Merry Christmas and a Year Free of the Apocalypse!

It's Christmas in more than half the world right now! According to the NORAD Santa tracker, Santa is making his way through Portugal right now. I'm just writing to wish everyone out there an extremely merry Christmas!
Christmas is the time of year that I look forward to every year. I love giving presents (love, love giving presents), and honestly, I love getting them just as much. In my family, every Christmas Eve we eat Donatos Pizza, and Christmas day we eat cinnamon and orange rolls for breakfast before opening out stockings and presents. This was the first year that I was able really buy people gifts (thanks to my more than generous parents and my excellent job at the library), and I'll admit, I may have spent more than all of my roommates combined on presents this year, but it was all more than worth it. I know that Christmas has been horribly commercialized over the years, and people complain every year about how much Americans want to "get get get" on Christmas when we should just be enjoying each other's company and celebrating Jesus's birth, but still. I think that giving presents is more than appropriate and one of the best parts of this holiday!
That being said, Christmas is more than just about that. Christmas is celebrating the new life of Jesus, having been born about two thousand years ago. To celebrate this, my family, our friend Hai Ming, and I are watching The Nativity Story as we wait for Christmas to arrive. It's a wonderful way to spend this holiday season.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. One more year is almost over and another one is beginning.

Rain Rain Break the Window

Coming back into reality can be horribly startling at times. That's the best way to discern an excellent book from a simply okay book. It's the excellent books that make you forget where you are in time and space, entirely blocking out the clock, one could spend hours reading an excellent book and think it was only minutes. Perhaps, of course, in my particular office this may be a problem, but it's all worth it in the end.
I hadn't, in a very long while, read a book that made me forget myself, become absorbed wholly in the story, the plot of another world beyond my own. It's a wonderful thing when such books are found, they are to be treasured for their wonder and remarkability. I finished The Soldier's Wife today, it was one of few books that I have read that come from the "adult" section of our library. I've been, little by little, trying to transition myself over from the teen section, but it's a scary change, the teen section has been my home for nearly ten years now, I know those shelves like the back of my hand. It was really an especially odd time to choose that book to read because I am trying desperately to finish off a 2011 reading challenge, of which I pledged to read 30 books in one year. I have a number of books from my ever familiar teen section checked out, each of which I could finish in less than a day instead of the three that it took to finish this one. Yet it was apparently a good choice, The Soldier's Wife was much more wonderful than I could have anticipated. I read most of it on our office during breaks between shelving books, and the cliffhangers were horrible when I found that I had to leave again to shelve. But the last section of it, the last bit of that wonderful book, was stunning. The last time I cried over a book was back in July, rereading the Harry Potter series, but this book more than deserved the tears that were shed to it. I cannot spoil it for anyone, that would be more terrible than the worst of crimes. Let me  be the one to assure all readers, however, that I, at least, fell in love with this book. There were certain parts that I didn't approve of, which I expected after picking it out of the adult section, and there was one little plot tail at the end that has been a little overdone, at least in what I have read, but overall it was too enthralling, too engaging, to be put down for longer than absolutely necessary. It was after I finally read those last few words and closed the pages that I realized how much I had missed - the calm albeit dreary day had long since turned into a torrential downpour that threatened to break the window above me, and half the people from my office were gone, already having started another cart which I had completely zoned out of. These are the best kinds of books. For a few hours today, I was living on an island occupied by German soldiers during World War II. Those were certainly scary times.

We are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

I've been trying to blog a new post (post a new blog) for hours. Nothing I starts gets more than a paragraph (short paragraph) or two in before I discard it. This is ridiculous. Because of my blogblock, you all are now welcome to know some interesting points about my life. Because I need to post something.

Our study smells like syrup, cat pee, or flowers. One of those.

The beta fish right next to me was flipping out just now - literally. Flipping out and in the water of his bowl.

I have discovered my love of the forties. The forties in England.

There is a Salsa Dance Party going on next door right now.

Jessie and I just watched the season finale to the first season of Doctor Who with the eleventh doctor. Still haven't seen the most recent one. It's driving me crazy.

I have been trying to get my scanner to work for TWO WEEKS at LEAST and it is still being absolutely unresponsive to any of my requests. I may light it on fire. Legit.

The song playing right now is "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room"

There will be ten days until Christmas as of 28 minutes from me writing this.

No seriously, if you didn't see anything wrong with that, reread that song title.

My arm still hurts from ladling mashed potatoes for two hours yesterday. I consider that pathetic.

First Final

It's December. That means Christmas. I wish that was all that it meant. December means exams. Like, this week. Some lucky people are already done with them. Done with exams! I want to be done with them. Right now. But no,all of my exams are on Thursday - the last possible day. All of them. I'm so tired of studying. I'll never get through all of the material. Never. I'm going insane. I'm supposed to be studying last now. I've been studying for the last couple hours, at least. I want to do dishes. I want to clean the house. I want to blog or draw or anything but study. If I just don't go to any of my exams, I'll still get Cs in all of my classes. That should make me feel better, right? I think it should, but it doesn't. I hate this. There are three other people in my house taking exams. One of them is done already. One has resigned herself to studying only tomorrow morning, and one is out studying at her boyfriend's house. In my living room there are four people - two couples - who are not in college and so not taking exams. They are relaxing. They are hanging out. They are being sociable (within their respective couples). I have another night of this psychological torture before my exams come. I just want all of this to be over. Right now. Why isn't this over yet?

