Sunday, November 29, 2009

If I Can't . . .

If I can't check out videos/CDs on my own library card 'till I'm 18, why can I drive when I'm 16?

If I can't text while walking without running into trees/tripping/etc, why do people need a law to tell them not to text while driving?

Just some stuff to think about, I suppose.  Comment if you have any others :)

Friday, November 27, 2009

"Team awards during Oirechtas is the only time you'll see seventeen year old guys dancing to 'Barbie Girl' and feeling no shame."

It's true . . . I promise you.  I was trying to persuade my 12 year old friend to dance, and pointed out several guys who had to be between 15 and 18 years old to prove that there was nothing shameful in it at all (I was dancing too, I have to admit).

But anyway.  From my previous post, you already know why I was in Denver for the weekend, and, odd as it may seem, I did get some dancing time in among all my city explorations!  My sister danced with the younger age groups on Friday, in the traditional set competition.  She placed 6th!!  I'm so proud of her!! :)  We also had 4 Nationals qualifiers and 3 Worlds qualifers from the younger kids.  Saturday was team day, and all of our teams (U10, U12, Seniors, and Adults) made the top ten!  This was brilliant . . . I honestly didn't think any of our teams would recall, since the U10 team had 2 six year olds, the U12 team had 2 new dancers, and the seniors were just dancing . . . well, not so great.  The adults, well, they only had two teams in their competition, so they better have gotten first!!  Sunday was a good day too.  I danced then, and I think I did really well!  My hardshoe round went brilliantly, and in the softshoe round, the girl I was dancing next to almost ran into me!  I got places ranging from 84th to 48th (out of 85 . . . ) and ended up 62nd!  I was sooo happy, considering that this was my first time dancing solos at Oireachtas!  We only had 2 girls from our school recall, but everyone danced soooo well.

Irish dancing is pretty much all about the waiting.  You wait for them to start the competition . . . you wait for your number to come up . . . you dance . . . you wait for the next round . . . you wait for the recall list . . . you get the picture.  It was especially interesting dancing in Denver.  The high altidue and 30 degree temperatures do not help when youre trying to warm up and stay warm.  Okay, so the Convention Center wasn't 30 degrees, but it was still cold.  It was pretty hard to dance 3 steps in the altitude, and most girls came off looking miserable.  It was easier for me, I think, because we'd been practicing doing 6 steps (dances twice through without stopping) at class, but my throat was still really raw from trying to breathe once I came off the stage.

Overall, it was a brilliant trip, dancing-wise.  We're a very close-knit school, so everybody saw at least a few of their teammates dance.  We had a huge party Saturday night to celebrate how well everyone had been doing, and we would always try to hang out with each other, in the ballrooms or at dinner.  I can't wait for the next feis in Palm Springs :)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Photojournaling Our Way Thru LA

On Friday, we had a half day of school, so Ashley and I decided to get on the metro and see where we would end up.  It wasn't entirely random . . . we had vague plans . . . and a timetable . . . and I knew we had to end up in North Hollywood for a dance lesson around 4.30-ish . . . but we had a grand adventure anyway!


We took the red line downtown to the Civic Center stop, and walked around the courthouse and City Hall and the Los Angeles mall.  We were staring at the criminal courts building, wondering if we could/should go in, when a lawyer who was passing by told us that we could definitely go in, everything was open to the public .... aaaaaaaaaand he also told us where the best cases were argued.  So, we have perfect plans for next time we go downtown!




We took a whole bunch of photos downtown, I loved the opportunity to play with all the aperture/exposure/etc. settings on my camera, which I generally don't have time to do when I'm taking pictures for yearbook.  Downtown is such a great place to take pictures, mostly because of the buildings.  Architecturally, it's one of my favorite cities.  Ashley had a film camera (a beautifullll Leica, which has quite possibly the nicest focus I've ever seen on a film camera), which was great fun once we figured out how to rewind the film/switch rolls.  Unfortunately, she only had a roll and a half of film (apparently her mother thought that since they had 40 exposures each, that would be enough.  Um, no.  I have 192 pictures from our trip ... way more than 60!).  It was great fun while it lasted, though, and it is now my goal to get myself a film camera one of these days.  Sure, they're more work, but they're also way more fun!


After that, we walked around the Ahmanson/Mark Taper/Dorothy Chandler/Music Center area.  Apparently, Mary Poppins is/will soon be playing at the Ahmanson!  That would be soooo much fun to go see! Plus, the fountain in front of the Taper is ridiculusly amazing.  Ashley and I had a ton of fun being silly and taking pictures of each other in ridiculous poses around the fountain, while laughing at the huge tourist groups that were doing the exact same thing!  :)


We then took the Red line all the way down to the North Hollywood station, for my dance lesson.  We listened to our iPods on the way, and maybe . . . but probably didn't . . . annoy the other passengers by singing along (but quietly, and in the back of the car) (In case you're wondering, the artists that came up were Death Cab For Cutie, Taylor Swift, Lady GaGa, Modest Mouse, and The Corrs.  Eclectic? Yes.  Amazing?  Completely.)  I was way tired after walking all around downtown (plus it was my school's 10K walk in the morning, so I was way tired) but I had a good lesson overall.

Then, we had to meet my mom in Pasadena, so we rode down to Union Station, took a ton of awesome pictures, and then, after a bit of confusion about what train we needed/when it was coming (I realized too late I only had the schedules for the redline, oops) we ended up in Pasadena.  We were originally going to meet one of our other friends to go to pilates, but she bailed on us (well, she had tickets for the taping of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me so I don't blame her . . . ).  So my mom drove us to the Americana, where we had dinner and hung out at Barnes & Noble.  The wait at the Cheescake Factory for a table for 2 was 45 minutes (yikes!) so we just got burgers at the diner instead.  At the bookstore, we read magazines, and finished up the day by improving the “New Moon” display by layering it over with MacLife, Stargate Atlantis magazine, SciFi magazine, and Star Trek magazine.  Overall, a beautiful day!

