Mad Hot Blogroom

Wow. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. 2008 is almost over. Will anyone be sad to see it go? This has sort of been a sucky year all-around.

My email is messed-up, so a lot of emails aren't going through. Lucy, I'm hoping that you got my email saying that I couldn't go to your party (my mom had surgery), but probably not. A bunch of assignments that I sent to my teachers didn't get replies, so I don't think that they went through, which majorly sucks.

Tonight, I'm sending out an email to my teachers, asking for letters of recommendation for my college applications. I'm going to add a post-script telling them to email me back for any missing homework. I mean, it's too late for them to count, but I wouldn't want to write a letter for someone who I thought did even bother to do major assignments. I'd like people to know that I did do my work... and I can just hope

Our internet is also having hissy fits. Again.

I'm going to stop bitching and make a list. (I love lists. It's sad.)

To be more cheerful and holiday-spirited, we've gotten a lot of snow and it is splendid.

Schools/ application due date/ status:
-UW (15 Jan 09)
-Oxford* (long story)
-UCLA (closed)
-USC (10 Jan. 09)
-Pomona (2 Jan. 09)**
-NYU (1 Jan. 09)**
-Barnard (1 Feb. 09)**
-Columbia (2 Jan. 09)
-Goldsmith's* (15 Jan. 09)
-Greenwich* (15 Jan. 09)
-St. Andrew's* (15 Jan. 09)
-Edinbouroug* (15 Jan. 09)
-Reed (15 Jan. 09)**
-Roehampton (???)
-Buckingham (???)

Total: 15 schools; 5 with UCAS, 4 with Gen. App.

*UCAS application (British general application)
**American general application

I knew it.


I'm Cora.
Take Which Lock and Key Character Are You? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.</p>

*faints*

I'm trying to research my family history, with little success. I did find death records for both my grandfathers, which is a bit morbid. Also, I knew all that already (though I didn't have their social security numbers). Maternal grandfather. Paternal grandfather. As you can see, they both had a thing for putting the number nine in their important dates.

I am really weak and stressed out. I went to school last week from Wed-Fri, but left each day at about 2:00, because by that time all my energy is completely zapped.

I'm only vaguely aware of stuff going on around me. Like, was Artragious yesterday? Wasn't there a dance recently? Is today Mother's Day?

Actually, I'm at my Dad's this weekend, so we're celebrating Mother's Day next week.

And I did manage to go to the One Acts, which I will give their own post.

My parents really want me to drop classes, and I've been resisting thus far, but I may have to buckle. My parents want me to just keep the core classes (Humanities, Pre-Cal, Chem), and drop the extras (Actor's Studio, Stagecraft, Video, Health). I want to keep Video, but I may aquiest to the other demands. Intellectually, I feel certain that I can make up nearly a whole semester of work in two weeks, but physically I may not be up to it.

I mean, I find myself wishing that I could be homeschooled. I would still do all my work, but I would't have to leave the house. When you come right down to it, it's just weird to try to reconcile a determination to do all my schoolwork with a desperation to never have to get dressed and go out.

I woke up at 2:00 PM and I'm already feeling like I'm about to collapse. And I've been sitting down all day.

God, I'm miserable. *pity party*

Went to the doctor's (psychiatrist, not GP) again today. She thinks that I have serotonin syndrome, which actually makes sense. I'm too tired to explain, but basically my new med (bupropion) can screw up the liver, meaning that I ended up with the equivilant of 160 mg of fluoxitine in my body, instead of the maximum dose of 80 mg that a person is allowed to have (and what I'm on). This is a really obscure explanation, but I'm tired.

Having begun developing the serotonin syndrome at the same time that I was coming down with the flu (which I still had a fairly bad bought of), I just assumed that I only had one illness, or else an infection following a mild virus.

