Christmas Concert

We had our big Christmas Concert last Saturday, which I am not going to lie, we did a pretty good job on. The choir didn't do too well since at one part the other group that was singing hit the wrong notes and we didn't really harmonize very well. But here is the story in full.
We had to get to the school at 6:30, but I don't know why since we didn't really take that much time getting ready. During that time though I had time to tune up my Saxophone to the piano, which the vice principle told me I had to do. When I had finished that, our choir director told us to meet backstage where we could practice a little bit and warm up. After that, we just had to wait until the second performance and then we would get onstage. Most of us were girls and we were really giggly, and everyone was cracking jocks because they were so nervous. Meanwhile, I was trying to suck on my reed to get it wet without laughing. But I couldn't hold it in any longer, so I laughed. Bad idea. My reed flew out of my mouth and flew across the room, which made everyone laugh harder. When it was finally time to get onstage, we were all very very nervous. When we started singing our first song, the Boat Song, that was when we started going off pitch. After that song was over, we sang Jubilatedaoh, or something like that, which was ok, except we forgot to come in at the right spot. Then Donanobispachem, which was ok until we split. Then we lost pitch again. Finally we sang one song that went ok, Raise Up Shepard and Follow, which I had a solo in, and after the solo I sort of messed up on the lyrics, but when I got back on track we all did good. Then we sang the song we were more used to, Peaceful. That one was finally perfect. After that I had exactly one performance to get my Saxophone assembled. I then had time to stand on stage and worry. But when we started playing, me on Saxophone and my friend on piano, we actually did pretty good, except she got a couple wrong notes, and my Saxophone stopped playing for while, but it wasn't really that noticeable. After that I was able to sit in the audience and watch. The songs were great, and no one else messed up so it turned out pretty good. At the end everyone who performed had to go back onstage to get a group shot, and then it was finally time to go home. All in all, it was a pretty good performance.
Pictures

Intercontinental Hotel

Last Thursday our school choir went to a very fancy 5 star hotel to perform at their Lighting of the Christmas Tree ceremony. We were planning on singing five songs, but then they only gave us time to sing three. "Rock and roll snow man", "Winter Fantasy", and "Peaceful", basically repeating some of the songs we sang at the Christmas Bazaar. We left school at 5:30 to get to the Intercontinental Hotel because it was a ways away. When we got there we got red scarfs and Santa hats to wear, which none of the older kids were very thrilled about. After we had briefly warmed up, we went into the restaurant to eat pizza, but we didn't get very much since the little kids ate almost all of it. Right after that we had a quickly wash our hands so we could go on stage to perform. Then we went on stage to perform our three songs, which I think went pretty well. The thing that surprised me was that there was a lot of people from our class there and some of our teachers, which made us all sort of nervous. After that, we went backstage to get ready to leave, but we didn't leave for a while because the little kids wanted to stay a while to watch the other performances. There was a magician, two singers, and dancers. Then we left and got cookies from the hotel people, which were coated in sugar and tasted really good. Overall, it was a pretty good evening.

I will have pictures up by the 3rd of December.

Saxophone Duet

Here is the website for you to hear me and my saxophone teacher playing a duet at the Christmas Bazaar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKX8Yi7rddA
Enjoy!

The Christmas Bazaar

Yesterday we had the long awaited Christmas Bazaar! There was lots of games for the little kids, a whole bunch of booths selling stuff, and lots and lots of food. And of course performances. In total I had 5 performances in 5 hours! So I was running around all day. The only thing I bought was food, which was awesome! And a new pair of earrings, they are really pretty. So my first performance was playing the Alto Saxophone by myself, which it seemed a lot of people liked. I played three traditional Christmas carols. Right after that the school choir performed, which was fun, and I liked all the songs, but one was really cheesy. We sang "Night of Wonders", "Winter Fantasy", "Rock and Roll Snowman", as you can probably tell, that was the cheesy one, and "Peaceful", a really good song, similar to the song we song last year at this time, "Song of Peace". Then after that I had free time until 1, which is when I bought my first pair of earrings. At 1 my saxophone teacher and I played a couple duets for Christmas carols, and when I had put my sax away, my friend came and told me that we were supposed to do a trio! So then I had to quickly put is back together and do the trio, with piano, violin, and saxophone. It sounded really good. Then after a while at around 2ish, our whole family performed a song, "Merry Christmas with Love". My and my sister had solos, and my mom and dad just sang along on the chorus. It was really funny though after cause there was this group of girls that were listening, these were the popular girls that I don't even talk to and they are older than me. So when we finished singing, and they were the ones cheering the loudest, I was really surprised, but it was nice of them. After that I was free until 3 when it was over. Me and some of my friends rushed around to get ride of all of our food tickets, and to buy some more stuff, but all I ended up getting was this really good coffee, chocolate, and butter square thing, it was really good and got me hyper. So it was a very fun day, and I have more performances! Next on is this coming Thursday.

