Climbing the Stairs

I'd forgotten how amazing reading is. 

Seriously, lately I've had legit no time at all to do much reading. When I did find time, I would be rereading books because I have no time to go to the library. 

As I mentioned previously, I found the book Climbing the Stairs on my bed (and I suspect my amazing grandmother had left it there for me x). I couldn't put it down. 

So, let's do a quick review: 

Synopsis: 

Fifteen-year-old Vidya dreams of going to college, an unusual proposition for a girl living in British-occupied India during World War II. When tragedy strikes, Vidya and her brother, Kitta, are forced to move into a traditional household with their grandfather and their extended family, where men live separately upstairs and the women who live below are meant to be married, not educated. 

Breaking the rules, Vidya finds refuge in her grandfather's second-floor library. There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house. Surprisingly, he treats her like an equal and encourages her intellectual curiosity. But soon it's clear that Raman wants more that just friendship, and when Kitta makes a shocking choice the family cannot condone, Vidya's life becomes a whirlwind of personal and political complications. Will she be strong enough to survive the storm? 

So many different parts in this book made me want to cry and scream and laugh. It took me about three or four school days to read this, and each night, I would be up reading until I was the last one awake in my house. (yes, I was rather tired at school the next day, but it was so worth it!!) It was so easy to fall in love with these characters, I felt like dying when something horrible happened. (I'm  trying to avoid spoilers) 

The author paints such a beautiful picture with the emotions, the scenery, the characters, and the plot. Some parts were a little... sketchy, but overall, I loved this book. I wouldn't really recommend it to boys, there are some parts that they wouldn't really enjoy. But for a girl, a young teenage girl especially, this book is a plane ticket to a whole other world. It's so interesting, seeing this different kind of lifestyle that they have where the men live upstairs and only make contact with the women at meals. And even then, the women are meant to serve the men and eat when they have finished. 

Overall, this book was amazing and got me back into reading. Now I'm in a mood where I wont read unless it's something I haven't read before. I'm half-way through my next book, but I'll save that for another time. 

Score: 
4.5 out of 5 stars 

Okay, I am exhausted from a party last night and from stressing about this science project, so I'm going to sign off now and find a way to stay awake a little while longer. 
--Abby

Medieval Day and my science final.

Medieval Day was a lot of fun! My team didn't come out on top, but we did win the trebuchet competition. 
The plays went pretty well. First we did our hell mouth play, and I didn't have a huge part. The demons were fantastic and everything went rather smoothly, despite the usual pre-play mishaps (Missing props, missing costumes, missing people, etc.). 
Then we did our latin play. I was the narrator for the first scene and I had a lot of lines. I got on stage and remembered my teacher telling me to be loud. When I started, it was all good. Then, it sort of processed that everyone was staring at me and I started shaking. Then my knees started knocking like crazy. It's a good thing I was wearing a maxi skirt... I got super pale and couldn't speak. Some friends were on stage with me, waiting for their cues, which I was struggling to deliver. I looked over at them with panic and made myself continue. Gosh, I was so nervous, I actually was seriously considering running off stage. I was so afraid I would fall. 
Thankfully, I made it through my lines and I got backstage, away from all those eyes, staring up at me. I sat on the nearest table and breathed, trying to calm the intense beating of my heart. 
Ugh, I will never be an actress. 
And I'm okay with that. I get stage fright, in case you hadn't noticed. 

Lately I've been super stressed out, and one of the causes of this was my giant science final. I had no idea what to do, and our final proposals are due next Tuesday. 
I was doing this whole thing by myself, but I realized I couldn't do it. My teacher actually talked to us about it today, saying how she would recommend doing it in groups. So when my friend Tessa, sitting next to me, poked my shoulder and raised her eyebrows at me, posing a silent question, I nodded. I already feel the stress dripping away... 
So, now I'm not carrying the wait of this whole final on my shoulders. Tessa came up with the idea of testing the hardness of water from a few different sources, which is what we decided to do. Knowing what I'm doing is really helping too. 

Okay, before I sign off, here's a picture of Penguin, Blaze, and me before we left for school on Medieval Day: 

Left to right: Penguin, me, Blaze. I decorated Blaze's shield, if you were wondering. 

Why can I not look normal in pictures... 

Until next time, when I shall find some other topic to bore y'all with. 