The full set of photos from this trip can be found at my Picasa web album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/col.starchild/PhotojournalingOurWayThruLA110609


Thursday, November 5, 2009

'Tis Tuesday in November, So . . . Elections!

Hey, just 'cause it's an off-year election doesn't mean i'm not paying attention.  Truth be told, I pay more attention to off-year/midterm elections because they're usually far more interesting than the presidential ones.

So, here's a quick recap of the night
  • Bob McDonnell (R) is the new governor of Virginia
  • Chris Christie (R) is the new governor of New Jersey
  • Bill Owens (D) won the congressional race in NY23 (New York's 23rd district, for you non-politics people)
  • Main voters overturned their legislature's law legalizing gay marriage
  • Michael Bloomberg (R/I) is still mayor of New York City
  • Democrats picked up another House seat, from Northern California
Writing this in the few days after the election, I can't say I'm surprised by any of it.  Disappointed by a lot, sure.  I would have liked to see the governor's races and the Issue 1 in Maine go down differently.  But when you think about it, y'all should've seen it coming.

Jon Corzine, the incumbent in NJ, was hated, hated by so many people . . . even those of his own party.  For such a small state, it has a ton of problems.  I can completely see why he would lose.  Even though Obama campaigned for him, Corzine has none of the glitz and glamour and excitement that the so-called "Obama surge voters" associate with the president.

Virginia, well, they have a history of being rather unhappy if their governor is from the same party as the president.  Add to that the fact that they are historically a very Republican state, and, well, bye-bye, Mr. Deeds.

Maine's Issue 1 was California's Prop 8 all over again, right down to the same firm running the "yes" campaign's attack adds.  And, yes, it makes me just as mad the second time round.  When you have ultra-fundamentalists/conservatives running blatently false ads, you have little chance of people voting the sensible way.  And yes, I'm aware that that's a generalization.  Not everyone who voted "yes" is fundamentalist, and they're perfectly entitled to their own opinions.  But this repeal is a disappointing setback to equal-rights activists everywhere.  Not to mention that the ads that were run for the "yes" campaign were completely unture (there was nowhere in the law where it was stated that gay marriage would be taught in schools).  They were purely playing on irrational fears, which leads me to believe, once again, that most Americans just don't think enough.

NY23's race was probably the one I was watching most closely, because the dynamics there were so interesting.  It's a historically Republican seat, yet the Republican nominee here, Deirdre Scozzafava, was basically forced to withdraw from teh race by her own party, for being too liberal.  I think she simply had a good head on her shoulders, but anyway.  That left the Democrat running against the Conservative Party nominee -- who just so happened to pick up an endorsement from Sarah Palin (maybe that's why he lost!)  Add to all that the fact that Scozzafava still walked away with 5% of the vote, AND threw her support behind the Democrat, and you have a fascinating election.  I think this one went pretty well :)

As for Michael Bloomberg, all I can say is "duh".  He goes to all the trouble to make himself eligible for a third term, then spends a ridiculous of his own money on the (entirely self-financed) campaign.  It would be crazy if he wasnt elected.  Although the margin of victory was much smaller than anyone (including me) had thought, seeing as how Bloomberg was leading the polls by double digits.

And Democrats picked up a second congressional seat, this one from California.  So overall, an okay night.

So what does all this mean?  I don't think it means as much as other people think.  It's not really a reflection on Obama so much as it is a reflection on the party in power.  And I think we Democrats did pretty well tonight.  I also think that if the two gubernatorial races had been in, say, Texas and Alabama, that we would have been much less surprised to see two Republicans walk away with the seat.  Theres so much hype here, in my opinion, because Virginia, although historically Republican, voted for Obama last year, so people were maybe half expecting that trend to continue.  Also, NJ is a historically Democratic state where the Republican candidate won pretty handily.  So that might have been a surprise to some people.

Okay, this post is getting way long now, and I'm tired.  G'night everyone :)

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Computer Updates + Halloween = Happy Anya!

So, it turns out that when I'm bored with schoolwork, I become very productive with non-school related things.  More to the point, updating pretty much everything on my computer!

A summary:
  • Mac OSX 10.5.2 to OSX 10.5.8.  Honestly, I don't see much of a difference, maybe it runs a bit faster, and I can run Safari 4 and other stuff now.  Reccommended in any case :)
  • Safari (something) to Safari 4.  Okay, everyone needs to do this.  Well, probably everyone already has, I feel like I'm a bit behind the times here, but it's much faster, much prettier, and has a ton of new features, like being able to browse your most-visited sites in cover-flow style, that are pretty cool. 
  • iTunes 8 to iTunes 9.0.2.  The whole reason I went through all of these updates in the first place!  Now that I can actually use the iTunes store, I'm loving this particular upgrade much more than I was previously!  To avoid turning into an Apple commercial, let me just say that if you haven't tried iTunes 9 yet, you are being deprived of LIFE!  Haha, okay, not that extreme, but you should get this :)
 And, on a totally random note, I'm sure the Vatican has better things to do than condemn Halloween as dangerous, pagan, and satanic.  The main danger comes from kids crossing the street in the dark, pagan is not a bad thing, and Halloween originated as a harvest festival, which I do not think is satanic at all.  What's next, trying to ban Dia de los Muertos because it celebrates dead people?  Sheesh.  Anyway, I hope you all had a lovely, safe Halloween, and happy November to you all :)