I forgot again! Friday Five

1. If you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose? Marilyn Monroe.

2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel? The only one I remember really having some sort of effect on me was Princess Diana. We were all sitting there watching TV late into the night and all of a sudden, the news came on, saying she had been in a car accident. I remember just being like wow, that really really really sucks.

3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose? I would want to be Kristin Kreuk.

4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who? When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out, a ton of people told me I looked like Zhang Ziyi. A teacher even pulled me over and told another teacher, "See, didn't I tell you? She looks JUST like that girl!"

5. Have you ever met anyone famous? Yes. My one claim to famous people is Colin Firth. Everyone should know about this. :)

Searching for the right college is quite like searching for the right guy. Often, guys look great at first glance, then you take a look closer and you quite often find several flaws. For example, Princeton would probably be the over-perfect boyfriend (making me feel frighteningly inadequate), while Sarah Lawrence would be the really liberal, artsy boyfriend (frightening my parents and making me feel staid). And you know how you want to feel "I belong here" immediately when you enter a college (kind of like believing in love at first sight)? I felt like that somewhat at all colleges, until yesterday. I really really felt it at Vassar. I'm scared to find its inevitable flaws. Sorry this paragraph isn't more organized and cohesive. I'm tired.

Don't you hate relatives' brutal honesty?

Tests, tests, tests! Some of the links don't work though. The 11-question personality test is really v. accurate though!

Working on a new layout.. really.

Hehe, Mellers, you love Isadora's name so much you're using it for your own? Silly.

Saw Columbia/NYU today and yesterday. I don't know if I would like it at either of the two.. they all seem very fast-paced. I don't know if I'm mature enough for them! I've led a generally very sheltered life in Minnesota. There was more than enough evidence of that from today. I've been wanting Michael Kors perfume forever, but it's $60 a bottle, so I've refrained from buying any. And lo and behold, while we were walking around Canal St., I see many many perfume vendors along the street! I asked and bargained at a ton of places before my mom started saying that the smell would probably fade before long (apparently they buy the real stuff, then dilute it and package it?). I felt another bit of my naivete slip away.

Despite all my teasing of Liz at Model UN for her faith in human good-ness, I found myself defending some of the people who came onto our Metro car asking for money. There was one boy we saw both today and yesterday, selling M&Ms for 'basketball jerseys'. I believed him. Does that mean I'm an idealist or just blind? My mother countered saying he probably just used it as an excuse to live on the street. Does that mean she's a realist or a cynic? Visiting New York has certainly caused much thought.

Sorry didn't post yesterday about WONDERFUL time at Princeton. Can you detect the sarcasm? I saw about two ugly people there. I'm serious. Everyone was either beautiful or foreign-looking, which in my eyes is very beautiful. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy it all the much. The campus was huge though; my family seriously got lost several times. And we went on the tour.. guess how the weather was? Drizzly and grey. This is what we got to walk around in for an hour. Now I'm in New York! Yay! We did the whole tourist/Times Square thing tonight and I wore my sunglasses at night to the strange looks of passersby. But hey, any contact-wearer would understand.

Got nominated for Blog Babe of the Week? I am excessively confused as to the nominator? Anyone care to enlighten me?

I always think of a little more to say after I post&publish. Too lazy to go back and check re-publish as well. Damn, now I've forgotten what I was going to say. But I refuse to post until I've thought of it. Oh yeah! I cried when Halle Berry won.. it was so touching. And I was SO happy Denzel won!!

Saw Bryn Mawr and I'm frightened for tomorrow's daunting prospect: Princeton. Everyone here appears rich, white, and beautiful. Gosh, every car in Bryn Mawr was seriously either Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, or Audi. I'm just feeling a little out of place. I mean, it's not like I'm ashamed about my background or me, but just comparatively! I don't know. I just hope I won't look stupid.

Ooh, Britney is now officially not in 'an intense relationship'. I knew it wouldn't last.

