Fall

I like summer, a lot. I mean, there's no school, no worries, no obligations. You can wander around in bare feet and forget to eat lunch and stay up til whenever and sleep til whenever and you don't even have to know what time it is. We like summer. Summer is good, and we don't want it to end. But it's going to, just like it does every year, and fall will come, and with it, school. And while I don't want summer to end, I gotta admit that, like every year, I'm excited for school. But more than being excited for actual school, I'm excited for the season of fall. Because fall is my favorite season, for the following reasons:

• bonfires. i know you can have bonfires in the summer, but there really is nothing like a fall bonfire, where you actually have to keep close to the fire to stay warm, and there aren't as many mosquitoes making you wish you were dead rather than being eaten alive.
• new clothes! i'm a loser. i know. but who doesn't get excited for their back-to-school shopping, and even more than that, when school starts so you can actually wear your purchases?
• sweaters. this is kinda like the new clothes one, but i decided that sweaters deserve their own bullet point because sweaters are so comfortable and fun to wear, especially in the fall. i enjoy sweaters. greatly.
• football games. although this year the majority of my football game experiences will be from a marching band point of view, they're still fun and part of fall and basically awesome.
• homecoming. parade+game+dance=fun fun fun. especially the dance, cuz you can dress up and go out and dance. and maybe enjoy the company of a date. perhaps.
• halloween. whether you're still trick-or-treating, or going to parties, or both, it's still fun to dress up and eat candy and other foods. and also watch scary movies and be scared.
• leaf piles! yay! raking is not so fun, but definitely worth it, cuz when you're done you have a giant pile of leaves for to jump into. plus, all the different colored trees are pretty.
• nice weather. the thing about fall is that it's sunny and warm, but not unbearably hot and humid like summer. i love it so much.
• apple orchards. i haven't gone to an apple orchard for the past couple of years, but we should DEFS go to one this year because hay rides and apples= fun. except wait until after i get my braces off so that i can eat them. which reminds me...
• TEETH. as in, braceless teeth. because on a date (that i am trying to change) in september i will have my braces thoroughly removed from my teeth, and from then on braces will be for Other People again, just like they always have been.

okay. if this isn't enough to convince you that fall is a fun season, then sorry. but it is. you will see when we get there. which is in...seventeen days. well, seventeen days til september. i dont really know what day school starts. i might want to look that one up.

A Girl's REAL Best Friend.

I realize that I got the idea from Jennifer's blog, but whatever deal with it. Anyway, most of the girls that I know couldn't care less about stupid diamonds. Here's a list of things that make up the life of the average teenage girl, some magically wonderful, others dreadfully awful. Let's begin.

• first of all, i know it's a cliche, but chocolate. maybe it's not just a girl thing, but either way, i don't know a girl that can live without chocolate in some form.
• disney movies. even if some girls won't admit it, i know that no teenage girl can resist a classic 90's disney movie. it reminds you of childhood, and you can relate, because a lot of the female characters in disney movies are about the age we are now, and best of all, you can sing along. there is no problem that a teenage girl can have, that a disney movie won't be able to help with, at least temporarily.
• bloody hell. if you want to know what this is, look on iwastesomuchtime. theyll explain it.
• shopping. man shopping is such a stress reliever. you can be having the worst day, and then you go to the mall and everything is better. i mean, they always say you can relieve stress by exercising, and you exercise by walking around the mall, and then you go to the mall and see an awesome shirt or whatever, and you try it on and it fits, and you buy it and bam, your mood is better. not to mention all the awesome food they have at the mall. you can't go wrong there. you can't.
• magazines. again, as much as some people wouldn't like to admit it, we all need some kind of advice from somewhere, and magazines provide just that. even if they are extremely stupid sometimes, they have some pretty helpful tips occasionally.
• friends. i realize that everybody needs friends, no matter what age or gender you are, but i don't think there's anyone who needs friends more than a teenage girl. who else would we go everywhere with, tell everything to, stalk people with, or text incessantly?
• music. music can be such a mood changer, and theres no one who has bigger mood swings than teenage girls (well, besides pregnant women maybe). so what better way to wallow in self-pity, proclaim your joy to the heavens, or doom the universe with your anger than with a song?
• makeup. now, i don't really wear makeup, but i know that almost every teenage girl wears some kind of makeup to some degree. and when i said makeup, what i really meant was beauty products. because what teenage girl doesn't get excited over colorful nail polish, new mascara, awesome smelling spray, or sparkly lip gloss? don't lie, you know you do.
• boys. people always think boys are nasty and perverted, but what they don't realize is that girls probably think about guys just as much as guys think about girls (although admittedly in a less vulgar way). i mean, you know when you meet a guy, anywhere, anytime, you instantly decide how attractive he is and whether he'd be dateable material, regardless of the actual chances of that happening. man i know you all do that, so don't even try to lie. we all like guys.

anyway, there are obviously a lot more things that make up people's lives, but this just gives you an idea. girls, i have to say, are awesome. i am quite glad i'm not a guy.

This Is What I Did When I Got Home From Driver's Ed

Let me first start off this post by saying that both of you are currently out of town, and therefore have not read the previous couple of posts, so be sure to do that. And remember, it doesn't count as reading unless you comment, so BE SURE TO DO THAT AS WELL.

Anway, this is a detailed log of everything I did from when I got home from driver's ed at around noon today, until around 1:10. It was only me and Lydia that were home.

First I went up the stairs. Then I kicked my shoes off down the stairs. Then I went back down the stairs to put my bag on the steps. Then I went up the stairs. Then I went to the bathroom. Lydia had her music on loud so I sang while I was in the bathroom. It was Closer by Ne-Yo. Then I went into Lydia's room and laid on her floor. Then I changed the song she was listening to because it sucked. Then I looked at her desk. Then I picked up an empty container of Altoids and threw it at her. Then I picked up a weird ring-shaped something and spun it around on my finger. Then I changed the music again. Then I laid on the floor again and sang. Loudly. Then I went into the living room and started reading the newspaper. Then I went into the kitchen and sang loudly. The I got a pad of paper. Then I got a pen. Then I sat down on a chair in the dining room. Then I started writing down everything I did. Then I went into the kitchen and Lydia was there. I hit her with my pen. Paper Planes by MIA was playing in Lydia's room and the CD was skipping so I started singing "everyone's a winner" over and over. Then I opened the fridge and looked for food. I didn't find any so I closed the fridge. Then ten seconds later I opened it again and stared inside for awhile. I danced while I stared. Then Lydia brought a microphone out to me and showed me that it was broken. I screwed the top back on and it was fixed. Then I went into the hallway and turned on the light. Then I danced in front of the closet while I looked for food there too. I saw some bottles of root beer on the floor in there and started to rejoice excitedly because we rarely have root beer and we rarely have plain vanilla ice cream and we never have both but by some miracle we did today. I went to the kitchen and got some vanilla ice cream out of the freezer. Then I went to the cupboard. I selected a glass, then decided against it and selected a mug. I opened the silverware drawer but there were no spoons, so I got a spoon from the dishwasher. I opened the ice cream carton and spooned some ice cream into the mug. Then I picked up the bottle of root beer, but I realized it was warm so I put it in the fridge. Then I put the mug of ice cream in the freezer and put the carton away. I put the spoon in the sink. Then i rinsed the ice cream off my hands.Then Potential Breakup Song was playing in Lydia's room, so we both sang loudly. Then Lydia asked me how I got home from driver's ed because usually my mom is the one that drives us home, but today she was at work. I told her that I walked and she was incredulous, until I told her that it was a lie and Louisse's brother drove me. Then I opened the fridge and selected some turkey and cheese. Then I searched for some bread and eventually found some on the kitchen table. Then I looked for the cheese cutter for a long time before giving up and getting a knife. Then I complained to Lydia about how irritating it was to have to stop every few seconds to write down what I just did on the pad of paper that I was now keeping in my back pocket. Then I danced around for awhile, and reminisced to Lydia about how at homecoming no one really danced, just jumped. Then I jumped to show her what I meant. Then I went into Lydia's room and turned off her CD player because her music sucked and said that if we were going to listen to sucky music, we might as well listen to loud sucky music. Then I turned the radio in the living room on to KDWB, and promptly complained about the crap music that was playing. Then I poked Lydia with my pen on my way to the kitchen. Then I sliced some cheese. It was difficult to slice the cheese with a knife but I did it anyway. Then I put the cheese on the bread and then put some turkey on. Then I put the second piece of bread on, and buttered the top of it so it didn't stick to the griller, then I put it in the sandwich griller. Then I grabbed a plate from the cupboard. Then I looked through the multitude of chip varieties that we have in our house currently, and finally decided on Cool Ranch Doritos. Then Lydia showed me a plastic thing she made in Industrial Tech that she was going to throw away, and I used my pen to draw a Deathly Hallows sign on it before she did. Then the radio started talking about Twilight, so me and Lydia screamed simultaneously. I stomped to the radio and changed it to 96.3. The song that was playing on 96.3 sucked immensely, so I gave up on trying to listen to hit stations and turned it to The Current. Then I went to the kitchen again. I put some Doritos on my plate. Then I got a glass, retrieved the milk from the fridge, and poured some in the glass. I put the glass near the plate. Then I got some carrots from the fridge and put those on my plate again. Then I opened the sandwich griller to see if my sandwich was done. It wasn't. Then I went to Lydia's room. There was a stirring stick to stir paint with in her room, because she's painting her room, and I used my pen to write your mom on it. Then I threw the stick across her room. Lydia was confused. Then I walked/danced in slow motion down the hallway. Then Lydia said I was weird so I gave her a look. Then I checked to see if my sandwich was done again, and it was, so I unplugged the sandwich griller and quickly put the sandwich on my plate, quickly because it was really hot. Then I sat down at the table. Then I was lonely, so I picked up my plate and glass and napkin and brought it into the living room. Then I danced in slow motion again. Then I just plain danced, while sitting on the couch. Then I took some bites of my sandwich. Then Lydia was looking at a picture of Gabrielle Giffords the lady who got shot. She said that Giffords should grow her hair out because she looks weird with out it. I said that she just got shot in the head so of course she looks weird. Then Lydia said then why didn't she die. I had just taken a bite of my sandwich so I just shrugged because how am I supposed to know. Then I ate some Doritos. The water from the carrots must have gotten on them, because they were kind of wet and also very disgusting, and at that point I remembered why I didn't eat Cool Ranch Doritos before, which is because they're disgusting. I pointed to Lydia and then to the Doritos to ask if she wanted some, but she didn't really know what I was doing so I just asked her, and she said no. Then I licked some melted cheese off of my thumb. There was a Reader's Digest sitting on the coffee table, so I started reading an article about Sigourney Weaver, who always creeped me out, ever since she was such a creep in Baby Mama. I continued to eat Doritos while I did this, because I hate wasting food. Then I finished the article, which I mostly just skimmed anyway, and there was an article about this guy who got into a skiing accident or something, and it looked boring, so I stopped reading the magazine. Then I took my napkin, which was made of cloth, and whipped Lydia with it. Then I whipped her five more times. Then Lydia took my napkin, which at first I was confused about, but I now realize it was because I was whipping her with it. Then I wrested it back from her. Then I ate the carrots on my plate. Then I danced some more. Then the phone rang. I yelled at Lydia to turn the music down, which it took her a long time to do, for some reason. Then I answered the phone. It was my dad. He asked me what I was doing and I said eating lunch, then he asked me if my mom had called and I said no, and then I said bye and he said bye and I hung up the phone. Then I ate my sandwich some more. Then I dropped the very last bite. Then I picked it up. Then I ate it. Then Lydia was yelling at me from her room to come and help her. I pretended not to hear her. Then I drank the last of my milk. Then I breathed deeply. Then I brought my plate and glass and napkin into the kitchen. Then I put the chips away. Then Lydia called me again so I reluctantly went to see what it was that she wanted. On the way, I burped, which I don't normally do. Then I helped Lydia put this dresser shelf thing on top of her desk in the hallway, so that she would have room to paint later. Then I went into the kitchen and got the root beer out of the fridge and also the mug of ice cream. Then I poured some root beer on the ice cream. Then I tried to write what I did, but my pen ran out of ink. I went to the dining room to get a new one and I had to try four of them to find one that works. Then I decided that I didn't have enough ice cream in my mug, so I opened the freezer and got out the ice cream. Then I realized that I put the spoon in the sink, so I needed a new one. I looked in the silverware drawer again even though I knew there would be no spoons, and there were none, so I got one from the dishwasher again. Then I put more ice cream in my mug. Then I put the ice cream away and washed the ice cream off my hands again. Then I poured some more root beer on the ice cream. Then I was about to write what I did, but decided that I was done. So I stopped.

