Anything But Interesting

Moving

2010-06-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'm moving blogs, so I won't be on this one anymore. It's one part "I don't want to blog at Blogger anymore) and two parts "Security" purposes. If you want the URL of my new blog, find me in some other medium (you probably know how) and I will tell you.

Later, peeps.

2010-06-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” --Marcel Pagnol

"I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.” --Javan

Yesterday was, without a doubt, one of the worst days I've had in a while. I'm not going to harp on it and do everybody the injustice of having to read through it, but just know that it really sucked. It also has to be said that I have some of the best coworkers around, and I also work FOR the best people out there. -nod-

Our power was out from last night around 9pm until about 2am. Then it was off from about 5am until a half hour ago. This has been a weird day, I feel like I'm in a weird time vacuum for some reason.

I'm going through this thing where I want to learn how to make me happy instead of letting the words and actions of others dictate my happiness. This is going to be very difficult, as my entire life has been spent A. living my life mostly to make others happy; B. putting all my self worth into whether or not people actually "like" me; and C. worrying about having no friends. So, we'll see how this goes. The old adage "if you can't enjoy your own company, then you must not be very good company at all," or something has been ringing in my ears lately.

I took some, in my humble opinion, excellent shots at Cassidy and Nicholas's baseball game on Thursday. I finally got to use my zoom lens for something useful, and I think they turned out really nice.

Other than my best friend potentially hating me and my entire family and the incident yesterday, I'm doing moderately okay.

Nothing else to say

2010-05-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

“I hate myself. I have almost always hated myself. I have good reasons for hating myself, but it’s not for bad things I’ve done. I do not hate myself for betrayals, for going behind the back of someone who trusted me. I hate myself because I am not beautiful. I hate myself because I am fat.” –Judith Moore.

Cartoons

2010-05-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

There is no possible way, in this entire world, that I'm 19 years old. I love cartoons, like, so much. A few too many of movies are cartoons, and have I mentioned my intense love for stuffed animals? Haha. I don't know. I hold on too tightly to my childhood. Or maybe I just hold on too tightly to cartoons!

I bought the DVD of Toy Story today. It was one of those things where my head was like, it's stupid to spend $20 on a cartoon that I still have the VHS of. But I was like, you know what? I do not even care. I frackin' love this movie and furthermore, I am buying the second one next pay period. Haha. It only got worse when we went to Kohl's and my mom bought me a Buzz Lightyear stuffed animal. lmao. I don't know, there's just something I hardcore love about cartoons, especially Toy Story. Seriously, such a good movie! Haha.

EEG and lady gaga headphones

2010-05-27T23:43:00.001-07:00

So, I have to say, ever since the end of last year I have turned into a shameless Lady Gaga addict. Depending on who you talk to, she could be the best singer in the world, or the worst, but I think everyone can agree that she is a bit on the whacky side. See: every outfit she's ever worn. But she has these earbuds that she designed called Heartbeats and I really want a pair. Like, really want a pair. Supposedly the sound is incredible, and I just think they look pretty sweet. Well, I googled them, and I should've known, they're $119 (that's the lowest I could find them, not used. Ew. Used earbuds). So, it looks like I won't be getting a pair in the near future. :( Oh, well.

I am off from my business class until next Wednesday. :) Yay for long weekends. Too bad I have to work Monday. I can't WAIT to go swimming! I've been meditating in the house for like two days because it's so freaking hot outside. Yeah, enjoy the sunshine, but I hate being hot. Over my break from class I have a take home test, 3 installments in my gigantic paper to write, and a current events type article. I hate 7 week classes.

Tomorrow (well, today) I have an EEG scheduled at 1pm. For those not in the know, it's when they attach these little electrode thingies to your head that monitor your brain waves. In my case, they end up flashing really bright, annoying lights at you and make you breath in various stages of annoyingness. They also require you to be sleep deprived, which may end up killing me. Which is why I'm awake instead of snoozing in my bed at the moment. It's only 2:49am and I'm forcing myself to stay awake until 4. Then sleeping. And getting up at 8am. This is the part I hate the most; the rest I really don't mind too much. This is all pretty much routine. Right now it's just finding the balance between being sleep deprived like they require, and getting enough sleep so I don't crash my car off the road on the way there. I'm not looking forward to getting all that sticky glue off my head.

Royal Tenenbaums shirt

2010-05-27T18:02:00.001-07:00

I made this :) I have to redesign it now since the minimum order quanitity is 6..and I only want one, haha. :)

Make custom t-shirts at CustomInk.com

2010-05-24T06:38:00.001-07:00

I've gotta say, sometimes, what I really need is for someone to just say: "Yeah, that sucks." On ocasion, I don't want to be told to cheer up, or think positively. Sometimes I want to wallow in the idea that stuff is sucking at this point in time, and I want to pout about it, and maybe have a good cry. Nothing's worse than when you're in this mood and you have people from every direction telling you to perk up.

I'm not saying things will suck forever. I've grown up enough and learned that everything happens for a reason, and things work out for the best; nothing sucks forever. We have the wise words, "We'd never know what's wrong without the pain", thanks to The Fray. But sometimes I want to let my anxiety and depression consume my whole being. Especially at night, that's when it's worst. When I've stopped doing stuff and am relaxing, and I start thinking...I'm headed to a bad place.

I'm okay. Really. I'm always "okay". Just burning the candle at both ends, and it's starting to effect me.

Life

2010-05-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh life. It's alwayssss changing, and you just gotta roll with the punches. Like I said before, I'm trying my hardest to be more positive, but sometimes it's just kinda hard to look for the positive in stuff that sucks. So far this week hasn't been all that bad, though.

I had my first test in Business today. It didn't seem all that hard (especially considering I didn't study all that much) but usually when I think like that, I fail it, haha. It was on 4 chapters plus part of the appendix in our book. Crazy shit. I had to pick a publicly traded company to do this 13 part research paper on, and I chose Barnes and Noble. I find out on Monday if I've been doing the work for the class correctly and if not we're allowed to resubmit the work for full credit, which is really nice.

Yesterday I finished the book House Rules by Jodi Picoult. It's about this 18 year old boy, Jacob, who has Asperger's, a form of high functioning autism. It centers around his possible involvement in the murder of his social skills tutor, and about his family and how they handle this condition of his. It was a really good read up till the end, where it kind of pissed me off. Now I'm trucking through My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully. Afterwards I think I'll either read Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult or finally finish The Condition. Mmmm books.

I went to see Death at A Funeral with Brant tonight. Apparently we are Wednesday night movie buddies and I love it, haha. We ate peanut butter and jelly sammiches and drank giant pops and hey, I actually managed to make it to Starbucks to hang out with him before the movie this time! Granted he met me at the CVS across the street and directed me...lmao. Oh well. Fun times.

I should probably go to sleep...I have to get up earlyish [for me] to go get my blood drawn. It has to be drawn before my AM dose. Poor me :( Haha.

Not Fair

2010-05-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

99% of the time I don't mind having epilepsy. It truly doesn't get in the way that often. But there are times when I'm just struck with the realization that this is most likely something I will have to live with for the rest of my life...and I'm not happy about it. I'm worrying about referrals, insurance companies, and EEG appointments while other people my age don't usually have to think about it.

And then I feel insanely guilty because it could be so much worse...but sometimes, I don't want to look on the bright side, or be positive. I want to stamp my feet and whine and feel sorry for myself like a ten year old. I'm not a saint; I have ugly thoughts sometimes, too.

Hah, but then on the other side is the weird part of me that's still pretty fascinated by the brain and how it works and why this happened. My doctor described it in an interesting fashion for me on Friday. He said that everyone is born with these flaws in the wiring of their brains, but for some reason, genetics caused my flaws to activate, causing the electricity in my brain to go haywire and short circuit. It's kind of funny to picture my brain as, like, a factory with a short circuit in one area. I've also found it kind of interesting that some people have aura's before their seizures, like smelling oranges or seeing bright lights, or hearing weird things. I never thought I had an aura, but apparently in partial complex seizures, a feeling of intense fear can be considered an aura, which is something I have experienced every single time before I've had a seizure. Who knew?

On the bright side, I'm 13 months seizure free. Go me! Haha. So, I guess it sucks...but I try to look on the positive side. Sometimes, I just don't want to though.

2010-05-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

I wish everyone would stop bashing the new Nightmare on Elm Street. I am all for classic horror, but I can really enjoy a good remake, of which this WAS.

I had a nice evening two nights in a row, for once. It was pretty cool. Last night I went to the movies with my friend Brant and we saw NOES [second time for me, first for him]. I was SUPPOSED to meet him at Starbucks before but I couldn't find it....I'm a smart one. :] I had fun, we both loooove movies so it's nice to hang out with someone who gets my weird obsession ;]

And then tonight Mae came over and I introduced her to the first of many classic horror films, the '84 NOES. She liked it, I think, until the end. It was fun, we giggled like five years old and made noises at each other like old times. It made me insanely, stupidly, deliriously happy.

I've been writing in a journal a lot more lately, versus making blog posts. I can't talk about all the stuff I really need to talk about on here, so my journal has been baring the brunt of it. It doesn't mind, teehee. :] It feels good to get a bunch of shit off my chest. I'm never completely honest with my feelings [even in my head] but I've been trying to write down EVERYTHING I feel and not censor the hell out of it. I mean, it's paper. Paper won't judge me.

I'm so glad it's the weekend. Although I do have a ton of business homework to do :( Oh well. It'll get done. I have a neurologist appointment tomorrow, my customary six month check up. Basically, he'll doodle a picture of a brain with a seizure disorder on the paper on the exam table, ask me how school is going and whether I've had any seizures, scold me for not getting my blood work done and order an EEG, and give me a refill on my scrip. WEEEE. Fun shit. Not. Ahhhh, well, that's how it goes.

'Night, people.

New classes and mother's day

2010-05-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I should just say new class. I started my new class today and I am sooo glad that it's only ONE class! Seriously, I didn't think anyone could cram that much information and work into one semester, but apparently we're going to be doing it. We have 3 tests, a cumulative final, and this giant research paper we're going to be doing all along that is worth 450 points. My soul hurts. Business 101 may kill me. Ouchie. But I'm hoping I can make myself do all of the work, and do it well. I need something to keep my brain busy.

Mother's Day 2010 was very nice. I went to mass with my mom, grandma, great grandma, aunt and 2 cousins at 11am and after we had a nice brunch over at my great grandma's house. I'm glad that we've been making time to see and spend time with my g. grandma because we really think she's not doing so well. She keeps saying that she feels like this will be her last year and though we hope it won't be...you can never be sure. Anyway, it's nice to be with my family.

After that we went over to Grandma's for a while before I had to go to work :( Like I said Saturday, I got her a tomato plant. We sort of put our summer vacation plans into action, at the very least we are all thinking about. I'm still holding out for somewhere with a waterfall (I feel like I desperately need to take a waterfall picture. It's on my photography bucket list), though we all were looking at Sleeping Bear Dunes. I don't know, it might be too far away...I haven't even looked at that aspect of it. When I'm looking at places, I just google a hotel in the area and mapquest directions from Grandma's to that hotel, just to get a general idea. So we'll see.

Regardless, I'm excited for upcoming summer plans. I hope we get in some amazing sight seeing and I can get some amazing pictures. I also want to take several photography related day trips. Sorry people, this well be the epic photography-reading-family-friends summer of 2010. Get ready for itttttt!

How to Train Your Dragon, Precious, and flowers

2010-05-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Mmm I'm rather tired. I need to be getting to bed, I have a busy day tomorrow. This morning I was woken by my mom who said my aunt and cousin wanted us to go out to Romulus with them to this nursery. Brenda (my aunt) is on the search for this type of rosebush plus she needed to get the flowers and vegetable plants for her big garden she does every summer.

Me and my mom ended up getting some stuff too. We got green, red, and yellow pepper plants, and this like chimanea thing or something...I don't really know what it's for but Mom was really excited about it. I bought this tomato plant that's made specifically for porches. At least, that's what it's called, a porch tomato plant. I bought one for Grandma, too, for Mother's Day. She was just complaining that when she planted tomatoes last year, they died in her soil, so hopefully this will make her really happy. :)

Today I went to see How to Train Your Dragon with Jennifer (my cousin). I saw it a couple weeks ago with my cousin Michele, but I loved it so much I saw it again. It's such a cute movie, I want a stuffed animal of Toothless so bad :] And then tonight I watched the movie Precious. Wow. I can't even begin to tell you how unbelievably intense, sad, heartbreaking, etc that movie was. I can't even imagine living a life like that, it really put things into perspective, how things could really be so much worse.

It gave me an even deeper appreciate for my Mom, even though we fight she has never done and would never do anything near like Precious's mother did. So sad ;( I'm so appreciative of everything my mom has done and continues to do every day for me... I don't say it enough, but I love you, Mom <3 Happy Mother's Day to every other (deserving) mother out there. :)

Updates

2010-05-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

Wellllll the awful winter semester of 2009-2010 is over. Technically it was over a week ago, meaning this post is heinously late, but what can you do? I've been busy catching up on my recorded TV, reading, getting copious hours of sleep, and working. That's basically how my week off between last Friday and next Monday, when my spring class starts, was spent. It wasn't bad, I've actually rather enjoyed myself this week. It's been nice to get enough sleep and relax without tearing my hair out and worrying constantly.

Oh, grades. Not so good. Not good at all, actually. I ended up with a 1.o in Stats, 2.1 in the child w/ special needs, 3.6 in the art of being human, and 3.7 in Spanish. My overall GPA tanked from a 3.3 to a 2.5. Ugh. I'm pissed at myself. It's a little late in the game to be doing this. I can only hope I pull it up at least a bit with this Spring class, and in the fall...well, I hope it gets pulled up even more. :( I feel dumb. Anyways.

Me and Mae tie dyed shirts on Tuesday. They turned out pretty good, I think, considering I'm not good at hands on crafts.

Hmm what else. I saw Nightmare on Elm Street at midnight last Thursday with my friend Catherine. It was awesome, I really liked it. I've also recently seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou & The Vicious Kind. The Life Aquatic was quite disappointing, normally I love anything Wes Anderson, but this was just...long and dull. :( The Vicious Kind was fantastic, though. I really liked it.

Summer is fast approaching...I can't waittttt. I want to go swimming so bad. I'm probably going to be buying an underwater camera (and don't try to talk me out of it!). I really want to be able to take pictures by water and even in water...just don't ask. Me and Grandma are trying to start planning our vacation now. I want to go somewhere different (and farther away) but she hates driving. She also refuses to allow me to drive anywhere. Ugh lol.

Life is going along...some other stuff sucks but things are okay. Life goes on.

Today

2010-04-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

You know, it's truly the little things that make me happy. I'm not that hard to please or to entertain, really. Me and Mom sat around/did chores/watched 16 & Preggers till about 5 o clock today. Then we went over to Grandma's and went with her over to Steve and Michele's.

We got into a huge discussion/debate/rant/slash about the fact that my 86 year old great- grandmother (who believes that prostitutes moved in across the street from her-in her senior citizen condo complex, gives her debit card number+security code out over the phone to strangers, and burns everything she cooks) has just put $9,000 down on a HOUSE. She bought a house. Oy. She was convinced that it was an epic, amazing idea by my Grandma's older brother that it would be a great idea. Most of her other siblings are furious and want to kill him, but she's gonna do what she's gonna do. It's just not a good idea. So, we all got into a huge discussion about that.