Nine o' Clock Coffee

Every single class at Ohio State is offered at 10:30 in the morning. All of them. Sure, most of them are offered at other times too, but if you're lazy or forgetful like me, what you'll notice is that ten thirty seems to be the last slot open for everything, which is especially odd, since it does seem as though that is the prime class-taking time. It frustrates me so that the ONE class that I have to take for my major this quarter is offered at, what a shock, ten thirty. Distressing.
On another note, I love the word distressing. Also, the word ridiculous. Those are two great words. I think I started using distressing to replace depressing, which is odd because they're not the same meaning.
In other news (which is different from "on another note" because news references television, while notes reference music), Christmas is coming, guys! Tomorrow is December. December may be my favorite month of the year, fo' realz. Anyone who hasn't already needs to go start streaming the Radio U Christmas Channel (radiou.com, you'll find it). It makes for such a cheery morning, being able to get up and turn it on on my brand new tiny laptop with amazing battery and just carry it around from room to room. I did all of my dishes this morning. Actually, let me tell you about these supposed dishes. See, I planned on getting to work at 10:15. So I was going to leave home at 9:30, because I always assume it takes me forty five minutes to get to work. I think this may, in fact, be a vicious, vicious lie. Why, you ask? It was 9:30 when I finally made it downstairs this morning. Then I decided that I needed to do all of my dishes from the last two or three days. It was only after that that I thought to make my (mom) coffee and cream cheese my cinnamon bread. Then I had to wait for my coffee to cool down. I feel sure that this must have taken about fifteen minutes at least. Then I still needed to drink my coffee. I did all this, stood for a while at the bus stop, and got to work. Know what time it was when I was entering the Library? 10:10. WHUT. This is crazies. Ridiculous. Distressing. How, I ask how, does this happen? Did I just add an extra hour between nine and ten this morning? I feel like a member of the new midnighters, but we'll have to name ourselves the nineoclockers. That doesn't sound as cool. It just doesn't.

Practice Practice Practice *Headdesk*

I like to consider myself a writer. I also like to consider myself an artist. I'm entirely amateur in both of these aspects, but I like to think that over time I'll be able to work myself up to a respectable level with both.
Whenever I see a great writer or artist asked for advice about how to improve, no matter what they respond with, it always ends or begins with "practice."
Practice is answer to the questions of "life, the universe, and everything." It's always what people need, whether they are willing to admit it or not. I've tried to avoid this thesis for many years of my life, but whether I like it or not, that's what the answer is.
I have never been able to look back on something I wrote and say "that was a good work." I love the concepts of what I write, but rarely can I reread what I wrote. It grates my ears; it's neither eloquent not graceful, and rarely do I feel as though I can portray the right emotion. When writing commentum (fiction), I used to put too much detail into describing my characters, and none of the surroundings. Now I put too much detail into my surroundings, and none into my characters. When I write dialogue, it gets choppy at best and my use of pronouns is never where it should be, as I just forget to use them altogether when I'm writing because it takes so long that I forget who is saying what, and have to write the name to remind myself. My chapters are only a page or two long, which I cannot explain except to say that my writing is so bare-bones that I leave 80% of the details that I should be putting in. To be succinct, I hate it. I'll write for the experience of writing, and because I feel as though I have all these ideas in my head that I don't want to forget, but I don't have the skill to really record them the way they should be recorded, and for that I feel slightly shameful.
It was for this very reason, that I can see every flaw in my writing, that for long stretches of time I don't write. I'll create a dialogue or narrative in my head of everything I can think of, because I so desperately want to consider myself a writer, but I don't have the guts to put anything down on paper (virtual or otherwise). Thus, improvement has not so much been an option. Lately, I've taken on a different stance. I know that for a long time yet I'll probably still hate my writing, but if I don't write, I will never surpass my current state and God knows that would be depressing. So I'm ignoring my writing and I'm just going to keep barreling through it whether I like it or not.
On the other hand, there's my drawings. As opposed to my writing, I've always been especially proud of my drawings and paintings when I think I've done a good one. When I finish something, I'm proud of it and I like to show it off. I know in the back of my mind that I need plenty of improvement on that front too, though, for two main reasons. One is, of course, that the artists that I follow on various sites have been better than me since I discovered them, and I have been able to watch their abilities grow and explode overtime, much more than mine have, leaving me farther behind. The other is that I keep record of my drawings, and when I look back at something that I previously considered my best and most inspiring piece of work, I can now point out so many flaws and problems and it looks unbalanced and askew and I'm sure that if I flipped the image it would look as sideways as if I had taken opposite corners and stretched it out, if you know what I'm saying. My main problem with improvement on my artwork is that I have found that I really have to work to find something to make into a full-scale drawing. I don't know for certain, but I feel as though if I were to just doodle whatever came to mind for hours, I would get the same basic headshot and positioning with a bajillion slightly different faces and hair styles. Whenever I draw, I feel as though I can come out with one very good drawing, and then everything else is bland and forgettable and not even worth coloring. It's depressing really, as I'm afraid that I'm losing my imagination, day by day.
Really though, deep down I'm pretty sure that's not true. I get the feeling that it's really that I simply cant draw as well as I would like to, I want to be able to draw so many dozens of different poses that I know right now I wouldn't be able to accomplish. I want to be able to lay out my drawings in such a way that there's not just one person standing in a normal face-forward arms-at-her-sides persons standing slightly left of center. I have been neglecting drawing anything for month, though, because I've feared that everything would come out the exact same way. Practice cant make that much of a difference when every picture is the exact same, right?
Well I've decided that I need to change that. It's harder than with writing because I want to make an instant digital archive (see: blog) of everything that I draw, so I need to actually hook up my scanner (no idea how that works) or use my tablet (which I only want to use with photoshop, which then limits me to a cold lonely study unless I want to drag my desktop down a flight of stairs). I'll get it working somehow. Maybe.