Pictures

New Blog

My sister's blog got deleted my Blogger for some reason, so if you would like to go there are check it out, here is the link:
kateandlightingsally.blogspot.com

Performances

It is almost that time of year. You got it. CHRISTMAS! And this Christmas is going to be very busy for me and some of my friends. As the title indicates, I am going to be performing! Well, three times to be exact. Once next Saturday at the Christmas Bazaar, a Christmas shopping/performing day, it is really fun, as you can read in my last year's blog. During that time I will play a couple Christmas Carols on my Saxophone and sing a song with my whole family called "Merry Christmas with Love". After that, we are performing, as a choir, at a very famous hotel in Chengdu, the Intercontinental Hotel. We will be singing a few songs, but the only one that I know of right now is a song called "Peaceful" by Teresa Jennings. Then, the last performance is on December the 3rd, where one of my friends and I will be playing a duet of Saxophone and Piano, "Silent Night" and "Deck the Halls".
After that, I get to relax and watch other performances such as our English's teacher's version of Snow White which the people in our school are acting out. Last year he did a new version of Cinderella, which was really funny so I am looking forward to this year's performance.
So, going to be very busy practicing until December 3rd, so I hope we don't have as much homework as we have been having over the past few days!

Fall Festival

The fall festival was a couple weeks ago, and I was wrong, it wasn't that much fun. Well, I guess it was for little kids, but still.
I really liked my costume, and a lot of my class mates and the parents and teachers knew who I was. I have the picture of my costume on my Picasa website.

Future Pictures

Just thought I should tell you, for future pictures for posts, you can just scroll down on the blog page and click on the "Picasa Links for Blogs: View My Gallery". That is the easiest way for me to post pictures. If there is any pictures to go with a post, I will write
Picture
At the bottom of the post, and it will be in the small size, so don't miss it!
And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ear Piercing

By reading the title you can probably guess what happened, but I will tell you anyway. I got my ears pierced! Now I have dark green studs attached to my ears. We had to walk a long way around ChengDu before we could actually find a place, and I was starting to think I wouldn't have to get my ears pierced. Finally, we walked into a place that told us there was a place that pierced ears right next door! Right about then I started getting freaked out, and when the lady took out the piercing gun and put the studs in I wanted to run right out of there. Here I will put my thought process during the piercing:

1. Before she put it in: Ow, ow, ow, this is going to hurt so bad!!!!
2. After she put it in: Hey, that didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.
3. As she was putting it in the other ear: Ow, the other ear feels like it is on fire! This is going to hurt!!!!
4. After she was all done: Ok, it feels like both my ears are on fire now.
5. The next 10 min: Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW! Its stinging!
6. After 10 min: Ok, doesn't hurt anymore, I over reacted... a lot.
7. Now: YAY! I got my ears pierced!

So that was basically my thought process about the whole thing. Now I have to wear these dark green studs for about 2 months before I can take them out. I am so happy I finally did this! I chickened out the last few times, but this time I actually did it!

Halloween Costume

As you know Halloween is this month so I am starting to find things for Halloween costumes. It is not that I like Halloween so much that I am getting ready 3 weeks early, it is just that our school has a costume party on the 21st and there is a lot of pressure to get a good costume.
Last year I had a horrible time as a Cowgirl, which is not very surprising, cause I did not know what style everyone else would be dressed as. But this year, everything is going to be different.
As I was singing along with my Phantom of the Opera songs (which I do quite often for some reason), it struck me that I could dress up as the Phantom! All I needed was a mask, cape, and a suit, so I got to work right away. The suit was easy to find, I just used my dad's, one of his dress shirts and my black pants. And I found the mask by a stroke of luck when we were out shopping. We were walking through one of those shops that sells everything, and we saw a paper mask! It was not the Phantom mask, but since it was paper we bought. When we got home I cut it just right, and my dad added a strap to it. I put on the mask and suit and looked into the mirror. I looked just like the Phantom, except for the long hair of course. Now all I need is a cape, I have not found that yet, but my mom has this idea of having one made at a seamstress. All we need then is the black material.
Wish me luck!

