picturesque

current song: Radiohead - The Tourist

Ah. Well. I don't know what to say anymore. I had something - there's always something - but not anymore. Maybe it's because the song has changed.

He has dimples. I'd forgotten. I need to know... well, I guess I don't need to know. But I was, kind of, doing my clay project after him. We're supposed to make a head, and I drew two people, and he just came out on the paper. And the other one's me. With longer hair, and no glasses, but that makes sense, as I'm sleeping. I don't wear my glasses in my sleep. I don't think anyone does. I wonder if people who wear contacts take them out if they're just taking a nap? But... The point is, I'm making a head, that's supposed to be him, only it's not. It doesn't look like him at all. I've always had that problem - I can make decent enough looking drawings, but they never look like the person I'm trying to draw. Maybe it's because I always draw from memory. It's too embarrassing to draw someone when they're sitting there. I can deal with taking pictures, and I do, and I love it, because it lets me capture someone's likeness, without giving them time to think about it. I hate poses. They're ok, sometimes, but it's just so much better when they don't pose. I feel like I'm actually getting what they look like. Not some plastered on smile that they only wear during pictures. Does that make sense? I actually like pictures best when the subject isn't aware of the camera... Maybe. Although I'm not quite sure of that.

But, speaking of pictures... I promised those of you who asked that I'd use them for blackmail. So, I think I'll post them somewhere. Maybe I will buy that domain I've always wanted. Wouldn't it be nice? Yes, it would. I'll buy my domain, post my pictures, and report back. And then you'll behold the horribleness of those pictures... Well, I like most of them, but some of them are bad, and others would probably embarrass the subjects...

I still need pictures of certain people, though. I think... I'll bring a camera to school. Again.

a failed attempt to focus

Dear Jessica:

Congratulations! I am pleased to offer you admission to the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the
University of Colorado at Boulder for fall semester 2004. We are confident in your ability to be successful
academically at CU-Boulder and look forward to your positive contribution to our campus community.

Next knowledge bowl meet (as in, competition, not just after school meeting) is March 6, I believe. Anyway, it's the Saturday after, well, his birthday. Yes, that's how I'm remembering it. It's ok, it's just as valid a way to remember something as any other thing.

Speaking of birthdays, I saw Ali and Talia in the hall yesterday, as I was wheeling the teacups to be washed. They stopped and said hi, and thanked me for washing the teacups, and it was so nice. And, hooray, I was able to focus enough to say, "Hey, and Ali..." So, yes. She was really happy that I remembered her birthday (it's tomorrow, by the way... wish her a happy birthday if you see her, eh?) and both of them seemed really impressed that I remembered. It made me SO happy. I'm glad I made her feel special. One of those warm and fuzzy feelings, you know?

I believe Anna's birfday is Saturday, is it not? And then Srav's is on Monday. And Nikki-chan's is coming up, as well. She's gonna be 18! Yeesh. But, meh, I haven't talked to her in a long time! I just now realized this. Now I'm sad.

On a happier note, apparently, I'm going to be in science bowl. At least, if I can get my parents to sign the bloody forms. But, hoorah! That should be fun. Although, I suck, so that's not so good. And I don't really want to study for it... Hrm. Too bad, they're stuck with me. Maybe. If they don't boot me off the team, anyways. I'm giving this too much thought, aren't I? Or is it, 'am I not?'

I've solved the second row on the rubik's cube. I'm not sure what happened, but I don't think it's a fluke, since I now have 3 shiny little cubelets, sitting on my shelf, with the second row solved on all three.

I really, really, want to play D&D. I hope he hurries up with his dungeon mastering and planning and such. But, I have this irrational fear that he's going to come up with the next scenario, or whatnot, and then everyone else will get together, and play without me. Or that that's already happened. It's stupid, I know, I'm sure I won't be left out, but I still, sometimes, wonder. Some days I worry that I don't belong. Other days I practically suffer a nervous breakdown. It's alright, most of the time, when I'm actually hanging out with them, but I still get uncomfortable. And when I clam up entirely, because I'm too scared to react to all these people, I'm afraid I'm just coming off as a prick. Or something. Which makes it worse, but whatever... I'm babbling.

