this is not finals week

so why does it feel like it? agh. One more day. I can do this. Just gotta get through first and second hour, and then band, then freaks and geeks, then doing nothing in math, then doing nothing in french, then doing nothing in sociology yayyy! Then science bowl, then work, then hopefully maybe possibly party, or else sitting at home by myself. But anyway, one more day til winter break, which is all that matters. Because I am unbelievably stressed, for a variety of reasons. Okay, well I have to go wrap presents. I'm excited for our band concert of january 17th. you should all go because it's gonna be the coolest thing ever. gotsta go now. aloha (it means hello and goodbye).

this is embarrassing.

I will not abandon this blog. I've just been busy lately. It's time for a post.

Well, I had something to say. It seems to have left me for some other blogger. I guess their post today will be awesome and mine will be lame as usual because my idea for a post chose them instead of me.

My hands still smell like apples. Is it socially acceptable to walk about sniffing your hand all day? I hope so. If not, too late.

MINNESOTA, THIS IS EMBARRASSING. WHERE IS THE SNOW?! WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL SNOW ALL THE TIME AND COLD WEATHER AND WEIRD ACCENTS AND LUTEFISK?! SNOW, WHY HAVE YOU MELTED? COME BACK, COME BACK THIS INSTANT, OR I AM GOING TO ALASKA.

I have a piano lesson today and I haven't practiced all week. You'd think I'd be practicing right now, but no, I'm rambling about nothing to nobody. That's my life I guess.

Pep band on friday, again. Yay. Wait, is the blacklight dance this Friday? That means the whiteout is on Friday. I probably should have waited and worn my band jacket on Friday...hmmm....whatevs. I'll prolly just wear it again. I kinda don't want to go to this dance. It sounds like a grindfest, which is not my idea of a party. I wish people at our school were better. I wish they danced for real. Lame. Also I wish I had something interesting to say.

I'm hungry. I bought a new bra yesterday. Now I can match. You probably didn't need to know that. Jennifer already knew that. I wish they would've had red but I got stuck with purple which normally is a good thing but this time I really wanted red.

On Wednesday I was gonna go learn math because we have a test on Thursday but now I have to go to the choir rehearsal which is kinda lame. Oh well. I didn't want to learn math anyway. I'd rather go to the choir thing. It's just that now I'm probably going to fail the test. Must. Force. Self. To. Learn. Math. No matter. How. Painful.

Wow. I just typed a lot after that and finished the post, but then it didn't work and only saved up to there^^^^. Dang. Oh well.

I probably won't force myself to learn math, and then I'll fail the test. So I should do some more extracurriculars (actually I don't think that's possible, I already have something every single day. Except Thursday. Must find something for Thursday.) so that colleges don't realize that I'm a complete slacker. I don't even want to go to college. I've said this before. I'm sooooo lazyyyy I just have no motivation whatsoever at all I never want to do anything I just want to sit and do fun things.

I'm hungry. I'm gonna go eat food and then probably play the piano. You're tired of reading this because it's boring and pointless. If you've read this far, include the word macaroni in your comment. Agh now I want macaroni. Adios.

christmas time is here

happiness and cheer
fun for all
something something
yay for the peanuts.

I love how awkward they are when they sing it. Oh, Charlie Brown. I love Charlie Brown.

I'm hungry; I kinda want lunch.

Something exciting might be happening this week...I'm excited. Asdfghjkl.

So anyway, Christmas time actually is here, which means snow and Christmas trees and music and hot chocolate and awesomeness.

Okay I have to go now. This was a fail of a post. You still have to comment. Bye.

hey.

Lyrics to the cave:
It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat
You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see
But I have seen the same
I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

Cause I have other things to fill my time
You take what is yours and I'll take mine
Now let me at the truth
Which will refresh my broken mind

So tie me to a post and block my ears
I can see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker's land

So make your siren's call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again
I love Mumford and Sons because their lyrics are really poetic and awesome. Same with The Airborne Toxic Event.

Also I listened to Florence + The Machine and it's awesome.

SNOW.
I wish Thanksgiving would hurry up and come so I can stop feeling guilty about being in the Christmas spirit. I want to bake and drink hot chocolate and go sledding and listen to Christmas music and go to the mall and buy presents for people and decorate the tree.

Are we having a Winter Formal? I've heard we are. I hope so. We should do a Secret Santa. Secret Santas are fun.

I'm supposed to be doing homework now. I have a lot to do. I haven't had any free time this weekend though, so I decided to have free time now and I'll do my homework later.

My hair is getting boring again, and less shiny, so I think I'm gonna cut it again and condition it so it's not so boringg. I want my ears to be pierced more. Like four more times. Asdfghjkl how old do you have to be to have them do it without a parent? 16? Hopefullyyy.

