2/28/10

To make up for not posting in three weeks, I changed the layout of my blog. I hope you're happy. Speaking of happy, HAPPY PURIM for all you Jews like me out there. Purim is a day to be happy and topsy turvy, and if you could see me right now you would know this as I am wearing a rainbow headband, pink glasses, a black long-sleeved shirt, a gray and pink tank top, an orange vest, my dad's suspenders, a green patterned skirt, black leggings, pink legwarmers, socks with pineapples on them, and purple shoes. All things I normally wouldn't wear.... together.

I'm not going to bother updating you on the past three weeks of my life; chances are I don't even remember all the details. This weekend has been pretty fun, even though I was unable to attend my school's Comedy Sportz game or sleepover at my friend Nicki's house, for reasons that will remain undisclosed to the public. But Saturday, now that was a fun day. To explain the events of that day, we will first have to go back to the beginning of the school year.

One day at lunch I was talking to my friends and we were discussing stereotypical names for people, like Goldberg would be a stereotypical Jewish last name. Using these names we started to create characters, and someone came up with the idea to make a story about these characters. All in all, the idea was pushed aside until recently.

My friend Sammy and I were talking on Facebook, and we brought up this story again. Our creative gears kicked into motion and we started to spitball plot concepts and character ideas. We brought in our two good friends Sydney and Ashley, and decided that we would make this a musical, and it would be complete sometime between now and senior year.

On Saturday I met with Sammy and Sydney at my house and we started coming up with a basic plot. We then payed 20 dollars to go to an AIDS benefit at our school, but we got bored and instead walked over to our local Italian kitchen to have dinner. Upon our arrival home, we had Ashley come over and had her write the music to our lyrics we had devised for the opening number. And it's pretty hysterical. Sydney has been filming the entire creative process from the beginning and will hopefully continue through casting, rehearsals, and the shows. You may think we're just crazy teenagers with our heads in the clouds, but we're capable of a lot.

On to another random topic, I have a ton of homework, like usual. I have a geometry assignment and a biology project due tomorrow. For biology I have to make an ancestral tree to Homo sapiens sapiens tracking as far back as the Prosimians. And that's due tomorrow. I can probably list 100 things I'd rather do then that. And by Tuesday I need to have a rough draft of my thematic essay on To Kill a Mockingbird written. But on Monday I have Hebrew High and right after I'm in a Theatre Showcase, so there won't be much time to complete that. Now, To Kill a Mockingbird is an amazing book, I consider it the best book I've ever been forced to read for school, but I really don't want to write an essay on how trust builds healthy relationships (yes, this is the brilliant theme an English 1 Honors student could come up with).

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, the movie is excellent. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is impeccable, among other things. But for the stupidest reason, teenagers of today cannot appreciate this. What is this reason? Because it is in black and white. I'm sorry to people that feel this way, but anyone that knows anything at all about film would be as disgusted by that as I am. The one thing that bothers me the most about teenagers today is their lack of knowledge and appreciation for culture and classics. I like to consider myself an exception.

In addition to all of this, I have a biology test on Wednesday that covers four chapters... none of which I have read. Shoot.

And of course instead of doing all that I'm writing this. But honestly, if you were in my situation, what would you do?

Happy birthday to John Tenniel, Linus Pauling, Zero Mostel, Tommy Tune, Bernadette Peters, Gilbert Gottfried, and Ali Larter!

To end on a happy note, I'm in somewhat of a good mood right now due to the fact that I got the soundtracks too Hair, Aida, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Princess of the Frog, and Thoroughly Modern Millie on my iPod. And I got a bank account!

Now, I think I'll get my math homework out of the way, but who knows when I'll start anything else?

2/7/10

I wrote a pretty awesome entry two weeks ago, and then my internet stopped working. SO you guys might see that later when I decide to look through random stuff I've written in the past and feel the need to share it with the world.

The font I use in this blog is called Trebuchet, and for about the first year I wrote I thought it was pronounced Trebucket, but it's a French word and is pronounced Tre-boo-chay. I feel you need to know that.