It just takes time for the serotonin syndrome to go away. I'm decreasing my daily intake of fluoxitine by 20 mg, but that won't actually begin to affect my body until about a week after school gets out (so I get to finish up this year still feeling slightley merde). It's better than having panic disorder, though, which would have followed me my whole life and come upon me at any moment, without warning. For me the serotonin syndrome mostly seems to be a lot like panic attacks, so I have some mild (well, considering that each small tablet is 0.25 mg, maybe the drug itself shouldn't be called mild) tranquilizers that they give people who are prone to panic attacks, just to have around if I need them.

All I can say it... whoo. I'm glad we're starting to get things figured out (and that we caught the serotonin syndrome now, as apparently most people aren't diagnosed with it until they're in the ICU). I still have to explain it to my teachers, and decide whether I want to do another update on my stupid MySpace to let people know how I am, but... most of them should be in school, right?

PS: Ready for prettifulness? Behold... the Twilight poster!

I am up this late because I'm researching my health woes. My theory now is that I have Panic Disorder. I've been trying to find a phsyical illness that explains my symptoms (most of those list at the link, especially hot flashes, chest pain, and shortness of breath), but I should have been looking at illnesses where symptoms are manifested as a physical response to how one is mentally feeling, and not the other way around.

I'm actually really hoping that this is what's wrong with me. I mean, it's clearly not asthma, which the doctor diagnosed because he couldn't think of anything else; if it were, the albuterol inhaler would actually work, instead of just giving me the jittery side-effect.

If my theory is correct, I have been mislead by other illnesses. I had a slight cold a few weeks ago (why I first started staying home ill), and so I assumed that whatever I still have was related. Rather, I think that it is Panic Disorder, which never occured to me because I have never recognized myself to have had a panic attack (though as panic attacks can last only a minute, and I already have clinical depression and OCD-- both of which are right up the alley of Panic Disorder). Also, because I had pneumonia last fall, and my lungs haven't ever regained the strength that they had before I fell ill, I assumed that the shortness of breath was pneumonia, and even after X-rays proved this to be untrue I didn't think to switch the track of my thoughts away from respatory illnesses.

The ony problem is that having just spent several hours scouring the web, I don't know if I'll be able to get back to sleep. Even though I have school today (the thought of which makes me feel even more anxious, which in turn supports the panic theory). I actually only started doing this because I work up at about 1:00 AM (having gone to be at 9:30 PM and fallen asleep at about 11:30 PM) and couldn't get back to sleep. Because it is really have to sleep when one is nervious and can feel heat radiating away from one's body.

There is a short teaser online for Twilight. It looks nothing like the the way I imagined things in the books, but I was expecting that. It's the same thing that happened with the Harry Potter movies, LOTR, I Capture the Castle, and any other literary adaptation. I've managed to love them, so I hope to be able to love the Twilight movie too. Even though Bella appears to be living in Cameron's house from Ferris Bueller.

I'm making some progress. I acutally made it all the way to Pacific on Friday, before having to turn back and go home. It's not as good as actually going to school, but at this point it feels like a victory. I made it downtown again this afternoon, and spent about an hour out of the house, at the library. I got a big pile of books, and though I managed to drop them on the floor, that was due to my natural lack of grace and not my weakness.

It's funny, though. I was thinking about it at the library, how I try so hard not to show pain, weakness, etc. I strolled about the library as nonchalently as I could, feeling pretty secure that as no one knew me, they wouldn't know that I'm not always white as a sheet and lethargic in my movements, and that no one was paying enough attention to me to realize that I was sitting down at a reading table or computer station every five steps.

I don't know what the reason for this is, but I suspect that it is a biological defense mechanism. Don't show yourself to be less strong than the rest of the herd, or else the wolves will go for you first.

For all these steps forward, however, I've had to retrench some. I didn't take the SAT this morning. The only chance that I have left to take the SAT before the fall in June 7th. I have to get better. I mean, I've already had to cancel taking the SAT in March and May, both times because I was too sick.

And having gone out today has taken its toll, too. I'm beginning to wonder if the radiologist looked at the wrong X-rays, last week. I mean, the inhaler does nothing, and I've started to cough up mucus today, which is not a normal symptom of asthema, is it?

