I gotchu, Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye--
Much Sense--the starkest Madness--
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent--and you are sane--
Demur--you're straightway dangerous--
And handled with a Chain--
        --Emily Dickinson


We're currently reading Whitman and Dickinson in my English III class. I like Whitman, but I love Emily Dickinson's poems. Maybe it's because I can relate to her poetry quite well, like the one above. So, from one mad recluse to another, I gotchu Emily.

Day 02

A picture of you and the person you have been closest with for the longest period of time.

Well, it's more like the people I've been closest to the longest period of time. Caryn's the one on the right and Kayla's the one in the middle. I started at my current school when I was in the fifth grade; that's when I became friends with Caryn. Her and another girl were the first friends I ever made. I don't know if any of you have ever been that new kid, but it's not easy. Especially when you know no one. I've lived in the same neighborhood my whole life, but I never hung out with any of the public school kids. There were a fair number of families living in my neighborhood that also attended the private school I went to. I think it was about a month before we became really close. But it basically stayed that way  until the end of middle school. We got into some fall out with the other girl. You know, one of those dumb middle school dramas, it's like the end of the world. Of course, now I really can't even remember what it was about.

I became friends with Kayla a year after that. The way it works at my school is until you get into middle school your class is divided up into three different classes. I wasn't in a class with Kayla so I didn't really know her. Most of her friends were in my class, though, so we had a bunch of mutual friends so we started being friends that way. We all used to hang out every weekend, usually at my house because I basically lived right in town and my parents were willing to drive us places. We would watch movies, camp out on my trampoline, TP this kid's house that I liked, roam my neighborhood and the nearby park, go to the movies, ice skate in the winter, and a bunch of other random stuff.

I'm not really as close with them as I used to be. We've all kind of grown apart, I guess. Which really makes me sad, now that I think about it (isn't that always the case?). We were super close and knew each other so well. This picture was taken about 3 or 4 weeks after I got my license. We decided to go on a random adventure one night. I think we went to Target, Dollar General, Steak 'n' Shake, and then we went and met Caryn's boyfriend. I kind of miss it, but we're different people now. I know that no matter how hard we could try it probably wouldn't be the same. But I also know that I could still go to either of them about anything if I needed to.

Day 01

A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.

1. I am an extreme perfectionist.
2. I want to travel the world and learn about different cultures and languages.
3. I am highly competitive and hate to lose. If I don't get 1st place I'm usually really disappointed in myself.
4. The thing I'm best at in life is getting myself hurt. No, seriously. I'm always tripping, bumping into things, falling, stubbing my toes, getting scratched up, and just about any other way of getting hurt you can imagine.
5. I've played the piano since I was age six. My teacher wants me to major in music when I go to college, but honestly I just don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life.
6. I was a huge tomboy until about the 7th grade.
7. Being late is one of my worst fears. Therefore, I'm usually super early for everything.
8. It's physically impossible for me to drive the speed limit. I usually go at least 5-10 mph over. Don't tell my mom.
9. Until I was about 13 I hated pop. I could not stand to drink it. I used to get cans of root beer, open them, and leave them in the refrigerator until they were flat. Now, Mt Dew is like my crack. I still can't stand to drink brown pops, though. They make my stomach hurt.
10. Whenever I go to Asian or Mexican restaurants the waiters always creep on me. By this I mean they either stare at me for too long, come by my table more often than any others, or make awkward conversations with me. (I'm sorry if this is somehow offensive to Asian or Mexican people.)
11. I drive a Jeep named Mallow, and he is my pride and joy.
12. When I was younger I hated the color pink. Like absolutely despised it.
13. I'm usually quiet around most people, so they tend to think I'm either stuck up or judging them.
14. I get my feelings hurt too easily, but I don't show it at all.
15. Up until the 5th grade I was a Catholic school kid. Honestly, I probably would still be, but my brother got picked on a lot so my parents pulled him out and sent him to public school. It felt weird to me to be at a school without my brother so a year later I switched too. I don't regret it, but sometimes I feel like I don't quite belong at my school now.

(BTW, I just saw an ad that claimed to show you how to "get him addicted to you." WTF?!)