On a completely unrelated topic, the last week of my life was pretty insane as far as getting sleep goes. Here's why:
2:55- school ends.
After school until 6ish- I'm doing something important.
6:00-7:00- I'm waiting for dinner to magically appear in front of me
Sometime between 7 and 8- dinner does appear magically in front of me and I eat it
Sometime between 8 and 11- good television is on (not repeats)
11:00- I actually decide to do my homework.
Between 12 and 1 depending on workload- homework is complete
1:00-1:30- hygienic needs are taken care of
1:30-2:00- Kim Possible is on. And honestly, who can sleep with the knowledge that Kim Possible is on?

I think the combination of this crazy schedule, immense stress, and PMS contributed to my emotional breakdown before dance on Friday. It was pretty embarrassing considering it was due to the fact that I lost my cellphone, studied for the wrong vocab quiz (I still got an 85), and did the wrong homework. Nothing to breakdown in uncontrolled sobs about, right? But it was the first time I've cried on my high school's campus, I'm surprised I lasted an entire semester and two weeks...

So maybe sleep has SOMETHING to do with my mental stability. I just don't think we should jump to any hasty conclusions or anything.

And now I'm trying to finish this horrendous biology worksheet on evolution without going completely bonkers... Did you read that last bit in your head with a British accent? Because that's how I thought it. Anyways, I understand that too succeed in the future we need to understand our past, but is it really necessary to go back to the Precambrian era?

And for another thing I'm not happy about: Thanks to that horrendous thing called the Super Bowl, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters were not on tonight. The world needs to get their entertainment priorities straight.

I'll keep this entry short. Birthdays then we're done!

Happy birthday on February 7th to John Deere, Charles Dickens, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Eddie Izzard, and Ashton Kutcher!

Now I'm actually going to finish my homework. BYE!

1/17/10

I'm back from not posting in over two months. I don't really have a good explanation, except for stupid school (high school sucks, badly), Don't Drink the Water, and the most amazing winter break of my entire life. Here's a quick recap of what's happened since we last spoke:

Thanksgiving was spent at my grandparent's house in the desert, so of course it was hot in the last week of November. We played batchee (spelling?) ball and I don't remember if I won or lost. Dinner that night was fine and consisted of my grandfather's attempts to persuade me to join the Israeli Defense Force when I turn eighteen. And my mom pantsed me during a crazy photo shoot I had with my cousin. Earlier that week, I went bowling with my Bio Buddies (five awesome people in my bio class). In the beginning of the game, we compromised and bowled with one bumper up and one bumper down, and during that period of time I was actually winning. When we put the second bumper down, it was all downhill. The game concluded with a tie for first place between Aaron and Arielle (or Dora and A-Town as they came to be known) with a 71. I came in last with an astounding 39. That should give you an idea of my hand-eye-coordination.

Winter break was just amazing. For twelve days my best friend since 4 months Jordan stayed at my house and for seven of those days we were joined by my cousins from St. Louis who are moving to Israel in June and I will miss greatly. Between my house, Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios, the mall, the movies, 7-11, the Santa Monica Pier, and my other cousin's house we had more fun then I've had in a long time and created memories that will last a life time. I know that's cliche, but it's true.

And I can't even explain Don't Drink the Water. So I won't.

So besides all the exciting stuff, the past few months have basically been spent on YouTube. Oh, and Facebook but that's not unusual. I just am beginning to realize how amazing YouTube truly is. It so beats paying for songs iTunes that you're not even sure you like to just favorite them on YouTube and listen to them constantly. I know, they're not on your iPod that way, but I'm having issues with iTunes right now. The main artists I've been listening to are Ingrid Michaelson, Regina Spektor, and MIKA. They all have amazing voices and unique songs that no one in the industry can imitate.

That reminds me: Pants on the Ground guy is AMAZING. I love him. Apparently though, he was really good friends with Martin Luther King Jr. (happy MLKJ day tomorrow!) and had a huge role in the Civil Rights Movement or something. I don't know if that's a rumor or not but he's still frikkin awesome either way.

