Substance Lack-Luster

Hello All,

So really this week has not contained much, aside from eating two 15 inch pizza's in two days. So I thought I'd post this sonnet that I like;

Sonnet 141
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Now I've mentioned it before, but 10 Things I hate about You is one of my all time favourite film.

In this movie, Kat's work set by her English teacher is to re-write this sonnet. Her version goes a little like;

I hate the way you talk to me,
And the way you cut your hair.

I hate the way you drive my car,

I hate it when you stare.
I hate your big dumb combat boots
And the way you read my mind.
I hate you so much it makes me sick,
It even makes me rhyme.
I hate the way you're always right,
I hate it when you lie.
I hate it when you make me laugh,
Even worse when you make me cry.
I hate it when you're not around,
And the fact that you didn't call
But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you,
Not even close,
Not even a little bit,
Not even at all.

I do not have much to say about these two poems, but I would love to know what everyone's interpretations are of them as I think it'd be pretty interesting to compare.
Really, all I wanted to do was share this with you guys, so enjoy them,

Best Wishes and DFTBA,

Sim x

The Lights Went Out

Today I realized just how much we depend on electricity. Like it is actually kind of frightening how much we do.

I woke up this morning, opened my curtains and grabbed my laptop, nothing out of the ordinary, yet trying to connect to the internet is where the problem started. For some reason I had no wifi connection and I could not figure out why. After about 10 minutes of trying to get it to work I happen to glance at my alarm clock and see that it's blank. Look at my stereo, again the screen is blank. I flick my light on and nothing happens. So great, the power's out, no big deal though right?

Normally I think power outages are kind of fun. Gathering up the flashlights, lighting candles, playing board games rather than watching TV. It forces you to change up your habits for an hour or so. Mind you, that's when it happens in the evening. Daytime is a whole other scenario.

I headed downstairs to have breakfast. Originally I was wanting to have some left over ravioli but since there's no microwave to heat it up in I'll just grab some bread and make toa-oh wait, toaster won't work either. Cereal it is.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to do things that don't require electricity. I sat and watched my dog in the backyard for about 5 minutes. She was sniffing at something in the snow and didn't seem to notice a bird hopping around chirping at her. There was once I actually thought the bird was going to jump right onto her!

A house with no power becomes rather inconvenient to our habits. It's strangely quiet, flicking a light switch when entering a room does nothing anymore, it starts to cool down without the furnace running, and there's no internet! (This was probably the most upsetting to me :P)

After the power had been out for a couple hours my mom and I decided we may as well go run some errands since we weren't getting anything done at home. And that's when I learned how to disconnect a garage door so it can be opened manually rather than by pushing a button.

Electricity has provided vast improvements to our standard of living but I think it's also made us a little bit lazy. And perhaps we take for granted just how easy things are for us.

DFTBA,

-Kim

BWO and nerdy stuff..

Hey! Sorry I haven't posted, I was in Victor Harbor last week and had no internet.

For once, I've been busy. I went to my very first Nerdfighter gathering the other week and met some fairly awesome people who were, well, awesome. The Australian Nerdfighters have started up our own Facebook group and there's already more than 200 of us. I'm very proud of us all for getting our acts together and joining up in one place..

I got TFiOS on Sunday. I was soooo happy. (Blue J-Green scribble if you were wondering) I'm halfway through it, and so far it's been brilliant. John is just such an amazing writer and argh, all of his stuff is funny, and quirky, and just so damn adorable. I would have finished it by now if it wasn't for this thing called Big Week Out that I've been doing.

Big Week Out (now referred to as BWO) is a Christian event were people in high school give up a week to give back to the community in Jesus' name. We go around helping the community by doing stuff like Backyard Blitzs', going to Nursing Homes, helping to clean up schools, donating blood and Clowning. I've just come back from Clowning and let me tell you, it was awesome. I got to wear clown pants for like, 5 hours straight, had my face painted, learnt how to do balloon animals and have the joy of seeing little kids light up when you hand them over a balloon dog that you've just made in front of them.

DFTBA, Caitlin x

Adventures in Creation

Guys, the world is beautiful.

I went tidepooling today. Apparently, it's something that people do when they live near the ocean. I'd never heard of it, and when my roommate found out that I'd never been, she signed me up for the trip today. Tidepooling, in case you don't know (although you probably do), is exploring the pools of water left behind in rocks when the tide is low. All kinds of sea creatures stay behind in the rocks and you can see them up close. We saw anemones, starfish, crabs, clams, and plenty of other things I couldn't identify. It was cool. And it was cool in more than just a "I love sea creatures!" sort of way. Experiencing the beauty of nature, for the sheer and simple joy of it, is pretty awesome. Especially with other people.

You know, even though I suggested we write about New Years resolutions in my last post, I couldn't think of one to write about. Well! I just thought of one. This year, I'm going to go out of my way to appreciate creation. Nature. The great outdoors-- whatever you want to call it. It's pretty amazing.

DFTBA,
Emily

Oh, P.S. I have met a couple of Nerdfighters here, and we were planning to go see John and Hank when they come to Santa Monica next month on the TFiOS tour.... but I didn't get a ticket in time and it sold out. Very sad! But my friends have promised to take lots of pictures.

TFIOS Post Part Two!

AHH!! Hello All,

I'm sooooo close to finishing The Fault in Our Stars (Green J-Scribble too!), I had two free hours after my Psych exam yesterday to read it. And so far I'm at page 279, I could not put it down.