melange

I'd walk through Hell for you, let it burn right through my shoes, these soles are useless without you, through Hell, for you, let the torturing ensue, my soul is useless without you. And if they send a whirlwind, I'd hug it, like a harmless little dream. Or an earthquake, I'd calm it, and I'd bring you back to me. And I'd hold you in my weak arms, like a firstborn. I'd walk through Hell for you, let it burn right through my shoes, these soles are useless without you, through Hell for you, let the torturing ensue, my soul is useless with ut you. Now I've walked through Hell for you, what's an adventurer to do, but rest these feet at home with you.

That song's by Say Anything, for your information. The Alive with the Glory of Love people.

My three wishes:
1. A magic marker that never runs out of ink, where whatever I draw comes to life.
2. End world hunger.
3. Undecided at the current time.

My bucket list, as of now: (it's really short right now, but it's going to get really long, just watch)
1. Go whitewater rafting.
2. Go ziplining.
3. Go on a rollercoaster that ranks as fastest, steepest, or tallest, etc, in the world.
4. Go to all 50 states.
5. Go to all 7 continents.
6. Go to all the countries in the G20 (if not more than that.)
7. Change someone's life.
8. Become acquaintances with an A-list celebrity.
9. See the President.
10. Become fluent in at least 3 languages.


Some songs/bands/types of music that I'm currently obsessed with: Panic! at the Disco, Wrock, Howlin For You and also Everlasting Light by The Black Keys, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 soundtracks, Disney music.

My nails are coral.

In two weeks and four days I'll be receiving roughly $250, all of which will be spent on clothes for school.

My current To-Do List/schedule for the month of August:

• check out and read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
• check out and read My Antonia and West With The Night
• do English homework
• study for gym
• go running at least three more times
• eat healthier foods (namely fewer potato chips and more...carrots.)
• be less lazy (the last three are so I can get at least a little in shape and pass that stupid gym test.)
• two weeks of spat camp
• go shopping for school clothes
• go shopping for school supplies
• work
• orientation
• take gym test
• figure out final schedule for school
• band orientation
• [at band orientation] discuss with Mr. Swanson how I'm gonna hafta miss lots of spat camp for work
• get permit

Yeah, I gots a lots to do.

In case you were wondering, melange means a mixture or just like a mix of things. In French. There should be an accent on the first e. Anyway I gotta go to work so bye.

Tips. And Other Orders Of Business.

So, working in a restaurant, of course, you get tips from time to time. And the way it works at our particular restaurant is that when you receive a tip in any form, you put it in the tip jar, to be distributed equally later. (Or almost equally. Mamun tends to give me a little more than him usually, and Mario tends to take the bigger half for himself.) On a good day, I'll end up with four or five, sometimes even six dollars. Other days it's only fifty cents or a dollar. Anyway, it adds up nicely, and since I save every cent of my paychecks, I use my tip money for fun things, like movies and Taco Bell. It's not a ton of money, but I can live with it. Okay, now if you're a delivery person, you don't have to deposit your tips in the tip jar, and you get a tip every time, with the amount, of course, varying according to the size of the order. And I hear Erik and Mitch complaining, every day, about how 'this guy only gave me a six dollar tip, and his order was like sixty dollars!' or 'I've been getting two dollar tips all day, this sucks.' Which seems like a small tip, but what you don't realize is these guys a) work much longer than me and therefore b) make anywhere from seven to twenty-five deliveries a day. And usually at the end of the day they leave with fifty to eighty dollars, sometimes even more. It's ridiculous, because this is in addition to their salary, which, at $7.00 an hour, is lower than mine (because it can be below minimum wage for any position that receives substantial amounts in tips that eventually make up the difference), but like I said, they also work much longer (except Mitch who's still the newb) and therefore get much more (granted, they are in their twenties, and this job is their living). But still. Anyway, my point is, if I had a car, I would definitely be a delivery person, because they get ridiculous amounts of money in tips. Daily.

I used to have other orders of business, but I forgot them or else they're just not that important and I no longer feel like writing about them, so I believe I'm done now.

cute.

i dunno, stuff.

Learning to break open cans without an opener had proved much easier than Jack had thought it would be. All she'd needed was a sharp knife, which was one thing she had no shortage of. Once she had figured out how to open the multitude of cans available to her, the food problem had ceased being a problem. She was just digging her fingers into the jagged edges of a can of Campbell's Tomato Concentrate when there was a huge bang from the door. She looked up in fear; the only sounds she had heard for the past three weeks were produced by herself, aside from the occasional distant explosion. She got hurriedly to her feet just as the door banged again, shaking the entire room this time. They couldn't have found her, they couldn't, there was no way. Her hideout was secluded and secure; even if they had found her, there was no hope of them getting inside the room.
And yet her reassurances were shattered as there was yet another bang, this last one producing a dent in the door along with a deafening boom that resounded from every wall. It sounded as if something huge and very solid was hitting the door, and Jack couldn't think of what it would be. The crazies, as she had begun to call them (she still couldn't bring herself to use the word zombie, it was far too horror-movie-esque, not to mention it would be admitting this horrible reality to herself in a way that she was not yet prepared to do), were nowhere near big enough to produce the sound she was hearing, although she couldn't think of what else could be making it. They weren't smart enough to use anything like a tool, and anyway, why would they want to get in this room so badly? They couldn't know she was here; the room was smell-proof and completely sealed. There was no explanation. Unless...maybe she was saved. This idea, as soon as it had taken form, latched onto her mind and spread like the infection itself. Yes, yes, she was saved, the army had somehow defeated the crazies, and knew about this saferoom and had come to rescue her, knowing that the only way in was to destroy it.
Unfortunately, just as she began to get excited and hopeful, though deep down she knew this fantasy was far from true, she heard a terrible, inhuman yell from outside the room, from right outside the room, and with a final thunderous bang, the door flew in on itself, flying like shrapnel from a bomb and narrowly missing Jack.
Jack's heart began beating wildly and her stomach plummeted; she felt something warm running down her leg and realized she had wet herself. There was nowhere to run. This room was the only safe place left in the world, for all she knew, and now, they had found her. They weren't supposed to be smart, they weren't supposed to be strong, they weren't even supposed to know she was here, and yet, there they were, grotesque and wild and hungry; she could see thousands of them outside the door from her position in the room, the first one loping toward her even as she made this observation, and before she even had time to scream and throw her hands in front of her face in some feeble attempt at protection, they were upon her.

Vonce Zere Vas Ze Boy.

Vonce upon a time, zere vas a leetle boy named, Ze Boy. Ze Boy had no family, and no friends, and no von vas zere to give heem a name, and so, he vas, Ze Boy. He alvays vundered how he vas born, but zere vas no von to tell heem. So, von day, Ze Boy vas valking in ze streets of ze leetle Deutschland town he leeved in. All ze people who saw him looked at heem vis deegust, because, he vas a dirty hobo child. Eenstead of being a nice people, and geeving him a home or a food or a drinks, zey yelled at heem and shook zeir fists. Zey said, "Oh, Ze Boy, you dirty leetle hobo child! Vhy do you ruin ze sights of our nice leetle Deutschland town vis your grubby leetle face?" And Ze Boy turned his grubby leetle face in shame and sadness, for he had no reply. He vas very hungry, but no von fed him. He vas very tirsty, but no von drank him or gave him dranks. He very much vanted a home, but no von homed him. And so Ze Boy vandered ze streets all ze day.
Von day, somesing extraordinary happened. Ze Boy vas looking in ze garbage for ze food or ze dranks, but he did not find anysing. As he began to valk avay sadly, he somesing shiny out of ze corner of ze eye. He turned hees grubby leetle face to see vhat it might be. He saw zat it was steeking out of ze corner of ze garbage, een a place vere he did not see before. He rummaged in ze garbage to grab ze shiny sing, but ven he tried to pool it out, it was beeg and heavy. He pooled vis all hees might, but he could not get it out. So, he tried to tip ze garbage. Ven zat did not vork, he deecided zere vas only von sing to do. He climbed eento ze garbage, and tried to deeg it out from zere. But ven he rummaged srough ze garbage to see vat ze shiny sing vas, he saw zat it vas a beeg metal tube. He vundered how it vas so shiny, ven it vas in a garbage, but he deecided it must have some kind of non-stick, non-stain qualities. He looked inside ze tube, but all he could see vas darkness. "Zat's veird..." he said, and vas surprised ven hees voice echoed, as eef ze tube vas very deep. He vundered briefly if perhaps zere vas somesing valuable at ze bottom. Ze rational part of heem asked, 'Vhy, Ze Boy, vould zere be anysing valuable at ze bottom of ze metal tube zat you found in ze garbage?' but Ze Boy paid no attention to ze rational part of heem, and proceeded to clamber into ze tube. As soon as he let go of ze side, expecting to drop the few inches to vere ze tube met ze bottom of ze garbage, but to heez surprise and panic he began to fall as if from a very large cliff. He yelled out, but hees voice echoed meaninglessly from ze sides of ze tube; no von could hear him, and if zey could, no von vould care. Zen, just as suddenly as eet had happened, Ze Boy stopped falling. He vas on ze ground as eef he had not just fallen vhat must have been hundreds of feet. He got to hees feet, brushed heemself off, and looked around. Deespite ze fact zat he had looked into ze tube and seen nossing but darkness, ze area zat he vas in showed a beeg light coming from a leetle beet avay. Ze Boy valked toward ze vight, unteel he found heemself in a large archvay zat led to a brightly lit forest. Ze Boy vundered vat vas going on.

