Story Epiphanies and Frustration

At the moment, I should not be on the computer, being that my room is not clean.  But I am on the computer because I have to re-sync my iPod.  "Why?" you might ask, "Why, Haili, must you re-sync your iPod?"  Because, oh curious blog reader of mine, my younger brothers though it was perfectly acceptable to take my iPod, erase it of my music (ALL of it) and sync it with whatever was in their wimpy iTunes library.  (which was sample music...)

Now, if you don't know my brothers, you won't know that they have sticky fingers and are always getting in trouble for stealing everything from my dad's sugar (he's diabetic, so when he needs it, he needs it.) to taking my sister's and my Easter candy.  You also will not know that I am the ONLY person in my house that owns an iPod of any sort (mine's a 4th gen iPod nano that I won in a drawing at Winterblast in 8th grade, a few days after my birthday).  Come to think of it, I'm the only person who own anything made by Apple.  My siblings have MP3 players, but they're all the same, so it's easy to see why they might take Elli's "on accident" And Elli and my brothers each got a mini DVD player (the boys share) and they're exactly the same.  Elli put some kitten stickers on hers and the boys have foil stars on theirs.  But they got theirs taken away and have stolen Elli's several times.  (Elli bought it with her allowance money, after the few weeks that we had allowances).

So, anyway, there I was, cleaning my room like a good daughter, and after finally getting my iPod boombox to work and failing to get Air1 to come in on the radio, I decided to find my iPod, which I had recently recovered from the boys, and put in some tunes.  Imagine my surprise when some Willie Nelson song comes on and all my playlists,(including a high-energy one that inspired last year's NaNoWriMo) are gone.  Let's just say I was not happy.  And a few less- than- savory words escaped my mouth.

But... I fixed it.  I can fix anything, right?  Right.

On to happier things.  After seeing the Avengers with my family (because it was a rainy day) we went to drop off a dresser at Salvation Army and my dad wanted to find some short sleeved dress shirts, so we went in.  That place is HUGE!!  I love consignment stores, so I had a hayday.  I only found four things- a pretty gold headband that I am currently wearing, an orange shirt with pretty little flowers on it, a brown/tan shirt with blue flowers on it, and my mom found a really pretty pair of heels that matches it exactly.  I'm wearing those and my jean skirt to church tomorrow... all of this for like $12.

Also, had a major story breakthrough on the Storm Children front.  While cleaning my room, (go figure) I found an old school library book of Elli's about fairy tales and proceeded to read it.  I came upon the last story, The Snow Queen, and remembered my attempt at retelling this fascinating fairy tale.  Then I realized- my storm children!  I renamed Rain Vallisri to Rain Gerdasri (ger DA sri) and made her into the Gerda character.  I made Ciro (wind) visible and gave him a last name, Ciro Kayten.  He's the Kay character.  I made Ferren Thorling (thunder) into the "Robber Girl" character (only he's a boy...) and had Elysia (lightning) be another girl the old lady at the beginning of the story has under her spell.  She and Rain escape together and Elysia helps Rain find Ciro.

Rain's still a gypsy girl, taken in by Ciro's mountain dwelling family after her parents are killed by the townspeople.  When Ciro goes missing/is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, Rain decides to repay the debt to Ciro's family by saving her best friend.  In the tale, Gerda often speaks to the river.  I may give Rain the power of water-speaking (to borrow a phrase from Shannon Hale, another retold fairy tale author).  And the other children similar powers.  Of course the Snow Queen and Rain's battle shall be interesting... cold and water...hmm...

gotta go- more later.

Little Miss Mommy

So last night I got the opportunity to play "Little Miss Mommy"  Little Miss Mommy is similar to Mr. Mom, but Little Miss Mommy is an older sister who gets to play mom.  Last night, that was me.
After I got to my high school, my mom emailed me saying that she and my dad were going to be busy and could I make dinner (which I appreciated, being that she usually waits to ask me until I get home and have to throw all my plans out the window to frantically try to pull something together)  Anyway, I decided to make one of Betty Crocker's Impossibly Easy pies.  They're kind of my signature dinner and they take about an hour to make.  I made  the mini cheeseburger pies last night and I'll probably be making the tuna and cheese pie tonight (no meat- it's Ash Wednesday!) Or the shrimp one.

Anyway, I had to get some ingredients we were missing, so as I drove home from school with my siblings, we stopped at County Market on the way home.  I thought that since we were there, I could just get the stuff for Lee's birthday cake while we were there.  I always make the birthday cakes in my house, even my own.  I just love it and it's something I've always found fun and interesting (if not exhausting).  Lee is having a 'food' themed party,  with a big pizza cookie cake, mini hamburger cupcakes, popcorn cupcakes and sugar cookie french fries.  So anyway, I figured I could get the stuff for it while I was at County Market and not have to make a separate trip (or make my mom do it).  For some odd reason, though, all three of my younger siblings came down with a spontaneous case of ADHD (not really...don't want to offend anyone that knows someone how has ADHD for real, but that's what it felt like) and couldn't stay focused.  It didn't help we were in the cake aisle.  When they weren't scattered like the four winds, they stayed behind me in a straight line... like a train.  I've never felt more awkward in my life.