I've mentioned it before, but John happens to be my favourite author and Looking for Alaska is my favourite novel for the simple fact that its tragically beautiful. From what I have read so far of TFioS is exactly that. In particular, Augustus Waters and his beautiful metaphors (Chapter One) is just so...for a lack of a better word...awesome and in a sense, magical.

I don't want to spoil any more as I don't know if everyone else has read it yet, but I'm up for discussing it with everyone on the blog when you've had the time to read it as I know everyone's extremely busy. Or via email if it really can't wait :D

So my plan is to finish TFioS, then start The Hunger Games and also The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (for my reading group) and also do some more revision for my Biology exam which is next Wednesday. So a fun weekend planned :D

Hope everyone else is enjoying the so called 'most depressing' week of the year,

DFTBA

Sim x

TFIOS *No spoilers*

TOO MANY EMOTIONS. I don't even know what to say! It was beautiful and gorgeous and heartbreaking. I don't know if everyone has finished and we want to discuss it? For now though I'll refrain from spoilers. 

But yeah, I didn't post last week because I could not put it down. Except the dust jacket, I read it with the dust jacket off, which is not something I normally do but it was just too pretty and I couldn't risk damaging it! And a green J-scribble! Gah! I almost feel like it wasn't until I saw it there on the page that it sunk in that he actually signed every. single. copy. I cannot believe he did that. It's amazing!

I need to read it again, there's so much in it that I know I didn't catch everything the first time through. And I really wish I was reading this book in an English class because it is begging for literary analysis. I do think it has so much potential to become a classic. 

Anyways that's pretty much been my week: hibernating and reading. Which is really nice because it's COLD outside! I was starting to become concerned about global warming because we were having such a bizarrely nice winter but we finally got a cold snap and the order of things were restored. 

Sorry I'm all over the place, maybe hibernation is turning into a bit of cabin fever... oh well!

DFTBA,

-Kim

The Fault with Exams

Hey everyone,

This'll be a short post just to say hi. I have exams next week so I've been busy with them :(
Though on the plus side my copy of The Fault in Our Stars arrived, yet I cannot read it till after the exams. I have that and the Hunger Games to look forward to!!

Hope the second week of the year has been good, and hopefully see you all soon

DFTBA

Sim :)

First Friday of 2012

Hello all,

So resolutions aye...
I've never really had or kept resolutions for the past few years, normally they are silly ones like 'don't eat chocolate' which I break within the hour. So I've had a real think this time about what I want to change in my life so here goes;

-Eat less chocolate, this is a solid start, not 'no' chocolate, but less.

-To attempt to utilise my time wisely, I'm a serial procrastinator and I really should try to do more with my time. As far as I know the internet will still be there if I wait a day.

-To keep a journal of some sort, I think it would be nice to have some sort of journal thing just so I can see how the year is going. I'll start it today and end on January 6th 2013. It will be able to see just how the year progresses and the changes that occur from me now sitting in my room, to me then sitting in my dorm!

- To try my best in everything and to do new things, Big exams coming up and I do not want to give myself any chance to blame myself for not achieving what I know I can. Also I've got a long list of things I would like to do and I should try to make more of an attempt at doing them...so I guess I should find somewhere to learn how to rock climb!

- To be happy and make others happy, I do not want to look back on 2012 as the year the world ended and I spent the most of it gloomy. I should strive to make myself and those around me happy because at the end of the day, no matter how much chocolate I do or do not eat, happiness is the only thing that matters :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their first week of 2012 and that the return to normal after the buzz of Christmas is not giving you the January blues, if it is just remember,

DFTBA,

Sim

Resolutions

Until coming to write this post I hadn't thought much about my new years resolutions. Now that I do though I realize making resolutions at the start of a new year doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean yes, it's a new year, a new chapter, a fresh start, and all that, but I think there's too much emphasis placed on making resolutions at the start of a new year. That people make resolutions because that's what you do at the start of the year. It's more of an obligation, and that's why so many resolutions fall apart after only a few weeks or a month.

That being said, I've always kept a journal where I write down my new years resolutions. So I can remember them throughout the year and look back upon them at the end of the year to see how I've done. And it's looking at it now that I see how little writing it down has helped. I achieved none of the resolutions I set at the start of 2011. Yet I do not feel it was a wasted year.

I did so much over 2011 and so much changed in my life. From graduating high school, starting university, getting my first actual job (other than some temporary stuff and babysitting, etc.), and figuring out what I want to do for a career and what to do to get there. Throughout the year I made decisions and I made changes in my life that I felt helped me along the way. Trying to be more active, drinking more water, trying to be healthier, trying to be more organized, and so on.

I've carried on with those decisions not because I decided to start them at the beginning of the year but because I started them when I was ready to make the commitment to those lifestyle choices.

So yes, the new year is always a good time for reflection, but do it throughout the year as well, and make the changes when you feel they are needed. You'll be a lot more successful that way.

My new year resolution is to keep doing what I've been starting over the past few months, trying to live healthier and happier.

DFTBA,

-Kim

2012.

So, 2012.. We finally meet. Hi, and please don't end in December. That would suck. I actually like being alive.. And not in an apocalypse.

New Year Resolutions... That one is fairly easy for me.

To actually get stuff done. Take for example this blog.. To stick to it and see it through. And then there's stuff like school work as I enter into Year 11 and NaNoWriMo and stuff like that. For me, this year is about getting all the stuff that I have in the back of my mind that's been gathering dust as I do nothing, and making the stuff complete. Working on that novel idea, writing that song, making that video, writing that blog post.. Doing homework.

I've been quite slack in 2011, and this year I intend to change that.

DFTBA, Caitlin x