Oh dear, oh dear
Looks like procrastination is kicking in again.
But I should do a post before I sleep, and then another post later today (dammit) before I sleep again.
Today's post will be a chronicle of the Very Exciting Things that Quail did today, and their Very Exciting Results.
Quail has spent the past 3 days reliving childhood memories by reading some long-forgotten (but well-loved) books from the past. Today was no exception, as she biked to the library and checked out some books by Patricia C. Wrede (who is a fabulous fantasy writer for the young adult crowd).
Once that was done, Quail then proceeded to meet up with Duck and conspired to make the wondrous creature known as the...
PLAIDIPUS
(It is Exactly What It Says On The Tin)
The creatures will be completed tomorrow, and pictures will go up. Up, up, and away!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
More links?!
This post is intended to plug a very awesome website. I discovered this last night while researching Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day (which came up when I was reading webcomics).
The aforementioned site is Improv Everywhere, a sort of social experimentation group that goes around (mostly NYC) breaking social norms.
I really enjoyed their Mobius loop project, which involved several members of the group repeating the same sequence of actions over and over again at a local Starbucks to simulate a recycling pocket of time.
Another one of the projects I love is the MP3 Experiment, which involves many strangers from the internet downloading the same mp3 and showing up at a predetermined location. Everybody starts listening on their music players at the same time. The mp3 then goes through a set of directions and guides the participants through various actions. It's all very interesting, especially when viewed by video.
Things Quail likes:
Also, I am afraid I am 11 minutes late to this post.
The aforementioned site is Improv Everywhere, a sort of social experimentation group that goes around (mostly NYC) breaking social norms.
I really enjoyed their Mobius loop project, which involved several members of the group repeating the same sequence of actions over and over again at a local Starbucks to simulate a recycling pocket of time.
Another one of the projects I love is the MP3 Experiment, which involves many strangers from the internet downloading the same mp3 and showing up at a predetermined location. Everybody starts listening on their music players at the same time. The mp3 then goes through a set of directions and guides the participants through various actions. It's all very interesting, especially when viewed by video.
Things Quail likes:
- People in large groups acting in unison (it just seems so overwhelmingly forceful and majestic somehow)
- Random strangers meeting up and banding together due to a common interest
- Videos of people doing silly, silly things.
- Silly, silly things.
Also, I am afraid I am 11 minutes late to this post.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Interesting links, hmm?
Short post for today.
I recently picked up reading tvtropes.org (a hellishly ensnaring site if there ever was one), and managed to find my way to Hetalia, Deadpool, and all manner of other things.
Hetalia is a pretty amazing webcomic/4-koma/anime written by a Japanese guy who has way too much time on his hands. (index of scanlations can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/hetaliaindexes/)
The strip personifies countries and then teaches history by acting out events with said personified countries. That being said, the whole series is a delightfully irreverent account of what would normally be snore-worthy material. I mean, I like history well enough, but I absolutely love Hetalia.
I think fanart is in order, hmm?
Another history-based webcomic occurs in the form of Kate Beaton's site: Hark, a Vagrant
The same that is said about Hetalia can be said about Hark, a Vagrant. The site is a collection of historical comics that details some of the lesser known events in history (and lots of Canadian history to boot) with a slightly...unusual take on the characters. I mean, even John Adams gets to have his fun. The personal comics about the artist are also quite amusing, and I always look forward to updates.
Both these comics feature quite a lot of research and care to get all the facts straight, and are excellent study tools for classes like World History, Canadian History, History, and Comedy.
May also be an excellent source of laughs.
I recently picked up reading tvtropes.org (a hellishly ensnaring site if there ever was one), and managed to find my way to Hetalia, Deadpool, and all manner of other things.
Hetalia is a pretty amazing webcomic/4-koma/anime written by a Japanese guy who has way too much time on his hands. (index of scanlations can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/hetaliaindexes/)
The strip personifies countries and then teaches history by acting out events with said personified countries. That being said, the whole series is a delightfully irreverent account of what would normally be snore-worthy material. I mean, I like history well enough, but I absolutely love Hetalia.
I think fanart is in order, hmm?
Another history-based webcomic occurs in the form of Kate Beaton's site: Hark, a Vagrant
The same that is said about Hetalia can be said about Hark, a Vagrant. The site is a collection of historical comics that details some of the lesser known events in history (and lots of Canadian history to boot) with a slightly...unusual take on the characters. I mean, even John Adams gets to have his fun. The personal comics about the artist are also quite amusing, and I always look forward to updates.
Both these comics feature quite a lot of research and care to get all the facts straight, and are excellent study tools for classes like World History, Canadian History, History, and Comedy.
May also be an excellent source of laughs.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Fears and phobias
I've managed to make it for today, eh?
This post was supposed to go up a few weeks ago, when it was more relevant to the topic at hand (moving).