I think it's time to start my homework because I ran out of things to say. Well, I didn't run out of things to say, but I ran out of things to say that I want to put on here. Adios.

Bad

So I just realized that a person that I talked about more than once in previous posts actually knows about this blog, and even if they don't ever go on it, they still know about it, so they might go on it, which is bad, and also if they chose to go on it now, they would definitely know that I was talking about them, so wow, that's bad. Oh well.

Soooooo, what to talk about? Nothing really. So I realized we have a band concert next week. I totally forgot about it. I don't think my band is ready, honestly. Also, the marimba is broken. They might want to get started on that, cuz to fix it you have to take the whole thing apart. Fail.

asdfghjkl I was at Caribou for 4 hours today. I saw Sean there and apparently Mamun was there too but I didn't see him so for the rest of the day he's like wow I guess you just don't notice black people but I swear he wasn't there! I totally did not even see him. He must've left before I even saw Sean.

11-11-11. Made a wish. It was pretty general but anyway hopefully it comes true. Know what movie I wanna watch right now? The Notebook. That is an awesome movie.


So I probably should start at least thinking about where I want to go to college. I wanna go out of state even though it's more expensive because I'm gonna live in Minnesota my whole life and so I want to experience a different state for a little while. I was thinking Colorado, or South Carolina, but only because I like the state, because I haven't been to the colleges in either of those states so I have no idea what they're like. But I definitely don't want to go in or around Minnesota because going to North Dakota or Iowa or Wisconsin is pointless since it's basically the same as here. Except Iowa has more corn. Anyway. Imma go now. Bye.

gotta get down on friday

I have a question...what does 'get down' mean? Like, if I said, this Friday I'm gettin down...what would I be doing?

ANYWAY

This Friday (aka today) I'm not getting down (well maybe I am, since I'm not sure what that means), but going to the play. I really wish we did two musicals instead of a play because musicals are always fun no matter what and plays have the potential to be boring. Although I heard this play was good.

I want to sleep. You know when you like someone and it's weird? Yeah right now I like someone and it's weird omg.

I really like french fries; they are my favorite food.


Usually I just talk about whatever comes to my head/has been on my mind all day and APPARENTLY this is what has been on my mind all day. Lots of people were gone today because of choir which was cool cuz then our classes were all empty.

Guess what for AP gov apparently the juniors had a sub and it was Mr Ronchak except Maheen was at choir so Cassidy had to text her and tell her and then Maheen said I'm gonna die. Poor Maheen. Except then on the way to french I saw him and I like yelled HEY MR RONCHAK and then he saw me and smiled and waved. Also we had a fire drill today during second hour and also during second hour which is AP chem Mr Shipway did a backflip and it was awesome. Well anyway. I'm gonna go straighten my hair even though it's already straight because when I'm bored sometimes that's what I do. So bye.

procrastination [will be the death of me]

okay i'm supposed to be doing an ap chem lab right now but it's halloween and also i keep looking at it and i don't understand it and just just....my brain gets all fuzzy when i try to do it! i can't do it! i'm tired and tomorrow is november which is officially cold and wintery. i am now going to vent, in terms of person 1 and person 2. you can figure out for yourself who they are.

okay so i keep thinking i like person two and then when i'm like hanging out with person two then i do like him. but every time i see person one i get all...whateverish and plus i dont want to give up on liking him but person two is way more realistic and i like the idea of us as a couple but then sometimes im like nahh i dont really like you but then other times im like hmm maybe i do. and obviously nothings gonna happen with person one. but i just cant stop liking him. okay, i know how retarded i sound. cuz you're gonna be like do you know how retarded you sound and the answer is yes, yes i do know how retarded i sound. but i'll continue cuz i am conflicted. actually i dont really have anything else to say. plus i always was telling people that i didnt like person two and then now i do ish kinda and theyre gonna be like ooooh and i'm gonna be like shut yer mouth. but you have no idea how much i actually like person one. like seriously you have no idea. it's the worst thing in the world. it's like that 'the one that got away' thing, you know? like i dont want to stop liking him because then i'll be like what woulda happened....but at the same time its going nowhere and therefore i have to be more realistic. you know, dale liked me for like two and a half years. and he doesnt like me anymore and is perfectly happy dating other people. like, how did he do that? actually i know how he did that, it was because he knew for a fact that i didnt like him, which i dont know for a fact about person one which is the thing that keeps me stuck on him. plus its weird to like person two! like i'm like, whoa, i like him? like, what? that's so weird! but then i do. aghasdflkajsl;dfih;aligha;lksdhf;lakhsd;gilasdflhasdf.