Then we went back over to Grandma's and watched a movie together. It was just a really simple, low key day, and I liked it. My life is not exciting...but I had a good day. :) Now I should start doing some of my homework/papers/final exam prep. Boo.

Being Thankful

2010-04-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided that in order to be happier, I have to make an active effort to recognize all of the great things I have in my life and to remind myself how lucky I am. I have to remind myself so I can be aware of how thankful and appreciative I really am. Here we go.

Today so far I'm thankful for not being in high school...I'm no longer surrounded, constantly, by drama and by stupid people that I HAVE to be around. I can choose to just say screw it and walk away from the situation, or, in many cases, just ignore the person. I love being an adult and being away from the stupidity of high school. I don't have to sit in those stupid classes for 8 hours a day, I can wake up later, I get to work and make money, I have entire days where I can do what I want or need to do...it's a beautiful thing.

I'm also thankful for friday night dinners at Noodle's! She's grilling me barbecued chicken tonight because it's what I want for dinner :) Teehee.

And, cuddles with my little dog :) Best cuddles, EVER. :)

Sucky Stuff

2010-04-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I wish I could write a peaceful blog about how happy I am and how everything's going swell, but it's not, so I won't. Thank God this semester is coming to a close (got about 2 weeks left), but my grades are not as good as they could be. I honestly don't know if I will be passing Statistics, but probably not. At least not with a 2.0. I might might MIGHT be able to if I ace my test tomorrow morning (which I won't) and ace the final (which I won't). Sorry, I'm being negative, but I really can't help it.

I aced my two papers for The Child w/ Special Needs, but I kinda figured I would. I'm a good writer. She even asked me if she could use my FAT City paper as an example for future classes. Score, haha. But it looks like my final grade in that class will be at or around a 76 percent, which is passing, but not passing greatly. I don't know how I ended up doing so badly in that class, I really don't. I basically bombed the open note tests, which turned out to be harder than they should be.

So far we have no grades in the art of being human. Our only grades will be the packet of questions he gave us and our final exam which is a written paper. So help me GOD I am getting a 4.0 in that course. So help me God.

And, last but not least, Spanish. I hope to pull at least a 95% in there, hopefully higher. I've gotten A's on all my tests and expect no less than that for my final grade.

With the hopes of Spanish and Art of Being Human, I'm hoping to keep up my GPA moderately. I hope my statistics grade doesn't affect my fin. aid eligibility. I don't think it will, since my attendance has been basically impeccable and that's the first time I've ever not gotten a completely passing grade in a course. I should call the financial aid office. But I don't want to hear bad news.

Everything in my personal life is kind of going to hell, too. I have no friends. I do absolutely nothing. D:

2010-04-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

I really am SO boring. I never blog about anything important lol.

"Read the Good Trash" Movement

2010-03-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

So those who know me know what a huge book/lit nerd I am. And you also may know that I am, at heart, a diehard V.C. Andrew fan. I mentioned her and her books in a recent post. Anyways, she was this author mainly in the 80's (though her first book and my favorite Flowers in the Attic was written in '79) that wrote, plain and simple, good trashy books. Her books were soap opera-y and all full of incest, violence, child abuse, rape, and the like. Most of her books featured a parent, usually a mother, who would lie to her kids and along the way you would find out that the main character was either A. Adopted/kidnapped, or B. The product of an incestuous union and bound on the same path. Nutsy cuckoo shit, haha. I eat it up, though and hardcore wish I had been born in the sixties so I could read them growing up.

I've decided to embark on this year long challenge [that I may or may not finish--hopefully I will] called the "Read the good trash"/V.C. Andrews movement. You basically read one V.C. Andrews book a month for the whole year[you have to read 11, you get a break one month or something haha.] The people who thought up the challenge decided to only allow the books she wrote before she died[cuz her family hired a ghostwriter to continue on with her ideas and manuscripts that she left after she died] to be part of it, but we'll see how that goes. Click here for the rules/description of the challenge.

Heehee. I'm a nerd and I'm excited :)

Day 5

2010-03-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

day 05 → your favorite quote

My favorite quote...like EVERYTHING ELSE, I love quotes and have a ton that I love.

"i've made mistakes in my life. i've let people take advantage of me. and i accepted way less than i deserve. but, i've learned from my bad choices and even though there are some things i can never get back and people who will never be sorry, i'll know better next time and i won't settle for anything less than i deserve."

"All of you people, there is a big world out there... bigger than prom, bigger than high school and it won't matter if you were the prom queen, the quarterback of the football team, or the biggest nerd in school. Find out who you are and try not to be afraid of it." I lived by that my senior year.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be, if the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled togehter by the will to survive." --A. Cooper

""I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."

Lord,: make me an instrument of your peace.; Where there is hatred, let me sow love;; where there is injury, pardon;; where there is doubt, faith;; where there is despair, hope;; where there is darkness, light;; where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,: grant that I may not so much seek; to be consoled, as to console;; to be understood, as to understand;; to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;: it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;; and it is in dying; that we are born to eternal life.; --St. Francis of Assissi; =]

Day 4

2010-03-13T07:03:00.000-08:00

Wow, I suck...now I'm 4 days behind. I rock. I guess I'll do it in individual posts...so.

day 04 → your favorite book

I don't have just one favorite book, like most people. I love books so much, I read all the time lol.

Flowers in the attic by V.C. Andrews used to be my favorite book of all time, before I discovered other amazing books. It's this totally effed up book about a mother who takes her kids back home to her parent's huge house in Virginia and locks them in a room in the upstairs wing so that she can win her father back and get his inheritance. She was written out of his will when he ran away with her husband who was also her half uncle, and he said that he would never give her money if she had any kids with him...so she just locked them in this attic room and left them there. And the grandma was this bitch who was like YOU'RE ABOMINATIONS IN THE EYES OF THE LORD! and yeah. It was nuts! Go read it haha.

The Shining by Stephen King is also one of my fave books, the book that the movie was based on. It's totally different, but it rocks.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Excellent book, very well written and sad. I felt so bad for Dolores :[

Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult[basically any Jodi Picoult book]. Jodi's an amazing author, and she has a new book out...if I hadn't spent lots of my paycheck already I'd buy it lol.

I just finished the Shutter Island book by Dennis Lehane. Also amazing. :]

Day 3

2010-03-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

Day 3...

day 03 → your favorite television program

To be totally honest, I don't really have a favorite TV show anymore, lol. I don't really watch that much TV. I watch a lot of movies.

I used to be obsessed with House and Grey's Anatomy...but I haven't really followed House at all this season, I have about 8 episodes to catch up on on my DVR. And Grey's...well I didn't watch last season so I haven't watched this season. lol.

I also enjoy Community, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and 16& Pregnant...lol.

Day 2

2010-03-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

Ahh, welcome to day 2. Let's see...

day 02 → your favorite movie

I have several million favorite movies. I love movies, they're probably one of my favorite things ever. There's nothing like having the shittiest day ever, popping in a movie and just forgetting about everything. And sometimes you find out that your life really doesn't suck quite so much.
So, let's go with my top favorites, along with maybe a little insight.

The Shining: I have loved this immensely since the day I saw it when I was like, 11. It's a classic. The book is phenom, too.

The Royal Tenenbaums: This is a new favorite of mine. It's got a perfect combo of dry, sarcastic humor, heart, and screwed up family. It's excellent.

The Squid and The Whale/Margot at the wedding: These 2 go together for some reason because they're by the same director, Noah Baumbach, see previous posting on here.

Shutter Island: again, a recent fave but it was SO GOOD. Go to the movies and see it now. One of the best movies I've seen in a very long time.

Coraline: For some reason I'm obsessed with this movie. It's a dark animated movie, and those are awesome. Not that I don't love me some silly animated movies, my gosh, but dark ones are good too.

Also, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Changeling, and Ordinary People. Mmmmm movies <3

Day 1

2010-03-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

So, in yet another effort to keep up with my blog, I'm embarking on this 30 day blogging thing that one of my friends posted on Livejournal. Here's the complete list, I'll link back to it whenever I post a new one in case anyone wants to do it.:
day 01 → your favorite song
day 02 → your favorite movie
day 03 → your favorite television program
day 04 → your favorite book
day 05 → your favorite quote
day 06 → whatever tickles your fancy
day 07 → a photo that makes you happy
day 08 → a photo that makes you angry/sad
day 09 → a photo you took
day 10 → a photo of you taken over ten years ago
day 11 → a photo of you taken recently
day 12 → whatever tickles your fancy
day 13 → a fictional book
day 14 → a non-fictional book
day 15 → a fanfic
day 16 → a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
day 17 → an art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
day 18 → whatever tickles your fancy
day 19 → a talent of yours
day 20 → a hobby of yours
day 21 → a recipe
day 22 → a website
day 23 → a YouTube video
day 24 → whatever tickles your fancy
day 25 → an object/a belonging
day 26 → a place
day 27 → a poem
day 28 → a food
day 29 → something that makes you amused
day 30 → whatever tickles your fancy

Okay, so, day one. My favorite song. I don't really have a favorite song, nor do I think that I know anyone who really does. However, one of the songs that has really stuck with me for a while is the song brave new world by Hedley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ9hI8j7A_s
The lyrics are really deep and meaningful for me. Another song that means a lot is You're not sorry by Taylor Swift. Lyrics in general are really meaningful as they are for most people. But yeah, those are two of my favorite songs.

Why I Love A Noah Baumbach Movie

2010-01-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

In an effort to blog more often, I've decided to make a post based on something I've observed lately-Noah Baumbach. He's this independent filmmaker/writer who appears to specialize in truly fucked up movies. However, I love them.

He hasn't done much work, I think he's written and directed four films but I've seen two of them, have another one in my queue on Netflix and then his latest project, Greenberg, comes out in theatres in a few months. I think it might be his first movie in theaters but I'm not entirely sure.

I first saw The Squid and the Whale a couple of months ago. It's a semi autobiographical movie about parents divorcing and the effects it can have on a kid. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney were in it. Basically, the dad was this huge pretentious asshole and the mom was kind of a bitch, but she tried to be a good mother to her kids. It was an absolutely perfect example of how when you get divorced you're forced to choose sides. The older son sided with his dad while the younger son clung to his mom, although the younger kid just got more and more fucked up as the movie went on. It was sad but it was also real, which I feel a lot of movies don't do anymore. Hollywood knows that most people want to see a happy ending, so most of the time it can take one of the saddest or most dramatic movies ever and somehow make it so that everything falls neatly into place at the end of 2 hours. But some movies need to be made realistically or else you just provide people who haven't experienced it with a false assumption of what it's like. Take The Squid and the Whale. Most people, even those who haven't gone through it, know that divorce is a messy thing. But if Baumbach wanted to comply with normal Hollywood standards, by the end of the movie Dad would've moved back home and everyone would've been happy, or both of the parents would've realized their flaws in both their parenting styles and in how they treated each other and everything would've worked out. But it doesn't always happen like that. My parents have never gotten along and I suppose they never will. Each has their reasons, my mom more than my dad, but after he moved out things were messy and nothing was ever perfect or fit together like a puzzle. [Not that it did when he was here.] My point is, Noah Baumbach is brave enough to make a movie that might not be hugely popular or submit to standards nowadays, but it's a genuine, real movie.

I watched Margot at the Wedding tonight and it wasn't as good as TS&TW. It was even more fucked up though. Margot is just this really huge bitch throughout the whole movie. She travels with her son to attend her estranged sister's wedding to a man she quickly learns to despise (along with apparently everything else in the whole entire world.) Seriously, one of the most frustrating and bitchy characters ever. But I still liked the movie, it kept my attention.

Baumbach's movies also have a habit of having the characters just kind of...babble, almost. Not babble, but they talk about things that don't necessarily relate to the script all the time, which I like because in real life, I don't always talk about the same thing the entire time lol.

But seriously, check out at least the squid and the whale. His movies aren't for everyone because like I said, they have elements of fucked upedness to them, but they're good.

It's been a while

2010-01-28T06:56:00.000-08:00

It's been almost exactly one month since I updated this blog. I just haven't really had the time or want to update it as I know that no one reads it. If I do feel the need to rant about my life or whatever, I do that on deviantart now. But oh well, might as well update this and try not to make it too long...I'm a rambler as everyone knows.

Three weeks ago I started my winter semester at Schoolcraft. I'm taking Statistics, The Child with Special Needs, Spanish and The Art of Being Human. Stats is very hard, I took my first test on monday and did not do good on it, to say the least. CWSN is proving to be much harder than either I or Maegan, who is in the class with me, anticipated. Our teacher is about as clear as mud on everything she wants us to do so we end up leaving class really confused about what she needs from us. And she emails us about 80 times a week about stuff on blackboard, which I hate using. Oh yes, and we have to do 15 hours of community service work with children or adults with special needs. Blahh. The Art of Being Human is easy, we just watch movies and basically the only work we have is a packet of questions for the entire semester. And finally Spanish is the easiest class of all time. I learned the stuff we're doing in 7th grade, so I'm not too worried about my performance in that class.

I got a new haircut last friday, it's much shorter. I've been trying to keep it straight and wear it down more but I can't help it, I just hate my hair down! It bugs me for some reason. It looks pretty cute, I guess, everyone likes it.

So yeah, I've been pretty busy...hanging out with friends and stuff in my spare time. Got Netflix yesterday so hopefully my movies will start coming and it will be awesome!

Big Top Cupcake Disasters

2009-12-29T20:51:00.001-08:00

Hello, everyone who doesn't read this blog. I haven't updated here in a while, I mostly blog on deviantART if I do at all. I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. It took no time to get here. But aside from a little bit of drama on Christmas Eve involving my mom not wanting to go where we were supposed to go, I had a really great Christmas. I got tons and tons of presents, I was extremely spoiled haha. I got a ton of new movies, a digital picture frame, a huge collage picture frame for my wall, House season 5, a new coat, 4 photo albums, 2 books, and a shit ton of scrapbooking stickers. I am so spoiled. But yeah, it was a good day, I got to visit with my family, eat good food and appreciate life. It was awesome <3 The point to this blog post was to discuss my big top cupcake maker. Idk if everyone has seen the commercial for this thing, but it's advertised as a cupcake mold that makes a cupcake 25x bigger than the average cupcake. It's not that big but it's still pretty big. It comes with 2 silicone molds to pour the batter in and then the insert in case you wanna put filling in. I don't even know if I would attempt that. I was SO excited about this lol and it disappoints. When me and Mae made one Monday night, it was an utter and complete fail. However we had so much fun failing that I didn't care. Tonight I made one to bring to work tomorrow and it kind of failed too but not as much as the one on Monday. So I'm hoping, since the fails are getting smaller, that eventually they will disappear completely.

Christmas Crap, The Weekend, Too Much Anger, School Stuff

2009-12-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Hey-o. I haven't blogged in a while...haven't really had much to say, to be honest. Plus I've been kind of busy with school. But all of that's over with for another month, thank God! I finished up the semester with a 3.4 GPA, with isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I'm really relieved. I got a 4.0 in both Computers and Abnormal Psych. A 3.4 in Early US History, which I was really relieved about. And a 2.0 in Political Science which was better than failing the class all together. I've made a resolution to study harder next semester, that's for sure. But overall I'm not too disappointed.