Liverpool!

Totally and extremely relevant to my last post, I just went to the most fantastic Linguistics seminar today. The speaker (oh my goodness she was from New Zealand) was giving a talk today titled Football vs. Football. To summarize, she and one of her friends went to Fados and saw that the soccer fans there, although American, would gain a British accent when cheering for their team. So the two of them conducted an experiment that was all about how when fans of a team take on a sort of identity from that team, they can affect a similar accent.
In other words, if I start watching British soccer, I'm going to adopt a British accent.
Yes.

Really, that's all I had to say on that topic. I just wanted to let you know my future plans to infiltrate the land of Great Britain with a soccer accent. Now I just need to find a team to cheer for.

Sometimes

Sometimes I just need to write. Honestly, though, those are often the times that I can't think of a THING to write ABOUT. I think it's because normally when I want to write, it's because I'm just so darn excited about something that I want to share it with the world, you know? But the thing is, it's really probably not that interesting to OTHER people, when I really think about it. Like right now. Do you know what I'm excited about right now? British things. British things are really not that interesting on their own. It's like a sentence with a noun and no verb, there's really not much point to it. Like, hey guys, guess what? And you guys are all like, what? And I'm like, BRITAIN. Now, is that supposed to be interesting? Because clearly, it isn't. I need a plot for my post. I can't just be like, let me list everything I love about Britain because, well, I would start to consider myself incredibly shallow and then I would get depressed and wonder why I'm just sitting here switching between watching Merlin and Doctor Who (although this point is no longer valid now, because we are now watching Enchanted). Speaking of Merlin and Doctor Who, the main character of Merlin (you know, Merlin) was in an episode of Doctor Who! And I found this out because for a second it occurred to me that the guy who plays Arthur in Merlin might be the guy from the Narnia series, Peter (which I thought because I saw a commercial for Narnia on the Enchanted DVD). So I looked him up and he clearly wasn't but then I went back to see who the actor who plays Merlin had also played in and it said Doctor Who and I was like HEY, and then I realized that he in fact played a character that I had looked up a while ago because I thought he was the guy who played Edmund in Narnia. Long story short? I think that everyone in Britain was at one point a character in Narnia. Maybe I should be worried about this. Also, Narnia is in our refrigerator. I'm sure of it.
So anyway. I want to read some British books. Were the shoes books British? Are fairy tale books British? Oh good, my roommates just got home.

"Wakarimas ka, Collins-San?"

I've started my first year of college, which means I have also started my epic and amazing first quarter of Japanese. It's a scary class, with 45 minutes of recitation (not resuscitation) class each day, and 45 minutes of lecture every Thursday and Tuesday. Among the other incredible changes to how I learn a language, in our daily recitation class (also called ACT class), there is no English allowed. Once roll call starts being called ("Adams-San!" "Hei!" "Brown-San!" "Hei!"), the only English that comes out is when explaining the surroundings of whatever scenario we are discussing. Even then, it's all in simple phrases such as when the Sensei points to a picture of a building on a power point and saying "Tookyo University, new exchange student" but even then, the words are dutifully performed with a Japanese accent, rendering them almost unintelligible if one is not paying attention.
We have six different Senseis (teachers) that cycle in and out of the classroom. Three of which are Japanese (Kuwai-Sensei, Fuse-Sensei, Tsuchiya-Sensei), and three American (Mason-Sensei, Christenson-Sensei, Curtin-Sensei). After a few weeks of class (five weeks? Has it really been five weeks?), their individual affect on the class has become incredibly apparent, and incredibly unique from one another. The three prime examples that I have are Kuwai-Sensei, Tsuchiya-Sensei, and Christenson-Sensei.
Kuwai-Sensei is an older Japanese lady. She seems genuinely excited about the class, her fragile frame bursting with energy as she asks us whether we want to eat, drink, or play a game (in Japanese, of course). However, the air in the room when she walks in is tensed with nerves. As happy as she is, Kuwai-Sensei strikes fear into the hears of everyone in the classroom. Her snap decisions to point to... you! "Kiree zya nai desu ne?" will end in a few seconds of stammering before she swirls to another person, your score for the day having dropped at least 20% in those five seconds of nerves. When Kuwai-Sensei is in the classroom, there is silence by everyone except those whom she is addressing, and when she makes a joke, people genuinely want to laugh, but even the giggles are infused with the nerves of hoping she doesn't hone in on the one who is laughing to ask the next question. At the end of class, when Kuwai-Sensei exclaims "otsukare samadesita!" everyone lets out a sigh of relief that it's over.
Tsuchiya-Sensei is a young Japanese man, in his late twenties if I would guess, with a wedding ring on his finger. He's excited to do his job as a teacher, excited and happy to interact with us and invent new ways to convey the material. When he walked into the classroom this week, he turned to the class and informed us "I had a powah-point for class, but I thought this would be more fun" and proceeded to spend the class drawing horribly inaccurate pictures on the board with crazy gestures and using his own cell phone for conversations with us (Sidner-San! Odenwa desu!). On days when we're taught by Tsuchiya-Sensei, our class is lively, holding side conversations that are surprisingly relevant to whatever he is saying. No one is ever afraid to answer his question because he rarely brings around his clipboard (forever the symbol of being graded) while he's conversing with us. Those are the classes we always look forward to the most.
Christenson-Sensei (I'm really not quite sure if that is how his name is spelled) is quiet. When he walks into the classroom, people don't always notice at first. Maybe though, it's not even that he's quiet. Everyone can certainly hear him when he starts roll call, but we all feel as though we have to be quiet ourselves, to catch every word he's saying. When Christenson-Sensei is teaching, anyone could hear a pin drop - in the class next door. No one talks unless specifically spoken to, copying his minimalistic airs. He speaks with emotion, as any good teacher does, but even his emotion is exuded quietly. We don't have nearly as much of a fear of grading with him, because his normal style is to take the clipboard and go around the room once, asking us our CCs (core conversations, basic vocabulary), and seemingly grading us on that one encounter, which by then we will all have practiced quite a bit. I'm fairly sure at this point that he grades us at other times and we simply don't notice, but it takes the pressure off, none the less. His classes do seem a bit more drawn out, however, because we are rarely passing the time talking. Still, a longer class is preferable to a more stressful class.
Honestly, I love class with any of my teachers. Even Kuwai-Sensei has earned the nickname (unknowingly) in one class "Kawaii Kuwai," meaning cute Kuwai, because even as scary as she is, she's still adorable. This has been, so far, an amazing year.

