What kind of idiot promises ten posts in one month?!

...Oh, that's right. ME. :P

So this will be another List!post, or I should say a series of List!posts, because I just need to blog for the sake of blogging AND get away from my college resume for a few minutes. So, here goes...

MOVIES I HAVE SEEN THIS SUMMER:
Shrek Forever After
Little Women
The Runaways
Inception
Eclipse
Make the Yuletide Gay
The Karate Kid
Dakota Skye
The Rocketeer
Toy Story 3
Sense and Sensibility
Go
The Sandlot
Were the World Mine
Her Best Move
Shrink
Killer Diller
Puccini For Beginners

MOVIES I WANTED TO SEE BUT MISSED:
The Last Airbender
The Cake Eaters
Big Stan
Letters to Juliet
Mean Creek
Invictus
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

WHAT I MISSED MOST ABOUT INTERLOCHEN
My friends
The GSA
Mr. Film Teacher
The waterfront
The nightlife
Braeside
DeRoy Insanity

WHAT I LIKED MOST ABOUT BEING HOME
My parents
My own bed
Food that does not make me want to puke
My swimming pool
My basement exercise room/rec room
The town movie theatre
Taking advantage of my mother's netflix account
The library
The parks
Driving
Going to Canada

THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I LEAVE
Repaint the boring white dresser in my room
Watch The Shawshank Redemption with Dad
Go to my cousin's wedding
Finish my two thesis treatments
Finish my college essays and resume
Load as much music as humanly possible onto my iTunes
Go to the library at least twice

FIRST PEOPLE I WANT TO SEE AT INTERLOCHEN
My roommate (HOPEFULLY)
Mishka, my lovely screenwriter
The returning MPAs
My 'brother' Gus
The returning creative writers
My (again, HOPEFULLY) suitemates
ERICA!!!!!
The cast for the movie I'm making with Mishka
My hall counselor

WHAT I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS YEAR
Get bad grades ("bad" being anything below A-)
Fail room inspection
Get dormed for ANY reason
Fight with my roommate or suitemates
Cry about stupid stuff like school dances
Get mixed up in class/major/school drama
Get mixed up in my friends' love lives (it SUCKS!)
Mess myself up over a one-way crush
Fall down the stairs in the Maddy Building (OUCH!)
Misbudget my allowance and run out of money
Waste money on stuff that I'll never use or wear

BANDS I DIDN'T LOVE BEFORE THIS SUMMER
Sing it Loud
The Runaways
Secondhand Serenade
Fort Minor
The Last Goodnight
Escape the Fate

BANDS I ALREADY LOVED
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
The Almost
Augustana
The Who
Michael Jackson
Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Vanessa Carlton
The Goo Goo Dolls
Justincase
Meat Loaf
Cobra Starship
The Academy Is...
Everlife
Evanescence
Lifehouse
Joss Stone
(I could go on forever...but I'll stop here.)

TOP GUILTY PLEASURE BANDS
Avril Lavigne
The Monkees
The Hairspray soundtrack artists
Jonas Brothers (yes, I KNOW)
Men Without Hats
Soft Cell
Devo
The B-52s
The Click Five
Miley Cyrus (not, I repeat, NOT Hannah Montana)
a-Ha
Modern English
Anything from the "Now That's What I Call Dance Classics!" CD

BEST SPARKNOTES FEATURES
Blogging Twilight (OBVIOUSLY)
Auntie Sparknotes
A Day in the Life of...
The yearly back-to-school guides

MOST PRIZED POSSESSIONS
My scrapbooks
Class ring for 2011
Pink digital camera
HD movie camera
My three American Girl dolls, which I've had since I was an innocent little seven-year-old...ah, those were the good old days.
My computer, because it has ALL my writing on it


FIRST THING I'M GOING TO DO WHEN I GET BACK TO INTERLOCHEN
Cry, then crush my dad's ribs in a monster hug, then freak out because I didn't get the roommate or suitemates that I wanted.

