School is beatin' up on me.

It isn't making me sink into a deep depression or start completely losing it, but it's making me physically dead. I sense a sick day coming around the corner. Oh wait. I have tests just about every day for the next three or four weeks. Guess that won't be happening. So anyway, now I can complain about my physical ailments. For the sake of most accurately recording my life, of course. It all started on Sunday, when I woke to find that my stomach was not going to cooperate with the rest of my body. Namely, it was not going to allow much room for movement. Or breathing. Or thinking functionally. I don't think God really likes it when you curse while begging for pain relief, but it hurt, darn it. I just love 'that' time of the month. Fortunately, my mother went to get me up for church around eight and found me paralyzed in my bed, trying to figure out how to breathe when my stomach was not allowing for any below neck movement and got me some Advil. Which relieved the pain in about ten minutes, as a nice dose of Advil is apt to do. But I was still tired so I opted out of church. Turns out that this is fortunate because I was laying there, thinking about how much I love Advil for a while. And then I decided to get up. When I did? Oh my God, my neck snapped in two or something, right then, and I fell back onto the bed, due to not being able to keep my head up. At this point, figuring my body was at war against me or something, I dragged myself across the room to the ever faithful Google and typed in my ailment, begging the internet for cures. I couldn't finishing reading them before needing to put my head down again, but I figured out that you're supposed to take some meds and heat it. Because I was alone in the house, I could not get into the meds. Well, mostly, it was because I couldn't walk. But also because I'm a rule follower and would never take medication with consulting my parents first, I guess. Heating it was also not an option because of the lack of mobility. So I lay on my bed, staring at my walls for a while until I figured it was maybe a good idea to at least try to do something about this situation. I shifted around until my neck stopped screaming with pain, and then I got up and held it that way. I then spent about forty minutes trying to do french homework, giving up and going back to bed, ripping the tags off of old tee shirts so I can wear them inside out, and listening to Heatmiser. To make a long, extremely boring story somewhat shorter, my parents got home, gave me medication, and then made me do the rest of my homework. My neck hurt a little for the rest of the day - and still does now - but it was much, much better. And then, when I woke up this morning, I found that I didn't have much of a voice. In fact, I had none. So I got to school, trying to convince myself that the voice would come eventually, and found that it did not. Still. Which meant I got to hoarsely whisper so that I could finish an english project with my friend until the voice made an appearance halfway through first block. And now I can't breathe through my nose and the voice comes and goes. What fun. After a short, mostly unscarring visit to the dentist today, I also have some gums that feel as though daggers have been plunged through them. Oh, and a lingering scar from gym class last week. Apparently, I do not 'bear crawl' properly. Oh, and also? Today when I was putting in my contact, it shattered in two. I yanked the bigger piece out before my eye died due to having plastic forced into it at five am, but the smaller one is quite possibly still lost somewhere in my eye. Which isn't good. My eye hurts, my parents made me take out my contacts this evening because it hurt, but I'm sort of worried it's just lost inside my head forever or something. So, tomorrow, I shall be more careful, I guess.

That was so much whining, I don't even know what to say about it. Oh well.

I went to the library on Sunday to finish an english project with my friends. On the way there, I kind of noticed that it's the first thing outside of school I've done with school friends since the sixth grade and wondered if this means that I'm a total loser or just way more reserved than I used to be. And even though it was a project and therefore they technically had to be there, I still count it as something outside of school. Mostly because we spent half of the time stalking some cashier at the McDonalds across the street. I don't have all that much trouble finding people to hang out with during school hours, but I don't understand how anyone can meet their best friend in school. I mean, I met mine on a video game forum, so maybe I shouldn't talk, but it seems sort of random. And I'm bad at getting attached to people: I'd have no reservations whatsoever about leaving my current school for a better situation, should one arise. Makes me feel like there's something abnormal about my level of teenagegirlness. But perhaps it's a dellusional projection on my part and I shouldn't worry.

Piano is so, so fun right now. I haven't gotten a new song assignment in about three weeks, but the Chopin prelude I'm playing right now is the best thing ever, so I don't mind. Plus, I'm still playing the Bach Prelude I've had for months now, and I can honestly say it's my favorite piano song, bar none. Even out of the Smashing Pumpkins and such that I've figured out. I've improved it a lot, so that my sixteenth notes are no longer completely random and my dynamics are... there. And I can go extremely fast, even if it usually ends up screwing up at the end. It feels odd to play really fast, you don't think about what you're doing, your fingers just kind of know what to do and you can listen. Worth two and a half months or work or whatever I've put into this thing. My lessons have been moved to Thursdays, to fit my sister's gymnastics schedule. But that's fine with me because I'm not totally ready anyway.

Can't think of anything else I feel like informing the world of at this time.

Oh wait, yes I can. My mother's friend's mother - I know that's hard to follow - is an author, which is always striking to me because I've never even been close to knowing one before, and somehow, my mother set things up so she's reading my novel and giving me feedback, and I sent her the prologue and first three chapters on Sunday, even though I'm not totally done editing them. She hasn't replied yet, as far as I know. But I really, really hope that she doesn't tell me the idea has no potential, or I can't write at all, or give me some meaningless compliment because I vaguely know her, so she has to. That'd make the whole endeavour worthless.

Music this week has been Heatmiser, who is the coolest band ever, a little bit of Jawbreaker, Karmafish and Fragile New Virus, who are both unsigned yet amazing bands I found off of this new website called Jamendo or something, Veruca Salt (excessively loud, on the bus, of course), Smashing Pumpkins, Toadies, Babes in Toyland, The Wipers, Hazel, who are insanely cool, Heavens To Betsey, which continues my hero worship for Carrie Brownstein, Frente!, and a few songs by this band called Hot Water Music. Not very much stuff, actually. I've mostly been exploring a few new bands, feeding addictions to old ones. Don't know what to comment on, besides that my father is now a Smashing Pumpkins fan. Like, enough that he deleted his trance strip club stuff to put Machina on his little MP3 player. I don't know whether to be impressed with my own brainwashing abilities or saddened by the amount of music my father and I are starting to have in common. This kid I know's asssessment of the stuff on my iPod after he looked at it, today? "Wow, you have a lot of weird stuff on here". I didn't really know what to say to that, and since I have about four versions of 'Coconut Mall', I said nothing.

No recess.

