First Sunday back from school...

And already I'm procrastinating on homework. LeSigh. I'm sure I'll get it done eventually, but my time seems better spent on memorizing my newest monologue (Adriana from Comedy of Errors) and reading Antigone, which I have an audition for next week.

So, while I'm building up the energy for homework, here are some names. I've been using the BtN (www.behindthename.com) BabyNameGenie to find boys' names, and here are some new ones:


Alpin- I've had Alban on my list forever, but this is seems so refreshing to me. Scottish, which is a good thing to me these days. Am I becoming a tryndee?
Anzo- Means "giant," which any child of mine is very unlikely to be. But...it's Anzo. The sound makes me so happy.
Arrigo- Italian form of Harry, and I'm crushing on it so much right now. The -go ending in general is fantastic.
Astrophel- It means "star lover." Yes, it's pretty ridiculous on an actual child, but the meaning keeps on drawing me back. Maybe coupled with something a little more realistic, like Joseph Astrophel (you're kidding yourself, Sofie...you wouldn't go for something that tame up front no matter what the middle name. ;-))
Aubin- I think it's OH-bin. This has such a friendly sound, probably because I have a dog named Oberon "Obie."
Bela- Seriously, why do all of my names mean "white?" That's not intentional, I promise. This is so incredibly handsome on a boy...
Benedek- I've recently loved the sound of Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), but the "dick" is a bit...prominent, I'm afraid. So I found this one, which seems infinitely more usable.
Carlo- How I love "o" names. The "carl" sound is awesome as well, but Carl is a bit middle-aged and dated these days.
Constantin- *Swoon.* How romantic can you get? This has the most amazing collection of sounds (nst-nt-n...fabulous.)
Ezio- The "o" ending, means "eagle," and it gets even better. Ezio Pinza:

of South Pacific fame. His voice is seriously one of the most beautiful things in the world, methinks. I wuv him. I don't know why this name hasn't taken off, but that's okay. I can keep it for myself. :-)
Gillespie- I thought it was only a surname, so I was thrilled to learn otherwise. It has the most whimsical sound to me, but I'm going to have to find a better nickname than "Gil." Gus could work, I suppose..
Jago- Another "J" ending, another one that's prime for the US Popularity Charts. But, for some reason, it hasn't gotten popular. I'm stealing this one away for myself as well.
Klemens- A new one for me, but it's just undeniably handsome. It's got the "surname" thing going for it as well.
Lennart- A less mobster-ish version of Leonard? Awesome. Although this rules out the dashing Leo nickname, I am rather fond of Len. And who says Lennart needs a nickname?
Neirin- Welsh, meaning "noble." The sound is so gentle and the whole name reminds me of the sea.
Raoul- There's just intense handsome-ness here...you would never think it was connected in any way with the pedestrian Ralph.
Ruarc- Until BtN reaches a consensus, I'm using the "ROO-arc" way, with the "w" sound sliding into the "a." The "rainstorm" meaning is fascinating as well...don't see it very often.
Torsten- Could get trendy, but I'm including it because I just love the "Tor" and "st" in there. It's a less prissy version of Tristan, which is always a good thing.
Vivek- Sanskrit is a great deviation from my normal European span of names, and the name sounds so "alive" (despite not being derived from the same root as the actual "alive" names; Vivian, etc.) The "k" at the end makes it sound distinctly masculine.
Yago- I'm pronouncing it YAH-go, which makes it a great alternative to the malevolent Iago. Another go-go name, always a favorite of mine.

So those are my boys right now. I'm going to try and go through the same process with my girls, but that usually doesn't produce such lovely results (my girls are generally pretty stagnant.)

Okay...off to clean the kitchen and (hopefully) get some homework done before tomorrow!

I feel a bit guilty for not blogging for so long, so here's a name post!

Since I'm bored, I decided to go through some online birth announcements and write down my favorites. Yay. These are from different states across the US....I'll write down particularly bad ones as well.

