Well, it’s been quite a while since I’ve made a post on here, so expect this to be horrendously long. That being said, I will continue.
Probably biggest thing that’s happened since my last post is that school’s started. Honestly, I didn’t want school to start, but really, it’s not all that bad. I actually like almost all of my classes, and I like the way my schedule is set up because it makes my day seem a lot shorter. The following is my schedule:
Honors English – Holle
College Prep Chemistry – Kaus
Honors Math – Brown
Advanced Placement World Studies – Tabor
French II – Laboe
Health – Nelson
So, with that, let me talk and rant a bit about each of those. Having English right away in the morning is a complete and total blessing. I mean, I’m not excited to get up in the morning and go to school, but English makes it much more bearable. Plus, Ms. Holle is a great teacher. I really like her. ^_^ CPC isn’t bad either, and Mr. Kaus is a pretty funny guy, so that parts nice. Also, we can hear Mr. Tepp teaching his class from across the hall all the time, even if the door’s closed, which always makes Sam and I laugh. However, it deals with a lot of math, and math = lame, so that part is sucky. Math is, well, like always, math is pretty much just dumb. Like I just mentioned, I don’t like math, so that part is lame, but Miss Brown doesn’t really make it any better. The chick is nice, but she’s so freaking hyper that it makes me want to shoot myself sometimes. However, the subject matter of the class isn’t too bad so far, because we’re just reviewing stuff from last year, which, despite not getting it last year, I completely understand while we’re doing it this year, so that’s okay. However, I may not have gotten any of it last year because I paid attention for, oh, I don’t know, probably about the first three days of the second semester, and either drew, worked on other homework, or slept for the rest of it. I know it’s terrible, but Mr. Zoellmer didn’t care, and I still ended up doing okay, because I’d go home the night before a test or quiz, teach myself how to do everything, and then get either an A or B on it the next day. So really, it didn’t have a bad effect on me. ^_^
AP World Studies is a lot of fun, but a lot of work. I really like the stuff we’re currently learning, because it’s all ancient world stuff from like Mesopotamia and whatever, and I’m a big ancient world buff, so the material we’re going over is interesting. However, that class is pretty much made up of strictly notes, homework, and tests, which can get a bit tiring. Every Wednesday, we get a packet of notes and a chapter to read, and we have to read the chapter and finish the packet by the following Wednesday, when we take a test on everything we read, and then get a new packet to do the same thing over again, though obviously with a new chapter. Our first week, we had a two-page packet, front and back sides, and this past week, we got a three page on instead. :p And the classes pretty much revolve around taking notes. However, like I said, it isn’t as bad as it could be, because I’m at least interested in the material, and Mr. Tabor is hilarious, which makes the class more interesting and seem to go by quicker. After this I have lunch, whom I eat with Nancy, Matt H., Sam, Max, Bounkheana, and her friend Sarah, and it always proves to be an interesting affair. :D After lunch I have French, which is pretty okay. I like it so far, although I have to admit that I really needed the review that we did for the first two weeks, because I forgot most of the French that we learned last year. Mademoiselle Laboe is also really nice, and is pretty funny herself. My last class of the day is Health, and that class is pretty much what I expected it to be: horrendously boring. Middle School Health was boring every year, and High School Health isn’t any better. Ms. Nelson, the teacher, doesn’t really make it any better either, because the lady is sometimes kind of insane, and she scared the crap out of me the first few days of school. She also looks like she smoked a pound of pot before class everyday. But whatever. It’s only for one semester, so I guess I can handle it.
Anyways, that was a lot about school, but since school seems to be taking up virtually all of my time lately between all of the homework and tests and quizzes and essays and speeches I’ve had (yes, I’ve had all of these so far this year :p), school is all that I’ve really had time for. But I still want to move on from that and talk about some more interesting things, such as some more movies I’ve seen/bought, the new Evanescence album and their concert, Project 86, and probably some other pointless stuff. I believe that I informed you this was going to be long at the beginning, and that isn’t changing yet.
So, we’ll start with the movies, shall we? And the first movie that I’m going to talk about is Sense and Sensibility. My mom bought the movie for me from Best Buy about a good month and a half ago because I really wanted to see it, and it was only like, five or six bucks. In case you’re not aware, it’s another movie based off of a Jane Austin book of the same name (like Pride and Prejudice, which I watched again, by the way, and Matthew MacFadyen is still h0tt as ever in it), and it fits into the typical Austin theme, revolving around marriage/courting, social status, and typical life for females back during her time. It has a lot of great actors and actresses in it, including Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant (who is terribly attractive in that movie), and Alan Rickman. And may I just say that, despite the fact that, again, the guy is freaking old now, he is still attractive, and in this particular movie, absolutely, positively gorgeous. He plays Colonel Brandon, and good Lord, he is fi-ine looking. *nods* Of course, just because of that the movie would be good, but even if you take him out of the equation of the film, the movie was still really good and I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those, “Awwwwwww!” movies, that just makes you feel all warm and squishy on the inside.