WEIRDEST OUTFIT I'VE EVER WORN
Get ready, this is a mouthful...okay. Navy blue gym pants, light-blue embroidered turtleneck, pink-and-purple clogs with embroidered flowers, rainbow-striped satin vest, little straw hat adorned with a pin that reads "Out of control!" Top the whole thing off with frizzy hair and pale pink lipstick that, trust me, no eleven-year-old girl (which is how old I was when I wore this damn thing) should be allowed to wear.

FIRST-EVER CRUSH
DO NOT LAUGH...Steve Urkel from Family Matters. GIVE ME A BREAK, I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD.

FAVORITE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS EVER
Intro to Psychology, freshman year.

WHY I HATE MOST MODERN COMEDIES
Because, quite honestly, they suck. Superbad, Epic Movie, the like...just, no. I love comedy, but unless jokes are done tastefully they are, in my opinion, wasted.

WHAT I'M CURRENTLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE MOST
Being on Welcome Wagon at the beginning of my senior year.

WHAT I'M CURRENTLY DREADING THE MOST
Two things: 1) Leaving my parents, and 2) I might've ordered the wrong size welcome wagon t-shirt...oops!



And now for the questions from my parents and fellow Inty students, about the coming year, the blog, and just stuff in general:

WHAT'S YOUR THESIS GOING TO BE ABOUT?
I have no f#$%ing clue. Hopefully a period piece of some sort.

WILL YOU HOOK UP WITH SOMEONE THIS YEAR?
I would like to extend this heartfelt response to the person who was bold enough to ask me that: None of your freakin' business.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PSYCHED ABOUT FOR THIS SCHOOL YEAR?
Senior prom (I know, I'm such a cliche!), Phys Ed with Lisa Melnyk and Production Workshop with Michael.

WHAT'S UP WITH YOU AND STOLEN DIALOGUE?
Nothing...I just reeeeally love it. It's funny, don't you agree? (If you have never laughed ONCE at my stolen dialogue, you really ought to seek medical attention, because chances are you are in a coma of some sort.)

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH "AD-LIB NEWS"?
Well, as my close friends know, "Ad-lib News" is the code for the boy I USED to love but, sadly, discovered was not all he appeared to be. One of my camp friends did a YouTube show called Ad-Lib News, and I liked the title so I used it as my codename. My current crush is known as "The Seal," because I accidentally blurted out in front of someone I liked "I like seals," and coincidentally, a girl in a Meg Cabot novel did the same thing...so, I nicknamed my current crush "The Seal."

I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE...YOU'RE USUALLY UPBEAT ON YOUR BLOG, BUT IN REAL LIFE YOU'RE USUALLY STRESSED. WHAT GIVES?
I figure the entire world doesn't need to know my problems. However, as seen in posts such as "So...why Alien Water Torture?" and "The Hardest Thing about Making a Movie Is...", I am not above the occasional rant. (To my parents: Yes, I actually HAVE been asked this question by several people.)

WILL YOU KEEP BLOGGING AFTER SENIOR YEAR?
Probably, although as I obviously won't be at Inty anymore, I will probably start a new blog, referencing the college I attend or the adventures I have...I don't know. So yes, I will in all probability keep blogging, but no, it won't be Alien Water Torture anymore. It will be "Vassar Adventures" or "Connected in Connecticut" or "Notes on Notre Dame" or something stupid of that nature.

YOU TALK ABOUT CRUSHES, BUT WHEN ASKED ABOUT DATING YOU CLAM UP...WHY?
See answer to "Will you hook up in senior year?" Multiply that by 200. I once posted "It's Complicated" on my facebook status and was immediately bombarded by questions. Henceforth, I may talk about crushes and stupid things I've done in front of said crushes (I repeat: "I like seals"), but my relationship status shall be kept off the wonderous FB unless it is solid.