Back to YouTube. It has made me even more obsessed with Broadway and musicals then before, if that's possible. Because obsessive people, like myself, post all these amazing videos from Tony performances of years past and other numbers that they've performed on talk shows and things of that sort. There are also extremely kind people that post whole albums of shows to YouTube. These people make me so happy.

In addition, there's this one account that has all these videos from the University of Michigan's musical theatre program that I am obsessed with, because all the people in those videos are making there way up in he business now and it's so cool to see them when they were just students.

Speaking of U of M, a group of students from that school (including one that graduated from my high school a few years ago) created a parody full length musical of one of my loves in life, the Harry Potter series. A Very Potter Musical is the most amazing thing. The songs are always stuck in my head and it's so hilarious, my friends and I quote it and act out the scenes all the time like the dorks we are. The best part: Malfoy is played by a girl.

So. Yeah. There's also this amazing British movie called Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging that made my friends and I laugh hysterically and quote regularly. Birthday time!

Happy birthday Benjamin Franklin, Anne Bronte, Al Capone, Betty White, James Earl Jones, Shari Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Jim Carrey, Michelle Obama, and Zooey Deschanel. That's more then the usual amount of birthdays I mention.....

And now, as I am about to enter finals week, rather the studying photosynthesis and cellular respiration, I am returning to writing for my three loyal followers.

11/16/09

Hey guys, blogger was being a spaz, so here is something I wrote almost a month ago that never got posted due to this websites stupidity:

This is my 99th blog entry guys. WOW.


Ok, so it's 12:14 at night and I can't sleep. This is because last night, I slept from 2 a.m. until 2 p.m. My sleeping patterns are so irregular. Especially considering for the past month or so, I've gotten no sleep during the school week due to homework or other things that keep my awake, and I haven't on the weekends because it's the weekend so I'm either at a friend's house, having friends come over, or staying up because it's the weekend and I can.



Which reminds me, this week I have had one Monday, three Fridays, two Saturdays, and a Sunday. This all occurred because we had Wednesday off for Veteran's day. This was nice, yet really annoying. Monday was Monday for obvious reasons, and then Tuesday was Friday because we had no school the next day, so I of course slept over at Sophie's house. Then Wednesday was like a Saturday because we didn't have school, so my friends and I went to Kookie Krazy to make cookies (mine looked something like Dory from Finding Nemo) and then we saw A Christmas Carol in 3D. And Sophie forgot that 3D stood for 3-dimensions, but I can't remember what stupid thing she said when she tried to remember what it stood for. During the movie, I was really hyper so when the Ghost of Christmas Past came out and Ashley leaned over to me and said, "Christmas... Present," I laughed so hard I cried. And it wasn't even that funny. I think I was the most hated person in that movie theatre. And trust me, I HATE people that are annoying in movie theatres, and I was SO annoying. I apologize to anyone that was there.



That night I got three and a half hours of sleep, because silly me felt like it was Saturday so I thought I would have the next day to do my homework, but I didn't and I had to do it all that night. So I woke up and went to school and it didn't even cross my mind to eat breakfast. So by the time I had to go to dance that day, I was wired. I was so hyper! I ran up to K.C. and went, "I got three and a half hours of sleep last night, I haven't eaten anything all day, and I feel like I just drank a cup of coffee." I think people were afraid of me. And then Sydney and I decided we were going to lose our energy-drink virginity and chug a 5 Hour Energy on January 14th. Weird things happen when you're hyper. So that was Thursday... which felt like Friday because it was the last odd day of the week. And then Friday was Friday and Saturday was Saturday and so on.



And last night (Saturday not Sunday) I went to an amazing drama club party that resulted in major theatre kid bonding time. Many fun things happened at this party (there were s'mores) but I feel the need to point out one quote made by yours truly.



The song "You're a Jerk" came on, so naturally people started jerking to it... because that's kind of the point. A couple of my friends (who are all Jewish) asked me to jerk with them. I simply stated, "I'm too Jew to jerk." We've decided we're getting this phrase made into a t-shirt. I know we'd all wear it.



And that's about it for now. I really probably should go to sleep. Birthdays first...



Happy birthday George S. Kaufman, Lisa Bonet, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.