I'm almost done with my Christmas preparations. Well, I finished shopping for my Grandma, my Mom and Mae today. I know what I'm getting Katie, I just have to finish it up. Then there's the wrapping to do. Thankfully for MY gifts there isn't much to be wrapped, but for the presents from me and Mom we still have a ton to do. I went over to Grandma's today and helped her wrap. Supposedly she now just has my stuff to wrap. Hard to believe Christmas is in less than a week...I'm excited. =] I'm trying to decide if I should get my Grandpa something, and if so what I should get him. This year everyone did a name drawing thing but I feel like I should be getting him something...

Yesterday I had a total meltdown. I feel like an idiot whenever I do that but I usually feel better afterwards. I kind of don't this time, though. I got so mad I punched a wall repeatedly like a 15 year old boy and now my wrist is throbbing in pain. I need anger management, like whoa.

I might take more pictures of Derrick tomorrow...if it isn't too cold.

Work Christmas Party & Stuff

2009-12-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight was my christmas party for work...it was pretty fun. Maegan came with me and we didn't stay very long because she has to work in the morning and had to get to bed. So, we stayed for about an hour...it was pretty good. I didn't bowl or anything, just kind of walked around and talked to people. And took pictures lol. It takes me so long to get out of my shell and be able to talk to people without feeling on the brink of collapse that sometimes I feel like it truly isn't worth it to leave my house. One day soon I'm gonna make an excellent recluse.

[Dan and I]

I went christmas shopping briefly with Mom and Grandma today...we stopped at Fanatic U to see if they had the U of M jersey that Jennifer wants and the red wings sweatshirt that Brenda wants. They had a bunch of stuff but it was all so expensive that we didn't buy anything there. We just decided to go to Walmart and see what we could get there. I honestly don't know what the owners of tiny stores like that are thinking by charging outrageously high prices. It's not like anyone, especially around here, can afford it right now. But anyways. So we went to Walmart and then I just chilled with Mom until I picked Mae up at 9:15. I've been terribly lonely sans buffel.

[Kristina & I]
What else is there really to talk about? Not much. There's only 13 days till Christmas...and I haven't even started shopping. Or figured out what to get people....ugh. I'm so bad about procrastinating. Even worse about making actual decisions. Chances are I'll wind up wandering around Target and wherever else I decide to go shopping for hours...

Anyhoodle. Just wanted to share some pictures and ramble. Peace out.

Depressing

2009-12-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...what's new...I finished my computer class on Tuesday. 100%, 4.0. I was super happy about that, it was touch and go for a while lol but at least that's finished. I finished Abnormal Psychology on Wednesday also, and I think I got a 4.0 in there too. Not sure though, but I know my grade is at least really good. Now I just have Early US History and Poli Sci to worry about...those finals are on monday and I'm starting to get nervous. But I have to relax and prepare or else I'll fail.

I have been doing nothing and seeing no one lately. I love my lame life. Not really, I kind of hate it. But whatever. I'm trying to be positive but it's not really working...

You Guessed It...Amber Updates

2009-12-01T07:02:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, the boredom of life...lol. The semester's almost done for school, so I've been busy trying to cram everything that I procrastinated on into the next two(?) weeks. I mostly have to play catch up in CIS 120, my computer class, because I've been majorly slacking in there. I've got all of my Word and Powerpoint tutorials, exams, quizzes, and in class tests done though. Which means just Excel and Access left. Almost done with Excel though. Whoooo.

We got a new TV on Saturday at Target, it was a really good price as part of a 2 day black friday sale. It's a 40" Apex flat screen. I really don't give a shit if Apex isn't the "best" brand, it was a good deal and it looks like a nice TV. Haters be backin' off. lmao.

I have a cold. It makes me sad :(

On Saturday I took Megan and Katie's pictures, for their christmas cards. I thought they turned out really well but I guess they didn't like them that much. But oh well, you can't please everyone all the time I suppose. I took Mae's family pictures Sunday too for their christmas cards. They liked them and I had a lot of fun doing it. =]

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I hope everybody had a wonderful and blessed thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for:
My family. I have a family that, while at times may be insane, loves me and cares for me implicitly, and only wants the best for me. I have my mother, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and countless cousins...my family is not perfect but they're mine and [when it comes down to it] I wouldn't trade them for the world.

My friends. I have wonderful, caring, smart, funny friends who are my strength when I can't be strong for myself. I have a best friend who loves me for exactly who I am and doesn't try to change me into something or someone that I'm not. She could care less about the outside, she only cares about what's inside. My friends mean everything to me.

My home. It might not be huge, spacious, even up to date, but it's a roof over my head and it keeps me warm.

My dog [and cat, also...]. My little dog is annoying as hell when she barks but other than that, I love her like crazy and she means a lot to me. Some days I feel like she's the only one who loves me totally and completely. And she gives great lovies.

School. I'm so blessed to be able to go to school, it took until this past summer when I thought I wouldn't be able to to really help me know how important it is and how blessed I am to be able to go.

:]

Updates, Turkeys and Books

2009-11-22T21:37:00.001-08:00

I'm so glad that this week is going to be a short one. I only have classes Monday and Tuesday, and then work on Wednesday. Then on Thursday it's thanksgiving and apparently we're closed...I didn't know we were but that's what I was told today. So I get the day off!

We're not doing anything huge for Thanksgiving this year and I am sooo glad for that. We're having dinner at Grandma's so it's just going to be like our regular thursday dinners. I was not in the mood to dress up and answer questions politely by relatives I see four times a year.

Last thursday Mae and I made turkeys out of construction paper and buttons. It was so much fun, we're crafters now :]Haha, aren't we cute?
I finished reading Ordinary People. It was such a great book, I planned on posting a review of it on here but I got lazy/busy depending on how you look at it, haha, and yeah. Now I'm re-reading The Lovely Bones in preparation for the amazing movie that's supposed to come out in January. So excited, that book is a work of art. After that I think I'm going to read Water for Elephants...but I'm not sure. Brant is supposed to be loaning me some books he really likes.

I saw New Moon on Friday...what a terrible, terrible movie. Honestly. Not quite as boring as the first, in the sense that there was a bit more action, but the plot was even worse. Ugh. I don't get it...how people are so obsessed with it. Anyways. Off to bed so I can start my short week =]

2009-11-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

Wanna hear a real shame? The Lovely Bones comes out in January. New Moon came out Friday. There isn't a doubt in my mind that New Moon will have 10x as many people go see it as The Lovely Bones. That movie is going to be amazing and the book is a work of art. But New Moon has a shirtless 17 year old. I must be stupid to think TLB would be better...

When You're Not Being Funny

2009-11-18T21:35:00.001-08:00

I just had to write another rant tonight. It seems that lately people have just been having no issue making fun of things that just...aren't...funny. Like downs' syndrome people. Making fun of them, or any mentally challenged person, isn't funny. I can understand if you say "that's retarded" once in a while, I do it sometimes too. But I try to limit my use of that word.

Normally, I can tolerate the seizure/epilepsy jokes. I'm not gonna be able to stop them and usually I just shrug it off and chalk it up to a bit of ignorance. But to be perfectly honest, it's really not funny. Epilepsy and seizures in general are a scary thing, and I am speaking from experience. I'm one of the lucky ones, I don't have grand mals and my seizures are controlled by meds. But still, you sound like an IDIOT when you're like "durrrr he's shaking like he's got a seizure" and then you start making strange facial expressions and making your whole body shake. What part of that is funny to you? It's not funny, it's more than a little insulting.

Again, it's not that I don't understand slip ups and it's not that I can't take a joke. It's just that once in a while this kind of stuff just gets under my nerves.

"Twilight" Rant

2009-11-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, unless you live under a rock, and I know that nobody who potentially reads this does, you've heard of the Twilight saga-a collection of four novels that, boiled down, are about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. Along the way there are obstacles thrown in their path of being together, such as werewolves, other vampires, so on and so forth. Stephanie Meyer basically took the eternal idea of Romeo and Juliet and tossed in a teenage girl and a vampire. And what amounts to thousands of pages of absolutely horrendous writing.

Those who know me, know that I read all the time. I consume books like they're going out of style, and I pride myself on the ability to give just about anything a chance. I'm also extremely picky and opinionated when it comes to books, so judge me. That being said, I gave Twilight a fair chance. I read the book, and saw the movie [opening day, too]. Having given it a fair chance, I have to assert my opinion and say that it was the worst piece of trash that I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Page after page after page of dull, uninteresting drivel. By the end of the first chapter, I felt the need to run Bella over with my car. The fact that she survived four books in a series sometimes keeps me awake at night. Edward, while at times very charming and having the potential to be adorable, is also an intense creeper. When you find out that a guy, vampire or not, has been sneaking into your room while you sleep and watching you, you call the cops. You don't blush and fawn all over him. At least not in the land I come from...

It felt like reading someone's unbelievably boring diary, with a little bit of interesting parts tossed in when a vampire's there. The most exciting parts of the book and the movie were when Bella almost died at the end. Spoiler alert: She doesn't die. I apologize. This all being said, the fangirls for the Twilight saga are starting to SERIOUSLY PISS ME OFF. I have rage issues, quite clearly, and if I hear one more person squee over the fact that New Moon comes out in three days, or see one more status update on FB about it, or see one more shirt that says TEAM EDWARD or TEAM JACOB on it, I will throw up and my head will spin around.

The fangirls for Harry Potter were no where NEAR this bad. Because now it's not just kids aged 11-19 freaking out about it. The Twilight saga seems to have become the literary buffet for middle aged women who haven't bothered to crack a book in the last 10 years. Which breaks my heart. Seriously, there are so many amazing books out there. I'm not even talking about ancient boring stuff, come over to my place and I will gladly make you a list of every amazing book I've read within the last year. Books that don't contain more filler than ACTUAL plot, with characters that are relatable and not annoying as hell, books that were written out of actual passion for writing rather than making a quick buck. [*cough cough* stephanie meyer is a money whore *cough cough*] Try opening The Lovely Bones, My Sister's Keeper, or She's Come Undone, just to name a few.

I am fully aware that I sound like a book snob. I am one. But I swear, Twilight has become the next political agenda being shoved down my throat every time I turn around. I respect that you have the right to think it's the bomb, but that means you have to respect my right to say hell no, it's not. Anyways. Wow this was long, but I needed to get it off my chest lol.

Nothing

2009-11-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

I have nothing to talk about. I took Paige's friend's pictures on Saturday for her modeling portfolio. They turned out pretty good, I suppose, there's bunches on deviantART and facebook.

I had a poli sci exam today, I have a history test on wednesday.

Books and Music

2009-11-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad that my required book reading for the semester[meaning actual books, not textbooks] is done. I can now get back to reading my own books for pleasure, which makes me really happy. But now I'm conflicted as where to start after I'm done with my current book...that's sad. How many people have actual issues deciding what book they want to read? lol. I have a shoebox in my room that is packed and stacked high with unread books. And it doesn't help that I have a 25$ Barnes and Noble gift card, courtesy of Steve and Michele, that is burning a hole in my pocket.

I'm reading Ordinary People by Judith Guest right now. It's the book that the movie directed by Robert Redford was based off of. It's really good, usually I have a hard time suffering through older books (I know, bias) but it's written very well and it's easy to follow. I was gonna buy it at Barnes and Noble for like 15 bucks because I wanted to read it so bad, but then I found it at the salvation army for 99 cents. Score.

After that I'm considering re-reading The Lovely Bones but I have so many other books I haven't read yet that I'm so conflicted! Ugh. Decisions...lol. I need to stop buying new books for dirt cheap at the thrift store.

I made a playlist on Youtube of the Coraline soundtrack. It has beautiful music, it's really amazing. Usually I'm not one for just music-no words or anything-but the instrumental stuff is really intriguing me right now. It's mellowing to listen to. =]

School Stuff

2009-11-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's see. Four weeks left in the semester...let's see what else has to be done and what I've got done.

-History: One group test and the final exam.
-Computer: Three in class tests and the rest of my tutorials.
-Abnormal Psych: Journal Article presentation, 15 other articles, one more movie essay.
-Political Science: One more test and the final exam.

It seems like a lot but it's manageable if I budget my time and actually get work done. I think instead of sitting here I'm gonna do some more tutorials for my computer class. And the other stuff is mostly stuff that I obviously can't do right now [I can't take tests on my own, I can't write an essay on a movie we haven't watched yet, etc...].

I finished my powerpoint and paper for my presentation on Prozac Nation. Now all that's left to do for that is just present it next Wednesday...while not passing out from my intense social anxiety. Fail. I also got my book review paper back from my history teacher yesterday...remember that book I only read 50 pages of? I got a 95/100 on the paper. That's an A folks. Yeah, reading the book, at least in my case, is overrated because I can skim through it and do research and still come up with a damn good paper. So yeah. Happy about that. =]

Heidi's Pictures, Weekend, And More...

2009-11-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

I took round 2 of Heidi's senior pictures on Friday. They weren't as good as the first set because my shooting conditions weren't perfect like they were the first time, but we still got some pretty great shots and she and her family are really happy with them. Which has been my aim from the beginning, I'm all about people pleasing and she's a pretty good friend of mine. We took them at her golf course, not Hines, but there was a little [creepy] patch of woods right next to it so we took some in there, too. It gets dark so early now that we only had about an hour and twenty minutes of not so great lighting to work with, but we made it work. After that we hung out and had pizza for dinner and went to the salvation army, where I found a book that I was going to spend 15 dollars on for 99 cents. Epic win.

Saturday I watched a movie with my buffel and got to experience her amazingness and hilarity. Today I had to work a very infuriating shift[Sundays are cursed, didn't you know?] and I came home and just finished up a paper/book review. It's almost 6 and a half pages long and it's not too bad. The astounding part? I never read the book. I read maybe 45 pages, but it was almost 300 pages. So this book review is amazing.

Saturday I spent some time with Mom at Steve and Michele's which was nice because I hadn't been over there in a couple of weeks. School and dentist and doctor appointments have been standing in my way of having fun. lol. We spent some time going down memory lane and discussing my dad and Tracy and all of that stuff. I had forgotten how unbelievable those...8 years were. I have so many memories of those days that I don't bother thinking about because it hurts too bad. It all still boils down to the simple fact of that, it didn't matter that I was miserable or that he married a woman who hated me and who I wasn't too fond of either. He basically chose her over his own daughter. I was the only kid he had at the time, and it's weird because my mom has always put me first for that kind of stuff. Is that selfish, to be mad because he didn't? But as a result, I had a lot of miserable times growing up. Everything happens for a reason, though, and I just thank my lucky stars that I'm 19 and I don't see her every other weekend and I don't deal with his crap anymore. But I have been like...missing him, for some strange reason, lately. Hmm.

More Portraits and Babies

2009-11-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'm going to be taking some more pictures of Heidi, some fall ones for her senior pictures. I'm really excited, we're going to an area of Hines Park to take them. I'm crossing my fingers and toes and praying that it doesn't rain in between now and tomorrow. Every time I've gone into the woods to do portraits it's been nothing but slip n slide with mud and it's getting old, haha. It should be fun though, she'll have a ton of variety in her shots to pick from. The biggest issue will be choosing which ones to make prints of, lol. She showed me a couple pictures of the area, and it looks like a really nice place. There's a lake and tons of trees, so there'll be a bunch of leaves. Guaranteed to be amazing.

