ret•ro•spect

Updates and New Plans

2012-01-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

So, here's the deal.

My chronic pain condition/disorder/whateveryawannacallit still kind of renders me unable to do the things a person my age ought to be able to do. This includes going to college on campus, getting my driver's license, and overall living anything resembling a normal life. I am very much stuck where I am right now.

This not only makes my day-to-day life difficult to deal with, but it makes me worry about my future, too. I obviously don't have a job, have no volunteer experience, or even any groups or organizations I can be involved in right now due to this illness and the variety of related problems that it's caused or exacerbated. I mean, things are looking up in a lot of ways -- but no so much that I feel entirely hopeful about the future, but that just might be the often-overbearing pessimist in me talking.

The point is, I really need some sort of outlet through which I feel like I'm actively working on something that can directly benefit my future (because simply taking online courses doesn't cut it for my stubborn mentality). So I'm more than likely going to stop posting on this blog altogether only because I really want to start a new, more formal blog with, I guess, Actual Posts about Things That Matter. Although those have often popped up on here, they're very unevenly dispersed between a lot of personal word vomit. And that will not do. I essentially want to create a blog that would viable item to put on a resume or application, since editing and possibly writing is the area into which I'm going.

So if you follow this blog, just know that it won't be active anymore, and feel free to head on over to the new one. I am already in the process of writing a couple things; specifically, a rant about the importance of language, and an in-depth explanation of why YA novelist John Green is essentially my number one literary inspiration. I also plan on writing a review of his latest book, The Fault in Our Stars...whenever I find the time.

Thanks for following if you do!

2011-12-06T21:42:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow morning my parents are leaving for Florida for a few days. Jeff was the only one who was going originally, but my mom decided she needed a vacation so she's going as well, now. My grandma's going to come up and stay with me in the meantime.

I don't know what the purpose of this blog is anymore; I don't update it anywhere near regularly, and I don't really know why. I suppose I have different outlets now, and also I'm just really preoccupied with other things that I don't feel like expending the energy to write anything about my life because, frankly, it's kind of boring.

Next week is the last week of the semester, and I'm doing all right in everything so far. A's and B's. I just finished a research paper for my history class and I really don't have much else going on. I've gotten a lot better at preparing for exams, so I'm not too worried about those, and I only have three, anyway. The final for my English class is just a timed writing reflection.

I've been reading a lot of poetry in the past few days because I'm trying to read more in general -- and I've banned myself from writing creatively (so stories, poems, etc.) for the week, actually, so I can focusing on consuming instead of creating. My well of inspiration ran dry quite a while ago, I think, and I was getting so depressed about my own writing ability and just how much I was struggling with it that I felt like I needed not only a break but kind of a detox. I don't read a lot at all, just things for school. So right now I'm reading Pride and Prejudice and I'm trying to read a handful of poems every day. I stumbled across this extremely talented and inspiring poet, ephemera, on hellopoetry, and God, her stuff is just absolutely outstanding. Maybe it's just me, but I'm in love with it. The vast majority of her poems rhyme, but it's in no way forced, and it all just flows so beautifully and her word choices are excellent and they just make me smile and sigh and feel happy feelings.

I'm starting a new physical therapy program over break, and the whole thing is going to be pretty intensive, from what I learned at the evaluation. But I have a lot of faith that it could really truly help, and so it's worth trying. This physical therapist seems to really know what she's talking about and know what to do with pain like mine, apparently. So I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes, although I'm not altogether eager to put in all the effort it's going to require (exercising six days a week. That's six more days than I normally do.)

I'm also thinking about entering the contest that Hayley introduced in her most recent video and a week or so ago on her blog, both of which I'm too lazy to link, but her blog is in my sidebar I think so yeah, I trust you can find it if you care. Basically, they'll be short stories about online relationship experiences, and since I've had online friends since I was as young as ten (which seems dangerously young now from my old-and-oh-so-wise perspective, but I was a fairly mature ten-year-old, whatever), it's definitely something I have experience in. But I'm not sure if anything is short-story worthy. It's not something I would work on until break, anyway.

That's really about all that is going on and/or new with me. I am, as always, blogging and reblogging rampantly on tumblr, because it is the Place to Be for me these days.

2011-10-21T22:11:00.002-04:00

I've been having a hard time lately.

That's the easiest, simplest way to put it. And it might be understating things a bit. When this semester started, I figured things would get easier because I would have school to focus on, and having something to work on and accomplish would make me feel a little bit better about myself. Which was true, to an extent. But the problems unrelated to that have only been exacerbated since then. I continually feel more and more lonely by the day, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't feel like I have anyone that cares, honestly. The only constant who makes me feel like I'm important to them is my mom. I feel disposable and forgettable to everyone else, and I don't know what to do to fix that. I don't know if there's anything I can do.

Few things really make me happy anymore. Almost anything I do is a conscious effort to keep my mind off the things that haunt me when my thoughts are unoccupied. I've been crying nightly for at least a week. And it's really not that terrible. Most days are okay, most of the time. It just keeps getting harder and harder, and I tend to break down every time I think about the future and what it might hold. It's just taken more and more effort to do normal things, and it's getting to the point that I just don't want to anymore. I don't want to do anything. And that's probably due to a lot of reasons, but most of them are things I can't control right now. So I just don't know what to do. I feel lost and hurt and really, really hopeless.

But most of all I just feel alone.

A Blog Post: Three Short Paragraphs and a Really Long One

2011-10-05T00:12:00.004-04:00

I haven't made a proper blog post in ages, and it's 12:12 AM on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, so what better time to do it, eh?

Okay. Life's been ridiculous. My life, in general, is a bit ridiculous. At around the middlish-end of August (seven weeks ago, precisely) I started my online courses for this semester. They aren't blatantly difficult, but figuring out just how to handle online classes was initially very, very hard. It still is, really -- hard in the sense that it takes a lot of effort, effort I've only somewhat been used to before now. It's different, definitely. It's challenging in a lot of aspects, probably in a good way, but there has been a lot of struggle involved with it.

I'm currently in the process of transferring from aqua therapy to physical therapy, only because aqua therapy was so far away -- all the way on the north side -- and now that I'm a bit stronger, my mom thinks I would probably benefit more from regular physical therapy. I start it sometime this week.

Then there's my regular, actual therapist. She's been really great, and really, really helpful with certain things I've been struggling with a lot lately. But she's on maternity leave right now, and I won't see her again until November. In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of figuring-out emotionally and mentally for myself. I know there are things that I need to change -- and it's not really about making any progress in my life necessarily, doing something that will revolutionize my way of living, it's just about being happier in general. My happiness depends so much on my attitude and my approach to things; I get way too easily bogged down in the things that I can't change and can't do and can't fix, and I let that completely overwhelm me. Simultaneously, I'm ignoring the things that I can do and can change in favor of focus on the negative. It seems like a really simple thing, but I've been in a rut the past few weeks with several really, really low points, and times during which I felt so terrible that I thought I would never feel better, and life was destined to be like that for me, forever. But there are so many great things in life to think about and dream about, so many things to be inspired by. Not everything's serious and hard and terrible. I was thinking about this earlier -- I am planning every single day of my life in relation to my entire future, when the future is completely a figment of my imagination. I have no idea what my future is like, or how long it'll even last. I'm planning my life around finishing college so I can get a good job so I can live comfortably and be able to retire. And as important as that is, thinking about the long-run, sometimes I completely forget about the short-run--the present. Because, I mean, when you think realistically, the only thing we have is the present. Absolutely nothing else is guaranteed; not next month, not next week, not tomorrow. That's kind of morbid and I mean, the likelihood of a meteor falling out of the sky and landing right on top of you or something is pretty rare, but you never know. And I would hate to think that I would live my life in complete and total stress, constantly planning in an attempt to predict the future, only to die of a heart attack at like thirty-five or something. There are so many people who are taken from the world before their time is up, before they ought to go. It happens all the time, every day, and we never think it will be us, or someone we love, until it happens. That just really hit me today -- out of nowhere, really -- and I just realized that really all I have is right now. I looked over some old blog posts from around this time last year, and I was so happy -- struggling, of course, but overall, in general, I was so happy. And that was so weird to think, and it made me feel terrible about the place I'm in right now. Like I'm a failure for feeling the way I feel. But the significant difference between myself now and then was that I took each day at a time. I didn't analyze the possibilities of the future and completely stress myself out -- I had enough on my plate to worry about on a day-to-day basis. I still do. But since then, I've lost that sense of doing what I need to each day and letting go of the rest. Lately, it just hasn't occurred to me that I have a choice in how I'm feeling, a choice in what I do, how I react to things, and how I approach situations. I'm in control of so much more than I think, but all I seem to care about is what I don't have -- I'm going to fix that. Because if there's something I have control over, I need to take it; I need to make up for all the things I can't. I know what I have and I know what I can do, and that's what's important. Right now and today. Tomorrow, next week, next year -- they matter, of course, but I don't think anything matters as much as what happens right here and right now.

A Doctor Who Post: In Defense of Martha Jones

2011-08-14T23:50:00.002-04:00

(Spoiler alert: Contains somewhat spoilery things if you have yet to watch series 2 or 3 of Doctor Who.)

Here’s something that has always bothered me about Martha hate.

Most of it originates from her following Rose as a companion, and threatening to replace her despite not actually attempting to. That’s why I think so many people have an initially bad reaction to her, while as for Donna it’s much different because The Doctor and Donna have a very different relationship that’s much more platonic in nature. Essentially, people don’t like Martha because she fell in love with The Doctor, our Doctor who was still extremely (and oh my golly he was) mopey and detached after leaving Rose, still recovering from that heartbreak, and Martha was seemingly intruding on that.

The thing is, Martha didn’t know about Rose for quite a while. She literally had to drag the information out of the Doctor, and it took forever. When she learned, when she came to understand exactly what he was coming from, she respected that. In the meantime, she was falling in love with him, and I don’t understand why that’s such a terrible thing — wouldn’t we all? Can none of us honestly relate to being in love with someone who obviously prefers someone else; can we really not empathize with that? I think Martha was an excellent companion to the Doctor in spite of that. She was still loyal and fierce as fuck even though she harbored emotions that he never reciprocated, and eventually she grew into her own was able to move on without him. That’s what I love about Martha and her story. Even though I don’t personally relate to her that much as a character as far as her personality traits go (just because she’s far more of a bamf than I could ever dream to be), she represents to me what it’s like to move on from the pangs of unrequited love stronger and better, another way in which Doctor Who has shown how a person can grow immensely by exhibiting how truly extraordinary any ordinary human can be.

I love Martha for other reasons, I love her entirely as a character, and I love her despite her flaws — her flaws which, I think, she overcame quite impressively. (And for the record, I don’t hate Rose — I didn’t realize there was ever a Rose/Martha side to pick — I love every single companion for their unique qualities! Rose is one of my absolute favorites, and believe it or not, Martha follows closely behind. There’s not a single companion on Doctor Who I dislike*, because as he has said, he only takes the best.)

*Yes, even Mickey. I adore Mickey.

BEDA 13: I suck, everything sucks

2011-08-13T05:34:00.003-04:00

I'm not good at blogging now that I don't feel like purging all of my emotions on the Internet in a blog posty type format. I really don't have much to say that is not very, very personal in nature, I think because I've had to internalize so much as of late because of how few outlets I have to talk to about anything. And I'm not exactly in the best place right now. I'm probably the loneliest I've ever been, and all of my friends, with no exceptions, live far away. I have all sorts of different therapies and appointments to go to and those are literally my only activities. I'm not exactly happy, with myself or with anything, and most things are a struggle. I sort of placed this overly-optimistic view on us moving to Indianapolis, thinking that would suddenly make everything better, and although it's definitely improved several things, nothing is magically good once again. There are a lot of voids in my life right now that I'm not really capable of filling. It's troublesome and hard and really depressing sometimes, and I spend most of my time distracting myself from it.

I'm on tumblr almost always. It's much more casual. I feel better there. And twitter, of course. And in the midst of that, I've spent my time rewatching Series 2 of Doctor Who, trying to write, starting to watch Parks and Recreation, and not doing that much else. I'll admit my life is kind of pathetic at this point, but I'm literally just trying to get through each day with as little pain and loneliness and sadness as possible. And that's not all that exciting, unfortunately.

I'm not sure when or if I will continue posting this month, but we'll see.

BEDA 8: Another day, another forgotten post.

2011-08-08T12:51:00.002-04:00

Yeah. I'm not as good at BEDA as I thought I would be. I never forgot, mind you. I just remembered far too late when I was way too medicated, in pain, or emotionally unstable to formulate a good post, so I decided against it.

Yesterday was exhausting because I got up relatively early to go grocery shopping with my mom for the first time since we've moved here. It was pretty exciting. (You know it's a dull life when the grocery shopping gets exciting.)

No, but it was really nice to be able to go out and do something for quite a while without feeling a lot of significant discomfort or pain. It was tiring, definitely, but it was productive and it got me out of the house, so it was very much worth it.

Today, I have a physical therapy appointment. In fact, Tuesday and Friday are the only days this week that I have ~open. Wednesday, I have a long overdue hair appointment and on Thursday I have physical therapy again. Friday, God willing, I'll be able to go to church, and then on Sunday our plan is to go to the state fair because that's supposed to be the coolest day in the coming week. The good news is that physical therapy did not really give me any painful side effects, although it really wore me out.

In-between all of that, I've spent most of my free time on photoshop, teaching myself how to color and make graphics and use textures, which is a really fun and semi-productive thing to do, especially when I'm too tired or medicated or what have you to write. But as for writing, I've decided to start another very old project after I finish rewriting the end of the short story I've been posting on my writing blog (on tumblr). It's something that's always stuck with me and that I've always loved but have never been able to finish, and ever since I finished my first novel, leaving things with such great potential unfinished is one of my pet peeves. This one is probably something I'm more familiar with than any other story idea, since I think I first came up with it when I was eleven or so. It's essentially already plotted out in my head, I just need to get it down on paper. So that, along with school starting in just a few weeks, is the major thing I'll be working on.

Maybe I'll come back with an actual topic to write about tomorrow. For now, I've got to get ready for therapy. Until next time. x

BEDA 5-Actually-6: On Sorting

2011-08-06T20:29:00.002-04:00

So I missed yesterday because it was very busy and I had my first session of physical therapy, which was exhausting -- and I only slept about four hours the night before on top of that.

So today's post is something I just wrote about the Sorting process at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. As I mentioned before, Pottermore is opening in a few months -- a website created by J.K. Rowling to continue the Harry Potter experience now that the books and films have wrapped up. Within this (I hesitate to call it a game because as of right now, we aren't exactly sure if it that's what it is or not), each of us will be sorted into one of the Hogwarts houses -- Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. This worries some people who have had to determine for themselves which house they are after inconclusive online quizzes that vary in accuracy; since this sorting test was created by Jo Rowling herself, this is considered THE sorting, as if we were sorted by the Sorting Hat itself. So without further ado, here is my essay-like theory on what the process of sorting is actually like:

I feel as though a lot of people get very wrapped up into being sorted based on who you are, your personality, etc. While that definitely plays a factor, there are various examples to contradict this — the most obvious being how Peter Pettrigrew could be considered a Gryffindor when I think we could all agree he was one of the most cowardly characters in the series. I think the answer to such curiosities as this is that you aren’t solely sorted into your House based on who you are and what personality traits you have, but more so based on the traits that you value, the traits that you admire and that you aspire to have.

Continuing with the Pettigrew example, I do believe that he valued bravery and courage in some way — I think this is likely why he befriended the other Marauders; they were likely the kind of people he wanted most to be like. That’s, in fact, my only explanation as to how he could end up in Gryffindor, since bravery was definitely not something he often exhibited himself.

It also may explain why Hermione was sorted into Gryffindor despite having what many of us would probably consider “Ravenclaw” tendencies. It is clear that she personally values knowledge, because she constantly sought it — but did she surround herself with others like her, who enjoyed homework and always had a book on-hand? I think the people with whom one chooses to befriend and spend time with shows more than anything what they value, perhaps not in themselves, but in other people.

After all, I think sorting is very much about — as opposed to defining what kind of person you are — placing you with the type of people you want to be around. In that case, you may not exemplify any of the traits of your house on the surface, but you wish to be around the kind of people who do. This is probably why Neville was sorted into Gryffindor — he’s not inherently brave (at first!), but he clearly values courage and nerve and has a strong desire to prove himself in those aspects (and as we all know, he definitely does).

And of course, people are far too complex of beings to be slapped with black-and-white labels — so many characters take on traits from all of the houses, there may only be a slight leaning toward one above the others, and that’s fine. I feel as though people are sometimes too eager to be easily sorted and classified, so they can present a clear badge to others defining precisely what they are. But we’re all so much more than just brave, just intelligent, just hard-working, just ambitious. Just as the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters, none of us are 100% Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. We may lean toward one because we share the traits that house was established on or because we value the same traits that were valued by the founder of that house, even if our courage or ambition or what have you isn’t quite as obvious as you might expect from a member of our house.

In short, it seems the occasional belief that your Hogwarts house is going to tell you exactly what kind of person you are. But what really is a Ravenclaw, a Gryffindor, a Slytherin, a Hufflepuff? It’s a house wherein the people vary just as much as they do in Hogwarts itself. It isn’t something to worry over much, I don’t think — after all, Harry made it into Gryffindor despite having a chunk of the heir of Slytherin’s soul in him. Because that was the house he wanted to be in. And it is likely that if you feel you should be in one house over the others, that’s likely where you’ll end up.

BEDA 4: Forgot I Was Doing BEDA

2011-08-04T20:59:00.003-04:00

...And it probably won't be the last time.

Well, hello gang. Today was overwhelmingly uneventful, as has been most of my week (and month, and summer). I spent a lot of today rewatching the second season of Doctor Who, which was the first season I started with, so it's mildly sentimental. It's reminded me a lot of why I fell in love with this show in the first place, and rewatching my first season gives me an entirely new perspective. I've found tidbits I didn't notice before, and certain things have more significance now that I've seen all the New!Who episodes. I appreciate Rose, Mickey, and the Tenth Doctor even more than I did initially (and I already loved them a whole lot).

There was one line in particular from the episode School Reunion, said by Sarah Jane Smith, that particularly resonated -- one that I didn't even notice the first time I watched it. But I think it sums up a lot of what this show comes to represent:

"Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends."

In context, this is Sarah Jane's reaction to the possibility that The Doctor could use a key to the origins of the universe to rewrite history and time, to recreate the entire universe, to stop the Time War and bring back everyone he had ever lost -- and in one line, she redirects him back to reality, to the knowledge that the good and the bad in the world have to coexist to balance each other, that we wouldn't have one without the other, and that they're necessary to survive. I just think it's a poignant remark, and it also speaks to the fact that even though The Doctor is admittedly one of the highest powers in the universe, the one who always saves the day -- the sound wisdom of a human is never lowly to him. Just as the show's ideology so often promotes, the title Time Lord in no way proposes that he is superior to humans or any other being. He treats everyone as equals, recognizing that even the most common of beings, and even in fact the most deplorable, have something to offer the world.

BEDA 3: Tuesday Night

2011-08-03T09:42:00.003-04:00

So as you may or may not know, I have some pretty crippling anxiety of the social variety, and it's kept me from doing a lot of things in the past. Despite the fact that it's much easier for me to connect with people online than in real life, especially right now given my condition, I'm still sort of shy in that aspect, too. I avoid chats and I've absolutely never video chatted with anyone, even close friends.

But last night one of my good friends on Tumblr decided to start a tinychat, and since this was one of the only times she would be able to (no webcam at home), I decided I would give a try. Little things, especially that have to do with socializing, even if it is online, are very scary for me at first, but as I've learned in the past, the scary things are usually the most most worthwhile. And I figure if there's not much for me in the way of "real-life" socialization, this is the next best thing.

It was definitely a good decision.

Despite the fact that I only really talked to two or three people in the chat (the people in it fluctuated throughout the night), and additionally despite the fact I couldn't really talk much (sleeping mother right next door), I laughed so hard it literally made my head hurt. I'd go into detail, but like almost all good conversations, it was one of those You Had to Be There moments (or in this case, hours). Inside jokes were born, new friends were made, and since this is the internet, an awful lot of it was screencapped and posted on Tumblr. I haven't had that much fun with a group of people in a really long while, and the fact that it was on the Internet with people I've seldom spoken to (or in some cases, not at all) doesn't make it inferior in the least -- somehow it's more exciting, more of a solid memory, and more special that I can connect with people miles away, in separate time zones, practically strangers in some cases, and be able to laugh and smile and share a moment with them.

In short, it was a fun night.

BEDA, I guess. Day 1-slash-2.

2011-08-02T09:34:00.006-04:00

I haven't written a blog post in really, really, REALLY long time. Which is too bad. It has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't had time, or even with the fact that I haven't had anything to say. It's just been summer. I haven't had the initiative to do much of anything.

That isn't to say I haven't done anything, because I have. Aside from always trying to write as much as possible, I also installed Photoshop and have been trying my hand at photoeding and making some embarrassingly supbar graphics.

I also met and got my books signed by John Green. I don't know if that happened before my last blog post here and I'm too lazy to see if I mentioned it. But that did in fact happen, and it was sort of one of the best singular moments of my life.

The other highlights of my summer have all been Harry Potter-related, and I'm okay with that. I went to see Deathly Hallows Part 2 with my mom and Jeff, and there were tears in my eyes for the entire movie. I also just yesterday secured my early registration for Pottermore, and I'm super excited about it even though I'm not completely certain of what I'm excited about yet. (But my username is ShadowRune36 and considering we had to choose from premade names, I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. It makes it sound like I'm a spy.)

Pain-wise...this summer's been a whirlwind. A lot of ups and downs. But right now, things are going well. I've realized that stretching and yoga often helps a lot, and this Friday I'll be starting aquatic physical therapy. This is after not finding any significant relief in any sort of exercise despite the fact every single doctor tells me that it's what I need to be doing.

Now, I'm reminded that it's August, and the question is whether or not I should do BEDA, and considering I have already missed the first day, the answer is probably no. But I think I will try anyway. That's not to promise that anything I post will be all that interesting, because I am going to run out of interesting things quickly over a span of thirty days.

But I'll do my best.

Censorship in Young Adult Fiction

2011-06-05T06:22:00.005-04:00

The following was a fairly rushed response to this rather infuriating Wall Street Journal article that criticizes the content of modern young-adult fiction.

What those in favor of censorship (or as this woman defines it, "judgment" - *eye roll*) always fail to realize is that a book can contain any assortment of questionable content -- rape, violence, torture -- and advocate the exact opposite. That's how fiction and the morals thereof work.

Take The Hunger Games, for example -- popular young adult book series with a plethora of violent scenes. What is the overall theme of the series? A girl -- a young adult -- leading a revolution against the abhorrently unfair practices of murder and torture (and countless other terrible things) by her government. Of course it's going to be violent -- you don't communicate a message in a novel simply by saying, "People were killed." If you want to open up someone's eyes, if you want to write good fiction, you have to show them the gruesome realities of it.

I like how this article often cites examples of fictional rapes, abuse, and self-harm as though those are bad things that for some reason should be swept under the rug, which I feel is really offensive to teenagers who have had personal experiences with rape, abuse, self-harm, or anything that you might consider offensive. Those are things that some teenagers have to deal with. Just because they aren't your run-of-the-mill, stereotypical high school problems does not mean whatsoever that they aren't being faced by thousands upon thousands of teenagers. And for those teenagers who aren't facing those problems, it opens up their eyes to the realities for other people, making them more apt to relate and respond to their peers' likely experience of these "dark" thoughts, feelings, and situations.

This is my message to the author of the aforementioned article: You state, in response to claims that the content of young-adult fiction is nothing compared to what can be found on the Internet, that, "If young people are encountering ghastly things on the Internet, that's a failure of the adults around them, not an excuse for more envelope-pushing."

Let's just mull over that statement for a moment. There are ghastly things on the Internet. There are ghastly things in young-adult fiction. First of all, what you fail to overlook on both of these counts is the context. I challenge you to find a YA novel that's purpose is to promote violence, rape, self-harm, or abuse. Second of all, you seemed to have missed the point entirely. There is questionable on the Internet. Whose responsibility is it to monitor what web sites children or teenagers view? Their parents. There is questionable content in young-adult fiction. Whose responsibility is it to monitor what books children or teenagers read? Their parents. Not some school-wide, district-wide, or county-wide decision to (most likely, unfairly) censor or "judge" books. If parents don't approve of what their kids are reading, then their parents can stop them. Not an arbitrary decision made by an adult who likely didn't even read the entire book.

I would also like to point out that if children or teenagers are seeking the thrills of violence or sex, they aren't going to look in the young-adult section. You don't have teenagers hiding stacks of YA novels under their bed to keep them out of view from their parents. And I have a strong feeling that any teenagers who commit violence or acts of assault probably did not get their ideas from a YA book. If you're going to attack the messages that teenagers are sent from works of the media, please direct your attention to something worth getting upset over -- things that are racist, homophobic, or misogynistic.

And for the record, teenagers don't have "misery" forced into their lives by YA novels. Teenagers can be brought out of misery by YA novels. Not that you asked, but I have a feeling that because of this article, you are going to receive a lot of response from the actual readers of YA, who should be the real focus of this discussion, but for some reason, were not invited to share their opinions.

Born This Way by Lady Gaga - Album Review

2011-06-04T13:27:00.000-04:00

*Note: I have the deluxe version of the album. A few of the songs mentioned may only be available on that version.*

With Gaga, who has only released two major albums and achieved record-breaking success in only a matter of a few years, it's interesting to look at this, her third and extremely hyped-up album, and see what she has to offer. With an artist who is constantly reinventing herself, her image, and her music, it's intriguing to see what she is going to offer -- how she is going to continue being new and exciting without alienating the voice and sound that people fell in love with.