At my school. There is none. I haven't had recess since fifth grade, it's sad. And even then, I spent most of my days inside, reading books or watching my teacher's rabbits or whatever it is I did to amuse myself. Anyway. School has been going all right so far. All of the hype about high school being radically different from middle school? Yeah, it's stupid. Sometimes, I find myself walking through the halls or sitting in class forgetting that I've ever left my middle school. I've met a few people already; haven't had much chance to hang out with those that I used to know. Most of my school friends are in totally different classes than me. Or went to the other high school, which is unfortunate. I don't have all that much trouble making friends, but I don't like it. I'm very withdrawn when I don't already know people. Fortunately, if people are outgoing to talk to me first - and not annoying - I generally don't have too much trouble befriending them. I don't need to be all that social right now anyway. When I'm at school, I'm usually almost completely focused on figuring out where I'm going or what I'm doing. I have this thing about not upsetting new teachers, particularly those who teach subjects that I try to get decent grades in.

I'd say the hardest thing for me has been finding my way around. I don't consider myself too good to walk up to random seniors with my crinkled up, highlighted to death map and ask where I am, which means I haven't been late because none of them directed me the wrong way. And all of them were willing to help me. So far, high school isn't nearly as petrifying or fatality inducing as it's meant to be in movies and books and such. While it was somewhat intimidating to be walking the halls with people who look more like adults than teenagers, for about two periods, I got over it faster than I thought I would. Getting lost is the only real problem. My journalism classroom likes to make itself impossible for me to find. Today, however, I found it without asking anyone where to go. Which made me happy. I even got there safely before the bell rang. All of my other classes are pretty easy to find, since I have a map and they're not really out of the way too much.

Oh, and my schedule would be...

English - all days.
History - all days.
Journalism - 'a' days.
Geometry - 'b' days.
French II - 'a' days.
Biology - 'b' days.
Gym - all days.

They're not actually called 'a' and 'b' days, but if I told you what they were called, you'd be able to figure out school I go to, and I don't think I actually want that on the internet, even though almost no one reads this.

In other news, my piano lesson yesterday wasn't so great. My practice was a little bit messed up because I was gone half of the time, and my work ethic was really lacking during the time that I was home. My piano teacher said I did very well on Prelude though, luckily for me, especially when she found out I was having my lesson on my first day of school. (At this point, I should explain that I thought it a smart plan to stay up until past two writing and reading... fanfiction the night before. And then I got up at five. Before this, I was kept awake by power outages, stress, and too many blankets. So I was dead tired by the time I got home.) She taught me the epic part of the song, the part where left and right hands take turns playing on the same staff and the sixteenth notes look all pretty and advanced and I get confused. I'm also playing, 'Jester', but I'm not thrilled about it because it has chords, which I hate playing on the piano. If I don't adore the melody of a song, chances are, I won't learn it too well. I learned Prelude fast, compared to my other songs, and that's 'cause I loved it. Well, I'm still learning it. And I still love it. But I'm not totally proficient at most of it, yet. I'm still sort of addicted to playing 'The Devil' by Tears for Fears. And singing, but very softly, because I don't have much of a voice.

Well, to update this post, it's now Sunday night and I just realized that I got too lazy to bother hitting Publish and so now I've lived more and haven't told the world.

Music this week has been The Go! Team and a little bit of Hinder and quite a bit of Elastica and Green River and L7 and Devo, so much Devo, I want to marry all of Devo, Duran Duran and Tears for Fears, Spice Girls. I rediscovered my devout adoration for Love Battery this weekend - they really are so good, I can't stand it, most of the time. The Distillers, because 'Love Is Paranoid' is still my obsession. Some of their other stuff, but mostly that. Veruca Salt, Sleater Kinney, the Toadies, Moist. Lots and lots of Smashing Pumpkins. Is it just me or are they quite the fall band? Especially Adore and Mellon Collie. Dark, hazy songs with thickening layers of gray that you just kind of sink into, and keep going until you can't see. Chilling drum sounds, that sound all hollow and echoy. Angst without all the melodrama, in a subtle, dreamy way like something's been lost but it can't be found so no one bothers looking. That sort of thing.

I need to go to sleep and stop rambling about things. Bad enough that I wrote nearly three thousand word... description about someone who doesn't even belong to me tonight.

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.

Oh dear.

Everything is ending. Summer, therefore freedom, therefore, my life. I'm leaving for New York and when I return, I have nothing but therapy, orientation, and a hair cut to greet me. Don't get me wrong -- I'm looking forward to the hair cut because then my bleach will be fixed so I don't have two inches of dark hair growing it over it. And my blue will be renewed by a person who knows what they're doing, which is always nice. I'm also going to a music festival with my best friend the weekend before school, which is amazing but I'll post more about that later. Not the rest, though, and I'm dreading school. Most of my (online) friends have already started school, and they all seem to be doing alright, but I really really really don't want to go back. High school sounds so scary, and even my mother admits my first week will suck. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it, may as well save the utter panic for the last week. I have this entire weekend to... deal with my family. Hoorah. At least my grandparents have a piano so I can entertain myself that way. I packed a couple of books too. My school mandated reading and my copy of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, becuase I love it and I want to read it again. It takes thought and paying attention, but I'm in the car for eight hours so I've got the time for it and nothing else to occupy my mind. Nothing better to do.

Oh, I had my piano lesson today. It was wonderful. One of the best I've had, even though I felt I wasn't doing all that great. I was so nervous, I spent at least two hours practicing this morning and probably an hour pacing around, worrying that I wasn't going to do well. Which, yes, is unreasonable when talking about a piano lesson, but oh well. I did pretty well, according to my piano teacher. She said she thought I was doing a good job of Bach's Prelude, which I also love playing, so that's good, and assigned me two and a half more lines. For some reason, her expectations for me are lower on this song than the others we've played. She seems to overlook the faults I have in playing, when she normally wouldn't. She's also giving me smaller assignments. Makes it easier to play it over and over, which is my favorite part of practicing so I don't mind at all. As for Bitter Sweet Symphony, I failed at it so we both agreed I need to give up pop music and play something else. I'm doing a song called, 'Jester' from this jazz book we found in the piano bench. It seems more reasonable. Less repeated chords, which I hate. By myself, I learned 'The Devil' by Tears for Fears. It's played almost solely in piano, so when I play along with the recording, it sounds like it should. It's an easy song, but so fun, and the melody is beautiful.

I ramble about piano too much, I noticed. Sorry for anyone who has to read through this stuff on a regular basis.

My guitar is due to get here... tomorrow. Great timing. Oh well. There's someone coming over to take care of the dogs and I suppose they can make sure the package gets inside alright.

I can't find any shoes. My mother said that my shoes (which are my favorite shoes ever) are dying and I guess I agree so now I'm hunting 'em down. There simply are not any shoes out there to my liking. And when I do find a shoe I like, its sold out of my size because size seven is the most popular size ever, apparently. I've already ranted to multiple people about this though, so I should not rant again. Of course, this is my blog, so technically, I can write whatever I want but like... yeah.