Today at work, Derrick also mentioned that he thought of another place to go if I wanted to do more pictures of him...what kind of question is that? Of COURSE I want to! :] It's my favorite thing to do ever. We've been trying to figure out a time that's good for both of us to go, but we have totally conflicting schedules and it sucks. It's looking like either Friday again or a Saturday.

Today was one of those days where, if something COULD go wrong...it did. Work was crazy busy, which isn't BAD, just stressful. Also, as I was clocking out and leaving, I accidentally bumped into the rack where the knives are and knocked one off. Instinct to catch it kicked in and I caught it...with the palm of my hand, blade first. OW. Real smart. But I didn't really think, I just reacted. So now I have a gash on my hand. It never opened and bled but it hurts like hell. And then me and my mom got into a huge fight later this evening...but there's nothing new there.

In more positive news, my cousin Jenn had her baby on Tuesday, November 3. Fynlie Patricia Margaret was born at 8am and weighed 7 lbs. 10oz. She's a beautiful baby, I can't wait to meet her! Unfortunately they live in Canada so it's difficult to get over there, being that I have no passport. But congrats to them!

2009-11-04T21:28:00.000-08:00

I've had a busy couple of days...actually, a busy couple of weeks. I can't believe it's already nearing the end of the 10th week of school. In another month this semester will be over, and while I'm extremely happy, I hate my next semester classes. Tomorrow I really really really have to fine tune my schedule and figure it out. I'm really unhappy with it right now.

Tuesday I went to the dentist and he wasn't AS unpleasant as he was last time, but he still definitely isn't my favorite guy. The problem is a very big lack of communication. I have no idea how many cavities he filled on Tuesday and I'm going back next Tuesday for more. But I haven't a clue how many. It's frustrating. =/

Today was my rescheduled neurologist appointment after the shenanigans that went down in his office last Friday. Thankfully everything went smoothly and I was able to stand up for myself and tell him that I absolutely did not want to be on Topamax. The risks were way too high, even for someone like me who doesn't usually worry about that kind of stuff. Especially when my meds now are working fine. So, there will be no kidney stones, numbness in the fingers and toes, changes in gait, changes in mental function or slurred speech for me. Thank you very much. He's actually a really nice guy, we had a good conversation about Eastern. His son goes there and he told me this alternate route to get there that shaves a ton of time off of travel, and totally keeps me off of the free way. Sweet. :]]

I made prints with Mae at Walmart the other day, and a few more today at CVS. At Walmart I printed out 68 photos at the Kodak print center kiosk...it was like, 17 dollars. But I really liked it and wanted some and I had set aside money for this, so it was okay. I made prints of pictures of Mae and Derrick, some of us at the cider mill, and some on halloween. Today I made some of Zelda, Pucca and a couple of artsy shots I'd taken. I love my new photo box :)

I Am From

2009-11-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

I am from giant pine trees that scatter sap and needles everywhere; from Dunkaroos, and Push Up Pops and oatmeal on cold winter mornings.

I am from the house that used to be red with peeling paint, shag carpet in the kitchen and gas stoves, and a room that's always colder than the rest of the house.

I am from the rose bush in the front yard, flowerpots that will touch the sky, and rock gardens that can easily be boulders when you're a kid.

I am from Santa wrapping paper and angels on top of the Christmas tree; I am from my Mom who tries so hard, Grandpa who will do just about anything, and Grandma who is easily swayed by a pouting lip.

I am from the easily angered, yet easily forgiving and the ones who are very proud of me, deep down inside.

From "I told you a week ago to clean your room!" and "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."; from "I love you this much," and "I love my Amber, and my Amber loves me."

I am from two sides of Catholics and Sunday morning Mass, from Catechism after school, baptism, first communion, and confirmation; from not hiding my faith, but embracing it.

I am from the longest, coldest winters of Michigan and living through these rough times; from turkeys on Thanksgiving, and Grandma's burned biscuits on Christmas.

From sledding into a creek in winter with Katie, to swimming in the lake with Katie in the summer; from a huge family that is crazier and more amazing than anything you could think of.

I am from taking pictures and writing stories and reading books and never finishing a movie with my best friend because we talk too much; from my little black dog and my evil black cat, from the people who matter and the person who doesn't. From trying too hard and loving with all that I have. I am from love and happiness and hardship and greatness. But I am lucky to be here, to be from these amazing things.

2009-11-02T18:34:00.000-08:00

I wish I was good enough to love. I feel like a failure. I want someone to be able to look at me and tell people that I was good enough to be theirs. I guess I'm just destined to be alone forever.

Weekend

2009-11-01T22:14:00.001-08:00

Well, my Halloween was pretty lame, I guess. I hung out with Mae most of the day and took her cousin's family pictures. That was pretty fun, it was nice to be out in the forrest. It was kind of chilly though, and far too muddy for my tastes. Then I came home and was basically under house arrest. I carved my pumpkin, at least that didn't turn out too bad.

It's a kitty! :]

Today was boring. I just sat around here until I went to work at 3. I registered for classes in the morning, and I have a terrible schedule. Boring classes, long hours. It's gonna suck. I'm hoping to go through everything and fine tune it. Maybe drop my photo class, depending on if it's a film or digital photo class, and pick up an extra english class. Something I won't hate. Blah.

At least Friday was good, though...right? I got a bunch of faves and two watches on deviantART out of Maegan's portraits, and tons of faves and one watch on deviantART out of Derrick's. I love taking portraits so much. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that I'm pretty good at it, too. Everyone loved both Mae's and Derrick's pictures. I hope someone else will volunteer themselves soon. It chills me out so much, and makes me happy. =)

Oct 30 2009

2009-10-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I picked Maegan up at like 1 because her keys were locked inside her car, and then she went to the bank and Kroger with me, to get pumpkins :] Which I plan on carving tomorrow. Then I took her back home and mom and I went to best buy and target to get Grandma her birthday presents. Her birthday's on November 4.

Then at like 5, Derrick came to my house and picked me and Mae back up and we went and took pictures of him. He drove us to this out of the way woods in Northville which was really awesome, and it would have been better if the weather wasn't so crappy. It was still really awesome though. I got some really great shots of him-they're on facebook, or you can always check them out here at Flickr. I had a really good time, I hope Mae did, too. Tomorrow we're supposed to take her cousin's pictures...I hope it's not disgusting outside.

Happy Halloween. =]

Rude People and Positive Attitudes

2009-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, what is up with people being really rude and really mean lately? Especially when they have no business doing so and I totally haven't provoked them.

Friday that receptionist at my neurologist's office was downright evil...even though on Monday the referral agent from my PCP called and said that she took care of my referral and faxed them the correct one, which was REALLY nice of her. I wasn't in the mood to call them and complain and whine and dance around in circles until they felt like giving me the correct referral. But anyways. The receptionist at the actual doctor's office was very rude when I was nothing but 100% cordial and polite to her.

Then Sunday, a customer got into it with me on the phone at the work, she was screaming and swearing at me and acting like a general psychopath until we got off the phone, then she called back and whined and sobbed to Brant that I was the one being inappropriate and screaming at her. Fail. Again, I was never anything but cordial and polite to HER.

And yesterday I went to the dentist and he was really rude, too! I'm beginning to think I give off some air of being a huge wimp that people can take advantage of. He kept yelling at me to open my mouth wider, and he was jamming sharp objects directly into my gums and the center of my teeth and it hurt so bad. Then he yelled at me for sucking on the spit sucker thing before he wanted me to--which, isn't the spit sucker more for ME than for him? Whatevs.

He gave me a referral to an oral surgeon at U of M Hospital to have my wisdom teeth extracted. Only problem is that my insurance does not, and probably will not cover the cost, even if they're impacted or infected. The lady on the phone says there has to be severe damage to or threat of damage to my teeth before it's covered. So, unless I miraculously come into 1,200 dollars sometime soon, these puppies are staying in. Ouch. I have to go back to the dentist Tuesday at noon to have some fillings put in. He didn't tell me how many, however, because he hated me and didn't wish to communicate. Go figure.

Anyways. Done ranting and raving now. I'm trying out a new positive attitude lately, and hoping it works. It made today a bit easier, at least. =]

Halloween Party, School Stuff, Frustrating Doctors

2009-10-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted last. This week was pretty busy, at least it seemed pretty long. The leaves are really starting to fall, which means I have to start raking them soon...and that Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before we know it. I should start taking extra shifts here and there to be able to have extra money for Christmas...but I also need to start concentrating a bit more on school. Gah, decisions.

Today was Brenda's big Halloween party...Mae and I went and dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Our costumes were amaaaazing! I think we were the most original ones there, for sure. We had our blue wigs on that we had to bobbypin, but they stayed on really well. We had red shirts with paper on them that said Thing 1 or Thing 2. And we painted our faces white. I didn't know how they would turn out but they came together really well and we were super cute! We had a pretty good time. :] Pictures to come later. Then we also watched Cat in the Hat when we came home, lol.

Yesterday I had an appointment with a counselor at Schoolcraft so she could help me pick out my classes for next semester. She also gave me a timeline of classes I'll need to take that will prepare me to transfer to Eastern. I didn't realize it before but I could be at Eastern by fall 2010 or more likely winter 2010. That is insane! I have to get my Associate's at Scraft, then I plan on getting a Bachelor's in Psych at Eastern, and then my Master's in Speech Pathology. It sounds like a TON of work and it will be, but honestly I am so excited and happy that I've made my decision that it doesn't even matter to me that it will be so much school and work. I want this, really bad, and it feels good to want something like this. :]

Yesterday I also was supposed to have my checkup with my neurologist, Dr. Manica. I go see him every six months and there has never been a problem, but the only time I go by myself, everything falls apart! The receptionist (who was the world's biggest bitch by the way) called me to the desk and said "You need to call your doctor and have them fax over a new referral with an x and 5 digits on it because we don't take this referral anymore. The insurance company won't accept it and pay the bill so you need to go take care of that." I was so confused. Then the receptionist yelled at me because she had to call the doctor's office because the referral agent had no clue what she was talking about. And then she yelled at me and said I should've taken care of this before I even came into the office even though NO ONE, at the MINDS clinic OR the insurance company notified me of any changes. It pisses me off. I could've done something about this if I had been given proper notice. But no. I'm just supposed to KNOW of changes, according to the receptionist.GUH, she was such a bitch.

So long story short the referral didn't go through and I drove all the way there for nothing. And the receptionist made me cry. Like, sobbing tears. And I never got to see my doctor. I told the lady that they had better find a way to squeeze me in when I try to make another appointment because this WAS NOT MY FAULT, it was their's and the insurance company's. It'll be a cold day in hell when I can't refill my prescription because of a piece of paper that I shouldn't even need anyways, I've been going to him for 15 years. I know it's protocol and stuff and the visit won't be covered unless I have one, but it's just annoying.

ANYWAYS. =] Bedtime.

My issues with the season premiere of Degrassi

2009-10-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Almost three weeks ago, the new season of Degrassi: The Next Generation premiered on Teen Nick [formerly the N]. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I have a ridiculous addiction to this show; I watch it all the time and I have 22 episodes of it recorded on my DVR. In case anyone is unfamiliar with the show, it's about a group of Canadian teenagers in high school or college that come face to face with a lot of issues that many teens face. Not all teens face all the stuff they do...but the show tries to address every possible issue; drugs, rape, sex, sexuality, self mutilation, gangs, violence, shootings...you get the picture. Most of the time it tries too hard and ends up being sort of cheesy but I still love it.

The first episode was about one of the main characters now, Peter, getting addicted to crystal meth. Okay, let me just say that on Degrassi, the characters have a tendency to have something happen to them, and then by the end of the episode, or episodes if it's a two parter, they're over it. Example: a few seasons ago, one character named Darcy got date raped at a party. It was a two part episode, where she freaked out about being raped as one generally would, and then after the episode was over, it was over. I think they may have mentioned it one more time in another episode, about her therapy and how she was still upset about being raped and hadn't told anyone yet, but that was it. That's my biggest complaint about the show, nothing ever gets played out. It just happens in hyper speed, and then it's over.

Anyways, so Peter goes to this swanky dinner party with Mia, his girlfriend, and he's bored and feeling very awkward because he embarrassed himself in front of all these rich, important people, and a girl gives him something to snort. Okay, issue number one: I get that the show is trying to demonstrate that drug addiction starts innocently like that, but come on. It was the first time he'd met this girl who gave it to him, and he just goes into the bathroom and snorts something she gave him? That is, I hope, totally unrealistic. If I just met someone and they were like, ooh, here you go, this'll make you feel better, you know what to do with it...then I'd be like uhhh wtf.

So, he snorts what he thinks is coke and starts acting like an even bigger freak at this party than he was before. Declan tells a bewildered Mia that his cousin/friend/whoever was handing out crystal meth and that's what's up with Peter. So she takes him home. Scene cuts to him all strung out in the morning and Mia telling him that if he wants to move to Paris with her, then he has to be good and act mature, and he promises he won't do meth every again. Blah blah blah, him all sick and strung out at school and being angry and snapping at all of his friends about how he's moving to Paris with Mia. Declan corners Peter in the computer lab where he's talking to Riley about how sick he feels and Declan tells Peter that meth's gonna destroy him if he keeps doing it and Riley is all WHUT YOU DID METH? Issue number two. You do not casually discuss your friend's meth usage in the computer lab at school. Meth is not something to be played around with; it's not pot. Pot's stupid, but Meth is on an entirely different PLANET of stupid. So, directors of Degrassi, if you want to portray how serious an addiction to meth is, please don't have your characters idly chit chatting about it. Thank you.

Later on Peter goes to visit Mia at her photo shoot where he acts like a douche and knocks stuff over and embarrasses her. Cut to Mia coming to see him later where he's headbanging in his apartment, clearly on something, and they get in a huge argument about how he promised her THAT MORNING that he wouldn't do meth every again and here he is at night doing it again. He yells at her and says he doesn't want to move to Paris and why does she get to decide? And they break up. He's still tweaking the next morning...and then into the afternoon...and the evening. He's basically running around screaming and hitting people and being weird. Issue number three. Meth is expensive, I'm assuming, so where did Peter, a high school student with no job, get the money for enough meth to keep him high for 24 hours? Ridiculous.

So it's like 10 at night and his friends know by now about the meth and he calls them screaming about how he's at an intersection somewhere freaking out and they come get him and stay with him. He then calls his mom to come back home from wherever she was to live with him again, and the episode ends with him admitting to Mia on webcam that he has a drug problem and Peter's mom telling him that one relapse and she's packing him off to rehab. Issue 5: you do not, under any circumstances, allow your son who's been abusing massive amounts of crystal meth to not go to rehab. I mean, meth screws your brain up. Are you really going to take the chance of him not doing it again and trusting the drug user's statement that he swears he'll never do it again? I mean what the heck. At least enroll him in an outpatient program or something. Something that'll keep him straight...

So yeah. This was longer than expected but basically it pisses me off that nothing can ever be played out and sometimes stupid decisions are made. Lol.

By the way. The title of this post is a link to the first part of the season premiere. Search Hulu for the second part. :]

Magician

2009-10-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today, Mom, Grandpa and I went to Red Robin for dinner because I had a free birthday burger coupon. After we were done eating we were just sitting there, talking, and all of a sudden this guy was behind us. He sat down and told us his name was Ted and he was a magician that worked with Red Robin.