WHY START A BLOG MIDWAY THROUGH THE SCHOOL YEAR?
Because at the beginning of the year I was too internet-shy to do something like this. Also, I didn't feel the need to blog at the beginning of the year...but by February I'd warmed up to the idea, from reading my friends' blogs and getting too many good stories to keep to myself.

DO YOU LIKE WRITING OR FILMMAKING BETTER?
Oh, for the love of God, PLEASE don't make me choose.

WHY DON'T YOU ACT ANYMORE?
Because I like being behind the camera better. Also, I am trained as an improv actress, which is quite useless these Shakespearean days.

WHY ISN'T THIS A PROPER POST? AND WHERE'S YOUR STOLEN DIALOGUE?
I'm tired and I don't have any dialogue offhand right now. Good night!

Summer dies and it's just moments we have together

With the return to school hovering like a helicopter, everyone seems to be in a frenzy of "Oh my God, we have to jam as much fun stuff in as we can before summer is over!" And I, like everyone else, have fallen into this trap. My earlier summer plan is not yet shot to hell, I like to think--I didn't relearn piano, get a summer job, or spend as much time being phsyically active as I would've liked. However, I did fulfil SOME requirements--and now, with summer being almost over, I have reprioritized (if that's even a word).

Here's my new end-of-summer schedule:

Tomorrow--go to the Pinery (which is a lovely, LOVELY place in Canada, with a beach and hiking trail and plenty of places to explore).
Hopefully tonight or sometime this weekend--Go to the Imlay City carnival, which is, I'm not joking, the cleanest carnival I've ever seen.
Weekend of the 20th--Go to Cincinnati to see The Almost, a.k.a. the BEST Christian rock band I've ever heard.
27th--Go to my cousin's wedding in a gorgeous mansion, and play croquet.

Unscheduled events: Read my ass off, see more indie films, work out in the basement exercise room so I'm not a jelly doughnut by the time I have to go back to Inty, set up my Skype (because it STILL doesn't work!) and, oh yes...

PLAN A MOVIE WITH MY BEST FRIEND.

Not kidding. I am the one who swore up and down I would NEVER be able to shoot a film written by anyone other than myself. I am the one who insisted that if I didn't write the screenplay, my movie would be crap because I'd be too afraid of "compromising a fellow artist's vision" to film it properly. And yet I am the one who read a screenplay by a VERY close friend and completely fell in love with it, and the next thing you know--BAM, instant collaboration.

The upcoming film, which will be called The Icarus Effect, will be shot at Interlochen, completely independent of all outside assistance. That basically means that we're going to do it all ourselves, with no help from the MPA faculty or any other IAA staff. We might have to go through the motions of pretending to get permission, but as most of the areas that we'll be shooting in are outdoor or common areas, we don't need written waviers.

How awesome is that?

Of course it's not all just a walk in the park. I have to figure out how to light a beach at dusk (not the easiest thing to do, that), make prop diplomas (and I am one of the worst graphic artists you have ever seen; even a COMPUTER can't help me draw a damn straight line), find a cast for this project (thank God Mishka knows exactly what she wants), and somehow find a crew as well (provided anyone actually WANTS to help us with this silly but meaningful-to-us endeavor).

With all this in mind, I'm going to have a VERY eventful August and an even more eventful return to school. So here is my final list of things I absolutely MUST do before I go back to school.

1. See The Runaways, The Shawshank Redemption, Were the World Mine, The Departed, Invictus, Big Stan, and The Girl Next Door.
2. Go to at least ONE carnival, preferably the one in Imlay City.
3. Go to the beach at least once.
4. Get my damn Skype to work.
5. Read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (I've been told that it's a VERY good book.)
6. Get as much music stocked on my iTunes as humanly possible.
7. Finish revamping and redecorating any wardrobe items that still need additional fabric paint (long story).
8. Learn the words to "Don't Stop Believing" so I don't feel like a dork when everyone is singing that and I'm all, "Wait, what'd they just say?"
9. Invite SOMEONE over for a pool party. I have friends who actually LIVE in Michigan--I'm just saying.
10. The all-important ten posts in August (I'm already behind--this was supposed to come out yesterday).