While I was sitting in the garage, sorting out 5+ years of junk (tossing out about 6 boxes worth of trash), I realized why I became such a pack rat, and why I kept (worthless) things dating back 10+ years. Of course, it was far worse in middle school, when every single thing had 'sentimental value', but it was still hard to throw away some of my trinkets that I held on to. It felt as if every item thrown in the junk pile was a memory lost, that I would never again have a retrieval cue to that particular memory.
Then, of course, I'd realize that the memory in question didn't have any significance in relation to anything (like that fish keychain I got as a party favor at a birthday party in a store where we painted ceramics. I can't, for the life of me, remember whose birthday it was, or what grade I was in, or who my friends were at that time) and then I'd toss the offending item in the junk bin. It felt like my brain was some sort of large shrubbery that needed pruning so that new branches could grow and flourish.
The metaphor, however, becomes invalid once you realize that the human brain is nearly limitless in its storage capacity, and that memories can persist for years and years if you retain the proper retrieval cues. These days, however, it feels like every day goes by without being recorded in my brain. Perhaps it's the monotony, or maybe I'm just not making the effort to remember things, but frankly it scares me not to be able to remember what happened the day before yesterday, or the week before, or what I did last winter break. Part of it is turning into such a space case that my grasp on reality seems tenuous at best, and it feels like my default setting is auto-pilot.
Cutting loose from reality and living in the present are all well and good, but every time I do so, it always scares me just a little bit more that I remember just a little bit less.
And this is why I take lots of inane pictures of things and write stuff down whenever I can.
(Made it within 3 minutes of the deadline)
This post was supposed to go up a few weeks ago, when it was more relevant to the topic at hand (moving).
While I was sitting in the garage, sorting out 5+ years of junk (tossing out about 6 boxes worth of trash), I realized why I became such a pack rat, and why I kept (worthless) things dating back 10+ years. Of course, it was far worse in middle school, when every single thing had 'sentimental value', but it was still hard to throw away some of my trinkets that I held on to. It felt as if every item thrown in the junk pile was a memory lost, that I would never again have a retrieval cue to that particular memory.
Then, of course, I'd realize that the memory in question didn't have any significance in relation to anything (like that fish keychain I got as a party favor at a birthday party in a store where we painted ceramics. I can't, for the life of me, remember whose birthday it was, or what grade I was in, or who my friends were at that time) and then I'd toss the offending item in the junk bin. It felt like my brain was some sort of large shrubbery that needed pruning so that new branches could grow and flourish.
The metaphor, however, becomes invalid once you realize that the human brain is nearly limitless in its storage capacity, and that memories can persist for years and years if you retain the proper retrieval cues. These days, however, it feels like every day goes by without being recorded in my brain. Perhaps it's the monotony, or maybe I'm just not making the effort to remember things, but frankly it scares me not to be able to remember what happened the day before yesterday, or the week before, or what I did last winter break. Part of it is turning into such a space case that my grasp on reality seems tenuous at best, and it feels like my default setting is auto-pilot.
Cutting loose from reality and living in the present are all well and good, but every time I do so, it always scares me just a little bit more that I remember just a little bit less.
And this is why I take lots of inane pictures of things and write stuff down whenever I can.
(Made it within 3 minutes of the deadline)
Friday, July 24, 2009
My plans have contracted a slight case of the hiccups
It seems that all of my posts have to start with an apology for being missing these days, and this one is no exception.
Now that the apology has been touched on, a justification now appears!
My parents thought it a good idea to start trying to sell the house now, so Quail returned from Japan to find the house partially deconstructed and most things box-sized or smaller stashed in the garage. Needless to say, this threw a small wrench in most of my plans including (but not limited to) t-shirt making, art, sewing, other similarly craft-y plans, and the like.
Quail's room is still bare-bones, but at least the computer and interwebs are functional, which means that life is good.
Quail has also stopped working at her job (but will probably still go next week), which leaves more time to pack and blog.
This leads me to my next resolution:
Starting with today, I will post every day this week (ending next Friday). We'll see how the post schedule continues after that.
Quail out.
Now that the apology has been touched on, a justification now appears!
My parents thought it a good idea to start trying to sell the house now, so Quail returned from Japan to find the house partially deconstructed and most things box-sized or smaller stashed in the garage. Needless to say, this threw a small wrench in most of my plans including (but not limited to) t-shirt making, art, sewing, other similarly craft-y plans, and the like.
Quail's room is still bare-bones, but at least the computer and interwebs are functional, which means that life is good.
Quail has also stopped working at her job (but will probably still go next week), which leaves more time to pack and blog.
This leads me to my next resolution:
Starting with today, I will post every day this week (ending next Friday). We'll see how the post schedule continues after that.
Quail out.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Jetlag
We're back!!
