silverhawk51

Well today I actually buckled down and finished my Katara costume for the Last Airbender movie that comes out no earlier than next summer...but at least now it's wearable (it needs some tweaking, but i'm gonna give it a few months and see if I can find my sewing machine.) I did all the sewing by hand, without patterns. Which can be noted as quite a feat for someone who's biggest sewing venture before this was a teeny pillow. But what can I say? I get inspired by fandoms i'm obsessed with...
In light of the racial issues that are causing people to want to boycott the movie, i'm also going to use some of my dark body makeup to make my skin tone truer to Katara's Inuit design in the series. Until now, i've really tried not to get involved in the controversy because 1: I myself am white, and I don't want to boycott my own ethnicity persay, though I don't understand M. Night's casting choices since he himself is of an eastern descent. I must assume that he wasn't thinking racially at all in this case (at least regarding the fire nation being Indian) since he wouldn't want to portray his own race in a negative light. Anyway, number 2: the world is so full of racial injustice, does anyone honestly think that boycotting a children's movie is going to make even the slightest difference in solving that problem?
I'm not going to shun my favorite tv series's movie just cause people aren't happy with casting. I'm going to that midnight premiere and enjoying it...in my darkened olive-skin and original book 1 costume. There. I get the best of both worlds.

Anyway, in recent news, my sister became suicidal and cut her wrists, and I had to clean up the blood and take care of her 6-week-old kitten while she recooperated. I think she's fine now. I think...I mean, she's on prescription. I would write a huge long heartwrenching post about how much she means to me, how everything horrible in the world happens to her while i'm happy as can be (well within reason, compared to her), how scarring it was to have to clean up that bloody bathtub and help her little kitten who had been locked in the bathroom overnight with that mess, but I really try not to think about it cause i'm afraid of what will happen if I let it get to me. It's so surreal that it's really easy to brush it off, play with the kitten, and pretend things are okay.

Too much dark for one post, how about....OPERA REHEARSAL WAS LAST TUESDAY!!! Yay opera! We didn't do any singing, but it's nice to have a first meeting. I still have much aangst about not getting cast in a lead OR supporting role, but technically what am I complaining about? I'm 19 for crying out loud; by all accounts I shouldn't even be singing in my first opera yet! Instead i'm on my 7th. Yiperdooo! The production is going to be fun anyway. Cause i'll get to wear a frilly dress and sing the background chorus for "Modern Major-General" which in itself is AWESOME!

Oh, and I dyed my hair. Got two blond streaks in the front--Rogue-style from "X-men". Somehow my family didn't freak out...though they did have other things to worry about (my sis's drama), my poor courtier was a little scarred for life, but he did say the picture I sent to him looked rather fetching, so hakuna matata. Which by the way, is pronounced HAkuna MAtata, not HaKUNa MaTAta, like they do in the movies. How do I know this? I research The Lion King a little too much...it's quite an established, developed fandom, I should blog about the flubs and plots and stuff sometime. I was watching that movie today actually, with little Eponine (my sister's kitten). She actually was watching the tv screen...and twitching her ears when Scar spoke. She didn't see the wildebeast scene, thankfully. Much too graphic for a 6-week-old baby!

Well this had been random (mostly because it's 2 in the morning) so i'll bid you good morrow until next time.

So, i's been an eventful 10 weeks of not writing any new journal entries, and i'm falling waaaaay behind...but a lot has happened and i've been pretty busy.

First off, the childlight USA conference. It was pretty awesome. Amazingly so. I got to see my best friends again after a whole year, and we got put in charge of the new teen programs, including the regency dance. I wrote all about it on my blogspot account. ----> http://floresebrightleaf.blogspot.com/

I also sort of graduated high school this year. Meaning I made myself a paper graduation hat with a tassel on it and got a cake and some cards. No diploma or gown...but I did make myself a pretty spiffy slideshow. This summer has been spent completing forms and stuff for Montreat College. And since they're accepting my transfer credits from my dual enrollment at CPCC, it means i'll actually be going in as a Junior instead of a Freshman. Growing up I was so used to the years 2008 and 2012 as my graduation years. Apparently, now it's 2009 and 2011. Maybe if tuition wasn't so expensive I could mozy along and finish in '12 anyway. But my competitive spirit doesn't want me to do that.

