Hello from another lazy Friday.
        There's nothing interesting I can really think to blog about this week. I was thinking it could be interesting if you all gave me a topic that you want me to try to blog about next week, but that may just make me seem even more lazy and I don't guarantee that I'll actually do it. But if you want, you all could give me a topic. or not. whatever.
    Anyway, this week I thought I'd share something I found on my computer from several years ago. Rachael and Amy, do you remember that day in high school pre-calc  after a test when to kill time we started to write a story a few sentences/words at a time? I found part of it. And I wanted to share. It's kinda crazy and doesn't have an ending, but enjoy:

    Once there was a guy who didn’t realize that he was all powerful and owns a goat. He didn’t know why he didn’t know that he owned a goat, but he did. One day he and the goat were swimming in the ocean and met a water fairy who also had a companion: a dwarf. “So, what are you and your goat doing so far out in the ocean,” questioned the fairy.
    “We’re looking for a magical seahorse that will grant us three wishes,” answered the guy. “I would like to wish that my goat friend could talk. My second wish would be to become a prince. Not a king because they have too many worries. My third wish is to be able to talk to all living beings. I wonder what trees talk about as they stand in the same spot day in and day out.”
    “Well, good luck with that!” cried the fairy. “And because you seem trustworthy, I’ll grant you a fish sandwich for lunch and my dwarf, Harold, to guide you.”
So the guy, whose name was Warren Peace by the way, set off ON A QUESTE with Harold, the goat, and the fish sandwich. As Warren followed Harold past the shore and sand dunes into the nearby forest, he heard a peculiar sound coming from the pocket where he put the fish sandwich. Oh no! A little, miniature kangaroo was eating the sandwich! He took out the little animal and said, “Hey, kangaroos don’t eat fish!”
    “Too bad, I’m magical,” replied the kangaroo.
    “Tell me little carnivorous kangaroo, do you know where to find a seahorse that grants wishes? Harold seems to be lost,” said Warren.
    “I’m not lost!” said Harold, and he scampered off into the trees. When Warren followed, he saw that Harold had pushed a secret button to open the secret mines of the dwarfs. The Kangaroo ran after Warren in the hope of eating the rest of the fish sandwich.
    “Hold on! Wait for me!” the kangaroo yelled.
    “Baa!” exclaimed the goat as they squeezed through the passage.
    Though it was dark in the caves, there seemed to be an eerie glow just out of the corner of each of the questers’ eyes. There was the sound of trickling water that became louder as they continued. When they reached the source of the sound, they saw it was an underground stream flowing into a deep pool.
    “This is where I leave you,” sighed Harold.
    “No! You can’t leave!” said Warren.
    “Baa!” said the goat.
    “Fish sandwich!” said the kangaroo.
    “The water fairy said you would guide us but you’re leaving us in underground passage?” continued Warren. “Where are we supposed to go? How will we find the seahorse?”
    “You won’t need me now that you’ve found the magical kangaroo. As long as you have the fish sandwich, he shall do your bidding. It seems luck is on your side. Plus, I must hurry and go back to the fairy. She promised that we will play chess today,” said Harold as he dived into the tunnel.
    “OK,” said Warren to the kangaroo. “Where do we go next little kangaroo? Tell me and I’ll give you a bite of the fish sandwich.”
    The kangaroo stared at Peace for a moment and replied, “First of all, my name is Lil’ Loo and second, you go into the pool – don’t worry, it’s filled with magic so you can breath underwater.”   
    With a sigh of relief, Warren held out the sandwich. Lil’ Loo snatched it away and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “How did you do that?!” yelled Warren. “That was, like, a 2 pound sandwich, and you’re 5 inches tall!”
    “I’m magical, remember?” answered Lil’ Loo as he started to hop away.
    “Wait! Come back!” yelled Warren.
    “Haha! You can’t catch me, silly human. The only power you had over me was the fish sandwich, and now – ” Lil’ Loo was cut off as he was suddenly jerked off the ground. He looked up to see that the goat had appeared and had snatched him by his scruff and now stood holding Lil’ Loo in his mouth. “No, don’t eat me! I’m magical. You’ll die just like the princess with the 7 dwarfs. You don’t want that, do you?” he yelped and pleaded to the goat. But his cries fell on empty ears for the goat was already moments from eating him. Using his arm and legs, Lil’ Loo held his mouth apart and continued to yell. “Don’t just stand there, tell this beast to stop!”
    Warren replied, “Only if you promise to lead us all the way to the magical seahorse and then back home.”
    “Oh, Ok!” cried Lil’ Loo, and the goat dropped him. Brushing himself off, Lil’ Loo said,     “I was going to follow you anyway to make sure you didn’t get in trouble.” And so the threesome continued their journey. They followed Lil’ Loo’s instruction to dive into the underground pool and swam downward. The water got darker and darker as they continued to dive. Eventually, Lil’ Loo tugged on Warren’s shirt and pointed to what looked like an underwater cavern or tunnel. Warren pulled the goat along with him as they advanced toward the opening. Holding his finger to his mouth, Lil’ Loo indicated to Warren to be quiet. Using his fingers, he told them that ‘guarding the cavern was a gigantic sea creature who is asleep. Once he is awake, he will yawn and cause a whirlpool that will suck them to his stomach.’ Still using sign language, Lil’ Loo asked Warren if he had any extra food. Digging through his pockets, Warren found that he had 8 sunflower seeds.
    ‘That’ll do’ signed Lil’ Loo. ‘It will be just enough to throw into Sentrax’s mouth when he’s yawning to stop the whirlpool, leaving him shocked and momentarily blind so we can go into the cavern.’
    Warren stared at Lil’ Loo and fingered, ‘How do you know the creature’s name?’
    ‘Me and Sentrax play poker every other Thursday.’
    'Can’t you just ask Sentrax if we can go by?’ fingered Warren.
    Lil’ Loo answered, ‘No, Sentrax is way too much of a workaholic for that, but the sunflower seeds will work.’
    While they were having their signed discussion, the goat wandered/floated toward the opening of the cavern. It was suddenly knocked aside by a giant tail the color of the rocks around it. The goat was pushed back toward Warren and Lil’ Loo who looked with shocked expressions at the tail and what it was attached to, which was a giant serpent-like water dragon. The dragon stared at them, baring its teeth and flaring its nostrils while water around it began to boil.
    ‘Oh hey Sentrax! How’s it going?’ said Lil’ Loo.
    Sentrax suddenly sneezed and then looked confusedly around him. “Oh it’s you Lil’ Loo. Did you come back to pay off your debt or to lose some more. We are now at 999 to 1 with me in the lead,” yawned Sentrax. “Since I don’t see/smell any fish sandwiches on you, I would guess the latter. So what’ll we play…today,” Sentrax said sleepishly. Suddenly his eyes opened wide and glowed green as he caught sight of Warren and the goat. “Who are you?” questioned Sentrax in a deep throaty voice that totally contrasted with the voice he had spoken to Lil’ Loo with.
    “We’re a Mariachi Band!” yelled Warren who doesn’t work well under pressure.
    “Heck yeah!” said Sentrax. “I love Mariachi bands! The word is so funny!” When the serpent-dragon gave a bellowing laugh, Warren threw the sunflower seeds into Sentrax’s throat.    

