Back from Camp

Well, I'm back. Camp was fun. We stayed in a beautiful cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Other than playing MarioKart Double Dash and DDR, we watched movies (which is why Pride and Prejudice is now my favorite movie), deep fried French fries, oreos, and waffle batter, rode a cable car, went ice skating, and listened to musicals in the car.

The deep frying was supposed to be only for dinner. We deep fried some French fries in vegetable oil (because we are cheapskates). After dinner, someone came up with the idea that "hey, we should have deep-fried some oreos while we had hot oil" and "Well, the oil is still sort of warm, isn't it?" And so we heated the oil back up again, crushed some Honey graham Squares for breading and mixed egg, vanilla, and milk as a breading glue thingy. That oreo was good but incredibly sweet and sort of squishy. So we used bisquick instead of crunched up breakfast cereal. Which worked better, but it wasn't as sweet. Whether or not that is a good thing I will never know. And eventually, it was suggested "Hey, why don't we make some donuts?" How were we supposed to make donuts? Waffle batter made out of bisquick. Eventually, we also added cinnamon sugar. We made what looked like a cross between a donut hole and a hunk of fried chicken first, and then the donuts began to look like, well, fried donuts. And then we fried one with a hole in the middle, which was really cool looking, and then another one, which broke and turned into a "C." The donuts were sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, as they were somewhat bland otherwise. I caught most of it on the youth group's video camera. Oh, man, that camera is really cool. The donuts were pretty good, but blander than your typical donut. Then we watched My Fair Lady (weird!).

The cable car was cool, abeit squishy (120 people in one car=me wanting to scream "GET OUT OF MY BUBBLE!")
We also went ice skating, which was, for me, painful. Everyone in my immediate family has wide feet. I have never been to a place where ice skates came in wide sizes. I asked for a 7 and 1/2, but I think I got a 7. They fit well, but now I am beginning to reconsider my foot doctor's idea that I may need orthotics eventually (I have somewhat flat arches). However, the rubbing on the back of my leg gave me a blister and the pressure on the sides of my feet caused a lot of pain. When I finally gave up and took off the skates to get the heck out of the ice rink, I forgot that the rubber-matted floors are covered in puddles. My socks were wet and grey on the bottoms when I put my shoes back on, but it felt good on my abused feet, so that didn't cause too much of a problem. We got ice cream on the way back to the cabin at a Coldstone spinoff (Marble Slab Creamery) which was, in my opinion, better than coldstone (coldstone doesn't have waffle cups that I know of!) I splurged and got a chocolate-dipped waffle cup with double-dark chocolate ice cream with a Reeses peanut butter cup mixin. That was really good. Although the cup's diameter was about six inches, which meant that I ate an insane amount of ice cream. Hey, insanity isn't so bad...

My favorite musical still has to be Les Miserables, but the tenth anniversary version was really weird. Javert sounded awesome as usual, but Valjean sounded like he had a sore throat or something. This version also cut out parts of songs and even entire songs. They even cut the song in which Marius first sees Cosette. I mean, it was like, they suddenly knew each other from nowhere and POOF! They're in love. And I'm pretty sure they cut Gavroche's death, which was a pity. Even though my second favorite character dies in it, it's a cool song. I prefer the symphonic version—nothing's been cut, most of the characters are really good sounding (no sore throats) (although Eponine sounds like she is singing way too far forward in her throat, in my opinion) (and Valjean is a little late sounding in some of his lines in the prolouge so that Javert has to catch up), and the orchestra is good. Anywho, I got to listen to this tenth anniversary edition on the way to the cabin. On the way back, we listened to Jekyll and Hyde (cool, but please forgive me if Imisspelledd it or something), Jane Eyre (confusing, weird, and a little too sentimental), Phantom of the Opera (cool, especially on Christine's high notes that I could reach if I warmed up) and Whistle Down the Wind (incredibly weird and modern sounding (rock musical in some places, if you catch my drift)).
Favorite Musicals (in order):
Les Miserables
Phantom Of The Opera
Jekyll and Hyde
Please note that things in this post and my entire blog are opinion only. I don't own any of the musicals (no job yet and $10 allowance a week... duh). These are my comments on the musicals only and were not really meant to be quoted/taken completely seriously. Don't use this as a guide for buying a Les Mis recording, as my tastes may differ from yours. And if I have done anything illegal here, please comment and tell me so I can remove/edit the offensive material. None of this was meant to offend anyone, so if it does, I am sorry but I did not mean to offend you.

Legal mumbo jumbo ish yuck, but whatever.

Anywho, enough about camp, I think. New website I just discovered a few hours ago thanks to my parents saving a newspaper article. http://www.lulu.com is a site that allows anyone to publish a book completely free of charge with 80 percent royalties. Each book is printed after it is ordered, so if your book sells 0 copies, Lulu hasn't lost much and neither have you. I just need to keep writing on my book... if I ever publish it, you can be sure a link will be here to Lulu (most likely, anyways) so that people can read it—in either book form or e-book form! That would be cool. And I could put my own artwork on the cover. I just need to get up the nerve to draw it... some of the characters creep me out, and I would hate to have a creepy character staring at me from the book's future cover as I write it. The only thing that Lulu lacks, I think, is an editor, but if one writes a story, prints it out, shoves it in a friend's face with a red pen and commands that friend to edit and show no mercy, and then if this is repeated with other people, and revisions are made, who needs an editor?

I gotta practice my violin (after a week of not being able to practice due to me being 8 hrs away from my violin). Here's to hoping my ears and my brain don't implode!