Success

I'll avoid quoting "still alive" for the second time this month.


...still, this was a triumph.

OKAY OKAY I'LL STOP

Well, I have more blog posts this month than there are days in May. Pretty cool, huh? The weird thing is, I don't feel like I've been blogging every day. I mean, I haven't been... there have just been some days with multiple posts.

But it feels good. It makes me feel like I've actually been accomplishing some writing and art and stuff. I guess a lot has happened in May.

I graduated, by the way.

I dunno if I mentioned that.

HOORAY FOR BEING AN ARTIST AND WRITER FOR THE REST OF MY LIIIIIIIFEEEEE

Characters have depth you guys

I wasn't really putting a lot of thought into it when I decided Loki was among my favorite characters. I mean, I saw The Avengers, thought he was pretty cool despite being a bad guy, and that was that.

I've now watched Thor twice (and a cool cartoon of when Thor and Loki were teenagers they were adorable by the way) and I still don't completely understand Loki. He is a psychologically complex character. You don't see those often.  Usually with a character, it's pretty easy to hack into their psyche (does that sound creepy?). X character does Y because of Z. But with Loki, it's not so simple.

It's so hard to tell when he's being sincere. There is always a motive behind his actions but sometimes you can't tell if it's simply mischief or all the emotional confusion he's in. It's so obvious that he wants to be loved and accepted by the people dear to him and yet to admit that they are dear and to accept the love that they already show to him is somehow so hard.

He wants to be treated as an equal to his brother. He wants to be looked up to by others. He wants to please his father. Even after finding out SPOILER BY THE WAY that he was by birth a Frost Giant, he didn't seek the Frost Giants' acceptance. The acceptance he sought and craved was that of the family he considered his own, those that loved him and that he loved.

He saw that his brother was flawed in some ways, not worthy yet to rule and a bit of an airhead. He considered himself the better choice, but he seems blind to the fact that just like Thor, he has shortcomings as well. While Thor acts rashly and seeks out battle (at least in the beginning), Loki does not care enough for the feelings of others and for honesty. While Thor is rash, he is at least true and honest to his feelings.

Loki does have his good points. He is clever, and he thinks things through. These are areas in which his brother is lacking. Loki can see many possibilities and is therefore able to predict how a certain event will turn out (he uses this to his advantage to manipulate people, however). This makes me think he's an INTJ (some people agree with me, others say INTP). THAT WAS KIND OF IRRELEVANT BUT I'M JUST KIND OF HAPPY HE'S THE SAME PERSONALITY TYPE AS ME XDDD

(Except I'm not evil just thought I should point that out lol)

Loki made some bad choices--a lot of them, actually. I still can't figure out why, sometimes. What I see is a confused boy, trying to find where he belongs, and trying to reconcile the side of him that craves the love of his family and his people with the side that enjoys wreaking havoc.

Personally, I think Thor and Loki would make a great team. If they worked together to rule Asgard, with Thor providing the brawn and Loki the brains, they could do incredible things. Of course, they both still have a lot to learn, and they have a great example in Odin. He's pretty darn wise.

Note to Loki: cleverness is not wisdom.

Another thing that intrigues me about this story is this:

Loki and Thor remind me of Jacob and Esau from the Bible.

One is athletic, manly, and hairy, but a bit dumb, the favorite of his father (Though Odin loves both his sons, Loki just feels Thor is more favored). The other is tricky, clever, and makes some pretty bad choices.
The younger, clever brother wants the birthright and the blessing. He buys it for a bowl of soup, he steals it with trickery.
In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob ran away for years and in that time God began to make him into a great nation. Yes, Jacob. The tricky one. Not the one we're rooting for.
What?

I've grown up with that story all my life but drawing the parallel to Thor and Loki made me think about it a bit more.
I always knew Jacob would be the father of all Israel so I just rooted for him but.
Wait.
Loki is the bad guy.

I think there is still hope for him.

Anyway, Jacob and Esau had a happy ending. After so many years when they finally met up, Jacob was afraid Esau would kill him. But he didn't.
I see Thor showing real maturity in continuing to love his brother and try to bring him back, both in the end of Thor and in The Avengers. Esau tried to kill Jacob for a long time, but Thor forgave pretty quick.

I know I'm just rambling and drawing a lot of lines and connecting things, but that's what I do.

Loki makes me sad (cry, even) and intrigues me and makes me want to talk some sense into him and hug him and be his friend to help him through all this.
Even though he's not real. -cough-

Something about introverts

I dunno if other introverts get this, but I know that it's caused by my need to think things over.

