The Daily Adventures of Mercat

I figured I should probably get around to updating this sometime, so, here we go. If you want a senior picture of me and I haven't already given you one, just ask, and ye shall recieve.

So Monday exams were not that bad...if I remember correctly it was calc and architecture. (Also, my final project for architecture, a house [which I designed to be set back from the beach on a hill/cliff] turned out pretty sweet, other than my coloring skills limited by 6 Crayola pencils of dubious shades and the siding which I should have put all at an angle instead of just the front sections. Anyway.) Tuesday was too easy; band and lit/drama/song. I miss all my classes already. So on Tuesday we were out at 11:03 and I got lunch at Taco Bell, met Lara and Kevin at Chipotle, met Katy, Pat, Christina, Kondwani and a few others at Panera, and then led them all to Delco Park where a good chunk of the senior class was engaged in the awesomeness that is beach volleyball. So I ate my two bean burritos and drank my Mountain Dew Baja Blast and played ultimate frisbee till we all decided we were too tired to play anymore. So I played volleyball for fun for awhile and then we played a few more serious games (yeah, right) and passed out invitations.

Oh, and Thang screamed fuck as loud as he could. ("that's our class president!" -Ryan Hines or Travis or someone)

All the seniors who had cars at Delco Park had their cars painted (thanks chicas!), mine included. I was sad when it started to come off in the rain yesterday, but it's still mostly there. Honestly, even though I burned my face at Delco Park that was the most fun I've had in a long time.

Wednesday I got up bright and early to conduct the Alma Mater in band. I did nothing all day (except intend to meet Rachel for thrifting, which fell through), and then went to St. Brigid's Eighth Grade Musical, Jack and the Beanstalk, which was awesome. Chris Sticka and Pat Moore should both be in drama next year. "I'm...Sprogg...James Sprogg!" Especially Sticka...he added so many hilarious lines to his part, he's a genius.

Thursday I slept in till 10 (!!!!) and did more of nothing and then met my mom at UD and bought a shirt, a hat, and a sweatshirt for next year. I also held an entertaining phone conversation with James Fu, which went something like this (about 2:00):

Fu: Let's go out to lunch!
Me: I just ate...
Fu: OK, dinner.
Me: I'm meeting my mom in about an hour for dinner and such.
Fu: An hour?! You can come and eat here, come on.
Me: Everything is out of the way...
Fu:...does that mean you're taking [unintelligible asian mumbling sounding something like shit]
Me: ...what...the fuck...
Fu: Does that mean you're...that you are defecating?!
Me: *facepalm* No, James, that means that they're too far away...because I live in the middle of nowhere...

And then I went to brass ensemble rehearsal (ouch, haven't played in a few days), and later to Domer's to watch DCI finals from last year with him and Chris. And we watched X-men 2 specials because he lost the movie DVD.

Today I got up bright and early to go the awards ceremony (all nice and panicked because of my sister), was 20 minutes later than usual and still got MY spot in the front row. Beeyotches. Lots of standing, mocking with Kevin and Lara, tenor sandwiches for Mr. Soucek, and some random award for me that I won when I had completely stopped paying attention. Which I got a pen and pencil set for, which are probably fairly expensive, except what the fuck do I do with expensive pens?! I use bic stics for crying out loud. And those G2 .05s. And my mechanical pencils have side-clickers and are .05 lead. Wtf. And I got a plaque instead of them being inscribed. =( (I'm only sad because an engraved watch is cooler. Oh, and the freaking Patriot plaque...tres cool.) Anyway, then silly senior awards, which were pretty dumb. I mean, they have most athletic and all that...what about nerdy?! Come on... Then graduation practice at the convention center. Mike situation and all that fixed for Lara and Rachel and I... it will definitely be interesting tomorrow what with me running around all over, huzzah.