--Abby

Big rambles condensed into a decent post.

Tomorrow is the feast of the Annunciation! 

And, to a lesser extent, Medieval Day. 

I have art class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and as this is a Tuesday, I went to the lab for art during the period in which I usually go to art. BUT today is no ordinary Tuesday peoples; it's the day before Medieval Day, also known as scrambling-to-pull-it-all-together-the-day-before-day. 
Sooo, I asked my teacher if we had art today since there was pretty much nobody in the lab and he said that most people were using this period to get everything ready for Medieval Day. He said I could do what I wanted for the period. 

I found myself heading toward the soccer field, where a bunch of students were painting their banners. I saw some kids from my class painting something for our passion play tomorrow and I helped them out. 
It didn't last long, though. People ended up shooting each other with the bows and arrows they're using for the archery contest tomorrow or failing at putting glitter on stilts (long story), OR hitting each other with pool noodles. I have no idea what the pool noodles are going to be used for, but I'm kind of scared for it...

So now I'm excited for tomorrow. I have my costume ready and I really like my team. Even if we don't win, it'll be a lot of fun. 

On a less exciting note, I'm stressing like no other!!!!! I'm supposed to have two idea proposals for my big science thing in by Thursday and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO!! We were given a handout explaining the whole thing and it only stressed me out more. My friend was sitting next to me when we were talking about this, and I said something about how stressed I was for it and he told me how he was excited. 
0.o 
How is that possible. 

I keep thinking of Summer. Wasn't it not so long ago I did a post about the beginning of school and the end of Summer... and now the year's almost over. It feels weird, like the school year goes by really quickly, but in the moment it takes forever. If that makes sense. 
I keep thinking of playing volleyball on the beach with friends from school; laying on beach towels on a near-empty beach at sunset with these friends of mine that I've known forever, talking about books and blogs and such; reading the night away and not having to worry about being tired at school the next day; shopping with Maddie; etc. etc. etc. My goal this Summer is to learn how to surf. I've wanted to learn forever, and I'm determined to learn. (I was determined last year too, but we all see how well that worked...)
I also want to finally finish reading LotR, which I reaaalllllly need to do. I know. Yes. I have never finished the Lord of the Rings. I've never had a childhood, I know, it's quite sad, and mostly my fault. Which is why I need to actually sit down and READ IT for five hours straight. Yeah, thats should work. 

Anyways, last night I found a book on my bed called Climbing the Stairs. I don't know where it came from or how it got into my room--or into my house, for that matter-- but I picked it up and opened it and couldn't put it down. Again, no idea who put it in my room, but whoever it was must have somehow known that I love books like this. 
It's about a Hindu family, and there are some parts that talk about the Hindu religion and that sort of thing tends to make me want to throw the book down and scream "NO THATS NOT TRUE THERES THIS THING CALLED CATHOLICISM YOU SHOULD HEAR ABOUT!!"--But I can't because the book is so good x). 
I'll do a review when I finish. 

--Abby

Cinderella

Today I saw Cinderella, and I know a lot of people who say it's really great, and then I also know many people who say it's not that good. 
I'm taking the it's-really-great side. 

Okay, first of all, THE DRESSES!!!!!! I will never be able to wear any dress again without remembering this movie and sighing. If I could wear something like that every day, I would. It was kind of interesting to see Cinderella dance with the prince in this dress, though; I kept expecting him to trip or something. 

My favorite scene, by far, was the scene with the fairy godmother. When we first saw her, she was old and shriveled up in an ancient brown robe that she must have borrowed from Gandalf... and then left outside for about a year. My first thought, when she came on screen, was EVIL. WITCH. EVIL WITCH. Her back was turned, it was dark, and her staff glowed an ominous blue that practically screamed I'M EVIL DON'T TRUST ME I CAN TURN YOU INTO AN UGLY BROWN TOAD BEFORE YOU CAN SAY BIPPITY BOPPITY BOO. Rosie actually said out loud, "Whoa, who's that??" 
When she said, "Now, let me slip into something more comfortable," or something like that, I was expecting her to stay older, but wearing some sort of gown with wings or something and be more of a sweet grandmother. But I loved what they did instead, making her younger and much more witty and charming. She was a lot of fun. 

Over all, the whole movie was so cute and, even though some scenes were a bit cheesy, I loved it and will definitely see it again. 

