the trauma that is... milk?

Okay, so maybe not quite. It wasn't just the milk. (Although one of my most traumatizing memories is of the time when my parents forced me to drink An. Entire. Glass. The tears that ensued...) It was more... the tables of naked women? 

Have you guessed what I'm talking about yet?

A Clockwork Orange, of course!

Looks appealing, right? Erika and I had heard that it was "a classic"- who decides these things, anyway? Is it completely arbitrary?- so we decided to watch it...

"Is this really happening?" was the most frequently question asked. (If any of you have seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about.) From the very beginning (CREEPY STARE- had I ever desired to wear false eyelashes, I most certainly no longer do- he did have pretty blue eyes though. How is that fair?) to the ending (carnage and rape and pillage, oh my!) it was chaotic and confusing...

and also strangely lovely.

Although I might not agree with every(any)thing that happened in it, it was definitely chock-filled to the brim (yay for mixing metaphors) with symbolism and imagery. The director did a wonderful job portraying an corrupt society (although I could have done without the rather phallic art) and the insanity of it all was quite compelling. 

One thing I know for sure: I will never listen to Singin' in the Rain quite the same way. 

Have you seen it? Do you have any movies that you feel this way about?

excitement takes many different forms

I wanted excitement... and I got it.

(Are you ready for a thrill? Drum rollllll...) Yesterday, I got to go the dentist!

(I bet that's more exciting than you were expecting!) My teeth now feel all squeaky clean...time to go eat some chocolate! However, I also learnt that I soon have to get my wisdom teeth out... so be prepared for chipmunk cheeks.

I felt bad for the hygienist, though... near the end, my mouth was beginning to foam as much as a mutant squirrel with rabies. I did not know it was possible to have so much spit in my poor little mouth. (Ok, so maybe my mouth isn't that small... some might even say I'm a blabbermouth... but still.)

...WAIT A SECOND. Maybe I contracted rabies on my earlier wilderness hike. (That might explain all the foam!) There was some quite dangerous wildlife...

Oops, wait, that was just us. I meant this little guy.

Who knows, maybe he was a poison arrow frog in disguise. Mud can hide a lot of things.

Also... you might be amazed by this but... I did fall over. (I know, it comes as a shock.)

Plus, there was a mysterious pool of water surrounded by a fence... horror movie material, right there. Perhaps it was a pool of biohazardous waste? Or maybe we'll all turn into dinosaurs? The forest did remind me of Jurassic Park... (That would actually be pretty epic.)

Or maybe I just have a lot of spit. Who knows.

(Also, all photos are courtesy of Claire! Go check out her lovely photography blog.)

the highlights of my days

As usual, I worked both days this weekend. Also as usual, the store was pretty much empty... So, to while away the hours, I decided to make a list of my oh-so-exciting experiences! (Just in case your job is as boring as mine, and you need some ideas. Feel free to contribute in the comments!)

• Rearrange flyers until perfectly straight.
• Sing along with the radio.
• Stretch. 
• Stare blankly through the empty store.
• Chat with coworkers (if friendly).
• Yawn.
• Dance spastically (if appropriate music).
• Drink lots of water.
• Immediately regret drinking water, since need to pee. 
• SQUATS! 
• Stop after five because my legs hurt. 
• Write blog posts.
• Get yelled at (depending on supervisor).
• Resolve to be more surrepticious. 
• OMG A CUSTOMER! Check through their item. (Or three, if I'm really lucky.)
• Answer their questions, which generally take these forms: 

1) Is this store closing? (Yes, it said so in the newspaper.)
2) When is it closing? (Same as above.)
3) Can I still use my rewards points? (Yes, as it says ON THE CARD ITSELF.)

• Sometimes, if my luck is THROUGH THE ROOF, they'll add in a story about their experiences here! Depending on my level of boredom, sometimes I am even interested.
• REPEAT. 