I like my notebook. It's nice to have a place to write my thoughts in... well, fiction form, I guess. It's prose, but it's not a journal style, or anything, and it's usually in third person. But it's so nice. It gives me a place to write about, well, the hot sauce, and the spoon, and the car ride, and everything else that I can't tell anyone, and can't write down directly. Because doing that takes away its beauty.

I need to finish my dossier, part B. If I do it tonight, I can get an A for semester... Otherwise, it's a B. Now, I'm not complaining about the B, but I really do need to get this done at some point, and it certainly wouldn't hurt to get a nice A to plump out my GPA. So, off I go, to finish part B, and then read the remaining 20 pages in Beloved.

perhaps, perhaps not.

Well, over the weekend I'll have to finish my history i.a., finish the design of my dossier, pretty much, do the evaporation lab, do the particle collision lab, maybe do the chapter homework, do chapter 14.1 thru 14.5, I presume, and... well, that's about it. But, strangely enough, I'm also working on my extended essay. I mean, I've already turned it in to Parsons, and I assume he's graded it, and I know he's given it to Kleve... but... it sucks, and I'm almost liking the one I'm writing now. If I get it done before, what, next Wednesday? - then I'll maybe force Parsons to read it and then have them send that one instead. But, maybe not. I might just finish this by the end of the year and force Parsons to read it then... or maybe I'll just force my friends to read it instead. Muahahaha! But seriously, if I write it, someone's gotta read it. Well, maybe. It'll probably still suck... just so much less so than with the current version that I'm proud of myself for doing it.

Did that make any sense? Ah, well.

I have yet to do CAS paperwork. I'm thinking of talking to McElreath and asking for the appropriate forms, as I'm fairly sure I've lost them all. And I don't have any done, anyway, I've lost my original contract from CCAF, and that was the only thing I'd done. Hmmm... My mom said she can find out contact info and such for me... but I don't really know what I need, and I'm rather frightened of talking to a woman I haven't seen for, what, 6 months, and who probably has no bloody idea who I am. Aaargh. And then, there's the whole divisioning of the CAS hours into creativity and action and service, and I have no bloody clue how I'm going to explain 30 hours of "creativity" and "action" when there is none! Ugh. Bloody stupid IB and their stupid forms.

It seems I'm using British swear words again. And every now and then I've caught myself thinking in a British accent. Although I recommend it heartily, as it's quite enjoyable, I do find it rather disturbing. Definitely time to lay off the HP fanfiction. And the LoTR fanfiction, for that matter.

But I am, actually, tempted to go find some Star Wars / Star Trek fanfiction. Oh, God, no! Today at lunch was probably one of the most entertaining conversations I've ever heard. Not participated in - I had only a vague clue as to what they were talking about most of the time - but I knew enough that the discussion was, to me, quite hilarious. Yes, that's right, hilarious! You heard me right. Or, rather, read. Oh, never mind.

Meh... I clearly need sleep. Adios, adieu, adeus, arrivederci, sayounara, shalom, auf wiedersehen, aloha...

don't try and save me this time. god knows I need the practice.

There's been a lot on my mind lately.

I can't think. I can't think at all. Why can't I think? I need to think. I need to finish this history internal assessment.

It's three in the morning. I started surfing the web around one. I guess that was when the ritalin wore off. It's kind of a horrible feeling. I'm not in control. I'm never in control. I guess. I've always been so scared of being in control before now. Scared that I'd fuck things up. But, I don't know. My parents haven't been nagging me. I can see it in my mom's eyes, when she asks if I've been doing homework. Or I ask if she wants to do something, and I can tell she does, but she'd rather I do my work. So she leaves me alone. And I just surf the net.

