The Poet and the Pendulum!

EXCITING EXCITING!!!!

I'm supposed to be studying for my APUS test tomorrow, but that is just not going to happen. SO I thought I'd stop neglecting this little beauty.

I've had a very hectic past two weeks:

Adam, my french boy, was at my house for a week and a half. He left last wednesday. I think my masochistic fish misses his verbal abuse.

On Friday, I went to the middle school's pasta dinner--everyone was so little! The pasta was disgusting, but I lurked in the hallways for half and hour with Kristen and Ashley, visiting our

 old lockers and such, so that was fun.

On Saturday, I went to a Nightwish concert in NYC with Katie and couple of other people. It was a pretty scandalous time. I hadn't heard any of their music before, but it was surprisingly good. The first band sucked, though and a bunch of middle-aged men with greasy hair were moshing right next to our little group... I felt violated. We got back home from the concert at like 3:30... I fell asleep on the train and apparently sketchy men were checking me out. GREAT.

Yesterday, my prom dress arrived! It's a remake of the green dress from Atonement, only a little less scandalous, slit-up-the-front-wise. I'm in love with it. 

Did I mention 

prom is going to be in the Maritime Aquarium? YEAH. I'm VERY excited.

HI ZACH SMITH! 

That is all.

Eins, Zwei, Drei

Today is the last day of my spring break. I didn't really do anything incredibly exciting, but I saw a few colleges and hung out with some people.Whatever, it was relaxing.

I particularly fell in love with Brown. It has a great theater program, and is the most liberal arts-oriented of the ivies. And there are multitudes of vintage stores surrounding the campus. I'm thinking early decision.

On Easter I started knitting a Swallowtail shawl, only I'm using some really strange baby alpaca yarn and it does not look like it should.

Kelsey introduced me to the band Miniature Tigers last Friday. They're great. Find them.

I saw the movie Amélie with Jaclyn last night. It was really sketchy and cute at the same time. I feel like Laura will turn out a lot like her.

Speaking of the French, my French boy's coming here tomorrow. I spent all day cleaning the house and decorating his room, so I hope he has a personality and isn't too awkward.

Although I am kind of bored of not having school, I dread school tomorrow. I haven't studied for AP tests which are in three weeks (I also have SAT 2s on the same subjects soon) and I really do not look forward to encountering a few select females, which inevitably must happen. I almost got used to not having my guard up all the time. Whatever. Only 2 more months till summer.

So, on one hand, I'm pretty fed up. And on the other, life is good in comparison to many, many other periods of time in my life thus far. I'm trying to look on the bright side, I guess. Not that it's working out so well.

So? So. I guess it's good to negate the inertia of vacation week with leaving the house tomorrow bright and early for school.

Fromage

Decisions!

1. Germany in July = yes. And I'm bringing Marissa. I'm especially excited because she's a lightweight and we'll be spending the majority of our time in beer halls.

2. The Virginia trip was SO much better than freshman year's music trip. Less people, tighter-knit group, more chill location, much less drama. Overall, superfun. Plus, I miss the ability to bare my legs every once in a while... that won't be possible here for a couple more weeks.

3. I got a 2130 on the SATs. Yay. I'm probably taking it again anyway, wutevo.

4. Program at Brown over the summer? Eh? Eh?

5. I'm actually visiting a college on friday, how exciting.

Yesterday, I had to stay after school to make up for some of the "work" i missed in bio. Gabby and Grace were there, and Fil made us herbal tea. It was so great, we just watched a video about the Galapagos, and Grace and I both got emotionally-disturbed Betta fish. Her fish's name is Mr. Owl and he's beautiful. Mine is named Filamino, after Magrino of course. He looks kind of sickly because I accidentally dropped him on the table when i was moving him to his new bowl... but he is big strong man. I trust in his endurance.

This is the first pet I've had in two years, how sad.

ALSO. Yesterday, a beautiful idea was born. In the half hour before school started, I was hanging out with Kelsey and Marissa. They took me on an epic journey to Mrs. Garvey's room and then back to search for an unknown object which I had named Esmeralda. Turns out, it was a finger painting done by Kelsey of an old man, which was residing in the LGI. From this, I had probably the stupidest and most revolutionary idea I have had in a while. I am envious of Leah's playwriting skills, everyone is, but it occurred to me that if I wrote an opera in a different language, everyone would be really impressed. And no one would know that it was about cheese. Well that immediate plan will fail, because I am far from fluent in French and it would be tiring for all the lines to be sung dramatically. HOWEVER, the newly-deemed (english) musical will come into being. I am working on the Googledoc as I speak. 