I saw The Avengers and didn't really know what to make of it. My main thought was that Loki was my favorite and that there was a lot of punching.

But all of it was rather shrug-worthy.

A week or so later and I'm spending hours on tumblr looking at Avengers pictures (don't make a habit of going to tumblr guys it eats your time away and sometimes you get nasty surprises ;~;) and thinking of fanart, resurrecting my own superhero character from middle school, and yup.

It made me watch Thor

and of course now I like that too.

I wanna see the Avengers again. XD

So do you wanna hear about my hair?

Well, I want to talk about my hair. It looks just fine!

It's been almost a month since I stopped using shampoo. The first week or so, it was deathly greasy and my acne took a bad turn. This was probably a combination of the greasy hair next to my face and the fact that I also stopped using all those facial scrubs and medicines.

I fought through it. x__x

And now my hair is lovely and normal and showering takes less time and less soap which means MORE WATER SAVED WHICH MEANS MORE MONEYYYYYY

This is an investment for my future.

My face is doing well, too. I just wash it every morning with only water and make sure to stay hydrated.

Thor and Loki make a vlog

Just me and Bethany starting up a youtube channel. Our first video is of the best brother friend forevers! ...I hope you caught my sarcasm.

Enjoy Loki's uncharacteristic shoving Thor around.

Insults

Insults can be fun.

What?

I mean, not if they're for real. But Justin and I had some fun texting each other insults back and forth today. XD

Me: Rawr

Him: Bleargh (8^P)

Me: What kind of a lame smiley has a nose?

Him: You

Me: Noses are rarely used to express emotion and therefore do not have a regular place in emoticons.

Me: I'm not smiling

Me: And your fingers are like batman's lip

(whatever that means XD)

Him: Therefore, whitherto, and henceforth, you shall be known as...
As...
I'll get back to you on that.

Me: And your knees are yoshi's favorite toadstool.

Him: Well that's better than can be said of yours.

Me: Your knotted brow is like a thousand burning farmhouses in a village plundered by vikings

Him: Then I guess it's a good thing I don't tie it in knots.

Me: Your ugly mug usurps jaba the hutt's favorite mug of coffee

Me: Your stature resembles that of a cave troll on a diet

Him: But my mug didn't get get shot like yours, you felon.

Me: you corkswabbering choice waistshirt

Me: Nerfherder

Him: You blithering idiot!

Me: Arrow fodder

Me: Thou art but an apprentice in insults. Corkwatering fledgeslaughter

Him: Aye aye, sir; shorten the powder and double the fuse.

(I don't know why he randomly quoted Smee)

Me: Was that meant to wound me, infant?

Him: Forsooth, thou dost wound me grievously, thou doddering curmudgeon.

Me: Sniffling babes assail me not. Can I talk to someone with at least the intelligence of a wet towel?

Him: Ah, so thou woudst bandy insults wit those of thine own intelligence rather than thy superiors?

Me: I do not consider mine own wit to be mighty, but only a thousand times yours and I am satisfied.

Him: An aimless army of a thousand may be taken down by an individual with a purpose.

Me: Aye but when an army has purpose what chance does the one have? Go back to thy cradle and whine for thy mother to change thy diaper, along with thy circuits, methinks they are defective

Him: The guile of an ocelot may mask the ferocity of the sloth within.

Me: So you mean I can scare people without actually putting any effort into it! Sweet! I have skilllllllzzzzz

(Here I looked back at him and gave him a superior look and we gigglesnorted.)

Him: Aye, thy scurvy-ridden face frightens them regardless.

Me: Thou surely mistakes me for another! For alas, it is not me who faces thee but a mirror glass.

Me: (I am actually that strange shadow behind you with the machete)

Him: Ah, but it be one of those one-way mirrors, and I be on the side that sees through it all, even your transparent plot.

Me: Well it's still not me you saw seeing as I'm behind you (stab) but good try anyway.

Him: Alas, poor Richard! He was an admirable robotic dummy, as his intelligence far surpassed yours.

Me: Obviously not his spatial intelligence as he was not aware of my presents at all, they were nice expensive ones too.

Him: Vast are the credit card companies of the world, yet such an expenditure that exceeds your limit of credit has not escaped their notice.

Me: I used cash, vulgar swede (Note: no offence to swedish people! Sorry!)! If thou dost think me a foolish user of others' riches, thou art SORELY mistaken. Maybe it was the pilates classes? you should be more careful to warm up before exercising.

Him: Ah, so thou dost now know how to leave matters to the Sanhedrin.

