Kids Books and Flags

Sorry I didn't post last week, I was thinking about posting at around 3 in the afternoon, but I didn't and I wound up forgetting.

My week has been all right. I went to see Dark Knight Rises on Saturday. It was really good, though when you've read the comics, like I have, it becomes remarkably easy to predict. I own a few comics - Batman and Nightwing, mostly.

Since everyone is doing it, my thoughts on the Olympics: I watched the opening ceremony, but not any of the events yet. I honestly cannot stand watching any of the sports played during the summer Olympics for more than five minutes. Archery is okay, but all the others bore me. This is probably blasphemy to many people. I'm a bigger fan of the winter Olympics - the sports seem so much more extreme. I guess a lot of people watch, not because they are fans of the sports, but want to support their country. I'm all for supporting Canada...but during the Winter Olympics. I'll go around to school with my Canada sweatshirt. Probably not such a good idea in a school with a whole bunch of people supporting the U.S, but country pride for the win. I'll stick a flag to my backpack.

I've been staring blankly at this page for five minutes, so I'm going to get a move on. Question de la jour: Do any of you have any kids series you still follow? My list of those is embarrassingly long. I was reading books from the teen section by age eight, and adult section by eleven, so it's kind of embarrassing how many kids books I still like to read. My list includes Children of the Lamp if that gives you an idea as to just how idiotic some of the books I read are.

I think I'll wrap it up here for tonight. Enjoy your week, and don't forget to be awesome.

-Kira

Olympics, School, and Books

This year is the first year I've actually found interest in the Olympic Games - and it's the first year I have international friends - and I hope I'm able to watch the events I want to.

Instead of finding a livestream, I ended up watching NBC's broadcast of the Opening Ceremony.  It was amazing. My favorite bits were the ones with Voldemort and Mr Bean.  It angers me that NBC completely skipped the terrorist attack victim tribute and replaced it with a Michael Phelps interview.  I mean, come on! That's just so... American. It also bugged me how the NBC focused on the USA team as they came out.   We barely saw any of the teams that followed save for Great Britain.

I'm surprised by how much the Men's Archery peaked my interest.  I watched the entirety of the match for the gold medal.  It was so intense.  Everything had come down to the final arrow. The Italian archer got a ten (the best you could get), bringing victory to his team by one point.

School's starting here in two weeks.  Today we had our SOS (Student Orientation Staff) training day, and Wednesday will be the Freshman/New Student orientation.  Our schools also putting a big "Back to School Bash" for the community, and that's when we'll be getting our schedules for the year.  I really only want to go back to school for the first day and then never return.

I've started to read The Hobbit.  Hopefully I will finish by the time the movie comes out.  I'm only on page 8 and I rarely find time to just sit and read real books.  I do plan to read some once this post is published.

It is a habit of mine to go check the book section of every store I enter, and usually, I check around for John Green books. Every time I come by a copy of The Fault In Our Stars, I pick it up. For some reason, I just like holding this particular book.  When I pulled out a copy of Tfios from my local Wal-Mart's shelf, I was shocked to see it was a signed copy.  I didn't purchase it since I have a signed copy of my own, not that I wanted to buy it any.  If I had had a pen, I would have written a nerdfighter note, but alas, I did not.  I really hope the book goes to a good home.  All books deserve a loving home.

Kate

Things I thought of

OK, I just realised that I started this post almost half an hour ago so I should probably start putting some words on the screen.

So how about those Olympics, eh? I have to say I really enjoyed the opening ceremony, I thought it was really well done and it had Kenneth Branagh which was awesome. The American Olympic team is ridiculously big, it felt like they were coming out for ages. I'm really enjoying watching the different random sports, it would be really awesome if an Irish athlete won a Gold medal, we haven't won any since Atlanta in 96 and I don't really remember that.

I'm reading Fahrenheit 451 and I'm really enjoying it, I have the first two sections finished. I think it's a very awesome book, I've always had a soft spot for dystopian fiction so it's a wonder I hadn't already read this.

I'm going to see The Dark Knight Rises on Wednesday, I'm pretty psyched about it, I had it spoiled for me which is a real downer but I'm hoping I'll still enjoy it.

The summer is starting to drag on a bit by this stage, but it's only a little more than a month left until college starts again. I've started looking at modules to take for next year, my compulsory modules took up 10 of my 12 slots so I'll need to choose 2 more. Also, I'll have to look at a foreign exchange for 3rd year, one of the options I have would be to go to Berkeley in California. I'm not sure what it would be like but it  would be a once in a lifetime opportunity since I wouldn't be able to afford to go there under normal circumstances.

Anyway, I'm all out of words so farewell and DFTBA,
Adam

It kind of feels like summer is over, but there's still a month left.

Hey guys! I've been putting off doing my post out of laziness, but alas I must do it now before time runs out. 

My week's been pretty good; highlights being going to see Brave finally and baking an apple pie. Brave was really good and I loved the animating, especially Merida's curly hair. It just looked so nice in my opinion lol. I also baked an apple pie because I had nothing else to do. I was a little worried it wouldn't turn out good, but it tasted awesome if I do say so myself. 

Deidra's been over at my house the past little while. We had fun hanging out and going to see Batman and stuff. We made Mexican lasagna. 

We also managed to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics even though I don't get tv here. We had to skip through a bunch of different online streams (some in different languages) because several kept getting shut down. But we saw the majority of it, and wow it was pretty crazy/amazing. I'm disappointed in the amount of Doctor Who that they had in it (ie/ pretty much none), but I did enjoy the Mr. Bean appearance. Mr. Bean is awesome.

I'm heading back up to Geraldton tomorrow because all next week I'm going to be helping at the day camp thing that my church holds every summer. I'm not excited at all for it since neither my sister nor Deidra will be there to help and make it less boring. 

I mostly only read Archie's comics when I was younger and now I'm more into manga so I don't have much to say about comics in general. I do actually have a very small collection of The Legion of Super-Heroes, Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Daredevil, and Jonny Quest comics that I like to look at and read over occasionally. They're pretty old ones though (like from back when comics were sold for 50 cents apparently), haven't even looked at any recent comics. Campion's advice seems best, just start with something that you like to read.

I can't really think of anything else to say so DFTBA

Kayla

Too Tired for Words

I am so terribly exhausted. I stayed up late last night watching a movie and on Skype, and then I had to wake up at 8 to come into the city for a driving lesson. On top of that, I had the worse sleep ever. I woke up 4 or 5 times between 2:30am and 7:55am. And of course, there had to be a messed up dream thrown into the mix. I dreamt that I woke up, and had 30 minutes to pack my away bag (since I'm staying in Thunder Bay for a few days), get ready to go, and somehow take a shower. It was weird. And now I feel like I could pass out and be perfectly okay with that decision.


