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12/28/2000 I love Christmas vacation. It's two blissful weeks of absolute nothingness. My Christmas was very nice, as usual. I always enjoy it more than Thanksgiving. Firstly, there's only the immediate family around, which is nice. I can't stand those holidays where everyone and their cousin (and sometimes second cousin) comes to celebrate. It's just too many people for me. But Christmas.. That's two weeks off and a treeful of new stuff. ^_^ Mainly what I got this year was a lot of Audrey Hepburn movies (and a book), and some clothes I picked out in a catalog. And my mother surprised me after looking through my stocking for all the little things by bringing out another bag of stuff she forgot to put in. ^_^ And one of those things was a deck of Tarot cards I asked for. Aleister Crowley's Thoth deck. The designs are absolutely gorgeous. I haven't had time to try them yet. I just put them in their new home, my favorite box - it's finished so that it looks like ivory-coated wood with gold dustings, and gold designs on the top and sides. I think my new deck will be very happy there. ^_^I sat down to write something completely different from a summary of my Christmas.. But I'll be damned if I can remember it now. ^_^ Oh well. Maybe later. Listening to: Walking Higher by Heather Nova posted 10:35 PM / post 12/20/2000 I read this on Silver's blog, and I simply had to re-post it.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record: "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those." posted 8:59 PM / post 12/11/2000 I'm so sick of English. I spent 7 and a half hours yesterday afternoon working on my research paper. End result: three pages. Three freakin' pages! After I spent all that time on notecards and articles and writing that damn thing.. Three pages. Ugh. And now I have to go find at least one more source, just so I can get something else to write about.I need to do my Christmas shopping. I have less than two weeks, and I can say right now that my dad's present will not be here in that amount of time. It has to come all the way from Britain. I think. I'm buying him a collection of the original BBC broadcasts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The price was in pounds.. So after I changed it, it was something like $45. I suppose it's worth it to finally be able to give him a Christmas present he'll like. ^_^ For my mother, another Nutcracker to add to her collection. I'd say she has about 15-20 right now. For Charlie.. I believe I'll be buying him this. Thank you so much, Candi for blogging that link. ^_^ And now back to my boring computer class work.. Listening to: Something very loud that is bleeding over from somebody else's headphones. Whatever it is, it's too loud and it sounds like crap. posted 1:51 PM / post 12/7/2000 The first semester of my final year in high school is drawing to a close.. and I still have as much homework to do now as I did before. :Þ Let's see.. Tonight, I have to write down the form, content, and.. something else of Italian, Petrarchian, and English sonnets; study for a vocabulary quiz, and read Sonnet 18 in my Lit. book. That's just English. For Government, I need to finish the eighty-something questions on 1984. In advanced computer, we're working on the website for the American Red Cross of Central Alabama. I wonder if I get volunteer hours for that... For Literature and the Community, I need to choose three songs and analyze them, writing an essay on how they illustrate teen problems today. I believe that's due sometime before we get out for Christmas.. Or maybe after, who cares. And I need to write my research paper this weekend so I can turn it in early (next Friday) for bonus points. I'm definitely going to be needing those. The research paper is on a poem by John Donne. I chose A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day, Being the Shortest Day. It's kinda sweet.. At least I like my poem.The last few weeks, I was staying after school almost every afternoon for rehearsals for our Autumn play, The Murder Room. It was very, very funny. ^_^ And I really need to get the pictures from the Cast Part developed.. Good blackmail material. ^_^ But now the play is over and I'm sad.. But auditions for the spring play are next week, so I fully expect to be going to more rehearsals soon. ^_^ The spring play is called Into the Woods. I think it's a collection of fairy tales? I'm not entirely sure.. It should be good, though. Out drama department rocks. ^_^ Anyway.. Class is almost over, so I need to go. On to Art Assistant! Woo-hoo! Can you tell I'm hyper? ^_^ posted 2:27 PM / post 12/6/2000 And another new layout. ^_^Listening to: I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan posted 7:24 PM / post |