At this point I turned to Justin.

"What? What? Where do you get the Sanhedrin? That doesn't even make sense in response to what I said. You fail, this is over."

Apparently, he read pilates as "Pilate's" as in Pontius Pilate... I don't even know... That still wouldn't have made sense because Pilate wasn't even in the Sanhedrin. XD

Whatever. XD

Weird dream.

Last night I had a dream that Shadow brought me to a pool party and Loki was there and he saved me from pirates. After that I tried to keep him from cutting his hair for the new movie that apparently the pirates were going to be in.

Yesterday

Yesterday I helped Mom carry a bunch of boxes into this place and she tried to sell old curriculum. It was a used curriculum sale thing, so that was perfectly fine. I was kind of bored though, so I played with playing cards, colored a pocahontas picture, and read in this 'poetry of the world' book.

Sometimes I like poetry but sometimes I just don't.

Most of these didn't spark my interest.

I also ate trail mix.

I wanted to go up to the third floor and be alone but they made an announcement before I got to that said "the second and third floors are off limits." So much for that. So I sat at the table and wrote down the purchase of three board books for 75 cents since Mom was gone so SOMEONE had to do it.

And on the way home I went to Subway while Mom went to HEB and the guy behind the counter was incredibly soft-spoken but I managed to communicate with him enough to get a sandwich for me and Mom to split though he didn't hear me mention spinach so there wasn't any on the sandwich. Oh well.

Just, y'know, watching Lord of the Rings with my parents and brother

There are so many lovely quotes and I would write them down but I want to keep watching. XD

Sleep

Last night after I got off the phone with Bethany I decided to nap for a bit. I set an alarm for six thirty and then laid down in bed.

When it went off it felt like no time had passed so I decided to sleep for a little longer.

I woke up to Mom saying "It's after eight!"

...in the morning.

I slept for over twelve hours! It was pretty nice, actually, but I felt pretty gross since that caused me to miss my shower and brushing my teeth last night.

The Avengers

I went to see The Avengers with my friends and I had a good time.

Here is the illustration of what our opinions basically were.
The Hulk was beast so Emma drew him all strong and stuff. The girl was okay but also kind of boring and only had a gun. Nothing really exciting. That eye patch guy just needed to be in the picture, according to Bethany. Hawkeye is a stick man because originally I drew him and Thor and Loki as stick people. So basically Emma is gushing over how cool Hawkeye and Ironman are, while Bethany and Peggy cling to Thor's heavily muscled arms (peggy and bethany took it upon themselves to improve my stick Thor). Meanwhile, I quietly point out that Loki was pretty cool, while Mr. Owens and Sam roll their eyes at our fangirl silliness. Iron Man is dubbed Sarcasm Man by Bethany, and Captain America is in the bottom corner. Peggy's handiwork. Emma added the nose, though.

Other than that, there was a lot of punching and things getting broken.

Oh yeah, and the final clip after all the credits were over made the whole movie worth it.

Just sayin'.

TWIG is having all these errors

My precious favorite website ever is almost unusable at the moment. ;~;

Just had to wail. Now I'm going to eat this chocolate thing that Peggy brought me from Europe that calls itself a "Knusperflakes" flavor.

I WONDER WHAT IT TASTES LIKE

And I'm taking Judah to the park. See ya later with a post about The Avengers!

Papercrafting in 2D!

I've been getting into the crafty side of art recently, so the past couple of nights I've spent making paper people!

Kaitou KID and my Case Closed OC, Hanabi, to be specific.

Aren't they adorable? They make me squee. <3

Also, thanks to Kaitou, I'm trying to learn some card tricks. It's quite an undertaking, seeing as I can't even shuffle a deck properly.

I have also decided that if I could only watch one anime or read one manga for the rest of my life, it would be Case Closed. While there are other stories that I also love, this one goes on for like... ever. I don't know if I could ever get bored of it.

Thankfully, nobody's limiting me to one, so I can have Lovely Complex and Kimi Ni Todoke and Ouran and Naruto (for Rock Lee, of course).

I picked up this manga volume from the library called "The Palette of 12 Secret Colors." It's kind of simple, but I really like the cover. I'll have to see if I can find any more volumes.

Sometimes, I think I'm growing out of my "anime geek" stage, especially when I realize I like other things than Japanese stuff too, like Doctor Who or Teen Titans.

But then I just don't find other stuff quite as appealing, in general. I just really like anime and manga for some reason. Maybe it's the artistic effort involved or something about the way the story is told. I don't know. But whatever.