The End of an Era

Just like the poster says. Anyway, I don't really feel like going on and on about the wonder and magic of this amazing movie, but I will say a little. This honestly is the best movie I've ever seen. There is really no other movie in the world that I've seen that is better. It's so good. I cried almost the entire time. Almost every change they made, made sense, and fit. They all definitely fit. There were parts that made me literally gasp and go, wow, that was awesome. And it was really powerful. You actually felt things, emotions. It wasn't just watching a movie; you were part of it, you were there, and the people and their stories were real. The acting has gotten so much better. They did so well. Especially Snape. I cried the hardest for him. And Fred. Plus there were little bits of humor thrown in that made you love all the characters even more. And things like, when the dementors came swooping down on the castle, Aberforth, who had seemed the most cynical and resigned of all, was the one who produced the colossal Patronus to drive them away. Or when Lavender was getting eaten by Greyback, Hermione was the one who screamed, "NO!" and cast a curse that sent Greyback flying out the window behind him, even though in the previous book she had despised Lavender. That part made me cry especially hard. I can't stop thinking about it. I want to see it again, so badly. It's not over yet.

A Sincere Apology. Kinda.

The Excitement Builds. (Rapidly.)

I probably don't need to remind you, because you already know, but in case you don't, there are FIVE FREAKING DAYS UNTIL IT COMES OUT. Until the end. In five days, there will be nothing more to look forward to, to anticipate, to count down. Anything else will simply be an extra, an add-on, nothing nearly as exciting as waiting for the next book or movie to come out. Shaking with excitement as you open the cover and it creaks with newness, turn to the first page and read what your eyes have never seen before. Or getting chills, literal chills, as the first few notes of that all-too-famous theme song begin to play, and out of the shadows or the clouds come those jagged silver letters, spelling out the name of the newest movie, where you get to watch the books come to life. Sure, we'll still watch the movies and read the books and listen to the bands and sing the songs from the musical and talk about it forever, but after this we'll have nothing new to talk about. This is the end. And after watching the trailer almost religiously, slapping anyone in the vicinity who talks or breathes too loud, and becoming transfixed with wonder as tears involuntarily gather in my eyes, I'll finally get to see it. I'm actually going to watch it. I'm going to see it. At midnight. And I won't talk the entire time, and neither will anyone else that I'm with. And I'm probably going to cry, so don't laugh at me, expect it. But perhaps you will too. I am going to see this movie! I am so happy. Five days. It all ends here.









p.s. I am aware of Pottermore. I know there will, in fact, be new things to talk about after this. But Pottermore, like I said before, is just an extra, and it's not the same. It will be exciting of course, and maybe help the depression that we'll all feel when it finally sinks in that this really is the end, but it is not the same.

I'm On My Way

If you want something done, you have to do it. That seems obvious, right? Well it's not. If you want something for yourself, you can't depend on other people to do it. You have to do it yourself. That's how I got my room painted. I kept waiting and waiting for my parents to do it and they never did, until one day I started ripping the wallpaper off the walls, and whaddya know, and month later my walls were purple. That's also how I moved downstairs in the first place, actually. They kept saying they would do it eventually, maybe, perhaps in the summer, and I was like yeah screw this and started moving my stuff in there. And so, it makes sense that it's also how I'm going to Senegal. I know my entire family isn't going to go again for a long time, and I'm definitely not waiting. So, I applied like crazy at a good 70% of the businesses in Chan, and finally got a job. Phase 1, complete. Now I just need to make $3000. But I have an entire year, and I'm getting there. Well not really, I mean I'm not even close, but every hour I work is progress, right? Right. So I'm on my way. And a year from now, I'll be at the airport. The reason it will be a year from now today is because two years ago today is when we went last time. July 2nd, 2009, to July 25th. And so next year I'm gonna go on this day. Most likely. Only I'm staying a month instead of three weeks. Anyway. The moral of the story is, when you want things, you have to get them. Yourself. The end.

What A Real Zombie Apocalypse Would Be Like (Part 4)

Fyi, this is also post 300 on this blog. Thought y'all should know. Anyway. Let's get on with it.


So, it's been awhile, but the suspense is finally over. Today we discover our fate: whether we make it to the french teacher's farm, how many of us make it, and what awaits us there. The moment you've all been waiting for.
I believe we left off in the bus, just departing on our perilous thirty-five mile journey into the unknown. Yeah, that's about right. So. We're crammed into the bus, all forty-eight of us, along with our garbage bins full of provisions and our miscellaneous weapons. Matt starts the bus, and begins, very slowly at first, to drive out of the parking lot. The bus is silent, our breath held and hearts pounding. the vehicle itself, however, is painfully loud, barreling through the silent, sunlit morning like a rhinocerous or something similar. As we reach the main road, our nervousness abates slightly and we breathe, though hesitantly.
"Which way?" Matt glances momentarily at the french teacher as he asks this. She begins to give him directions, but is immediately cut off by a loud bang on the back of the bus, followed by the smashing of glass and a scream. We all turn to see Juliana, covered in glass and blood, with a gray-green hand, missing a finger, clutched around her throat. The hand, obviously, belongs to a zombie, one that is reaching into the now broken back window, thrashing about and moaning hideously. We realize that the bus is still moving, dragging the zombie along on its feet and causing chunks of flesh to fly out behind it. Matt slams on the brakes, which turns out to be a mistake. The zombie, unfazed by the fact that several toes and large pieces of its feet are missing, now climbs into the back of the bus, where it stands, hand still around Juliana's neck (she was been lifted, choking, a few inches from the seat), in its full zombified glory.
Obviously four days of being undead and rotting in the hot June sun hasn't done much for the zombies' looks, because this zombie has decayed far more than the one we saw on the first day in the kitchen or even later, in the church. The zombie, it turns out, is a she-zombie. Her long hair, which I'm sure was once blond and beautiful, is now red and brown with blood and sewage, and has been yanked out in several places. Her skin is greenish-gray and thin, pulled taut so as to see her bulging blue veins, pusling with thick blood. Pieces of her flesh are missing all over. her eyes are green and bloodshot and protrude almost comically from her head. Her teeth, which have developed into razor-sharp, carnivorous, black things, are bared in a wild, ugly grimace.
The zombie growls and bends down toward Juliana's exposed neck. Juliana is paralyzed with fear and can do little more to defend herself than whimper in utter terror. The zombie is seconds away from infecting her when it freezes and looks down. The tip of a large kitched knife is sticking out of its chest. It roars in frustration and tries to remove it, but all it really succeeds in doing is cutting off a few more fingers. Suddenly the knife slides out, and before we know it the zombie's head has been sliced off, fallen out the window, and is now rolling in the street behind us. Nick E stands, panting, behind the crumpled zombie body, holding the now bloody knife. (A few of us notice, in spite of our shock, that the blood is a very dark, sickly red, almost purple, instead of the usual scarlet, and is also slightly clumpy.)
Juliana is crying hysterically and Nick is in a state somewhere beyond shock,  but the rest of us have grown relatively used to these random attacks and the equally random slayings associated with them, and therefore Matt starts the bus again and we continue on our merry way.
We don't go far before we see it. This time Matt stops the bus reflexively, and we all jerk foward. None of us notice this, however, because we are all too focused on the scene in front of us. We are on Highway 5, looking out over the parking lot of Target at what at first must just be a horrible nightmare, but upon some very explitive speculation by a few people in the bus is concluded to be extremely real. The Target parking lot is filled, literally filled, packed, with what seems to be the entire zombified population of our town. They are stacked, smashed, crushed, and shoved together, some dead, but most undead. Sprays of blood and the occasional carelessly tossed body part are observed as we watch them interact; they fight, eat each other, shuffle aimlessly (in what little space there is for aimless shuffling), and some are even...mating. The stench that wafts from the giant stewpot of undead bodies is so incredibly, awfully strong that none of us can breathe, for if we do, the inside of our noses feel like we're breathing in ammonia. The odor burns and gags us, and more than a few people vomit, adding to the stifling smell.
Luckily, the sound emitted from the parking lot is almost as strong as the odor, and most of the zombies don't notice us (either that or they're too busy enjoying their dinner of brain casserole and a side of phalanges to care). Unfortunately, a great many of them do notice us, and start to amble in our direction. Their 'ambling' picks up speed, and just as the mass is almost upon us, someone screams at Matt and he propels the bus forward as fast as it will go.
Our group realizes with dismay that our plans of raiding the grocery stores are no longer possible. Target is off-limits for obvious reasons, and the other grocery stores will be inaccessible with the amount of zombies that are congregated in such close proximity to them. They maybe extremely dull and incapable of concious thought, but it is clear that they are now on alert, possibly because of the smell of fresh flesh that passed so tantalizingly close to them. It looks like we're just going to have to use the food that the french teacher has waiting for us at her farm, and hope that that is enough to sustain the group of us for however long we have to stay there. As we pass through the town in the direction of Victoria (and whatever lies beyond Victoria), we see destruction everywhere we look. Many buildings are burned, though whether they were burned by accident or in some attempt by whatever other humans survived to keep zombies at bay, we don't know. Bodies, of both humans and zombies, litter the sides of the highway and the areas beyond, and whatever buildings aren't burned suffer extreme damages in the form of broken glass, destroyed walls, and utter chaos inside. We do see the occasional live zombie who, when we pass by with our huge rumbling yellow bus, looks up from whatever it's eating to stare hungrily, attempts to follow us in slow, stumbling drunken steps, and eventually gives up and grunts angrily.
Gradually, conversation begins around the bus, though in hushed and nervous tones. We reach Victoria, but upon the french teacher's instruction pass right through it and continue on our way to Waconia and Norwood Young America. A little more than a half hour after we encountered the zombies in Target, we exit the highway in favor of a long, hilly dirt road that seemingly leads to the middle of nowhere. A few miles on this road brings us to another dirt road, which after two long minutes ends up at an isolated, slightly battered-looking farm. Matt stops the bus and we unload, then stand silently in a row, surveying our new, hopefully temporary home.
The house itself is relatively large, looks pretty old, but also give off an air of comfort and invitation with its peeling blue paint and creaky white porch. There is a barn off to the right of the house, once a brilliant red but now faded and chipped, which is huge and could probably fit our school's entire student body, squeezed tightly. Derek aka Backpack Kid immediately goes over to the barn and, with some difficulty, pushes open one of its huge doors. A hayloft lines the perimeter, and the floor is adorned with twelve empty stalls, six on each side. A small hole in the roof lets in a stream of sunshine, lighting the otherwise dark and musty space. Behind the barn is a shed, small and according to the french teacher, filled with weapons. She also assures us that beneath the house is a cellar, filled with food to feed our group for at least a year. Everything we see is comforting, but nothing, nothing even close to as comforting as the fact that there hasn't been a single zombie in sight for the last eight miles of the trip. Here, it seems, we will finally be safe.

