skirts

I think I have an abundance of skirts. 

I was cold (It's actually a perpetual state. I should have said 'I was more cold than usual'), so I cautiously opened the door to my closet and started rummaging around for a jacket. Lo and behold, I get distracted and somehow start counting my skirts (I'm feverish still, I can't be held responsible for my actions). So it turns out that I have twelve, and that three of them are basically the same tan skirt. In my defense, I wear all of them, but still... 

However, you will be relieved to know that none of them are pink, and none of them have ruffles. 

BLEH!

I have the flu. Eeeeeurgh. 

I spent all of yesterday watching 'The Two Towers', 'The Return of the King', and 'Stardust'. I spent the day before yesterday in bed. Asleep. For about 22 hours, to be precise. Yeah, I slept for 22 hours. Great. And as of last night, I hadn't eaten anything for 48 hours except for five pretzels. Last night I had chicken soup. I don't like chicken soup. :(

I'm feeling a bit better today. Hopefully I'm getting over it. Even if I'm not, I really can't afford to spend another two days doing nothing productive. 

work work work

So far I'm ahead on the 84 math problems I have to do this week (having done 30 of them), but I still need to read Beowulf, do a bunch of writing for English class, do a bunch of writing for journalism, write a paper of psychology, and write an essay and memorize a poem for Chinese class. Waaah. I would like to be doing next month's work right now. 

This all because I'm doing a double load of schoolwork. Yeah. But it should be worth it. 

cold

It's getting cold. There's no spring or fall here in Ningbo. It was summer two days ago, and now it's cold and foggy and lovely. I have a confession to make: I love winter, especially when it's cold and foggy and you can hear the wind howling. I just don't like being cold. But the ironic thing is that I'm cold more in the summer than in the winter, simply because of a nasty invention called an air conditioner, which allows all the lunatics who want their houses to be sixty-six degrees fahrenheit in July to actualize their dream. 

Anyhow. I hope it snows this year. There's nothing (well, hardly anything) nicer than waking up early and stomping around in the fresh snow. 

Now that I've eaten lunch, I should probably go make my bed and do the breakfast (and lunch) dishes. 

grammar

'What have you been up to?' 

'How are you? Good.' 

'With who am I speaking?' 

'Who am I speaking to?'

'Where are you at?' 

'Who did you give it to?'

I don't care what people say in an informal setting, but the idea that grammar is unimportant is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put! While I understand the idea behind slang, and while I approve of making language more efficient, I would like to point out that saying 'good' isn't any easier or quicker than 'well', and 'Where are you?' is considerably more compact than 'Where are you at?'. 

If we let our grammar slide enough, there will come a time when the English language will be so full of inaccuracies and misleading grammar errors that it will no longer be an effective means of communication. 

That said, it is senseless to be worried about grammar errors as long as they do no impede in people's understanding of what's being said. So how do we find a balance between simplifying English and allowing it to change and compromising its accuracy? 

clouds

Have I mentioned that I have a thing for clouds? Pretty clouds... 

memories

Those pictures brought back a lot of memories, which made me try to think back to my first memory, which is from when I was about one and a half, and I know it's accurate and not pieced together from things my parents said, because both of my parents had totally forgotten about the event until I mentioned it. My parents and I were going to the pool, and I was really excited because Dad almost never went. We were getting ready, and 'Lady D'Arbanville' (by Cat Stevens) was playing, when I turn the corner and run into Woodson coming down the stairs with my red sand-bucket on his head. And I remember thinking it was the funniest thing ever, and for the next week, when my parents wanted to get me to laugh, they'd put a bucket on their heads, but it wouldn't work if I was mad, because if I was determined to get something, no amount of bucket-on-head was going to distract me from it. 

I also have a memory from my second birthday of my mom taking a picture of me by a bush in Uncle Dale's front yard, because we had one from my first birthday, and she wanted to have one in the same spot to see how much I'd grown etc. And I remember being grumpy because she wouldn't let me wear the dress I wanted to wear because I wanted to wear a winter dress and it wasn't cold enough outside. We still have that picture, I think it's somewhere in my Aunt Amy's attic, with all the other pictures we have of Little Layli. 

And somewhere between those two memories, I have a vague memory of shopping for my grandmother's coffin with my mother. 

Anyhow, this sort of ties in with Brynne's post about memories. I thought it was natural that I can remember things from before I was three, but apparently not. That's me, an unnatural beastie with weird, morbid memories. The strangest thing about the coffin-memory (as I call it in my head) is that on some level, I knew exactly what was going on and why everything felt heavy and depressing. 

ME!