Scones

Yesterday I had some spare time on my hands so I decided to try and make apple cinnamon scones. Kate tried to help, but it did not work out so well, so I told her to just put stuff away for me when I was finished using it. It took a long time but finally they were finished, but they looked like a huge mess. But then I put them in the oven and waited for them to bake. Guess what I did while I was waiting? I read my book! The book I am reading now is called Inkspell, the second book in the Inkheart book series. But enough about the book :P
When it had been 10 minuets I took them out of the oven to check if they were done, I thought so but my mom did not agree. So I put them in for another 10 minuets. During that time I read my book again, I was so caught up in it that I almost forgot about the time. But when I finally took them out they were not burned, so that was good. I gave them to my mom and dad and Kate, and they all said they were very good.

Picture

If I put the pictures from the camp onto blogger, then it will take up a lot of space. So instead, just go to:
https://picasaweb.google.com/claireandlightning/2011SouthKoreanPeaceCamp
When you go here then you can see all the pictures I took and some captions underneath.

Day 2 at Camp

Sorry to those who read my blog for not posting for a while, but now the VPN on my computer actually works, so now I will not post the second day of camp.
After going to bed late, we had to wake up early again. When the counselor in our room called me to wake up I found that only me and the other Chinese person, Kitty, was still sleeping in our cabin. I tried to get up, but my arms felt so weak I could barely life myself up. When I finally got up, I had to wait in line for the bathroom. Libby, one of the Chinese counselor's daughters, looked very grumpy this morning, which was weird cause Libby is usually very happy and active. After I finally got ready to start the day, I went out of our cabin to walk to the cafeteria. There was a lot of foods that I did not think of as breakfast foods. Like meat, pickled veggies, spicy stuff, so I just had rice, some meat, and sea weed, the sea weed and rice was really good.
After breakfast we gathered in the meeting/classroom again. Today's topic was Culture, but I kind of forget what we did in the Peace Education during that day. Mainly cause the event in the afternoon took up most of my memory.
All day I was fretting about this afternoon's activity, even before the camp actually started I was sort of worried. You see, I am not that good with heights, so the challenge course did not sound too promising. But when we finally got to the challenge course grounds, I got even more freaked out. The course were both made out of wooden logs, and were both very very high off the ground. One of them (the less scary one) was that you had to walk up a log with little step ladder things stuck into them. Then after you had walked up the very high log, you had to walk across another log that was placed horizontally from the log up climbed up and another log that was vertical too. So, you had to walk across the horizontal log, which was about 20-30cm wide while you were attached to a life line sort of thing with a guy on the ground holding it. Lots of people did it, but when people asked if I wanted to do it, I refused. But then my friend, Cherry, or 杨梨蕊 (Yang LiRui) said that she would climb up it if I went up after her. I agreed, so she stood in line the climb up. When it was her turn I watched her climb up. She looked so brave as she walked up the ladder, I knew I could never look like that.
When she finally came down, her legs were trembling, but she was very happy. So after, I had to live up to my promise, so I stood in line to wait my turn to climb up. When I finally got to the front of the line up, I looked up to the top. I was so scared! It was so high up! But I went up anyway. I walked up to the top of the ladder, but when I finally stood up, I was trembling, and I had to stand there for a long time before I could start moving again. While I was walking across, I was holding onto the ropes attaching me to the ground so hard that my hands started getting numb. When I finally got to the end, I closed my eyes and I just jumped off of the side. When I finally got to the bottom, I felt o happy that I had finally gotten over my fear of highs (well, at least sort of) that I started crying in relief. After that was done we all went to have supper.
That evenings activity was Orienteering, but in the dark, so it was a lot more scary. Especially since we were reminded that there were snakes around the camp ground, and the wind was really big so the trees were whipping back and forth.
After we ran around trying to find the clues, we all went to bed. It felt good to go to sleep, even though it was on a floor :P

Day 1 at Camp

On the first day we all had to wake up at 7:30 and go for breakfast at 8:30. At breakfast there was coffee so I had some to stay awake cause it was going to be a very long day and it would not be good to fall asleep during the camp.

