Hahaha!

Sorry, this journal is friends only!

So, you were browsing the Internet and you found this journal whose ID is eowyn2995. Perhaps you thought, "Hey, I know only one person who would have that sort of user name," and so you clicked on the link, read eowyn2995's user info page, and thought, "Yeah, this is definitely Chris!"

Ahh, I knew I shouldn't have registered with such an obvious ID that screams, "LORD OF THE RINGS IS MY EVERYTHING!" Goshdarnit. I should have chosen something that makes no sense. Like "chockawhocka." Or "igloo_muffin_sex." I mean, if you found a LiveJournal whose ID was "igloo_muffin_sex," would you immediately associate that journal with some Chris that you happen to know?

But anyway. Yes. Congratulations, Reader, you found my LiveJournal. Good for you. Now go outside and play baseball or something. Anything to get that Vitamin D throbbing through your veins, because you're sure as heck not getting any by staying inside and reading my LiveJournal.

---

Aww, really, I'm not that mean. I've changed a lot of things around here, and most of them are in your favour.

For one, I'm less exclusive: a significantly larger percentage of my posts will no longer be friends-only. Before 3rd Sept. 2005, most of my public posts were cr*p about changing icons; all of the meat was shielded from the world's eye. Now, I'll be sharing more of my thoughts (yeah, as if they're really marvellous and original enough to make people want to read 'em) on the public forum, although the personal/identifiable content will still be friends-only.

For another, I'm now allowing anonymous comments, although I would like people to identify themselves. If you want to comment and you have an LJ ID, please comment under that ID. If you want to comment and you don't have an LJ ID, please identify yourself in some way so that I know who you are.

Finally... well, that's about it.

But hey! These changes are better than nothing - right?

Ehh, whatever. You've spent far too much time reading random cr*p that you probably didn't even want to know. Ciao mein.

---

Now, if you want to friend me...

...go ahead and friend me.

Oh! Did you want me to friend you back? Well, Reader, you ought to do me the courtesy of letting me know:

1. you can e-mail me and let me know,
   
2. you can leave a comment on this post, or
   
3. you can sit around and wait for me to notice that you've friended me and to realise that hey - maybe I should friend you back.

The real options are (a) be active [#s 1 or 2] and (b) be passive [#3]. You can't be both. So choose. The ball's in your court.

A note: I advise that you be active. I'm not so addicted to LJ that I regularly check my user info to see if someone has friended me.

Another note: As many of my entries are personal (the most personal, however, are either private or locked to very close friends), I will not friend you if I do not know you personally. However, I may not friend you even if I do know you personally. I consider a number of factors for every decision I make, including friending people, so don't bother being offended if I don't friend you. The main reason is probably my not knowing you well enough, which isn't entirely your fault.

---

Questions or comments? E-mail me at chrissaroo@yahoo.com! (Do, Reader, be aware that I check this e-mail account only periodically. That is, once a month. Something like that.)

I regret to announce this is the end. I'm going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell.

Goodbye.

---

I am moving to another journal, effective this evening.

I will not terminate this account, but I will not update it anymore.

You may continue reading slices of my life at le_chris.

---

"And [she] lived happily ever after, to the end of [her] days."

On the Common App, we put down "Tolkien research" second on my extracurricular, personal, and other activities. Right after The Review.

I'd have put it first, but I aspire to make my career in journalism, not in Tolkien scholarly-ness.


I received the uber-cool Calvin and Hobbes collection for my birthday. I haven't yet opened it because I am working on college cr*p and am therefore being a good girl. But it looks pretty sweet. I ♥ Calvin and Hobbes.

Just for fun, my favourite comic strips of all time, in order:

1. Calvin and Hobbes
   
2. Funky Winkerbean / For Better or For Worse
   
3. Heart of the City
   
4. Luann

When I was little, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I thought it'd be so easy. Now that I'm older and slightly wiser, I think I know better. To be a cartoonist, you have to be inventive and either funny or insightful - every day. (Bill Watterson is one of those rare cartoonists who is both.) Being inventive is already hard enough, but to be funny and/or insightful on top of that? It'd be hard, I think. The best cartoonists have to be better than the best stand-up comedians. In my opinion, anyway.