So. We're going to live at the french teacher's house, but for how long? Will the zombies really stay away for that long? Will we be able to defend ourselves if they don't? Is there anyone that can rescue us? Find out in -you guessed it- part 5.

It's Been Awhile.

I was going to write part 4 last night, I really was. But I didn't get a chance! Here's the deal. I'll write it tonight while I'm lying in-never mind, you guys are sleeping over tonight. Okay, tomorrow night, I'll write it while I'm lying in bed, instead of reading, and I don't care how late I have to stay up, I'll write it. Not that I usually care how late I stay up. But anyway, I'll write it, as in write it down, with paper, and a pencil. Remember those things? And then tomorrow I'll type it. I mean, the next day. But that will be Wednesday and that day I have band at one aka right when I wake up, so expect it at like four or five. Okay? Okay. Except, really, typing is much easier, because I get all these ideas, and if I write them, by the time I finish writing whatever I'm writing at the time, I forget all the ideas I had. With typing and I can just start a new paragraph and type the things that come to my head, and then go back and edit whatever I was working on before, and everything is still in perfect and logical order. Oh well. I'll probably do a lot of editing on Wednesday. Anyway. On to bigger and better things.

So, the search is over, and really, it leaves me with this giant sense of non-stress. As in, peace. Because I've been looking for a job for a year, and looking especially frantically for the past few months, and now I finally have one. And, you know when you have to do something, and you know you have to get it done, and it's just there, all the time, that feeling that there's still something you need to do? Well, it's gone now. Success. I won't say where I work, cuz it's not a chain and therefore it will be really easy to find me and this is the internet, but it's a pizza place, which is actually where I originally wanted to work, so, success. I start on Thursday. I have a total of 15 hours between then and Sunday, which is about $105, which is an awesome start. I'm going to make a chart so that I know how much I've made and how much I still need to make for Senegal, because I'm gonna be putting it all in the bank, and I'll lose track of it otherwise.

Hey, the fourth of july! It's soon! I'm really excited. For a variety of reasons, the main one being fireworks. My absolute, no question about it favorite part of the the fourth is sitting on top of our truck on Powers, watching the fireworks. We have like the best view in the city because it's right by the creepy cult field if you know what I mean, and they're super easy to see. Plus, you can see the fireworks from other cities too, and we always guess which one is which. We can see Excelsior, Chaska, Minnetonka, Shakopee, and Waconia.

Okay, I don't really have much else to say, but I do have a lot of other things to say. Watch me in the parade. Do it. Anyway, bye.

Stuff

My bedroom door slams behind me, harder than I'd meant for it to, and I fall facedown onto my bed. It's a beautiful day, the first day of summer, and the world is full of possibility, but none of that matters. My dreams are crushed, my hopes ruined. What inspiration the day might have held just a few minutes before has been stamped out, left with not even a flicker.
Okay. Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. I realize my hormonal teenage brain is made to make everything seem worse than it really is, and I'm obviously overreacting. I mean, my cousin from Louisiana coming for the entire summer can't be all bad, can it? She's the same age as me, and I'm sure she'll have lots of insightful Louisiana things to say. It might even be interesting. Lord knows I need something interesting to keep me from going even crazier in this boring place.
But this summer was supposed to be the best yet. It was so open, so full of the unknown. I was going to go on adventures, find true love at last, get experience, solve mysteries. And now my hicktown cousin is coming for the entire summer. The entire summer. She probably wears overalls and has an accent and doesn't even know what a computer is, leaving absolutely no possibility for adventure or mystery.
I sigh, deciding that I might as well make the most of the few days I have before she arrives. I roll lazily off the bed and go outside, not bothering with shoes. The late afternoon sun is still warm, and I stop for a minute and close my eyes to bask in it before making my way over to the shed.
Now, the shed, though it's called a shed, isn't really a shed. It's more of a house, complete with a kitchen, and bathroom. It doesn't have any separate rooms, just a large open area and a loft circling the outer perimeter, but I like it better like this anyway. We live on an old farm from the 1800's; our house is a hundred years old and the property is complete with a barn, a couple real sheds, and our 'shed'. I've kind of taken over this shed, claiming it as my own and filling it with my many hobbies that come and go. I enter and don't turn on any lights; the windows provide a dusky twilight that provides a mood that I like.
The room is filled with collections of art supplies, musical instruments, antiques, nicknacks, old furniture, and dried flowers. The easel my dad built when I expressed my desire to be an artist sits in the corner, still blank. Although I had discovered a talent for painting, the canvas hadn't been enough and I instead had painted a starry sky on the ceiling and a mystical forest on the walls. The piano I had found at an estate sale in town is beside the easel, covered in antique music books and metronomes. There's a surplus of abandoned farms around here, and it isn't hard to find cool old stuff hidden in rotting trunks and padlocked closets. I've acquired a collection of colorful loveseats and ottomans, a couple stained glass tables and at least six glittering lamps. I also have a rocking horse, a fiddle that doesn't work, a 1985 Fender guitar in pristine condition that I'm afraid to play, hundreds of blank diaries that I never got to in my short-lived attempt at writing, and a pair of beautifully beaded moccasins that are too small but beautiful just the same. Also, I have my books. The one acitivity I never, ever had gotten bored with is reading. Books are stacked in corners, on tables, under couches, and just about everywhere you look. Aside from a couple of giant beanbags from the sixties, courtesy of my ex-hippie father, the entire loft is covered in books. I love them because they're filled with the lives that I'm too afraid to have. Daring heroines and faraway lands, all contained in my books, and I devour every single one; they fuel my dreams and aspirations, even though I know I'm too timid and scared to ever fulfill them.
Just as I settle down with my latest novel, my mother's voice rings across the yard, calling me to dinner. I sigh, flip the book over onto the arm of the couch, and trudge into the house. As I sit down at the table I remember that I'm supposed to be mad at my parents, and quickly arrange my face into a suitably angry expression. Apparently, the look carries out its purpose.
"MayBeth, dear, what's troubling you?" my father asks. I scowl even more, wondering how many times I've asked them to call me May. To avoid answering, I shove in a mouthful of food. Over my beef stew I see my parents exchange a glance. "If it's what we talked about earlier, we hope you'll understand. Your cousin SaraJane wants so much to visit us, and from what your mother has told us about her sister, I'm sure she'll be lovely."
"You'll love her, I promise," my mother assures me in her southern twang. "You two will get along just perfectly, you'll be best friends by the time the summer ends." Somehow I doubt that. I already can't stand the few relatives on my mother's side that I have met, and I'm sure this SaraJane won't be any different. I ponder yet again the Southerners' fascination with double names. My mother's name is MaryEllen, which is perhaps the worst of them all. It's taken many years of practice to keep teachers from announcing my real name to the class at the beginning of the year, and only my parents have ever called me MayBeth.
I finish my dinner and mumble an excuse, then run outside to enjoy the remnants of sunlight. I think about going over to Chris's, my childhood friend who lives just down the road, but don't think I can stand his cheerful optimism at the moment. He'll probably say that SaraJane will be lots of fun and I'll be her best friend, just like my parents, when all I want is for someone to curse her, my parents, and the world, and share in my frustration and disappointment. Instead I retreat back to the shed, where I get lost in the world of an Indian princess whose already wonderful life has just been enhanced by the presence of a foreign prince.