I can not, however, do this since I am staying with Kayla for two days, and that would be rude. And lame. We went and watch The Dark Knight Rises together, and it was a-fricken-mazing. No spoilers, but wow what a good film. I'm not even that big of a fan of the whole Batman thing, but I really enjoyed it. Also, it was awesome spotting some actors that I know from other places. Burn Gorman, who I know as Owen Harper from Torchwood. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, from Inception which I happened to watch last night. And Reggie Lee, who plays Sgt. Wu in Grimm. 10 points to me for recognizing people!


Not much to report. It's been kind of a boring week for me. I ended up getting a bit of a sunburn on my back and shoulders from laying out in the sun reading one day. I've spent a little bit of time working on my painting, which still isn't done. /sigh/ On the bright side, I only have two more driving lessons to do (tomorrow and next Tuesday) and then I am FREE. Oh how sweet my freedom will taste.


I just really don't feel like much today. Hopefully I won't feel as drained next week. Boring Deidra is boring. Well, tired Deidra is tired. Anywho, don't forget to be awesome, and have a good weekend, as per usual.
-Deidra

Another Top 5

Well, it's a coincidence you should ask about comic books Adam. I recently just started collecting comic books myself. I haven't got a lot of comics but I have started on two series so far, which is Invincible, and the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. So I'm not an expert at comics, I've barley been collecting them for a few months. But I remember advice that someone gave me when I said that I wanted to start collecting, he said that you just go to a comic book store, pick up and if you like what you see and it keeps you interested, then start collecting those. that's what I did with Invincible, it looked cool so I started reading and it's now my favorite comic series. But if you need some solid recommendations, then here's a recommendation list I found. http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.co.nz/2011/04/comic-recommendations.html


But back to what I originally intended to do for this post. I've decided to do another Top 5 list. I love it when a franchise that I love has a movie adaption based on it but unfortunately video game adaption have always sucked. There are very few video game movies that I've seen that were actually average, let alone good. So this list isn't really a best five video game movies, as much as it is "Five Video Games Films That Sucked Less Than The Other Ones". I would do a top five worst, but I would never be able to decide which ones to put in. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion and I haven't included any fan made films like Half-Life Escape From City 17 or Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (and even though they are fan made they are still better than every film on this list and I highly recommend them both).


5. Dead Or Alive
For this one I would complain about how the film objectified the woman in the film and how this was insulting to the characters in the game but......... the game did this as well. I never liked this in the game but it's the only fighting game that I'm competent at, go figure. While some of the characters were changed in the movie, the fight scenes were actually pretty good and it was cool to see the characters from the games fighting in live action. But the plot was stupid and the characters got annoying after a bit but it was still at least enjoyable to a certain degree. Still....... the film was like 80% panty shots though....


4. Mortal Kombat
Ah, Mortal Kombat. Forever desensitizing people to violence and being poster child for over the top violence in video games. Surprisingly, the film itself was a PG 13. So it got rid of the violence that was present in the games, which was a little disappointing but then again I'm kind of glad not to sit through the gore fest that it would have wound up being if it had gone through with it. The fight scenes were decent and it did include two of my favorite video game characters, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. It would have been cooler if they had fought each other but seeing them fight was still a joy to watch, even if their scenes didn't last that long. The plot itself was a bit cheezy and goofy here and there and I really felt that the fight scenes lacked in some places, also the characters were a little boring. But it did have Christopher Lambert playing Raiden the thunder god and his presence is always welcome. Also, dude who plays Shang Tsung, awesome.


3. Pokemon The First Movie
A Pokemon film was always going to appear on this list. I've loved Pokemon for as long as I can remember and that's never going to change. Out of the 15 or so Pokemon films, I still consider this one the best. The animation is good and the fights between the Pokemon are fun to watch. Also I love the design of Mewtwo's lab, it kind of reminds me of Alien. Also it has Team Rocket, who are always great to watch. I recommend watching the Japanese version over the English one. It has a scene that was never included in the English version, it's an amazing scene and surprisingly heart breaking to watch. I really wish they had included it in the English version. Where this movie really lets itself down is the villain and the films message. Mewtwo's a hippocrate and the films message is violence is wrong........ even it's a franchise that's dedicated to violence. But still, I actually like this one, a lot.


2. Tekken
This film has plot problems, it deviates heavily from the games and it's kind of stupid when you think about it. But then again you shouldn't think to hard about any of the films on this list, trust me, it's not really worth the effort and all of these movies are best enjoyed without thinking about them. this one is not exception. While this one does have it's problems, it does make up for it in it's fight scenes, which are awesome. And while I did complain earlier about how this games plot deviates a lot from the games, well, the games plot was actually pretty stupid and made no real sense. Like, how the hell does a bear know how to fight and is able to enter a fighting tournament along with the devil and a Kangaroo with boxing gloves on it's hands? I really don't know and I'm grateful that the movie doesn't try to explain it. Admittedly the plot is still not very interesting but it's better than the games. but this movie is good where it matters, in it's fight scenes and fighting is what made the game so good. Why this film stands out to me is because it actually got me to have some emotional investment in the main character, yeah it actually got me to care about him. Which surprised me a little, I mean the only reason I knew the names of the characters in the other movies was because I knew what characters from the games they were portraying but I remembered this guy's name (Jin Kazama if anyone cares) because of the film itself.


1. Ace Attorney
This film, was based off a video game about a defense attorney. Yes, this actually is game (a really good one by the way) and I'm going to be cheating on this one a bit because I haven't seen it yet. But I decided to put it up here as a sign of good faith. I'm going to see it next week but I thought it deserved to be in the number one spot for one reason, it actually holds good ratings on sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. I know that this really may not seem like a lot but allow me to put this into context, these sites, hate video game movies. They always have (and for good reason). None of the films on this list would even score higher than a 55. In fact, last time I checked (it could have changed by the time this goes up), Tekken was the only film to score higher than 50 (keep in mind this is out of 100). Ace Attorney got a 75. That means that it was actually good and several critics actually liked it. Which NEVER happens to video game films. They hate these kinds of movies with a burning passion, the Resident Evil films and Super Mario Brothers films have not left good impressions on the world of film critics. For critics to like this movie, it must have done something right. So I cautiously, place this film at number 1. My next post will be a review of the movie. If it does suck, then I will edit this post and take it down. If it's as good as people say, then the Apocalypse is approaching us as I never thought the day would come when I good video game movie would be made. So this is me, being hopeful, that a video game series that I love actually has good movie based on it. But needless to say if it sucks I will rip it to pieces next week.


