School year is movin' along.

It is. The year is almost an eighth of the way over, now! Interims and all that. I've already rambled to everyone about my unexplainably good grades, but I've been posting 'em since I barely bailed myself out of Algebra last spring, so I shall continue the tradition. I don't have numbers for these grades because our interims only say letters, but that's okay.

English - A.
History - A.
Journalism - A.
Geometry - A. (I happen to know that I have a 99 percent in there because my teacher sent home more detailed interims by way of email. Me. Math. Ninety nine. Makes no sense, but I love it.)
French - A.
Biology - A- (Seriously?! I hate my teacher. I hated her before this, but I hate her more now.)
Gym - A.

So. Basically everything is fine, my parents aren't giving me any worried looks or whining about me slacking off. Which makes sense because I've been spending about five hours a day studying, doing homework, that sort of thing. I desperately want A's so that I can go to school in Washington when I graduate. If I don't get A's, it shall not happen, so therefore, I must get A's. It's a conditional statement thing! Sorta. My biology grade should be an A too. It would be an A if my teacher weren't a bitter old hag who takes out her passive agressive fury on a bunch of innocent freshmen every day. She gave me a C on this science fair packet because I 'didn't put metric units'. Yeah, um, I was listing the plants I intended to use. Can't really put units on that. Oh well, at least I'm not failing, even though I might not have anything close to an A after the unit test we just took. I studied so much for it, but macromolecules and atoms - which I'm learning for the second time, they still don't go into my head - do not stick for me. I'm definitely not a science person.

Enough about that, though. I don't really want to cultivate extreme hatred against a teacher the way I did against my english teacher last year. Too much work.

Last week, my mother, of all people, dragged me into getting a Facebook. For a long, long time, I was vehemently opposed to even thinking about it, but the ten demands a day of, 'do you have a Facebook yet?!' finally made me crack, and when I was weakened by... well, tiredness and stayed home from school last Friday, my mother almost singlehandedly created an account for me and promptly added herself to my friends list. I sort of got addicted for a couple of days, but it got old when I figured out that my friends don't actually have anything to say but that they found a pink cow in Farmville or whatever, and that they're bored. So spending hours a day on there isn't worth it, unless I'm attempting to stalk someone, which makes me feel stalkerish, so I had to stop that too. I wasn't successful, by the way. Searching through lists of eight hundred people has no effect. I hate that profiles are hidden. Makes it so much harder to do any proper stalking. That and I never learn people's last names. So I can't find the friends who actually ask me to find them on there, let alone people I spend time searching for even though I'd never friend them, due to me being me.

My father is a closet The Birthday Massacre fanboy. Actually, he's not really the closet part. Ever since I forced him to listen to my copy of 'Violet', he's been obsessed. He even tuned his keyboard to play one of their songs. We've listened to Violet in the car at least five times now, and he cranks it up louder than anything else he plays. So I ordered the 'Looking Glass' EP for him because his birthday is soonish and I had spare cash and I'm pretty sure he'll lemme listen to it. I love it when I've managed to brainwash my father into something. It's amusing, his ranting and raving about how insanely murderous their lyrics are becomes a sort of manifesto to their greatness halfway through. I don't love that many industrial bands, but they are great, yes.

This is short, but that's okay. Don't have much else to report in life, really.

Music lately has been much Green River. I ordered their album last week, along with Love Battery's Dayglo. Oh my goodness, Dayglo is an extremely amazing album, go out and buy it right now. Sleater Kinney too, I'm really liking One Beat right now. A little bit of Metric, and a couple of other obscure indie groups that my friend is brainwashing me daily to like, Smashing Pumpkins during lunch, which annoys my friends to no end because I space out to it and stop talking, L7 on the bus, Veruca Salt, some 10 Minute Warning. Mostly Love Battery. My devotion to this band goes to insane degrees, or so it would seem. I want to write a fan letter to Ron Nine, begging him to drag his band over here so they can play a show for me and the seven other Love Battery fans who probably live in Virginia. It'd be worth it for them, right?

That's about all, night for now.

The beginning of the end.

School's almost here. Which means I'm going to stop posting again and start doing homework. I don't hate homework. 'Cept for when its not writing something. Which turns out to be what homework is, ninety five percent of the time. So I guess I really do hate homework. Maybe it'll get better in high school? Meh. I suspect not. I dread the prospect of... doing geometry, or any math at all, especially because I'll be with juniors who failed the class, apparently. It's not that I have a problem with people who don't work hard in class or are stupid or whatever - although I guess I sort of have a problem with the latter - it's mostly that I'm afraid because they're tall and they have an excess of confidence and they might try to cheat off me because I'm a freshman. Well, actually, I'm not afraid of that so much as I'm just hoping that they won't try, because getting suspended or expelled or failing for cheating is not on my list of things to get done this year. However, my mother reminds me, they'll be too concentrated on trying to pass the class to waste their time bothering other people. I'm not so sure that's true, but my mother has been unexpectedly right before, I suppose. I also dread the first day, mostly because I'll get lost. People keep telling me I won't. Ha. I know I will because when I went to that dreadful thing in the middle of the summer, I recognized nothing. Not a thing. I guess I can ask my more knowledgeable classmates or something. Still, what are the odds anyone's going to know enough obscure corners on the first day to tell me where journalism, of all things, is? Not very good ones, I don't think. The only thing I can remember about that room is that its in the back corner of the school, somewhere. Which is totally unhelpful. I'm worried that I won't know enough people to sit somewhere at lunch, even though I have absolutely no objections to sitting there with a book and being antisocial, at least for the first few days. If I were being rational, I wouldn't worry about this stuff, but I'm not so I do. Oh, and I also worry about french class, because I remember nothing. I think half of what we covered last year has totally escaped me. That means either reviewing french this week, or just accepting that my grade won't be so wonderful. Yeah. No clue what I'm going to do about that. And! Biology worries me because I'm not a science person. It took me at least thirty seconds to type the word 'biology' properly, for God's sake. We have to put together a science fair project. This isn't like, detrimental to my life, but I just don't want to. It'll take too long, I won't have any time, it won't be fun. Unless my parents let me experiment on rabbits or mice or something adorable and furry. Which isn't so safe or pleasent for the adorable and furry thing, so I don't think they will. Besides, we have three cats. Even if they weren't be experimented on, they'd have their days numbered. Oh, and I worry about not having enough time. My mother wants me to spend just about all day on Sunday in church, school days will be occupied by piano, whatever club I'm forced into, sleeping, homework and well... school, and Saturdays are the days I sleep. So that leaves me little to no time to do anything worth doing, whether that be hanging out with my friends or writing or reading or cleaning my room or wasting time looking at things on the internet. Which is pretty much what I've been doing all summer, whenever I can, and I like it that way. School eliminates life. For most people, I guess it sort of is life, but not for me. Last year was fine, but this year I need to do well and I'm going to try to have A's in everything but french and math because I need to get into college somehow, and it certainly is not going to be through my participation in countless events. On top of all of this, I'm worried because I'm already going to be in debt due to my hair's rebleaching, and my parents said I need to buy myself a new calculator if I don't find the one I lost. Which was something I really shouldn't have done, because that calculator was expensive and I was stupid for losing it and if I don't have it, I can forget having a halfway decent geometry grade. It's not a worry so much as an, 'oh darn, this kinda sucks.' But I mention it anyway because I can.

I hope nobody actually read all that.

In other news, my family is large and overwhelming and very Italian. My uncle went to a Mudhoney concert the night before he went to a Pearl Jam concert, making me eternally envious of his life. I ditched the baby shower I was meant to attend because I was wearing old jeans and a black sweatshirt, which was not an acceptable outfit, so I went to a kid museum with my father and little brother and had a great time. I think it was the best part of the whole six day thing. My little brother is the only one in my family who I consistently get along with. I brought my piano books to my grandparents' house because they have a piano and a keyboard, but every time I tried to practice, something happened and I couldn't. On top of that, I left the books there - however, I must confess, that was partly purposely because I didn't want to be stuck taking a lesson where I knew just about nothing tomorrow - so now I have no lesson tomorrow. At first I was insanely relieved. But then I realzied that now my first lesson falls on the first day of school, and then my reaction was a little less relieved. I will come home from all of the peril that will undoubtedly strike me, and then have more peril strike me because that's how it works with me and piano lessons. I love playing so darn much, but I get a panic attack before every single lesson.

My new guitar is here! At last! It's gorgeous. The strings were really, really out of tune but I fixed them up and played around a little with it. I am, by no means, a guitar expert, but I think it's comfortable to play. It's nice to have a change of pace, and having a guitar that's a little larger will probably help my fingers, not that I can tell at all by playing it, which I know is messed up, though I think my hands were probably still fine with the smaller size. My hand's not all that much bigger than my eight year old sister's. My mother still thinks it looks hickish. I don't care anymore. I've seen numerous people who are definitely not hicks playing very similar guitars, including some guy who I'm pretty sure is ex - Love Battery, so she's wrong.

I bought new (to me) shoes, after a long search, that are about twenty five years old and nineteen dollars. They're gray and rather ugly, but ugly in a pretty way. I love them. I don't know how comfortable they'll be, but I can whack them into shape by keeping them on while I sleep or something.