So tomorrow the class of 2006 graduates (with newer, sparklier robes). =( I'm sad. I'm definitely a Patriot at heart. Plus I will miss everyone so much...all the daily seriousness (yeah, right) and inside jokes that will be no more (the black sheep! the band! the writes! the AP classes!)... I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without all these awesome people with me...I admire them all so much. Mr. Lakin apparently said that our class seemed like we were all best friends, and therefore, we weren't; and I think that's the truest thing ever. Even the people who make some bad decisions are still awesome people, and I can't think of anyone in my class who has had some sort of ridiculous, drama-filled fight that escalated into a school issue (involving the whole class or even a good majority of it).

So thank you all for all these years...four short ones...I will never forget them. I'm proud to be a Patriot. (And wear the tricorner, biznatch.)

P.S. Don't look at me during "On Eagles Wings" during mass tomorrow morning. I will be crying, I guarantee it. (They played it at my grandpa's and my grandma's funerals.

P.P.S. So in summary: even though we were excuse Tuesday I made it to Carroll every day this week. Damn stright I'm not leaving. You can't get rid of me! I'm a PATRIOT. (Long live the tricorners!)

I've been consumed in my work. I love it...

I just don't understand why all the people who should care, don't.

*sigh*

In much perkier news, my new thing for cussing is to yell "OBSCENITY!" although I have just realized the possibilities of emplying "CUSS WORD!" or "EXPLETIVE!"

Jack wants in, but I can't let him in this room, we have to isolate Spats because he might have a UTI. Poor Jackers...

As for Spatz, he's in the egg bag.


(...a plastic bag full of easter eggs. fine. ruin my fun.)

Quotes of today:
"HOMOSEXUAL!" "OBSCENITY!" "PENIS!" "VAGINA!" "PHALLUS!" "STOP SCREAMING PENIS AND VAGINA!" "PENIS!"

and "Let's do all the things YOU wanna do!" (the Ace Ventura quote in reference to a "slinky dress," lol.)

"We can't talk now but we'll talk Monday, because we all have stuff to do." (I am PROUD)



ALSO: www.freewebs.com/patsforhats

Well, I'm not in New York now, but I just got back. I'm so tired-- sleeping on tour buses is just not fun. At any rate, NY is pretty cool. But...I dunno, it's just another city. Nothing spectacular, I suppose, other than all the marquees and cool buildings. The shows and workshops were AWESOME. (Other than the vocal workshop... nothing like, "oh, hey, professional audition!" when you don't even know what's going on.) We did an improv workshop and a stage fighing workshop, both of which were excellent.

Phantom was pretty amazing. I am going to rant a little now, so beware. Lara and I are snobby bitches, but we've been listening to and studying Phantom of the Opera for the last 6-8 months, I'd say, so deal. We know fairly well what we're talking about, so we're gonna complain. Hah. At any rate, I'll just rattle off the not-so-good stuff first. The music was waaay too fast, Carlotta was not showy enough, Christine was too showy and operatic, Raoul was just...yuck (I hate Raoul anyway), and Meg had the worst vibrato I've ever heard. Mostly it was annoying because the music was too fast. Oh, and Raoul/Christine's kisses were HORRIBLE. They were the funniest things ever. "Here let me stage-kiss you and then SWING YOU AROUND IN CIRCLES FOR TOO LONG WHEEE!" Oh, the the vocals were horribly over-balanced with the pit, who wasn't loud enough, and the LYRIC CHANGES WERE SO ANNOYING. Now on to the good stuff. The scenery was GORGEOUS and the special effects were AMAZING. The guy who did all the special effects (and there are SO MANY) is a genius. I'm not going to say too much because it would ruin it all if you ever see it. Costumes were pretty sweet, too. A lot of stuff you wouldn't catch unless you read the original novel (or Susan Kay's because I think hers is faithful to the original), but having done so makes it so much more AMAZING. (Oh, and my nerd-jewelery came out really well. For those who don't know, I made a necklace and earring set modelled after the chandelier. Crystal with the correct number of beads and drops, etc. I was happy, yay.) The "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" scene was A KAJILLION times better staged than either the movie or the craptacular music video. Just for reference. And the Phantom's voice was okay... kind of over-vibrato-ed, I think, but just because the music was so rushed, or at least that's how I felt. (So the whole time afterwards Lara and I were slaphappy going around "we're snobby bitches!" and I think we really pissed off Walker and Rachel, but that's okay.)