I've been reading fan fiction. It's far too consuming. It swallows me whole, strangles me. It's so nice to drift off somewhere else, live in a different person's head or imagination. I guess I like fan fiction because I can make the characters do whatever I want, and I don't feel guilty. They're not my friends, or anything. They're not real people. And I guess I just don't have the energy to come up with my own characters. Just... putting somebody else's creation into a situation and trying to picture how he'd react. It's always 'him'. I don't seem to identify with girls as much, for some reason. Never have. I've never really felt like much of a girl. When I was little, I didn't want to. Now, I kind of do. It's ok, though, because whenever I do I can generally feel like it's working. Although, sometimes, it just gets hard. With some people, maybe, it's hard to feel I'm human, let alone female.

I should have started on this assignment long before now. It feels like I'm just drowning in myself again. It's rather depressing. It's the recognition that I don't care, not as much as I want to, but enough to let it hurt me, just a little. And maybe I'll wake up in the morning and it'll be better, but I'm not doing anything to change it. And I don't know if I'm going to get any F's. I don't. It's kind of... pitiful, that I don't know how I'm doing. I don't know anything anymore. Well, maybe I do...

The depression, I know it's not going to stop. Because it won't go away until I decide to do something about it. I've stopped caring to the point that I'm not sure if I'll make myself do anything about it. Nothing really seems to matter to me right now, and I think, I think, in just a little while it will matter and then I'll be sorry I let myself stay like this for so long.

Maybe that's what happened to Uncle Scott. He let himself slip, and slip, and slip, because he didn't really care about the consequences. And then he got drunk, and maybe he realized he did care. It's hard to care when your world is falling apart around you. But I think it's probably worse when you know that it's your fault. I don't think I'd ever do what he did, but, I might ruin my life in other ways. And maybe I think that it's ok now. But I guess it kind of isn't. It's just so hard.

You know, the whole escaping thing wouldn't be so much of a problem if I didn't keep getting jerked back into reality. It's hard to escape completely. But, do you know what really hurt? I was reading some Harry Potter story, and someone asked Harry a question, and he replied, "Well, that's a loaded question, isn't it?" I couldn't read it anymore. I don't know why it bothered me so much. But it did.

So, there's my excuse for not updating, maybe. I kind of don't care, and I kind of do, but mostly I just don't like thinking about it. Because I'm kind of scared of the part where I wake up and realize that I've just ruined my chances for everything I ever wanted.

well, then.

Hmph. It's been a long time.

I don't know. I just haven't felt like bothering. Or sharing. Or sorting through things.

Saturday, well, that was exciting. No, not this Saturday, last Saturday. My alarm went off at 6, but I managed to turn off the radio, then the alarm, and fall back asleep. My dad came in at ten minutes to seven. Oops. Well, about 20 minutes later I was on my way to school. School, of all places! And on a Saturday!

I arrived at the same time as Krishna, and then Abraham drove up, so Shna and I walked over to the other side of the parking lot. Abraham followed in his car, with Mr. Gore in tow. Matt comes five minutes later. Jylynne and Kristen come ten minutes after that. Av comes a couple minutes after that. Shaina and Megann come five minutes after that.

We get in our respective cars - Abraham settles back in the trunk part of Jylynne's jeep, I'm on the driver's side, Matt on the passenger side, Kristen riding shotgun, Jylynne driving. Av, Shaina and Megann piled into the backseat of Gore's car, Krishna in the front. And we proceeded to follow Gore up to Thornton. Dear lord, he sucks at driving. He acted like he was trying to lose us as he sped down laredo, zoomed down Smoky Hill to Quincy to Parker to the freeway, where he proceeded to change lanes constantly. Or he'd swerve to the side, or signal, then change his mind. I'm certainly glad I wasn't in the car.

We get to Thornton, but Gore is lost. We keep making u-turns, swerving around, changing lanes at the last minute... He pulls into a parking lot, swerves towards the curb (and the mallcop, or whatever, that was standing there), and grinds to a screeching halt. He finally gets directions, which entails more u-turns and general confusion. We finally reach the Thornton High School parking lot.

