I'm going back to college for my senior year in a little under a month. I'm not particularly excited about it, especially because this summer was an awesome preview for what I'll be doing full-time once I graduate, but there isn't much I can do about it. One thing I am looking forward to, however, is moving into a quad on campus with three of the most awesome people ever, living right next door to like three sets of amazing people who I don't see often enough. I've been trying to figure out the best way to transport myself from the quads to the rest of the campus where I'll be eating and going to class, because walking will take a while and driving (and then parking) will be obnoxious and less than environmentally friendly.

And then I ordered a Xootr Roma folding kick scooter. Hooray! I kind of can't wait to reinforce my reputation on campus as that weird singing Harry Potter nerd girl, since I'll probably be getting even more confused looks than usual as I fly past people on what looks kind of like an over-sized child's toy.

It is apparently still supposed to come in the mail today in Rhode Island, though I seriously doubt it. Even though it started off in Taylor, PA two days ago, when I woke up this morning, the tracking website was updated to say that it is now at a post office in Hodgkins, IL. It went almost twelve hours in the wrong direction. I guess that could be a bug in the system and it might actually be on the truck for delivery like it should be right now, but I emailed them just in case. Hopefully they'll get back to me because I don't really want someone else to get my new toy dropped on his or her doorstep. The amusing part is that it still says it's right on schedule for delivery today.

I know Rhode Island is small, UPS, but even though you have to look extra hard to find it on a map, you should probably actually figure out where it is before you try to send something there. Nerd-girl needs her scooter.

Update: I guess they realized that they screwed up. Delivery has been rescheduled for August 4th instead. Not cool, UPS. Not cool.

Hey, remember that time I updated a blog? Remember that time I had almost no internet time on tour, so I was planning on updating a bunch once I got back? Well, my excuse for not doing that will hopefully not be so terrible.

As soon as Nina and I got home from the most amazing three weeks on the road, we got right to work on our new EP! If you didn't know this already, we were asked to be part of the Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club for 2009! You should check it out and subscribe if you haven't already. We had less than two weeks to finish August's EP in order to get it in on time, but it ended up working out and I'm really happy with the end product! It was really stressful and caused quite a few headaches, especially for Nina who had to do most of the work, but I'm glad we made it happen.

A while ago, I had an idea to do an album completely a cappella. That's right... no instruments, just voices. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough ideas left over for Myrtle and the concept was a little too much of an undertaking for a full album. Then, Paul approached us about doing an EP (or a short album!) for the club and we knew we could make it happen. I'm hoping to get one or two of the tracks up on MySpace or YouTube so you guys can hear some of the crazy things we recorded. There's even a rap on it featuring the vocal stylings of Tom Riddle, also known as our friend Zack.

If you subscribe to the club, you'll get our 'Bathroom Acoustics' EP in the mail. The only other way to get it is to come to one of our shows once we receive our copies of it in the mail, but we'll only have a limited amount.

And that is why I've been too distracted and exhausted to post in this blog.

I've started reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. I still have no clue what's going on, but I like reading it. Matt says it will get even better once I figure out what's happening.

On another note, I'm playing a show in Parsippany, NJ tomorrow by myself and I am pretty freaking nervous. Granted, I haven't really promoted the show or practiced for it, so that would be an appropriate emotion in this case. Please come? And RSVP on Facebook? Who knows... I might even make some of this week's Tuesday video at the show, since I've also been neglecting fiveawesomegirls and now I finally have the time and internet access that I've needed to get back into vlogging.

I love you all.

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Originally uploaded by laurensmiles

When I got home from tour, I decided to get the Canon Rebel T1i I'd been eyeing for a little while. I love how great the photos look, even though I've only figured out the autofocus modes so far. Luckily, I have some downtime at home for the rest of the summer so I can learn how to do everything else on this camera. Maybe I'll even post an HD video recorded with this guy soon. I'm pretty excited about it!

Right now, I'm sitting in the nicest Super 8 Motel in existence with four of the most amazing people. We're about to check out and get on the road from Indianapolis to St. Louis for our show later tonight. I just realized that I haven't blogged in too long, so even though I only have about ten minutes before we're leaving, I wanted to try to squeeze in an update.

Tour has been incredible so far. I love this group of people so much and I'm having an absolute blast! Luckily, even though I lost my voice after a ridiculously busy LeakyCon with only a two day break before tour, I've been able to keep singing. We're starting to get the hang of playing a lot of shows in a row, which Nina and I haven't been able to do since the summer that book seven was released. It's really great getting to meet so many people who live far away and being able to play in new places!

So far, the biggest surprise of the trip was in Akron, Ohio where we were given a beautiful auditorium with a fantastic sound person. We ended up with an audience of around 150 people, most of which had never even heard of wizard rock. People laughed at our jokes again!

