September progress report

1. I'm ALMOST in the top 10%. I'm ranked 30 out of 288. Yes. That's right. I only have to jump up a few more spots and I'm IN. Once I'm in scholarships moneyz will start rolling in and I'll be set. Also, some colleges do automatic acception if you're in the top 10%.
2. I'm in LOVE with our blogger family group on Facebook. It almost sort of makes up for the fact that I can rarely blog during weekdays anymore.
   
3. I made a 99 on my AP English project and a 100 on my AP Environment project. At the rate I'm going at now I should be able to weasel my way into the top 10%. A lot of AP kids are either failing, or making substandard grades, so I feel pretty confident. Is is wrong that I like that they're not doing as well as me? Does that make me evil? Or a bad person? Pfffttt... Who am I kidding, I really need the scholarship money.
4. Now that it's the weekend I can finally watch TV! I think I average a grand total of 2 hours during the week? However, my weekends have begun disappearing on me because of homework and other school stuff.
5. This has brought me so.much.joy.
6. My friends. Let me introduce you to Lensbaby. It's amazing. It's wonderful. I LOVE MANUALLY CHANGING THE APERTURE. For everyone that could care less about cameras, it's pretty much just a specialty lens that allows you to take pictures with cool focal effects that you usually have to get through Photoshop nowadays. Here are some sample pictures that I took at a football game last night.
   
   
   

Oh. And that's me. Hugging my TV because the new episode of Doctor Who was on.

Anywho. September was nice. October will be hectic. On Monday I have an Art Club meeting after school that will last until 4:30ish that I have to preside over because I'm president, and then a Z-club meeting at 5:30. Then I have to go home, make cupcakes, and get ready for Tuesday which is my school's homecoming carnival, meaning that Tuesday night is completely blown.

I'm really hoping that none of my teachers assign homework because it's probably not going to be done. By anyone. Because the entire school will be in 'homecoming' mode.

So far I've been so swamped with homework that I haven't had time to blog, or catch up on blogs. But that's what weekends are for.

Speedos are awkward

Oh my goodness. Please, for the love of everything decent in the universe--- if you're a guy just don't. Don't ever wear a speedo in the presence of a female. Never ever. Unless you have the body of a Greek god (and let's not try and be delusional fellas. There's a reason why Hollister didn't hire you as a model).

Anyways, I woke up early this Saturday to take pictures at my school's invitational swim meet and I nearly had a heart attack when I discovered that EVERY guy on the swim team sans one donned a Speedo. Not to be rude or mean, but I don't think my eyes will ever be able to recover. Ever.

I did have fun taking pictures though. Out of the bazillion that I took this one is probably one of my favorites that I can post. I didn't want to use any that showed anyone's face, or one that we could potentially use in the yearbook.

I had a HUGE Sigma 100-300mm lens and I used a Canon EOS 60D so I felt a little overwhelmed by the equipment, but after a while I got used to the massive weight of the lens juxtaposed by the lightness of the camera itself. I'm really trying my best to learn more about cameras and whatnot, but I get confused really easily, especially when people start talking about ISOs and f-stops, whatever those are. Pfft, honestly I just mess around until stuff starts to look good.

The only thing I had an issue with was actually capturing pictures of the swimmers, in motion, with a recognizable face. You have no idea how hard that is. In yearbook we have to use pictures that show recognizable facial features, which at times can be very limiting. Ah, well I managed to get some decent pictures and I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to get more seeing as this is only the first swim meet of the season (does swim even have a season?).

Anyways, this was just a little update/quasi public service announcement about speedos.

On another note, class ranks have been sent out and I'm a little frazzled. My parents have yet to check the P.O. Box so I'm a little anxious to see if I've gone up or down. Regardless, I know the rank will be slightly inaccurate because of all the people who have dropped AP at the beginning this year... GAH. I NEED TO KNOW MY RANK. I need to know if I've clawed my way up from the top 15% of my class....

Time to take off the band-aid

While I've had a plethora of things to blog about, I seem to have lacked time to actually write anything out.

I'll get the bad things out of the way first.

1) I no longer have my dog Bear. My dad took him to the animal shelter just a few hours ago because he'd finally lost his patience. We literally could not leave the house because my dog had so much anxiety he would destroy everything. Just last week we left the house for 20 minutes and he had managed to get a bottle of Aspirin off the kitchen counter top and chewed through the bottle and ate all the pills. Luckily he puked them up, but still. He's ruined the mini blinds and door in our main bathroom and has destroyed A LOT of my belongings. Let's just say I had more patience than my dad and the only reason we had him so long was because I refused to let my dad give him away.