This week will be so busy. Tomorrow should have been a piano lesson, but it's not anymore, so I guess that's free. Wednesday is a therapy appointment. With my father. So much fun. Not only will my therapist yell at me to get involved with activity sorts of things, she'll also yell at me to communicate with my father. We haven't done any of the things she demanded we do last time we went, so we're both screwed in that respect. And school orientation, which I'm also worried about, but as long as they let us hang with friends, it should be all right. Believe it or not, I have kept in touch with most of the people I hung out with at school, which isn't actually all that useful, since most of them are going to another high school, but I suppose it sort of is. On Thursday, my sister has gymnastics and several people have orientation, which isn't that eventful for me, but it does mean there will be household chaos and such. On Friday, I'm getting my hair cut. And someone else is having orientation. I have too many other people living with me. On Saturday, I'm getting up early and driving to New Jersey for reasons I explained before.

This is getting long. I listened to Bikini Kill, Love Battery, Elastica, Smashing Pumpkins, Bratmobile, Duran Duran, Pond and Foo Fighters this week. That's all you need know.

Yeah.

I don't really have a good excuse for not posting.

I don't. So I won't start with an excuse. It's been a little more than two weeks since I've posted, I think? And not even one little survey or post telling the world how I am. Which is fine, I guess, lots of other people do it but I like to try and post regularly. So now I'm posting and making it somewhat better. I wish I could say that summer's been so chaotic, I just haven't found time, but I've had time. I've just spent it occupying myself other ways. Want to hear about 'em? You know you do.

Firstly, I've been playing more guitar. I'm starting to get the skin shredded off the tops of my fingers again, which is cool, even though it hurts. I think I posted about this earlier, maybe, but I've been learning riffs and simple solos, and messing around with power chords, and it's all very fun. Because I'm not taking lessons, I can just let myself do whatever and not worry about learning specific things for the next week. I've learned all of L7's 'One More Thing' and Elastica's 'Blue', which is really easy, and most of Alice in Chains' 'Got Me Wrong' now. And Nirvana's 'Downer'. I want to learn some Smashing Pumpkins stuff, but Billy's insane at guitar, and I'm too lazy to deal with all of the things he does, so I had to put that aside for a while.

I've been playing piano too. I didn't have a lesson for about three weeks because we were both busy, and by then I'd made enough progress to get me ahead to the bridge of 'Psycho', which took forever. I could tell she wasn't sure that I was actually ready to move on, but was sick of making me play the same thing over and over. I don't know why I'm fine with classical stuff that is twice as hard as pop, but stumble over really easy stuff like this. It's annoying. I also got a new song assignment - Bach's Prelude Two in what I think is A minor, but I could be wrong. It's beautiful, if I get good at it, I might upload it to Youtube like I did with Movement One of Sonatina, but it's really hard. Well, not for someone who knows what they're doing, but for me. Especially since I've only had five days to practice this week, and one of them was sort of shortened. Thank God I still have today and tomorrow, I hate disappointing her and I still have no clue what I'm meant to be doing on Psycho, I only have about half of the right hand figured out on Prelude, and so... I have a lot to do.

Lastly, with the exception of hanging out with my internet friends, 'cause of course I'd be doing that, I've been writing again. For the first time in more than a year, excluding school assignments, it hasn't been fanfiction. I started a new novel, and it's at about twenty seven thousand words right now. I want to make it about fifty thousand at a minimum, but I guess I'll be done whenever the story line's finished. And then I can edit to make it longer. So much fun. My story doesn't... really... make sense, so I doubt it could go much of anywhere, but I'm having fun writing it and I've made almost ten thousand words in a day with it, so it's cool to have done that. I think that writing it has probably been the biggest cause in the random death of my blog, but oh well. I'm blogging now, right? And I intend to do at least three chapters today, even if they're not good chapters because I want to finish this whole thing by the time I leave for New Hampshire in a couple of weeks.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention this. I met my best friend. For the first time. In New Jersey (where, oddly, I came out of unscathed). It was pretty darn cool, to be able to hang out with someone who I've only talked to over the phone and over the internet before. I had to beg for it, because my father was really not too happy with the whole concept, but then she wasn't an old man, which meant he could go buy some cables at Game Stop and quit panicking, for the time being. We hung out at a mall for an hour or something, and then we (we being my father, brother and I) had to go. We saw my father's hometown, and this balloon festival thing where a disco band from the nineteen seventies were performing. And then we went to Great Adventure. We also saw Rutgers University, which is where my father went, and I've decided I am definitely not going there. Not only because it's in, well, New Jersey, but because it's huge. I can't handle the idea of taking a bus to get to each class, or wandering around miles and miles of paths. I have this little problem where I get really lost all of the time.

We went to PA over the weekend to see my grandmother, who actually lives in New York. I liked the city, even though my mother was afraid of it for some reason. There were so many hipsters, and if you know me, then you probably know how fascinating I find hipsters to be. I had a good time staking them out and envying their clothes. We went and did some historical things, and then we said goodbye to her and drove home. My favorite part of this vacation was probably, since I have had all interest in American history drained out of me by way of living near DC and having parents, was the mall that we stopped at on the way home. It was a gignatic, garish, tacky place that claimed to have more than two hundred stores. I loved it. I used nine dollars to buy Smashing Pumpkins' 'Machina and The Machines of God', which was one of their three albums that I didn't have yet. I still need Pisces Iscariot and Zeitgeist, but I'm not even sure I'll buy the latter because it's garbage compared to everything else they've put out and I already own most of its best songs. I also convinced my parents to buy me a leather jacket. I've sort of wanted one for more than a year, but yesterday I went on this obsessive quest through the whole mall and managed to find one that was frighteningly expensive to me, as I hate spending money, even when it's not mine, but was apparently pretty cheap for a jacket like that. It's brown, and it has some zippers, and I love it. Because buying stuff gives me a euphoria I don't think is normal.

Music as of late has been The Birthday Massacre and Marty Casey and Nirvana (mostly the Bleach stuff) and Steve Burns and Bikini Kill and Dinosaur Jr and L7 and Lily Allen and the Fastbacks and Love Battery. Oh, and speaking of Love Battery, I finally got around to putting Straight Freak Ticket, which I initially found to be subpar compared to their earlier stuff, on my iPod and oh my goodness, it's amazing. The melodies and such are more subtle, the guitar work is thinner, but it's so good. I can't stop listening to it. Every time I think that maybe I don't like Love Battery as much as I think that I do, they surprise me. I've also been listening to Smashing Pumpkins, of course. When I put up Machina, I'll have almost one hundred songs of their's on my iPod, which I think probably qualifies as obsessive since I, as I mentioned before, don't like spending my money on much of anything. I still need their singles and all that, but I guess I'll get around to that later.

That's all I have to say, for now.

Life is... monochromatic.

My mother told me I use too many big words in my writing so I'm prone to hyperbole. I intend to never use small words when I could easily use bigger ones again, partly to spite her, but mostly because I think hyperbole makes everything better. If I spelled that word wrong in the title, you can pretend it's irony, but it's really just me being too lazy to use spell check. I showed her my submission for the anthology at writing camp today - a submission that's already been edited by several people and handed in - and mocked me for my use of words like 'relentless' and 'bleak'. Words that are not exactly SATish in nature. She's in a funny mood due to jet lag and God knows what else, but it was sort of degrading to be told that such words sound funny or awkward in my writing. I'd like to think it flows smoothly enough and tells the story. Maybe I'm just an egomaniac...

Enough rambling. I have some stressful things coming up, and that means I shall be writing panicky, ranty posts and staying up way too late and bothering everyone to death. Just a warning, if you happen to talk to me on a regular basis, like pretty much everyone who's liable to reading this does. Tomorrow, we're meeting an old friend of mine (we used to be best friends but that kind of changed) at the Metro station and she's hanging out here for a couple of hours. Under normal conditions, I'd think of it as a blessing, seeing someone who I used to be very close to that lives on the other side of the country, but things got complicated with her around sixth grade, and we never quite patched it up. So, as it is now, it just means I have to clean my room, clear my internet history so as to keep her from being exposed to the number of 'Blind Date' episodes I've watched and gossip blogs I've read. And Wikipedia pages. And then I have to change my background so that it doesn't reflect my new found love for the way Axl Rose looked in the 1980s. Not the man himself, you must understand, I think he's an idiot and is completely full of himself, but he was gorgeous in the eighties. And I have to make sure my hair looks fine and I'm not wearing anything particularly unusual tomorrow too, which just feels like undue stress.

Next week, I have a total of ten hours of my life dedicated to getting used to my high school. Not a single one of my friends will be attending the orientation, which I can deal with, but getting up at nine to be barked at and led around school corridors? I am not such a fan of that part of it. I'm extremely directionally challenged, so I hope and pray that they will not make us find our way around.

On a more optimistic note, writing camp has been moderately enjoyable. Almost everyone there is nice enough, and I'm not as uncomfortable as I used to be. The college campus is quite pretty, but college students are a self centered, over confident bunch who I hope I never become anything like. They're always rushing around in their artsy clothes with cell phones attached to their ears, giving little sideways glares to anyone who happens to consider being in their way. I've noticed a lack of students in classes, which must be a pleasent change from middle and high school, but kind of bothers me. Why are they there if they're not learning? I don't get it. Still, the camp itself doesn't give me much stress any longer. The only part I fret about is sharing - I fear that my group leader will force me to go up and read something, which I would not enjoy at all. The twelth graders intimidate me with their fancy metaphors and wise sounding comparisons, I'll freely admit that. It's not just that though, it's an almost instinctive fear of standing before a large group of people. Which reminds me. I accidently worked that line from 'Polly' in to something I wrote today, and didn't even notice until I was reading it.