So we head inside, making cracks about how us girls are the best looking ones there ("Hey, they might be nerds, but you can get a lot of nerds here! You know, quantity making up for quality..."), eating bagels and drinking juice, and generally screwing around. We split up into teams - I'm with Matt, Shaina, Megann, and Av. We all head upstairs to do the multiple choice. None of us had any idea what the hell we were doing. It was great.

After we finished, we all headed back down and waited for the scores to be graded and analyzed, still cracking jokes. Our team only goes up against one other team. It was great. We made more points than the other team once, because they always played against two teams. Ha, ha. But, anyways, the first round we lost. The second we won. The third we lost. All was well with the world. Since we had five people, everybody sat out at least half a round. (Av sat out two halves.) It was especially fun to comment on how frickin bitchy the girls asking questions for the second round were, and how hot the guy from the third round was. Indeed.

Not even bothering to wait for scores/rooms to be posted, we skipped out of the final round (team A might have made it, but they didn't really care), we headed off on a long and confusing ride to what originally was Outback and what turned into Maggiano's. Mmm... Paid for by Knowledge Bowl. Shaina chastised Gore for eating veal (mmm, delicious baby cow). It was very nice. And everyone who went got 3 - count 'em, 3 - extra credit points. That brings my C on the final to an A! Hurrah!

So, that was the knowledge bowl meet. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Last week was finals week. I decided not to rewrite my extended essay. After suffering from semi-anxiety attacks and writer's block all week, I decided to screw it and just modify my existing essay. Better to have it done. I dislike having a picture of something impossibly perfect in my head that I can't seem to write down.

I don't know if I'll be able to graduate IB or not. It doesn't seem to matter as much at this point. But, at the same time, it does. The other day, on the way to school, my dad told me that he thought I "really wanted to graduate from IB." It's weird, because it's true. I've never thought I wanted anything. I've never really known what I want. But I guess I do want some things. I really want to graduate from IB. I really want to go to college. In fact, I think I really want to go to Boulder. I'll see, when I find out what colleges accepted me. But I was thinking that I might not have gotten in all the stuff for Chicago, and I didn't really mind that much. But when I thought that I might not have everything in for Boulder, I was really worried.

I think my ladder's changed. It's so odd... He's not on the top anymore, I don't think he's even in the top five. Maybe he'll do something to change my mind, but I don't know. I just think that when I hang out with him, or him, or him, I'm just happier. They make me happy. He just makes me tired.

... It's been a year. It's still weird. I can't say I miss him, exactly. I never saw him that much anyways. This Christmas felt like any of the other Christmases where our family hung out with Grandma and Grandpa and he wasn't there. It's just odd, that's all. The other day we drove by a church, and I wasn't really paying attention (I was trying to pay attention to the road), but my mom saw this sign next to the church. It said, "Was something missing in your Christmas this year?" And mom told me, and then she started crying. It's just really weird. I don't know... I guess I do miss him, after all.

and you do it so carelessly

Well, today was weird. At least I have a week extra to study for finals that I thought I didn't have. Of course, it's also an extra week of school, but what's one more week?

I think I've lost something. I used to be so cheerful. Why am I different now? Even when I'm happy, I'm never hyper and bouncy and over-excited and spontaneous and gleeful. Maybe it's just that I haven't been that kind of happy in a while. I feel so restricted sometimes. Maybe it'll be better when I go to college. As much as I know I'll miss them, I'll no longer be around my friends, I'll have a new start, I won't feel bound to anything. I sometimes feel so chained to the people I'm around now. I have this enormous desire for freedom, but at the same time, I cling to the people I feel held back by. I don't know why I can't just let them go, but I can't, even on those days when I really, really want to.

Totalled, eh? Damn. I liked that car. But, as long as he's fine, I'm fine.

Why am I so upset?

all things must pass

Well, it's the last day of vacation. Then, back to drudgery. But, maybe it won't be that bad. It feels kind of like a new start.