okay i really have to do this lab. i keep going, okay i'm gonna do it now, but then i look at it and the page is all blank and ITS JUST TAUNTING ME. i have to do it by second hour tomorrow. when else am i gonna do it? no other time. so i have to do it now. but i cant. ohmygosh i seriously have issues. like read this frickin post. it's just all my problems. well, not all of them. but all of this post is me complaining about my problems. how sad. how utterly sad. oh well. that's basically what this is for. it's like a public diary where people can comment on my many problems and thoughts. yeah. nothing can go wrong with this idea. good thing barely anyone knows about this.

by the way i went to wills party and his parents are really nice. plus his house is nice wow i sound creepy but seriously all those victoria people have really nice houses and then everywhere else just looks like a frickin dump. actually my house is a dump anyway but i like it because it's a cozy dump. wow what the frick am i talking about. this is like my dbq for history...i wrote it in first hour last week and then i reread it today and i was like what am i talking about in this essay? i think i mighta been at least a third asleep if not half asleep. it's ten thirty and i still have to take a shower and then go to bed and most likely i will read before bed because i have so self control and i wont get to bed til like 12 and then i'll get up at like 6:45 tomorrow and want to die like usual. and tomorrows only tuesday. on the bright side, only 16 more school days until thanksgiving break. then after that is black friday, which i forgot about. my paycheck was only $108 this week. that's actually the lowest it's ever been besides the very first time but that's because i started in the middle of the pay period so it was only $102 but not a full two weeks. anyway. i need to sleep now or tomorrow will suck. actually it'll suck anyway. bye.







by the way, RIP Lily and James and Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes out in 11 days! I tweeted about lily james, but being a retard, i said 20 years when it was supposed to be thirty. fail.

Things You Can Do On Halloween

• go to a party
• go trick or treating
• eat
• egg peoples houses
• cause mischief
• TP peoples houses
• eat candy
• hand out candy
• get arrested
• eat
• dress up in a costume
• have a party
• have a bonfire
• go to a haunted house
• go to trail of terror
• eat food
• go to valleyscare
• eat
• bake cookies
• scare children on the street
• bully children on the street into giving you their candy
• watch scary movies
• tell scary stories
• eat
• bob for apples
• burn things
• sit in your bedroom by yourself
• get haunted
• save countless childrens' souls from being captured and used to make three witches from 1600s salem young again
• go to a graveyard
• roam the streets
• follow the firetruck around
• try not to get arrested
• stand around looking suspicious
• eat
• fork peoples yards
• creep in peoples windows
• smash pumpkins
• trade candy
• organize candy
• sort candy
• obtain candy
• eat
• be cold
• try to stay warm
• dance
• sing halloween songs (he did the monster mash) (he did the mash) (it was a graveyard smash) (he did the mash) (it caught on in a flash) (he did the mash) (he did the monster mash)
• read a scary book
• sleep
• eat

so as you can see (eat) there are many things (eat) to do on halloween, and one of them is eat (eat).

Increasing Frustration

I think it must be hormones or something, but lately my emotions have been like forty times stronger than normal. Like, I don't cry, right? No. I don't cry. It's just a fact of life. But lately I've cried at like everything. It's frickin weird man. And when I'm angry, I'm really, really angry. Also, things that I didn't used to care about or was able to handle set me off way more. Like stupid things make me cry and equally stupid things that most people can get over make me extremely angry. It's not that I'm more sensitive, because I can still handle things better than the average teenager, it's just that I tend to care about things way more than most people. Which I think for now is a good thing. Because people just don't even care about anything anymore. I care about a ton of stuff. Not school though. I honestly think that school is less of a priority than people make it. I mean I understand that it's important to your future and whatnot, but seriously, how important is it to the world that I do this math assignment or whatever? No, I'm better off enjoying life during the few moments when I can. I don't wanna look back and see that I wasted my teenage years with my nose to grindstone. There's no point in using an entire period of time just to prepare for another period of time (ie; college). That whole live in the moment thing? Everybody says they just loooove to live life to the fullest and blahdiblah, but how many of them are actually doing it? None. Yes, it is extremely important to be educated. I'm the first person to say that; I can't stand ignorance. But you also need to just do things. Just go out there and experience the world. I'm not gonna come home and spend every second of the afternoon doing chemistry homework and miss the sun and the leaves and the colors, because fall is my favorite season and enjoying it is a priority, whether other people think it should be or not. I mean, is that what life is about? Always working towards the next step? I work to get good grades so I can get into college so I can get a good job so I can provide for my family so they can be successful and then it's just a big chain. What comes in between? I'm not gonna be fifteen forever. I'll be eighteen before I know it and then I'll go to college and have responsibilities and life is just gonna get harder from here. I thoroughly enjoy being a teenager and I'm not gonna miss it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while school is really important, it's not important enough to get in the way of my enjoyment of this moment, right now. Okay?

