I'm back from my second European adventure of the year! I had a totally amazing time, and it was definitely worth the money. My Austrian and I got along great, the country was BEAUTIFUL, and I really got to do some awesome things. I'm going to try and condense every day down to a few sentences, both for everyone that's interested and for myself, to remember. I'll make a separate post with some pictures (I took over 500) later.


( Don't mocktopus me. )

I'm finally, finally, FINALLY leaving for Austria tomorrow! OMG, I am so excited, I have waited more than a year for this day and now it's finally here! My exchange partner and I have been e-mailing and she seems really excited for me to come, so I am really optimistic about everything :)

Due to the time changes, though, we're going to be in transit for over a day :/ We leave Newark at 6 pm (hopefully) and layover in Paris for five hours before flying out to Vienna. Then we have a 2-hour bus ride from Vienna to Graz, where our exchange students live. We're there for about 9 or 10 days, and then we go to Prague for the remainder of our trip. In between we're taking trips to Salzburg, Vienna, and possibly (fingers crossed!) Croatia, where my girl and her parents are originally from and where they own like three houses.

Doing the whole plane-and-bus-ride thing is basically what I did when I went to England, so for some reason it makes me happy. I feel like an old pro at it, even though I won't have to deal with catching the bus by myself in a foreign country this time.

( Story I never told about my first adventure alone and abroad! )

Anyway, I am so ready to go. My whirlwind European tour continues from where it was put on hiatus in November!

I will see everyone in mid-July! Hearts to you all <3

I graduated high school, and sadly, even after two years of being ranked number 2 in my class, I was bumped down to number 3 just two days before the actual graduation. It sucked pretty hard, but in the end, all the salutatorian gets to do is make a speech and get a certificate. I quote what I said to someone I'm talking to on Facebook who will go to SLC as well: "Whatever, I'm done with this bullshit, let's go to Sarah Lawrence!"

I got the English Award (highest overall average in English) and two $1,000 scholarships, which was nice :)

( I originally wasn't going to go to Project Graduation afterwards... )

( OH! )

I bruised my tailbone, so in certain kinds of seats/positions it's uncomfortable/painful to sit down. I'm really worried it won't feel better in time for the freaking 8 hour flight to Austria on Wednesday :(

One more thing! Apparently Maggie Grace hinted that Shannon would be coming back to "Lost" for the sixth season!!! What this means I don't know, because knowing "Lost," she could be an apparition, a dream, a flashback, or they could have blown up the bomb and reset the clock and she'll be back in the Sydney airport with Boone calling security on Sayid. All I know is, the only connection she really had with another character (that's still alive, anyway), is Sayid.

Just saying.

I was in a couple-y kind of mood, so I did four drabbles, one each for my four OTPs.


( I. Maturity, Shannon/Sayid, Lost )

( II. Leverage, Gojyo/Hakkai, Saiyuki )

( III. Shots, Brian/Justin, Queer as Folk )

( IV. Appointments, Luka/Abby, ER )

Unsurprisingly, the first and the last are my favorites :) All are exactly 100 words.

UGH, it won't stop! I watched all the way through season 4 on Lost, have now officially seen virtually every episode (I skipped the one where Jack banged Bai Ling and the one with Nikki and Paulo because apparently they were the worst two in history), and I'm still in love with it!

More specifically, still in love with Shannon/Sayid, which is so completely stupid because she died six episodes into season 2. There's nothing to be in love with except for a handful of episodes, most of which they have very little screentime together in! This is ridiculous. Make it stop.

And yet...

So yesterday me and my brother went to NYC for the Decemberists concert!!

We left around 12 because I was home early due to not having finals. We took the train to Penn Station and got in around 2, grabbed MetroPasses for the day, and got a subway up to Morningside Heights. We wandered around the Columbia campus for a while (he's going to med school there next year) and then decided food was in order, so we got back on the subway and went to Zabar's on the Upper West Side.

We got frozen yogurt (although I think it was really ice cream, it didn't taste at all like frozen yogurt) and because we're both kind of in love with Gossip Girl, we thought we'd cut through Central Park and over to the Upper East Side. That took some time, as Central Park is essentially a forest in the middle of the city, albeit with nice paths. We reached a big lake by the boathouse eventually and camped out for a bit, and then started walking down 5th Avenue, toward 59th Street and Tiffany and Co.