So this is me, being hopeful


So anyway, have and awesome week guys
DFTBA

Already A Bit Stressed

Our school is changing its hours this coming school year.   Instead of an 8 - 3:07 it will be 8:10 - 3:30.  Not a big change at all, but big enough to push volleyball practice to last until 6:30 at night, a half hour later than years before. So I'll be getting home just before 7. I'll eat and shower, and hopefully be able to start on any homework I have by 8.  This gives me hard pressed to find time to practice my violin everyday and do internet things unless I want to cut down on my sleeping time, which I don't because sleeping is great.

Though I'm over-reacting and I won't know how busy I'll be with homework until the first day of school.  And I'll also have 2 half hour blocks of study hall, so yes, I am stressing far too much.

I can't say my life has been very exciting this past week.  I did have a volleyball camp that was just exhausting, but this week I have hardly anything planned.  Not that I mind, it'll be good to get some time to myself before summer ends.  I'll miss it when I become busy.

I find there isn't mush else for me to say.
Kate

Back

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't been posting recently, I haven't gotten a chance the last few Sundays.
I don't have time to read back over everyones posts right now but I promise I'll be more organised for next Sunday.
My life has been very boring lately so there's really not much to talk about. I tidied my room today, I'm going to redecorate it. I'm planning to paint it, get a new desk, desk chair, shelves, posters and hopefully some cool nerdy things to put on the desk. So yeah, I'm excited to finally do up my room.

In other news I saw the new Spiderman film, I really enjoyed it, I wasn't fully sure beforehand if we needed a new incarnation of the series but it was much much better than the first toby maguire one. The acting was very good.


Beyond that there's not much to say. My favourite film is Scott Pilgrim. Also, I'm thinking of getting into comic books, do any of you guys read them? I've never really bought any before and it's hard to know where to start.

DFTBA
Adam

All You Need is The Who

I have had an extremely busy day, so I will try to edit this post tonight possibly tomorrow morning. Sorry.

Moving House

I'm sorry that this post is late. Me and my family are trying to move house and I've been helping them for the last few weeks to get our house ready for sale. I spent most of my holidays painting walls, moving furniture and cleaning. So anyway my week has been pretty uneventful with most of it consisting of homework and getting our house ready. But I did do something that I never thought I would ever do, I started to collect comic books. I've never owned any before and recently I've just started collecting them, not sure why. I guess that along with being the gamemaster for a Pokemon D&D group, still being a fan of Power Rangers even though it's target audience is 3 to 5 year olds and being one of the senior members of my schools strategic card game club, I just needed to add comic book collecting to the list in order to prove how much of a nerd I am. The comic I picked up was volume one of the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

This post will be rather short because of how much work I have on right now but I'm going to make for it my next post.

So anyway, have an awesome week guys
DFTBA 

I'm in a summer coma

Totally almost forgot to do my post today, I had been thinking about it all day and then I got distracted. Thanks to Deidra for reminding me.

Not really much to say, I haven't been doing much of anything the past week. Just lazing around. I really need to get more active or something, start drawing again and whatnot. I'm just so unmotivated.

I'd say the most interesting thing that happened to me was just going shopping today and yesterday. The mall is having some kind of summer sale so it was really nice. I got myself some new runners and a little green purse. I also got an Avengers poster that I'll put up in Ottawa when I go back there. The best thing though was that Coles was having a book sale so I got 4 books for 14 dollars, which is amazing because books are so expensive. One of them was a book on human anatomy that I've been considering getting to help with my art. 

And yeah basically that's it. Sorry that my post is short, I'm kind of just not in the mood. I'll make it up next week hopefully.

DFTBA

Kayla

PS - My thoughts and prayers go out to those people killed, hurt, or otherwise affected by the shooting in the Colorado movie theatre. It's just a terrible tragedy, I can't even imagine what the people involved must be feeling.

A Letter to a Me Who Just Won't Listen

     Remember that one time, when I said that things always seem to happen to me on Thursdays? Well, it seems like that didn't end along with school. I am gone today, so writing this post Wednesday night. I'm just gonna post it early.

     I remember a few weeks ago, someone asked whether we use Caps Lock or Shift when writing something in all caps, and I don't remember answering it. Don't even know why it came to mind. But I use shift, even if I am writing more than a few words in all caps. I don't know why. I guess I've just never been really conventional with my typing skills. Also, Kira, when I said that thing about 10 degrees Celsius, I meant that it was 10 degrees hotter than normal, and that I was having trouble handling it. The weather was actually somewhere between 40 and 45 degrees. Not actually 10 degrees. It's not always cold up here. 

     I've been waiting for the time that I have enough time and room in a post to go ahead and steal Adam's idea. I am going to write a letter to my past self, and it's going to be kind of terrible. But I'm going to do it anyway and it is going to be kind of fun.

Dear Deidra,

   It's your future self here. Hi, hello. Just so you know, you made it an entire year. Yupp, that's right, still alive and well. Actually, you're doing pretty good. Remember how you said you were a big procrastinator, and that you were going to fix that? Well, you don't. You don't even really try. In fact, it gets a lot worse. Here's a tip: try starting your work as soon as you get it. Do not put it off until the night before it's due. And don't start studying for your exams at 10 o'clock the night before, either. It really doesn't do you any good. 

   You get into university, by the way. It takes a while, because things didn't go through properly or something, but it happens. Also, you find out on your birthday (surprise!) and you kind of freak out. Can you please not do that? In hindsight, it was really strange. Again, stop with the procrastinating. The parents are really angry about it.

   On the bright side, you have a really good year (after the New Year's thing, of course. But I'll let you handle that). Just so you know, he's an awesome guy. Don't worry about it, and try not to be awkward. 

   You've got a big year ahead of you, in more ways than you think. Keep your chin up, and as always, don't forget to be awesome.

      Yours truly,

You.

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      So there we have it. A terrible letter filled with too much warning, but I wouldn't listen to myself anyway. Hope you are all good and well. Enjoy the weekend. And don't forget to be awesome!

-Deidra

Ray Bradury and a Coffee Obsession

Hey, everyone! This week has been pretty dull, with one notable highlight - Sunday.


A few friends of mine came over, and we played Twilight Princess, made cookies, then got out our instruments to play Harry Potter music. Why, exactly, I have sheet music for french horns, clarinets, trumpets, and trombones, I have no idea. But that was fun. I neglected to record us playing, but if we do it again, I'll probably post a video of it. Then you guys can laugh at how funny it sounds without the proper blend of instruments.


The weather here has been so unbearably hot. I'm a winter type of person. I like the cold so much more than I like the heat. Today, it was between 40 and 43 degrees celsius. It's almost ten now, and it's still in the mid 30s. Deidra, I am super jealous that what you're used to is around 10 degrees. You lucky northern Ontarian. Hey, so if England and Italy are two of your top three places you want to visit, what's the third? I absolutely adore England...


Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favourite books ever. My sister got me a copy for my birthday two years ago, and I've loved it since I first read it. The way Bradbury - may he rest in peace - brought out the themes is incredible. I don't think I've ever read anything by Bradbury that I didn't adore. My favourite of his is definitely Fahrenheit 451, but Something Wicked This Way Comes is definitely a close second.