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's as far as the computer file goes. I believe I still have a hard copy somewhere at home that has more on it. Hope you all enjoyed it (and don't judge our writing ability by it. It was just for random fun).

And this week's video sort of ventures in Amber's territory since it's a song, but I like it just as much for the video so here you go:

Hello from a potentially diseased mind. According to a BBC News article, there's a reason why I'm both a writer and a crazy person. "Creativity is often part of a mental illness, with writers particularly susceptible, according to a study of more than a million people," the article begins. Over to the side, there's a nice picture of Virginia Woolf, with a caption that simply reads, "Novelist Virginia Woolf killed herself." It doesn't get much more straightforward than that, does it, folks?

The article goes on to link disorders like anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia to creativity in different forms. Photographers, artists, and dancers are all somewhat likely to have these issues. But mostly writers. There's even a nice little side box with more fun stories about writers and their suicides.

I'm pretty sure I'm not schitzo or anything, but this article still intrigued me for a number of reasons. For one thing, a similar topic of discussion came up recently in my Creative Nonfiction Writing class. One of my classmates asked something along the lines of, "Why don't these writers ever write about happy stuff?" The question was met with mixed responses. Some people claimed that when we write about not-so-happy stuff, it's to get it out so it doesn't eat us up inside. Others said it's because you can't describe feelings of happiness with the clarity that you can describe sadness. That one was interesting. I'd never thought about it before, but it actually is really difficult to put supreme joy into specific language. Yet another hypothesis was that the bad, more traumatic things stick with you longer, because you can always make new happy memories. What do you guys think? Why do a lot of writers (at least in nonfiction writing) focus on negative emotions and/or events?

Now speaking of writers and craziness and my nonfiction class, I feel I should tell you a little something about writing classes. They're full of fantastically quirky, unique, creative people. At the beginning of a new semester, I'm always horrified of my creative writing classes, because it's inevitable that everyone is going to end up reading my writing. But a few weeks in, I always realize the same thing: the class is worth taking simply for the sake of getting to interact with these awesome, delightfully messed up people. I mean, where else could I encounter a guy with a two-tone moustache, a bunch of nerdfighters, and an avid conspiracy theorist?

Actually, a recent conversation with the conspiracy theorist is another reason that the afrorementioned article piqued my interest. On Monday I wrote a satire about the "ring by spring" mentality of a lot of young, southern, Christian women, and the pressure to get married and establish a family right after college. In class we discussed our writing in small groups and Conspiracy Theory Guy was in my group. You guys know I don't talk about people on this blog, and I'm certainly not going to say anything negative about him. It's just that his response to my satire and our discussion of it bewildered me. My two groupmates were Conspiracy Theory Guy and a girl named Joanna. Joanna and I were explaining to him that "ring by spring" was an actual thing and that girls really do think like that. He thought about it for a moment, then responded. "I don't know," he said in his relaxed drawl (it's not a southern drawl; it's actually really hard to place). "I'd like to put a ring on somebody's finger by spring. It would be nice just to be that ignorant." 