My mother's return from her Seattle high school reunion was accompanied by a Love Battery tape - 'Between The Eyes'! I was going to go for the CD, but now I haven't any need and a Kurt Cobain shirt (my seventh Nirvana shirt. I know I'm too obsessed, but it's kind of fun) and this disc of various grunge songs. I took advantage of her high school's locale and made her buy me lotsa music stuff. Oh, how I miss that town. I was never old enough to appreciate while I had it. And now I live with lawyers and ex marines and other people who are not especially fun. My mother's friend's husband knew Stone Gossard in high school! Isn't that unbelieveable?!

I wanted to bake, but there is nothing in the house. Sadly.

My mother thinks that 'pwn' is a suggestive term.

Music as of late has been Love Battery, Nirvana, Elastica, Screaming Trees, Britney Spears and The Birthday Massacre. Nothing of interest. I only write this part for myself, though, so I can remember what I listened to. Steve Burns has a new album coming soon! I'm going to scrounge up a few dollars out of my meager new guitar fund and buy it. I love Steve, I need to support him in his music career. There might even be a concert at some point, if the opportunity comes up.

I think that's all I have to ramble about, for the time being.

Edit~ Oh, yeah, my Blogger icon is me now. From the front. I'm very brave; compromising my safety this way. I don't particularly like the picture, but my blazer's in it, so that makes it good. Note the weird aqua tinge of the front of my hair.

A scattered sundries post of sorts.

Being too lazy to describe my now rather monotonous days in detail, I'll just write out something short with some of my passing thoughts.

I forgot to practice piano yesterday. I didn't even play 'Thru The Eyes Of Ruby' or a little bit of the impossibly rhythm lacking 'Psycho'. My hands did not touch those keys. I am in so much trouble next Monday.

'Don't Trust Me' by 3Oh!3 turns out to be one of the more awkward songs ever to be blasting in the car with a parent. My father did not appreciate the chorus. In fact, I don't think he appreciated the verses and bridge either.

Pandora internet radio has died and gone far below. It gives no more than four or five skips per station, and it carries over skip counts, making avoiding the really annoying songs it throws at you impossible. And when I get in a mood to listen to the specific Frente songs I cannot find anywhere else? It mocks me by playing no Frente on my... Frente station. Yeah, that makes sense.

I need to ramble about something else. Why is it that only thirty year old men talk to me on Youtube?! And my friends, of course. But mostly the older guys. I can't decide whether it's insulting, or merely odd.

My sleep deprivation caught up with me last night, so I wrote a confusing, poorly worded fanfiction chapter that made no sense and went to bed before I hit three thousand words, my benchmark of choice. It also had a plot that I didn't even want in my writing and generated excessive conflict. I got a really bad headache around two, so I went to bed. I was used to having three hours of sleep a night, so five was sort of refreshing.

I don't think I ever fully grasped how geeky I am. Until yesterday, when I was delighted about having writing homework. Of course, the happiness faded a little bit when I struggled more than I have with writing in a while and was ultimately unhappy with my finished product.

Picking up this post a day later... everyone liked my memoir. I suppose it was fine. I need to do some fixes this weekend, then email it to my group's leader.

I have temporarily given up my dream of owning a bass in favor of not having a glittery pink guitar any longer. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait at least a month for anything to happen since my old guitar has chipped paint and will only sell for about one hundred fifty dollars, which isn't really enough to buy a good guitar, or so it would seem. I want something about two hundred fifty dollars. Which means I'll be babysitting constantly.

I'm teaching my youngest brother how to read music and begin piano. It's fun so far, even if the experience is somewhat like one of those 'Miss Swan' skits on Mad TV. He's only six and can't really read very well, so I have to go quite slow. I want him to get better than my sister, because, well, she gets on my nerves with her center of attention mentality.

I figured out the opening riff to 'Thru The Eyes of Ruby' but I can't figure out the main riff for the verses. It sounds quite good once it's right, though. I want to work out seperate arrangements for the left and right hands that are more complex than just chords in the left hand and melody in the right. I know that's how guitar works, and that's what it's written for, but on piano it's boring once I've worked it all out.

My (incredibly lucky) mother is in Seattle today. She said Mudhoney played a concert there last night, which she, being stupid, did not go to. She was in Pike Place Market today, and bought me some things after my repeated desperate asking. I cannot wait for her to return home. Although, it is nice for her to not be here, namely because my father doesn't care what we do, and he lets us watch violent movies and buy Cheetos, which my mother hates. He also let me buy a forty dollar distortion pedal, which I somewhat doubt my mother would have enjoyed.

It's rainy here today. Beautiful and rainy. The trees look much greener when the sky is gray.

I listened to everything from Oasis to Duran Duran to 10 Minute Warning in the past days. Today, it was mostly Smashing Pumpkins and Candlebox, and Garbage. Oh, and Love Battery. I saw an interview where one of their band members said they didn't refine their sound 'til 'Straight Freak Ticket', but I think 'Far Gone' and 'Dayglo' are their best albums by far, so that's ridiculous. Just a random opinion tossed out there. Oh, and I've been listening to some Britney Spears - her old videos made her seem so innocent.

I think that's about all I have to say for now.

The ocean hates me.

I can't think of any other reasons why it would attempt to kill me. I know this isn't a normal, or a polite way to start a post, but I don't think detailing the car ride to NC is preferable over this. So, I'll tell the world about my little near brush with death on the beach, last Tuesday!

I was out in the ocean with my mother, and, simply put, we got way too far. So far, in fact, that I couldn't reach and neither could she, once she stepped off the sandbar she was on. We failed to notice this until it was almost too late. There was apparently a really strong riptide or something that day, so the waves pushed us sideways, instead of in towards the shore. When my mother started screaming 'help' at the top of her lungs, I figured there was probably an issue of some sort. I didn't figure out exactly what it was until a gigantic wave crashed over my head, knocking me under the water and rendering me powerless for a few seconds 'til it had passed. I started panicking too, but was too out of breath to scream very loud. It happened again, and again, and after the fourth or so wave, I was completely certain I was going to die. I sound dramatic, but you'd probably say the same if you were in such a situation. I was being pulled out, not in, and that only meant the waves would be worse. I could see my mother losing strength and staying under longer and longer near me, but I was not close enough to do anything. It was actually fairly miraculous that some guys on the beach overheard our scattered screams, and came in after us, because I don't know what would have happened otherwise. According to the more conscious people who were around at the time, namely my father, I got myself most of the way out (no idea how, certainly didn't feel like it) but one of the guys assisted me the rest of the way out of the water, along with my father himself. My mother, on the other hand, was drug out of the ocean, having swallowed copious amounts of water and passed out.

I wasn't in too bad a state. I was more angry than anything else, because my throat burned and they wouldn't let me see my mother or even stand up, and there were strangers standing around watching us like we were on some television drama, but they clamped an oxygen mask over my face - in all likelyhood, to shut me up because I wouldn't stop yelling at them, I tend to do that when panicked - and took my pulse and such anyway. They were complaining it was fast, which they proceded to do all night before they let me go home, but it seems obvious my pulse would be fast. I was scared out of my mind, and had just been acting totally on instinct, fight or flight syndrome and all that, which I'm pretty sure generally raises one's pulse. And I felt all panicky the rest of the night. They took us to the hospital in an ambulance, which I guess would have been sort of cool if I weren't almost sure that my mother was dying on a stretcher beside me. She had, as we later discovered, swallowed so much water that it was building in her lungs and might later cause secondary drowning. I'll interrupt the chronological listing of events at this point to let you know that she's still alive, and almost totally back to normal again.

The story gets far more boring from that point on, because after finding that I was totally fine with the exception of a mild fever and a fast heartrate, they made me stay for 'observation' until about eleven that night, and I spent that time sitting there with an IV injected in my arm, watching television and playing hangman with my grandfather. My mother wasn't so lucky. She had to be carried in a helicoptor to Norfolk, VA, where they had more advanced lung doctor sorts of people. She wasn't exactly euphoric about this, and it really hurt me to see her start crying. It scared me, too. I won't go in to detail anymore regarding this incident, 'cept for I'll tell you that I am not going to go back into the ocean for a very, very long time, and when I do? I shall be insanely careful. I hate pain, and even though all I've got left from this incident is a long black bruise from some tie they wrapped 'round my arm at the hospital and a couple of scrapes and a little scar from where they put the IV into my elbow, that's just about all of the pain I can handle for the month. Or year. Or lifetime, really. Getting tossed around by the ocean is really not terribly painless, while it's happening either.