Naomi Marie
Abraham Paul
Dante Arthur
Elias Timothy-Patrick (Yes, the hyphen is stupid. But Elias <3)
Chloe June
Giovanni Agustin
Miles William
Joan Ann (So vintage and simple. Love it.)
Estella Rio (Really fascinating. Rio is a female Japanese name, and I quite like it here.)
Adrian Jacob
Brigid Ann (serious squee!)
Virginia Irene (again, squee!)
Liam Oisin (Oisin!!!)
Matthew Brynn (Brynn on a boy! Woot.)
Johanna Lyra (Seriously, my heart was all a-flutter upon seeing this one. And the mom is Julijana!)
Vivianne Lily (This is my favorite form of the masculine Vivian. Or is it Viviana? Hmmm...)
Rachel Joanna
Athena Rebecca (I babysit for a ten-year-old Athena, who's great. Glad to see there are more of them!)
Abigail Carolina
Tegan Noelle (Although Tegan has fallen out of my top names, I still love seeing it.)
Miranda Victoria
Irene
Helena Autumn Rose (Autumn's not my favorite, but I'll forgive that between the flawless Helena and Rose.)
Asa Michael (ASA! Now, please don't get popular on me.)
Jacques Leon
Louise Catherine (Really. Did you see that one coming?)
Damien Josiah
Amy Violet (I am in the minority among name-snobs, but I love Amy. With Violet? Perfection.)
Twins William Edward and Natalie Patricia. Both are perfectly nice individually, but come on. Twins always have sucky names.
Micah Jerome
Amy Margaret

Zeddalyn Raine
X'zavior Michael (Almost pedestrian enough to be ignored. Almost.)
Cohen Gary-Chike
Princess Chiso (Ew. So sickly-sweet. And Chiso?)
Flint Beau
Analeah Marie (Anally. Haha. At least spell it Annelie or something.)
Celedonio Valentino Jr16 (Jr16. Huh. Typo, please?)
Yarexzi Lizbeth
Avaurie Sincere (Avery?)
Destiny LoveAngel (*Sofie tries not to throw up*)
Saylor Ann
Y'Sarah Sunflower (What, now?)
Amerrius Cornell-Ora'Sean (Somehow, I doubt the parents actually went to Cornell.)
Anessa Morning Star (MorningStar. Like the vegan corn dogs!)
Julie Anne Turtle (Though Julie Anne is refreshing. And Turtle is sort of cute. Hmmm...)
Maverick Halen (So close to Maverick Palin. It's scary.)
Mia Monet (Good job parents, mixing an Italian word with a French surname.)
Anel (Apparently mom....or dad...is also Anel. Other parent is Jaime.)
Dream
Ripley Grace (I'll just hope she's named after Alice Ripley, and the parents' taste in Broadway is better than their taste in names.)
Aryan Dadrass (I think the awfulness of Aryan was to draw attention from the hot mess that is Dadrass.)

That's all for now, folks!

I'm Just a Bloggin...um...something

It's so depressing...my last blog post was around Hanukkah. So I'm going to have to do something to make up for it. How about...

NEW HAIRCUT!

This was partly done by myself and partly by my friend Chandler. Yesterday, I told her to cut it in spikes (as in, points at the bottom of my hair.) It didn't work out, so I she cut it in a huge angle (short on one side and long on the other.) It was pretty long yesterday:




and now it's shoulder-length-ish (I got tired of having an angle yesterday so I cut the other side off. :-) ) Fun fun fun.

My dad's visiting for two weeks (!) and we went to visit Ginger today. I had a huge amount of fun...we listened to Next to Normal and had ourselves a grand old time. I miss her so much...and the dogs...and my dad of course. :-( But I'm so glad that today happened.

Haircut tomorrow. Not sure how I'll get it cut. I'm trying not to let myself get bangs, since that never works out like I want it to. I'm thinking this Anne Hathaway thing...




I suppose we'll see tomorrow...

Eeep! Last night of Bush!!!

I'm soooo excited...we're going to be getting a new president tomorrow, and he appears to be a good one. :-) I may be staying home from school tomorrow to have an inauguration party, but I'm not really sure. Hrmmmm....

I cleaned my room for about ten hours straight today, and in maybe thirty minutes it would be done. However, I do not have the capacity to clean any. more. today. But I'm extremely happy...it's cleaner than it has been in years. Plus I have a fun little bed/book nook, which is awesome. I wish I had a camera other than my phone (which has a full memory.) If I didn't I would definitely do before and after shots.

So yeah. That's about all I did today. And my mom made these two excellent dishes...sweet & sour tofu and this Indian rice dish. We're going to be eating that for a few days, definitely.