Favorite line: I can't drive, I'm a goose! 

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars 

--Abby

Upcoming: Medieval Day

Ok, I've been kind of bad about posting lately, but I have a good reason! 
("She's gonna say it..." you thing. "Please don't say it...") 
School has been sucking up my VERY ESSENCE. 
("She said it.") 

My science test went pretty well, I think. Not as well as I would have liked it to. One question was "Name the three 'twist's in the plot' that occurred in this time'" and I had studied for this one really hard. So I was going over them in my mind, and I mentally named the first two, but I couldn't for the life of me remember the third! Then I FINALLY remembered the third, and then I forgot the first! So, I ended up guessing on the first one, but the last two I got right, I know. 

It was a hard test. 

But now I'd like to talk about Medieval Day. 

Every year, my school does either a classics day or a medieval day. Classics day is more Greek themed, while medieval day is, well... medieval. 

Everyone is split up into teams. This year, Blaze and I are both on the Celts, while Penguin is on the Franks. On the actual day, there are plays, competitions, a feast, and no actual academic classes (!!!). There's going to be a stilt-walking race, and one member of each team has to participate in that. For my team, that one member is Blaze. So that should be interesting. He's already bragging about how good he is. 
We also are assigned characters, I guess you could say. Blaze is my team's champion and I'm-- drum roll, please-- the princess.
I know I'm fifteen, and fifteen year olds are supposed to be all mature and stuff, but I am soooo good with being a princess ;). I'm going to wear a green maxi skirt and some sort of shawl thing... It's not super princess-y, but it's kind of all I have thats medieval. 

My latin class is doing a play for medieval day. We were going to do it in latin, but we translated it into old English so we could do it for medieval day. 
My english class is doing a play too-- a passion play. It's kind of scary. We painted a hell-mouth for it and it looks like a giant rat. So thats great. We get to walk into a giant rat. Fun. But I guess it's appropriate, I mean, it's the hell mouth, and rats are... rats. So it works. 

Ok, I'm going to leave now and come back when I actually have something to post about. We have some family visiting from the East Coast, and so I may not post for a week or so. Which I guess is why I'm doing this post. Kind of a sorry-not-sorry thing. 
--Abby

Libraries are out to get me.

Okay, before I do anything else, I'd like to congratulate myself for rereading Princess Academy yet again. 
(Hint: I'm attempting sarcasm here.) 
(Another hint: I'm not very good at it.) 

I need to go to the library, but they wont let me check anything out because APPARENTLY I returned book that were damaged or something. 

This was legit my face when I found out about my alleged book-abuse charges. 

You guys know me well enough by now to know that I do not damage books. Okay, they do get a little worn after a while, and I dog-ear the pages, and I may or may not break a couple spines... But thats what happens if you actually read them. 
 *deep voice* "Yes, you may read these books, but you may not wrinkle them, tear them, fold them, stain them, break them, eat them, open them, or touch them in any way." 
Lame. 
If you expect people to read these books, library, expect them to get a little worn. 

So, now I have to pay a fine, which I still haven't paid, so I still can't check out any new books. 

In other news, a heat wave hit. It's SO HOT. Too hot to do anything but lie down and DIE. (I like to exaggerate things XD) Blaze, Penguin, and I walked down to a nearby fro yo shop. It's about a ten minute walk which wasn't too bad. But we live on a hill. Walking uphill in this heat is never a good plan. 

I studied a more for my science/philosophy test tomorrow, and I'm going to study some more tonight. I'm sure I'll do well, but even if I get a 92%, I'll be disappointed, because on the last two tests, I got a 99% and a 98%. So I'm trying to keep that streak going, but I'm not sure how long it'll last... 
Wish me luck! 
--Abby

Post Latin Exam Post

*GASP* I MADE IT I DID IT YOU GUYS!! 

The dreaded exam is OVER. 

I'm so happy. 

I got stuck on a few questions, and there were some words that I absolutely did not know, but I took an educated guess in those situations. The story part was good and the endings were okayish. I'm pretty happy with myself. 

