8.17.2012

Life is good.

Life is really, really good.  See, I'm starting at this new school on Monday, where I'm going to be taking college classes during high school, and I'm really hoping to graduate with my associate's degree.  I went to orientation on Tuesday, and I'm really excited about my English class, because my teacher seems really awesome.  She has awesome hair.  It's funny too, because when I first saw her, I just knew she was going to be my English teacher.  I'm also excited for Public Speaking, because I'm really hoping it'll improve my speaking skills for forensics.  Math will be math, but History might be fun, even though it's US History, and not even the time periods I semi-enjoy.  So I'm excited.  It's a very small school, so I'll get to know the people there pretty well, I think, and I've already pinpointed people I want to get to know better.  

And forensics starts soon!!!  I'm insanely excited for this year.  I'm going to captain the LD team (Lincoln Douglas Debate team), so I'll be teaching/training novices and coordinating practices for the entire year, as well as playing a leadership role on the team overall.  And I'm super psyched.  I've already planned out my schedule/curriculum, and for six days, when I'll probably end up with eight, so that's nice.  Yay practice rounds!  Plus, I'm excited for this year for me, because I'm really going to put my all (what's not being put into school anyway) into forensics this year.  My dream is to place at a big tournament, where I get awarded on a stage.  First would be ideal, but heck, I'd take sixth, as long as I get to be up there.  I also am hoping to qualify to state in LD, and definitely Nationals.  Nationals would be amazing.  I'm also hoping to go on the college tournament trip.  Every year, usually in February, various colleges hold big tournaments.  In the past, we've gone to Stanford, and Harvard, and Berkeley.  This year I believe we're considering ASU.  Which is sort of a step down, in my opinion, but it'll still be good competition, and probably cheaper.  It'll be a great year.  

I also have awesome friends.  I really wish I had more friends who were Christian, but I have two friends who are, that I positively adore.  They're twins, a boy and a girl, and a year above me, but I love them to pieces, and they're hilarious and fun to be with.  They also have a lot of insight, and they've made a huge influence in my life.  Beyond them, I have a few amazing friends from forensics.  One of them is probably in my top two best friends (if we're excluding my mom).  Her name is Sammi, and we rule the Realm of Legitimacy together, kyun ki hum kanuni rahe hain.  Yeah, that's Hindi.  ("Because we're awesome")  But I've spent a lot of time with her over the summer, and she's awesome.  She started vlogging too, and she's amazing at it.  (Her channel is "sammibabby", minus the quotation marks, obviously)  So check her out!  Then I also just have so many other great friends on the team, who are funny, and frustrating, but fantastic all the same.  The other day we had an end of the summer celebration, with Sammi and a couple of others, where we went swimming and went to random places around town, just goofing around.  Today I got to hang out with Sammi and my brother, because we were setting up the forensics room, then we went to Jimmy John's with our friend Jovan, and we just hung out for a couple of hours.  We talked about random stuff.  I just love how I fit in with these people so easily.  I don't have to try with them.  I'm just myself, and they like me.  And that's the best feeling in the world.  

Plus I have an amazing family.  My dad is awesome, and I really love him.  He has always provided for our family, even when it's been hard.  And my mom is awesome too.  Like I said, she's definitely on my list of best friends, and I love her to pieces.  She's home-schooled us for seven years, and now has to say goodbye to us as we go to this new school.  But she's always sacrificed her own happiness and needs for me and my brother, and dad, and she's been the perfect role model for me of a good wife and mother.  And my brother is freaking amazing too.  He's insanely creative, and has a bright future ahead of him.  And he's always been a good brother.  Yeah, he does irritate me for the heck of it like other brothers, but he's always there when I need to talk, and I have more fun with him than I do with nearly anybody else.  

I'm seriously so insanely blessed.  