Four hours and 192 cookies later...

Yeah. Took me four hours to bake sixteen dozen cookies. People, you had better eat 'em and enjoy 'em.

Jeezums, I'll be so old in a little more than an hour.

Wesley told a really funny bad joke in English to-day. When I retold it to the family, they looked at me in bewilderment while I was cracking up like crazy. I had to explain it to them.

( Read more... )

It is so terribly bad that it's hilarious.


(If you don't "get it," think "wall-to-wall carpeting"...)

According to the Houston Chronicle:


According to nekonohoshi144:



Too true. Too true.

When you search for yourself, you will never find the you whom you sought because in the course of your search, you became a new person.

In reaching for the stars, we leap toward the sky and land on the treetops. And so we can see the stars more clearly. Beyond that, we can only stretch out our arms or fall back to the ground. The stars are unattainable.

The truth is the sun. It exists, but some people see only clouds, some cower from its strength, and some try to look straight at it but cannot.


Such are the thoughts that raced through my mind when I looked out the window and saw, beyond the leaf-laden branches of our oak tree, an airplane soaring in the dark of the night.

If I were accepted into Mizzou, the probability of my choosing to go there is very high. As in, really high. 'Cause I've decided to make it #1.

Mizzou does rolling admissions, so shortly after they receive my transcript and official SAT score reports, I'll be hearing from them.

We all roar pass them on the highway, glad that we've finally reached the end of the bottleneck, but when we say, "Whew, thank goodness" as we press a little harder on the gas, is it because we're glad that we're out of the traffic jam or because we can't have a good look at what's happening amid the sirens and flashing lights and dark-shirted paramedics?

I was in the Kroger parking lot, walking toward the store, and I saw some paramedics and a few passersby around a man on the ground. Two of the paramedics were applying CPR, and a woman standing a bit off, with her hand over her heart, watched anxiously.

I felt very strongly that I should break off from my mum and help. I really felt that I should help them. Like nothing else mattered except that man's life. I don't know why. Certainly it has something to do with my knowing how to do CPR, but I don't think that's it. As soon as I saw that there wasn't a car accident, that there was just a man on the ground (heart attack?), my first thought, "Can I do anything for them or help them in any way?" The only reason I didn't run off and join them was that there were actual paramedics there, and I felt that I could certainly trust them to take proper care of that man. On the other hand, if there had been only civilians trying to resucitate him, I'd definitely have offered to help. I hope that man's okay now. It'd be so scary, to die so suddenly like that. I guess it'd be scarier for on-lookers, though; I think that the prospect of a sudden death is more frightening than the actual thing itself.

Maybe I should be a paramedic. It'd be a way to help people, at the very least. But wouldn't it be awful, to try to save someone's life and to fail? It must be depressing, and it must leave them with a feeling of unjustifiable guilt. But then, to save a life - that's just wonderful.

Two sides to every coin, I guess.

Ohmygosh, is to-day Friday? I think it is. If it is, that SO makes my day!


I'm going to the ortho to-morrow so they can do an impression of my mouth for my new retainer. I hope I'll have better luck with colours this time. Last time, I chose a ladybug sort of design for my retainer, and I ended up with this gross watermelon-pink colour and two little flowers on either side.

Wow. I think I was eleven back then. Or thirteen. One of the two. Either way, I was really young. I've changed a lot since then. I used to be pretty weird. (More so than now...) Thinking about it is a bit more than scary.

---

ADDENDUM (9:20 p.m.)

