German Expressionism

Welcome back to school and ordinary life everyone. How are we all holding up? I sincerly hope you are all doing better than me. This Monday was so horible I had to come home and paint my nails chrome to make myself feel better… Im not a nail polish person, much, so this should tell you how bad it was.

Seriously, from waiting for the bus for half an hour, to lugging all my stuff around school… why do even the light books seem heavy after the dog days of summer???

Anyways, I think it’s just that I’ve got a really bad monday schedual… come to think about it I don’t htink I’ve got one good day. I mean who want’s to start off the week with a two periods of Chemistry and then another two periods of Geography (which would be fine if we didnt have the teacher we have… snooze FEST! except you can’t snooze cause he’s HYPERACTIVE!!!) then I have double Art… which could be ok except for two things:

1. The Harpies

2. The Expressionists

Ok so the harpies are a group of girls I have in my class, some of whom read this blog, though its no secret that I call them this and my teacher has actually agreed and started as well… Seee… if you know ancient greek mythologyu and know them, then it makes sense. Because they are so loud and screachy and then shit all over your food.

Ok so maybe thats a bit harsh… let me explain… So there’s this group of girls, who I have no hard feelings against, and can get along with each of them individually very well… but one of them alone is able to reach the decibell capacity of my ears, so I dread having them all together. Ok so four teenage girls. Sociallites, which we all know I’m not, who love to spend their time TITTERING away. Seriously, they even admit it, when I say they screach, they SCREACH!  So I’m in a bad enough mood by the time the first bell rings with a head ache and ringing ears, and then one of them or the other comes over and leans over my shoulder for half an hour before screaching “OMG i LOVE IT!!!” seriously, without fail, those words. Or else, it might be ‘OMG THATS AWESOME! ITS LIKE SO AWESOME!” which, sure thanks for the praise and all, get on my nerves. Or as my favourite Greek saying going “Kanei tsourekia ta nevra mou!” (braids my nerves). Not only is it the lack of elloquence or the invariability of the “compliments” or if its the high pitched tone of the voice or the colloquial manerism in which it is said… I dont know which but all to gether they make me feel as if its not such a compliment. It certainly doesn’t feel sincere, though I don’t know if it is, so who am I to say? That’s the shitting on you food when your starving bit. Because whether you think what you’re working on is utter crap (which for me it is alot of the time) or if you think its actually pretty good for once (which it can sometimes be) it just makes me feel more crappy about the work. Either that they’re taking the mickey out of me by sayin that something that is crap is good as though I don’t know the difference, or by saying that something is “good” (air quotes= not so good… crap) when I actually think it’s half decent for once and not fully worthy of the garbadge can… 😦

Maybe worst of all though is how horrible they seem to know me, after all these years… I mean they KNOW I’m clausterphobic, and I make a point of telling them that and how that’s why I don’t want them to lean over me… Instead all they do is take a step back, which in a way makes it even worse, knowing that their there but not RIGHT there… you know when not knowing is worse than knowing… and second of all… they KNOW that I HATE Compliments because they all seem insincere to me. oK not all… I can tell some real ones, but they still make me feel really self conscious… so all in all I end up feeling like they are attacking me… making me feel bad about myself…  which wouldn’t be entirely possible seeing as there are only about 8 girls in the class and two boys and the boys are both quiet and the harpies make up about 5 of the girls… And incase anyone should read this, you know, I shouldn’t even have to say, that I don’t feel that way about you guys… I just can’t stand being in a room where I’m supposed to be expressing myself but end up feeling oppressed anyways, for two and a half hours a week with you guys…

I don’t think you read this anymore though. I’m not interesting enough. XD

Have you guys ever felt personally assaulted and attacked by a group of people that you used to consider friends? Silly question, I know. How about having been attacked and not having known why? I odften get callled out when I actually voice my oppinion. Any advice on how to deal with people when they treat you lik that? I try to just keep my cool rather than blwoing my top, but then my indifference to their oppinions on my oppinions get me called out as an emo, even though, my love affair with bright vibrant colours and desire to keep my hair out of my face would depict me as anything but…

ok so what makes art lessons even worse right now is that we are studying German Expressionism. I mean, I like seeing it sometimes. I like how it can make me feel what the subject felt, which is moer often than not despair and greif and hunger and such… but I just don’t enjoy doing it. I mean who likes doing something that they know they aren’t very good at and don’t enjoy? As an exercise we took pictures of ourselves in a german expressionistic pose and printed out many copies, tapped them to the windows and drew on the back with bold black lines to eliminate the details and lines we didn’t want (cause our final aim is to transfer the image to a piece of lino and do a lino cute of it, which you know I love…) And so I started off with some pictures of notme 😛 One was this indian woman which I thought was really interesting, though the printer faded the ink on the most interesting section so I couldn’t really do it well, and a piece of Mother Theresa, I think it was… So these two wrinkly old women (no offence…)