Apart from the crazy college stuff, i've been involved in a more personal adventure that i've seriously been waiting for my whole life. Falling in love. Yeppers, it finally happened, and it's awesome!!! Complete with shooting stars, rainbows, ballroom dances, carving initials into trees, full moons, prophecies, shakespeare, swan lake, toadstool villages, and regency ascots! I never could have imagined a romance like this. I have truly been blessed. Perhaps if I felt less I could tell you more, like Mr. Knightley in Jane Austen's "Emma". As it is, i'll let you wonder how rainbows and toadstool villages signify in my love story.

In the fandom world things have been happening too. shooting FINALLY began on Voyage of the Dawn Treader, work is progressing on the Spiderman 4 script, The Last Airbender released their teaser trailer and promotional pics, and I decided to finally look up how cosplayers make their own costumes so I could go to the midnight premiere of TLA dressed as Katara. Of course i'd be making my courtier go as Zuko. He has the season 3 hair for it.

I've been writing more Brightleaf Chronicles. I've reached 131 pages, and i'm apprehensive about how much time i'll have to write in college. I'm also trying to catch up with the new Redwall books i've been conveniently ignoring for the past 4 or 5 years. I read Rakkenty Tam early on this summer, and it ROCKED! My love for Redwall was restored, and I couldn't believe I had left it for so long! I'm reading High Rhulain now, and just got Eulalia too. Haven't gotten Doomwyte yet, but I have time.

Well, back to packing for Montreat. I have less than a week before orientation, and the college is being annoying about offering me the courses I need in the right years and semesters. Nevertheless, my future doesn't look so bad. Oh, and I learned how to paint. I bought oil paints a few weeks ago and painted. It didn't look as awful as i'd anticipated, thankfully. Now I am officially a combo of all 4 March sisters. Officially.

Well the last entry I made was pretty depressing and could get certain people mad at me if certain people viewed it, so i'm making a new entry so the old one isn't the first one to come up. What should I talk about? Hm...The Hunt for Gollum was pretty epic. If you haven't seen it, go to www.thehuntforgollum.com right now and click "watch the film". It's 40 minutes of pure lotr awesomeness. ;D Strider was striding, Gollum was being gollum-y, and the orcs were being all orcy and got killed by strider and Gandalf was there too and for a LOTR fan like myself it was a feast for my LOTR-starved self. Can't wait for Born of Hope, and The Hobbit parts one and two! YAY ELROND!!!!!

Well, it's been a while. I basically realized that no one was reading my blog anyway, so what was the point? Eh? Besides feeling a bit important? Well, I gotta get this out, so here goes.

I'll try to laugh it off/Say it's not a big deal/You'll still be my friend/No matter how you feel.

Yup folks. This year I learned that my two best friends were dating people of their own gender. Ya think you know someone, especially when you've known them since they were 9 and 12 years old *shrug* anyway, it's been hard to think about. Not to accept. I can accept it just fine. But to think about it, and dream about it, and dwell on it...that's the hard part. I dream about one of my friend's girlfriend all the time. I just dreamed about her last night, actually. It's awfully inconvenient to be trying not to let something 'bother' you and have it not be a big deal, when you're having frequent nightmares about it. The girls they're dating/were dating aren't even that pretty. One of them looks like she has autism, actually. *shrug* must be a brain chemistry thing. So half of me is like 'wtc ur gay?" and the other half is "wtc, you think SHE's hotter than I am?"

Anyway, I keep praying and praying for something to happen, but if it is, no one's telling me about it. If G-d wants me to have something to do with it...idk, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm horrible at confrontations. My heart starts pounding, my hands start shaking, and my teeth start chattering. So it's hard to appear 'tolerant' when you're clearly having a mental breakdown over the situation.

I think i'm doing a good job conversing with them and such, i only broke down once in front of one girl. It was when I was at school with her for around 3 or 4 hours, and the time was nearing when I had to leave school and go to orchestra, where her girlfriend was. My stomach was turning and twisting in on itself, and I was literally pressing my arms around it to try to get rid of the awful feeling. It was the last day of PMS, I hadn't eaten all day, and I had barely slept the night before. My body felt like there was going to be a confrontation any minute, and kept pumping adrenalin into my little, shaky, chattering frame. People could tell there was something wrong. Lolly, the assistant librarian (and house mother, lol!) kept asking me if I was okay. So did two of my other friends. Even I could tell, from the things I was saying, the tone of my voice. I didn't say anything about what the problem was, I mean, my friend was right there. But mentally, I could tell that when I said a sentence, it would sound harsher than I meant it to. When I offered her a ride and she said she'd rather take the bus, I actually stomped my foot in frustration. It was becoming harder to surpress my emotions. To her, she didn't want to be a bother to my mom. To me, she'd rather ride home by herself in a dirty bus than spend a few more minutes with me. It sent the subconcious message that I was "le gasp! losing her! and our friendship! and she doesn't want to talk to me ever!" You see, I was in pretty bad shape.

