4 posts tagged “g&t”
Surprisingly, even though this is supposed to be "crunch time" for Advanced Placement exams, I'm feeling more relaxed than I have in a long time. My grades last marking period were great; I was accepted into the Volunteers for Peace program in Luciana, Italy; I have a prom date (and dress); and the weather is beautiful. What else can a girl ask for?
For some reason, I've taken a liking to nonfiction lately (case studies in particular). I can't really explain this weird book phenomenon, but I'll put the blame on my marketing-book obsessed MBA sister. (I downed The Purple Cow and both of Malcolm Gladwell's popular books, Blink and The Tipping Point over the summer, starved for something besides my AP US textbook. At least I know a lot about marketing now [well, for a seventeen-year-old at least].) I recently picked up a copy of Oliver Sacks' An Anthropoligst on Mars and was surprised to find it much more bearable (albeit hardly less depressing) than the only other book of his that I made an attempt at reading, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The former is much more fluid, although this could just be the three year interval that passed between the two readings. I'm a bit unhappy with the way Sacks tends to end the vignettes in Mars. They're largely inconclusive in the way that the endings of History Channel documentaries are: "Three centuries later, we still have no hypothesis, and perhaps such questions can never be answered at all." Mr. Sacks, you can't just entice me with the story of a colorblind painter, force me to sit through five pages of blathering neurologist-talk under the pretense of a big, revealing ending, and then plop down a crap ending like that. Granted, I have been guilty of these sort of cop-out endings, too ("And then he woke up and realized it was all a dream. The end."), but I was ten years old. You're, er, a bit older than that. Come on.
Anyway, speaking of reading, I've been advancing slowly with the play reading. Not only have I scheduled a date and made fliers (see below), but I've also secured my entire cast and have the first read-through planned for Saturday. I secured the three bands that will be playing as well, so the whole "human" aspect of this is set. I even put the event on facebook which is, as all high schoolers and college kids know, the upper echelon of social networking marketing (which is to say that, yes, Myspace sucks, has always sucked, and will continue to suck until enough people are raped through it and it is taken down)*.
The Dawg Print seems to be going swimmingly at this point-- If you ignore that we only have about six articles in. Not even the sports people, who are generally the only reliable staff members in this joint, delivered. I'm pretty disappointed by this mediocre turn-out, but mainly just confused as to why it happened. I suppose it's end-of-the-year-itis (and considering that most of our editorial board is composed of seniors, a good deal of senioritis as well) that has finally gotten to people.
Speaking of boards (I'm loving the segways today), I'm running for secretary for the Model United Nations club. Which just goes to show you how much I love burying myself in an unnecessarily large amount of work. Delicious.
Charline
*Not that people don't get raped through facebook**
**It's not a matter of through what, it's a matter of how dumb someone has to be to actually contact someone they've only met through the internet and arrange a real-life meeting.***
***I'd say that's a good 9.5/10 on the dumb scale****
****Yes, I have a dumb scale*****
*****Shut up.
I just received my latest Princeton Review practice SAT scores in an e-mail, and they are quite good (2130 all together... I went down from a 770 in reading last time, but I got an 800 in writing and a 12 on my essay, so all is good. I hope I do this well on the actual test so that I have a chance at Brown. :) I see a pattern that scores in whichever category I choose to focus on in studying the week before the test go up-- first it was math, then reading, and now writing. If I do this well next Saturday, when I take the real test, I'll be ecstatic. I'm going to try and focus on keeping my 640 in math [hopefully it won't go down] and 800 in writing and try to get my reading back up to its previous 770 glory.)
I think I've finally found a venue for my G&T project (the play I've been writing-- unsuccessfully, might I add--for months). My friend Rena works at Libby's Pharmacy & Ice Cream Shop, and she says that the owner, Rick Libby, loves putting on all sorts of artsy things (i.e. concerts and the like). THIS MEANS that I will very likely be able to secure the pharmacy for a little late-night cafe play reading! Tres excitement, for sure!
I think that's all the news for now! :)
Charline
Ideas for Summer Plans:
-Some sort of an internship at a magazine or newspaper
-Job at Barnes and Noble (I would be so nervous for the interview, though; I'd need to really up my literature prowess)
-Job at... Bob's (clothing, I know, blech)
-Working at the municipal pool's day camp as a counselor (I'm not too keen on this, I have to say)
The internship and Barnes & Noble job are my top two choices. I know it's going to be nearly impossible to find an internship at my age (curse you, birth year), and i'm not sure if I'm enough of an intellectual to work at Barnes and Noble (although I suppose i'm putting it up on a pedastal; it is retail, after all).