Look what I found! Photos! Mainly of me. A whole stack, that somehow didn't get shipped back to the States. And since we don't have a scanner (or a printer, for that matter), I had to photograph the photos, which means the quality is really, really bad, but...

Okay, so this one isn't of me, exactly. It's of the clinic in which I was born. I took this picture on my fifth birthday, when for a birthday treat I wanted to see the place where I was born. So. Clinica Santa Catalina, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Islas Canarias, Espana. And sorry, you don't get accent marks or tildes. I'm lazy.

We somehow skip the first few years of my existence. Here's me at age four. I think this was my second passport picture. My first one was the first picture ever taken of me, and I was a week old.

Me on my fifth birthday, in the Canary Islands, with Yasmin, the daughter of my parents' friends.

Me in the middle, at almost-six. The picture was taken at our going-to-China party. The girl on the left is Raina, whom I last saw when I was almost thirteen, and Andrea on the right, whom I last saw when I was eleven.

Me, at age seven. This picture was taken at a Baha'i conference in Hong Kong.

Me at eight, and already a tree-hugger. In my defense, trees are nice. And I think this was also in the middle of my tomboy stage, during which I climbed and fell out of trees regularly.

Me at nine, reading a book of poetry. I think this picture pretty much epitomizes my early years.

Me at almost-eleven, at the beginning of my girly phase. Eeek.

Almost twelve, the beginning of my awkward, dorky phase. Also the beginning of my love for rats, a love which remains to this day.

Almost thirteen, with two (more) of my childhood friends, Layli on the left and Jasmine on the right. This is why I spent most of my childhood being called 'Layli Rose'. The other Layli was 'Layli' first.

a lament about my lack of shelves

As I've been putting books on my shelves, I've noticed that I have er... interesting taste in books. And is it weird that I have eighteen books by Isaac Asimov? And I have Iranian poet Rumi sandwiched between J. K. Rowling and E. Rose Sabin. 

Here's a brief overview of the books on my shelf so far (I'm begging for more shelves, we'll see if I get them or not. ): 

• science fiction, 29 titles
  
• fantasy, 26 titles
  
• classics, 20 titles
• historical fiction, 9 titles
• young adult fiction, 7 titles
  
• Baha'i fiction, 3 titles
• children's fiction, 1 title
  

And that's all that fits on my pathetic shelves. :(

mysteries

I'm still reading "The Hippopotamus Pool" by Elizabeth Peters, despite my determination to have it done with and blog about it tonight. I'm usually not a huge fan of mysteries, but I seem quite willing to put aside my belief that they are boring and repetitive for Elizabeth Peters, whose books have enough egyptology and intelligent dialogue to keep me interested, Dorothy Gilman, who I read just for the characters, and Dick Francis, who is stunningly good at writing what I call 'variation on theme' novels, and is never boring. 

prompted by a response to the prompts

Just for fun, and because it's late and I have nothing to blog about (again), I'm going to respond to BRYNNE'S PROMPTS. 

Prompt #1

My heart sings when...

The air smells fresh. When everything is clean. When I'm with someone amazing. When I can stay in my own little world for a while and straighten things out in my head. When I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep, and it's quiet enough for me to imagine that I'm somewhere else. When I manage not to lose my temper at someone, even though I really, really want to. When I can have an intelligent conversation with someone. 

Prompt #2

Do you hear yourself when you are speaking and really listen to what you are saying?

No. I usually know what I'm going to say for the split second before I say it, and once the words start coming out of my mouth, I start thinking about what the other person might say and possible responses. 

Prompt #3

You are ten years in the future. Write a letter to your today self. 

Dear Almost-Fifteen-Year-Old Layli, 

I can't tell you what happens in the next ten years of your life, because if I did, it would change your actions, thus creating a paradox in which it would have turned out as I said, had I not told you. But take chances. Stop caring what other people think, or at least pretend to. The people who judge you have no right, and you'll find out who doesn't judge you. Keep the people who accept you around. 

Plus, sanity is overrated anyhow. 

Almost-Twenty-Five-Year-Old Layli

Prompt #4

What was a good high school memory? 

Sorry, I really don't have one. 

Prompt #5

When I look up at the sky, I feel...

Sad. Why don't people care more about the fact that most of China's sky is blank and smoggy? 

Prompt #6

Is true love real? 

Yes... and no. Even true love won't come to anything if both parties believe that relationships are effortless. 

Prompt #7

How did you meet your closest friend? 

• We saw each other for a day when I was seven, and we were both too shy to say anything to each other. Then, when I was thirteen she lived right up the street from me, and we saw each other every day. 
• Talked nerd when I was seven for a day, spent quite a while when I was thirteen talking nerd. 
• She babysat me when I was two and she was nine. 

