February

Well, today is the last day of February. This will be my twenty ninth post for February 2012. Now, that's not a post-per-day--I don't really have that much consistency. Some days have provided me with three posts, others none. I'm okay with that. I'm not really a person of habit--too much structure and I feel walled in. What impresses me is that this is going to be my forty-first post of the year. This is more than I've blogged most years since I started this blog in 2009.

Back then, I just wanted a place to post my AMV's--because my dad wouldn't let me have a YouTube account (still no luck with that.) Of course, I was then informed that it was technically not... quite... legal...  to use other people's music in a video you post without some kind of agreement and I felt bad and took down the only one I had posted. Those copyright laws are tricky. >__>
Anyway, Bethany and I soon after posted some anime dubbing we had done for fun (our own audio, so no audio copyright infringement!) and I posted for... about a month. Then it was down to one or two a month or none at all.
Those are not posts I'm extremely proud of, stylistically or grammatically. However, I was writing, so I guess it's fine.
2010 saw one or two posts a month... except July which had 14 and October which had nine.
2011... May saw the most activity with five posts, but I only blogged 21 times that year. Meh.
Until this year, blogging was something I remembered to do sometimes and got around to even less frequently. I don't know what changed, but... Oh wait, let me see.
On January 13, I had a revelation of sorts and posted (like countless other times) that I should blog more. But this time I took it to heart. I realized that I had thoughts to get out there, and so often I just forgot about them the next time I sat down at the computer because there was so much else to do like... go stalk someone on facebook. Talk about a sad existence! Even though a lot of the time I don't feel like what I'm blogging about is especially interesting or important, it's doing several things, and this is a habit I'd like to keep up.
Blogging is helping me to:

Write more. I like writing. It's how I express myself most often.

Stop wasting my time on Facebook, etc. Early in February I realized that most things I was saying on Facebook I could say on my blog--There's nothing wrong with a short post! But when I have a lot of space to write it, I find that more comes out and suddenly I have three hundred words or so. Plus, it's only being said to those people who actively seek out what I have to say (or those who stumble upon it and probably don't care).

Observe and mull over things more. If I see something cool, I want to blog it! If I get a good idea, I want to blog about it! This is a way I can record thoughts that run through my head, talk things out to myself, get deeper than the surface. Even though other people can see it, I think I mostly blog so that I have a record of my life to look back on--I'm kind of forgetful.

Well, I guess the point of this post is to point out that I'm posting. You probably don't need all this to tell you that, but future me will hopefully be impressed. Hi, future me!

Happy Birthday, Hunny!

And happy Leap Day to everyone else.

This lovely little boy is a senior in high school/first year of college depending on where you are in the manga. Why does he look so young? Well, it's obviously because his birthday only comes once every four years. So say he's been alive for eighteen years... Well, he's only turned six!
Edit: He would only be four. Pff. XD 

Aw, Hunny. ^3^ So cuteeee~

Edit: Today is also the birthday of my friend Peggy's brand new little sister! >w< Happy birthday to Clara!
I have to say, it would be pretty sweet to have only one birthday every four years. I mean, not when you're a kid and you look forward to presents and stuff, but once you get old enough to realize how special you are, well. Fun times.

The daily life of a ninja.

The media seems to have these misconceptions about ninja. Drawing on well known examples, we have Naruto (loud, noisy, wears orange), Lego Ninjago lego people who have elemental tornado powers or something... I don't get why my brothers watch this stuff... XD
And of course there's the 'classic' ninja, wearing all black and blah blah blah. Nobody seems to understand that they can never depict ninja correctly because you cannot see a ninja. Unless the ninja wants to make his or her presence known, the only way that you will realize they are there is the fact that you have just been assassinated.
Luckily, I have some connections and got to follow a ninja around for a day, photographing a few of his activities. We both hope that this clears up the misconceptions around ninja.
I met Joe (name changed for anonymity) early one morning at his favorite training area. Here is a picture of him gliding over the surface of a lake. Notice that he leaves no trace of his having been there:

Next, we went to meet his girlfriend at a cafe.

She didn't show, but Joe says this is common for ninja. She may have been killed in battle.
Joe went on assignments for most of the day, but for my safety he forced me to stay about a mile away each time.

This is Joe feeding a duck. He has a soft spot for animals.

After work, he went "home" to chill. He apparently lives in the homes of people he's assasinated-- this was the den of his latest kill.