Enough of the whining. Vacation was pretty good, besides that. I bought some clothes, 'cause when my mother and I go anywhere for a prolonged amount of time, clothes get bought, much to my father's dismay. I got this metallic silver blazer - with shoulderpads! - that looked like it was from the eighties, and probably was from the eighties, since it was being sold for three dollars in a thrift store. I also had my mother buy me this little black dress type thing which I'll probably never wear the way it's meant to be worn, as I never go to anything formal. I intend to put a belt atop the waist line and wear it with jeans. And then I got a pair of large red sunglasses, which are pretty much exactly like the white ones I own, only... red. I don't know how else to describe them, other than that they're the same style Kurt Cobain wore, in fact, my white pair is supposed to be exactly like his, according to the seller. I don't know if it's unusual to try to dress like a dead man, but that's quite alright. Aside from the whole clothes thing, I went and saw wild horses on the beach with my grandparents and I also spent a great deal of time just hanging out and reading with the family. The thing I love most about my father's side of the family is that they're all introverted, bookish people who are content to spend several hours a day reading novels or watching science fiction movies. Which I prefer over my mother's side of the family, to be quite honest. They pass the time by gossiping and lifting weights.

The car ride home today was uneventful and even kind of enjoyable. I've read over twenty books in the past week, the owners of the rented house where we were staying had a shelf of books which I could only assume were open for use, so I was able to get my hands on some stuff that my mother definitely wouldn't have approved of... that sounds a lot worse than it is, but it actually just means Stephen King novels and other things like that. Horror, not sex. My mother is actually kind of oblivious to sex in books. She is even convinced that I put down a book if there's any swearing in it. Little does she know, I'd have literally nothing left to read if I actually did this. The best books I read this week had to be those that I got from the library myself though. I re-read The Diary Of A Young Girl, which I sort of skimmed the last time I read it, over a year ago, and didn't quite process. This time, I went slower and absorbed more of the book. Her writing is surprisingly good for a girl who's only thirteen or fourteen for most of the duration of the novel. It's almost unbelievable that it's not the creation of some adult, a fictionous Holocaust story. Maybe the fact that it's completely candid and real is what makes it so compelling. I'm currently reading Gone With The Wind, which is probably the longest book I've ever taken on, besides David Copperfield, and it's really good so far. I'm normally too lazy to put much time into finishing a book, but the characters and the whole premise of the story fascinate me. The society around the time of the Civil War, in the South, was horribly sexist, but everybody took it for granted. Well, most of the people in the story, anyway.

I think that's all I really have to say, for now. I've got to catch up on piano practice because I've got a lesson on Tuesday, and I'm so darn unprepared. Psycho isn't too bad, because it's really repetitive, mostly just varities on the same chord pattern, but Sonatina Movement II is killing me. I cannot get it nailed into my head, and I hate disappointing my teacher. I haven't done it once yet, I can't bear to let it happen now. No clue why I'm such a people pleaser, some of the time.

Oh! Grades. My report card came in the mail today (along with my Donnas tee shirt, but I figure the world is tired of hearing about my impulsive spending) It wasn't awful, wasn't extraordinary. I don't have exact percentages, but I do have letters.

English - A
French - B
Science - B+
Algebra - B
Civics - A
Gym - A
Creative Writing - A
Teen Living - A

My B+ in science was painfully close to an A. That irks me...

Music lately has been a lot of Love Battery, some Dinosaur Jr, and a scattering of other things I can hardly remember. Dead Moon, Lily Allen, Letters to Cleo. Oh, and then quite a bit of Blind Melon. I love Shannon Hoon more and more every time I listen to them. Something about his voice is so tragic, yet understatedly pretty. 'Letters From A Porcupine' is still my favorite, but 'The Pusher' is gaining on it. Their new singer - who, yes, isn't really new anymore, and has since quit the band, but he's newer than Shannon - is pretty good too. I wish he hadn't quit, though I tend towards thinking replacing an iconic singer with someone else after death is sort of disrespectful. I've been listening to Katy Perry pretty often too, for some reason. Oh, and I've been listening to Led Zeppelin pretty often too, though I couldn't tell you the song titles if I were held at gunpoint, because the fifteen song CD of their's I have on my iPod was labeled with nonsense words, or completely incorrect titles, and I can't be bothered to go looking through their stuff online. I missed my Bikini Kill and L7 quite a bit, but I haven't gotten around to listening to them yet. It's a pity their songs tend towards being so explicit, I can only download the most pure of tracks as long as I live under my parents' roof.

That's all, for now. Expect a whiny post later about writing camp and how much I don't want to go. Oh, I don't think I ever mentioned that I got in. Yeah. I did. The letter came a while ago.

School is out.

Yesterday was my last day of middle school... ever. Pretty cool, huh? Maybe not. I don't know what I am right now. I don't think I'm an official highschooler yet. I certainly don't feel like one. I don't know if I'm even allowed to be counted as a middle schooler, though. Perhaps I am just stuck in between for a while. We did almost nothing during the school day, as we had only twenty one minutes in each class. Some of the teachers made little speeches about how much they enjoyed the 'challenge' of teaching us this year, which basically means that we were a horrible class, but they somehow endured it, so they must drum up something nice to say. It was almost impossible to convince myself that waking up had been worth it, that morning, but I'm glad I did. I might have had a rather skeptical perspective when starting school last fall, and I was pretty confident I wouldn't make a single friend, but I was surprised yesterday how sad I was to leave behind some of the people I go to school with. Most of my friends are going to a different highschool than me, next year, so unless I make plans out of school with them, I'm never going to see them again. Going - even for three hours - on the last day to say goodbye to them was worth it. I'll always have my online friends, who I love dearly and would trade my school friends for in a second, but I've actually gotten rather attached to some of the people at school.

I'm rather proud of myself for the school thing, actually. I did better with the skewed grading system than I expected, especially after coming from a year of homeschooling where grades were pretty much an optional thing. And I made friends, which my parents kept insisting would happen, despite my vehement denials of it. I also kept up with my very best friends, which I worried wouldn't work out due to the chaos and business that comes with school. I'm glad to be done, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There were some things I wanted to do, but never did... I can ignore that, though. Next year should be a little easier. My mother said I'm less 'angry' now than I was before. I don't know if that's true, in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not, but I suppose it's an improvement if anything. I've also made it more than six months now without my little 'habit' kicking in, which is longer than I've ever made it, since sixth grade. Apparently, once it starts, you're hooked for life, but there can be dormant periods, and those can last for years. Which, hopefully, this one will.

I spent yesterday afternoon on the internet, attempting to practice my new piano assignments (Sonatina Movement II and more of Psycho) and completely failing, and baking cupcakes. I had a grand time with the latter of these activities, I even decorated them with frosting and chocolate chips and coconut shavings and such. My mother was quite pleased that I had the motivation to bake something that took more than ten minutes to make. My family keeps me around only for my copious amounts of baked good production at times, I fear. I also went outside and hung out with my little brother, who turned out to be contracting some serious illness. He threw up five times today. That's why it probably wasn't a smart idea to hold him when he started crying because I yelled at him for locking my dog inside the spare room where we occasionally keep her when it's raining. The whole episode was kind of stupid, I just hope I don't catch whatever he has.

Today was a laidback day. This Sunday, we're leaving for The Outer Banks in NC, so needless to say, I won't be blogging for a while. Most of the day was spent preparing for this trip, and, of course, dealing with my brother's sickness. We were meant to go to the library, which is one of my favorite places ever to go, but we couldn't because my mother has a cough so bad she can't speak anymore, and nobody else felt like taking me. I hung around on the internet - I know, I have no life and that's all I ever do, I wouldn't have it any other way - most of the morning after showering and dressing, of course, and I tried playing piano and failed again this afternoon. I cannot handle the assignment she gave me: I am in so much trouble when piano rolls around the Tuesday after next.

Tonight my father let me tag along when he drove my brother to a birthday party, and then he took me to eat dinner! Spending time out of the house - alone - with my parents, especially my father, is sort of rare, since I have so many siblings. Well, only three. But it adds up. My sister's pretty darn good at commandeering most of my parents' attention, and even though my brothers are normally low matainence, they both have actual lives, which require some effort on my parents' part. I am definitely not a child who does whatever they're told and never puts up a fight about anything, but I don't tend to leave my room all that often. After we ate, he took me to this record exchange in Fairfax which made him all tense because apparently the area was kind of 'seedy' or something. But it was the best place ever. I was euphoric from just about the time we walked in. They had Skin Yard CD's! And records from thirty years ago! And, best of all, they had Love Battery's Far Gone!! Which is only one of the best and hardest to find grunge records ever. It was only three dollars, and my dad had already said he'd buy a CD for me, so I sprinted over to him and had a little 'squee' moment while he delivered the news that he'd buy something else for me since it was so cheap. I spent all of my cash on shirts, over the internet, and library fines, so I had no money, and would have just about killed myself to get that CD. I also bought Bush's Sixteen Stone, which my father let me get because Far Gone was so cheap. I wanted one of the Babes In Toyland albums they had there, and there were some of the rarer Smashing Pumpkins discs I sort of wanted too, but I don't regret my choice. I'm listening to Sixteen Stone right now, and it's much better than I thought. Alien and Comedown are the best, I think. Razorblade Suitcase is still much better, but this CD isn't a disappointment in the least.

So, now I'm eating a cupcake and listening to the first song off of Far Gone, since I just popped it in, which would be 'Searching For Rose'. Life is good.

