Somebody's Broken Heart Becomes Your Favorite Song

I love that line. From "Funny the Way it Is," the first DMB song I heard.

Wow, it's been a while since I've last updated....time for recap.

The end of the year wasn't nearly as sentimental as I thought it would be. The drama banquet was pretty fun, full of surprises. I don't understand that teacher sometimes, hahaha. But I never cried once; contemplating where I am in life, I feel like I'm ready for the change to come, though I hate the thought of leaving behind everything I love about my life these past 4 years. I'm so glad to be rid of some things about it, at the same time. The people and issues I will never have to face again--that part is so liberating, though it hasn't quite hit me that it's over. It's a gradual feeling, I suppose.

The Disneyland/end of the year orchestra concerts were amazing, we did so well. Spending the entire day at Disneyland (and seeing the shady backstage) wasn't a downer either, really, haha.

My presentation for Miss Saigon went very well too, I was surprised. I'm not the best public speaker by any stretch, but I got an A. I actually went over the time limit too, which was surprising, I was worried I wouldn't have enough to say.

I've seen a couple movies recently, including Up and Angels and Demons. Both were very good, I recommend you see them. I'm also planning to see Night at the Museum 2 this week; I've heard pretty good reviews about that one too.

In other news, what feels to be the biggest change in my life recently, I've begun a relationship, actually with the guy I asked to prom. We've been dating since around the time of my last post, and have been official a little over a week now, though it feels like longer to both of us. He's a great guy; really nice, unselfish, dependable, and we have very similar senses of humor, mannerisms, and tastes in things. We've been through a lot of tough times together a while ago, and I think helping each other through them has made us a lot stronger. Things couldn't be better so far; I'd like to see things continue on this note. :)

I have a feeling this summer will be the best yet.

Luv!
~Zatarra


Watch the Big Bang Theory.

The flower said "I wish I was a tree"

The tree said "I wish I could be
a different kind of tree"
The cat wished that it was a bee.

I love Juno music. ^^ "Tree Hugger"--look it up.

So, life has been pretty awesome lately. I seriously can't believe it's almost summer. I'm both excited and apprehensive about what that means.

Well, since the last post, I've...

-Seen Star Trek. It renewed the Trekkie in me, I loved it. I seriously, seriously recommend seeing that movie if you haven't already. If you've seen it, good for you. See it again.

-Gone to Prom. It was pretty epic. Different from every other dance I've been to, as far as there are a lot of things to do other than dance. We actually didn't even dance all that much. Flight simulators, some people gambled, and some people and I went on the deck (it was an aircraft carrier) like 3 times, which was beautiful. The second dance ever with no drama, so my closest friends and I have had a pretty good run with that this semester, hahaha. Overall, it was a great experience with some amazing people. I love my friends, and I hope we all stay in touch. ^^

-Went to a dinner at a community center because I won that fine arts scholarship!! It was great, I nerded out with a bunch of other art geeks, one of which I found out was a Doctor Who fan, lol. I need to start watching that series again, now that I'm getting more time....

-Read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Minus like 60 pages because I thought I had to present the next day, but I got the gist of it, haha. It's a memoir of Eggers' life, which was extremely depressing...yet it's funny, because he always stays positive and has a great sense of humor and description. It's not everyday that you read a book that describes the stares you get from playing frisbee as looking at you like you were "skinning babies." It's pretty awesome, in a great existential post-modern-y way.
Now I'm picking up I am America (And So Can You!) again. Colbert makes my life.

-Went to a cast party for Miss Saigon. Awesome awesome. Our "master chef" called the spatula a "flippy thing." You can't beat that.

-Shot indoor, outdoor and macro fashion shoots. They turned out pretty good, I think. I also modeled for a friend's outdoor fashion shoot, which meant I had to try and not look like I was bawling my eyes out because the reflector we use directs sunlight into your eyes. The result looks amazing, but hurts like hell in the process.

-Was published in Poofgoesyourface's literary magazine!! I has 3 pictures in it, one of which is the cover. :)

-Saw The Spirit (AMAZING. Everyone else thinks it's weird though...sadness.) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Which was very different from Fitzgerald's original. It was good though. The guy struck by lightning 7 times was one of my absolute favorites. Look it up on YouTube.

-Went to an Ethnic Food Fair with a friend and her dad. It was great.

...

Stuff that's coming up in my life:

-Drama banquet. We all reunite, hand out awards, mingle, joke, and watch overly long clips from every play. lol.

-More scholarship applications!!

-Celebrating Poof's birthday!~ :D

-Project presentations. Public speaking from 15-20 minutes about Miss Saigon. = dread. Wish me luck, hahaha.

-Lots and lots of celebrating/spending time with friends before we all go our separate ways. I'm going to miss them...