Campion, I love Jurassic Park, too. It's a classic. It may not be the greatest film out there, but it's still Jurassic Park, and I've spent so much of my time watching it that I have to love it. I've never been able to really decide on a top 5 favourites. I suppose I could do it, but it would require a lot more contemplation than I'm willing to give right now. You should definitely keep doing lists like this. It's a great way to learn more about you.


I'm super excited for Thursday because my friend is going to start teaching me Gaelic. I have absolutely no idea why, but I've always wanted to learn it. Coffee, hanging out with a friend, and learning something new - what better way to spend an afternoon?


I guess that wraps it up for now. Enjoy your weeks, have good summers, and don't forget to be awesome.
-Kira

28 Days Until Sadness

Two months have already been used up of my summer vacation, and only 27 days of summer are left, the 28th day being the first day of school. I have even less days of summer left if you take into account the two-a-days of volleyball practice and tryouts.

Kira, I really loved your photos, especially the one in Rome, and I could not help but think how good of jigsaw puzzles they would make.

I liked your post, Campion, and you should do more top 5's. It's a cool way to find things we mutually like. Unfortunately I have not seen any of the movies on your list, but Back to the Future and Jurassic Park are two I want to see.  My favorite films are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, The Amazing Spiderman, and Pirates of the Caribbean: the  Curse of the Black Pearl.

I've broken my hard drive before, Kayla.  I think I actually posted about it.  I had been cleaning my room and was moving my mattress around when my old laptop was hit off my TV stand.  It fell about 3 feet and when I tried to turn it on, a blue screen appeared with a weird clicking sound.  Luckily my dad had an identical laptop that he didn't use much, so he replaced my hard drive with his.  But I remember losing everything I had on there.  Hopefully you come by some luck and everything gets better.

Don't get me wrong, Deidra, there are some themes that I have fallen in love with in certain books.  There are quite a few in Harry Potter, like the idea that love can make it through the toughest of times and the losses and struggles of war.

Katie, summer actually makes me feel like school wasn't that long ago.  I feel like I've only been out for a month instead of two.

This post is going to be stopped here due to tiredness.
Kate

Busiest Week Yet

Weeks haven't been this hectic for me since school was in session. What's weird about summer is that everything feels like I did it a life time ago. You know what else happened a lifetime ago? Me writing this post around five six o'clock. Now it's eleven. Every time it seems to work out this way. I just went up stairs to eat dinner and ended up watching two movies. 

Speaking of movies, I don't really have any favorites. The ones I just watched upstairs were Double Jeopardy and Clash of the Titians, both of which are pretty good. I'm more of a television series person. If I had to choose though, it might be Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog. It has some of my favorite people so why not.

Oh and just incase you were wondering, I forgot to wash the dishes last week. No big deal just had to do them the next morning. The Fahrenheit 451 reading did not go according to plan. However not done that reading is, there is good news! After almost a year of trying and wanting to punch Buffy in the face, I finished watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I accomplished that Monday, and since spent the time watching Angel. I almost finished the first season and probably would have if it hadn't been for all the things I've done. Tuesday I started volunteering, along with my sister, to help distribute lunches to kids in my area. It's every Tuesday and Thursday from 11:30-12:30, and has been very enjoyable thus far. 

Venice and Rome look beautiful Kira! It must have been such an experience. I haven't traveled out of the states, barely even around. Nothing besides along the east coast. Speaking of traveling and such, I will be doing some. For the first two weeks maybe three of August I will be traveling around the states. My parents don't live with each other, so it's not the entire family but my dad and two of my siblings are going... uh I don't know, places. I only just decided to go, but I requested that we go visit that zoo in Nebraska, hopefully we do get to go.

My favorite part of this week though was Wednesday. I went to go see Macbeth at a park! It's an annual thing this theater does, but this was the first time I've ever gone. I think the only reason we really did was because I knew some of the actors. Remember those people from a post of mine from forever ago? The guy who had auditioned for the part of Macbeth didn't get it, but was still in the play itself. It was a nice experience minus the weather being really misty and humid making my blanket really wet.

Post cut short due to my unbelievably pig headed brother. Bye.


~Katie

[A Million] Apologies

Due to delays, Deidra's on the road right now and won't be home until late tonight (technically super early tomorrow morning). She apologizes and will make her post sometime in the morning.


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     Super apologies, guys. I didn't anticipate being this late, especially after Kayla already filled in for me on Thursday (thanks Kayla!). I got the opportunity to spend more time with my boyfriend this Thursday and Friday, as his parents decided to come up to Thunder Bay for those two days, so we made the best of the time we had. Unfortunately that meant I couldn't really post on either day. But now you will get a nice, long, detailed, and apologetic post from me. On that note, you guys wrote some amazing posts this week, and I feel bad that I am just now getting to read them. All right, here we go.


     So going all the way back to the previous week, I was in Niagara Falls. We ended up getting to ride the Maid of the Mist, which is where we get into a boat with plastic rain ponchos on, and it goes right up close to the Falls. It was really awesome, and I got soaked, but so worth it. I didn't get sick, and I didn't fall or slip like I thought I was going to while we were on the boat. I also got to try sushi for the first time. I didn't like it. Raw fish is not good, at all. It tastes icky and the texture is sickening. I did however enjoy the tempura, which is like fried in batter. 


     It's good to know you aren't totally hating your new hair, Katie. I know how it is to go from long to short. Last summer I finally made the decision to cut my hair super-short, which was a dramatic change for me as I had always had long hair that went at least past my neck. I've enjoyed it, too, but have made the decision to grow it out again. Well, at least to about my shoulders, and I will see how I feel about it after that. Hunter got me a copy of Fahrenheit 451, and he read me half of part 1. I've finished it, and moved on to part 2, and hope to be able to watch John's video really soon (and catch up on all of the YouTube I have missed). So far it's a really good novel. It's got some themes that I really like, such as the degradation of society and what 'normal' really is in our human terms. I got to see both Brave and Spiderman during my holidays. Brave while in Niagara, and Spiderman in Thunder Bay, both with Hunter. They are really good movies. I found that I liked this version of Spiderman better than the original, and not just because Andrew Garfield was in it. 


     The weather has been hot all over the place, Kate. It was terrible when I was in Niagara, way hotter than what I am used to. About 10 degrees Celsius. Looks like you had a great time at the zoo. I am jealous that you got to see a White Bengal Tiger, they are one of my favourite animals. Also, all of the big wild cats. *is super jealous*  I understand why you don't enjoy reading novels for school and such. I agree with John, that books belong to their readers, but I also know that there are some universal themes that occur. I quite enjoy looking at these themes and such, and interpreting them in my own ways. A good reason as to why I am going to be studying English in the fall. 


