Nina's Patented Study Methods

It's that time of year again when winter break is about to start so teachers cram in all the tests possible in the week before. Thus, I bring you from a state of abject despair, Nina's Patented Study Methods.

Study method #1: place your review packets on your skin in hopes that the knowledge will be absorbed through osmosis

Study method #2: lie down on the floor and cry in hopes that through sheer pitifulness you will pass the test

Study method #3: it's always C or the longest answer, right? Who needs to study?

Study method #4: watch youtube videos vaguely related to what you are studying in hopes that by the tenth LOLcat video you will have mastered the subject

Study method #5: preform the snow dance in hopes that even if you don't know the material, at least there will be no school tomorrow

Just follow these fool-proof methods and you'll be sure to maybe possibly pass if you're good at guessing the right answers to multiple choice questions!

Snow Day: Mission Success

My persuasion tactics and snow dance worked! School was cancelled yesterday and today.

I have been alternating between baking and having snowball fights. My brother and I also made a snow man that is almost as tall as I am (not a hard feat, but still).

Alas, there is most likely going to be school tomorrow. My time of freedom was too short.

I also managed to procrastinate all of my homework and push it off to wednesday, which is going to be especially painful because I will be staying late after school for a drama audition.

Life is hard.

Snow Day... Please?

It snowed!

A snow day hasn't been announced yet, but the specialty agents I've send to... persuade... whomever is responsible for scheduling snow days should be completing their work soon.

In the meantime, I've been executing my traditional Snow Day Dance, as well as wearing my pajamas inside out and sleeping with a spoon I've kept in the freezer under my pillow. Oh, and I've flushed A LOT of ice cubes down the toilet. I hope the pipes in my house survived the ordeal...

Not that I'm superstitious, but I'm pretty sure every little bit of cosmic interference helps.

R Assassination

We're back to short stories on Fridays. What a relief. The universe has finally restored its balance.

The target was in plain sight. The lapels of his coat were turned up around his face but I could still clearly identify him from this distance. I carefully aimed the rifle from my perch atop the roof of the building.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a voice behind me.

I jumped and whirled around. My hand was already reaching towards the handgun strapped to my belt.

The speaker was a boy my age. Young. He held up his hands to show that he had no weapon. “Relax,” he said,” I’m on your side.”

I didn’t relax. “How did you find me?”

He shrugged. “Easy. This is the only building that would give you a clear shot at him.” He gestured to my target, who was all ready almost out of the range of my rifle.

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you want?”

“Well, for one, I want you not to shoot who you were just about to shoot. I also want you to listen as to why.”

“I’m being paid good money for this,” I said, “You’re going to anger a lot of very important people.”

“The thing is,” the boy said, “that I am the very important people.”

“You’re R?” I asked, incredulous.

“In the flesh.”

“Then what’s the point of hiring me to kill someone and telling me not to?”

“It was a test. I wanted to see if you were capable, and you are, so now I want you to assassinate someone else.”

I didn’t believe him. He must have miscalculated who was to blame and hired me to kill the wrong person. “Then who am I supposed to assassinate?” I asked.

“Me.”

Christmas is Creeping...

So, as I briefly mentioned in my previous post, Christmas is just around the corner.

Christmas is right beside you.

Watching.

Always...

watching.

And boy am I excited! Christmas is like, the best thing ever. Because PRESENTS.

Just kidding! Christmas is really all about friendship and kindness!

But PRESENTS.

Is it too early to bust out the Pandora Christmas radio station?

...nope.

I will now write the rest of this post while listening to the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra.

Yeah, I really like Christmas. My family does the whole decorating the tree thing and everything. Also candy canes are awesome. And PRESENTS. And snow. And Christmas music. Just Christmas.

Christmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

Morning People Strike Again

Because the musical is over my procrastination has gotten even worse.  Every time I sit down to do my homework my brain says "Hey it's only five o'clock! You got home from rehearsals at six and still managed to get your homework done. Just wait another hour..."

Well you know what brain, I don't care what you think because I want to get to bed at a decent hour tonight!

I actually went to bed at nine o'clock last night. It was glorious. I still woke up tired though, because apparently it doesn't matter how much sleep you get if you wake up at 6 am every morning.

You know who voluntarily wakes up at 6 am?

Morning people. The world wouldn't be so difficult if it wasn't run by morning people. I mean, really. 

On another note, it's like, christmas time??? When did that happen???

I do love christmas, but I swear it was August two seconds ago.

Guess I should probably start buying present for people. 