Still, I tell myself that the most important thing is that I've alive.

Also, have any of you seen the trailer for the new Brideshead Revisited? I was expecting it to be horrible and a complete bastardization of the story, but it actually looks really, really great. Even if it's not a good verson of Brideshead Revisited, it looks as if it will be a good movie.

Edit: I told my mom about the switched X-ray theory, and she was scornful. She suggests that I just have bronchitis. Which would actually be better than asthema in that it would eventually go away, I guess.

I just found out that India died this Saturday. My God. I am so, so sorry, and I know that that doesn't actually help anyone, but it's one of the few things that I can think to say. That and shit!. It's just... it's wrong. It's not just that it's unexpected, it's cruel.

She was in my year at SOTA. I talked to her last week, and then she died a few days later. It's just... God. She was nice. She was young. It's not fair that people who are kind and have their whole lives ahead of them die young, and yet there are old Nazis out there wearing fuzzy slippers and living normal, everyday lives.

She just got back from the India trip. During WASL week, when everyone from the India trip was still on the other side of the world, and someone would take attendance at that Junior seminar thing, half room would respond when India's name was called, because everyone wanted to say "India's in India."

I hate it that something like this has to happen to put things in perspective for me. I really need to stop bitching about minor things that bug me.

All I can say is that I'm so sorry for her friends and family. Rest in peace, India.

I've brought you guys a few random links by way of appology for not being online in... six zillion years, has it been? Feels like that.

The bottom line is that I'm sick. Again. I'm going in to the doctor tomorrow (later today) because, while my cough is not too severe, I'm short of breath. By which I mean that if I decide to get dressed, I have to sit down and catch my breath after getting a shirt out of my bureau, and then rest even longer after hunting for the deoderant, and then even if I sit down to put the shirt on, my head is still spinning.

So you can see why I'm not in school. That, and I've had a permanent fever of >99 degrees F since last Thursday (or whenever it was the it first occured to me to check my temperature). The thing is, of course, that I've already missed more school this year than all the rest of my years at school put together. First I nearly die of pneumonia in September, then my anti-depressants wig out in February, and now it's April and the pneumonia seems to be coming back.

Honestly, why couldn't I get an illness that's easier to spell?

Having missed so much school, though, I feel really, REALLY guilty. Rationally, I know that while my medical issues are argueably my fault (faults?) in that they are problems with my body, I did not will them to be so. It's not like I'm trying to get out of school.

But, as I said, I feel really, really bad about it. As if I'm distaining my education and disrespecting my teachers whom I like. Why couldn't I have mean, narrow-minded teachers whom I'd enjoy annoying?

And why did the year that I'm out so much sick HAVE TO BE MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL? This is the one that matters. That colleges will look at and judge me by.

I really need to be there for 5th period (first of the day, pour les personnes du Stadium). Brianna and I are doing a scene and we need to be able to do a run-through for the class to critique, as we present on Thursday.

It would help if I could sleep, but because of the fever I feel as if I'm stranded in the Gobi desert at noon. Which makes it hard to rest.

I'm too sick to do anything productive (mostly, I sleep). I've managed to do a few little things for Humanities and to read a short story by Dickens (I thought it would improve my mind), but that's it.

So I'm currently entrenched on my bed, with a mass of blankets that I don't need (and which Sirius usually just balls into a nest-- it's unusual that I don't have a dog sleeping on the end side whole middle of my bed. I also have a box of tissues, a few cleans cloths (folded, but I don't have the energy to move them across the room), and lots of books-- mostly handback YA novels, but also including a bound copy of the complete Shakespeare and SAT prep books... oh, did I not menion that bit? Being too sick to take the SATs on my first scheduled date (1 April), I was re-scheduled for 3 May. I'm going to have to get another date now, too, which will cost another $20.00.

And it's not just my personal (acedemic, actually-- the social life I just put on hold, as you will have noticed, and again I appoloize for not putting y'all higher on my priority list) life that's messed up. The outside world is, too.

