In continuation...

I thought the film was really well handled, with the introductiona as to how Jews were treated then, and, yes, of course Shylock appeared the alien (there's that great line that actually refers to him as an alien) and of course there is an element of anti-Semitism in the play, but I think that was reduced through the way Michael Radford handled it. Anyway, I thought it was an excellent production. Thoroughly recommend it.

I'm not very happy with the lack of local tube services. To be fair, the Silverlink (national rail line) and Bakerloo lines are running from Kenton, but there's no Metropolitan line between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Aldgate and no Jubilee between Stanmore and Neasden. There are rail replacement buses, but I hate sitting on them through all the traffic and they're often icky buses and you don't know how regularly they'll come. I don't mind taking them to get home, but I don't like having to rely on them to get anywhere... you can't guarantee getting there on time unless you leave ages to get there.

Hmmm. Slowly procrastinating more and more. *doesn't like Streetcar* Grrr. I like Keats. Although I haven't necessarily been reading the set poems... :S Hmm. Maybe I should. But P4 is so much lovelier to go and just do. Especially now that Daniel's lent me his graphic calculator (which are allowed in exams and are oh-so-brilliant when you have to sketch graphs). :D But I should go and write a Streetcar essay and then do some P4 methinks. And then some Keats after that. Yes. That's right. Don't procrastinate longer doing other time-wasting things like chatting and tidying my room and playing with the graphic calculator trying to work out how to use it and the like. Nonononono. Work. Work. Hmm.

Orange Wednesday

Woo, I love Orange Wednesdays. There's a strange sense of satisfaction when you get in to the cinema for £2.90, and it's a good film. Went to see 'The Merchant of Venice'; was very impressed. Prolly the best film adaptation of a Shakespeare play that I've seen in a long time. Normally I hate film adaptations. Theatre is much better (well, obviously when they're plays to start with, as that is the intention, but even with novels: I still find the theatre much more preferable: your imagination still has to work hard. An interesting article on said concept, written by Philip Pullman, http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1358066,00.html, yes, I'm a Grauniad reader.) and normally I can't stand most of what they do to films these days. It just doesn't usually work. But this time. Wow. It did. And Al Pacino didn't sound overly American either. He made an excellent Shylock.

Right. More tomorrow morning when I'm not being whispered at that I shouldn't be on the internet so late at night. (It's now 00.30, and no it doesn't take me 50 minutes to type that. I procrastinate lots. And multitask (I am a woman after all). And no, it's not late for me, but my father thinks it is.)

Finished the cryptic!

I finished the Grauniad cryptic crossword... and on the right day! First time I've managed that. Grauniad is usually really hard... hm. Either they've made them easier because it's a Bank Holiday, or I'm actually getting better at them. Mind you, I do usually find Rufus somewhat easier than the others. (Today's was written by Rufus.) Proof that I managed it:



Google update: I now get two results for phrstomnicalisms on both IE and Firefox. Whether that has anything to do with the fact that I emailed google about it, I have no idea.

This googles!

Woo! My blog is indexed on google! Actually, can I ask a favour of y'all? Search phrstomnicalisms on google in whichever browser you have, and let me know how many results are listed, and which browser you used. For some absurd reason I'm getting a different number of results dependent on which browser I use. For me, there are three results in IE, whilst only two in firefox. I promise I'm not getting you to do this to increase google ratings or whatever it is when lots of people google search a site. I don't care about that. (Although of course I am happy it now comes up when googled.) I'm just curious about the difference.

Hmmm. Haven't blogged for a while. Don't really know why, seeing as it's the holidays, and I would have thought I would blog more then, since I would have more time to waste. I suppose I haven't had anything blog-inspiring, or, invariably, whenever blog inspiration hits, the computer is in use by another family member. *sighs* Ah well, blogging now.

Birthday (my 18th, on the 21st, Tuesday) was good and enjoyable; although we only managed to open the champagne we were going to open on the day last night, but what the heck, it was still a good day, and the bubbly was still lovely. Mmmmmmm. Been joking with my mum that I'll take her to the pub... 'cept all she'll want is a coffee. *rolls eyes* Received rather a lot of yellow, smiley and colourful stuff, which, of course, made me happy. :D I like yellow, smiley and multicoloured stuff. :D

Today was an interesting Shabbat. Didn't have to get to shul 'til a bit later than usual, as there wasn't a youth service until mussaf (additional service for Shabbat), as opposed to the usual 9.30 stint (which I need to improve on... I've been leaving it a little late of late). Went to the Finesilvers' for lunch, which was rather nice. 'Cept it's a good half an hour walk to them from shul, and it was cold. And then a bit less to get home. But goinghome didn't seem too bad. Strangely, rather a lot of shops on Preston Road were open, including a barber (and there were actually customers in there too). We finished lunch about half an hour before Shabbat went out, which gave us time to walk home with two minutes to spare before havdala. Spent some of the evening watching TV with my parents (Harry Potter, which my mum managed to be confused by and I found the music incredibly annoying... never mind the characters and predictable story line, and Vicar of Dibley, which was predictably very funny).

Passed my grade 8!

Wooooo! I passed my grade 8! Only just, mind you; 104 when you need 100 to pass. But who cares? I passed!! Considering I thought I'd fail until I did it, when I thought I'd passed, but not that well. Eeeee. :D Naomi's happy.