Everyone in my real life knows I'm obsessed with Burberry because I bought a knockoff scarf of theirs on Ebay that I didn't realize was a knockoff when I bought it, and now I'm determined to get the real thing but it's really expensive and blah blah. When Josh and I were in England we went into the Burberry section of Harrods and it was omfgamazing. So naturally I couldn't pass up the Burberry store on 5th Ave.

We went in there for a bit, felt totally out of place, and then we went into Tiffany's, where we browsed around the sterling silver floor (much more affordable than the diamonds on the first floor). Still couldn't buy anything, but being surrounded by all that fabulous jewelry was still fun.

Then we walked all the way the hell down to 42nd Street (loooong blocks) to get to Grand Central and the subway, which we took to the Village for dinner. After dinner we grabbed frozen yogurt (for real this time! same cost and half the size as the Zabar's though) at Red Mango (Pinkberry's arch nemesis) and then we took the number 2 subway up to Radio City for the concert.

We had 2nd mezzanine seats, but it wasn't too too bad because we were second row. Some British band called Venus 3 or something opened, and they were all right. The Decemberists came on around 8:40 or so and they ran through all of "The Hazards of Love" first. I bought the disc and wasn't a really big fan of it, so during that I wasn't really so into it. The lights were spectacular, but the music just isn't very singable or like the other songs that I love The Decemberists for.

After they finished "Hazards" they went off for maybe 15 minutes, and then they came back on and did a set of their regular stuff, which was exactly what we came to hear, and it was awesome. I knew "July, July!," "O Valencia," "The Chimbley Sweep," "Billy Liar," and "Sons and Daughters," but they played a few other ones that were new.

Thankfully all were good and the lead singer, Colin, was extremely friendly and very engaging with the crowd. For the end of "Billy Liar," he split up the different sections to sing chorus, and the entire place was instructed to sing the refrain of "Sons and Daughters" while the band played.

And then we came back home and it was 2 in the morning before I got to go to bed. And then I skipped first period but went in for second because I had a stupid health test to take. *headdesk*

Overall, it was quite awesome! The most ironic thing of all is that when camelhaircoat and I go back to Radio City in August for Tori Amos, we'll basically be in the exact same seats.

I am so loving Weeds and Lost right now. I haven't been so into TV in a really long time, not since we first started watching Queer as Folk, so it's fun and exciting :) I don't plan on getting into the fandom of either, but just watching and and enjoying the shows is tremendous.

With Lost, it's kind of weird, because while I watched season five live with everyone else, I watched seasons three and four online because I'd never seen them before. Season three kind of blew, but the second part of "Through the Looking Glass", when Charlie died? I totally cried. And I knew it was going to happen! I'd seen the screencaps and everything! It was just so sad D:

( Brief thoughts on Lost, spanning through seasons 3-5: )

With Weeds, we just started renting it and watched the first three seasons on DVD in the span of about a month and a half. LOVE it. The fourth season is coming out Tuesday and I cannot wait for it.

( Brief thoughts on Weeds, spanning through seasons 1-3: )

Stolen from secretsolitaire:

List three characters from ten favorite books. The challenge is to guess what the books are. Comments screened.

1. Scribble, Desdemona, Mandy
2. Burns, Rochester, Blanche
3. Door, Islington, Croup
4. Fern, Fenno, Lillian
5. Lan, Nynaeve, Min
6. Valentine, Alessa, Malia
7. Rhia, Branwen, Hallia
8. Blackthorne, Mariko, Toranaga
9. Jim, Lena, Wick
10. Corrine, Marianne, Judson

Sayid!!

Oh, baby. BABY. I knew they had it in for you this season, what with the virtually nothing you had to do. But to torturously tease that you may or may not die, to have Jack running around and doing nothing to try and patch you up, and to end with that line? That self-hating "It doesn't matter if I survive"?

OF COURSE IT MATTERS.

Please, Darlton, PLEASE explode the damn bomb and save my beloved. Or, at the very least, don't explode the damn bomb, and save him anyway. Or give him a Shannon vision, a la Locke's Boone vision in that season three episode.

Over and out.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--"Ulysses," Alfred Lord Tennyson

National Poetry Month, week three.