     Kira, I am so incredibly jealous that you got to see Venice and Rome. They look beautiful. Italy has been one of the top three places I would like to travel to (England being first, of course). Glad that you had fun, and no worries about missing a post. I would much rather you explore Italy than sit in a hotel room writing about it. I know that's the choice I would have made. Oh hey look, Pottermore is open again. *sarcastic woo!*  I am in Slytherin, and I am able to move on. Don't know how motivated I am to go on, though. The house points have all been reset to zero, which makes me kind of angry. I know that that is how it should be, it being a 'new year' and all, but I worked hard to earn those points. I think they should at least have a section on the profiles to show how many points you earned in each year. 


     Campion, I am proud to say that I have watched two of the five movies on your list. At first I didn't think I would be able to say that I have seen any of them, but I watched Back to the Future a short while ago, and saw Jurassic Park in French class (the movie was also in French with subtitles) back in grade 10. They were both not bad, but not something that I would put on a favourite movies list for myself. I always have a hard time choosing my favourite movies, as it really depends what mood I am in when asked. Harry Potter comes out on top, just from the scale and magnitude that they have impacted me. I also really like Star Trek, I don't know why. It's my go-to movie when I just want to watch something, listen to it instead of think. The Social Network was also good, I've re-watched it a few times. So yeah, can't really say what my favourites are, especially when I am not in the mood to think about movies.


     Kayla, thanks again for taking my Thursday post, and doing this for me so that my post doesn't look terribly late. Also, thanks for not being awkward when meeting Hunter and all. Sorry to hear about your laptop, but on the bright side now you know to be extremely careful with your laptop. The slightest things make them tick. It's also a lesson to all of us to be careful, I guess. Sorry it had to be you, though. Especially after cleaning and organizing all of your files (which for you is amazing, you messy person you).  *cheeky smile*  


     ADAM! I knew there was someone missing from my post. Darn. Wish I had time and room to steal your idea, but I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is. Maybe next week. I really wish we could go back in time and tell our past selves such advice. It would be so helpful. I mean, it would probably cause more trouble than it would help, but it would be interesting. Hope you are having a good summer, travelling or something. 


     On a final note, I finally set up my course schedule for the coming year, and it turned out to be pretty good. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be the roughest, as I have three classes each day for both terms. But at least I can mark those as little-to-no homework days and write my posts on Thursday evenings. My Mondays and Fridays are pretty relaxed, with one class each (except for Winter term Fridays, two classes). No back-to-back classes, which means no running around the campus like a chicken with it's head cut off. 


     Anyway, this post is waaaay too long, much longer than I thought it would be. It seems that this year I will keep the place as longest post writer. I really hope you guys don't mind. It's the writer/story-teller in me. I like to address each of you, a little OCD in my head. Seems like your summers are rocking, so keep that up. Stay safe, and don't forget to be awesome.
-Deidra

Kayla Takes Over, Mwuahahahahahaha

So yeah, as you might have gathered from the title I'll be filling in for Deidra on this fine day. It doesn't look like she'll have internet access today so we decided to switch days. 

My week has been frustrating to say the least. And it's all because of my own stupidity. It was going fine until Tuesday evening. I went to see the new Spiderman movie, which was excellent. There were a couple things that bothered me about it, but I won't go into it because they weren't big things and I don't want to spoil anything. But yeah that was all well and good until afterwards when I came home. I went on my laptop like usual (in my bed because it's comfier) and then when I  got up my laptop fell off the bed. And it was only maybe a foot drop but it ended up breaking my hard drive. And you know... everything, all my files and downloads and pictures and stories, were lost. 

So it's safe to say that was pretty sucky. I had to pay 200 bucks to get a new hard drive and I'm still in the midst of downloading all my programs and things again. Not the end of the world, but a tad inconvenient.

I don't think I'll be doing the Fahrenheit 451 reading mostly because I don't have the book and am too lazy to look around for it. Also I'm busy reading and doing other things. Like for instance hopefully reading Paper Towns, writing a story, learning some ASL, and catching up on some tv shows. And I want to do some more art, summers already almost half way over and I have done much. I'm a little disappointed. 

I've seen the tv show Numb3rs before, and I've enjoyed it. I was in a really big crime show phase at one point so I watched a lot of CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, Criminal Minds, Numb3rs, NCIS, Castle, The Mentalist, Lie to Me, etc, etc. My mom always hated me watching the shows because she thought it was so violent and gruesome, but I really enjoyed them. It's interesting to see all the different ways that they can come up with to kill people. (I apologize if that sounds morbid.) They even made me want to become a forensic scientist at one point, and who knows I may yet. And then on the other hand Deidra and I had this ongoing joke about me someday becoming like the "Miniature Serial Killer" from CSI... basically it ended with me telling her to never let me have a job where I make miniature things.

Those pictures were really cool Kate and Kira. I enjoyed looking at all the animals and you're right, Venice does look very nice at night.

I had to google Casual Vacancy to figure out what you were talking about if that's any indicator of how excited I am about it, Kira. I think I'm going to go in pretty indifferent so that I can form a good opinion about it when I read it. 

People always ask what's my favourite movie and whenever they do I can never really decide which ones I consider the best. Partly because I'm indecisive about such things and partly because it's hard to compare sometimes. But I thought about it a bit and came up with some I enjoyed. 

• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• Mad Max 2 (even though I've never seen any of the other ones in the series)
• The Blob (original and remake)
• on that note, The Thing was also pretty good
• Saving Private Ryan
• American Beauty
• X-Men: First Class
• Amelie

Yeah those are basically just ones that when thinking about movies, they tend to stand out in my mind for some reason, especially the first two. 

And yeah Campion I enjoyed your top 5 movie post. There's a couple movies on there that I'll be considering the next time I'm in need of something to watch. If you want to keep doing it go right ahead, it'll be interesting to see what else you come up with. It's not like we're strict or anything about how people post or what they post about. Just do what you enjoy!

DFTBA

Kayla

Top Five Movies

I don't have a lot of time to write this post (I always do my posts at night and my father is insisting that I go to bed soon).So  I thought that for this post I would try something a little different than what I normally do because it might take a little less time to write., I'm going to list my top five favorite films and why I love them. I'm not sure why I picked movies but oh well might as well get started.

5. The Room
This film is the reason why I love bad movies so much and what got me into them in the first place. For a film making and a critical perspective this film is horrible and a complete mess, it's often considered to be one of the worst films of all time. But from an pure entertainment perspective, it's so much fun. What really makes it so much is the films lead actor, Tommy Weisau. He's by far the worst actor in the film (the rest of the cast are still terrible though) but his performance is amazingly bad. It's difficult to explain and you just have to see the movie to understand how much fun it is. This film has made me laugh more than any other film or T.V show ever has, I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. I know that one of the worst films ever made is a weird choice for my favorite movie list but what I want most out of a movie is to be entertained and this is one of the most entertaining movies I have ever seen. If you want a good laugh, then watch this with a group of friends. If you hate bad films, then avoid this one like the plague but if you enjoy making fun of them, then this movie will not disappoint.