The Revival

Well would you look at that? Nina actually posted something for short story sunday. It's a miracle. Oh, and in a stunning turn of events, this story is back to creepy again!

“The money first,” the girl says. Her eyes are each a deep black abyss. The man in the trench coat hands her several crumpled hundred dollar bills.

“Half until I can see what you do,” he says. The girl nods her head. She stares down at the grave in front of her. The ground is made of freshly packed dirt and the tombstone is a shining beacon of marble-white in the moonlight. She stretches out her arm over the grave, fingers splayed. The ground stirs under her hand. For a moment nothing happens, but then white fleshy fingers claw their way out of the dirt like worms in rain. An arm follows the hands and then a face begins to emerge, caked brown with mud, eyes startled and bright under the filth.

“Where am I?” the face croaks. It’s voice sounds unused and scratchy. A woman. She tugs the rest of her body out of the grave. Her dress, once a vibrant red, is dulled by a coating of dust. The man in the trench coat tosses the remaining money at the girl and throws his arms around the woman. He buries his face in her stringy hair and holds her as she sobs against him. When the man looks back at the girl she is gone. 

When November Ends

Happy late Thanksgiving!

I went over to my grandma's house for Thanksgiving and we had turkey and all those other thanksgiving-esque foods. It was delicious.

It's also almost the end of NaNoWriMo and sadly my poor, baby, novel did not survive because of tech week.

I've also learned that writing roughly 2,000 words a day is a lot harder than it looks. It took me two whole painful hours to write that much! I have a very short attention span when it comes to writing so maybe NaNoWriMo just isn't for me.

There is, however, a Camp NaNoWriMo which is NaNoWriMo but over the summer! Maybe I'll try that.

Free Time

Closing night of the show was Saturday, and now that it's over I have no idea what to do with my life. I  actually went home today right after school ended and -get this- it was still light out! I forgot what it was like to not to go home after a late practice when it's pitch black outside.

What am I going to do with all this extra time? What did I do before the musical? Read? Watch TV? Curl up in a corner and cry about my life?

I might even be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour! Like... uh... I don't even know what a reasonable hour to go to bed is anymore. Drama has consumed all parts of my brain that stored the 'what do with free time' portion of information.

In other news, I embraced my inner nerd this weekend and watched the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special.

It was glorious.

Mugs That Multiply

Despite sacrificing several kittens to the sickness gods, I still got sick. I stayed home yesterday, but I still feel like death warmed over, only I wasn't microwaved properly and parts of me are still dead.  Mainly my brain.

Well that was a weird sentence.

Anyway, the drama club did a flash mob for Sweeney Todd during lunch, which turned out pretty well. I had to retake a bunch of tests during lunch because I missed school and ended up getting more cardio from running up and down stairs to get to different classes and the flash mob than I've probably gotten this whole week combined.

I don't like staying home from school because when get back there's twice as much work to do and it's awful. At least I got to use my Patented Cure-All System. I watched way too many disney movies and probably drank, like, ten cups of tea.

Seriously. My bedroom looks like attack of the mugs.

I'm pretty sure when I'm not looking they multiply behind my back.

I'm on to you, mugs.

I'm on to you.

Show Biz and Sacrificial Kittens

Last week was crazy hectic, to say the least. Monday through Thursday was a series of late rehearsals that rendered me incapable of speaking in anything but annoyed grunts. If I was feeling particularly chipper I could even work up a good one-syllable word or two, like 'food' or 'tired'. I'm also pretty sure I wore the same shirt backwards three times in a row.

Friday was opening night. Despite my awful luck, nothing went horribly wrong! (Things still went wrong, but nothing bad enough to cause me not to be able to show my face in school)

Saturday's show also went well. Hopefully this Friday's show will too, because that's the show that three thousand of my relatives are going to.

Three thousand being the exact count, of course.

I'm terrified I'm going to get sick because I feel a sore throat coming on. I'll have to make a sacrifice to the sickness gods to postpone it.

A couple of kittens would probably be sufficient, right?

Maybe I should throw in a baby penguin. Better safe than sorry.

Hallucination

Short story Friday has been moved to Sunday for the next few weeks due to Tech week and the upcoming show. So, please enjoy the first ever short story sunday! 

“And how are you feeling today, Lizzie?” The nurse’s eyes are warm and sympathetic. It makes the blue fabric of my clothes feel itchy.

Behind the nurse Ian rolls his eyes and does an exaggerated yawn.

“I’m okay,” I say, clenching the sheets of the hospital bed. Ian has begun to wave his arms about wildly and give the nurse bunny ears.

Of course, she doesn’t see him.