And one of them actually looked pretty good… but then one of the art teachers ruined my finally lifting spirits (I had to sit on a desk too, to get to the window 😛 ) by saying that I couldn’t use those in my lino cut because I didn’t take the pictures… And when I told him I really didn’t want to do one of myself, he said, well then go and find someone in the room and get them to pose and take a pictuer of them and do that… NO BLOODY THANK YOU… I’LL SUFFER WITH A SELF PORTRAIT THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! lot of bloody help he was! I’m not about to ask someone in my art class to pose for me, especially when I’m the one with the camera phobia. I mean its just mean to not like something and so inflict it on someone else… Would you?

So for the time being, since there were only another 30 minutes left in the class and it would have taken longer to take another picture and print it in the dodgy printer… so I stuck with the others that had been printed already. The teacher who had told me off though, had been working on a picture of me since the begining of the lesson. See how come his turned out so good and mine turned out like crap? I’ll have to put up a pic of mine and his. His was much nmroe expressionistic than mine. Mine was just fail line drawing…

Does anyone have really strong feelings on post WWI german expressionism? It’s kinda love or hate so who loves it and who hates it?

Any ideas, other than earplugs, to improve the art lessons?

sigh…

I can’t stand writting such a wholly negative post so Imma change the topic.

Has anybody read the book “Shiver” or any of the “wolves of Mercy Falls” series or any other book by Maggie Stiefvater? I really love her writting. She’s great. I loved shiver. It really touched me. Ten times better than the twilight craze. I actually cried durring the last chapter, and I don’t normally cry for movies… and even though it was just comfortably predictable.

Well even if you haven’t please go on Amazon and read the first few pages and then join the page on Facebook that is trying to get it made into a movie. It really should. It would be an awesome movie, though the book was just plain incredible.

Are there any other books that you would like to see made into a move? I normallyu refrain from wanting a book to be made into a movie, if its good. otherwise i the idea is good but the writter wasn’t all that great, then I say sure, but normally the movies just ruin it. With shiver though, i just think it deserves to be made into a movie! It was so great it deserves the publicity! Kudos Maggie!

Meet Missy!

Well hello there everyone!

I promised you all a link to my friend Missy’s new blog and here it is:       http://missymoooonstar.wordpress.com/

She has made it her purpose to prove that teenagers CAN think. When you were a kid, didn’t everyone always look down at you and tell you how much you had left to learn? Tell you how you thought you were so smart… when you weren’t (even if you WERE right and they were wrong)? Well the two of us both love reading. And I love writing poetry. No haickus and meaningless limericks for me. I like the deep matter. Life, Love, Happiness and Death. Oh sure there are a few more. Human rights, animal rights, illness, injustice, frustration, prejudice and so on. Some people read them and are supportive, or give praise even. Congratulate me on my vocabulary, on how I presented my ideas and so on.  But of course there are those odd few that are utterly bitter and say how I’m only biting off more than I can chew and making a mask of my writing. They think that just because I’m 16 I can’t write something deep, or have my own, unbiased views on the meaning of life, and beliefs about what’s important, or what makes me happy or so on without them being stereotypical. THOSE are the people I think are living their life with blinders on. THOSE are the people who people who are shallow, and hypocritical and just plain ignorant to the fact that yes, teenagers can think, do have minds, and personalities and do not all just go with the pop culture stream…

Anyways, that’s why I’ll occasionally put up a poem or two, or a recipe I like or anything of the sort, to show you guys out there what teenagers can be like, and that is why Missy is trying to get input from the world and come up with a big theory of the meaning of life. We each have some parts of our own, and like I said before, I will (hopefully) be contributing to her blog quite a bit.

Her most recent blog was on music, the universal language.