So let's see how it went.

With Born This Way being the first single, I was skeptical of how this album would hold up to The Fame and The Fame Monster, and it is one of the weaker tracks on the album. My initial listen of the full album left me unimpressed, but I knew that I would need a closer listen, and perhaps several of them, to form a full opinion. The overall feel of the album has much more rock influence than her previous work, and several tracks have some synth-pop and vocals reminiscent of the '80s, (specifically, Madonna), including Fashion of His Love, Government Hooker, and Bad Kids. Nearly all the songs sound very similar to me -- but only because the various influences throughout the album (the rock, the synth, and some occasionally rockabilly) are present throughout every single track. It's really kind of cool, feeling like you're hearing some brand-new Gaga as the song begins only for the chorus to kick in and switch to sounding like a classic '80s hit you've yet to here before. Still, every track definitely has telling Gaga imprints, both in the carryover from her prior works and some definitively new sounds (Americano is, by far, the most unique- and interesting-sounding track on the entire album -- and in a good way). Though it seems impossible for her to go without rhythmically repeating syllables in the chorus of every song, as has been evident in the past ("P-p-p-poker face", "Ale-Ale-jandro", "Judas, Judas, Juda-a-as", etc.), I'll let that slide. It's not every song, just several of them.

Lyrical hemes throughout this album include several mentions of whiskey, Jesus and various other types of religious imagery (ironically splattered alongside lyrics about sex and alcohol and all that fun, sinny stuff), and fashion. Initially, these lyrics seemed less interesting to me than her previous work -- but now that I've listened to the album numerous times (partially out of necessity to write a well-thought-out review and partially because, well, I really freaking like the CD), I would say they're definitely able to compare to her earlier songs, if not surpass them. I mean, you've got her coining gems such as "fame hooker prostitute wench" - Judas; "I want your whiskey mouth / all over my blonde south" - Heavy Metal Lover, and "Put your hands on me / John F. Kennedy" - Government Hooker. Not to mention possibly my favorite line from Heavy Metal Lover (and the album overall), "I could be your girl / but would you love me if / I ruled the world?"

Then there's those really sad songs (not by the emotion conveyed, but by the severely lacking lyrics thereof) that are still painfully catchy, like Hair (-- "I'm as free as my hair"?). I mean, it's got a nice message, "I just want to be myself / and I want you to love / me for who I am" -- but then she goes on in the next few lines -- "I just want to be myself / and I want you to know / that I am my hair." It has the feel of the anthem without the punch of an anthem, just a sad attempt at being revolutionary and freeing. I would definitely consider it the weakest track on the album, along with The Queen, although both have grown on me significantly since first listening to them.

You and I is the staple ballad of the album, but I personally find it a little lackluster compared to her previous work -- Brown Eyes from The Fame, which was fairly soft and simple but powerful, and Speechless from The Fame Monster, which packs an epic punch, and is one of my favorite, and arguably one of her best, songs. Regardless, You and I has the accessibility of Brown Eyes and the drama of Speechless, so it succeeds in being one of the highlights of the album, one that will get better each time you listen to it.

As far as the album's strong points go, it's pretty evenly spread. I consider the "best" songs to have solid lyrics, a catchy beat, and impressive vocals. Vocals are actually Gaga's strong point on the album, I feel; she has the talent to do interesting things with her voice, not just make infectiously catchy pop tunes with questionable content. Overall, I would say the strongest songs are Heavy Metal Lover, Judas, Edge of Glory, Marry the Night, and Americano. But I can fairly well break down the best songs in the aforementioned categories -- lyrics, beat, and vocals.

The Best: Lyrics
Bad Kids
Judas
Scheisse
Marry the Night
You and I

The Best: Beat*
Judas
Edge of Glory
Hair**
Government Hooker
Americano
Scheisse
Bad Kids

The Best: Vocals
Judas
Fashion of His Love
Electric Chapel
You and I
Bloody Mary
Highway Unicorn

*Nearly all of the songs are very catchy in some respect, but these are probably the best "radio-friendly" songs.
**Unfortunately, it's catchy as hell.
***Her vocal abilities aren't outwardly obvious in every song, but show up in spurts, and I'm not necessarily talking about reaching especially high notes or filling the bridge with runs, but more so about how interesting she makes the sound by use of her vocals -- this is done often in Judas, for example.

Reactions to the New House (and Indy Livin'!) (2/2)

2011-06-04T08:39:00.002-04:00

Friday, June 3rd:

It’s been less than twenty-four hours of unofficially (I say unofficially because though we are moved in, we are still surrounded by unpacked boxes and do not entirely have the feeling of being “at home”) living in the new house, and there’s nothing not to love, honestly – except for possibly the lack of cable and Internet, but that isn’t a permanent fixture and therefore does not count.

The most wonderful thing about living here is being so close to everything. As you may know, Jasonville (I can say that now that I no longer live there!) is a very small town, the closest “city” being Linton, the biggest attraction at which is probably Wal-Mart. Terre Haute, a college town housing ISU, was always our go-to for shopping and restaurants, but even on that front it’s rather limited – and was still about forty-five minutes away.

Compare that to here, where we are mere minutes from Target, Meijer, and my favorite (fast-food) restaurant, Chick-fil-A. We were able to go to Ivy Tech, get a few things for the house, and grab a bite to eat and still be home by twelve-thirty. That’s really good for me, considering that a relatively small outing like that can easily put me in pain, and at home if we were to go somewhere, I would have to spend over an hour in the car besides going grocery shopping, visiting the mall, or whatever. Here, if we are out somewhere and I start to hurt, we can be home in twenty minutes or less. It’s just the accessibility of absolutely everything, some things that we didn’t have anywhere near (our old) home at all. It’s freeing, somewhat, to not be holed up in a tiny, boring town all the damn time.

We also saw a lady walking downtown stop to randomly throw up in the grass by the sidewalk and then nonchalantly continue on walking. (Actually, my mom saw this and recounted it to me. If I had seen it, I might’ve thrown up as well. Seriously, who does that? Actually, in the Sims, when they’re nauseous from either pregnancy or bad food (or meat, if they’re a vegetarian), and they’re not near a toilet, they will vomit wherever they are standing. Then she and I briefly entertained the idea that all of us are living in a game of the Sims.)

Then there’s our house itself. It has three bedrooms, two of which are a bit small – but not any smaller than the bedrooms at our old house – one being my bedroom and the other one a spare. It also has two and a half bathrooms, which is insane for someone like me, having one to myself for the first time in my life (well, I had one at my old, old house, but under the age of thirteen, having my own bathroom did not really matter much). My mom and Jeff had a new bed, so I inherited their old one, which is a full size compared to the twin bed I’ve had my entire life. I’m not used to having all these things in a house – extra bathrooms, a fireplace, a huge bed, stairs (I’m having fun finding every way possible one can go up and down the stairs).

There are still several things we need to do before it feels like home (for me, that’s just having Internet, honestly), but there’s hardly been anything to which I’ve needed to adjust. It feels like a house I’ve always wanted to live in, a comfortable, fairly-spacious-but-not-too-big house, light with big windows, and a deck in the back. (There’s also two squares in the hallway painted with chalkboard paint, which is easily one of my favorite parts.)

I shall speak with thee (and post this) at a later date.

Last Song: “Marry the Night” – Lady Gaga
Last Movie/TV Show: The Office!
Last Tweet: “Does anyone going to LeakyCon want to stuff me in their suitcase? I would pay you in love and gratitude.” — For the record, the offer still stands.

Reaction to the New House (1/2)

2011-06-03T21:24:00.001-04:00

I wrote this on Thursday night after coming to the new house, but we did not get the Internet connected until today, so theeeere you have it.

So we’re here. We’re moved in. Not completely, of course, as mostly there are just stacks of boxes in our living room and nothing but beds and yet more boxes in the bedrooms, but the fact is that we’re here. It’s a bit surreal, because it’s one of those things that has always been far-off in the future, a solid moment and place to look forward to, always imagined and never real. And now that it’s real, I almost don’t know how to take it – but mostly, I feel relieved.

The phase of starting over began early this morning, and possibly last night, when I instilled in my mind that that was the last night at our house, and that the next time I went to sleep, it would be in a new bed in a new house. I was already in that mode this morning at my grandma’s house, waiting with my dog to leave, feeling that unbridled rush of newness in my system – it was refreshing, invigorating, and more than anything, it made me want to do. I’ve been stuck in this rut of wishing and wanting and needing and never doing anything. Today, I felt like doing the things I wanted to do – the things that would make me happy. I wrote a review of Lady Gaga’s newest album this morning and watched an episode of The Office – I want to catch up with it this summer (and possibly start 30 Rock). I wrote a teeny bit of my story, not much, but I only had about three hours of free time before we headed up here, and I’m honestly a little proud of what I’ve done. Even now, instead of sinking into a mindless game of Sims (which I will be doing after I finish this, most definitely, since we do not have Internet while I am writing this), I decided to gather my thoughts about this move and document them, capture them, instead of letting them pass by in a fleeting instant.

That’s what I want to do – start recording my thoughts and feelings on anything and everything in written form as opposed to just thinking them and moving on as though they’re insignificant. They very well may be, but I feel that responding to my thoughts, feelings, and opinions by treating them with significance will, in turn, make them more significant.

Oh.

2011-05-30T19:50:00.003-04:00

So, it's been a while. I've been arguably busy. Let's just call it "preoccupied". It's not that I was playing Sims, honest. I've either been legitimately busy with things outside the house for once, in severe pain and/or medicated, packing, getting new glasses, or being asleep.

As of right now, I have one day (two hours, actually) left of school, ZERO days until my cat leaves (I had no idea she was going today), and three until our moving day to Indianapolis. That said, things have been kind of frantic and busy around here.

Right now, I'm in the severe-pain zone. It's been a really rough day pain-wise, and I literally had the worst headache of my life earlier (which is weird, because the weather has been pretty stable the last two days).

And my cat, Furry, of fourteen years just left...and I just feel weird, sad I guess, but it's like I don't know how to be properly sad without being just immensely depressed and a total wreck, so I don't even know. All of this super intense change is completely brand-new for me, and I'm in such a weird place emotionally and physically right now that I don't know how to react. We're seriously going to move, all of our walls are empty, and this is the house I've been in for half my life. It's not so hard going, but I don't know how hard it will be when I'm gone, you know?

In the meantime, I'm really just ready to get my government final over with, to be out of school, and to officially be a high school graduate. I want to put Shakamak (I s'pose it's all right to put my school name out there since I won't be going there/won't be living here anymore in the next week xD) completely behind me, because even though there have been some great memories, it's been a really hard, really bumpy ride.

For once, I'm ready for a change.

On a completely different note, I'm so behind on Internet-videoage that I feel legitimately lame about it all. I haven't watched any vlogbrothers or hankgames videos in weeks, I think just because I've been so "preoccupied", as previously stated, and also because my free time often goes to either Sims-playing, Tumbling, or not-writing (AKA rereading and rewriting and generally just shitting around to avoid doing any real work/making any real progress) for the most part.

I like to think that I spend my summer being more focused on actual paths of interest for me, but if we actually get real here, I will probably spend it watching Bravo, playing Sims, and endlessly obsessing over and looking forward to the release of Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Speaking of which, at my graduation party (which was pretty fun, surprisingly), I saw Micajah -- I have referred to her as "Kija" on here sometimes in the past -- dropped by, which meant the world to me; I miss her like crazy. We also planned to hopefully get together to see Harry Potter this summer, since I'm really not sure if my dream plans of seeing it at the midnight showing are going to come to fruition. But there may be some type of nerdfighter gathering to see it Indy, and now that we've got Your Pants, finding those things might be a little easier. But it's still a while off. We'll see.

I won't go into detail about my graduation party, because really not all that much of interest occurred, but it was quite fun to see everyone and celebrate my almost-graduation, I racked up over 300 bucks so that was definitely a plus.

I will do my best to update more throughout das Sommer, but seeing as this is moving week, I can't make any promises for the next few days.

Until next time.

Last Song: "I'll Be Waiting" - Adele
Last TV Show/Movie: Er, I believe it was The Biggest Loser with my mom!
Last Tweet: "This is forriz the worst headache I've ever had. That I can remember. In my life. Whatever. MY HEAD REALLY HURTS." /Definitely not under the influence of medication(s) at that point.

Things are improving but everything's almost over anyway, so who cares?

2011-05-24T20:22:00.003-04:00

Well, ever since I whored out this blog on Tumblr, three new people have started following it, so hello you guys.

I've made it to school both days this week, but I've had to take extra medication both days to keep my pain under control. That said, it hasn't been terrible, and honestly, for the first time in a really long time, I actually have felt noticed a fair bit as opposed to feeling invisible the entire time, seeing as people have actually talked to me and whatnot. (That could very well do with the fact that we have less than a week left of school before we all part ways and likely never see each other again, but I'm just ignoring that bit.)

I have also successfully made evident to Sarah how lame it is of her to not have texted me hardly at all while I was at home, in pain, and depressed for about a month's worth of time -- without being bitchy about it. I honestly don't think she realizes what kind of place that puts me in emotionally, but I can't necessarily blame her, because I don't know how much different I would be if the position was the other way around. I've realized I can't force people to be a certain way, nor can I expect them to, but the very least I can do is tell them how it makes me feel.

SPEAKING OF FEELINGS. Today was my last session with the counselor I've had for about two years now, and we reminisced on how much has happened/how much I've changed/all that I've had to go through. It's a little bit ridiculous how indifferent I am to all these things ending; I'll probably feel differently when we're moved and settled and I'm no longer in familiar territory, but for now, I honestly want nothing more than to be done with school and to move.

Glee is on tonight and that is one of the few things that has continuously made me happy during these torturous last weeks of school. So I suppose that's noteworthy. Ish.

Yep, so, I'm in pain and I don't seem to have much all that interesting to say, so I'm just going to leave it here. I will be doing things like going to the pain clinic tomorrow, seeing our new house, and attending my last days of school -- and my graduation party -- in the next few days, so surely I'll have something to say about all of that.

Last Song: "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot" - Brand New
Last Movie/TV Show: Spongebob
Last Tweet: "Op. Glee isn't on until nine. Didnotknow."

Stupid Fox, messing up my Glee-watching timez.

Some rapture.

2011-05-22T20:22:00.002-04:00

I've had a generally okay weekend, though it definitely could've been better. Because I spent the majority of the time in pain, I didn't make any headway whatsoever in the packing and sorting of my room. However, we've still got a week until moving day, and hopefully I'll start feeling better in the coming days.

In the meantime, I've been able to do a little bit of writing, watch some Harry Potter, and, as I spent most of today doing, play Sims. It's a little ridiculous how badly I want to finish a legacy on there. I had been doing one before, but I had to reinstall my game and ended up losing everything I'd saved. At that point, I was on the sixth generation (in legacies you work up to the tenth generation of one family), so I had a lot to work back up to. I've only recently been able to get it started the way that I wanted to, and I've successfully gotten to a good point in the second generation (teenager daughter and elder parents). Yeah, it's sort of ridiculous how much time I invest in it, but Sims is one of the best things I have to distract myself from pain. It gives me something, though not altogether productive, to focus on. Still, it's fun.

So, there's that. I also finally started writing some more on my story, after doing some more reading on pregnancy (I am really clueless in regard to it). I passed 40,000 words, which is a pretty big milestone. I really love this story, but I'm really hesitant to go about doing it just because I want it to be good. Unlike NaNo -- which is the only ever time I've really finished something and felt satisfied with it -- I'm not writing this for the sake of finishing it. I'm trying to be careful and take time to think about what I actually want to happen and get out of the plot. So far, I really like it, and I've at least done an okay job of writing it. I'm just not sure in which direction to take it from here.

I can't guarantee that many updates this week, as I will (or should be, at least) finishing make-up work and getting ready for finals, but I also probably won't have all that much new to say.

Until next time!

Last Song Played: "It's Hairspray" - James Marsden (Hairspray 2007)
Last Movie/TV Show Watched: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Last Tweet: "My arm freaking BURNS. Good Lord." (Lovely, I know.)

Hi, my name's Alexis, and I should blog more.

2011-05-21T11:14:00.003-04:00

Things have been exceptionally difficult lately as I attempt to finish up school, try to get a handle on my ever-changing pain, and adjust my medication to deal with the pain and its effects. I don't like to go to the Internet to complain if I can avoid it, but sometimes it happens anyway, since there are very few people I have to talk to about it all. Still, I like to reserve my blog posts for something a little bit better than daily rants and complaints. Finally, I'm feeling a bit better, so here we go.

Summer is fast approaching, though never approaching fast enough, and this coming week is my last week of school, basically. I'm foregoing the graduation ceremony just because I think it's too much to deal with; we're moving a few days afterward and I'll be having my graduation party anyway, so I don't really feel the need to be involved in the ceremony.

I have a lot of things to do before we move, still, and most of it involves packing. We still haven't picked my room out yet at the new house. I can't put into words how excited I am to move and get out of here. I'm not so much sick of the town as much as I'm ready for something new; I've lived here all my life, in this house half of my life, and being a very small rural town, it's nowhere close to anything except our state park just down the road. Indy has everything. The state museum, IMAX theatre, the Museum of Art (The Yeti works there!), stores and malls and restaurants and parks and people. I'm so excited. We'll be living in a bigger house, I'll have my own bathroom, we'll have a fireplace, we'll have so many great opportunities so close by. I'm ecstatic. It's been hard to be ecstatic lately about anything because I've been in so much severe pain and not able to handle it emotionally because of my medication.

Now, all I have left is a week of school to get through, some work to make up, two finals to take, and then we're set to go. There are some downsides to moving, the biggest one being my cat, Furry, can't come with us -- we've had her since I was four, and she's pretty much my cat. I love her to pieces and she lights up every time she sees me. She's eighteen years old, but she's never had any health problems, but I dreaded the day she would eventually die. She's just been in my life for so long and it's weird to even think of not having her, you know? She's my girl.

Anyway, she's going to my aunt's, and they already have several cats (which made her initially hesitant about taking her, but my mom has bought a cat carrier, a handheld carpet steamer thingamajig for hairball-cleaning, and is actually going to pay her for taking her). I'm just happy she's not going to a shelter. I would hate that. She's had a really good life, but I still wouldn't want her to spend her last weeks or months or years stuck in a cage. So I'm extremely relieved that she'll have a nice home to go to. This has also reignited my desire to volunteer at a humane shelter at some point, because that's something I've always liked to do -- but like lots of things I have liked to do lately, it's not something I've been able to manage. Still, hopefully this summer when things get better and I no longer have school to constantly deal with, it will be something I can work in.

Right now, I think I need start on my make-up work of infinite Beowulf study guides. Until next time.

(I think I will start a HayleyGHoover-esque list at the end of each post. For continuity's sake. Watch me forget after this one. Still.)

Last Song Played: "Turning Tables" - Adele
Last Movie/TV Show Watched: Sorcerer's Stone
Last Tweet: "'I don't appreciate the insinuation, Longbottom.' Seamus Finnigan doesn't get enough appreciation, you guys."

10 Things I Love about My Mom

2011-05-08T19:58:00.002-04:00

Once again, in lieu of consistent blogging, I'm going to steal from Hayley Hoover.

1. Her life practically revolves around what is best for me. She doesn't keep me out of decisions and always asks for my opinion.

2. She takes me seriously; most especially, she takes my problems seriously. Never has she passed over any of my complaints, worries, or problems as though they're invalid.

3. She supports and encourages me in my dreams and what I would like out of my future.

4. She takes care of me. She has made my chronically uncomfortable life as comfortable as possible, and is constantly striving to make it better.

5. Even though she has countless reason to, she's never put my dad or any of the other sides of my family down. She does an excellent job of being respectful even of the people with whom she disagrees with the most.

6. She has always made me feel better about myself, whereas I know many of my friends have had their mothers made them feel worse about themselves.

7. She has both a degree in cosmetology and social work. I have both ridiculous hair and ridiculous emotional problems.

8. I know that she cares about me so much that, regardless of how suicidal I ever may feel, I could never put her through that much pain. I may occasionally hate life and my existence, but that knowledge keeps me from going over the edge. Always.

9. She's helped me to understand that there is nothing wrong with the ways that I am different from everyone else and has indirectly made me feel proud of those differences as opposed to being ashamed.

10. She is always there for me.

Happy Mother's Day! <3

Homosexuality and Christianity

2011-05-05T13:53:00.001-04:00

I feel like sharing my reasoning for the belief that the biblical portrayal of homosexuality doesn’t line up with the true nature of homosexuality.

In the Bible, homosexuality is related to other sexual sins like adultery and lust. I think that in the age that the Bible was written in, homosexuality may not have been viewed as it actually is, i.e., when a man would have sex with another man, it was sex out of lust and nothing else. As in, two men could not be together sexually out of love — I think that the true nature of homosexuality, actually loving someone of the same gender, quite possibly may not have been something they even considered plausible. But the idea of love in the Bible? God, it’s everywhere. Love conquers all; love never fails. Then why could love between any two people be wrong?

Because back then, I don’t think it was seen as love. That’s why I can’t take what the Bible says literally. If we actually did that, divorce and adultery would be illegal, too, wouldn’t they?

Even though I can’t say that I do or don’t believe in God right now, I respect Christianity and most of their beliefs. But if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s their stand against homosexuality. If you’re going to go by the Bible’s rules, go by all of them. If not, get with the times.

Boring things in my life, take one.

2011-05-01T00:23:00.001-04:00

I haven't had much to say because this week has been about going back to school and assimilating myself once again into that routine and environment. The two-hour schedule is so much better, and even though it's still fairly uncomfortable, it's tolerable, and I know that even at my worst, I can get through two hours of it -- or even on medication, if I absolutely have to have it.

There have been some good and bad things. Guess I'll start with the bad and end with the good.

Bad: I found out that despite the fact that this is something we've had solidified as a plan since about January, Sarah had "other things" to do today that got in the way of her coming over to finish our two-part Harry Potter marathon. (We watched all the even movies on Halloween, and we were going to the odds on the day of prom, which is today.) I don't remember precisely what it was she had to do, but it definitely didn't seem like something absolutely necessary, and I won't lie, I'm really pissed. This was going to make up for the fact that she hardly texted me at all whatsoever when I was out of school in constant pain for two weeks, even though she knows that she's basically the only close friend I've got now. I would hardly call her a close friend now, though, because this just kind of...does it for me. I forgave her for not seeming to care about me whatsoever, but since today was supposed to redeem that in my mind, I'm done with second chances. It really sucks, because I wanted to go to the Deathly Hallows midnight showing with her in July, and I don't really have anyone else to go with. But like my mom said, she'd probably have some other reason as to why she couldn't. So whatever.

Good: I've lost, like, ten pounds since the last time I weighed myself (a couple of weeks ago, I think). I don't even know how that happened, but I'll roll with it.

Good: I have a good friend back that I thought I'd lost. :-) (Not somebody I know in real life, unfortunately. Safe to assume everyone in real life does not acknowledge or otherwise care about my existence. That may be a bit of a stretch, but still.)

Good: I got a one-month free trial of Netflix so I can catch up with Doctor Who.

Good: I talked with my mom about it, and without even having to ask her, she said it was fine if I didn't want to go through graduation ceremony (which I really, really, really don't want to do). So I'm not. Awesomesauce.

Good: I've written a crapload in the past week -- like thirty-some pages. I don't remember the last time I was that productive. I'm at a bit of a standstill right now, but whatever, I'll take it.

I think, for the most part, things are looking up.

2011-04-27T10:09:00.002-04:00

So after two weeks of being out of school due to debilitating pain that, regardless of what I did, would not go away, and additionally after narrowing my schedule down to only two classes instead of four in order to accommodate the continually-worsening pain, I am feeling...rather fine.

It's just as frustrating to not know why the pain is gone as it is to not know why the pain is there. While there are obvious triggers and obvious things that improve it, there's no reason I should be in immense pain, needing four different kinds of medicine in one day, just to wake up the next morning feeling like none of that ever happened. It would make more sense if it gradually got better, but it didn't! It was simply very bad one day and practically nonexistent the next!

That said, I mean, I'm not %100 fine, and I could nitpick a lot of things. The most accurate way to put it would be that it's toned down a lot, but there are still noticeable aches, cold, and sensitivity in my left side. But it went from say, a nine one day to a two the next. Someone explain that to me.

I'm kind of complaining, but only because I wish it all made more sense so I knew what things to do for it next next time something really bad happens.

Regardless, I now only have two classes and don't have to go into school until 1:20. Among other things, that gives me time to exercise in the morning when I'm not so tired, something I took advantage of today. My research paper is as done as it's going to get, and my government teacher, fantastic human being that he is, told me not to worry about any of the little assignments that I missed while I was gone.

And God saw it, and it was good, etc., etc.

In completely unrelated news, did y'hear that Oliver Wood will be back for the battle at Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows Part 2? I mean, considering he had his own promotional picture. I have two words: ME GUSTA.

Things that have happened.

2011-04-25T21:29:00.003-04:00

I have a few things to say.

So, we've changed my schedule so I can go to school every day, rain or shine, pain or...the opposite of pain. I'll only go sixth and seventh hours for government and English. That way, I can even handle that period of time on medication, if I absolutely have to. That way, it'll be much easier to get through each day regardless of what's going on in my life. It also gives me a LOT of spare time in the morning to go ahead take medicine or sleep more if I need it. It's an all-around GOOD THING, in other words.

Also. Um. Slightly less earth-shattering...maybe?

If you're following on Tumblr, you know I constantly fangirl over a variety of people: John and Hank, Daniel Radcliffe, J.K. Rowling, everything HP and Nerdfigher-related, basically. Well. Um. If you're not familiar with the brilliance of HayleyGHoover (Youtube/Blog), you should get on that, stat. If you are, then, well, you know.

