I'm So Bad At This!

LIVE! (Nerdfighters will get the joke here. It's totally jokes.)

So... I haven't posted since Monday. It's been a super-busy week, though. Tuesday was the return of Glee, Wednesday I got my 120 boxes of Girl Scout cookies (110-ish of which have to go to school!), Thursday was Write Night (an event put on by the literary magazine staff to raise money to print the magazine), and yesterday I was just freaking tired. So here I am on Saturday, having just binge-shot some photos because I realized I hadn't taken even one yet today. May I present to you Tuesday through Saturday?

Tuesday's batch consisted of only 2 photos, one of which was of course uploaded to the project site. This is the other, a text-message from Ben promising me a rather wonderful title once we're married:

Yes, I really do use phrases like "pray tell." Perhaps I've been reading too much Gemma Doyle. Who knows?

On to Wednesday! My wonderful baby sister, who had had oral surgery just hours before, took it upon herself to make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies for Write Night. Mmm...

I love the fact that the measuring spoon and the measuring cup match, even though we didn't buy them together. These are the little things that make me smile.

Speaking of me smiling, Wednesday night brought a happy surprise for us: snow! When I saw it coming down, I donned my coat and hurried out into the night, were the snowflakes collected in my hair. And, of course, I took pictures. Major white balance here because porch lights make SUCKY photos:

With Thursday came Write Night! I was excused from my last three classes to help with set up, and during that time I got some cute photos (before my camera died... alas!). This little guy is part of a massive art display, an amusement park made almost entirely of toothpicks.

I think most of these are gels from the theater department, which we used on the lights in the lobby.

The t-shirt! I know it's a little blurry - this photo depended on Tracy and me standing still, and apparently at least one of us didn't.

Ah yes, the lights with the gels. It looks odd here, but in the evening with half the lights off and the other half gelled, it looked pretty darn spectacular.

Ben had some art displayed at the art show! This is part of his drawing of an astronaut on the moon.

I took this one right after I took yesterday's favorite, which is of two whole cookies. My photo shoot made me hungry!

When I saw that Betsy was using my heart mug for her ice cream I was mad, but she made it up to me by letting me photograph her creation. Yes, those are Thin Mints!

Gah, I HATE the focus in this one. I was just so glad to finally have my Girl Scout cookies.

This one is better - and it shows some of my favorite cookies! In fact I could really go for a Trefoil right about now...

A random shot of the inside of my purse, shared with you purely because the quality is stunning. The whites are so white and the image is so crisp - and I didn't have to edit it at all! Score one for the point-and-shoot.

My history classroom:

It it today yet? Finally. This shot is way less cool than I thought it would be. It's the pattern in the glass of our front door, backlit by the porch light. Meh.

A nighttime recreation of my not-so-famous sundial shot. Nothing to write home about, but I like it.

The lighting in this one was really horrible, so I tried to white balance it. Sometimes you can only do so much, though, so I just decided to get drastic. I turned the blacks way up and decreased the saturation, and here is the result. I kinda like it!

A close second for favorite of the day: tonight's light source. I love our porch lights; they're so pretty. If this photo were somehow a little brighter, it would have been the winner.

Hoorah! I'm finished! Now I can go to sleep. I was supposed to be off the computer half an hour ago, but I knew if I didn't do this now it'd be another five days. Hopefully next week I will be more on top of things, eh? Cross your fingers!

Get Your Sexy On

That title actually has no relevance whatsoever to the contents of this blog post. It's just what my sister is listening to right now. Actually it just changed to Katy Perry's "Hot 'N Cold." Anyway... on with the pictures, eh?

I call this one "Wall of Trig." Most people would be terrified if they encountered this, but to me... it looks pretty fun. It's because I'm an extreme nerd. More on that at the end of this post.

When I got home from school today, gray clouds were rolling across the sky and the wind was tossing my hair about in a most delightful manner. I couldn't resist taking this photo of the bare trees - my very favorite winter image.