Only I can.

“Is Ian still there?” the nurse says. I can tell by her voice that she’s just humoring the crazy person with her hallucinated dead brother.

“Yes, he’s here,” I say.

Ian narrows his eyes. “If you ever want to get out of here you should stop telling them about me. Just lie and say I’m magically gone,” he says.

The nurse is staring at me expectantly and I realize that she must have said something while Ian was talking. “I’m sorry,” I say, “Can you repeat what you just said?”

“I said-“ the nurse begins but her words are cut off once again by Ian loudly singing, “I CAME IN LIKE A WREEEEEEECKING BALL!!!!”

This time I just shrug and nod my head instead of asking the nurse to repeat herself a third time. It’s easier this way, especially when Ian is in one of his more disruptive moods.

The nurse smiles. “All right. I’ll bring something up for you to eat later.”

She must have asked me if I was hungry. I wasn’t. Food just didn’t taste the same since Ian died. And then came back. More or less.

The nurse leaves, presumably to get me some food.

“I’m bored,” Ian says.

“Just leave me alone, Ian,” I say.

“Too bad.”

“Leave me alone!” I yell. I must sound like a crazy person, talking to nothing.

Ian’s eyebrows draw together. “I would if you’d let me.”

I look away.

“I can’t.”

The Perks of Getting Enough Sleep

Tech week starts tomorrow!!!! *internal screaming*

In other news, I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky a couple days ago.

I actually really liked it but then...

then end...

was...

challenging.

But no spoilers! You have to read it yourself. Or watch the movie maybe, but it's so much better to read the book first and then watch the movie because the book is almost always better than the movie and also a book is basically a movie you get to direct in your head so if you watch the movie first it's all ready directed for you.

I hope that made sense.

Probably not.

I really need to get more sleep but whenever I try to go to bed early my brain says, "Just read a bit of you're book first."

And then it'll get later and I'll decide to go to bed but my brain will say, "Now would be a great time to catch up on all the latest videos from your youtube subscribtions!"

And by then it's starting to get really late so my brain says, "Might as well just go on Tumblr for a bit then."

And next thing I know my alarm clock is going off and I'm back in full-on Dementor mode again.

It's a problem.

Expecto Patronfudhgiuagruogbkzv

Just a friendly reminder that tech week (aka hell week aka staying at school to rehearse for drama until ten o'clock at night) is coming up in the soonish region of the future, so I will not be posting anything during that time and if I do it will probably go something like 'asdguifgo so tiredhsjkfhleghulayaruhulleof' because that's about as coherent as I get during tech week.

I am a delicate creature and I need at least 8 hours of sleep to function, 10 in order to voluntarily interact with other human beings. Anything less than that and I have a striking resemblance to a dementor.

You know, those things from Harry Potter that wear dark hoods and suck out your soul and devour happiness.

Also if you try and use 'expecto patronum' on me it doesn't work, so arguably I am more dangerous without sleep than any petty dementor. 

Here Goes Nothing

Happy late Halloween, blog minions! I couldn't write on actual halloween because I was too busy pretending to be a lot younger than I actually am so that I could get more candy.

In other news, today is the second day of NaNoWriMo. I somehow managed to meet the daily word count yesterday and today but I am all ready wishing I could throw my pathetic excuse for a novel out the window.

I'm sticking with it, but I have a feeling a lot of my characters are going to suddenly develop stutters and there are going to be a lot of really weird and extensive dream sequences to up my word count. 

This is why I normally never write anything over a thousand words because I start to become moody and reclusive, and begin to plot the gruesome murder of every one of my characters.

Thankfully, I was able to kill off one of my characters really early on in the novel, so I was able to let off some steam.

I've decided to write a thriller novel about a serial killer but it's sort of boring to write at the moment, probably because I haven't quite figured out who the serial killer is and also I can't write his maniacal speech revealing everything until the very end of the novel.

Live the Fall

It's short story Friday! Yaaaaaaaay!

“I’ve never really… done this before,” I said, glancing over at Scott. His face was unreadable as usual.

“There’s and H-level gravity net,” he said, “you’re perfectly safe.” I swallowed and looked over the edge of the platform. The landing square below looked miniscule, the maintenance staff barely visible ants scrambling across it’s surface. The gravity net was invisible of course, but even the knowledge that it was there was not reassuring.

“Don’t think, just jump,” Scott advised. Easy enough for him to say. We were so high up that I could barely stand, my head dizzy with height. The sky was clear and blue, perfect weather for jumping. I stared straight ahead into the blue and walked forward, my legs shaking slightly and my breath coming out in shivers. I kept walking until I was at the very edge of the platform. It was now or never.

