Thursday, May 29, 2008

Sometimes, I Wish I Could Be Really Mean

Particularly to Psycho. I really, really wish I could be mean to Psycho. I don't cuss or use swear words, but if I did, you'd be hearing a lot more about her. But that aside, the girl is just flat-out cruel. For example, Jaxie was a girl in Psycho's class, and they both graduated this year. Psycho and a lot of her friends hate Jaxie, and I'm not sure why. Jaxie, like anyone, can get annoying, and she can be rude sometimes, but she's nothign compared to Psycho. Anyway, Jaxie was planning on going to college at Boston. She's also valedictorian, which means she has to give a speech. So Psycho and her friends made t-shirts to wear under their graduation robes that read, "We Feel Sorry For Boston." The way our graduation is set up, they are facing her during her speech, so if they unzipped their robes, she'd be able to see them, and that was the plan.

Fortunately, Jaxie found out, and the plan was thwarted. (The principal found out and told them they wouldn't get their diplomas--ever--if they did it. I half wish he hadn't told them.)

And that aside, Psycho is very rude to everyone. Believe me, having to sit in front of her for an hour every day for a year was not fun. I actually cried in class a little about some things she'd said to me, and I never cry in class. I don't even remember what she said now, but I remember it was really humiliating.

I wish I could be really mean to Psycho. I know where she works and what her cars looks like. I want to superglue her gas cap to her car, and I want to superglue BB's in the tire caps. I want to use shaving cream to write "Who's Cool Now, You Little Fungus?" on the hood of her car, and maybe leave a box of rabbit poo in her trunk. Unfortunately, the odds of me doing any of that are slim to none, because, unlike Psycho, I just can't do something like that.

And I'm not sure why. She deserves it. I guess that as a young Christian lady, I know that I'm not supposed to seek revenge on people. But doesn't God sometimes use people to get vengeance on other people? I thought so.

I really hope he uses me to get revenge on Psycho.

<3 o.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Euphemism for Drunk

,also known as:

" Little o. Is Probably One Of The Most Irrational People Ever, And Has Recently Become Even More Easily Pushed To Tears Or Irritability And Pretty Much Everyone Hates It Including Her Except No One Thinks Of That So She's Just Going To Keep On Eatting Way Too Much Ice Cream, Watching Sailor Moon, And Maybe Drawing Some Pictures. "

Two words: over emotional.

I don't know what has gotten into me lately. It seems like I'm either crying, yelling, or singing all the time. I've always been very sensitive, but lately it's just been completely out of hand, and I get inexplicably tired or sleepy for no reason.

I also have a slight sunburn.

I'm going to bed early so I can get up early and get some stuff done, like laundry or cleaning. Maybe it will make me feel like I've accomplished something and I'll feel better.

Today I didn't really have much of a point in updating other than that I really hate being so miserable all the time. Everyone is upset at me for it, but it's like they all think I am enjoying it or something.

Let's all keep in mind:

I hate crying more than you hate hearing it!

<3>

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A Two-For-One Deal

I remember when I first started drawing, Sailor Moon was a huge inspiration for me. It was all i drew for about... forever. Anyway, I didn't really get to watch it very often because we only get 3 channels, and I eventually grew out of it. Recently, though, a friend of mine started asking me questions about learning how to draw, and I told her I did it mostly by observing and mimicking other art... mainly Sailor Moon. And so here I go again.

I have started watching Sailor Moon a lot recently, on YouTube. Now, I have noticed a lot of similarities between me and Sailor Moon (as if anybody cares). Firstly, we're both extreeemely ditzy and somewhat clumsy. We are overly emotional, and everything falls into one of two categories: worth crying over, or worth laughing hysterically over. We're both hopeless romantics and looove food. :P

Sailor Moon fights a lot with another Sailor Scout, Sailor Mars. I mean a lot. They disagree on everything. Sailor Mars is impatient and has a nasty temper. She can be full of herself and hates immaturity. She can be insensitive and sometimes gets a little desperate for attention. The funny thing is, I'm also like that.

When my friends and I read books, watch movies, or play video games, we have a lot of fun picking out characters for ourselves, and quite often, we have trouble picking between two for me, and they are often opposites, if not downright enemies.

Nearly everyone I know agrees that I almost have two personalities, and I would attest to that more strongly than anyone. I inwardly fight with myself all the time. I often cannot decide if I am sympathetic or fed up with someone.

Some people might assume that I'm faking a nice personality, when I'm really critical and impatient, but it's really not that at all. I'm just as sincerely Sailor Moon as I am Sailor Mars.