After breakfast we went to our first Peace Education session, this mornings topic was "What does peace mean to you?" We did a lot of fun activities. One of them was we saw a slide show of different pictures of different circumstances and we had to try and figure out what Peace meant to the people or animals in the picture. The first few were rhinoceros chasing a man and a lion standing outside a man's tent. The first ones were just for fun, but after a while there was more serious ones, like what was peace for two little children standing beside soldiers with guns. We thought peace for them was no more war and maybe some food. And we also made collage about what we thought peace was out of pictures or words from magazines. And we also had to draw and write on a separate piece of paper we thought peace was.Some people's pictures were very nice and had deep meanings.

After the Peace Education was over, we went to have lunch. We had a short break after lunch and then meet outside our cabins for a afternoon game called Orienteering. The point of the game is to find little flag post things with with hole punches beside them. Each team of two got a score card, a map, and a compass. We got about three hours to walk around the campsite and try and find the flag posts. My partner was from Korea but she had lived in China or 3 years so she could speak Chinese, so we used Chinese to communicate. When we had found all of them, we ran as fast as we could to the classroom that we were using to see if we had gotten all of the hole punches right, but we had gotten 3 mixed up. So we quickly went back out to correct them. When we finally got back our legs were all covered in little cuts because of the grass in the bushes that we had to climb through to get to the flag posts. After the three hours were up, we found out that we had successfully found all the flag posts, we were very happy.

After everyone had gotten back from the Orienteering, we went back to our cabins to have a good shower, but the cuts on my legs stung a lot. After my shower, since I was still very tired from the late nights, I had a very short nap while we were waiting for supper.

When supper was over, we had our evening activity which was playing the drums. There were 4 different types of drums, there were the wooden plates, a car hubcap (or at least I think that is what it was), an empty soy sauce jug, and an empty jug. I was one of the people playing the water jug. We learned a few simple beats, and it was a lot of fun. I found out that I am better at drums than I thought I was. When that was finished, it was almost 10:30, but we still had to have a country reflection time, which is where we had to split into our country groups and talk about what we learned that day. Then finally at 11 we got to go to bed. It was a fun day. My favourite activity was the the drums, and the Orienteering was fun too.

South Korean Peace Camp

Just came back from South Korean Peace Camp yesterday at 12 in the morning. It was a lot of fun. Since I did not have a computer at camp, I will update what happened at camp now.

Last Saturday we left from ChengDu at 12 in the morning and got to South Korea at around 4. We had some trouble at the border, so when we went to get our bags at the baggage thing we could not find them. So we walked all around the baggage claim areas, but we still couldn't find them. So we went back to the first baggage claim and found all of our bags piled in a neat little pile.

We got on a mini van and drove to a office and everyone but me went to one of the public baths. I stayed at the office and read a book I had found in their library. I also slept for 2 hours on a couch they had there, so in total I slept for 3 hours that night.

After they came back from the public bath we went out for lunch. Then when the Korean participants got to the office we set out for the 4 hour bus ride to the campsite in the mountains. My cousin and her husband also meet us there. When we got there we split into our cabins and rested for a bit. Then we went to the camp restaurant for supper. after that we had a orientation sort of thing and the Japanese participants also came so then the Chinese, Japanese, and the Korean participants were there. When the orientation was done, we went back to the cabins and split up the rooms and made up our beds on the floor. By the time we finally got to sleep it was already 12 again.

That was the first evening, so tomorrow sometime I will put up the first day. If you have any questions please post a comment and ask.

Better Than Da Shan!

You are probably thinking, "Who is Da Shan?" Well, I will tell you a little about him. Da Shan is a Canadian that was born in Ottawa, Ontario that started learning Chinese at the University of Toronto. His English name is Mark Henry Rowswell. His first Chinese language teacher gave him the Chinese name Lu Shiwei. Anyway, his Chinese was so good that he then went to Peking University. Then he came to China to learn more Chinese. Eventually, he became fluent in Mandarin and did a commercial in Cantonese. He was made very famous in China by a famous comedian that took Mark Roswell on as a student. Then his cross-talk comedy acts with the really famous guy, commercials, TV broadcasting all made him super famous in China. So now you see him face and hear him talking in Mandarin all over the place. But now he is older so you do not see him as much. Everyone still knows about Da Shan in China, and his name means Big Mountain. In the 2008 Olympics, Da Shan walked in with the Canadian Olympic team, and that earned a big applause from the Chinese crowd. So, now that you know a little about Da Shan, I will tell you how I am better than him.
At the beginning of July, our family went to our small hometown called NanChong. There we went to church, but my sister and I got bored because we could not understand that much of the sermon so we went outside to walk around. I saw an older woman also walking around. She saw us and then began talking to us in Mardarin, but since I knew she could speak the SiChuan dialect of Chinese, I replied to her in that. She was very happy that I could speak SiChuan dialect, so we talked for a long time. In the middle of our conversation, an elder man also walked up to us and started listening into our conversation. I did not mind cause it is not every day that he would be able to see a foreigner talking almost fluently in SiChuan dialect. There was a short pause in the conversation and the elder man looked at me and said, "Your Chinese is better than Da Shan!" At that I felt very happy, since Da Shan is famous and I am just a foreigner that lives in China. My mom said he only said that cause I was speaking in SiChuan dialect and that was the older man's home language. But maybe I am better than Da Shan, who knows. :)