-Go to the fair. I'm entered into the photo contest! :D

-Play Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the Bounty Hunter video game theme at Disneyland!!

-Find out the results of my AP exams in July, I think.... x_x Wish me luck?


So yeah. That's my life...

Until next time,

Luv!
~Zatarra

Sweet and cold, clean up the mess and sleep the day away

From "Lonely People," one of my favorite songs by Augustana. I saw these guys perform their entire debut album for a Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows concert pre-show.

Life has been very exciting/stressful lately. We put up Miss Saigon previews on Friday, then ran the show Friday and Saturday night. I was so, so unbelievably exhausted from it, but the experience was incredibly worthwhile. The show was absolutely amazing; there were few ways in which it could've been better. Even on Saturday, when we didn't have half our leads and one pivotal member of our crew, we reconfigured the cast and I filled in for a spotlight after a quick costume change I helped with. We pretty much remodeled the show in 2 hours, it was incredible. Didn't turn out too bad for that, too. Our turnout was great for both nights as well; yay for yelling at people over the intercom!
Not to mention, I must say the red jacket/tunic thing Kim wore for most of the show looked incredible. ;D

I still haven't gotten the music out of my head. "Please" and "Fall of Saigon," among other songs, were running through my head during my Government exam. Speaking of which, I might not have failed it! haha. It seemed surprisingly easy, but I suppose I'll see just how easy it was when I get my scores.

"Personal Jesus" is a pretty awesome song. I downloaded the Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson version. xD

I'm pretty excited for some photo stuff, though I'm behind because Miss Saigon ate my life for like a month and a half. For the final, we have to sync about 40 of our favorite pictures to music; I'm still not sure what song I'm going to choose. My ideas at the moment include...

• Mr. Jones--Counting Crows
• Tree Hugger--Antsy Pants
• Vampire--Antsy Pants (probably too short....)
• You Me and the Bourgeoisie--The Submarines
• Breakfast at Tiffany's--Deep Blue Something
• Denial Twist--White Stripes
• Les Rois du Monde--Romeo et Juliet (from an epic French musical...Gary Barnes rocks!!! xD )
• Love, Save the Empty--Erin McCarley
• Kids--MGMT
• Dead Memories--Slipknot
• Moskau--Dschinghis Khan (lol)
• Reach for the Sky--Social Distortion
• maybe something from Miss Saigon? bahahaha....

...or something else. I don't know...I was thinking about doing a song that not a great many people know...any ideas?

Aaaaand...I have a date to Prom! My original unrealistic thoughts didn't work out/kind of couldn't possibly, so I asked a good friend of mine, especially because he doesn't go here anymore, hahaha. It's still just a big group of friends, but it should be a ton of fun, and my date is a great guy. ^^ I'm really excited, I'll review how it was. I might still save a dance for a ghost though, it depends... ;)

I forgot to mention last update as well...I helped my friend with her project, putting on a WWII-themed dance at a retirement home. We both dressed like...army girls, I guess you can call it, and I photographed the whole thing. One of my pictures even got into the city newspaper! Except they kind of epically messed up the spelling of my name....it was even spelled out for them like 3 times.

Poofgoesyourface's project, making a literary/arts magazine, is making me really stoked too. I have 3 black and white photos in it! One of which is the cover!~ :D It makesh me happeh.

Which reminds me...I was interviewed last week (or the week before? I'm having some seriously epic issues with time lately, with the shows, exams, papers....I barely believe it's Monday.) for a fine arts scholarship! The women who interviewed me really liked my stuff a lot, so I think I might have a pretty good shot at it. :)

That's a pretty good update for now, methinks. Here's hoping for the best for my other two exams/my photo final/Prom/etc!

Stuffed manatees are pretty much one of the best things ever, especially when they're named Blubber, like mine. x) Yay, theme parks...

until next time,

Luv!

~Zatarra

A Family of Trees Wanting to be Haunted

I recently discovered Kids by MGMT. It's absolutely amazing. Thank you, Pandora Radio and Skreemr.

Sigh, another month, another blog post. Life has been good; relatively improved, besides the stress, which will be almost completely over by...a week and a half from now, roughly. Our production of Miss Saigon is going up on Friday and Saturday, so come see it if you're in the area. ^^ It should be pretty great.

Currently listening to music to figure out what I want to use for my photo final...