I'm sure I looked at him quizzically at that point, and I'm not quite sure what he said after that. It was something to do with believing that that quiet, domestic life is all there is, and how it would be nice if he could simply believe that rather than the loneliness of...I don't really know. It seems he has some kind of personal quest for truth, to find his way through all the world's deceptions and, of course, conspiracies. To find the real story behind all the lies. And in the process, he has developed this self-inflicted solitary existence.

...Of course, this was what I got from about a five or ten minute conversation with the guy, but it was intriguing nonetheless. I guess the point of it all is, creative people have weird minds and experience the world in kind of off-kilter ways. I like that, personally. It's not like everyone who's creative is some kind of mental patient...But we're all a little crazy!

What about you guys? I know you're all pretty creative, but how are you pretty crazy? Also, tell me about some of the bizarre people you've met (in a nice way, of course). Are there any conversations you've had with these people that really threw you for a loop? Leave a comment!

Love,
Anna Beth

P.S. Here's the link to the full article. Happy reading!

Hello from I want to go to bed and sleep for the next 2 weeks...

This week has been kinda stressful for me...not the "I have 10 million things due tomorrow" stress, but a more stretched out "I have 5 thousand things to do, each has a specific due date for a certain class and I feel like I'm forgetting something" stress. Bleh.
In other news, Red Zone finally opened! Although I would have liked if the sitting area was also opened...speaking about more food choices, I've been back to Panda Express a couple of times now, and I'm definitely pleased that the line hasn't been outrageous like I thought it would be.
Now that our hotel has been booked, I feel our plans are turning to reality...it's such an amazing feeling. Just like our gangdam style video, which I'm really hoping to be finished filming by Sunday (fingers crossed!).
Funny story (not really). Jill and I went to fencing yesterday and we were 2 out of the 4 people that went. So we (jill, kelsy, and i) had 15 touch bouts with each other. Jill and I saved our bout for last and we got to have Stephen (1 of our instructures) judge us. It was really stretched out because we have a similar fencing style and Stephen couldn't tell who had right-of-way (and therefore get the point), but eventually Jill won 15-12.

I promise to have something fabulous next week because it's getting late and I'm posting this from my phone.
Cheers!
Rachael

P.S. I grabbed the fashion director role as part of our project in perspectives of dress. The class got divided into 2 groups and each group is going to put on a fashion runway show based around a theme that the 2 groups agreed on.

Hello from halfway through the semester! I only really know that because the bi-term Yoga class I’m taking with Jill and Amy starts tomorrow. I’m pretty excited about it. For one thing, I get friendship, which is always awesome, and for another, I think the subject is going to be pretty cool as well. Other than that, Jill, Anna Beth, Amy, and I went to Jackson’s Orchard on Saturday. It was fun, but we didn’t stay all that long because a ton of people were there, so lines were too long to really do anything. After that we went to see Rachael at her job. Where she gets to sample chocolate. And generally be around chocolate all the time. You have, like, the best job ever, Rachael. And then Jill and AB came to my house so we could finally watch the most recent episodes of Doctor Who! That was fun. I feel like this season has been kind of disappointing and lower quality than previous seasons, regarding plot and character development and stuff, but the last one was an improvement on the first few. But now we have to wait until Christmas for anything else :/
In other awesome news, tickets for VidCon go on sale Monday! It’s hard to believe, but we’re finally getting to the point where we can take concrete steps toward our road trip, like booking the hotel room and buying our tickets! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that was, in fact, an entire sentence of exclamation points. That’s really the only way I can describe the awesomeness that is afoot.
I don’t want to overload you too much on all the cool stuff that’s going on, though, so I’ll wrap up the actual blog-y portion to save room for the awesomeness that is Question Tuesday!

Rachael:
Do you think Expect Squirrels will ever be completed?
*sigh* I hope so. Maybe once I’ve completed my NaNoRiMo project it will be a little more likely?
Do you want to be in a flash mob?
Sure :)
Have you had Panda Express yet?
Nope. Perhaps we should go there this Friday?
Would you eat chocolate off the Doctor’s abs?
… I’m going to say probably not. I like chocolate, but not that much.

Sigmund Freud:
Would you film a sex scene (in which you’re only acting, not actually doing it) with a man of your choice for a million dollars if you were ensured that no one would ever see it?
Absolutely not.
Furthermore, would you do said sex scene and show it to your parents if it meant that all the babies on earth would die if you failed to do so? (Not all babies ever, just the ones on earth at the moment).
Really? Really? It’s not like I can let all the babies in the world die! But ick. That’s just mean. Why are you asking me such questions? Aren’t you a little busy being dead and all?
 
Jill:
If you could only eat chocolate by eating it off your friends, would you?
I dunno, maybe if I really wanted chocolate and it was really thick so that I wouldn’t actually get down to skin or anything. But this would definitely significantly reduce my chocolate intake :(
Is it good to have a “crappy” colon?
Jill asked this a couple of weeks ago, but apparently my answer was not sufficient for her. So, if we’re talking literally here, I suppose it is indeed good, seeing as that’s the colon’s job. Better a crappy colon than a appy lung or heart or other organ that does not deal with waste disposal. Speaking in the metaphorical sense, though, a crappy colon would be like a crappy anything else- nonfunctional and generally no good.
Happy now? I told you I couldn’t come up with a funny answer to a funny question.