As a quick addendum, I need to stop announcing things about Doctor Who on this blog, because I nearly always have to eat my words.  Matt Smith has not signed on for season 8 yet, because a season 8 has not yet been confirmed by BBC.  However, it is safe to say that BBC will confirm a season 8, and that Matt Smith will sign on for it.  Just nothing is official just yet.  To be safe, don't take anything I say about Doctor Who on my blog as the official say, because chances are it's not official.  If you want news, just go to the BBC website.

8.16.2012

Letter Jacket Blues

I participate in forensics (speech and debate) at a high school in town, and did so well last year (269 points total) that I earned a letter (which was really not difficult).  So, being in possession of a letter, my thoughts turned to a letter jacket.  Letter jackets, or, as I prefer, Letterman jackets, are pretty darn expensive.  I was looking at spending a good $200 on one, so I seriously considered not purchasing one.  But I was going to have a job over the summer, and I had a funny feeling that 10, 15, 30 years from now I would seriously regret not getting one if I didn't.

So I decided to.

I saved up money from two paychecks, and found out from my friends where I should go.  One afternoon we happened to be in the area (not really, we drove halfway across town) so we stopped by.  We went in, and I chose the jacket size, and the patch colors, and the font I wanted my last name to be, and even paid to have my first name embroidered along the edge of one of the pockets.  I paid for it, and they said it would be ready in three weeks.  This was probably the second week of July.

Fast forward three weeks, and you're about two weeks ago today.  I still haven't heard anything.  But I decide to just give it another week, just to see.  When it gets to have been a month, though, I'm starting to get frustrated.  I want my jacket, you know?  And I've had to wait so stinking long.  So my mom tells me I need to call, but then my grandma came into town, and I couldn't really, and when I had time, they were already closed.  So this last Tuesday, I was at orientation for school, and they called!  My jacket was ready!

So after orientation we drove halfway across town once more, to go pick up my jacket.  We were just walking out with it when my mom noticed my year patch, on my right pocket, was the wrong color.  instead of being white, cardinal, gold, which matched the letter, they had done it cardinal, white, gold.  This didn't look right at all, because the jacket itself is cardinal, and it just looked weird.  So I had to go back and tell them they'd made it wrong.  They said that to fix it it would be another five days, if they had the patch in-store, but if they didn't, it would be eight days.

Three to six days left.  No fair.

Doctor Who again

I feel like I've re-entered that phase in my blog where I seriously talk about nothing but Doctor Who.  Yes, I have more to say.  It has been officially confirmed that Doctor Who is returning September 1, as I believe I've already said.  However, the episode names have also changed (but are official now).  Episode 1 is still Asylum of the Daleks, and it premiered recently, to rave reviews (best season opener yet, heart thumping, etc).  Episode 2 is still Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (which I realize now I dreamed about the other night...weird), and Episode 3 is still A Town Called Mercy.  However, Episode 4, which was previously titled Cubed, is now titled The Power of Three, and Episode 5, previously Bye-Bye Pond, is now The Angels Take Manhattan.  That last one makes me pretty freaking excited, because the weeping angels are probably coming back, and it's set in Manhattan (Central Park anyone?), and it's also the one where Amy and Rory leave (and at least one of them dies, it's been revealed), which just makes for possibly the most epic, and most heartbreaking episode ever.

Also good news, Matt Smith has signed on officially for a season 8, which would make him a longer runner as the Doctor than David Tennant, though not quite as long as Tom Baker. If only we could have Matt Smith for 11 years...)  He has also been pitched season 9, which makes it seem pretty likely he'll come back, since he's been in discussions with Steven Moffat and everything, but nothing is official yet.

As far as the blogging of season six is going, I have gotten through three episodes of season 6, so I am very nearly to my cut-off point for what I believe is Chunk #2, so that will probably be available in the next few days, to a week.

8.12.2012

Good news!

I hesitate to say this, because I've had to eat my words before, but I have received September 1st as the official day for the premiere of season 7.  So yay.  It's all "official."  I just have to finish rewatching season 6 before then.  I believe it's about 20 days (possibly 19, I'm not sure how to count it).

