Amaranthine Forever

Today is Harry Potter's birthday! :) Happy birthday to the boy who lived. <3 I watched the first movie last night and finished the sixth book this morning. I understand why they're so popular now. They're wonderful, charming, touching, and simply magical. They are extremely well written: the characters are solid and tangible, the narration is flawless, and I wish I could read them for the rest of my life. The movie is enchanting as well. The actors are adorable and brilliantly talented, and the special effects, composition, and music(by John Williams!) sparkle too.

I say the glass is twice as full as it needs to be.

Yo! I have a lot to tell you guys and I went to a party and drank a lot of Coca Cola, and before that I read like half of Order of the Phoenix and so I don't really have the mental capacity to write my usual, well ordered, edifying, and grammatically correct paragraphs. So I will make a bulleted list. Bulleted lists are used to create the illusion of order in writing, even when the actual writing behind the bullets is completely incoherent. See, if you write a;2-afhl;ds;afjj;]][dp]daspf20g;asahdfhslafshj , people will think that your cat is dancing across the keyboard or something, but if you write: a;2-afhl;ds;afj    j;]][dp]d aspf20g;as ahdfhsl afs hj , people will think it's some sort of secret code and the problem lies with them and not you. Anyways, here's the list.  Dolores Umbridge is so weeiiiirrrd!(and evil and freaky)   I love sailing at the Newport Sea Base! There's no other feeling. Also, the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts of America are

"Amaranthine, what, exactly, what would you like to do with your life?" Well................   Errr....................   Ummm........................ What I have checked out from the library so far, a fair amount unread. I'm sorry for my pause(read: complete absence) from online activity. These days are craazy, way more than school, it seems. I owe you guys. Every day now, I go to sailing camp from about 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. I have dance on Tuesdays(3:30-4:30), Wednesdays(6:30 to 7:30) and Fridays(5:30 to 6:30) not counting makeups. I also have 1hr15 min swim practice every weekday afternoon and 6 hr. swim meets on Saturdays. I also practice an hour of piano a day, and do chinese and theory homework. On Sundays I help out/attend church starting at least 8 and often not ending till 1 in the afternoon. It's hectic. Thanks for seeing me through this. You have no idea how much you all help me. So far I have gotten over 1000 comments. I love you all

  inspired by- "When you're a kid, you have no power. You're physically small and weak, and adults are constantly telling you what to do. So it's incredibly compelling to imagine yourself not only as someone to whom exciting things happen but as someone who is more than those around you. The problem is that then you begin to grow up and realize you're just a lowly muggle. … Is it possible that all of us, weaned on these stories, end up inevitably disappointed with mundane life as it actually exists?"  — Paul Waldman , writing for The American Prospect , on why Harry Potter (and other children's books, too) may be contributing to young readers' unhappiness   I read fantasy to escape, but also to empower myself. It's easy to see why. Books take me on an instant journey to everywhere, and on days where I'm put down, frustrated, and unsuccessful, an instant escape is very tempting. Well-written fantasy books take me into the heart

because I'm going to the county fair today! eep! :D At the fair they have great food and stuff to blow your money on! Like clothes and cute shoes! I'll tell you all about it later ;) And I had two dance classes yesterday, and one the day before..and we're starting prep for fouette turns! I'm so excited! I've always wanted to do them(they're on my bucket list). Granted, it'll probably take a year+ to get perfect, since I can barely do pirouettes. >.> These are fouette turns. It's not as exciting as Qui's news(Pointe. EEP!) But it'll do. ;)

Here's my bucket list, for (life is too short not to)wear red shoes's giveaway! Stuff I want to do before I die: 1. Go to England, Ireland and Greece: 2. Be able to do foutte turns, alaseconde turns, pirouttes, and grand jete's en pointe.     3. Ride in a submarine 4. Be able to sail a boat around the ocean by myself 5.  Meet my online friends in real life: 6. Have a set of real, fiberglass clone trooper armor: 7. Be able to be JOYFUL and PATIENT in any circumstance, and to depend faithfully on God alone: 8. Meet some of my favorite writers/and famous people, including Eoin Colfer, James Patterson, and JK Rowling. Famous people: Ashley Eckstein, George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, etc. 9. Become a bestselling novelist. 10. Live the life God has planned for me:

I take back my earlier post about TOMS shoes. I don't support TOMS anymore. You might have heard about this, maybe not. Read this article and others for information. Basically, after the taping that I attended, a bunch of pro-gay/abortion online people started a petition and a bunch of flamy internet blog posts and Blake Mycoskie apologized and said that appearing on the show was a "mistake." They had a problem with Focus on the Family's traditional Christian(particularly the traditional marriage) values, and Blake Mycoskie(who is also a Christian) caved. I won't go too into this..(not a good subject to talk about on the internet) but I'm really disappointed with Mr. Mycoskie. All the persecution/criticism/name calling comes with the Christian package. You even get kudos for it in heaven. But only if you stand up to it. But no: Here's the official release: "Had I known the full extent of Focus on the Family's beliefs, I would not

Stuff happened today and I could end up not blogging for a very long time. Just sayin'.  Pray for me please. Artemis Fowl Forever, Amaranthine

I think Elanor Lawrence did a similar post on this, and I was inspired to write another one.   Read reviews for any book on goodreads or amazon, and you'll be really struck by how different different people's responses are. I've been reading reviews(for fun, heh heh) my whole life and it still shocks me. I think " Is this really the same book that they're talking about?" Some people praise and love the same aspects that other people despise. One reviewer will LOVE a character, while that same character is the bane of another reviewer's existence. A book will be devoured quickly by some readers, while others have to force themselves through the book. The bottom line is, it all depends on where the reviewer is coming from and what the reviewer was expecting when he or she picked up the book. It also depends on a reviewer's interpretation and what he or she considers "good."  I, personally, take humor, fast paced plots, dialogue, and witty n

 UPDATE: Here's a video where you can see the fire starting around 0:58 and it getting bigger and everybody evacuating. It's funny how for the first couple minutes they ignore it and let the show play blithely on. I just finished biking home from the 4th of July stadium thing. So we were planning to watch outside the gates when this guy came up and gave us free tickets. Which was schweet and all that. A couple minutes later the fireworks started, and it was awesomely explosive as always. But fast forward a couple minutes and no one was paying a blind bit of attention because there was this pretty darn big firework fire breaking out near the trees at the edge of the stadium. We were like "Umm......" >.> interesting show this year. The fireworks continued a bit after that, but no one was paying attention because we were all nervously wringing our hands and getting ready  to go. So a couple minutes after  when the fire was getting really big and catchi

So today for 4th of July we went to Newport Beach to go fishing. Newport Beach is apparently a majorly major tourist destination so the beach was full of people getting drunk and smoking and yelling and being crazy. Yeah, no better way to celebrate the country's independence than to shout obscenities and drop cigarette butts all over the beach. And I don't even live there. Now I get how Qui feels. We went to the pier I wasn't planning to fish so I just sat in my chair reading a Maximum Ride book. My brothers stuck their poles in the water and schlepped around for a couple hours occasionally re-baiting the hook or whatever you do to fishing poles. They took a break to use the bathroom, and while I was sitting there on the pier the line started jumping around. I went to look, and it looked like there was a fishy on the line so I tried to reel it in and for some reason, the handle chose that moment to stop working so I just grabbed the line with my hands and pulled

I was going to post my next God's Princess post. I was. I really was. But I feel really tired and beat up right now... I would really really like to feel like I belong with people. I smile a lot and I know a lot of people, but they all have their own friends and I end up by myself. so instead I will post this instead. Reading: Max , (Maximum Ride #5), James Patterson <33 Listening:"Atlantis Complex"(Josh Fix), "Monster"(Paramore), "Ramalama(bang bang)" Roisin Murphy Drinking:Nothing Eating: Hot dogs Anticipating: fourth of july party, finishing Max , getting the next Artemis Fowl book, planning a surprise for The Lakehouse Sisters, etc. XD Loving: the heat frying my hair so it gets all nice and tame, my online sistahs(today started out badly but it's getting better already.) Looking: At people's blogs XD at my messy room and my dead fashion sense. Look! It's the manga-fied Maximum Ride flock :) :) <33 Gazzy

You may have heard of them. They're pretty popular around where I live. When you buy a pair of shoes, they give a pair of shoes away.  It can make a lot of difference in the lives of children. Last night I attended a Focus on the Family taping with the founder Blake Mycoskie. He told a lot of stories that gave insight into the TOMS movement(Did you know that TOMS is short for "TOMORROW'S" but he couldn't fit it onto the tag?) One reason he started a for-profit organization instead of a nonprofit is so that they don't depend on people's donations and can continue to provide shoes at a reliable pace. Not many organizations focus on shoes, because people sometimes don't think shoes are important. But they are! A lot of kids in poor countries have never had a new pair of shoes. In many countries, kids need shoes to attend school! There are also a lot of cases where children's feet get infected and they die.   Mr. Blake told a story of when they went