I should probably get ready to check out of the hotel, but I'm throwing in one last point before I go. For a little while, I've been considering buying an entry-level DSLR camera. I love my three-year-old Canon PowerShot, but I'm really not happy with the pictures it takes indoors anymore. I've been admiring the photos a bunch of my friends have taken, especially with Canon Rebels, and I have my eye on the HD video setting on the Canon Rebel T1i. I know that once my Dell laptop craps out on me, my hard drive camcorder won't translate well to a Mac, which I'm planning on switching to, and having a nice digital camera with a high quality video option would be awesome. I'm not worried about making the switch to DSLR... I love gadgets and learning how to use all of their features. Have any of you guys tried the T1i or anything in the Canon Rebel line? Would you recommend it for me?

I spent the past eleven days in Rhode Island, staying with Matt in his new apartment. Eleven days, you ask? How did that happen? Well, we pretty much looked at my schedule, decided that I had eleven free days in a row before I needed to come home and get ready for LeakyCon, hypothetically considered the possibility that I could stay for all of them, and then it happen. And it went by very quickly. And now I feel kind of lonely.

Luckily, this plan left me with almost no downtime at home and therefore, I will definitely be distracted. I have a pretty amazing couple of weeks coming up and I am so freaking excited about it.

Tomorrow, Nina is coming over for two hours to run through songs for LeakyCon and consider any last-minute fun plans for our set. The really exciting part, aside from getting to see Nina's adorable new haircut and cartilege piercing, is that the sealed box sitting just inside my door and containing the newest member of the Myrtles family will be opened, plugged in, and played for the first time. We'd been saving up for a really nice digital stage piano that might end our piano-related issues with live shows, and I can't wait to start using this guy.

Wednesday, I'm getting up early and going to NYC with my grandma to get a really nice haircut. I haven't cut it since last August, when I got a straight-across bob cut that would end the crooked weirdness of what my short haircut looked like grown out. I've always struggled with my hair and while it was fun having less of it and being able to straighten it quickly, I miss my curly hair. So I got an appointment at the Ouidad salon in NYC.

Apparently she's a pretty big deal... everything I've researched online has pointed me to her website. Between the carve-and-slice haircut and her products, I'm hoping that I can actually grow my hair long after this. My curls tend to grow out sideways and not down, so I end up cutting it again by the time it finally gets some length to it. What I hear is that this salon will show me how to make my hair healthier and easier to deal with, which would be fantastic. We'll see how it goes. Before and After photos will definitely be coming, and I'll get to show it off at LeakyCon as well. Yay!

I'm also really excited for everything happening at LeakyCon... I'm going to be so busy but I can't wait and I miss everyone so much! And then I have a two-day break followed by an incredible three-week tour with my best friends. Nina's coming on tour now, which makes me super happy because I haven't been able to spend very much time with her lately, since we're both so busy. I'm going to try to take a ton of pictures and videos as well. I've been terrible with that stuff lately. This will need to be documented.

Pretty much, my summer is going to be amazing. And that's not even half of it.

All day, I've been packing up my room and taking down the stuff on my walls. This would be a tedious and kind of sad process if I weren't so eager to get out of here and get my summer started.

I really enjoy covering my walls with faces I love and bright colors, but I'm not going to lie. It annoys me just a little bit that I get so many comments on my videos that have nothing to do with anything I've said or the music I've played, but that are just from people saying that they like my posters. I mean... I work on a solo CD for months and you choose to comment that you like V For Vendetta or that Natalie Portman's bald head scares you (it's hot, okay?). This hasn't happened until I put movie posters on my walls either. Luckily, with every new year I get a new dorm room and a clean slate to make my own (and in the case of last year's roommonster situation, I got to do this twice).

And so I put forth a challenge. I refuse to let the white cinder block walls show for my senior year... this place is enough of a prison as it is. But I would love to spend the summer taking new photos and collecting new things that I can put up on my walls for senior year so I don't have to put the movie posters back up (at least, not where the camera can see them anyway). I feel like my backdrops over the years have given a nice edge to my videos and while I don't want it to be distracting, I think it would be really fun to make next year's walls a collaborative project.

I would love to make this some kind of art collage, but I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. I'm thinking that I could accept 4x6" horizontal index card submissions with magazine clippings, photos, song lyrics, drawings, letters, and other fun little colorful things attached to them and get some kind of P.O. box for people to send them into. Would you guys be interested in creating a piece or two of my YouTube backdrop for the upcoming school year? Do you have any other ideas for things I could do to decorate? We have all summer and I know you guys are creative. This could be awesome.

In other news, I'm going home tomorrow!

Today, I woke up with two swollen eyes. I looked in the mirror, did not recognize myself, freaked out a little, then decided against going to class. I made myself an icepack out of a ziploc bag and a washcloth and some ice, covered my face with it, and got back in bed. I didn't get up again until later tonight when I had to walk across campus to watch Casablanca for class, and then spend two hours feeling like I was going to pass out on stage for a very long Vocalign rehearsal.

Today sucked.