I thank God for anime and manga and cool characters I can geek out about. x3

Annoying...

I know that ads help keep things free, but it's really tiresome when the page is (literally) covered in obnoxious ads.

So there was this speech bubble ad and I went to click the x in the corner because it was covering up what I wanted to read. But just as I clicked, the banner ad at the top of the page rolled down and I ended up clicking on it and being sent to a page about "what to expect when you're expecting."

>__>

Nothing But The Truth

Today's book was Nothing But The Truth by Avi. (As I mentioned before, I have a bunch of books to read, and about half of them are by Avi.)

This book is the story of a young man and the people around him who are caught up in a crazy story. What Philip Malloy begins by complaining about spirals out of control into national news, hurting and confusing many people in the process. This book seems to be a warning against the dangers of only half the story and the distortion that the media causes.

There are a couple of words that people should not be repeating, but for the most part, there's nothing wrong with the book.

Foodcrafts

 

I made this with my brother Phillip a couple weeks ago. They're koi pond cupcakes!

A few days later I attended an art meeting. So I made dessert sushi and sashimi and soy sauce and chopsticks and a happy rice ball and c:

 

Captain Grey

Because my school is winding down and I still have a good many books to read, I'm attempting to tackle one a day.

Several of these books are by Avi, an author I remember reading a bit from when I was younger.

Today's book was Captain Grey, a story of a boy who was captured by some pirates. It was pretty short (since I didn't remember until the afternoon that I was trying to read an entire book).

I enjoyed it well enough. There wasn't really anything bad about it, so I'll be putting it on our family bookshelf.

That's all, I suppose? I'm not the best at book reviews.

My Kaito KID wallet

For those of you hypothetical readers who don't know, one of my favorite characters is Kaito KID from Case Closed/Detective Conan.

I was searching online for Kaito posters, but couldn't find anything (except if he was in the background), so I turned my search to wallets, since I've been wanting to replace my Longhorns wallet for a while.

I still didn't find much, and being a cheap-o, I looked up how to make wallets. I found this tutorial for a wallet made of paper. It wasn't too hard to fold a prototype out of scrap paper, mark the orientation and location of outward-facing sides, unfold it, and use it to design and print a template on heavier paper.

The front is one of my favorite pieces of art featuring Kaito, where he is falling through the sky with cards.

The back is an ace of hearts.

Inside, a lovely picture I found today along with Kaito KID's signature logo thing.

It has your normal billfold, two inside pockets where I put things that I need to easily access, and it also has slots in the ends where I stashed my business cards and library cards. I do like it a lot more than my previous wallet.

Yesterday at the grocery store

I was standing in an aisle trying to find something specific my mother sent me for when this man walks into the aisle with his young daughter in his cart. They were just kind of standing there, which was a bit awkward for me. Then his little girl goes, "daddy? daddy? daddy?" You know how little girls do. "Daddy? She's pretty."

:'D Needless to say it was adorable and made my day.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

After two or more years (I honestly can't remember when I started), I've finally finished reading the fifth and final book in the Hitchhikers Trilogy. I'm a slow reader and took long breaks, which is why it took me years to read five books.

In any case, my dad told me that after reading them, I should report back to him, probably concerning the morality of them, etc. I know that was a long time ago, but I'm going ahead and doing that now. Hi, Dad. c:

SO.

My first thought about the series is that they are clever and marvelously written. To be honest, half the time I didn't know just what was going on, but the books were such a pleasure to read that it was all okay.

The worldview presented in the books was not a Christian one, but was also not meant to be taken seriously. While there were some gems of what one might call wisdom* that were uncovered by the odd perspective taken, for the most part, I learned to disregard any "truth" that seemed to be presented, as it was very obviously a goofy story told in a serious manner.

* For example:

“This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

The characters had loose morals, and there were certain scenes that I only skimmed, so I won't be recommending the series to children. The language was not commendable either, as it was not uncommon to come across words that I would much rather not hear (or read).

I should have said "certain usages of language were not commendable," though, because Douglas Adams' masterful use of the English language to create an enjoyable read is undisputed in my mind. He picks apart idioms, figures of speech, and conventional phrases and looks at them in a different light. This has actually affected my own writing a great deal.

Sometimes the books seem to become serious, but not for long. Adams has created a ridiculous, random, and enjoyable adventure that I'd recommend to any mature readers who already have a good grip on their worldview and morality and stuff. c:

This was a triumph

I'm making a note here–huge success.