 Getting dinner.

 Getting some laundry done.

 Joe stole my camera and snapped a couple self-portraits- Look at that friendly grin.

 

After a hard day's work, Joe likes to relax, just like the rest of us.

I hope this has proved to be enlightening to all you lovely blog-readers... Don't let ninja continue to be stereotyped. Let's get the truth out.

Zombies

Due to my mild mild mild fascination with zombies and their correlation to college I have decided that the zombie apocalypse is coming for me in Fall 2012 which is soon. I must do what I can to prepare and fend them off. They have warned me many times over and I have infiltrated their population a few times but fall is when things get serious and I'm going up against that horde of zombies face to face.

PREPARE YOURSELF

FALL 2012

I BATTLE THE ZOMBIES

OTHERWISE KNOWN AS COLLEGE

THE BATTLE WILL LAST ANYWHERE FROM TWO TO FOUR YEARS

Will I emerge victorious, changed, but stronger?

Or will I become one of them?

Only time will tell.

Here's what I can do now to prepare: Jobs and scholarships. If I can pay the zombies enough to distract them from devouring me while I'm among them, they won't chase me once I'm out of there. Never never never never will I take out loans to bribe zombies. I may never free myself of them that way.

I can develop my skillz. If I can prove to the zombies that I can survive without them then cool beans. But if being among them and shooting them dead makes me a stronger person, BRING IT ONNNNN

This is a really poorly put together metaphor but whatever. XD

A game I play sometimes

Google can find results for almost anything... even if it's pretty much unrelated to your search. When I searched "the last time I fed my llama vegetarian bugs for its seventh birthday because we forgot about christmas and the cake that went along with cyberbullying" the first result is "how to find that book you've spent years looking for."
 So sometimes it's fun to just google  something that turns up no results.

Your search - knowledgeable texture genome generator piccadilly tobacco banterful play - did not match any documents.

Success!

However, I want to see how concise I can be-- One day I might find some two-word search that turns up nothing... but I'm not so determined that I'm going to waste any more time on it tonight. XD

Zombeh college

I just got an email from one of the colleges I've considered... and the whole thing is written in Comic Sans.

...What kind of school is this, anyway? On top of being overused and annoying, Comic Sans makes me think of elementary schools, not universities. >__<

OH LOOK AN OPPORTUNITY TO RANT ABOUT COLLEGE 8D

Here are the things that annoy me about colleges:

1) They cost a lot of money

2) Four more years of school. Who wants that?!

3) In an attempt to be personal, the opposite is achieved... "Elizabeth, check out Blahblah University!" "We are still looking for your application, Elizabeth!" Anybody who knows me knows I do not go by Elizabeth. Thanks for automatically filling my name in from some list. I feel really loved.

4) "We've extended the deadline just for you!" ...four times. Look, I know that you had all these extensions planned beforehand and have them set to send out if you don't get my application early. But maybe I didn't want to send you an application! DX

5) COLLEGES ARE ZOMBIES THEY ONLY WANT YOU FOR YOUR BRAINS

You know, there's probably a lot more, but these are the ones that I thought of right off and five is a good number so let's leave it at that.

Everyone seems to think you've got to have a college education because it gets you better jobs, those jobs pay better, and it's just the "thing to do," but I dunno. I'm still figuring all this out, but I don't want to spend money on an education that won't matter later on. I mean, if I'm trying to sell someone a print of my artwork, are they gonna be asking to look at what degree I have? XD

Oh, and one more thing that drives me crazy about colleges- Almost every mascot like, ever, is an animal. "We're the cougars, oh yeahhhh!" "Be a walrus with us!" Those two were made up, but TCU's scares me... I don't really want to say "I'm a horned frog! 8D"

Someone should make a zombie their college mascot. I'd go there. Maybe.

braiiiiiiins

Documentaries about nature and animals

They are so boring. ;~;

Watching them in 3D can help be a bit more interesting, but that's gonna pass. Seriously, nobody thinks anything of color TV anymore. One of these days we'll just shrug at 3D.

The jellyfish looked pretty cool, but honestly, the most memorable thing about the 3D were the annoying pieces of debris that floated in front of the camera and made my cross my eyes trying to see them clearly except I couldn't because they were permanently out of focus, since they weren't real. XP

Heh, I just don't happen to be a huge fan of animals anyway so seeing a bunch of fish swim around while the voice over guy talked about global warming was meh at best.