The story is of France's royal family in the late 18th century. the entire economy is based on cheese, and, sadly, the firstborn son of the king is lactose intolerant. So he has been deported to the "Château du Lactose Intolerance". Meanwhile, it is the second-born son's birthday. His godfather, Esmeralda (the old man), gave him a giant, towering wheel of cheese. Sadly, the cheese crushes and suffocates the boy, and Esmeralda feels tremendous guilt for the boy's death. So, he goes into hiding in the last place anyone would expect to find him: a place with no cheese. The Château. A prostitute living in squalor outside the château decides to break in through the deep cellar and steal some jewelry. She doesn't get many customers because she only has one eye, so her pimp is making her buy a glass eye. When she enters the cellar, though, she runs into Esmeralda and they become symbiotic friends. She provides cheese for him, he provides the loot and an eventual position as a maid in the château for her. The prostitute and the exiled son also fall deeply in love. Thus, a conflict. I'm not sure what happens after that, except that the son can redeem himself by finding the heir's murderer, ie Esmeralda. The last scene of the play will be the son of the king coming upon Esmeralda in the dungeons, and Esmeralda dying of old age after saying: "please, sir, all I ever loved or wanted was cheese."

I am a literary genius.

Just kidding.

But this will be written one day, and it will be so stupid and pointless that the whole world will love it.

That is all, good night.

Indecisive...

I haven't been on in a while.

Blogging, in retrospect, seems kind of pointless. I'm basically typing up my life so my friends can read about it. And it's really redundant, because I tell the same stories. Over and over again. It's pretty cute.

Since my last post (February 9th, I think?), life hasn't changed much. I didn't try out for the spring play for a few specific reasons, but mostly because I really don't care about Shakespeare and I feel that the Barlow theater program has kind of gone down the tubes. The talent of the current "group" is very good, it's just that I would rather not spend every afternoon with people I don't ever talk to. So, alas, this spring I have SAT 2s and AP tests and weekly piano lessons to look forward to. Fun. Hell, at least I'm not doing track.

However, in spite of all the potential for TEEN GIRL GOSSIP!!!!!!!, I've managed to avoid it and keep my life quiet and lame. Just the way I like it. Basically, a day of making terrifying brownies with Jaclyn and going to events at Barlow are my idea of a fun time. Being a social butterfly is overrated. Speaking of which, I greatly recommend three tv shows if you have a couple of hours (like twelve) to kill. 

a. Supernatural. Demonic possession + beautiful witty men = rapture. Really.

b. The Tudors. The clothes. Are. So. BEAUTIFUL. And the men, of course. I watched five episodes of it last saturday :)

c. My So-Called Life. I got it from my grandma for my birthday last year, and didn't watch it until Laura forced me to. It made me love the 90's.

I am indecisive, if anyone was wondering, about future plans. I could go to Germany for two weeks with my parents (oh, I know, poor me) which would be amazing, since I've been getting along with my parents really well recently... Or do an exchange program similar to the one Jaclyn's doing, which seems doubtful thus far... Or do a program at Brown (the neuroscience one looks amazing, but it's seven weeks. No thanks). And then there's prom. And I'm indecisive about whether or not I should ask a random man or just go with friends. Wutevo.

In April, a French boy is going to live at my house for a little over a week. I'm pretty excited, he's kind of adorable. I look forward to taking him shopping and teaching him curse words. You know, the usual.

Recently, in psych and lit, we read Ordinary People by Judith Guest. Great book. Very depressing though, it would probably be a horrible trigger for suicidal tendencies. Anyway... another great book: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. The language used in it is anything but conventional. It's based in India during the seventies, and focuses around one specific family. It's hard to explain, but a very engrossing read.

During study hall today, Grace reminded me of a song that I fell in love with two years ago: "Brand New Key" by Melanie. It's really creepy and stalkerish, but adorable. Also, Grace introduced me to ravelry.com, basiclaly the most amazing knitting/crocheting site I've ever seen. It's invitation-based, so you need to post your email and wait for an invite, but it's worth it. There are so many beautiful project I want to start, too bad I'm really not that great at knitting. I recently knit another hat for myself, but I don't have as much time as I did a few weeks ago. I'll have to take a break from a few projects for now. Ehhhhhhh.

Hahahaaahhahahaha. I forgot until now: my principal wants me to paint a portrait of the superintendent for a retirement gift. He has to sit for me and everything, it'll be so awkward. And I have no idea how to paint with oil paint, so that could be a problem.

So, basically, life is manageable. I'm excited for the half day tomorrow, and hopefully hiking and watching The Tudors with Katie.