And Lion King... GO. SEE IT. The added music (both original songs and dances in the middle of the movie numbers) aren't anything particularly memorable but OHMYGODTHECOSTUMES. I really didn't know you could use so many trap doors and special effects in one show, either. It was FANTASTIC. The costumes were just...WHOA. You absolutely HAVE to see it. The only bad part was all the little kids (talking and laughing and crying...NOT fun, thankyouverymuch) and all the times the cast comes through the audience that we didn't get because we're up on the balcony. Sux0rs. Aaaaaanyway.

So, let's see, a quick run-down of everything else. We toured Radio City Music Hall (pretty sweet), went up to the top of the Empire State building, saw Rockefeller Center (or something, I'm too tired to remember the name exactly), walked through Central Park (where a high-school band was playing in the band shell and was seriously taking as long to tune as we take for concert band class...seriously. They TUNED for about 15 minutes. WTF.)... umm... and we walked through Times Square which is basically an advertising attack on your eyes. I dunno... I'm not horribly impressed with New York in any particularly good or bad way. It's just...a city with a lot of good musicals, for me. So, overall... I had a fun time at the shows, not so much on the bus.

Also, have you seen the new Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley? yeah, Katy and I were two of about only 10 people awake at 1 AM last night watching it and here's what we learned.

Mr. Darcy= David Saliba TO A T. Go watch the movie and see for yourself, it's creepy as all getout. =^n.n^=

Also, I was kind of sad that more people didn't have the heavy accent. *pout*

So I went out and rode my bike about 40 miles today (Mmm, Young's Dairy...). Yay, I can't wait for TOSRV. However, I did manage to get in a fight with the pavement, and this is kind of how it went down (pun intended):

Squirrely Girl: *is about 8* *is riding in a perfectly straight line*
Me: Oh, yay, she knows what she's doing!
Me: Passing on your left!
Squirrely Girl: *gets squirrely*
Squirrely Girl: *moves left*
Concrete: You're goin' down, biatch.
Me: O RLY?
Ditch: YA RLY
Me: O SHT
Concrete: *is rocky*
My Elbow: *is shredded*
My Calf: *is hairless*
My feet: *are stuck in the clips*
Squirrely Girl: *is clueless*


...Yeah...My leg feels like it was exfoliated with Mount Everest. OK, it's not that bad, but, hey, I won't have to shave there for awhile.

Things I learned today: Bandaids do not hurt as much to get pulled off if you just shaved your legs. yay.

So I just want to post, no real reason. That's pretty pointless. The only thing I really feel I should talk about (though I don't really want to, because later I'll come up with a more coherent post on the same subject making this whole post quite pointless) is the fact that next year the CHS Marching Patriots will be getting new uniforms for at least part of the year. The picture of the concept drawing will be posed later when it is up on the internet.

I'm still frustrated about the Aussie hats (not tricorners), but since I've resolved to create a petition and seem to have a lot of support in this aspect, and I've convinced myself I need to calm down and try a more mature approach to do any good, there really isn't any feeling or need to rant anymore.

Just... yeah, if you have ideas for the petition, please drop some comments. I don't know if I want to create an online petition and risk having immature signatures and comments, or a physical one. Anyway, here's some notes on what I want to say, and what I have so far:

"To whom it may concern," [because it's going to Mr. Sens, too, not just the directors (meaning Edgar and Sou who made the decision without Mrs. Minge, I believe), and maybe even Fred J. Miller and Cesario (the designers... Sou and Edgar would hate me forever if I did that, haha)]

"We, the undersigned, believe that the tricorner hats are an integral part of our marching band uniforms and our school spirit."