4. Back To The Future
Science fiction is my favorite film genre. I'm not sure why but there's something about it that I've always loved. Maybe it's the way that it explores the possible future that lies ahead for mankind, or the social commentary that remains a staple within the genre......... or maybe I just like flashing lights and cool ray guns blowing stuff up (it's probably the latter) but for whatever reason I love them, with Sci-fi dominating most of this list. One such film that I love to bits is Back To The Future. What I really love about this film is the characters, Doc Brown and Marty McFly in particular. They work well together, their are enjoyable, likable, funny and interesting to watch. Not only that but the film has an amazing theme, it's the kind of music that when you hear it, you know that your in for a great adventure. I always wondered what it would be like to go to high school with my Parents, which I guess is why I find this movie so interesting. If you love sci-fi adventure films, then check this one out.

3. Trigun: Badlands Rumble
I previously mentioned a few weeks (or months, I have a horrible memory so I can't really remember) that my all time favorite animated film was Trigun Badlands Rumble. I always loved anime and there are a lot of things to love about this movie. The film itself is based off of an anime called Trigun (obviously) and one thing that I have always loved about both the show and the movie is the main character, Vash The Stampede, played by my all time favourite voice actor, Jonny Young Bosch (who also played one of the Power Rangers, go figure). I love Vash. When he's first introduced, he comes off as a complete idiot but as the story moves along you quickly realize that it's all an act and that he is more dangerous than he appears. A good example of this is when he pretend to act like an idiot during a bar fight and when the bar fight escalated to the point where everyone draws their guns, they find that all of their bullets where stolen during the fight and they all look to Vash who's pockets and arms are over flowing with their stolen bullets. Keep in mind that the bar was filled with about 30 or 40 people and that he pulled this off in about five minutes. Another thing that this movie does well is how over the top everything is and how they pretty much disregard psychics all together, like how deflecting one bullet by shooting it with another is considered a NORMAL feat for someone to pull off or that they can level an entire building to the ground with a few simple machine guns (once they've finished, there isn't even any wreckage or rumble left over). It's a great movie and well worth the watch for any anime fan.

2. Hot Fuzz
The second movie in the blood and ice-cream trilogy. This film parodies and pays homage to many of the early action cop films of the 80's. This film is also directed by my favorite director, Edgar Wright who also directed Scott Pilgrim VS The World and Shaun Of The Dead. Wrights directing style is unique and always interesting to watch. It's amazing how he can take something mundane like making toast or going to work and then make it look like something exiting and interesting. This film is much darker than the other films and most of this comes from the films dark sense of humor and the various blood and gore from the film. My favorite scene from the movie is the shoot out that happens at the end of the movie, it's probably the most epic action scene to ever take place in a comedy. Every action cliche that you can think of is in this one scene........ and it is GLORIOUS. This film is a lot of fun to watch, it's funny, has great characters and great action. Everything I like in a movie (well, everything I like in a good movie anyway).

1. Jurassic Park
I know that this film wouldn't feature on the top spot on most peoples favorite movie list, hell it won't feature on most peoples lists altogether. This is my all time favorite movie because of how much this means to me. Jurassic Park is the first movie I ever remember seeing, I think I saw sometime before I turned two years old. I remember it before watching the Lion King, or Snow White. This film served as the catalyst for my film choices for a large portion of my life, this movie got me obsessed with Dinosaurs. After watching this I went on to watch as many dinosaur documentaries as I could, as many dinosaur movies as I could, if it was about Dinosaurs, then I wanted to see it. Jurassic Park is what got me into Barney and Friends (yes I saw Jurassic Park before I saw Barney), the Land Before Time and, of course, Power Rangers. Besides the nostalgia, this is actually a pretty good film. The dinosaurs are scary and menacing, especially the Velociraptors and it's interesting to watch the people in the film survive them. Also, I think that this movie has one of the greatest movie scenes of all time, a certain scene involving the lawyer and the T-Rex......... After revisiting this film after many years, I wounder why my parents let a very young child watch this film and how I never picked up on how frighting some of the scenes were.

So that's my top five favorite films and looking back at the post I just wrote, I realize that this was supposed to be a short post but this is one of the longest posts that I have ever written. So before I finish up i have a few questions for you guys, what are your favorite movies? Also was this post any good or should I just go back to what I used to write about? Should I do another top five whatever?

Anyway have an awesome week guys
DFTBA

Fireworks and Pictures

Hi, guys! Sorry I couldn't post last week, I had pretty bad Internet access in my hotel room. Italy was great, if hot. We saw a bunch of really cool sights. Here are a couple of pictures I took.

The top one was in Rome, the bottom was Venice. Venice by night is really super pretty.

I'm amazed that we've been doing this for whole year. Maybe I should take this as my opportunity to make another New Year's Resolution that I'll actually stick with this time...

Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian came out today. I'm probably going to go buy it some time this week. I have a childish love for that series that will never die. Speaking of books coming out, the Casual Vacancy comes out in September. Anyone else really excited?

I think every non Slytherin gets access to Chamber of Secrets in Pottermore tomorrow. That's exciting. Kind of.

On a random side note, my neighbours are setting off fireworks again. They do that every so often. This has been going on for the past week. It gets really old after a while.

I've got to get some stuff done, so have good weeks, guys.

DFTBA

-Kira

451 Degrees Fahrenheit in the Midwest

Lately I've been feeling exhausted and I have no idea why.  It might be the weather seeing as it's been extremely hot out and now it's cooled down a bit.  I've heard weather can affect health, especially with a 20 degree (Fahrenheit) drop in temperature and a noticeable drop in humidity.  Friday it was up to 110 degrees F (43 degrees C).  

Friday also happened to be the day a friend and I went to the zoo.  Apparently the Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the best in the nation.  It is pretty cool.  They recently changed and added to the Aquarium and added a few animals in other places. I personally loved the new otters in the Jungle. Unfortunately we forgot to check out the new Madagascar exhibit, but there's always next time. 

If you're ever in the States for some random reason and you're in the Midwestern area, I recommend checking the zoo out.  

Here are some pictures I've take from Friday's visit and two past visits.

I will not be doing the Fahrenheit 451 book reading. The book was assigned to our English class to be read over a three day weekend.  You know how John Green says "books belong to their readers?"  I like that, and that's probably why I don't like reading for English classes - usually.  I know I've mentioned it on Tumblr, but I'm not sure if I did here.  My English teacher forced us to find as many symbols as we could, and it was pretty awful and ruined the reading experience for me.