I missed the Love Battery show. Inevitably. So darn tragic. I need to write that letter to Love Battery, begging them to scrape up the money and get over here.

Music has been Frente. Due to some much needed help, I found the song 'Same' on MySpace. Full length track, unlimited plays, everything. The EP is still not mine, but at least that song is. Music has also been Love Battery, (a lot of) L7, Bikini Kill, Foo Fighters -- I bought their album, 'The Color And The Shape' last weekend -- 10 Minute Warning, Nirvana, my father's music, which is under the name 'Waveformation', Elastica (apparently finding their self titled album is hard and it's worth a lot of cash. I feel lucky now.), Green River, Beyonce, Soundgarden, Team Dresch, Veruca Salt, Smashing Pumpkins, and Moist. In short, some decent variety. Not too much garbage. Besides maybe Beyonce, but I swear I only like Halo. And Single Ladies, a little bit. Only a little. Sort of.

That's 'bout it. This was moderately short, but I don't have all that much to say...

Haven't blogged in a lot of days.

Yeah, so I went to New Hampshire. It was totally fun until my grandparents started snapping at everyone they could see and I was forced into more boring activities than I ever thought I'd have to do and I had to sleep on a cement floor with an oxygen tank sighing loudly at me all through the night and my brother snoring. Thank you for that, my darling brother. The rest of vacation was alright. I was thrown out of bed around eight every day. Which was unfortunate, since it screwed up my head, but the rest of the days were decent. The trip was devoid of hipsters, besides a couple at Hershey Park. Hershey Park was pretty, and it was probably pretty darn awesome if you didn't have a chronic fear of head trama that made you stay away from rides at all costs. Which I do, for the time being, anyway. I should get on a ride at some time in my life, but what if that happens to be a head trama inducing one?! I hate near death experiences. Two is enough for one life. First the bolting horse, then the drowning. Too much risk taking. If I cut that out, I can (maybe) count on a gentle death in my sleep when I'm old. That sounds better than being taken down by something that's scary, or something that hurts. For some reason, when I tell my father about this philosophy, he tells me not to committ suicide. Which is stupid, because suicide is the last thing I'd do, right now. Or ever. I'm sort of anti - causing myself any pain at all. I won't even rip off a bandaid.

But I'm rambling. I could say it's 'cause I'm tired, but I've had so much caffiene today, I don't even think tiredness is possible. I've had two Pepsis, one very large, and a mocha frappichino that made me unable to sit still for the better part of a day. Coffee is my favorite thing in the world. Today was boring. Eleven, almost twelve hours in the car with two and a half books does that. Suddenly, having seven hundred songs on my iPod feels like nothing. I don't even have Machina on there yet. I need Dayglo so darn bad. Oh, that reminds me of something I need to rant about after I finish talking about this. The first book I read was 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' but Oscar Wilde. Best. Book. Ever. Not only did the author's personal life hook me from the start, the novel was so entertaining and thought provoking. I read a lot of classics, but I have to confess that some of them are things I read because I know they're meant to be good, even if I don't adore them. Like 'Pride And Prejudice', which I recently re - read. This book was different. Wilde writes in a way that is easier to understand, since the book was more recent than the average classic, but something about the way he writes is so artistic and fascinating. That's the first novel, bar none, I've read in a long time where I found myself re - reading parts because they were so darn good. Nobody writes things like that anymore. I wish I hadn't already finished 'Tunnel', because then I could try writing more like the way he writes. Maybe it's just as well though, because I don't want to start ripping him off... Anywho. The second book I read was 'The Dave Grohl Story' which was okay. The first part about his upbringing and his first experiences with the DC hardcore scene were good reading, particularly for someone who lives where I do. The part about Nirvana was interesting, but it ended up leaving me more annoyed than anything else, because the author had it out for Kurt & Courtney, from the very start, it was all about Kurt trying to decimate the band and Courtney treating him as a puppet and alienating the whole world through her sheer Courtneyness. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to Courtney bashing in the least, I, like about ninety five percent of the world, doesn't like her at all, but Kurt? By most accounts, he was a sweet, sort of misunderstood person who tended towards being very quiet. Not a band decimater, at least, not on purpose. So that was frustrating to read. The Foo Fighters part was alright. Mostly, it idolized Dave and took shots at everyone else in the music industry. Which is always nice to read about. If one was a manic Foo Fighers fan, they might appreciate it a little more. I can't call myself that, not even owning one of their albums, so I had only passing interest in parts of it. The last half of a book was this Christian woman genericish novel my mother had. I read it because I had two hours left and my other books were done. I could have attempted 'Paradise Lost', but I was sick of weeding through annotations after 'The Taming Of The Shrew' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Nothing better for light reading than a book intended for thirty somethings who like romance without any physical contact. Those books are generally full of cliches and impossiblities that would be profoundly annoying anywhere else, but are kind of funny there. This particular one was about some woman who works at a cancer clinic and then gets breast cancer and falls in love with the doctor who she works for. Dunno if the irony's meant to get it pegged as witty or smart, but it had a rather fourth grade reading level, so I mostly just read it to pass time. Never finished it, don't know if I will. My mother doesn't like me reading her books, which is understandable, because I wouldn't let her go near mine.

Oh. Yes. Love Battery is playing their first show in years for seven dollars at an all ages club. Guess what city it's in. Freemont, in, y'know, Seattle. I can't really complain that they're sticking to their roots, and with the economy or whatever, it's probably hard to fly out to DC, but... I need you to play here, Love Battery!! My devotion for this band has reached a manic obsessive level over the past few weeks induced by repeated plays of Straight Freak Ticket and a crush on Ron Nine. I want to write them a fan letter, preferably begging them to come to DC or Northern Virginia. My parents rejected my offer to be in debt for several years so I could fly myself and one of them there. I actually cried over it. Twice. I might be a stupid suburban kid who knows nothing of real suffering, but I want to see Love Battery. So bad. Ron Nine normally plays more with his new band anyway. I should check them out. Down With People, they're called. Oh well. I'll have to content myself with finding out how to burn my Between The Eyes cassette to iTunes and hunting down copies of Confusion Au Go Go and Dayglo. I'm actually drained of cash, for the time being, because I sold my darling old guitar and bought myself a new one.