8.11.2012

BBC America: Good new and bad news

The good news?  Comcast, our cable provider, decided not to tell us that we've been paying for BBC America for the last six months.  So we have BBC America, which means we can get Doctor Who when it finally comes on!

The bad news?  I lied.  I really need to stop doing that on this blog.  I lied about when Doctor Who would air on BBC America.  This is because I was given misinformation.  I have several memories of several sources telling me that Doctor Who would start on August 25, but now BBC America is rescinding that date, claiming it was never official.  So now they're using a very vague date of "Autumn."  Some people are saying it'll probably be September, but BBC has neither confirmed nor denied.  So I have absolutely no idea when the Doctor will return.

However, since we have the channel, we will be getting all of the episodes from here on out when they air.  I'm probably going to save all the episodes, and then over Christmas break have some Whovian friends over to watch all of the episodes.  Also, I will be able to blog about the episodes.  Since I realized that over the course of the first five episodes, it will become impossible to post about them without spoilers.  So I decided that I will post about them, with very heavy spoiler alert warnings, so if you can watch them, you can read about it, and if you haven't seen them, you have plenty of opportunity to avoid it.  So we just finished season 5 for the second time round (and it's still amazing) and we're about to start season 6.  When we do, I'll start blogging about it in chunks of various sizes, depending on how much we watch and how often we watch.

8.05.2012

20 Days!!!

Season 7 is almost upon us.  It is oh so very close.  August 25, on BBC One, BBC America, and some other channels I won't bother to name.

It is coming.  Season 7 of Doctor Who, with five new episodes.  Basically, what's going to happen, is the first episode, Asylum of the Daleks, will air August 25, and it will be followed by four more episodes the next four weeks, ending with Amy and Rory leaving (and one of them dying) in the last episode.  Then there'll be a Christmas special on Christmas Day, where I'm guessing we'll meet the new companion, played by the lovely Jean-Louise Coleman, and will be followed by eight more episodes directly following.  To get you super psyched for it all, watch the new trailer for the fall half:



The episodes will be titled:
Asylum of the Daleks
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
A Town Called Mercy
Cubed
Bye Bye Pond
*sigh*

My Apologies/Steven Moffat is Awesome

I realized that a lot of my posts have been just milemarkers of view counts, and that any readers who come to my blog won't give a care.  So I apologize for the number of those, and I promise those will stop, until I reach my goals of 1,500, and then later, 2,000.  Then we'll see from there.

But so this post actually has a purpose, I decided to also vent my feelings about how brilliant Steven Moffat is.  More so than Joss Whedon.  This is mostly stemming from a debate I had with a friend over Facebook.  Though, it was, all things considered, kind of a pathetic debate, just because I didn't really go all out, I was mostly stating my opinions.  Anyways...I had posted:
There are people I know who will want to punch me for saying this, but...Steven Moffat is a million times more brilliant than Joss Whedon.  Hands down.

So I had a friend, an avid fan of Joss Whedon, post and say she had to fight herself to post something actually civil in response, but that she had to respectfully disagree.  I responded and said that that was because she'd never seen anything Steven Moffat had done, a fact I knew very well.  I've tried to get her into Doctor Who, but she hasn't gotten past the first season, so she thinks the show sucks.  And in the first season, it kind of does...anyways, she asked me if I'd seen Buffy or Dr. Horrible.  Honestly, Dr. Horrible is one of my favorite things ever, but I could care less for Buffy.  I watched about three and a half seasons of Buffy, and loved those first three and a half seasons, but then it just got...weird.  And then when I really thought about it, I found how lame and cheesy so much of it was.  My friend argues that there are deep hidden messages in the episodes of Buffy, and you have to get past what the show, and the individual episodes, are about, in order to get to the message, which is the good part.  But my problem with that is a) I didn't like or appreciate the messages Buffy sent, b) they weren't presented very well, or even very subtly, and were in general, poorly done, and c) I don't want to have to look past what it's all about to get to something remotely good.