Okay, I'm getting really hungry so I'm going to go have lunch.

Kate

Numb3rs

Imagine this right, I'm sitting around all day watching television on my computer, napping, and reading thinking oh yea I'm going to write it after I do this or this.  The Graham Norton Show comes on, so I'm watching and then it dawns on me "Almost forgot again."

I was watching this video Ze Frank did about restoring faith in humanity and about not giving up the little things, but then i go and have a bad week and all is pretty much lost. Not really somethings that happened to me, just people I know. I went outside a lot though, which is an improvement from my normal hermit-like self. I forgot to do the dishes. Writing that to remind myself when I re-read so I do it. 

I don't regret my new hair choice, I just don't think I was quite ready for it not to be long. I'll probably grow it out a bit. However, I don't know if you guys follow Sarcaschicks or Bryarly, but in her recent Sarcaschick video she had a good point about the having short hair. My hair is shorter on one side than the other, because I thought "that's an awesome hair cut I should do something like Bryarly's" so I did... kind of. Mine looks a bit more even I guess and the short side is short... really short. Basically going out this week I noticed a lot more attention drawn to myself which sucks because I don't care for being noticed. 

I went to the only drive-in theatre in all of Rhode Island this past Tuesday, and it was overall really awesome. There were three screens that play back-to-back movies and I saw Brave and The Amazing Spider Man. Both awesome. I really enjoyed the New Spider Man, I thought it was better done than the last trilogy. What made it enjoyable was the fact that We arrived at the film two hours early. My sister decided to tune the radio to the correct station so we could just jump right into Brave when it started. It was fine for the first half-hour. Then the songs started repeating. I don't know if you guys do this to, but if I know a song well I have to sing to it. It's a bad habit I guess. The point is I mast have sang Footloose about five or six times. The funniest thing about that was my mother. She couldn't believe that her 15-yaer-old daughter knew all the words AND to top it off knew that the singer was Kenny Loggins and not Kevin Bacon.

So Tuesday was good. Friday, being yesterday, I went to the Big Apple Circus which incase you haven't guessed is a circus. I haven't gone to that particular one in a few years and my grandmother got tickets so my sister and I went and we had a blast. Although the performances were spectacular I didn't find it as wonderful as the audience. I first couldn't believe how many adults were there! There were these two people in general I noticed. A boy and who I presume his father were having a fake sword fight and the father was poking the boy with this glow-in-the-dark sword. The boy then took the sword and poked the father with it. The father acted dead, then came back to life and lightly shook the boy which made the boy jump causes me to giggle uncontrollably. 

Adam and Kate I thought that your posts were very made of awesome and very inspirational. Personally I don't think what I like and or do have changed much. I haven't gone through a lot or done much at all this year. The letter I would write to past me would be short. "You had fun. Keep that up." would be the just of it.

I wanted to explain the title a bit before it's Sunday. The show I watched all day and for the past couple weeks is called Numb3rs. Not sure if you've heard of it but I like it. using math to solve crimes basically. I have this weird thing for crime shows I don't know why, just always liked them. I think I'm going to comment more rather than try to reply to everything in a post, so be on the look for that. Oh also are any of you doing the Fahrenheit 451 reading? I'm going to try to. Let's see how it goes!

~Katie

My week was really busy so now I just want to relax.

Hey guys!

I'm back from Ottawa for the time being. I had a lot of fun there. Canada day was packed with people as usual. I saw one guy that was carrying a sign that said free hugs and brohoofs which I thought was funny. Also for some reason there were a bunch of furries walking around getting their pictures taken with people. It was pretty amusing. The fireworks were beautiful they had these really cute fizzing gold ones that I adored.

Also there happened to be a special Van Gogh exhibit in the Art Gallery when we were there so of course I went to check it out. I love his landscapes, the flow of his brushstrokes is really pretty. I ended up buying a print of Bedroom in Arles that I'm going to hang in my apartment somewhere, probably in my bedroom. 

Oh, and I went rock climbing with my sister for the first time. It was in one of those gyms with the fake rock climbing walls all over the place and it was really cool. We only went bouldering which is where you don't go as high and you don't need any ropes or anything. It was really fun, but really hard at the same time. I definitely want to keep going and try to get better at it. Lol, but let me tell you, was I ever sore afterwards. It wasn't that bad at first, but the next day my arms and shoulders were so sore that it hurt to move, push doors, or even lift my arms over my head.

I finished WGWG, and another book I bought called Awaken. The idea behind Awaken was really good in my opinion, very suiting for today's society. It takes place in the future when violence had escalated so much that people started isolating themselves in their homes and doing everything online instead. And it seemed relevant because even though it hasn't gone that far yet in reality, it doesn't seem like it's very far off from happening. I also ended up rereading The Darkest Powers series in one day, which was stupid because I stayed up really late to do it and now I'm done the story.... I should have spaced it out to enjoy it more...

Oh and I got all my marks back and my diploma for high school so that's cool. I'm very pleased with all my marks, all low 90s or high 80s.

Katie, that's cool you donated your hair. I did that once when I was younger. You liking your new hair or regretting it? Also I tend to just use the shift key for capital letters, unless its for like a whole sentence in capitals, but even then I forget the caps lock key half the time.

Adam, I liked your post idea. I'm not going to write a letter to myself, but I went back to look at my first couple posts. It's kind of strange reading them now. I feel like a different person now even though I haven't really changed all that much.

DFTBA

Kayla

Vacation Time!

     Sorry that this is late. My sister was borrowing the laptop and I've been busy all day. Won't have time to read or comment on all of your posts. I want to post on-time hopefully and I've got quite a bit to say.


     So I'm on vacation with my family in Niagara Falls. We came down to that I could meet my nerdfighterlike/boyfriend, Hunter. It was pretty amazing. He kind of surprised me at the falls (my parents and sister were in on it). He had knitted me a scarf, so he came up behind me and asked if I had dropped it. It took me about two seconds to figure out what was going on, and then I jumped into his arms and hugged him. He's a sweetheart.


     Anyway, I've gotten to do a lot on this trip. I saw the Falls, obviously. Those are amazing. Then got to go on a ferris wheel. Saw fireworks over the Falls on American Independence Day. Went to see Brave (it was amazing!). Tomorrow we are going to go on the Maid of the Mist ride, which is a boat ride that goes right up close to the Falls. It looks really fun from the top, hopefully I don't get sea-sick. I probably won't, I've been on boats before in rough (if not rougher) weather. But you never know. 


     Anywho, I hope you all have been having good summer breaks (and that school is going well for you, Campion). I don't want this to be late, and there are things I want to do before bed. So don't forget to be awesome, and I'll elaborate more next week when I have more time. 
-Deidra
P.S- I will try and upload some pictures next week as well. 