When the guy was talking about sea dragons that tested "even the most fertile of imaginations"I was just like, heh, you wanna bet?

It was just an animal that looked like a plant for disguise. No big deal. XD

On the other hand, it was pretty funny to walk into the family room and see my whole family staring at the TV with huge glasses that made their stares look blank and absent. I was thinking something along the lines of "mindless drones 8D" which made me think of this xkcd comic so I was just giggling to myself while I got almonds and raisins and granola since I don't really enjoy popcorn.

I did many things today and these were the ones of note:
I made a kite out of skewers and tape and a plastic bag and dental floss (because I saw several different people with kites today and figured that was a sign that it was a good kite flying day) and took it on a short walk and discovered it was very good at wheeling around about five feet in the air and then diving towards the ground. On the way back I saw a giant flock of birds on the neighbors' lawn and finally got them on video (this is the third time this year I've seen that many birds at once).

Also, I played with playdough in the three year old sunday school class. I'm supposedly a helper but honestly I feel like an overgrown child with advanced skillz. All I really do is play with the childrens and do their crafts and get them snacks and accompany them to the bathroom so they don't run off in the hallway. It's helpful, I guess, but mostly it's just me coloring and doing whatever I'm asked. :]

So I guess my life is pretty sweet.

Christmas songs should be preset to skip when shuffling, like podcasts are.

Cuz who wants to be listening to their music on a normal day and then there's Santa.

Ikigai

I was listening to a TED presentation about old people and longevity and happily predicted that one of the places where people lived the longest was in Japan. Then the speaker mentioned a word- "ikigai." This is the concept of "why I get up in the morning" or "what makes life worth living." This intrigued me because since January 1 this year I've written on a calendar at least one thing I did every day that made it worth getting up that morning. It is kind of an experiment in slowing down time (specifically, not living for the weekends or for vacations because they are over too soon). Now these are not an ikigai exactly, since they are scattered little things and not a huge purpose, but the effect is similar, I believe.
Things I have written range from as simple as eating a yummy rice cake to as complex as an encounter with a stranger, or from as terrible as running into the garage door frame with the car to as wonderful as a beautiful breezy night. It also includes random things that made my day such as crushing an egg or singing terrible opera on the way home with my siblings.
But when it comes to ikigai as a more specific "meaning to life" I don't know that I can quite put it into words. I want to live because God gave me life, and as for a purpose or calling, I think that is to make art and media that is wholesome and brilliant.

What do you have to live for? What's your ikigai?

(By the way, if you think life is rushing by you too fast, I'd suggest my little calendar experiment. If you make sure you do something every day that makes the day worth it, you focus less on "On Saturday I won't have school" and more on "Dude, I threw a milk jug at a tree today, isn't that awesome?" Also, when you look back there isn't a feeling of "Wasn't it just January? Why is February almost over?" and more like "I've done at least 31+21=52 awesome things so far this year!")

Doritos are about being selfish?

I was pondering Doritos yesterday, and I realized that almost every commercial revolves around everyone wanting the Doritos. Of course, it makes sense since the company wants everyone to want their chips. But despite how funny they can get, it's kind of disheartening to see people going to all ends just to get a bag of fake cheese-dusted crunchies for themselves. I mean, since when are chips that important?

It just made me wonder what Doritos commercials would be like if they focused on the joy of sharing a yummy snack. o:

WOULD THE COMMERCIALS EVEN BE SUCCESSFUL?
WOULD THEY RECEIVE A BUSINESS BOOM?
WOULD THE PEOPLE BE OFFENDED BY THE KINDNESS AND BOYCOTT THE COMPANY?
WOULD THE SUPER BOWL BE DOOMED TO CARS?
WOULD PEOPLE REALIZE THAT EATING THE WHOLE BAG BY YOURSELF CONTRIBUTES TO POOR HEALTH?

Erm... I'm just being silly here, so here are a few Doritos commercials. :P

The last one actually doesn't involve being selfish, it involves magic chips. *u*

Public Service Announcement: There's a human for that.

Smart phones do everything for us...

THEY ARE AN EVIL CURSE NOT GOOD FOR US.

Our 'society' is barely social any more. It's kind of sad.

On a related note, one of blimeycow (check him out on youtube, he's got some good stuff)'s recent videos deals with similar topics.