Well, she has been following me on Tumblr for a while. (I think I made a post about the reply to the email she sent me once and unintentionally led her to it, and then the next day she was following me and my eyes were perpetually stuck like this O_O).

And now she is following me on Twitter. A terrible decision on her part, because Twitter is simply where my word-barf is contained into 140-character-portions. It's still for the most part me complaining or trying to be funny. But whatever! She followed me. And that is extremely exciting. Like, as exciting as when I got an @-reply from John Green and when I gave Lily Zalon an idea of how to write a tweet for John Green to promote her book of Harry Potter fan stories, Dear Mr. Potter.

Oh, and I've suddenly decided that I don't need somebody else to make me happy. Granted, people can certainly increase or decrease levels of happiness, but they definitely shouldn't control it.

...I like to throw in the thoughtful bits at the end for pizazz. Really, not much else has happened with me. School is happening tomorrow, but actually in a tolerable amount! Hopefully I'll get my research paper done and things will be much better from then on.

This has been a post about pain.

2011-04-25T05:05:00.006-04:00

Not only am I starving, tired, and in pain, but most unfortunately, I am awake, and it's five in the morning. I woke up a little before three for no reason whatsoever and after trying relentlessly, have given up trying to get to sleep. For one, I hurt too insanely bad down the entire left side of my body. Additionally, my mind is swimming with too many things. I have resigned to force myself into going to school today, regardless of how difficult it is, and I'm absolutely dreading it. It's partially because I have this crippling fear of the pain not going away or getting worse throughout the day, which never gets any easier, but there's also just so much sensitivity in my the whole area that hurts (which is the entire left side of my body...) that even my loosest, comfiest clothes are painful and uncomfortable to wear --- mostly my pants, because some of the worst pain I've had in the past two weeks is solely in my left hip.

I'm beyond tired of this, and I keep saying that, but I am. It's enough for it to be bad enough that I have to take medicine that makes me feel weird and keeps me from doing things, but when the medicine doesn't help (as it doesn't with the sensitivity), I don't know what to do, and the fact is that I can't do anything. I'm tired of it. I know that I only have a little over a month of school left, and as thankful for that as I am, I don't really care how little is left if there's still some left. I'm just sick of being miserable every single day.

Other things:

Research paper due soon. I wrote about ten-plus pages over the weekend, which was fun. I got to watch Glee with my mom and have a real, full-fledged dinner last night for Easter. I'm trying to eat healthier and walk, at the very least, for five minutes every day. The weather has been terrible lately and that's not doing me any favors. Did I mention how many pages I wrote this weekend?! I'm on thirty-nine total out of this story, a little over 20k words. I like it a lot.

2011-04-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

So, I had an extremely eventful day. I do not wish to elaborate, except to say that I spent a LOT of time crying and am extremely exhausted right now. But it's all good.

I wish I had more interesting things to say, but I really don't. My pain was better today for the most part (except for cramps), and I read about twenty pages of Zeitoun. It's really good, and I'm so glad we're reading a contemporary novel in Creative Writing. It's a nice break from things written over a half a century ago.

I fixed my research paper outline, which I realized after looking at it again was obviously not in topic form, but I still have other things to do. My teacher emailed me back, and I think everything should be okay as long as I can talk with her on Monday (I WILL BE GOING TO SCHOOL ON MONDAY OR ELSE).

I was going to watch Deathly Hallows today, but I realized I was too scared of the Nagini scene and all in all I didn't want to get emotional by myself. Hurrr. I NEED FRIENDS.

No, but Sarah and I should still be having our Potter-thon the day of prom, which is next weekend, so I'll be watching it soon anyway! The plan is to watch all the odd-numbered movies. (We watched the evens back on Halloween.) Should be oodles of fun.

Gratuitous List of My Current Favorite Songs:
"At the Bottom" - Brand New
"This Year" - The Mountain Goats
"Wonderwall" - Oasis
"Harry" - A Very Potter Musical
"Song for a Friend" - Jason Mraz

Pffft. That's all I got, yo. Have lovely days. xxx

Hayley has got me super into the idea of posting ~real blogs~ moar, so here we go.

2011-04-21T01:00:00.003-04:00

It is one in the morning on a Thursday, the last day of school for this week, if school was even relevant to my life anymore.

Assuming I don't go to school tomorrow/today, it will be my seventh day absent in a row, and I am beyond unhappy with that. I'm angry, frustrated, pissed off to the extreme. I've had a research paper I've been attempting to work on this entire time that I've been sick/laden with pain, and it is terrible by my standards, and the only person with stricter standards than me is my teacher. I only wish I were joking. This is not a good time for me to be doing a research paper for the crowned Grammar Nazi of the English department. Does not matter how well you do. Your paper will be dripping in red ink.

So, on that note, I'm having a fair bit of trouble with it considering I have been extremely ill most of the time I've had to work on it, not to mention I missed about fifty percent of the school days that were spent preparing for it. I emailed her today/yesterday about citing one of my sources, and she called me telling me that she saw I emailed her but didn't have a chance to read it yet. She also informed me that she had a question about one of the sources I had in the two pages I had already turned in, and also that I needed my outline to be in topic form, not in sentence form.

Speaking of that, would anyone like to help me out? This is what the beginning of my outline looks like:

I. Childhood Obesity and Health Statistics
A. Approximately twenty percent of children are overweight or obese
1. Obese children are more likely to become obese adults
2. Health risks increase with overweight and obesity
B. Children overall are not getting the recommended levels of physical activity or daily nutrition intake

Is that not in topic form? I mean. I don't know how much less of a topic it can be. I guess they're all sentences, technically, but...I don't know. I have too many things to say for them to not be in sentences!

Anyway, besides that, she also said that she wished I could come in just at some point so we could go over some things. She also told me that she moved the due date back from TOMORROW to EARLY NEXT WEEK. This has made my life significantly less stressful. But the fact that she wants to go over things irks me, because I really just want to shove this paper into my research folder, give it to her, and never look at it again.

But on the bright side, this also means that I get to get a possibly much better grade than I would have otherwise, since it gives me time to actually get my shit together instead of throwing everything together half-assed at the last minute. I talked to my mom and she was like, "Alexis, you've missed a week and a half of school. Your due date is not the same as everyone else's." And I was like, "LOLMom, you have clearly not met Mrs. Rogers." And she was like, "If I have to tell someone that you have more time, I will." And I was like, "CALM DOWN MAMA BEAR." It's not like I am way behind or something, honestly. I had the paper done on Monday. It's just that I've missed so much as far as how to properly cite things, and I left out a source, that there are a lot of things I need to patch up. Not to mention, I have yet to really get feedback on the preliminary things we had to turn in.

So, I realize that was insanely interesting. I really had nothing else to do so I felt like I might as well type up something. I would like to blog more often, it's just very difficult to want to talk about things sometimes. Still, I think perhaps forcing myself to get back in the habit would be a good idea. I do occasionally have things I would like to say. Once I get farther into my grammar book, I'm sure there are lots of things I could share. It is really so interesting! I haven't read it lately because I've been in pain, plus I have to catch up lots of my (actual interesting!) book for Creative Writing (Zeitoun by Dave Eggers), but yeah. Things to talk about: I should have them.

Have a supermegafoxyawesomehot day!

Bloggity blog blog.

2011-04-18T22:10:00.000-04:00

So at least two things of actual significance have happened in the last two days.

Significant Thing Number One:
I am now a sister. Now, I suppose I was a sister before, but only a step-sister. Now I am like a, a sister-sister, but actually more like a half-sister. The point is, my step mother had a baby* on Sunday morning around midnight. I only knew about this because her water broke around the time I emailed my dad thanks for Significant Thing Number Two, and he told me they were headed to the hospital in his reply. But yeah! His name is Christopher.

Significant Thing Number Two:
My dad bought me this book for my birthday, The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English. I've only made it to page thirty, but my goodness, it's already AMAZING and wonderful and extremely exciting. Two Harry Potter references, guys! Two! I can't wait to read more, but I'm having a lot of sensitivity problems lately, so holding books is a tad difficult.

Significant Thing Number Three - Honorary Mention:
My dad told me last night during a rare phone call that he has filed to change his last name. He was adopted, you see, by a guy that wasn't his real father, I presume. (Or, if he was, he doesn't like the guy/doesn't want his name. I'm sketchy on the facts because my dad has had at least two different names in his life, and the one he wants to change his name to is not one of them.) I asked my mom and the name he wants to have is his mom's maiden name, which she doesn't even use. Still, when he changes his name, this means I won't have either my mom's or my dad's last name. (I would never change my name, of course, because it's all I've ever known. I don't know why my dad is changing his at the age of fifty, for the matter, but I didn't ask.)

So there's the big news! Got inspired to write a blog post after reading through Hayley Hoover's BEDA posts.

*Didn't know she was pregnant? Yeah, well, I kind of forgot about it, too.

Stranded without a Deathly Hallows DVD. Someone save me.

2011-04-16T18:17:00.004-04:00

Not much has been happening, I have just been really sick and miserable this past week. We went to Riley (pain clinic) and discussed changing my medications, because something's gotta give. Pain has kept me out of probably 1/3 of school so far this semester and I can't deal with it anymore. The worse it gets, the more it progresses, the less I'm able to tolerate it. It's too overwhelming when it keeps me from not only doing the things I want to do, but doing the things I need to do.

So, yeah. I've also been sick this week, which, on top of pain, is absolutely ridiculous. I'm getting better, just veeeery slowly. It's also rainy and gross outside, so that makes things worse.

And one day all I could eat was ice cream since my throat hurt so bad, but then it made my stomach upset the entire day! It was marvelous.

Yeah.

Research paper due Thursday. I have roughly four pages written. (Seven to ten required.)

I don't have a periodical source. I am probably not going to get one.

This is me caring deeply about this paper turns out.

It's not the best paper I've written, but these past few months have been one of the most difficult periods of my life. So I can't really crank out a masterpiece. I'm just hoping it's passable.

Mornin'.

2011-04-10T08:52:00.004-04:00

Hey there again.

So I've gone back to reading about serial killers, and I'm going to start posting about each of the top ten strangest I've come across as soon as I compile the list. So far so good. Why these things continue to interest me, I have no idea. But since the last time I've visited the list on Wikipedia, there seems to be far more than I remember. I doubt many of them are new, some lesser-known ones are probably just coming to light with more information on them/their crimes. Or I could've just forgotten how long the list was. That's highly likely as well.

So before doing that yesterday, I had this concert choir contest from hell. The thing itself actually was not that bad, but yesterday morning was horrible. I got up at eight to get ready, already in a lot of pain, and then this MASSIVE STORM hits us. It was ridiculous. I mean, pouring down rain, lightning and thunder, the whole nine yards. Ugh. It was really bad. And there was just a lot of drama trying to let Mrs. Rogers know that my mom was going to bring me up later (we didn't perform until 12 and they were leaving at 9:30 and I was not going to ride a bus for a half-hour when I already felt like chopping the entire left side of my body off) (it was drama because have I mentioned MY PHONE CAN'T CALL PEOPLE).

But then we got there, it was over in like a half-hour, and then we came home.

Yay.

Last night, I also wrote this: http://hufflepufflevelsarehigh.tumblr.com/post/4486022592/im-just-going-to-bed-here-is-a-final

I'll start with my Top Ten Strangest Serial Killers soon. I only need four more, and then I need to organize them -- I'll probably do it chronologically.

Trying to post more in April but my life is so boring. All I'm doing is playing Sims Medieval (!!!) and hanging out on Tumblr.

I'm an adult now I suppose.

2011-04-05T21:14:00.004-04:00

Hi!

So it's Blog Every Day in April, but as you can see that it's April fifth and I'm just now blogging, I will not be blogging every day in April. I will, however, be blogging at least this day in April, so there's that.

My birthday was on Monday (but also kind of Sunday?) and even though nobody wished me one until lunch (lol forever alone), I did have a fairly good day despite the fact it was pouring down rain and I came to school soaked and in pain of a varying degree all morning.

But my real birthday celebration was on Sunday; we went out to eat at Olive Garden, got an ice cream cake, and I spent most of the afternoon watching Glee with my mom and then downloading the Sims Medieval, which is GREAT, by the way. Oh, it is so great. I did not get to play any this afternoon because time got away from me, but oh my goodness. It is too much fun.

Also, I told my mom during lunch (before I knew what my gift was) that all I really wanted for my birthday was for her to read Harry Potter.

Guess what she read all day yesterday while she was home from work?

Yep. She asked me for Chamber of Secrets before she left this morning. I am beside myself with excitement. (I never understood that expression. Beside oneself? Is it -- is it because it's impossible, you can't actually be beside yourself? Does "beside" have another meaning that I'm missing entirely? -- Musings of Alexis.)

Not much else is really going on except my senior research paper, which will most likely be taking up the bulk of my time in the next three weeks (my topic is the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity). Other than that, it's just the normal stuff. However, any and all homework is going to be made so much more difficult due to this new-fangled Sims game. I opened the box and told my mom, "You're just asking me to fail at this point."

Also I have a Concert Choir Contest this weekend. That should be great.

2011-03-30T09:59:00.000-04:00

Things that are on my radar:

Senior research paper (AKA: the big'un)
Nonstop work for Creative Writing because Lively is a cruel dictator of evil reading assignments
Government, which is easy enough, but takes extra reading if I actually want to get an A
Dealing with that pesky chronic pain stuff that makes me want to jump off the edge of a cliff (not really but actually does make me miss vast amounts of school and makes all of the aforementioned stuff much harder to do)

So yes. Those are the things. I would blog more often, but it seems I spend a lot of my free time medicated and/or on Tumblr and/or writing (yes, I still do that sometimes!). Perhaps during the summer (once we get moved and all), I will try to do more regular blogging here, as opposed to sporadically posting on Tumblr? Eh. We'll see.

The major updates (er, update) is that I've gone to orientation and registered for all of my classes next year at Ivy Tech, and all of them are offered online, which is beneficial for a multitude of reasons. Mostly, though, it just means there won't be the stress of having a class to go to or having to miss a lot of class sessions because of pain. I can't tell you how much of a relief that is. Right now, getting to school every day is one of the biggest struggles. If that wasn't in the picture, my life would be so much easier.

On another note...er, five days till my birthday?

Three words: Ice. Cream. Cake.

Good news!

2011-03-21T17:25:00.005-04:00

1. I cut my bangs, though I did not mean to. I meant to trim them. Regardless, they have been cut. Fortunately, they are not too short, can still be swept to the side and whatnot, and cover my massive forehead.

2. Most importantly, my NaNoWriMo novel, tentatively titled The Ritter House, is readable online here. Do let me know if the link doesn't work or anything. I'm still fascinated by and somewhat skeptical of the Internet black magic that allowed me to put it online anyway. Regardless, if you so wish to look at any of it, feel free!

This post will come to you in TWO PARTS!

2011-03-15T18:43:00.002-04:00

Part 1: How the discussion of the chapter of my NaNo novel went!

Surprisingly, it went REALLY well. I was dreading the problem/solutions round, but honestly there were just a couple lines or phrases that people thought could use more detail/clarification, and a hole that I kind of overlooked about why Martin's family is so close to Claire's (they're neighbors, but that came out in the few pages after that chapter ended). For the most part, people wanted to read more of it, which I unfortunately could not promise them, because I still want to do a lot of fixing to it. (Also it is quite long to print out.)

The biggest thing that happened was, as class ended, Lively held me over to tell me about this writing conference that's held at IU every year for a week at the beginning of June. I had never heard of anything like that before, but it sounds really awesome. I was seriously considering it, but that would be a pretty busy time for us since that's around when we're moving. But he did mention that it's basically open to all ages (I think you have to be out of high school, but otherwise it's for anyone), and you can even qualify for merit scholarships (MONEY. WE NEED SOME OF THAT).

So now I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to try next year, after I finish taking my gen. eds at Ivy Tech, before I go to IUPUI. I predict that things will be much calmer at that point, and I would probably be more comfortable with the whole ~going to Bloomington for a week~ thing. For the most part, I was completely awed and honored that he thought I was good enough for this. It just really, really meant a lot to me.

Part 2: I'm losing weight!

Not starting Weight Watchers again, not counting calories -- just eating less and eating better. It came to me in a kind of whirlwind of realization one day, after going to the doctor, and I first started implementing the change of cutting out sugar completely, because I learned that it could help with several of my general health problems. At the start of the following week, I'm pretty sure I was suffering from some major withdrawal symptoms -- I was nauseous for an entire day, I was having completely unreasonable/unexplainable anxiety, and overall felt like shit. But I got through that, and since then, I've pared down all my meals, loaded up on the fruits and vegetables, and the most sugar I really eat is in a granola bar. As of Thursday last week, I'd lost about eight pounds, and though I haven't checked recently (I think our scale is kind of off), I can feel the difference and my mom and grandma said I looked like I'd lost weight, too.

Fortunately, the change hasn't really been that hard. Once I got over the initial absence of sugar and started eating different foods, my appetite seemed to change completely. I really don't have that many cravings like I used to, and I still allow myself, like, the savory foods that I like (fast-food and stuff), I just try to pick the healthiest option, or opt out of fries, that sort of thing. Because I realize that while it initially feels great to pig out, it doesn't afterward, and I want to get out of this phase of feeling helpless to the pleasure of eating, as well as take advantage of getting it under control now so I don't have to keep struggling with it when I'm an adult.

And seven days later, she returns.

2011-03-10T09:06:00.002-05:00

OHAI. The past week has been really up-and-down and not necessarily busy but still kind of busy, because stuff keeps happening, but the stuff isn't really that interesting, and honestly the only exciting thing going on is me finishing up the first season of Glee.

So discussion of my writing thing that I put up last week is tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it or dreading it or anything really. Surprisingly, there's other stuff on my mind instead, and that will just be another part of my day.

I'm also trying to read Catching Fire now, though it's difficult considering it seems like I constantly have to read something else for school, so I usually can't read for fun without feeling like a slacker. It's funny because Creative Writing seems like it's taking up the bulk of my time as far as the workload goes, and it's the only class I'm taking that I don't actually need to graduate. But, whatever.

I wish I had more interesting things to say but not many interesting things are happening. I'm at the point in the school year that the enjoyable aspects of school no longer make up for the stupid/tedious/obnoxious parts of school anymore, and I can't wait for graduation. Not even that so much -- the idea of a graduation ceremony really, really annoys me -- I'm really just ready to move.

-insert uninteresting title here-

2011-03-03T15:47:00.003-05:00

I had a very good day surprisingly.

My pain this week has been minimal to nonexistent, which is amazing and fantastical and beautiful, and I think it has a lot to do with the weather. It's been wonderful outside this week as opposed to the disgusting weather of last week. A front is coming through again this weekend, so I'm not expecting good things, but hopefully I'll be proved wrong.

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I'm not going to USI as originally planned. We decided I probably won't be able to do the whole campus thing. So I will eventually be going to IUPUI and living with my mom and Jeff in Indy, but first I'm going to Ivy Tech to take my general ed classes, just because it is SO MUCH cheaper. And seeing as I don't qualify for many scholarships and we make too much money to get a lot of financial aid, cheapness is encouraged.

It's a tad disappointing, but I plan to make the best of it. The important thing is that I will hopefully be able to function much better in a comfortable, if not entirely familiar, environment, and that I'll have my mom and Jeff there more often, and I'm so much more familiar with Indianapolis than I am with Evansville.

That said, tomorrow after my doctor appointment, my mom and I are going to Ivy Tech to have a meeting with an advisor to talk about...you know...collegey stuff. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to not being in school and to eating out with my mom. SILVER LINING.

And if I didn't say it last time, I'll say it now: I'm very quickly turning into a full-blown Gleek. Kurt is my favorite. :3

Also, just gonna leave this here again.

HAVE A MARVELOUS DAY.

Alexis returns for a brief moment.

2011-03-02T09:20:00.006-05:00

Between being in pain of varying severity, listening to Brand New's "Daisy" in blissful awe, watching things I want to watch such as Doctor Who and Glee, remembering that I have school to attend and homework to do, and hopping back and forth between reading three different books and one terrible zombie apocalypse novella, I am having a hard time remembering to blog as often as I wanted to.

Well, here are the updates: I missed a week and a half of school because of a lapse of severe pain that would literally not go away for anything (until it magically disappeared after it stopped raining every other day), I now have lots and lots of make-up work to do (or as I so eloquently put it yesterday, "I have make-up work up to my boobs"), and I found out that I am one of the FIRST UP to submit something for this round of student work in creative writing.

(Heavy sarcasm alert.)

Isn't that lovely?

Now, here is YOUR TASK, if you CHOOSE to accept it. I'm going to post the first half of the first chapter of my NaNo novel from this past year on my writing blog. If you want to read it, you can; and if you want to tell me what you think of it, you can, too. In fact, you are ENCOURAGED to. I will, first of all, give you this: it is probably not the best thing you have ever read. It is hopefully not the worst (especially if you've read Twilight). But it is a very rough draft, because I was thinking of sprucing it up for my creative writing companions, but then I realized that they are going to give me suggestions for it anyway, so why not just hand it over as is? I would hate to work hard on something and then hear their criticism. I think it might be best if I go in knowing that it is not that great and already planning to change it anyway.

To give you an idea of the length, it is six pages double-spaced on MS Word and three-and-a-few-extra-sentences pages single-spaced on MS Word. If that's too long, well, you don't have to read all of it.

So there's that.

In other news, I'm following this collaboration blog on Tumblr between seven (I think it's seven, one for each day of the week) called the Vita Brevis Collab, and besides being generally interesting, last night one of the contributors, Nathan, posted amongst his heroes -- this week's theme -- a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. Now, it was really long, and ordinarily I would not have read it, but I had a fleeting memory of a one John Green posting this in some form or another, and I mean I already know John Green is somewhat of a fan of David Foster Wallace because of various mentionings on BlogTV shows a few summers ago, and THAT is why I was more inclined to read the terribly long thing.

And I really, really loved it, and I would highly encourage you to read it as well. In fact, if the Internet was a bit more like real life, I would just push you at that link. I would strap you to that link until you read it. Because it is capital-G Good.

Okay. That's it. I BID YOU FAREWELL.

REMEMBER WHEN I ACTUALLY USED TO POST BLOGS.

2011-02-19T18:16:00.004-05:00

It is quite regrettable how much Tumblr has pulled me away from regular blogging. While it is super fun and I've even found a couple people to talk to and whatnot, I no longer ~express myself~ near as much in the written form, which is kind of bad since the written form is supposed to be my thing.

And can we just talk about that?

I feel so up-and-down about writing all the time. I know I mentioned how well-received my poetry was in creative writing. Then Sarah informed me of overhead conversations in which two people (whom I highly respect(ed)) were allegedly bashing mine and her stuff (and possibly other people's but Sarah only mentioned ours because she was talking to me so I guess we were the only people relevant, and also this conversation was overhead by her mom, a teacher, so perhaps we felt like the only pertinent people she ought to mention). It was more than disappointing to me, it was like...heartbreaking. Honestly, I shifted between the emotions of heartbrokenness, anger, complete rage and hatred, and back to disappointment again. It kept me in a pretty sour mood for several days, and I haven't actually had to face those people since (I haven't been to school all week because of pain, another sad story entirely).

Well, that has definitely messed with my emotions over writing, because it's not really one of those I-don't-care-what-they-say cases. I tried to make it that way, but the fact of the matter is -- providing that all of this is actually true, and not just a miscommunication, though it's unlikely that I'll ever really know for sure -- I really respect their opinions. They're not just people who happen to be in my creative writing class, they're writers themselves. And now I don't know how to feel about what anyone says: If they're leaving their real opinions out just to be nice, or if they're tweaking their problems/solutions to make it sound more positive than it actually is.

I suppose it's hard for me because I'm weird. If I'm reading a fellow classmate's work, I'm taking into account my own personal feelings about writing. I look for the best in it, the potential. Out of all the things I've read, I haven't disliked any of it. And I haven't, nor would I ever, make fun of/insult ANYONE'S work, especially one of my classmate's, behind their back. Not in this setting, where we're supposed to be nurturing and supportive of one another. Because putting your writing out there is not easy; I know this just as well as anyone.

And the reason I was most disappointed, I guess, is because these were one of the last two people I'd expect to be rude about someone else's writing. Because I thought I knew them better than most of the rest of my class. I'm trying very hard not to take it to heart too much, though, and of course remembering that it might not have happened exactly as I heard it. And even if it did, I know that doing one notsome thing does not make one a decepticon; we all have our not-so-awesome moments, and it doesn't make us any less awesome as people.

I can't bring myself to write much of anything lately.

2011-02-11T15:29:00.002-05:00

I was basically dumbstruck by the discussion of my poetry from Wednesday. I understood the problems they had with it, and I was baffled by all the praise. I was literally laughing at some points. Most of it was from nerves, but seriously, I was...I was just amazed that anyone would actually like it, and even more so that everyone did. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life.

All of the occurrences so far in Creative Writing have made me look at writing so critically, which is generally a good thing, but also results in me making me feel like I'm being too critical, which happens a lot. I mean everything about this class still frazzles me sometimes. Because it doesn't just give me one consistent feeling; there are always so many emotions involved, and I don't know how to handle them all at once. Granted, it's gotten much better as it goes along, but it's definitely not gone.

Regardless, I think that overall, this class is going to be one of the most beneficial I've ever taken, save for perhaps show choir. It gives me more of a sense of personal growth than educational, you know? It's just like...good for me.

I probably haven't mentioned what we're reading in there, but we're managing to get through The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (which we may or may not finish this semester...I will be astounded if we do. Seven hundred pages, baby. About architects.) I'm fine with both of them, but I have a better, more open mindset when it comes to books than I did, say, last year. I prefer The Art of Fiction, though. I devour books about writing.