I went home, made dinner, practiced piano manically, ate dinner, went to piano, and then came home and made astronomy notecards for 2 hours.  At 9 o clock (almost exactly) I burned out.  I was getting pretty tired by 8:30 and I've been having some ear problems again, so I wasn't feeling so good, but I thought... Almost done, Haili, almost done... just a few more topics and you'll be done... Yeah. No.  At 9 o clock, I threw in the towel, went downstairs and announced to my mom, "My brain is fried.  I'm not going to get anything done right now and even if I do, I won't remember it or I'll do it wrong.  I'm going to go read a book (well, re read for the third time... to be exact) for a few minutes and I'm going to sleep."

Which I did.  I woke up at 5:25 this morning on my own without my alarm, my ear felt better, I was well rested, and I had a strange dream (it involved this sweet little baby girl who was in foster care that for some reason my sister and I were given to take care of.  I named her Mercy Christine, which is my favorite name in the world.  There was also something about my mom making all Lee's birthday treats and me getting mad because she did them wrong...all while I was holding Mercy... it was weird).  I got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and started right back into my notecards.  I'm almost done, but I'm running out of notecards...

That's the second time I've woken up at 5:25 on my own- I did it yesterday as well.  I figured out that if I go to bed at 9 or 9:30, I can get up early without an issue.

Oh, and the book I was rereading for the third time (in case you're intereseted- and you should be-it's amazing) was called Beyond the Reflection's Edge.  It's part of the Echoes from the Edge series by Bryan Davis.  He's an amazing author (I emailed him and he emailed me back- several times!!!!!).  Echoes from the Edge is about this kid named Nathan Shepherd and his mom's a world famous violinist and his dad's a spy and they get murdered.  There's this weird mirror Nathan's dad gave him that can take everyone to different dimensions (Earth Red, Earth Blue, or Earth Yellow- they're all slightly off timewise) but can only be unlocked with music and a flash of light.  Great music, great action, the murderers are going after Nathan, at one point he meets his Earth Yellow mother who is 10 (Earth Yellow is like 30 years behind Earth Red, where Nathan is)... it sounds kinda weird, but it's good... SO GO READ IT!!!

okay... I'm done.  Must do homework now... *sigh*
I'm out
Haili

I am waiting...

for 294 videos to upload to my computer from the family video camera... the thing is, I only need about 10 of them... *sigh* this could be a long night.  I need them for my music project.

I got a 75% on my Astronomy test...plus extra credit brings me to a good solid 80.  In this class, anything over 75 is an A, and only about 60% of the class passes the first test... and now I know why.  Trick questions EVERYWHERE!
     x. List all the ways energy is created
    Energy can't be created, or destroyed!!!! Tricky, tricky!

I aced my music exam today but made a stupid mistake on my screenplay quiz...you'd think I'd know the difference between Interior and Professional... they're like opposites!  But my excuse is that it was early, I was tired, and it was online matching...I couldn't draw lines... oh well.  Still did well.

I checked out the script and music for our musical today... and spent most of the night playing the songs.  Dang, some of them go high!!  They have both Beauty and the Beast soaring up to that high f...I can barely hit it...strrrreeeetttch, vocal chords!! STRETCH!  Anyway, now I have "Can I Possibly Be Your Friend" stuck in my head... it's this super funny exchange between Beauty and the Beast.  The Beast keeps asking her to marry him and she says no, but there's more to love than the marriage kind, to which he's clueless and she tells him she'll be his friend, no matter what.  It's cute and very funny.  One of my favorite lines:

BEAUTY: (sings)

A true friend's a person with a giving heart

A true friend will tell you when you're not so smart

A friend won't desert you when the going's rough

A true friend will tell you when she's had enough!

BEAST: (spoken)

Like now?

BEAUTY: (spoken, teasing)

Like now!

BEAST: (spoken)

Sorry

I don't know, I think it's cute.  

Anyway, moving on... my videos have FINALLY uploaded--- seems that the issue was one of the videos had an error which is why it took almost an hour for video 90 to load.  I finally skipped it and had no further issues as it zipped through the rest of them... Anywho, I've got to get my project done.  Gus and I did a recorder duet today so I'll probably post it on youtube soon- I'll be putting stuff up for a project... gotta go

-Haili

I'm contagious!

So, one of my little brothers (not the singing one) came in my room last night and asked me if he could write a story and get a book published like me and Elli.  Let's call him... Lee.  He came up with this story idea titled "Get Lost!" about this kid getting kidnapped, escaping, but then going the complete opposite way from home as he tries to go home.  This character, Luckas Tarrington (I helped come up with the name) has the worst sense of direction ever which is really funny since Lee has the best sense of direction.  Like one time, we were going to my dad's mom's house for Christmas, and my dad accidentally turned to go toward my mom's mom's cabin, and Lee was the one who caught the mistake.  At like, age 4.  I'm not kidding.  When I drive him around, I still confirm with him that we're on the right road.

So anyway, now I've gotten my brother and my sister into writing, and my other brother (the singing one... let's call him Gus) asked me about this writing club I started last year and if we really were going to do it.  So now Gus is writing a story about a kid named Matthew who loses his skateboard.

So since I have now infected all of my siblings with NaNoWriMo, I have decided to make NaStoWriWe, National Story Writing Week, to take place over the winter break.  It'll be so fun.

Oh, yeah, and Lee came up with the best title for my novel.  Instead of Written in the Stars which is already a song, he suggested Beyond the Stars.  Which is awesome, but there's already a story about an astronaut by the same name, so I might have to tweak it a bit.  It's awesome!  Love Beyond the Stars maybe?

let me know what you think!
 and I shall be posting bloopers of my attempts to sing "Defying Gravity" on youtube soon... should be funny!