Easy Like A Sunday Morning

Only this Sunday morning isn't so easy on account of my 'grandparents' are here and they're causing me lots of pain and discomfort. And I really want to take a shower but that means I'll take two showers in one day because I have to take one on Sunday night. Oh well.

Today I have to go to work which sucks, cuz yesterday I didn't go on account of I had terrible cramps. This weekend was supposed to be chill and I was going to rake leaves and whatnot. Stupid grandparents. I really don't want to go to work.

On the bright side, there's only three days of school this week! Which means no block. Cuz block suckss man. I'm so glad we don't have full block like they used to at Chaska. Honestly.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Sophie. Sophie was fourteen years old and lived by herself in an abandoned house in the woods in Idaho. She had run away from home when she was twelve, because her parents had left her as a child and she didn't much like moving from foster home to foster home. For the past two years she had been washing people's cars along the road in exchange for money, which she had used to buy food in the townt that was a mile from her house. She kept her house reasonably clean, taking great care to make sure that the outside still looked sufficiently run-down so that no one suspected that it was inhabited. Sophie didn't go to school, but upon starving herself for a week and a half had raised enough money to buy a decent used computer. She sat in the back of the SuperAmerica, using their free WiFi to become as educated as she could.
The only problem with Sophie's way of life was that she could never get too close to people. As it had been two years since she ran away, there were fewer people looking for her, but she still had to be on the watch for Social Service officers or policemen, even average citizens who might recognize her from the Missing Child posters that had plastered the greater part of Montana, the state from which she had come. Whenever asked, she told people that her name was Hanna, and that her car washing partner had temporarily left for the bathroom (they were, of course, washing cars to raise money for their school's small but growing horsebackriding team). Sophie occasionally met people in town that intrigued her, but she could never have more than polite conversation with them, lest they take interest in her history and attempt to investigate. She had to dye her hair frequently so as not to be recognized by the locals, as the town was quite small.
Her only companion was her cat. Named Shere Khan for his tiger-striped fur, Sophie spentt most of her time talking to him. If she hadn't had something living in which to confide, it is very likely that she'd have gone crazy, blown her cover, and been sent not to a foster home, but instead an asylum.


Okay yeah that was random. Well anyway. I should probably do my homework now or take a shower or something productive (which I probably won't end up doing).

whaddup

Alright I haven't really been on here much recently, but I've been busy okay?! With work and school and band and more school and other craziness. Okay? Plus also every time I get on the computer I'm distracted by twitter. Anyway, I'm here now, so relax. Okay. Things to talk about.

No braces. This is an enjoyable thing. I mean, retainers are annoying and stuff, but whatever, they're not tooth prisons that are impossible to escape from; you can take them out when you want. Getting my braces off has made me quite happy.

PanAm. So since stupid Ion Television aka the only decent channel I have, canceled Ghost Whisperer (which was kinda dumb anyway) and Without A Trace, and possibly Criminal Minds, I no longer had any good shows to watch. So I had to start a new show, one that's actually current and that I can follow week by week. So I chose PanAm, cuz it takes place in the 60s and around the world which is awesome cuz the 60s are the past which is cool. Anyway so far it's proving to be pretty good. Plus it's at 9 on Sundays, so I can watch it without having to worry about missing it for work. I also wanted to watch this show Once Upon A Time, but that's at 7 on Sundays so I'll most likely have to watch it online. But that looks really good cuz it's like fairytale ish, like it's like Enchanted only not so happy and annoying, more dark and awesome and whatnot.

Bonfire. So I've started telling people about my bonfire that I'm having, and I'm getting kinda excited about it. Cuz bonfires are fun, and so are people. I'm also excited for Halloween, which is soon.

I gotta go shop for a present for Ali, cuz his birthday's on Friday. Speaking of Friday, the Chan-Chaska game is on Friday, and I might perhaps be marching snare because Cassidy's getting surgery so she won't be able to so she told Mr Swanson that I could march in her place but I don't know if I am yet because he hasn't said anything, because it'll be quite difficult to learn the entire routine in two days. Especially since 1. I've never marched before and 2. The snares are fairly conspicuous.

Okay I gotta go eat food now which is good cuz I'm extremely hungry, so bye.