From Apple Cider to Pumpkin Lattes

I really want to change my blog style again to match fall - this is why I kept the same blog background for so long, because I knew once I started changing it I would never be satisfied again.
At Christmas I'm definitely changing it to fit the mood.

The computer I'm typing on right now has an extremely outdated version of ie and nothing else, so none of the posting styles here are really... available to me. I'll have to wait until I get to my own computer if I ever want to do anything fancy...
Aaaaanyway - enough of those ellipses! On to the main course of action! Fall!
It's started this morning, I call it. I'm sure there's probably some warm days left (or maybe a lot, I don't care) but after the first day that I wake up and feel cold wearing a hoodie (an exceptionally warm hoodie) to work, I say fall has begun. The air was crisp this morning and the bus was beautifully warm on the inside. This week they started selling pumpkin lattes in the cafe downstairs of where I work, which definitely sounds like a fall kind of drink. Like a college fall kind of drink. (italics and parentheses are my thing today, apparently). Really, apple cider is always my fall drink (thanks for the mixes, Mom!), but for all those cool, cool college elites, it seems that pumpkin spice lattes are the way to go. It's odd to think that even how seasons are welcomed changes as we get older; fall still means the beginning of school to me, but it also means a search for textbooks and learning how to get around campus to classes. It still means cooler temperatures but it also means that I actually have to pay attention to the temperatures beforehand, instead of having my mom throw coats and hoodies at me as I walk out the door (I swear this text window I'm writing in keeps getting smaller). It means Halloween is coming soon (approximately), and hopefully some bonfires (given the landlord relents), and colorful changing leaves, and the most adorable cat in the world trying to adopt our house as a cozy place to sleep (sorry Batcat!), and walking into a warm house after work warming up with some good apple cider and a movie with my housemates - fall is a wonderful thing.
This is a horribly boring post, but simply writing it had brightened my spirits. Now I'm going to go brew some potions on Pottermore - go Ravenclaw!

