WHAT IS THAT ANT DOING IN MY ROOM?!

So my cousin and I had a sleepover last night; this is the outcome of that.

Quote from him "WHAT IS THAT ANT DOING IN MY ROOM?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!"

A While Once More

Hello for the first time in ages again. Biggish news! I've started a new blog which so far I have been posting on ridiculously more regularly than this one. I haven't abandoned this blog, but I just feel my current posts are more fitting to the other one.

I may as well introduce this wonderful new blog: It's called 'I'm A Teenager, I Exist'. Crappy name I suppose, but I couldn't think of anything more suiting and less cliché at the same time. The blog is really all about how I'm spending my youth/ teenage years and why I am one of the very few that seem to be openly loving being a teenager. Oh yeah, I'm 16 now. Thought you should know. I am getting ooooold. Anyway, so far there's only 2 1/2 posts on that blog now (I'm currently writing the newest post at the same time as writing this one), so there's obviously not as much content on it as I'd desire. YET. By the time I really get kicked into it, I'm A Teenager, I Exist will have shizloads of 'what to do when bored' type posts and anecdotes on my own personal ways of time-spending.

It's a pretty different styled blog to this one, because this is really just random bits and pieces of inside my mind (Oh what a coincidence, I have a pinterest board called that: http://pinterest.com/snailonabicycle/inside-my-mind/ ) but yeah, this is just random stories of how my life's going and a few opinions here and there. Speaking of which, on my 'Opinions from a fangirl on The Hunger Games movie (and how I came to love THG)' post, I am aware that I was wrong about the muttation thing. I could've sworn there was only ONE muttation, but apparently (after re-watching and still rather disliking the movie) there's quite a few. All the same, they suck because they're nothing like the dead tributes.

Hope you're not all that bothered about me not being decent at posting on this blog, but shit's been happening with me the past few months so I had a lot of trouble getting around to things such as posting.

Please enjoy the new blog! Here it be: http://imateenageriexist.blogspot.com.au/

Opinions from a fangirl on The Hunger Games movie (and how I came to love THG)

Hello to you sir. Just in case you were unaware of this fact, I am quite an enthusiastic fangirl of the Hunger Games; well, the book series more so than the movie. I understand that this post is faaaaaar overdue considering in Australia where I live, the midnight premier of The Hunger Games movie was on the 21st of March 2012. Also, if you're new to my blog, this review will not be in the conventional sense. Just a heads up.

So here's a slight 'proof' to my fangirlism:

These are my copies of the books from the Hunger Games series, and whilst I was in France, I even bought one written in French. Obviously there are far more psychotic fangirls of THG around than myself, but this is the extent of my collection. I can't remember how many times I've read the series in English; presumably around 4 or 5, and I've read about half of the first book in French. On with the review!

Before you read this review, I suggest you read my friends review on her blog because mine is based on hers, although we have differing opinions. I saw the midnight premier with her. Here's hers: http://sourapplesnotlemons.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/hunger-games-review.html

And here's mine: (Warning: Spoiler Alert)

To start at the end, I didn't really enjoy The Hunger Games movie. This was probably due to the months (literally) of excitement and hype my friends and myself built up about it, and simply the fact that the book was so fantastically amazing that nothing could compare to it. Although in all fairness, if I hadn't read the series, I probably would have enjoyed the movie a lot more. 

I didn't think the soundtrack of the movie was all that bad, but really I didn't pay much attention to it. It had frustrating 'ding-y' music in sad moments, none or very fast music in intense moments and all the usual stuff like that. Also, I do remind you that I know quite little in the way of film and audio techniques. These opinions are simply coming from an average viewer.

My entire experience of THG began at the start very very end of 2010 when I was camping with my friend for New Years and she told me about this amazing new book her mum bought her (This was The Hunger Games). A few months after that, she had gotten Iz (from sourapplesnotlemons.blogspot.com.au ) to read it and she loved it and so began the chain of convincing myself and about 4 other friends and a few family members to read the series. By early 2011 just about all of my friends and I had read and loved the series, so when we discovered that the movie was being made of book 1, we tracked its progress the entire way through building up excitement to a ridiculous extent. I can't remember which of my friends it was, but she suggested that when the date for the midnight premier in my city was announced, we try and get tickets. Somehow or other, this responsibility landed on me. Practically all we were talking about for the week before the tickets were on sale was our trip to France (most of my friends and myself went on the school French tour and we flew out the day after the midnight premier), buying the tickets, expectations of the movie and just discussing the books in general.