2) A friend of mine recently found out that this guy she had been seeing had been arrested. He didn't tell her why at first, but apparently it was because he was in possession of drugs. And he lied to my friend. And she's in a really fragile emotional state. And I really want to punch him in the face because this isn't the first time he's made her cry so hard that she can't even come to school the next day. I'm hoping that once he goes to rehab he'll clean up, but I'm not too optimistic. I just hope my friend will end things with him, despite how strongly she feels towards him. :(

On the bright side, my parents have decided to let me get a kitten. I've always wanted a cat. My grandmother has threatened to stop visiting if we get a cat. (yessssssss!) I'm sure she'll visit regardless.

Also I ate some yummy Vietnamese food with some friends of mine today after school and we made this video for my friend Kenneth who HATES it when people say "NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM".

It was kind of awkward because I felt like my friend Hang was trying to hook me up with this one guy... Eh... I don't know. It was weird, but luckily he left a little early so it wasn't too bad.

I feel like I should post some pictures.

This guy is too big for this tiny car.

Now you guys can prank call this place. They speak really good Engrish.

Yes. I look very attractive mid-stuffing my face. NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Yummy!!

Anyways, I've got AP Gov homework to study!

I'm not going to lie. Going out for a drive at midnight and forgetting that I have school in the morning scares me. As far as taking risks go, I sleep without a bra and eat my steaks medium rare.

Having fun right now consists of watching Doctor Who on Saturdays (and just a lot of TV that I missed during the week) and making shrinky dinks and pop up cards. I don't care if I sound like your granny. I don't care that I go to sleep at 10 p.m. every night, which is earlier than when your granny goes to bed.

Once I am FOR SURE accepted into a university I'll begin to relax and be haphazard. Right now I'm currently panicking because I've been trying to apply online to this one uni but their website keeps saying there is a system error. FFFing FIX IT ALREADY I NEED TO APPLY BEFORE THE EARLY DECISION DEADLINE IS UP.

I promise I will relax and breath. I already have two parties on my agenda, one being a post art competition party in February (to celebrate winning/losing) and a HUGE graduation party that this guy Kenne is throwing. There's going to be an mechanical bull, most likely live music, cheap pizza, and a myriad of red party cups and foggy rooms. Did I mention he has a macaw? If that's not a party then I don't know what is. Oh and I forgot about the after after prom party that is going to be at a friend's lake house (how american pie of us :P).

See? All of my hard studying will be rewarded with copious partying. Now all I need to do is make sure I don't die under the pressure of my mountain of homework that I am trying to ignore right now. Ugh. I REALLY could use a functioning time turner. This plastic one just isn't doing it.

Understanding

I hate that my non-AP friends don’t understand what I’m going through. Whenever I tell them that I have a lot of homework, or that I’m stressed about my classes all they say is “that sucks” and just laugh. Sometimes they just tell me to quit AP since I’m so stressed.

No. I’m not quitting AP. The only way I won’t be in an AP class is if the teacher throws me out themself (which my AP Govt. teacher is currently doing to a lot of people because she’s hell-bent on expelling everyone that she thinks won’t make a 3 or higher on the AP exam). It’s not that I need these classes per se, but the point of taking the classes is to adequately prepare myself for a rigorous college workload.

If I quit AP then who’s to say I won’t quit classes when I get into college because they stress me out?

Is a little understanding too much to ask for?

Now, I’m not saying everyone is like this. However the people who are like that really annoy me. Like my grandma (you know, the one that ALWAYS comes over). When she heard about my course load she said “Well, you must not have taken all of your hard classes first.”

Well damn. I’ve done nothing BUT taken hard classes (sans math, which is hard enough for me without being an honors class).

I don’t know. I just want people to be aware that my occasional panic attacks, crazy antics, and pained expressions aren’t because I’m making a big deal out of nothing. I’m making a big deal out of MY FFFing EDUCATION, meaning: I’m trying to start on the right path so I can eventually live my ideals.

“Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.”
― Will Smith

5 Minutes

Ok so I’ve allotted myself about 5 minutes to blog, so this’ll just be really quick!

1. I have a massive eco-column project going on in Environmental Science, but luckily I have a super awesome group to work with. It’s very rigorous (the project) and is going to consume about 2-3 months of my life. FUN FUN. I’ll post pictures when we assemble it because it’s going to look awesome! I feel confident because I feel like I actually know what I’m doing. Also I MADE A 101% on the first test! I was scared because a lot of people failed, but I managed to make one of the highest grades in the class!

2. In AP English I just finished yet another group project and I think it turned out well. We had to write a children’s book and my group’s was about a pig named Sebastian who wanted to fly. I probably post pictures of that later too :P They’re too cute not to share!

3. AP Govt. is not my friend. I’m close to loathing that class. Like, really close.

4. I joined an AP student union. I can’t say anything else because I signed a confidentiality agreement :/

5. I’m ahead in my AP Studio Art portfolio assignments! Yay!

There’s been a lot of drama going on this week as well, but I’m just not going to dwell on it for now.

