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!

BON VOYAGE-more summer travels

I’ve been taking a “kinda” break from the computer lately. Only using it for stimuli for my art and English projects.  Hence the lack of recent posts and the considerable drop in views 😛

Truth be told I haven’t had much to write about lately. Brothers spent the last two weeks Island Hopping around the Greek Isles leaving my Sister and I here to do as we may. We went camping for a few days, had our parents drop us off in a camping part of the King’s forest (Thasos tou Vassili) with our bikes, packs and tents and we spent the days biking the trails, making friends with the local dogs (of course! :P) and chatting with tourists. Now our brothers are back and we are off to the lovely little island of Paros for a week and a half. Tomorrow morning we are getting up at 4 am, to be out the door by 5:00-5:15 to be on the plane for 6:45 to be on the Island greeted by our friends there for 7:30. Can you say “YAWN!”

Oh well, at least this way we can snooze on the beach for a little bit (in the shade of course) and then hop right into the sea and have a whole extra day there. My only worry is getting burnt (again) though I’m a bit darker now (as dark as spf 40 lets you get :P) and the friends I’m staying with’s mother is a nurse so she is pretty good with warnings and catching a burn before it happens 😛 Unlike most people she doesn’t take my constantly rosy red cheeks as a burn and so isn’t warning me to put on more sunscreen moments after having applied more.

After my sister and I get back from Paros (when I said little earlier, I meant LITTLE. It only takes about half an hour to drive completely around the quaint little grecian isle. though it takes considerably longer if you stop to get a taste of all the numerous lovely beaches that surround it.) We will have two days break before heading to Italy to spend the rest of the summer with our family there, only to return to Greece in early September for a wedding. It’s going to be hard to re-adjust to school after that!

Anyways, so we are now packing for. not one, but two trips. If you remeber the last post I wrote about packing for the camping trip about a month ago… you’ll know this is no easy task for me. 😛 Needless to say that, once again, thanks to insomnia, anticipation and anxiety Ill probably get next to no sleep done tonight.

Not that I’ve had much the past  few nights anyways. If its not construction work waking you up really early, or all sorts of mechanical devices jerking you to alertness right when you are drifting off (seriously there were two seperate occasions of car tires squealing, fire truck, police car, and then finally, at 6:00 in the morning… the garbage trucks), or mosquitoes (have I ever mentioned they like to eat me alive? Good thing I’m just as good at squashing them with my bare hands (zen I know :P) even if I feel guilty about it.) or else its a rare occasion when BOTH your neighbours… in GREECE who are GREEK decide to have big parties (BIG) on the SAME NIGHT! It was horrible! They have this bad habit of making a fiasco out of anything (my neighbours) and they always hire waiters and caterers and everything and blast REALLY BAD GREEK DISCO MUSIC!!!!!!!! We can all agree that disco music was bad. But Greek disco is just plain gawd awful! I mean lets face it, even current, supposedly good greek music is just about crap! I mean whats the big deal with Sakis Rouvas or what ever his name is. Not only is he a horrible singer and song writer but his songs arer trashy, and if his singing is horrible… then his dancing is even worse and if thats so then he himself is even uglier! (if such a thing is possible). I just don’t get why girls go nuts over him! maybe I’m blind. What I don’t get though is why Greeks are bling enough as to send him to the Eurovision every year for the past, what? Century? If he was ever decent he has certainly lost his touch in his old age. But just lilke any Greek star he insists on sticking around like an old bat, leeching like a parasite off of the stupidityof his fellow countrymen. Do you really think he could do a come back concert in 20 years and get half the notice of someone like Tina Turner? Or ACDC? Would anyone even remeber him once the mob finally gains sanity and mob mentality looses its grip over their impression of him? I doubt it.

Ok well that little rant was random and I can’t even remeber where it stemmed from… a yes… i see now. My neighbour’s bad taste in music, and  even worse taste in playing it so loud so late. Sure if you want to listen to loud bad music at 12 am go to a soundproof club where no innocent by standers will loose their eardrums and braincells to bad music, and get yourself drunk. But dont listen to bad music, so loud i can hear it in my room with everything closed and locked, at 3 in the morning, and get yourself drunk and laugh so loud I can hear your laugh over the music. I’m serious there was one woman there with the most hideous and heinous laugh ive ever heard, and yes, i could still hear her spewing vile laughter even after they started the music. I don’t know if she was drunk or stoned or what, or if she just had poor judgment, but either way she sould be put in a secure facility or else a  hostile nation might record her and use it at supersonic decibels to make their enimy nation’s government buildings’ foundations colapse.

If you, woman, so happens to see this, or if any body takes offense at what I wrote… please let me know. haha. or just use discretion when hosting your own greek style house party 😛

Well… my train of thoughts before the rant has now dried up… but Ill be sure to post again tonight if I think of anything else… to make up for the days I missed and the days I will miss as I don’t think Ill be writing much on the island.

Sunny Summer,

Mirella rose

Well thats Annoying!- Life just gave me Lemons…

I spent about two hours last night writing my first post…only to find out this morning, that I don’t think it actually posted!!! Isn’t that annoying???? Oh well I suppose its for the better. I went off on a bit of a rant.

So I’ll Just tell you a bit about myself… First of all, Hello Everyone… or anyone.

My Name is Mirella Rosaria. Most people call me Ella, or Ella Rose for a totally abbreviated version.  I love my name. It was my grandmother’s. I look like her, and was named after her from birth. I have light eyes, pale skin with freckles and light hair. SO light some people call it blond even though I call it “hair coloured hair” (to quote my favourite Madeline L’Engle book). Needless to say I look nothing like my twin sister, who has dark hair, skin and eyes just like the rest of my family. I live in New York, just a 45 min metro ride from Grand Central Station. But despite that both my parents have Mediterranean backgrounds. My father is Italian, and moved to New York city when he was young, though he would spend the entire summer back in Italy and whenever else he could. He met my mom, a Greek Canadian living in Montreal when they were both going to University in Vermont.  They moved to the Suburbs when they got married, wanting my brothers and sister and I to have a child’s life.

Anyways so a bit more about myself:

• I am 16 years old

• your not so common teenager

• LOVE :

1. BOOKS
2. DANCING
3. MUSIC (making or listening :P)
4. ART (photography, paint, charcoal, pastel, and as of most recently engraving)
5. WRITING

That said, I write anything from poems to short stories… maybe I’ll post some here sometimes to get some objective feedback. I also dance any style, though most people forget that and think I just do Ballet and Jazz. I also play instruments… well violin mostly though I used to play piano, flute and drums as well (see I forgot that in the last one…). As for art… Well I take photographs, but so does most people now adays… Therefore I also sketch, paint, draw in detail, use pastels, and make engravings which i can then copy using a printing press… That last one was newly discovered by me and I LOVE IT!!! I never knew I would like it so much… but i get to involve drawing, with ink with paint… because there is nothing like working back into a print with water colour or oil paint…

So now, item de jour…

I had intended this blog to be a creative outlet, for me and you readers alike. We can share poems… story ideas, even art work if anyone wants to scan… talk about our favourite songs from all styles of music… but I also thought… since I bake a lot! y’all might like a few recipes…

So today, since life gave me lemons with this post… Im making lemon squares. Will get the recipe for you all later. And if anyone ever wants a recipe for something in particular, let me know in comments and I’ll see what I can find!!!

cheerio world!