Prom hype (the mild term, it's a bit more like hysteria sometimes) is in full swing. Plans are being made, dates are being asked....haha. It would be nice to be asked, I suppose. I'd like that. Maybe I should add, depending on the circumstances. ^^ But I know I'll have fun with some amazing friends either way, so I'm okay with going stag as well. My happiness is more important to me than whether I'm going with anyone, or who it is, or whatever--I've definitely learned this. I hear the place we're going is haunted anyway, maybe I can get a ghost to dance with me. Here's for the best, haha. ;D

Short blog post, I know. But I also acknowledge that I have more important things to do. Sorry, Blogger.

luv,
~Zatarra

Doctor Who is still amazing. I recently re-discovered. The whole new-Doctor thing makes me sad though. Especially considering who it is...mleh. More primarily, who it's not: David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston. cry.

Staring at the End of What We Made and Who We Are

Lenka is adorable.

As is Juno music, I recently realized.

Holy crap, it's been like a month and a half. So much has happened...wow. And yet hardly anything at all, really. Maybe it's a good thing time can pass so fast. Thinking again, I want all the time I can get with my friends before we all part ways. Why can't relativity work to our advantage...make the good times last, and the bad ones can just go away. Curse you, altered perspectives.

All in all, I think I've gained some of that perspective I've been working on for a couple years now. In that sense, things are much more positive; it could always get better, of course, but I've definitely been worse.

As far as school, the giant Miss Saigon project, AP classes, and the end of the year are closing in fast. Prom hype has even begun already. All are daunting, but I'm excited for them. I don't know what'll happen, but I hope it all turns out well. Positive outlook, positive outlook....

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an amazing movie. I'm watching it right now.

Back on the topic of school....I really, really hate double standards and needless work. The admins tell us to get good grades and work hard, yet also recommend that we don't burn ourselves out this year. They give us a huge, 40 hour-minimum project on top of that; I understand the point of trying something out to see how we like a potential career (what a lot of people chose to do for their project), but there are limits to what we are capable of doing, between just ourselves and the rules the admins set up. I have a few friends who have just begun on their project (which we "should" have started pretty much in September) because their amazing ideas of teaching a class or tutoring or whatever, presented "liability issues." Then we have to document all our evidence of what we're doing, which could very easily be fabricated.
Not to mention our requirement of also writing a strictly MLA-formatted (because we'll totally need to know how to measure our margins in the real world...MLA needs to die in a hole somewhere) paper debating a controversial topic that is tied extremely loosely to our project topic. Because, ooh, controversial topic papers, I totally haven't done that every year since middle school...

Have us do a ridiculous project, fine. Have us write a ridiculous controversial paper (which we don't even need to agree with; we're encouraged to take the side of the majority of our evidence), well that sucks, but I'll do it. Have us do both, on top of 6 classes, many of them APs for a lot of people, extracurriculars, and trying to get into a good school? Are you stupid?? By the time I get home, I'm so burnt out from the day that I couldn't be bothered to branch out, or try new things, or spend extra time with friends--everything they encourage us to do this year. Sure, these projects aren't a graduation requirement, but if I refuse to do them and do everything else in those classes perfectly, the best I can get are Cs for both classes that are necessary to pass to graduate, also ruining my chances to keep my acceptance to a good college because of my GPA drop. Grr.

So much for positive outlook....

Anyway, so yeah. I needed to vent about that. Moving on.
Currently reading F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories. I haven't even finished one to give you my opinion yet.
The first seasons of Moonlight and Pushing Daisies are awesome. I have a knack for loving cancelled shows, it kind of sucks. But go out and watch those, seriously.

Still watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I've realized that I think the last wedding I've been to was when I was a fetus. hmm.

The Sexy People blog is amazing; check it out, I have a link over on the right column.

Until next time. Probably meaning late April, at best.

luv,
~Zatarra

The song maker says it ain't so bad.

The dream maker's gonna make you mad...
The space man says everybody look down--
it's all in your mind....

Killers = awesome.


Wow....so much for updating more often. o.o I can't believe it's been a month and a half-ish....I'm pretty much convinced now that my sense of time is shot to hell. That won't be good....


Anyway, so. Since I last updated....well, we began a new semester. I'm really liking my classes...I have a lot of friends in each, and my psychology teacher is SOOOOOO much better than last semester's. Plus, night photography is like one of the world's most awesome things, ever.

I recently finished Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...I liked both well enough, but once I read the literary criticism for both, Stoker lost any respect I could have for him other than that he wrote the basis for amazing vampire-related things to come. Reading the story, things seem pretty straightforward, but all the literary geniuses say it's a bunch of Freudian stuff about the repression and vulnerability towards sin that women are subject to in the Victorian era...it's a load of crap, really. The theory... and Stoker's writing in general, I mean. The 2 female characters in the whole 400 page book see little to no character growth whatsoever, not to mention the end of that book was crap. Jekyll and Hyde was much better, and presented interesting theories about the nature of man and all that fun stuff. Well....they kept mentioning the "duality" of man, I wanted to start singing Slipknot if it wasn't for the whole I procrastinated long enough on my paper thing....anyway. Now I'm reading Poe. xD

As far as that winter dance I mentioned last time....it was a lot of fun. I asked a friend of mine and went with a big group of really awesome people, and I think this is the first high school dance I've gone to without much to any drama or other sorts of turmoil...haha. So, you know. Yay for fun.