So I'm an interesting person to interact with. As if each of those personalities on their own weren't enough to deal with, if you're with me, you might have to put up with both of them. But on the other hand, it's kind of like you get two friends, too. :P


<3 o.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Monster Returns

When I was in first grade (about 7 years old), I began to get migraines. Apparently, there it is either uncommon for a first grader to get migraines, or mine were unnaturally bad, because we had all sorts of tests done. We had CATscans and MRIs and one of those funny thing where they stuck wires to my head and tests for brain tumors and stuff for three years, until fourth grade, when they were finally like, "Uh... we don't know what's wrong with your head, so... bye."

After a little bit, they finally stopped, but around Freshman year of High School, they started again. I don't know if they are different or the same as the ones of elementary school, but they are horrid. For a while, they seemed to "attach" them selves to a cause, such as as the scent or taste of popcorn, before/after that time of the month, any time with high emotions, loud music, or wearing a tight ponytail, and they would switch. They would stay on one event for a few months, and I'd get a migraine every two weeks to a month, and then they'd go to a new cause. It was quite miserable.

They last for hours. They start in the afternoon as a kind of nuisance where I just brush it off like an idiot. Then around 6 or 7 it becomes a big nuisance and by an hour later I'm on the floor in utter agony. It gets so bad that I actually bang my head on the wall to make it feel better. I throw up for hours at time, every ten to fifteen minutes, with restless sleep in between, which often involves head-holding, groaning, and sometimes twitching/jerking.

Often, I lose the entire contents of my stomach and afterwards my body will continue to try to throw up, but there's nothing, so my body ends up jerking violently. It is a most uncomfortable experience.

Well, I haven't had one for several months, but I got one today, right after the chemistry final (Which I got an A on!). This is a really bad time to be getting a migraine. I have finals tomorrow.

I don't want to live the rest of my life never knowing when I'm going to be attacked like this, but none of my doctors can figure out what's wrong, so they can't really fix it.

Le sigh. I know that this post didn't really have an underyling message. It was just me talking about something that brings me misery, because none of my friends really understand. None of them get migraines (How I envy them!).

Thanks for listening! I'll update soon with something more exciting. :)

<3>

edit : i was talking to Mom about my migraines recently, and I found out that I didn't start getting them in first grade, I started getting them when I was two, and that the main reason the doctors didn't give me any medicine was because the only things they thought might be strong enough, they weren't allowed to give to children.
So, here's a new hope for the age of 18: No more migraines! Could something that wonderful actually happen? :D

Monday, May 19, 2008

To See The Summer Sky Is Poetry

School is nearly over.

This time of year is full of many emotions: stress, relief, impatience, joy, apathy, exhaustion, excitement. But this year, I have found a new one: Dread. I am dreading this summer. Before me lies an expanse of just under three months, and that is not very much time to get something done in, but it is too much time to lay to waste. So here is the very difficult question that I am faced with: What am I going to do?

I have a few answers, and whatever they are, they had better be nearby, because I'm telling you, gas is not cheap, and it is even less cheap when you are jobless. So,

I am going to get a job. I hope I am, at least. I really need money.

I am going to re-learn the Japanese alphabets. I am taking Japanese next year, and I have known some before, but I think it would be a good idea to get a head start. I want to get as much out of this one year of Japanese as I can.

I am going to draw. A lot. I am going to hone my art skills to the point that they were at before I started taking Art in school, and then I'm going to (hopefully) sell more commissioned portraits.


I am going to write. I have always wanted to be published, and I think now would be a good time to start on it. I have lots of good ideas that have been developing in my head all year.

I'm going to apply to college. Let's not talk about that.

I am going to run. Now, I hate heat, and I hate sweat. But, I love how I feel when I run. I love the exhaustion that follows and I even love how my legs ache afterwards. It reminds me that I have done something. Plus, it works miracles for my appearance.

I am going to turn 18. Of course, with new freedoms comes way too much responsibility. However, this is the summer of my 18th birthday, and that will only happen once. Afterwards, the taste of freedom will probably never taste as sweet, and because of this,

I am going to enjoy it. Yes. I am going to take all of these things that I love and that I need and I'm going to do them and I'm going to like it. At the end of the summer, I will not be greeted with the familiar feeling of, "There went three months of my life. It is over." I will be able to look back and feel satisfied.

But until then, let us return to reality, where the headache of finals awaits. I still have four days left of sleeplessness, studying, stressing, and tears. But! It is only four days. And when the four days are over, I will have done my best, and I will be able to take a three-month respite full of work, art, exercise, accomplishment, freedom, and satisfaction. If I can hold on to the thought of those three months, I'm sure I can last these four days.

