Up To Speed

Alright- get ready for a seemingly unending assault of updates on the various facets of my life. Don't say I didn't warn you..


Today, while taking what is notoriously referred to as a mental health day (it's when you skip school because you feel like you'd rather have an unexcused absence than have to face seven periods of torture), I got quite a bit accomplished on the Harry Potter Halloween props!

I am 90% done with sculpting the head of the Nimbus 2001 broomstick for Phil, and I must say- I am doing a damn fine job on it. All that remains to do on the Nimbus, after I finish the head, is to (potentially) lacquer it, paint it shiny black, make a super aerodynamic and trimmed tail of twigs, spray paint the tail, assemble the tail clasp band, assemble and paint the faux stand, and finally do the lettering on the head of the broom. So I'm like 60% done. Honestly.

I also got Aragog up and running, so he's nearly done. I just need to devise a better system to strapping him down to the car so that I can still access the batteries, or I'll just have to keep them fresh until the day of an just strap him in place with no room to access the batteries. Complicated.

Buffy still needs a pulley and rope, but otherwise she's good to go.

I have a party scheduled for the 25th of this month where everyone will come over and make their own wands. I'm really excited, because this is usually a lot of fun! I need to start assembling and stripping down lengths of wood though, and I need to buy more colors of lacquer, more super glue, and also find appropriate winding or other handle material. I have my work cut out for me. I still need to find a play to host this thing.. whoops. I'll just figure that out when they come over.


My unhealthy Apple addiction is about to get a whole lot worse. This Tuesday (being the 14th of October, 2008), they will release a new line of updated MacBooks, MacBook Pros and so on, so forth. I keep catching myself thinking that it's Monday and that the new Macs are coming out tomorrow. It's sort of debilitating because it means that I can't focus for anything more than five minutes. Bummer. =]


I am getting, however slowly, better at composing simple melodies on these chord progressions I keep coming up with. Last week I wrote some basic Halloween inspired music and yesterday I formed a melody that I think works with it. We'll see how that turns out.


On the cooking front, I have been doing a lot of baking recently. I'm still looking for the perfect fool-proof cookie recipe, but it doesn't seem like one exists on this dimensional plane. Whatever, I mean, I can settle for making the world's best cakes; cookies can just be my kryptonite.


AP Biology is really fascinating, but it's kicking my ass. 'Nuff said.


Lights! Camera! Action! I've been really trying to find a way into the Drama department at school, without taking the class itself, mind you, and I think I've found it. See, for Pack Attack ( a sort of rally of school spirit related skits put on by each club at school), French National Honor Society decided to put on a spoof of Dora the Explorer with Napoleon Bonaparte as Dora. Needless to say, the skit that ensued was as random as it was funny. However, after the rally, the head of the Drama Department asked me when I was going to try for any parts in upcoming plays. That gave me something to think about, I'll tell you that. So, come Monday, I resolved to go to a Cattle Call, where the Drama 3 and 4 kids were holding auditions for parts they needed filled for a directing project they're doing. I got called back for 4 parts. I've only been to two callbacks and I've gotten both parts. I'm sort of loving this. I probably won't go to the other callbacks just because I can't stand to have the pressure of potentially deciding between parts (as I could only take on two, what with my hectic and rather inflexible schedule). "So that's that, and no harm done." - Cornelius Fudge


On the subject of Harry Potter, I am slowly trudging my way through the Goblet of Fire, seeing as The Scarlet Letter has consumed the majority of my reading time and mental capacities. I despise that book for what it does to my brain.


So yeah. Delivered in a rather cacophonous fashion, those are the updates thus far on the majority of the major points in my current life. Yep.

- Jonathan