Anna Beth
If you could change one thing about the American political system, what would it
be?
Well, there’s certainly a lot that could do with improvement. If we’re talking hypothetically here, I’d like to make it where politicians couldn’t lie- everything out of their mouths had to be absolute truth, no twisting figures or sugarcoating the facts. Then we could see which
candidates would really be best for the country.
I don’t know if that counts, though, seeing as ’s probably not possible. Unless we want to start using lie detector tests o  something? I guess, realistically, we could get rid of the Electoral College and just have a straight vote. But I still feel like the lying thing would b  much more beneficial…
Have you seen the Dalek in the Cherry Hall bathroom?
I haven’t, but it sounds pretty awesome.
Why don’t you watch Once Upon a Time?
I watch too much television as it is :/
What part of VidCon are you the most excited about?
I don’t even know! There’s just so much awesomeness to look forward to! Probably seeing in person some of the YouTubers I watch on my computer will be the coolest part.
What are you going to be for Halloween?
A college student.

And that’s all for this week! Anna Beth wins favorite, because she’s the only one who didn’t ask me about sex or licking chocolate off of people. Seriously, you guys are weird…

 Love you!
 Sara

Hello from Munchkin, 

I don't have much time so I am not going to post a lot today. I just decided to post my favorite scenes from my favorite Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy VIII. If you are curious about the game and plot just go to the Final Fantasy Wiki.

I already introduced you to the main two characters Squall and Rinoa last week.

Now for the scenes. Just comment on which scene is your favorite, what you think about the characters and what your opinion is. The scenes are in no order. They are just my 5 favorite scenes from the game. Also Final Fantasy VIII has no character voices because it was a Play Station 1 game and PS1 games never had voice audio. It wasn;t until Play Station 2 that video game characters had voices. They talk in the game, but not in video scenes. 

The Opening

How Squall and Rinoa First Meet:

Squall gets bamboozled:

Saving Rinoa:

Ending Part 1:

Ending Part 3: Squall Legit Smiles..FINALLY..took him the whole game but it was worth it :)
Note: In Part 2 Rinoa finds squall and he's saved and stuff and other character stuff. Whatever as Squall would say. 

Yep so that's the end. What do you think about  the game, scenes, characters etc?
Also if you wanna hear Squall's voice, it sounds like this. Pretty sexy huh?
This is from another game but it was the second time Squall got a Voice Actor. You don't have to watch the whole thing. You hear his voice in the first 10 seconds. 

Sincerely, I wish I was Rinoa!

Hello from the realm of black and gold! Everyone is dressed up and busy tailgating for the game tonight against Florida… Don’t ask me why this is parent’s weekend too. It just seems like a bad idea. Regardless, Victory got to sing at the BCM’s tailgate today, which was a lot of fun! My friend decided to wear her Halloween costume early- which essentially is a nude-colored full body suit (head and all) – and dress it up with black and gold. It was really hilarious! :)

I’ll be honest- life was really slow over the past week. Unfortunately, almost immediately after coming back from Colorado over fall break – which was wonderful!!!! – I caught what I consider the reverse flu. In other words, I started out by coughing a lot and having a lot of congestion in my throat, thus causing me to lose my voice for a day, and then the sickness moved upward, to where my throat was essentially fine, but my nose would not stop running, and I was sneezing ALL the time. All in all, that wasn’t a lot of fun. However, since I had all of my midterms the week before fall break, this was a really chill week for me, without a lot of studying and homework. Essentially I got to sleep a lot- as in, I’m normally awake somewhere around 16 hours+ a day, and this past week, I was only awake about 8 hours every day. I was doing a LOT of sleeping. ^_^

However, now I’m better and don’t really have a lot to report. Life’s continuing as usual… Something fun is that I went swing dancing last night on Alumni Lawn! That was cool :) Another fun fact is that I’m working on my Halloween costume… which coordinates with Mark’s costume for this year too :) (*cue the awwws for the couple’s costume*) I’m not saying what it is, but I will be sure to post a picture after we’re together wearing it :)

<3 you guys! Hope your weeks are going well! I’m giving you all two songs… 1) because I missed last week, and 2) I’m on a cover theme…

Ok. So this is a Taylor Swift song cover which actually works in my opinion, and I really like it. Plus, Victory is officially thinking about making an a cappella version, which would be fun and would be really cool. Just saying. :) So enjoy!