It is a white Epiphone G - 310 SG, which is a long way of saying it's a pretty normal looking electric guitar that can do a lot and isn't too complicated or expensive. Well, actually, it does cost more than I'd like, but I had enough, so I figured I may as well live within my means. Oh, speaking of musical instruments, I can ramble about piano for a little while, right? I practiced on my grandparents piano, which was old and out of tune and felt all wrong to me. It screwed up my Prelude so darn much. Prelude is turning out to be one of my favorite songs. Not just to play, but to hear. Although, playing it is really exhilerating, in a way. The progression of notes that are part of the D minor (I think) chords in both hands is so fun. I don't even think about what my fingers are doing very much anymore, which is my favorite part of learning any song. I like playing classical ten times better than playing pop or rock. That said, I've cultivated an odd little aspiration to play piano in a riot girl or grunge band (that sounds more like one of the heavier, earlier ones). Something like Green River, only maybe even heavier. And with a piano. Mostly, this is because I'm incapable on the guitar and enjoy playing the same five power chords way too much to make something of myself, but also because the idea just appeals to me quite a lot. Can't imagine how I'll find multiple people willing to work with that, but that doesn't mean it'll never happen.

Oh, goodness, this entry was long and rambling and had almost no content worth actually reading. Music lately has been Love Battery. I swear, the only thing besides a couple of L7 songs I listened to the entire duration of my trip to New Hampshire was the two albums currently on my iPod. Drowning Sun is the best song in the world. What other artist can pull off the groovy thing?! Might have already mentioned that, but still... I've been listening to Nirvana and Mudhoney too. Also some Pavement, which makes me worry that I might turn into a hipster some day. Then there's Veruca Salt and Bratmobile and Lady Gaga. I really like 'Love Game'. No idea why. In fact, I don't think I want to know. I listened to more Devo, and then some Le Tigre. More of the same thing I always listen to, really. And always Love Battery. They catch me by surprise in the best ways. Thus why they're beating out Smashing Pumpkins for my second favorite band, at least, right now.

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.

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.

I'm too writing out'd to make up a title.

Writing camp is... different than I expected, I suppose. But it's not any fun. Yesterday was my first day, but the drama really started the night before. I was more panicked than I've ever been, to the point of tears. Apparently, stress makes me cry pretty frequently. First the algebra state testing. Now this. I stayed up until four thirty in the morning, talking to my friends online and then reading some more of 'Gone With The Wind' until I couldn't keep my eyes open and I gave up. Which meant I got three hours of sleep that night, which meant I was exhausted by the time I'd made it through the impossibly long car ride to George Mason University where the camp was being held. The first day is sort of a blur to me, thanks to the sleep deprivation, but I know that we wrote. A lot. I wrote a character sketch of David Bowie without using his name and then my group's leader made me read it out loud. I don't think anybody else in the room even knew who Bowie was enough to recognize him. But the leader told me it was nice anyway in a similar fashion to the way doctors talk to mental patients.

Today was a little better, 'cept for that we got rear ended this morning. The damage was minimal and neither my father nor I were hurt, as the other car had been going very slowly. It did make me twenty minutes late to camp, though. Today, we were assigned to wander around the campus in small groups and describe some of the people and objects we saw. I went with three or four other girls in the ninth / tenth grade split group I was put in and described a janitor who was sitting dejectedly on a bench a ways away. I think he noticed us staring about midway through our writing, because he started staring too, and it wasn't really a friendly stare. We're meant to write something by Friday that we can publish in the camp's anthology, so we worked on that for a while today too. I have no idea what I'm going to submit; I wrote about a homeless man fishing a book in a foreign language out of a dumpster today, making it totally clear to myself that I had no inspiration. I'm sure I'll find something. There are a great many subjects in this world.

So far, camp hasn't been devastatingly awful. Even if it's not great and it's very emotionally and physically draining. Most of the people there are moderately civil, though there are some that are remarkably crazy and sort of frighten me. It's sort of nice to hear large quantities of other people tossing around odd words and making comparisons to really irrelevent things in the middle of conversations, which is happening a lot there. I don't know if its because we're all kind of insane from writing too much or if it's merely a coincidence. Anywho. Tomorrow will be another stressful day, but I doubt the details of it will be anything of even slight interest.

Fortunately, I still have a little time to myself after returning home each day and eating. I spent most of this afternoon and evening trying to detangle 'Thru The Eyes of Ruby' - my all time favorite Smashing Pumpkins song - on piano by learning from guitar tabs. This had all sorts of lovely complications. For example, the first tabs website I went to neglected to tell me it was in half step down tuning, which is fine and good on guitar, just turn some pegs (I tried it and it sounded nice enough, the riffs for the verse and bridge are pretty easy) and you're done. On piano, I don't know if there's a better way, but I was playing nearly everything in flats, which means lots of annoying black keys instead of the flatter, easier white ones. Yes, I am aware this sounded racist but I didn't know how else to say it. I also faced trouble with the small matter of the riff, coupled with some chords I sorted out for myself sounding nothing like the song at all. Not sure why. Kind of irritated by this. But I can always try tomorrow. Thanks to some music off the internet, I can play the introduction, the only part with real piano, with ease, and it sounds awesome, even if its a pain to read the music.

My best friend convinced me that I need a bass by having a grand time with her's and telling me about it. Well, really, it's not her fault, I've sort of wanted to try playing for a while, but not enough that I actually thought to save up money for it. I'm waiting 'til I have enough to buy an amplifier, and then I'll get myself one and learn to play it! Well, try, at any rate. It's become increasingly clear that I actually have no musical talent, I just have to work really hard and practice a lot and get engaged enough with the music I play to keep going, and then I do all right. Which is sort of annoying, but oh well.

Music as of late has been the CD's I bought the last time my father took me to that lovely place. I got about ten of them, the most notable of which probably being Love Battery's 'Straight Freak Ticket' and Elastica's 'Elastica', which I liked better than I thought I would. I got a Tears For Fears album too, but not my favorite one, Moist's 'Silver', 10 Minute Warning's '10 Minute Warning' and some others. Sadly, there was no Frente. Not even one of their full length discs. Thus, my quest for Frente CDs continues. I've also been listening to some of my favorite artists, ones that I sort of started phasing out of, more - Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots, namely. I've been listening to quite a bit of L7, some Babes In Toyland, and... Britney Spears. 'Blackout' is awesome, I don't care how cracked up she sounds through the whole thing.

That's about all I have to say. I know I'm really boring lately, but this blog was never intended to be entertaining, only a public diary of sorts.

I'm fourteen now. :D

I have been since last night when I posted, but... I needed a title and nothing else was offering itself up to me. I'm not going to detail every single minute of yesterday 'cause frankly, it wasn't a very thrilling day. Which is just how I like it. No anxiety over getting friends sorted out and events planned, no pressure to seem exceedingly grateful in front of tons of people. I spent most of my birthday on the internet with friends. I love my internet friends so darn much, I've known most of them for over a year, and I'd much rather spend my birthday with them than with anyone I know at school, to be honest.