Okay, this is a totally weird story. I was trying to focus on some sort of weed in the yard, but my freaking camera just wouldn't do it. So I held the shutter-button halfway down to maintain whatever depth of focus I had achieved and went in search of something else to photograph. This leaf seemed nice. But wait...

After I took that picture, I let the camera go back to doing whatever it wanted to do, which is all it ever does anyway. I took a picture from the exact same position of the exact same leaf. And I got this:

Freaky, eh? Such different moods, and I didn't even mean to do it! I only took the second one because I feared the first would be blurry. So now I suspect that the half-shutter-button-press sets not only focus but also white balance. See? You learn something new every day.

Okay, the nerd thing. A couple of weeks ago the newspaper staff at school sent around this survey thingy that would match you up with potential boyfriends or whatever. Starting today they were returning the results at lunch, and when I got mine I just about died from laughing. It lists the top ten most compatible matches in the school, and y'all, my #10 was REMUS LUPIN. (If you're not in stitches right now, get off my blog.) All I know about this kid is that he's in the ninth grade, but I must find him because I LOVE HIM. That kid is my freaking hero.

*yawn*

Is it time for bed yet? It's been a long weekend, and I have a long week ahead of me. Here are today's photos:

My aunt gave me this ring a couple of years ago. It's a little big so I don't wear it very often, but it makes a pretty picture. I had to try for about 11 years to get my camera to focus, though.

This necklace is also featured in today's favorite photo. My mom gave it to me, and I really like to wear it.

I took this when I hadn't taken any others yet and was getting desperate. This truck was parked beside us when we stopped at Wal-Mart for salad and chili sauce.

Now I'm going to go drown my sorrows in the shower, followed by watching the FIRST NEW GLEE OF THE YEAR!! Whoo! That ought to cheer me up. Sue's antics never fail to put a smile on my face.

Color My World

Hey, sometimes these titles practically write themselves. Others... not so much.

Today I had a meeting with some fellow Girl Scouts about day camp, so I took a couple of photos at their house. We got quite a bit done, and I'm really starting to feel like we can do this.

They had some very pretty artificial flowers on their kitchen table, which made me feel all warm and spring-like inside even though it was about 36 degrees outside.

Kirsten says crayons and markers really get her creative juices flowing, so I hoped they would do the same for me, photography-wise.

This last one... it needs to be edited. Hang on.

There, that's better. This was my breakfast - an egg. Yes, this very egg. I got the pan too hot and burned it a little on the bottom, but overall it wasn't a bad way to start the day.

Non-photo-related bloggy-type stuff: I got a telephone call from a college this afternoon, the University of Advancing Technology. That's the first time I've ever had a college contact me by phone - usually they do e-mail or snail mail. But it was surprisingly painless. The guy I talked to, Justin, said he went to the same high school I'm at now and graduated from the University of Alabama (which is definitely a school I'm considering). Maybe this whole telephone business isn't so bad...?

Lighting and Backdrops and Flash, Oh My!

Actually I didn't use flash on these. I never use flash if I can help it - I feel that it absolutely ruins photos. Maybe if I get in to the photography class next year they'll teach me how to use it properly. Perhaps Mr. Flash and I could learn to get along...

Anyway, I hadn't taken any photos again today, so I grabbed some foam board and a clip-lamp (I finally figured out that that's how people get such lovely lighting!) and photographed whatever random objects I could find in my room. Some, like the Cheez-It, were so horrendous that they had to be deleted on the spot. Here are the ones that remain:

A little statuette/figurine my sister gave me once, as seen from above. It was really hard to work with the shadows here, and you can still see one I missed in the lower right corner.

The strap on my trusty rain boots (which have come in quite handy this week!)... I dunno why, but this picture makes me think of that line from Pirates of the Caribbean: "Bootstrap's bootstraps!"

It's this thingy again... I really wanted this to be my favorite pic for the day, and I'll probably end up using it as a filler sometime soon. It's a bit of a computer I dismantled, and beyond that I have NO IDEA.