Youth In Revolt

My playlist of songs that make you proud to be a teenager:

1. MGMT- Kids
2. My Chemical Romance- Na Na Na
3. Metronomy- A Thing For Me
4. 30 Seconds To Mars- Kings and Queens
5. Mick Jagger- Primitive Cool
6. Fall Out Boy- I Don't Care
7. Sleigh Bells- Infinity Guitars
8. We The Kings- Check Yes Juliet
9.  Billy Boy On Poison- On My Way
10. MGMT- Boogie Down
11. Sleigh Bells- Crown on the Ground
12. Kid Cudi ft. MGMT- Pursuit of Happiness
13. Peter Bjorn & John- Young Folks
14. Arctic Monkeys- Flourescent Adolescent
15. Cash Cash- Forever Young
16. Boys Like Girls- The Great Escape
17. Panic! At the Disco- Let's Kill Tonight
18. Eatmewhileimhot!- Mother May I
19. Panic! At the Disco- Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off
20. Meat Loaf- Paradise by the Dashboard Light
21. Panic! At the Disco- Nine in the Afternoon
22. Sleigh Bells- Rill Rill
23. Peter Bjorn & John- Nothing To Worry About
24. Panic! At the Disco- The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage
25. Fall Out Boy- Dance Dance
26. Sleigh Bells- Riot Rhythm
27. MGMT- We Care
28. My Chemical Romance- Teenagers

#Twitter and Homecoming

So, I couldn't give in to making a facebook because that's just..no. Just no. But I did make a twitter, and at first I didn't get it and I was bored with it so I ignored it for like two weeks, but today I actually went on it and kinda figured it out a little. That number sign thing? It's called a hashtag. Yeah I learned that. Anyway yeah there are some annoying people but I think I'm just gonna avoid them. I'll get the hang of it I think. I hope. Cuz right now I'm a supernewb. That's one word.

Okay, homecomingg. I'm excited, but so far homecoming week has been kind of pathetic. Like, comfy day, okay, yeah, whatever, and then movie star day, like what is that, no one's gonna dress up for that, and today was black out day, which is easy, and still people don't dress up for that, and tomorrow is neon and people will most likely refuse to participate which is dumb, and Friday is spirit day which is fun I guess. But the most pathetic thing was definitely the pep fest. I mean seriously, like I've always loved pep fests, ever since sixth grade when we had this awesome pep fest with Vikings cheerleaders and everybody was totally into it, and that's what got me into pep fests cuz they're just frickin awesome. Even last year was better than this. Nobody was even into it, the stuff they tried to do to entertain us was a joke, and the only thing people cared about was the dance team's striptease sorry I mean dance. I mean honestly yeah, the dance was good and it was entertaining and it was actually really cool when they did the shirt thing, but it's just funny cuz seriously it was a legit striptease, like, they took off their shirts (even though they had shirts underneath.) But anyway, yeah it was pretty pathetic. Now I'm excited for Friday and our band extravaganza that lasts from after school until 9:30 at night. It'll be fun. We better win the effing game seriously. It's time to win. It's getting ridiculous. And then the dance which will be fun also, I'm super excited to dress up and whatnot.

Oh I almost forgot, braces off tomorrow! I'm really excited but it's super scary cuz they just yank them off which is frightening. And apparently the polishing is a nasty feeling. But it'll be over soonish and then I'll be back to braces being for other people! Which is the way it's supposed to be. Anyway I gotta study for history now so bye.

I Really Love Fall and I'm Gonna Make Sure You Do Too

Reasons I love fall, with pictures to put you in the mood:

• cozy sweaters. for some reason this year i love sweaters ever so much more than before. it's like a blanket you can wear. what's not to love?

• bonfires. bonfires in the fall are ten times better than bonfires in the summer, because there's no mosquitoes, and you're cold, so you actually want to sit by the fire. or you can dance like these people.

• leaf piles!!! raking them up is definitely worth jumping into the giant pile that you've created.

• halloween. candy and costumes and being scared out of your pants. words can't describe how much i love it. also carving pumpkins. it's all just awesome. just, just awesome. i told you i can't describe it. plus, the halloween season comes jam-packed with halloween movies, and they can be scary like texas chainsaw massacre, or just awesome like hocus pocus.

<<<

• football games! which also means band, and just plain old fun.

 yes, this is our school.

• hot chocolate, apple pie, warm food.

• homecoming! which is in 6 dayss whatup.

 i i like the awkward girl in blue.

• apple orchards. possibly my favorite part.

here are some more pictures to make sure you get the message.

School and Whatnot.

1st hour: AP US History, which isn't overly hard, but it's annoying because there's lots of reading and he hasn't really taught us anything so far, we just get it from the reading. The teacher's alright, but I don't really know yet because he hasn't done much. On the bright side, he gave us links to summaries of the book so now I can just read those instead of ten pages of textbook.

2nd hour: AP Chemistry. So far we've done three chapters in four days, and it's about four months' worth of chemistry from last year, which makes it really hard to remember all the stuff. I think I'm gonna struggle with this class, but hopefully if I pay attention it'll be better, plus the teacher is much better at explaining things than uh..last year's teacher. He's really chill and funny which is good.

3rd hour: Band. Band is band, it's fun and obviously I like it. The one downside is that most of the sophomores are in Varsity Band, so I don't have as many people to talk to. Hopefully when we start playing actual music it'll be really cool though, because the biggest reason I wanted to be in Symphonic Winds is they play really cool songs.