Prompt #8

What are you currently fascinated with? 

Books. 

Psychology. 

Linguistics. 

Dystopias. 

Writing. 

Various forms of government. 

NationStates. 

Philosophy. 

Etymology of names. 

The differences between cynicism and pessimism. 

Prompt #9a

If I could trade my adulthood in for a second childhood, I'd...

I probably wouldn't do it. 

Prompt #9b

Did you go camping? Tell about your experiences. 

I've been camping at Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin, but I had a bad case of jet-lag and really don't remember much about it. 

Prompt #10

If tears could speak to you, what would they say? 

After you've had your cry, why don't we go do something that will either go towards fixing the problem or distract you from it? 

***

P.S. The reason I'm blogging this late at night is because I've just been out to dinner with some of my mom's coworkers and then grocery shopping. I will spare you all the details of my torture. 

prompts

I don't have anything to blog about, which is why this post will consist of me answering writing prompts from THIS SITE. I'm interested to see what sort of things I'll end up writing about. 

Prompt #1

Your 10 favourite scents or smells: 

1. vanilla
2. coffee
3. jasmine
4. osmanthus fragrans
5. fabric softener
6. fresh bread
7. old books
8. coconut
9. lilac
10. lavender

Prompt #2 

Define love. 

Um.... Love is undefinable. Everybody should just acknowledge that and move on. When people 'define love', they are only talking about the ways love is manifested, or the way that they perceive love to be. 

Prompt #3

10 things I learned at school that weren't part of the curriculum. 

1. The people who try to make your life difficult are scared
2. There are always people who will try and pick a fight with you
3. There are always people who will find a reason to dislike you
4. China isn't really communist
5. 'Thought and Morals' teachers are the most likely to be leaders of the communist party
6. 'Thoughts and Morals' teachers are the most likely to give you strange looks when you mention religion
7. Don't talk to yourself at school. EVER. 
8. Writing poetry in biology class is not advisable, unless it happens to be about dragons, in which case you can make a cheeky remark about studying the anatomy of other-worldly creatures
9. Reading 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' in math class is not permissible even if you have already done all the practice problems and finished the day's homework
10. Correcting someone in authority, even respectfully, even when they are wrong and you are right, is frowned upon

Prompt #4

What do you do with all the things you write about? 

I dream about them, talk to them, think about them, speculate about them, observe them, laugh at them, mourn over their dead bodies, giggle at the silly things they come up with, draw them, imagine life without them, imagine life with too many of them... 

Prompt #5

What would you do if the sun didn't rise tomorrow? 

Would it still be tomorrow, seeing as the earth would not have orbited around the sun another time? But I will answer the spirit of the question. If the sun didn't rise tomorrow, I would enjoy the chance to have candles lit all day. Melted wax is another one of my favourite smells, and candlelight changes the whole atmosphere of a room. It makes things have another side and more meanings. 

I'm having fun doing this. Originally I was going to stop at five, but I'll do a few more. 

Prompt #6

"It is all vanity and striving after the wind." Agree or disagree? 

Agree, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive. Who knows what you might bump into along the way? 

Prompt #7

When someone asks for your opinion, are you always honest? Why or why not? 

I am generally honest. But you can only get the whole picture if you listen to my pointed silences. Why? Because there really is nothing to be gained from lying except lies. 

Prompt #8

What one gift would you like for yourself? 

Wisdom. 

Prompt #9

What remains constant in your life? 

Books and the characters in them. I have to confess that they always offer blissful escape. 

Prompt #10

If you could be any person in the world, who would you be, and why? 

I would be me, because I can't imagine being anyone else. 

NaNoWriMo

I'm going to be doing NaNoWriMo this year, mainly just to have an excuse to throw my inner-editor out of the window and write frantically. 

Now, I'm going to bed. I have no idea why I'm exhausted, but I am. 

outside my window, I spy...

I looked out the living room window this morning and saw... 

Yes, there were four water buffalo laying in the grass. That's right, buffalo. 

And, one had it's own personal heron following it around. 

I want a personal heron. How come I don't get one? 

P.S. I'll probably post photos of the room as soon as it's neat and I have everything where I want it. 

P.P.S. I wanted to write an actual post, but I'm way too tired tonight. As soon as I clear off my bed (yes, there is actually a reason why I'm not posting pictures yet) I'm probably going to fall asleep and not wake up until Prince Charming comes and... Yeah. Whatever. 

room

Yikes, it's late! I just went to turn off my computer and realized that I haven't posted yet. And the only reason that I'm up this late is because I now have a bed, a desk, a chest of drawers and a (small) bookshelf. So of course I had to unpack, and put everything away, and figure out where I was going to put everything.... And it took me a while. 

