Drum roll please!
*Da da da duuuuummmmm!!!!*
Thank you.

Now it is time for the results of my audition last night to be revealed... I LANDED A PART! Yay, applause is much appreciated, thank you, thank you. I got to school this morning and I was editing my creative component for English in the library. Chris walked in just before the morning bell for homeroom period rang and told me the results were posted on the drama room door. Obviously very excited, I rushed over there to get a peak, and sure enough my name was on there. My official role is soldier #2. It's one of the minor roles, but I get to sing and I'm just so happy to be in the production this year! After all, like my drama teacher always says "There are no small roles, only small actors". Yeah, put that one in your wise quote book, folks! The only thing about it that pissed me off was my name being spelled wrong. Darn you, Mr. Fetterley! It's a major pet peeve of mine. It was awesome when I walked into homeroom and as soon as Chris saw me, he started clapping for me. He obviously knew I had gotten the part beforehand and just wanted to make me sweat a little, typical Chris. Anyway, I told him flat out that I wouldn't have gotten the role if it hadn't been for him and of course, he wasted no time in agreeing with me, the joker that he is. I'm going to buy him a cake and a thank you card! I'm not even kidding! I owe him big-time because he went out on a limb to help me out when he didn't have to. The funniest thing about it was when he told me he felt really confident that he would get a part because there were six male roles and only five males showed up for the audition. When I asked him what they were going to do about the empty role, he said the lead role is no longer Lester, it's Leslie. That got a laugh out of me.

Hmmm... which reminds me that I have to stay after school tomorrow to work on my seminar with Chris and his friend who may be his girlfriend but I'm not sure and for the most part don't think so, Christina. I also have to stay after school on Thursday as well for the first read-through of the play. I'm really excited! Me getting a role really digs a thorn in TJ's side because now he has to reschedule our Dungeons and Dragons night from Thursdays to Tuesdays. Unfortunately, I'll miss this week's session because he doesn't have the time to reschedule it this week (it's already Tuesday and I just found out I landed a role today), so he'll have it as his house with Samurai. His real name is Chris but then you would get confused with the other Chris I've been talking about so I'll just call him by his nickname, Samurai. Next week it's Tuesdays at my place though. Other than having to reschedule Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), I think he's happy for me... I think. He didn't really say anything other than "okay, cool." when I told him but for TJ, I'm pretty sure that's excitement.

Yay! My report card finally came! The stupid school decided to mail them out this year so the students won't throw them out before showing their parents. I really don't see the point. The kids who throw theirs out and their parents don't question why they haven't seen a midterm report card are the parents who don't give a damn about their kid's education anyway. Besides, most of the students ARE the ones who get the mail. My mom's been hounding me for a week about the report cards. I think she actually marks down the approximate few days in which they're supposed to go home. I'm so happy with my marks, though! I have an 88% in vocal, a 91% in English, a 90% in philosophy and a 96% in studies in literature. Overall, an average of 91%. Now I can relax and take a short breather before having to work my butt off again to keep it the same for my final report card. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed with my vocal mark. If I can bump it up a few higher before the final, I'll be really happy. It's not bad as it is though so I'm not too worried or upset over it.

Heh heh, I bet you're all wondering about the "Mom's Hypnosis" thing in the title. Well, this I had absolutely no clue about until I got home from school today. My mom's been a heavy smoker for well over twenty years and recently, she's become more health-conscious and really wants to quit. The only problem is she gets severe alergic reactions to the nicotine patches, nicotine gum and everything else they're released to help people quit smoking. When she tries to quit cold-turkey, she turns into this horrid monster no one wants to be around and she's back on smoking within a week. Basically, she gave up after a while but then she heard of hypnosis to help people quit smoking. Apparently she made an appointment today and now she can't even take one drag off a cigarette because it makes her want to vomit! IT ACTUALLY WORKED! Everything else failed, all the science and medical techniques had no effect or made her worse but this hypnosis thing worked it's magic in one day! My mom says the lady who hypnotized her asked her what the most foul, vile, disgusting taste in the world was to her. For my mom it's sugar. She hates anything sweet and if something has sugar in it, she wants to throw it up, she hates it that much. The lady hypnotized her and now my mom says that every time she tries to smoke a cigarette, it tastes like syrup and she wants to just puke right then and there. My mom's been trying all these scientific methods that are supposed to take weeks and weeks to make you quit and none of it worked, but one hypnosis session did. It just goes to show that natural healing is SO much more effective than scientific healing because natural healing heals the soul as well as the body wheras science just heals the body. We all know that if the soul is damaged, then your body will be affected by that, too. Science has yet to realize that, unfortunately.

Oh wow! I was just watching Oprah's Favourite Things (her Christmas special where she gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff) and Josh Groban was on to promote his Christmas album, "Noel". I swear, his voice brought me to my knees! He has the voice of an angel and even though I've never met an angel, I'm fairly certain I'm not exaggerating by a large margin.