I think that the grammatical error that annoys me most (in the written word) is the comma splice. Sometimes, though, not having a comma to mark off independent clauses strung together by conjunctions is okay. But when commas are missing in the presence of gerunds and prepositional phrases and all that... *head explodes*

And in the spoken word? Dangling prepositions. And lack of subject-verb agreement. And the proper use of "that," as opposed to "who" and/or "what." And awkward structure (which is indicative of one's not really thinking before speaking...). And... well, I guess that those are the most annoying.

---

ADDENDUM (10:00 p.m.)

I'm parched. At times such as this, I re-discover the joys of ice water, which (under certain circumstances) is yummy.

Mr. Sirignano left class for the second time this year. But this time, he left before it started.

I always feel bad when he does that. At least this time he didn't seem angry or disappointed with us.

It takes skillz to trip coming up the stairs. On a regular basis.

---

ADDENDUM (8:14 a.m.)

Oh, and apparently apricots grow in a more moderate climate. Like that of north Texas. This is good to know, and I'm sure I'll figure out why someday.

I like the word "apricot." ap-rih'-cot!

I wonder how they came up with the name "apricot." Like, philologically speaking. I guess I can look it up.

---

Introduction of an e-mail I sent to Dr. Raulston earlier this evening

I had to wait for my muse before I could map out my short story for this second out-of-class paper. When I realised that my muse is not being attentive to my needs, I made my little brother sub for my muse. So now I have an outline for my short story, as I borrowed one detail from what my little brother suggested, ran off into an entirely different direction, and mapped out the following: [...]

---

Yeah. Basically, I told the little brother that I was going to write a short story that offers some perspective on meaning/etc. and that I needed inspiration. However, I had to give him some background information, so I attempted to explain the premise of the class and to sum up a few stories we've read; overall, I did a rather clumsy and generally lousy job, but he grasped the point. He's kinda smart sometimes. Anyway, it was really weird - earlier, before dinner, we were generally p*ssed with each other for no particular reason and couldn't cooperate at all. Then, at home, we were listening to Lord of the Rings soundtracks and goofing off / doing homework in the computer room. It was odd. But I'm used to it.

Thinking about how we were viciously fighting at one point and then having fun together only a few hours later made me realise how weird guys are. (Of course, we girls are not without our little oddities, either.) And then I started thinking about guys, and then I remembered this really cheesy piece that's in The Book of Virtues (edited and compiled by William J. Bennett - I used to read this thing as if it were the Bible, so even though it's hard-back, it's pretty tattered). As I said, it's really cheesy, not to mention out-dated. But it's so idealistic, and I like it despite its flaws.

---

"Boy Wanted" (This "want ad" appeared in the early part of this century - credited to Frank Crane)

( The text, becaue it's rather lengthy. )

---

Ideal, indeed.


Quote of the Day

"An idea is salvation by imagination."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Life is like a brick wall shrouded in fog. You think that things are going swimmingly and that all is swell, and then you suddenly chance upon a brick wall (because you've run smack into it) and either are knocked unconscious or develop a big bruise/bump on your head. When you come to / realise that you just ran into a brick wall, you then have to decide what you're going to do about it so that you can continue happily on your way: are you going to try to walk around it, dig a tunnel under it, climb over it, or knock a hole through it?

And by figuring out how to kill the wall's ego by defeating it and continuing happily on your way, you now know how to conquer some of the future brick walls into which you'll run (although, some will present a much greater challenge) and so you've learned - *BOM BOM BOM* - a life lesson! :O


Oh, the absurdity of it all is killing me.


Quote of the Day

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
- Albert Einstein

---

ADDENDUM (8:04 a.m.)

Or, I suppose, you could introduce the existence of a new character (here, "new" as in someone new to the observer but not to you - in other words, a friend), or else you could create a new character (here, "new" as in new to both you and the observer - in other words, there's a chance meeting between you and this new character). This opens up a myriad of possibilities, some of which may help you conquer the wall, some of which may help the other conquer the wall, some of which may help both of you conquer the wall, and some of which may help neither of you conquer the wall.