-Madeline

(Addendum: killme)

Poop

Here is a delightful bit of Laura wisdom:

"You have to give yourself a good way of thought. Ignore everyone else, I don't care if it's hard. Once you stop letting people's words get to you, you'll be a lot happier. All of the people at our school don't actually matter in your everyday life. Do you go home and think, "I wonder what Crinkles Montgomery is eating? i should eat it too!" NO, you don't. IGNORE CRINKLES AND EAT HUMMUS INSTEAD."

Emotions rock.

Come on baby, light my fire.

It's been a while.

This past weekend, I went to New York City with my parents and Jaclyn. It was horribly cold, so walking around times square wasn't as fun as it could be when it's a decent temperature. We stayed in the Algonquin, and I felt incredibly classy. We saw Equus for the second time and got the cheapest tickets possible, which was the last row on the mezzanine. At stage door, we didn't get to meet Dan Radcliffe or Richard Griffiths because about 50 fangirls had been waiting outside since the play started. There was clump of hyperventilating girls in between 

us and the actors. Oh well.

Earlier in the day, we also stumbled on a store in East Village called Village Scandal. 

Jaclyn bought this obnoxious red mesh thing called a "fascination". I got some cheap dangly earrings and a great hat, although I didn't really process the fact that it has a huge bow on it... much like Aretha Franklin's masterpiece at the Inauguration. Oh dear.

I haven't knit in about a week (which is really unfortunate because I have

 all that fancy yarn now). However, last week I finished yet another hat. I don't really understand why so many of my posts have focused on hats, I really don't like them that much and they usually look stupid on me. Hm.

I also got my hair dyed dark auburn. I like it.

Right now I'm reading Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (I'm going to read all the AP English books on my own so I can take the test at the end of the year and hopefully get college credit... win). It's about opera and terrorism... my two favorite things. Well, not really. Anyways, it's pretty exciting. Read it.

On the 25th there's a solo and ensemble performance at my school, and the choir and band teachers accosted me today to ask if I can accompany some of the instrumentalists. I feel so professional now! Only I'll have to actually start practicing piano now. So far I'm accompanying my friend Stephanie in Peeters Sonata for Piano and Trumpet. I think I might sing an Italian aria as well...

Basically, I love Connecticut because I got out of school today at 11:15 AM. Snow is wonderful.

Peace.

Still Fighting It

Today I went to a yarn store in New Haven and got $70 worth of very fancy yarn... I'll be making many many hats. 

http://www.yarnllc.com/index.html

Last weekend was a four day break after exams, although I still had to work on my writing portfolio. Weak. I saw Slumdog Millionaire, and even though I had to sit on the ground because there were no seats left, it was basically the best moviegoing experience I've had within the past year. It was so inspiring. I suggest you see it.

Last week I finished another hat, for my friend Marissa, and I'm using the same pattern to make one for myself only in a much fancier yarn :P (hers was just in some acrylic from an arts and crafts store). 

I discovered something that made my life yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/user/corporalcadet

I think I watched all his videos, and they're so frank and britishly funny (even though he lives in New Zealand). Go to him.

Fairfield Follies tryouts are coming up, and I'm thinking of either singing Se Tu M'Ami or something from Sweeney Todd. If we're allowed to do duets, Jaclyn and I might do something from Wicked. I dunno. Good times.

Besides almost passing out in APUS on friday, everything's been good...

Political Correctness and Knitting

I should be working on my Writing Portfolio right now. But, joyous news: I finished Jaclyn's hat! It's beautiful. And I'm making a couple more for friends using variations on the same pattern.

It's supposed to be a beret. The

 thing supporting it is my drawing model, Luigi, in case you were wondering. He's pretty stylish.

I have one more day before I go back to school to start the second semester. Today, as everyone knows, is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I think he was a great and inspiring guy. One specific thing pisses me off about us lovely Americans with regards to political correctness and half of our population: the rabid political correctness and, by association, the term "African-American" (by ancestry African, but by many brutal centuries of naturalization, American. Not like they have much to show for the years of torment... but I digress). On a day such as today, I recall an especially annoying moment in my life. I was on vacation in Tanzania, and a family of plastic surgeons living in a gated community in Florida was on the same tour as my family. I specifically recall hearing the father say, "These African-Americans have it tough." We were in Africa. Not America. And I'm pretty sure he was referring to the impoverished and tsetse fly-ridden school children we were visiting. I'm not saying blacks in america don't have tough times, but life is a lot easier when you don't have to worry about malaria and bacterial meningitis on a daily basis. Stupid fuck.

All in all, I look forward to Obama's inaugural speech tomorrow (as some of my friends would say, the "Obamarama"). And I hope these next four years will be a hell of a lot better than the past eight. As Stephen Colbert said, "he's just what we've been waiting for--a Hawaiian president!"

I Have No Life.

The Auction ended like an hour ago. My piece sold for $95, and I wore the infamous Betsey Johnson with vintage jewelry, black tights, and PAINFUL black patent pumps. 