30 Day Picture Challenge

Okay, so I don't know if anyone knows what this is. But it's this thing that's going on on Facebook right now. I've decided, however, that I'm going to do it here. I like the idea, but since I tend to be really wordy I thought it would probably better to do it here than on Facebook. I don't intend on doing it everyday. More like every 3 or 4 days. And I'll probably have regular posts instead of this on some of those days. We'll see how it goes!

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.
Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been closest with for the longest period of time.
Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show.
Day 04 - A picture of a habit you wish you didn't have.
Day 05 - A picture of your favorite memory.
Day 06 - A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day.
Day 07 - A picture of your most treasured item.
Day 08 - A picture that makes you laugh.
Day 09 - A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.
Day 10 - A picture of the person you do the most fucked up things with.
Day 11 - A picture of something you hate.
Day 12 - A picture of something you love.
Day 13 - A picture of your favorite band or artist.
Day 14 - A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without.
Day 15 - A picture of something you want to do before you die.
Day 16 - A picture of someone who inspires you.
Day 17 - A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently.
Day 18 - A picture of your biggest insecurity.
Day 19 - A picture of you when you were little.
Day 20 - A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel.
Day 21 - A picture of something you wish you could forget.
Day 22 - A picture of something you wish you were better at.
Day 23 - A picture of your favorite book.
Day 24 - A picture of something you wish you could change.
Day 25 - A picture of your day.
Day 26 - A picture of something that means a lot to you.
Day 27 - A picture of yourself and a family member.
Day 28 - A picture of something you're afraid of.
Day 29 - A picture that can always make you smile.
Day 30 - A picture of someone you miss.

The first one will either be tomorrow or Friday. (Most likely Friday, but I won't swear to it.)

One of Those Days

Today has been a somewhat trying day for me. It's mostly just been one thing after another. We didn't have school yesterday so today was the first day back. And what do our P.E. teachers decide to do on the first day of the week? Circuits. Yuck. It's basically eight different stations around the gym where you do 50 reps of something like push-ups, burpees, line jumps, etc. with a lap in between. And then a 5 minute run. We did these 3 times. I mean, come on! It's basically a Monday morning! Then in English we have a huge, ginormous, humongous research paper due tomorrow that we've been working on since the beginning of January. And we had a trig test where I missed at least 3 problems (I didn't even do one of them), each worth 7 points. And to top it off my printer ran out of ink when I was trying to print my paper. Whew!

And let me just say that people (cough, cough Jeannine) have not been helpful. In after trig, in band, two of my friends and I were talking about this hard proof on the test when Miss I Know Everything walks up. "Oh, are you talking about the first proof? I thought that one was so easy!" Yeah, I bet you did. Know what else would be easy? Me, kicking your ass. Anyways... But seriously, is she trying to get people to not like her? Because it's working. I honestly just don't get it.

Exactly! (My dad and I joke about this all the time.)

This has inspired me to write my top five least favorite personality traits: 

1. Pompous: There is nothing more I hate most in this world, when talking about people's personalities. It's just so ugly. I don't mind a little bragging. I get it, you're proud of something you did. I do it myself sometimes. But when it's excessive, and I've done the exact same thing. No. This is not all right.
2. Pessimism: I understand what it's like to be depressed. I myself battle this frequently. But not everything in the world is death and rain storms. It does nothing to help other people's moods when you constantly talk about how you're going to fail at something or something bad is going to happen.
3. Dishonesty: How hard is it to be honest? I feel like it's more of a bad habit. I can't stand the feeling of not being able to trust someone. I operate under the belief that if I catch you being dishonest with me once, I'll probably never expect you to be honest. It's just so shady, and makes me wonder what else is a lie.
4. Lazy: I know a handful of people who are very intelligent and comprehend things easily. But they just don't apply themselves! It just blows my mind how someone can be so smart and be capable of getting As and Bs but decides to barely pass or fail. I know part of it is my perfectionism, but why not use the gift God gave you? Why not give yourself a better future?
5. Dependent: I'm aware that it's okay to be dependent. To a degree. I mean, I'm dependent on my parents to support me and stuff like that. But I don't think it's okay to be dependent on someone emotionally. It's not healthy to base your happiness on another person's. It's just so unattractive to see someone who can't live without their boyfriend or girlfriend. Again, I know part of my feeling like this is just the way I am. I'm an extremely independent person. But, please, try to be your own person.