Cinnamon Rolls

Since it is not summer holidays, I have a lot of time on my hands. We got a new toaster oven, so I wanted to try and make something in it. So I went onto the internet and found a good recipe for Cinnamon Rolls (or Cinnamon Buns). It was really fun making them, and I could not wait to try them. So I kneaded the dough for a long time until I could touch it and then it bounced back. I rolled them up and then put cinnamon and sugar on them. Then I put them in the over. The first time I took them out and tasted them, they were still not entirely baked, so I put them back in for a little while. When I took them out the second time, they were fully baked. Then I took some icing and spread it on top of the Cinnamon Rolls. Then we all ate them. They were good, but not the best. So I am going to practice making them a lot because it is summer holidays.

The Son of Neptune

For those of you who are Percy Jackson fans, this picture will affect you the way it did to me. This picture reminded me that there is still a long time till this book comes out. 6 more months to be exact. I usually want books to come out, but since the last book was a cliff hanger, this picture just makes me mad. Anyway, I am going to be counting the days until it comes out!

Solo and Enseble Results

I got the results back from the Solo thing on saturday. For Matchmaker I got a 2, 1 being to highest and 5 being the lowest. And for the song I played on my Saxophone, I got a 3. But for one of the comments for me singing Matchmaker, one of the judges wrote "I hope someday you can be in the musical somewhere". For those of you that don't know, Matchmaker is from a musical called Fiddler on the Roof, and it is a really good musical.
I was really nervouse before we got to the music festival, and I didn't get time to warm up, but when I got on stage I felt more confident and just sang my heart out:)
For next years preformance, I will begin practicing now, and hopefull get a 1 next year, which includes a medal:)

Solo and Ensemble

Sorry about not updating for a long time, but here goes another blog about what I am doing.
Next Saturday there is a music festival for all people from kindergarten to Grade 12. You can have either a solo or an ensemble. For a Solo you can either have vocal, piano, and instrumental. For ensemble, which was preformed by a group of people, you could have vocal, instrumental, and pop/rock. Each person participating can have up to 3 performances. I am preforming two different songs. One I am going to sing a song called "Matchmaker" from "Fiddler on the Roof". For this song my mom is going to play the piano as accompaniment. And the other song is going to be "Come So Far" from "Hairspray", but this one I am going to play on my saxophone. At the end there is going to be an awards ceremony. I can't wait till I get to sing but then again I am sort of nervous. Wish me luck!

Teen Ink Pictures

I have gotten two baby Panda pictures onto Teen Ink. Here are the links:
http://www.teenink.com/art/photographs/51208/Do-not-bug-me-I-am-resting/
http://www.teenink.com/art/photographs/51207/Help-Me/

Teen Ink

This website is a Edited Online Journal. It is called Teen Ink. It is where teens put their poetry, fiction and non fiction writing, opinions, photos, art work, and all sorts of different thing. Every month, they pick a few articles and publish them in their magazine.
The website is: http://www.teenink.com/
Once you submit your work, it gets checked to make sure that nothing inappropriate is being written and that it is good. I don't know yet if mine is going to go on the website yet, but I will let you know as soon as I get the E-Mail telling me if my work has been published yet. Hope you read it if it gets on!

The Spell That Changed Everything

This is one of the essays that we wrote in Language Arts class. I got an A on it. Please read it and tell me what you think. I'm sorry if it is long, around 1900 words, but it is the origianal version and it is better than the 1200 word on. Anyway, hope you like it!