(One poem I liked from AP English for every week of April.)


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.


Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"

National Poetry Month: Week Two

(One poem I liked from AP English for every week of April.)


Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--"Those Winter Sundays," Robert Hayden

National Poetry Month: Week One

(One poem that I liked from AP for every week of National Poetry Month.)


I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

--"Design," Robert Frost

Finally we read another book in AP English that I loved. The last one was Jane Eyre, which was the very first book we read, back in September.

( End of APs ramble. )

My school just instituted a "seniors with As as their final grades don't have to take finals" policy, so I have no finals this week, luckily. I'm also going to have a lot of free reading time on my hands for the rest of the school year, so can anyone reccomend any good books? I got a Joyce Carol Oates one for now and I want to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but otherwise I'm kind of clueless. I like new fiction, mostly, but if there's a good classic thing you can think of it, throw it at me.

( Okay, so AP wrap up... )

Once bitten, I always have to act...

I wrote a little Sayid/Shannon post-series fic if anyone's into that. It's called Luckier and it's over at fanfiction.net.

And camelhaircoat tagged me for a meme, so here I go. The rules say you must tag eight people, but, eh, I'll just go with five.

balfonheim
octoberbreeze
mclachlan
secretsolitaire
snowmore

( Build a boat that I might ford the other side... )

This post is an excuse for me to use my new Shannon/Sayid icons. I was so surprised to find shannon_sayid, since she's been dead for 2-3 seasons now, and even more surprised to find the generous helping of coupley icons still there. I couldn't choose between three and finally I had to delete three of my other icons. How sad :( But they are so adorable.

In other news, my brother and I are going to see The Decemberists at Radio City in June. So exciting! My last concert was Coldplay in July, and on top of the fact that I love The Decemberists, I've never been to Radio City Music Hall before. Plus, it's a day in NYC with my brother. Doesn't get any better.

14 weeks until Austria, 2 weeks until the end of the quarter. I am counting down the days :)

One month left in third marking period!!! Once it's over, my AP classes are done, and I just have a quarter of fluff until graduation. Oh, life, you are good right now :)

Although it wasn't good for a while in AP English while we were doing poetry. Completely awful. I was a nervous wreck for a month. It was a sad day when I was more confident in taking a Statistics (re: math) quiz than an English one. I'm working really hard to pull my grade up after an awful quiz trashed my average, and with a 95 or so on my big explication project, I should be right back in A territory. All will be well, hopefully.

I'm just so excitedddd about graduation and going to Sarah Lawrence! I'm meeting so many awesome people on the Facebook SLC 2013 group that I can't wait to go and meet them all and start this big adventure. Sarah Lawrence is so right for me, it's like a perfect fit...whenever I'm upset I just put on my hoodie and feel a little better.

Sigh, happy gushing. It's so nice to be happy :)

Upcoming dates of school-skipping/happy happiness in general:

March 12: accepting an award in Philly
April 7: spring break
April 24: incoming students day at SLC
June 18: graduation
June 24: leave for Austria

Snagged from octoberbreeze.



I started using ellyrianna around fifth grade, my Neopet years. I had read a series of books about Merlin as a teenager ("Lost Years of Merlin", I think?) and in the very last book, there was a chapter, I think, about a little girl named Ellyrianna who got her hand chopped off and died or something. Yeah, I don't know. I needed a Neopets username and I thought ellyrianna was pretty. It also suited my "no numbers, underscores, or extraneous x's" rule for usernames.

From Neopets I went to Ujournal, and I kept it because I was given a Ujournal by the girl who knew me from Neopets...and then I came here from Ujournal (this LJ was a gift to me from the same girl), so naturally the name kept...It's still really pretty, and I've been using it for so long now (eight years, give or take) that I've never felt the need to change it.

:)

Back in the day, when I first started watching Lost, I shipped Sayid/Shannon hardcore. Remember her? The chick who died in the first season? They were totally cute together and when they killed her -- UGH. One of many, many mistakes in season two that led to me watching only half of season three and then giving up.

( Well...being the sucker for hurt/comfort that I am... )

It's just...well...now I really am craving me some Sayid/Shannon fanfiction, but because she's been dead for like 4 seasons now, there's nothing :/ Oh, fandom.


Weren't they adorable?