Music today was... mostly Love Battery. I'm having a little bit of a band phase, I fear. I also listened to some Bella Morte and Seaweed, though. And The Donnas, and AFI, and Frente, and Lily Allen, and even Katy Perry. So maybe it's not as bad as I thought. I also love L7, who are somewhere in between riot girl and punk pop, and have one of the most agressive sounds I've heard in a long time. But it's somewhat melodic too, so it doesn't bother me the way bands like Rage Against The Machine generally do. I don't think I have anything else to say about music today, 'cept for, that I am in love with Far Gone, and anyone who has ever considered listening to anything put out in 1993 should buy it immediately.

That's all.

Last weekend of my eighth grade year.

Enormously thrilling, isn't it? I know nobody cares, but it's terribly liberating to know that next weekend, I won't have to bag a lunch or go to bed on time for school! I'll be free free free! I love summer.

As for my day, it was pretty boring. Saturdays are always low key for me, I like to use them to catch up on sleep and get all of the stress of the week out of my head. I woke about nine, and hung out on the internet waiting for my mother's friend to get out of my house. I don't normally go to all of the trouble of personally hating people, unless I've actually got something to hold against them, but something about this particular friend of her's really grinds my gears or however the saying goes. She's extremely outgoing, which means she contunally intrudes on my privacy, interrogating me about my life and filling me in on every single thing that happens in Cambodia. Yes, she lives there. You'd think it'd be interesting, but it's really not when you've spent the past eight years of your life hearing about it all of the time. I sound like a bad person, but that's honestly how I feel about the matter. When she left, I came downstairs and had some of the coffee she'd left. Apparently, drinking really strong coffee with a lot of creamer in it and not eating anything is not a smart idea, because I was jittery all day. I went upstairs and continued in my fruitless quest for a Love Battery shirt online, and then made myself some lunch around one and watched television for a while.

Later that afternoon, my parents had the grand idea to haul everyone out of the house and take them to see 'Up.' Which is a Pixar thing. It was okay, but it definitely wasn't worth my mother's random sob attacks throughout the film, and the torture of taking my sister in to the bathroom with me and hearing her narrate the whole experience for the benefit of everyone else in the bathroom. Having such a vivacious family makes me want to go all Charles Manson on them every once in a while, but they're better people than I portray them as. We came home, ate and then my brother opened presents. It's his birthday today, he's six now. Six is not a particularly good year for anyone, I don't think, but he'll live through it. I wish him luck, at any rate.

Now I find myself scouring the internet for shirts belonging to anyone I've been in to, as of late. Dead Moon has some cute shirts, but they're all skeletal, and my parents have this thing about that. They already rejected my Bikini Kill shirt because, as it would seem, having the word Kill on a shirt is quite offensive. There are no cheap Letters to Cleo or Veruca Salt shirts in the world, and Screaming Trees has no shirts left on the internet either. I already promised my mother I'd stop buying Nirvana shirts for a while, so that leaves me searching through everything I listen to, all for the sake of ridding myself of money. I think I have an impulsive spending addiction or something, because I cannot keep cash for more than a week.

On a sort of unrelated note, these online stores that tag Blind Melon as emo are insane. They're the furthest thing from that. I think. Why are all of their shirts black, though? I own too many black shirts. I want the Galaxie car one in white with a black logo, not reversed... Ha! I found a white one. And I also found a violet Dinosaur Jr shirt, adorned with an adorable cow. I haven't listened to them in forever, but that cow is enough to make me buy it regardless of band, plus it is only ten dollars and eighty two cents. Sold.

This is ridiculously short. I'll post something soon to make up for it...

I listened to everything from Garbage to Tad today. I also listened to Mudhoney and Love Battery, my ongoing addictions. I listened to a few string tributes, some piano covers, and that's about it. Oh, and rather a lot of Bikini Kill.

Ah, so it's one of 'those' days.

Seems to be. You know, those days when the world is rather insufferable, and everyone in it is wishing for your demise? Goodness, I hate these days. I've been having one. Well, actually, one of those weekends. I may as well jump into my rant before I'm pulled away to clean some other obscure portion of the house that my mother doesn't feel like looking after.

Saturday began with my mother pounding down my door, which I had neglected to unlock, the night before. I was insanely tired, but I don't know why, because I think I went to bed around eleven the night before. She wanted to see Thomas Jefferson's house. That's fine, but it's a three hour drive from where I live, and I feel obligated to tell you that it is not worth it at all. It took me about an hour to get dressed, put my contacts in, and find my shoes, which is about average, and then we were off. Not without the minor complications of my clothing being, as it would seem, unfit for the occasion. What exactly about an old nightgown over jeans is so wrong?! My mother gave it to me, she shouldn't have expected that I wouldn't have worn it. After a little verbal sparring, I went up and changed again. Then we left. We arrived around one, spent some time walking around the grounds in the ninety degree weather. I was really kicking myself for wearing two layers, long sleeves, and black jeans at that point. With all respect to Jefferson, the guy was a serious hypocrite. He thought slavery was wrong, but he had over two hundred slaves working at his farm. He freed less than ten of them in his will. My parents, of course, got sort of angry when I criticized him, because people in wigs who write important documents can do no wrong in their eyes.

When we got home, around nine at night, I fought with my online instant messenging client for a while - I shall not be revealing its name to the world, lest anyone get the crazy idea to use it - gave up and used AIM Express. I'm still using it. It doesn't work at all, it goes down every five seconds, and it doesn't let the user customize fonts or anything. Plus, navigating through the buddy list and such is near impossible once one's got a message open. I don't recommend it, at all. I went to bed around one, since I had a pretty nasty stomach ache. I couldn't sit up, couldn't even breathe, for a while. I got over it by three or so and fell asleep. The night wasn't bad after I got upstairs and sorted things out with the internet. There was a three hour window that I rather enjoyed. I messed around on google, ate stale chips, and listened to my parents' discs from twenty years ago.

This morning, I made the mistake of opening my eyes when my mother came into my room, instead of pretending that I was still comatose. I somewhat dread church, for no particular reason. Once I get there, I'm fine. But it feels like such a sacrifice. I know, that's sort of the idea of religion in general. I'm horrid for thinking this way. But I really do wish it was later in the day, or on another day. Church on Thursday would be grand, for example. The sermon today was about not just taking joy from petty, temporary things, which felt like a personalized guilt trip. That's pretty much my strategy for life. After church, I dragged my parents to a beauty supply store so I could get myself some new dye. Despite numerous warnings on the packaging, I purchased it without getting a degree in... hair doing first. Two bottles were only thirteen dollars! I had enough money to pay, for once. This improved my day a little. I've spent most of the afternoon, so far, fighting with my mother over nothing at all, playing piano, wondering why I have this stomach ache of mine, and messing around on the internet. My favorite pastime, in case you haven't noticed. I have to babysit for my parents' small group tonight. I am not looking forward to it at all, namely because I only get six dollars for the whole mess, since some of the kids stopped attending, and it is the most boring thing in the world. Seriously, I cannot imagine a worse way to spend my Sunday evening. Well, actually, I can, but none of them are particularly reasonable.

Oh, before I forget to mention this, I've stumbled upon a life goal. So far, I don't really have any goals, not concrete ones. But it's never too late to start coming up with these things, right? Before you're dead, at any rate. But, sometime in my life, I feel I simply must see the movie, 'Poison Ivy'. I found the synopsis and some reviews, a couple of days ago. I don't know if it's because I'm suffering from ACC withdrawl or what, but I've found myself in some of the darkest corners of the internet, lately. This morning, I was reading The National Enquirer's website, of all things. I know I cannot believe anything they publish, but, darn it, it's interesting. If Adam really does have a twenty four year old boyfriend, well, I congratulate him, but couldn't he have at least picked someone marginally cute? ...I digress though, of course. It sounds like one of the most unusual movies ever made, people have described it as a 'psychological thriller' and it was made in the nineties, so that pretty much qualifies it as a must - see movie. I'd go and rent it right now, but it's rated R and my parents would flip out if they knew I'd even read the summary. Tragically. Perhaps it's leaked on the internet somewhere, or something. That'll be one life goal completed and out of the way.

Music has been nothing remarkable, lately. I had my iPod on shuffle all day yesterday, which meant quite a lot of Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. As well as some Pearl Jam. I think I forgot what a tremendous song 'Porch' is. I love Pearl Jam, so please understand that I don't mean to be disrespectful when I say that I think Eddie Vedder's voice used to be better. If you compare 'Alive' or 'Garden' to 'Severed Hand', for example. Eddie does a lot more forced yelling now, and a lot less actual singing. Especially during upbeat songs. It hasn't always been that way, he used to have a more soulful, steady sound. But maybe I'm over analyzing. Obviously, he's still good enough to sell records. Anywho, I was listening to my parents' Marty Casey disc last night and this morning. I've been listening to some Veruca Salt, a little bit of Mindless Self Indulgence, and Screaming Trees too. Sadly, I think my song addiction is over, almost before it started. Few can hope to rival the Bullet With Butterfly Wings obsession of last summer.

I think that's about all. School is going to be terribly boring tomorrow. Stressful, too. Finals and state testing, plus random assessments given to make our quarter totals look better, are working together to kill me. There is only two more weeks of graded work. I have to keep telling myself that.

Weekends are tiring.