Taylor Swift- “Safe and Sound” – Cover by Alex Goot, Luke Conard, Chad Sugg

        Salve a cameram meam. Guess what we’re going to do today? If you guessed Latin lessons, you win a prize: a Latin lesson! If you guessed wrong, well, you get a Latin lesson. I’ve been enjoying my Latin class and didn’t have any better ideas for this week, so I thought I’d try teaching, not that I’m particularly good or anything. And everyone’s been so topic-y lately that I thought I’d try it out. For this week I’ll just tell you about nouns because, sadly, there is a lot to learn about nouns.
        But before that, I’ll give you a rundown of correct Latin pronunciation in case you would like to practice through chanting (which is the best way to practice). And if you were wondering, yes there is enough evidence for a standard in pronunciation despite Latin being a dead language. If you would like specifics on this evidence, I’ve cited my both my Latin textbook and its primary source for a pronunciation guide*
        For the most part, Latin has the same pronunciation of letters that English does with a few exceptions. For example, J and W are not a part of the Latin alphabet.
        The letter I is used as both a consonant and a vowel. I think I may have mentioned that in a previous blog because I found the concept of the consonantal vowel fascinating. The reason J and j look so similar to I and i has to do with J being a modified I to better differentiate between the distinctive vowel and consonant sounds. V, likewise is used as both a consonant and a vowel. But anyway…
            Back to pronunciation exceptions:
B is the same as in English, but ‘bs’ is pronounced as ‘ps’ in ‘taps’ and ‘bt’ as ‘pt’ in ‘apt’.
C is always hard (has a K sound) as in ‘cart’
G is also always hard as in ‘get’
H is never silent
I, as a consonant, has the y sound as in ‘yawn'
R  was probably rolled
S  always has the sound as in ‘serpent’ and never makes a z sound
V, as a consonant, always makes a w sound as in ‘wet’
X  counts as a double consonant and makes a ‘ks’ sound as in ‘axe’
Z   is also a double consonant, making a ‘dz’ sound as in ‘gadzooks’ ßyes that example came straight from the book.
ch is pronounced as in ‘character’
ph as in ‘people’
th as in ‘tea’           (note: Mark Antony vs. Mark Anthony)

oy, now the vowels.

Vowels can be short or long. Beginning Latin students generally put a macron (little line) above vowels with long sounds, but I’m too lazy to do that on the computer plus real Latin doesn’t have so you won’t either. :)

A  (short): as in the first ‘a’ in ‘await’ or the ‘u’ in ‘cup’
     (long): as in ‘father’

E  (short): as in ‘pet’
     (long): as in ‘a’ of ‘fate’

I   (short): as in ‘fit’
    (long): as in the ‘ee’ of ‘feet’

O (short): as in the ‘o’ of ‘soft’ or the ‘au’ of ‘caught’
    (long): as in ‘hope’

U  (short): as in ‘put’
     (long): as in ‘fool’

Ok, one last section then we can move on to real words: Dipthongs. Latin has six.

ae - as in the ‘i’ of ‘high’
oe - as in the ‘oy’ of ‘toy’
ei - as in the ‘ay’ of ‘day’
ui - as in the ‘wi’ of ‘twin’
au - as in the ‘ow’ of ‘how’
eu - as a combination of e + u

Noun time! (cuz I’m totally skipping stress accents)

Latin nouns are characterized by 3 properties: Number (singular, plural), Gender (feminine, masculine, neuter), and Case.
And Case is where all the fun happens. There are six cases and each case adds a certain ending to the noun stem to give it a certain meaning. Here are the six cases and their uses:
Nominative – indicates the noun is the subject or predicate nominative of the sentence
Genitive – used to qualify or limit another noun in various ways
            Aka: adds the word ‘of’ to the noun
            Example: The Latin noun nauta means sailor. If you were to put it in the genitive                 case, it would change to nautae and translate to “of the sailor”
Dative – translates to using “to” or “for” with the noun
            For example: “to the sailors” or “for the sailors”
Accusative – indicates the noun is a direct object
Ablative – when translated to English, uses the words “from”, “with”, “by”, “in”, “on”
Vocative – used when directly addressing the noun

Want to learn some words now? Too bad. I have one more thing to tell you about. (I kinda sound like Stephen, lol. “Just one more thing, guys. Ok, another thing. Only one more I promise”)

Declensions
There are five families of nouns, called declensions, that dictate how a noun will change within each case and number. Every Latin noun belongs to only one of these declensions and each group has a distinctive set of case endings. You can tell the different cases apart by looking at the genitive singular form of each noun. We’ll start off just using 1st declension nouns, which are mostly feminine and are identified by the genitive singular ending of –ae.
And here are the case endings of 1st declension nouns

                              :          Singular        :        Plural     : 
Nominative  :              -a                   :          -ae              
Genitive          :             -ae                  :        -arum         
Dative               :             -ae                  :           -is              
Accusative    :             -am                 :          -as              
Ablative          :              -a                    :          -is               
Vocative         :              -a                    :           -is                              

Important note: the ablative singular, dative plural, accusative plural, and ablative plural all have long vowel sounds. The ‘a’ in –arum is also long.

So, you’ll notice several of the endings are the same. How do you tell them apart? Context with in the sentence. It’s basically been the go-to answer in my class recently. It’ll only become more prevalent as you get into the other declensions and into verbs.  English is a very word heavy language. Latin on the other hand is very concise.  

 Want to know some actual words now?
The following set up gives you the nominative singular followed by the genitive singular and then the English translation. All of the following are 1st declension nouns and are classified as feminine with the exception of ‘agricola’, ‘nauta’, and ‘poeta’ which are 1st declension masculine. There are no neuter 1st declension nouns. You don’t really need to know about the use of a noun’s gender just yet, but it comes in handy later on.

