Singing Without Accent

I've written before about how much I love the Eurovision Song Contest. Today, thankfully, I was reminded of this when Evgeni Plushenko posted a link to the finale scoreboard for this year's competition.

In listening to all the finalists, I was reminded of a draft that I started writing months ago. All it contained was the one sentence that I couldn't quite find words to go with.

Has anyone else ever noticed how people's accents tend to fade away when they're singing?

This isn't always the case - I think specifically of the Spanish singing accents in West Side Story and the fabulous Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in Once and their Swell Season albums. For the most part, though, people sound very similar while singing. I feel like this goes for other languages too - I've sung in at least 3 foreign languages, only one of which I can actually speak, and it has never seemed difficult [for me, at least] to pick up the correct inflections and pronunciations.

I imagine this has something to do with how you have to sing differently than you talk, but I do music for fun and so can't give any technical explanation of why this is. That makes sense though, right?

Quite a few of the best [in my opinion] songs this year were in the home country's language, so posting them doesn't help my argument. I'll have to work them into some other rambling. But here are a couple of lovely songs to enjoy, more or less accent free.

The entry from Iceland. The violin playing reminds me of Alexander Rybak's win.

The entry from Hungary. I think this is the best video in the contest.

The entry from Ireland. These guys are so ridiculous.

The entry from Azerbaijan. They won last year with another great song.

The entry from Germany. So much better than the last couple of years.

 The entry from Slovakia. They didn't make it to the finals but they deserved to.

Halfway Done

I decided to be super ambitious this year and set my goal at reading 150 books.

I'm already halfway to that point and still have 7 1/2 months of reading to go.

I think it's safe to say that I have had a very productive 5 months. This is mainly due to my lack of reliable access to computers and/or Internet. [And getting a car so I can drive myself to the library.] I finally am getting my laptop fixed, but then I come home and the Internet quits working for like five days. This is always what happens with me and technology.

At least the most recent books have all been really great. I still have trouble quitting reading books even when I can tell they're going to be bad I won't like them. Hence, the number of books I rated 2 stars [the one that has 1 star, I skipped through a lot].

Nevertheless, so many wonderful wonderful books.

I don't think I have anything else to say at this point. I've just been meaning to get something posted for a while and then noticed how many books I'd already read. And I'll be driving all over Texas [or just making a triangle between home, apartment, family and back home, but "all over" isn't so lengthy] this next week and doubt I'll be close to a computer during all that.

Instead, I'll probably get a lot more reading done.

One Year Later

I really have to keep reminding myself that yes, it is actually basically May. Yes, it is already 2012. Yes, I will be graduating in less than 4 months. Yes, I did start this blog over a year ago.
I'm having a hard time keeping track of time right now. It's quite bizarre.

But anyway, this is a belated yay-I've-managed-to-stay-interested-in-this-blog-writing-thing-for-12-months only slightly self-congratulatory post.

[More congratulations, me. I managed to spell self-congratulatory right on my first try.]

I've been kind of bummed about the whole no computer thing, for some of the obvious reasons of course, but also because I don't get to blog anymore. It's been weird. I think about things that I want to blog about and then have no outlet for them. Unless I write them down for future reference. However, I have gotten to do tons and tons of reading in all this spare time that I've discovered. At least, what spare time wasn't consumed by papers and papers and papers that I've had to write.

So honestly, I don't think I would have been blogging much anyway since all my writing energies were going towards school. But I digress.

Well, it's been a month since my last post, and a year since my first post. Lots of stuff has happened in the between times.

For example, in the past month I:

• Watched some fabulous movies, namely The Hunger Games.
• Got to hang out with my sister for her birthday, which included me taking her to see The Hunger Games, bawling because she looks kind of like Prim, and then sharing cinnamon and salty pretzels with her.
• Read 18 books, most of which were very wonderful.
• Sang two of my absolute favorite anthems/songs with the youth choir at Easter.
• Got a fabulous Easter dress.
• Spent a lot of time at my internship.
• Wrote a resume that might actually get me hired.
• Cleaned and cleaned and organized and organized.
• Spent very little time on computers, unless it was a Saturday afternoon and I was at the library.

Also happening this month: lots of episodes of this show.

And over the past year, I:

• Read 63 books in 4 months. I feel pretty confident in my goal of 150 for the year.
• Watched some fabulous movies, like The Hunger Games and Vicky Christina Barcelona and Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter [well, it had its moments].
• Took a bunch of classes, some of which I really liked.
• Made some progress in figuring out what I want to do with myself when I'm finally done with school.
• Slept. A lot.
• Went to Peru!!!
• Was adventurous in trying new foods.
• Watched a lot of figure skating. And read a lot about figure skating. And wished I could go see figure skating competitions live.
• Gained three new baby cousins. Plus one more in May. I also got to hang out with the first one when she was one week old. Basically, nothing beats a one-week old baby.