Adventures in volunteering

You guys know how I am. I'm a sucker for civil service and whatnot. However instead of my usual hours being dedicated to the public library or random school events I decided to do something a little out of the norm and volunteer to help out at a concert.

I'm part of a female volunteer organization for my school and most of the time we just help out at food kitchens or play bingo with the elderly, so you can imagine my excitement whenever we get to do something different.

The bands that were at the concert were on the Music With A Mission Tour, and if you can't already tell by the tour name it was just a bunch of Christian bands.... yeah. I don't really listen to that much Christian music... in fact the only Christian band I ever listened to was Reliant K, and I honestly didn't know they were Christian until I wikipedia-ed them a year after buying a handful of their songs on iTunes. In the 6th grade.

I guess my lack of interest can be summed up by my confusion. Do they sing about Christian things, or do they just sing in a Christian way? Or both? I don't know. The local bands in my area are 95% screamo and claim to be Christian (whilst citing Slipknot and Pantera as their musical influences on their Facebook pages) so you can understand my confusion. Not that I'm hating on Christian, or screamo music... I just prefer to listen to other things.... Gah. I'm just digging myself into a hole.

Anyways, we were guaranteed a free t-shirt and we could watch the show as long as we made sure there was always at least one person at the merch table. I let the girl I was working with watch as much of the show that she wanted. She seemed more excited than I was about everything. Towards the end when Hawk Nelson was playing I went in and watched a few songs. Their light show was awesome.

You can't really tell in this picture though... Their letters lit up all multicolored at one point, and they had strobe lights going off sporadically.

My friend Amy used my camera to take these pictures. For their encore performance they came out dressed like Journey and sang Don't Stop Believing.

I was a merch monkey for the band Superchick and I had a lot of fun despite it being a little stressful. They had one of the busiest tables aside from Hawk Nelson, but I like selling stuff to people so it was cool. The merch manager was really nice, and a complete hipster dreamboat. As I was chatting with him I found out that he 1) had no idea what day it was 2) was the fill in bassist 3)hadn't showered in a while and 4)thought my little town was pretty cool.

Apparently we are since Weird Al is coming in a few days. I had no idea that we had decent events coming to my town. I really want to go see Riverdance now.

I did my best to pick out the most ambiguous shirt from all of the bands so I wouldn't get any crap for being a poser... >.> Buuuuut whatever. It was free and I live for free stuff.

All the stress...

...has begun to build up and I was on the verge of a legitimate panic attack today.

One thing just built up on another and to top it off I had a hard time focusing in class so I felt like a complete idiot during the first half of the day.

In AP Environmental Science we were assigned 2 labs today and an additional packet. One of them is to be turned in next class and the other one will be an ongoing lab for the next 6-8 weeks. The entire class was lost on what to do, and the teacher was pretty vague about the instructions. Not that paying attention to what she said did any good because of the aforementioned focusing issue. In AP English we had to watch a commemorative 9/11 video and the entire class was in tears, including our teacher. I don't like being emotional in public. I don't like crying in front of people. However, in that setting it felt ok.

In my sixth period I had to track down some people and while I was searching for them I decided to pop into the AcaDec class room and pick up my tub that I had left in there the year before. The shit head of a teacher threw away all of my important papers, despite the tub being marked with MY name. She emptied my box without an apology or second thought. At that point I started hyperventilating and freaking out. Those papers were important. And no, it wasn't stuff that I could just go on the internet and find. What kind of shit head just throws someone else's things away without trying to track them down and ASK them if it was ok?

And while I was in the beginning stage of my attack I was bombarded by multiple idiotic questions. Gee, thanks for noticing that I'm having respiratory issues and that my eyes are tearing up.

Then, I went to the bathroom and took a few deep breaths and composed myself. I couldn't go back to class looking like a mess. Then my art period rolled around and I told my friends about shit head throwing away my papers and I was so angry/stressed/tired that I nearly started hyperventilating again.

My friend offered me meds, but I opted not to take them. I just took some calming deep breaths and my friends were able to get my mind off of things by entertaining me with funny stories and awful innuendos about the lower stairway of our library.

As it turns out, my allergies are in full swing because of the smoke and the fall season in general and that was the reason why I couldn't pay attention to anything. Hopefully if I just stay inside this weekend and take some allergy meds I'll be ok.

I just wish I didn't bottle my emotions the way I do. I've been having a bad week, but due to the immense amount of homework and studying I've been doing I just opted to push through everything in hopes that my stress will magically disappear once I get my work done. It hasn't.

I don't want to be that person that does nothing but complain 24/7. I want to be happy, alert, and a good friend.

At least it's the weekend and I can go on Pottermore and explore to my heart's content and release some of the stress that I have. I really don't want to fail at school, and in extent life.

