I'm back!
And I have far too much to say. Get ready for a humoungous entry.
First off (and this will seem obsessive and superficial) ROTK! DVD! GET IT! NOW! I have it. I've watched it... five or six times. We're actually watching it in orchestra. It was so funny on Tuesday when I walked into that class and heard what we were doing. "Return of the King? HOT DOG!" And I nabbed the seat directly in front of the tv. Another girl in my class is just as obsessive as I am, and it's so much fun to have someone else to hiss at Arwen with. And it's really hard trying not to cry in front of your entire 40 person orchestra class. Trust me!
Anyway, some of you may be wondering why I locked my diary. Well, my dad came down from New York to visit my mum, brother, and I. I hadn't seen him in three or four months, and hadn't talked to him outside of the two minute phone conversations every night. "So, what'd ya do today?" Went to school. "Oh. What're ya doing now?" Homework. "Oh. What are ya doin' tomorrow?" School, then homework. "K. Night." Yeah, bye. But it's better that way, that way he's nice to me when I see him again. He's my dad, so I love him, but it's really hard to keep using just that as an excuse. Do you know what I mean? He's really, really, really hurtful when he's around for too long, and it bothers me to think that my dad doesn't want to be around me for too long. Out of sight, out of mind. And I wanted my thoughts out of sight and out of reach of Dad, so I locked my diary. That's why.
Which brings me to my next topic of conversation: college! As you all know, my dad works at the reknowned college of Columbia University, and that should grant me guaranteed acceptance and paid tuition. Which is spectacular because my family has no money to send me to such a good school, nothing set aside. Isn't it fantastic that lil' ol' me can go to an Ivy League for free? Yeah, well, dad's thinking about quitting. I can't go to a good college if he quits, this is my only chance. Colleges won't give me loans because my dad makes in excess of $150 thousand a year. That's far too much money for me to ask for loans. I could get a loan from a bank, but my parents can't afford that kind of a debt following my graduation, and I certainly can't afford it, either. My dad has been telling me to apply to other colleges not only because he thinks I can't get into Columbia, but, as I now realise, because he hates it there. He doesn't want me to live with him alone because he doesn't like me. He hasn't liked me since I was three because I stand up for myself when he yells at me; I have no qualms about telling anyone what I think, he being no exception. Okay, I've worked extremely hard in school for ages, I'm at the top ten percent of my class, I've got a 3.9 grade-point average, I'm well-rounded with basis in music and art and language and math and science and social science. I know a lot, and I can put it all to good use. He knows what I want to do with that knowledge, he knows I want to be an actress, and he thinks that's a waste. He's said I should be everything but an actress, and, do you know what? I don't care. If I can't get the education I DESERVE at Columbia because my dad's jealous, spiteful, immature, and resentful, then I will move to California, go to UCLA, and I will have just a good a chance as any.
The way I figure it is that there are two or three places an actress can get a good foothold in the states: New York and LA being two of those places. I'm not going to be getting any acting jobs going to a Virginian technical college. If dad doesn't care about my future enough, then I'll head out to UCLA, take some of his paychecks with me, and get a job to pay the rest. One way or another, I'm going to a good, private college in a big city, because one way or another, I'll be struttin' a red carpet at a premiere. I know it'll happen. It's hard to describe, and it sounds so conceited, but I know I'm going to be something different than everyone else. And people, my dad and any of you who disagree with me, are just going to have to get over it. No, there's no predestination, there's no pre-ordination, but God gives us all a set of talents and opportunities, and it's up to us to use those tools to get where we're destined to be, and I'm not letting any of my life pass me by just because my dad can't handle it.