Well, not normally, they aren't. But this one certainly is. It's only Sunday, but it feels as though it's been months since Friday afternoon. Of course, at the same time, I don't want the weekend to end, because school is such a pain, at this point. In addition to that, I'm terrified of gym. More afraid than I've ever been of any class, ever. It's silly, but I don't want to bat. See, my gym teacher decided that the best possible unit to finish off the year would be a softball one. This encompasses the whole 'stand in front of people and swing blindly at a tiny white ball coming at you at ten thousand miles an hour' thing. Which I cannot handle. I've managed to get out of it, until now. But there are only so many people in my class, and it seems rather inevitable. So, I shall be mocked and scorned by my classmates, forced to destroy my team's winning streak, and ridiculed by my friends, all of whom somehow, despite the fact that they too haven't any coordination or athletic ability, manage to hit the ball. Oh well. Anywho, I'm getting quite distracted. This weekend hasn't been torment or anything, though I suspect that I'll be quite glad by the end of it. My grandparents are acting the way they always do. 'Cept for, I forgot what a sharp, almost hostile sense of humor my grandfather has. Sarcastic, mocking, that sort of thing. Not wildly different than mine, I suppose, but I am a hypocrite. He also has a habit of cursing constantly, even around my sister and brother, which, while amusing and mostly harmless, is getting my mother all wound up. My grandmother is almost frighteningly complimentary, and insisted upon listening to Alice in Chains and Bella Morte off of my iPod yesterday, which turned out being sort of uncomfortable for everyone.

I sound so negative, and horrid. I love them, I guess, but I hardly see them, and when I do, it's not as though I'm going to pour out my soul to them or anything. There are some perks to having them here, perks that are almost totally unrelated to the actual people. Once again, I sound horrible, but oh well. Yesterday, after being dragged down a path through Great Falls National Park (something like that, I think it was called? Yeah, I'm stalker friendly.) where there were snakes, and worms, and animal carcasses, and all sorts of other unpleasent things, my parents took me to a thrift store. At long last. I have been waiting to go into one of these things and see what they are for a very, very long time. I was shocked, elated, at the low prices. Most of the garments there weren't really up my alley - they were better suited to middle aged men, which, admittedly, isn't all that far away from my style, but they weren't nice looking middle aged men clothes - but I found this gigantic blue button down shirt, that suited me well enough, for four dollars. For four dollars, I'll buy almost anything. My parents didn't seem to be in complete approval of it, but it was my money, and they had no choice. The people at thrift stores, at least, that one, turn out to be far nicer than the people at regular clothing stores. The woman at the counter actually started a conversation with me - yes, it was about my hair dye, which is getting really old, I don't even have all that much in there - which I haven't had since I lived in Washington. People are not generally all that friendly around here. You're probably wondering, at this point, what this could possibly have to do with my grandparents. The only reason I convinced my mother to take me in there was because my grandmother was already inside. She's a snob of sorts, she doesn't like going inside these places. She doesn't even like me buying things off of eBay, which I think is sort of dumb. Of course, I'm an obsessive bargain hunter, so...

We went to the air and space museum later that afternoon. Which was boring. I entertained myself by trying to make my phone get reception, and failing, and watching this rather senile old guy talk to himself by one of the planes. There were some Nazi fighters there, which proved rather interesting, more so than everything else. How is it that their symbol, just a simple formation of lines can be so notorious? It almost sort of scares me to look at it, which I don't think is all that uncommon. Upon arriving home, I hung out on the Internet for a while, mostly on Youtube, since my other major internet addiction was forced away from me, and tried to avoid more social interactions of the most awkward kind. Well, perhaps not most awkward, but pretty darn uneasy. Talking to people with such an age gap, and a life gap, is sort of difficult for me. Then again, I have issues talking to some people my own age, so it could quite possibly be my fault. I tried practicing piano, but it's really not working out for me. I have two days to perfect those measures, but Karma Police is impossible. My grandfather is insanely good at piano, and he laughed at how low the notes on the treble clef were written, tried his hand at it for a couple of minutes, and then wished me good luck. The other song, Sonatina or something like that, isn't horribly bad, but I've been neglecting it, I need to do some work if I'm going to get both of my hands working together by Tuesday. Maybe I'll contract a life threatening illness. That'll get me out of gym and piano. Goodness, I just realized how intensely stressful Tuesday is going to be. Oh well. I'll have to try not to think of it, and savor the last day of my life before things I do not want to do and cannot do invade. Oh, how I long for the enclosed mental shelter of homeschool.

I'm hanging around the house, not doing much of anything today. I need to recover from all of the touristy nonsense I did yesterday, I suppose. Tomorrow, we're going into Washington DC and doing some museum sorts of things. If my mother follows up on her offer earlier, I will get to visit the Hard Rock Cafe there. I've been to the Maui, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Myrtle Beach ones so far. They never fail to completely thrill me. There's nothing I like more than musical icons and their stuff. If I get any decent pictures, perhaps I'll put them up on here.

Oh! I almost forgot to post my fourth quarter interim grades, mostly for my own remembering purposes. Here we go...

English - A (95 percent)
French - A (97 percent)
Science - B+ (92 percent)
Algebra - C+ (80 percent)
Civics - A (96 percent)
Gym - A (100 percent)
Teen Living - B+ (90 percent)

I know, it's quite pathetic that my Teen Living grade is lower than everything but algebra. I've been told now by about twenty people.


As for music, I've been listening to some... guilty pleasure stuff, I guess one could say. Singers that are frowned upon by most everyone with decent musical taste, or who knows anything about music. Singers who resort to working for the Disney franchise. Okay, fine, I'll come out and say it, I was listening to Miley Cyrus last night. Start All Over has really well done harmonies in it. Kudos to whoever wrote the music for the song, which I am completely certain is not Cyrus herself. I also had on some Spice Girls, Puddle of Mudd, and, later, Smashing Pumpkins. So, it was an all over horrible musical night, with the exception of the last band. If only I could return to one of my former phases, where there was at least some dignity in liking the music I liked. I've brought myself out of it, a little bit, by listening to Love Battery, Nirvana, and Incubus today. I have the feeling that it'll get worse later today. I tend to lose self control and search things that I'd never search - such as Miley Cyrus, for example - if I were fully operational, later at night.

That's it. This entry was sort of short, but oh well. I need to go downstairs and stop neglecting my relatives.

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.

Here it goes again.

End of the weekend. Today was exhusting. I overslept 'til about eight thirty, since my alarm no longer wakes me. Apparently, the piercing screech of a repeated buzzer fails to register in my head as something worth getting up for. I dressed and went to church. It was pretty fun, more so than usual today. My friend and I spent a good deal of the time trying to hook another friend up with the guy she likes, and failing at it. I think the youth leaders were rather agitated at us by the end of the service, unfortunately, since we continually talked through most of it. I make up for my soft - spokeness during most of the week by babbling on about nothing whenever I'm with people who I know a little better, I've found. After church, I did about an hour and a half of algebra, which was one of the less enjoyable ways to ease me back into the school week, and did some minor english, french and science homework. Teachers are still continuing to load me up every single day; the weekend is no longer an exception. I think they're afraid of finals. If students fail, teachers get in trouble.

This afternoon was spent on the Internet, engaging myself in all sorts of unusual conversations with friends, and tidying up my room. My bed is neatly made for the night now, so I don't have to go to the trouble of fixing it before I sleep, like I usually do! I love cleaning my room, for reasons that I will not even try to explain or describe to the general public. There's something very fulfilling about it, that makes me feel ready for anything, and safe at the same time. Thus why I go to the pains of cleaning it every weekend. That's the best I can do, if you're wondering. For explaining, I mean. I was meant to do some other cleaning, but I hid in my room as long as possible to avoid it. I'm rather good at that.

I babysat for my parents' small group and earned myself two and a half more hours of service learning this evening. I don't really mind the job all that much, my sister and brother tend to be more difficult than anyone else in attendance, but I can't say I won't be grateful for summer and the lack of small group that it brings with it. Giving up two hours on a Sunday night is no fun. I got some piano practice in before group, and ended up skipping dinner because of this. Fortunately, I am generally more motivated by boredom or stress to eat than actual hunger, so I was fine with the cookies somebody left out on the counter later. I left my electric guitar, which I usually don't like playing unless I can plug it in, in the basement, so I was able to play around with it, unplugged, for an hour or so tonight. My fingers are really sore now, but it was worth it to get some practice in. I'm irritated with myself for forgetting Stairway to Heaven and just about everything else I learned. I played Bodies quite a few times, and changed the chords around so that it sounded better, which was sort of fun.

I am not sure how I feel about returning to school tomorrow. It seems that there is always something to worry about, always new stress, but life might get monotonous without school too. I'm most anxious about teen living and algebra for valid reasons, and gym for completely stupid ones. I'm not looking forward to every single person I know asking if I've gone emo, but then again, half of my friends seem to think I am anyways, so they might not bother. Gah. I'm coming across as sort of whiny tonight. It's bothersome. I'm actually in a decent mood. As for the positive side of returning, I get to see some of the people who I haven't gotten a chance to talk with for a few days, and it will be a rather relaxed day that will allow me to enjoy my normal routine, something I love, but rarely get to keep. The dentist kept getting in my way, for a while.