He was so funny, and it was really entertaining. He put two balls in my moms hand and then told her to make a fist. Then he counted to three and then had her open her hand...and there were three balls in there. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous lol but I am really amused by that kind of stuff. Then he did some kind of a card trick with Grandpa and then he had us look at these cards with names on them and then he guessed which name we were thinking of. It was pretty cool, haha.

Then he asked me if I knew the definition of a "Wannabe". And I was like uhh, someone who wants to be something that they aren't. And he said, "Yes, someone who wants to be something else besides what they are at that moment. Doesn't sound like it's always a bad thing, does it?" And I was like, "No, I guess not." Then he wrote down on the back of one of his business cards "I can be anything I wannabe if I wannabe" and made me repeat it several times. He said to look at it whenever I felt like everything was falling apart and that I couldn't keep going, whether it was with school or work or life in general and to remember that I can be what I "wannabe" if I want to and to keep pushing through because hard work is how it happens.

Kind of cheesy but I personally think there's at least some truth behind it. I can be anything I want to be, within reason of course, we're talking career wise, or happiness wise, as long as I work at it and don't just give up. Because nothing happens if you give up. Just something to think about, I guess.

Post Birthday Blog

2009-10-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm another year older. Sunday I turned 19. I had to work from 3 to close because I couldn't find someone to cover my shift, but I had a really good day nevertheless. Katie came up to visit me at work and so did Heather, Jennifer and Brenda. I got way too many presents, lol. My mom got me a season of Degrassi, a laptop table, a book, a Wii game, and a couple other things. Mae got me a photography reflector which I was super excited to try on Saturday, until her little sister thought we were freaks and we didn't end up taking any pictures, lol. I'm super excited about the reflector, though. I got Monsters vs. Aliens and Ordinary People from Brenda, Heather, Jennifer and Uncle Mike [Ordinary People is still in the mail lol]. Got a 25$ gift card to barnes and noble from Steve and Michele. Money from Grandpa and Grandma. A gas card from Grandma Wikoff.

My Dad didn't bother to call...I almost expected him to, it's very typical of him to call on my birthday or christmas, probably to make himself feel better rather than anybody else. A phone call a couple times a year doesn't do me any good, so he might as well just not call. On Halloween it will be one year since I last talked to him. He's a jerk and I guess like people say, it's his loss. But it still kind of hurts sometimes, like he has no idea what kind of person I am now. If you asked him what classes I'm taking in school, what I want to be, what my favorite hobby is, who my best friend is, what kind of car I drive, what kind of dog I have and what her name is, which Jimmy John's I work at, he wouldn't have a clue. Sometimes I'm glad I don't talk to him, because do I really need that kind of a jerk in my life? But sometimes I also wish he lived nearby and I saw him on weekends or something, because I wish I had a dad. Or at least I wish I had a Dad who gave a shit and wanted to know me. Anyways...

Pretty great birthday. =] Thanks everyone.

Oct. 16 2009

2009-10-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty great day. After Mae got out of class, I picked her up and we went to Parmenter's, a cider mill. We just walked around there and took tons of pictures, which turned out great. These two ladies were feeding some ducks and there was a good 25 ducks swarmed around, it was almost creepy. We got some pretty good pictures of them.

After that, me and my mom and Mae went to Target and I picked out some birthday presents =] Then her parents took me and her out to Culver's for my birthday which was so nice. Mae got me a reflector for my birthday, which I'm gonna totally use for Paige's pictures tomorrow. The reflector has five different colors, I think, and it's really neat. I feel like such a professional photographer now!

weekend!

2009-10-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Gah, I'm so glad it's the weekend! I feel like this week was brutal. My birthday's on Sunday. :] But I have to work unless I can miraculously find someone to cover my shift by then. No fair. But anyways...

Today I'm going to the cider mill with Mae! It's gonna be awesome, I'm totally buying some donuts and caramel apples :] Then tomorrow I'm taking Paige's homecoming pictures and possibly going to the movies with Kristina. Then sunday is my birthdayyyyyy. And hopefully someone will work for me cuz I want to go to dinner, lol.

A combination of really sad and really stupid

2009-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

My mom has this, like, four foot tall stuffed witch that's supposed to sit on your front porch around halloween time. It's just a stupid decoration that was kind of cute. My mom leaves it on the porch during the day and brings it inside at night.

Well, today it was sitting on the porch and it was there when I left for work at 11. When my mom came home from work at 3:30, she asked me if I had taken it inside or put it in the garage or something. And I told her no, because why would I touch it? And she was like, well, it's gone...we came to the conclusion that someone stole the witch off of our front porch. How freaking sad is that?

This really bugged me, because A., it was ours... and B. because it wasn't like whoever it was stole something expensive, something they could sell for a lot of money. They stole a damn halloween decoration. That's so STUPID. If you see some kind of yard art or something in someone's yard that you like, you think to yourself, oh, that's cute, and then you try to find it on google or you look around at the hardware store or you simply WISH it was yours. You do not park your car, go up to someone's house, and take it and put it in your car.

What the hell, guys.

Hopeful

2009-10-13T22:14:00.000-07:00

The past week or so I've been in some kind of weird funk. I've just been really wired and anxious and depressed. Yesterday it was so bad that I literally almost couldn't get out of bed. I was angry because I didn't want to get up and go to school, I had a test and I wanted to lay around all day. And it didn't go well, at all, but I suppose we could attribute some of that to me being a negative nancy. Either way, I just didn't want to be like that. When I get sucked into that kind of negative thinking and behavior, it doesn't stop after a few days. It snowballs until I'm crying all the time and not doing any schoolwork and barely functioning. I didn't want to allow it to get like that...so I took control and I didn't let it.

Today, instead of just giving in and skipping my one and only class on Tuesday, I got up and went to school. Then I came home, ate, had a little bit of computer and TV time, then picked up Mae and we went to the library so we could both do some studying. It was really productive and I'm so glad we went. I don't really have any homework besides reading and studying, so I just spent time reading my book that I have to read for US History and taking notes on it so when it comes time to write my report, I have notes and page numbers to reference for it. Then I read half of my chapter for abnormal psych, and a bit of the book I'm reading for Psych too. And I managed to have an enjoyable time with Mae while I did it, too, without getting very distracted.

I felt really good about it all, like I'm taking control instead of letting my negative behavior, attitude and thinking control me and what I do and how I perform, academically.

Also, I think Mae and I found halloween costumes. Thing one and Thing two. It's gonna be awesome. =]

2009-10-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

My lips are starting to get chapped...ahh, here comes winter...!

I had a Poli Sci test today, which wasn't too hard but I definitely didn't feel prepared for it. What's new?

I'm going to the library tomorrow to study, and read some of both of the books I've taken under for History and Abnormal Psych.

Here's hoping I snap out of this horrible funk I've worked myself into soon.

2009-10-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

I'm sleepy.

I've started to watch the new season of Desperate Housewives. It seems pretty good, I have two more episodes to watch before I'm caught up. I also have to watch Community, Degrassi, and House. Blah. Lots of TV I want to watch and even more schoolwork that has to get done.

I'm gonna go read my stupid book for History and then go to sleep. And then the stupid week starts all over again...let's hope this one is better than the last.

My birthday's in 6 days.

Overwhelmed

2009-10-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

Wanna hear what I'm behind on doing and what I have to finish?

-Read a book for US History
-Finish a book for Abnormal Psych, or find an article to work on for my article project.
-Catch up on (or start...) my reading for Poli Sci
-Study for my test in Poli Sci on Monday
-Catch up on the stuff I'm supposed to be doing in my computer class
-Work.
-Learn how to not bug everyone.
-Save more money.
-Get more sleep.

Today was basically one of the worst days in a long time. My mom and I fought for quite a few hours, and then after everything "calmed down" I went to go hang out with Nichole and my car wouldn't start. I started freaking out again and crying because I am tired. I am stressed and overworked and tired and sometimes it feels like when things are already piling up, one more thing has to add to the mix.

It was my fault, too. The car was cranking over but it wouldn't start. I called Grandpa in hysterics and he told me try and put some more gas in the car. So I tried that, and it didn't work. Then I decided to check my oil, and voila. There isn't a DROP of oil in the car. So Grandpa told me to buy a couple of quarts of oil. Which I did, and I emptied them in my engine and after that it took a few tries, but it started, thank God. At first I was so mad that this happened, but then I realized that it's entirely my fault. I know better than to leave something as important as checking oil for as long as I did. It was completely empty. I'm such a failure. I can't even check my oil, or balance my schoolwork well with the other things I've got going on. I'm so freaking irresponsible. I will never be able to get my Master's and get a job and have an adult LIFE. Gosh.

College Night

2009-10-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

Last night was college night at Schoolcraft, and I was actually able to attend even though I had a class because my teacher let us out about an hour early. It was jam packed, full of people of every age looking for information. There were probable 80+ colleges there from all over the US with representatives waiting to answer your questions about their University or College. I thought it was a pretty neat setup, an easier way to get the info you need rather than making an individual appointment, at least for primary questions. I talked to U of M Dearborn, Davenport Univ, Oakland University, and Eastern Michigan. I was kind of bummed because the only school that had a speech pathology program was Eastern. I wasn't bummed about it being Eastern, but I would've liked a bit more diversity so I could've chosen one instead of being told, okay, Eastern, that's where it's at. That or Michigan State has a program but I'm not going away. Eastern is in Ypsi and if one of the managers at Jimmy John's can drive here everyday from there, then I can commute to my classes. It's pretty cool because Mae and I will be going there for the same thing, so we can hopefully schedule our classes together and take turns driving out there.

So, while it was a somewhat disappointing night, finding out that almost all of the colleges I was looking at don't have my program or major, it was also very informative and I'm really glad I went. I got some info on campus tours, which I want to take, and just their regular packet of info, and a Macrao transfer guide. There are still a ton more classes at Schoolcraft that I can take that are hopefully transferable, because the representative said I will be at Eastern for 2-5 years and I should take advantage of Schoolcraft's classes as much as I can.

I'm very anxious about all of this, because going to Eastern will be a huge change from what I'm used to now. It will be more money, the work will most likely be harder, and it'll take a lot of time. I will have to actually buckle down and stop fooling around because I'm sure those classes won't come easily. Speech pathology is an entry level Master's degree. A MASTER'S DEGREE. That is unfathomable to me, that I, me, Amber, could do something like go to college and get a master's degree in something that I know I will love to do and be happy doing. Can I do it?

So while I am anxious about the money aspect, and the unbelievable amount of work and effort it will take, and the fact that it's a Master's, I am also happy and content about it. For the first time in my entire life, I'm not sitting here with a giant question mark over my head. I've never been able to see my future, at all, and I've been worried that I will never figure it out. So to have the basis of a plan, a plan that will make me happy in the long run, is an extremely awesome thing for me.

Dreams

2009-10-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

I had a very upsetting dream last night. I dreamed my grandma was harassing me (again) about my body or whatever you want to call it and I told her "don't worry, I hate myself just as much as you do." and then she told me she didn't care. It hurt my dream self's feelings and I woke up crying a little bit. :( But I'm better now, lol.

My back left wisdom tooth has started throbbing. It's causing a tension headache and a bit of earache, so I'm in a fantastic mood this morning, lol. I can't wait for my class to be over so I can hang out with Mae. Gosh.

2009-10-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

Lately I've had nothing of interest to blog about. I keep meaning to make posts about this or that but then I end up forgetting what I want to write about, and by the time I remember, it just isn't as interesting (to me) anymore.

Today I had a history test. It was on an unbelievable amount of information. We had an entire month's worth of notes covered in this "quiz" and I just can't process that much at once. I was so frustrated last night when I was trying to study that I almost started crying. We had to take the quiz by ourselves, then in our groups. I was so glad that we only turned in the group answers for credit, because by myself I would seriously have crashed and burned. My group consisted of me, katie, my cousin Alyson, this older guy named Bill, and this girl who sits next to Katie (I feel bad I don't remember her name lol). I hope we did okay.

Tomorrow I have class for about an hour and then the rest of the day is mine, so me and Mae are going to take pictures. I'm going to do a photo shoot of her, it's going to be awesome! :)

"Prozac Nation"

2009-10-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

My most recent book that I've been reading is called "Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I borrowed the book from my cousin, Megan. It's a memoir about a girl who has been struggling with severe depression, among other things, since the age of 12 (she's 25) and is on all kinds of medicine, which she is less than thrilled about.

I've never really been a fan of memoirs, they usually just make me wonder why anyone would want to read the story of somebody else's life. But this book is actually really good. She doesn't try to sugar coat it, and tells her story about her problems with depression and suicidal ideations honestly. This book has some of the best quotes about depression and insanity and many other things that I've ever read. Sample time:

"That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key."

It speaks volumes that a human being can be so comfortable and forward about their depression that they can write about it like that. I can't wait to read the rest of this book, I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance to.

Also, there's a movie. I think Mae and I should watch it; it looks like it could rival Girl, Interrupted. =)

Amber Updates

2009-10-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't written since Tuesday I figured I'd just wrap up the last couple of days. It's so gross out today. And it's still freezing in my house because my mom refuses to turn on the heat. So I've been living in my thickest pajamas ever and hoodies.

I finished my paper Wednesday at exactly 5pm. (my class starts at 5:30) I went to print it off of our printer, when it promptly jammed and wouldn't print. Cue my mom yelling at me and telling me that I break everything...which I totes mcgotes DO. Then I ran out of the house to go to class at 5:11, got to school at 5:20, which is record breaking time, especially in rush hour traffic. Then I ran to the computer lab, printed out my paper, and made it to my class at exactly 5:30. THAT IS TALENT.

I was still worried that I had done the paper wrong. I was going kind of in the dark because, while there was a description to the process in our syllabus, it was kind of vague. It basically just said "Use the film to analyze the book, and use the book to analyze the film." I was having a hard time doing those things so that the paper went smoothly and made sense. But I somehow got it finished and when we handed our papers in, my teacher was talking about things he noticed in the movie and kinds of things you could have included in your paper...and almost every single one he mentioned was in my paper. So I'm assuming I did it right, lol.

This morning I went to a booksale with my uncle Steve at their library. There were tons of books there, but unfortunately not many that I wanted. I did get four books, though.

Uh oh, my creativity is showing...

2009-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Today was an absolutely perfect day, weather wise, for me. I am in love with fall, it's my favorite season. The cold bite that the air has to it makes me happy, it makes me want to lay on the lawn and stare up at the sky for hours and hours. Seriously.

Lately I've been itching to take pictures but have been seriously lacking in something to take a picture of. I decided that I'd bring my camera with me today to see if anything sparked my interest, because it seems like whenever I don't have my camera, something beautiful demands my attention, and I can't indulge it. :[ But the point is, I brought it with me to my aunt and uncle's and my uncle had his cards laying on their table in the garage and I just...got creative...and arranged them in certain ways and ended up with, in my totallyyyyyyyy unbiased opinion :P, some great shots. I took both of those shots up there. And there are plenty more here.

Gah. I have to read and write for my psych paper now...due tomorrow. I fail at managing time. But still in a good mood cuz I has good pictures. :)

Writing

2009-09-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in a previous post, but I've been trying to write again and the other day (in class--a sign? I think so) an idea popped into my head. I decided to try something different, something I've never tried before when writing, and I started a new story written in a series of letters. It worked surprisingly well, it brought out a level of creativity that I've been lacking for some reason or another for a long time.