4th hour: English. Well English is usually my favorite schooly subject and it is this year too, especially since we have Ms. Etnier, cuz she is definitely my kind of teacher. I'm excited for this year. I'm also extremely excited for this creeper assignment. I think Ms. Etnier thinks the same way I do because so far that's pretty much how it's been.

5th hour: Precalc. Okay well I frickin hate math, and this Mr. Ronchak guy apparently really likes it, which could be a problem. I already found it extremely hard to pay attention in math, and now that I sit by Jennifer Meaghan and Sara it's proving to be even harder. I think we need to tone it down otherwise he's gonna move us, although honestly I think no matter where we are in the room our class is gonna be noisy, especially since Cassidy and Maheen are like our junior counterparts.

6th hour: Francais. I don't know how it happened, but french is not the class that I look forward to the most in the day. I'll be thinking like, it's almost french! And get super excited. It's basically the same as last year, although Madame seems a lot nicer. Maybe it's cuz we're used to her now, or else people have been talking less. Idk. Either way, french has somehow become very fun.

7th hour: Sociology. Okay the subject of this class is really interesting, but a lot of the people just took it to fill their schedules I think, so they don't really take it seriously, and then I take it seriously and they're like what a loser. Well not really, they mostly take it seriously, but idk there's like Alexa and Elizabeth and I don't like having those people in my class because who knows what they'll do. Plus it's hard to take them seriously. Anyway the teacher's really serious and likes to go on about her troubled past or whatever, and she treats the sophomores like we're little children that can't handle subjects like rape and racism, even though that's basically been the last two years of English X right there. 8th grade's main thing was racism and 9th grade was rape. So I don't know what this woman's talking about. The best thing about the class is we can bring our backpacks.

Marching band: So I was right in thinking that I definitely should've done marching band last year, but whatever, we're past that. I'm kind of disappointed that I have to be in pit, but whatever, I play snare for other stuff so I can get over it. I'm excited for the games cuz they're fun but I wish I could sit in the bleachers with the rest of the band.

Homecoming: So as far as the outfit, I still just need shoes. And also we need to figure out a plan for where we're going. It's Louisse's 16th birthday on homecoming and she wants to go to Benihana's so I think that's what's gonna happen. As far as a date...I'm working on it. I dunno. I gotta figure something out. I don't really want to go alone but I don't knowwww. The part of homecoming that I'm most excited for is the pepfest. Yay pepfest! Plus we get to play in it which is exciting also.

Okay basically that's it, I mean it's pretty much the same as last year except this year I have way more homework meaning I actually have to do it. It's ridiculous how much homework I get. I haven't had any free time during the day since school started.

I Have Egg on My Face

Let me begin my saying that I have had two very thoughtful, interesting posts in mind for the past couple days, but I've been busy and/or lazy and therefore never got around to posting them. I was going to post at least one of them now, but I lost interest and decided to just post about school and general nothingness instead.

So let me explain why I have egg on my face. Since today is the last day of summer, and also the Day Before School Starts, I decided that today is going to be a 'spa day' so that I can relax and 'fix' myself before school tomorrow, because when you look good, you feel good, and so I want to look good. (This is true for everybody right? I hope it's not just me. Like when you know you look crappy, you end up feeling crappy, and when you know you look good you feel good? It must be because I have issues with self-conciousness. I'm really, really self concious and so if I know that something about me doesn't look good then I'll keep messing with it and try to get it to look good and I'm really self concious, so by extension when all of me looks bad, all of me feels bad because I can't be myself because I'm too busy being self-concious. That's why I'm always playing with my hair. This happens to you, right?) Anyway, so it's a spa day, and I decided to look up homemade face masks on the internet. There were a lot of good ones, but I didn't have most of the ingredients, so I settled for one with egg yolks, lemon juice, and olive oil that is supposed to moisturize your skin, because for some reason my face has been very, very dry for the past few days even though it's usually never dry. Anyway, so I put it on, and you're supposed to leave it on for ten minutes, and I'm trying to forget about it because every time I think about the fact that I have a mashed up chicken embryo spread across my face, I gag a little. Except now it's dried and I can't move my face. This is interesting. I think it's been ten minutes, so lemme go wash it off...

Well, my skin is definitely less dry. It's a weird sensation having your whole face be stiff and then washing it off and having it slowly melt back to a flexible state. On the bright side, it worked. My skin was super dry and flaky and disgustingly nasty yesterday and I was like, what's going on, and now it's not like that. Except the corners of my mouth; for some reason they're super dry and also red so it looks like I smeared lipstick all over. I have to keep putting lotion there, which is difficult because it's so near to my mouth that I have to be careful not to eat it.