Barefoot Sky

I would jog barefoot on the street to the corner hoping to find a better shot of the sky.

 I would spend dinnertime arranging my food to look pretty and have to eat it after dinner.

But that's alright. :D

Smiling Pasta is perfect, okay?

It has been a long time since I could wholeheartedly recommend a TV show. I started watching it because I love pasta and I want to watch or read any drama or anime or manga involving it. I didn't have high expectations because psshh all dramas are the same. I am happy to report that I was very impressed. Language is light and scarce, and the good aspects of the show most definitely redeem any low points it encounters.
Basically, it's a boy and a girl and I'm not good at summaries but things happen, okay?
This Taiwanese drama shows encouraging examples of supportive and loving families, mending broken relationships, and sticking with your goals even if they seem impossible. The FMC's sweet simplicity combined with the MC's adorable teasing makes a cute but stressful relationship unfold.
If it was only a romance, I might not be so inclined to like it so much (although it did have me squealing at several points >w<), but it is also ridiculously funny--as in it is so ridiculous it's hilarious.
The supporting characters are unique and diverse; they each have endearing factors (or things that make you really dislike them), and they always make me shake my head or clap my hands or laugh aloud. They do not blend together because each of them is a whole character, a separate person.
While it's true that mostly only girls would be interested in such a show, I can recommend it to anybody with maturity- that means from 13 up well it's probably fine. There are only a few incidences in which younger viewers may need some guidance, but I have no qualms about saying THIS DRAMA IS SEVENTEEN EPISODES OF PERFECTION*

*Almost...  the last episode has a scene that's a bit more awkward than I expected of this series. That's what you get for writing your review before finishing completely~ But I still recommend the series as a whole. :'D

They call it space because that's what it is and there's a lot of it.

There's so much going on in that sky up there. Moons and shadows and fire and light and blue upon blue and big, empty space. What do the stars look like from up there, God? They're already pretty amazing from the dirt and weeds I've planted my feet in.
And closer! The clouds take shape into runways and embankments and threads and puzzles and bunnies! I almost saw an eagle tear a hole in the sky and leave the fragile air-filled scraps all over the floor and the massive blue-gray of storm clouds made my warm, smothered skin itch for rain. It's not that I'm blind, I just don't need to see things as they really are.
And if I blew on a dandelion in the dark, it's only for the poetic thoughts or maybe it's for a wish or a prayer or maybe out of habit or because I like it.
Looking at the sky was like praying with pictures. It's like how I see someone who makes amazing things and does amazing stuff and I want to know them so I guess it's a good thing to look at everything more often.
My weak cameras can't see what my eyes can, especially if their batteries keep dying. I don't know how to paint what I catch a glimpse of so the only picture I can hold is the one in my mind, and if I don't hold on to it I might forget for good, and then where would I be? I would be a girl who remembers one less sky. One dark sky with dark pink brush strokes across it, a painting of nothing in particular but one marvels at the size of the tools that must have been used to make it.
When I spin with the sky, my eyes can't keep up and the aching space between every point of light I see just wants to be filled but if I tried it would be like a single cell of my body trying to paint me purple and besides that I just fall down.
A warm welcome is a desirable, smiling scene, but I would almost rather stay out here, alone in the chill and damp air with my thoughts because there is not really anyone I want to be with in a warm yellow room right now. The dark blue everything is open and free and I'm right here on the edge of it. Something keeps me from running right into it and never coming back but it's not restraining me because I'm fine with staying right here. Call it common sense or contentment but there's no reason to leave where I am right now. No reason except adventure but adventure is something I have when I close my eyes or press a pen to paper or more realistically my fingers to the keys of some computer.
I want to draw all sorts of things but at the same time I feel that I can wait because I've drawn a lot today and all sorts of things are the ones you draw over a lifetime, not right now. Right now you draw what you like even if you drew it yesterday or a year ago but eventually you'll have a lifetime of drawings and they'll be the all sorts of things you wanted back when you were sixteen going on seventeen and I know that I'm naive
Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet and willingly I believe

I am sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose
Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies
What do I know of those?

Sorry, did I start singing? Where was I? Nowhere. That's alright. Sometimes I just write where I was and it becomes where I am and it gets prettier.

God, thanks for letting me be a writer and an artist and an Aki and a Claire.