I don't think you realise just how much pressure was put onto me to get these tickets the day that they came out. People were constantly yelling at me and giving me money for the tickets because I had to buy them all in one hit. The day the tickets came out was when the bad news struck. I had so many difficulties with the freaking website stuffing up that I didn't manage to get the tickets the day they came out so just about everyone intending to see the movie with me was out to kill me. All of us, including myself, were shit scared that we would miss out on the tickets because around my area, there are a lot of Hunger Games fangirls/ fanboys. But alas, the next day I tried again and WE GOT THE TICKETS!!!!  

This is the ticket/ tickets for the 7 of us that went

On the eve of the premier, myself, Iz, her sister and another friend came to my house for a 'pre-party' which was really just a get-together of getting ridiculously overly super incredibly excited. At about 11.30pm we arrived at the cinemas and met up with the other 4 of us and were amazed to see the lack of crowd. By the time the movie started, the theatre was less than half full. But still WE WERE AT THE MIDNIGHT PREMIER OF THE HUNGER GAMES ON A SCHOOL NIGHT THE DAY BEFORE MOST OF US WENT TO FRANCE!!!! It was exciting to say the least. Also, if you're wondering how we managed to go to the movies at midnight on a school night before an overseas trip, we flogged it off as being a going away party for those of us going to France :D

I'm sorry for delaying this so much; but now HERE is my review!

What I liked:

- The acting was fantastic, even for the unfortunately common bland parts of the script

- The trees in the arena were done well, especially the fire and explanation of the cameras

- The casting. More specifically the casting of Thresh, Rue, Cato, Effie, Cinna, Haymitch and Glimmer.           Those were my favourites

- The animation; especially that of the fires, whether that be in the arena or on Katniss and/ or Peeta

- The portrayal of the Capitol and training centre

- The feast scene

- Haymitch. Everything about him, I absolutely loved. Even despite the fact that he looked nothing like I had imagined him

- Parts of the very start of the Games

- CINNA!! Everything about him was more than perfect

- Katniss' backstory

- Katniss' dresses in the interviews and the initial District 12 costumes for Peeta and Katniss

What I didn't like:

- The sky of the arena. I imagined it more as an artificial but extremely realistic sky. But hey, everyone has their own interpretation

- The camera work. IT WAS SO DAMN SHAKY!!! It's like I was holding the camera. There were very few shots that I noticed where it seemed as if a jib, tripod or something like that was used

- The utter lack of development between Rue and Katniss. When Rue died (in the movie, not the book) I didn't care at all. (In the book I was very sad)

- Katniss. Yes, my least favourite thing about this movie was the main protagonist. She was just a whiny little snob (quite like me writing this). I'd say it's probably not a good thing when the audience (or maybe its just me) finds the most important character, who is supposed to be loved, to be so frustrating that a small part of me was hoping that she would not be the victor and would hopefully be killed viciously, even though I knew she had to win

- The muttation. Notice the lack of pluralism there? That's right. There is ONLY ONE MUTTATION in the Games and it looks nothing like any of the tributes. This was such an amazing detail of the ending of the Games from the book and it just made everything about the mutts so creepy and wonderful. But no. That's gone

- The shortness of Peeta and Katniss' time in the cave. This was one of my favourite parts of the book and it should have lasted for several days; but of course, in the movie it lasted for maybe one or two days and Peeta hardly seemed like he was knocking on death's door

- The depiction of President Snow. As Iz says, He looks too much like Santa. I imagined him to be more of  a creepy-looking anorexic old man with a constant duckface. Maybe if Filch from Harry Potter were a teenage girl of today. Like this:

I'm not great with photoshop. Ok?