Begone, Dread! There is nothing here for you!

<3 o.

p.s. : The title is a line by Emily Dickinson.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

To Be Great Like Gatsby

In English, we have recently been reading The Great Gatsby, and we spent a great deal of time discussing the portion of the book where Fitzgerald tells about Gatsby's real past: That he was James Gatz, desperate for a new life, and he invented for himself the persona of Jay Gatsby and gets a job on board a yacht that travels the world. He completely reinvents himself.

When Mrs. H is done talking about this, she asks us, "If you were going to completely start over, change whatever you wanted to about yourself, what would you do?" She kind of smiled and looked around, like she both expected us to stay quiet and half hoped we wouldn't. "What would you change?" she repeated. "You're going around the world, you've got a different name, no one will ever know anything about you except what you tell them. What would you change about yourself?" We all looked at her half-stunned. Doubtless, everyone had things going through their head, but what high school student is going to confess what they most wish to change about themselves to the class? No one.

After many moments, she moved on. This was probably a week ago, but ever since, I have wanted to write a post about it, but I needed to think through exactly what my answer would be first.

Now, I have to go a little bit off-topic to tell you what I would change.

I have a friend named Hilary. We met during 30 Hour Famine one year, when we were both awkward and anti-social. I was in Junior High and she was a Freshman and she confided to me that she really hoped to change her shyness in the future. Well, Hilary achieved that. Before she graduated, she held the lead in many of her school's musicals, and there was no one that I knew of who didn't like her, and for good reason. She is truly the nicest person I have ever met. She knows how to put others first, and she does it. She is the kind of person who says good morning to people she might not know or talk to, or will ask someone who is upset what is wrong even if she doesn't knowt hem very well, and she isn't regarded as a freak: People talk to her. Hilary sits at lunch, and other students that she's never seen will come sit with her and ask her for help, because she's got that reputation about caring about people and being understanding.

If I could be whatever I wanted, starting completely over, I would as open, understanding, and compassionate as Hilary. Right now, I can be judgmental, because it makes me feel special and set-apart to think that I know better. But, as I've seen with Hilary, there is something even more set apart about reserving all judgments that not only will make you quite beloved, will give you the kind of satisfaction that she has with herself.

So, what would I do away with? Inhibitions, isolation, being judgmental, criticism, and anything that would come between me and people.
What would I like to keep and enhance? A caring attitude, generousity, stubbornness for good causes, people and their well-being as a first priority.

School is over in a week, and then I have one year left of high school. Maybe college will be a chance to start over in such a way? I think that the changes I would make are good ones, and I see no reason that I should have to run away on a yacht to make them.

<3 o.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Happy Mother's Day

Today, I sat in Chemistry class, ignoring the assignment I should have been doing, and I overheard a conversation between two classmates, Pepper and Kay. Pepper's mother died in a car wreck recently, over spring break, and they were having a conversation about Kay's mom. One comment Kay made was, "My mom needs to be shot in the head." Pepper proceeded to, surprisingly calmly, tell her to enjoy arguing while she could, because she had no idea how much she'd miss fighting with her mom when she can't. Kay continued complaining about her mother, and all I wanted to do was turn around and say, "I think that was a polite way of telling you to consider yourself lucky that you have a mom and shut up."

I love my mom very, very much. We are alike in so many ways, and yet very different.

My mom is so beautiful. She is about 45, but she looks so much younger than any of my friends' moms, and some of them are still in their 30s.

I remember that one time I told her that she was a bad mother. I told her that every time I was mad at her for weeks, and then I saw her cry. I felt so horrible, and I started thinking about how I would feel if I worked as hard as my mother does and did all the nice things my mom does, and made Halloween costumes for all of my children every year and was an expert cinnamon toast maker, and my daughter told me that I was a bad mother.

I will never say another hurtful thing to my mother again.

She has done a phenomenal job of raising her daughters. I have seen girls come into the world warped. Girls are easily spoiled, give away their bodies without much thought, reject men altogether, are unconfident and easily hurt, or use every opportunity to hurt whoever they can. Neither my siblings nor I do that. Better yet, none of us were cheerleaders. (No offense to any cheerleaders or ex-cheerleaders out there, but around here, cheerleading is a bad, bad thing for one's moral capacity.)

My mom will never read this, but:

I love you, Mom! Thank you for being awesome in oh-so-many ways!

