Paige Feldstein

Girl Geeks

Originally uploaded by paige feldstein

Only girl geeks use their iSight to put on makeup. Only n00bs accidentally take a picture of it.

new tattoo

Originally uploaded by paige feldstein

check out my sweet tattoo.
i got it on thursday!

So, I got my room info for next fall today, and I was pondering aloud what I should say to someone i don’t know who i’m going to be living with in a matter of months…I was met by a few things I should not say, and should hope to not hear.

“I really like to make my own cheese”
“…and my night terrors have almost completely stopped.”
“I’m going to need the back corner for my pet tarantula”
“the rubber bedsheet’s not a big deal, it’s really just for precaution”

anything else i should make sure i leave out?

I don’t have too much school left, then I graduate, and I’m off to FRANCE! I’m excited for all the pictures I’m going to take!

I have a few goals for my trip to Europe.

We are having a lay-over in LONDON (omg!), so I definitely need to buy some magazines and candy in the airport there. Even if I don’t leave the airport, I’ll be in freakin’ LONDON. How cool is that?

I need to take a piece of France home with me. Like, a rock from the Seine river in Paris, or some sand from the beach on the riviera, you get it.

I want to buy a cool t-shirt.

I want to take a picture of a gargoyle. And if I can work it so that I’m in the picture with the gargoyle, so much the better.

I want to practice my French in France, and pick up a few words of Italian while I’m in Italy.

I want to buy music from both Italy and France.

I’m going to get some perfume, and maybe some cologne for my dad, because we’re visiting a huge perfumerie in the southern-ish part of France.

The food. OMG. I have to try some really authentic food from both Italy and France.

I have to take one of those crazy perspective pictures where it looks like you’re holding or resting your foot on something that’s actually huge, like the pyramid in front of the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. Lame, I know.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but if anyone has any suggestions on what one should do while visiting a foreign country, let me know.

It’s lovely weather in Wisconsin now, rain or shine, it’s slightly breezy and warm(ish). It’s really nice. Still kind of cool at night, but in the afternoons when I get out of school, it’s gorgeous.

Yesterday after school I went on an adventure. It included, Denny’s, Caribou, Ray’s house, and both of the nearest local movie theaters. Not in that order. The craziest thing though was that I saw two movies in one night.

The first was a pretty early showing of The Forbidden Kingdom. It was okay, like in that karate kid-meets-zooboomafoo-meets-crouching tiger hidden dragon-meets-rush hour, kind of way. I’m really tired, so that might not make sense, but if you’re really that curious, go to an early show. It’s cheaper. A few strange things though, like monkey kings and a really hot chick who refers to herself in third person. All the time. It was an amusing movie, and Ray liked it a lot. It’s family fun at it’s kung-fu best. Oh, and for all of you who have been pondering, as we were pondering, the age old question, “who would win in a real fight–Jackie Chan or Jet Li?”. Definitely, Jet Li. Though I still hold that Jackie Chan is a FAR better actor. GRADE: B-

The next movie I saw was the newest superhero movie, Iron Man. I’ll just get this out of the way–It was pretty awesome. Well cast, well directed, well special fx-ed, and there were explosions. LIke wow. Robby, Ray and I all liked it. Robby was the only one of us who had read the comics though. Anyway, two complaints that were discussed after the movie. 1. There wasn’t QUITE enough action, though by no means was it lacking. I’m just saying, maybe one more explosion and a decent fight sequence more, as long as it didn’t interfere with the plotline. 2. The ending felt very rushed. Like someone just kind of tacked it on there. It wasn’t a bad ending, and it DID have one (which is better than some movies ever do), it was just…sudden–though nevertheless, a good time. GRADE: A

Read this.

This article made me angry. From what I understand, Owen B. Robinson is not a high school student. I’m guessing here, but also I think he’s not a teacher. He’s not gay, either. I read his little bio. He’s just opinionated. There’s nothing wrong with that, if you can look at both sides of an argument, but does he know what it’s like in high school on the Day of Silence?

I’m IN high school. I know about things that go on in high school. The kids, the teachers, the events (like the Day of Silence). I KNOW them.

The fact that the students who participate in the Day of Silence waste classroom time is no small matter, because they are not just wasting their own time. They are also wasting the time of the other students who are there to learn.

Really? I’ve slept through more class time than I’d “waste” on the day of silence. Everyone has. At least if I’m quiet, I’m listening. Are the kids who are sleeping in the back row of my physics class interfering with my educaton? Not really. And they’re not participating in in-class discussion either.

High school students are highly impressionable and are susceptible to peer pressure. It is unjust to put those students in a position of being forced to either accept a lifestyle that they consider to be immoral or face ridicule, ostracism, or worse.

Yeah yeah yeah, peer pressure. This doesn’t apply here. The participants are in the minority, they are the ones under pressure to change. I’m serious, the only people who are pressured on the Day of Silence are the people who are willing to remain silent for those who cannot be open about who they are for fear of harassment, rejection, abuse.
It’s customary for participants to wear black. Opposing students have worn white shirts saying things like “It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. They taunt participants, who are silent even when they get called “fag” or “dyke”. No one does anything to stop the silent kids, sure, but they sure as hell don’t stop the others who harass them either. It’s not exactly what I’d call support.

I think it’s sad that there are so few who still do it here at North, there’s almost no publicity because people get smashed down every year and no one wants to stand back up and take it again the following year.

The rules for this should be simple.

Let the kids have their silence UNLESS–there’s an extremely important speaking activity, like say, in a foreign language class. If the teacher just wants to know the answer to number four, for one day, they can call on someone else.