For example, you could collaborate and thus conquer the wall. Or you could decide that neither of you has a decent reason to bother with the wall, so you two go off in a different direction and at some point encounter a different wall. Or you two could have a hissy fit and separate (so that you are once again alone but now are laden with a heavy feeling of loneliness-now-acknowledged, thanks to your having now recognised that initial solitude [which you before may not have recognised], as well as some other chaotic feelings). Or you two could decide that only one of you needs to conquer the wall, and so you make plans accordingly. Or you could decide to camp down next to the wall and have a party with some others who may arrive / may have arrived until you decide not to conquer the wall after all. Or, or, or, or... and on, and on, and on.

Introducing a new character and/or creating a new character in this situation really creates a whole new set of complexities. It's all so interesting. No sarcasm. I think I could write pages about this.

Something downstairs smells really good. I hope it's dinner. It'd stink (whoa, no pun intended) to have a dinner that smells bad. Don't good smells enhance the taste of food? I think I read that somewhere.


Outside, there's a really pretty sunset. With plump plumes of clouds tinted with clashes of violent and ever-changing colours and fringed with a radiant gold from the sun, and with all of the brilliant light and vibrant colour melding together and highlighting the holes in the dark silhouettes of leaf-laden trees.

I like cramming as much descriptive cr*p as I can into sentences. It makes things so awkward.


I've been receiving phone calls, e-mail messages, and mail from Washington University in St. Louis, Trinity University, Oklahoma State University, Texas Christian University, New York University, Southwestern University, Syracuse University, and some other random higher educational institutuions. They all want me. Or my money. Either one. They can't have one without the other, in any case. And they can't have me. Because I don't want them. Yeah, I filled out their little cards because I thought I was interested in applying to them. But I'm not, anymore. For one thing, most of them are in Texas (immediate disqualifier), and for another... I'm not interested.

So, I'm inspired to craft a little parody. I was interested in them; now I'm not. Just like the terrific American-in-Berlin, Sally Bowles:

---

Parody of "Mein Herr" from Cabaret:

Farewell, you colleges.
It was a fine affair,
But now it's over.
And though I used to care,
I need the open air.

---

And now a message from our Emcee: "The final performance (for now) of Chris! Thank you, Chris. Bye-bye!"


Quote of the Day

"Honor does not have to be defended."
- Robert J. Sawyer

I really don't want to write this USAP paper, but I don't have a choice. But if I were brave/defiant/stupid enough to make a formal declaration that I'm not going to write this paper, here's what I would say:

1. I shouldn't have to do anything in which I don't believe strongly. And I don't believe strongly in any Cause that would entail my writing a paper in response to an autobiographical work written by a former slave girl. (Disclaimer: That is not, however, meant to be disrespectful to Linda Brent or to slaves, nor is it to imply that I am indifferent toward or that I advocate slavery.)
   
2. I don't think that this is right. "Read a powerful and poignant autobiographical work by a former slave girl and write a paper about it." I think that treating this kind of narrative like that - "read it and write about it" - is really disrespectful to Linda Brent and to slaves in general.
   
3. I'm tired. Really tired. I've been tired since 6th Sept. No joke.

But oh, well. I'll suck (oops) it up and bang out some 500-word atrocity anyway. I'd Fight For My Rights As An Exhausted Student, but I don't care enough to make a spectacle of myself. More so than I already may have, that is.


Oh - and People Who Think That They Can Whistle But Who Really Can't absolutely must stop being delusional and cease their fake whistling. They are an Insult to those who actually can whistle, not to mention those who can whistle well. (A note: I fall in the former, not necessarily the latter, category.)

While at Mizzou...

---

A snippet of conversation I overheard while passing by:

"I've come back because I'm an alumni..."

---

*die die die*


Movies (some of which have been released, some of which have not) I want to see:

• Corpse Bride
  
• Good Night, and Good Luck
  
• Pride and Prejudice
  
• A History of Violence
  
• Prime
  
• Thumbsucker

Please e-mail me back.