When we finally got in the car, and we pulled up to orchestra building, my friend asked me to say hi to her girlfriend for her. I couldn't take it, and I was late already. So I just flately said the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be a flat out "no." While I was opening the trunk I strung together a sentence about not wanting to talk to anyone at all at that particular moment (nice save, NOT), and then I went inside and the car drove away.

Wow, huh? If I was in a calm, apathetic mood, I coulda said "sure." and just 'forgotten' to talk to her later. But you've gotta understand. My body is physically being affected by this whole business. When i'm in a good mood and rational, i'm fine with it. Because rationally, even my Christian friends would just accept it and pray about it and not let it bother them. But not only do I wear my emotions on my sleeve, I get physically messed up. I only weigh about a hundred pounds, and i'm a little more than five feet tall. I'm very skinny too. So if my heart starts pounding, I feel it all over my body. Adrenalin makes me shake all over, and shake HARD. I feel colder, and my teeth start to chatter. I feel lightheaded and off-balance too. The latter is probably because I became a vegetarian this year, and haven't been eating well. But that's not all.

Apart from the physical reactions and nightmares, I suddenly can't seem to care enough to put on some freaking pair of PJs and get dressed in the morning. I remember one week where I actually slept in my clothes every night. The SAME pair of clothes. I had never worn the same clothes for a whole week (what sane person would?). I dreaded going to bed because 1, I didn't want to have nightmares, and 2, my room is plain scary at night (theres a whole story there I won't go into) so I ended up staying up late and waking up early, therefore, not getting very much sleep. I used to love to eat. Food was YUMMY, man! But suddenly, it wasn't yummy anymore. Nothing was. My stomach would be yanking itself wanting some food, but I wouldn't give it any cause my mouth recoiled at the thought of it. When I finally changed my shirt, I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection. I had 4 visible ribs sticking out each side of my body. That just wasn't healthy.

My mom had struggled with depression, and picked up on my symptoms eventually. Since it was situational, there wasn't much that she could do, except make sure I had a lot of vitamins and ate once in a while. But it hurts that I can't lean on my friends for support. I can't even tell them. How would you feel if you had come out of the closet, then found out one of your friends was starving, depressed, having mental breakdowns, and nightmares because of you? If it were me, i'd be offended majorly. Like what a guilt trip, you know? But the truth is, they're both really happy right now. Ridiculously fine with the whole thing. They are CONVINCED that the bible is on their side, and that their situation is supported by G-d. If I even brought up the POSSIBILITY that it wasn't, one friend would go on a defensive rant about it, and the other would just shrug and say "We're all sinners. The important thing is to love one another, no matter what."

To them, this is the most normal thing in the world. They've been in a secular environment for High School, and both hung out with the 'social outcasts' group at school. A lot of their friends were gay. And to tell themselves that it was wrong would be 'condemning their friends'. Now, it would be condemning themselves.

But to me, normal is so different from that. I mean I don't know, there were these things called men and these things called women, and they fit together like puzzle pieces, and their union was blessed by their creator. Maybe i'm missing something here, but as far as I recall, it isnt a normal thing to be gay. I thought the normal thing was to be what ppl call 'straight'. For someone to really be attracted to someone of their own sex and only that sex, that is not normal, but yes, it happens.

But for a 15 year old and an 18 year old to tell me that they are 'a pansexual' and 'have no sexual preference', just screams 'this is normal, and I wanna be normal AND be special too.' If they were really obsessed over the two girls they fell for and it was really part of their chemical makeup (and not a choice, you know) then they wouldn't be attracted to guys too. I can't take them seriously while they are. Or while they try to explain it to me. To me, it just says "Raging Teenage Hormones that lash out at everything under the kitchen sink, and they got a little more than friendly with one of their friends"

The main thing is, not only dod they feel this way, but if they do, then they've lied to me for years about who they are. One friend swears she's filled notebooks and sketchbooks and diaries with pictures and journal entries of her girlfriend, and that I never knew who she really was. I never knew her at all. I still have my best friends, but i've lost them. I've lost them so completely that it makes me scream and cry hysterically to my parents about it. So much that it makes me throw my purse across the room (so hard that it shattered my makeup bottle inside it). So much that I have nightmares and can't eat, and shake and shake and chatter...and beg G-d to change them back to either who they were, or who I believed them to be. Because I hardly have any other friends. I can't lose them. I need them. I need them so much that it hurts. When i'm with my one friend, and alone, I can forget that things changed, and laugh and giggle like we used to. Not in a group of people though. Just when we're alone, when nothing can distract me from my desperate make-believe.