And since (as above mentioned) I have no life, for your viewing pleasure, I present What I do When I'm Alone on a Friday Night.

Floating Buddha!

A Waste of Life...?

So today I had a very relaxing schedule. I didn't have to come in for my first final so I got to wake up at 9, get to school in time for my jewelry final which took all of half an hour, and then sit in the classroom eating brownies. Not bad. But, when I got home at noon, I realized I had SEVEN hours to kill before the jewelry auction tonight. So, naturally, I decided to work on the hat I'm making for Jaclyn.

And so for the past few hours I've been knitting. And my hands are killing me. But, out of it, I made up my own pattern for the hat. So, here it is. The hat's far from finished, but when I'm done I'll put up pictures.

Cable-knit Beret (I'm using a big cheap skein of dark purple acrylic worsted-weight yarn)

Cast on 80 stitches onto US 7ish circular needles, 16 or 24 inch circumference. 

K2 P2 row one, and continue with the ribbing up till the end of row 6.

K, K 1 front and back of each stitch, for row 7 to increase to 120 stitches total

Rows 8-11: P12, K8, etc.

Row 12: P12, Cable K8, etc.

Row 13: P5, K2, P5, K8, etc. (You're adding two knit stitches in the middle of the purl section)

Row 14: P4, K4, P4, K8

Row 15: P3, K6, P3, K8

Row 16: P2, K8, P2, K8 (So every other "stripe" of knit stitch, you'll have a cable section)

Row 13 on: continue with the pattern, adding a cable in the cable section after every ten rows. Continue until the hat is between 6 and 8 inches from cast on. Really you can stop whenever.

Decrease (try to do this right after a cable, transfer onto regular needles): P 2 tog, K 2 tog 4 times, P 2 tog, K 8, etc.

Row 2 of decrease: K 2 tog 3 times, K8

Row 3 of Decrease: K 2 tog the entire row

Carefully slip the loops off the needles and cut a 4-inch tail of yarn. Thread the yarn through all the loops and pull tight. Flip inside out, tie the yarn, and weave in the end.

... hopefully it'll turn out well.

Scandal!

One of these two makes me hate life is a kind of appreciative way. I don't mind inferiority complexes if their sources are this awesome. You know?
Another one of these two just makes me want to kill everyone.
Guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUx4t4W4eVY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TME30pPBw58

Finals are basically over for me today, so that's a fun time. My hand is about to fall off after four consecutive hours of writing--English and APUS. Then tomorrow night is a jewelry auction--a piece I made with one of my friends will be for sale, and I'll be working there. It's an orchid made of folded silver, I'm very proud of it. Perhaps some pictures later.

For Laura's sake: As you can see, this is my face. I'm not sure what it has to do with my day, but what I was trying to do was make my eyes as gigantic as possible. They can get pretty terrifying. This is nothing. 

Uhm last year, I did some modeling which I pretty much forgot about until now. And I kind of miss it, and hope my agency hasn't forgotten me. 

And this is what you call attention whoring.

Ok bye.

Inception

My life is not exciting. This is a disclaimer.

My dear friend Laura gave me the idea to do daily posts involving a photo of myself that had to do with my day in some way. Simple concept, no? But it's intriguing and I want to see how it goes.

Although I find it uncomfortable to be vain, my other dear friend, Jaclyn, has opened my eyes to the many benefits of being irrevocably, unabashedly, deliciously vain. And I say this with the greatest possible fondness. It's quite a fun time, actually, and taking pictures of myself is a great, mindless way to waste time when I should be doing more productive things.

As my profile says, I absolutely love the arts. I just ordered Photoshop Student Edition Extended Version (I didn't even know that existed... how fancy!) as a late Christmas present. I do love editing photos, but I'm not amazing at it. Hopefully with new tools I'll get a little better at it. Drawing and singing were my two first loves, and I continue to do both. I've been playing piano for a number of years, and I've just taken up classical guitar again. Perhaps there'll be some compositions later on. Eh? Eh? Acting/theater is also a favorite of mine... I'm also an insufferable nerd. I love reading (although trying to comprehend Dante on a plane flight was not a good plan), and math excites me to no end. Really. Fashion designing is a hobby of mine, but I don't really expect to go anywhere with it. Oh well. I've taken up knitting recently, as well, and I've been cranking out a hat a week. Pretty impressive, I know :P. Other than that, I don't really know what to say...

So, basically this blog is going to be pictures of my face (how captivating) interspersed with witty comments and philosophical rants.

Sounds like a good time.

This picture was taken by Jaclyn last March, and it remains one of my favorite pictures of myself. That's pretty much it.

Adeu, cassez vos jambes!