So there we go. My end-of-summer to-do list. And if anyone else has suggestions for how to close my final summer of high school with a bang, I'd love to hear them.

STOLEN DIALOGUE, PUBLIC SCHOOL EDITION:

(most of this dialogue was stored up from when I was in public high school, with a bit of dialogue from home thrown in.)

Person one: On the street, a man with strange, exotic features grins at him, revealing large canine teeth, and winks at him.
Person two: Who’s the canine-teeth dude?
Person one: He’s a fairy.
Person two: As in, the magical kind?
Person one: Yeah, though I’m quite sure he’d screw a guy if he really wanted to.

"You know, all things considered, it's a wonder I haven't kicked your ass yet."

"Your treatment makes The Odessy look like a one-liner."

"Do you really wanna keep him around? 'Cause you know, I have a knitting needle right here..."

[while discussing a class project]
Teacher: No sex, no drugs, no alcohol, no cursing.
Student: Aw, I just ran out of ideas.

[discussing a Spanish class exercise]
Teacher: Okay, the driver is speaking in past tense. The backseat left is speaking in present tense, the backseat right is speaking in future tense. And shotgun is...what is shotgun doing?
Teacher: Shooting!

Person one: Do you guys smell coffee?
Person two: What?
Person one: I said, 'Do you guys smell coffee?'
Person two: Oh! I thought you said, 'Do you guys SMOKE coffee?'
Person three: What is UP with you?!

Person one: You really intimidate him.
Person two: Okay, you people really need to stop using pronouns. There's six hundred 'hims' in this school. Which one are we talking about?

"See, for Dad this is just a little speck on my face and it doesn't mean anything, but...I think I'm going to end up in ICU."

Person one: My dad's girlfriend is weird. We have tree bark in our refrigerator. I'm not kidding.
Person two: She'd better be smoking something.
Person one: Oh yeah, she is.

"I'm a good drinker because I'm like, part Irish, part Finnish, part German...like, if it's good at drinking, I'm part it."

Person one: She likes you.
Person two: No she doesn't.
Person one: She does, and you have to ask her out.
Person three: Unless you don't have the guts--
Person one: --or the nuts.

Person one: Oh yeah. I've smoked with him, and his friend, what's-his-name--
Person two: Is there anyone in this school you HAVEN'T smoked with?
Person one: Yeah--you.

[while filming a behind-the-scenes thing for the school play, two people have a fight with a rubber chicken]
Person one: Thus displays the maturity of the cast of A Christmas Story, the school drama 2008.
Person two: Maturity? What's that word mean?
Person one: I rest my case, ladies and gentlemen.

"If you do that again, I'm going to hit you with a blunt penguin."

Person one: Here, put this in the bathroom downstairs! [tosses a massive roll of toilet paper down the stairs]
Person two: Whoa, that's huge!
Person three: That thing should be rolling through a cave chasing Indiana Jones!

"Is there a magic spell or something to shut you up? No? Shit, I was afraid of that."

Person one: They keep shining those stupid keylights into my eyes.
Person two: I'll make them knock it off.
Person one: No need, I've already threatened their lives.

[to a guy who just left his sister's bra on a girl's desk]
"Dude...pick up your bra."

[We were told we could wear costumes to school on Halloween, one guy wore a miniskirt over his jeans for his costume]
Person one: I'm going to take off my pants and just wear this [gestures to skirt] next hour!
Person two: In that case, thank God I'm not in your next hour.

Teacher: If you go to Salem, where the actual witch trials occurred--
Student: FIELD TRIP!
Teacher: Yeah, that'll be the day, when I take an entire sophomore class to Salem on a field trip...