I feel silly and sentimental talking about all this, kind of like it's New Years, except in April. Which I guess could be construed as the same concept as Christmas in July, right? That's what I'm going with.

Now I suppose since I'm at the library, I should actually try and get some homework done. Otherwise this rambling would just keep going and going and going...

Or I could just catch up on my TV. That sounds like more fun.

Tragedy

So my computer is pretty much toast. At least, the battery connector dealie is. I'd been able to balance it just so on my lap/bed/bean bag chair and let it charge itself back up. But that hasn't worked in several days. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that I have 2 classes that are primarily online. Once I'm un-lazy and un-tired enough, I'll see if the tech people at school can fix it. Hopefully for zero dollars...

Until then, I'll be doing all my homework at computer labs on campus and bemoaning the fact that American progress is more concerned with "newer" than "better."

And also until then, I will most likely not be making any blog posts. Except maybe when I'm home for Easter.

This is why I hate technology so much. It never seems to work when you need it to.

Some Things from My Flash Drive that Make Me Feel Better about this Terrible Ordeal:

Working on Inspiration

So you know how I finished that short story in February and haven't talked about [or worked on] my book since?

I'm writing again!!!!!!!

This calls for celebratory picture spewage. Don't worry, I'll get to the point in just a minute.

Jokes from my sister. Her birthday was yesterday.

Maleficent movie is moving forwards. SO EXCITED!

More jokes. Combining two of my favorite things (three if you count the color).

Sand art. I love watching these.

I need to watch these in order.

There's a certain kind of headspace I expect to be in for truly inspired writing to happen. It's like I can't write anything until I get this I-must-write-words-pouring-out-of-my-head feeling.

The problem is, it's hard to get to that particular ... event?

Sometimes, really fantastic books inspire me. Even just really fantastic paragraphs or sentences. Those bits of craft that blow my mind. Watching beautiful sand art with haunting melodies. There's a few movies, ones that I watch over and over and over again, that have moments that just pull at my heartstrings. That's the only way to describe it, really.

But yesterday morning, all I needed was a little procrastination on the 8 page paper I had to finish that afternoon.

Basically, I got so sick of school that writing on More Blessed was bumped up from the bottom of my I-don't-have-the-time-or-energy-to-do-this list. Which is probably not the nicest way to think about this book, but it's pretty honest.

I think another part of it is staying away from the Internet. I've been trying to leave my computer unconnected to be more productive on all of the BIG THINGS that were due this week [also to save money on electricity by turning of the blinking lights of the modem/wireless router dealies]. Today, with no internship to go to and all day to run errands, I've wasted the past 4ish hours bumming around online.

So. I know I won't become a speed-writer overnight. I know that my biggest dream in the world is not to become a writer. It's pretty far down on the list, but it's the one that's most...accomplish-able right now. [I have been making up so many words today.] I hope, really hope, that I can finish this book by June just for my own sense of pride so that I can print it for free on campus.

If I could write a thousand words a day, that wouldn't be a big deal at all.

The Last Spring Break

My week in pictures, because pictures are worth a thousand words and take less time to put together. Okay, so it still takes time to find them, but I don't have to worry about being coherent this way.

I got a new phone! One that I don't have to charge every single day!

It looks like this.

I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy!

So many Hot British Men! So much confusion!

I spent too much time playing old computer games!

I don't even remember when we got this.

I read some awesome books!

You should read this one.

YOU SHOULD MUST READ THIS FABULOUS PIECE OF AWESOMENESS!!!

This little anthology was also quite good.

I got a hair cut! But I don't have a picture and I already put on pajamas so I'm not taking one now.

I procrastinated on every bit of homework I needed to do!

I made a cake!

The top layer didn't want to stay together so I had to force it with gobs of icing.

And celebrated my hermanita's 18th birthday!

I wish I never had to go back to school. Or write outlines and essays and do research. Or think about getting a job. Although I must admit, the job part is exciting; it's the getting one part that I don't want to do. Such is life.

Happy International Women's Day

This isn't a very widely celebrated holiday in the States. I guess we have Mother's Day to half make up for that. But I always try to remember it since it's kind of important for 1917 Russian Revolution #1. Just a smidge.

Save the women from their second class status!

And that would explain why it's virtually nonexistent here. That's also why I think of the date being February 28th instead of March 8th, since most of the research I did [for my Extended Essay, thankfully long, long ago] used the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian calendar. Of course, I didn't remember it a week ago either, but I didn't have lovely Google to remind me.

Or just give them flowers. Same thing, right?

It's too bad that our enduring Red Scares make a vocal segment of our country freak out about anything with a Communist/Socialist/leftish history. We could use a holiday that celebrates and remind us of women's rights, especially with all the ridiculous political hoopla going on right now.

I have more to say on this, but it'll have to wait for another, not-so-sleepy time.