School needs to end.

Seriously. It's pulling me down into the melodramatic little depression I had at the beginning of the year; only this time, I cannot skip school once every two weeks to help myself recover. Finals, state testing, and reviews in all classes. Even the civics one is beginning to seem a little intense, and that's my best subject by far. On top of the chaos that comes with finishing out the year in traditional Northern VA style, everything has just felt really stressful lately. Even little things, that shouldn't bother me. I've been a rather neurotic bundle of nerves, as of late, and the only cure is a two month block of time without any interruptions to my peace and quiet. Normally, that'd be summer. Which happens in almost exactly a month. But, it would be far too easy and convienient for my summer to actually provide this time. Instead, I shall be dragged to the far corners of the earth - well, technically, New York, but they're practically synonyms - to visit every family member in existence. If my mother's wishes become truth, and I am good enough of a writer to make it into the ten day long summer program that she signed me up for, that will kill some of my time too. Sounds like there will be only minimal time for staying up 'til four, sleeping in 'til twelve. Which is a pity, because that happens to be my life style of choice.

Ha, so that was my whiny ramble. Well, one of them. I almost forgot to rant about my english project. I don't know if I mentioned my mixed feelings about the assignment before this, but I'm sure I did say something about it. The man I'm researching is Josef Mengele, and he's not a very nice person. He's the opposite of one, really. So far, in my research, I have found that he killed over 400,000 Jews, gypsies, and other minorities. He also performed lethal experiments on infants, and toddlers, often going through surgery on their vital organs and completely extremely painful procedures while they were fully concious. He was, probably, one of the most screwed up people ever to live. I got to learn the gory details of all of his experiments, and see graphic images that belonged in an R rated movie, all for the sake of getting an A. My parents found out what I had to learn, after I complained passively about it to them, and now they want to send my english teacher a letter telling her to give me a new assignment. I don't mean to get all internet - acronymy - on you, but WTF? The whole thing has been nothing but trouble. At first, I was thrilled that the assignment wouldn't be dull. Oh, it's been anything but dull. But it hasn't been very good either. That brought my week down quite a bit, along with the additional stresses and frustrations of life.

In other news, more cheery news, certainly, the Bella Morte concert was on Friday, and I still smile and have an inward 'squee' moment just thinking about it. My father took me. We left around seven, drove the half of an hour or so it took to get to Jaxx Nightclub, where it took place, and cautiously entered with the waves of - as predicted by my mother, who has an annoying habit of being at least partially right about everything - goth people. Who sort of intimidated me at first, I won't lie. The inside of the place was rather dark, covered with stickers and posters and such, and very, very loud. My father is convinced he's gone deaf now. We waited through three bands, two of whom were pretty awful, and one of whom was halfway decent, but more screaming / metal than my style. Which is odd, since the club seemed more gravitated towards electronic music. My father and I hung out around this unused bar in the corner with some people who looked considerably closer to his age than mine, and were smoking weed the whole time, until the opening bands were done playing. We bought a t shirt from this little stand that was selling them, and it turned out the singer was selling them, and I didn't even know it was him. Yes, this is sad. But he had a haircut since I last saw a picture of him, so I didn't quite recongize him. He acted like... a regular person. Which was cool. I wish I could have asked him to autograph the shirt or something, though. Around eleven, Bella Morte finally came out, so we moved down to the floor in front of the stage. The crowd was tiny; there were probably less than one hundred people there, which I really do not understand. First of all, this band is incredible. They have everything a band should have, and they put on an unforgettable show. Yes, that sounds cliched and stupid, but I cannot help fangirling a little. Andy, the lead singer, was so energetic for that time of the night, it was insane. He'd apparently been drinking Red Bulls backstage for the past hour, and proceeded to drink two more during the show. He was dancing all over the place, flinging the microphone stand up into the air and leaning up on the metal rails that seperated the band from the crowd, interacting with a lot of people. The highlight of the whole thing was definitely the second he got all of six inches away from my face, put his hand of my shoulder (for like, five whole seconds!) and sang right to me. Sure, he did that with a couple of other people, but I felt loved anywho. They played most of my favorite songs. No Burn The Sky, which is my absolute favorite. But they played Find Forever Gone, An Enemy Without, On The Edge, Dust, and several others. The set was actually moderately short - only eleven or twelve songs, which is a pity. Is that short? I'm not sure. The Smashing Pumpkins set - that's the only other concert I've ever been to - was really long, around twenty songs including two encores. Ah, well. When it was over, I was in this state of insane giddiness brought on by anticipation, exhustion, and an overload of sudden elation. My father probably wanted to kill me by the time I got home, since I refused to quit talking. We got home around one, and I hung out on the internet for a few minutes, then went to bed. I was quite drowsy, smelled like cigerettes, and felt wonderful.

So, those are my rambles for today. Tomorrow, school starts again, and everything shall get more hectic. I have a science standardized test in the morning, and I'm a little bit nervous about that, but I'm sure I'll make it through. Today, nothing worth mentioning really happened. I stayed home from church because my father's ears weren't in good enough shape, or some nonsense like that. This afternoon, I spent the sixty some dollars I'd obtained from various babysitting jobs, on shirts. Off of Amazon, since everything else was so pricey, and Hot Topic keeps refusing to sell band tee shirts that are both affordable and feature a band that I actually listen to. I got a Nirvana one, a Mudhoney one, and an Alice in Chains one. They ought to be here in a couple of days; I'll obsess over them 'til they arrive. I always do that to myself when buying things online, which I do pretty frequently. I have some disorder that makes it impossible for me to save my money, I think. I always spend it within a day or two of getting it on something I don't exactly need, but want quite a lot.

Music this past week has been a pretty mixed bag. If I had to summarize it with one sentence, I'd say it's been louder and more angsty than some of the stuff I've previously had on. Some Smashing Pumpkins, Bella Morte, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, that kind of thing. I've been trying out some of the lesser known grunge bands, as of late. Tad, Screaming Trees, Love Battery... they're almost better than the mainstream. And, of course, I've been loving my Nirvana. Every time I even begin to doubt my adoration for them, something happens and I'm hooked again. Scentless Apprentice is one of the best songs ever. As is Papercuts. And Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. They're all among the best, really. People who call Nirvana overrated are insane; they deserve every bit of cred they get. Oh, and before I forget to mention this and go off on some irrelvant rant about how much I love Nirvana, which I was sort of doing already, Mark Arm is mine. For real. I claim ownership.

That's all.