And, also surprisingly, the story seems to have generated a lot of positive feedback. I published it on FictionPress and deviantART, and on dA a few people have said they liked it. Boost of self esteem =]

SONIC! and new car shopping with grandma.

2009-09-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

Today I had my very first Sonic experience. It was just as amazing as I thought it would be. Mae's mom and dad took us there at like, 9:30 because I had never been there, it was really sweet, lol. I had a cheeseburger, their amazing tater tots and a cherry limeade [which wasn't as delicious as the commercials promised, but was still pretty good.] Me, Mae and Paige went and ate on a table and we couldn't stop laughing, I swear we did not STOP giggling for the entire twenty minutes we were sitting outside. It got so ridiculous that some teenage boys at the table next to us started making fun of us but we didn't really care.

After that me and Mae came back here and we've watched Supernanny for a while.

Today me and Mom went to Grandma's and then we went to the dealership because Noodle's lease is up in a few weeks and she's buying another Mariner. Problem is, she's not sure what color to pick. She was choosing between this slate pearl gray, black, red and blue. I personally like the slate pearl gray or the red, but my mom like the black or some other gray color. My grandma's just a fan of the pearl gray or whatever. So we're not very close to her making a decision, lol.

My weekend's almost over :[ Tomorrow I work 3 to close, hopefully it doesn't go by too slowly and we're at least semi busy.

I totally forgot until just now that I have a 4 page film integration paper due for Abnormal Psych on that Ordinary People movie we watched in class last week. He was so bad at explaining what we had to do in the paper, I'm still kind of confused. From what I gathered from the syllabus, we have to discuss our impressions of the movie and somehow tie together the different therapy techniques that were used in the movie. It sounds simple enough but I'm kind of stressing about doing it right, even though my teacher said that it's really informal, as long as what he gets is a basic opinion and view of the movie and an honest critique and stuff, he'll be happy and we'll do fine. He's so laid back, he's a nice guy but sometimes I just think he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing for this course. Mae's mom took Abnormal Psych and said it was a really hard class, Michele said the same thing and it's pretty much my easiest class. It's also my most fun class.

I enjoy psychology classes so much, I feel like I'm more confident in them than I am in other classes because I'm actually interested in what's going on. I am pretty quiet in this one, but I've made a new acquaintance/friend, her name is Catherine, she's pretty nice. :]

Anyways. Bed time.

25 Things About Me

2009-09-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Mae posted a blog with 25 things about her, so I decided to post 25 things about me. Maybe I'll make this my about me after I'm done. But I kind of doubt it.

1. I try genuinely hard to be a good person, but I'm always wondering if it makes me a bad person, because I try so hard to be nice. Confused? So am I.
2. I feel like it takes longer for my birthday to get here than it does for anyone else's. Like, I feel like I've been 18 forever, and can't wait for my birthday.
3. Whenever I do these things-25 things about me, 16 things about me- I always go into a lot of detail. Mine are always longer than everybody else's. Does that make me self centered? I hope not :/
4. I love Degrassi: The next generation. I spend way too much time watching it.
5. I love to write, but most of the time I feel like I'm not producing anything worth reading.
6. I like to fondly refer to myself as a "self-taught" photographer. I've never had a class but taking pictures is one of my favorite things to do.
7. I have a weirdly big case of paranoia and anxiety.
8. I work at Jimmy John's.
9. Me and my best friend Mae have never made it through a movie without pausing to talk. It takes us at least 3 hours to watch a 2 hour movie. ;]
10. I have a chihuahua named Zelda who steals food and begs for lovies with her eyes. She's cute.
11. I love to read; I always have at least 3 or 4 books waiting for me to read, but that never stops me from going to Barnes and Noble and spending too much money on yet another book.
12. That being said, I'm a book snob. I'm almost 100% certain that I know better than most people what it takes to have a good book. Challenge me :P
13. That being said, Twilight is stupid. It's a poorly written book, Stephanie Meyers should be run over with a car for murdering literature the way she has, and that's all I have to say about it! Lol.
14. I spend a lot of time with my family.
15. I'm terrified of moving away to college, so I probably won't be doing it.
16. I don't know how to study. I honestly don't.
17. I love psychology and anything to do with it. Nothing in the world is more fascinating to me.
18. I would be a psychologist if I had the support and backing of most of the people around me. My friends say to go for it, that I would be great at it, but my entire family says I would suck at it. I think that's mean, but whatever.
19. I'm considering being a speech language pathologist, psychologist, or a physical therapist. I'm so confused! Someone map out my life for me.
20. I am supposed to be a very funny person, that's what people tell me, lol.
21. I love movies that make me think, really think about me, my life, my family, how everything relates to me. I have to be in the mood, though. Because sometimes I just want to watch Kung Fu Panda and fall asleep. :P
22. I have specific requirements for sleeping. I can't just pass out anywhere or anytime the way most people can. ;]
23. I drive a Sebring and while I love my little car, I would love a big SUV. People treat you like shit if you drive a little car, lol. Although I did just try to get my Grandpa to sell me his Corvette he just bought...it didn't work.
24. I'm a conservative.
25. I'm Catholic, have been my entire life, it's a pretty big part of me.

:]

2009-09-24T17:37:00.001-07:00

I'm not okay.

~~and I'm afraid I never will be.~~

"Ordinary People" review

2009-09-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today in abnormal psychology, we watched a movie called Ordinary People. It was made in 1980 and stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and, most importantly in my opinion, Timothy Hutton. I went into this movie thinking it was just going to be some stupid sappy movie about a family falling apart, but I was wrong.

Synopsis: The Jarretts are an upstanding and affluent family living in Chicago, who, on the outside, look like they are perfect. But inside the walls of their home, they're all slowly falling apart. The father, Calvin (Sutherland), is trying desperately to understand and get in the mind of his son Conrad (Hutton) who has just returned from a stay in a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill himself. Calvin is doing the best he can to get his son the help that he needs while trying to keep their family together. The mother, Beth (Moore) is distant, bitter, and has a hard time expressing love towards anyone but her older son, Buck, who drowned in a boating accident. She doesn't want to admit that there are problems in her family; she wants to make everyone think their life is perfect, including herself, husband, and son. The part of Conrad's psychiatrist is played by Judd Hirsch.

Honestly, I fell in love with this movie. I want to own it so I can watch it whenever I want. It seems to be a truly underrated movie, since no one I've talked to has heard of it. It won an Oscar for Best picture, and Timothy Hutton won an Oscar for best supporting actor, which he greatly deserved. His performance is quite possibly the best I've seen, ever. He plays the part of a teenager struggling to avoid his feelings of guilt, anger, fear and depression perfectly. There were a lot of really strong emotions in the movie that are handled with ease, and many scenes that brought me back to fights between my mom and dad [not a bad thing, it made it more realistic.]

The only thing I've ever seen Donald Sutherland in was when he was on that show, Commander in Chief, and he was a jerk, lol. He played such a sweet character that you felt so bad for him, as he tried so hard to both understand and get through to his remaining son while also trying to keep the peace between him and his wife. She is mad because she thinks he "indulges" Conrad when he goes after to him to make sure he's okay, or gets after him to eat or sleep or call his doctor. In reality, he's just trying to make sure their son doesn't try to kill himself again.

This was longer than I wanted it to be. Basically, great movie, everyone should watch it. If not to identify with the characters, because it is easy to identify with one of them, than to understand that this kind of stuff goes on everyday. I want to read the book now. :)

Oh, how gross

2009-09-23T12:57:00.001-07:00

Today at work, I was on register and some guy was staring at the menu and he sneezed. Which, whatever, people sneeze. But he sneezed in his hands, then grabbed his money and handed it to me to pay for his sandwich. It was SO gross, I almost threw up all over him.

New Assignment

2009-09-20T22:04:00.000-07:00

Without meaning to, today at work Brant (my manager) gave me a great idea for a new photography "assignment". We were talking about the flames pictures I have recently taken, and he was like "Were you listening to Candle in the Wind when you took it?" and he was joking, but it gave me a great idea: I could take a representative picture of every Elton John song that I know and love.

Is it lame? Honestly, feedback is needed. Because I was REALLY excited about doing this, it would be so much fun for me and it gave me some sort of inspiration, because lately I haven't had much of it. I had already started planning what kinds of pictures I want to take when somehow or other I came to the conclusion that it might be lame. I know that I should do it and not care what anybody else thinks because I'm so excited, but whatever. My need for acceptance is crippling me.

Gah! Going to bed.

dA rambles

2009-09-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

There's this website out there called deviantart.com. It's a great place to showcase your work, whether it be photography, drawing, anime, writing, anything of that nature. It's free and a pretty user-friendly site, I'd say (completely unlike this one lol). However, in the past few days, it's done what every other site in the world has done and made unnecessary layout changes.

I hate when sites try to "cute" things up and make them more what they consider to be modern. It was perfectly fine the way it was, so what's the point in changing things? There's always a huge roar when facebook changes its layout, which they do too often. The page layout will be fine, and everyone will have finally gotten used to it and stopped complaining that they miss the old one, and then they'll change it so it's infinitely harder to use and figure out what's going on than the old one. Me, I miss the first two Facebook layouts. When you went on someone's page, they're status updates used to be either bolded, or larger than the rest of what was going on on their wall. Now, you look and it's like, oh, they're talking to themselves...no wait, it's just their status update. Maybe I take this like too seriously, but if I'm gonna spend my time on their website, I don't want to be constantly annoyed with the aesthetics.

Okay, so you post your picture/drawing/poem to the site and then when you click on it, it used to take you to this page where it showed the information about the picture and the camera you took it with, provided you submitted a picture, and then the artist's comments about it...and they changed it so that you still see all of it, but it's in like, a speech bubble and it looks like you commented on your own work. It bugs me. I hate when people change sites, I can understand needing to do updates, but it's annoying.

2009-09-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

Is it bad that I'm considering making a TV schedule so I know what's recording when and how long I have to watch it? Yeah, I think that's bad. But oh well. Lifetime shows old episodes of Grey's Anatomy every day, but they're not the most recent ones. Right now, I'm watching the episode with the bomb...and then Bailey goes into labor and her husband gets hit by a car or something. I really wanna watch the new season but I haven't watched the most recent ones. So...

Me and Mae have been having mini Desperate Housewives marathons in a desperate attempt to get me caught up before season six starts next Sunday, but it's not looking good since all we ever do is talk XD So far, season five has been pretty good, but Mae says it gets even better ;]

Why have all my blogs lately been about TV? Moving on.

Today was the second and last day (Finally) of our garage sale. I think my mom and grandma were happy, ultimately, because they sold a ton of the stuff that they wanted to get rid of. Grandma sold: two huge chairs, a mirror, an end table, a box of antique silverware, a computer monitor and keyboard, a bag, a metal wheelbarrow, some glasses, a quilt, and a couple of other small things. My mom sold: her wireless keyboard and mouse, a core stability ball, all the DVDs we brought, one of my games, a wallet, all the purses she brought, and some of her other tiny things she brought. I sold: five or six of my books that I brought, some toys, my old Hogwarts castle/train, and a bratz car that I've had for a while. I didn't make that much money, maybe six bucks, but I didn't really care. I wasn't really there to sell things, I had just brought a bunch of my books, most of which didn't sell, and then my mom gave me the money that I made from most of my toys that were sold.

That being said, I'm so glad it's over. Friday and Saturday went by SO SLOWLY that I couldn't even believe it. I've been so stressed during the last two days that my anxiety has doubled, possibly even tripled. The reason I've been stressed is because it has been nothing but yelling, shrill, loud voices, and berating for two days. After almost nineteen years of those exact conditions, I literally can't take it anymore; my anxiety gets out of hand. I get easily agitated. I've been constantly agitated for almost two straight days...ugh. lol

The end of today was pretty good though, Mae came to the garage sale and then her and mom and I went to the thrift store after. Then I went to her house and chilled...anyways. Bed time.

"Community" Review

2009-09-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

Thursday a new show started on NBC. It's a half hour sitcom called "Community" starring Joel McHale, Chevy Chase and quite a few others. I first heard about it when I was watching The Soup the other night, because Joel McHale is the host of the Soup and he was promoting the show. It looked vaguely interesting so I recorded it just for the hell of it and watched it a little bit ago.

It's a comedy show about a snarky, disbarred lawyer [McHale] who is going back to community college to get a real degree, since he lied about the first one (hence the disbarment). On his first day he meets a pretty girl who is in his spanish class who is worried about passing their test, and he REALLY wants to get to know her... so he tells her is a "board certified spanish tutor" and that he has a little study group going in the library at X time she agrees to come. The only catch is, it's a huge lie and quite a few other people show up to this study group.

I have to say, I don't usually bother watching sitcoms nowadays because in my opinion most of them are all the same-unfunny dialogue read in a funny way, and the same type of characters over and over. But I really liked Community; it was a fairly new idea for a TV show, and the characters were hilarious. There was an Arabic guy name Abad in there who just sits there and talks really fast spewing out random pop culture facts that half the time no one pays attention to; a girl who was sent to rehab in high school [they call her Adderal Annie], a middle aged woman who is made to feel semi-self conscious about her decisions in life, and a few others. The dialogue was pretty hilarious, too. Half the time the humor was really subtle and that was why it was so funny; the other half it was just Joel McHale being his ridiculous self and causing shenanigans.

So, I suggest that people watch Community, it breaks up the normal TV drama blah's and is a pretty original idea. It's on Thursday nights at...8:30pm I believe on NBC. :]

Garage saling

2009-09-18T18:38:00.001-07:00

Recorded episodes of Degrassi have slowly been taking over my life. I'm not complaining...I'm just stating. lol. As we speak, I'm watching the episode where JT gets stabbed[and consequently dies...]. Yeah, he just got stabbed. Now I'm crying. Shiiiiiit. I clicked "record series" on my DVR yesterday and I have 86 episodes set to record by like October 8th. It's gonna be nuts. I may have to take a hiatus from life just to watch it all, lol.

Today was the first day of my Grandma's garage sale. As I predicted, it was really boring. I brought over, like, 15ish books and not one of them sold. My mom sold a few DVDs, a game, a wallet, some purses, blah blah. She made like 25 dollars. My grandma sold a TON of her stuff, she mostly had big crap. She had two tables, two chairs, a set of three of these absolutely atrocious bar stools from the '50's, a mirror, and her other odds and ends that she collects over the years. She made quite a bit of money, she sold one of the tables, the mirror and two chairs. Plus some of her other crap.

My mom and I went around to the other garage sales. She got a christmas ornament, I got a book and the Sims 2 for two dollars. It works and everything, it was an incredible deal. I'm so glad I got it =] Sometimes it pays to wait five years to buy something... :]

Tonight I'm going to see "Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs" with Kristina, we're gonna have fun. =]

2009-09-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad that after I leave class [Yes, I'm in class-but it's just my computer class and truly, if I fool around for one day and do no work, life won't end] I have the rest of the day off. I'm considering going back to bed; I'm so exciting.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, my history class was eventful, to say the least. My teacher told he was going to draw a long hut, which is some kind of indian hut, on the board. Well, Katie and I looked up, and I swear, he had drawn a penis on the board. It was, I swear. But yeah.