Quick note, today is Maggie Gyllenhaal's birthday, which means that a year ago today, Nicki and I started working on the script for our History Day project on Lucille Ball, because I remember we couldn't decide on a name for my character so we looked at that day's birthdays on IMDB, and she came up, so we named our character after her. Otherwise her name was going to be Cashew. I'm glad it wasn't.

11/8/09

Ok, so I'm sitting on the couch right now as my sister watches Fantasia 2000 (I don't watch I listen), and my favorite number from the film, "Rhapsody in Blues" by George Gershwin, just finished. George Gershwin's real name is Jacob Gershowitz. I already knew he was Jewish, but if I hadn't, once I found out that was his real name I would have known immediately. Gershwin's a genius... I mean it doesn't get much better then "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess.

*Stephanie gets distracted by Facebook for a full two hours*

So I was just on Facebook, and I got a request from Arielle telling me to get a dislike button. And people have been joining groups and petitioning for a while to get this button. I have a feeling that this button is going to be kind of like civil rights. Let me explain...

People worked really hard to get civil rights. Then they got civil rights, and they appreciated it for a while, because it was novelty, most other places didn't have them. But after a while, civil rights were no longer new and sparkly, and people stopped appreciating them.

Ok, that's kind of a bad example, because a lot of people still appreciate civil rights, you just wouldn't be able to tell in the area I live in. But you get the point right? Eventually people will forget how important the dislike button was to them and will go on leading their virtual lives the same as they always did.

*Stephanie gets distracted by something for another 45 minutes*

I've run out of things to say that won't get me in trouble.

Happy birthday Edmond Halley, Milton Bradley, Bram Stoker, Margaret Mitchell, June Havoc, Esther Rolle, Patti Page, Bonnie Raitt, Richard Curtis, Gordon Ramsey, Bucky Covington, and a combination of all these people, my dear friend Sammy. Happy birthday to all of you!

I haven't gone to bed at a decent hour in more then two weeks, so I'm going to take this opportunity and not spend my time hyperlinking all this junk.

11/1/09

You can probably tell I've been busy lately (considering lack of postage) and I have been. So let me do a quick recap.

First of all, October 9th was my 14th birthday. YAY! I had an amazing time and I got amazing gifts from my friends. I would like to especially acknowledge Ashley, for compiling all of my previous blog entries into one beautifully bound masterpiece. I also got other amazing presents, including a deck of cards made by Nicki where each card had a picture of one of my friends on it (i.e. all the twos were Julia, I was on all the kings, etc.). So that was three weekends ago. I don't remember what I did two weekends ago, but LAST weekend was... interesting.

First of all, Saturday morning a group of friends and I went to the California Science Center. It was pretty amazing. We were going for extra credit in science class, but even so it's just a really fun place. We saw the show with the giant human named Tess, played ultimate Jenga, built a fort, went in an earthquake simulator, went drunk driving, and everyone except me went on a bicycle three stories up in the air. I have it on video, and it's pretty entertaining. The ride home was fun because we sang songs to USC fans out the windows of the car. Yup...

Then we come to Saturday night. Homecoming (the football game was Friday night.... that's a WHOLE other story). Or as it has been cleverly renamed by my friend Cheyenne, Hoecoming. Because honestly, it was one of the most awkward nights of my life. You walk into my schools gym, and you see a couple groups of guys and girls trying to dance like normal people with their friends, and then you see HUGE groups of guys and girls grinding each other! It was like watching Mating Season on the Animal Planet. That reminds me, in biology the other day we watched a video about the rainforest, and the lizards were.... never mind. Back to Homecoming. There were a few couples that were never seen with their lips more then an inch apart! At one point in the evening my friends and I plopped down on the couches in one of the corners of the room and just watched in utter disgust. And then we ripped the tulle that was covering the couches and made mustaches. It was like defacing school property. High school has really changed people....

It was funny though, at one point I was standing outside the gym getting food and I overheard this conversation:
Boy: Everyone in there is dancing like sluts!
Girl: Hence the invention of the verb, slut-dancing.

And I laughed. After Homecoming I went to K.C.'s with Sarah and we watched 10 Things I Hate About You. It was a really good movie. It just was. The 90's were just overall kickbutt.