Lifeblood

Today I gave blood for the first time ever.

Although almost puked because I was so dizzy, I feel like a good citizen and whatnot.

Hang and I got our hall passes to leave class!

Look at how scared I am while I wait to get processed. Yes. That is genuine fear right there.

I have to admit the free t-shirt they gave me made up for the mild discomfort I felt when they put that scary needle in my arm. My friends Hang and Sayra were supposed to give blood at the same time as me, but both of them forgot to bring photo IDs--- not to mention Hang is underweight and would have passed out as soon as they stuck her with the needle. The person taking my blood said that my blood was really thick and took longer to draw than usual, so I had to squeeze a makeshift stress ball the entire time. I have no idea if that's good or bad... The guy who prepped me was really nice and flirty and made me feel more at ease during the process. I think his name was Chad.

Also.....

I got my Pottermore email today! I am now OFFICIALLY a Ravenclaw. If you want to add me, I'm DragonAuror4!

I wish I was Ramona

For those that know me in real life, it's pretty obvious that I am the biggest spazz at my school (excluding my AP Enviro teacher Eunice). So desperately I want to be calm, cool, and mysterious like the Ramona Flowers of the world, but in reality I'm a spazz like Knives.

Sometimes I try to be cool. And then I end up failing miserably.

Luckily my friends have embraced my quirky outbursts and have dubbed them as 'cute', and not at all crazy or insane. Well, at least that's what they tell me to my face. They might actually think I'm insane.

But I digress.

I think I scare people (more specifically really cool guys) away because I get too excited about things. I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm 'too intense'. What's worse is that if my actions aren't pointed out to me I go for days completely oblivious that I looked like an idiot because I spazzed out over meeting someone who has also read Pygmy. Whenever I start a new project or get involved with a new group I get really passionate about EVERY aspect of the organization/project. Sometimes I can see where I can come off as too intense, but at least people know that I don't half ass anything.

Although I do wish I could be cool and mysterious, I'm cool with people thinking that I'm 'cute' when I spazz out.

Acrid Smoke

Just in case you can't tell, my lens isn't foggy. And the windows are crystal clear. My school was enveloped in smoke and ash today. It was a lot worse during the early hours of the morning because the fires were going on all night. A lot of my friends woke up to their cars coated in ash.

Again, I can't express how thankful I am that my family and I live where we do. The nearest fire to our house was 10 miles away, and our local firefighters and volunteers have worked really hard to keep things under control. My uncle is the chief firefighter a few towns over, so I definitely have a great appreciation for all the time and effort that goes into everything they do.

Hopefully we'll get rain sometime soon.

On the bright side, it was about 80 degrees today, as opposed to the usual 105.

A friend of mine snapped this picture. It's a mixture of the sunset and the smoke. It's unsettling how beautiful it is.

Fire

It's a little surreal when your town is burning up on both ends...

Some friends of mine have had barns burned down, land destroyed, and who knows what else. Luckily, my family lives deep enough in the city that we should be ok...

Yeah... You know it's bad when your facebook acquaintances make this their profile picture.

On a lighter note, I'm thinking about making the videos a monthly type thing. It won't be a Q&A each time-- unless you guys want it to be. I don't know. I have a lot of ideas, so we'll see how it goes.

Q&A video!

Sorry if I forgot to answer a question or skipped one... my battery was dying and I was sort of rushing towards the end :P

Hope you guys like it!

Something Different

Yeah.

I'm thinking about making a video, but instead of just a random vlog of me rambling (because I am prone to do so) I'm going to do a Q&A.

So yeah. Fire away. Ask me anything. You can even be anonymous.

EDIT: I'm no longer taking anymore questions.

Deep Breaths

I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for the Holstee manifesto and Gwen Stefani I'd have gone insane by now.

I had a slight panic attack before my government test (shaking and everything) because despite studying I still felt unprepared. Luckily, I did the unit outline, which will give me an extra 10 bonus points.

And I can't find this one passage in my literary analysis book that I need to complete an assignment for English class. I've looked in the index for the story title and separately for the author and still found nothing. So far three other people haven't been able to find it either so... I don't know. I'm going to go in early and see if perhaps there was an error in the assignment. Last night I was so frustrated because I couldn't find it that I gave myself a headache.

As far as Shy Guy goes, I'm throwing in the towel. Giving up. Refusing to make an effort. Maybe it's all the Nietzsche stuff I've been discussing lately with some of my classmates, or maybe I've just noticed the futility of my actions. Whatever. I'm tired of the lack of understanding on his end. If he can't handle that I'm busy with school work now, then how is he going to cope with my college work load next year? I'm not going to be slacking off in college like he is. I don't need guilt. I don't need to feel obligated to someone that I'm not in a non-monogamous relationship with. And I most certainly don't need someone trying to talk me out of going to my dream university. The end.