I've been watching an awful lot of TV lately, mainly Degrassi. I waited years to have the N, and dammit, I'm gonna use it. :P I'm in love with that show. It might be cheesy and lame, but I hardcore love it. The new season starts in October; I think I'll set it up to record it. Biggest Loser starts tonight; love that show, and I'm really glad it's back. House comes back next week too, or so I hear; hopefully it doesn't suck anymore, last season was OK but I miss the older episodes.

I'm boring.

2009-09-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

My life is so boring. That's why its 12:21am and I'm watching rugrats while I nurse my migraine. Ow.

Slightly euphoric

2009-09-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

I just all of a sudden got in a really good mood and, as a result, HAD to make a post about it, to remind myself when I get in a not so good mood :)

I'm just sitting here, about to go lay in bed and watch Degrassi or read a book or something and I'm just thinking about how lucky I truly am. I don't always get along with everyone in my life and sometimes I don't handle situations the way I should but I try my hardest and I have a lot of great things and people in my life. When it gets down to it, God never gives you anything you cannot handle and I believe I'm lucky for the blessings I have in my life.

When things get bad, I guess I'm gonna try and look back at this post and see how lucky and blessed I am.

Clean room! and U-Verse

2009-09-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I spent the entire evening cleaning my room. I didn't stop cleaning for a good...almost 6 hours, and while there are still a few things I need to put away and re-order, it looks really good. There's barely anything on my floor anymore, and once I put back all the things that need to be put back because I moved them for the cable guy, it should be just about clean. It looks pretty great. As I stated in a post a couple of days ago, I ended up cleaning my room well into the wee hours of the morning. I didn't get to bed until about 3:15am. But that's my own fault.

I think I'm gonna sell the old toys that were on the bottom shelf of my shelving unit in my grandma's garage sale. I never use them, the only time they get used is when Cass and Nick come over and they play with them. But they're taking up space and make my room look like a four year old's, and I don't want them cluttering anything up anymore. I don't need them or want them anymore. If you know me, you know how huge of a step that is :P

This morning the U-Verse guy came at 9a to install the new cable, hook up the phones and hook up the internet. It took him a long time but he was so nice about all of it, and about all of our questions that we had, haha. He was here for a long time, I was kind of surprised that it so long. He was here for about 4 hours. So, now we have the U-Verse boxes in the living room, my mom's room, my room, and the kitchen. I also have my brand new TV hooked up in my room, it's so pretty =] I played with it for a few minutes and figured out how to use the DVD player in the back of my TV and how to turn it on and off, record a show, yadda yadda yadda. :] WE HAVE THE N NOW, OH MY GOSH I'M NEVER GOING TO STOP WATCHING DEGRASSI. Just saying. :)

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory wall post lol's

2009-09-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

click on it to read it XD

Ohhh, I love my best frand. Keep in mind, this wall post took place while we were sitting next to each other on separate computers.

Too tired to function

2009-09-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

I hate waking up. Seriously. It ruins the day! I had class at 9:30...which I ended up leaving around 10:15 anyways so I don't know why I even bother. I seriously contemplated just rolling over and going back to sleep until I had to get up for work, but I know that I have to go to class, at least so he can take attendance and say that I was there. Ugh ugh ugh. At least it was my last class and now it's the "weekend". My fridays are spectacular. I worked from 11:15-3 today and then that's it, weekend time. I don't work again till Sunday.

In other news...I haven't touched my room since I cleaned that one corner the other night. When was that? Like, Monday? Yeah. It's Thursday. If I wasn't so freaking tired/lazy at the end of the day I COULD do it, but I'm exhausted and just want to flop into bed. I'm gonna end up scrambling around at 3am Saturday morning before the guy comes to install the cable and nothing's going to be done properly. I have no clue how to budget my time.

I'm also supposed to be gathering stuff up for the garage sale my Grandma's having next Thursday and Friday [I think that's when it is] My mom is taking the day off for it, or whatever, and I think we're supposed to be getting rid of some stuff. It's not like there isn't stuff I want to get rid of...I just hate getting rid of it. I hate thinking, like, what if I need that some day and I won't have it? I know that's idiotic because when am I ever going to need my book "the girl's guide to puberty" ever again? Srsly. I think I have that book in the garage somewhere. But I do need to get rid of stuff. I have entirely to much crap that I don't use. And maybe with the money I make I can buy something that I might actually like and use...or put it towards buying a new lens for my camera, which I know I would use. Mmm, to think of having a telephoto lens... :]

Yesterday when Mae came over, we watched a show on TLC called "The Lottery Changed My Life", which is kind of absurd because if winning the lottery didn't change your life then you didn't win a very good lottery. Anyways, I was fascinating about how many amazing accessories I could get for my camera! I could easily spend two or three thousand dollars on it all. Lol. A wideangle lens? That runs like 1200 dollars. 1200 DOLLARS GUYS! And my fish eye lens that I want so bad I can TASTE IT? 700 dollars. Why am I so expensive?! lolll.

Is hell still beneath me, or am I already there?

2009-09-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

Well, my mini break is over. I had class this morning. It's not like today was going to be a huge heavy class day, it's only my computer class and I only stay in that one for like a half hour before leaving so I don't get too ahead. Then I just came back here and I'm watching a movie and thinking about taking a nap, haha. I don't work on Tuesdays so that explains my absence there.

I got the corner of my room that's had crap in it for a long time cleaned out yesterday night. It looks pretty good, I threw a bunch of stuff away and folded my blankets neatly that were in that corner. The rest of my room is just basically "tidy up" stuff. Basically stuff that resulted in me being a lazy ass and not wanting to put anything back where it goes. I have to get it clean before Saturday and blah blah.

I found this new song that I really love, the lyrics are really deep and mean a lot to me, especially the chorus.

"Brave New World"-Hedley.

Lyrics.

It's a really great song. There really isn't anything else to talk about...I think I'm gonna take that nap now.

You make me smile like the sun

2009-09-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

Today had some sucky parts to it, but I don't want to say the whole day sucked. Just a little bit of suckyness, lol. Before work, Mom and I went to Target. I spent the gift card I got from my bosses, and bought something else too lol. With the gift card I got a new game for my Nintendo DS. It's the Sims 2 Apartment Pets, it looks really cool and I'm gonna play it in a little bit. I also bought two gatorades because they were on sale and it's something to drink before school since I DETEST eating before class, it makes me sick. Also, I bought a cool new bracelet. It's a silver chain type thing and you can buy charms to attach to it, it's really neat. I bought the bracelet, a charm that says "believe" on it, and an A. For Amber, haha.

Today when I came home from work [not too long ago] I was in a pretty bad mood. I'm tired, my feet kinda hurt, and I still have tons of cleaning to do in my room and I should start reading my book for History. So, hence the bad mood. Anyways, I logged into blogger and my best friend, Mae had made a post with a recent picture I just posted on DeviantART of Zelda, about how much she liked the picture. It turned my frown upside down, it is so nice to know that there are people who really like my photography. Mae is always making me feel better, she makes me laugh so hard and I know I can tell her anything and she isn't gonna be like "wow she's a bitch" [cuz she already knows :P] I'm so lucky to have a best friend like that, one who isn't a crazy person every other second and who is WILLING to know a weirdo like me :)

New TV and changing my room

2009-09-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Today was a semi-good day. Mom and I went to the AT&T store this afternoon to talk about getting U-Verse TV, Internet and home phone in the house. With the combo deal, it's cheaper than what we're currently paying, plus we will have a lot more features, including DVR. I am so unbelievably excited for the DVR and the rewind and fast forward features. :] I swear, I won't stop watching TV for a year.

And I got my new TV today... :] It's a 19" Magnavox with a built in DVD player. That's a great feature, I'm so excited about that. My room is going to be so nice once I clean my room, and get my furniture switched back around to a way that makes SENSE. My mom is going to move the PC somewhere else, probably the dining room table, so we can get my desk out of my room which is falling apart and no use to anyone. So, my room will be clean, my furniture switched around, my new TV/cable hooked up, and the desk out of there which will give me a lot more room. My mom and I want to paint my room a different color and maybe get new bedding and stuff. Right now I'm really unhappy with my room, I feel like it's still a little kids' room and I want to do some renovations, moving around and painting and stuff and turn it into more of an 'adult' room. I loved light purple when I was 7 but I'll be 19 in a little more than a month and I want a change.

My grandma's condo complex is having a garage sale the 18 or 19 of September and I think I'm going to sell some of my old toys and stuff that I no longer use. It's hard for me to get rid of anything, and I mean anything, but I'm going to have to try. I need to turn my room into some kind of place where I can buckle down and concentrate to study for school, and also a place where I can relax and unwind after working and going to school all day. I'm thinking a light green or blue color for my walls, although I really want to try something different, like a different color on each wall XD I don't know if my mom would go for that, though. My grandma tried to tell me to make it white but the only way I would do that would be if I was allowed to get different colors of paint and draw designs, doodles, and write words or quotes all over the walls [which would be freaking awesome.] but that won't ever happen. I'm not the kind of person who needs a white room, I need something colorful to bring out the color in me ;] I'm excited for the renovations I wanna make on my room.

Just some new pictures

2009-09-04T19:34:00.001-07:00

I took a couple of new photos today on the way home from Danette's, they were kind of spur of the moment so they're a bit blurry. We were driving and it was almost dark out so that's why, too. Anyone got any tips on how to take UNBLURRY night photos [with no flash]?

Just a little update

2009-09-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't written an actual blog in a couple of days, I've been busy with work and school and by the time I get around to sitting on the computer until the wee hours of the morning, I'm too tired to really think of words and put them down most of the time. I think everyone's been busy getting back into school, my buffel is doing good though =] She got 100% on her bio quiz which is pretty amazing because in my opinion biology and any of the science classes are really hard so woohoo to her :D

Anyyyywayyyys. I didn't have a bad week but it seemed really long. First full week of the school year so it went by really slowly. On Monday, I started my Political Science class, which hopefully won't be so boring the entire class. I couldn't concentrate AT ALL. I've been having a hard time concentrating, period, but hopefully that gets better too, otherwise I don't know what I'm going to do. Psychology was amazing, we had a class discussion for almost the entire three hours and it was actually interesting so I was able to pay attention, haha.

I don't have classes on Monday which is awesome. Katie and I chose our books for our History class on Tuesday. She got a book on the war of 1812 and I got a book about the Salem witch trials, which I think I'm gonna start reading soon.

More book quotes

2009-09-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

"I close my eyes and I take a deep breath and I think about my life and how I ended up this way. I think about the ruin, devastation, and wreckage I have caused to myself and to others. I think about self-hatred and self-loathing. I think about how and why and what happened and the thoughts come easily, but the answers don't."
--James Frey, "A Million Little Pieces"

2009-09-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

"It gets late and we put away the cards and we get into our beds. My body still wants what I cannot give it and I'm unable to sleep so I lie on my back and I stare at the ceiling. I think about where I am and how I got here and what the fuck am I going to do and I listen to Larry cry and pound on his pillow and curse God and beg for forgiveness. At a certain point my eyes close and at a certain point I fall asleep."

--James Frey, "A million little pieces"

2009-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I had my computer class from 9:30-10:50. I didn't stay the whole time because I don't want to get too ahead because I know I'll end up finishing the class early and by week 8 I'll have to just come in and sit there for almost two hours doing nothing. On the first day of class, he told us that most of us would be able to finish the class in two or three weeks and that after that we just didn't have to show up anymore. It would be great if it weren't for the fact that as a financial aid student, I'm required to have damn near perfect attendance, so I'm just going to work on the class material as it's supposed to be presented. I'll finish the work that was scheduled for that day, and then go on my merry way. Which means I'll drive to Scraft, troll for a parking spot for ten minutes and STILL end up in row T, walk two miles to the building, sit down, complete the assessment for ten or fifteen minutes, then go back home. Oh, it sounds so lovely. But anyways.

After class, I went to get coffee with Heidi and to the thrift store. My, the pickings were lush today at the thrift store! I got four new books, two of which I'd been wanting to get at the book store but refused to spend 17 dollars a piece on them, and got them for .49 cents. I also got 2 VHS tapes, and a mask of Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Yeah, it was probably a stupid purchase, but a trip to DAV isn't complete unless I buy at least one totally non logical item I'll never use. :)

And after THAT, Katie and I went to Barnes and Noble to get our books for our History class. We had to pick a non fiction book from 1492-1824 or something like that. Sounds easy enough, but trust me, it isn't. Not if you're looking for something that is mildly interesting and you won't want to burn. Katie ended up with a book about the war of 1812 and I got a book about the salem witch trials, which I'm kind of interested in. I at least don't loathe the subject entirely.

I found out the other day that Alyson is in my history class, which is really cool! =] Now our fantabulous quiz group will include Katie, Me, Alyson, and that old guy Katie likes so much...haha. Off to bed, now.

The Principle of the 'What if?'

2009-08-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you, or the people close to you, had made different decisions? I was wondering about that today. So many things in life could be different. It's almost scary, because I absolutely hate change. Although, it wouldn't be change if things were just like that. One different decision or choice can or could have changed everything.

Let me give you a 'for instance': what if my mom and dad had stayed together? Like, say things had changed around and one had decided to tolerate the other and he had gotten his crap together and we'd been the 'happy American family'? What kind of person would I be? It's kind of scary to think of. We might not even live in this house right now if that was the way things had worked out. My mom might never have become friends with Danette again, and we wouldn't know the kids. That almost breaks my heart to think of. I might not know Maegan, because they might have decided to move out of this school district, which that thought is also heartbreaking. What kind of person are you if you grow up in a house with two people making the decisions for you? I have no clue. I know for sure that two people wouldn't be on this earth if my parents had stayed together, Ian and Nate. My dad and Tracy might never have even met. Tracy and I most certainly wouldn't have met. I would've been saved a good...6 or 7 years of verbal and emotional abuse.

Back to the present, where I live with my mother whom I love very much, and I have the most amazing best friend that I could ever ask for, and I am surrounded by people who love me. Ahem. I don't think that other life I just described would be the right one for me. I have some amazing people in my life. I have also lived through some really crappy situations but in the end, they've given me experiences that have turned me into a more stable person. I think it's just as important to understand that there are bad things or people in this world as it is to understand the good things and people. I regret things that I have done, personally, in my life, but I do not regret the life I have lived and am living. I might not like it all the time, because God knows I'm not 100% happy all the time, but I am so lucky.

I do question what if's sometimes, but does that mean that I'm not a fortune or happy person? I don't think it does. It just means that I'm curious about what might have been. To think that there could be some parallel place or situation that my life could've been is a weird concept. I feel like I'm high right now or something. But it's totally true. The everyday decisions we make decide what happens. It's so trippy. Haha. Just something to think about!

Today

2009-08-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

I was going to just go to bed without posting, even though I do like to write before I go to sleep, but I knew if I didn't do it tonight, then it would just get easier and easier to not write, and I honestly do feel better and more regrouped when my thoughts are written out and sitting there for me to read again and remind myself. So I'm just doing this short post before I go to bed. I don't really have anything important to say but I wanted to talk about my new shoes!