Valentine's Day

 I don't really have a "valentine" as in a person. SO MY VALENTINE IS EVERYONE MUAHAHAHA-

-cough-

I could not pass up an artistic opportunity. Valentines often involve both art and writing, so of course I had to make one.

Happy Valentines Day!

And to all you singles out there who are feeling rotten today: THIS IS FOR YOU TOO.
You're totally loved. ^o^

Feel free to pass the picture along to anyone who you feel would like it, I guess. But if it's not too much trouble, if you do use it, link back to me, please. >w< You see, it's my own original work.

The kind of sky I like the best

It's never as blue in the photos. ;~;

Sunday School

I'm a lot better at coloring crafts now that I'm way too old for the classes... thankfully I can volunteer to help out and I still get to color! ^o^
I kind of wish I knew shading when I was five, though. Who knows what I would have been capable of.

Also, on a side note, I feel like this:

Not really sad, but cold. And I like this picture so nyeh.
It's forty-ish degrees.
I admit it, I like the cold, but this is too much. And it was warm enough just a week ago that I turned on the air conditioning because I was sweating upstairs! I didn't know why the heat was still on, so I told it to cool the house down, and that night it...

...

My house controls the weather. o___o

I dreamed that I died...

I was driving the family minivan over streets plagued with potholes like a disease. Many of them were full of water, and puddles were everywhere. The atmosphere was dark and gloomy, the area abandoned and lifeless.
Earlier, I had begun to plan a trip to an island to tell the natives about Jesus. I was looking for something I needed, but I don't remember what it was. And then there was a very large puddle. I hit the brakes, since it was at an intersection and I would rather drive through it slowly anway. But I couldn't come to a complete stop before the puddle and the car tipped in. The water got darker the deeper I sank, and I did not have thoughts of escape. I am going to die, I thought. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you are dying, but I only sat calmly as I quickly thought about how unfortunate it was that no one would ever find the car, or me, and my family and friends would forever wonder what had happened. I was not afraid, or sad or panicked, because death didn't frighten me. The darkness swallowed me and I awoke. I only regretted that I hadn't been able to complete the island mission trip I was planning.

Now, I don't think this was an especially meaningful dream, but I was intrigued because I had never died in a dream before. And it could have been a bit of a wake-up call, because during my literal waking up I regretted not having completed the mission trip.
One of these days, I really am going to die or something. Maybe in eighty years, maybe in eighty minutes. I really can't know, but people need to hear about Jesus.

I don't know if my reaction to dying would be exactly the same as it was in the dream, but I kind of hope it is. Death is nothing to fear. Death isn't the end, it's almost a beginning, you know? Eternity is so big and the hundred years or whatever we've got here is so short in comparison, a brief prelude. And yet, it's so important.

This life is where we learn of God, and decide to follow Him or not. I know God has wonderful things in store for His children, and they're so much better than this. And this life I have now can still be pretty awesome! But I don't think I would be too sad to leave it when it's time.

However, my death is not mine to decide. My life here is what I choose to live to honor the God who gave it to me, and He can take it when He sees fit. And then there is eternity, life longer than life, because it's forever.

Because of Jesus, and the salvation He gives us, I have nothing to fear in eternity.

That is why the idea of death doesn't scare me. I commonly have thoughts along the lines of "the worst that could happen is that I could die." This doesn't make me do risky things often (mostly because while death doesn't scare me, severe injury doesn't sound fun), but it gives me a freedom in life and an ability to be carefree and lighthearted.

I've rambled a lot here, but I guess my point is that death doesn't have to be a scary thing, when you've got Jesus. Personally, however, when my time comes, I hope I die of healthy old age, or while doing something crazy awesome, or just instantly so that I don't have time to feel the pain. :]

Freewriting

Here's some writing I did from a wordwar, involving my Naruto character, Kurea, and Rock Lee. 

Kurea is copyright of me, and Rock Lee and anything else from Naruto is copyright of Kishimoto and Viz and whoever else.