The one damper on what is supposed to be my refreshing, relaxing Day Before School Starts is that I have to work tonight, which will put a temporary stop to all my spa efforts. I still need to paint my fingers and toes. I can't decide on a color, but I think I'm gonna do that minty green color that I bought and still haven't used. I was going to save it for homecoming, but now I don't think it's going to look good with the dress. Which reminds me...

So yesterday I finally went shopping for a homecoming dress at MOA, which involved me driving to Bloomington, which was...a bit of an adventure. I mean, the actual driving was fine, I was on 494 and going 60/65 miles an hour and everything was totally fine, but then when I tried to park..that was the problem. So we were in the parking ramp, and  it was really really crowded, being the Mall of America and all, and I finally found a whole row of parking spots that were empty, and I was trying to park, but I didn't have a lot of space behind me because there were cars. Keep in mind that usually I can park just fine, okay? So my mom told me to get out so she could park, so I got out, but I didn't put the car in park because I thought she was going to get right in. So then after I got out it started rolling toward the wall ahead, and so I quick jumped in, but I wasn't all the way in, and hit what I thought was the brake. Unfortunately, it was the accelerator, and so the car zoomed forward (it was only two feet away from the wall though, so it wasn't like a huge distance) and smacked into the wall. I was surprised cuz my mom didn't really get mad, she just got into the car and parked it and then we examined the damage, and there wasn't any. So it was all good.

So this year when looking for a dress I basically did the exact same thing as last year, only minus the Ridgedale. I went to MOA thinking that since it was the biggest mall and had the most stores, I would definitely find a dress there. I even went through the same store pattern. First Macy's, which upon first skimming seemed to have a small selection of acceptable dresses, then Nordstrom, then other random stores in the mall that either my mom or I half-heartedly suggested in attempts to not make the trip a complete waste, and finally back to Macy's to scour the rack more thoroughly and less critically (as in the beginning I came with a very specific type and color dress in mind, and upon not finding had to broaden my horizons to include anything that I liked and fit and looked good on me.) However, I finally settled on two dresses at Macy's, which was a change from last year. One was a tank dress with a v-neck and v-back, with a subtle snakeskin design and covered in tiny gold and bronze sequins. The other was strapless and ballerina pink with pretty creases and folds at the bottom. I liked the first one much better, but it was both tighter and more expensive than the pink one, and so my mother decided against it. The pink one, for me, was a last resort, as I really, really didn't want to have to come shopping again next weekend and end up being really rushed. I liked it, but there were certain things about it that I didn't like, and despite what my mom and Lydia said to the contrary, I really didn't think it looked that good on me. Nevertheless, I bought it, and  with all the discounts we had at Macy's it ended up being $15, as opposed to the $69 that the other one was. We went to Von Maur on the way home just to see if there was anything better, and sure enough there was a dress that I really liked there. It's strapless and covered in larger sequins than the other dress was, and they're silver and gold and the dress isn't as tight and just generally looks better on me than the one I wanted at Macy's. I tried it on a bought it, and it was funny because my mom didn't want to buy the other dress for $69, but she bought this one and it ended up being $68. Interesting. Anyway the funny thing is is that both this year and last year, I went to MOA with big plans for getting a dress there, only to eventually end up getting the dress right here at EP. After getting the dress we decided to just look really quick at Payless, because it was there, and I found one pair of gold pumps that matched the dress well, but had six-inch heels. Six inches. I didn't really have a problem with that fact, until I realized that if I did manage to get a date, he would have to be extremely tall or else I would look like a giant next to him. So I decided against the shoes. I found another pair of gold shoes that were absolutely perfect for the dress, this time with straps and a much shorter four-inch heel, but my mom decided they were too expensive and that was the end of that; there wasn't much time for argument because I had to go to work. So I just need shoes and also a clutch and I should be set to go. The good thing about having the insanely sparkly dress is that I don't really need any jewelry unless I want to blind anyone within fifty feet of me.

Well, I'm off to paint my nails now, and watch some television before my day of relaxation gets interrupted by work. I'm super excited for school. Just think. In 24 hours we'll be at a barbecue with everyone from school. Isn't that exciting? It's exciting.