I can't believe how long we've been doing this

Wow, an entire year of awesome. I really can't believe that. I've honestly never stuck with anything like this for this long. I usually start it and then give up half way through but I guess the reason that I stuck with this for so long is that it's not just me who's reading it, it's you guys as well and I guess the thought of disappointing you guys is terrifying, for example I always panic when I miss a post (like last week, I'm really sorry for that by the way) but thankfully you guys are pretty forgiving. I've had a great year with this. It's really helped me to find a positive note about my week, even when nothing really happens.

Anyway, me week went pretty well. On Monday and Tuesday me and my friends started playing Pokemon Tabletop Adventures. Our first session went surprisingly well, it started off quite slow but once we got into it, it got really good. I thought that I wouldn't have enough content to last us for the two sessions that we were going to do but as it turns out I had more than enough. This was proved when my friends took about an hour to go through a conversion with an NPC that I had thought would take about 3 minutes. But I guess that made the campaign more fun because of how entertaining the conversations between our characters were.

The total time that we spent playing the game over the course of two days amounted to about 12 or 13 hours. It was a lot of fun and we're probably going to play it again sometime next week. I think that the highlight of our session was this boss encounter which I created for the other guys, they went into the shattered ruins of this city and fought a massive Rhyhorn (which is like a dinosaur, rhino, rock thing...... it makes more sense if you know what it is) which was about the size of a truck. They seemed to enjoy fighting it.

Anyway, happy anniversary guys guys! Have another awesome week and I hope that we have another awesome year.

DFTBA

Kate Likes Adam's Ideas, So She Steals It

This blog is a year old and that's awesome.

Deidra, I totally agree with you.  I'm glad I passed, but I just feel so inexperienced. Luckily I still have to wait about 5 months before I'm allowed to get my real license.  My state requires us to have our permit 6 months before getting to drive on our own.  I just want as much practice as I can get because, even though I passed, I feel unsafe on roads with other people.

I loved Will Grayson (x2), especially the ending.  I thought it was sweet and lovely.  When it comes to marking in books, I'm not against it.  When a quote is special, I like to outline it; that way it's easy to find but isn't too distracting.

Katie, I always use the shift key unless I'm using ALL CAPS  or something like P.O. Box which would make me lift off the shift key while I type the "." in between the capitals.

This is the stealing Adam's idea part.

Dear Kate,
I bet you're surprised to hear you survived a whole year without losing your sanity. Of course, it's the summer and you don't know what lies ahead for your sophomore year.  Let's just say you cry the first two nights of the school year.  Can't even imagine what being that stressed out is like?  You also cried in Algebra 2 a few times because English stressed you out.  Don't worry, you weren't the only one crying because of English.
But the important thing to focus is on is the fact that you learned so much and grew so much as a person.  You'll become more experienced as the year progresses. Friends were lost, but closer friends were gained.  Family issues come and go, and your brother still can't decide what he wants to do with his life.
You really don't have to worry about any big changes.  I know you want to improve yourself when it comes to things like pole-vaulting, playing instruments, and becoming less shy and whatnot, and I don't want to ruin the surprises that lay ahead, but everything has gone very well for you.  You'll be proud off course with a number of new friends who live in various places around the globe.
Congratulations, Kate, for taking the first steps in a marvelous journey.  You'll never forget this year.
DFTBA, Kate, DFTBA
PS: You passed your driving test on the first time, so don't work yourself up too much about it.


Anyways.... A WHOLE YEAR GUYS.
Let's double the awesome and go for two.
Happy Anniversary, Happy Canada Day, and Happy 4th
Kate

Soppy anniversary postage

Hello , sorry I missed last week, again. Yay, 1 year anniversary!!!! :D

I have no idea what to write today so I'm going to read my first post for the first time since I posted it and write a letter to myself one year ago. This will probably be dull but what the hell.

Dear Adam,
In the next year, A LOT is going to change. For a start you no longer post on Saturdays, that said you don't really post at all so don't get too bogged down by that.
You've just finished your secondary school exams and are spending your days freaking out about whether or not you'll get the results for the college course you want. ( SPOILERS: you do)
College is going to be awesome by the way, you're going to meet an insane number of interesting, unique and downright bizarre individuals. This next 12 months might not neccesarily be the best of your life but it will play a huge part in shaping you as a person, hopefully for the better.
Also, I know that you tend to get a bit down about the fact you've never had a girlfriend and all that jazz but (and HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD) that changes in the next year and once it does you'll realise how stupid it was to ever let it annoy you. Granted it will also end horribly, but you know..... what was I talking about?
Seriously you have no idea how much you're going to change. In just one year your going to read your first post and wonder what the hell led you to choose Unicorns over Zombies. I am genuinely baffled by that.
Also, try not to bring the irish thing up so regularly in your posts, it's a bit tiresome to read over.
Other than that, what can I say? Don't read The Alchemist, I don't care that it's been on your bookshelf for ages and you've never read it. You will wish you could take back the hours spent reading it.

DFTBA
Future Adam

Saturday Night's Alright [For Fighting]

When in doubt song title. I remembered it was Saturday until I didn't, and now panic. However I have dark chocolate, so it's cool. I got my report card this week, but I have no idea if I made honors or not. I have to read six books to pass the whole summer reading check thing, which wouldn't be so bad if I could read faster and have an attention span that lasts longer than a fish.

Also finding the book with the correct ISBN is a giant pain in my ass. But never mind that. It's almost midnight, so rapid-fire-speed-time- GO! I...I don't even know what that was... I'm sorry you had to read that. I can barely remember if I did anything on Monday. I remember Tuesday. Let's just say my family (on my dads side) is horrific. I just don't know, they're all complete psychopaths. Then nothing until yesterday. We, being my sister, mother, and I went to a consignment shop and bought my sister a lot of clothes. Seriously. I don't know how they can just try on so many clothes, I hate it. I also donated my hair to locks of love, so it's extremely short. I don't think it's been this short since I was five. I'm not sure what to think. 

Okay well most of this is written on a Saturday. So Freaks and Geeks is a wonderfully amazing television show. I really like it. I think I'll reply and stuffs. Burning books is a no, but what a memory you're left with! Uh OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY! Oh and moving sounds like a bit of a pain. Good luck. Replying with one sentence, new thing? Oh look now it's twelve.

I don't know if you guys listen to Amy MacDonald but she released a new CD two weeks ago. I didn't end up going to church and I attempted reading the bible once, last summer. I read about ten pages in and stopped. Not sure why, just did. All I can think about is school and next year my schools only two years old and they're moving to a new location, so I don't know what to expect. I just ate the last of my chocolate, so we must be done, right? Happy almost Saturday into Sunday post.

~Katie

P.S. When you type and go to do a capital, do you press shift or caps lock? Just curious, I've always used caps lock.