Kurea did a back handspring and ran right into a brick wall. It was kind of depressing, the way that she slid down it like a busted egg, wet and slimy. Except that she was quite solid, and so was the wall. Consequently, the two surfaces had friction and the side of her face was pretty torn up along with her hands. With her scrapes bleeding, she felt just a bit proud. She ran off to show her battle scars to Rock Lee. Surely he would be impressed! She might even tell him that she got them fighting off a dozen large burly men who attacked a kitten. That should be a good story. She thought about Lee with a kitten. If the kitten licked his face and he giggled and blushed, that would be adorable. Kurea giggled herself as she arrived at his normal training area. There was no one there except the wind, which minded his own business and kicked up a few leaves just to prove that there was no one there to keep them from swirling all over the place. Kurea hung her shoulders dejectedly. She had come all this way! Lee was always training on his time off, so Kurea didn’t know where he could be. The only other thing she ever saw him doing was talking to people and sleeping. She didn’t get to see him sleeping very often, except on multiple day missions, but he was cute when he slept. And then there was the talking. He generally only talked to people about how awesome Guy Sensei was, and then he talked about training when he wasn’t training. Sometimes he even talked about training while he trained. Come to think of it, he didn’t play with kittens very often. Kurea was kind of disappointed. Then she got an idea. Maybe the fact that it was the middle of the night had something to do with why Lee was not out training at this moment.

Kurea stared up at the sky. The stars twinkled and the moon was full, making the clearing almost as bright as day, just colder and bluer.

She spun around a couple times and then just collapsed. Her face hurt. There was no Lee to tell her story to, so now her battle scars just pained her. A tear rolled down her face and she fell asleep right there on the ground.

The next morning, Lee came to train, bright and early, like always. He was a little startled to find Kurea asleep in the middle of the clearing, but he just laughed because it shouldn’t have been so surprising after all. Kurea was always just a little bit different, so he had learned to stop being confused when she did something he didn’t understand. Like sleeping in the clearing. He began training, and soon the rhythmic thumping of his kicks against the large stump woke Kurea up. The thumping and the pain of last night’s events were the first two things to hit her, along with the sun and piece of wood that broke off of the stump, so needless to say, she was a bit irritable.

“What was that for?!” She whined, looking like a mix of sad and angry.

“I am so sorry!” Lee rushed over. “I did not realize that the piece of wood would hit you!”

“Ugh, I feel terrible.” Kurea had forgotten about being upset and started holding her arm. Lee looked down and noticed her hands and the side of her face that were all torn up, but by now they had scabbed over.

“Kurea, what has happened to you?” Genuine concern showed in his eyes, but Kurea was too busy picking at one of the scabs to see it.

“I fought off a wall or something.” Kurea was still groggy and the truth mixed with her fabricated story.

“We had better take care of this.” Lee said, pulling Kurea’s hand away from the scab. “Please do not touch it, it will only get worse.”

“No I’m fine.” Kurea said absentmindedly. “I just wanted to tell you about the ninjas and the kitten.”

“What ninjas? What kitten?”

“The ones I beat up.” Kurea tilted her head to the side.

“I thought you beat up a wall.”

“No, no, the ninjas.”

“And the kitten?”

“No! I didn’t beat up the kitten! It licked your face and you liked it. The kitten I mean. You liked the kitten. I don’t know if you liked its slobber. But kittens don’t really slobber, do they? That’s a dog.” Kurea was just rambling. Her thoughts were a bit disorderly and they were just spilling out all over her lap.

“I do not think you are quite yourself.” Lee said. Kurea was usually kinda loopy, but maybe she had been hallucinating. He hadn’t had a kitten and it hadn’t licked him.

“No, I mean, the bananas.” Kurea tilted her head to the other side.

“You need to come to the hospital.” Lee said, sliding an arm underneath her knees and another behind her neck so that he could carry her properly.

“I’m fine.” Kurea insisted, but she didn’t struggle or try to climb out of his arms. It was kind of nice there, after all.

Lee carried her to the hospital very quickly, and Tsunade immediately stuck Kurwea

Yeah, I know it cuts off. My fifteen minutes ended.

Only at my house...

Only at my house do I find oven mitts on the piano bench. Hee hee.

Live your dream.

The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video from Holstee on Vimeo.


I appreciate this video. I agree with a lot of it.

This is too funny.

I just found this really humorous.

That's all; goodnight.

I can't just "take a break"

Taking breaks can be a good thing, but they can also be a bad thing.
For example, the Sabbath is a good kind of break. It's a day to set aside from work and to dedicate to God (though the latter is admittedly difficult to do).