Watching the Oscars right now in Pennsylvania. Another long day of drifting in and out of sleep, reading The Age of Innocence, and listening to music. Time for some Oscar predictions/opinions...

Jennifer Connelly's win: I expected it but I didn't want it to happen.. really, I didn't think her role was all that outstanding. Drama acting is so much easier than comedy, and if they were looking for emotion.. Marisa Tomei! I don't know.

Best Actor: I bet Russell will win, but I think Denzel deserves it. And don't give me crap about they should base their decision on this year's film and therefore Russell should win.. see Clark Gable's win, ok?

Best Picture: Gosh, it's a tossup. So I'll just say that I want A Beautiful Mind to win. Ooh, and for Best Foreign Film, y'all should know this: Amelie! I can't believe it isn't coming out on DVD until the summer here. Those lucky bastards in France...

Best Actress: I want Halle Berry to win and I really think she has a chance too.

I'll have to write about Marilyn Monroe later.

Ooh, almost forgot. Thanks for the call Arney and I'm sorry I didn't hear you! Must have been in stage IV sleep...

Okay, so I caved. It was a hellish drive from home to where we are now: Ohio. I felt entirely disgusting the whole time; drifting in and out of sleep (we were awake at 3:30 due to my dad), and blind as a bat without contacts in. We still have miles left to go yet to our next destination: Pennsylvania. Great. The Country Inn and Suites is actually pretty nice. Family mood is leaning towards irritable. Lunch was delicious at Three Happiness in where else but Chinatown. Yum, the raisin bread we bought from a Chinatown bakery was delish as well. We'll see what PA is like tomorrow; don't worry, you'll all get my reaction.

Check out the new hostee(s). Very cool.

Friday Five

1) What is your favorite time of year? I would have to say spring.

2) What is it about your favorite season that, well, makes it your favorite season? Partly because I'm a spring baby, and partly because of the smell of new growth, new beginnings, new hope (for those who are Christian, it's definitely a season of rebirth).

3) What is your least favorite time of year? Why? Winter. I hate cold, I hate dryness, I hate how static electricity happens so easily.

4) Do you do anything to celebrate or recognize the changing of the seasons? I change the painting I have up in my room. I have four: one for each season, each a little piece of perfection.

5) What's your favorite thing to do outside? Play tennis, walk, lie on my patio.

IsaDora, where you can play with colors and try them out on a face! When you get in the site, click on 'play with colors' near the top.

Man, today's Elimidate was excellent! There was an Australian guy who had the greatest voice ever! And she chose him! The other guys were pretty cheesy except for one. There was turquoise-shiny-shirt man (elimidated first round) then i-loved-you-from-the-moment-i-met-you man who was elimidated last round. God, he was stupid.

Mm, I'm feeling fucking hateful towards boys right now. Yes, even him.

Have I told you all that I'm leaving for a two week college-touring trip Saturday? No? Well, I am. And I haven't decided whether to post while I'm there or not. And I haven't decided if I should put up a new layout or wait until inspiration truly strikes me again.

Wheat fields are very pretty when the light's just right and bold colors zigzag across the sky.

Ooh I got a digital camera last night! Not everything that I expected but it's really quite good for being around $100.. see my parents bought the HP set of printer with camera. And I must say, 2.1 megapixels is really good for that amount of money. I wanted manual exposure though, and manual focus as well. Well, can't have everything I suppose..

This has got to be the worst year of my life. Today I realized I simply can't respect many of the people here and I don't care about their opinions at all. It has mainly to do with certain people's drug use. I don't care if you do drugs, really I don't. I just care if other people worship you for it. Besides that, my eyes hurt from my contacts, school is oppressive, and there is no light in my life. This is depressing, but everyone's entitled to their bad days (year), right?

I hope the letter arrived on time. IM tag is oh so not fun.