For example, gay people of the world, at their last collective group meeting, decided to seduce the poor innocent youth of America into following their agenda... that is, to not thinking that homosexuality is not normal. And they're doing it through soap operas. Damn them! Is nothing sacred? Everyone knows that adolescents today are addicted to their soaps. I mean, what are they expected to be doing in the middle of a weekday, if not watching television and patterning their lives after the example shown in shiny, shiny pixels? Oh, poor sweet American teenagers, why are they hurting you?

Hey... wait a minute... I'm part of the imperiled demographic. I don't feel a bit different, even though I've now watched all the You Tube clips that I could find on ATWT's Nuke, which I hadn't even heard of until people started complaining about the scandelous "open-mouthed kisses" therein. Thanks, League of We Have Tridents Up Our Arses and We Will Squash Any Signs of Diversity or Intellect Shown in Our Kids (or whatever you people call yourselves these days... oh, it's the American Family Association? Like a soap plot where two of the characters are gay and their families don't understand and want them to conform? Okay... I can remember that.)

Anyway, here are your links. Thanks for putting up with my feverish complaints. (As Lady Bracknell so wisely put it, "Ignorance is like a delicate flower; touch it, and the bloom is gone.")

Pride and Prejudice, a thriller about a man obsessed. And as a horror movie.

Hamlet with all dudes (totally historically accurate!).


N.B. Have any of you been hiding the fact that you're a millionaire? We could get another movie about Oscar Wilde, if you are. (Incidentally, the article writer completely forgot that Everett was in "The Importance of Being Earnest," which was based on a way better play than "An Ideal Husband".)

(See how clever I am? I tied in an Oscar Wilde quote, a story about people freaking out over other people making life-style choices different from their own-- Oscar knows what I'm talking about, and then a story about a potential Oscar Wilde biopic. And, admit it, when you first started reading, you didn't imagine that there would be anything in this post about dead Irish wits, did you? Did Shaw?)

Just as I started to calm down about Twilight and gather my strength for A Great and Terrible Beauty, I get word that I now have Sabriel to worry about, too.

Why must all my favorite fantasy novels be made into movies? Drat you, Hollywood! Draaaaaaaaaaaaat yoooooooooooooooou!

I was thinking about it, and I realized that a lot of actors from seperate Jane Austen adaptations have appeared together, or had relationships in real life, or just been in more than one Jane film. So I've made a random list.

1 Not content with the women in Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby sneaks into Pride and Prejudice in the hopes of capturing Elizabeth Bennet as she wears some of her mother's hand-me-downs. (Pic actually from The Duchess)

2 One would expect Lizzy to know better than to be fooled, but she does seem to have forgotten that Wickham is a bad man. (Actors in real life, dressed as SOTA students)

3 In cross-over news, Elinor Dashwood is going to marry Edmund Bertram. ("...we might steal the costumes and have a Regency wedding")

4 Fanny Price retaliated by marrying the bloke who wanted to marry Jane Austen herself (in Becoming Jane)

5 Elinor, apparently as foolish as Lizzy, then married Willoughby (again, actors in real life)

6 While all this was going on, no one noticed that Mrs Elton is actually Mrs Hurst with a Bristol accent

7 Jane Fairfax is really Jane Austen, Jane's mother is Mrs Bates-- who is mother to Elinor and Mary Musgrove (AKA Miss Bates), Mrs Weston is Jane's sister, Jane's brother works at Netherfield, and Jane almost married Mr Rushworth, who is Mr Bennet in fanfiction. (All in Becoming Jane together)

8 In more news, Mrs Allan in Fanny Price.

9 Henrietta Musgrove is Anne de Bourgh.

10 And Miss Bingley is closely related to Jane herself (in real life)

There are more, but I'll stop at ten, because I really do have more important things to do.

N.B. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth having dated doesn't make the list, as their characters (Lizzy and Darcy, respectively) were involved in canon, too. Likewise, an older Fanny and Edmund being in Amazing Grace together does not count.