Before the exam, everyone who is taking latin was gathered in the hall and finding seats and stuff. It was crowded-- maybe, fifty kids, all eighth graders on up-- and you could sense all the nervousness. The they handed out the answer sheet and we had to fill out all the info and such. Those little bubbles annoy me, I always feel like I have to fill them in perfectly, and when I don't, it bugs me. Ugh. Me and my bubble problems. (It's so tempting not to fill them in in the shape of a Christmas tree ;)

So then, we had our exams in front of us but we weren't allowed to look at them yet. One of my teachers said, "Okay, any more questions? Last chance!" and I got all stressed out, trying to think of any questions I might have. I actually leaned over to my friend sitting next to me and whispered, "I'm going to have an anxiety attack." 

So then, the same teacher said, "Alright, is everyone ready?" 

Like, you have to ask? When does anyone ever feel ready to take an exam about a dead language? 

So, he held up his stopwatch and said, "Is everyone ready?" 

Me: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! 

"Begin!" 

Flipping the exam over was enough to make me break out in sweat. The first part, with the cases and the endings, I think I did okay... But then we got into geography and culture and I did much better. Then came the story, and I read through it and answered the questions, and I know I did well on that. 

So, that was my exam. Afterwards, I felt so happy it was over. 

But then I remembered that my science (philosophy) test had been postponed until Monday and I felt like groaning. 

So now I get to cram all weekend. Fun. 

--Abby

Pencils, Panicking, and Philosophy

Penguin just asked me if he could borrow a pencil. This caused me to have a mental game of tug-of-war: 

Ahhhh, no, Penguin. These are my pencils that I write with, so yeah, sorry. 

Oh fine, dude, it's just a pencil, after all. 

NO!!! MY PENCILS!!!!! 

Oh, okay, right. Mine.

It's very rare that my aspiring-writer side and my normal person side agree on anything. So since they actually agreed on this, I decided it would be a good idea to listen them and avoid whatever dangerous consequences I would have had to face if I had said yes. Most likely, the consequence would have been Penguin losing/breaking/eating my pencil. 

Call me selfish. I'm weird. 

Okay, why am I so attached to pencils?? This happened a while ago, too, in math class. A friend of mine wanted to trade pencils and I thought he meant just for that class, so I did. Then at the end of class, he showed it to me and it turns out that he had covered it with sharpie. This kid's really artistic, and basically decorates whatever he can get his hands on, which happened to be my pencil at that specific moment. So, yeah, never got my pencil back. Then I ended up losing the pencil he had given me, so then I had NO pencil. 

I don't even see what the point of my weird obsession is. I guess I just really like that pencil I traded because it was mechanical and the graphite was .5mm which is what I like... 
I guess this is a lot of fuss over a pencil, but I'm sorry I'M VERY ATTACHED TO THEM. 
... 
Thats probably not a good thing...  
Seriously, I would be happy getting pencils and fuzzy sock for Christmas. 

Ok, on a totally different note, the exam is TOMORROW!!!!! I also have this huge science test tomorrow, and UGH REALLY I CAN'T. This time tomorrow it'll be over though... 

But this science test is super tough stuff! It's not even science, it's more like philosophy. I don't feel like I'm old enough for philosophy. Once upon a time, words like philosophy and logic were big, grown-up words that were studied by big, grown-up people. And now, I have classes in both philosophy and logic. 
What. Happened. 
I'm fifteen. 
This is weird. 

Sometimes I feel like my life is on a stopwatch. Everything has a deadline. Summer is coming up and I still need to bring my English grade up to an A+ (I really want to get an A+ in English for some reason, but I'm stuck with a B+ currently...), I need to write my History essay, I need to outline my novel, I need to read all these books that I seriously need to finish, I need to get vanilla extract and Earl Grey tea so I can make a London Fog Earl Grey latte (okay, that's not really at the top of my to-do list)(why do I not have Earl Grey??), among other things. 

But I guess I shouldn't be stressing about all this at nine-forty-five. What I need is sleep. And to pass this science test and this STUPID LATIN EXAM. 
Seriously, I bet they thought up this exam to torture us. "How can we torture students even more..." 
But at least I can use my pencil to do the exam... 
(Somewhere deep inside of my conscience, the normal-person me is hitting the aspiring-writer me over the head with a frying pan.)

--Abby

Panicking, because I have yet another exam

Ugh, daylight savings. Two words so evil that milk curdles when spoken. 

(0.o) 

I mean, why do they get us all used to an extra hour of sleep, and then take away? Now I have to get used to this new time change, getting up before the sun... This morning when I got up it was still dark. So I did the only thing any normal person would do if up before sunrise. 