My organization system obviously works well. I was able to clean and straighten my room (minus vacuuming) in the time it took for I Am The Doctor by Murray Gold to play once.

Um, I think I'm a nerd. c:

School is almost over!

This week, I'll be finishing things up, and officially graduating on the 20th. I'll celebrate it with a few friends and family a week later, and then SUMMER!

I feel like I'm on the verge of my life, but I guess I've actually been in my life for 17 years now, even if I've had some hands to hold. And there's no shame in that. Whether I jump off into the deep end or walk toward it along the bottom of the pool until the water covers my head, I'm still glad there's a lifeguard because I'm not the greatest swimmer.

That doesn't stop me from wanting to immerse myself~

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

To every mom: <3

But especially to my mom: <3 <3 <3 <3

Currently, my hair feels gross.

I really want to wash my hair but I will resist. x__x

(Basically, I'm doing this experiment about the effects of shampoo and stuff and basically I'm only washing my hair with water for a month (or longer if it results like it supposedly will).)

I AM FREE

I just finished the last problem on the final test of my precalculus course.

It is the end.

I WELCOME THEE, SUMMER.

Water.

Water, water, water.


Hydration is important.

That is all.

There is one kind of pasta I hate...

creepypasta.

>__<

Basically, it's a video or picture or something that goes around the internet, and it's disguised as something cute, sweet, inspirational, or harmless.

And then somewhere along the way, usually at the end, it gets disturbing, scary, or creepy.

I hate it.

It does not deserve to be associated with pasta at all.

The last paper I'll ever write in high school.

At the start of each year, my mother has us write goal papers based on Luke 2:52: “and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” We set goals in those four categories and evaluate our progress in another paper at the end of the year. As this is my final year of high school, I thought I would expand my evaluation to include the last four years.

Looking at each of these papers, I am able to decipher a bit of my personality at the time… the paper from 2008-2009 is short and to the point. I was completing an assignment that after several years had become monotonous. Somehow, I used the term “lol” and a winky face (with a nose… I never do that anymore) without getting in trouble, even if it was a school paper. 

The paper from 2009-2010 is completely in default fonts. It contains definitions of each of the categories, likely to make my paper appear longer and more intellectual. Unfortunately, any intellectual merit is undermined by the red watermark in the background proclaiming “NINJAS” and the bunny made out of parentheses and other symbols at the end of the paper. I really don’t know how I got away with that.

My 2010-2011 paper shows more merit in design. The colors are consistent and the fonts and sizes are varied to the positive effect of organization and making the proper things stand out. I included related Bible verses for each goal. I did not try to abandon humor—the verse related to my learner’s permit spoke of driving flocks and herds.

My most recent goals paper also boasts good layout and design, but I may have gone overboard on the text effects. Reflections and gradients probably were not necessary. I put quotes before each section and avoided goofy pictures or internet speak. My writing in this one was probably the best.

While the writing style and format of a paper are very important, the content is what I am assigned to evaluate, so I should begin reviewing that.

In the category of wisdom and academics, my goals were as follows: as a freshman I aspired to improve my writing by journaling every day and doing creative writing. I hoped to honor God in everything I wrote so that readers would be able to tell that I loved Him. As a sophomore, my wisdom goal was to make better choices in media. On the academic side, I hoped to improve my writing once again and to complete a novel. As a junior, my academic goal was to learn how to drive. As a senior, I set a goal to plan my time better.

So how has all this worked out for me? I definitely do not journal every day. Habits have always been a bit difficult for me, as I tend to do things when I feel I need to, rather than on a regular schedule. Over the last few months I have been blogging semi-regularly, however, which is close to journaling. I have definitely improved my writing, as I hoped to for most of these years. I have written stories, papers, and four novels—yes, four!  In addition, each of those novels was written in less than a month as part of NaNoWriMo (go look it up).

I do believe I have made better media choices of late. In fact, I have discovered that I have a passion and calling to wholesome media. While it is nearly impossible to only take in squeaky-clean media (unless it’s super-boring), I make sure that my output is wholesome and I become very happy when I find a quality show that is also clean. I then usually proceed to recommend it to everyone who I think would like it.

I have learned to drive and now take myself to theatre class and to youth group, and I drive my siblings to various places when Mom needs me to.

Unfortunately, my time-scheduling goals have been forgotten. Even though I might not go to bed at two all the time anymore, I still consistently find myself up too late and sleeping far past the time I should. I still do not prioritize well, and end up working on things too late at night or watching anime when I should be doing schoolwork (and Hetalia does not count as history, so that’s a bad excuse.) I know time management is an essential skill, especially in college, so during the summer I need to build good habits. This means no sleeping in too late, no staying up too late, and getting things done during the day.