A couple days later, days that have been spent moping about and reading instead of adventuring and dream-fulfilling, SaraJane arrives. One benefit of her arrival is that we get to leave our tiny Midwestern farm town for a day in the city to pick her up from the airport. As we wait for her in the terminal, I gaze at all the travelers around me, concocting exotic stories about each of them. Just as I see a particularly eccentric old man with the potential for a very interesting story, my mother tugs excitedly on my sleeve and points.
"Look! There she is! Oh, isn't she perdy?" she exclaims. "She looks just like her mother, bless her heart, if only EmilyAnn could've come too!" I turn to look at my cousin, and at first think that my mother is mistaken. This is the mysterious Southern cousin that's coming to stay with us all summer? She's not a hillbilly! She doesn't have buck teeth, or even overalls! In fact, she's beautiful, in a naive, Southern kind of way. She has long, flowing blond hair like some kind of movie or something, and perfect skin. Her eyes are sparkly blue, and her bare legs are long and smooth. As she reaches us, I see that she's a little shorter than me, but she has perfect swelling curves, as opposed to my somewhat thin, ganglier build. She's dressed in a cutoff denim skirt and pink flannel shirt, and behind her is a large black suitcase. She looks like a model from a Levi's ad.
"Hi," she says, smiling brightly to reveal sparkling teeth with a cute little gap in the middle. Up close I can see that she has a smattering of cinnamon-colored freckles. "I'm SaraJane. You must be MayBeth." Her accent is even stronger than my mother's, and she stresses the May in my name instead of the Beth. She reaches out to give me a hug, which I awkwardly return even though I'm definitely not a hug person. As soon as she's released me, my mother rushes in for an embrace, cooing about how she hasn't seen her since she was a baby and she's all grown up and a beautiful young woman now.
We leave the airport, and on the way home my mom questions SaraJane about everyone 'back home', like how's cousin Jess doin' and whatever happened to old Uncle Jack (her answer to which my father whistles, shakes his head, and says, "He always was a crazy old bastard.") I realize very soon that while I was right about not liking her, I was wrong about the way I wouldn't like SaraJane. I had thought that she would be some hillbilly freak that I could look down on, who would trail behind me saying, 'you shore do got a lotta doohickies aroun' heere', but instead she's smart, beautiful, and maddeningly innocent and perfect. This is going to be a long, long summer.
When we reach home my father opens the trunk and carries her luggage in for her, instructing me to show her around. I give her a tour of the house, and when we reach my room she gasps and says how lovely it is and blahblahblah. I wasn't planning on showing her my shed, because it's my personal space and I really, really don't want to share it with her, but my mother pops her head in as I'm showing her the room she'll stay in and asks if I've showed her my shed yet. Reluctantly I shake my head and bring her outside. If she was impressed with my room, then she's blown away with the shed. She goes on and on about how beautiful the walls and ceilings are, and when she sees the piano she positively shrieks, of course politely asks if I mind if she plays, and when I shake my head, proceeds to play a brilliant, complicated melody that outdoes my entire six years of piano lessons and intense practicing. To make matters worse, when she notices all my books, she gets really excited and exclaims that she, too, loves to read, and is so glad I do as well. I mean, if she had laughed at my books and told me they were stupid, it would have been easy for me to hate her. But the fact that she loves books is much, much worse, because books are my thing, and she knows nothing about them, she can't possibly love them as much as I do, and I hate her even more because she thinks her love of them even comes close to comparing with mine. When she's finished babbling about her favorite love story or something dumb like that, we go back outside. A slightly awkward silence follows.
The silence is broken by a gasp from SaraJane. I look up to see Chris getting his mail.
"Do you know him?" SaraJane asks me.
"Chris? Yeah," I answer tentatively.
"Is he...your boyfriend?"
I let out a snort.
"Not at all. Ew." Chris has been my friend since we were born, two days apart in the same hospital. We've grown up doing everything together, and it's absurd to think of him in any romantic way.
"Well, he sure is cute," SaraJane giggles. I mime a gagging noise. Just then, Chris notices us and makes his way over. As he comes toward us, I look at him from an objective point of view and realize that SaraJane is, in a way, right. His chocolate brown hair is shaggy and falls appealingly into his eyes, and he's toned and tan from all the work that he and his dad do on their farm down the road. His dark eyes are mysterious and cunning, and when he smiles he has cute little dimples that any girl (except me) would fall for.
"Hi, May," he says when he reaches us, demonstrating said smile."I'm Chris, May's cousin." He takes SaraJane's dainty hand in is.
"SaraJane," she giggled. "I'm MayBeth's cousin. I'll be stayin' here for the summer." Chris's smile widens. I almost gag, them mumble something about forgetting something in the shed and quickly leave the two of them together, though I'm not sure if it's such a good idea. I go back to the shed and watch them from the window. For some reason, the sight of them flirting makes my stomach slightly upset. I figure it's probably because I hate SaraJane so much, even though she is perfectly nice, and lovely, and everything my mother said she would be. Chris and SaraJane start making their way over, SaraJane still giggling at something Chris said that was apparently hilarious, which is weird, because I seem to remember Chris being terrible at making jokes.

Me.

when i wake up in the morning and go upstairs, the draining sound of the coffee maker makes my stomach feel empty.

i like the word robust.

the word corduroy makes me think of a college campus out east in the fall, with leaves all over and sunshine and indie music.

things inspire me all the time, and i want to create things, invent, make stuff, do stuff. by the time i stand up to do all that stuff i dont want to do it anymore, whether its from laziness, short attention span, or loss of interest.

this might be surprising to you, but i procrastinate terribly.

once i start something, i have to finish it. if i stop i'll never get it done. ever.

sometimes im highly passive aggressive. sometimes just plain passive. other times i march right up and say exactly what i want to say.

i dont deal in extremes. im somewhere in the middle about almost everything. when asked my opinion on something, the answer i give most is, 'it depends.'

i eat a lot. when i know ive eaten a lot, i try to balance it out by telling myself im not gonna eat the entire next day. it never works. this is how i know i can never be anorexic. im okay with that. (its a good thing right?)

im extremely awkward.

if i could relive one moment in my life, it would be sixth hour on june sixth, when i went to sixth hour band for the last time. the rest of the moments that i screwed up, i can deal with, and anyway they might ruin the space time continuum or something.

i have excellent spelling and grammar and would have to say that that is the subject that im best at. even if im not currently using said spelling and grammar at this moment.

im a romantic. keep in mind that romantic isnt always related to love. it just means i like those cliche, beautiful situations. you know what i mean? just look it up. i'll look it up for you:
romantic: (noun)  Inclined toward or suggestive of feelings of excitement and mystery. get it?

im also a pacifist. now, contrary to popular belief, pacifists can still hit people. so if i smack you upside the head, dont pull the 'i thought you were a pacifist!' thing. i just dont believe in violence or killing people. unless its virtual.

im an optimist and an idealist. hopefully you know what both of those are. a note about optimism: just because optimists look for the best in situations doesnt mean that they are happy and cheerful all the time. people seem to think that.

i have my entire life planned out, year for year. i hope it works out that way, and yet i also hope it turns out completely different.

there are so many options for my life to be. and my personality. i keep thinking that. i could be a crazy old cat lady whose door some little kid knocks on for a dare, and then i come out looking all mean and then invite him in for cookies and then everyone in the neighborhood loves me after that. i could be a crazy partying college student and end up at a mediocre job in some cubicle, where my husband makes most of the dough, and we end up living the average american life with three kids, a dog, and a house in the suburbs with a well-kept lawn and our heads down. i could travel the world with my crazy weed-smoking artist boyfriend, and meet all kinds of crazy people and be a hippie and sleep in the middle of a field in germany or next to a hobo in rome. i keep thinking of all the different ways my life could turn out, and it amazes me. not that i'd want my life to be any of these things, necessarily. although the cat lady thing sounds kinda fun. just kidding. anyway. think about it. at this point in our lives, we can be anything. (take a look, its in a book, reading rainbow)

I Don't Wanna Grow Up.

I lied, okay? I said I didn't want to be a child anymore? Yeah. That's a lie. I want to be a child forever. Peter Pan is like the smartest kid ever. Seriously, I'm gonna go to Neverland, because it's awesome, and you never have to grow up. I'd be totally cool with being fifteen forever. Or even ten. I mean, I could still be smart. I could be alive for a hundred years and still be fifteen and I'd still be as smart as the hundred-year-olds, because I've had just as much experience as them. Kids don't have to worry about anything. Except, what to have for lunch and similar things. Anyway, everyone always likes kids better than adults. Adults are mean and boring and cynical and they're all nonbelievers. But kids are carefree and imaginative and fun and energetic. I mean, look at the choices. You'd obviously choose kid. Who wants to be a nasty annoying adult? Not I. Unfortunately, I have to grow up, because although Neverland obviously exists, the famous boy in tights hasn't come to my window yet, and I seem to be out of pixie dust, so I have no way of getting there. So when I grow up I'm going to stay as childish and carefree as possible. And probably most likely I"ll always act on impulse. Because that's the funnest way to live your life. I'll have an adult outside but I most definitely will always be a child inside.

I Still Haven't Written Part 4. On the Bright Side, It's Summer!

it doesnt really feel like summer though. a second ago i had a lot to say and so i was like oh! blog! but right when i got here i lost everything i had to say. interesting. hey guess what. my birthday is tomorrow. so i won't be a child anymore! well anyway, it's summer. another year is gone. GONE. that was so fast. did you know that mr garrick is moving to another state?! i really wanted lydia to have him. disappointment.

i just sneezed.

so, i'm a sophomore now. on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me.... okay, i have nothing to say. bye.

Part 4. Or, not.

Yeah, I know you're gonna hate me. Whatever. I need my ramble time and that time is now, so part 4 is gonna have to wait. So wanna hear my decision? You do.

I'm not going to school tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next day, or the next day. I will go to graduation to play in band though. But I most definitely am not going to school. Because, I'm covered in bug spray and sunscreen, was just at a bonfire, and the air conditioning is on. Why does this matter, you ask? Because that obviously means that it's summer. And you don't go to school in the summer. So I'm not going to school. And I'm not doing my stupid finals study guides. And I have to test out of gym this summer which means that I have to read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Do you think that by reading that I will become a highly effective teen? I don't think so. I don't think I'm going to gain anything by reading that. Honestly, who even falls for those stupid self-help books? I'm serious! Like, anybody who reads it either reads it because they're like ha look at this what a load of crap (which is what I'm gonna be doing, hence I'll be learning NOTHING and it's just plain a big huge waste of time) or else they're dumb and they actually fall for it. Which in this case is the teachers who make us read it. Anyway. That's something to be excited for this summer.

ANOTHER thing to be excited for is Harry Potter. I shouldn't start because I won't stop. I won't start.
But just know, I'm excited.

So, I just got back from Kaity's going away party kinda, (it was like an hour ago but whatever) and it was fun, even though I was the obvious outsider because I was the ONLY ONE that never went to east. But, I felt pretty much accepted so, problem solved. I met this kid, Michael. He was the only one I didn't know. And there was also Georgia who was cool and I didn't really know her but I had met her before at pep band, and Stephen who I also didn't know but had met at pep band and he's really cool also and also gay which makes him cool. And Bennett was there and I realized I don't really know Bennett and I was going to say that, but I didn't get a chance until later I was roasting a marshmallow and he said that to me instead and I thought it was funny cuz I was thinking the same thing. (He was like, "Hi Raisa. I don't really know you.") Anyway yeah it was a pretty fun party that got even more fun when we played truth or dare. Keep in mind that the dares were created by Kaity. Yeah. It was entertaining.

