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.

School year is movin' along.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's about all, night for now.

So much nothingness.

I'm insanely busy, but not with interesting things. Mostly, I'm just going to school. Coming home. Doing ten pounds of homework. Going to sleep. That's it. My life... gone. Not that I had much of one before, but what I did have got lost somewhere in the piles of geometry notes and french worksheets. I have a lot of homework this weekend. And when I say 'a lot', I mean a lot. I have to read a chapter from my biology textbook, answer the assessment questions, and make notecards to help me remember the vocabulary, and finish up the lab paperwork that I didn't have time to finish on Friday. Then I have to do three (yes, three) math assignments, make notecards to help me remember postulates and theorums and such, and study for the upcoming quiz. And then I have to get started on studying for my english test next week. And I have to make french notecards for chapter one, part two and study for the upcoming quiz on that. Basically, I'll be using a fair percentage of the world's stock of notecards this weekend. The only class I do not have homework in would be, surprisingly enough, history. History doesn't actually give much homework, but I end up doing a lot of homework for that class because I take ten pages of notes when everyone else takes about one and that takes some time. I learn by writing things down. Oh, and I have no journalism homework. I totally aced the test we had in there on Friday, fortunately for me, because my oh so intelligent project partners got us a B due to their inability to write a complete sentence and their overall giggliness. I hate working with people like that.

It's the weekend now, thank God. School isn't terrible, but it's very wearing. The only thing I'm doing after school right now is piano, on Tuesdays. Youth group is on Sundays this year. I'm still not 'getting involved', which I'm sure is going to maul my chances of getting into college, but that's okay. I'll figure something out later. Something that's not social or athletic or time consuming. The sad thing is, I love riding the bus. It's my favorite part of the school day. I've been using my father's old Walkman, bringing two or three discs a day, and it's working out swimmingly. 'Cept for when I have to change the CD in the middle of a bus ride. Mostly, I've been listening to L7's 'Hungry For Stink', which I bought along with Veruca Salt's 'Resolver' and Elastica's 'The Menace'. I think the L7 album is my favorite of the three. At first, I didn't love it, but it grew on me. 'Can I Run' is just about the best song in the world.

My thoughts aren't very cohesive today. It's raining outside and it's so, so pretty. Cloudy days are the best things ever.

I was going to go to some CD release show with a bunch of bands who's names I didn't know at all tonight, but then my friend got in trouble with her parents so now I'm not going, because my parents think I'll be murdered if I go anyplace alone. I'm, admittedly, not as sad as I would be because I knew who none of the bands were. The only reason I knew about the show was because this senior on my bus handed me a flier thingy, due to my tendancy to wear shirts with bands nobody knows on them. Well, she knew them. It surprised me that someone in my school knew who the Donnas were, but I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised. They're not underground or anything, and they're pretty poppy.

This is extremely short, but I don't know what else to say, and I sort of want to edit my novel, a little bit, today. It's already well past four, so I'd better get started. My mother's friend's mother is an author and my mother said she wants to see some of what I wrote because she read my little complaint letter... (which, by the way, the radio station has completely ignored. I'll be writing again soon.) So I think I should probably get some of the novel up to a level of decency.

Music lately has been a lot of Green River and some Mudhoney too, because I love Mark Arm and everything he does. A lot of Love Battery and Veruca Salt. During the school day, mostly L7. Some Smashing Pumpkins, I'm teaching myself 'Crestfallen' on piano so I'm listening to it again and again, Devo, The Distillers, a fair amount of Sleater Kinney, some Toadies. I totally forgot about them and was happy to remember. Nirvana, Babes In Toyland, The Go! Team, (I saw their first album at the record place last week and seriously thought about buying it, just because it was so cool that it was there). Chopin, I love all of the songs of his from Opus 28 that I've heard so far, The Birthday Massacre, a little bit of Lady Gaga, Moist, other scattered things.

That's it...

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...

Life is... monochromatic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Is it too early to start counting down?

Seriously. Is it? I have no idea, but I'm going to count down at any rate. There is only fifteen more days of school, excluding weekends, as soon as this day is over. Fifteen! That's almost survivable. Unless, of course, I tank my finals and create all sorts of exceedingly horrid complications for myself. In the spirit of summer, and freedom, and all that, this post is going to be a series of random little blurbs concerning the present state of my life, but not necessarily how my day went. Don't fret, I won't be doing this on a regular basis. Just for today. I don't really remember much of what happened to me today, actually. Most of it was obscured by my english state testing and general sleepiness. I accidently set my first alarm for four thirty nine this morning, instead of five thirty nine. Ow.

I really do hate the spiteful nature of all of the test proctors at my school. My finger slips, I move ahead in the test before we're meant to, and I get this five minute cross examination about cheating and ill intentions. If it weren't for my meek, 'I'm terribly sorry' thing I'm able to do, I'd probably have been to the principal's office. Overreacting about every little thing under the sun seems to be a Northern VA speciality, nobody cared about state testing at all in Washington. Of course, they have this thing about everyone in the school passing, no one getting their test thrown out here, so I suppose it's sort of understandable. Wouldn't want to be the error in the system.

