She Came from Planet Z

book stories (not stories in books)

Well, I've been reading my way throughout the last few weeks of 8th grade.  As of right now, there are about 4 more weeks left.  In those four weeks, we must endure a week of final exams, scramble to conclude all units, prepare and live through two field trips and a dance (8th graders only), and makes sure everyone signs our yearbook. 

So this is what I've just finished (yes, finished.  Suprising, right?):

Perhaps you recognize the name "John Green"?  Perhaps you don't?  Apparently, he's MEGA famous right now for his writing.  I have a theory it's all because he has a YouTube.  BUT, Looking For Alaska was an amazing book all the same, and great for a teenager who processes life and death and the meaning of it all too much.

So, I guess the only reason I put a picture of the book up there or even mentioned it was purely because I just wanted to brag about how I can finish a book.  I really should give you all a rambling paragraph about the actual plot, but I am far too lazy today.  Instead, I'll just tell you how I got it!

It was late in the evening, after I had just attended a Take-Your-Friend-To-Chorus day (don't ask), and we had decided to go into Politics and Prose, the book store I had yearned to go in but never spent long enough in D.C. for.  I made a bee-line for the hairy hippy guy sitting in a very tiny chair in the center of the youth section. 

me: Uh... can you give me some advice?

hippy guy: (stares for a moment, pleading to god that I don't ask something creepy) Uh... yeah?

me: Do you have any good realistic fiction books that don't have anything to do with fantasy, sci-fi, or girls owning cupcake shops in New York?

hippy guy: (great sigh of relief) Yes!  Yes we do!  Here, let me get you some.

And with that, he immediately began, like the expert that he was, plucking book after book off the vast shelves of colorful teen literature.  He gave me seven to choose from.  I was most certainly not, at 9 o'clock at night, going home empty-handed.  So I came home, after my first spontaneous book-buy, with two John Green books (hippy guy said even he had raved about them).  I'm planning on starting the second one today.

super de duper

Super 8!  I saw that movie last summer... or was it a few summers ago?  For some reason the name has stuck with me... it's awesome.  I'd love it as a nickname.  I also love the characters in the movie.  (click to enlarge)

I found the image to copy off of on google images.  I liked how the kids were placed... and their expressions.  And also how all the colors go nicely together.

I have had a lot of self-help thoughts and thankfulness and such.  It was partly the article I saw in a nutrition thing about how sweets literally contain addictive chemicals, but it was also this book.  That's right!  Book talk!  Get reeaaaadddyyy!

This is a diary of a spunky (and maybe a little crazy?  You'll think that at first... ) teacher about her first year of teaching - in an inner-city Chicago school.  All of the kids are poor as dirt and come from troubled families.  They have a very hard time in school and life in general, with such a scary home life to come home to.  By the time I finished, I felt SO grateful to have such a healthy life.  And, maybe it was because it was late at night, promissed whoever gave me such a great life (yes, superhero cat, I'm talking to you) that I would do my best to be enthusiastic and hard-working at school, because I had it so good there. 

After that I read an article about addictive sweets.  How they contain addictive chemicals.  That make you CRAVE sweets.  So so so true.  I thought, so all it takes is mind power, eh?  Can I have a life with a couple chocolate chip handfuls less?  Come to think of it, I may be ahead of myself here.  I may be a little crazy.  I just seriously want to feel good about myself.  Because, thought this isn't true, I feel fat a lot of the time.

flag, truck, and other words that describe America.

Well, I've been doing tons of sketching with my markers lately.  Just saying.  GAH!  I have to say that art. is. coming.  Though there isn't any apparent demand for art, this is supposed to be a blog about my art, and I absolutely must prove to myself that that (that that that) will stay strong.  Art art art art art.

Now with that being said... (blushes, hopefully)

I have another link for you!  But first,

 
another picture!  So, moving right along.

Raina Telgemeir is my all-time favorite graphic novelist.  She has done four graphic novels of "the Babysitter's Club" and just recently an autobiography of her middle school/high school experience and orthodontics.  Fun indeed.  Anyway, that link will take you to her website that mostly contains news, blah de blah, and you might have to search a wee bit to get to the art.  Search the wee bit!  It's worth it!

The real interest, however, is this podcast that (if you're patient) will provide a look into the world of creating a graphic novel as Raina is interviewed by Katie Davis (Katie's website link is on Raina's website, if you just can't get enough).

And so, I have recently been watching many-a episode of Cupcake Wars, because I had a craving for tense descriptions of yummy things. 