My mom always said that there were only three things that not even cultural, appearance, or even class differences can separate from person to person. Those are maths, love and music. Because no matter what no matter where you are even, 2pi r squared is the area of a circle, and you can’t do anything about it if you like someone. These things have been programmed in us, Mathematics into our brains from our early childhood, and love and attraction from adaptations, its in our genes. Music on the other hand, goes beyond that even. I think that when you dance, or you sing, or you play music, you are praising God, life, the world. Your fellow people and inhabitants of it, the tree outside your window and the flower blossoming down the road. Music is something, like magic that resides deeper than our minds and hearts. Its more than instinct and a textbook. Its something unimaginably powerful and unsurprisingly is the base of the two other universal languages. What came first, music or love? Trigonometry or music? What came first, the lyrics or the song, the dance or the beat? Its hard to say. But they are all each other. There’s a reason why all great mathematicians are somehow, even subconsciously musically gifted. Two of the three math teachers at my school play music. My oldest brother, a musical prodigy, and exception to the 10 year rule, is a great mathematician when he applies his whole mind. Music is all about expression, as is love, as is dance. Dance is all about expression and love. Love is FULL of music and dance! Why do you think newlyweds’ first dance together is such a big deal? its their first act of trust, unison, expression to each other while wrapped in the music (no formulas floating around visibly and cornily, but they are there).

If you want to hear some absolutely amazing lectures on music and everything I was just talking about you should go to the New York City Lincoln center and hear some of Branford Marsalis’ workshops “Jazz at the Lincoln Center” are full of great music and profoundly deep lectures.

Sadly, though I love escaping from the world and writing here, I must return and start revising and doing homework and all the horribly standard things that await a teenage girl when she re-awakes into the world.

More Later,

Mirella Rose

P.S. picture credits to my dear friend Mike in Canada. He took and allowed me to use the picture you see above. I know it might be a bit random, but I thought it was beautiful and might remind us all that spring always comes round at sometime or other, its just waiting for when you will most appreciate it. Enjoy it while it lasts, soon it will be too hot and after that too cold. Embrace the grey area, the No man’s Land.

Hello World- Take Two

Take two… ‘Take Five’- what a lovely song by Dave Brubeck. I HIGHLY suggest you listen to it, even if you aren’t a fan of jazz. Its simply mesmerizing .

Well my dear readers, I am titling this page “Hello World – Take Two” for a couple of reasons. Well first of all, it sounds kinda nice doesn’t it? Don’t you ever meet someone for the first time and think afterward “Geez! I made such a fool out of myself…” or whatever, and totally blow your chances with this person, either as a friend, or as a… better friend…? Well that’s sort of what I’m trying to do here. See “hello World” was supposed to be my first post, and I wrote tons for it. But everything was deleted and somehow never went up… and that page seems to get a lot of views, so I’m just gonna take another attempt at that. Also, I feel really guilty after not writing for… two days? no that can’t be right? hmmm, Sunday was the last time I posted? so… 3 days? ok somehwere round there, but Goodness it feels much longer!

So NEWS: My hand healed itself just in time for the concert. I managed to have two spotless onstage rehearsals with my piano accompanist (that doesn’t look like its spelt right but anyways… :P), and one… very good… final performance. Its that famous curse of the music world, you never want a perfect final practice. the worse that is (unless all your practices have been bad) the better your final show will be… and vice versa as seems to be the case more often than not with me.

Also… I was going to write something esle that was new… but now I can’t remember so I’ll go on.

My best friend (other than my sister) has started a blog too! Much due to my excellent persuasion skills! Ill get the link here next time for anyone else who might be interested. SHe tackles very deep problems… much deeper than you’d expect from a 15 year old. I think she want the purpose of her blog to be trying to figure out what the meaning of life really is. We have spent many sleep overs talking about this (very weird teenager girls we are, aren’t we? no gossiping and chit chatting  about menial topic for us now is there?) I’ll include some of my own thoughts on that on her blog through comments.

Oh and I should probably finish off my reviews of the two movies I was watching the other night. They were both very good. “Proof” was a bit shorter than I would have liked, and had a LOT of screaming in it, and crying. but I think it was a very good topic, and very well done. It tackled a topic that I’ve always wondered, about how do all those scientist and mathematicians come up with theories and proofs and formulas in the first place? Same with how do musicians, Especially now adays, write songs… I once heard someon say that they never wrote songs, or tried to create anything because all the good ideas have already been done, if they haven’t its because it wasnt a good idea. which is very true. Like, how come you always find something you lost in the last place you thought to look? sounds pretty pathetic and philosophical , but its simply because after you’ve found it, why would you continue thinking of places it could be??? Though it is true that sometimes you think something is somewhere but it still isn’t the first palce you go to see…

Ok, I have forgotten how that last bit was relevant, but it was… somehow sometime…

I also have a new movie review. I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. I’ve had to relax a bit. I had been getting too worked up with school and everything else, but now that im more relaxed and thinking clearer I’ve been producing better work. (but I wont go into that today) The movie I haven’t even finished watching yet (waitng for part 11- final- to load on youtube) is the 1994 “SPEED”. I like the movie, and I think I can see myself (after the exams are over) watching the sequel and third one. It’s quite good, but not the type of thing I would normally be into. its more in my second choice category. But I like that, sometimes we need something like that every now and again.