I grew up in a Christian, Conservative, household in the south, so the way I feel is logical. People might get offended that I'm depressed cause my friends are gay, and they may think "Pfft, boy she's got issues, and needs to suck it up." But if the way they feel about each other is credible in any way, then the way they make ME feel is credible also. I HAVE FEELINGS like any person does, and you can't discount that because you think i'm wrong about something.

Please no one burn me for writing this, this is my journal, and I needed to get it out.

The other 5 days in Virginia Beach deserve some recognition. They really do. Because they were amazing, and I feel a desire to write about them so they will not be forgotten.

So, the first thing we did was visit our old next-door neighbor, Erica.

She was doing great, AP classes, studying Arabic, and when we got there, she was baking chocolate chip bread. She and Hilary were amazing cooks when it came to chocolate chip bread. It's like a cookie, only instead of cookie dough, you use bread mix and a lot of sugar. So it ends up basically like a vanilla pound cake with melted chocolate chips inside. Yum.

But we had to leave soon to visit our Aunt and Uncle. So we drove down to their house, and ate dinner with them. My cousins are getting so big! Ella is now 8, Marlaena is 6, and Will is almost 5. It's sad, cause I really wanted to be there to watch them grow up. Their cousins on their dad's side are exactly their ages, and live right by them. It made me feel bad to live so far away.
Anyway, we watched the old Disney "The Many Adventures of Winnie-The-Pooh" with them, though we were all a bit too old except Will. We also watched the new "Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry" veggie tales. They had an acting joke in it, and I thought it was funny. Way better than the Wizard of Ha's, or "Moe and the Big Exit". They're in the middle of singing a silly song, and Larry goes "We need a map!"

Archie: A what?
Larry: a map!
Archie: A WHAT?
Larry: A map!
Random French Peas: Oh! A map!

So...the next day, we took them to the beach. It was a lot of fun, and we built sand castles, jumped over the big waves, used the boogie board, and buried Laena and Will in the sand. After that, we had lemonade Icees from Burger King, and ordered pizza. This day was Saturday, and we devoted it to spending time with our cousins, because they were leaving for Michigan in the morning. We got to stay in their house while they were away.

Sunday. We got to visit our old church. The one with people waving flags, blowing on Ram horns, and generally having a wonderful time with God. When I was growing up I didn't know our church was so unique. Then I went to Charlotte and started going to Morningstar. Wow. At Morningstar, they dance around and prophecy and speak in tongues, but they're just kinda mean. My old church is really small, less than 80 people, (well, now theres more like 40 or 50), and we're like one happy family.
When we went back there, it was sort of surreal. The worship team was now comprised of our friends Emily and Grace, and the old worship leader's nephew. The older generation had been said older worship leader, my dad, me, some guy on the drum set, and and occasional alternates on guitar/drums, etc.
Our friends were all too old for sunday school, and we stayed in the service and actually listened to the message. Which was pretty neat. It was all about hebrew and aramic and translations into english. Turns out the bible was first translated from Aramic to Greek, then to English. So all these people with bibles stemming from the 'accurate greek tranaslation' aren't even drawing their sources from the original roots, like they thought. Or maybe they know that. I don't know. It doesn't matter. What matters is my friend Emily is now singing female vocals on the worship team, is in a band, and oh yes, she's engaged. Can't forget that one. Yup. One month younger than me, and she's engaged. To a farmer.

Go Emily.

We went to my friends Anna and Hope's house after church. I met them when Anna was 4, and Hope was only 2. Now they're 15 and 13. And they have two sisters, 11 and 7, and one brother, who's 5. And he wants to be a NY Yankee when he grows up. And he watches the Yankee batting practice on the Yankee channel every day. That's dedication, man.

We fulfilled our 4-year-running tradition of watching the "Back to the Future" trilogy, family style, with one of those high tech devices that automatically mutes swear words. It must be caption-generated somehow. We watched the II and III Back to the Futures, and I finally completed the trilogy, having not seen the third one. We were too tired to really do anything else. It was a very lazy sunday afternoon.