Speaking of which, I really want to get some books on grammar. I honestly know so little grammar just because of how English was taught to my class. We focused on grammar probably the most in junior high, a bit during English year, and just now as seniors. If I would've had Lively freshman year like these freshman do, I'd probably be fine. But I mean, all I really have any knowledge about is comma and semicolon usage. Sure, I know how to write properly, but I don't know the technicalities of it. I'm sure that, in preparing to be an editor, I will need to know the technicalities. And despite the fact that I'm going to major in English, I'm not sure how much of that will be required knowledge before college, you know?

Those are my concerns.

Keeping with the English/books/writing talk, I'm also in the middle (or actually, at the end) of reading The Hunger Games. I was honestly pretty iffy most of the way through. It's such an interesting concept, really, the whole basis of the book, and despite it being very intriguing and relatively well-written, I was waiting for something to happen, you know? For the most part, I was just reading it for the sake of reading it. But today I actually made it to the point where it's much easier to read because I want to know what happens page to page. I guess, before now, I could call it a good book. Now I'm fairly certain I can call myself a fan of the series, knowing that I will be by the time I actually finish it. I can tell.

Also, just... Katniss Everdeen is one of the most BAMF names I've ever heard in my life. I mean. Seriously.

Completely unrelated but still relevant news story: Solo & Ensemble, my last ever, is tomorrow. These bitches better get in gear, because I want to go to state. I'm almost sure we will, though. It sounds good, and we went to state with it before when I was a freshman, and I honestly don't think it sounded this good back then (though it's possible I just didn't pay much attention).

Aside from that and the fact we will be leaving at eight tomorrow morning (which is when I usually wake up), IT'S FRIDAY! YAY!

Feeling better.

2011-01-29T22:24:00.003-05:00

These past couple of days have been a series of ups-and-downs; I've started crying on several occasions without warning or reason, and along with my anxiety about other things, this was causing even more, because I didn't like the idea of not knowing when I might just break down into tears without a good explanation as to why.

However, I'm fortunate enough to have a mom who is at least closer to being a therapist than most mothers, and each time it happened, I was able to at least talk to her, even if no good conclusion came from it. But it did a few times, and that's what counts.

A thing we talked about earlier was creative writing. I've mentioned before how kind of paralyzing it is, the idea of having other people not only read my writing, but critique it right in front of me. It's not one of those things where they're just like, "Oh, it was good," because Lively is Hitler and we have to specifically come up with praises, problems, and solutions for everything. It's not so much that I don't want to hear anything bad about my writing, because I know it's far from perfect. It's just that sharing it with a group of people that I have no real bond with yet, and having to hear their opinions on it, is scary because my writing is so personal to me. It means so much. It's not that the content is personal or revealing in any way, because I rarely write from my personal point of view anymore. It's just the thing itself is personal to me. And I know that the majority of the people in that class are not writers in the sense that this is their main hobby - yes, I know some of them do write, but there are other things that they devote most of their time to, you know? It's like how I am with choir - I love singing, but I'm not in choir because I want to be a singer. But I'm in creative writing because I want to be a writer.

So I do realize that this will be a really good thing for me in the long-run. But right now, it's one of the most terrifying things I've had to do for school. And as all the other terrifying things I've had to do for school have turned out, this will probably not be as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be once it's done and over with. I realize that. It's just doing it. It is scary.

But I've calmed down about it. While I can't recall precisely what it was that my mom said that made me feel better, I know that it did, and again, I guess that's all that matters. The thing isn't until Friday, so unfortunately, I still have a while to dwell on it, but I'm going to try not to take it so seriously and personally. I want it to be helpful and a positive thing. Separating myself from my writing is hard, but I'm going to try to look at it as a piece of writing, not a piece of writing that doubles as a piece of my soul.

LOL. MY WRITING IS NOT A HORCRUX.

But, yes.

I end blog posts so well.

it has been a bad week.

2011-01-28T09:15:00.003-05:00

Background information: I haven't been to school since Tuesday. And I won't be going today.

Basically, I woke up this morning at three from a dream, but it wasn't a bad dream or anything. It was really sudden, like when something wakes you up, but nothing was going on. And after that I was awake. And since I hadn't slept enough yet, I hurt. And because it was night, because I hadn't slept enough, and because I hurt, my emotions went on a downward spiral.

I can't describe how I felt other than completely insane. There was a string of tweets from last night to prove that, I'm sure. In daylight, the emotions are completely irrational, but when it's dark, I'm lonely and stressed and in pain, it doesn't take long for me to drop to the lowest I've ever felt. It's a domino process. First I think about why I hurt in this first place after not hurting too badly for a few weeks, then I wonder how long it's going to stay around, then I hope to God it doesn't become the norm again, then I wonder if it will stay around till college, then I wonder if I could even go to college feeling like this, then I think COLLEGE that's months away what about show choir? and can't imagine myself being able to do that either, and then I just don't feel like living anymore. And I attempt to myself by looking at Tumblr on my iPod and try to remember all of these feelings so I can talk to my mom in the morning, but by the time it actually is that time, I can't remember anything except the pain and vaguely horrible emotions that coincided with it.

Thoughts on how it's all worked out

2011-01-22T14:48:00.004-05:00

As I start talking with more and more people who come from different places and different backgrounds, I start to wonder if there's one pivotal thing that has screwed me up in life, and that's my school.

If you don't know, I go to not only an extremely small school, but not necessarily a great school either. We have a fair share of very good teachers, but in general, we have low test scores, and so we're not funded very well as a result. While this isn't really uncommon for a small school in a rural area, there are schools not far from here with four-star ratings and much tougher grading scales.

And I can't help but wonder if I would have learned and experienced more in a different school - I wonder if I could have become a better person in a different school.

The answer is, probably. I mean, I'm only just now able to join a creative writing class (this is the first year it's been offered), something that could've been a tremendous help when I was younger. There are no advanced classes offered here other than Calculus and AP Chemistry (which is Chemistry II). It's not like there are no opportunities here, it's just that it's very limited, and that's a little sad for me. I know, however, that there are several facets of my schooling that have been beneficial to me that wouldn't exist in a larger, more diverse type of school.

When it comes down to it, I've learned a lot more through my personal struggles than I have when it comes to school. I've learned more about the world and about life from people that I've met or known from the internet than I have learned from the friends I know here. This is, more than anything, why I crave college. It will be the biggest challenge I've ever faced, but if I've learned anything, I've learned that what is challenging is the most helpful in the end.

I wrote a poem / I talk about writing.

2011-01-19T18:47:00.003-05:00

So I just posted this poem on my Tumblr. I wrote it because I have never written anything even loosely inspired by Harry Potter before, and I've never even thought to, which is just plain silly. So today I sort of scribbled this down during lunch, honestly, and more than I like the poem, I just like what it's about. It could definitely use some work, but I suppose that's what first drafts are, eh?

Anyway, this has me thinking about this creative writing class in general. I just came to the conclusion that, despite what I've felt my entire life, writing is not Serious Business. It really shouldn't stress me out as much as it does - well, most things shouldn't. But especially writing. I think I look at it and treat it as such an important thing because it is, to me. But sometimes I think I go about it the wrong way; I'm really way too uptight about it. I want to be an editor, of course, and so sometimes I think I just look at it too stiffly, like I always need to be following some kind of pattern or rule. When really, the beauty of it is that I can write whatever the hell I want, however the hell I want. It just...it's suppose to be liberating, you know? And sometimes it makes me feel trapped, instead.

Well, I'm tired of that. New perspective.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO FOR CREATIVE WRITING.

2011-01-17T18:03:00.003-05:00

I'm just putting that out there.

I think the biggest problem is, honestly, that I am so scared of having to sit there and listen to people talk about it when all of this is so new to me, when I have yet to really let anybody read anything and get any sort of response from it before (at least when it comes to a narrative).

Not to mention, I am shit when it comes to short stories. I don't even know how to write short stories. I don't DO short. I just don't.

This has been a post.

Personal Philosophy vs. Religion (Part 2)

2011-01-15T21:39:00.003-05:00

I often interchange "Christianity" and "religion" and lots of words that are related, with each other, because I know what they mean to me, but then, that doesn't exactly make it clear to read.

So, from now on I will try to clarify a little better. "Religion," to me, is what I considered organized religion - the masses, people who go to church and maybe claim to be Christians, and maybe they pray, but do they actually follow God and read the Bible? I've learned from fellow Christians that I've met online that really, truly following God translates to completely devoting yourself to Him, continually praying, and constantly delving into and studying the doctrine. This, to me, is what I consider to be a "Christian," but I realize that this group, among church-goers, are (probably) the minority. Obviously, I don't for sure. But I know there are a lot of "lukewarm" Christians, as it were, and if I choose to follow God, then I don't want to be a part of that bunch.

Now I've come back to my main concern, which is with the idea of following the actual doctrine presented in the Bible. As I've learned, the Bible isn't meant to be taken literally, as thousands of years have passed since it was written and customs and society have changed dramatically. Regardless, there are still a lot of strict moral codes and values within it, and my main problem is just agreeing with all of them. I understand the desire to do what God expects of us and work daily to as much as we can to glorify Him, I understand that. But I, personally, have got a serious problem with just doing something for the heck of it. You know. I can agree with the fact that homosexuality, as it states in the Bible, is a sin. But I can't personally feel that it's something sinful in nature. I can't be against it. So I can't see how I can feel that and try to continue, you know, being a Christian. I mean, not like I'm planning to drop out of everything God-related...I'm still so very clueless when it comes to all of this, which is probably why I'm still pretty confused and doubtful.

I've just been getting upset over the whole thing lately. I know that it can feel great to just have faith and knowledge that things will work out, know that everything happens for a reason, and find the good in a terrible situation. But I also can't imagine that all of that is reality-based and I don't like the idea of just going along with something. It feels weird to me. But I've been in a strange mood all week, I guess it's just because I feel like in order to devote my life to Christ I have to do more than I'm really able, and also because I don't feel like I'm doing it for the right reasons. Some days I'm terrified by the concept of the afterlife, and sometimes I just don't even care. On the other hand, I don't want to mess with it. I don't want to shift from the person I am into something else - and maybe I don't have to, maybe I'm thinking about it the wrong way, but that's just what it seems like to me.

Dearly hoping all of that made sense,
Alexis.

Personal Philosophy vs. Religion

2011-01-13T21:07:00.003-05:00

Being a Christian is hard.

It seems like people often think from the opposite view, that being a Christian is the easy way out, because we lean on God when it comes to all of our problems, that we just pray and then everything's okay, or we think that life is just going to be all fine and dandy because of that. But isn't it the absolute opposite? We are stricken when God doesn't solve of all of our problems, when everything isn't okay, and that life isn't all fine and dandy all the time. It's so hard. It is so hard to believe in that.

I read the introduction to "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand earlier this week and I would have to copy the entire text here and ramble about it endlessly to explain exactly what exact sentence or idea or thing made me think this, that, and the other. I can't even really summarize it, at least not at this hour, because my brain. Is. Not. At. Full. Power. Regardless, I have the main idea down, so don't worry. It brought up a lot of troubling emotions for me. It seemed a bit anti-religion, which is okay, because a lot of people are against organized religion. I guess it was troubling to me because I thought we were going to read and study it this semester in Creative Writing, but then I realized it was 700 pages long and we probably wouldn't actually be reading all of it, at least (and then I found out Lively hasn't even read it in its entirety either, so yes), and I didn't want to have to deal with something that was going to be heavily laden with that kind of undertone. (Can something be heavily laden with an undertone? I don't know. I doubt it.)

What I pulled from this passage was that people who fall to the illusion of a Creator and fail, thus, to put power and faith in themselves, are basically wasting their lives. But this is a total and possibly false interpretation. (There were a lot of big words. It was not a fluffy and light introduction to a book. It was like a mother-frickin' hammer.) I think, really, my problem with it was not exactly the message, but the way it was presented. I've been having that problem lately: when people write their opinions as fact. It makes me unbelievably angry. And to treat a concept or an idea as a fact makes me just as angry; a simple change of words can make a major difference. (This all goes together with my intense need to improve the way things are written to make them more easily accessible and understandable.)

But I suppose the message bothered me, personally, too, the longer I've thought about it. I have one worry regarding my belief in Christ and one worry regarding my doubt in Christ. Respectively, they are that I will miss out on countless things life may offer me due to my devotion to Christ, and that, of course, if I stray too far from the right path or whatever, that things are going to suck in the very long run. It's really hard and weird and when I think about it all I just don't know what to do with myself. What I end up feeling is like I'm pitting myself and my personal philosophy against God, and I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can just believe something because it's written in front of me. I have a problem with it.

That's all I have. It's too late. This went nowhere. Yay.

Today, I decided:

2011-01-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

That I am going to have to start exercising more.

Yes, it hurts. Yes, it hurts a bit more than most people because of this chronic pain. But it is impossible? No.

Plus, I’ve realized that eating for me is hard. I am not a skinny person, and I probably never will be, unless I am reduced to the miserable life of eating salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My love of food is never going away. There are some permanent, unchanging things in the universe, and one of them is my reverence for all things deep-fried.

Because, although I am a lazy person, I do enjoy exercise (when I can muster the motivation to get off my ass and do it) and I always feel good after it. I rarely feel first. In fact, the pain of sore muscles, to me, is like, glorious compared to the aches and pains I get that come out nowhere. Because then I feel like I’ve done something and worked toward a change in my body.

Anyway.

My goal isn’t to be this unachievable body type. I’ve learned over the years a lot not only about what my body is like, but what it could possibly be. It’s fact that genetically, I am not going to be thin. But I also know that I definitely could be thinner. My “ideal” weight range (i.e., normal BMI) is around the 130-140 area. A good weight would probably be 150, but I would honestly be very happy just to get down to 160 or 165. And my mom is always like, “It’s not about what the scale says,” but I know what my body was like about two years ago, and that’s where I’d like to be, and I was about 170 then. Even though I would still be “overweight” by BMI standards, I don’t really care. I just don’t like falling into the “obese” category on the BMI standards, because I don’t look or feel like I am. (As my mother says, “I’m not overweight. I’m undertall.”)

Anyway. (Second ‘anyway.’ This is an example of a bad post that no one wants to read; welcome to my blog.) I just wanted to write this for myself, really. I needed to put it out there in some way, and I have no one to talk to right now. FOREVER ALONE. But I guess my point is, I don’t want to get too wrapped up in “dieting.” I don’t want to do Weight Watchers again. I am stubborn and self-sufficient, and I want to do this on my own.

So…EXERCISE, I guess, would be the main point of me writing this post.

things that happened today

2011-01-07T18:44:00.003-05:00

Well, all of them were in Creative Writing.

First, we were talking about the controversial removal of the "N" word from some versions of Huckleberry Finn. Discussion, discussion, etc. Well, eventually some of us decided that books that had any kind of explicit material should just be illegal, and then there would be this awesome black market for these "explicit" books like Huck Finn.

Then, later on in class, Sarah and I decided "Mudblood" should be censored out of Harry Potter, because it's offensive.

The other part of the class was spent talking about how these discussions of our writing were going to work, and Lively went over what we can and can't say about it. (i.e., the sentences "I liked it" and "It was good" are not allowed.) So Sarah and I were talking about the various ways we would explain how much each other's writing sucked, and Sarah puts her hand in front of her and puts her other hand about a foot under it, and says, "This is Twilight...and this is your writing."

Thus, we developed the Harry Potter-Twilight Scale of Writing Quality.

This class is fun.

And Then I Was a Nerdfighter.

2011-01-06T18:43:00.004-05:00

In a Borders bookstore in Indianapolis, early 2009, I paced back and forth in front of a bookshelf. I was wrapped in a jacket with a sparkly show choir dress underneath. A friend and I had been browsing the store for a good fifteen or twenty minutes, killing time after a state-level contest. I was debating with myself on whether or not to buy it, because, as I've said before, I have a problem with purchasing items that I don't necessarily need. But this -- I'd wanted this for quite a while. And I knew I would like it. I couldn't imagine that I wouldn't. So after picking it up and putting it back down countless times, I walked up to the checkout with it, no turning back.

One of the best decisions I've ever made.

The book was recently-released Paper Towns by John Green. I'd been watching the vlogbrothers for maybe five months before then and maybe developed a crush on the aforementioned author. Not just how he looked (which is adorable), but how he spoke and the things he spoke about. I couldn't imagine him writing a book I wouldn't like, and was I ever right about that.

John Green introduced me to the concept of imagining people complexly, and it has completely changed my life since then. But his books are only a fraction of what his impact is on me. And vlogbrothers isn't The John Green Show -- no. I live a Hank Green appreciation life. He has his own type of humor, his own type of intellect, and I adore him equally -- he just happens not to write books on the side.

While I've always been the kind of girl who gets along with everyone, I have never felt like I fit in. During junior high and a large portion of high school, I committed most of my energy to trying to be more social, because counselors told me that was the thing I needed to do. And in that, I lost a sense of who I am, inherently: very much a nerd. I didn't read books as much, not to mention my grades dropped -- and guess what? I didn't feel better about myself. Daresay, I felt worse.

I know this seems completely off-topic, but it's not. You see, I found Nerdfighteria. Not in the sense that I got on the Ning and met people and we're best friends. No. I found the vlogbrothers and I found the sense of community that developed around them. It wasn't a conscious thing, that I immediately thought, This is where I belong. It took me a long time to feel like I belonged in the community, really belonged, but in the end, it isn't as much about the community to me as it is about John and Hank. Who triggered my initial interest in Harry Potter? John. (Played "Save Ginny Weasley" during a BlogTV show; the chatroom erupted and I knew I was missing out on something awesome.) Who wrote some of my most-played songs on iTunes? Hank.

Who made me laugh when I was feeling at my worst?
Who gave me hope that not all boys are mindless idiots?
Who started the Project for Awesome and made me feel, for the first time, like I was making a substantial difference?
Who were the people that I could always look forward to seeing throughout the worst year of my life?

The thing is, finding Nerdfighteria at the time I did was a Godsend because I was in such a dark place emotionally. The idea of a nerdfighter gave me hope. And then, as times changed, as I developed chronic pain, as I drifted in and out of hopelessness, worthlessness, and feeling suicidal, I had Hank and John -- to teach me something new, to make me laugh, to make me feel like I was a part of something. I don't necessarily want to meet them for the sake of meeting them, or talk to them for the sake of talking to them. I just want to tell them that they have made my life worthwhile in the midst of what felt like a nightmare. I love that they give so much credit to the community, but without them, there would be no community. So I want to thank them for being here for us, for keeping us going. You do so much more than you realize. Through you guys, I have been introduced to so many amazing people and things. The concept of a life of having never known the vlogbrothers is a really sad one. And honestly, I don't know where I'd be without knowing them, and I don't want to know. I'm just extremely grateful that I do.

trying to not have panic attacks

2011-01-06T15:32:00.003-05:00

This week feels like the longest week ever. This new medicine makes me really, really tired, and if I don't get enough sleep then I am basically nonstop tired until I get caught up. Today is the first day I feel a bit normal, and I'm glad, because I'm tired of being tired.

SO.

Since I am in this Creative Writing business and there's pretty much no turning back, and since it's required that all of us submit something for discussion and shit (heart attack forthcoming), I figure I should just start putting things out there and just get used to it.

So the following is our second impromptu writing assignment. It was from Tuesday, but I only just finished it today (started and restarted it about twice). We had a list of new vocabulary words that we were required to use (each one of us picked a random word we had never heard of an contributed it to the list, so I did know some of them) and somehow incorporate them into a story. This is what I came up with.

He didn’t die the way everyone thought he did, which Macy had figured, because she had learned early in life that most things spread her town were rarely true. Her mother had told her an even bigger lie, that he had died serving in the army; that was the only thing she believed for most of her life, when really it made the least sense – there were no actual wars going on in during his lifetime, only before and after. But this was the shred of knowledge about him that she held onto for the longest time, not only because it painted a charming, brave picture of her father, but because it was the only piece of him she had.

Her penance was a trip to the cemetery where he was buried, and she took those frequently, at least up until she realized the truth. For three years, she ceased in going, and drifted back into the belief that he was really gone – dead, forever, and not alive in any form anywhere, adopting the apathetic attitude of her mother and sister. And for that period of time, it seemed right, it seemed like she had moved on, or “let go.”

It was only when she was briefly considering the possibility that maybe he was alive, in some sense, that she felt emotion, hope, possibility, for the first time in those three years – and it occurred to her that maybe she didn’t want to let go. The fact that she could feel so much about someone who was supposedly gone prompted her to toss her homework aside, grab her sweatshirt, and disappear out the front door.
Halfway down the winding gravel road to the cemetery, it started to sprinkle, but she simply put her hood up; light precipitation wasn’t the kind of thing to get in her way. Then, as soon as she walked into the shady entrance of the cemetery, the sky opened and it began to pour.

She sighed, but walked around the edge, following the wall of trees until she found his tombstone, sad and lonely-looking compared to the surrounding graves and the bunches of iridescent flowers placed upon them.

Standing next to it, staring at the stone, she felt stupid. If he was anywhere, he wasn’t there. All the spur-of-the-moment emotion she had felt had drained from her; maybe it was the rain. But her body felt limp and lifeless and she dreaded the walk home. There was a rusty metal bench a few paces away, between two trees, but rain was dripping from it in rivulets.

Yet almost as suddenly as it began to fall, though, it stopped. Macy looked up to the sky like it was some kind of trick, but no, there was the open sky, and the sun, and an ominous billow of clouds drifting to the west. And then, almost directly above her, between the blazing sun and the moving rainstorm, was a rainbow.

my first day of creative writing

2011-01-03T19:45:00.003-05:00

It honestly caused so, so much anxiety. And I realized that what makes me even more nervous on top of the main anxiety itself is that I get stressed out over trying to seem calm, or at least normal. I don't know what it looks like, necessarily, when people are overtly anxious, but I don't want to be it. And really, I think that makes it worse. It piles more stuff on top of what I'm already feeling.

From today's events and the subsequent analysis of them, I came to the conclusion that I have this extreme anxiety about people reading what I've written because, 1.) I don't let people read what I write, therefore, 2.) I have never had (at least, on narrative work) any sort of feedback, nor do I have anything to tell me that I am even good at it in the first place, except for my own personal opinion.

So, I think, in the grand scheme of things, this is a good jumping-off place. I can kind of get a grasp on where I really am and hopefully calm down when it comes to other people reading it.

Meanwhile, today I got my Christmas gifts from Sarah. They were as follows: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them by Newt Scamander, Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp, The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, and a plush version of The Monster Book of Monsters.

Basically, I AM TOO COOL.

(The Tales of Beedle the Bard are so good by the way, because there are footnotes written by Albus Dumbledore. I even came across this awesome quote: "To hurt is as human as to breathe." JK ROWLING ARE YOU EVEN ALLOWED TO BE THIS BRILLIANT?!)

I am developing so many thoughts with the concept of a new year.

2011-01-01T20:48:00.005-05:00

It's annoying because it's cliche, but it is a fresh start, and I suppose it all just has me thinking.

All day today, I've been taking everything in a bit differently. This wasn't some kind of resolution to do so, it's just something I've been doing subconsciously. You see, in general, I'm a really sensitive person, and I just react more emotionally to things, whether they're directed at me or not - they rarely are, I just take things to heart and read into things far too much. I make things into something they're not, and that's a problem. I should be able to move on from things in a way that I've either been affected positively or not at all, even though for the most part, I tend to do the exact opposite and take everything negatively. It's silly, when I think about it long enough.

Another thing that really just hit me today: You know, because of the Internet I've been able to be introduced to a lot really amazing and wonderful people, and there are literally so many people that I look up to and admire. But something I've noticed lately is that every time I realize that they think or believe or act or feel a different way than I do, a possible mix of emotions goes through me. I'm either sad or disappointed with how their opinions rate in comparison to mine, and then sometimes I feel a bit guilty for whatever it is. I mean, it could be from something as simple as liking Family Guy to believing in God. When it comes to the people I respect, I've realized that I always look for validation from them through what they believe in relation to what I believe. And I guess it's understandable, to want to feel like this person who you respect and admire so much shares a particular opinion or belief with you, but not getting it doesn't mean anything. It's more of a self-confidence problem, because it's not like I lose respect for someone in that case; instead, I would just feel kind of down about myself. Like I'm not doing it right, somehow.

But I'm over that, you know? I'm the kind of person that wants to get along with everyone and so I'm sort of a people-pleaser, but it shouldn't hinder who I am as an individual. I shouldn't feel bad about such-and-such being my favorite movie or so-and-so being my favorite singer. I shouldn't feel bad about believing in God and supporting gay rights. I'm the only one who can be who I am, after all, so I shouldn't let other's perceptions intimidate me to the point of evolving into something I'm not.

*fist pump*

I made a vlog, watch it, view it, LIKE IT.

2011-01-01T18:39:00.001-05:00

I've been having a bad couple of days. / Hey, it's almost '11.

2010-12-31T16:43:00.004-05:00

I know that it's the stress of the new year approaching. I know it's the fact that I thought there would be so much change that would have happened by now. It's not really a disappointment in myself, it's in the circumstances of my life, but I project so much of it onto myself anyway. I can't help it. It's my life; I feel like I should be making some sort of progress in absolutely everything, but nothing's changed.

I mean, I'm taking steps to getting better. I've been doing the thing the psychologist told me to do, walking five minutes every day (which is weird that the psychologist told me to do that but he did) even though I obviously don't want to because I'm in pain pretty much all the time, but I keep doing it, because maybe it will help. Doing nothing certainly won't change anything, and I would much rather feel like I'm at least trying to get better.

Anyway. I guess this new semester coming up makes me nervous, which is weird because last semester was supposed to be the nervous-making one, but this one's just going to be different. *cough* creative writing *cough* At the same time, I'm so ready for the holidays to be over and stuff so I can go back to real, normal life. But still, it's odd to go back into this habit knowing that it's essentially the last chunk of time I'll be spending in high school. Obviously, this happens to everyone, but to know that I'm just not going to be here next year, when I've gone to this school for the last thirteen years, is just...hard to imagine, really.