<3 o.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Black And White

I am a very dramatic person in reality. To me, everything is black and white. Not only is it black and white--it is either very, very black or very, very white. That movie was either the most terrrible, awful piece of film I've ever seen and no one should ever go see it, or it was the most wonderful, fantastic camerawork to ever grace our fair planet and you should base your life around its basic plot. If I ever say that something is "okay" or "alright" or "good except for..." or "it wasn't that great, but it was still...", it is only after a great deal of thought.

Similarly, when I look in the mirror, I usually see myself as one of the ugliest creatures, nay, the ugliest creature, in all of my school, if not the entire state, and I only want to crawl back into bed, say I have a migraine, pretend I am vomitting, and sleep all day. Other times, I think I am probably the cutest, coyest, maybe even sexiest girl alive, and there's no way that any man with half a drop of testosterone in his body could deny himself a lingering "glance" at me, aglow in all my stunning beauty!

But today, I looked in the mirror, and for the first time, I saw something different. I saw an ultimately unremarkable thing. A teenage girl, with hair that is maybe a tad bit darker than one would expect, and cheek bones less prominent than they used to be, whose eyes hold no trace of a special anything, and aren't dull or bright. Her body has a shape to it, maybe, but nothing that would draw any attention, admiring or mocking, and her hair could maybe use a cut.

Utterly nondescript and, as I said, unremarkable. And it seems to me that, lately, nearly everything has been unremarkable.

I don't know how to feel about that. I feel rather like I should like to lay on the couch with a pillow and a blanket and never move again.

I doubt, however, that that would be entirely healthy.

You know, black and white surely is not quite as interesting as color, but it is much better than gray.

<3 o.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Rise and Fall of My Art Career


Have I ever mentioned that I am an artist? I am an artist.

I could have been an artist.

I rarely, if ever, find a chance to draw anymore. A couple of posts ago, I listed 12 things that you probably didn't know about me, and one of them was that my drawing skill has actually diminished. I can pinpoint this occurence:

Mr. T. Cox.

In Junior High, our art teacher was not very well-liked, because she was supposedly "mean." I would be mean, too, though, if none of my students cared enough to even try to draw something. She was always very nice to me, and though people said it was because I was good at drawing, I maintain it was because I actually listened when she talked. That is the minimum a teacher should expect, I think. On the last day of Junior High, she stopped me in the hallway to tell me that I'd better take Drawing in high school. I told her of course I was, and she told me she was glad, because I was one of the best art students she'd had for several years.

Emmo warned me against the high school art teacher. "He's crazy," she told me. "No one likes him. Well, some people like him, but only the crazy ones."

I should listen to Emmo more often.

As the prophecy foretold, Mr. Cox was a nutcase. Freshman year wasn't that bad, but Freshman always like him. (Which is odd, because he doesn't like Freshman at all. All he does in his other classes is complain about the "stupid Freshman" that are all "sluts".) But come Sophomore year, he can be seen for all he truly is: A madman.

This man, with the aid of the cluttered schedule that befalls every Academic Honors student, has completely squandered my artistic potential. He will assign us an assignment, then we are to come up with an idea and a plan, and present it to him. If he likes it, we can start, if he doesn't, we change it. Here's the thing: He never likes it, and we are hardly the ones who change it. It usually goes more along the lines of: We present an idea, he tells us what to do, and it usually has nothing to do with the original plan. I feel like he use a molding couch cushion to smother my creativity in his back office.

But this year, Junior year, is the year that I lost all tolerance for the man.