My goals for physical growth were mostly maintenance goals by the time I started high school. I had finished most of my growing and now needed to deal with body odor and oily skin. As a freshman, I simply resolved to brush my teeth three times each day and shower each day as well.  In my sophomore year I planned to use my acne medication regularly and keep my hands off of my face. I dropped my daily tooth cleaning goal to twice (I was still only managing once a day).  As a junior, I attempted to incorporate exercise into my daily life because blocking off a time to exercise was extremely unmotivating. As a senior I was extremely health-oriented. I made multiple food goals including the exclusion of processed foods from my diet, less meat, and fewer sweets.  I also still aimed to have a more active lifestyle overall, though my idea was to watch TV and run on a treadmill at the same time.

I have made a lot of progress in the area of health. I am very aware of my eating choices and have gone mostly vegetarian. I do not avoid all processed foods yet (cheese sticks are a weakness of mine) and I choose whole grains and fewer ingredients whenever possible. I got a nice food-tracking app for my iPod called Calorific. It is simple and doesn’t require me to examine every label. I simply approximate sizes and nutrition of what I’m eating, and at the end of the day I have a pie chart of the proportion of “great” to “okay” to “bad” food as well as a meter telling me approximately how much of my recommended calories I have eaten that day.

I have exercised a lot more—a friend gave me DanceDance Revolution for Christmas and I’ve been using it since March. Since I have started using the app to keep track of what I eat and DDR to exercise, I have actually lost about five or six pounds (I did not really need to but it feels nice and my clothes fit a bit differently). I plan to keep up these habits.

As for showering, I always shower before I go to bed unless I am tired enough that I think I would fall asleep in the shower, and that does not happen often. I do not like feeling dirty or sweaty. However, I currently feel a bit greasy because I am starting an experiment on the effects of soap and things like that. I want to see how my body naturally regulates oils on my skin and hair when I stay hydrated and only wash with water instead of stripping away the oils with a bunch of chemicals.

As for brushing my teeth, I still only brush once a day, but I have come to a point where I’m okay with that. I have a whole theory on it and if you ask, I will explain it to you. I haven’t had a cavity in my life, so I am sure I am fine.

My goals for favor with God, or spiritual growth, have gone a little something like this:

Freshman Claire wanted to have a quiet time every day. Sophmore Claire wanted to expand that by meditating on her daily readings. Junior Claire wanted to listen to what God has to say about people instead of judging them. Senior Claire wished to take control of her thoughts and think about good things and not bad ones.

I have slipped in and out of Bible-reading habits over the years. As I stated before, I am not particularly good with habits. The same is true of praying—I seem to have dry spots. I am sure that can be considered normal, but I still want to press on and rebuild habits where they break. I have some meaningful pre-written prayers that I want to begin using every night and morning along with my own prayers and reading the Bible.

I cannot say I have been particularly successful in listening to what God has to say about people or anything else for that matter. While God does show me things through other means, I avoid sitting still and silent and listening or just being with Him. I suppose I am kind of intimidated by it, but I am not completely sure why. Obviously, there is still progress to be made here.

I am pleased to report that for the most part my head has been a cleaner, more pleasant, and safe place to be. It took a lot of prayer, and I still struggle sometimes, but cleaning up my media intake seemed to have helped. Also, the fact that I am less interested in guys and marriage than I used to be and that most of the romance that I think about is between characters in stories helps me to keep my thoughts more pure.  Most of my problems actually come from being exposed to more harsh language than I have in the past, but there is almost no way I can change that, so I seem to have installed some sturdy filters and when something sneaks past them, I give it to God to dispose of for me.

I know this is long, but here is the last category: favor with men, or social and relational goals. When I was a freshman, my goal was to avoid judging people by their appearances. As a sophomore I aimed to become more talkative and outgoing, since I considered myself shy but hyper and capable of being loud. In my junior year, my goal was similar to my “favor with God” goal—I wanted to show Christian love to everyone even if I did not like them. Finally, last year I aspired to treat my family with more respect and to spend more time with my friends, whether that be calling or visiting.

I feel that I still judge people a bit too much, but I may have made a small amount of progress in this area. There have been several times when I’ve been surprised by someone that I thought I did not like. Closely related is my junior year goal. Even when I do not like someone, I do try to treat them with Christian love. This will become an even bigger challenge for me when I am thrust into the “real world” in the fall.