Another angle, again with very interesting shadows.

Another random computer bit. I assume this is some sort of cooling mechanism, although I really don't know. It's pretty dusty.

The repetition here makes for a great photo, though, right?

Well, here it just sort of looks like a wonky toaster. That's what I'll call it from now on - the Wonky Toaster.

Practicing my selective focus on my DVD/VCR remote (yes, kids, some of us still have VHS tapes... that's what came before DVDs, which are what came before Blu-Ray). That reminds me of a quote I read, probably on xkcd.com: "Can we all agree to just ignore whatever comes after Blu-Ray? I don't want to replace my movie collection again." Amen.

I was actually trying to get a different shot of these items when I set my camera down to grab a Cheez-It. (Eating while shooting is probably bad form, but I was hungry.) The view from "ground-level" caught my eye, so I pressed the shutter button to capture it!

This one is very similar to today's favorite, chosen by Betsy. At first she was like, "It's headless!" And I said, "It's art." So there.

I can't decide whether I like the shadow here. If it was just less yellow, that'd be good, but that's what I get for shooting in my lamp-lit bedroom.

Ah, the trusty Rubik's Cube. I happened upon some people in one of my classes who had never seen me solve one before, and I think I had them convinced that my strategy is magic.

And... this one. Everybody takes this shot sooner or later, I heard, so tonight I decided to take the plunge. I'll continue, of course, and try out some different stuff. (BTW, the book here is a medical dictionary. HOO-HAH, NERDFIGHTERS!)

Wow, I'm feeling wordy today. I should go write my paper while I'm still in the mood. It's about objective truth - specifically my belief that there is no such thing. Perhaps there will be a blog post forthcoming on that topic, but for now I'm going to go read. Nighty-night!

Friday, Still Drizzly

And cold, too. I'm pretty sure that at least half of what fell from the sky today was frozen. Right now it's the warmest it's been all day - about 40 degrees.

Betsy is supposed to help me pick today's picture, and she's still in the bathtub, so here are Wednesday's and yesterday's for your viewing pleasure.

We'll start off with a weird abstract photo that I think I forgot to rotate. It's the view through my water glass.

Because I have serious trouble holding still, here is a blurry photo of some ice as it melts off a pine needle:

There was also ice on the porch railing. In fact, there was so much ice that they canceled all after-school activities yesterday.

If you look closely, this picture contains not only ice but also cobwebs. Do people dust their porches??

An extremely LAME picture of pi calculated to nine decimal places on my calculator.

Daniel didn't know I was taking this picture (although I did tell him afterward). I love the fact that the look on his face is totally candid - not posed at all.

Today's photos should appear any time now...

Drizzly Tuesday

Have I ever told you guys how much I love rain? I sure do. Actually, it's that period right before a big rainstorm, when the clouds are rolling in and you can hear the thunder in the distance. When the wind blows my hair, the electricity in the air begins to flow through my veins and I feel more alive than at any other time. Call me crazy, but that's how I feel. I was in a foul mood today because I had a ton of stuff to do, and all day I had to fight this wild urge to just run out of the school building into the wind.

Unfortunately a stressful day means very few photos. I'm pretty fond of the ones I have, though - most of them, at least. Feast your eyes (and they're in the right order for once, since I'm taking them right off my SD card):

Ah, trig identities. Proving that cosecant minus cotangent is equal to sine over something or other. I didn't have a very firm grip on them before today, but my math teacher really helped me.

Hooray, almost time to go home! I really just wanted a shot of my fingernails, but I figured that'd be boring. So you get to see my watch! This is a time stamp, old-school.

My "ugh" shot of the day - the notepad on which I keep my daily to-do list. I got it at Girl Scout camp.

Isn't this pretty, how the raindrops on my window catch the light of the porch lamps? (I guess we're under the impression that porch lights are like headlights - if it's raining, turn 'em on.)

So that's February first. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day - do you think old Phil will see his shadow? Will we have six more weeks of winter? I hope not! Only time will tell.