Writer's block is never good, especially when it's caused by the fear of wondering-who-is-reading-this. Maybe I'll go Omo's route and get a password protected blog. Maybe not.

Should I get commenting? Or not? I'm worried once I get I'll realize that no one wants to comment on my posts at all. Perhaps there's safety in my little contact form. Perhaps I need to take more risks.

Ah yes, and wish us luck tomorrow at KB Regionals.

Cheesy, but some of y'all will love it.

Yes! We won the Estee Lauder basket! See, on Saturday, my mom and I went to the mall, not knowing that Field days were going on. Then as we wandered through the makeup area, I noticed all these gift baskets being displayed and checked them out. You had to be 18 to enter, so I told my mom and we started filling out slips! We entered into each, and I just had this feeling we would win something and we got the call today! Most excellent.

Prostitutes Get Contracts - wow, it's Jesse Ventura all over again!

Omoleye has a new layout up! Yay. It's quite pretty.

I babysat Friday night and all of Saturday for the Chinese church retreat. It really wasn't too bad and it's always so sweet how little girls can be. Damn, there was this one boy was a bastard! Apparently he had found a foam plane on the ground in the church and his mom told him he could keep it. Then while I was babysitting, another boy (Andrew) started sort of fighting with him and when I asked them what was wrong, Andrew (who was either jealous or very morally conscious) blurted out the whole story and was like, "It's not his he can't keep it!" So after a while where the plane-owning boy (Jerry) was being excessively stubborn, Laura and I got the plane from him. He was all upset and kept glaring at us and calling us mean. I wanted to say look hon, one day you'll realize parents aren't always right, especially not in a case of finder's keepers. Just made me realize what a huge influence parents are on kids. I never want to be a parent.

I'm unbelievably stressed. And yet I'm typing on my blog. I think there should be an official medical term for addiction to blogging. Would it be something like blogphile? No, that would just be someone who likes blogs. Ah well, I shall figure it out one day and I will tell you all.

Ignorance is bliss.. right? I've been thinking on this question for about a day now, and I'm still not quite sure. What brought all this, you ask? Mainly because I found out, to my surprise, that someone had already planned to ask me to prom and when I talked to Arney about it, he said he saw it coming. When pressed further as to how he knew, he said it's all in the body language and eye contact. See, last month, he and I encountered the potential prom date asker (let's call him Ringo) at the theaters. I didn't notice at the time, but apparently Ringo kept meeting eyes with him, looking at the floor, then at the door. Subconsciously, he wanted Arney out of there; isn't that strange and v. interesting? So now it's practically inevitable: I will keep watching people's eye contact and when I see that they really don't want to talk to me, I will feel sad. But it is nice to know when to stop, right? So is ignorance bliss? Some opinions would be great on this.

Oh, hmm.. got nice story to tell but I don't know how I ought to shorten it. Okay, well Molly was driving me home because I didn't want to wait for my mom to pick me up at 3:45 (all activities had been canceled due to icy conditions) and we passed my mom while we were pretty close to my house. So Mom turned back, and as she was going up the driveway the car began to slide down our medium-steep driveway to the left toward the mailbox and me.

It was pretty frightening; I was afraid she would hit the mailbox, but luckily she managed to stop barely two feet away from the box. Well, we were now in a quandary. She couldn't accelerate up because it would just cause her to slide more; she couldn't back out for the same reason.

So what to do? I decided to call the neighbors (who have a son named Philip I haven't seen since middle school) and this guy picks up. I thought it was the dad, because the voice was pretty deep, so I was just like, "My mom is stuck on the driveway and we need some help. Could you come over?" He agreed. I met him outside and it was Philip! He looked almost the same, more mature though. Right away he said we needed to get some salt out. So we sprinkled a ton of salt everywhere for about fifteen minutes. Then she tried backing out and then driving up again and it worked! I was excessively grateful for him and so we all said thank you. Philip nodded and slid back to his house. All this time, what kept running through my mind? No, not the possibility of a huge scratch on the car. Nope, not the issue of safety. All I could think was that this is the boy who told your sister you were hot.