Now that that's all out of the way! I went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg on Sunday! Weee! I love that place. I could live there. I rode Roman Rapids and Alpengeist (featured as the number seven scariest coaster in the US on Travel Channel... it's not that scary, just a lot of fun) and Escape from Pompeii and I bought a beautiful claddaugh ring from Ireland in... Ireland. See, the theme park is themed to be different places in Europe, and each place looks exactly like that European country. Italy is full of old Italian houses that are all stores and restaurants selling imported Italian goods and candy and Italian food, and France has French dolls and deserts and clowns and Imaginique (from Cirque de Soleil), and Scotland is covered in tartan, and Ireland has a brewery and a Riverdancing hall and Irish sweaters and jewelery and hats and stew and Soda Bread and a ride called Corkscrew Hill, and Germany has Oktoberfest and there's also Greece and, gosh, all sortsa stuff. My favourite place is Ireland, because it's just so cool. There are singers and dancers and fiddlers in the streets, it's so neat! I went on Corkscrew Hill, of course, and made the wait fun. The line goes through a dark tunnel with echoing whispers of, "What is it? It's coming. Blah blah blah" in Irish accents. So my brother and I mimicked the voices loudly and said silly things and made people laugh. And the Gollum voice travels far in there. And we watched the Riverdancing, and it bothered me. It offended me, frankly. Okay, I'm Irish. I'm overtly Irish. I've never been out of America, and I still elongate my "r"s. I don't know why, but you can ask anyone, I, without realising it, have a strange Irish-American accent. My mum has it, my brother has it, it's strange. My household is an Irish household. We eat corned beef and soda bread, I'm learning gaelic (actually, it's a Scottish form, but I'm part Scottish, too), and we've all got red hair. It's just the way it goes. But these dancers had these horribly fake accents, ugly costumes dripping in sequins, they were Mexican, German, American, anything but Irish. One girl looked Irish, and she had dyed her hair red to look so. The announcer said, "We import our dancers from Dublin blah blah blah." That is the biggest, most blatent public lie I've heard since Clinton was in office. I was going to audition for a music job in Busch Gardens, and they wanted dancers from my area to audition for their newest Ireland attraction. Hello? Am I really going to fall for that? The dancing was okay, but the costumes, the fakeness, the multicoloured flashing Celtic knots in the back were just some of the most offensive I've ever seen. I'm not the kinda person to sit there and claim you all owe me because my ancestors worked on railroads for you, because the Irish had their land stolen, because we had plagues and famines and you did nothing, because that never happened to me, it happened to my parents' parents' parents' parents', it doesn't affect me or you now, but I think that if you make a flashy show out of a rich culture, it's taking the depth and meaning, too. I was raving mad afterwards.
And that was my trip to Busch Gardens! In other news, I gave a presentation on my trip that I planned for English class as a research paper. I had a commercial where I got to beat Kelly into pulp. I also got to present a power point on Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales, that was pretty funny. And I made four loaves of Soda Bread for my class. It was the first thing I've ever baked on my own, but I didn't tell them that. I was so excited! I baked something! And it turned out pretty well! Or, at least they said so, they may have lied. And I didn't get french student of the year (growl), but I did get recognised for getting fourth place in the State at the awards breakfast this morning. And I ate myh first Ultra Muffin, which was sticky and kinda gross. It was nice to get something for keeping up my French grades. And I'm learning Gaelic! I feel so multi-cultural.
Gaelic is a fickle language. Mac is put in front of male Scottish surnames because it means "son", so MacDonald means "son of Donald", but Nic is the female version. So, if you're MacDonald's sister, you're NicDonald, "daughter of Donald". And if you address a man, say his name is Turmod (sounds like ter-moj), you call him Thurmoid (pronounced like her-moij) (no lie), but if you meet a girl, let's call her Iseabail (Ishbel), you call her Isheabail (no extra "i" at the end, and it would be pronounced "I-h-bel"). The pronunciation really gets me, which is strange, because I can pick up on language so easily. But I love it! Oh, I love it!
And I'm in the middle of an arguement with my friend, Jenni. I made a ceramic pig in tighty-whities that's doing the Tom Cruise in Risky Business slide across a wooden floor with sunglasses, but I didn't give him a tail coming out of the undies. She says that if pigs wore pants, they should have a hole in the back for the tail to come out so it wasn't bulgy and nasty in back. I say that the tail should stay in, becase it's just nasty to let your squiggly tail hang out of your tighty-whities. One day when I'm famous, I'm gonna know Tom Cruise, and I'm gonna ask him, "Hey, Tom, if you were a pig, and you were wearing underwear, would you keep your curly tail in or out?" That's what's gonna happen, and he's gonna say, "In!" Because it makes sense. Tom Cruise agrees! Tails stay in the underwear. Geez louise, c'mon folks, it's not hard to grasp, here.
And I think Sean Astin and Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood and Billy Boyd and Dom Monaghan and definitely Sir Ian McKellen made Return of the King. They made it. *sigh* It was great because of them. Not Orlando Bloom and his five lines and ten minutes of sk8erboi "coolness". Oooh, he's killing an oliphaunt, but not delivering any important lines or making any necessary changes in the storyline. But his close-ups were fantastic, must admit it!
And we had an evil sub in English today that reminds me of this title. It's a double entendre then. I'm back, and she's evil.
Right-o! I'm a loser! Toodles!
SILENCE, TRAITOR! - 2006-05-10
Irish History - 2006-05-02
Goodbye Bio! - 2006-05-01
DANCE, WATER! DANCE! - 2006-04-26
Gaaaaaah. - 2006-04-24