That night I amused myself by learning how to play "Colors of the Wind" on the piano, and watching an old VHS that I had seen 10 years ago at my Aunt's house. It was "Les Miserables in Concert", with the big names like Colm Wilkinson, Philip Quast, Michael Bell, Judy Kuhn, and Michael Maguire. Oh yes, and Lea Salonga. She was no Frances Ruffelle, though. Frances is my favorite Eponine, but couldn't perform because she was having a baby. So they chose the girl who played Jasmine and Mulan. Cosette was Pocohantas. Weird how that turned out.

Okay, the next day, we checked out Regent University, my parent's Alma Matar, where they went to Grad school and met fghjkcsng years ago. I met my friend Catherine, who was checking out her sweet new apartment there. She's going this fall as an undergrad. On scholarship. Dude, by the time I get out of CPCC, i'll have graduated the film program, have had an internship under my belt, have my freshman year of college done, and won 2 awards. That, coupled with the fact that my parents know the dean of the Regent Undergrad film department personally, makes me a likely candidate for a scholarship myself. Hopefully.

So Hilary and I hung out with Catherine and her sister Rachel for a few hours. We had know them since Catherine was 7, and Rachel was...oh gosh...she was FIVE? Whoa...
We all went to 7-Eleven and got Slurpees. Which was awesome, cause we don't have 7-11s here. At all. We then went to their house and saw another old friend that we parted with 4 years ago. Our beloved kitty, Tosca. She was so teeny! Now, she is fat. But at least she's healthy. We took pictures, had some tea, played cards, and had a genuinely good time.

Then we went to another reunion, one we had somewhat been dreading.

You see, there was this church. That believed in spanking kids....for everything they did wrong. Or, if they didn't say "please" and "Thank you" the day they were going to come over and play with us, the moms would call and be like "We're sorry, Camilla can't come over today, cause she did a 'May-not". My mom wasn't keen on that.

My poor rugrat friends...their bottoms must have been beaten sore. There were some doctrinal things my parents didn't agree with too, so we left the church. *GASP! Horror of horrors! We have forsaken the faith! Shun the non-believer! SHUUUUN!!!!*
So those kids didn't hang out with us anymore, because they 'didn't associate' with those outside of the church. This all happened when I was 6, btw.

So in a nutshell, my mom lost all her 'christian mother' friends, and we lost all our 'since birth/toddler years' friends, and we had to all get new ones.

Yes, those old church people were the people we were meeting that night. It actually went pretty well. Those freshly out of college, 20-29 year old moms were now in their 40s, and didn't hold grudges for things that happened between them and their friends when everyone was so young and confused, and easily led to beleive whatever their pastor had told them ( like "There will be some people who don't agree with the faith and leave the church, so just let them go and live their lives without you, they weren't destined for christianity"). Oh yes, they were real big on 'pre-destination'.

I saw some kids I hadn't seen since...they were....wow...babies.
My friend Jessica was very warm and excited to see us again. She was about a year younger than me, and she still looked kinda the same as that little 3-year-old blonde ballerina I knew...
And Drew's friend Caleb was very tall, but I could still see the 6 year-old boy who ate poisonous mushrooms and had his stomach pumped. We teased him about that when he was passing by the mushroom pizza.
"Don't eat the mushrooms, Caleb!" I cried.
He started laughing. He couldn't beleive we remembered that.

Besides Caleb E. and Jessica W., there were their younger siblings Whatsherface E. and Luke W., and two pairs of girl siblings each. The case of multiplying younger siblings among my old friends had struck again. Besides Jessica and Luke, there was now Sarah-Rose and Julia. And besides Caleb and Whatsherface, there was also SoandSo and TheYoungestOne. Yeah, I don't remember any of Caleb's sisters' names...

We took pictures and had pizza and talked and exchanged names of people we knew. Hilary didn't remember anyone, but I, being 6 instead of 4 when we left the church, remembered a lot of different kids I used to know. Or babies. Yeah, I didn't really know anyone when they were 'kids'. Except two families who kept up with us after we left the church. :)

Tuesday.
I spent the entire day at my friend Revie's house. We met when we were both 8 years old, at the TV studio. We were both child actors doing a commercial for my dad's show he was producing. I remember I thought she was annoying at first (you know, spoiled, only child who is also a child actress) but as time went on, things changed. I invited her to my 9th birthday party (partly because my dad wanted me to), and we played Hide and Seek. We both hid together in my parents' closet, and no one ever found us. But during that time, amid secret, little girl whispering sessions, we became very good friends. In the years after that, we had sleepovers, played playmobil (yes, that's when I discovered those amazing toys!), and acted together for season 3 of my dad's show. Production was halted because of money issues, but there is footage somewhere in the CBN vault of me and Revie telling each other knock knock jokes on a green screen. Good times.