I retook the colorgenics test and I got something different! Which is still me. Really. Ooh, and have new music downloading program which is SPYWARE FREE! Yay. WinMX, check it out. It's a little slow, but that could just be my 56k modem.

I have no goal in life. I need one. Otherwise, why am I still here? Should my goal be fame? But there is the inevitable bad side to that. Should it be money? Ah, but then how would you know what was true or false? Should it be happiness? How can I measure what will make me happy? And if I come up with a goal, then I should be happy on the way to reaching that goal. Maybe my goal should be just to beautify the world.

Damn, it's late. I always get this huge rush of guilt whenever I look at the internet timer and see that it's over an hour. And now it's been about four hours. Damn it. Will be internet-free someday soon. But can't be now.

I want a pen pal.

Sarah, I like the new layout! It is a tad bit Halloween-y, but hey, whatever. :) Mayo's going to miss you! Maybe you could write about why you decided to switch schools? I was going to too actually, but then.. I didn't. It was mainly my parents. That gets me wondering if I've really ever made an independent decision in my life. I finished reading Love Letters by Eli Cantor this morning and it was v. thought-provoking. Really, every decision has depended on something, whether it be peer opinion, parents, etc. Is there no such thing as true freedom/independence?

It is beautiful outside: a whirling tempest of every color (white) that displays Nature's splendor to remind humans that though we may think we are omnipotent at times, really, we aren't. Can we control the weather? No, and hopefully we never will. If we ever do, what is to stop us from growing such big heads that it will be hard to go through doors? I much prefer the unpredictability of our environment as it is now; this way, we can be witness to such shows of raw power as to humble us. Besides, who would want consistently good weather? Just as it would be quite boring for everyone to look the same. I particularly don't think people who are considered beautiful now would like being equal to everyone else.

I just realized a 5:59 minute song is actually 359 seconds. Doesn't that seem like such a short time? 359 seconds gone in my life listening to the divine Beethoven Serenade for Strings...

Once again, I'm in one of those moods where solitude is preferred, and I like the way the snow blowing around the house makes me feel protected. Maybe it is a false sense of security, but I like it.

Danielle van Dam .. geez, got enough media attention? I feel terribly for them, of course, but it makes you wonder why her case was all over the news while hundreds/thousands of other cases go largely unnoticed? It just shows, once again, life is unfair. I've always known this, but it seems to be hitting home more this year. I predict that someday soon all I'll be is a sarcastic bitter shell with nothing inside.

If Alicia Keys was ugly would she even be famous? I bet not. What do you think? Use the contact form.. I'd like to hear what you all think.

Yeah, sure there are a few kinks to work out. Like, there are no archives yet etc. I'll figure it all out. Don't you worry.

Have a whole new look for i-cherry that I'm hoping y'all will like. If not, well I can always go back. :)

Had Knowledge Bowl Sub-Regionals yesterday. My team (Green) got 2nd place! Oh yeah, that's right. And we started out 4th.. until the last round where we got 15 points. Our other team (Gold) got 3rd. Congrats to them as well. We competed against Winona in the same room, every single time. And it was rather frustrating because they always seemed to get the right answer to these really hard questions at the last minute. But yes, we are indeed advancing to Regionals for sure now.

What else has made me happy today, besides finding Luverly up and running? There was something else, but I can't seem to remember. Ah yes, I actually talked to Neal on IM last night. I've admired his photographs for a long time. He told me he's seen Amelie twice and I can readily believe it; I saw it Friday and I love it! Completely, utterly love it.

Gah! Am so happy luverly is up and working FINALLY!! Nearly cried. Sorry about the long down-time. It's a long story and I have to go to Psychology right now. You might want to check Mel's site for the story. Thanks everyone for waiting!