Whatevermas Indeed

As all open-minded, modern American teenagers, I have a relatively diverse friend pool, and as such have run into problems with celebrations that are born of religious holidays and then evolve into more secular activities. Namely, Christmas.

Now, my friend Nur is a Muslim, but I'm a Christian. Obviously, we wanted to celebrate some kind of holiday in December 'round Christmas time that involved an exchange of loving thoughts in gift format, but I didn't feel quite right about calling it Christmas for, I should think, obvious reasons.


So, I bought her a gift and wrote her a long and (I thought) entertaining letter explaining how we celebrated Whatevermas and our icon, instead of Christ or Satan, was Urgle Spunk, the merry skipping hippo. Who happens to wear a tutu.

But as the years have gone by (this will be our third official Whatevermas celebration), I've realized that Whatevermas is really the embodiment of the essence of secular Christmas - exchanging heartfelt and occasionally ridiculous trinkets that you've quite obviously thought about in relation to who's getting it, and alerting those that you care about that you do, in fact, care about them.

I wish we could make it a national sensation.

In other news, check out these articles:

http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/11/20/stuff-free/

and

http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/11/20/say-no/index.html?source=friend

Well, look at that

Cash Advance Loans

Quizzedy Fun

Your Score Is.... 100%!

 

Congratulations, you scored in the highest percentile. You don't let very many mispronunciations slip by. No sir, not you. You speak quite properly, and everyone is impressed with your command of the English language. But do keep in mind, you probably come across as bookish and pedantic!

Do You Pronounce Words Right?
Make a Quiz

Beyond Suburbia

So I have a title, which is exciting. A title, that is, to title my most ambitious writing project to date(except, of course, that one novella in verse that I composed in seventh grade about the girl with the sucky life). That title is "Beyond Suburbia," and I happen to like it. Both the title and the story that it entitles.

Essentially, what happens is that there are three atypical teenages. Myra, the literary nerd with a penchant for extravagance; Conan, the geek with a stronge case of anemia and introversion, and Berthold, our resident madman. Then Berthold, motivated by curiousity, kills himself to see what the afterlife is like. Myra and Conan, as summer comes, get very bored, and Myra whips out the greatest secret in adolescent history: she has a portal to the fiery pit of Hades beneath her bed. So they go dig up Berthold, and jump into the abyss, landing themselves in a heap of adventure. Along the way we get to know some equally colorful characters, including Lindra, an amazonian enigma of a lady with a slight infatuation on Conan and an occasionally sadistic sense of humor, Maurie, their demonic tour guide through Hell, Lyle, Conan's transvestite demon wife-husband-thing, Satan, who is actually OCD and made his fame in self-hurt books, and God, who happens to really love scrabble. THey travel through the pits of Hell, the TRansitory airport, and Heaven (in that order), dragging along Berthold's corpse until they find him at a Reformed Atheists Convention. IT'll jolly good fun.

Anyway, I'm now up to going down to find Berthold's corpse in the pits of Hell and I have about 13,000 words so far. I'm excited.

The Beatles Are Sexy

Well, the Beatles are awesome, at least. That doesn't necessary make them sexy, but, hey, in this modern day and age anything goes.

Regardless, I'd like it noted that modern American teenagers (yes, I realize that I AM one) really disapoint me. For example, one boy who sits in front of me in Technically-Advanced-But-Still-Really-Remedial English class never stops talking. EVER. And another girl who sits by me in Journalism once drummed up a 753 dollars worth of cell phone bills and hates to read. The few books that her parents have bothered to buy her have been scribbled on and tossed into the back of her closet. So, obviously, I asked to have them. Additionally, none of them know what anything means. Really easy words completely confuse them, like "consensus" or phrases in the vicinity of "you are a stain upon humanity." This is SAD.

In unrelated news, I have a new psuedo-infatuation, who I have codenamed Timeline, which happens to be one of my cleverest codenames to date. Kind of. Additionally, I've made it up to 12,500 words on my story, which is ... still yet to be titled. Damn failure of imagination.

Anyway. Yup.