My goal for breaking out of my introverted nature seemed to be succeeding for a while, but it seemed that it was only a fluke. I have come to be perfectly okay with my introverted tendencies, though. In fact, I embrace them! It does present a challenge when I have an idea but do not contribute in time, however, if what I have to say is of importance, I am able to make myself heard.

I have even made some more friends since middle school, albeit most of them are online. They’re pretty cool. Shadow and Sasune and Oro are all very lovely.

What really makes me smile is that I have had the same best friends all throughout high school and I will bet they will still be my best friends through college and beyond. While I have had some other friends that I have considered close, Bethany, Emma, and Peggy are stuck to my heart with super glue and I love them a lot.

I feel like I may be a bit kinder to my family than I was at the start of the year, but I still need to work on that. Level Josh has not yet been achieved. 

In conclusion, I have grown a lot in many ways during my high school years, but I still have a long way to go. Even though this leg of the journey is over, I still have many adventures ahead of me (unless I get hit by a car tomorrow or something).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETHANY

I'm late with this post too. Boohoo. ;~;

Well, Bethany is my best friend in the whole wide world and she likes purple and drawing and Kankuro and fashion and Sonic the Hedgehog and The Twilight Zone and DDR and Marth and hearts with wings and electronic music and eighties music and music music music and she plays bass, she's left handed, she loves God, she volunteers at Imagine Art and I think she's going to work there, she has a heart for people with disabilities, and a heart for people in general, and she's an extrovert, she's the life of the party, she's adorable, she's funny, she's a goofball sometimes and absolutely serious other times, she collects dolls, she makes amazing pictures, she's really nice, and I love her to death. But not to actual death because I want her to be alive.

I don't see her or call her or text her nearly enough and it's shameful of me and I really should mend my ways but I hope she knows I love her anyway. <3

She also doesn't read my blog that often.

HELLO BETHANY I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK BUT IT'S ALL NICE THINGS I LOVE YOU

To commemorate the lovely occasion, here is a bad-quality picture from a few years back of said best friend where she has batteries on her face.

Much loves.

Happy Birthday, Morinozuka Takashi-kun~

I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT UNTIL NOW. ;~;

Mori is one of my favorite characters like, ever. I'm a terrible person. I must find some attractive pictures of him now.

Look at the manliness on the left. 8D I mean, Hunny is adorable, but Mori's just cool. *u*

Ehehe. He's so simplistic but also adorable.

MORINOZUKA TAKASHI: A MANLY MAN WITH AN ATTRACTIVE FACE.

I hope he appreciates that I ate good food on his birthday. It will keep me healthy after all and I hope that's important to him.

Also I hope I can write him some Takakemi fic tomorrow (I hope he loves it because he loves Akemi) but tonight I need to sleep.

Sunday

Sorry for that un-ACen-related post in there. I meant to save it as a draft and publish it after this one. Sunday was a short day. We went to Mass (in partial cosplay!) first, and then after that we drove straight to the convention center. We went and got in line for Travis Willingham's autograph right away.
Then we met up with Emmy and I guess we did a bit of stuff but she had to leave pretty soon. After that, we shopped around for yummy closing deals. Sophie and I split a two-for-a-lower-price t-shirt deal so now I have a vocaloid shirt. The only other things I bought at the con were some art and some ice cream. :D

I only spent around forty dollars total which was better than the 50 I anticipated. Whee!

'Course, with the cost of the plane rides and the con itself, I'll be working for my parents to pay them back for a good while...

WELL AHEM after all this shopping around I'm not sure where Rhi went... but Sophie and Shadow and I took the obligatory "we really did meet each other see we're hugging in this picture" photos. Some of them came out very splendidly. Then we went to the closing ceremonies and for once we were the very. very. very. first ones in line. For about a minute and a half, we were the line. Closing ceremonies were actually just a bunch of boring thank you's but we were still first so it was significant.

We might have actually taken the photos after that.

But then it was all :c because it was all over. So Shadow and I went back to her house and then we went to Dairy Queen and talked about future cosplays and then we came back and we ate nomnoms and we played DDR and we went to sleep and then we got up and then it was monday but it's going in the sunday post anyway and I'm being lazy and not capitalizing and this is a run on and

Ahem.

Monday morning, I got all packed up. We ate trail mix and a Japanese candy on the way to the airport.
Once we got there it wasn't too hard to figure out where to go. But Shadow didn't want me to leave ;~;

We hugged several times and then I had to go through security and stand in the x-ray or whatever which I didn't have to do at the Austin airport but oh well if it makes them feel safer, whatever.