The Spell that Changed Everything

A young lady once lived in a little village called Kingsburg, her name was Susan. Susan was a fantastic artist, her whole room (which wasn’t much) was covered wall to wall in her drawings. She didn’t just draw one thing in particular, she drew all sorts of things. There were castles, oceans, a stamped of wild horses, and even a few forests. Even though she had never seen these things herself, she gathered all she could from books and old stories, and after that she just let her imagination run wild. You’d think that she would be living a better life with all these fabulous paintings she could have sold, and she could have, except for one small problem.

You see, Kingsburg is all about looks, all the beautiful ones were living in big houses, with fancy clothes and more than enough to eat. On the other hand, the people who weren’t much to look at lived in tiny cottages, with not enough money to buy any more stuff than they needed to survive. Susan also lived in one of those cottages, except for her, it was worse. She was one of the least fortunate people in the whole village. Her hair, first of all, was red, when everyone thought blonde was prettier. Her eyes were just plain brown, but everyone thought blue and green looked the best. And she was also skinny, it looked as if a slight breeze could blow her away.

Because she was considered “ugly”, she couldn’t get a good job, she couldn’t even be a flower seller for no one would buy her flowers. After carefully considering what to do, she decided to paint pictures, but then ask her friend, James, to sell them for her. Since no one would see her face, it didn’t matter how she looked.

After she had drawn 5 or 6 paintings, she asked James over and asked him to sell them for her. So he went onto the street to sell them. First only a few people went to see what was going on, but then all of a sudden, there was a whole crowd around him, pushing and shoving to see the amazing artwork.

“This is amazing!”

“Who did this?”

“Was it you?”

James was trying to answer, but he didn’t know much about the paintings.

“I’ll go ask if you can see her, just wait here for a while.”

When James told Susan about what the people were saying, she was very happy. But at the same time, she was a little frightened, for if the people saw who she was, they wouldn’t look at her paintings!

“What should I do James? I can’t let the people see me.”

“But if you don’t show yourself, the people will find out, no matter what it takes.”

“Well, what should I do?”

“Well…I guess all you have left to do is go somewhere else.”

“But where?”

“I’m not sure, maybe you should go ask one of the travelers who step in at the inns sometimes.”

“Ok.”

On the way to the inn that night, Susan saw a black figure walking down the street towards her. It was the famous witch, Morgana.

“Oh, Morgana, I’m so glad you were walking down this path tonight, or else I may not have thought of how to solve my problem!”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Well, as you can see, I’m probably not the most beautiful person you have every seen…”

“Actually, you’re one of the worst.”

“Oh…Well, since I’m like this, I was wondering if maybe you had some spell to help me get beautiful and not ugly so I can…”

“Slow down, slow down. Listen, I don’t care what you want to be beautiful for, but I guarantee you that even my magic isn’t that strong.”

“Well…umm…Oh! Maybe you could just make me beautiful for the day time, and let me turn back to normal at night!”

“Hmmm…let me think about that one.”

“…Well?”

“Well, I guess I am the great Morgana…Ok, why not.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you so much!”

“All right, all right. Calm down. Just stand over there…No, little to the right…Good. Now…fæger rícium díacones héo wæren.

“…Nothing happened.”

“Good observation. That is because it is night right now.”

“Oh…Well, thanks again Morgana!” Susan begins to walk away, but Morgana stops her.

“Aren’t you forgetting something? Something like…payment?”

“Oh, right. How about one of my paintings?”

“Well…I was thinking something a little more…”

“I can do a thunder storm?”

“Oh, all right.” Susan goes home and happily paints the painting for Morgana, all the time imagining what her beauty form will be.

The next morning when Susan wakes up, she feels different. Then all of a sudden she remembers. She runs into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. She looks, rubs her eyes, and looks again.

“I can’t believe this, has it really happened?” Just a while later, while Susan was still rejoicing about her beautiful self, James happens to walk in.

“Who exactly are you? Where’s Susan? Did she leave all ready? I needed to talk to her.”

“James, James, this is still me, I am Susan. I saw the witch Morgana on my way to the inn and she put a spell on me! Now I can sell my own pictures.”

“That’s great Susan, but will you ever be able to turn back?”

“What would I want to turn back for? Isn’t being beautiful the most important thing? Anyway, I was think maybe I could open my own art gallery since I’m like this now, and…”

But by now James wasn’t listening anymore, for he didn’t believe in all that stuff about being beautiful is the most important thing, but of course no one would believe him, so he just kept his thoughts to himself.