Literally, this is my day. Sometimes, but again only if I'm really lucky, I get to go put away discarded items. (And that's truly a highlight.) 

Actually, though, the highlight yesterday was of quite a different kind. Someone bought... this.

This is... a shirt?

And these... are pants?

And here is the entire "outfit" in all its glory!

...I nearly died laughing. Literally, how can someone actually buy this and think, ok, this is cute? DOES NOT COMPUTE.

dislike is too mild a word

At first glance, this may seem like an innocuous image. Everyone likes listening to music, right? iPods are a good thing!

Well, appearances can be decieving. The subject of this photo is not the iPod itself, but the headphones. Namely, the fact that my ears were sweating so much while I ran today that they fell out several times. (How does the inside of your ears even sweat? Or, a better question: WHY?)

Instead of beautiful music, the final minutes of my run were accompanied by squelching noises (TMI?) as I tried frantically to put the silly things back in.  IT DIDN'T WORK. (Squelching ears: Totally unmotivating. Although I do quite like the word 'squelch'. It should be used more often.)

Does this kind of thing happen when you work out? Any other problems?

i'm not really an awful person, i swear

Do people who tell long and pointless stories realise that they're being long and pointless? Are they just unable to read body language? A hint here, dearest readers: when your listener's are glazing over and there's drool on the corner of their lips, the story has gone on too long. (Either that, or they're a product of the upcoming zombie apocalypse.)

There are exactly eight days left of classes left. Now, there are many reasons to be excited by this (no more homework! Time to spend with friends! Time to... clean my room? No, let's not get carried away) but sometimes, the only reason I care about is that I will have almost TWO WHOLE MONTHS away from certain people. Now, I consider myself a fairly nice person. I listen to other people's boring stories, I smile and nod when what I really mean is "You're an idiot" and, let's not forget, I'm on Student Council. (If that isn't the action of a nice person, I don't know what is.)

However, there are just some people who rub me the wrong way. (Like sandpaper. Or steel wool. Or nails on a chalkboard.) Over the weekend, I think: ok. They can't really be that bad. I must be imagining this. Tomorrow, I'm sure we'll have a great time together! (The power of positive thinking, right?)

And then... I get to school and see them open their mouth (just like an alligator, prepared to bite off my ears with their stupidity) and my heart just drops. I can tell that they're about to brag (about themselves) or complain (about everyone else). Is it really any wonder that I want to smack them?

Eight. More. Days. Let the countdown begin.

Does anyone else feel like this about a specific person? Any tips on how to deal with them?

how is this even dancing?

Last night, I went with a few people from my school to a dance. Now, as I've mentioned before, my school is SMALL. Everyone knows each other. We're all basically, if not friends, able to hang out peaceably without punching each other in the face. (Ok, so there are some people I would LOVE to do this to... but I am a nice person, so I resist. However, if she comments on my fashion sense one more time...)

This friendliness also means that our dances are pretty tame. (Well, only about twenty people come, so what can you expect?) However, when we walked into this dance, my eyes nearly popped out of my sockets. EVERYONE was grinding.

I just don't understand this. It's like, whoa. I don't even know your name, so why are you attempting to rub your junk in my trunk? GET AWAY FROM ME, FREAK. I am not that kind of girl.

If this has ever happened to you, this video might be helpful:

Or you could try my friend's plan, which was

1.       Smile innocently.

2.       Dance in the other direction.

3.       Elbow the offender in the face.

Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do? (Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's actually super enjoyable. If so, please clarify this.)

the ghosts of baby chicks

Dissections. I think we can all agree that the initial reaction is ‘ew!!!’. (Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe some people get super excited at the thought. If that’s the case, I’ll just back away slowly, smiling and waving.) Why am I mentioning this? Because I’m currently escaping from one. 

Yes, it’s biology class… and the rest of the students are breaking open eggs and cutting open baby chicks. (Let that sink in for a second.) There are no words to describe how repulsed I am right now… I don’t even want to think about it. Dissections + baby chicks + vegetarian Zia= passed-out Zia.