My birthday was last week, on the fourth. It was a lot of fun, spending time with everyone. I got a laptop...it's amazing, but it might be time for me to be able to understand how to actually work a computer.... :/ maybe I can do something with the iPod I got for Christmas too. But anyway. FIRST BLOG POST ON THE NEW COMP, FTW. hahaha.

As far as life in general...meh. It's nice, I guess, but I could be happier. This is how the song/blog stuff kind of relates here, I guess....not completely, but well enough. My life can be chaotic and confusing as hell, sometimes. I keep thinking I'd have it so much easier if I knew the answers to all my questions, if I knew what to do to find where I belong and can be happy....yet, do I want to know those answers? It would be handy to know where to go from here, but at what cost?
I feel surrounded sometimes. Afraid to make mistakes that aren't mine to make. Feeling like I'm running out of time or something. Yet perfectly conscious that I have plenty of time, that the happiness I think everyone else has isn't worth worrying about, because I'm not alone and I'm putting things on pedestals that should rather be put in perspective. Good God, I hate the disparity between logic and emotions....

If life actually worked out ideally....what a novel concept.

Going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight showing on Friday the 13th. Awesomeness.

Have a happy almost Valentine's/Forced Affection/Single's Awareness Day.

luv,
~Zatarra

The Car is on Blocks but I Was Already Where I Want

Dashboard, by Modest Mouse. The singer has an incredibly weird voice, this is the only song I can really stand at all from the album I borrowed from the library, haha. It really stands out among the rest, though.

Well...what the hell. It's already been another month. Am I too busy to notice the time passing? Or am I just losing it? Maybe both.....

So. Not too much has happened in my life, really, I don't think. I've had a couple concerts for orchestra, which went alright. Kind of bittersweet, because they'll be my last winter concerts. I've read two more books for lit....well....I technically read one and a half. The other half was read in the form of Sparknotes summaries and analyses. (that's plural; I know how to spell analysis, Firefox spell check.) haha. Capote was a pretty good writer, despite being a strange individual who was racist like just about everyone else in the 50s and 60s. I read Breakfast at Tiffany's (great) and In Cold Blood (incredibly boring, then incredibly creepy. Chronicles the lives of a rather dull rural farm family in Kansas before they all get shot in the faces, then the lives of the townsfolk and murderers afterwords. I heard there's some good commentary debating the death penalty. I didn't get that far.) .

I think I might be finally caught up in Photo, after about 3 weeks of staying after school working on burning and dodging, printing, figuring out how to make a digital contact sheet, and so on and so forth. Then I spent two and a half weeks only on a collage of my friends...the process was really fun and exciting, but left me physically exhausted by the end. People seem to like them though, so yay. ;D

hmm...what else? I'm on winter break now, for two weeks. I envy everyone who gets a month off, but that'll be me next year too....the novel idea of finals before break doesn't sound too bad, either...which brings me to an announcement--I got accepted to SDSU, my first choice school! I'm excited...as of now, I'm thinking about a major in theatrical arts for costuming and makeup, preferably for film, and maybe a minor in media art or whatever photography falls under. It's some sort of sub-section like that...

In general observations, teenagers are weird. Yeah, yeah, you already knew that. I'm a really patient person--almost too patient, too forgiving...maybe that is the reason I get into some of the messes I have to deal with?--but when people start contradicting themselves, I get annoyed. I don't mean not holding the same belief over time; that's natural, and I fully support that. If one has never experienced a change in the way they view things, it's pretty evident that they are not too open minded, or at least have somehow miraculously avoided everything that could challenge their beliefs. Anyway. There's someone I have to deal with every day, someone who, in the past couple years, has hurt and betrayed everyone close to me, and who has deliberately isolated themselves from my group of friends. Now, this person is saying no one will speak to them anymore, that they are no longer accepted with the group of people this person has treated like crap. It's...an interesting thing to watch. Kind of a constant "wtf??" moment. A walking "wtf??", if you will.

Moving on.

In completely different news, the date of the next dance is coming up fast; it's going to be at the end of January. And, of course, it's girls-ask. Woo, pressure's on. o_o Oh dear God....
haha.... ._.


...That's enough updating for now, I think. Currently reading Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for lit. And some quick musical news--Vampire Weekend's video for "A-Punk" makes me smile. Go and watch it.

Have a happy Christmahannukwanzika/Festivus/2009!!!



luv
~Zatarra