Aside from that, I also played piano like mad. Going on vacation for a week really set me back, and I couldn't get anything mastered at all. I could tell my teacher was disappointed, even though she knew I had an excuse. We spent most of the lesson playing Sonatina II together, me doing one hand and her the other, which was not how I wanted to spend the lesson. I only have to learn hands together for what we'd already covered, thankfully, it'll be nice to have a week where I'm not drowning in piano homework. My mother insists it's not homework; piano isn't a class in school, but I treat it as such. A fun class, yes, but a class none the less. When we played Psycho, she said I had the notes down but not the rhythm. This is because the rhythm makes no logical sense, the syncopation is the most confusing thing I've had to play yet. Of course, I've been playing for less than three months, so it's not as though I've encountered much. My teacher made me sing the first little chorus type thing with her, which I could be persuaded to do, since one couldn't really hear me very well along with the piano and her. But then she abruptly stopped singing, and made me carry on. Which was no fun. I don't sing in front of people I haven't known since... birth. I'll sing in front of my family. I'll even, occasionally, sing in front of my extended family. But anyone else? No way.

My mother claims she called me a joy to teach at the end of my sister's lesson, but it certainly didn't feel like it then. I was stressed out over piano all day, and to no avail. I'll have to practice more this week.

After eating dinner with my family, I opened the presents various relatives had sent me. I don't know that anyone wants to know or care the details of this, but I'll digress a little to say that Steve Burns' album is jawdroppingly amazing, and if you've ever even sort of liked one of his singles, the whole thing is worth getting. Plus, the album art is so whimsical and pretty. I also downloaded some stuff off of iTunes last night - why on earth do they not have Frente, of all bands?! They had Pond - and so now my iPod is considerably fuller. Which is always nice. My parents gave me cash and told me I could buy anything with it, so I want to go down to that record exchange. Stuff is cheap there. And, on top of that, they had a Love Battery album besides Dayglo, so that makes them worth visiting pretty much every day.

I've gotten about seven hours of sleep between last night and the night before because, for some reason, I keep waking myself up early. Summer is in full swing, and I love it. If only writing camp wasn't going to come. I'm really dreading writing camp. It's not so much that I'm anxious - although, of course, I am, I hate sharing work - I just don't want to devote my days to something I don't want to do. I don't like meeting large groups of people. I don't like meeting people much older than me. I need to get over it, since high school is kind the eppitome of that, but it's not easy for me.

I want to write some fanfiction, but I don't know what to write. Maybe I'll pick up one of my long term stories, the ones that I dropped to work on one shots and other dalliances.

This is really short, but I don't know what else to say. Better than nothing at all, I suppose.

Music as of late has been the CD's I got yesterday, and a bunch of other scattered things. Some Love Battery, as always. Quite a bit of Lily Allen. My love for Tears For Fears has increased with a slight addiction to the song 'Pale Shelter'. I was listening to Bikini Kill yesterday, but not for long. I simply wasn't in the mood. I wonder, if a riot girl folk band is possible. If one is ever invented, I'll polish my skill at something and join, 'cause it sounds like the coolest thing ever. I listened to Seaweed, Moist, and some Pond yesterday too. Basically, quite a few things, but nothing exceptionally notable. I want a Frente album now, but the one I really want - the one with Sweet and Same on it - has only three songs. The trouble with indie bands is that they release all kinds of odd stuff that is not a full length album. They have such a catchy folky pop sound though, they ought to have more publicity than they do, and they ought to make more full length albums.

I think that's about all I have to say, today.

It's my birthday, which means I can make a nonsense post.

It's only three in the morning, so technically, it's not really exactly my birthday, but that matters not, am I right?

I don't know what to say about today; it was boring. I played Zoo Tycoon with my brother, practiced piano, hung out on the internet and looked around in my parents' closet, but found nothing of interest.

So far, for my birthday, I've gotten Krist Novoselic and some surprise that nobody will tell me the answer to. Oh, yeah, and a headache from my headphones. Wearing them for four hours straight hurts.

I read a book tonight while I was talking with friends over the internet. It's an easy, short read, only about one hundred sixty pages. It's called 'House Of Stairs' and I rather liked it. It was eerie, and interesting, and sort of cheesy, but... good.

Sleater - Kinney is the best riot girl punk band ever. People who prefer Babes In Toyland are silly. And, Hole is not a grunge band. They're punk pop. Ugh. Why are people so stupid?!

My father is a fanboy of The Cure. What. On. Earth. I was listening to 'Just Like Heaven' tonight, and he comes in and starts saying how great they are. He didn't even have any old albums to offer me.

I want my dress, I don't know what my mother did with it. I don't know when I'll ever wear it. I'd wear it today, but I've got a piano lesson so I have to look sort of normal.

My hair is in these orderly, well mannered curls right now... and no one can see me. Why?! Maybe I'll pull out my phone and take a mirror picture or something.

'Bring The Light' is the best new Smashing Pumpkins song. It's smashing. Really. I don't know why Billy had to go all Axl Rose on the world, but at least he can still write a decent, if painfully generic rock song.

Moist is a really good band, even if their name is sort of unusual. Their singer sounds like something from the eighties, technopoppy, y'know? Only there's heavy grunge guitar. But it's backed, on occasion, with subtle piano. Very interesting. The post grunge bands of the mid nineties were so cool. So very, very cool.

Pond's singer is so hard to understand. Same with Seaweed.

I want to marry Blind Melon's new singer. He's completely gorgeous, and he can (surprise, surprise) sing.

Sleep deprivation is a gift from God, not a curse intended to paralyze the mind and cause partial Tourette's syndrome. I think. Time to get to bed, I'll probably post later today.

Sorry for the nonsense. Most of it musicial and boring. Whoops. It's three thirty now, I'd better sleep. Night.

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.

Yawnage.

Not 'cause I'm bored. I wish. I'm wiped. Exhusted. Dying of tiredness. I need to go take a three month nap, which I suppose technically counts as summer. If this is how intense studying for two finals is, how impossible will it be next year?! Agh, enough griping. It'll be hard not to rant, I'm afraid, because my life over the past few days has been nothing but finals. Oh, and piano. My dear piano is causing me rather a lot of undue stress, as I take it far too seriously and have spent more than an hour the past two days playing. I figured out how to play the chorus to Love Battery's 'Half Past You' last night, and worked out some chords to make the melody sound more full. It's sort of fun, even if it's only playing the same thing over and over again, basically. I need to practice singing while I play piano, and I know all of the words to that song, so I've been doing that. I also picked up Bush's 'Glycerine' and The Birthday Massacre's 'Horror Show'. Yeah, I get distracted far too much, I know. I worked on Sonatina today, motiviated by the slightly pathetic sight of a five year old playing it perfectly on Youtube. My father insists that I can't hope to measure up to the child geniuses so I should stop worrying(thanks, dad. Love you too) but it makes me want to get better at any rate. I have made little to no progress on Psycho, and the idea of singing it next week is quite daunting to me.