Anyway, it's time for me to go roleplay a bit since all of my homework's finished. Buh-bye for now and Blessed Be!

Wow, what an unusual day. I went from neutral to bored, to entertained, to bored again, to anxious, to relieved, to angry all in one day! Talk about bi-polar tendencies. For the record, I'm nowhere close to being bi-polar. I just went through some crazy mood swings today. Anyway, I shall explain this seemingly vague and random introduction.

Hmmm... well, neutral was when I woke up this morning and got ready for school. I don't mind Mondays even though most people hate them. I like school so generally I like Mondays. I was a little irritated that it was week two instead of week one which meant I didn't have vocal class first period. I like having vocal class first period, because it's not really all that demanding and singing first thing in the morning really refreshes me for the rest of the day. That was all pretty much neutral. I bickered with my best friend T. J a little bit, but I do that every day so it wasn't anything all that unusual or aggravating.

Boredom set in when I went to philosophy class. I hate philosophy class and I wasn't going to go but then T. J got mad and told me to go to philosophy so I did. I don't know why he's suddenly being such a good role-model all of a sudden. It used to be the other way around and he would want to skip class with me but I would force him to go to class and get angry if he didn't go. Now he's the one who's telling me to go to class and he gets mad when I don't. Go figure.

Anyway, I was glad T. J made me go to philosophy today, because it was in philosophy that I was entertained. Who would have thought that philosophy could actually be entertaining? The lesson started off incredibly dull and dry as usual, when all of a sudden, Mr. Perron's attention was drawn to a guy in my class named Evan. He's a nice enough guy, really but incredibly immature and can do really stupid things sometimes... like today, for instance. Apparently, he was trying to break some record for chewing the most pieces of gum. He had five packs (not pieces... packs!) of gum in his mouth so far and he couldn't even move his jaw or talk anymore. Mr. Perron looked positively revolted and the whole class was laughing hysterically. After a few more minutes of Mr. Perron trying to ignore Evan and continue the lesson, but failing because everyone was distracted by him, he asked Evan to spit out the gum. Being Evan, he calmly walks out and walks back in within mere seconds even though our class is in a portable and it takes a good ten minutes to get to the bathrooms in the school and back. This is how the following conversation went:

Mr. Perron: Evan, where did you put the gum?
Evan: On Stephanie's car.
Stephanie: [laughing] Yeah? You know you're cleaning that up later, right? [stands up to look out the window] Uhhh... Evan, that's not my car.
Evan: [eyes wide] It's not?
Stephanie: [laughing] No.
Evan: SHIT!

At this point, Evan leaps out of his chair, bolts out of the door in the middle of class, catapaults himself over the wheelchair ramp and snatches the wad of gum off the hood of the car before the owner comes out and sees it. By now, the class is in hysterical fits of laughter and it took Mr. Perron a good ten minutes to calm the class down again. This happened in a Grade 12 University Level Philosophy course with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds... which just goes to show how mature we are.

Now after this, I was bored again but not for long! Good ol' Lisa decided she would keep the entertainment going. As usual, she wasn't paying attention and was talking to her friend beside her. Mr. Perron asked her to leave and this is how that conversation went:

Mr. Perron: Lisa, please leave the class.
Lisa: [excited] I get to leave?
Mr. Perron: I will be marking you absent, though. Now please leave the class.
Lisa: What the hell? This is bullshit!
Mr. Perron: Lisa, I won't ask you again. Please pack your things and go to the office.
Lisa: You f****** shit! I'm gonna f****** kick your ass!
Mr. Perron: [calmly] Go for it.

Now if you know Mr. Perron, you'd know that him saying that is so uncharacteristic that it's funny. Almost every student in the class was in awe of him. I think I have a newfound respect for the man now. Not that I didn't respect him before. It's just been heightened now after him being so freaking awesome!

From there the rest of the class was boring and after that it was English. English wasn't so bad. I managed to finish chapter eight of my creative component for my big project. The time I became anxious was when the end of the school day came and it was time for my audition. My audition wasn't until 4:47pm and it was 3:10pm. I had nearly two hours to be nervous and build the suspense. I ended up practising my monologue for a few people and they all really liked it. Then I talked with Chris for a while until it was my turn. The only light in the room was a single spotlight on me and it was so intimidating! Mr. Fetterley had me do my monologue and stopped me half-way through. Apparently, he does that to everyone so I shouldn't worry about it. Then he gave me two improv situations which I think I handled fairly well and then he asked me to sing. I ended up singing "The First Noel" in Pachebal's Canon and when I talked to Chris afterwards, he said that asking me to sing was a really good sign. I don't think I picked a good song, though but it was the first thing that came to my head since I'm learning it in vocal class. I guess now it's just a waiting game to see if I was good enough to land a part.