Does anyone else out there have any good movies to suggest seeing? I’m normally really bad with pop culture and the sort (incase you haven’t figured out- meaning of life discussions and all….) and especially movies. I hardly ever go to the movie theaters, unless its a movie that is really so much better in the cinema, whats the point when you can rent it a month later, and watch it in the comfort of your own home, with your jammies and endless home made popcorn (i prefer it to theater pop corn) with your best frineds and being able to laugh as much as you want at the msot random comments that you think of in the middle of a dramatic scene, not get scolded, and then you get to rewind after you realise none of you have heard anything anyone’s said for the past five minutes becuase youve been so busy laughing your heads off…

Haha, now that I’m done advertising for home cinema companies across the globe…

It’s Tuesday, a week after that iconic post when i got my first comment!!! Annika, this post is dedicated to you for that! Thank you, I hope you see it, and look forward to any feed back you have. Oh and My mom and I made another batch of the lemon bars this weekend for a bridal shower we held today. Very nice with a beachy theme…

I also got some pictures recently from one of my cousins in Greece. They are of the burnt out bank in Athens from the riots. I will post them as soon as I figure out how. there are huge masses of candles and flowers and teddy bears for the almost life taken. Do you think its unnecessary to mourn an unborn baby’s death? I think it is, especially when its something that could have been prevented. I mean, some people say, oh whats the point, its not like the world would have been any different in 20 years if they hadn;t died, but you never know who’s going to be the one to discover a universal cure to cancer, or a way to stop CO2 emmisions or whatever life altering discovery could be made.

I once had this discussion with one of my brothers. I said, imagine how different our life would be if Benjamin Franklin hadn’t lived and been the brilliant man he was. My brother didnt think there would have been much difference. I said, but think about the number of people more that would have been affected without the lightning rod, the Empire state building never would have survived more than a few months for example. And Imagine if we didnt even have electricity! (needless to say the world’s population would probably have been much smaller). He thought someone would have made the discovery everntually, it was just up to fate to decide when and by who. But I think that if someone had discovered it later, we wouldn’t have made as much progress as we have today. I mean, ideas are like species. They evolve, develop, they morph and merge to blend into ohter ideas… and all that takes time. Just look at computers. first you have the BOMBE, the computer which cracked the German code in WWII which couldnt even fit in a regular room, and now we have these teeny tiny mac laptops which are no bigger than an exercise book… incredible isn’t it? and all that took time, for the computer to morph. first it was merely a calculator on steroids capable of doing more than just a few minor calculations, now we can play games, comunicate, type, and even draw! I mean if it werent for the evolution of the computer I wouldn’t be able to be writng this right now!However the development of the modern computer was much faster than that of implementing electricity into our homes, and even those said computers.

Well, it’s geting late, and i still have the movie, and i’ve gone so off the topic i started on i can hardly remeber what was the first sentence i wrote (yes I know I could just scroll to the top of the page, but for the… artistic quality i shant) nor what it was that I was meaning to say.

However I’m waking up early tomorrow, so should I remeber during the night, rest assured I will write another post bright and early to await all my dear readers like a cup of freshly brewed coffee… umm…

A Bientot mes cheries!

Till next we meet,

The Mira Mira on the wall: Mirella Rose

P.S. -> don’t forget to leave any comments or suggestions, and/or contact me at my email: miraellarose@yahoo.com (hence the mira mira joke) or even Facebook. My account is free for anyone to see. just type int the name Mirella Rosaria and you should find me! Cheers!

Athens Burns with Ancient Fever- a moment of silence please

The riots in Athens Greece have been all over the news the past few days. Despite Being the birthplace of democracy,cities around Greece, Athens in particular, have fallen to chaos.

Greece has had many riots since, however yesterdays were the first time that anyone had been killed in one since 1991. And unfortunately when it rains it pours. Four lives were taken, one not even begun.

Some say they shouldn’t have been there trying to open the bank. But they were just doing their job. A day closed for a bank isn’t great for business and nor is spending the day in the street. It isn’t good for the current workers of the city, nor the future workers. All public and Greeks schools were closed. Only Foreign schools remained open the past few days.