To tell your students to e-mail you with questions and then not reply to their messages - so unfair. So mean. So devastating.

You wrote me a nice 1st-quarter comment, so I'm sure that you don't downright hate me. (Even though you've never once responded to my e-mails.)

...this utter rejection. It's killing me, Sirignano.

You must reply. You must reply. You must reply. This is my mantra. You must reply. You must reply...

*despair*

Kinkaid issue's finally out. Yayzers. With the exceptions of a botched-up quote in Odds&Ends (which, by the way, has to be the printer's fault because in our file, everything's correct) and a questionable photo in the spread, the issue seems to be a good one. I dunno. I like it.


I've found that I'm quite adept at putting runs in my stockings. Every time I wear stockings, I manage to put a run in 'em within the first two or three hours of wear-age.


Tell me this is not the most adorable thing ever:


(Source: http://roomies.furry.com/roomies/comics/roomies-20050905.gif)

Yeah. Basically, Dr. Raulston wasn't here, so during English we just did nothing productive. Wesley and I were Googling photos of foxes, and he kept me waiting at the end of class because he had to find the photo, which I've saved and posted above. If you don't know what it is, it's a ferret that's stuck in a glass. ADORABLE.

Know what else is adorable? Those two babies dressed as bees on pg. 2 of the November issue.


I've decided that the most excellent name for a city ever is Vladivostock. You cannot top Vladivostock. Wesley tried, but he failed miserably. Seriously, is there a city name that's cooler than Vladivostock?


I'm supposed to be in calculus right now, but Kef is out of town, too. So - no Kef, no class. I like not having class.

---

ADDENDUM

Oh, and to clarify: I did not write the Kinkaid game headline. Mark Wulfe and I were having a small and almost silent debate over what the headline should be... almost silent because we were sitting behind a history class, working on the computers, at the time. When my back was turned, Mark changed the headline and I didn't notice until after he'd left. And I decided to keep it. Short but sweet. Hardy-har-har.

So, I need to finish my Philosophy paper by to-morrow night because I'm going to Mizzou and leaving on Friday morning, and I left Republic in the HCR.

You can bet I'm currently printing out a translation I found on-line.


Matt already has senioritis. Gosh - I wonder if I'll ever get senioritis. I think I would die of a heart attack if I did. Or something.

I think I've figured out why I'm always busy: it's because I need to keep myself busy. I haven't figured it out beyond that, though. If I wanted to do a self-psychoanalysis, I could say that I equate happiness/fulfillment with never being idle or that my own life is so void and shallow and empty that I feel the need to fill it up with activities or that I thrive on stress.

Of course, I could be wrong. About keeping myself busy because I need to do so, that is. I'm not exactly the best judge of myself, anyway.


Skittles are amazing. Especially the grape ones.


Quote of the Day

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."
- Oscar Levant

Condensing everything into 500 words is impossible. You can suffuse only so much meaning into 500 words. Of course, that's the whole point - they want to see how well you can pack meaning and profundity and lalala into a coherent piece as long/short as a news brief - but I still hate it. I think I'm one of the most verbose people I know. I still chuckle over that ridiculous second-semester synthesis paper, which is a monster whose likes I hope I'll never see again.

But yeah. I hate college essays. There is no beauty in staccato, bare-bones succinct sentences.

I guess this means that I shouldn't go into formal newswriting.

---

ADDENDUM

Just wrote the following message to Alig, with my essay attached:

I'm not very pleased with it. A word count of 500 is way too
limiting. I have no freedom to be creative or to use interesting
sentence structures or to make it more interesting in general. I feel
sorry for the people who have to read these things. I hope they're
paid well. Augh.

- Chris

I must be really tired.

I was looking over old issues of The Review (old meaning, last year) earlier this evening. It was depressing.


The thunderstorm was pretty pathetic.