I listened to a little bit of everything today. Atreyu, Bella Morte, Nirvana, and the Smashing Pumpkins, mostly. Some Birthday Massacre, but less than in previous days. My phase could potentially be over. Some Blind Melon too. That's who I'm listening to right now. Sleepyhouse still makes me want to give Shannon Hoon a hug and tell him to feel better, and stop taking drugs. It's quite sad, but beautiful. I had on some Mudhoney earlier. This Gift stuck in my head for days on end, then I gave in and listened to it, now I'm sort of halfway addicted. But, more than anything, I think I was listening to piano and string covers of Nirvana today. There are a few people who do a really amazing job with them, and the melodies transfer to other instruments quite well. I think they're what inspired me to start piano again...

That's it. Tomorrow begins another week.

I'm black and blue.

Not bruised. Ha. My hair is now dyed! Has been since about two this afternoon. It's mostly inky, blue - black, with strips of blue in the front. A little less than shoulder length. It seems pretty low matainance, which is ideal for me. I hate working with my hair, hate hair in general. It's so astronomically pointless, and causes nothing but drama. However, I am happy with it today. The job took about two or three hours total, mostly due to the fact that portions of my hair had to be bleached first, then that had to dry, then more dye had to be put on, then I had to sit and wait for a while, and then it had to be washed and cut and straightened. Took quite a long time, but it was worth it. I had to pay eighty dollars, but I had all of the cash I needed, after selling my darling old iPod, and even had about twenty left over. I intend to waste this on song downloads, since I have nothing worth saving for. Technically, I could be saving to buy a new phone, but I don't want to bother right now. My parents might actually pay completely for something for once and let me spend my money impulsively as is proper for my age. But only if I convince them that my safety is compromised without it.

That was an unusual little ramble. But, anyways, I woke around nine today, and spent the morning on the Internet, showering, and searching for my eyeliner sharpener, since I'm awfully bored of not wearing it. We left for the mall around eleven, and I spent quite a while there, due to my appointment. We picked up Vietnamese food on the way home, and then my parents left for a date, so I babysat again. Thus the extra money I had. Most of it went towards library fees, but I was able to keep some. My sister and brother behaved seamlessly, with the exception of my sister's melodramatic fit when they had to stop watching that cartoon about the speaking dinosaurs and go to bed. I don't see why the show is so terribly engaging to her. It didn't hold my attention for very long. Oh, note to any readers out there along with myself: never ever mix diet pepsi with caramel and mint ice cream. It's the worst taste in the world, and drinking a whole cup of it will probably kill you. I really need to stop stealing food from around my house when my parents are out; it doesn't pay. There are literally no benefits.

I practiced piano today, and I managed to get a little bit of cleaning done, but aside from that, I did almost nothing worth mentioning in the areas of being responsible and such today. There's not very much I can say about it, but it was quite chaotic. I'm tired now, yet oddly very lucid. I want to go outside, and walk down the road in the darkness, singing to myself. But that's probably a byproduct of me being exhusted, and confused, and dellusional. I'd better get some sleep before it grows any worse, and I actually put this plan into action.

As for music... I listened to quite a lot of Bella Morte and the Birthday Massacre today. Some Nirvana, and a few stringed covers of Nirvana. I had a phase concerning those, a while ago. I hope it doesn't return, since it was awfully inconvienient. A little bit of Letters to Cleo, and some Atreyu. Pretty much everything I've been phasing over for the past month or so. I need to find some new music, something new. Not new, specificially, new to me. Older music is far better, I've found. Well, I found that out about two years ago, but still. It is. Trust me. Speaking of such, I was listening to some eighties dance pop today too, by way of the radio, and I actually sort of... like it. It's all so cheesy, and almost every song sounds exactly the same, but it's going to become a guilty pleasure phase, I can sense it. Oh well. I've been through literally everything else.

That's all. It's short, because I'm tired.

The end is near, but I'm busy as ever.

Referring to school, of course. It's as though all of my teachers woke up one morning - the beginning of fourth quarter, to be exact - and thought, "Darn, we've got to get these kids to a place where their grades actually matter in two months. Maybe we ought to start teaching them something." Not that I've been slacking off all year. Trust me, in most classes, I haven't. But things are getting far more intense. I have homework in every subject almost every day, and I actually have to study for assessments in English, of all subjects. The easiest class under the sun. french has been particularly impossible, I'm sort of worried about all of the major stuff we've got coming up. We learned all of these irregular adjectives today, and it made my head spin. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I've actually been handling it pretty well. I got a ninety three, ninety four, and one hundred on the last three tests and quizzes. I'm aiming to get a B+ this quarter, to make up for my grade last quarter. This class actually matters, since it's a high school level thing. I don't want a C+ on my permanent GPA or whatever. But I need to stop rambling about grades so much.


School was boring today. In Teen Living, I progressed quite a bit on my pin cushion, which I didn't expect. My friends think I'm a complete idiot with no sewing skills, but it seems to amuse them quite a bit, and they do half of it for me, so I don't mind at all. In gym, we stayed inside to play the odd school hybrid of kickball and baseball, titled 'Patriot Ball' for no logical reason whatsoever. It's a pretty fun game though, since there's almost no participation required. Math confused me. I think I failed the quiz we took today. I didn't know what I was doing, and I was quite tense through the whole thing, which made matters even worse. On the bright side, I did really well on the civics test, and I'm expecting my grade in there to slide up from a B+ to an A. Which is what it ought to be, since civics is the only class I can handle, these days. As for science, I didn't too well on the quiz today, and I sort of needed to, but if I study harder next time, I'll be fine. Due to a disagreement with my father while we were studying, I didn't work very hard or long. Science is one of those classes that I can do well at if I try, which I only do about half of the time, so I don't do that well.


After school, I raced to do a ton of homework, which I didn't finish 'til ten tonight, ate a quick dinner and then went to church for my second to last week of youth group. We're transitioning to the high school program soon. I'm sort of anxious... older people make me uneasy when I encounter them, despite the fact that I converse and argue with people far older than me on a regular basis on the Internet. I suppose it'll be better to get used to it gradually. I watched American Idol and finished my homework when I arrived home. Adam was nearly eliminated, and so I had a manic freakout and made my family fear for my sanity. I'm quite the fangirl when I want to be, it seems.


As for the music I've been listening to... it's a very odd compilation of Atreyu, Bella Morte, Pearl Jam, Veruca Salt, and Flo Rida. I really did not see the last one coming. His new single is really catchy though, and I'm sort of addicted to it. The chorus, where the vocals are less rap sounding and more comprised of melody is my favorite part, though, so at least I can say that I'm not turning into a rap fan or something. The lyrics are really stupid, but I'm still listening to it. As I type. I was listening to some acoustic Smashing Pumpkins earlier, and their songs off of Adore in the car with my father. He loves Appels + Oranjes, as do I, so I had it on repeat. I make a habit out of brainwashing people to like my music.

There's only three more days 'til I get my hair cut and dyed, sixteen days 'til the Bella Morte concert. I'm pretty excited, enough so that school is pretty much bearable. Which is good. I'll try to blog more frequently. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are busy for me, and Monday's been occupied by the dentist, as of late. But that's no excuse. Tomorrow is an absolute nothing day. Though I already know I'm going to have an excess of homework, I'll make it a priority to narrate my life, uneventful as it is, on here.

The weekend has left me again.

Weekends are actually sort of nice, come to think of it. Why on earth was I wishing mine away on Saturday morning? Tomorrow is going to start another five exhusting days. But I can't say I mind school anymore. I mean, I used to hate it in the beginning of the year. Now I sort of like some of my classes. Others are still torment, like algebra. And Teen Living. I forgot to practice with my mother's sewing machine this weekend, so I still don't know how to thread a needle. On Monday, I have to start over with learning, and start on a new pin cushion, since my old one is about as messy as can be right now. Being an extremely finicky, mildly perfectionistic person, I cannot stand to turn it in. Also, I'm going to fail the class if I keep on making work like that. But this post is about Saturday and today, so I'm going to stop babbling about school now.

Saturday was a pretty busy day. The morning was relaxed; I slept 'til about eight thirty. Yes, that's abnormally early for me. I woke up with a vividly clear image of gigantic slugs in metal tubes crawling all over me, and every time I shut my eyes that's all I could see. I still get toddler nightmares sometimes, it's very odd. I sprung the idea of my parents going on a date that night on them as soon as they woke up, and they were all for it. Which resulted in me watching a series of really boring children's movies, having to give my brother a bath, which is the single most awkward task in history, and raking in twenty dollars. This made all of it totally worth while. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I spent most of the morning cleaning my room and hanging around on the Internet. I spent too much time on the computer, it's a fact. I'm going to lose my social skills and ability to see beyond two feet of me if this keeps up. Oh well. I can't help it. My life revolves around computer usage and people living several states away.

Saturday afternoon, I went to my sister's gymnastics meet with my family. The whole thing was a little bit pointless, since they all got ribbons and did not actually compete against each other in any way at all, but it was fun to watch, and she was overjoyed about getting something. My parents think she's some sort of gymnastics super - child, and they keep pushing for her to do more and more. They recently moved her to a new gym because they thought the other one wasn't challenging. I think they're beginning to become true Northern VA parents - pushy, egocentric, and living life vicariously through their children. Which saddens me, but at least they appear to have no expectations whatsoever for me. Anyways. I keep ranting about other things today. I might have to label this post as whiny if this keeps up. We arrived home around five, and I spent the rest of the night babysitting and wasting time until I went to bed around one. I didn't write anything. I apparently owe the world another 'mature content' chapter on this story I'm writing though, so maybe I'll be forced into writing tonight.