Oh yeah, and happy MLK Day everybody! And as I said on my Facebook status, thank you Dr. King.

The past...week, maybe?

Okay, so so much has happened!!!

My dad got here from Connecticut, which was stupendously exciting. I actually started crying when I hugged him at first...I never cry from joy! That's how happy I was. Except we'll be leaving him for Ithaca, NY tomorrow, which makes me sad. I think seeing him for a week is going to make me miss him more now.:-( My sister agrees. :-(

Okay, so we stayed with my dad's friend, the chiropractor Randy. He was lovely...and there was a hot tub at his house! That was great, except one problem: we managed to break it the last day. Or at least, it stopped working while Ella, my mom, and I were soaking.

Speaking of my mom, we had a Hanukkah dinner with her and my dad. Is that a MIRACLE or what? I'm very proud of them, though it did leave me feeling very weird and twisty inside.

Okay, and before that, we went to this clothing boutique of my dad's friend Marta's friend Liylou's, and all the clothing was AWESOME. It was all organic and fair trade and coolness like that. But everything was soooo expensive. She gave us each a pair of leg-warmers though, which was awesome. $24 each though...very very generous. We must have looked like starving little children in need of expensive leg-warmers.

And now we're at Marta's house with some pretty cool people. There's Marta's daughter Clara, a teenage guitar-strumming couch-hopper by the name of Dylan, and quite a few more interesting characters. I <3 them. :-D They're very fun to be around, and also Marta gave me a carrot. :-)

So we're going to Ithaca tomorrow, which I already mentioned. David's taking my turtle, Devika Annevieve Niamh, called Devi. She's a pretty cool turtle. David is lucky to have her company.

So...yep...that's what's been happening so far. Plane tomorrow, and I need to write a bunch of my story while I'm flying. I hope Iris&Jonah actually gets somewhere, and I hope I come up with a semi-decent title for it. Iris&Jonah isn't really cutting it.

Much love (to whoever reads this, though no one is...I think)
-Sofie

New Favorite Poems!

I'm absolutely in love with this one, regardless of my shaky religious views:

And A Meadowlark Sang
by Ravindra Kumar Karnani

"The child whispered, 'God, speak to me'
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, 'God, speak to me!'
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
'God let me see you' and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
'God show me a miracle!'
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair,
'Touch me God, and let me know you are here!'
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly."

That's just beautiful.

Another:
as it happens
by Kyle Parrish

"Who told you this would be easy?" she said, eyes glittering like sea-wet stones. A flush, gentle as rain, rose in her cheeks.
Nobody, nobody, the voice in his head clammered, I'm sorry, sorry, my love, it is blessed, it must be; I cannot ever deny love.
At that moment he met her eyes and it occured to him that we live only in moments, arranged as it happens. Someday we shall live entirely in nothing but a single kiss.

Christmas Break!

Okay, so I just got out of school for Christmas Break, and I'm very excited! I've been exhausted all week studying for finals- I got home today at about 3:15 and slept until about 8! I definitely need this time to recuperate from being so freaking tired.

Okay, here's what I thought of my exams:
Tuesday- Math- It was better than I would have expected, but I still don't really know how I did. For some reason, how easy it is for me to take math tests in his class doesn't seem to have that much correspondence with how well I do.
Spanish- Horribly easy. I got my grade back, and it was a 94. I thought I did better, actually, but I'm not complaining.
Wednesday- Chemistry- I'm really iffy on this one. I seemed to have forgotten a bunch of formulas and stuff- what is it with me blanking out on tests this year?
Thursday- English- Very good. It wasn't tedious to take actually, which surprised me, since that is generally the point of exams. I got done really early, and then Mrs. Leary told me my essay had to be a page longer. I could only manage to get it a half a page longer, so I hope that's okay.
Friday (today)- History- Ugh. That did not go as well as planned. I'm just glad it's over with.

I'm planning a movie marathon tomorrow with my mom and sister, because the day after that...

I'm so excited that my dad's coming on Sunday! I haven't seen him for- what- four months? I'm very, very happy about that. We're going to have so much fun, and the latke party has been "approved" (well, despite the guy whose house we're staying at not knowing anything about it!)

I have some new poems to post. Not that I wrote, but that I found. Next post...