Also, I received a $20 giftcard to Best Buy for helping Anna bag groceries for
The other movie that I ended up buying was love actually. I had rented it the day before, watched it and loved it, and decided to buy it with the other half of my giftcard. That movie is really good as well, and stars a lot of great British actors, including about half the cast of Sense and Sensibility, including Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant (who is still good-looking), and Alan Rickman. Who is also, once again, very, very good-looking (though still not as good as in Sense and Sensibility), though he plays a doucheface character. The movie also stars Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, and Rowan Atkinson, and almost every one of the guys in that movie is terribly good-looking. *nods* I can’t help it if British guys are all h0tt, and that their accents are very charming as well. But yeah…so the movie was really good, and the ending left me with mixed feelings of depression and happiness, because with most of the characters, you feel all, “Awwwwwwww, that’s so nice and cute,” but with like, Rickman and Thompson’s characters, you feel all, “Nooooooooooo, that shouldn’t be happening.” And like I said, Rickman played a doucheface husband, which made me sad, both because it was really sad in the movie, and because it’s Alan Rickman and I don’t like disliking him in movies. :p
So that’s pretty much the movies I’ve seen (at least that I haven’t seen before), so I’ll move onto Evanescence. Now, first off, I’m a huge Evanescence fan, so when I first found out last spring, that their new album, The Open Door was supposed to drop in October, I was ecstatic. However, my brother cautioned me that it may not be as good, saying, quite bluntly that, “It’ll probably suck.” I reprimanded him, and didn’t want to believe it, but when they released their first video from the album this summer for the song “Call Me When You’re Sober,” I thought again. After watching the video, I wasn’t too sure if I liked the song or not. I mean, there were some things about it that I liked, but for the most part, I wasn’t too thrilled with it. It was really…different. And not in a good way. Right now, I am actually listening to the album, because it got leaked and Ben downloaded the whole thing for me. I figure, I’m going to buy it anyway, so why not just get it early.
Well, as soon as the first song started, I was completely blown away. And not by how good it was. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was completely and utterly blown away by how bad it was. Ben came into my room not even halfway through the song, and my remark was, “This sucks.” Right now, I am listening to the last track of the album, and I can honestly state that, as a whole, this album is not very good. It’s really grungy and raw and, I don’t know, just different. Like I said, it’s completely different than their older stuff, and while I realize that bands are all going to change their style at some point or another – and that they have every right to – and that Evanescence especially was going to change because of the loss of Ben Moody, it’s still way more different than I ever thought it would be. They did change from their Origin and pre-Fallen days to the time that Fallen was actually released, but it wasn’t as big of a change as this, and besides, it was an okay change. I actually prefer the stuff on Origin to Fallen, but Fallen is still one of my favorite albums ever, and it’s still amazing lyrically, melodically, emotionally - everything. The Open Door, on the other hand, is not like this at all. I mean, in my opinion, it is a change for the worse. There’s bits of the albums that are okay, and some things are actually pretty good, but again, overall, I don’t care for the album. The style that Amy Lee sings in is, as mentioned really grungy, and I cannot stand grunge or grungy-type stuff. Also, there’s just really crappy instrumental stuff on here that just doesn’t sound good, and actually makes them sound a lot more like a low-profit, garage band than a professional band. Their previous work was really advanced, intelligent sounding music, and was more about doing what they wanted, trying new things, and doing things people hadn’t done before, while The Open Door sounds like they were trying to sound really mainstream and makes everything seem really low-quality and almost as if they didn’t care as much anymore, which is exactly opposite of what Amy Lee said she was trying to go for and accomplish, and why this album took so long to get released.
Needless to say, after all of this, I’ll still probably buy the album, just because I am a fan of them and their music, and I figure, every band has a bad record at least some point in their career, and that, hopefully they’ll move on from this and turn out even better than before. Look at Bob Dylan – everything that he put out in the 80’s was absolutely terrible, and yet he’s still hugely popular, just put out a new album, and was on tour with Willie Nelson within the last year. However, one thing I can say is that I am definitely not regretting that I can’t go see Evanescence live anymore. They are playing here in October, and at first I was bummed because I couldn’t afford the $25 to buy a ticket since I owe my mom about eighty bucks. But now, after hearing this new album, I don’t really know if I want to go see them play all of this new stuff anymore. *shrugs* Who knows? Maybe the album will grow on me if I give it a little bit more of a chance. All I know is that right now, I’m not digging the album.
So now, let’s move onto what I’m going to make my final thought in here since this is already over four and a half pages in Word: Project 86. Yes, they are playing here again in November, and yes, I will be seeing them again, for I believe the seventh time now. Ben said they are supposed to be releasing a new album again next year, and that Schwab is coming out with another new book. Hooray! At least I can be excited for this band, because, with the five albums that they’ve put out so far, I’ve never been disappointed or letdown, and I don’t ever expect to. I don’t think there is any way that this band cannot be bad, so let’s just hope that that stays true.
Well, because this thing is horrendously long, I’ll end now. Enjoy your day, and combolations Elizagerth if you made it all the way through this post. You have less of a life than even I.
-How Soon is Now?, t.A.T.u.
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