Even when I moved away, I always visited Revie, and usually spent the night. We went to see Star Wars II together, and then when Episode III came out, we saw that in theaters too, for old times' sake.
This particular day, I didn't spend the night, for we were leaving early the next day. But we did have pizza (I had pizza a lot that week), soda, discussed books and the BBC Robin Hood, showed each other our sketchbooks, manuscripts, and our favorite Youtube finds, and played Batminton. I had never picked up a batminton raquet before, but after a while, I found myself playing like a real heroine, and we were able to have a fairly even match, even though Revie had been playing for quite a long time.
I left with 3 books she loaned me, of which I have already read one ('Austenland', truly one of the best books i've EVER read!) and I will return all three this thanksgiving when I visit again. It was sort of upsetting that she had put all her playmobil away to make room for more art supplies, but I took solace in the fact that if she wasn't going to use them, perhaps she would give some to me...?

That night we went to see the Scamper to my Snowflake, Nicholas Dafoe. I already related that expirience in my last post, but basically, besides Hilary's Appleby-ness, it was pretty awesome.

I dream about him too much. I don't even know what the dreams are about (probably a good thing), but I remember that when I wake up, the image of his face still lingers longer than the rest of the story.

Maybe not so good, since he reminds me of a mix between Mr. Martin and Heathcliff. Slightly. Maybe. I don't know, I don't really want my love story to be a Catherine/Heathcliff story, and he doesn't want to get married or go to college, or anything. He wants to be a construction worker. Go him.

Go ahead, Nicholas. Live the dream.

So probably nothing will come of that, but it's nice to think about sometimes.

When Hilary, my mom, and me got back from VA, we found that the boys had totally trashed our room and rearranged the furnature. And there was dog poo in our room, with flies buzzing around it. and my posters were laying on the floor in a crumpled heap.

That night, Hilary went to hang out with her disreputable friends at the Arboretum, and stayed out until 12:30, alone in a car with Osmani. Heath Ledger's demented Jokerface stared at me from a poster on the wall (Looking strangely like Hilary's white-faced demon in the dark), and I went to bed that night to sounds of Hilary and my dad fighting.

Welcome to North Carolina.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

2 nights ago, I found a boombox deep in my closet while I was cleaning my room. This boombox can play CDRs. Amazing, right? So I pop in an old recording of me and some friends singing Phantom of the Opera stuff. Theres only like 7 songs, but it's still awesome. My sister and I listened to it while we went to bed that night. We started talking about how amazing it was that we recorded all those songs and put them on a CD, and how that was virtually impossible for our moms and grandmothers to have done when they were our age.

All this being so, I still knew I had many more songs in my computer that weren't burned onto the CD. So the next day, I spend the whole afternoon hunting down the old GarageBand recordings I had made. It surprised me that not only did I have (almost) complete versions of Notes II/Twisted Every Way, Il Muto, Prima Donna, Masquerade, etc, but I also had, when put in order, and in comparison to the Original London Cast Recording, the FIRST ACT of the musical in its ENTIRETY, with the small (but notable) exeptions of "Notes", and the prologue. But I added a song of my own composition, "Christine! Christine!", so it ended up being almost the same length as any other recording of the first act.

Sure Christine and Carlotta are played by the same person, as are Raoul and Piangi, (and the other characters are sometimes filled in by yours truly, who hates having a single line missing), but it was actually pretty cool that we had basically the entire musical recorded.

The only song that we really miss in the 2nd act is "Past the Point of No Return", a bit of Don Juan, and "Down Once More" (which I USED to have, but it got deleted :( ) It proceeds from a rough version of "Bravo Monsieur" to "Go Now and Leave Me/It's over now, the music of the NIGHT!!!!!!". But it ends in exactly the same way the other recordings do, and it begins with the overture, so it has the appearance of a complete recording.

So i'm feeling slightly accomplished, even though the singing isn't perfect, it doesn't make people cringe when listening to it. I'm thinking of adding in some of the missing songs and burning copies for everyone involved. There was seriously *counts on fingers and toes* 17 singers/actors in the recording. We would have played the music as a karioke and put on our own production, but the show is still on boradway, and it is't allowed. Plus there was a serious lack of guys, and an even bigger lack of a stage/scenery.