School today was a bunch of boring, end of year nonsense. Besides - for once - english. We're watching 'The Devil's Arithmetic', which is only remotely related to anything in the curriculum, but is really good so far. It has the girl from Spiderman, who's name escapes me at this moment, in it. Some of the people in my class think it's too depressing, or insipid - my word, not their's, you'll note - or a wide range of other things, but I personally like it. In french, we got our final exam scores back. I only earned an 87 percent, which is lower than I hoped but nothing devastating, or worth tossing out my year grade for. I'm pretty satisfied with it. Science was more of my teacher being whiny, and moody, and looking quite pregnant, I do hope she takes next year off, and algebra was more of that dreaded final. It's the most intense test I've ever taken, and I'm really worried about my score on it. It matters a lot: if I get a B or higher (ha!) then I can easily go on to geometry. If it's a C+ or lower, then it's a different story. I wouldn't really mind retaking algebra, but I'd be frustrated with losing a year of progress and having to keep taking math through senior year.

Civics was not worth speaking of. I put my shorts on backwards in gym again and got a thirteen out of twenty on my softball test. The worst person possible just happened to be grading it, of course. I have horrid luck in gym, I really do. Teen living was sort of fun, though. We didn't have to sew today, we got to go and eat cookies that the seventh grade class baked outside for the entirity of the period. Which meant quite a lot of messing around and throwing things and getting yelled at for being, it would appear, 'umanageable'. My class hears that a lot, it's sort of sad. I normally do not mention this, but my bus rides were wonderful today. I got a little bit of much needed sleep, listened to 'Officially Dead' about a million times, and even remembered to get off at the right time without a panicked fumble for my things.

Oh! Yesterday, the awards ceremony took place after school. It was one of the more boring things I've had to sit through in my life. The egotistical part of me is irritated at the five seconds I was up on the stage versus the two hours I was sitting there watching, and the psychopathical part of me wants to murder each and every teacher in my school for dragging the thing out so long to begin with. Fortunately, neither part is particularly dominant, so I sat in the very back with my friend and tried to get some studying done. The award turned out to be given by my creative writing teacher from last semester, who somewhat loved me, and gave me a really high grade in there even though I weaseled my way out of sharing any writing every single time we were meant to. I suppose I made up for this by writing things that were ten pages long when they only had to be five, and so forth. I really do love writing, but I think the award should have been given to someone who worked hard and was willing to meet the requirements and all that. The ceremony lasted 'til about four, and then my father dropped off my friend at her house, and we headed home. By that time, it was five or so. Needless to say, I was not very pleased about having so much of my free time severed by such an occasion. It was nice to hang out and relax for a couple of hours, but I felt the pressure to do something more efficient nagging at me all of the time.

I studied so dang much today, it's not even physically possible. My mother's friend is here and she won't stop going on and on about her little adventures in Adoption Wonder Land. Tomorrow is my brother and sister's birthday party at one of those bouncy places; I have to come and supervise. My phone's battery is dead for no good reason, which really bothers me. My hair only curls the way I tell it to when it's ten thirty at night and nobody can see me.

There was all of the whiny little things I felt I had to tell the world, compacted in to one tiny paragraph. I guess we all know what this entry will be categorized as.

I listened to mostly grunge today. Green River, Mudhoney, and Love Battery. I cannot get over how wonderful Love Battery is. There's something about their songs that is not only addictive, it's almost emotionally indulgent, and it's very calming. Mudhoney is, of course, an ongoing addiction that is largely led by my adoration for Mark Arm and his hair. I don't mean to sound like one of those fangirls who only listens to music sung by cute guys, who only buy tickets for concerts so they can see the object of their affections, but I hardly listened to Mudhoney before I figured out how gorgeous Mark was. So, like I said before, he's mine and nobody can steal him. I also listened to Veruca Salt today, mostly, as stated before, 'Officially Dead' but I have a half addiction of sorts to 'Walking With Strangers' by the Birthday Massacre. It doesn't, as some commenter who wanted to continue my Tears For Fears stalking incident thought, resemble Tears For Fears' 'Head Over Heels' at all, they're crazy. Both songs are great, though.

That was sort of short. And whiny. Oh well, it's rare that I post twice during the school week.

My life is going to fly out the window.

Not that I had one before. I mean, in all honesty, I have no life. But things are only going to get worse next year, if this is how much studying is required of me. I wanted to blog yesterday, but I had no time at all. None. Not a bit. I got home, went upstairs and finished my english essay. Josef Mengele no longer has any place in my life - he's giving me disturbing Nazi killer dreams now, dreams that I could really stand to live without - and I hope to never think of him again. In retrospect, it was a good project for me to take on, though. Even if it wasn't much fun. Then I went outside with my brother and studied french for a while. So far, the final is pretty easy. I'm relieved, because I was quite nervous. I didn't get done with the studying and essay writin' until about eight, and then I spent about half an hour practicing piano. That left me with approximately three hours to hang out and get myself together before another excrutiatingly exhusting day unfolded.

Which, would, of course, be today. I woke at four am to the not so soothing sounds of yet another thunder storm, and tossed and turned for about an hour until one of my alarms, one that is not generally operational came on. It was playing some funk song and I genuinely thought it was part of one of those odd little half awake dreams where you're sort of aware of what's around you, but not quite. So I laid there not shutting it off for eons, and then woke all of the way to my regular alarm and walked blindly around my room wondering if I could get out of school today. The answer was no, by the way. On the bus, I fell asleep and woke right when we pulled in to the school drive. Needless to say, I was having one of those days again.

But! It got reversed, sort of. I slept through another day of hearing about how, no matter how much proof I am able to offer and no matter how well I argue, I am always wrong and my teacher is right (of course, she says this in class and then goes and changes the answers on all of the papers to what I suggested was correct, later) in english, and then took part two of the final in french. I finish it tomorrow, it shouldn't be anything too impossible. In science, I heard from a friend that my algebra teacher was giving out the state testing - SOL, they call it here - scores. Which I had next period. I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I failed, but I was leaning that way, so my anxiety levels were peaking by the time I walked out of there. My friends were trying to reason with me, but that never works when I get myself into a thing. I hope they don't think I'm insane now. They know I'm frantic about algebra though, already, since I'm asking them for the homework answers every five minutes.