I got a birthday card in the post today from Brent Council telling me that I'm old enough to vote, encouraging me to vote, etc. Bit random but still... first birthday card. :D (If you've sent one, don't worry, my mother has probably hidden it. She's good at that.) Birthday tomorrow (no hinting, honest). :D

Went shopping today and bought...a jumper (£6) and shoes (£7!), as well as books (cheap books in MVC! Two Kerouacs, 'Vernon God Little' and 'The Man in the High Castle'), a newspaper (Grauniad, of course), two things of mousse, new shampoo (I'm trying out different blonde hair cheap costing ones at the moment- if you know any good ones let me know. And not dyed hair ones. Blonde hair ones) and some mint poppets (mmmmmm).

Oh, and I managed to hand in my coursework. :) Whether the last third of it was the best I could do, I don't know. It was late by the time I was checking that bit.

*do coursework*
*do coursework*
*do coursework*
*do coursework*
*do coursework*

No. It's not working. Gahhhhh!

Today's papers

Having read today's Grauniad (yes, I read it late in the day, and I know I was supposed to be doing my coursework, but I wasn't in the mood and didn't overly have the time before our guests arrived for dinner) I actually can't believe they are thinking of "sidelining" or even banning plays like 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' in some states in America. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1369643,00.html) I mean, you can't sideline or ban modern supposedly "pro-homosexual" (I believe that is the term used) drama, and yet leave Shakespeare. Not that they should ban Shakespeare. Nonononononononono. Nothing should be banned. Is America not the "land of the free"? At least, I thought it was. Mind you, I've just remembered that I'm talking about a country where there are states that have banned 'Catcher in the Rye', 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Not to mention 'Harry Potter' and all Judy Blume books. Hmm.

Coursework

I have only just realised that I think I have been subconsciously avoiding rewriting (or *correcting and improving*) my English coursework. Hmmm. Maybe I should get a little further than I have done. But it's oh so much more preferable to do my other English work and read poetry and do lots of shiny differential equations and integration and differentiation. Oh so much more preferable. You can see I'm not the biggest fan of my coursework. ;) Deadline for the final draft is last thing Wednesday. I'm hoping to do something to mine by Monday, so that I can go through it with Ms Fink then and perfect it further for Wednesday. Hmmm. And Sunday is definitely not going to happen, since it's the JYO concert in the afternoon, rehearsals in the morning and family are coming around in the evening for a "chanuka tea". Or something like that. Hmmmm. Maybe I should do some tonight. At least sort out my awful (I don't know how I could write some of the stuff I did... I can't have been the most wide awake of people at the time I guess) sentences, tighten it all up and make it more focused; figure out what needs cutting, moving and added. Hmmm. Right, so I better be off to do some of that. Or, at any rate, I'll do some maths otherwise. Work, nonetheless. :)

Pretty necklace

The necklace I was wearing today. I think it's pretty and wanted to share it with you all. :)



(I'm not the best at self photography yet. ;))

Apple chupa chups!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D Naomi is very happy to discover apple flavoured chupa chups. I love apple flavour. :D Happy birthday to Braunold, and thanks for the apple flavoured chupa chup. :)

Numb thumb

Gah. All day JYO rehearsal translates into strained right thumb, which suffered from nins and peedles for quite a while whilst playing. Mrrrrrrh. And it's not like I could just *not* play for a bit and take a break, seeing as we were doing the pieces I have solos in at the end, when my thumb was hurting. :( Mewww. And the rehearsal ended at 4pm, and my thumb still hurts now. :( Naomi is not the happiest of bunnies. :(

Gunky hair

The only problem with putting mousse in one's hair is that the hair ends up rather gunky by the third day. Especially if more mousse had to be put in to keep it nice. Hmm. My hair needs washing: there's much too much gunk in there.

Played the moo game at BA this afternoon, and there was a girl who kept saying "so shall I moo by myself now then?".... despite not knowing what happens in the game. She was so enthusiastic and wanting to moo! It was quite funny. And cute. Went and ran 'Psychiatrist' with the boys during mincha (there were a group of them who had already davened, and so needed entertaining (as such), and as a girl (and therefore not obligated to pray) I was asked to go and run something for the duration), and the "psychiatrist" just didin't understand what was going on, never mind what kind of questions to ask and the like. Not to mention the fact that some of the other boys just randomly said "psychiatrist" when what had been said was true. Doh. Ah well, it was still fun. I like taking big groups. :D It's much much better than small groups. Damn Kenton being such a small sviva and having low numbers and small groups each week. Mrrrrh.

Plans for tonight have fallen through due to the lack of tubes locally (damn this no Metropolitan or Jubilee lines at the weekend thing), and so inability to get to Highbury, and other people cancelling. Would have gone to the cinema with Sara, but there were no showings at decent times that we wanted to go to.

Curly hair day

I couldn't be bothered to blow-dry my hair last night, so in went lots of mousse. :) Ergo, hair is curly. :) (Plus the addition of more mousse this morning.)

Unfortunately my cold is persistent as it has remained today, and (going by my last cold) will be with me for much longer (hopefully not quite as long as the last one, which lasted a record 7 weeks I think). *sniffs* I need to go and get a tissue. (Here return the days when I have a packet of tissues with me wherever I go.)

Grade 8 out the way...

Woo. :D And it went well. Or at least, I think it did, especially considering how awful I thought it would be. I actually knew the scales she asked me (she asked me for D major twice! Admittedly in different forms: once ordinary and once in thirds, but still... twice!), the sight reading felt funky and modern, and wasn't too tricky (I can't promise I kept to all dynamics and I'm not sure my staccati were quite staccato, but anyway), Mrs Roden said that it was my best performance of my pieces that she's heard me done before... the worst bit was the aural (and I'm never quite confident of that. Especially sight singing with a cold, when my ears are a little up the creek). Anyway, I'm sure I passed, which was my main concern (before I went I really didn't think I would). Yay. :D Naomi is smiley. :D (Not that I'm ever that un-smiley. Frowny, I guess the word is.)