Ah, I update my christmas gift list. Best present ever: rubik's cubes! Sweetness. Course, mom's already messed up the big one. Mebbe if I bring it in to school, I can have it fixed by the experts.

I drove to the Denver Public Library today, and got books for that history i.a. So maybe I'm not quite so screwed on that as I thought. I have yet to study for the Japanese test, or the final, so I might fail those, but it's ok, as long as I don't fail the class. The CAS paperwork is still bad, but I'll figure it out. My science stuff is getting caught up - I just need to finish the two labs. For the dossier, I'm going to use some of the stuff I did last year, and too bad if it's crappy. I don't need to do a good job on "defining the problem." For my E.E., I can either turn it in pretty much as it is now, or I can modify it somewhat (blech), or, if I want, I can cut out 60% of it, and rewrite it, and make it good. I want to go for the last option. I want to write something that I'm proud of.

all hail the cactuar

... which, I'm sure, is copyrighted by good ol' Squenix. However, I don't think that picture would be, as it's based on a photograph of my cactuar plushy. Hooray!

Mom got a new stereo installed in her car. It's got FM/AM and a cd player (of course), XM radio, and mp3 and wma playback. Plus it's got one of those nifty displays that light up in all sorts of psychedelic ways.

We went to Attactix today, and while I flipped through the psionics handbook and searched for purple borealis dice, my mom bought about 30 booster packs for Magic. Two guys next to her started commenting on it and joking around, and they asked if she wanted to come to the tournament. Apparently they have one every friday. We didn't go, but it might be fun to go one of these days. At least, if I don't have anything else I want to do instead.

But, oh god, the horror. I spent two hours today with Parsons going over my extended essay. Apparently, I have to rewrite half of it. How fun. But, since he didn't want to hand over the essay with so much to redraft, he's kept it and is holding it hostage while he figures out how I should rework it (without having to rewrite everything). I'll go retrieve it tomorrow at noonish. That ought to be fun. Want to go to Borders, Nikki? Sadly, the poor man is meeting with a student tomorrow too. I kind of feel bad for preventing him from having a life for two hours, especially if he has to do it with more than one person.

Hmph. I've been somewhat worried ever since I read Taifur's blog. What did I miss? One would presume that it's not that big of a deal, though, or somebody would have talked about it. Meh.

ah, the joys of Westword

"With the chicken burger, Max does have something unique. Something uniquely awful. Imagine a
perfectly good, perfectly innocent chicken breast walking down the street, minding its own business.
Suddenly, it's set upon by thugs and ruffians who grab it, beat the living crap out of it, throw it in the
back of a van, take it to the nearest rendering plant and put it through the meat grinder. The resultant
chicken mush is left out to dry, salted and peppered all to hell, then formed into a patty bulked out by
wood chips and Styrofoam packing peanuts, grilled for about an hour and a half under a greasy brick
and served. Voilà! The Max chicken burger: a dry, flavorless, strangely crunchy meat puck that, while
not actually containing wood chips and Styrofoam, sure tastes that way."

the full article

happy new year

I thought, to celebrate the new year, I'd post a new layout. It's probably the closest I'll get to having pictures at this domain. I'm pretty happy with it.

Somehow everything seems so uneventful. I got three presents for Christmas:

1) old navy gift certificates, $100 total
2) voice recorder/playback device (stores one message)
3) a trip to Phoenix

All from my grandparents. Last night, we watched the last minute and a half of some cheesy New Year's Eve special, and all I could think was, "This is in New York. It happened two hours ago. It's not even happening right now." It kind of dampened the excitement. But, hey, it's 2004. And the really exciting things aren't days or minutes or seconds. It's the fact that I need to turn in all this stuff for IB. And the fact that I'm going to be graduating from high school. And all the times I spend with my family and friends. When I cut in front of three lanes of traffic, and my dad freaks out. Or when I go shopping with my parents. Or watch South Park with Nikki.