 Sorry for the kind of complain-y posts lately, but that's just the kind of mood I've been in lately. The months of January to mid-March do that to me. Hoping your day's been better than mine!

This is not a post. This is my Trig homework.

Or not. I'm trying to multitask by catching up on my YouTube subscriptions and doing my Trigonometry homework at the same time. As you can I've become distracted. I don't know why I always try to do my homework this way. I almost always end up here or on Facebook. (Usually Facebook, it's too addicting!)

This post is mainly going to be me complaining about one of my frenemies at school. So if you don't like complaining or ragging on people, I'm sorry. But it's just one of those things you can't get over! She just bugs me so much. I'm thinking that maybe if I write it down I can put it out of my mind. I guess we'll see if it works.

Well, in my class at school there's four of us who have maintained a 4.0 all throughout high school. So we're all in the running for valedictorian. (I say in the running because one of my former friends was too, but she got a B last semester so she's not any more.) It's me, two other girls, and a guy (one of my friends). One of the girls, we'll call her Jeannine, is what I consider to be a frenemy. We actually used to be pretty tight, she took me to a Green Day concert our sophomore year. But we kind of have that underlying tension thing where we always one to do better. Okay, I didn't really feel that way until I could tell she did. And I, having a naturally competitive nature, joined in the madness. Except instead of saying things to get under her skin, her tactic, I just ignore whatever she says about her grades. I can tell that gets under her skin. She loves to brag and have people talk about it.

We're both in band together. Luckily we don't play the same instrument so there really isn't a possibly of competition there. But we are in WYSE together. I don't know if you know what WYSE is, so I'll quickly explain. It's basically competitive test taking (nerd alert!) and there's six different categories. We're both in the English category. She got first at Regionals (our whole team did actually) and of course bragged. (Regionals were last week when I was sick so I couldn't go.) Well Sectionals are in a few weeks. And they just happen to be on the same day as an all day band festival at the university in town.

There's four of us who are in both band and WYSE, and at first we were just going to skip the band festival. But the problem is that our band is so small and we're all first chairs, so if we leave our band director thinks we shouldn't go at all. Which is, apparently, a problem. So he and our WYSE coach worked it out so we take our tests in the morning and the bus takes us to the university in the afternoon to play. The problem there is we'd miss the awards ceremony at WYSE, which is in the afternoon. So everyone threw a fit, and it was this huge deal.

Jeannine's dad wrote this kind of ass hole-ish email to our band director basically saying that she wasn't going to go to the band festival. The email ended with 'That you so much for your cooperation, as always." We-e-ell, looks like someone won't be getting the MVP senior award in band (the band director loves me, I'm a shoe-in, anyways). So then the band director threw a fit and told everyone they were going no matter what. And the WYSE coach told us all that we had to go to the festival, she wasn't going to let us stay.

Honestly, I really have no problem with this. I like band. I mean I signed up for it because I wanted to. I knew when I signed up that there were probably going to be conflicts. I mean we've all been in band since the fifth grade, we all know this by now. But ever since this was decided on Tuesday little miss perfection has been complaining. "It's just band, it doesn't even matter!" "This is so dumb, academics are more important!" Okay, not to some people. And how is academic to sit around for an hour waiting to get find out if you even placed?! She always says things that offend people, and she doesn't even realize it. Grrrr! She just pisses me off so much. If you don't like it then quit. That's my advice. And don't get all offended and huffy with me when I don't agree with you. Your opinion isn't necessarily always right. If it was some basketball or track thing you wouldn't be complaining at all. In fact, you'd be super pissed if they didn't work it out for you. So get off your high horse, the world doesn't revolve around you.

Okay. I've vented. I feel slightly better. I just hope she never finds this. I take that back, I really don't care either way. Oh, and tomorrow we're supposed to take our pinatas home. We still haven't decided who gets to take it home so things could get interesting...

Have a happy Friday tomorrow!

Still here!

World champs baby! GO PACK GO!