2012: It's Coming

I used to think the idea of the world ending in 2012 was ridiculous. I mean, seriously, the Mayan calendar ends which means we're all going to die? Yeah, okay, whatever you say Crazy. But now, I see it differently. The Mayans were obviously some sort of super-advanced voodoo alien tribe that came from another planet, foresaw the end of our planet, made a civilization here with extremely advanced pyramids and rituals, and then left well before anything disastrous could happen. That is obviously the truth; I don't know how I could have missed it before.
And since they're a super-advanced voodoo alien tribe from another planet and are right about the world ending, that mean's we've got less than a year and four months until civilization as we know it comes to an end. So be prepared, people. I don't know if it'll be a zombie apocalypse, but it wouldn't hurt to have weapons handy anyway. Might as well have them in case the dinosuars or some mutant alien beasts come a-knocking, or something similar and equally dangerous. Also, have a deep subterranean cellar installed, and reinforce your house with steel and titanium. Oh, and you might want to add lead to that list as well, in case there's some nuclear mishap along with the general chaos and mayhem. A boat might also be useful in case of a flood, although I don't think a flood is likely because God specifically said he wouldn't pull that one again. Finally, don't forget the most important and most basic items: food, emergency water, first aid, etc. Think through each step of the armageddon and prepare yourself accordingly. Will you need a tent? A flashlight? The power is apt to go out with all the madness and no one around to keep it running. Also, if you're not a fan of living rough, I'd think about a very large supply of toilet paper. You can never be too prepared, and remember, we don't know what's gonna happen, so think of everything.
Now, if for some reason you don't believe in the coming armageddon, it shouldn't be too hard to convince you. I mean, it's already started. You want a list of all the major disasters, natural and otherwise, that have happened in the past few years and are still happening now? Here you go (it's not in exact order):

• the tsunami in Thailand
• the earthquake in Haiti and the one in Chile a week later
• the flooding in Australia
• the earthquake in New Zealand
• the earthquake and tsunami in Japan
• the tornadoes in the South
• the rebellions in the Middle East
• Hurricane Irene
• the earthquake on the East Coast- keep in mind that the east coast doesn't usually get earthquakes
• lots and lots of other, smaller disasters over the past few years

SO. If that's not enough to convince you, then you can just stay unprepared until December 21st, 2012, and end up dying just like the rest of the world.

Thirteen Days of Freedom Remain

Put another X on the calendar, summer's on its deathbed. There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends.

And in this case, it ends in school, so I'd say that's a fair statement. That's a song, by Panic! At the Disco, and that part's been in my head for the past few days and most likely will be in it for the next two weeks. I mean, I'm excited for school, very excited, especially with all the schooly things that have been going on that add to the excitment. I'm just not excited for my classes. Two AP classes and English X and Precalc. If you say Precalc it doesn't sound as scary, but I shiver with nervousness if I say Precalculus with Trigonometry. It had better be like Geometry and not Algebra. I honestly don't know how I've passed two Algebra classes. I don't remember any of it.

So, orientation was today, and my locker is in the middle of everything, which is quite annoying. Also I have a meeting with the counselor tomorrow because I have to figure out what the deal is with gym; right now there's just an empty spot in my schedule. Then I have to finish my English homework, which luckily I have made considerable progress on and shouldn't be that hard to complete, buy new shoes, and buy a backpack, and I should be ready for school. I got my picture taken even though I'm gonna get retakes because of my braces, and I realize now that that picture is going to go on my student ID, so it's a good thing I actually attempted to look semi decent and didn't wear the ponytail and crappy tshirt that I originally planned to wear.

Okay so band has begun, and it's fun, but I have a lot to do with band, work, and my homework, and I end up with pretty much zero freetime. I finished my outline for English yesterday and decided that today is a break day so that's why I'm not currently doing homework. So much to do. I need my frickin planner so I can write it all down, but noooo, there's no August, so the planner is useless. USELESS. Anyway, adios.

BAND JOY

Band, band, band, band, band, bandddd, yay bandddd. That's a song. It expresses my excitement that band is starting very soon, and also my complete and utter JOY that I have actually managed to convince ANOTHER MEMBER to join. I never actually thought it would happen. I am so greatly excited. And I better be in the drumline. I think I will. I mean, the only other people that play snare that are above me in both age and skill level are Cassidy, Jessica, and Blake. Dan (Peterjohn) plays quads and those are the only other percussionists in Symphonic Winds. He said four or six drummers. There are three above, and the only person I can think of that would replace me is Stephanie Callaghan, and she wasn't in band last year so that's an automatic Varsity Band. I mean she played for the parade but that's only because Blake wasn't there, and I played for the parade too so I don't see why I wouldn't be in the drumline. I think I will. I hope I will. Because I most definitely don't want to play bass drum, and I most definitely definitely don't want to be in pit, and quads would be fun but I'm obviously not going to play those. Oh gosh. I just realized that I will be missing a fair amount of band for work. So what if I miss a lot and then I don't know the routine and he makes me be in pit? Actually no I don't think there will be a routine for the September 2nd game, so it's all good. I won't miss the morning practices, so I'll know the important routines. I can't see myself playing anything other than snare, cuz I mean that's what I do. Although this year in regular band it's gonna be different because Jessica Anderson is a really really good drummer and she will in most cases be playing snare instead of me. I'll probably be stuck playing mallets. Which in most cases is not terrible. But still. Oh well. My time will come. Anyway. Spat camp on Monday! Yay!

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.