I think I've mentioned before that I'm taking a class called Gifted and Talented Seminar (I hate the name, it's such an egotistical self-indulgence fest) in which we have to choose an independent project and then write a thesis on it. I chose to write my own play (and organize a reading of it), so I suppose you can say that my concentration is theatre. Since we are writing a masters-level thesis, it'll be written in parts. We just began working on the first part, the Literature Review, which is really just a research paper with a fancy name. I decided to do my Literature Review on the definition, history, and impact of avant garde theatre, and I just finished my list of resources yesterday. I
As if I don't have enough to read, (I have to finish-- and, er, start-- The Beans of Egypt, Maine for English by December Eleventh or so), I purchased Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Barnes and Noble today. I have seen it performed once, it was the 2005 Broadway run with Kathleen Turner (who i've seen naked on stage twice, much to my thirteen and fifteen-year-old chagrin). I read The Goat, or Who is Silvia last week, and enjoyed it, so I figured I should give Woolf another try (I still have yet to read something of Woolf's, as a side note).
I read the first few pages while downing some corporate caffeinated crap, and enjoyed it as much, if not more than, I had seeing it on stage last year.
I purchased the most fantastic hunting hat online a couple of days ago. I'm trying to channel Holden Caulfield (minus the insanity and pimps)-- it's plaid with rabbit fur and thoroughly exciting.
...Does anyone even read these long winded entries?
*You'll have to excuse all of the parenthetical statements i'm using-- they're my bad little grammatical habit, especially at midnight. I'm in a very stream-of-consciousness mood.
I got a Daily Deviation on Deviantart a couple of days ago while I was away. It was a nice surprise to come home to, I must say. I also got into National Honor Society, which would be exciting if not (basically) everyone that got nominated was accepted. I feel like I wasted time putting effort into the application.
In any case, school is going pretty well. Better, at least, than it was in the first few weeks of September. Gifted and Talented Seminar, our independent study and thesis class, is a pain, though.
But yes, enough literary criticism (I don't even know if it can be categorized as that), and onto some more exciting things. I started writing what might become the second vignette of my play (I really need to get a move on things, I have a lot of December 1st contest deadlines, and it'll be devestating if I miss them), and I hope to get everything finished by mid November, which is hopefully not too much of a stretch. I need to make a chart of deadlines, too, now that I think about it.
In any case, here's a small preview (it has nothing to do with the first vignette, which is why I might end up just leaving it out and starting something new that fits in with more of a general theme):
(ROSE and MARTHA enter the high school bathroom, both holding purses and books and continuing a conversation that began out in the hallway. The bathroom is decorated with typical blue tiles and cigarette laden sinks, complete with lipstick messages on the wall—“Joanie Rich is a prostitute,” “Alana Carter has a fat ass,” etc.)
MARTHA: She’s such a bitch, I can’t even deal with it.
ROSE: What are you going to do?
MARTHA: (hands here a purse) Here, hold my bag. (fumbles through her pockets) Shit… hold on a second. (grabs the purse and ruffles through it; pulls out a permanent marker) Ah, good.
ROSE: What? What? Let me see, what are you doing?
MARTHA: Just drawing a mural in her honor. (stands up on an upside down garbage can and scrawls something on the wall. Steps back and admires her handiwork once she’s finished.)
ROSE: (reads the writing) “Sarah Campbell was part of the Watergate Conspiracy”?
MARTHA: (beaming) Yep!
ROSE: You didn’t consider writing something more exciting?
MARTHA: Like what?
ROSE: (sarcasm) Oh, I don’t know… “Sarah Campbell caused Pearl Harbor”?
MARTHA: Rose, don’t be upset because you can’t get back at her for calling you a whore.
ROSE: That was in fifth grade, I didn’t even know what a whore was.
MARTHA: (turns to ROSE and raises her eyebrow) Bet you do now.
ROSE: (glares) Stop being such a little child.
MARTHA: Sorry, did I fail to mention that I’m sixteen?
ROSE: (scoffs) I have to pee. Hold my books. (hands MARTHA her books and goes into one of the only two stalls.)I'm not sure about where it's going yet; I was thinking Sarah Campbell could walk in and i'd split the stage up into two parts (the bathroom and the stalls). I'm just having a hard time believing I can get this all done in time to send it in to competitions and get it put on at school. Argh!
Melanie (my co-head editor on our school newspaper, The Dawg Print) and I need to get a move on the first issue of the paper-- I think that we have most of the articles in at this point. The deadline was today, so they'd better be in! I wrote my first column/opinion piece of the year about my quitting Myspace, and I still have to write the editorial by Friday.
I never even realize how crazy my schedule is until I make posts here. I'll probably tell you all about the USY Leadership Training Convention I went to last weekend tomorrow or something, I should get a move on my AP US homework.
Au revior, everyone!
Charline