Hm, we could have done a concert version though. Just stood there in costume with microphones. Well, anyways, at least we have a cast recording. ;D

http://i37.tinypic.com/o3c76.gif

The wonders of cooltext.com never cease to amaze me. I used it to combine Batman and Zutara. Muahaha!

So I was at orchestra camp for the past 5 days, and I didn't have internet, cause some kid decided to put PRONZ on the homepages of the internet @ camp. So he got in biiig trouble, cause this is a pretty professional, uptight orchestra, and nothing like that had ever happened before.

So that's why I had no internet. Then I went home and watched Fantasia with my brother. And Mickey Mouse doesn't talk in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, so....what was that voice I heard early in the morning, humming the song, while it was playing on the radio a few weeks ago? It was right between sleeping and waking, and I heard this voice (that certainly SOUNDED like Mickey Mouse) humming the tune, then I woke all the way up and heard it being played by an orchestra on the radio. I assumed Mickey hummed the tune in the story somewhere, and it was spooky when I realized that he really didn't. So who did the creepy voice belong to? The world may never know....

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Well, this is what I spent this morning making. Someone on ASN is crafty enough to make 3-D models of Avatar characters, but they weren't colored in. So I colored miss Ty Lee here, and put her into a sig. The song is "Let Me Fall", by Josh Groban. It is about the trapeze artists in Cirque de Soleil. I thought it was fitting, especially the part where it mentions the Phoenix. Also, my SN over at Ty Feens (Ty Lee fan club) is Cirque_de_TyLee, so it's befitting. ;D

What? We lost? Uh...so what? What I find funny is how we got all the canon supporters thinking this was some sort of contest. We were having fun with our fanart and fanfiction of our non-canon OTP, and now their perfectly canon ships like Kataang and Maiko feel threatened by Zutara? Haha. Finally. My work is now done.
For me, the finale ended when Katara put her hand on Zuko's shoulder, and together, they stood looking down at the writhing, screaming mess that was Azula.

What I found interesting was that throughout the whole finale, Katara and Zuko spent more time together than with their respected canon love interests. Aang took off and fought Ozai alone, and then suddenly at the end he's kissing Katara. Oh, and Zuko was off fighting Azula and sacrificing his life for Katara, and then suddenly Mai shows up and everything's back to normal. No, "You usurped your father's throne" or "You fought Azula" or "Why the heck didn't you let me out of jail you idiot?", but just a teeny scene to establish that "Oh yeah..and, uh, Zuko got back with his girlfriend (who was totally fine with all his past wrongs, cause now he's the firelord and there are PERKS that come with that) and they lived happily ever after. Totally."

Basically, the two ships we are supposed to accept recieved no special treatment. At all. But we did. So everyone listen to this: I would rather have had the Agni Kai scene plus all the additional character development in that finale and have Zutara "not happen", then have it thrust to the side like Kataang and Maiko, and have it resolve with a stupid kiss or cheesy line about not ever breaking up again.

So in a way, i'm GLAD my Zutara wasn't "Endgame", as they say it. If endgame means the characters spending NO TIME with each other for the whole finale (or in Maiko's case, half the season!) and then coming back together for no reason at the very end and kissing, then I'm really glad my ship wasn't subject to that. They handled it very badly. Maybe cause their ship "Won", the Kataangers and Maikoians don't care.

But their ships have been made ridiculous in the eyes of the world. And I laugh at them.

Between TSR, EIP, and the finale, I've been handed enough Zutara goodness to last me a lifetime. And i'm thankful for that. So thank you Bryke, good luck with the fans at SDCC. Boy, do you have some explaining to do. I wash my hands of the whole thing.

And Zutara is STILL my OTP. <3

Well, a week ago I went to New York City for my 18th Birthday. And instead of it just being me and my mom, like we had originally planned, my whole family tagged along. They were under the impression that a free apartment warranted a family vacation, even if the apartment was only a few rooms built for two people, and our whole family numbered six.

We bustled about the subway to Times Square, walked a zillion blocks to different stores, and spend a bit more money than we should have. It ceased being a birthday venture, and became one of those ridiculous large family to-dos. My little brother complained the whole way of being bored to death, and the next youngest brother was under the impression that HE got to choose the restaurants. My sister bugged my mom to take her to see RENT (I despise that show to death, I hate it I hate it for multiple reasons, etc) then she decided to become a RENThead, bought a 65 dollar hoodie, and snuck back into the theater to watch the show a 2nd time.