Today was a less eventful Sunday. I woke around eight, after being forced out of a rather nice dream. Nothing like the one yesterday. I went to church, which would have been sort of boring 'cept for that I got to hang out with my friends, and drink a cappaccino. It was the first time I've ever had one, and I'd like to inform any and all readers that they are the best things ever, and I intend to drink them whenever I am given a chance. After that, we went home, and I did homework for a while. My english teacher must be trying to kill me, because I can't think of any other reason why she'd assign so much directionless homework over the weekend when the year is nearly over and my mind is meant to be numb and useless. I tidied up my room and did some chores in return for sixteen dollars more. I'm almost halfway to having enough, I think. I want to go to a hair... place by next weekend. Which is a rather unreasonable goal, but oh well. I babysat my sister and brother, as well as this other little girl who comes along with her parents to the church small group at my house every weekend, free of charge, mostly due to feeling too lazy to ask for money.

So, tomorrow's school again. I'm not looking forward to almost anything there, but I'll live. After school, I'm getting sealents or whatever they're called on my teeth; I'm missing a few of them still. The bright side of all of this would be that I get to read trashy celebrity magazines, which my mother has an almost obsessive hate for, in the waiting room. They give me a strange rush of joy, for some reason.

I listened to a really wide variety of stuff today. Everything from Atreyu and Slipknot, which are starting to form a phase of sorts, all by themselves, to some Smashing Pumpkins. I also listened to Blind Melon, Sponge, Eve 6, Jane Wiedlin, The Birthday Massacre... all kinds of things. Even Pearl Jam, who I haven't heard in forever. I'm in the mood for far noisier music, as of late. It's odd. I wanted to download some stuff, but I have to save, so I cannot. Sadly. I think that's all I have to say regarding what I listened to, today. It's pretty boring, and not as obsessive as usual. There's only about twenty days 'til the concert!

Aah. Haven't been blogging.

I missed two days. Whoops. This week's been really busy. At least, Tuesday and Wednesday were. Let me summarize them.

On Tuesday, school was pretty good. I had a French test, which I either tanked or aced, I have no idea, but the rest of the day was nice. I had my second piano lesson, with a new teacher. She's really nice, I wasn't too intimidated by her or anything. Which happens to be a problem of sorts for me, generally. She said she's going to try to find me adaptions of Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins to play on piano, which is... awesome. I did algebra and civics homework for a while, wasted time online, and ate. I also watched American Idol. Adam Lambert is the most talented guy. Ever. Well, not ever. But he's pretty dang good. I have no idea what I was listening to, that day. Probably more Bella Morte.

Wednesday was hectic. School was sort of amusing, for once. My inability to do anything with a needle makes people mock me mercilessly, though. Curse you, Teen Living sewing machines and your finger guards that make threading impossible. Upon arriving home, I raced through a ton of civics homework, as well as algebra, french, and science. Leave it to my teachers to give me more homework than I've had in months on the day that I have to get to church by seven. That deadline doesn't sound particularly hard, but when you have to eat and practice the piano too, it's not easy. I ended up doing some french after getting home, while watching the American Idol results to ensure that my darling Adam was safe. No idea why I'm telling the world about my television habits so much...

Today was a grand day. Well, for the most part. Tomorrow is going to be really good, and so today was sort of the introduction to it, I suppose. I found out that... some people I know are going to be attending the same high school as me next year. My school divides into two high schools, which is sort of tramatic for me, since nearly all of my friends are going to the other one. But! Some people aren't. Which is good. We did almost nothing academically outstanding today. In science, there was a really boring lab activity, but that's about it. I got home, did some homework, and practiced piano for a while. It's so frustrating when one is barely able to read music. Tonight was sort of upsetting, for no reason whatsoever. Firstly, my dog refused to come inside, so I had to corner her with a bag of treats. Then, my brother was being a pain, prompting me to tell my whole family that I was going to be a terrorist who gave my children psychological complexes when I grew up. Which is sort of dramatic. And probably not true. I mean, I don't intend to be an actual terrorist. I think it must be that time o' the month.

I'm addicted to Atreyu. Been listening to nothing else, aside from a little bit of Letters to Cleo and Alice in Chains all day. It's sad. I didn't want to be a screamo fan.

Gym is the best thing ever.

Officially. It is. Gym class was so good today. But that's beside the point. I woke up, dug through the dryer for my beloved Nirvana shirt, well, one of 'em, anyways, and got myself ready. Mondays are actually one of my favorite days of the week now. I don't have anything to do besides homework in the afternoon, and I usually have a pretty low key day in school, since almost nobody gives tests on Monday. English was boring, french made me panic since I'm not really ready for the unit assessment tomorrow, science was boring, as was math, civics was amusing, and gym was wonderful. Teen Living was the same monotonous time suck it always is. If I didn't have friends in that class, I'd seriously die.

I got my report card today, for third quarter. My grades weren't terrific, but they weren't jaw droppingly appalling. May as well share them on here;

English - A (95 percent)
French - C+ (81 percent)
Science - B+ (92 percent)
Algebra - B (84 percent)
Civics - A (96 percent)
Gym - A (95 percent)
Teen Living - A (99 percent)

My parents are not pleased with the french, nor the math, but they'll have to live. I'm more focused on making the most of gym class and hanging out with my friends than being a flawless student at this point, to be honest. Ah, well. I fought a little with my mother over them this afternoon, since my lack of dedication towards studying has angered her quite a bit, and her condescending manner towards me has angered me quite a bit. But nothing apocalyptic. I ate with only my father and brothers tonight, since my sister had a gymnastics lesson around six. I spent about an hour studying french with my brother, and forty minutes studying science. If I fail anything tomorrow, it's so not my fault, at least, tomorrow it isn't. I hate studying, it does absolutely nothing for me, but it makes my parents shut up, so I do it anyway.

I've got piano tomorrow. And gym class. And the rest of school, but that's not nearly as important.

I think I'm beginning to listen to Stone Temple Pilots again. Just a bit. Well, not exactly. I've been listening to 'Purple' for over an hour, and it's still not getting old at all. But I've been listening to Atreyu and Bella Morte quite a bit, as well. When I'm on the bus, all I listen to is Blind Melon and Nirvana though, strangely. I don't think the sort of music I listen to actually pertains to my location, but it certainly seems so. Maybe it just suits my mood in each place better, or something. There'll be a study on it in twenty years...

That's all for tonight.

The world revolves around my sister.

Or, at least, today happened to. For some reason, everything mentionable pertained to her. Rachel is such a little brat when she wants to be, and she cannot live without being the center of attention. But enough whining about her. Today, I got up around eight expecting to attend church. However, they had some sort of 'bring your parents into the youth room so they can awkwardly mingle with the parents of people who you never actually converse with' day, so the service was two hours later. Which was nice, because I got to sleep a little longer, and take my time getting ready. But the drawbacks were, as I stated above, that they were, well, there. My friend was showing me her new bellybutton piercing and my mother practically had an aneurysm. Sometimes I feel as though my life is a cheaply made television show on ABC Family or something.

But church was fine, aside from that. And that had nothing to do with my sister at all, so I suppose my post title is a little melodramatic, in retrospect. Oh well. After church, we went to this Thai place in honor of, oddly enough, Cambodian New Year. Turns out they haven't any Cambodian places near us. The food there was very good, but my sister turned it into some sort of excuse to demand a wide range of things with no nutritional value whatsoever, since it's apparently 'her holiday'. These are the times when, despite the part of me that knows it's stupid and immature, I wish I were adopted from South East Asia too. Aah. I can't stop complaining tonight. I guess I'll give up on seeming at least passably optimistic.

Upon arriving home, I did some french and algebra homework, wasted more of my life on the computer, and practiced the piano. A rather boring afternoon. Around six, I had to babysit my sister and brothers while my parents chatted about God and such with their friends. Which is generally one of the worst parts of my week, since there are typically about three other kids to supervise. This turns out to be a pain, but at least it pays. Ten dollars, to be exact. I really ought to call the Board of Child Labor and see about this, some day. Babysitting should have been easy tonight, since there were significiantly less people, and I had significantly more freedom to scream at them. But, no. My sister couldn't handle the concept of me having an easy job, apparently. She spoke in an incomprehensible British accent half of the time, despite the fact that she's neither British, nor can pass for it. She also threw an hour long fit about getting a glass of milk and attempted to kill me in two ways. All in all, a very eventful two and a half hours.

That was my day. It wasn't astonishingly great, but it wasn't terrible either. So, yeah.

I don't think I have any little rambles about music to put here, besides that I'm in love with Adam Lambert's studio version of Ring of Fire more than I thought I was, and Letters to Cleo is a band that I don't think I spent enough time phasing over. Also, that Atreyu does not actually exceed my limits for loudness, as proven by almost an hour of listening to them tonight. I haven't listenened to Smashing Pumpkins in days now, which is something I haven't managed since midsummer, which is sort of sad, but oh well. None of their songs are appealing to me when I put on my iPod, and I have over fifty of their songs on there, so I guess I'm done phasing for a while.

...Okay, maybe I had a few things to say. But still. That's all.