With things like healthy eating, however, I have learned that I can't take a break. Last night, as everyone knows, was the Super Bowl. I had already eaten mostly "okay" foods that day, and I figured that along with the pizza for dinner, I would eat some vegetables or something. But when my dad started making hot wings and my mom and I went to the store for tortilla chips because I wanted nachos and then I came home to smell of things deep frying... I threw my hands up. Give me one night to stuff my face with enriched bleached flour, fake cheese, and corn syrup, and that will be it.
Later, after eating at least twice the amount I needed to and nothing healthy except my fruit smoothie replacing a soda (I swore off soda as a New Years resolution), I decided some DDR would help me feel better about it. No such luck. Maybe forty five minutes later, I felt sick and very tired. I felt so nasty that I completely regretted eating all that. It wasn't the good kind of pain, you know, like when you come home from skating with friends and you have blisters all over your feet but it's totally worth it.
So to all you other health food nuts out there... Don't feel bad for mostly only eating the better stuff and limiting your portions while everyone else eats a ton of deep fried stuff. Stuffing your face is kind of overrated. It doesn't turn out to be as fun as it looks.

Another thing it isn't good to take breaks on is good habit. Getting up early, having a daily quiet time, exercising... These are all habits I've tried to form and have succeeded in for some amount of time (quiet time being the longest, and exercising the shortest). But once I start with the "just today, I'll skip" and I don't see any immediate consequences (like I did with the junk food), it is so easy to slip out of habit again.

Well, there's my thoughts on breaks and habits and such. I'm planning to do a post on time and scheduling soon, which is kinda related, I guess.

Today was pretty beautiful.

I got up this morning and got on the computer. Nothing really big or huge. Then we went to church.
After the service, my friend Peggy and I went to the kitchen and drank all the leftover grape juice and put the extra wafers in baggies. Then we walked around and ate them and shared them with people. It was great because they were going to have to throw them out if nobody ate them.
They're pretty good, and the gluten free ones are actually really yummy.
After I got home, I caught up on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and helped my dad fix the garage (I had hit the corner with the car last night and knocked some wood off of the framing).
It's satisfying to fix something you've broken.
Then we decided to make food and have a superbowl party for our family. I wanted to make nachos but we had no tortilla chips so Mom and I went to the store. I looked around for something to drink since I resolved not to drink soda this year. The sky was really pretty on the way there.
When we got back I smelled deep-fried french fries and I knew today was not going to be a healthy day for me. For the first time in a while I didn't analyze my food and I just ate what I wanted.
I think it's okay to do that sometimes. :D

Okay someone just married bacon in a commercial.

This is the third thing to make my day. NO, WAIT. Fifth. The first thing was a car that was dripping blue because the window writing was coming off in the rain. The second thing was the fact that the windshield wipers contributed to the music this morning. Then, there was the communion wafers. Then it was the fixing. And then it was the sky. And then the guy who married bacon.

Why is life so awesome?

Poor Snail...

I just stepped on a snail by accident. Poor thing. I buried it.

My lovely room!

I just cleaned my room over a period of several days, and I think it looks nice. It's at its almost best right now. The floor isn't vacuumed, but whatever. All you hypothetical readers might not care too much, but this is for the curious. And for me. Because I read my blog too.
In case the pictures are confusing, my room is L-shaped and has no windows. Because of its one escape route in case of fire, it's not technically a bedroom. More like a storage area where I sleep and write and draw and play and do everything except look out a window. Also, the floor is black and I like cutting up paper. This leads to a strained relationship.

MY DOOR: This is where I put pictures and words. There are all sorts of things on here.

 

GENERAL VIEW: This is what you see when you first come in. The mirror will eventually be on the closet door, but I don't have any 3M strips at the moment.

 

 THE SHELVES: My books, art supplies, and some school things live here. The top shelf is home to my small collection of dolls and other toys (I am a kid at heart). The next shelf down has a candle, two sticks which I brought home on two different occasions, a white box that hides my unsightly schoolwork, and a lovely piece of art by the talented Audrey. Next shelf down is my books and a few CD's, games, DVD's etc. Right underneath that is the art shelf, and the bottom one is my school supplies, reference notebooks, etc. To the left you can see my huge pile of borrowed books which I need to get cracking on. Below that are the speakers, and they play whatever I tell them to like obedient cucumbers.

 

THE CLOSET: This is mostly storage stuff. I guess there's not really much to explain. This is just about the only place in my room where I have 'junk', but I have to keep it somewhere.