While Doctor Who, in general, but particularly Steven Moffat's episodes and writing, don't try to push hidden messages down your throat, but are good by simply being.  And then Steven writes little subtleties into the story, like the Doctor coming to Amy in the forest, after the Big Bang 2, or River's whole story, or how the silence was mentioned back in season 4, that just make you go, oh my gosh, you're freaking brilliant.  And Steven Moffat comes up with brilliant monsters:  The Silence, the Vashta Nerada, the Weeping Angels...you know, the three monsters in contention for scariest monsters of all time...And then he wrote the finales to season 5 and season 6, where there was the jump forwards and backwards in time with Eleven, while wearing a fez and carrying a mop in 5, and then the finale to 6, where...wait, I can't spoil it.  But suffice it to say, it was freaking brill.  It beats everything I saw in nearly 4 seasons of Buffy, and everything I know comes after where I stopped...Steven Moffat is also skilled at nicely building and developing characters within a single episode, evident in Blink, where he made us love two characters we only had 40 minutes to get to know.

And don't even get me started on Sherlock.  Which is insanely brill.  And I'm in love with Watson, especially the guy who plays Watson.  Just...brill.  So brill.

He's pretty brill.  That's my new word, by the way.  I'm trying to be more British in my speech, so I refer to fish sticks as fish fingers, and I'm trying to get used to called french fries chips.  Brill is also a British thing, or so I've heard (from people who are British), and it's short for brilliant.  Brill.

Ten vs. Eleven

I'm sure you'll remember, earlier, I posted about which Doctor I liked better: Ten or Eleven.  The truth is, I've changed my mind.  While I used to think Ten was best, I've switched sides.  Eleven is the best.

If you disagree, feel free to tell me so.  But be prepared for me to disagree with you.

My reasoning?  The depth.  Yes, Ten was passionate, so very passionate, and he had so much conflict, and sadness, especially towards the end of his term.  But so does Eleven.  Remember, he's the Doctor after the passion of Ten, so he still carries that with him.  He has this deep, internal sadness, which he hides behind a quirky personality, and cheerful disposition.  But it's amazing how he can go from telling a creature they're beautiful to being a scary person getting up in their face.  It's like one second he's happy-go-lucky, your best friend, and the next, the true Doctor comes through:  a Doctor who hurts deeply, gets angry, and who will not let you get away with hurting his friends.

Beyond that, though, Matt Smith is a terrific actor.  I thought Tennant was the epitome of a perfect actor, but I've realized that, while Tennant is great, Smith is a stronger actor.  He has the ability to convey so much through just looks.  Not faces, like Tennant.  But looks.  His eyes.  They convey the full sadness, the anger, whatever exactly it is the Doctor is experiencing.  It's amazing.  Plus I think Matt Smith is an awesome person, and I want to be his best friend.

But also, he is totally believable.  I believe him as the Doctor.  More so than Tennant.  When I think of the Doctor, I find that Smith, and Eleven, encompass everything the Doctor is, everything the Doctor should stand for.

Plus he's totally quirky, and freaking hilarious. But he's not just quirky, as I said. Tennant was totally awesome and kick-butt and everything, but Smith is still kick-butt. And better at expressing emotions, and he really, really shows the full-depth of the emotions that the Doctor as a character experiences, both silly and giddy and sorrowful and easily angered.

Tennant, I love you, and you're almost as great as Matt Smith.

8.04.2012

1000!

I reached this a lot faster than I'd thought I would.  I wonder when I actually crossed the line...I haven't looked at my blog in a few days, so it might have been a while ago.  Who knows!!!  But I'm excited.  Over 1000 views!!!  So, I'd say 1,500 by Thanksgiving...no, Halloween.  1500 by Halloween.  Yay!!!!!!!  Goals are wonderful.

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