Also, just recently the county fair has been set up, along with its giant American flag and monster truck rally.  I'd say the most interesting thing I saw there was a game where you roll around inside a giant clear inflatable ball and try to wiggle across a small "pond".  I think it's name had something to do with hamsters.  Oh, did I mention you have to be 175 pounds or less?  A.K.A.  15 and under, at the county fair.

scatter brain.

 
Yes, the more discrete self-esteem book for girls anybody else.  Disguised as a book mocking the "make a difference, everyone's beautiful" approach to the whole teenage insecurity idea, which leaves its readers (OK, me because this is not english class) feeling no worry or general emotion.  Did I mention no worry? 

 
Yes, perhaps this is what your brain looks like too.  (I snuck this home last week from art camp... some of the girls were testing markers and I thought it was artistic) 

Anyway, no worry about, well, why there is suddenly this random urge to buy cosmetics... why the teen reading section of the library is suddenly so friendly... why your friend -who never gets yelled at and has perfectly nice parents- stole some lipstick... and why that suddenly showed up in this book.

Perhaps you ought to look a bit closer at some of its pages.

 
Click, if necessary.

 
I'd like to list all of the inspiring, blunt, and unique ideas in this book but for some reason I don't feel like it.  Perhaps it's for the same purpose that the class "How to make mistakes" has its participants swear to secrecy.  Oh, the author of this book teaches that class, by the way.  I don't know much more about it.

Oh yeah, and I've been doing quite a lot... OK I lied... a bit of summer art.

 
This is titled "entering the maze at the triwizard tournament" (holding a wand, not knife).  I was listening to some creepy soundtrack.  Yes, the art these days is scattered and not very numerous.  I put too much thought into each picture to do more of it that day.  I had the intention of cranking out picture after picture, enough to put into a satisfying pile by the end of the summer.  I suppose summer's not over yet.

dramaramarama (reading books and cleaning the bathroom)

The project, is done.  I hope. I think it is.  It looks pretty done.  A sneak-peak, perhaps?

 
Well, I can already see a place in this picture that I forgot to color.  It's mostly marker, with a tiny bit of quirky collage and stylized (too stylized?) sand.  Oh my, I'll say no more. 

Hopefully it'll be a good one.  I had this idea of "going out with a bang"... saying it sounds even more ridiculous.  My combination of experimental marker techniques could equally be charming and/or confusing.  I suppose while I've got this topic on the page I might as well blabber on and on about un-developed thoughts I have about the accomplishment (says while examining nails and raising eyebrows), but the point is, it's done. 

The summer, at the moment, seems to have hit the "fast forward" button.  Suddenly my life is being swarmed with events and ideas that are, in themselves, not to action-packed or brainy, but definitely priorities.  Yesterday I cleaned the bathroom.  Fun!  No, seriously.  Then, I ran frantically up and down the hall.  Fun!  Before all this, I started my second week of art camp counseling.  Non-active, but fun!  I feel like melting chocolate and then freezing it again!  Fun!  Just having secure and definite thoughts in my head makes me feel better (like I was sick before.... ppth).

Speaking of which, I've got another book on my hands, after what seems like months (I'm not exactly the speedy type).  Dramarama, by E. Lockhart, features not only a "gawky-sexy", tall, big-nosed brunette (sound familiar?), but the mesmerizing fast-pase school of acting, drama, singing, etc.  Wildwood.  She struggles to thrive among professional actors her own age and to understand the frustrating ways of her professors.  It has spark and is an exciting read.

And so!  Yeah!  That's all for now, folks!

morning-ness

I had a solid sleep, and woke up with fuzzy kitty saying, "merrrrooooowwww", in the saddest voice ever.  I have, for three nights straight, broken my record for reading a book.  It usually takes me about a month to read a book, and probably a lot more.  I read them slowly, and may spend a few minutes on just one sentence, trying to understand it or absorb it.

 
This time, I took three nights.  About an hour and a half to two hours each night completely absorbed in these pages got me through it and I liked it.  Not the staying up real late, but the book.  It's not exactly the plot, but the way each person thinks that I like.  It's a spiritual, read-late-at-night-book that I don't think would be interesting at all in mid-day.

I found it in my bookshelf.  It's one of those books that was given to me as a gift.  Gift books make me put them on the shelf and stare at them until about two years later, like this one.

 
I had a very good smoothie today.  It was made out of all of the fruit in the house that would be dumped if it weren't for mum's determination.  There's something about yogurt and really ripe fruit...

Today I intend on playing or perhaps walking to the library to get the next book after this one.  I was given a book for my birthday as well, but I'm on a role right now!  If I can finish the next book just as fast, well, that'd be really neat!