Earlier, I was running downstairs because I was going to get a smoothie (I've been on a major smoothie kick) and, to maintain my balance, I was running my left hand, curved, over the wooden stair banister. When I misstepped and slipped forward about three steps, I instinctively clutched the railing to steady myself. So, my left hand, which was grasping the banister for dear life, literally skidded down the railing by a few inches. The underside of the banister has produced a really odd-shaped blister-like formation on the middle finger of my left hand. It's strange. And it hurt, too, for a while. And I stubbed three toes on my left foot when I finally was able to stop myself from falling onto the landing altogether, so I had to limp to the kitchen in order to grab my homemade smoothie.

That I have drama on even the smallest level amuses me.

But it, too, is a little depressing.

Haven't done one of these in a while, and Eru knows I need it...

...that is, to-do lists!


To do to-morrow or by to-morrow:
For The Review:

• Finish writing letter
  
• Finish drawing illustration
  
• Write about Alumni Fun Day
  
• Finish front page (note: SEABOX)
  
• Do Photo of the Issue
  
• Finish spread
  
• Take this issue to the press before noon (!!!)

For college cr*p:

• Ask Mr. Alig to fill in appropriate blanks on Mizzou app form
  
• Ask Mr. Alig to copy the front and back of the form
  
• Give letter to Mr. Alig and ask him to notify me when the transcript is mailed out
  
• Give essay to Mr. Alig to edit
  
• Give teacher rec forms to teachers
  
• Start Common App, for realz

To do... very soon:

• Start reading about Linda Brent (haha, because I sooo have not yet begun)
  
• Start writing about Linda Brent (due 7th. Nov.)
  
• Start writing Philosophy paper (due 4th Nov.)
  
• Start writing something "profound and interesting" about If on a winter's night a traveler / something from Borges (due 7th Nov.)
  
• Start/finish A&P labwork (due 2nd Nov.)
  
• Start cleaning my room because I'm going to go nuts
  
• RESUME LORD OF THE LEGOS ALREADY, GOSHDARNIT
  
• Start actually writing English honours project (the idea is already formed, kinda, rest assured...)
  
• Give photos from the iMag lockdown to Mr. Nathan / Dr. Thornton so that I can get published (!!!)

Waaaah... together, these must create one of the longest to-do lists I've ever had. It's so depressing. Best years of my life, pshhhh. What a load of rot.


Plus, I'm going to be at The Review at 7 a.m. to-morrow. Yes: on Senior Skip Day. Bah.


Quote of the Day

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
- Voltaire

A pathetic piece of "journalism."

Basically, it's a piece about preparations for the Lord of the Rings musical that's coming out next March. (Do musical productions really take this long to prepare? They've been working on this thing for, like, three years now.) Normally, I'd be excited - heck, I already am, although it's premiering in Toronto and I obviously can't go - but that article is one of the sorriest excuses of "journalism" that I've ever read. You'd think that a paper in a big city like Toronto could have hired better reporters than John Coulbourn. Granted, I haven't read any of Coulbourn's other pieces, but if this is an example of the sort of stuff he writes, I'm not encouraged to read any more of his articles.

What's wrong with the article? A lot of things:

• There's no writing. It's composed of a string of quotes, tied together with some worthless sentences like "It's a style of work to which producer Kevin Wallace could obviously become happily accustomed."
  
• It's not interesting.
  
• There's no real investigation (which is related to the article's being nothing but a bunch of unrelated quotes).
  
• It's not informative (which is related to Coulbourn's not having done any actual investigation - that all Coulbourn did were call up a bunch of people involved in the production and ask them a few questions is quite evident).
  
• It's just... bad. Really bad.

I hate sloppy journalism.

I ♥ Babe. It's the cutest movie ever.

---

Ferdinand: Oh, come on. Humans don't eat cats - why?
Babe: Well, they're...
Ferdinand: They're indispensable: they catch mice. Humans don't eat roosters - why? They make eggs with the hens and wake everyone up in the morning.
Babe: Right.
Ferdinand: I tried it with the hens: it didn't work.

---

You can't beat ducks who try to have sex with hens.