So, I walked into the classroom, and waited through forty minutes of adrenaline inducing torment while my teacher prattled on about how impossible the final was going to be, until he came around and showed us our scores. To end the suspense, of which there was very little, I passed advance. Which, as it sounds, is the ultra smarty pants level. I don't mind bragging a little because it's algebra, which I normally fail at. I was very proud of myself. Still am. So, that made my day. In civics, we took a quiz which I think I failed. That remains to be seen. I hope I didn't, but I neglected to study last night, lacking time, so I didn't have any clue where Sudan or Iraq was, and I filled in things at random, using a strategy that I generally reserve for science. Gym was boring. Everyone in that class is either mildly irritated with me, or I am mildly irritated with them, with the exception of about five people. Teen living was okay, I made some progress with my teddy bear. It keeps having holes in the side seams, which is sort of annoying, but it's nothing I can't work through, I suppose.

I had my piano lesson today, it didn't go so well. I was having major timing issues with Sonatina, and I kept hitting wrong notes because I got tense and quit thinking. But I had it worked out by the end of the lesson, and I'm supposed to finish perfecting it this week. To my shock, my piano teacher urged me to give up Karma Police, and try an easier song. I can see where she's coming from, I guess. My father, grandfather, and even her couldn't play it. All of whom are experienced pianists. But I really do adore the melody, and that's one of the songs that convinced me to play piano again. None the less, I relunctantly agreed. I'm going to learn Puddle of Mudd's 'Psycho' now. The part for the piano is really repetitive, even if it's sort of challenging, so my piano teacher decided that I'm going to sing it next week. Oh goodness. I found myself conceding to this, but now I regret it. I can't sing, can I?! Maybe I can. But, more possibly, I cannot. She wants me to be in the recital this August, but I declined. My politeness has to come to an end at some point, and I hate being in front of people. On a rather unrelated note, she apparently thought I was in tenth grade all of this time, which is both flattering and weird. I didn't realize I could pull off tenth grade, I can barely pull of eighth half of the time.

Tomorrow I have my awards ceremony after school 'cause I was a prestegious student or some such thing. No, I really can't spell prestegious, I didn't do it for irony. I'm not exactly thrilled, but my parents will be there, and I'll get to figure out what the award actually means, so even if my mother claps obscenely loud or I make some public mishap in front of everyone, at least I'll have a certificate informing the world that I'm a prestegious middle schooler.

I know, I know, this post is both lame and short. I have to go study some algebra. Music over the past few days has been a mixed bag. I recently discovered - or, re discovered, as I should say - riot girl punk. Which is pretty darn cool. Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill are amazing. I've also been listening to the songs off of Nico, a Blind Melon album. I downloaded them from this blog a while ago and never bothered to listen. Oh, how I love Blind Melon. 'Letters From A Porcupine' and (excuse the language, but it's a song title) 'Life Ain't So Shitty' are my favorites. Fo some reason, I've also gotten a little song addiction to Cheap Trick's 'I Want You to Want Me'. Unusual, yes. I bought Adore over the weekend. The album art is love, with the exception of the rather large and vivid shots of D'arcy's... upper half. That was something I really didn't need to see. The music is excellent too, of course. I haven't listened to it nearly as much as I normally do when I buy a new album, because I've always sort of thought of Smashing Pumpkins in general, and especially Adore as winter music, and it's as summery as it gets here. I've been listening to a lot of Love Battery, some Screaming Trees and even some Atreyu. I've also, oddly enough, been loving the music on the new Newsboys album, which ended up on my iPod after my parents downloaded it.

I put up some new lyrics, belonging to 'Letters From A Porcupine' by Blind Melon.

That's all for now.

Out of the abyss.

For two days, anyway. This week was quite chaotic. I don't feel like summarizing every single day, so I'll opt out of that blogging style, and go for a much easier, less time consuming one. I'll merely state the significant events of the past week. Good, bad, confusing, all of them. I won't bother you with anything particularly boring. At least, I'll try not to. I suppose that's enough of an introduction to this, considering I normally don't even have an introduction. Should I be doing that? Other people do. I used to, when I used a different blog.

Good - I got one hundred on my service learning project in civics class and was praised profusely by my teacher. I'm pretty easy to flatter, if I feel that a compliment is honest, it can make my whole day better. Civics has been so boring, so forgettable as of late, I've been doubting its status as my favorite school subject. I suppose my faith was restored today. Oh, how I love getting (good) grades back.

Bad - My algebra state testing caused me a lot of stress this week. I literally broke down in tears over it on Monday or Tuesday, because I was so anxious. The test wasn't very difficult, but I finished very slowly, and I'm worried about my grade. What if I did everything wrong?! It makes me wonder.

Confusing - I finished my boxers in teen living, which ought to rank under good, because it sure took me long enough. I'm pretty happy with them, got them on over jeans right now. But I put it under confusing because I made a whole lot of mistakes on them. Crooked stitching, holes in my work, uneven cutting, and my teacher still gave me an eighty five percent. Seventeen out of twenty. Which is only a low B, but I'll take it. Why does she give me so much mercy?

Good - I found my new favorite song, to replace the little hole in my heart left behind by my short lived penchant for 'Not An Addict'. Love Battery's 'Between The Eyes' is my new best friend on the school bus. I downloaded it at random, never having heard it before. The comparison is weird, but I think it sounds kind of like White Stripes, during the chorus. The guitar part is so loud and distorted, you can hardly hear the vocals at some points. That used to bother me, but I'm listening to it now, and I don't mind. It's one of the most striking songs I've heard in a while. Funny how something as simple as a chord progression can make a huge difference.

Bad - My piano lesson was horrible last Tuesday. I was all out of it, making mistakes left and right. I made little to no progress on Karma Police, and was asked to repeat the part I'd played last week for this week. I forgot to practice today. I'll have to work extra, tomorrow. I'm trying to keep things moving with that song, I'm looking forward to the day I'll be able to play the whole thing through and have it sound, y'know, good. Sadly, that day will not be coming too soon in the future. Sonatina is going well enough, but I have to plug through that song with a level of determination I really have to work to muster up due to my constant exhustion, if I'm going to improve at it the way I should. I have to get everything working with both hands by next Tuesday and I'm unsure I'll make it.

Confusing - I went to therapy yesterday. It was, well, confusing. My therapist is sort of antagonistic towards my dad. I made some offhanded comment about him and now she's making a huge ordeal out of it. Yes, I feel uncomfortable talking freely around him. Yes, I tend to jump to conclusions and get defensive around him. But it's not worth dragging him into therapy with me for. I cannot even imagine him talking it over with her, can't begin to fathom it. My dad doesn't even want me in therapy anymore, since the hair thing is blown over. He'd really want me out if he knew our current topic of discussion. Despite this, I normally like going. I think, in all honesty, it sort of helps me.