It wasn't about me anymore. And when it's your birthday, you can't help being a bit selfish, for that is the only day of the year when you are allowed to be selfish. Christmas is about giving, and people chide you if you say a word about not getting what you want, etc. But on your birthday, everything is supposed to be about you, and ever character trait that your friends found previously distasteful suddenly becomes ignored. Not so here.

To continue, we found that two of our cousins were in town too, and thus started another long venture to try to get together with them. All hopes of me seeing The Little Mermaid were shot down again and again by countless people, box office, parents, siblings and cousins. But my mom had one of her dear mother moments, and decided that I came here to see The Little Mermaid on broadway, and that was what I shall do. So my dad took me down to the theater, and we were the first in the cancellation line. The ticket was $ 110, and my dad forced me to pay for half of it. He's such a froogle miser, making me pay for my own birthday present. He thinks the dollar movie theater is expensive. So anyway, I saw the show, the original cast (except for Sebastian, his understudy played the part. But he had an astonishingly good broadway record, and I was glad to have seen him). I wasn't allowed to buy any merchandise, so I bought a print of the movie at World of Disney the next day. I already have the platinum edition DVD signed by Jodi Benson, the ORIGINAL Ariel. So starts my collection.

After that, things got a bit better. We went to central park, and I saw some familiar landmarks seen in the movie "Enchanted". I saw the hill that Giselle runs up in the song "That's How You Know", and I ran up it too. I went across the bridge that they all parade across at the end of the song. I also had a hot dog on the street corner, and explored a small castle. We then proceeded to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I saw such wonders there!
There was a suit of armor belonging to King Henry VIII of England that he wore near the end of his reign. For someone gushed up as being fat and gouty by historians, he really wasn't. Perhaps everyone was more skinny back then, for he just looked about the weight of Eric Bana in the new film,"The Other Boleyn Girl".

I also saw many paintings by the Impressionists, and masters like David, Vermeer, and Rembrandt. I detested the Van Goghs, they were horridly ugly. If I had not been told that he was a 'great artist', I wouldn't have known it. I can't believe my mother made me study Matisse. His paintings were much worse. I don't mean to be a snob, I just felt betrayed. When you've been raised your whole life to think someone's work was wonderful and masterful, and then you see that it's really ugly and blotchy, and that you were lied to by people who in turn were lied to, and had other people's opinions forced upon you as fact, you tend to get a bit indignant.

I did get to see Degas' '14-Year-Old Dancer' sculpture. To tell the truth, I had almost forgotten that Degas was a sculpture, and that he had made the dancer sculpture at all. But when I saw it, the images came flooding back. The documentaries, the special starring Alison Pill as the dancer (she was one of my favorite child actresses), I remembered it all. And was glad to have seen it.

There was a gallery that my mother said must have been put there specifically for me. A gallery in tribute to superheroes. There were costumes from all sorts of superhero movies. There was Catwoman's outfit from Batman Returns, Batman's costume from the upcoming movie, "The Dark Knight", Spider-man's Red and Blue spidey suit from Spider-man 3, as well as his Black suit. One of my favorites was Mystique's prosthetics from the X-men films. They are my favorite superhero movies, and Mystique is an amazing character. So me getting to see her actual prosthetics that she wore in the film was really amazing. On the way out, I saw a reflection of a costume that was so special that the costume itself out of site, tucked away somewhere, too important to be on display. The 3-D reflection of Christopher Reeve's Superman costume.

The next night, my parents went to see "The Phantom of the Opera (I had already seen it a few years ago), while my sister had her RENT viewing session involving the buying of the hoodie and the sneaking in. In the meanwhile, I watched Mary Poppins on Broadway with my brothers. Even the little 11-year-old, who had made it his common duty to have absolutely no fun whatsoever, couldn't resist when Bert walked up the stage walls and ceilings, or when Mary Poppins flew out into the house and to the highest balcony, and disappeared into the ceiling.

Between the dinner at an Italian restaurant that Luciano Pavarotti had eaten at, and the night ride to see the Statue of Liberty (from a distance) on the subway all by ourselves with no other passengers (there was some dancing and singing involved there), we managed to have a rather good time by the end of it all. After all, I had done what I came there to do. I had seen "The Little Mermaid", and watched "Mary Poppins" besides. I had seen the costumes used in some of my favorite movies, and had an epiphany about King Henry VIII. I saw some amazing works of art face to face (and some that deserved to be thrown in the trash), I had walked where a Disney Princess had tread, and eaten where the best tenor in the world had eaten. And if I forgot the discomfort of our cramped dwelling and the constant complaining and arguing from my other siblings, I would think it a very good vacation indeed.