But there are good things to go along with that; probably more good than bad, actually. Getting out of this town would probably be the best thing for the majority of people, but a lot of people don't leave. Even the people who said they'd leave and never come back end up coming back. It's a freakin' black hole. But I'm not going to college near here and my parents won't be here for me to come back to, so it's not likely. And I'm fairly glad for that, but I've never lived anywhere besides this town. I don't know how any other place will be, other than different, but I guess anyone would expect that.

And, well...obligatory new year shit. I was going to make a video for this, and I might still, but my New Year's resolutions are the usual eat better/exercise more (already on that route, really, before the holidays started. Remember? I lost nearly ten pounds on Weight Watchers, but then December happened and it's been downhill since then). My real resolutions are just to get into two things: Doctor Who and The Mountain Goats. Both seem to be fairly prevalent in nerd culture. At least, they are among the people I like. So I figure I might like them too, and I'm always good for something new to geek out about. I just need to figure out where to start when it comes to Doctor Who (because it was a '70s show, right? And then someone brought it back? I know I could look this up, but whatever), and then, I have money on my iTunes still, so I just need to figure out which album of the Mountain Goats would be the best one to get first.

Happy new year, folks. The future is upon us.

Here, have this:

2010-12-27T12:00:00.003-05:00

I don't really know if it would work or if it's even possible, but that's why it's an idea, I suppose.

I got this idea in the shower. Hayley Hoover wrote this blog post that I read this morning and it had me thinking about materiality, self-worth, and the like.

Personally, I've never been into anything Victoria's Secret-like things because I legitimately feel as if they're not made for me. Like, there is no possibility of sexiness in this person that I am, and I'm not going to try to use products to try to make it so.

I have generally bad body image, and I always have. It's been much worse than it is now, but right now it's still pretty bad. I inherited a weird mix of genes from each side of my family and it isn't good.

But here's the thing - I know I can't be the only one out there who has any mix of weird physical traits that they don't enjoy. And I definitely know I'm not the only one out there with poor body image or low self-esteem resulting from that. And even though I'm not in this like, enlightened stage of full self-acceptance - yet - I really want to help people who have these issues. Because everyone is beautiful. Beauty is subjective, and I am this weird type of person who really really really tries to see the beauty in absolutely everyone. I've never looked at someone and considered them to be "ugly." I mean, obviously I can find people physically unattractive, but it's usually someone I either don't know very well, and if I do, it doesn't last long, because - get this - OTHER THINGS, like their personality, shine through, and after a while whatever is flawed doesn't matter anymore.

This is possible for everyone. So what I want to do (in my dizziest daydreams) is start some sort of service (this sounds so weird) in which anyone can submit whatever emotional problems they're having with body image, self-esteem, or whatever. I really want to talk to people on a personal level - not as a counselor or anything, but just as a peer - and really help them understand and see that they, as a unique individual, are beautiful. That there's nothing wrong with them the way they are.

Since I just came up with this ~twenty minutes ago, it's an idea in its infancy. I'm going to think about it more, because I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but I think Tumblr is a good interface to use for it.

I would absolutely LOVE and APPRECIATE ~~and maybe even beg for~~ thoughts and opinions or anything else on this. If you think it's a bit too crazy or something, or whatever. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Christmastime Thoughts

2010-12-25T12:12:00.003-05:00

I have the most wonderful people in my life, really. I mean, I always knew that, but I guess when it comes to things like this, times like Christmastime - I'm not the type who wants a lot or asks for a lot of things, but my mom asked for a Christmas list so I gave her a few things I've wanted for a while (Mike Lombardo's "Songs for a New Day", TSWGO bracelet, Pizza John shirt, etc.), but I wasn't expecting to get all of the things I included - I knew it would be a lot of money, and I don't like having a lot of money spent on me for any particular reason.

But then she gets me so much stuff (a lot to me, anyway, and nothing insanely expensive, but I know all of it together must've been a lot) - everything that was on my list and more. The things themselves, I appreciate, but more so, I'm just completely touched that she thought to get these things. I love everything. I feel so blessed that I have someone who wants me to be happy - that's enough to make me happy, much more than the things themselves.

But...I did get an iPod Touch, so that's pretty dang awesome. (I named it Neville.)

Project for Awesome: The Reason I Love Nerdfighteria

2010-12-20T09:45:00.003-05:00

If you're not familiar with the inner-workings of the Project for Awesome or even what the hell it's about, you must be new. Or, more tragically, a non-Nerdfighter. Well, regardless, I'll give you a brief rundown: for two days, we take over YouTube. We are climbin' in yo videos, snatchin' yo comments up. (I guess.) We spamwow (*comment the heck out of) videos that promote charity, thereby decreasing WorldSuck. It is an amazing project that I was introduced to last year and one that has absolutely changed my life in more ways than I can even make sense of.

Because, in the course of this past weekend, here's what I've learned: There is something about blindly, ruthlessly attacking the comment section of a video while following the prompts of a BlogTV show host you didn't even know until ten minutes ago.

There is something about commenting "PINKY AND THE BRAIN" in response to the aforementioned BlogTV show host's reference to to nineties cartoons, and then having someone (AdamTheAlien) reply to your comment with "I'll pinky YOUR brain." (He was apparently a fan of this comment-spam tactic, because I got several replies written in this fashion.)

There is something about reaching the goal of 1,000 comments and then getting the reward of watching Mike Lombardo lip-sync to an N*SYNC song.

There is something about all of this, in a crazy way, benefiting charity.

There is something about being part of the community that does these kind of things.

There is something about being part of something bigger than each of us, bigger even, than the sum of our parts.*

There is something about being in Nerdfighteria and just knowing that these beautiful people exist that has literally kept me going when I at my very worst.

And as much as I hate including some, thus excluding others, there are some peeps I got to give credit to for making this such an awesome experience:

John and Hank, the vlogbrothers - Of course, without them this project wouldn't exist in the first place.

Blaze, suchducks - For being the best (I love the rest of you, too) BlogTV show host ever, and organizing our tiny little underground spamwow army while the official YouTube livestream was going on.

Our tiny little underground spamwow army - Consisted of, but was not limited to, Kimber, OUdarling, AdamTheAlien, and theoryoferin. We got a lot done during the kind-of freeze that happened while the livestream was going on.

Shawn Ahmed, UnculturedProject - For, as always, making an amazing video that shows what our support can actually do. If you watch any Project for Awesome video this year, make it this one.

Wheezywaiter - For being an excellent person to accuse of being smelly when we had nothing else to comment about.

And absolutely everyone else who liked, favorited, and commented on videos, and for everyone who donated money and purchased raffles and were otherwise awesome throughout the project.

Most importantly, I want to thank all of Nerdfighteria for keeping this going year after year. It's you guys, after all, who make the effort. It was immensely important this year, when John and Hank were off in LA being busy and doing fancy bigwig stuff with YouTube, that all of us pulled together and made things happen, and we did. Thank you, happy P4A, I love you all, and I can't wait until next year.

-------------------------

*Did you love that Looking for Alaska reference or what? OR WHAT?

So close.

2010-12-16T20:02:00.004-05:00

Today, school was cancelled do to various wintry weather goings-on, and I was delighted because I had stayed up way too late (well, for me, anyway - midnight) watching Assassin's Creed Brotherhood 2.0 on Hank's gaming channel. Honestly, I don't remember what prompted me to check it out - did he mention it in his latest video? I don't remember. I don't know. All I know is that I watched the most recent ten-minute-long video and, despite the fact I had hardly a clue what was going on, found it to be AMAZING.

I suppose I just forget how absolutely hilarious Hank is, and these videos definitely bring out his hilarious side. I can't even tell you. Most of it was probably due to the fact that I was unorthodoxly giddy last night and was laughing at everything, but still today, I finished watching all 23 of the videos. And I would probably watch them all again if I needed a sure form of entertainment, but I'm kind of weird like that.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping school will be closed again - not for the normal reasons. Actually, my main hope was that it would be open normally tomorrow, but iciness has already prompted them to verify a two-hour delay. However, two of the schools in my county, though they're the ones on the eastern side, are already closed. The problem with the delay is that, since it's finals, that messes up the special final exam schedule even more, and since I need to know the schedule so I know when I actually come to class, it's worrisome. We plan to call them in the morning about the schedule and all, but I just don't like knowing about things in advance.

There are so many schools closed, though. Only some of them are close to here - it seems like everyone else is waiting until morning to announce anything, because a lot aren't even on the list. But I need them on the list to figure this thing out; don't they know that? I get obsessed about weather and cancellations and ish.

As you can tell, I've had a really productive day.

I thought I had more to talk about but apparently, I don't. There you go! Gaming channels and school cancellations! THAT'S WHAT'S UP.

The Event that Temporarily Ruined Writing for Me

2010-12-13T19:14:00.003-05:00

Note: I didn't proofread this. I didn't want to read it again. So ignore any typos. kthnx.

We are sitting in our first Creative Writing Club meeting of the year. I'm excited that I was actually able to attend a meeting, because being in a group and actually participating are far separate things, and I rarely get to do the latter. Our sponsor is just talking about whatever - writing (of course), general Creative Writing Club info, what we're going to do this year - all good, all good.

And then he mentions something that completely throws me off track. Those writing contests, where you enter a poem with the prize being getting published in an anthology, etc., but then they're actually just taking everyone and putting them in the anthology.

And charging mass amounts for each book, knowing people are going to want to buy them. Because they're "published."

I literally just kind of fell apart inside as he mentioned it. My mind automatically drifted to those three humungous hardback books full of absolute shit poetry that mine just happened to be included in. The fact that, yes, this poem did get a massive amount of recognition amongst my friends and comments on my blog compared to the usual response of nothing - that all drifted away, became obsolete. It had been probably a year and a half or two years since it all happened, but it came barreling to the forefront in that one moment because I - nor anyone else around me - had realized it. That it was a complete and utter scam.

But how would I expect it? I got it from a teacher. How was I supposed to know? I had never heard of anything like this before, but as he mentioned it, it all just seemed so obvious, too obvious, and I felt like an idiot. It didn't help that he said, before commenting on this, that he "wasn't talking about anyone in particular," and even though he didn't even know what was going on or that that had happened, I just lost it on the inside. It all deteriorated. And everything, all the pride I felt, all the accomplishment, it just turned into absolute failure and misery and it killed me on the inside. It killed me. It made me feel absolutely worthless, and I would be lying if I said it no longer hurts.

I never spoke about this to anyone until now. The books - all three of them, about thirty dollars each - sit on a crate on the far side of my room covered with blankets and pillowcases that I'm not using. Every passing glance at them is like another blow to the stomach. I hate it, and it makes me hate myself.

To say the least, I froze after this. I may be wrong, but this is quite possibly the time that my writing habits and quality started to go downhill. This could very well be the catalyst; it's caused a swell of other problems, too. This single event. It stands out in my mind - the room, the feeling, the shame, all of it comes back to me in an instant. It's not a particularly striking visual memory, but the way I felt at the moment can pull me into the scene as if it was just yesterday.

I'm writing this now because next semester, I'm taking this creative writing class. It could very well be the most difficult class I ever take because it requires me to put myself out there in a way that I haven't for a really long time. It is terrifying; the prospect of it is crippling, and at this very moment, I can't imagine myself being able to do it. But knowing that I'm going to have to, I'm tackling these demons while I still have time. Because as long as it's still here, it's absolutely destroying me on the inside. And I don't deserve that. My future is brighter than that; I know it.

Here's the original poem: http://myfantasyintoreality.blogspot.com/2007/08/fire.html August 2007. I was...fourteen, I guess.

One blog post: Saying all the things I want to say.

2010-12-12T22:48:00.003-05:00

I just realized that I've actually done this before, a long time ago, but not on this blog. This really just come to me at the spur of the moment and originally, I thought, "I'm just going to write out everything I want to say to all of these important people in my life." But then I was like "WAIT there are so many and that might be awkward." So I came up with this conclusion, which, as previously stated, is something I've actually done before, so I'm stealing an idea from myself. WHATEVER.

(Warning: the following will have no interest to anyone, I'm sure. Feel free to do something else more productive, like learn how to knit.)

So I've assigned numbers to the people I'm writing things for. These are not just friends, offline and online, they're just...people. Anyone. Who I've met and who I haven't. So. I'm just going to...write stuff! All right! Here we go!

1. I love you, and you're one of my best friends, but lately there is really something about you that just gets under my skin. We joke a lot, you know? We "fake-hate" each other. Well, there's a saying about how there's truth to every joke, and this is definitely one of those cases. I call you my best friend, and you do the same to me, but I feel like I don't know anything about you and I can't see us keeping in touch after high school. We hardly keep in touch now. The only reason we're friends is because we happen to be in the same place, and that's the most annoying kind of friendship to have. And I'm sorry that all of this is true.

2. You. ARE. My. Best. Friend. EVER. I am convinced that all the times I have spent hating you and swearing you off as a friend has just made this friendship stronger. I failed on several accounts to imagine you complexly, but we're past that now. It's amazing that after so many years, it's just now that we're getting to the point that we are finally the friends I've always imagined us being. I'm happy you're in my life.

3. You inspire me, probably more than anyone, or at least up there with the best of them, to be a good person, because I truly believe that you are. You are the kind of person I have always wanted to be. I wish I could get to know you better. But even if I can't, your presence in my life has been enough, already, to change who I am as a person. (Also, you are the sweetest and most supportive near-stranger I have ever met. <3)

4. I don't know how to feel about you half the time. You're like the person I have always wanted in my life, you're just not exactly...right, and so it's awkward. But I have at least one story inspired by you. (Another is just loosely inspired.) All character-wise, of course. It's an...odd thing, for sure; difficult, and I would never talk to anyone about it openly, because I'm not even sure I can explain it. It is WEIRD, but I like you and all, it's okay.

5. This is similar to above, in a weird way. (This is all getting weird. Also, one story is inspired by you as well. Ladeedah.) You have impacted my life in the most absurd and radical way; I mean, I literally think about you once every day. We are not close. We are not friends. You are not famous. You are just a person who I know, and have known, for a while, and would love to know better but can't due to, you know, circumstances. At the same time, you make my life unbelievably awkward and oftentimes like some sort of hellish nightmare. But it's not your fault; it is completely mine. I am just an absolute mess.

6. You are what I've always wanted as an inspiration; I admire absolutely everything you do. You've done more good for my life than you could probably ever know, introduced me to so many things, saved me from so many things, and inspired me to change more than anyone else. I can say all of that for sure. And I just want to thank you for that.

THAT'S ALL I'M DOING FOR NOW K BYE.

If you know Daniel Radcliffe, please let him know that I would like to propose to him.

2010-12-08T15:17:00.004-05:00

I just realized it's been a week since I wrote anything. I've been busy with pain and speech-writing (though I am done with that class! Officially!) and physical therapy and being tired and not wanting to expel all of my energy writing blogs when I could be writing novels, because I am obsessed with writing lately.

Writing: I'm continuing with a semi-old story, the introduction of which I posted here a while ago.

Reading: Inkheart by Cornelia Funk. Kayley mentioned the series in one of her videos once, and then Sarah pointed it out while I was scanning the library looking for something after I finished The Key to the Golden Firebird (which I liked very much, btw). I'm about 150 pages in (the book is over 400, I think), but to me, it's just now getting interesting. I am not yet sure if I would recommend it.

Eating: LOTS of sugary thing. Peanut butter fudge. Sugar cookie dough. The only "meals" I have eaten are baked potatoes, but today mine had broccoli, so that's good, right?

Listening: On My Way by Ben Kweller. Yum.

I hope everyone is having a marvelous week! I am, now that my pain is better - I think because the weather has cleared up. Choir concert is happening on Sunday, and our practice is tonight. Top Chef is on tonight, as well, and there are only two weeks of the semester left! That is crazy. That is insane. That is magical.

Because it's HUMP DAY!

2010-12-01T09:03:00.003-05:00

I just thought I would write a celebratory "IT'S THE FIRST OF DECEMBER!" post. The first of December wouldn't be near as exciting if there wasn't a smattering of snow on the ground and a lighted, but yet-to-be-decorated Christmas tree directly in my view path.

But this has nothing to do with December, really.

WRITING THINGS: What I'm doing right now is writing an epilogue of sorts, but at the same time, NOT REALLY. There is no purpose to it whatsoever except for my own comfort. I don't like it when stories end, so I am writing out what happens after the end, so I don't feel as much grief about the process.

READING THINGS: The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson. I'm about halfway through. I LIKE it.

HARRY POTTER THINGS: I am going to see it AGAIN with SARAH on FRIDAY, though it will be her FIRST time seeing it, therefore, IT IS A VERY EXCITING THING INDEED.

In which I announce that NaNo has fixed all my problems.

2010-11-30T18:40:00.001-05:00

I know you all care about my writing endeavors through failure and success alike, so I'm just going to keep talking about them.

I've never talked about this thoroughly because it's hard to explain. Now that I've finished writing this novel, knowing how I feel now, I think I have a handle on what it was.

The thing is, for the past two years, I've felt gradually detached from my writing self, which is the part of me that has an innate desire to write and write and write and write - which is to say, nearly all of me. Or so I thought. I mean, for my entire life, writing has been the only thing that has been able to define me as a person. And for the most part, it was never about wanting to get recognition for it - regardless of whether I wanted people to read it or not, I wrote it.

It was like Jo Rowling said in her interview with Oprah: I wrote for my mental health.

And while I've obviously never stopped, I've spread myself thin on the creative plane over the years. I do a lot more journaling, where before my emotions were literally shoved into the protagonist of some novel almost all the time. It was much more of a creative outlet than it's been for a long time, for one.

But more recently, it all turned into me not wanting to write anymore. Just, legitimately wanting to quit. Because I felt like I had lost whatever it was that made me want to be a writer, and I felt like the talent to write well was slipping - or had already slipped - away from me at some point. Alongside this pain, it's been one of the biggest struggles for me this past year. I would keep writing, of course, but everything seemed to pale in comparison - not to other's work - but to my own, from the past. That sounds ridiculous, but it really did, and that's how I felt. And I felt like the ability to write well was innate, not achievable, so I thought I wasn't going to be able to get whatever I had back.

I didn't know it, but this year's NaNo wasn't just about seeing if I could actually finish a novel (WHICH I TOTALLY DID BTW OMG), but once I did finish, I felt like...I don't know. I'd done it, and some switch had flipped. The thing was rough in the beginning, but, far more than I expected, it changed all the way through, and the way I wrote it changed all the way through. I mean, I hadn't written that much in a really long time, nor had I ever tried to. That's part of why I wanted to do NaNo this year - even though a little voice said, "Why bother? You're just going to be disappointed with the quality of what you've written in the end, like you always are," that's kind of what NaNo is for. The last thing it's about is quality - it's just about writing. And writing was what I'd lost, so I couldn't imagine that it would hurt anything.

All I know is that afterward (as in, the following morning), I felt extremely bored because I didn't have a novel to write. So there you go.

"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."

- Walt Whitman.

A thing about me and books.

2010-11-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

I don't read much.

When I tell people this alongside the fact that I write, they either gasp or narrow their eyes suspiciously, like I have to be lying about one of the two. And it's true, they don't really go hand in hand. But it has nothing to do with me not wanting to read or not liking to read.

It's because I can't buy things.

I know the solution to this: library. We have a decent-but-nothing-special school library and a town library that is exactly what you would expect a 3500-population town to have. I haven't been in it in ages. Granted, I have found books to read in both places, it's not somewhere I would go if I want to find something new and interesting to read. For that, I would go to Borders or Barnes & Noble.

But when it comes to buying things, even if it's something I really, really want, I can't commit. I've been like this my entire life, and there's actually no legitimate reason as to why I'm like this other than it's an innate feature of my being. When I was younger, I wasn't the type of kid who wanted things a lot, and the things I did want, I felt like I shouldn't have unless I deserved or had earned them in some way.

Let me give you a better idea of how I am: back when in the good old days when I roamed the message boards of The-N.com like it was my job, they had these avatars you could make and buy clothes/accessories for if you had enough credits, which you earned randomly from being on the site a lot. And since I was on the site a lot, I probably could've bought out everything they had available.

...But I seriously had trouble committing to a purchase. I had to internally convince myself that I really wanted it before I did.

Back in the real world, I do this with absolutely everything, the only exception being food. (That said, almost all of my money is spent on food.) Since I've gradually become able to purchase my own things and not just have what my mom gets for me, it's like this epic decision every time. I noticed it first with CDs, because if I like an artist, now matter how much I like an artist, it may take a year or more to convince myself that I should spend the money on the CD.

But now what's been more noticeable is that I do it with books. I'm worse with books, even, because depending on the book, I might only read it once. I can't fathom putting money into something if I'm only going to use it once, and definitely if there's a possibility that I might not like it. I mean - yeah. I could have an infinite amount of money available and still feel weird about buying something like that -- I honestly don't know why. It's just a part of the way I work.

That said, hopefully when I leave this town and go wherever I'm headed, I'll have access to a much better library and will be able to devote myself fully to books the way I've always wanted to. Right now, I just sort of hate the fact that the large percentage of books in my room are geared for the ages of thirteen and under, just because we have yet to give them away and my collection of newer books is very small and pathetic.

I shall now write a post about Deathly Hallows.

2010-11-28T09:06:00.004-05:00

SPOILER ALERT: HARRY POTTER is a WIZARD.

So, I missed the first few scenes, apparently. We were those obnoxious people who walk in after the movie's already started (made even more awkward by the fact that I was the last person in and I could not, for the life of me, get the door shut...oi.)

Nevertheless! We came in at the point where Voldemort is talking to the Death Eaters at that table (it's at Malfoy Manor, isn't it?) and about the Ministry and whatnot. Perhaps, if you've seen it, you can tell me what all I missed, though I really hope I get the chance to see it again some point while it's still in theaters.

But I LOVED the movie. I would have to see it multiple times to officially decide (because these sorts of important decisions take a lot of time), but I'm pretty sure it would have to be my favorite Harry Potter movie yet due to the following reasons:

1) Deathly Hallows is my favorite book.
2) It followed the book so well, better than any of the other movies, and the parts they added in (such as Harry & Hermione's dance) weren't stupid.
3) They ended it at the perfect spot.
4) The animated sequence was really wonderful and unexpected.
5) They cast a surprisingly attractive man to play Xenophilius Lovegood.

It was only weird because I've never seen a Harry Potter movie with the anticipation of wondering what's going to be in it - when I read the books before, I was too busy actually reading the books to think much about the movies, and when I did finally watch the movies, I wasn't comparing them too closely to the books because I saw them as an entirely separate experience (which is what I always argued for when people say they don't like the films because of their differences from the books).

But then I had an experience of it. I had internalized so many expectations for the movie without even realizing it until I was watching it, so I was disappointed in a lot of ways that I wasn't expecting. It wasn't until afterward, when I had the mind to think about it objectively, that I realized how much I loved about it (which was basically 99.999999% of it).

And, as I had seen people point out before I was able to see it, it didn't have the actual plot structure of a complete movie, since, of course, it was not a complete movie. But it was amazing in its own right, and I can't imagine how exciting it will be to watch it back-to-back with Part 2.

*squee*

There were so many good parts and good lines. I loved the twins in this movie (as I always do, of course). Both (I'm pretty sure there were only two?) scenes with Nagini were absolutely terrifying. (Not so much the first one, okay, but still kind of.) And I just really loved this movie for the same reasons I loved the book: It's so far different from any of the previous books because, of course, things have dramatically changed.

My only major complaint has to do with something they failed to explain to the viewers that just seemed really annoying: why the hell Harry's carrying around that piece of mirror. I mean, couldn't they have just slipped it in somewhere? There are probably other things like that, but that was the main one that I noticed throughout the movie. It seems like every other scene, he was looking into the mirror or staring at the Snitch.

One of my favorite lines in the book that they did a brilliant job with in the movie is at the wedding when Kingsley delivers the warning in Patronus form. And I found this really amazing graphic of it on Tumblr like a week before the movie even premiered:

I LOVE IT SO MUCH I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT. ASDFGHJKL;

I don't know what to do so I'm just going to put this here.

2010-11-27T23:48:00.003-05:00

AH HELLO WORLD.

It is about ten till midnight on the twenty-seventh of November.

...I thought it was the twenty-eighth, just so you know. Just until now. So, wait. November doesn't end until Tuesday?

*checks calendar*

I seriously thought November ended on Monday. That's why I was writing so frantically for WriMo. LOL.

It turns out I'm three days early instead of two! Whaddayaknow!

YES YES YES! I finished my novel! And not finished as in, "Oh, I'm past 50,000 words now, I'm just gonna stop." NO! Like real finish!

*flail* *more flail*

First of all, it was about this accomplishment. To know that I could do this. Because, I don't know if you know, but writing has been especially difficult for me lately. It has been in, like, the entire past year, but lately, I've really just felt like I'm getting shittier and shittier at it as opposed to getting better.

I think a lot of it had to do with a lack of inspiration and a simultaneous a lack of motivation to find any inspiration. Does that make sense? I kind of treated it like I was so privileged enough to just have inspiration come to me out of nowhere, which it probably did when I was younger, but I was under different circumstances then. Life was different, dare I say, better, back then. It was easier to feel a spark of inspiration when there were more interesting and inspiring things coming into my life. I did more, I read more, there was less stress and more fun. Now it's different, and I suppose it's not necessarily worse, it's just that adjustments have to be made and I sort of hate it. So much of my energy goes to writing for school that all of my writing in general gets watered down; it feels lifeless and lackluster and I HATE IT.