It's an Odd Thing to Live in a Dream

When I was in second grade, we learned how to draw three-dimentionally in art class. We started out with drawing spheres (hokay, I didn't draw spheres, I drew circles), and then onto boxes (mine were terribly out of proportion), and then our assignment was to draw a room.
I fell in love with drawing rooms. Mine were, as always, terribly skewed out of proportion, but it was for years one of my favorite thing to draw. I still have that first drawing of a room that I did back in second grade; it's got a pink floor and orange walls, a canopy bed and a toy chest and bookshelves and a hampster and a plant that stretches up to the ceiling and cats. Cats are everywhere. Really, the worst part about the room is the fact that if it was a real room, it would probably be about twenty to thirty feet tall. But ignoring tha fact, it was my dream room.
Interestingly enough, that room also had one other thing; it had a trap door in the ceiling (with a cat looking out from it of course). That trap door drew me to the idea of creating a whole house. It was exciting, being able to connect so many rooms of my own creation.
The problem was, a whole house to myself was going to get lonely. I think it was when I realized this that the idea donned on me. The idea that I dreamed about for years and years and years after this point. So I scrapped (see: placed not-so-neatly in a pile with other drawings) my first picture of my room and started again.
This new bedroom that I drew had one major difference even at the start; instead of that wonderful glorious canopy bed, one whole wall had been replaced with eight or ten nooks, like giant shelves in a bookcase. These nooks all had blankets and pillows and a curtain to pull across and they belonged to me and my nine closest friends. The room was no longer my own room but a room shared with me by everyone I deemed important in my life (aka all the girls in my elementary school class). Suddenly the drawings of the whole house became much more lively. Dogs began to encounter the hundreds of cats living there. More bookcases and videogames were added. Cookies, so many cookies, were in the kitchen. There was a party in that house every night.
I loved this idea. I had always wanted a giant family (at the time when I drew this I didn't even have cousins), this seemed to be the pefect solution.
Over the years the scenario changed. The idea of the cubbyholes in the wall for beds stayed with me all the way through elementary school, but in middle school when my circle of friends grew, I found that I needed more space. We started to inhabit an old school, with two or three of the classrooms serving as bedrooms, and breakfast lunch and dinner in the gym (where we would dine on pancakes constantly, I believe). Sometimes we were all actually related (don't ask me how that worked), sometimes we were all orphans running our own orphanage (money wasn't a problem, we had all been left fortunes by our parents). I had an odd dream in early middle school where were were all living in our old elementary school and playing a giant, slightly deadly, game of capture the flag.
Middle school was also when I and a couple of my friends started getting into Neopets (we were always late to latch onto a fad), and we decided that we lived in a house together with our eight neopets (who were older than we were, don't ask me how that worked) in tow. That idea lasted for years and probably about a hundred comics were created from it.
Then when the idea of living with my friends began to wear off a little (because honestly, our lives simply werent all that interesting), I began to imagine other worlds. That was when I decided I wanted to be a writer, and the first major story I ever wrote was about a group of kids that looked and acted exactly like my friends and myself (but with different names, so they obviously weren't the same people) who had escaped from some sort of genetic mutation testing facility that conveniently gave them all super powers and were now living in a beautiful old three story house together (how did we afford the house? One of us was a computer hacker and managed to hack into the accounts of people that had recently died and that no one cared about and steal their money). That story lasted for years, and eventually ended up that there were a few houses like that full of people who had escaped all across the city (that lab had awful security). That was one of my favorite stories for a long time and involved a lot of people using the house forks to build a tower or "borrowing" someone's new Hummer/Jeep (which always belonged to my alter-ego) and taking it for a joy ride. In early high school the orphan idea came back into place when I came up with the theory that the United States had put a new law into effect that stated that no family could have more than two children. As a result of this law, the entire state of Ohio became the Orphan State, where all the abandoned children ran away to in order to stay alive and not be put into a work house, at least until they were eighteen and became legal. That story existed in many different forms, but always ended up with a group of children (myself included, in one form or another) living in an abandonded college dorm by the name of Stradly or an old church campus.
Late high school found me revisiting my neopets and finding that there were now six or seven between mine and my friends that were living in a house together, alwys getting in fights the way that people who live together normally do (welcome to my bout of starting to become realistic). At the same time came a story about an army (I think it was Russian) attacking and destroying the entire United States, resulting in a family of people coming together who had narrowly escaped the army.
I loved - and still love - the idea of having a house full of people. I didn't realize until I started looking back on my old stories and artwork how much I really in fact craved the idea of having a huge family. Don't get me wrong, I love the family I have, but there's only four of us and I found that at my parents' house I spent hours alone. I loved those hours though. Oddly enough, at the same time that I wanted so desperately to live in a house filled with all fifty of my closest friends, I spent the school days just waiting to get home and be on my own.
Yet see, this summer I moved out of my parents' house. It didn't occur to me at the time, but the house I was moving into was my dream house. Literally. I've daydreamed for so many years about living with the people that I've moved into a house with. I've now got two roommates and five housemates, and although it was hard to get used to having people in the house all the time, I've started to realize just how much of my own dream world I'm living in. Sans the part about us all being orphans or inheriting/stealing large sums of money for rent and food.
I think I'm in heaven.

What do I do now?

Did you know Rupert Grint is arachnaphobic?