Now obviously finishing the audition was when I was relieved but the anger didn't set in until I got home and got on the computer. Remember that schitzophrenic whack-job I was telling you about before? Well, even though I ended up forgiving him after he apologized and giving him a second chance like any good, caring person would do, he decided to use my kindness to try and destroy my life even further! I was shocked to discover when I went on my friend Maggie's profile on the website, he had posted a comment there saying that I told him to tell her she was a bitch and that I hated her! Obviously, I never said any such thing and it was just his low, pathetic, childish way of trying to personally hurt me since he knows that bashing my religion won't waver my faith and beliefs. Needless to say, he's blocked and I'm making it my personal mission to get him permanently banned from the site for his atrocity. What kind of pathetic low-life would go out of their way to harrass someone's friends and ruin their relationships just because they're not Christian? What a slimy sicko! Don't worry all you Christians out there. I know not all of you are like that and it's freaks like him who give all you normal Christians a bad name.

Anyway, that is my day from beginning to... well, approximately now. See ya!

Hmmm, it really is difficult to get a blog entry started, isn't it? Especially when your life is rather calm and uneventful. Right now, I'm just sitting here on the computer (obviously), watching the Santa Claus Parade and roleplaying while talking to my friend on IM. It took me half the day to boot my annoying little brother off the computer. All he ever does is play stick figure flash games for hours and hours. It drives me crazy! At least I roleplay and blog and run websites which takes linguistic and organizational skill.

Well, let me start off by talking about the funny plot line going on in a Mystic Forest roleplay I'm in. I know it isn't the most exciting thing to talk about in a blog, but a blog means to just spew out the first thing that comes into your head. As my English teacher would say "just barf your mind onto the paper through your pen." Eloquent guy, eh?

Anyway, before I go into the storyline, you have to know who the characters are, so here they are:
Fiera - Elf. Commander of an army. She is very harsh and cold in her personality and does not show emotion easily.
Tharion - Elf. Warrior in Fiera's army and her lover. Emotional and passionate personality.
Yali - Elf. Young child. Fiera's adoptive daughter.
Duvessa - Faerie. Guardian of the Forest. Basically acts as a judge and political leader of the Forest.

Now, Fiera adopted Yali after her parents were killed and no one else would take her, believing that the girl was cursed because her parents died voilent deaths. Tharion was already Fiera's lover and he truly does cherish her as she does him. He wants to adopt Yali as his daughter as well but there is a problem. The Forest's law states that to jointly adopt a child, the two adults must be joined (married) and share a dwelling. Fiera and Tharion do not fit the qualifications. Tharion wants to become joined with Fiera so that he can adopt Yali (he also does love Fiera so it's not as though he is just using her). Even though Fiera loves Tharion as well, she is against the idea of becoming joined with him, because of her harsh and cold personality. This will eventually result in a nasty fight which splits the two apart and poor Yali is going to blame herself for it and run away which will send both Tharion and Fiera into a panic.

I'm not sure what's going to happen from there, but it looks promising. It should be fun to write it out.

On another, more realistic note, I'm watching the Santa Claus Parade. I watch it every year and it's become kind of a tradition. I love the big floats, they're really impressive. I could do without the announcer's lame jokes, though. That's probably why he's a news reporter the rest of the year. Humour is definitely not one of his strong points. Now they're showing the Penguin Party float... who the hell sponsors that one??? Probably Coca Cola or something... wait that's polar bears. Whatever. It's a cool float.

I love and hate procrastination at the same time. I love it because I have more time to what I want and have fun, but I hate it because it keeps me from getting what I need to get finished completed on time. I'm supposed to be writing an essay outline for English class but so far, I've yet to start it and it's due on Tuesday. Seeing as how I have my audition on Monday, I'm going to have to either buckle down and do it tonight (which seems highly unlikely) or rush to finish it on Monday night after I get back from my audition. I think the latter is what will end up happening. I love school but sometimes I wish I could just not do any work... I know, it's a strange polar opposite.

Oh great... another lame joke from the announcer on the Santa Claus Parade. Someone should smack him in the back of the head to knock the stupid out of him. He just made some ridiculous pun about the Rolling Stones. What the hell does the Rolling Stones have to do with Christmas?

On a completely different topic, it really bugs me when people become so close minded that they start to discriminate against people with other beliefs. There's this guy on a website I'm on who keeps posting in the forums saying that I'm going to burn in Hell and that I'm a filthy heathen whom God is going to cast into eternal damnation for my sins. All of this because I happen to be Wiccan. I think the situation is under control now, but it really hurts when people make false accusations about others without making an attempt to learn more about them first. Seriously, the guy's a whack-job. He claimed that he's seen Jesus and spoken with him and that he's been to Hell. I think he must have some kind of mental disorder, in which case I pity him and pray that he becomes healed of his illness somehow.