I was working on my history study guide, which I am almost done with, but then I got distracted. It's almost midnight. Didn't I say I wasn't gonna do homework? Oh my gosh. I can't handle this. I want it to be summer. As in, no school. At all. AGHHHHHHHH FINALS. DIE. Die now. Before I do. Okay. Back to history. I'll write part 4 later. Tomorrow maybe. I don't really feel like it though. Can't I just leave you hanging? Can you write part 4? No don't do that never mind. I dunno. I'll write it eventually. Anyway. History. Ehh.

What A Real Zombie Apocalypse Would Be Like (Part 3)

So, just to recap on the previous events of our zombie apocalypse adventure, we (the entire group) have just arrived at St. Hubert's, and half of the group is venturing upstairs to get all the food in the kitchens, while the other half secures our shelter. Both endeavors are eventful, and so I'll describe both. I'll start first with those that are to collect food. Now, if you've ever been to St. Hubert's you'll know that the kitchens are upstairs, and so this trip for food is going to be all but easy. The group of us, about fifteen, quietly begin to ascend the stairs. Those that are handling our few weapons are in front. When we reach the top of the stairs, we look cautiously around before continuing to the kitchen. We go in through the gym, and eventually reach the kitchen. When we push open the door, however, we see one of the church custodians, in zombie form, of course, prowling in one of the fridges. As we enter, he turns, and upon seeing us his face contorts into a twisted, wild rage. With inhuman ability, he leaps toward us and pounces on Reid, who is in the front. Fortunately, he jumps right into Reid's outstretched arm, which wields a knife, and the custodian falls limply to the floor. Reid, who is now sweating and shaking, turns to look at us, and a few in the group rush to comfort him (Reid may seem like a big strong football dude, but killing a zombie is no easy feat, so cut him some slack.) When we have checked out the rest of the kitchen to make sure there are no other zombies hiding about, we hurry to collect all of the food and water in the kitchen, and put it all the in the empty (clean) garbage bins that are located to the right of the door. A couple kids, who are obviously thinking, point out that we should probably also grab the knives stored in a drawer next to the fridge, as well as anything else that might be useful. We end up with, in addition to the food and knives, three lighters, two buckets, twelve packages of dish soap and four packages of hand soap, two pairs of rubber gloves, two boxes of latex gloves, six towels, a box of hairnets, two rolling pins, and a ladle. Unfortunately, the only food that remains for the summer is canned or boxed, besides two boxes of donuts leftover from the previous Sunday mass. Once we are sure that we've collected everything of value, we begin the task of getting the large garbage bins (on wheels) down the stairs.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the other half of the group (actually, it's more like the majority) is busy finding a place for the 48 of us to stay. They walk through the school portion of the building, attempting to find a suitable classroom (in this case, a suitable classroom would retain the following characteristics: large, relatively spacious, windowless, and with some sort of potential for all of us to sleep more or less comfortably). Eventually, they come across the room that is inevitably the band room, as there are a smattering of music stands lying around, as well as a large tuba case and a piano. Other than the previously mentioned items, the room is empty. The next task at hand is, of course, securing the room in case any vicious zombies do decide to come to call. It isn't too hard to find paper, and the small window on the door is soon covered. Unfortunately, no one has the key to the lock, so that particular amenity won't do us any good. The group decides to move the piano next to the door in the hope that if need be, they can easily move the piano in front of it to block any unwanted visitors. Finally, the room must be soundproofed. Everyone wanders around the school looking for as much paper as they can find. When they have provided a very large stack, they crumple it all up and stuff it around the corners of the room, tape it to the walls, and cover every surface possible with it. Just as this task is finished, the second group (our group) arrives with the food. We designate an area where the food will be kept, and then set off in search of blankets and pillows. Most of these are found in the kindergarten classrooms. At long last, the room is ready, and gradually the people sit down. There is nothing to do now but wait.

Now, we all know that people, especially a lot of people, don't do well together when enclosed in a small space for a long time, and our group is no exception. It isn't long before people become irritable. The air conditioning in the church is not on, and, being June, it is quite hot. Any attempts to make conversation end in snappy retorts and dirty looks, so the room is also pretty quiet. As we explored the school, a few of us brought books along, and those who didn't brought markers. We busy ourselves reading, coloring on the walls, or staring at them. Although there are no windows in the room, we can tell when night falls. Everything becomes more still, and the air cools slightly, something we are all thankful for. Suddenly Nick E stands up and breaks the silence, announcing that he's hungry. He make his way over to the food and helps himself. This, of course, causes a panic. Gabe is the first to say something.
"You can't just stuff your face Nick. There's not that much food and a ton of us."  Luckily, Nick sees the logic in this and slows down, replacing the dried Ramen that he had grabbed. Thomas takes charge. "Okay. Let's sort out the food, and then figure out how much each of us get on each day." He appoints Jacques, Callie, and Andrew to do it, and the rest of us gather to watch. When they finish, this is what they have: 14.5 packages of Ramen (the other half being eaten by Nick), seven cans of green beans, four cans of tomato concentrate, forty-five individual containers of cereal, sixty boxes of Poptarts, twelve cans of baked beans, five bags of hotdog buns, one bag of rice, thirty cans of chicken noodle soup, four boxes of raw spaghetti, and seventy bags of Baked Lays. The random kid that Dan hangs out with, who it turns out is really smart, quickly calculates that if we divide the food up evenly between all of us, it's only going to last us five more days. This, of course, is a dilemma, but the group of us is too hungry to try to think about it now, so we divide up the food and dig in to our day's portion. Then, we eventually form our little huddles again and, after long debates on our future that last far into the night, drift, one by one, off to sleep.

The next three days are spent sleeping, eating, and, of course, arguing. None of us can figure out where to find food, where to go, or how to get there. Of course the suggestion pops up more than once that we just leave the area, as the zombies must be contained into some general zone, however large. Unfortunately, there is only enough gas in our bus to get us forty or so miles away, and the zombies are sure to have spread that far by now, so any hope of escaping the infected area is crushed (we can't get gas, of course, because as all the gas station attendants have become zombies, the gas pumps are no longer running.)(Also, although the zombies have spread, the areas surrounding Chanhassen have obviously been evacuated, so the original zombies have wandered but few other people have actually been infected.) By the fourth day, we are running out of options, and also out of food, and we need to make a decision as soon as possible, because we will need some of our food to take with us wherever we go in case there is no food immediately on hand.

Now, I want to take a short time to tell you why this group of teenagers is having such a hard time coming to an agreement, when there are two perfectly able teachers present. The answer is that something seems to have snapped in both the french and the german teacher, and as of now they are both completely useless. The french teacher, who hasn't spoken a word since the zombie attack, spends the time staring at the floor, wall, or ceiling. She appears to be in shock, and thinking intently about something. The german teacher, however, hasn't shut up since the attack, and mutters incessantly to herself in a combination of English, German, Spanish, and gibberish.

Just as the arguing in the room is coming to a dangerously high level, potentially high enough for any zombies lurking nearby to hear, the french teacher stands up and enters the circle. We immediately quiet as she begins to speak softly in French:
"J'ai toujours peur que cela se produise, mais je n'ai jamais vraiment pensé que ce serait une réalité. J'ai un endroit où nous pouvons aller. Il est complètement rempli de tout ce que nous aurons besoin, de nourriture et un abri aux armes à feu et des munitions. Nous pouvons aller à ma ferme. Il est de trente-cinq miles d'ici, et nous allons utiliser la quasi-totalité de notre gaz avant de l'atteindre, mais c'est un risque que nous devons suivre si nous voulons survivre."
Fortunately, Matt, being quite good at French, can understand almost all of this, and he quickly asks, "But why would you think that this would happen? And why is your farm stocked with the supplies necessary for a zombie apocalypse, anyway?"
The french teacher replies, still in her eerily quiet voice, "Mon mari était un homme bon. Il était drôle, gentil et intelligent. Son métier était la chimie. Nous avons toujours eu un bon moment ensemble, lui et moi. Mais un jour ... Je ne suis pas sûr ce qui s'est passé. Il est devenu fou. Mousse sortit de sa bouche, il ne parlait pas, ses yeux étaient ... méchant. Il a sauté sur moi, a essayé de me mordre! Je l'ai poussé hors de moi, mais il a sauté à nouveau, les dents découvertes, les bras tendus. Je ne savais pas quoi faire. J'ai couru. Il m'a chassé, ce qui rend étrange, bruits d'animaux. J'ai couru à la cuisine, avec lui loin derrière. Tout comme il m'a saisi, je suis arrivé au couteau et se tortillait libre. Il allait s'élancer à nouveau, et j'ai tenu le couteau ... et il a sauté à droite sur elle. Je ne savais pas quoi faire. Je l'ai enterré dans la cour, a dit aux gens qu'il avait quitté le pays, et espère que personne ne poser des questions. Heureusement, ils n'ont pas. Je ne savais pas ce qui lui était arrivé, mais je me doutais que c'était quelque chose près de devenir un zombie. Je craignais que la apolcaypse zombie prédit vraiment se passerait-il, alors je préparé ma maison juste au cas où. Au fond, je ne pense pas qu'il serait vraiment. Je viens d'être en état de choc ... Mais maintenant, nous devons agir. Nous devons aller à ma ferme, où nous serons en sécurité."
Once Matt had translated this for the kids who didn't understand it, we stood in shock. I mean, we'd always known this lady was weird, but until now, we'd had no idea just how weird. Luckily, her weirdness finally came in handy. We agreed to venture to her farm tomorrow, stopping first at all the local grocery stores in hopes that there would be few zombies present and maybe some food left. We ended the day in good spirits, with new hope of survival brimming in our hearts.