I'm blogging because I'm a horrible person, and actually should be doing loads of schoolwork. But it can wait, because I know that you are all absolutely wild to hear about my Spring Break adventures looking at universties.

I went to New York first. I wasn't too impressed by Columbia, but I adored Barnard, because I have a thing for small schools (case in point: hated Stadium, love SOTA). NYU is really big, too, but the Gallatin choose your own adventure create your own major sounds awesome. The admissions guy told us about a student who got his BA in Evil. Honestly. He studied it from all apsects-- in literature and history, psychology, etc. I'm just trying to think of anything that cool to major in.

As for California, UCLA was terrifying. My dad went there, and it's in a great neighborhood (sandwiched between Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and Brentwood-- I kid you not). But the campus is just so big, and it was milling with thousands of people. It was like being in an anthill. Sure, the grounds are pretty and all, but I don't like be lost in a crowd. Still, they do have twenty-five libraries. USC has about the same number of students as UCLA, but the campus is about one quarter the size. This should have made it feel really cramped, but it wasn't. It wasn't a stunning campus, but it appealed to me. Pomona was awesome. I was worried that my dad would be against it, because he loved UCLA and wasn't too impressed with USC (nevermind that he attended the former and that the two schools are "rivals," like Oxbridge without the Thames to punt on). He really like to whole Clairmont College thing, which was a relief. Anyway, Pomona is amazing; it's small and, like Barnard, reminded me of SOTA. Both unis are very small and artsy, really into having good achedemics, but also into making sure that students feel comfortable. Pomona even has foreign language immersion dorms. I talk so much that I would have to pick up another language. You can't speak English in them and I have way too much fun articulating my opinions to just shut up.

I like New York better than LA, as the cities go. I have family in LA, though, and so everyone is rooting for the West Coast. My 94 year old grandmother even put in her two cents that I should be in California, near family. I do have relations in Buffalo-- which is, at least, in the same state as Manhatten-- but I don't think that I've talked to anyone since my grandfather's funeral (and even then the grown ups mostly just talked in low voices amoungst themselves-- I was about eight and terribly bored and even more guilty than I was bored because I was bored). The only other person under 30 at the funeral, as far as I know, was my little brother, so there really was no conversation to be had. Occasioanly someone would swoop down and introduce me (again) to an Aunt Esther or Cousin Janet or Uncle Morris. There are multible Esthers, Janets, and Morrises on that side of the family, and all old people looked alike at that point in my life (though this is mislead you, because my Aunt Janet was only about 40 at the time, and always seems very young, and one of Morrises ha just died, which was why we were at his funeral). In any case, I mostly just remember small vignettes from that week: sitting on hard, uncomfortable chairs while the service went on in Hebrew (my education in ancient languages being nonexistant at this time except for maybe a Latin word from a Harry Potter book) and trying to be still and patient and quiet, because anything else would be disrespectful. I remember this as something that I just knew, what with my blue blood and impeccable breeding (laugh and I'll take it as an insult to my family AND THEN IT WILL BE PISTOLS AT DAWN, AND YOU'RE PAYING FOR THE DUEL DOCTOR WHO HOVERS INEFFECTIVELY AND WAITS TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS: DEAD OR NOT DEAD YET). Probably I had been drilled for hours as to how to behave, but I don't recall this.

Back to university, because I was actually trying to blog about my observations in that department, not at a funeral a decade ago. My first choice is still Oxford (even though it is rather a large school-- at least the individual colleges are small). My second choice is Bardard, and my third is Pomona. So you can see why I really should be doing my schoolwork.

I really feel that I should post something intelligent, but I can't think of anything.

I'm going to New York tomorrow (for about a week) and then flying to LA (for about a week) the day that I get back. Got to love SOTA's two week spring break. Of course, my mom and I didn't realize that we would be arriving in New York on Easter and my father's birthday, so we're all going out to breakfast tomorrow to celebrate Christ being risen and then my brother and I will do something for Dad's birthday when we're in California. BTW, am I the only one who hears the theme from The OC's intro ("Califooooooooooooooooooornia!") every time I type that word?