I got three pairs of new shoes today. I bought some pink and black Adidas sandals. They're the kind that are supposed to massage and stimulate your nerves while you walk or something. I got a pair of Converse All Stars that are a kind of light blue and yellow with swirls and tiny bumblebees all over them :D They're so cute. And last but not least I got some tennis shoes to wear to work and for walking around and stuff which is really what I came for. I <3 all my new shoes, heehee.

All For One

2009-08-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

Everyone seems to really like this picture. I bought two bottles of Pepsi that were in colored green and blue and said All for one and One for all. Everyone loves this and thinks that it's a digitally enhanced picture, or done in photoshop but it isn't :) I took it on my kitchen counter, and added the Cinema effect on Photoscape, and that's it, haha. I'm glad everyone likes it but it's not my favorite picture. XD

The Amityville Horror

2009-08-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of weeks ago I rented two movies. One was a very awful movie called "666 The Child". It was basically the same storyline as The Omen, except it was a lot more vulgar, with way worse acting, and a 9 year old asian boy instead of a 5 year old white kid. It sucked.

I also rented The Amityville Horror (2005), which is [quite obviously] a remake of the 1979 original of the same name. I'm sure most everyone in the US and probably Canada are familiar with the storyline, but I'll refresh your memory. It's about the Lutz family, who move into 112 Ocean Way in Amityville, NY. They get the house for a great deal, but only because it was the site of a mass murder a year before. The man who lived in the house killed his entire family, insisting that the house told him to do it, and that the house had possessed him in some way. The Lutzs' move in, but fled the house after 28 days. It's based on a true story.

Now, I tried to watch this movie a couple years ago and hated it. I don't know what tempted me to rent it again but I did, and for the most part I did enjoy it. It was very creepy and chilling, and I have always had a special place in my heart for modern remakes of classic horror movies. I'm also really interested in true crimes, especially true crimes stories like this one.

Let me just say that I don't believe that the house is possessed, but I do believe in demonic possession. It just interests me to learn about stuff that people say happened in this house. I was on Wikipedia, reading about The Amityville Horror, and it was pretty interesting. I found some of the things the Lutzes claimed happened in the house. George Lutz said that he would wake up at 3:15am every morning and go check on the boathouse, and he later found out that was the time of the DeFeo murders. Kathy Lutz said that her children started sleeping on their stomaches in the exact way that the DeFeo children were found when dead. George said that he saw Kathy transform into ninety year old woman, and they heard voices when trying to do their own blessing of the house telling them to stop and to get out. So, 28 days after they moved in, they decided there was something deeply wrong with their house and fled, leaving their possessions behind.

I really want to read the book written by Jay Ansen, and I'd also like to read the book called "The Night the DeFeo's Died" by Ric Osuna, and "The Amityville Horror Conspiracy" by Stephan Kaplan. As of right now I don't know what to think about what happened in this house. I don't really believe that all the things the Lutzes said happened did, and some if not all of them can be explained but it's obvious that they felt something "wrong" or "bad". You don't just pick up and leave all your possessions behind just because you don't like the molding in the living room window sill or the island in the kitchen. Something has to be really like...wrong.

So, basically? I want to learn more. lol. I'm kind of a weirdo.

I Know Who Killed Me and new pictures

2009-08-27T22:42:00.001-07:00

I seem to have developed a pattern of writing a blog[lately a very long one] right before I go to bed. Tonight we're going to talk about a movie Maegan and I rented called "I Know Who Killed Me".

It came out in 2007 and stars, you guessed it, Lindsay Lohan. Now, this semi review might be a bit biased because I nor Mae were in the mood to watch this type of movie. We both wanted to see it though so we grabbed it off the shelf. Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen it.

It's about a girl named Aubrey who has tons of stuff going for her in life [she's an amazingly talented writer, she's transfering to Yale, her family is loaded, great boyfriend] and then she is kidnapped one night by a serial killer and tortured brutally. This serial killer is someone you would classify as unbelievably deranged. He slips his victims amphetamines so they're awake while he does things like dry icing their hand so it rips the skin off, and many other brutal things.

Well, two weeks after she gets taken, someone finds her on the side of the road, brutally maimed but alive. When she wakes up in the hospital, everyone runs over and greets Aubrey, but there's a minor glitch: Aubrey says she isn't Aubrey. She says her name is Dakota and she has no clue who these people are.

As the movie goes on, Dakota starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together and realizes what is really going on and who is responsible, hence the name- I Know Who Killed Me.

It was not a great movie by any means. I was kind of confused half the time, and the other half of the time I was annoyed because they kept flashing from blue to red when they were talking about the different characters. There were an ungodly amount of plot holes and half the cast just annoyed me. I'd watch it again, however because I liked the storyline. Mae didn't like it because of the ending.

So, that's my somewhat review of that movie. What else happened today? I cut my finger at work, not bad but enough to make it sting ;[ I'm fine though haha. Tomorrow is my free day and I'm going to sleep a lot.

I took a new picture today: Focus on the Rain

Bananas

First day of school review

2009-08-26T21:57:00.001-07:00

Well, today was my first day of the new fall semester. In case anyone was wondering, (regarding my post at 2:16 this morning) I did not accomplish all of my to-do list. Here's how the day started:

I set my alarm for 830 and my clock is 10 minutes fast so it went off at 820. I really need to make my clock the actual time because when I hit the snooze I always go in my head "oh, I have ten more minutes than the actual time" so I end up being late. This time I decided to turn off my alarm. Thank God I ALWAYS set my phone alarm for fifteen minutes later than my actual wake up time in case I become stupid [as I was this morning] and do something like that. So I woke up at 8:45, giving me JUST enough time to check my Facebook [that IS a necessity, stop looking at me like that], shower and get dressed, and grab my water bottle before getting out the door to meet Katie at Scraft at 9:15. Yes, I work wonders.

So it wasn't bad enough that we had to park far away because there were no spots, it was also raining. Really hard. So we got soaked going into the building, only to find out that our teacher for Early US History is the worst person ever. He looks like a fat, pompous chipmunk. Well, he doesn't LOOK pompous, but he sure acts like it. I was like YOU ARE NOT AS GREAT AS YOU ARE PRETENDING TO BE. Plus he focuses on cheating way too much. Anyways.

Then I had another class from 5:30-8:30, Abnormal Psych. I have been waiting for this class since forever. I think I am really going to like it, but the first day was half horrible, and half okay.

Before I launch into that story [this is going to be a very long blog post] let me just say that while I'm very loud and social around the people I know and am comfortable around, when I meet new people or am put in a new situation, my social anxiety starts to kick in. I'm incredibly shy and I'm afraid that I come off as really standoffish. So the first day of class is always one of those types of situations.

For some reason, my teachers always seem to delight in doing those stupid ice breaker things. My abnormal psych teacher seemed to take it to the next level. Instead of just having us go around the room and say three facts about us [which is bad enough] he decided that he wanted everyone to have two minutes with everyone in the room. We had to meet each person in the room individually. And we didn't do it in an organized fashion. Everything was a giant cluster. It was insane. Of our 3 hour class, 2 hours and 45 minutes of it [No, I'm not exaggerating- it was literally that long] was spent doing this ice breaker. He made it a point to get around the room and talk to everyone, too.

He's a very nice guy, Mr. St. John, and I'm REALLY excited for his class. We aren't going to be having any tests, we'll be watching three movies, and learning all kinds of stuff that I'm excited to learn. GAH! Hahaa.

So I guess my first day wasn't too bad. Very long. It'll be a few days before I'm used to my busy schedule again. I got some really bad news before my night class, my grandpa Smallwood had a small stroke today. I don't know what classifies a stroke as small but it's still a stroke. Obviously I am hoping and praying for him to make a full recovery...everyone is. Any thoughts and prayers you have to offer his way or my family's way are greatly appreciated. <3

2:16 am

2009-08-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's 2:16am and instead of doing something constructive like sleeping, [since I'm to be up at 8:30 for my first class of the school year] I'm facebooking and looking at photography tips on DPS and blogging. I lead such an exciting life. It's too hot in here to sleep and I now understand why Pedro shaved off all of his hair in Napoleon Dynamite. It's way too hot to sleep. I don't know why my mom is so stubborn and will never turn on the air. Plus Zelda's been barking non stop and I can't get her to shut up.

So, yeah. First class at 9:30 tomorrow morning, with Katie. I've dedicated too many posts to my class schedule and stuff so I won't talk about it anymore.

Goals for tomorrow:
-Get up at a decent time and DON'T hit my alarm twenty times.
-Eat a good breakfast before class. This means no oreos or energy drinks, as I'm tempted to do.
-Make sure my work clothes are fully dry before I go to work...damp jeans are no one's friend. *is a loser*
-Make it through class.
-Get to work by 11:15.
-Work.
-Eat a proper lunch.
-Nap before my evening class [which won't be long since I get off at 3 and have class at 5:30]
-Get to class on time.
-Don't fall asleep in class.
-Come home and do whatever homework may be on my plate for the evening.
-Don't be a cranky bitch while all of this is going on.
-Get to bed at a decent hour and NOT have insomnia tomorrow night.

Think I can do it? Me neither.

Amber Updates

2009-08-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

Well, school starts on Wednesday, so once again I will back to balancing my life and making a pretty busy schedule work to my advantage/for me. :] I have Fridays completely off and most of the day Tuesdays, which I guess I will use to catch up on any homework I don't do. This year I'm determined to make the most of college and of all my classes and get good grades. Well, right now I have a 3.7 which I worked hard for so I'm determined to keep it or raise it.

I remember this time last year, I was so nervous and scared. I felt like such a dork, haha. Even though it's just Schoolcraft, I had kind of a hard time adjusting and basically hated the school and all of my classes for the fall semester, which sucked. I remember when Monday morning came and I had to get up and start the school week all over again, I almost wanted to cry. But luckily after that semester I got used to balancing homework, going to class, working and doing my own stuff so I was much happier. And I learned what worked and didn't work as far as planning my schedule went. Last semester I had classes every day, so this time I learned to plan one day where I had the day off, so I chose Friday. =] Why not get an early start to the weekend?

So my schedule is:
Monday: Early American History- 9:3am-10:50am. Work 11:15-3pm. Political Science 6-9 or something haha.
Tuesday: Computer Information Services- 9:30-10:50am.
Weds: Early US History again. Work again. Abnormal Psych 5:30-8:30
Thursday: CIS again. Work.
Friday: Nada! :]

I have Early American History with Katie, I'm glad I have a class with her. I wish I had a class with Maegan, maybe we will take one together in the winter. =] I bought my books last Tuesday-432$. Ouchhhh. :/

In other news, Katie and I went on our mini vacation to Lexington Thursday to Friday and I think we both had a pretty good time. I got some beautiful pictures out of it, if I do say so myself. :P It was nice to hang out with her, we haven't done anything like that in a long time.

The picture at the beginning of my post is one that I took of the Ambassador Bridge when we went to Port Huron/Lexington. I feel really confident about my photography right now, not arrogant, just confident, like I've gotten better at it than I was when I started. It takes a lot to make me feel "confident" about anything that I do because I don't have a lot of faith in the things I do. I love photography, it's something that makes me truly happy and content and I wish that I could make a career out of it. But I'm someone who needs stability and to know what's coming or up ahead in life, so unfortunately if following my passion isn't going to absolutely pay the bills when I'm older than I can't do it. It kind of kills me a little, though. =/

2009-08-17T23:00:00.001-07:00

I found myself getting stuck into a rut again tonight on my drive home. Not a literal rut, thank goodness lol, but the same kind of mental rut I get stuck into once in a while. Sometimes I just wish, with all of my power, that I could go back in time to when I was younger. I miss the way things used to be. It's not that I don't love the way things are now, because most of the time I do. It's just that everything changed (as things tend to do) and I feel a little more disconnected from other people and parts of my past that I wish I weren't disconnected from. I'm extremely grateful for the people I have in my life and all of the great things I do have, but sometimes I just wish I could go back in time...it's probably a stupid thought.

I've decided to try to cut out caffeine. So, when I do drink pop, I want to start drinking root beer or sprite, or things like that. I'm not supposed to have caffeine as it is, with my medicine, but I eventually want to stop drinking pop all together and stick to juice or water. Pop is sooo bad for you.

Tomorrow we go and get my books...is it weird that I'm excited?

Survey

2009-08-17T16:44:00.001-07:00

--Stole it from Livejournal. lol.

Who sleeps in bed next to you?
Depends on Zelda's mood. Sometimes her, or sometimes Batman Bear if I feel like it :P

What book(s) are you currently reading?
My list of books just keeps growing... "The Condition" by Jennifer Haigh, "I know this much is true" by Wally Lamb, and "April Showers" by VC Andrews

Do you have any habits/methods you must follow or feel 'off' for the rest of the day?
Hmm...I'm sure I do...I need to read before I go to bed or I won't feel relaxed so I won't sleep well. lol.

What's your occupation?
Student/Gourmet Sandwich Artist

What's really creepy?
Random people who smile at you. CLOWNS.

What is your least favorite color?
yellow

What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
House, of course. Always it comes back to House...

What are you listening to right now?
Nothing.

What are you most excited for?
Up north on Thursday =]

What websites do you always visit when you go online?
facebook, yahoo!, blogger, LJ, myspace, hulu, etc, etc

What was the last thing you bought?
A bagel and mountain dew at panera. oh my gosh, that bagel was so good!

What city have you always wanted to live in?
Hmm. Chicago

Does the weather affect your mood?
Eh, kind of

What is your zodiac sign?
Libra

Do you want to learn another language?
I want to learn sign language

What user (either on or off your flist) is a must-read for you? Why?
I read Mae's blog

Do you have any siblings?
2 half brothers that I never see or talk to

What show coming back this fall are you most excited for?
House =]

2009-08-16T21:33:00.001-07:00

Here's to hoping that next week is very relaxing, and doesn't make me quite as upset or stressed as last week did. Tomorrow I work from 11-3, then I'm getting coffee with Evelyn at Panera. It should be fun, I haven't seen her in a while. =]

On Thursday, me, Grandma and Katie are going up to Port Huron/Port Sanilac/Lexington for the night. It's not long but it's long enough for me. Being away from home for the night and going to the beach is just what I need. School starts a week from Wednesday (O.O) and I'm kind of apprehensive, albeit excited. I've been off since May 1, I am ready to go back. This time I'm taking...Early American History, Political Science, Computers and Abnormal Psych. Soooo pumped for Abnormal Psych, it's gonna be interesting.

Hopefully I get some nice pictures when we go up north Thursday, I've been itching to take some new pictures =]

A little free advertising, have a looksee at my photography.

My DeviantART

Used books and surveys

2009-08-15T20:47:00.001-07:00

Maegan showed me this website that she gets her books from, called Half.com. You can get gently used books for a fraction of the price, and while I love buying brand new books haha, I'd also rather save, like, 80% of cover price. There's this book I want to read called "The Deep End of the Ocean" by Jacquelyn Mitchard and for the hardcover gently used version it's .75 cents (plus shipping and handling, of course.) I'd say that's more than reasonable. Michele said she would order it for me, which makes me uber happy. :]

Michele also referred me to this new survey site called zoompanel.com. You take surveys, get points, and then with the points you can get prizes and stuff mailed to you, and you don't have to pay anything, not even shipping. I thought they would have lame prizes that you'd have to work forever to get to but surprisingly they have some really great ones. In the 2000 point range is a book I've been wanting to read for a while but haven't wanted to spend 18 dollars on. So, that's cool.