Spreading my arms out, I leaned forward and let myself fall off the edge. 

I immediately felt a rushing in my ears and I could have sworn I left my stomach up there at the platform above me. Wind whistled in my ears and tore at my clothes. I felt like I was floating and sinking at the same time.

When I hit the gravity net I had the weird sensation that I was falling through gel, my fall slowed down to half speed, the air thick around me.

The gravity net dropped me ten feet above the platform and I fell again at normal speed, hitting the ground awkwardly on my side. I heard a cracking sound come from my shoulder and pain shot through my arm, but none of that mattered.

I was alive. 

Well Played, Tuesday

Tuesdays are almost as bad as Mondays. Tuesdays are sort of like that day of the week that wishes they were as evil as Mondays, but never quite got there. Like, they try to instill despair into the minds of hopeless teenagers, but they just aren't as good at it as Mondays.

Somehow though, this Tuesday managed to reach the same level of evil as any Monday. I congratulate you Tuesday, on achieving your dreams. However, I would like you to go back to being significantly less awful.

Maybe it's because Friday doubled its level of awesome by being a no school day, so Tuesday felt like it had to step up its game.

Omigod, what am I even talking about.

I really need some sleep.

Or extensive time in a mental hospital.

Or both.

Klutzy Kryptonite

Not only am I a reclusive nerd with questionable social skills, but I am also a complete and total klutz.

Like, I will actually and literally walk into walls. I'll just be walking around the house, minding my own business, when WHAM wall to the face.

Of course nothing hurts as bad as stubbing my toe. It happens at least once a day, and it's ALWAYS THE SAME TOE.

Always. The. Same. One.

At this point, stubbing my toe hurts worse than a stab wound. Not that I've ever been stabbed, but let me tell you I am 100% sure stubbing my toe is more painful than any petty stab wound.

Okay, 99% sure.

Along with stubbing my toe, paper cuts are also one of those things that just hurts way worse than it should. I mean, they're maybe, what, half a centimeter long? HOW CAN SOMETHING THAT TINY HURT SO MUCH.

Maybe I just have a low pain tolerance, I don't know, but stubbing my toe and paper cuts are basically my kryptonite.

Like, I could be a super hero facing off the evil boss villain, and I would be invincible until the villain brought out a piece of paper and swiped it across my finger. Super hero me would instantly fall to the ground and the villain would win, eventually taking over the world and enslaving its inhabitants thanks to his knowledge of my fatal weakness.

Maybe I shouldn't try being a superhero...

Grey

Well would you look at that! It's Friday again! Which means short story time:

The boy sitting across from me never stops fidgeting. By now I’m so bored that I count the number of times he does each quirk. Hair tugs: 5. Knee taps: 20. Finger cracks: 3. When he moves on to twist his bracelet tightly around his wrist I give up counting and look out the bus window.

The sky outside is the color of slate. The scenery is barren except for a few scraggly half-dead trees and endless road. I still can’t tell where we’re heading. I look down at my own bracelet, identical to the fidgeter’s except for the numbers that read: 1206.

We each have our own identification number bracelet. That and the bright orange jump suits expose us for what we really are. Prisoners.

A tall man in front of me stands up, even though the bus is still moving. The guards at the front and back of the bus clutch their batons, ready to fight.

“Sit down,” says one of the guards. The hand that grips his baton is white at the knuckles.

“Actually, I’d rather not,” says the prisoner. I hear a shuffling sound and see a gun in his hands, pointed at the guard who spoke.

The guards at the back of the bus tense and begin to move slowly towards the man with the gun, not willing to risk the life of an officer.

“Stop the bus,” says one of the guards. He sounds confident, but I can here the tremor in his voice.

They’re terrified of us. Everyone is. I know what they call us.

Murderers.

It stings that the word rings with truth, but they don’t know the whole story. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

“Put the gun down,” the chief officer says through clenched teeth. The prisoner takes a moment to reply.

“You,” he says, “Are going to let everyone on this bus go, or I am going to shoot.”

I can see the movement of the officer’s throat as he swallows. His dilemma is hard. Self-preservation, or the safety of the entire country, maybe even the world?

Self-preservation wins.

“Open the doors,” he says to the bus driver. Inwardly I sigh in relief. We were lucky, getting a bus with such weak willed officers. The ones on the other buses will not be so  lucky.

One by one, we file out of the bus.

I stand under the slate sky and will myself to feel the joy of my newfound freedom.

The joy does not come.