The school doesn’t have to agree or disagree with students on any issue. They’re not supposed to, and I don’t want single-sided opinions on tough issues in my classes either, but preparing young people for the real world involves those issues. You will find them in the workplace, on the news, on the street, in a bar, whatever.

The latest contoversies SHOULD be brought up in schools, but have both sides of the argument represented fairly. We learned about christianity in my history classes, but I’m not a christian, nor do I share many of their beliefs. I also learned about other world religions. That’s just an example. We discuss the left and the right of politics in Econ class, in Government class, history, in crime and law. We discuss the big bang vs. creationism in biology…etc. It’s everywhere.

Sheltering kids is dumb. It makes them dumb. When no one understands the issues, how are they going to know who to vote for? or WHAT to vote for? And having the Day of Silence every year in school is not going to cause us all to flunk out–snow days here in Wisconsin do more damage. At least on the Day of Silence, the kids are AT school. Listening.

End.

Really. I love those raincoats–like the yellow plastic-y ones you get for little kids. I want one. That’s weird, I know, because they’re totally lame for the most part and I’m very nearly 18 now… I like rain boots too.

I only drink one kind of tea. I can’t remember which one it is exactly, but I only like it because it sort of smells like Fruit Loops and that makes me happy for no apparent reason.

I love to sing. I also happen to be terrible at it.

I only ever paint five of my fingernails. Sometimes, though not too often, I get the strange desire to paint my nails. I always intend to paint all ten, but I either lose motivation after one hand or I put off painting the right hand because I’m always writing something.

I like citrus smells more than pretty much any other smell. Seriously, if I could smell like a lemon or lime or orange or grapefruit all the time, I would love it. Especially because I hate most perfumes and body sprays.

I touch the paper in notebooks before I buy them because I won’t write in them if they have a weird texture. I also have a thing about pens.

I can’t really draw or paint with any sort of skill, but I love doing it, so I buy sketchbooks for myself and make attempts at being artsy, but quickly get frustrated with my lack of talent for such things and give up for a few months before beginning anew.

I’ve read the dictionary.

I often create my own words. They’re quite convincing most of the time, so people don’t often question me, but I do, I create my own. Now, in three languages. French, Spanish, and English.

I do know a lot of useless facts about random things–facts I pick up from all over, reading, the discovery and history channels, other people. BUT, sometimes (quite often really) I think of logical explanations for questions people ask about things and then when they say, “Wow, how did you know that?” I reply, “I don’t, I’m pretty sure I just made that up”
They’re always guesses that make sense, though.

One of my favorite things to say is “Iceberg off the port bow!” but I don’t often get a good opportunity to do so.

I like couscous just fine, but when I eat it, I always have this weird thing where I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I take a bite, but then what? do you chew it? It’s so little and round and strange…

I hate automatic doors. It’s okay when they open, but I always feels strange like I forgot to close it. I also hate automatically flushing toilets. They kind of weird me out because I have the uncomfortable feeling like I’ve forgotten something.

I must, at all times, have chapstick on me. I’m totally crazy about chapped lips and that’s one of my worst pet peeves. That’s why Ray always calls it my “crack-stick”.

Fall is my favorite season. It smells really good.

I feel rather naked it I’m not wearing a necklace. I play with them, and i think that’s why I feel weird without one on. The same thing goes for zip up sweatshirts. I wear one almost every day and I put my hands in the pockets, so when I don’t have one on, I do this bizarre stomach rub thing like I don’t know where my pockets went. It’s bewildering.

It often occurs to me that I’ve got a lot of strange quirks. I think that’s why a lot of my friends think I’m funny. this doesn’t even come close to covering it. It seems like a new one is discovered every week.

Am I the only one here, or is everyone this quirky?

I was not feeling good last night.

I was having some serious allergy problems, most likely because there are green things growing outside now. So I took a “wal-dryl” and drank an orange mocha. It didn’t work so much though, I was out cold by eight.

I’m assuming that because I went to bed, I was wide awake at seven this morning and by the time my mom got out of bed, I was showered and blow-drying my hair. (Note: I am not, have never been, nor will I ever be a morning person.)

I had a mango smoothie, a cup of coffee and I was bouncing around like a crazy person. Really. LIke actual bouncing. My mom then set me to work cleaning up. Practically that whole side of the family is coming over for my early birthday celebration thing. Which is today. My birthday is in nine days, isn’t that awesome? I think so.

Anyway, the point I’ve sort of been meandering around is this-

I think that if everyone got eleven hours of sleep they’d be much happier and healthier. I know I would, if I had about four more hours in the day. I have too much to do to go to sleep at eight every night. Sometimes, I don’t even eat until seven-something… So, if you ever get the opportunity to sleep for a long time, I recommend it, especially if you go to bed early enough that you get up early and start your day right.

So, unless something goes terribly terribly wrong, I am going to be buying a Macbook in the next week or two. Whoa! I know, it’s pretty awesome. Sleek design, cool software and it will be MINE. MY computer. I have never had MY OWN computer and I’m buying a laptop. Here it is. It’s the white one.

I’m keeping it pretty standard, except for one thing (and I feel like kind of a dork saying it). I’m totally getting a little remote for it. Dad says that that’s not so very lame considering next year in the dorms, my computer can (and probably will) become my entertainment system. My tv, my music…and I can show slideshows of my pictures. and the remote’s only like, $20. compared to how much money I’m dropping on this, that’s not that unreasonable. It’s actually excellent.

I’m very excited.

I’ll get it soon, and when I do, I’ll use it for a bit and maybe write about the awesome and not-quite-so-awesome things I find. The latter being less likely than the former.