Anima, animae: breath, life force, sou
Dea, deae: goddess
Fama, famae: report, rumor, reputation, fame
Femina, feminae: woman, wife
Filia, filiae: daughter
Insula, insulae: island
Italia, Italiae: Italy
Patria, patriae: country, homeland
Puella, puellae: girl
Regina, reginae: queen
Pecunia, pecuniae: money
Ira, irae: anger, wrath
Sapientia, sapientiae: wisdom
Vita, vitae: life
Via, viae: way, road, street, path
Agricola, agricolae: farmer
Nauta, nautae: sailor
Poeta, poetae: poet

Now let’s decline one of these bad boys. To decline a noun (aka give it a case ending), you find the stem which you locate by looking at the genitive singular and taking off the genitive ending. This same rule holds up for all the declensions. So the stem of poeta is poetae – ae = poet

And one handy-dandy chart later:

                              :          Singular        :        Plural     : 
Nominative  :             poeta             :         poetae              
Genitive          :            poetae            :       poetarum         
Dative               :            poetae            :          poetis              
Accusative    :            poetam           :         poetas              
Ablative          :             poeta              :         poetis               
Vocative         :             poeta              :          poetis                              

And you can follow the same set up for all the other nouns I’ve given you.

        One more other random thing before I end this Latin session: you can decline names! It makes things harder but it’s kinda cool. Like Julia can be declined to be Julia, Juliam, Juliis, Julias, etc
        It’s kinda nifty. And from this I finally get to understand something that I’ve been curious about for awhile.
        You know the famous line “Et tu, Brute?”
I’ve known that it means “and you, Brutus?” but I never knew why it was Brute and not Brutus. It’s because you decline names. The vocative singular form (if you remember, vocative is direct address) of Brutus is Brute. So because he was talking directly to Brutus, “Brute” was used. I found that pretty interesting.

Your homework is to take one of the above nouns, decline it, and give the approximate English translations.
(Example:
Poeta – nominative singular: "Poet"
           --vocative singular: "Poet!" (direct address)
           -- ablative singular: from the poet, with the poet, by the poet, in the poet, on the                         poet
Poetarum – genitive plural: "of the poets"
Etc…
No, you can't use Poeta)

        Okay lesson over now. I’m curious if any of that was understandable from just reading. Let me know if you all are somehow interested in another lesson (or you can get out the torches and pitchforks and scream “NEVER AGAIN!!!”) You know, whatever ;P

        I thought about writing more about my week, but seeing as this blog is a little late already, I’ll just end it here. Sorry if you don’t like Latin. This post must have been extremely boring to you. Or it may have been boring even if you like Latin, I don’t know.
        But I will leave you with some awesome YouTube videos. Contiki, a travel company for 20-30 year olds, has been  sponsoring this awesome European roadtrip through Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and England over that past week or so featuring some of my favorite YouTubers. They’ve also been producing a short show every day until the trip ends. I’ve put the first one below, but check out the other ones because the activities get more exciting (I particularly like the one in Austria with whitewater rafting). On the trip are Charlie Mcdonnell (charlieissocoollike), Bryarly Bishop, Michael Aranda, Corey Vidal and his ApprenticeA team, Kathleen Elliot (Katersoneseven), Charles and Alli Trippy (Ctfxc), Jack Douglass (Jacksfilms), Jesse and Jeana (PrankvsPrank), Jimmy Wong, Meghan Camarena (strawberry17), Nadine Sykora (heynadine), Tim Deegan, and some awesome Contiki staff (who are Australian :D). It’s been awesome watching all their traveling, competitions, and interactions. It makes me REALLY want to see Europe now, too – not that I didn’t already want to travel there. If you want more to watch, well, there's a ton more footage on everyone's respective channels. Ctfxc, Katersoneseven, ApprentiveEh all do daily vlogs. I think prankvsprank may too. Michael Aranda and Jacksfilms have second channels with some short clips as well. Well, most everyone has or will have videos and vlogs of their adventure, so if you're interested, there's plenty to see. Not to bombard you with links or anything…….

Vale,
Jill
                  
* Learn to Read Latin. (2004) Andrew Keller and Stephanie Russell
   Vox Latina. (1965) W.S. Allen

(why yes, that is my own made up citation style. Thanks for noticing my refusal to correctly cite things)                                                                   

Day 1 Contiki Video:

And ApprentiveA/Eh's announcement of the trip, just cuz.

Hello from...being a nice person doesn't necessarily help you get your blog done on time. Sorry guys, I was helping a friend revise an essay over email, and my inner grammar Nazi lost track of the time. So on that note, let's travel backward in time!
Last night Jill so graciously helped me with the practice shoot for my film, Shadows, which is being produced for my Production Workshop class this semester. (Thanks, Jill)
The practice shoot went pretty well. The big thing we were trying to practice with was the lighting, since I so brilliantly wrote myself into a terrible situation, setting practically the entire film outdoors, at night, with really complicated shadows. I'm just glad I'm not the editor.
If we travel further back in time, we'll arrive at the film festival! The bad thing about blogging on Thursdays is that usually that's when the fun is just beginning. So let me tell you a bit about the rest of the festival that took place after I blogged Thursday night...
***SUSPENSEFUL MOMENT WHILE I POST BEFORE MIDNIGHT AND THEN RETURN TO EDIT***
And I'm back! Anyway, where did I leave off last Thursday? Ah yes, I'd just been to the after-after party in the observatory.