Just as the last of us are drifting to sleep, we hear a low moaning outside the room. Those of us who are awake freeze, our hearts still, listening hard. The lights are completely off and it is impossible to see, so we have only our ears to rely on. A moment later, there is a thud, coupled with another moan. If this is in fact a zombie, it's definitely a clumsy one. (Just so you know, there is a small bathroom located inside the band room, so there is no reason for any of us to leave the room, and therefore we haven't in the four days that we've been here. Yes, it's started to smell a little, as no one has showered, but with the door cracked slightly during the day it is bearable and also slightly breezy.) As a third moan is heard, more people begin to wake up and those who haven't are shaken by those who have until eventually the entire room is awake, sitting up, waiting in the heavy silence. Suddenly, there is a bang on the door, so loud and so hard that everyone jumps. We all stand, and Ryan R, who is closest to the door, turns on the light and backs away quickly. The piano, which we have taken to moving in front of the door every night, has moved a considerable distance, and before anyone can hurry to move it back, there is another bang on the door, followed by two more, until the door springs open. Standing outside it, breathing heavily with a hungry, inhuman look on their faces, are four zombies. As soon as they see us they start forward, grinding their teeth horrendously. Now, forty-eight versus four may not seem like a competition at all, but keep in mind that the forty-eight of us are weak from our meager diet of a couple of Poptarts and a half a bowl of cold soup a day, not to mention half asleep and somewhat apprehensive about leaping forward to fight zombies, while the zombies are wild, cruel, manic, strong, and energized from their recent meal of what was probably human brains. All of us are wary, and although we grab our weapons, no one steps forward. The zombies, however, do. Just as Dan is attempting to inch closer to take a stab at them, he is pushed out of the way by none other than the french teacher. She is wielding one of Derek's metal pipes in one hand, which she adeptly uses to club the first zombie to death, and a kitchen knife in the other, with which she slices another's neck. The other two jump backward, forcing her to get closer and give them an advantage. As she swings at one and misses, the other barrels forward, teeth bared. She hits his teeth with the pipe, and they crack and fall out. The zombie, mouth pouring blood, grunts in anger and reaches for her neck, but the french teacher is too quick. She stabs the zombie, spins around, and hits the last zombie right in the temple just as he is about to sink his teeth into her outstretched arm. Then, breathing heavily, she drops her weapons, kicks the dead zombies aside, and sits on the nearby tuba case, apparently in shock yet again.

The rest of us are completely stunned, although also thankful that the surprises that the french teacher keeps showing us are proving to be so useful. Eventually Chad, Bryson, Dan's friend, and Andrew drag the zombie bodies out into the hall, and we close the door and move the piano back into place (although it obviously isn't doing much good). One by one, we make our way over to the french teacher to thank her for saving us with her spontaneous heroic action. All she can do is nod in return. The rest of the night passes without much sleep, and eventually all of us get up and begin packing up our few belongings, even though it is still night. By the time dawn shows its first light, we are ready to go. We file silently out of the room, a few of us pushing the garbage bins that are now considerably lighter. Luckily, we don't come across any more zombies as we cross the golden-lit parking lot to the bus. After we awkwardly load the garbage bins onto the bus, Matt starts the engine, and we begin our journey to the safety of the french teacher's farm.


What will we come across on our journey to the farm? Will we even make it there safely? Will the madness ever end? These questions and more will be answered in Part 4.

What A Real Zombie Apocalypse Would Be Like (Part 2)

I left you with a scene of despair and hopelessness- how could we possibly hope to escape this? Now, we return to the same scene, but focus on some of the individual people. Us three (me, Meaghan, and Jennifer) are huddled in a circle discussing the circumstances and how crazy they are. We are scared but trying not to think about the brutality of the situation, and trying instead to see the humor in it (we're succeeding). We find that if we don't think about the bad things, we are able to get through it easier, and we focus now on how we're going to get out of the shed to find food, water, and a more permanent and safe shelter. A little to the right of us, Kaity, Annie and Ellen are grouped. Annie is crying, and Ellen is comforting her. Kaity, being Kaity, is laughing and making inappropriate Kaity jokes about zombies and sex. Luckily, instead of being mad at her for being so insensitive, Annie laughs through her tears and eventually stops crying. (Though she has every right to, as everyone we know, besides the people in this shed, is probably either dead or a rabid brain-eating zombie monster) Around the shed are various other people we know, including John, who is standing with two other creepy anime-type people including Zakk; Chad, who spots me and starts to walk over; Andrew, who is talking to his german friends and looking worried as the one girl, Jenna, starts to cry in the arms of her creepy boyfriend dude; Dan, who is with the people he's usually with and sitting silently on one of the benches, most likely thinking that this zombie apocalypse is far more terrible than any of the video games he's played, and despite what he would have liked to think, the games have in no way prepared him for this; Shelby and Juliana, who are comforting a crying Shannon and Laura; Backpack Kid aka Derek who has let down his cool "I'm the backpack kid" outside for once and is breathing heavily and speaking to no one; Nick from our french class, who is lying on the ground staring blankly at the ceiling; and Anna from our french class, who is cryng hysterically and lashing out at anyone who tries to comfort her (her boyfriend was, as we so unfortunately witnessed, one of the ten zombies who escaped, killed the others and ate their brains, and proceeded to infect as many people around Chanhassen as possible). Suddenly there is a particularly violent banging on the outside of the shed, right next to us three, and the entire shed jumps. There is now a dent where the banging was. This incident has increased the tenseness of the shed's atmosphere considerably.

We have now been sitting in the shed for close to twenty-five minutes, with no one speaking directly to the whole group or presenting a solution to our desperate situation. Luckily, Matt Tyson, being the leader that he is, stands up on a bench and addresses the people in the shed. Everyone, including the teachers, falls silent and turns to listen. Matt announces that he thinks we should go to St. Hubert's school. He explains that the school is located on the lower level of the church, and therefore is less likely to have been invaded by the zombies. When one of the chinese kids asks "What about the zombie students?", Matt tells us that the St. Hubert's school year already ended, and there are no students present today. Another reason he thinks we should go there is because they have a cafeteria that is no doubt stocked with plenty of food, and we can all stay in one of the many classrooms of the school, in the section that has large double doors blocking every entrance. There is a general murmur of agreement, and this seems to be our plan until one asl kid points out the most obvious flaw in the idea: how we will get there. Matt pauses, and the room is momentarily silent as once again we plummet into despair. A moment later, a quiet voice is heard through the silence: the voice of Bryson, the Mormon kid in asl: "There was a bus." As he utters this statement,we realize he was right; there had been a bus parked in the parking lot behind the school, we just hadn't noticed it in our panic. Now the only question left was how to get to the bus through the football field that was no doubt swarming with zombies. As a group, we brainstorm and piece together as many weapons as we can. A few of the extremely sketchy kids have pocket knives, which we give to those who will feel comfortable using them to kill zombies. The stronger guys work together to lift the benches out of the floor; we will use these as battering rams to surround the entire group when we make our way across the field. Backpack Kid aka Derek has some metal pipes from his engineering class in his backpack, which we will use to hit the zombies, hopefully hard enough to kill them. We sort out the kids who have any kind of martial arts experience, as they are chosen to be on the outside of  the pack and use their skills to kill the zombies in any way they can (this includes Meaghan). Jill my old neighbor from the asl class notices some poles used in track for pole vaulting that are mounted on the wall, and we quickly take those down to use as well. Finally, we're ready. We assume our position as a mass of about 85 students surrounded by benches, and slowly open the door to the shed and step out.

We notice the zombies before they notice us. They are people that we know, and the three of us spot Alexa right away, knawing on what looks like a live crow. As soon as the entire group is outside, half of us see loved ones, whether they're friends, siblings, or cousins, and, out of instinct, break from our group and run to them. I think that most likely, they can't believe that their sister or best friend would actually attack them, zombie or not, and they run to try to embrace them or convince them that deep down they really are human. Unfortunately, they are zombies, not humans, and the thirty-five or so people that so foolishly believed otherwise are almost immediately infected by the people they so love. Our group is cut in half, and the rest of us quickly move together to fill the gaps caused by those who left. By now, the zombies have obviously noticed us, and one by one, begin to attack. We use our crude weapons to knock them down as we break into a run, struggling to keep our enclosed group together. We reach the sidewalk leading up to the school, and Reid, who is in the back, slams the gate shut behind us. Regrettably, we are not out of harm's way yet. There is still a scattering of zombies along the path up to the school, and they begin to move, almost as one, toward us. Despite the horror of the situation, Jennifer and I, who are in almost the center of the group as we have no fighting skills whatsoever, laugh as we see our English teacher, clothes tattered and teeth bared, gallavant toward us with a wild look on her face. She is soon knocked down by one of the chinese kids wielding a vaulting pole. We have reached the tennis courts. We have to move around them, as we can't go too close to the still burning school. Luckily there aren't too many zombies around the school, as most of the students were killed in the bombing (the few hundred that survived had already been turned into zombies and escaped before the military reached the school). We manage to make it to the bus, where we almost kill each other trying to squeeze onto it. We keep our weapons with us. Matt, being the calmest and most rational, is appointed the driver, and we all huddle near the front of the bus as he starts it (the keys were already in it, as the driver had been inside until he was infected) and begins the perilous journey to St. Huberts.

There are few zombies along Lyman, and the few that are present can't hope to make into our bus, as it is much too high and driving too fast for them to reach. As we drive, we look around to see who made it out of the shed. This is who it is [french kids first, then asl, then chinese, then german]: me, Jennifer, Meaghan, Kaity, Ellen, Kate, Shelby, Juliana, Laura, Alison, Nick D, Nick E, Adam (aka Joachim), Maheen, Reid, Matt, Zakk, Thomas B, Jack D aka Jacques, Jennifer S (from french 3), Sophie (I don't remember her real name. She has short hair and is in french 3), Daria, Callie, Gabe, Olivia, and the french teacher, Chad, Jill, Julia J, Bryson, Derek, an asl kid that I've seen but don't know the name of, John (the creeper), Celeste's daughter whose name I forget, three chinese kids that we don't know at all, Annie, McCallain, Julia K, Ryan R, Dan, that random kid he always hangs out with, Andrew, Jenna M, her boyfriend, that Ryan kid with the weird L last name, and two random german kids we don't know, and the german teacher. There are 48 of us.

We take Lyman to Jennifer's neighborhood, where the doors of the houses are torn off and windows are broken (sorry Jennifer). Luckily, Jennifer tells Meaghan and I that her parents were visiting in Katie in Mankato, where she has a temporary apartment since she just graduated college, and therefore are probably safe. (you either have to go with that or your parents are dead.) Speaking of parents, Meaghan says, her dad is on a trip to Chicago with Andrew to see a Cubs game, and her mom is on a day trip to the Mayo clinic in Rochester on business. I tell the two of you that my dad is also away on business at the Oracle headquarters in California, my sister is visiting her friend Phoebe who moved away to New Jersey, and Ali is on a field trip, on which my mom is a chaperone, to an observatory in St. Cloud. Satisfied that each of our immediate families is safe, we relax just a little.