That took me about 20 minutes to write... once I sat down to write it yesterday I drew a blank on all my rants. So. Other things I want to include:
1) The fact that we hope that by taking this approach it shows our maturity in our beliefs and our passion in the call to action to Save the Hats.
2) The fact that we are willing to do what is necessary to keep tricorners, not that we want them to find a solution, but that we want to help. This is the most integral part, I think, and I have no idea what to really say.
3)I think I may stick this at the top of the petition: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
4) Any possible solutions. Is it a matter of money? The hats themselves? It can't be physically impossible. If it seems impossible, and the hats don't seem to exist, what are the qualifications that the hats must fit? Probably plastic, sturdy, waterproof, not wool, but that's just going by the hats we have now. What are the Aussie hats made out of? What color do they want it to match the uniforms?

Any other issues or comments, please, ANYTHING, I need to do this, and I need all your help. The sooner I get this out, the sooner we can get signatures and the soon we can show them that they can't get rid of the hats, before it's too late and they order them.

It's definitely obvious that this week has been a horrible week in which I have not gotten enough sleep. Before I enumerate the reasons (and, yes, I know I am annoying probably because I complain a lot... it just seems like I usually just keep to myself but I've been trying to be more vocal in my opinions this year which has also resulted in more complaining, so I apologize)...yeah, after that tangent I forget what I was going to say. LOL.

Aaaanyway, let's start with last Friday:
1) Fri. WP practice: Tyler smacked me in the eye with a mallet. Sore, no cool bruises.
2) Weekend business already posted. Not a bad weekend but no free time.
3) Um, general hardcore stress lately. Meh.
4) Monday:
a) wake up to a nasty dream that makes me want to puke. I also want to sleep in, but I force myself to go to school. Is it Thursday yet?
b)feel sick at school all day.
c) decide to go prom dress shopping (bad idea). Mom slams hand in car door. Still no cool bruises or casts or anything.
5) Tuesday: want to sleep in, still. Jazz band.
6) Wednesday: still want to sleep in.
7) Thursday: still want to sleep in. Slam other hand between heavy broomhandle and a drafting desk, smashed my nail. Nail swelled, pressure drove me crazy. My mom put a hole in my nail with a hot paperclip to drain the blood. (Fun!) It still kind of hurts.

So, just about every day this week I have not wanted to get up. I could tell I was tired last night because I know that when I get slap happy I'm tired and I start thinking in a less logical pattern, although I must say that it's much more fun. Example of what I thought last night when I was brushing my teeth:
"Man, imagine if there were Dentist Wizards. Like Harry Potter. There'd be thousands of people running around with toothbushes saying "Gingivitis halitosis!" and stuff!"

...Roffle. It's fun to be slaphappy. There's a good chance that'll happen again tonight.

Good thing this week: Dinner with Mrs. Minge! Yay!

I love Billy Joel!
/drive by commenting

Also, now I've got an injured nail... why couldn't I get a cool injury like a black eye from the mallet or even just bruises on my hand from getting it slammed in a car door?! I guess I'll just have to make up something cool that I did to this hand.

Yeah, so I totally got my thumb bit by a rhinoceros. And it swelled up and the blood got trapped underneath the nail but the rhinocers had bit a hole in my nail so the blood drained out a little and the pressure was released a little.

Oh, did I mention this post was kind of graphic? Yeah... sorry about that. I'm a little too slaphappy to care. =^n.n^=

So I didn't realize the scores were so important to my loyal readers. (roffle.) It ended up we got second (going DOWN in score to a 90.something) to Old and Tangly, but there's still a chance to kick their arse at WGI, which we probably will. Anyway, so I have a nice shiny second place medal that's nicer than my MSBA one, haha. The only thing I'm really ticked off about is the fact that the judges must have been on crack-- the first score being so high, and the second score going down, damnit. Anyway.

So this morning I woke up from a craptacular dream and just did not want to go to school or even wake up. Yet I forced myself to anyway. I should have stayed in bed.

Boy, is it ever Monday. AutoCAD was hating it (2 computers not liking me) and I didn't feel good (I think all because of the dream... yeah, it was not fun, which is kind of funny, because I don't really have nightmares, it was just...emotional harassment, kind of.) and other things. So then I decided I wanted to get prom dress shopping overwith, and went to the mall. Bad idea, my sister came along. She pointed out dresses and complained when I didn't like them, and begged me to let her do my makeup. Jesus Christ, I'm already letting Alicia do my hair (*stabbity*), and seriously, the dresses are just SO boring/tacky. They're all pretty much solid colors with a few beads, at an exoribitant price. All the fun dresses were short, so I couldn't buy them for prom.