[Above is the observatory, a central location between the two towers of the Galt House Hotel, and the site of the after-after parties.]
Anyway, on Friday, I showed up at 8 am and was assigned to work in the filmmaker room. That means I got to sign in filmmakers and volunteers, and give them their necessary materials. I was able to meet a lot of people this way, obviously. I met a couple who had flown all the way from Tokyo, and they asked me to take their picture in front of the poster for their movie. It was great to see so many people who were so excited to have their work seen, especially internationally. 
While I was working in the filmmaker room, one of the head honchos of the festival, L.A. lawyer Brett Bachmann, came in and talked to me for a while. Eventually, the conversation drifted to the short film I'm working on this semester, and he asked me to email him the script. He was actually really interested in reading it...this guy whose father is actor Conrad Bachmann, who has all kinds of connections in Hollywood...this guy was really interested in reading MY script! (Well, I say "my" script...Mostly Kathryn Katz did the writing. We're co-writers, but I the idea came from the short that Jill, Rachael, Sara, and etc. were going to make 2 semesters ago that I had then adapted into a short story...The point is, this idea came from all sorts of different sources and has now been through tons of revisions to become the script that Kathryn and I put together. And yes, of course I let Mr. Bachmann know that she was my co-writer. Just clearing all that up. And confusing you more.)
Anyway, after I nearly peed myself from excitement, I was soon finished with my volunteer shift for that day, and I was free to go watch films. My friend Alycia and I saw one called The Wonderland Express, about a modified garage door opener that transports people inside their own minds. It was pretty good, and I got to meet the filmmakers, so that was cool. Oh, but before all that, we went to find food. We walked down to 4th Street, which was really close to the hotel, and we ate at a restaurant called Potbelly's. They have good sandwiches, but GREAT chips and oreo milkshakes!
Back at the festival, I saw The Lackey, which was a very Guy Ritchie/Quentin Tarantino style action film made by Shaun, the guy I met the first night. He was the star of it and had an...interesting...fake British accent. His cousin, the guy who had been in Thor, was also in The Lackey as "The Russian." Of course, I never remembered the guy's real name,  so I just always called him The Russian for the rest of the festival. He wasn't Russian.
After the film, I got ready and went to the Friday night after party. Because ALL the nights have an after party! This one was at the Louisville Slugger Museum again, but there were no cookies. :/
BUT, I did get a chance to talk to Motke and Eric again, and I met Eric's girlfriend, Natalie, who was SUPER pretty and nice. Oh, and at some point earlier in the day, I met Erik (not Eric), a filmmaker who quickly became friends with me and the other volunteers I was hanging out with (Alycia, Donald, Lee, and later Lena from Germany). A lot more people came to this after party, since more filmmakers had arrived Friday morning, along with more WKU professors and student volunteers. It was a blast! And when I was talking to Motke, I found out he had been to Harlaxton! Not as a student, but he had just been there. I think he knew someone who was taking classes or teaching there or something. But dude, MIND BLOWN. It was so cool to be in Louisville talking to a filmmaker from Nashville who had been to Harlaxton in Grantham, England! 
I'm pretty sure everyone else at the after party was having a great time as well, because after the Slugger Museum closed down, we moved the after-after party to the observatory. It was there that both Alycia and the volunteer coordinator Annette (who had been talking to Brett) came over to remind me to send Brett that script. I had talked to him that morning, but I didn't realize how eager he was to read it. Apparently, in the film business when someone wants you to email them something, they mean within the hour. So I jumped up and ran to my room. Thank goodness I had packed my laptop! So I did it. I emailed my script to a fancy L.A. lawyer and then danced around my room yelling, "No way! This is not happening! This is not my life!!!" 
After my little episode was over, Donald knocked on my door to inform me that the after-after-after party was moving to a suite on the 14th floor. So up I went. I saw Brett and let him know that I'd sent the email. And in the middle of the party, drink in one hand and iPhone in the other, he just sat down at a table and read the script. And it gave him chills! 
Sorry, sorry, I'm really not trying to brag. I bet it sounds like bragging. But really, this is just what happened. I don't know how to tell it without sounding like this. I was just super excited that he liked it. Alycia had a script, too, and at the party, he told her to email it to him. He's really nice and he loves to help young, aspiring filmmakers and writers. He even said he'd try to get WKU a new Red camera and some more Avid editing computers! 
Eventually, the awesomeness dissipated, and everyone went to bed, but it had been a great night. The next morning I was working in a screening room and got to see part of a film called Charlie's Place. After my shift ended, I went to see Motke's film, The Many Monsters of Sadness. It's about a group of high school friends who find a box that they think grants wishes...but it does so much more. BOM BOM BOM!
It's really good. I loved it Here's a trailer: https://vimeo.com/32878865
After that, I got to see the two films that WKU students entered in the festival: Max Moore's The Red Box and Andrew Yontz's We're Gonna Blow Up the Moon. It was amazing that at an international film festival, not one but two WKU films got shown.
Afterward, I tried to do homework, but to no avail. And we all know what happened next...another after party! The last after party was somewhat of a letdown. The awards ceremony was nice. The awards were engraved, full-size Louisville Slugger baseball bats, and the nice Japanese couple I met won one for their documentary. But this party was at Captain's Quarters, a restaurant 15 minutes out of Louisville. It was outside on a big deck that had a fire pit, which was nice since it was SO COLD. But there was no free food, so we all left pretty quickly after the awards. And, you guessed it, there was an after-after party in the observatory again. I mostly hung out with Donald, Erik, and Lena, but right before I left, I got to meet an Australian filmmaker with a personal grudge against Baz Luhrmann. So that was fun.
Sunday I mostly just took down posters, helped clean up, and went back to the real world.  :/
But LIFF 2013...I can't wait!