I feel like a super huge jerk. I promised I'd be all regular on posting and not go a long time without one. Sigh. I'm sorry! But last Monday (my birthday) I left school sick and was out the whole week. There is possibly nothing more that I hate than missing school. I hate make up work. I hate making up tests. And I hate making up lessons. I hate to make up five days. ihatemylifeihatemylifeihatemylife. But as of today I am all caught up. Praise God, Hallelujah! It was just the flu (with a mine bladder infection) but it sucked nonetheless.

The up side? I got to watch my favorite daytime shows! On TNT: Supernatural and Las Vegas. On ABC Family: Boy Meets World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Full House, Still Standing, and Gilmore Girls. Well now I feel like a huge bum. Oh well, I was sick that makes it all acceptable.

Has anyone seen the commercials for I am Number Four and Beastly? I want to see both so so badly! I don't know if it has so much to do with the actual plot as it does with Alex Pettyfer. I know, I know, he's kind of the typical hot guy. But he's so attractive! And it looks like he might actually be a good actor. Seventeen did a little write up on him. I ate it up, of course. What can I say? There's just parts of me that will always be the typical teenage girl. And I am 100% okay with that.

A couple of months ago I went through this whole ordeal (for want of a better word). It was around homecoming and I was just becoming so stressed. School was turning out to be harder than I thought it was going to be, I was trying to decide if it was really worth it to be friends with the girls I was friends with, all my extra-curriculars were really demanding, and basically all my energy was just spent. (Talk about a run-on. My English teacher would be furious.) In the end school got manageable,  I decided my friends were not worth it and found new ones, and I cut back on my extra stuff. One was yearbook, which I think had more to do with my friends. I signed up with two of them, and I wasn't really that enthused by it anyways. But the other was piano.

You see, I've been taking piano lessons since I was six. I'll do the math for you, that means I've been playing for about eleven years. Piano used to be my life. I took with several different teachers before I found my last one. She's kind of like a local celebrity for piano. I think she might have been on the Tonight Show or something like that. She's amazing. Like, seriously, amazing. She specializes in ragtime and it's just so mind-blowing to hear her play. She started teaching  at the local university in the preparatory department and that's where I took. I actually went through a period in my life where I thought piano could my occupation. I love it.

Well, as a result of the whole ordeal I ended stopping lessons. Which was huge. Major. I'm not trying to brag, but I'm really good. I was Mrs M's star pupil. Last year I won first overall at the preparatory honor's concert. So naturally everyone thought I was absolutely crazy. Which I think is totally wrong. I think I just lost my passion for it. My heart wasn't in it. I felt stressed, panicked, and lost it. I just kept getting this overwhelming feeling that I sucked and I would choke at the next recital. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I believe I need to start my lessons again. If God gave me that talent I need to use it. I just feel so guilty for giving up on something that once was so important to me. And I kind of feel like I let down Mrs M. That's why I keep procrastinating calling her. I dread facing her, I just don't know how I can do it. But I have to. I have to suck it up and just do it.

Okay. Now that I've given myself a mini-pep talk here's one last thing. I stole this meme from DB. I love it! It's a handwriting thing and all you have to do is write down these things on a piece of paper, take a picture, and post.
1. What's your name/your Blogger name?
2. What's your blog's name/URL?
3. Write "the quick fox jumps over the lazy dog"
4. Favorite quote?
5. Your favorite song?
6. Your favorite band/singers?
7. Anything else you want to say?
8. Tag 3-5 other people

Whoops! I cut off my name

 'Tis all! I swear on my dead hamster Hammy's grave to post again soon.

I SURVIVED SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011

Photo from space of the blizzard

Did everyone survive the snowpocalypse?! That was just insane. I think we got like eight inches and about a half inch of ice underneath that. But it was weird... it was like a combination of snow and ice, so dense. I managed to survive, but not by much. Yep, I had yet another near death experience. This time like, for real, for real.