Others say that it was fair that they be killed. Some people refuse to call it murder, but they just wont accept the facts. These people were killed because of the actions of many. One individual who threw the Molotov cocktail, and the large horde of protesters who blockaded a street so as not to let the fire engines reach the burning bank, wasting precious moments in saving the victims lives. Most likely they dies of suffocation due to the smoke. If the engines had been there earlier, they could have very easily been saved.

Alas the most infuriating thing is the lack of responsibility and initiative on everyone’s part. Mostly the bank the the victims were trying to open. They say the government should have protected them. Provided them with security. so on and so on. We’ve heard it all before. But why couldn’t the business have closed down, refused to open for the security of its employees in a preemptive strike? Especially a bank, especially in that area, the most notorious for violent riots. The Answer: Greed, but does it have to be? It seems as though since the beginning of time  people have not managed to survive past childhood without being tainted by corruption and greed.

On top of that, are such riots even legal? If we take a glance at what happens every time Greece erupts into a fit of  violent protests, no charges are made. I’m not radical, but I would like to see justice brought to the family of the victims. The point is that murder is against the law. Violent protests are against the law (people have a right to peaceful demonstration, but not riots such as we’ve seen of late). Especially when they put people at danger, let alone take lives. But at least charges could be pressed for the damage done by the rioters, no? why shouldn’t those who participate contribute to paying for the merchandise and property damaged or lost in fires? The Answer: Because no one is willing to call anyone out and have them pay the price. Also, how are you to identify one person among the hundreds of protesters.

Greece’s neighbor  with equally vivacious protesters came up with a witty solution. The riot police would use pressurized water cannons to subdue and control protesters which is highly effective. But when everyone is wearing gas masks and scarves and hoods? Turkey had the answer here too. The water in the cannons are tainted with a highly distinctive dye which is fairly permanent and has an unique molecular structure. The next day, or even week after, those who participated in the riots are exposed for all to see with dyed hands, faces and necks or any other skin that was exposed, as well as their clothes. It doesn’t come out even at the dry cleaners and if they try to throw the clothing out or give it away, its easy to tell that they are the guilty party. The idea stems from a way the ancient Greeks developed at the birth of democracy. All men were expected to attend the forums, the democratic houses of speech and discussion, and it was a great sin not to join. That person would be viewed as disrespectful or unpatriotic. So after the doors had been locked, guards would walk around the agora with a rope held between them at knee length which had been dipped into red dye. Any citizen stranded outside the forums would be spoiled by the dye which served as a form of public shaming. It was highly effective, so why does Greece refuse to implement such techniques now? That I do not have an answer to.

Anyways, more news from Greece today. My cousin who goes to a British School there sent me an email which I just read. She said the trees had suddenly started to pollinate again, with bundles of the white fluffy stuff drifting down from the sky like tears of the trees moving just as slowly as they grow. Everyone who is affected by allergies also cried their own tears again. “All in all” she says, “the attitude was very somber today at school. Almost everyone felt the pressure the crisis had put on them. Everyone felt sorrow for those souls lost and denounced those disgraced figures who took them before their time. Especially that baby. To think a life hardly even begun was affected by the riots, is a true shame. Hopefully he would have made his impression on the people who did this to him.”

I guess that really is all we can hope for. For them to rest, and for the nations problems to be ameliorated as soon as possible.

So let me ask my question of the day before I sign out. One person taking the life of one other is a horrible thing. One person taking the lives of many is even worse. So does that mean that these three live that we taken by many hands, a cynically twisted community effort, is dispersed among them to mean next to nothing in a court of law? I really don’t think it should. But leave your comments or email me at miraella_rose@yahoo.com to let me know your views on whats been happening lately or anything else. I’m all eyes.

One more thing, just to show how crazy things have gotten in Greece; soccer (or football if you prefer) games have been canceled throughout the country. At least one was canceled last night in Thessaloniki, the nations second largest city who also had a lot of riots of its own (cities throughout Greece struggled against the rioters, dont think it was just athens) and at least one other is canceled tonight. Volley ball games have been canceled as well. This is just to put the riots in scale for you. To think about how passionate the country is about soccer and how famous they are for their riots at soccer games (they provide the majority of the Greek riot police’s employment) have been canceled due to political riots. Ah, I guess for some Greeks there isn’t much difference between the two. Even I know how much politics is involved int he corrupt Greek soccer leagues. Entire books have been read about just the past ten years of it!

Paying a moment of silence (to the relief of my brother) for those who have suffered,

Mirella