguese-speakers) this weird little fog-like feeling comes over you and you take a step back and realize you need to CALM DOWN and know that it's all good?!?! Well, that just happened to me with finals, thank the heavenly Parents (no offense meant), so I was blogsurfing. And now I'm back to my original point. Yayness times ten. So as I was blogsurfing just now, I happened across this very entertaining blog to which I give credit for the upcoming random fact. (By the way, I came across this baby trying to find LMH's blog just going by the URL in my mind, so it wasn't exactly random......hope that makes you smile, girl.) http://teenageinsomniac.blogspot.com/

Ready?

"Placenta" means "cake" in Latin.

I love obscure Latin medical terms. They make you wonder about human linguistics so darn much--I mean, really? CAKE, for crying in the night?? *Demonstrates scale in hand to weigh each side* Birth, dessert, birth, dessert.....Yikes. There's somethin' special for y'all.

~Josie

p.s. Is it just me, or does this post seem to be revolving around LMH??? I guess you've worn off on me, chickie. :-)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAACHT#$^#%&&#%^@%$&%^&INSERT PROFANITY OF CHOICE HERE

So this week, I've got the first finals of my life.

FIIIIIIIIIINALS.

It's such a big, scary six-letter word. I dislike it immensely. But more than just the WORD, I hate the madness that has begun to precede it. (Them. Whatever the correct mot is. Even the Grammar Nazi doesn't care now.)
I. Am. Going. Totally. Insane.
And while some of you out there may be laughing reading this, know that I mean this in a whole sh*tload of seriousness, in fact, so bear with my sarcastic, P.O.ed, and somewhat freaked-out posts that may be coming this week. Ha--if I even have time to post anything other than this. In Science class.

I was at quartet this past Saturday, and the cellist in my group said she's NEVER had finals. *Jaw on the floor* She's a year ahead of me, and she's NEVER HAD FINALS. I am incredibly jealous. I miss the Middle School setup, to be perfectly honest.......In fact, I miss Middle School in general. I had an experience there that most people don't; my friend group--I hate calling it a clique, but that's what it is--only began having problems this year, not in Middle School. MS was pretty damn good, actually, because we hardly ever had any friend issues. It was awesome. *Sigh* And then we enter Upper School, and it's like we all have even more raging hormones (especially towards each other) than we did in grades 5-8, which I didn't think was possible, but......

So that's all for now. I am hating this quarter. And the funny thing is that if I were to get my wish--which I am, at the end of this week--it comes along with the freaking finals, so either way I'm royally screwed. Aaaaaaaah, LIFE.

~Josie