On a more musical note, I found another song I can get hopelessly addicted to. It's been a while since I've had a specific song addiction. I miss that. The title would be, 'Not An Addict' by Sally Anthony. Well, originally, it was by a band called K's Choice. Their version is nice, but something about the girl's voice is too... thick for my liking, I guess. I greatly prefer this version. Pandora radio, who I normally feel is the direct spawn of the devil himself, introduced me to the song a couple of weeks ago. I liked it, but not enough to go to the effort of taking down its title and looking it up, or bookmarking it. It played it increasingly more, just enough to get it to grow on me, but not enough that it got annoying, and now I find myself singing along while it plays for the fortith or so time on Youtube. That's another thing. I can actually sing this song. I can tell, because normally, my failure of a voice cannot match every note in a song, but now, it can. And I can hear it matching. And it gives me this odd little euphoria. I suppose that might contribute to the addiction. Oh, haha, I'm addicted to a song that explicitly mentions not being an addict...

I need a life. Speaking of that, Tears For Fears is (still) stalking me. It all started when some music recommendation thread or site or something like that, said I ought to listen to them. I didn't want to, because eighties synth pop isn't generally my thing. Note the generally thrown in there. Then Adam, one of my favorite people in this world, took on Mad World on American Idol. I fell in love with his version of the song, was a little surprised to hear that it was a Tears For Fears thing, didn't listen to the original. I think I was involved with some conflicting obsession at the time or something. A week or so later, I was listening to music with my parents in the car, and I heard a song I liked, so I asked who it was by. Turned out to be none other than Tears For Fears. The fourth incident happened when I was listening to Walking With Strangers, by the Birthday Massacre, and some comment mentioned that they'd ripped off Tears For Fears. Fifth incident happened last night when I was watching television and Shout was playing during one scene. I had a love at first listen thing with this song, went upstairs and listened to it, tried to ignore the fact that the world had successfully made me voluntarily listen to, and admit taking a liking to, them. Stupid Tears For Fears. Stupid eighties.

My hair has turned a nasty shade of green. Well, if one was being generous, they could call it aqua. But it's not very pretty.

The impossible has happened: I'm ahead of my friends in teen living! My sewing is coming along swimmingly. This is mostly due to the fact that the teacher instructed me to sit beside her so she could survey my feeble attempts at stringing velcro through the slots of the fabric of my boxers. Turns out, I was doing it totally wrong, and ripping out stitches while I was at it. I now have to stitch together the inside of the legs, trim off the jagged edges, and fill out my self evaluation within forty minutes tomorrow, but whatever. If I can handle elastic - stringin', I can handle anything. Nobody could even attempt to call me stupid today, exiled to the teacher's table or not. I'm beating them by quite a lot, and I even explained something to one of my friends.

Now it's time to take a turn in to the figurative twilight zone of my mind. When I was eating dinner tonight, my father made some comment about Popeye The Sailor. The cartoon. I'm sure you've seen it. That show was pretty much my childhood, along with some of the other stuff aired on Cartoon Network, and, of course, ponies. But that's not important. For some reason, when we lived in Cambodia, I used to have these really demented dreams. My mother blames it on the television I watched, along with all of the things I was exposed to. Landmines, starving orphans, that kind of thing. In retrospect, that can probably be used as blame for everything. However, I had this one recurring day dream, I guess it was, that hadn't much of anything to do with television. In it, a little girl wandered into a dark room, found her father drowned in ketchup, the television, which provided the only light in the room, was turned on to Popeye. When I say drowned in ketchup, I don't mean that it was making a swimming pool all over the room or anything. It was all over his face, strangling him. I have no idea what a psychologist would say about it, but it was sort of insane, I used to be almost fixated on it. Every time I was alone in the dark, I'd think of that. Somehow, everything about fascinated me. The drowning, the vague queerness of everything in the room, the way the television was turned to one precise part of one precise episode. I hadn't thought about this... thing for a while until tonight, when my father mentioned Popeye, and it all totally came back to me. Whether I'm disturbed, or totally normal, or just a little bit off my rocker, I don't know. Figured I'd just throw that out there so I'd quit thinking about it for a while.

I have to go practice piano, study for a science test that I'm probably going to fail, and pretend I completely forgot about algebra extra credit, because I no longer care about my potential future eating gum off the sidewalks. Which means I have to quit musing to myself on here.

Music today is easy to sum up: Not An Addict, Sally Anthony. Some Bella Morte on the bus, too. I thought about listening to Tears For Fears, but then mentally slapped myself and didn't do it. I want to listen to Sponge, perhaps I'll get around to it later. I need some Mudhoney on my iPod, they seem like the best bus music ever. Unfortunately, most of their songs are about sex. Actually, I'm pretty sure all of their songs are about sex. Some of them are more subtle than others, but most of the time, they're pretty dang blunt. 'Suck You Dry', for example. Love that song to death, but my mother would have an aneurysm if she saw it on my iPod or iTunes.

That's all for now. Thank you for humoring me through this crazy post, if you're reading.

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.

Weekends are tiring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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