 

THE WALL: This is a kind of art project I made. The three large matted things were made by me a long time ago using a copier machine and flowers/leaves (heh), and most of the rest is stuff other people drew for me or that I printed. Most of the drawn artwork is near the bottom left. Bethany drew the picture of me with purple jeans, Emma drew me in the TARDIS, and Peggy supplied the lovely Tangled coloring page right above the poster with the bokeh. I drew the doodle with the stop sign.

 

THE INSIDE OF THE DOOR: This is where you see my jackets and my jellyfish. Yup, that's about it.

 THE OTHER WALL: Here we see a guitar case wearing a wig (I haven't even learned to play guitar yet, I just like having it sit there with purple hair), a magnet board with cosplay notes, a tiny lap desk sort of thing, and yeah. In the second picture you can see my computer and some blankets and also that long board thing that I decided to put stuff on so that it wasn't just left on the floor.

 

THE SLEEPING ALCOVE: Here we see the nice little nook that I get to fall asleep in every night. I like the colors of it very much.

 Now that I've finished this blog post, I can go snooze. :3

By the way, the lack of window makes it really hard to get up. And I have to leave at nine thirty tomorrow for play practice. And it's one thirty now. I... don't think I'm getting eight hours tonight.
-sigh-
Goodnight.

Paper Towns by John Green

While Paper Towns is not "clean" by a long shot, it is intriguing. It was the first John Green book I managed to read for longer than a few chapters. That's kind of disappointing since I'm a fan of John and Hank's youtube vlogging (for the most part) and consider myself a nerdfighter.

Paper Towns is kind of about seeing people as they really are, not what they pretend to be. The whole plot revolves around a guy and a girl. For most of the book, the guy is trying to follow some clues the girl left, and he's trying to find her. It gets kind of repetitive as his theories change and he goes in all sorts of different directions. That's more true to real life, I suppose, but since it's fiction anyway I'd almost prefer that the story picks a track and stays on it.

The book gives you a sense of adventure, that kind of longing you have to leave everything behind and just go anywhere and do anything. However, most of us never do such a daring thing, because we worry about our future and the consequences. Well, whatever. Decide for yourself if up and leaving is good or bad.

More of what I have to say is kind of a tangent, though.
Why can't these teenage characters talk about hardly anything except sex and other related topics? This is also what turned me off from Looking For Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines before I even got to find out what the plot was. I think the only reason I read Paper Towns all the way through is because I actually got to some of the plot before I got to a ton of junk.
Also, there was a lot of language. Reading it really does affect the way I think, and I don't like having all that running around in my head. I feel like I need a huge brain-cleaning. 
I don't know what the 'normal' teenager is like, but if this is an accurate depiction of high schoolers, I just have to say...

THANK GOD I HAVE BEEN HOMESCHOOLED MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Wholesome media is pretty much my passion (I wouldn't say I act the way you would think when you hear 'passionate' about it but it's hard for me to act 'passionate' about anything). I'm sure if you ask anyone who knows me much at all, they'll tell you I have extremely high standards. It saddens me to see books that hardly have anything worthwhile to say. To put down a book or finish a movie and realize that just about everything you just took in isn't doing anything worthwhile, and is in fact probably growing mold all over the beautiful walls of your little brain-house, is a very disappointing thing.
I still haven't read The Fault In Our Stars or Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but I'm not planning on using my time for such things very soon.
I'd rather use that time to create something that people will enjoy, but that also won't bathe their minds in dirt.

In the end, I regrettably cannot recommend this book.

April Showers and May Flowers

I was doodling.

Right after I finished this drawing, I heard it start raining.

COINCIDENCE?

My favorite disorders

Disorders sometimes intrigue me. Some, such as schizophrenia, are actually quite frightening, yet I marvel at the complex worlds created inside someone's own head.
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome causes perception of the size of oneself (or other things) to be disproportional. (While it's usually associated with migraines and more common in young children, it can also occur when one is falling asleep, and I've actually experienced it occasionally when I'm showering late at night, like two in the morning, while I am practically falling asleep standing up. It's not as scary as it sounds.)
The state of fugue is one of my favorites. Someone will randomly go on a trip or a journey, and return with absolutely no memory of it. Or they might 'wake up' from it in a strange place, completely disoriented.
While actually having these disorders would be difficult and upsetting, the mystery around them and the oddness of the symptoms is surprisingly inspiring. I feel like someone could make them into a beautiful story.