Oh, yeah, let me recall that I HATE DANCES. Say I buy a (cheaper) prom dress for...$100? OK, I'd rather use that money to go to King's Island (multiple tickets and even maybe FOOD or SOUVENIRS). For serious, I hate dances. FTS, dude.

And, oh yeah, to top it off, my mom shut the car door on my fingers. Tomorrow I will have three sausage-fingers. It's going to hurt.

LOL, I've been abused so much lately... my hand, Tyler smacking me in the eye with a mallet (thought I was gonna get a black eye outta that, but I didn't), etc.

Haha. All the pain but for some reason no bruises or scars, weird. =^n.n^=

Peace, love, and senioritis for school-skipping (likely I'm gonna do it this week, I feel like crap)!

(Oh, yeah, "Movin' Out" last night was pretty cool, SECOND ROW SEATS.)

So, today was MEPA Championship Prelims for Winter Percussion. I definitely thought we'd make finals tomorrow, seeing as we've pretty much been kicking everyone's butt this year.

Then we all played the worst show of the YEAR. And we all knew it. It was horrible. The pit separated from the battery tempo-wise, separated music-wise (same tempo but different places in the music?!), and we probably screwed up within sections, too. I know I had some nasty entrances with Tyler. Anyway, we were all moping and making fun of ourselves because it was so horrible. (I was kind of sad because my last show was so bad.) I was trying to convince everyone we'd barely pull finals then kick everyone's arse tomorrow with a good show and that would be our April Fool's.

So we're standing around getting our talk from Soucek (who didn't admit it was our fault, he blamed it on us needing the folks who were gone [and we were all WTF we all just told you to your face it was the worst show of our lives]) when the parents tell us they posted our score and we had a 91.8. 91.8?! Not an April Fool's trick?

No. Seriously. We got a 91.8. (Note that in WGI Nashville we got a 86.0.) From what I hear we beat Old and Tangly (Olentangy) by 1.2 and everyone else (including Centerville A).

How?! I have no idea. None whatsoever. I want to hear the judges' tapes, desperately, lol.

Seriously, though... WTF?

Yeah, this entry... I don't know what to say. You don't have to read it, I just kind of felt like I needed to say it, but to whom or why I have no idea. In fact, I'd rather not share it (don't know quite why about that either), but I am just the same.

In other news, I clipped a groundhog coming back from Domer's tonight. =( But I checked and I think I may have only hurt him or just knocked him off the road, but not killed him. =)

Anyway... ( Just something to write, something else to read and forget. EDIT: Tending towards emotional nonsense and drama, so fair warning you might not want to read it. )

I hope tomorrow goes better, because every time I think the week is going to get better it manages to smack me in the face again. To quickly enumerate why this week sucked: 1) some musicianship claims made against me that have yet to be spoken for, 2) getting another $90 stolen and nothing to do about it, 3)being bothered by several folks to marry Ty, 3) not having plans work out repeatedly, 4) injuring/killing an innocent woodland creature, 5) essentially hitting the very lowest notes of my range and finding out I pretty much can't sing all the parts I want to.

Sigh. On a lighter note, the moon is really pretty, and I can't wait to go hiking tomorrow. Also, singing alto parts down an octave was much more shocking than I expected. =^n.n^=

People wonder why I keep so busy, why I'm willing to wear myself out doing all this work (and complain about it, I know... you're allowed to hit me when I complain).

Why do I do it? Days like these. Get up at 7, be at Carroll by 8 to practice and go to the competition. There is something absolutely wonderful about seeing hundreds of people dressed up in costume who love music wandering about in the early morning light (well, fairly early). It's magical. I can't wait for drum corps. Anyway, spending an entire day with these wonderful, goofy, musical people... that's why I love it all. The people, the music, just living.

I can't wait to go hiking tomorrow, I just hope it's not too cold.