Of course you all must be DYING to hear about our much-anticipated trip to Japan. For the first few days, we did a tour that turned out to be far more luxurious than expected. Then we were onr our own (dun dun dunnn). Despite daily phone calls from one participant's dad (who will remain unspecified), the experience can be described as nothing other than an exercise in independence. Figuring out how to ride the subway to get to places, pointing mutely at menus to order food (because none of us can speak Japanese), remembering to brush our teeth at night...I feel like even though these two weeks might have caused us to waste a lot of money, they were definitely anything but a waste of our time.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be able to head to a foreign country with your friends with no adult supervison while you are still young enough to be immature and enjoy things that don't involve alcohol or host clubs. It feels great being hormonal enough to be able to check out guys' hair and squeal over it (Japanese guys have AMAZING HAIR @_@) without being unfaithful to lifelong partners.
Still, it feels nice to finally be at home where I can sleep off this ridiculously long all-nighter I've been pulling due to the time difference. More later? Maybe.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Requiem for a dream
Before I begin my blog post, let me offer a huge apology for my lengthy absence. My (metaphorical) fighter jet crashed (metaphorically) in the middle of the (metaphorical) Pacific Ocean. I managed to make it to an uninhabited island (metaphorically) and then proceeded to subsist entirely on (metaphorical) nuts and berries until I was rescued (metaphorically) by a (less metaphorical) hawk, who came to me with cries of "UPDATE THE BLOG, WOMAN".
So, Quail has stopped wallowing in end-of-school lethargy and is now functioning a little better.
I wanted to write this post before we shipped ourselves off to Japan, so here I am writing this 20 minutes before I'm supposed to carpool to the airport. Procrastination is the story of my life...
High school...I'm not sure what I think about it at the moment. There's a haze of disbelief around the whole graduating shebang, so much so that every day just feels like a weekend, rather than A) a day of summer vacation gone by and B) a day of pre-college summer gone by. At this point, it still feels like I'll be showing up to school Monday in a sleepy daze complaining about whatever homework there is to complain about.
The past 4 years certainly did pass by like a warm summer's day. It's been fun, it's been happy, and I've learned to think (I think). It most definitely hasn't been a "High School Musical", although it was high school, and I did burst into song in the middle of school with several of my cohorts.
The things I remember most about the past 4 years would be all the stuff I didn't do at school, like rolling down hills, going to Ikea, loitering in front of the local drug store playing cards, and all manner of stuff that belongs on clichéd lists of lazy summer activities. In retrospect, most of the things we did sound so charming and picturesque, like things that would come out of a sugary sweet, cavity inducing movie or book, though they really were anything but. "Hanging out at the drugstore" doesn't even begin to touch on the weirdness, banter, chocolate, and punching that came with it. (Though "VEGGIES AND CREAM" and "YEEEEUH BOIIIIII" somehow do)
And now the waking dream (or nightmare) that was high school is now over, and the future dreams of college are about to begin in a big way.
Y'all had better prepeare, we're taking the world by storm!
(Addendum: My apologies, I didn't get to finish this post before carting off on the airplane and heading to Japan, so this post is now a week late. Rest assured the main body of it was written before the airplane landed.)
Expect more Japan posts!
So, Quail has stopped wallowing in end-of-school lethargy and is now functioning a little better.
I wanted to write this post before we shipped ourselves off to Japan, so here I am writing this 20 minutes before I'm supposed to carpool to the airport. Procrastination is the story of my life...
High school...I'm not sure what I think about it at the moment. There's a haze of disbelief around the whole graduating shebang, so much so that every day just feels like a weekend, rather than A) a day of summer vacation gone by and B) a day of pre-college summer gone by. At this point, it still feels like I'll be showing up to school Monday in a sleepy daze complaining about whatever homework there is to complain about.
The past 4 years certainly did pass by like a warm summer's day. It's been fun, it's been happy, and I've learned to think (I think). It most definitely hasn't been a "High School Musical", although it was high school, and I did burst into song in the middle of school with several of my cohorts.
The things I remember most about the past 4 years would be all the stuff I didn't do at school, like rolling down hills, going to Ikea, loitering in front of the local drug store playing cards, and all manner of stuff that belongs on clichéd lists of lazy summer activities. In retrospect, most of the things we did sound so charming and picturesque, like things that would come out of a sugary sweet, cavity inducing movie or book, though they really were anything but. "Hanging out at the drugstore" doesn't even begin to touch on the weirdness, banter, chocolate, and punching that came with it. (Though "VEGGIES AND CREAM" and "YEEEEUH BOIIIIII" somehow do)
And now the waking dream (or nightmare) that was high school is now over, and the future dreams of college are about to begin in a big way.
Y'all had better prepeare, we're taking the world by storm!
(Addendum: My apologies, I didn't get to finish this post before carting off on the airplane and heading to Japan, so this post is now a week late. Rest assured the main body of it was written before the airplane landed.)
Expect more Japan posts!
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