It's happened again; I've become way too attached to something and now I no longer know what to do with myself. I've just recently realized that i have loyalty problems. Not the way that it sounds, no, it turns out that I am, in fact, much too loyal for my own good. I know that this has happened before although I admit that I don't remember when. But I remember this feeling of, I don't know exactly, emptiness, when it's done. Harry Potter had fallen off the map of my life for a while, a number of years really, because of a number of reasons. I was working hard at keeping my grades up, improving my artwork and learning the name of every Pokemon in existence. More than any of those reasons, however, it was because I was scared to read the books again. I was never sure quite why I was scared; it was something about my competitiveness. I felt that people already knew so much more about the books than I would, and that reading them again would be too... confusing, perhaps? I really don't quite know what that feeling was, but I dreaded the thought of those books (and movies) for a long time, as if I was scared of them.
But I wanted to remember the last book, before I saw the end. So I invoked a challenge for myself. I read all seven books in seven days, the week preceeding the release of the final movie. The more I read, the more I remembered, the more I learned, the more excited I became. The books became exciting again, as exciting as they were when I was in second grade, listening to them being read to me for the first time. The more I read, the more excited I became by them. I couldn't put them down for anything. When at last they were over, I headed straight to a marathon of the first seven books, I made a Ravenclaw outfit for myself, I became entranced with the music flowing through the movies, music that I had never noticed before but now became so pivotal to the series in my mind.
I saw the movie at midnight. My emotions at this point were beyond expressing, I felt a lasting high from excitement, and adrenaline buzzed inside me for not only the hour we were sitting there waiting for the movie to start, but also for the length of the movie; I'm not sure I even blinked, for fear of missing something. I would never be able to give an honest evaluation of the movie, my opinion so biased by the fact that it is Harry Potter and nothing else matters. They finished it, and I watched it, it happened. I cried a lot, more so than any other time when it was over.
But the problem is that more than anything I don't want it to be over. I've finally caught myself up with the series, a little late I'm afraid, and now I don't know what to do with myself. I mean, there's one thing left to look forward to, and that's Pottermore, but I'm desperately scared that I'm not going to be one of the ones getting in two months early, which is the first problem. The second problem is that none of my friends are getting on board this mini Hogwarts express with me. So often I find that I hang onto a bandwagon much longer than anyone else I know, and this is certainly one of those times. I don't know what's going to happen to the Potter world now, and that's what scares me. It's already heightened my emotions incredibly, so that whenever, in my second round of re-reading, I come across a character like Fred I feel like crying. I hate having an uncertain future for such a major part of my life at the moment. I don't know if I'm explaining myself clearly at the moment, but I do know that the more I talk about it here the less my roommates and parents will have to hear my go on and on about it, which would probably be a plus for them.
The point is that I don't know what to do with myself now. There's no new Harry Potter to look forward to, but I want so desperately for it to not be over that I have ended up making myself slightly miserable. I'm re-reading the books again, but then that brings into the question of buying the books so that I don't have to keep borrowing the series from my mom (she might appreciate having a series that doesn't end up kidnapped by her daughter for months on end), and buying the series brings up the question of hardcover or paperback, and then the question of the movies, and more importantly getting the soundtracks (somehow these have become more important than the movies). I love these books so much, and I feel at the moment like anything else I read will simply be... inadequate!
But now I have simply started rambling, and I have no milk in the refrigerator. The point is that I am not done talking about the series. I am not done thinking about the series, and I cannot really read it in public at the moment because I am apparently not done crying about the series either. I want a quill pen.

STOP

I would just like to take a minute to have a moment of contemplation for stop signs. Whoever created the stop sign is a genius, I think. Or was he? I'm sure the conversation went something like this;
[Yale Law Professor 1] "Ever since we've started letting people use those crazy self-driven automobiles, people keep running the cars into each other at intersections!"
[Yale Law Professor 2] "Why, how right you are! I wonder whatever could be done about that..."
[Nearby Yale Janitor] "Hows about someone tellin' 'em ta stop?"
[Yale Law Professor 1] "..."
[Yale Law Professor 2] "..."
[Nearby Yale Janitor] *whistles and leaves room*
[Yale Law Professor 1] "...Genius! We'll just tell people to stop!"
[Yale Law Professor 2] "Even better, we'll have a sign to do it for us!"
[Yale Law Professor 1] "My dear professoring friend, someday everyone will know our names for this ingenius invention!"



Apparently, Stop Signs originated in Michigan in 1915 according to Wikipedia, but I would like to point out that it does not say anywhere who invented the stop sign.

The Then and Now

Harry Potter has just released the final movie. More than anything else, the reason I cried when that movie was over was because of the finality. The series is over. The wonderful, incredible, magical series is over. When I read Harry Potter, I am filled with excitement. With the thoughts that anything can happen, and anything may happen. That there are worlds out there where people are doing magic in order to save the world. The books are so artfully written, so engaging and shocking, shocking because every time I read them something new is happening that I seem to have missed the time before. When I watch the movies, I am filled with the music that plays in the background; the music makes the movies, in my opinion, and makes every one heart breakingly beautiful.
But it is not because all that is over that I cried at the end of the last movie. It is always good to remember that one of the best part about Harry Potter is, in fact, that nothing is stopping us from watching the movies and reading the books again, and again, and again. No, I cried because I find so often that while my excitement remains for this series, like it does for so many others, others will forget about Harry Potter. With nothing new coming out, no movies or books, it will fall to the back of their mind. Those of my friends who have never read the books, or who have read only the first few and stopped (a shocking amount of friends I have fall under this category), will probably never read them. They will think that there is no reason to, now that they know everything that is to happen after watching all the movies (of course I believe this to be terribly wrong, for most of what happens in the books is so much more incredible than that which goes on in the movies). Of those who have read the whole series, many I believe will not read them again, will not again open those magical pages to a world so readily available and so stunningly beautiful. This is what happens to me every time an era dies; I find that I continue on in a time which, to most, has come and gone.
I feel sure, at this point, that I am getting on my friends' nerves with all of my talk of Harry Potter. I have a habit of going on too long about such things. The problem is, unfortunately, that I'm secretly afraid that if I stop talking about it, people will much too soon forget. I'm not ready for that yet, I'm not ready to forget about the boy who lived.