Now to this weekend. Friday night Sophie and Arielle came over to my house to help me cook dinner. We put too little olive oil in the chicken and too much water in the cous-cous. But otherwise all was good.

Then we made an EPIC timeline of a week in our lives (it's more eventful then you think) and we talked for a very long time and then we watched Chicago. Which is amazing. I'm pretty sure I sang "We Both Reached for the Gun" in my sleep though.

And yesterday, of course, was Halloween. Sarah, K.C., Sierra, and I were the Teletubbies (I was Po, the smallest one). Some of the favorite costumes I witnessed though, were road kill, Waldo, Jesus, Dr. House, Marty McFly, Super Jew, and the mustache fairy.

OMG. I just remembered, a week and half ago or something, I got kicked out of biology class! I mean, I talk constantly in that class because otherwise I'd die of boredom, but on this particular day, I guess my friend and I were too enthusiastically discussing the names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because when I finally remembered the fourth one's name (Leonardo) I was sentenced to sit in the hallway until the end of class (which was less then seven minutes later).

So basically that's what I've been up to for three weeks.

Happy birthday too Jenny McCarthy, Toni Collette, Bo Bice, Penn Badgley, and other people I may or may not have heard of.

Anyways, don't Google yourself! Bye!

10/4/09

Writing in my blog has become one of the many things I do when I should be doing my homework. Wait, that's everything...

I have really bad homework habits. But you know what, I'm not going to deal with that right now. I actually started researching for a project today (that isn't due tomorrow) because it's about Lewis Carroll so it's actually interesting. I'm going to have to talk to my teacher about censorship though. Because Lewis Carroll was a very strange man. And... well, ok let me explain this first.

Part of this project is an oral presentation about whichever poet you chose. It has to be presented in the first person though, and I really don't know what to do. Because four of Lewis Carroll's diaries from vital years in his career are missing along with at least seven pages from his others. AND tons of accusations were made against him that are very likely true but that he always denied.

Examples of things he was accused of: Using LSD, being a paedophile (supported by at least six photographs of naked children taken by him) which includes but is not limited to him proposing to an eleven year old girl, among other things.

He also invented Scrabble. That's just awesome.

And all these things were wrong with them! I mean no one knows for sure because science back then wasn't what it is now, but he could have been epileptic considering he exhibited symptoms (asymmetrical face, stammering) that also existed in other members of his family (epilepsy is genetic). BUT some people think that he could have had temporal-lobe epilepsy, which means that instead of blacking out during his seizures he had these visions that were in some kind of wonderland (i.e. Alice in Wonderland).

He also may or may not have had a disease now known as Alice in Wonderland syndrome where he saw things disproportionately. For example he could have seen a dog to be the size of tea cup.

But no one really knows for sure. So how am I supposed to present a speech in the first person without saying, "People accused me of this this and this but I said no. No one knows if I was lying or not." It's stupid sounding!

Did you know Alice in Wonderland has more songs then any other Disney movie? I find that interesting. 15 songs total. I've never read the book version, which I hear is better then the movie. I would like to read it.... my birthdays on Friday. Hint. This volume of the book is especially nice.

Random transition...

I watched Alien last night with my friends. I don't want to go into detail, but my verdict is really good acting and it was really good overall, but I'm not a sci-fi person. I never will be. It bothers me how many unanswered questions there are. But my friends and I collectively decided to answer all the questions that come up like so:

Why aren't the floating around if they're in space?

It's sci-fi. Don't question it just accept it.

How are they smoking on the space shuttle without it blowing up?

It's sci-fi. Don't question it, just accept it.

Mom, Dad, why are you sending me away!?!?!

It's sci-fi. Don't question it, just accept it.

You get the point, we also derived from this movie that aliens respond better to kindness then force. It's the true moral of all alien movies.

And that volleyball is a damn good actor.

Sorry for the previous onslaught of inside jokes but I had a fun time. :) Birthday time!

Happy birthday to Anne Rice, Susan Sarandon, Alicia Silverstone, Phillip Glasser, and Kimmie Meissner!

Now I'm going to go pretend to be productive.