But...I'm sort of okay with that for the moment, as long as I keep writing. I think that to stop would be to give up not only the process of writing itself, but to give up the search to reclaim the desire to write. I didn't particularly want to do NaNoWriMo this year because I had something I wanted to write about it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could write a novel without having something I wanted to write about. And gradually, it's turned into something I love - not just the story itself, but the process of writing, the discovery of the journey that it turns into.

ACK I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. I'm not smiling, but that's just because I'm kind of tired and possibly in a novel-writing coma. And my eyes have legit been glued to some kind of screen since about nine this morning (even while I was talking to my dad. I was playing Sims half the time).

Anyway, I thought I might have more to say, but I suppose that's it. I can't believe how late it is. And that I thought November ended on Monday. All this time. My goodness, all this time.

SO YEP IT'S DONE. And not embarrassingly bad, I don't think. I mean, the last line is possibly horrendously cheesy, but give me a break, this is my first last line ever (sorta), okay?

2010-11-22T19:22:00.002-05:00

I've been trying not to spill my guts in blog form, but I think it would help in this case, so why not go for it?

The thing is, I have been really down the past few days. And nothing bad has happened. Actually, quite the opposite. I saw Harry Potter on Saturday (words cannot describe; I need to see it again), I went to church Sunday morning, out to lunch afterward, and to girls' group on Sunday night.

That's more than I've done in one weekend for quite a while, and maybe that's part of it. I was in considerable pain on Saturday, but it got better by that night, and it's been pretty tame since then. I don't know. It might just be that I haven't gotten enough sleep - I knew that that could probably be detrimental, but at the same time, I knew I had a short week coming up and would have time to catch up on rest later.

That said, I was so tired this morning, and really, that just made me feel terrible. I was really grouchy. (I'm still really grouchy.) But more than anything, man, it's just the crying. I've just been crying randomly, it's happened several times in the past week, and I just hate it. This overwhelming emotion out of nowhere. It rarely has to do with, like, the pain and myself anymore. It's usually because of the shit world we live in and how I would seriously just die if other people could get the happiness they deserve.

Ugh, it's annoying feeling this way, to say the least.

Back in black.

2010-11-18T08:28:00.002-05:00

Okay. So, I haven't written since Sunday, when I barfed up all my pain.

So let's catch up, shall we?

1: NaNoWriMo

After trying and failing to catch up (regardless of how much I write, I always seem to have written less than what I need), I'm just writing as much as I can each day and hoping to get caught up over the next several days. Fortunately, my story is getting better instead of worse as I go along, which hardly happens. Usually, I lay down the foundation, which is typically the only thing I know about a story - and since with NaNoWriMo, you have to make up for what you don't know eventually, I reached the point where I continually didn't know what would happen next. That's worrisome only because I don't trust my imagination to come up with something interesting. Fortunately, it's not doing near as terribly as I expected, and I am PAST THE HALFWAY MARK, Y'ALL.

2: Deathly Hallows

I basically came to the conclusion that I did not know when I would be seeing the movie. I don't trust my pain to work out in my favor, so I was afraid to preorder tickets. Plus, Sarah never has time to do anything, so that left me buddy-less. Although Dorian and Ryan told me I could come with them whenever, and it was my plan to do so, I didn't know how to instigate that sort of thing. More or less, I figured Sarah and I could eventually see it, though probably not until a few weeks from now.

Then I came home last night to find a text from Micajah asking ME if I wanted to go with HER on SATURDAY!

And I was like "HEEEECK YESSSSS!"

Super excited for that, basically. Deathly Hallows is my favorite book so it will no doubt ultimately turn into my favorite (two?) movies. This is mostly a relief because I wasn't sure I could handle all the excitement of people who had already seen it filling up my Tumblr dashboard and making me feel like crapola.

3: THANKSGIVING!

There's not much to say about this. I didn't really have a three, so there you go. I really did not realize that it was next week, I guess because all I've been thinking about lately is Harry Potter and WriMo. I forgot what November is actually known for to most people.

4: OH YEAH I FORGOT.

I am learning TAI CHI, MOTHERFUCKERS.

So I didn't know it would be happening, either, until Tuesday. The thing is, I started physical therapy, but they never exactly informed me what I would be doing in physical therapy (which is, by the way, not good for someone who has anxiety, but whatever, I've learned to roll with the punches), just that they would figure something out and I'd been doing it with a guy named Steve. (What kind of rapping name is Steve? /reference)

So then when I got to physical therapy, he was like, "Oh, here, let me tell you about myself while you do a warm-up on this bike. My name's Steve and I am nationally certified in more things than your feeble mind could ever fathom, but first and foremost, I'ma be teaching you some ancient Chinese wisdom in the form of Tai Chi."

No, but seriously. It was really kind of fun because it's super slowmo and I, in general, am super slowmo, so I think it works for me. I have it again tonight, but the only bad thing is that I am super achy this morning (I don't know why? Probably practicing it all yesterday.) and I can only hope that it gets better by my appointment at three.

Last but not least, if you've stuck with me till the very end, here, I'd like to politely ask you to sign this petition and help the Harry Potter Alliance make all Harry Potter chocolate Fair Trade: dft.ba/-fairtrade.

LOL was totally gonna work on NaNo and ended up writing a blog, drinking hot chocolate, etc. Happy Thursday!

Can we talk? Let's talk.

2010-11-14T19:48:00.002-05:00

This weekend had such amazing potential. And darn it, Weekend, you gave it your best, you really did. I mean, coming off that extraordinary relief of finishing a speech and HARRY POTTER WEEKEND and time to catch up on WriMo and all of it. So. Much. Potential.

And then, my friend, nature arrives.

Here's my theory. Having lived with this constantly-evolving sonofabitch chronic pain disorder, I've made a few intelligent guesses as to why things are happening, i.e., it's neurological (the left side of my body is the only part affected nine times out of ten), changes in pressure make pain worse or different, etc. But yesterday nearly proved the latter, because after thinking that the pain would improve with the absence of speech-related stress, I was completely wracked with the most terrible pain I have had so far and it would not go away. I took Tylenol(/codeine) three times, I think? No help whatsoever. That's coupled with the pain medicine I take on a regular basis (prescription-strength naproxen and my anti-seizure shiz). Nothing helped. It just kept getting worse.

And I mean...I'm no stranger to pain, obviously. But to have it in such a large span of your body and not know where it's coming from and to hurt to move and literally be brought to tears because of it...that is not the kind of pain I have everyday. I've only had that once or twice before. It was terrible, absolutely terrible. Just...suffering.

And what accompanied it? The cloudiest, rainiest day we've had in months. I mean, it rained all day. I was messed up by seven yesterday night because it had been dark all day and so by nighttime it felt like it should be the early hours of the morning or something. And then, as time went on late at night, I started feeling better (particularly after Jeff brought me some Arby's...MIRACLE CURE?!) And then, by this morning, I was fine (or at least back to normal). I was amazed at how I could feel so terrible one day and then so normal (again, for me) the next. It was odd, but I was okay with it, because it finally gave me time to work on NaNo and such (20,000 words~). But the curious thing about today? ABSOLUTELY SUNNY AND PERFECT OUTSIDE.

Screw you, Mother Nature. Like, no lie. SCREW YOU. rawr.

/I'mnotanormalperson.

"I can do something truly disgusting with my tongue." -Dan Radcliffe legit said this on Ellen.

2010-11-12T19:59:00.003-05:00

So here I am. In pain, I tend to revert to blogging. I just sit here and I look around and I realize that nothing is going to make me happy right now. I don't feel like writing my NaNo novel (not quitting!), I don't feel like watching Chamber of Secrets, I don't feel like doing much, really. But I need to do something to distract myself from this pain because it's not going away.

(Fun fact: As I write all this, I'm saying it in my head in an English accent - more specifically, Daniel Radcliffe's. Been watching some interviews for the last couple of hours; I'm on this pre-Deathly Hallows-release high. It's quite exhilarating.)

I did a speech today, which I probably mentioned somewhere along the lines recently. It wasn't bad -- I messed up one part and totally lost my place, but I just kind of barreled along and pretended like it didn't happen. Then, at the end, she told me quite a few things: it was interesting, a good presentation, and I have a good speaking tone or something like that and I was like OMG THANK YOU BEST COMPLIMENT EVER. No, but really. That kind of made my day. I mean, speech-giving is not my forte or anything, but I damn sure put a lot into it, because I care about my grades and also about how I present myself in that type of situation.

Oh, and good Lord, I got a 2,000-per-year scholarship through USI. That's a nice chunk out of the tuition, so that's a nice thing. I mean I'm probably not getting that many other scholarships because I'm an epic fail, so this is definitely nice. That said, probably not retaking that ol' SAT. It's just too much. Because you never know with me, you know? This shit pain creeps up out of nowhere and what am I supposed to do?

Yeah. So.

I dunno, like, this week has been really rubbish (DAN RAD) but only because of the pain. If there was no pain in my life, it would overall be magnificent. I am just making so much improvement in other areas that I'm completely thrilled about. It's just hard, but, I don't know - I feel like everyone's life is hard, and the difficulty in my life is just oddly placed right now. If things were different, they might still be just as hard. I don't know, so I can't really wish for that.

I say I miss the way things were before, but honestly, right before all this happened, I was having a pretty shit time for other reasons. So...I don't know. It's a really strange thing to deal with, but I guess that's sort of obvious.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

You'll be next, Mudbloods.

Wednesday Morning Ramblings.

2010-11-10T09:23:00.003-05:00

I am bored this Wednesday morning so I thought it might be time for a classic, spur-of-the-moment UPDATE!

Now, NaNoWriMo has been kind of stalled for a couple days just because I have this speech to work on and it's literally KILLING MY BRAIN. (And soul.) Also I am having cramps and all those wonderful things, but that was completely unforeseen, so it's like God just wants to see how much he can pile on top of me for this week. Or Satan. Actually, yeah, it would be Satan who would do that. WELL GUESS WHAT SATAN. I AIN'T DEAD YET.

Okay. So I have this speech on Friday. I've been working on it quite diligently since Monday. (I like the word "diligent.") I love the Inuit, but they're driving me bonkers this week. On Monday, it was literally a relief to get back to working on NaNo. I just wanted to curl up with my characters and write. SPEECH IS SO HARD. *sobs*

But the bright side is that after this speech, there's only ONE MORE and then I am DONE with speeches. I love how it's not even the speech-giving that stresses me out anymore. It's all the extra SPEECH SHIT. The citations and the outlines - it's like doing a research paper and then presenting it, but OH YOU CAN ONLY USE NOTE CARDS TO PRESENT IT. BECAUSE WE HATE YOU.

I don't harbor any angry feelings toward the class. It's not even the teacher. Because I like the teacher. I don't like the things she does to us. (That sounds kind of terrible and wrong...) But I don't dislike her. I just want to be out of her class and never have to see her face again, but it's nothing personal. The good thing: COLLEGE CREDIT! YEAH! I love me some college credit.

So yesterday, during English, something hilarious happened. (Warning: it was not really that hilarious.) We were talking about our subjunctive mood papers that are coming up, and Julie still needs a topic. So after we trashed "If I Were An Oscar Meyer Weiner," I was like, "JULIE! You should do 'If I Were Black!'", which would be a good idea if it could not go racist and stereotypical very quickly. So then we laughed. And then, I am really not sure what prompted this, and I don't think anything in particular did -- I just said, "I wish I had a black friend." BECAUSE I REALIZED THAT I DON'T. "I mean, I have my dad, but he's not really my friend. I don't have any black friends."

So I am now accepting applications for the position of Black Friend.

This is obviously going nowhere, like most of my blogs do.

I guess it might be a little pertinent to say that today, as opposed to the past several days, I have been feeling Okay. That might just be due to the fact that I've been taking Naproxen + Midol every morning, but whatever. I would say that since last week, emotion-wise, I have been feeling Okay for the most part. It seems my physical problems are the most troubling as of late (who ever thought that would happen?! I mean really.) So that's that. Friends are good. Life is better.

OH. And I am officially going to be performing the Christmas Concert with the concert choir. XD Not show choir, because I just don't know how well that would work out. But, baby steps into next semester! I'm tired of letting pain keep me from stuff. And after all, things should be better once speech is over with. (Then I can miss as much school as I want. SCORE.)

Let's just stop here. Everyone have a pleasant Wednesday!

Where has all the plot gone?!

2010-11-07T14:42:00.003-05:00

I JUST HAD A CRAZY EPIPHANY.

Okay. Okay. Deep breaths.

I just watched this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRn1_aosF6E, Robyn Schneider's official video Pep Talk for NaNoWriMo, during which I discovered I have no plot.

This is not the epiphany. I have a magnetic field that generally repels plot. I am used to this.

But (but but but BUT) when I was trying to figure out what exactly it is that my main character wants, I realized something: most of the time, but not always, it's not my main character that wants something. That is, I tend to write about the person that's just sort of going along and living life, while there's another character in the equation that is actually the one that the story is kind of about, the HOLDER of the PLOT. This person always relates to the main character, of course, or there would be no point, but...yeah. I don't know what to make of this. I'm 12,000 words in.

I guess usually the stories I write involve some sort of mystery, but it's not exactly full-frontal and obvious the entire time. Of course, I'm only thinking about two in particular right now, so I don't know accurate that actually is.

So, anyway. As of right now, I don't want to get too bogged down in, like, what it should and shouldn't be. I know where it's going to go from here, so I'm just going to write. It's fun that way. Weee! Fun! Exciting! November! Yay!

Also I have another speech this week. About the Inuit. Ugh yay. My next speech isn't until sometime in DECEMBER, WHOA. Good thing. I need a breaky-break.

NaNoWriMo

2010-11-06T19:03:00.003-04:00

Oh heeeeey.

All right, so it's November. I genuinely thought I was prepared for all the goings-on of this month when it started, but I was genuinely wrong. After a full-fledged breakdown about midweek, I'm glad to say that I'm back in the saddle, whatever in God's name that means.

I finished senior interviews, skipped the SAT, and plan to start working on my speech tomorrow. I am most likely (which means maybe, possibly) seeing Deathly Hallows with Dorian and Ryan? Maybe? Or maybe with Sarah. Or maybe both. I will probably want to see it twice anyway, so why not.

So, that's on the agenda.

Oh yeah, and I'm supposed to be writing an EFFING NOVEL.

Luckily enough, I went bananas on Day 1 and wrote 4,000 words. That was good! But then I got kinda slacky, but also busy (and breakdowny). That resulted in several hundred here and there - but I'm good! My preference to be in the lead of all my writing buddies on nanowrimo.org was enough motivation to *stay* in the lead most days this week. Except not right now. Elizabeth (http://www.youtube.com/elizziebooks) has about 11,000. I have, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, 10,505. So that's not that far ahead, but still.

So I've been doing that this week. I have a hate-love relationship with my novel. It wasn't anything I had done a whole lot of writing about previously (which is rare with me), so it's sort of an idea in its infancy. And there isn't a whole lot to an infantile story. I'm only just now, 10,000 words in, adding some subplots and things like that. Because I kind of forget that one-dimensional stories are kind of boring as hell (*ahem*TWILIGHT). And let's face it, when left to my own pitiful devices, without being knocked in the head by reality, my stories are very, very boring.

I would love to talk much more about this but I have to do some actual NaNo. And eat.

My Insanely Complicated Bunch of Writings

2010-11-01T21:05:00.003-04:00

Okay. So there's this folder called "Thoughts" on my desktop. I don't know why it's called that; I think it was originally intended for something else. But whatever. It is basically "My Documents," but somehow all of My Documents did not end up in "My Documents." I just saved them in "Thoughts" instead. Which is okay, "Thoughts" is cooler anyway.

But the "Thoughts" folder is sort of a spin-off from my old laptop, and it has a couple of things that I originally had on there and transferred over. It has about 60 documents in it. All of these documents relate to probably about ten or so different ideas, some of which I have dwelt on since the fifth grade. (I don't know. I really don't know.)

Here are some keywords to represent the aforementioned ideas: blind, kidnapping, identity crisis, teen pregnancy, awkward romance (could be a keyword for several), relocation, island, general store, the past revisited, smoke, nerd, rebellion, hidden life, aaaaaand finally, summer.

That was more than ten. That was fourteen. (That's a lot. I didn't know there were that many. Oh gosh.)

Not all of them are currently in circulation, but I'd say all of them crop up every month or two. About half of them are in and out of my head on a daily, or every-other daily basis.

If you aren't familiar with this shindig, let me lay it all out for you:

1) I start novel.
2) I write between two and fifty pages of said novel.
3) I decide it is crap, but I can't give up on it.
4) I start over.
5) Rinse and repeat.

It's like this every time! It's happening now! But it's NaNoWriMo, so I can't. I can't just scrap and start over. Going back to zero is not an option when you're at 4,000-something. Just NO. Just say NO. To drugs and to QUITTING.

I like NaNoWriMo for this very reason. I feel very obligated to keep going. Because there is always some potential in the written word, and I am too comfortable with throwing what I have away instead of using it and attempting to make it work. That said, I only work like this during this time of year. I will go back to my ways after NaNo is over, more than likely. Last year I went through the same thing: I wanted to scrap it and start over because I found other things that didn't suck as much and I didn't want to suck as much, either - but NaNo is kind of supposed to suck. I am okay with sucking (FOR NOW). I keep telling myself it is okay even though there is this strangled voice inside of me declaring that it's not.

IT'S WHATEVER.

But anyway, I don't know. I wrote a massively long and thankfully-unpublished post last night about how much I absolutely ABHOR the way I write (not like the last one. This one was worse. More in-depth. TRUST ME, YOU'RE LUCKY.) but I stopped before finishing it when I realized that writing about how much I suck at writing was not improving the situation. I really wanted to start on NaNo last night, but I couldn't stay awake until midnight (and attend school today), so I just went to bed.

I can't put into words how crippling this inferiority complex (about nothing other than my writing) is. It's been developing for years, I can tell now, and it's just getting worse - and the fact that it's just getting worse just makes the situation snowball. Like it is somehow my fault, and ultimately it is because they're my emotions. I wish I knew when it started, but I just know that it was really bad last year, and not so awesome the summer before, either.

But we will save a trip into my past for another day.

I just wish I knew why this has happened and how to fix it.

Oh, sigh, life is so difficult for Alexis.

It's honesty time.

2010-10-28T21:21:00.003-04:00

I kind of hate the way I write.

Before getting all heavy into this, I'll start with this fact: I write differently depending on what's going on.

FOR EXAMPLE:

In the folder where I keep all of my stories and whatnot, there's a pretty good variety. You know, that's...freedom. I have always been able to type faster than I can write, so I choose typing almost always because it's easier to keep up with my thoughts. (Also, hand cramps. 'Nuff said.) It's been like that since, I don't know, sixth grade. Writing for me started because I wanted to be like (fill in the blank). Judy Blume, then Sarah Dessen. You know, I always had an aim. I still do, it's just a little more complex now: I try to write with an aim without smothering my voice in the process, which is hard.

BUT THEN:

There's school. School always throws a wrench into the plain. School and I have had our difficulties, especially in English. I'm supposed to love English, right? And I do. The problem is, I always had high expectations in English - for the class, and for myself. One or the other always fell short, and so it is rarely a good experience. Year after year. (Except with Mrs. Miller, because she is one of my other moms. One of my favorite other moms.)

This year, I realized something. Regardless of what I'm writing for school, it's always sort of...controlled. I always held back, and it's gotten worse, don't ask me why. It's because I'm afraid, and that doesn't make sense, because in general my anxiety about everything has gone down. I'm afraid to not fit in this mold, which is almost the exact opposite of why I write in general: I want it to be recognizable and different. But in school, as always, I feel like there are wrong and right answers, and I'm terrified of being wrong. And I know how to be right. So what if that's not really me? It's a good paper rather than a bad one. - I don't know. It's very hard to explain. I told my counselor once and she gave me weird looks, which happens...probably as much as you'd imagine.

I guess, since I have anxiety about people reading my writing, when I know someone is going to be reading it, I streamline it. I cut myself out of it, cut myself away from it. It depends on the exact assignment of course, because I wrote something that I absolutely loved, though it was more about the content than the writing. (SERIAL KILLERS FTW.)

BUT:

Even in my personal writing, there's some restraint. There's restraint in my writing as there is restraint in my life. Though I know that the things that I love to read the most are the things that are surprising and exciting, but everything I write is like...IT'S SO NOT. IT'S SO NOT, YOU GUYS. You wanna know something sad? When I was being forced to read Twilight, I was reading it, and in telling Sarah how bad it was, I was like, "This stuff is like what I would write. BUT IT GOT PUBLISHED." And that's not - that's not a good thing! It's not a good thing that I have anything in common with Stephanie Meyer! I mean, I know there are always things that can be fixed, and I'm constantly working to improve the way I write, the way I approach writing, the way I think about it, because it's the only thing I've ever felt significantly talented at. I feel like it's my duty, sort of, to myself. To get better at it, and to do it.

I guess it's more of an emotional struggle than a technical struggle (as is everything with me). NaNoWriMo is coming up and that's exactly what has me thinking of this. I know (of) (in IRL and URL) so many talented writers. It's not even humbling. It's soul-crushing. But I mean that in a sort-of-good way; these people inspire me to be better (once I realize what total shit I am). I don't know. I so often feel my writing isn't good enough, or wish I got the praise that other people got...but what has anyone read?

That fuckin' inauguration poem, that's what. Must we accept that nothing strikes inspiration in me than a sexy black president?

I hope not, or I'm shit out of luck. I don't know. My speech is good. I feel more free in there, maybe because this teacher doesn't know me at all. A fresh start is always nice. I feel like I screw up impressions on teachers, especially since I can go from a good to ridiculously bad student in 0 to 60.

Sometimes I think I expect too much of myself, but then John Green wrote Looking for Alaska when he was, what, 23? I will not be writing my own Looking for Alaska when I am 23. Let's face it.

I guess that's all I've got. Since we left off on Looking for Alaska, I'll leave you with this:

(source - tumblr entirely dedicated to that line in Looking for Alaska. God, Valerie is awesome.)

Yeah. So.

2010-10-28T17:58:00.005-04:00

ALL RIGHT, HERE'S THE DEAL:

Tonight is NHS Initiation. I'm only a year late. But I felt better knowing that two additional seniors also did not turn in their applications last year, but mostly due to laziness. I would like to make it clear that I was not lazy. I realized that it was an actual APPLICATION (and not just a letter saying "Hey! You're smart, so you're in!") the very day that it was due, so I had a mini-freakout/breakdown.

I'm very excited for it! It feels like a big ol' shindig, and I get to say an oath and everything (with twenty other initiates, but still), and there will be CAKE afterwards. This is why I believe in God: He brought me cake when I truly needed it.

My speech is tomorrow, and I am possibly the least stressed-out as I have been since the very first, oh-so-easy speech. Why is this? Because I PREPARED, FOOLS. My friends, all of which are also giving their speeches tomorrow, informed me today that they haven't even STARTED their speeches. This is a six-to-eight minute speech, guys! It took me a day and a half to get written!

Oh well, to each his own. I'm quite pleased with the way I handled all of this, though. My perfectionism is starting to override my procrastionism, and this is something that should've happened a long time ago, much like the NHS Initiation.

Oh shit! Oh shit! I just realized something crazy. OH SHIT.

So this is going to sound probably ridiculously self-centered and like - I don't know - too thoughtful for my own good, but I have been thinking so much more about SO MANY THINGS lately, and I feel so...guh, I'm not sure how to say it, and not knowing how to say things bothers me. Immensely. Yeah. But, I don't know. It all started with effin' Shawna (Nanalew, again) and her effin' awesome Bible Study two weeks ago. GOT ME THINKING. I guess if we want to be real, it started when all this effing chronic pain began, and as it progressed. It's a bit redundant to say it changed my life, but what's significant is that it changed it in such a radical yet positive way. I'm just...in awe of how much I have changed as a person and how much insight it has given me. How much I've grown, I suppose. And the Bible Study, the reintroduction to faith, all comes into play in the way that I have recognized these things. It is so hard during a terrible event to know what positive can come out of it. But after the fact, it's absolutely awesome.

I often go back and wonder how things would have been different if A, B, or C hadn't happened - or if D, E, and F had happened - but that's really a waste of time. Instead, it's made me look at what has happened. Look at the person I am now because of this, and think of who I might not have been.

So. Yeah. I think about myself too much, and I know that.

In other news, ZOMGNANOWRIMO is happening, SOON. It was mentioned today during lunch and I was literally, like, *groan.* (That had a lot to do with the fact that I had a massive headache as well as a general-body-ache, and being reminded that my task next month is to write a 50,000-word novel was not necessarily a pleasant thought.) But, yeah...it starts on Monday, right? Yeah. So. That'll be fun. I will be going into something that I literally conjured out of the air strictly for NaNoWriMo purposes as opposed to one of the preconceived ideas that I have been carrying around for years and have yet to force into an adequate novel form.

November is full of things! Senior interviews, the SAT (oh gosh I will fail. Oh gosh.), DEATHLY EFFIN' HALLOWS MOTHERFUCKER, and Thanksgiving, which I have been looking forward to as my Day of No Dieting, except that isn't really significant anymore since I'm not counting points today, nor will I again until after this weekend, probably.

So I am excited and somewhat frightful but mostly excited about upcoming events, and more importantly the attitude I have toward them. I've learned that difficulties aren't always negative; they're just as much an opportunity to grow as they are an opportunity to sink.

Shawna Is My Herooooo

2010-10-26T21:11:00.002-04:00

I just found out via following (stalking) Shawna - youtube.com/nanalew - 's formspring that not only did she have to drop out of high school, she had to because she was suffering from depression as a result of suffering from chronic pain.

This doesn't *literally* mean anything, but in my weird way of thinking about life and everything in it, it means the world.

Fact is, I don't know anybody my age who has had to deal with anything like what I'm going through. And like, just knowing, even without the knowledge of exactly how severe it was or whether it was comparable to mine in any way, that it was indeed something she dealt with and she is just fine.