Stay awksome,*
Anna Beth

*Oh yeah, and awksome or oxsome is the word that me, Donald, and Erik came up with to mean both awkward and awesome at the same time. 

Hello from room 302, which Amy, Nayab, and I have claimed. Jill and Anna Beth are out doing some practice filming stuff, so we're here room sitting.
I have wonderful news! For those who haven't heard, I got a job at Mary Jane's Chocolates! I love this job! I have my second day of work tomorrow ^^ and Marie, Mary Jane's daughter, told me that it's part of my job to know the product...which means I get to sample all the chocolate! And there's a "free box" in the backroom that has imperfect, but still good, chocolate that anyone can take.
More amazing news: My friend Katie gave birth to Aiden last Friday! He's 2 months early, but he still looks adorable! Meanwhile, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. Katie is married and has a child, yet she is only a month older than me! Anyway, congratulations to Katie and David <3
I feel like I've been bombarded with homework this week--I have so much to do! But I won't bore you with the details...
Oh yeah, while planning out next semester, I realized that I have A LOT of hours to catch up because I changed my major and all that. If I don't take some winter/summer classes, I'm going to be a super senior--and even with those I still might end up needing an extra semester. :/ meh

On to this week's fashion somethingsomething:
As Stacy and Clinton always say on "What Not to Wear," it's important to know your body shape so you can look your best!
This website: http://www.shopyourshape.com/ not only calculates your body shape, but also gives examples of tops, bottoms, and swimsuits that you should pick out. To calculate, measure your bust line, natural waist, and your hips (at the widest point) in inches and type it in!

Hello from no longer Fall break :/ Not that break was even that much of a break. I don’t have Thursday classes anyway, so really I just got Friday off. What ‘break’ I had wasn’t all that interesting. I mostly stayed home and pretended that I was going to get around to the long to-do list I made for myself (as if :P). I did, however, read two more books! I wrote up the summary-ish things last night, so you can check out the Etc. section if you feel so inclined.
Also not very interestingly, next semester’s class list went up yesterday, so I had some fun planning out what classes I wanted to take (is it weird that I have fun planning out my schedule?). Looks like I’m going to be getting up very early very often, but I couldn’t avoid 8
a.m. forever.
I almost didn’t have any Questions for this week (thanks for that, guys :P), but Anna Beth saved the day (somewhat unintentionally). And then Jill sort of joined her. But not really. So Anna Beth wins by default this week! Plus I did actually like her second Question.
I wonder if anyone’s actually going to get enough points before the year runs out. Anyway, here’s this week’s (rather bereft) Question Tuesday!

Anna Beth:
Why are there no questions?
Haha, now you have to write something random and interesting just like the rest of us try to do. Good luck ;)
… You realize by asking this question, you negated your following statement, right? :P
There are no questions because my friends don’t like me :(
Jk, everyone just seems to have forgotten, and I was too lazy to badger you guys about it :P
Actually, I stumbled upon this video, so my “question” is more of a prompt. Respond to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=3Csjr8bXvPw#!
So,… that was kind of strange. If you didn’t watch the video (it’s a bit long), it was basically asserting that Doctor Who could be its own religion. So, my thoughts on that:
First of all, the religions it was citing weren’t all… religions. Buddhism, for example. Buddhism can be divided into two major forms. There are Buddhists who believe that Buddha is a god, and those who believe that he was just a wise man who taught people a lot of smart stuff. They have actual names, but I’m too lazy to try and remember them. Mahayana and Theravada, maybe? Anyway, the first form is Buddhism as a religion, while the second is merely Buddhism as a philosophy (there are actually people who combine Buddhism as a philosophy with their own actual religions, like Christian Buddhists and so forth). So, the Buddhism the video references, with Buddha as merely a teacher, is not actually a religion.
So, although Whovians get really excited and into Doctor Who, and they often can learn life lessons from it and stuff, I am failing to see how that makes it a religion. Now, that’s not to say that people couldn’t make it into one. Back to Buddhism, it in its earliest stages was just the philosophy, but over time some people started to consider Buddha as a god, turning the philosophy into a religion. People could do the same thing with Doctor Who if they really wanted to- start to believe that the Doctor is real and choose to worship him as some immortal deity and look to him for moral and ethical leadership.
But in this way, Doctor Who is in no way unique. People have been doing this since time began- like when the Israelites made Aaron construct a golden calf for them to worship. Even today, if we choose to put something above God and center our lives around it, we are creating our own deity, our own religion.
In summary, Doctor Who is not, in and of itself, a religion, though that is certainly not to say that people could not turn it into one if they felt so inclined. Anything could become the center of its own religion, it’s just a matter of the import people place on it in their lives. 

Jill:
Did anyone send you Questions this week?
Yup! No freeby points for you :P
 
So, that’s it for Question Tuesday! If you want a blog of my typical length, you’ll have to give me some actual Questions for next week. Unless, of course, you don’t like reading and prefer the brevity. Then I guess you shouldn’t ask me anything.

Love you guys!
Sara