Why do people say "Christ is risen"? I've never understood that. Why not "has"? Is the idea that he's just so holy that he confounds the rules of grammar?

Honestly, I don't have anything against Easter or Jesus. I just get pithy around this time of year because all of America insists on broadcasting nationwide its complete ignorance of history. Bunnies and eggs are not symbols of Easter because the Apostles thought that they were cute (though I must say that I admire South Park's theory that St Peter was, in fact, Peter Rabbit). Easter comes from a celebration of the goddess Ishtar, and the eggs and rabbits are fertility symbols. The Christians, historically, just had the habit of wandering up to other religious groups and going "Oh, hey, you're celebrating something next week? Funny thing, so are we! How about we celebrate together?" And so, slowly, Christianity became more and more popular.

OMGWTFLYDIA!

The god of literary adaptations is being merciful. The "Twilight" cast is shaping up to be... not crap. I'm as amazed as you are. The casting reminds me of Harry Potter-- none of the actors look anything like the characters as I imagined them, but the cast somehow works, put together. It's hard to explain. Also, neither could find a sufficently pretty girl to play the beautiful semi-human blonde (Fleur or Rosalie*).

In other news, Dakota Fanning wouldn't shave her head for a role (fool-- I'd shave my head for community theatre if they asked me, and she won't do it for a Hollywood feature film), so she and Elle Fanning were kicked out of "My Sister's Keeper." They were then replaced by Abigail Breslin and Sophia Something (AKA "Eloise" to Julie Andrew's "Nanny," years ago). Even if A and S are dreadful, they are still the right age for the characters and have the added advantage of not being the Fanning sisters.

*It should be noted that I am never happy with the casting of "the beauty" in any film based on a story I know. Arwen isn't pretty enough, either. Why couldn't they cast a real elf, I ask you?

Edit: The Cullens. All rather average looking, but if they can convince me that none of them are wearing bad wigs and that Robert Pattison is Edward Cullen, not Cedric Diggory, I tell myself that I shall be happy.

Unwell. Did I mention that? I missed school today and yesterday.

Right now, I'm studying math as if I actually like the subject. I get to take my first SATs at the end of the month, you see.

Get to hike up to 1818 tomorrow, for even more schedule changes. Yippee.

If I could think of anything more interesting to post, I would. But I can't, so you must be content with this.

I'll write more when I'm not likely to rant (again) about Kristen Stewart being cast as Bella Swan. Though I really like Jessie Cave as Lavender Brown, it doesn't even out; getting Bella wrong is like getting Harry wrong.

The "Twilight" movie is totally going to end up like the "Blood and Chocolate" one. *sighs* At least, no one remembers the latter. It's almost as if it were never made, right?


Which Sarah Dessen Character Are You?

There's a memorial service for Bekka, this weekend, but I'm not going. It would just be weird. Goodbye, Bekka. I'm sorry.

*a moment of silence*

And, then...

Fucking Farmer's Insurance just "teriminated" my mother's car insurance, because they got wind that there was another lisenced driver in the household (me) using the car on her insurance. Except that when my mom's insurance agent called her, a few days ago, to confirm that I have not yet gotten my lisence (or even attempted the stupid test), she clearly told them that I do not, in fact, have a lisence.

The world is so full of bullshit. If the smell hasn't already killed God, then he's sure-as-Hell hovering around up there with an ineffible clothes-pin over his nose, wishing that he hadn't promised Noah never to send another giant flood, and trying to decide whether the Earth would be better ended in ice or in fire, and yelling "Jesus, polish your flaming sword already-- the end is nigh!"

And the angels are ghosting about as-if on eggshells, trying not to make a sound, even though God theoretically invented ears, and so has better ones thay anyone else, except that it He invented them, how does He have any Himself? What came before the creation of the universe? If some god made us, who in the name of all philosophy created Him (or Her, or It, or Them)?