On Monday while we were at school it started to snow, sleet, and rain. So we got our band director to cancel jazz band rehearsal, which was after school. My friends A.J. and Chase asked for a ride home (they both live in my neighborhood). We get out to the gravel parking lot (a TERRIBLE parking lot, it's where the sophomores and juniors have to park and it's super far from the school) and all of the cars are covered in a solid layer of ice. It's not frosted or anything. Sheer ice. So I turn my car on and get the defroster going like it's actually going to help. I grab my scraper and get to work. And I am getting nowhere. And neither is anyone else. It was actually kind of comical because pretty much everyone had their cars running while they were trying to scrap the ice off. Finally after about five minutes Chase grabs my other scraper and starts helping me and then A.J. gets fed up and takes mine. He was getting so angry, it was kind of funny. I couldn't have planned that one any better, two guys scraping my car for me? Score!

We're like the first people done, I almost stopped and helped one of them. But it was still sleeting/snowing, so I was like eh, whatever. I felt bad, but it's not my fault they didn't have two guys willing to scrape their windows. We get onto the highway and of course, get stuck behind a salt truck. I know they roads were like super icy, but he was going twenty miles per hour! Not okay. So I pass him and my band director.

We're driving down the interstate at about forty (which I didn't think was that bad, but I was wrong) when suddenly my car starts fishtailing. Which is nothing new, I've fishtailed plenty in my experience. But then I notice that I can't seem to turn my wheel fast enough. And then I notice that I don't really have control anymore. And then I notice that both sides of the interstate are kind of busy. Then I have this moment of holy crap, I'm no longer in control of my life. Have you ever felt this? This overwhelming feeling of how fragile your life is and there's nothing you can do to keep it from getting shattered? It's terrifying, and I won't lie it's also somehow exhilarating.

The next five seconds seem to go by really fast, but then again slow. Suddenly, for some unexplainable reason, I start hysterically laughing. I always thought I'd scream when I was near death, but nope, apparently I laugh. And I hear A.J. next me going "Holy shit! Holy shit!" over and over again really fast. (I don't know what Chase was doing in the back seat.) My car fishtails completely around so I'm facing the wrong way, and we slide sideways into the median (which is actually a strip of grass). I can picture that short amount of time that we were on the median perfectly in my head. It probably only lasted like half a second, but it was a long time. There was this moment where A.J. and I looked at each other, eyes wide, and shared this brainwave of Oh. Shit. I was sure we were about to flip. Like 100% sure. I could feel the car start to lean. Which wouldn't be good because a) flipping a car is never good and b) there was a whole line of traffic coming down that side of the interstate and we would probably cause a pile up.

But then next thing I know we're on the other side of the interstate, opposite of where we were originally, going the correct way down the interstate, back towards the school. How? I couldn't tell you. I have absolutely no clue. That's how I know there's a God. Because I'm sorry that just goes against any laws of physics. No one really seems to know how we survived that one. So I turned around when we got to the exit and headed home like nothing happened. And yes, I did drive thirty the whole way home. We could not believe it. It just didn't seem real. It happened so quickly. Looking back we were like, all right, now that we know we're not going to die that was actually pretty awesome. But my God.

*Moment of silence contemplating the almost end of my short life*

Aaaaaand... moving on. I mean what else can I do? I probably give off the impression that I'm a bad driver. But I'm really not. I'm a fast driver, but that day I was going slow and not messing around. Sometimes stuff like that just happens. And it usually happens to me. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Excepting the fact we just went through a mini-ice age. Thankfully we live pretty much in town so we never lost power, but the rest of my school district is out in the country. A lot of them lost power for a day, but some lost power until last night. I've never actually witnessed a blizzard, and I have to say it was kind of cool. Of course, everyone pretty much freaked out... But I kind of liked it. I love winter when it's like this.

Those cars are FROZEN to Lake Shore Drive

Did anyone hear about what happened in Chicago? Insane! All those cars frozen on Lake Shore Drive? I just can't wrap my brain around how much of the U.S. was hit by this storm. We had the last three days out of school. Shocked? I know, I was too. I was kind of hoping we'd have today off too, but a six-day weekend is just too much to ask for.

Well, I didn't plan on the blog being this long... I'll have another one up soon, because there's still more I want to write about. But I hate long blogs so I won't add on any more.

Protesters at Tahrir Square in Cairo

Oh! And there's only three days until my seventeenth birthday! And two until the Super Bowl!

Crap! One more thing. I've been trying to follow what's been happening in Egypt, and I found this article. It's really moving and personal. I strongly suggest you read it.