Reduce Reuse Recycle Run for it

I made over the blog today! It just seemed to be becoming a little... out of date? I mean, I did start this blog three years ago or so, didn't I? So I decided it's time for a change, time to make it reflect the person I am! Well, if it really reflected who I am the background would probably be so crowded with Pokemon (OMG spellcheck says Pokemon is spelled right! Huzzah!) and Animal Crossing and cleaning supplies and books that none of the words of my blog would really be visible. But if we overlook all that stuff... Recycling! I'm so excited about recycling!
I've always been a big recycler, for as long as I can remember at least. My Mom was the first one who got me into recycling (just because that's what we do at our house), but seeing as how she calls me a recycling nut I think I may have surpassed her... erm, recycling abilities?
But really, it's pretty exciting. There are plans, when we move to a bigger house, to start a compost. A compost. Do you know how much food we put in the trash? I swear, recycling is beyond exciting. Now if only Rumpke would stop being stupid about what they can and cant recycle, everything would be super wonderful.

Welcome to Summer!

What?! Summer?! When did summer get here?! Or is it here yet...? I remember that Summer never technically arrives when I think it does so let me look it up...
... ... ...
Okay so answers.com says that summer started on the 21st of June but then it went into this complicated explanation about how not ever season starts on the 21st blah blah blah and I stopped reading so who really knows? The point is that summer (probably) started and I completely missed it! My life has been so over booked over the last two (or is it three now?) weeks that I cant remember when anything happens and I'm sure there's so much that I've missed.
But man, I LOVE summer! Or at least I love the idea of it. There are certain memories that pop into my head when I think of summer and going by those alone I would say summer is my favorite season ever...
There's a few memories that I have from when I was in probably preschool (or maybe kindergarten) and being baby sat by the wonderful Mrs. Sullivan. One is of riding to a park in her large minivan with her two daughters, Maggie and Kate. We ate lunchables and climbed on the equipment and ran through the tall grass for hours that day. That is the epitome of summer; that is what every summer day should consist of. The second old memory that goes along with my time with Maggie and Kate was a certain day when we visited a friend of theirs out in the country. I don't know who these people were or why we were visiting them (there's a good chance I didn't know at the time, either), but it was a beautiful summer day and we pulled up to a large white house in the middle of a field of wildflowers that seemed to go on forever. That memory has by now become a memory of a memory but I remember that field of wild flowers; that is what summer is about. Wildflowers on a sunny day.
In fact I love summer wild flowers. They're beautiful and magnificent and simply have a will to live. There was a small field down the street from my grandpa's house that was overflowing with them and I loved to go over and smell them, pick them, walk through them or even simply sit there and look at them, take in their beauty. I would live a complete and happy life if I could only go to a field of wildflowers every week and pick some for my living room table.
I've got a birthday coming up (because it is summer, of course), and I'm considering after going out to dinner with my family, insisting that we visit a park. One with plenty of wildflowers to run in.

The Secret

Five days ago today, I was given a secret to hold.
It was a warm secret, content to stay in my hands with just a tickle on my lips once in a while when it squirms to be let out. But often it's content to stay with me, in my clasped hands as it makes a warm nest on my palm. It shines out my fingers with my pride, my pride that I have been given a secret just for me.
"I've never told anyone this" he had said, "I'm not going to tell anyone until it happens." So I'm no one, I'm the one he can trust, I'm a friend.
It was wonderful, beautiful, the secret he gave me. I've been given dark secrets before, secrets that have tained me and squirmed at my insides, coloring me a deep shade depressed as the secret shows the need to get help. Those secrets shred my insides, they beat me and break me down until I cant handle it anymore. Those are the only secrets I have ever held, and they destroyed me, I no longer realized that secrets could be anything but pain.
But this secret is beautiful, it fills me with the realization that someone trusts in me, is willing to open their heart for me to step in. The secret shines in my hands and I look on it everyday and smile. It is not a dark secret, it is one filled with excitement and joy, and there is no need to share it. No need because it will hurt no one, because it is a secret about becoming someone, and no one needs to know but us.
He gave me this secret to keep and I will keep it happily, and wait for it to be fulfilled.

I Belong

It's a wonderful feeling to know that you belong.
I'm sure everyone wonders at some point or another whether they really belong to the group they are in - or to any group at all. I know some people that are so tightly knit in their cliques that they cant go a day without texting one another to make sure no one has disappeared off the face of the planet. I know others that have trouble keeping with any friends at all and end up being lone wolves.
I've worried many times that I'll be one of those people, never finding anyone that I'll have a close friendship with. We can never really see how we look to other people, you know? Few people will honestly tell someone they don't like that, well, they don't like them. I've seen people that thought they had a best friend, only to see that once that person leaves the room, the so-called best friend will all too willingly list off everything annoying about that person.
But I think I've finally found a place where I belong. I've acquired a group of friends that, amazingly enough, I feel as though I can bare my soul to and not get judged behind my back. Granted, it can be a weird dynamic. I've never had a friend before that's not afraid to tell me to my face if they think something I've been doing is wrong. They're not afraid to call me out on my crap - and think that I should do the same for them. It's been a long time since I've had friends that called me up to hang out at a time outside of school, and I forgot how much fun I could have.
There are three of us in this little group. We had a sleepover last night, and for the first time in eight years I stayed up until 5 in the morning with a group of friends that I really cared about. It was the first time in years that I actually had fun at a sleepover, without worrying about people writing on my face while I was sleeping, or gossiping about me when I went out of the room. It was the first sleepover in a long time that I didn't feel like telling someone off for doing something stupid, something that obviously I would never have done (note: sarcasm).
Who else could I talk to about unicorn whales and noodle arms? About Final Fantasy and Animal Crossing? I don't know how I did it, but I found some true friends here, and you can be sure I'm sticking with them.