I was curious, so I asked her about it on formspring:

The chronic pain you mentioned, do you still have it or has it gotten better since then? I'm 17 & I've just developed some in the past year.
I still have it, but it's been better. It's the worst when you're in your teens. Just keep pressing on.

That may seem like nothing, but it's actually this awesome sliver of hope. And, like, I realize that there is life beyond the right now - but it's very hard to see it. It's hard to know anything for certain until it's right in front of you. But seeing that someone else is okay is kind of second-best. I don't know. It just makes me happy.

I feel like I have a found a really good Internet role model, if that makes sense? Someone who I can relate to more than I thought at first and someone who can inspire me (and already has) to become a better person.

YEP YEP THAT'S ALL. (I have slept about two hours in the past 48, though not by choice.) YEP. Also, I sent a boot through the washing machine on accident. The moral of that story is that I need to keep my laundry in baskets and not all over my floor.

Speech speech speech. Bleep bleep bleep.

2010-10-25T21:15:00.003-04:00

Oh, hey.

So today I got the disturbing news that I have to give my speech on Friday, which I guess is good because then I won't be speech-frantic during the first week of NaNoWriMo, but I was kind of planning for next week, at least Monday, which makes a big difference in my planning. I did already get started on it, but then, I got started for a speech that I thought would be on MONDAY. Now that it is on FRIDAY, the jump-start was kind of pointless.

I only thought it would be on Monday because the other girls volunteered to go on Friday, when we're going down to VU. I didn't realize she would just be fitting as many of us in as possible on Friday (which means all of us will be giving our speeches Friday, besides Sarah.)

So I had my little freakout. I had my moment of debilitating, how-am-I-gonna-do-this tantrum, and then I put my game face on. Went to the library and got my Encyclopedia on. Vented with Sarah about it all. Then, I came home and worked for an hour straight until I had to go to counseling.

Sometimes, I think it's really the lackadaisical attitude toward an upcoming project that ends up pushing me so far behind. And it only happens when I don't have a due date set, or when I don't mentally form an adequate timeline. I think realizing what needs to be done and when, and already having an idea of what can be accomplished in that amount of time, really helps me manage my time a bit more wisely.

I have NHS Initiation on Thursday night, which was the big difficulty in my mind. But I have all afternoon and night both tomorrow and Wednesday to wrap everything up. I hope to have everything done and begin practicing by Wednesday night so I can make all those changes I make in the midst of rehearsing, then have all afternoon Thursday to just practice. I will probably have a little bit more anxiety about this speech because I'll be giving it in a different setting, in a classroom on campus, so I'm anticipating that. I'm trying to anticipate everything today so I don't run into too many roadblocks the rest of week.

Luckily this speech is more interesting than the last. The Inuit are fascinating! Julie of the Wolves, man! My childhood! AMAROQ! I might just want to bring Julie of the Wolves in to school this week to read during my spare time. JUST BECAUSE.

Purging, Vlogging, Tumblring.

2010-10-23T21:38:00.004-04:00

So I am up only because I wanted to sort through a specific junk-filled area in my room tonight, since I am now under the impression that my room needs to be totally de-junk-ified at some point in the near future. You see, I have a very small room, so space is precious. Right now, a LOT of space is being filled by miscellaneous and unnecessary items. I am also recently obsessed with design and I feel like if my room was more aesthetically appealing, I would be a little bit more of a happier person. Just a theory.

So while I was cleaning my room, I found a hat. And at first I thought, "Hey, it's that hat. That hat that is the only hat I actually own, yet rarely wear." And secondly, I thought, "THIS IS A MIKE LOMBARDO HAT!"

If you don't know what I'm talking about, observe:

Google searching Mike Lombardo in images will rarely provide you a glimpse of him without a hat like this. Mine is somewhat similar, therefore I have dubbed it so.

Somehow, not too long after this, I got to the conclusion that I should turn my webcam on and talk about something. In my first shot, it stopped recording at some point and I didn't notice. But then after playing it back, I realized there was a lot of junk in the background that I don't want in the video. So I gave it another shot...and ended up talking about something entirely different. I will edit it at some point, and then I will upload it to the Tube of You.

I can't tell you how long I've wanted to vlog. I thought it would be interesting WAY back in the day, but WAY back in the day, my self-esteem was too cripplingly low to do much of anything. And then, when I actually realized that a LOT of people do this, it didn't quite pique my interest anymore.* But I've been thinking: hey, I've got a webcam. Hey, I don't really care about getting any views or anything. HEY, I just kind of think it would be a fun thing to do.

And so for the past couple of days, I have been talking to no one in particular (I feel this is a better form of saying "talking to myself") as if I were video blogging about something. And then on Thursday night or whatever, I turned on the webcam, since I had something to talk about at that very moment, and the result wasn't too bad.

Not to mention, I quickly discovered that I REALLY enjoy editing, I think merely for the reason that it is a challenge. To cut down something that's six minutes into a little less than four - it's not hard, per se, it's just a challenge. And it's fun. And after uploading it and everything, I don't know, maybe it just seemed a little silly - but after taking a shot at it again tonight, I think maybe the content was a little better + more interesting. I'm excited to start the whole editing thing.

Lastly, I am a HUGE FAN of Tumblr now. It is the best place to share epic things I've Stumbled and to do those 30-day challenges (which will be more like 60 or so days due to the upcoming chaos of NaNoWriMo), two of which I decided to start yesterday.

So again, tumblr link: thehardcahhwolf.tumblr.com
And YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/AmaroqxTheWolf

And BYEEEE.

I definitely did not film a vlog last night.

2010-10-22T09:36:00.002-04:00

I had a little too much fun editing, I think. I did not know that the process of editing could be so much fun. It was a little addictive.

It's about failing at Supernote, introducing myself, and some miscellaneous stuff.

Because I am, after all, a miscellaneous African American.

Also, you get to meet my cat, Furry, at the end.

I made a Tumblr. Oh, and God. (Didn't make him, but he's in the blog.)

2010-10-21T20:59:00.006-04:00

This will always be my primary blog. But I made a tumblr because I sort of love a lot of tumblrs and it would be much easier to follow effyeahnerdfighters (and stalk all of my favorite YouTubers). It is located here: http://thehardcahhwolf.tumblr.com/. Right now I am just doing a 30 Day Nerdfighter Challenge. I don't know what I will post there any different from here, but we'll see! I'm relatively new to The Tumblr.

I suppose I will talk about last night. If you read this blog, you know that I have gone through an exceptionally difficult time this past year. You may or may not know, since I don't think it's something I've really touched on, that I've stopped going to church. My whole family has. I was okay with that in the beginning. I was VERY okay with it after a while, because I did not want to get up on Sundays, especially when I was struggling so much with school and was constantly tired. Then, I was downright happy. I had a little bit of contempt for my church and my church family, which I wrote a little bit about previously, just because for a while, I felt like nobody cared, at all. I'm over it now; no one did anything wrong, I just got my feelings hurt by the lack of action, really.

But lately, things have gotten better. School is good, or at least more tolerable than it was this time last year, and fortunately it doesn't seem to be getting any worse, like it did last year. I am getting better physically. I feel better emotionally. I'm experiencing the world vicariously through my many favorite YouTubers and I'm okay with settling with that until college. And in this newness, this betterness, I will admit it: I miss church.

About two days ago, I was ready to let it go. Fuck Christianity, fuck the doctrine, fuck that belief system. I am always struggling with what to believe. But here is what I know for a fact. I feel lost when I am without God. I feel at peace when I'm with him. I was thinking about that earlier yesterday.

Then, that evening, Shawna (Nanalew) and Jake (Cohenism) tweeted that they were going to be having a Bible study via Ustream.

"Well," I thought. "I like both of them, and the Bible is all right, too! *click*"

About an hour later, I felt like a Christian again. I had never been to any sort of Bible study before. This is all that went down: they read some pre-picked Bible verses. Shawna, Jake, or Elizabeth discussed them. The chat was sort of a discussion of its own. After about four or five verses, they went to the chat for questions/comments. I didn't participate much, because I was sort of just there to see what was going on.

The entire thing was so very enlightening, so very moving. I was scrolling through Shawna's formspring afterwards because I wanted to find her opinions on gay marriage (she said she had answered it before and it was somewhere in the past questions), and while doing so, I read an answer to a question that I think asked her when or why she developed the relationship that she has with God now. And she said something close to that she couldn't do anything else, she didn't have anywhere else to turn, and that if she had never given her life to God, she probably would have ended up committing suicide.

I can't tell you exactly what that made me feel - I just know that it moved me. I just know that everything she said during the Bible study moved me. I just know that it resulted in me praying that night and praying this morning.

It made me believe again. It made me feel okay about saying that I believe. I am not going to lie, it is REALLY HARD being a Christian in the society we live in. First of all, there's a perception of Christians as being right-wing nutjobs because most right-wing nutjobs are Christians. Second of all, just maintaining pride in your belief when there's so many people out their who belittle them, argue against them, and claim there's no validity to them. Part of the reason I didn't want to deal with being a Christian is because I didn't want to deal with all that, mostly because I don't know enough about the theology to back anything up (yet!).

Well, I got some answers last night. And some hope. And it was really refreshing to see some people who I already admired when I was unaware that they are Christians able to open up a forum online in which we could participate. It was funny, in the chat, before the actual study started, Jake wrote, "We want it to feel like a living room." Because they were talking about it being a comfortable environment to discuss these things. AND IT DID. It felt like I was just hanging out with some people and learning some stuff about the Bible. It was awesome. It was really, freaking awesome.

So I emailed Shawna about it, because that's what I do now: I email awesome people and inform them of their awesomeness. Because I just didn't think she got enough love on her formspring. Plus, my full message was too long for formspring. And even if I sent it anonymously, that would just be a weird thing to put on someone's formspring. SO EMAIL IT IS.

Oh, and Shawna writes poetry: http://takethatforyellow.blogspot.com/ You should check it outz.

All that said, I've been having a good day. I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but I'm totes doing NaNoWriMo! It will be fun. You guys will get to watch me die.

Life is going to be good. I can feel it.

Consistent Loneliness

2010-10-19T23:19:00.003-04:00

So this could either come out sounding whiny and pathetic or - well, I'm not really sure what else it could sound like. I'm not sure if anything positive will come out of this, but I guess we'll find out at the end, won't we?

Now, here's the thing. I've never been a tremendously social person. As high school rolled on, I got better at it. I realized that the only way to remedy the loneliness and lack of friends that I felt plagued by was to sort of insert myself into these social groups. And I managed. I was doing really well in general...up until last year.

It would be a lie if I said it all went downhill when "this" happened. In reality, I was in a lot of trouble before "this" ever started. I don't know if any of us remember the tribulations of the first semester of my junior year, but it was hell. It was like a bad junior high flashback. It seemed like all the self-confidence I had built up over the years just crumbled away, day by day - and THEN "this" happened. And if the jar of loneliness had been filling up all that time, "this" put the lid on it.

In a lot of ways, the problems that have surfaced because of this chronic pain have been, if not remedied, at least smoothed over for the time being. I feel better, in other words, than I have been. This, however, is the one nagging thing that you can't really just piece back together, or smooth over. I suppose it's like normal in the sense that I never was that close to anyone this time last year, either, but last year was a dark time and I honestly feel that if things hadn't happened the way they had, I would be on my way to making up for it this year. I would be doing things like I've always wanted to, but have been so held back by because of various circumstances.

And then...it seems like there's always an "if" or a "was," and nothing's ever real. I mean... I just miss feeling like someone gives a shit enough to talk to me outside of the place at which we are, you know, forced to interact with each other simply due to close proximity.

It's not like I don't feel like I have friends, because I do. I have several. I have a lot, really, but then I think because I have always been so friendly with mostly everyone, they are all sort of bunched together. I don't want this to sound selfish or whiny, but I've never had the type of friend I wanted. And I don't mean as far as interests or personality or whatever goes - I just mean someone who purely wants to talk to you or spend time with you. Maybe it's because I associate with people who are primarily introverted, or because the ones who aren't are busy being with people who are actually fun to hang out with. Those are the things I have wanted to do. Those are the things I am now in an emotionally stable-enough place to do. But those are the things I can't really do, not only because I feel so distanced from most of my friends who weren't there during this catastrophe of the past six months, but also because I am in pain ALMOST ALL THE TIME.

I don't want to sound bitter or complain. Because I am so thankful to feel at least somewhat decent most of the time. I remember the terrible days during summer where I was on the brink of suicide because nothing seemed worth it anymore, and I'm glad that those days are gone. But now I seem to be stuck in the middle of being isolated from life and being back to normal. And I don't know what to do with myself here.

I can't expect anyone who isn't in my family, who hasn't been on this ride with me, to conform to the strange shape my life has now taken, and I don't - but I would be lying if I said I didn't wish someone was here. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish I had someone to talk to - not about anything important, just stupid shit, whatever - online, or to text me, whatever. Maybe it's just made worse by the fact that I live in such a small town and even acquaintances are limited.

I always have hopes that, in trying to sort these problems out via blog post, I can somehow rectify the problem, but it rarely seems to work that way. Especially knowing that it's our senior year, now is nary the time to start cultivating friendships around here. Similarly, I suppose that a year from now, I'll be able to do just that in a brand-new place, have brand-new experiences, and hopefully things will get better.

I have months until then, though. It's not like it's torture or anything. It will go by fast and then high school will be over and whatever. But I guess I'm just now realizing that that's what I always wanted; it's what my social anxiety was all about in junior high: the fear that people wouldn't like me. I got over that, thankfully, but here we are today and I just truly feel like no one likes me, which is just as unpleasant.

I don't want to end on a complete downer, so I will randomly share with you my current favorite video in existence: Jason Munday performing "California Dorks" on the Triple Awesome Rainbow Tour, accompanied on stage with Kristina Horner (girl in sequined hat), Mike Lombardo (skinny dark-haired guy with blue T-shirt), and Alex Carpenter (who is playing guitar and is maybe only in the video for a couple seconds). It is in my head and has been all day.

Also, my at-reply to MC Lars was retweeted by him today. So that is a good thing also.

Over and out.

2010-10-18T22:46:00.003-04:00

It's sort of my bedtime (and, yeah, I kind of have one), but I'm not at all tired (mocha frappe a few hours ago), and I just got home from my last spell bowl competition...ever? I don't want to say ever. But it's true.

It's not even bittersweet, like realizing that I'd never get to participate in festival again. It's just...surreal. I weirdly never thought about spell bowl ending, I suppose because it's such a massive part of my high school existence - what I look forward to each and every year for some ungodly reason. I don't really think I'd be going out on a limb to say I enjoy it more than anyone. It might not be true, but it feels that way.

While nearly everyone else on our team didn't have any parents come at all, my mom, dad, step dad, and grandma all came. ...All of them. I just kept glancing back at them every now and then, because it didn't feel real. It felt sort of awkward to have all of them there, because despite having such a profound interest in it, spell bowl competitions are really not that interesting unless you are involved in the proceedings.

The strangest thing was that I only got seven right, and while that's disappointing for me, and I definitely was disappointed, that wasn't the highlight of the evening for me. Even though the night paled in comparison to previous competitions as far as excitement and craziness goes, its anticlimax was strangely comforting. It wasn't really a big hurrah. The bus ride home was oddly quiet. I sat by myself, unlike the trip there. There wasn't anything overwhelmingly memorable about the night (except our T-shirts, which are amazing, and which I will keep forever), and I'm fighting with that internally - it was just underwhelming, but it wasn't disappointing. We did fine in the competition. There wasn't anything terrible or amazing about the night, it was just like any other night, and maybe that makes the end, the drifting away, a little bit easier.

I started it back in 2003 when I was in fifth grade. It's like, the one and only thing I have *always* done. No questions whatsoever. And this group of friends has stuck with it the entire time, and that's just wonderful. I talked so much with Kristen - in two spell bowl competitions, just whispering throughout, I've grown to like her so much. (Not that I disliked her before, of course.) And I guess it's that, not the event or the inside jokes - the realization that these friendships, even the best of them, will wither away, because things are going to change. That makes me more nervous than excited right now - but I know that will change, too. It will all change, for the better, eventually.

That is my hope, anyway.

Tell Me Your Favorite Quotations!

2010-10-17T21:34:00.004-04:00

So I am a big fan of collecting quotations. (I call them "quotes" a lot, which I have realized is incorrect. But I do it sometimes anyway.) But I am REALLY BAD at actually putting all of my favorite ones (because there are a lot) in one place. So I am starting a Word document to keep a list, not only for those well-known, famous quotations, but for things I love and feel the need to quote - mostly things from TV shows or videos that aren't really documented anywhere.

So I have my favorite quotations - I have a tab up there with a very small amount of them - but I love looking for more! If you have any particularly favorite quotations, leave a comment with (some) or all of them. I would appreciate it! SHARING IS FUN.

For random quotes (refresh for more): http://quotationspage.com/random.php3

HAPPY QUOTING!

ALL RIGHT?!: Alexis has a moment.

2010-10-15T21:40:00.003-04:00

Okay. Alright is one of those obnoxious words that has slithered into the mainstream and has gone from being WRONG to being OKAY, because people are far too lax about things such as RIGHTNESS. It's not like we ease up on laws over time! (Well, okay, we do, in some cases.) English should be no different! So here is my CASE:

"All right" vs. "Alright"

Now, obviously, the winner is "all right" because it is the ORIGINAL WORD. "Alright" is the WRONG version. It probably started out as a misspelling, but now it is considered a "variant" spelling. This is just like how "payed" is a variant spelling of "paid." It does not suddenly become spelled differently. People get tired of other people spelling it wrong, so they GIVE UP.

Well, I don't give up. Not on WORDS.

So, if you're okay with it, then you are "all right" with it. You are not "alright." I would go as far as to say that if you are "alright" with it, you are ALL WRONG. That's right. I went there.

I don't know why this is such a pet peeve of mine - probably because I see it all over the internet, but a lot in, like, blogs and news stories, things of that nature - dictionary.com lists "alright" as a word, but concerning its usage, states "The form alright as a one-word spelling of the phrase all right in all of its senses probably arose by analogy with such words as already and altogether. Although alright is a common spelling in written dialogue and in other types of informal writing, all right is used in more formal, edited writing."

So there. I have made my case. Do what you will with it. Improper word usage and grammar makes me scowl. Like this: >:-( I'll get over it, I just had a moment.

Speech Topic and ACCIO DEATHLY HALLOWS, PLZ.

2010-10-12T18:31:00.003-04:00

I will write a post about last night's spell bowl competition later, for those who are interested. But we did well.

On my mind right now is my next speech, though it's still a few weeks away: which is a cultural presentation. Choosing an idea for this is already easier than my previous speech, because there are so many topics to choose. My mom already suggested the deaf culture, which would be easy for me to do. I would like to do something that I am interested in, however.

So Sunday night on Nightly News on NBC, they did a story about this tribe that is located (partially) in Timbuktu, called the Tuareg. In that story alone I found a variety of interesting things about them. According to a website I visited today, they founded the city of Timbuktu and have been around for centuries. They're nomadic, and the one interesting thing about them is that the women in the tribe are considered the head of household. They have more rights than men; men wear veils, but women don't. As far as this reasoning behind this - well, that's why I want to research them. I don't know yet.

Anyway, just something on my mind.

Totally unrelated piece of Harry Potter-related info for you: I really wanted to get this shirt yesterday before the competition, but I had INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

It all ends here...burning Hogwarts... Oh gosh.

Jealousy, writing, and I don't know what else.

2010-10-07T15:43:00.002-04:00

So this thing happened today. I would tell the entire story, but recounting it directly will give me more emotions than I need at the moment. In short, a girl whom I like and am friendly with wrote an insane and probably very good (I only read the first page; twas quite long) short story for her FRESHMAN English class. This is good. I like writers.

But I could not help but feel this burning ball of jealousy in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that's an awkward combination of wanting to be her and wanting to kill her. It was, as previously stated, quite conflicting.

I vented a little bit with Sarah, but she wasn't totally with me. I understand that. She has a LOT more going on than I could ever imagine, and her being snappy with me (though she hasn't at all lately, she's actually opened up quite a bit more) is totally reasonable with what she's dealing with at home. (Not abuse or anything - I would call it, actually, a sort of white collar abuse. Parents trying to control her future and her freedom, etc.)

Anyway, I brooded a bit, but alongside the jealousy was this intense need to BE BETTER. The intense need to BE BETTER is almost always there somewhere in me; sometimes it's just covered up with want of chocolate or anxiety about upcoming speeches. Mostly, it has to do with academic things. Then, comes writing. There are other needs to BE BETTER - look better, act better, be a better friend. They come and go. But when jealousy hits, it hits hardest in the writing spot, because as you may know, it's always been a big part of my life.

It's really hard for me to compare my writing to hers just because I, as I have realized today while thinking compulsively about it, write for different reasons and about different things than most people. My ideas rarely start out with situations, i.e., "boy finds out he's a wizard." My ideas start out with characters, and life simply erupts around them. I guess, actually, when I write, I don't know if it's a story or not unless there's an end - and I don't really get to ends. I write to experience life in another form; I like conversations and inner monologues, backstory and revelations. Maybe other people are like this too - I'm not sure. I'm not sure why other people write or what causes their ideas to spark and how they are transported from mind to paper. If you write, leave a comment; I'd love to know.

But basically, I decided not to worry. I suppose my insecurities come from the fact that I have never gotten any real praise for my writing, other than one poem - and poetry isn't really my thing. Of course, that's because I haven't ever finished anything for real, and I don't like people to read what I write, not because it's deeply personal, but because I'm insecure about it.

Maybe - and now that Jeff has hooked up the printer to the laptop, this is possible - I should print out something and show it to someone and just ask for their honest opinion. I plan on taking Creative Writing next semester, and that's with Lively, so I need to kick it into gear.

If you read this, thanks. I hope I didn't ramble too much, but I've got speeches on the brain as well. In fact, I need to go practice some more.

<3 DFTBA

Reminiscing.

2010-10-05T19:26:00.005-04:00

Today is the Southwestern Indiana Choral Songfest - or something like that. It's simply known around here, at least to choir folk, as Festival. It happens every fall, at a different school each year, incorporating about ten to fifteen school choirs total, and I have gone every year since I was in seventh grade. It was terrifying back then, because I was an extremely insecure and self-conscious thirteen-year-old surrounded by much more experienced (and I felt, more talented) singers (since the festival is typically for high school concert choir only).

It's an experience wrapped in exhaustion and chaos. There is really little "fun" to it, when you look at it realistically, but I suppose the end result is typically worth the never-ending hours of rehearsal that last, literally, for an entire school day. Even during the years I didn't particularly like the songs we sang, the knowledge that all (roughly 500; this year, 600) of us were able to pull it together and give a performance that, regardless of how well it sounded, was worthy of pride merely due to the amount of work we all put into it.

This year was the first year I didn't participate, since I'm no longer in choir. I was glad firstly to not have to suffer standing and sitting on bleacher seats, stuck in a gym for the duration of a school day, resigned to interact with the limited group of my fellow choir students.

Then, as time went on, as the festival approached (it was obvious as it grew nearer; it was held at our school this year; our concert choir would be singing an individual number and our show choir would open the concert with the Star-Spangled Banner), I started to grow slowly jealous of all my friends who would be participating and additionally slightly annoyed at their constant complaining of having to endure it. Sure, it's not the most fun you could have in one day, but it's an experience that you get to have: whether good or bad, it's another notch in your belt. I felt strangely empty as I imagined them all crowded in the gym, hundreds of students getting to sing while I was left to work on a goddamn speech. This, possibly the first year that I felt choir contained more people that I like rather than dislike, was the year that I had to miss out.

I wanted to see the concert tonight, but I didn't want the emotion billowing along with it. I wanted to see my choir friends, and maybe some other people from different schools, but I didn't know if I could manage watching it and being reminded that I did not get to participate in it. And that this would be my last opportunity.

But now, sitting here nearly an hour after the concert started, I feel terrible for missing it. It's sort of like, when there's a death? And you missed the last time you could've seen someone. Or you don't remember the last thing you said to them. Really, last year's festival doesn't stick out enough in my mind for me to remember it fully and clearly - they all sort of run together. Strangely, the memory of my very first one was the clearest. That very-first-time, new-experience kind of fright. I remember getting my picture taken and looking terrible because I hadn't quite discovered make-up or haircare at that age - but feeling so nervously excited and resolving to the fear. In the end, it's a wonderful experience.

A single song sticks out the most to me - we sang it last year, and it was so beautiful and powerful that we replaced "Battle Hymn of the Republic" with it as our closing number. As a matter of fact, there is a (semi-poor) quality video of the performance. The song is called "The Awakening." I bet I shared it last year, too. I cried at the end.

It's a bittersweet end, but maybe less so than it would have been if I had been able to attend and participate this year's - there's no parting or good-bye. There's no drawing out the final moments, singing and knowing it's your last time. It's just like it disappeared out of my life, like so many other things and people did - I'm okay with that, more okay than I thought I'd be. It's a new chapter of my life, sort of a transitional phase, and I have to accept that.

Things.

2010-10-04T20:19:00.002-04:00

I am in the midst of emotional tumult right now, so you will either hear a lot or very little from me in the upcoming days.

Nefarious Fauxpod is a podcast featuring Adam (youtube.com/youraverageadam), Zach (youtube.com/thatzak), Jake (youtube.com/cohenism), and Shawna (youtube.com/nanalew) and general hilarity. It is here: nefariousfauxpod.podbean.com and it is one of my new favorite things.

The third season of Real Housewives of Atlanta begins tonight. This will either greatly improve or greatly distress my current mental health state.

I am writing, thank God, I am writing.