But now my room is neat, besides the eight skirts draped across the back of my chair because I don't have enough hangers, the stack of books on my desk because I don't have bookends, my dreamcatcher and hummingbird sitting on the chest of drawers because I need to have someone come and put nails in the walls, my carved wooden butterfly sitting on the chest of drawers because it needs to be framed, all my stuffed animals piled on my bed (soon to be transferred to my desk) because I can't figure out what to do with them etc. 

Aaaaah! And it really is looking ten times better than it did. The mess! I can't stand the mess! 

Anyhow, Mom and I are going shopping tomorrow, and hopefully we can buy some things (like hangers and bookends) that will make my room be a lot neater. 

I climb the walls of my mind just like climbing on a jungle gym

Crazy thought: The goblins in harry Potter could, to a certain degree, represent Jews. 

And how exactly did I come to have this interesting thought while reading Elizabeth Peters? 

hair

Gaah! Now I'm wondering what on earth possessed me to post that poem last night. I must not have been thinking straight. And to top off my sense of embarrassment, I spent most of today softly singing 'Another Postcard' by BNL. This caused a couple of people to give me funny looks, and one to ask outright if I was singing about monkeys. 

Moral of the story: don't go out when you have a silly song stuck in your head. 

And I figured out how to do a french braid on myself. I know, it's not that big of a deal, but it means that I have some way of putting my hair up and a) having it look presentable and b) keeping my bangs out of my face. My usual messy up-do thingy only satisfies one of those requirements, which means that whenever I go anywhere fancy, I have to be careful not to dip my hair in anything, because it's at the perfect dipping-length right now. 

And yes, the only reason I'm writing about my hair is because absolutely nothing happened today, including the (so far) un-arrival of my furniture. 

...

Yes, I finished the letter this morning and posted it. It's nice having it done. 

I've only recently discovered Journler, which I love so far. It's so much neater than just having .txt doc, and much easier to manage. 

Besides that, the furniture for my room that was supposed to arrive this afternoon is going to arrive tomorrow afternoon, which means that I'll actually be able to unpack. I'm sick to death of living out of suitcases and boxes. 

And I'm really tired. My nice couch is calling me. Hopefully tomorrow night it'll be a bed. 

Oh, and here's a short nonsense for you to laugh at while I sleep, since it's been a while since I posted poetry. Not all of it is this silly, I swear. 

I’m a writer, you see

It’s what I do

Cause there’s something inside me

That starts to brew

 

The words start forming

And they start bursting out

Until I have to surrender

And write or shout

 

Like today, for instance

I’m on my ninth doc

With eternity afore me

And no will to stop

late

I did organize the links, and while I haven't posted on The Letter Game blog yet, I do have 1000 words towards a letter. But it's too late to finish it, and it's also a bit too late for a decent blog post. Sorry. I really did try. I swear that everything is taking ten times longer today than it should. 

get it done. TONIGHT!

It's 5:08 PM, and today I still want to organize the links in the sidebar and write a letter for The Letter Game. I'm hoping that writing it down and telling the world will help me get it done in a timely fashion. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and maybe after I finish I'll write a real blog post. 

philosophy

As I was adding THIS AWESOME SITE to my favourites, I noticed (again) how out of control the link section is. I absolutely have to do something about it, soon! 

Grey

It's been decidedly grey outside, matching my mood. But not grey as in depressed. Grey as in dark and cold and calculating. Perhaps slightly unemotional. I've never understood people who are all sunshine, who don't like rainy days and who don't understand 'grey', who are constantly emotional and illogical. While I have my silly days... 

There's something about this kind of mood that always makes me want to listen to my 'Cold and Raw' playlist, which includes: 

Blame it on Me-Barenaked Ladies

Demons-Guster

The Rainbow Never Came-Artisan

Trivia-Artisan

Hook-Blues Traveler

One By One-Enya

My Immortal-Evanescence

How to Save a Life-The Fray

Demasduit Dream-Great Big Sea

Take You Back-Jeremy Camp

High Hearts-John McCutcheon

A Million Ways-OK Go

Till Then-Red Grammer

Advance Guard-Seals & Crofts

Anyhow. You get the idea. For some reason, the word that pops into my head is 'raw'. As in,lots of raw emotion. And I guess that sort of fits my mood. My motto today would be something like 'Be honest and straightforward about it, deal with it, and get over it as quickly as possible. And don't let it interfere with your brain while you're at it.' 

Yeah.