Practice Makes More Better

I feel stagnant. Is that the right word? I feel as though I'm not going anywhere. The shock of my admittance to OSU has finally worn off (it is still a bit of a buzz when I really think about it though), and like the pessimist I am, I'm already fearing leaving. Not leaving high school, I mean leaving college.

Maybe I'm building it up too much. But I've seen people walk in and out of those doors on campus all my life. Ohio State is my home, I'm loyal to it. It's like Narnia, or Disneyland, or the Pokemon Center; an absolute miracle that I got in!

But the point is that my college life is so far away. I want something exciting to happen now. Dunno for the life of me what, but I feel as though there is something else that I'm supposed to be very excited about that I'm just not.

I want to be able to write like Frost, to draw like Van Gogh, to accomplish extraordinary things in every ordinary day, and when that doesn't happen I am thoroughly disappointed. Am I supposed to lower my expectations, or rewire my idea of accomplishment? I want to get excited at the littlest thing. Life is so much more fun that way! Yet lately, all these annoying little thoughts have come into my mind, "is my room clean enough?" "Did I organize the books the way I want them?" "What will I bring with me when I leave?" "Why do I seem to keep putting on weight?" "Does everyone think I'm eccentric? Or worse?" These little thoughts never seem to leave me alone, and it's hard to be happy with them buzzing in and out of my ears. Go away little thoughts, you're not wanted. Let me be joyous and adventurous and meet my deadlines!

Nobody Dumps THIS

One of my very dear friends Chrissy got dumped by her boyfriend over Christmas Break.

He said things just werent really working out so they might as well just cut it off. Okay, that's a good breakup line: no one is blaming anyone and no one is yelling. The problem was that not only was he yelling, he wasn't talking either. He was texting.

This, my friends, is a social outrage. Breakups through texts just aren't done. There are songs written about how horrible an idea this is. I told my dad this story, and I happened to mention that it had only been a couple of weeks that they had been going out (actually I think it was about a month) and his response, to my complete horror, was that since it was only a few weeks that a text breakup wasn't that bad. I mean I know it wasn't that long that they were actually dating, but I remember all that time that she had spent talking about him before they went out (she only ever referred to him as Somebody), and how much she had liked him, and to break up through a text is rude, selfish, brattish, and has turned a number of girls against him. No one wants to go out with a breakup texter. Really.

Today at lunch, Chrissy had been turned once again onto the subject of her ex, and after ranting for a while, as is her style, she motioned up and down her torso a couple of times and exclaimed, "Nobody dumps THIS!" I believe there might have been a bit of thrusting involved in this action as well, as the boys at our table gave her all kinds of crazy looks. All the girls at our table started laughing, and the random people going by might have stared at us a little (but then, they always do). Take that Jeff. Nobody dumps this. You just went from Somebody to Nobody.

Loyalty

I think I have a problem with loyalty. Well, I don't have a problem "with" loyalty, I have a problem of loyalty. I'm too loyal, basically to the point of being stubborn. If I have somehow created a loyalty to something, then I will defend it to the bitter end, probably even if it no longer deserves my loyalty. (I'm not sure about this, however, because I cant remember a time when something I'm loyal to has failed me. But that might be some rose-colored glasses talking.)

Here's one example - Mac. I love Macs. I love the Apple store, I love Apple products, I love everything to do with Apple and Macintosh and that good old rainbow apple. I feel a great loyalty to them, maybe partly because everyone has always been telling me that Macs are better for artwork than any other computer. Partly because I put such an emphasis on the products I buy looking good. Also partly because of Dinosaur, my first iPod that served me so spectacularly for so long until Christmas when I finally moved on (I'm really going to miss that iPod though). My loyalty to Apple sometimes makes me do crazy things, like insisting on buying the case for my new iPod, Egg, from my local Apple store in order to support it, even though the case is probably half as expensive online. One of the best parts about being loyal to something, however, is the absolute joy I get from those products; more than I get from my laptop or scanner for instance. I love my Mac, and my iPod, and that's sure not changing any time soon.

Where my loyalties become a problem for me, however, is when music is involved. See, I have two loyalties when it comes to my iTunes collection: Pokemon and Radio U. Consequently, my collection reflects that, being about 2/3 music found on Radio U, and about 1/3 music from the Pokemon games and anime. I love my collection dearly, every song I have is just so reflective of me. The problem is, I want other music. I have a list of about 20 songs that my friends have gotten me interested in that are not from either of the above categories. Songs such as Sandstorm, Paper Planes, Viva La Vida, and Float On. I know these songs are well known (which is usually a con in my pro/con list), and I know these songs are good, but I don't know if I should get them or not. I have a loyalty to Radio U and these songs are definitely not Radio U. This little problem of mine probably seems inconsequential to others, especially others who fill up their iPods with music that they've gotten off of Torrent or (gasp!) Limewire. However because of my loyalties to the bands I listen to, I don't do that either. So the question is; do I break down and buy the songs? I'm just not sure!