“Hey, James, are you listening?”

“Huh?”

“I just told you that the villagers invited me over to a party tonight to celebrate me getting a new art gallery. Are you going to come?”

“Um, oh, yeah sure.”

“What’s wrong with you? You act as if I’m another person. But I’m still me, the spell didn’t change the inside of me, just the outside. Now, are you going to come or not?”

“Yeah, yeah I’ll come.”

“Good. It starts at 5.”

James walked away with a heavy heart. What was the matter with him? It’s not like he wasn’t happy for her. Well, I guess it’s that change that’s bugging me that much.

Later that day when Susan was preparing for the party, she looked at herself in the mirror again. Was it really her? Was she sure it wasn’t just a dream? Of course not silly, I’ve never had a dream so real in my life, it has to be true. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, she wasn’t all that happy about the spell herself. Every time she glanced at herself in the mirror she had to look twice to make sure there was no one behind her. The big clock outside struck 4:30, she didn’t have much time before the party.

When she got there, she was amazed at all the people that had shown up. The only sad thing was, that the only person she knew was James. When she started walking among the guests, she realized that no one really like her, they just liked how she looked on the outside. It’s ok, she thought, I can last it for only one night…Night! All of a sudden she remembered, she was only beautiful until the nighttime, then she would turn back into normal. Well, it wouldn’t be that bad if I was at home by myself, but in front of all these people I can’t just all of a sudden turn ugly again. I’ll just wait until I feel myself changing, then I’ll just run back home.

But since it was, after all, a party, she forgot all about the spell and danced and sang all afternoon. When it was time for everyone to have supper, Susan felt a strange thing happening to her. She was about to run, but then it stopped. Oh well, I guess it was a false alarm. After everyone had eaten their full, they asked Susan to give a speech. But as soon as she had gotten to the front of the room, she felt that same feeling again, except this time, it was a lot worse. She wanted to run, but couldn’t. Everyone started staring and wondered what was going on. Finally, Susan summed up all her courage and ran, she ran past the long banquet table, ran past all the people, and burst through the door. People haven’t even got what had happened, when James ran out the door, chasing after her.

Mean while, Susan was running as fast as she could to get home before the change happened. And she succeeded. As soon as she opened the door, she could feel it happening. She just ran to her bed and passed out.

James came running in a while later to see Susan lying on the bed crying.

“Susan, what’s the matter? It’s not that bad being the way you were for you’re whole life, is it?”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that, well, when I was beautiful, it felt like no one really cared who I was, they just cared about how I looked, and it felt like me, myself, wasn’t anything.” James took a deep sigh of relief. He had thought that she really cared about being beautiful, but it turned out to be just the opposite.

“Here, let me…”

“No James, thanks for offering and everything, but I just want to be alone right now.”

“Ok, whatever.” As James walked out the door, he saw a person wearing a black cloak, once again, it was Morgana.

“What was the big idea? She doesn’t even care about being beautiful, take the spell off!”

“It’s not my fault that she doesn’t know what she wants, let her take her own spell off.” And with that, she walked away. James stood in silence, thinking about the witch’s words. He stood there for a while, and then walked away.

The next morning when Susan woke up, she found out that she had forgotten to buy food the day before because she had been preparing for the party. When she was walking through the village, a little girl saw her and recognized Susan right away.

“Hey, aren’t you that painter lady that had a party last night? What’s it like to be pretty? I’ve never been pretty in my life, but I hope I will be someday.” Susan felt sorry for her because she knew exactly how the little girl felt, for she had once been that little girl herself. So she knelt down beside the little girl, and whispered into her ear.

“Next time someone says you’re ugly or that you’re not good enough, don’t listen to them, because the most important thing in life isn’t what you look like or what you wear, the most important thing is who you are, and what you do with you’re life.” As she was saying this, Susan was slowly changing back into her normal self, her blonde hair gradually turning red, her sparkling blue eyes were turning back into the plain brown eyes she had had her whole life, and her figure was ever so slowly changing thin and frail. Everyone around her stared open mouthed, but Susan didn’t notice a thing. She bought all her groceries and walked home. When she walked past her mirror and saw herself, she didn’t scream and cry, in fact, she just smiled, for she had learned that it didn’t matter what you looked like on the outside, it was what was inside that counted.

Well, that's is, hope you enjoyed it!