- The scene with the berries. They didn't even go near their mouths and that was practically the trigger of the entire rebellion

- The 'cornucopia' or as I like to call it, The Squashed Clarinet. I expected it to look more like a golden version of this: 

          Imagine you were to get angry at the bell of your clarinet and you decided to attack it. This is how I think the architect of the 'cornucopia' from THG came up with the idea:

What else I can complain about from the movie:

- The story of how Katniss got the mockingjay pin. NO!!! JUST NO!!!! SHE DID NOT BUY IT (for free) AT THE HOB!!! IT WAS MADGE'S MOTHER'S WHO HAD IT AS A DISTRICT 12 TOKEN WHEN SHE DIED IN THE HUNGER GAMES!!!! I don't care if this detail is insignificant to the overall storyline! It was a fantastic 'side-story' that added so much more value to the meaning of the pin 

- Madge. More so than how Katniss actually got the pin, the fact that Madge is missing is actually quite an error because in Catching Fire (book 2), Katniss is in Madge's house and she is a relatively important character for some of these scenes. Yes, she can be introduced later, but the overall fact that she is missing really annoys me. Some people say "its only a spin off tale really. Designed to give the story a little more flesh, depth... get that out of the way" Stories need extra depth like this to just help 'make' it.

- Peeta's hair. Yes, this one's a bit petty to get upset over, but it really bothered me that Peeta was hardly blonde. A bit of a lighter shade would've been nicer, but I suppose it doesn't affect the story. At all.

That's about it for my opinions on the movie. I do still recommend that you see it; but I highly highly highly recommend that you read at least book 1 of the series before seeing the movie. It will give you a far better understanding of what's going on.

Because now I have a less psyched-up, high expectationsish view on the movie since it's been many months since it came out; I intend to see The Hunger Games again with a less hopeful view. I understad that sounds negative, but it's more fair if I don't give into the disappointment that comes with excitement sometimes.

I bid good morrow to thee

..and may the odds be ever in your favour

Wanna Procrastinate?

Hello! That's right, I'm once again procrastinating :D

Currently, at the time of beginning to write this post (I usually take quite a while to finish writing each post), it is 10.05am and I am indeed in school right now. I have a free double period at the moment because at school I study VET Music, but I'm the only year 10 in my class of 9 students. Everyone else is in year 11 which makes sense because VET subjects are year 11/12 subjects. Starting yesterday, year 11s are on renewals which is just some 3 day religious thing they have to do as my school is a catholic school. Obviously, as I said, I'm in year 10, so I don't do renewals thus I have free periods when I would usually have VET music.

In our free periods at school, probably like at any school, we're supposed to study, do homework or something along those lines. Period 1 started at 9.00am and since then, this is all the wonderful school work I have done with my study buddy, Ellie:

Arranged VET Music sheet music folder (and I still haven't finished)
Taught Ellie how to make paper cranes
Looked at 9gag
Searched for more music to listen to
Untangled earphones
Started listening to said music
Looked for photos of my walls to show Ellie (This began when making the cranes because I told her of my fabulous wall of cranes, how I'm trying to cover my wardrobe doors with stuff to do this holidays and my other epic wall)

This is the epic wall (Sorry 'bout the pictures, I don't have any of just the wall at this stage)

 These are the cranes I made (there's 84 of them) whilst watching every Heroes episode. I once again don't have a picture of the crane wall alone, but theres a pretty good depction in my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHcZGPlFxlg&feature=plcp (You should probably leave a question on it for me, just sayin')








And these here are the doors that I intend to cover with ideas









Other forms of procrastination have included:
Writing this blog post
Searching for the photos to show
and that's about it.

Really, I should be working on my personal project essay *shudder* because I've only written about 400 words and the 3000 minimum word draft is due in 2 1/2 weeks. Two of those weeks are holidays as well so I really don't want to be doing that when I could be playing Portal 2 (my new favourite game :D ). Also, I could/ should be doing my piano theory work because I always either forget to, or remember then think "Meh." or I remember and think "Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit" and try to do it whilst I wait for my lesson, then not finish.

Well, I now have 3 minutes and 27 seconds left of this double. Sigh. Time well wasted I say! Also, I forgot to blog about my trip to France from a few months ago, so I'll hopefully get that done in the holidays. Tomorrow, if you were wondering, is the last day of this semester and we have a shorter school day!! :D We finish at 2.30pm instead of 3.20pm and in most of my classes, we're just having a party which usually involves eating lots of food and listening to music, talking and/ or watching movies because it is the last time most of us are doing that particular subject or will have that teacher.

I know it's incredibly likely that I won't actually end up doing this, but I'm gonna say it anyway:
I'm going to (try) to post far more regularly, especially because it's almost Winter Holidays for me and I'm not doing anything major that will hinder my ability to post.