Good - One more week of learning, assessments, expectations, anxiety, pressure, grading, and schooling in general, and then it's all over. Well, mostly. But what sane teacher is going to give any graded work on the last week of school? I don't want to get all nostalgic for something that hasn't happened yet, so I'll save the reflection and ponderings for the last day. I'm elated, I'll tell you that much. I cannot wait for my two months of freedom. The two months I shall supposedly grow up some before high school. Do I seem like a high schooler yet? Not at all, I think. Good thing I've got a little time.

Bad - I keep having a sharp, intense pain that feels almost like a sting in my upper stomach muscles. Ow. It's brutal. No idea why it's there, but it hurts badly.

Confusing - I'm not going to see any of my friends from school, with the exception of two of 'em and someone who is not quite a friend after the year is over. They'll all be attending different high schools. Being a recluse of sorts, I am not actually devastated about this. Half of them get on my nerves, anyways. But I don't know what to think, where to go from there. I don't know if I should try to keep in touch with them, or let it go. There are some that I don't want to talk to anymore, but others I sort of do. I feel uncomfortable being so forward about that, though.

That sums up what's goin' on with me, as of late.

As for music, I listened to quite a lot of Love Battery and Screaming Trees. Some Tad too. And a band called Seaweed who I'll have to learn more about, they seem interesting. I've been listening to an almost obsessive amount of Veruca Salt. 'Officially Dead' is awesome. As is 'Used To Know Her' and 'Only You Know'. Basically, all of Resolver. I was listening to some Jack Johnson, and a little bit of Dead Moon. And then there's Elastica, Garbage, and the Donnas. My girly punk - pop addiction will never recede, I fear. I was listening to a song by a band called Weird Little Boy who Wikipedia prompted me to discover, a few days ago. Noise rock is a genre I need to look into more.

Night!

Edit~ There are new lyrics up. Well, actually, they're the first lyrics up. I'll change them from time to time, whenever I get bored. Right now, they belong to Jack Johnson. 'People Watching' is a great song...

Edit Again~ Oh, I forgot to mention that the lyric thing is totally ripping off Camo's Blog. And a lot of others too, I suspect.

I am quite exhusted.

It seems that the world at large has decided to use me as a temporary punching bag. Time for a melodramatic sigh. Tuesday morning didn't exactly start out easy, since the weather was about ninety degrees, but it was pouring rain. The air was so humid, I could barely breathe, and it made my hair do this most unusual curling thing. This post is going to be full of whine, just so you know in advance. When I got to school, I was already exhusted and in a less than wonderful mood, as I had gotten all of four hours of sleep the night before. Sleeping simply isn't appealing when it's ten thousand degrees inside, and thunder keeps jolting one awake, hour after hour. Isn't early summer grand? Anywho, the school's air conditioner had chosen the best day to break, the one where we actually needed it, and nobody felt like doing anything about this, so we all suffocated through the day. My school day wasn't terrible, other than that. The rain prevented us from going out of doors in gym, so I sat through forty five minutes of 'Patriot Ball' and listened to my friends ramble on about anime and such. It was rather entertaining, even though I never have any idea what they're talking about. And then I went to teen living, where I was met with the usual sprinkling of snubs, thinly veiled insults, and sarcastic comments. That particular set of friends is going to make me lose it, by the end of the school year. I can only be grateful that none of them are going to high school with me next year.

The earlier portion of the day was pretty boring, routine, that sort of thing. French class was a drag because I got paired up with the sorts of people who go, 'you're smart, you can look up words, right?' and then go off among themselves and leave one to do all of the work for a project alone. I didn't feel like failing anything in that class, at this point, as I need my A to bring up my french grade for the year, so I did what they wanted and tried to conceal my irritation at being tagged as the 'smart kid' again, despite my difficulties with the class. Do I really look like that much of a geek or whatever qualifies me to be the smart one? Or is it merely my incredible work ethic? No idea. English and science were pointless, algebra gave me a chance to have my daily panic attack, and civics was delightful - we got to watch a movie called Twelve Angry Men. Most everyone was mocking it, but I thought it was rather interesting. That seems to be the case with me and civics quite a lot.

Upon arriving home, I had my piano lesson. It wasn't nearly so catastrophic as I feared it'd be, but I was really out of it, and my piano teacher could tell. She was sympathetic about my trouble with Karma Police, and agreed that playing the chords along with the bassline sounded far better. However, Sonatina was a moderately easy song that I was simply too lazy to get anywhere with, so I think she's punishing me by giving me thirty measures to have perfected by next week. I wanted to protest, but I figured I'd gotten myself into this mess, I'd have to go ahead and get myself out by doing it. I'm going to have to make an honest effort in practicing for a while, every single day, since I have a lot to work on now. I cannot believe I thought jumping back into piano would be so seamless and easy. It was, at first, I suppose, but not anymore. My teacher figured out how much I'd retained, I guess, and decided to push me a little harder than she was initially going to. I am only thankful that she's not making me bother with that theory nonsense that accompanied my piano lessons, last time. I already know about chords, and time signatures, and - mostly - how to read notes, so I suppose it's not really necessary.

Today, I stayed home sick from school. It wasn't that I was sick, exactly, I was just so tired and worn out. Life has been going far too fast for my liking, as of late, and it feels that it only continues to accellerate, people demanding more and more. I can hardly relax. I have free time, but I'm always stressed, and I feel as though I'm doing something wrong if I'm not doing something productive. I'm always awake when I should be tired; extremely drowsy when I should be awake. I'm hungry when I've just eaten, and don't want to eat when I'm supposed to. But I sound awfully dramatic. It'll all be over soon, in less than a month now. June eighteen is my last day of school. I am really, really looking forward to it.

I've listened to quite a few things, in the past days. Mostly Garbage, The Dollyrots, The Donnas, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Letters to Cleo, that sort of thing. But, yesterday, I was listening to some of Nirvana's earlier stuff, and then there's the odd little Spice Girls phase I've been going through. I also am still loving Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and Love Battery. Oh, and Pearl Jam. It's odd, I had quite the obsession with them, earlier this year, then I went several months without listening to them, at all. I feel I'm forgetting something, I know I've been listening to more than I remember. Oh, I was listening to my father's keyboard music, some stuff he recorded when I was little. I envy his ability to play the piano, even if he cannot read notes at all. I was also listening to Britney Spears, yesterday. Gimme More is such an addicting song.

Oh, just so you know, my new blogger icon is me. As opposed to someone or something else. It's taken from the back, so I'm not quite as stalker friendly as I could be. But I just proved myself wrong, from some comment I made about not being stupid a couple of posts ago. Oh, well.

That's all, I know, this was pathetically short. I'm too sleepy and hungry to care.