I made teeeeeeaaaaaa 

True story. I love tea. 

YEEESSSSS

It actually helped, it woke me up and all day at school, whenever someone would complain about being tired, I would do my evil laugh and rub my hands together with a diabolical genius grin and say in my Gollum voice, "I HAD TEA." 

Mentally, of course. On the outside I smiled sympathetically. 

It's moments like this that make me wonder if my poor readers think I'm crazy.

Sooo, the National Latin Exam is on Thursday, which gives me three days to panic. Oh good. I actually got an award for this exam last year, but then I was doing the easy stuff. This year I have to know all the hundreds of endings and vocab words and cases and *whimper* I'm going to die... 

My favorite part is the story section, though, at the end, where you have to translate the story and answer questions about it and stuff. That's fun. I don't know why, but I like that part. The first part with all the complicated case-related questions and the endings and, people, I don't know if you've noticed, but 

Ok, I do, actually, and I think I'll do well. 

Ok, I'm off to panic about the exam do something productive. Possibly work on my story. Or make more tea. 
--Abby

I should be doing homework, but instead I'm blogging

So I changed the title of Miette's story because to be completely and totally honest, I was never really that into it. Now it's a St. Augustine quote, which I find to be much more suiting to the plot. 

Speaking of which, I'm holding off writing the story until I've plotted it out more. I should have done the outline first, but I kind of had an idea of the plot in my head so I dove right in. And now I'm realizing why that was a bad idea. 

So. No more updates on that until I've plotted it out. 

Ok, remember my science exam which was basically a huge report (actually, twenty reports) on a parakeet? I think I talked about how stressed out I was about that a while ago (so happy it's over...). Anyways, we get to do something like that again at the end of this semester, but we get to choose what we do it on! Like, we get to come up with our own science experiments! It sounds fun, but also very stressful. My science teacher said told us to do something that we're interested in and I immediately thought aerial. There are so many things I could do with this! I could do something gravity related, since, you know, it's aerial. Or something to do with spinning, like how your position affects the spin or something.  
Thing is, I don't have a definite idea yet. 
Ugh. 
I want Summer to come. 
Three more months... 

HOLY COW THREE MORE MONTHS!! I feel like it wasn't so long ago I did a post at the beginning of the school year and I was complaining because I wanted Summer to come so badly. The year always flies by, but in the moment it takes forever. 

What's also weird is that I only have two more confirmation classes left. I've been taking these classes for two years now, so it's strange to think that I only have to do it twice more and then I get confirmed. I don't have all my service hours though, so I need to figure out a way to get those in quickly. I need like five more (sshhh). 

Ok, it's three-fifteen and I haven't had lunch. I'm starving and also I want tea. But when do I not. 

--Abby

I've become obsessed with collages

Happy March! 

Ok, I have two exciting things to share! Number one is the new page: my writing. Right now, there's only three stories there, one I've never talked about on here before (Mist). It has covers I've created and synopsis's (synopsi? synopsises? Whatever). 

So yeah, have fun with that. 

Number two is I MADE A CHARACTER COLLAGE!! 

Oooo, aaahhh

Pretty fancy, no? These are four of my characters from Claire's story (that's Claire, there on the lower right) and their signatures and I'M DYING IT'S SO CUTE!!. 

The culture in 18th century England was so.... I don't even know how to describe it. The tea, the dresses, the way they spoke, so flowery and elegant... If I had a time machine, this is the time period I would travel back to. Call me weird, this is where I would go. I would totally dress like this if I could. 

Ok, now I want to write another story in this time period which is really ANNOYING because I'm already working on a lot of other stories, Miette's mainly. Speaking of which, I did literally NO work on her story this weekend. Yesterday I was busy and today I was obsessed with my character collages and the new page and whatnot. But I will get back to it... soon... ish... 

One more thing: it's raining!!!! I'm so happy!!!! Rain is so amazing. This morning, my mom said how she likes it when it rains all night and then it's sunny the next day, everything's fresh and crisp from the rain. I'm the opposite. Well, I do like it when it's been raining all night and then you wake up and it's all bright and happy. But I LOVE it when it rains all day and its all dismal and dark and wonderful... That's the best. 

Ok, I've got tea to make and caramel ice cream to eat so au revoir! 

--Abby