I apologise that this post has been quite a mish-mash of random stuff, but heres some of my plans for the holidays:

See all of my friends
Attend Friday Night Magic
Have a girly day (and get nails done properly. Woo)
Watch a shyte-load of Dr. Who
Learn the Dr. Who theme on piano
AND LOTS MORE! :D

The bell just went, so I shall cease writing this post.

Tata! DFTBA :D

HAS IT REALLY BEEN THIS LONG?!?!?!

So you may recall that sometime last year around Easter, I posted about how I was going to Bali thus having an early Easter, then carried on to show you a comic strip-like (hehe strip-like) creature about vegetarians and chocolate. If you don't recall this, heres the link to what I'm talking about:

http://snailonabicycle.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/happy-easter.html

Another post you may recall is me showing off that I speak French and seeming somewhat arrogant about that (is that implying anything about stereotypical French people?). Anyway, in this post I went on about how this year (ie. 2012) I would be going to France on a study tour/ exchange with my school. If you don't recall this one either, heres the link to what I'm talking about: 

http://snailonabicycle.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/im-broke.html

Wow I just re-read that post about being in France, and I barely even talk about it because I got distracted.

Now for the relevance of the above information:

Just about an hour ago, mother dearest walked into my room when I was in the lounge watching HIMYM, Black Books and was contemplating re-watch season 1 of The Mighty Boosh. Yes it was necessary to name drop the shows I watch. 

I'm quite territorial when in comes to anyone other than my friends going into my room, so I scowled at mum when she wasn't looking. That's right. I am THAT badass. Anyways, when she left she had a sly look upon her face and I was contemplating asking why she was in there, but instead decided to shut up and watch TV.

When I went back into my room afterwards, I turned on my light and got quiiiiiiiiite a damn fright when I saw the evil-looking yet adorable eyes of Noodles, the fantastic plush cat my Nan and Pop gave my tonight staring at me viciously from my bed. Only after I gasped I realised that it wasn't real but I WAS STILL SCARED!

This is Noodles. The name came with it by the way. In no way is Noodles even close to being better than Angel, my real cat :D 

Once I was over the initial fright of seeing Noodles staring at me, I realised that there was something white, gold and plasticy sitting on my bed. I walked closer and discovered that something had just begun:

                                                               EARLY EASTER!!!!!!!!

Pardon le sexy face.

And why??

BECAUSE I GO TO FRANCE TOMORROW!!!!!!! :D :D :D ASRKUHGKSRGN!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D ZDFHKGEARJTS!!!!!

JE SUIS TRES EXCITÉ!!!!! (Not 'aroused' for those of you who translated that incorrectly. It's 'excited')

I CAN'T BELIEVE ITS ALREADY TIME!!!! So heres whats happening with me from tomorrow until April 13th: 

Tomorrow: Leave home at 5.00pm ish. Get to the airport at 6.30pm ish. Depart at 10.30pm

Sunday: Arrive in Dubai 5.30am (not sure if Aussie, French or Emirates-ian time). Leave Dubai at some point. Arrive in Nice at 2.00pm

Monday - April 13th: Be awesome, do touristy stuff, stay with a host family, go to language school, go to a French cooking class, visit la Tour Eiffel, do more touristy stuff, learn lots of French, try to not sound like an idiot to my host family, fly home, wish I was still in France.

Heres a map Chelsea and I devised of where we're going:

Also, I discovered I can do this face

À TOUT À L'HEURE!

JE T'AIME!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

And I don't mean that in the silly American (or unfortunately what's trying to be forced elsewhere) sense. I mean that it's finally holidays and I am FREE FROM SCHOOL!!!!!!!

It's been holidays for a week actually now, and this is how I've spent my week of freedom:

Day 1 - Thursday:
Sleeping until 10.55am then waking up and realising Iz was coming over at 11.00am. Complained about having tonsillitis for the 2ND TIME IN 5 WEEKS. Got showered, dressed, etc, found Iz in my bedroom. Complained more about tonsillitis. Watched rifftrax, spoke to Iz and a few others, ate food.

Day 2 - Friday:
Slept until 7.00am. Forgot to de-set (not de-sex) my alarm. Yelled at alarm. Remembered talking hurt a tad. Slept until noon. Probably spoke to some friends all day and played a shit load of my recently discovered favourite game - Minecraft. I can't really remember.


