Annie blogs about things: The comic: The musical

So. I seem to be finally getting around to doing this blogging assignment(and evidently I'll be bisecting multiple innocent infinitives along the way). The only problem is, well, I'm rather confused about what to put here! But let's start off with the basics, shall we?

My name is Anne Summers. I am fifteen years of age. I've got two older siblings, both of whom are in college, one of whom is just starting college this year. My father is a history professor at UK, and, if I'm not mistaken, later this year, in US History, he shows up briefly in a documentary about Grover Cleveland. Assuming we actually watch that this year. We might not. I am heavily involved in a great deal of fandoms, but primarily Homestuck. I draw a lot, as people who've gone to elementary or middle school with me may know.

Despite the fact that I honestly should start thinking about this, considering how many times my mom asks me about it every week, I don't really have a very clear idea of what I want for my future. Well, okay, that isn't entirely true. I know what I want to do, I just don't know what I should do. For a long time, I've wanted to be an cartoonist of some form, but certain circumstances don't really facilitate that. Cartoonists don't get paid very much, and I've heard that it's incredibly difficult to find work as one. However, my parents have suggested that I become a lawyer, which is an idea that I'm not terribly fond of. I mean, sure, if I'm good enough, it's possible that I'll earn a lot of cash, but the job, to me, just sounds like it would be rather exhausting, and my rhetoric would need great development. (Also, my speech, considering that it's apparently very difficult for people to hear me when I'm talking normally.)

Let me make a rather lame segue here: this summer, I began going to speech therapy. But I also went to two other continents! The first trip was one for the Sister Cities program, which links Lexington to towns in Japan, France, Britain, and Ireland. (I went to Japan.) While in Japan, I stayed with a host family. They kind of spoke English. A little. It was understandable, most of the time, and I am exceedingly honored that they went to the effort of trying to learn it. I kind of spoke a little Japanese, as well. My family was apparently honored at that, too. Those of you who were in classes with me last year may remember that one time in March when I brought an exchange student to school. I was able to meet her and her family again, as my host family and her family were close. In Japan, our group went to three different high schools and visited the English class in each, where we were kind of used for training. Also, we made takoyaki, which, despite the fact that it is basically octopus chunks in balls of batter, is really good! On one of the days, my host family went to a samurai-themed amusement park, where I acquired lots of souvenirs. (It wasn't an amusement park like Disneyland is an amusement park. More like...one of those places where people recreate frontier life and wear period-appropriate dress.) There were other places I acquired souvenirs at, as well, like the aquarium and the soy sauce factory, but this paragraph has continued on for quite long enough.

I also went to Europe this summer. The main motivator was the fact that my brother was performing in the International Sousa Concert Band, but another strong factor was the fact that, strangely enough, my cousin and grandmother has planned to go to Europe around the same time. We spent about fourteen days in Europe, beginning in Florence and ending in Paris. In Florence, the architecture was absolutely gorgeous. There were multiple museums full of statues and Italian Renaissance art, as well as many churches. (Also, like in Venice, there were gelaterias on almost every street corner.) Following that, we parted with my cousin and my grandmother, and went to Switzerland. Luzern was first. In Luzern, we climbed up the Alps, which were full of mist. Imagine a giant, low-flying cloud. That's essentially what we were stuck in through the majority of our hike upwards to the lodgings. We weren't worried, though, because all around us, we could hear the sound of hundreds upon hundreds of clanging cowbells. (Apparently the mountain climate is good for cows?) The way back down was much more difficult and painful than the way up, and not for any emotional reasons. We kept getting lost, and eventually found a trail composed of nothing but extremely steep steps for about a mile. By the end, even hearing the mention of the word "steps" would cause someone to break into tears. Following our alpine ventures, we headed to Lugano, where we intended to hear 2 out of 2 of the band's concerts. We ended up hearing 0 out of 0, thanks to sloppy planning and bad weather. (I got to hear an excellent Queen cover band in place of the first concert, at least.) I also acquired the best chicken sandwich ever from a bakery, and I got the most exercise I've gotten out of the entire summer there (LOTS AND LOTS OF UPHILL WALKING). After that, we headed into VENICE. My advice: If you ever go to Europe in the summer, don't go to Venice then. It is incredibly humid (duh, water+heat=humidity) and filled with tourists(this might be a year-round thing). Being filled with canals, the main method of transportation is boat. Alternately, you can go across some of the many bridges. Venice is set up very nicely and filled with tiny alleyways. It's very easy to get lost there, although getting lost there is certainly not a bad thing. Venice has two specialties, shopwise: masks and glass. If you've ever seen those masks with feathers and sparkles and such on them, you should know what a typical Venice mask looks like. As for glass, there are shops that have tiny figurines of glass in almost any form: ballerina, musician, snail, rabbit, swan, frog, fishbowl, cat, practically anything you can name. Then we went to Paris, where we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. In my opinion, seeing the ol' ML wasn't really worth it. It's no big deal. Seeing the numerous Dutch/Flemish paintings, on the other hand, was TOTALLY worth it. Partially because we didn't have to fight our way through the crowds in order to see the paintings.

Oh wow, I've written a lot here, haven't I?

After a lot of consideration, I've (sort of) figured out what my favorite website would be. My initial idea was that MS Paint Adventures was my favorite site. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure what sort of "rating" it would garner. Perhaps PG-13, considering how many characters end up dying. So, after a lot of careful consideration and elimination, I finally decided that my favorite website is TV Tropes. It's a website that functions as a pseudo-wiki, without using the standard wikia template, and it has information on thousands of different forms of media. Webcomics, films, literature, video games, animation: it's basically got it all. Furthermore, the majority of the pages are dedicated to cataloguing different conventions in media. Plus, it's a very easy way to lose four or five hours of your day.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage (go ahead. type something into the search bar. have fun.)

(Just a reminder: It's Annie Summers. I don't know how to change my blog name. Whoops.)