Once we have traveled through Jennifer's neighborhood and reached St. Huberts, we quickly and quietly unload off the bus and sneak into the church's back entrance. The church is deserted and eerily quiet. Matt, who is now, I guess, the leader, sends half of us, including us three, upstairs to collect all the food from the kitchen upstairs, while the other half starts to secure the classrooms that will soon be our shelter.

Will there be enough food for the 48 of us? Will our shelter be secure enough? Will the zombies attack us? Will this nightmare ever end? Find out in Part 3.

What A Real Zombie Apocalypse Would Be Like (Part 1)

So, everyone, being the selfish creatures that we are, assumes that if there were ever a zombie apolcalypse, we would be fighting zombies and hiding out and blah blah blah. And notice how the assumption is always that we aren't the zombies? That *we* never get infected, it's always other people? Well, not to be a debbie downer, but somebody has to be the zombie. We can't all be the heroes who fight our way to the military sanctuary in California or something. Chances are, the majority of us would be infected, and we would be the ones getting shot with the machine gun that said heroes mysteriously acquired.

However, in the unlikely case that we are part of the select few that have managed to escape zombification, this is how it all would go down:

***disclaimer*** this is just a hypothetical imaginative little deal. i dont want a zombie apocalypse to happen, and i'm not threatening the school with a bomb or anything. so if a teacher or administrator somehow finds this, because we all know you like to stick your noses in EVERYBODY's business, just hold your little horses cuz i'm not making a threat, im just sayin some stuff. don't go getting all offended and punish me. let's go with, i'm practicing my writing skills. okay? okay. glad we're clear.

First of all, I must explain how we managed to escape the horrible fate that so many others suffered. So, there we are, sitting in seventh hour on the fourth to last day of school (that's a monday). Now, I know, obviously, that June sixth is not any of the predicted days that the world is supposed to end, but it fits my story, so go with it. Suddenly, there's a gas leak. The pipe that has the leak happens to be one that spans the length of that section of classrooms (the french room, the asl room, the chinese room and the german room). This means that these four classes must evacuate IMMEDIATELY, before the rest of the school even has time to react, because we are in the most danger. (Poisonous carbon monoxide is pouring into our classrooms) Just as our classes exit the building through the stairs that lead to the bus area, a giant explosion is heard from the southwest side of the school. (The sophomore hallway, near the science classrooms.) The four classes immediately erupt into panic, but the teachers somehow manage to herd us to the far side of the parking lot, near the fence, where we begin moving to the right, towards the football field. Just then, another explosion is heard, and we look up just in time to see what would normally be the theater erupt into a mass of flame and oily black smoke. Suddenly, we see what look like military planes overhead, dropping two more bombs onto the freshman/junior area, and the gym. Before we have time to react, our school is destroyed. Soon enough, we see the reason for this brutal attack. Running out of the smoke and ruin like wild animals, we see about twenty students. They are on all fours, and from our position we can just make out what looks like foam coming from their mouths. Suddenly they all stand up and begin to attack each other in a bloody, manic fight to the death. When half of them have established their power over the other half (that now lay dead in the parking lot), they proceed to eat their brains, and then return to all fours and run down the road toward Lyman. We realize that, standing in the open, we are in imminent danger, and so, as a group, we run down to that shed where the football team hangs out during halftime and such at the games. Once the doors are sealed closed, we can finally stop, sit on whatever surface is nearest (for most of us the floor) and take into account the situation.

***background*** Although we don't know this yet, we will find out soon via smartphones and the internet, and I'll just tell you now, as I'm just relaying this information hypothetically and it's easier to just know what's going on than be left wondering. Through some strange and unexplainable phenomenon, one of the students at our school, at 2:27 on June sixth, went crazy and became a zombie. It was a junior (told you the juniors were sketchy). There she was, sitting in her AP government class (which is in the sophomore hallway)watching Forrest Gump (as the AP classes had already taken their finals), when all of a sudden she jumped onto her desk, mouth foaming, and attacked another classmate. As soon as she sank her now razor-sharp teeth into the students arm, the student began acting exactly as she did. The teacher, in a panic, hid under her desk, called 911 and reported "an out-of control student". However, once she had described the actions of the two students (who were now working on infecting the rest of the class, some of which had escaped to other classrooms nearby so as to infect as many people as possible), the 911 operator knew right away exactly what kind of situation she had on her hands. The operator dialed a special military code, prepared for such emergencies, and alerted an army general of a zombie emergency at a high school in the suburbs of Minneapolis. The army, prepared for any situation, no matter how unlikely, went straight to their Zombie Apolcalypse Prevention plan, and within ten minutes, had blown up the the school so as to stop the spread of the 'disease'.

Unfortunately, the ten infected zombies that had escaped were the one flaw in the otherwise perfectly executed plan. Once they reach Lyman, they jump on cars moving at speeds as high as fifty miles per hour, rip open the windshields and infect the people inside within twenty seconds. It isn't long before the entire town is infected, save for a few people who heard what was happening and hid in their basement with the doors locked and sprayed lemon juice all over the rest of the house to hide the smell of their yummy human flesh.

So here we are, our french class, the asl class, the chinese class, and the german class, hiding in this shed, and we can hear zombies outside on the football field killing each other and sometimes banging on the outside of the shed. Luckily, they're not smart enough to even try to open the door, and the shed is made of metal that's too heavy for the zombies to rip open. (by the way, just to give you a better feel for the situation, imagine high schoolers and how scary some of them are. now imagine them as zombies, wanting to rip you apart and eat your brains. yeah, scary.) A few of the girls who are weak at heart are already crying (I'll let you imagine for yourself who they are), and everybody is pale faced and silent. The teachers, who gave up  even trying to do anything, are standing perfectly still and staring at the wall.

Now, what will we do? How will we escape this shed to find food and water? Who, besides us, is okay? What of our family, and the rest of our friends? Where will we be safe? These questions and more are answered in part 2, which will come later today or tomorrow or something. Or never, if I'm too lazy to write it and think of something better.

theres really nothing to say that i havent said already.

so. its friday night, my friends left, and im sitting in the basement listening to disney songs staring at a computer screen by myself. on the bright side, im not eating. this is my life. why cant it be summer? if it was summer i'd be outside. i have a lot of homework this weekend because the teachers are piling it all on before school ends. see? i've said all of this before.

oh. well i do have some news. not that its really news. but i did talk to the you know who today. it was another one of those pathetic exchanges of dialogue but hey i have nothing to talk about so. it went something like this:

"do you guys care if i play the piano in here?"

"what?"

"do you care if i play the piano?"

"okay" (or some other form of agreement, i dont really remember.)

"cool"

anyway then i attempted to play the piano but 1. i felt awkward and 2. they were playing random music so i just kinda left. i was with emily, by the way.

you know, actually, as i was thinking 'oh yay i get to go to sixth hour band again' today, i actually did think, oh, what if he's in the orchestra room and i go in there and ask if i can play the piano and then play it. i actually did think that. but in my head it went a little differently. it was more, there was no awkward music and i was playing and he was like youre good and then we played the piano together and rode off into the sunset. okay thats not actually how it went in my head, but it was closer to that than to what actually happened. so see? the things i imagine *start out* realistic, and then my imagination goes overboard and imagines things that really are never gonna happen and leave me disappointed. just like when i was trying to figure out what would happen if i sat with him back in like october. it usually ended in 'can i have your number' (but not in the black voice), and not, 'oh youre a drummer are they heavy when you carry them jennifer your bus driver looks like a mountain man.' but, okay, whatever. i'll probably just forget about him this summer. right? hopefully. well not hopefully. idk. WHATEVER.


you know, these last two weeks seriously would go a lotttt faster if we got our yearbooks like this week. i would be a happy camper if we did that. seriously, i wudnt even mind that much if we actually did work in class if we just got the dang things. i want them so bad. so bad.

how high does the sycamore grow?
if you cut it down, then youll never know
and youll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
for whether we are white or copper skinned,
we need to sing with all the voices of the mountain
need to paint with all the colors of the wind
you can own the earth and still,
all youll own is earth until,
you can paint with all the colors of the wind

yep. thats what im listening to. wow, i wonder why guys dont like me. i am suchhhh a fun person. i mean, just look at me right now, out partyin with older attractive people, being all fun and interesting. thats me, always out and about in one place or another, doing normal things with normal people. normal. seriously. like some people sayyy they are losers who have no lives, and really they only say that when theyre inside on the like the one friday night of the month, and the rest of the time theyre out having a social life and they only say theyre a loser so that people will tell them that theyre not. but im serious. i really am a loser. i can accept that.

i am the great stone dragon! i will go forth and fetch mulan! great stone dragon!

know what i hate? when slutty girls put on one of their revealing little shirts and then nerd glasses and take one of their cute little pictures and put it on facebook and make the caption 'nerd ♥' or something annoying like that. im like, youre not a nerd, youre just a slut. frustrating.

okay, imma go forth and fetch mulan now. or something similar. most likely ill actually like go eat food or something. like ice cream. or a spoonful of peanut butter. a spoonful of peanut butter makes the medicine go down. and watch without a trace on my cableless television. man i miss cable. more than you can ever even imagine. i even miss spongebob. which i didnt even like that much ever. but now i want to watch it just because i cant watch it unless i have CABLE. oh, glorious cable. you know, maybe i wont eat food. i feel kinda fat. only, theres that one lone piece of pizza thats sitting on the stove and i know im gonna walk through the kitchen just cuz thats what i do and im gonna see that pizza and im going to eat it. i am. now i want a smoothie. you know, the good thing about being supremely lazy is that you wont even get that fat, cuz even though youre lazy, youre too lazy to even make yourself food, so you wont eat. oh my gosh. oh, my gosh. this is my life. who reads this? jennifer. jennifer reads this. only jennifer. occasionally meaghan. this is my life. thissssssssssssss issssssssssssss myyyyyyyyyyyyyyy liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife. lovely. dear summer, dear sweet, sweet summer, please come soon, please come ever so soon. please. *voice breaks* please. *voice reduced to a pathetic whisper* please...
*hand reaches into distance, then quivers for a bit. cut to black, with the question of whether the hand fell or not lingering in the silent air*