Day 3 - Saturday:
Got woken up far too early for my liking at 9.00am. Got all dolled up. Practised piano. Played my piano concert (ON A FREAKIN' BABY GRAND!) Went to The Edge. Ate way too much. Went home. Played Minecraft. Spoke to people.

Day 4 - Sunday:
Slept till noon again. Complained a shiz-load more about tonsillitis. Went to my sister's singing concert. Became jealous of the very few (including my sister) that could sing. Tried to contain my laughter at most who could not sing and came with their own dances and sparkles. More minecraft and talking. Celebrated my tonsillitis leaving me again.

Day 5 - Monday:
Slept for a fair ol' whack of the day again. Did housework. Walked 'around the river'. Slapped people with a fish at the river. Got shiz-scared when a fisherman threw me over his shoulders. Walked home. More minecraft and talking.

Day 6 - Tuesday/ Day 7 - Today (Wednesday):

Scrounged my house for hawaiianish stuffs. Wore hawaiianish stuffs. Went to Izzy's. Played COD. Inflated balloons in the most sexual way possible. Wore a tablecloth. Claimed I was Mother Mary's lesbian sister. Hid in a kitchen with 5 other people. Jumped out at Billie and yelled "SURPRISE!!!!" after the phrase "So do you want a drink?" was uttered.
Partied like a hawaiian at a surprise party. Limbo-ed like a boss. Ate lots of food. Failed hitting a pinata.


 Continued partying. Got entrapped in my hoodie.

 

Listened to/ innterrogated a sleep-talker whilst she was asleep. I quote: Me: "Are you excited for Christmas?" Sleeptalking ruhtard: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....white hats!" Slept. Woke up at 6.30am. Didn't manage to get back to sleep. Piled pillows on sleeptalker and surprise birthday girl whilst they slept. I'm not creepy. Ate lots of bread and bbq sauce. Played COD. Ate more bread. Ate more bbq sauce. Played Mario Bros.

Day 7 - Wednesday (continued)
Went to grandparents' place. Continued teaching Pop how to use his computer. Put more songs on his iPod. Played minecraft. Ate food. Played minecraft. Ate food and played minecraft. Purchased a soap dish. Went home. Spoke some more and played some more minecraft. Uploaded to deviantart: http://snailonabicycle.deviantart.com/   Discovered some freaking awesome minecraft artworkery on deviantart: http://unskilledcheck.deviantart.com/      Wrote blog post out of pure excitement at my entertainment levels. Posted blog post.

Holidays well spent! :D 

The Party 2011

Prepare for another bland post (with some slightly 'edited' truths) because the website forum that I was actually going to post this on wont let me cos the picture is too fat and the security question thingo is lying to me. This is just a post about how my the events of my birthday party transpired.


For my party, I wanted to do something that none of my friends had seen before, and for some reason, in Australia (where I live) practically no-one has attended or even heard of a black light dance party. This was the perfect opportunity for me. To start with this, I sent out my invitations which were neon and black and said all the party details and to wear as much fluro and bright colours as possible, but I kept it a secret about the black lights so it would be an awesome surprise for everyone when they arrived.

I looked for weeks for a place to buy black lights from, but all I could source were overly-expensive black light bulbs. Eventually I came across full length fluorescent black light tubes the exact same size as the regular white lights  have in my garage. The party planning started there. 2 days before the party I cleaned out the entire garage and scrubbed the floor, covered the walls and window with black garbage bags to block out as much light as possible, put chairs around the edges of the garage and replaced the regular lights with my black lights. For an extra touch, I blu-tacked small silver stars to the ceiling, especially around the lights which gave a great sparkly effect.

I set up a food table with a black tablecloth and lots of glowing foods and drinks like fanta, mountain dew, jelly made with tonic water, and bright coloured lollies as well as fairy-bread, a chocolate fountain with fruit and marshmallows for dipping, coke, water and chips.

For the music, I created a dance playlist on my iPod and borrowed my sister's sound system which has 4 speakers and a subwoofer. I put these up on a shelf so nothing would get damaged or tampered with during the party.

When the guests arrived, I had them wait in the house and gave them a highlighter and a heap of glowsticks each and told them to draw all over themselves whilst i turned on the lights and cranked the music up, then I let them all in and we danced, ate and sung at the top of our lungs for the entire night.

It was a pretty small and simple party, but it was awesome. It was probably the best party I have ever had.