I was working on a painting he'd assigned. It was a very difficult painting for me, because much of it was a landscape. I'd decided to do a landscape mostly because they are difficult for me and I wanted to improve. Now, the art department got new tables this year, and they are considerably smaller than the old ones, so I have to push two of them together in order to hold my canvas, paint, water, and towel. The tops of the tables also have kind of a habit of falling apart. The plastic that covers the wooden top doesn't stick right. So, Mr. Cox was having Thurman check the tables to see which tops needed replacing, and we had to separate my tables to check them.
While he was doing this, I went to look for my paintbrushes, because someone had moved them again. So I'm looking for my brushes at the counter where Han is painting and Thurman is checking my table, and out of the blue, Mr. Cox starts screaming at me for not working. And I mean knocked-over-his-chair, red-in-the-face, shaking-hands screaming. I tried to tell him what I was doing, but he would have none of it, so I did what he said and went to go get my paint tray, which was behind me. As I turned around, all I could think was, "I really hope he doesn't hit me."
I went to the back room to get water, and I was still upset, seeing as it'd only been approximately forty seconds, and I started crying. I wasn't going to go back out there crying, because my table(s) were right next do his desk, so I stayed there for a couple of minutes. Mr. Cox eventually came back there and started yelling at me again, while I was still in tears. All he kept saying was that I never work in his class, which is a lie: I had a nearly complete painting to show for the last few weeks, and I'd even asked him a couple of days before if that was enough for the grade for the last six weeks, and he had said yes. I finally asked him what he wanted me to do. He said,"I want you to finish your painting," and I told him that that was all I had been trying to do.
So I went back out to my tables and started painting, and Han asked me if I was okay. "I will be, but don't expect to see me in here on Monday," was my response. I said it quietly, partially so my voice wouldn't crack and partially because I didn't want him to hear. Well, it didn't quite work, and he started yelling/screaming... again, because he thought that I had said that to him. I said, "Mr. Cox, if I had intended that for your ears, I would have said it to you." He told me if I felt like that then I needed to go to the guidance office, and otherwise, I needed to paint. I tried to paint, but my hands were shaking, and I got a big ugly squiggle done the side of my girl's dress, so I decided to ditch the canvas and go see Mrs. Thompson.

Long story short, I ended up staying the class, but I cut Ceramics out of my Senior schedule. This is disappointing to me, because I was really looking forward to Ceramics. Three dimensional art had a growing appeal to me, and I was sad that I was going to miss out on the opportunity to further my abilities in it. But I am emotionally unstable enough without having to spend an hour every day with a psychopath with an inexplicable loathing for me.

As important as art is to me, I think that my emotional health is far more important, and I think that as long as I have to endure his company, the memory of him screaming at me red-faced and my brief fear of being attacked by him will not leave me alone.

I wish I didn't have to trade in artistic advancement for some amount of emotional security, because I've always looked forward to a career in art. There were many flaws with this plan, which I always thought I'd be able to work around, but I've moved on. My number one passion is no longer self-expression anymore, anyways.

I've decided to get a double major in Social Work and Psychology. The one thing that I think bothers me most in the world is the emotional condition of children and teenagers. I would like to be a social caseworker to help get endangered children out of dangerous households, or a therapist for "troubled youth." I'll still minor in Art, more than likely. Who knows, maybe I'll make a breakthrough in "art therapy." :D That would be really cool!

<3 o.


Monday, May 5, 2008

History Is Like... So Over!

I have the worst History teacher ever. No, I am not joking. Here is how bad he is: This man does not teach us a single thing. I can't think of anything I've learned from him, except more about Jim Jones than I want to know. And that was a video.
After a couple weeks of school, we caught on to the fact that, somehow, everyone was getting 100%s on the worksheets. How odd. So Han decided to not try on one and see what would happen. Who was 'Stonewall Jackson'? "A guy. With a beard. And shoes." What year did the Civil War end? "Purple." Guess what? He got a perfect. Now, this may sound slightly wonderful, because it means you don't have to do your work. But not quite, because he will sometimes randomly grade a paper. In addition, if you miss a day and ask him what work you missed, he'll say, "Nothing," but then he'll give you a 0 on it. That can injure your grade quite a bit in some cases.

Now, I think that's a reasonable reason to hate History. Here's the thing: I don't think I really hate history. I hate learning about it. But I find European history fascinating. I love historical fiction, and even non-fiction, and I think that antique malls are some of the funnest places to go. Last Friday, Han and I actually went to an antique mall, and took pictures of each other trying on old hats, talking on old phones, drawing old swords, posing with old canes, and it was so much fun!

I think one thing that I love about antique malls is that it's not the kind of history that has to do with battles and dates and names, it's a culture. This is how it was in the 1920s. This is what it was like in the 1800s. I find the history of culture and how it changed to be much more fascinating than war dates--maybe because I find it much more significant. History doesn't mean much when it's all about the armies and presidents. I am not of the army and I am not a president. But when you get to how it was for the average people... I am an average person, and I can relate to that much better.

I think I would rather like to study Victorian-era London/England area. I think I'll do that.

<3 o.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Is There A Name For It?

I am worried for me. I keep having scenarios go through my head, things that never happened and will never happen, but they affect me as if they have or as if they will. Then I will stop and think, "It didn't happen like that, and there was no reason for you to believe that it was like that or that it will be like that." But as soon as the next time I think of it, I think of it... like that.
It scares me.
It's like I can't control my thoughts.
It's like I have memories of things that never happened.
I don't know if I'm more scared of the things that I can't help thinking about or of the fact that I can't stop believing them.


Uh...

<3 o.