Anyway, I think this blog entry is long enough even though it was completely filled with fluff. It's alright. Most blogs are nowadays anyway. They're there for people to rant about random stuff in their lives. They serve as therapy for people more than anything else which is a good thing. Maybe that crazy guy who's buddies with Jesus should start a blog then because he really needs therapy.

*Note: In no way am I saying that Christianity is a bad thing or discriminating against Christians. The majority of my friends are Christian and I respect their beliefs just as they respect mine. I'm just saying that one guy is nuts for thinking that he's been to Hell and all that jazz. I accept all religions and all people who practise those religions as long as they are respectful of my beliefs as well.

Ahem.

Well, let me start off by saying that no, Briar Rosethorn is obviously not my legal name. It's my Wiccan name and for the sake of this blog, that will be the only name I refer to myself as. If you must shorten it, please use the name Rosethorn instead of Briar.

Unlike most teenagers my age, my life really isn't full of all that much drama. The situation that happened to me recently and is currently dying down was a rare occurance. I tend not to get caught up in who is dating who, boyfriends, catty fights with girlfriends and constant bickering with parents etc, etc. My life consists of school work, my religious faith and the computer. You may interpret that to be sad, geeky or whatever. I really don't care.

Hmmm... now to talk about what is currently going on with me and actually make it sound interesting. Quite a daunting task. Well, one thing I am very excited about is my audition on Monday.

The audition is for the Sears Drama Festival. It's a provincial competition that's sponsored by Sears and a bunch of high schools in the province compete to win the festival. It's very competitive and my school is one of hundreds that compete every year. Usually, we have a student write the script rather than redoing an existing one because that gets boring and there's no originality involved in it. Plus we don't have the money to pay the royalties if we were to do a major production such as Grease or Phantom of the Opera. There are over 30 people auditioning for roles this year and only about 10 spots so it's going to be tough.

I'm auditioning for the role of the bossy drill sergeant. Once you all get to know me a little better, you'll see that this role is perfect for me. We need to prepare and perfrm a monologue that is no more than one minute in length and use it for our audition. The monologue needs to showcase the characterization of the role we're shooting for. I chose a speech from St. Joan by Bernard Shaw to use. I finally have it memorized and I'm just working on the tone and blocking for Monday. I'll write it here, it's a good monologue.

"Ah! If, if, if, if! If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no need of tinkers! I tell you, Bastard, your art of war is no use, because your knights are no good at real fighting! War is just a game to them, like tennis and all their other games, they make rules as to what is fair and what is not fair, and heap armour on themselves and their poor horses to keep out the arrows, and when they fall they can't get up and have to wait for their squires to come and lift them to arrange about the ransom with the man that has poked them off their horse. Can't you see all the like of that is gone by and done with? What use is armour against gunpowder? And if it was, do you think men that are fighting for France and for God will stop to bargain about ransoms as have your knights live by doing? No, they will fight to win and they will give up their lives out of their own hands into the hands of God when they go into battle, as I do. Common folks understand this. They cannot afford armour and pay ransoms, but they followed me half-naked into the moat, up the ladder and over the wall! With them, it is my life or thine and God defend the right! You may shake your head, Jack, and Bluebeard may twirl his billygoat's beard and cock his nose at me, but remember the day your knights and captains refused to follow me to attack the English at Orleans! You locked the gates to keep me in and it was the townsfolk and the common people who followed me, and forced the gates and shewed you the way to fight in earnest!"

It took me two or three days to memorize this completely but it's such a relief to have it done now. I just hope it's good enough to land me a spot. I really need this to give me something to do after school. There's only so much time a person can spend in front of a computer before they become sick of it. I want to get out and do something, I want to talk to people and have some fun while doing it. That's why I'm really working my ass off to pull this off. I love to act and I really think I have a good chance at this. I think the fact that I typed that entire monologue completely from memory should count for something.

Actually, if I get this part, I'm going to have to thank Chris for it. Without his help, I'd be clueless. Chris is this guy at my school is a brilliant actor and also one of the writers for this year's production. I went to him and asked him for help because I hadn't acted in over a year and I was rusty (why I stopped acting for a year is a different story). He was kind enough to tell me to do a monologue from St. Joan. He said I read her character really well in Literature class and that I'd do well with it. I took his advice and now I'm feeling really confident so now I'm going to have to give him all the credit and thanks if I land the part. He's a really nice guy to go out of his way to help me out like that even though he doesn't know me all that well. He even drove me home after the first meeting because I didn't have a ride. Thanks a million, Chris!

Well, that's by far the most exciting thing going on with me right now. I should be working on an English assignment but I'm terrible for procrastinating and leave everything to the last minute. Anyway, I'll leave it here for now. My fingers are hurting from hacking away at the keyboard for so long.