However, biology can still impart useful life skills for those of us who are not destined to become doctors or taxidermists. Here are a couple of things I’ve learnt (just to show you that I don’t usually skip it…):

• Anatomical artist= drawing on hot naked guys. (Seriously. We watched a video about this.)
• The ship Charles Darwin traveled on was called the Beagle. (So this isn’t exactly useful, but my teacher told us that this would be the one thing we’d remember from that lesson. It might be self-fulfilling prophecy, but three weeks later, I realized she was right.)
• Random reproduction is good for species. (That’s what bars are for!)
• If you give cough medicine to a smoker, they might drown in their own mucus. (Smoking is bad, people!)
• Bathroom hand driers are COVERED in bacteria. (It's kinda sad... you just washed your hands, and then as soon as you press the drier button they're filthy again. However, please don't use this as a reason not to wash!)

 And… that’s about it. (However, I do like it better than physics… that’s not hard. Wait, maybe not… I think the ghosts of baby chicks are going to haunt me forever, despite the fact that I didn’t actually cut any up.)  What are some lessons you’ve learnt from biology? 

it's a swamp monster! no, wait, it's... cupcakes?

Everyone knows that the surest way to a boy's heart is through his stomach. (No one ever says through his chest, oddly enough. Hahaha, see what I did there? Yes, I do laugh at my own jokes.) So what do you do when a cute boy is coming over for supper? You bake cupcakes. (At least  I do.) Not that, unfortunately, cute boys come over for supper all that often... or ever. Which makes this all the more important.

Now, my mother is a little bit of a health food nut. That means it is extraordinarily difficult to find such ordinary substances as sugar in the house at any given time. (Agave syrup, however, we have plenty of. Go figure.) It took me about fifteen minutes of rooting around in the cupboard before I finally found some brown sugar.

Now, the recipe called for white. In my infinite wisdom, I thought- oh, what difference will it make? They're both sugars, right? So I used the brown sugar. (It was either that or the aforementioned agave, which is thick and sticky, a little like watered-down honey. I tried making cupcakes with it once, but they turned into something more akin to a mud puddle instead.) This made a light brown batter. However, the cupcakes I'd decided to make were lime-coconut, so I decided to colour them green.

Not my best move.

The combination of brown sugar and green food colouring turned the cupcakes an unappetising (read: disgusting) swampy colour. I added more and more colouring in an effort to make them prettier but it just made them swampier. (Think Shrek.) In an instant, my hopes of impressing the aforementioned cute boy went down the drain where that colour belongs. (FYI, this isn't a date. He's the son of one of my parents' friends. So, not only will he be grossed out by the cupcakes, I can't just avoid him for the rest of my life.)

All this was before I'd even added the coconut. Hoping that it would somewhat dilute the swampiness, I put in a cupful... and recoiled in horror. They'd turned lumpy.

What's worse than swampy cupcakes? Cupcakes that are both swampy and lumpy. Yum, right? Even making some mini ones (and really, what's cuter than mini cupcakes?) couldn't negate the atrocity.

Here are a couple of photos, just so you know I'm not exaggerating (for once!): 

 The implements of destruction...

Before cooking...

And after...

Oh well, here's hoping that he's completely colour-blind.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to pull this off gracefully? (I'm planning on wearing my blue mascara and hoping he'll be so distracted by the beauty of my eyes that he won't even notice. Although if he really is colour-blind, he won't notice... hmm, dilemma.)

I have a third eye

I've read in some psychic books that this is a good thing- that you're able to see mystical visions- but somehow I think they might be referring to something else. (It's been a while...) In my case, it's enormous, and red, and I keep getting the feeling that, at any moment, it's going to sprout legs and start crawling all over my face. (Please, no.)

GAHHH. Definitely not my best look.