I have a speech on Friday. It is a demonstration speech on how to prepare a first aid kit. I predict multiple breakdowns before this occurs. But oh, I am happy that I am taking this speech class right now and not next year, miles away from my mother.

That wasn't that many Things, but that's all I have.

Jo Rowling and Writing.

2010-10-02T22:45:00.003-04:00

I guess this is a good place as any to write about this!

Today, since I was there was nothing else on TV this afternoon + I was not up to working on my speech (groan), I decided to start watching our taped shows from this week, COMPLETELY FORGETTING that one of them was Oprah's JK Rowling interview!

As you may or may not know, I'm relatively new to the Harry Potter thing. Not being "around" for any of the book or movie releases, I am sort of a newbie. That said, I probably know very little about Jo Rowling compared to most, which was part of why I wanted to watch this interview. Just to check things out.

I LEARNED SO MANY THINGS. Some of them include the following:

1) She was the first self-made billionaire author.
2) She was clinically depressed at one point.
3) The idea of Harry Potter came to her on a train - well, I knew that part - BUT when it all came to her, SHE HAD NO PEN. That's the worst.
4) She wrote Sorcerer's Stone LONGHAND. WHAT. WHAT.
5) She is SO FREAKING down-to-earth and gorgeous. Honestly.

The whole interview sort of made me more of a Jo Rowling fangirl than a Harry Potter fangirl, and I'm really quite okay with that.

Besides getting to Learn New Things, I also got some insight into the persona of a writer, which always fascinates me. If someone writes or considers themselves a writer, I automatically want to know more about them: when they write, where they write, how they write, everything they think or know about writing. This has always been the case. Any book that I have read that has deeply resonated with me receives a follow-up search of the writer online. It started with Judy Blume when I was ten, and I remember very distinctly reading her advice to writers, because I knew that I wanted to write a book like that, and that was all I ever wanted; that would be the ultimate.

I guess, as far as writing and storytelling in the modern age go, Jo Rowling is my God. I would die to be able to tell a story like she can. Because the thing is, "stories" have never been my thing. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I am terrible at most things that involve making a story work. I have trouble ending things and I have trouble editing out the parts that aren't "important", because I could argue the importance of everything - and any given novel of mine could be hundreds of pages long (and the next, but less-successful, Twilight.*)

I write about people, though. People are my inspiration, and I don't see a beginning, a middle, and an end to anything that I write. I see a clear beginning, and I write, and in some stories, there's an end in sight, but in others there aren't. When there isn't, I get worried that it's pointless to continue on if it's not "worthwhile". But part of me doesn't care so much anymore. Part of me would rather write 150 pages without foreseeing any end at all, than second guess myself in the way that I do now.

And now that I'm older, and have grown a bit out of that MUST WRITE NOVEL stage, I'm a little okay with this aspect of my writing personality and a little not okay with it. To get better, obviously, I need to focus more, but on the other hand, when I get to crazy about doing things correctly, I lose myself and just get even more agitated. Of course, I want what I'm writing to work, but I also want to love doing it. And thinking about it too much is a really easy way to start hating it.

At one point in the interview, Jo said that she has to write for her mental health. I remember feeling that way. I remember that was why I wrote. It wasn't a matter of wanting to or not, or having an idea or not - it was like needing to eat when you're hungry. It was a part of my daily survival, and I don't know what happened to that. I don't know what happened to that intense, primal need, and that's the best thing I can describe it as - a need. Maybe that's been replaced by other means of therapy; maybe my mind has more options to focus on now that things have changed. But I miss that so, so much, and I really think I'd trade anything I have now for some of that back.
____________________________________

*By this, I am referring to the fact that Twilight is mostly a large amount of fluff surrounding something about vampires. I don't like to read the fluff, but I'm excellent at writing it.

I went to USI yesterday!

2010-09-29T09:36:00.003-04:00

It was actually even nicer than I thought it would be! We took a tour of housing instead of the academic tour, just because I was hurting quite a bit and we still had to drive two hours home. The residences halls were REALLY NICE. Only freshman can live in the residence hall, and each room has two bedrooms for two people apiece. There's a shared common room with a fridge, microwave, and all of that, and then a bedroom off to each side. Each bedroom has two closets and a separate bathroom/sink area. It is basically really freaking sweet.

On top of that, each residence hall has a wing called a living learning community, and you can choose to live there if you wish based on the classes you'll be taking. For instance, my mom wants me to get into the Honors LLC, and so that entire wing would have one class together.

They also just started a really interesting way of choosing your rooms. It's all online, basically, and you can pick the exact room you want, and then that room is YOURS. When other people come to choose their rooms, that room will be yours! Someone else can room with you, or they can pick another room. It bypasses all the room and roommate assignments, which I never would have thought about if my mom hadn't asked. But none of it! You just pick and choose. I think that will be interesting and fun.

I found out that I already qualify for the departmental scholarship that they offer, but it's also true that I would probably get more money from it if I got a higher SAT score. Since they really only look at math and critical reading, that gives me about a 1240 - which is good, but (as my dad has so nicely put it in the past) I could probably improve my math score quite a bit if I prepared accordingly. Most people take it twice, anyway, so I don't feel bad about that or anything. My mom really wants me to get as much scholarship money as possible, and we know that getting it through the school is the easiest and most accessible option. I mean, there are a lot of scholarships out there, but there are few that you really have a chance at getting. Of course, my dad has already told me this, but he doesn't present his reasons very well. My mom is genuinely concerned about how we're going to pay for this, since there isn't much in savings - I mean, my mom has an excellent, well-paying job, but she's only had it for a couple years. Someone in social work typically isn't in it for the money, let's put it that way. Working for the federal government can switch that around pretty quick, though.

I am looking forward to college, though. Their campus is beautiful, and it's small enough for me not to feel all that overwhelmed by it. It was a little hard to take in at the moment, because I felt extremely out of place, even though I was just taking a tour. But after being there for a few hours...I don't know. I just sort of liked it!

Also, the girl who gave us the tour (she never gave us her name, LOL), told us about this place just off campus called Spuds n' Stuff that apparently makes baked potatoes with practically ANYTHING YOU WANT on it. Like Subway, but for baked potatoes. It was difficult to control the drool.

Speaking of FOOD, guess what? (OMG Alexis, we know. You're starting a diet. You're *always* starting a diet.)

Yeah, well, this time it's FOR REAL. Scoff all you want, Internet! I am SERIOUS. It's Weight Watchers. Using Jennifer Hudson in their ads was the smartest thing they ever did, because she was my big girl icon, and now she's SKINNY. Everybody is getting so fucking SKINNY. Have you seen Drew Carey? Well, HERE, have some Skinny Drew Carey action:

"And God saw it, and He was like... 'WTF, is that Drew Carey?'"

Well then. Thanks Hollywood, for taking my fat icons and shrinking them down to normal. I guess I'll have to do something about that.

My counselor told me that until she saw me next, I would be held accountable to Bob and Jillian (of The Biggest Loser). I weighed in Tuesday night, lol. I will let you know if I lose any next week, if I can remember.

The thing is, Weight Watchers isn't hard. I just found out that these English muffins that I love are only one point, which is AMAZING. Anyone who has done Weight Watchers knows that one-point food items are a Godsend. You're up to 23 out of 24 points at the end of the day and you need a SNACK, but WTF is there for one point?

ENGLISH MUFFINS, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Okay, I'll finish up with Harry Potter Reread News. I'm nearly done with Half-Blood Prince, and I can't help but get all giddy when Ginny and Harry get together. But I left off in the middle of the search for the Horcrux in the cave, and I can hardly stand it. However, I'm immensely excited to finish and start into Deathly Hallows. I adore Deathly Hallows. It is possibly my favorite book, and I am waiting until I reread it before I claim it was my actual favorite book. Half-Blood Prince is pretty damn good, you've got to admit.

I can't seem to post a blog without bringing up Harry. <3

I am a fangirl of many people.

2010-09-26T18:37:00.004-04:00

I somehow managed to do more things this weekend than I probably have on any given weekend in the past six months. Additionally, I somehow managed to get through the entire activity-filled weekend without any significant pain. Needless to say, this weekend has been wonderful.

It's homecoming, so the parade was yesterday. I watched it from my grandma's house with my aunts, uncles, and cousins; was attacked by two show choir freshman (Mom called them my "fan club") when their float passed; and was given copious amounts of candy by my two-year-old cousin, who started giving it away when her basket got full. It was magical.

Before that, I drove my mom to Wal-Mart and we went on an impromptu grocery shopping trip, and after that, we went to Terre Haute to go shoe shopping since it is quickly getting cold outside and I don't have any shoes other than my flip-flops that don't hurt to wear.

So I was in a miraculously good mood for all of these goings-on. It has stemmed from a lot of things that I've done this week, I think, but also from what happened on Friday night.

Hayley Hoover and a "short" impromptu BlogTV show that lasted from nine until midnight.

I don't remember the last time I have thoroughly enjoyed myself so much while doing little more than sitting at a computer. I was trying to watch Project Runway and Top Chef: Just Desserts with my mom during it, but eventually I realized that required far too much multitasking. In retrospect, I really don't remember anything in particular that was extremely entertaining or what it was that kept pulling my attention away; I really don't know. Honestly, I've always had this hate/love thing with Hayley, more so than any of the other fiveawesomegirls. She just seems a lot more...talented, shall I say? I guess I'm more jealous because as far as jealousy goes, with me, it always has to do with writing. I'm over being jealous of people who are more musically talented than me, because I know I'm mediocre in that realm. Oh, but it's not just writing, it's just the whole Hayley thing. She is this kind of girl-next-door perfect who has faults, but not that many. I think it's just that there are resemblances between her and myself that makes it hard to see that she is better than me in certain areas, even though I have to know that we are radically different people.

But on Friday night, all I saw was a person. Now, normally, if someone was upset because their long-distance (musician) boyfriend just left after staying for a week, I would feel nothing but nauseous mutiny towards them. This was just different. After watching a three-hour long live show, I sincerely felt for her, and just wanted to be her friend and give her a hug. It's hard to explain, but when you watch somebody on YouTube, all you see is the entertaining side of them. She kept apologizing for being boring, but I singularly enjoyed that live show because of that. It was like seeing a real, real person, finally, and it was refreshing. I only felt a little bad for partially ignoring my mom as "we" watched our shows, but I had fun and I don't regret it. She made me laugh so much, and, I don't know. You just LIKE people sometimes, you know? And I like most people, so.

It was a good weekend. I'm going to USI with my mom on Tuesday, so hopefully it will also be a good week.

My life is mostly Harry Potter-related.

2010-09-24T09:14:00.005-04:00

HELLO INTERNET~!

I hit that squiggly dash (does it have a formal name? What is it?!) on accident, but I'm going to leave it there! It makes the exclamation more FANCY. (More fancy, yes. I want to be a writer.)

So I have NEW AND IMPROVED INTERNET! Maybe that means I will blog more! Who knows?! It might just mean I watch more YouTube videos and do less and less of everything else until I pass out in front of the computer! (Exclamation!)

So, what's new in my life, you ask? (don't ask me how I know you asked)

WELL. I'm currently sitting here, but more interestingly, I am around halfway through my reread of Half-Blood Prince which leaves me a month and a half to finish the series WHICH, at the rate I'm going, IS A TERRIBLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. I mean, I know I can do it, but I also need to read more first. Because I am not reading near enough. This latter part of the books is my favorite, though. I don't want to rush through. SAVOR.

Oh, and tonight is the homecoming dance. Now. I know last year I didn't go and should have, and this year I was PLANNING TO GO ACTUALLY, despite all the reasons I shouldn't, mostly to hang out with Sarah behind concessions and that sort of thing. BUT I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR. And I mean that truly. All of my clothes are pseudo casual because I can't seem to wear anything that is the slightest bit uncomfortable. So. I'm probably just not going to go, unless I can just wear capris and sit with Sarah half the time - but in that case, I don't want to have to PAY. Ugh, why didn't I just join student council and avoid all of this? BAD DECISION.

Then, tomorrow is the homecoming parade, which will be immensely bittersweet due to the fact that I will not be performing for the first time in three years AND this year, their song and dance is actually REALLY QUITE COOL, because Kayla choreographed it so the choreography is actually dance, and not just grapevines and arm movements like our other choreographer always did. Not only does it look better, but it's also a lot more fun to just do, and that's always a good thing. Ugh. It just makes me hate this shit even more, but I won't divulge into all of that today. :)

WHAT ELSE, WHAT ELSE.

At this very moment I am watching youraverageadam http://www.youtube.com/youraverageadam

OH YEAH OUR SPELL BOWL SHIRTS. They are maybe going to look like this:

Obviously, they will look better in color (and actually on our shirt) and without the name blurred out, but THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING THE INTERNET, INTERNET.

:D

Have a great day!

2010-09-20T19:38:00.002-04:00

Things keep happening; the things in my life are rarely noteworthy, but the things that happen in my mind as a result are just...ridiculous, in a good and bad way. I guess I'm looking at life and events in even more depth than I normally would just because I have the time. It's a little strange, but I'm determined not to let emotions overwhelm me like they have in the past. They do, obviously, but I'm trying to make those occurrences less severe.

Example 1.

Matt made an ordinarily jerk-offy comment that would normally fade in with the rest of his jerk-offy comments, but this one in particular really irked me. (It didn't helped that he had hit me in the chest with a large paper wad not too long before.) But after thinking about it, mulling over the comment and retaliating angrily in my mind, I realized that I needed to be calm for the same exact reason I was angry: He doesn't understand. He can't understand. He wouldn't care enough to understand. This isn't anything I can change, and he is one person in the entire world. The significance in the long-run is underwhelming.

Example 2.

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos today though I'm not sure what spurred the urge to do so. There was one video of HayleyGHoover's, called 50 things. It was a meme, pretty sure, and basically just listed fifty things she had done. A few of these were really funny, and some of them were really impressive. But as it does sometimes, the act that was originally impressive leads to a more bitter reaction of jealousy. And I just hate jealousy. It was such a large part of my emotional troubles in junior high that it's truly a place I never want to return - nothing good comes from it. So, as soon as I got my head together (because this jealousy was extremely intense and, if I hadn't really tried to get a grip on myself, could've made this afternoon miserable), I realized that the jealousy comes not from the act itself - these are things that maybe I could do, but the jealousy comes from the fact that I haven't done them. I haven't finished a novel. But I want to so badly. And then, it registered with me that the only person keeping me from doing this is me. And it's more my fault than I realize. I think that I carry this never-having-finished-anything thing around with me on a day-to-day-basis as if this is pertinent in regards to who I am as a writer. But it's not. It's been a matter of bad luck, if anything; most of the things that I have been very passionate about have disappeared due to the downfalls of technology. The rest of it is my fault. The hard work isn't put into it like it needs to be, and sure, there are distractions, but there's definitely a lack of motivation that partially stems from the low self-esteem that SO IRONICALLY comes from jealousy of other people's accomplishments.

I have had a recent surge of extreme disdain for negative emotions, whether they come from myself or others. Because they are so UNPRODUCTIVE. And obviously, they occur. I am sad/annoyed/agitated/depressed about thirty percent of the time, but I get out of it as soon as I can. This is a very intense different between Old Me and Current Me. Old Me would dwell in these things until I'm downright suicidal. Current Me wants these things to GO AWAY as soon as possible to avoid said suicialidity. (This is a word I have made up. Go with it.)

So now, instead of dealing with annoying people telling me to cheer up, I am now one of those people. This is both a good and bad thing. I think there has to be some middle ground. Because emotions are healthy. But when they overextend the healthy range, they become extremely unhealthy, and it can go downhill fast. I know from experience, so I like to avoid this. I don't mind being upset as long as it doesn't stick around too long, because then it can and will get ugly.

Why do I still have a scarf on? It's nearly eight-thirty!

*anyway*

I guess the point is, while I have reason to feel the way I feel, it doesn't mean that's the only option. I'm convinced everything can be used positively. I mean, the jealousy of one person's accomplishment can instead lead to an intense motivation to reach whatever success they achieved. I want to have a complete novel. I would probably care more about something if it was a finished product and not just a scrap of something hardly tangible.

*sigh* Okay. I'm done with this, because it's not going to go anywhere else. I do hope it made some sense, because I don't want to read it over right now. I have to do the things I put off all afternoon until now.

2010-09-18T12:42:00.002-04:00

Just as we are all unique, we have to realize that everyone sees with different eyes. Therefore, you're not the same person in your eyes as you are to someone else. I know that this is sort of reverberated in a lot of ways and sayings, but regardless, each time I'm faced with a an actual representation of it, it's so strange and awesome. I love that we do our best to put ourselves out there the way we want to, only to have other people stomp all over that and instead view us however they want to.

Just a random thought. I'm not feeling so well right now, so hopefully all of that will make sense.

This was all provoked by a girl in show choir who told me I should be an English teacher and, despite saying it randomly, seemed to really be able to picture me in that role. It was funny, but it made me think.

I have just been eating way too much candy corn.

2010-09-15T16:32:00.004-04:00

I don't know where my aversion to blogging has come from. I am normally so good at it. School is not overly demanding this year; in fact, it's less so. On any given day, I have 2-3 classes, four hours total. That's it, which is quite beautiful. And then I come home and I piddle (yes, I piddle) around the internet for hours and I never end up HERE, at the BLOGGING STATION.

Well, I do, but if anything, I write a few words, then decide they're silly and play Sims instead.

Lately though, I just TWEET. My life is much more tweetable than bloggable, because it's just a bunch of random bits of crap.

So what's been going on? Not a lot. Perhaps that's the problem.

I gave my second speech today. It was much more difficult than the first, because I believe I reconfigured it in my brain about four thousand times. Then, even though I practiced the final product about four hundred times yesterday afternoon, I was still really nervous and in mucho grande pain as a result. Overall, it was successful, but the process was dreadful. To avoid this type of scenario in the future, my mom and I (mostly my mom, because she had nothing else to do at work this afternoon) already found the topic for my next speech. Advanced planning: a great idea.

Show choir is going so well! And this is coming from a person who is not actually in show choir, but someone who just sits and watches and occasionally bursts into fits of laughter. Kayla is doing the choreography to the song for the homecoming parade, and she's doing a FANTASTIC job. I say that bipartisanly. Even though she is my friend, I would tell you, Internet, if she was doing un-fantastically, but she is not. It is, really, looking very good so far, and there's a really good group of people doing it this year. I, as an opinionated viewer, am SATISFIED.

I probably ought to go write now, but I am just STUCK in this one spot and cannot move.

Old-school, random blog - you know you love it.

2010-09-06T21:18:00.003-04:00

Hello there.

So I am sitting on the couch. It's twenty after nine, and my mom is a few feet away eating gluten-free pasta. I'm a little hot and it appears that someone has turned off the fan, which is probably why. I should be getting to bed soon, but I got to think about it - I have an appointment tomorrow, so I leave school early, and without my last class, I really only have one *active* class tomorrow. That said, I do not care about going to bed. I'll probably have to soon, because medicine has been taken. Until then, I am maintaining this spot on the couch and I probably will not move.

(Note: due to birthday parties and the acquisition of regular Sprite, I have had far too much sugar today.)

Moving on: has anyone seen Hoarders on A&E? This shit is INTENSE. It is the reason I am on the couch and not in my room as I usually am at this time of night. It is the reason I am missing the final part of the Housewives of New Jersey Reunion Show. And coming from a person who was originally very annoyed by this show's existence, I am a little bit obsessed by it. I had no idea! I had no idea that people live like this! I don't know how they do! It is so strange and bewildering. But the series premiere is on, and there are two new episodes, and I can't deal with it.

Now, there's a faint but annoying buzzing noise and my mom turned down the TV but she still can't hear it. It's the sound like a bug, you know, when it's right by your ear or something? But it sounds sort of far away. It's very strange. She can't hear it.

I walked around to find where it was coming from. I was heading for the hallway and it just vanished. So. Life goes on.

I have basically played Sims for the vast majority of the past weekend. It's basically a very good way to vacate my mind, my life, and the pain for a while. I sort of crammed it all in for this weekend, because I can't really play it much during the week.

The sound is back, by the way. Mom can't hear it. Dolly doesn't seem fazed, but she's old.

Is it sad that I am a little excited about going to Riley? It's like an outing for me. A positive outing, you know. I'm seeing the psychologist, and this time I will not have to be in the presence of my father, so it should already be a much better experience.

Also, I drove today! Sheesh, I know - but it's the little things, it really is.

The noise is gone. Okay. Let's hope it stays gone. I need to watch more Hoarders with my mom. xD

Updates and life!

2010-09-02T15:13:00.002-04:00

I was at home yesterday, so I have some things to make up, certainly, and I should be, you know, reading this chapter of my speech book that lies in front of me, or finishing my Economics study guide or that English assignment or my autobiography, but, gee, I haven't posted since Sunday, and that is a crime.

I don't have a *lot* of things going on compared to other people I know - you know, those who have jobs and internships on top of seven classes during their senior year - but I do have several things going on considering I'm constantly loaded on medicine that makes me kind of groggy. I am feeling so good about this year, though, and so good about myself - maybe it's because the future looks promising, and I can see college as a reality now, but I don't know. I mean, I don't have this feeling of inferiority when I walk into a room. That's surprising, because I mean, I hardly ever look my best anymore. I wear these long skirts or baggy capris because my skin is really sensitive and almost anything can aggravate my pain. I'm trying to look as nice as I usually do, but it's difficult with my nearly-orthopedic flip flops and extra-big shirts and jackets. You would think, or at least I would think, that walking around anywhere with this weight of chronic pain on my shoulders, the knowing that I have an illness, would make me feel even less confident. But...I don't. I feel more confident than I've ever felt, and that is so strange. I can't fully explain it right now. But I'm writing this autobiography for English (the rough draft is due tomorrow, and I still have to work out a conclusion, a title, and highlighting all of my changes) and I feel proud of everything. (Corinne, you somehow made it into my autobiography. ...Yeah.) I feel like there's something internally that's spurring me on, something I've never felt before, and perhaps it's a combination of a lot of things that have been happening. But it's so exciting.

I get to spend time with people I like, which is always a good thing during the day. There are very good vibes in show choir and during lunch in Lively's, so I'm just really happy. Also, I have made a spastic new friend in show choir, and she is adorable. I love people! I love life!

OH BUT I DON'T LOVE THIS. My laptop CHARGER broke. Therefore. I have like, ten percent of battery left. This happened Tuesday. It is Thursday. The new charger was ordered on Tuesday, and it is Thursday. Patience is a virtue, but fuck virtues, I want my laptop (read: life) back! Sims...Sims. I miss my Sims so much. Like, I will gently stroke the screen when I can play again and tell them how sorry I am for being gone.

It just got weird. I should finish this soon. Have I told you about my speech? It was all right. I had to go FIRST. I had to do the FIRST speech before ANYONE else. Do you realize the significance of that? And I strolled up to the podium...and I was fine. I was FINE. Do you believe that shit?!

I don't know when we're getting our scores and such, but she told me I got extra points for mentioning Top Chef. And I also introduced her to wizard rock! How awesome, right? Guh. Life.

DFTBA <3

Speech, destroying me from the inside out.

2010-08-29T20:24:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow, I have to give a speech.

It is a short speech. It is about myself. The former is a pro, the latter is a con. Maybe that's an obvious thing to note, but I only realized it after the third and final draft.

I really want to embrace the challenge of speaking in front of people, but I am such a poor subject and talking about myself makes me self-conscious. I couldn't even do it in front of my mom (because it is weird to give a speech to one person) but I did give it to nobody in front of me while she listened, finally, after working on it for about two hours total this afternoon. (It is a 1-2 minute speech.)

And then...she said it was good. She said I put it together very well, and that as long as I spoke slowly and loudly, I would be fine.

I cannot tell you how relieved I was. Apparently that's all I needed to feel okay. I will still be nervous, of course, but I know it will be okay.

Honestly, though, I can't wait for our other speeches. I'm so much better at interpreting and presenting information than I am interpreting and presenting myself. Messed up? Probably.

Meanwhile, I realized that being cold toward someone, even if it is just a few days, is not awesome. I need to learn how to channel my emotions in more productive ways. Is it wrong to be extremely concerned with how I may affect someone's life? I've decided it's not just me who feels intense emotions about seemingly average, everyday things...just a few words or a short conversation that can bring me up or pull me down.

I don't want to be *that* person, you know, who you secretly think is a jerk, whether it is all the time or from one particular incident. So I'm trying to smile at everyone, and watch what I do. I don't know, I think it's worth it. I've realized that, yes, my emotions are important, but so are everyone else's.

A few things.

2010-08-26T17:32:00.003-04:00

Fourth hour, show choir, was brilliant today. Absolutely brilliant. So many hilarious, wonderful things happen, and regardless how I feel about how over-the-top everyone in there is, it's great to laugh.

I talked to Sarah somewhat, because something else cropped up. She is being very childish. She's a very reactive person, you know what I mean? It is not safe to say anything to her, because you don't know what kind of reaction you'll get. Honestly, her emotional control is comparable to my two-year-old cousin, Maggie. I only wish I were exaggerating, but I'm truly not.

I did my best to put my best face out there today. Sometimes, I curl into myself or I let my emotions get in control of how I act, but I don't want that to happen. I want to be really, as positive as I can be, as much as I can be, throughout each day. I don't think it's important for me; I think it's important for other people. I don't ever want to contribute to anyone's bad mood.

I kept thinking of Esther today. I kept think of how amazing she was, and honestly, still is...because she is affecting my life almost more now that she's gone. To clearly have affected so many people in such a tremendous way. I could not fathom affecting anyone in particular way, but that's what I would love to do. And I know that smiles and attitudes make a big difference, so I'm trying.

On another note, I absolutely adore wizard rock. And the fact that we are probably going to see a performance of Hairspray in February. And that Real Housewives of Atlanta premieres on October 4th. (All these things are very important to me. I like that I like the things I like.)