Then I waited around and bought a bagel since I wouldn't be getting to Austin until almost four. I had to change gates because the flight before mine was delayed and then my flight was delayed but only by about 20 minutes. And then someone borrowed my pencil on the flight and we flew and Judah greeted me and there was live music at the airport and it was definitely Austin. :3

THE END

Fun with homework

When you're homeschooled, you can do fun things.

For example, my brother left his school paper up with only a title written. What a shame. So I wrote it for him. Enjoy.

Was it Bound to Happen?

A discussion on “fate” in the Lord of the Rings

The concept of “fate” is one that I have struggled with for many years. The theory suggests that once something is put in motion, it never stops to take a break, not for the bathroom, or gas stations… how does it keep running? It’s like you’re in a race, you see, and all the other runners have a keen sense of the disease, but you’re just clueless, you know? So while everyone else is avoiding the bad music, you’ve steered right into some annoying instrumental waltz from the eighties. It’s getting really annoying but you can’t do anything about it or your business will fail. If that happens, you know the family will starve because we really need cheese. All the protein and fiber… it builds the importance of healthy bones. Without it, you’d squish. You know, like a tennis racket that got left out in the sun. Not very lovable. Of course, nobody wants to feel like that which is why I invented a variation of the microwave. It cooks your food and gives you hugs, like the pros do in those big, televised games they’re having so much of lately. And if that’s hard to swallow, there are miniatures, like in dollhouses where the bread isn’t actually edible because it’s made of ceramic. When you try to eat one, you just end up making an extra trip to the dentist for one of those root canals. Kind of like the Suez Canal, but Egypt actually doesn’t want you at all because you’d get a sunburn with that pale skin of yours. If we tried a new sunscreen with like, SPF100, we might could start ending cancer right now. It would be a huge step forward for science! Of course, I’ll document the progress or nobody will take us seriously. When they ask for our proof of purchase, you’ll give them the sticker from the receipt while I remember the notes. 

Saturday

Saturday was the really full and beautiful and crazy day.
This was the day when everyone was there.
This was the day my Link cosplay debuted. I got up and got into all the clothes and smeared makeup all over my face to improve any photos that might be taken of me. (There were a fair amount.)
Once we got there, Shadow and I went to a "posing in cosplay" panel. I don't remember if Rhi came with us, but I know that poor Sophie and her sister spent the first part of the day in line so her sister could get a badge. ;~;

We did some other things and shopped around. We met the creepers from Friday, except now they were the 10th and 11th doctors. We were gonna wait in line with them for Todd or Travis, but I wanted to go the Zelda meetup so I dragged Shadow with me.

I was glad they were giving a lotta luv to minor characters, but the only picture I got to be in was the one where it was all the Ocarina of Time characters, so that was kind of sad.

There was one lovely picture of me that resulted from that, though. Let me see if I can find it.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151021486337516&set=a.10151003354417516.547360.670107515&type=1&theater

I'm the one on the left who's got the potion bottle.

LOTS OF PEOPLE TOLD ME IT WAS A NICE TOUCH 8'D

I'm glad I thought of it. The cork gave me problems, though. It wasn't watertight and I didn't think it'd be a problem, just don't fill the bottle and keep it upright, right? Well, I obviously didn't account for the million and a half times it swung around because we walked back and forth between the Hyatt and the convention center and the parking garage a lot.

Because of the whole waiting in line and then abandoning it for zelda and then meeting Sophie and all that, Shadow and I kind of forgot to eat lunch except for I had an apple and she had a granola bar.
While Shadow waited in line for LM.C., Sophie and I went to see the Doctor Who photo gathering.

After all that, we went to the Death Note photo shoot because Shadow was Matt and Rhi was Misa. At the shoot there was one other Matt and we ended up making friends with her.
Rhi went to meet her dad and Sophie left and so Link hung out with two Matts and we went to the ZOMBIE SURVIVAL 101 PANEL which was epic except there was some sort of glitch that resulted in us actually not going.

Here's the exciting story of Saturday~
So Shadow, Emmy and I are sitting around in line for the zombies with cups of ice because all the water was gone. Then the IRT people come to cut off the line because everyone wanted the zombie panel. He came right up to us and said "the line ends here." Which was kind of scary because he seemed to be separating Emmy and I from Shadow. But then thankfully he asked if we were a group and we said yes. Then he said we were the very last group.
YAY! What luck. We were gonna see zombies!
Someone offered us 1400 dollars for our spot in line except it was only a bottle of juice so we said no.
Then everyone got up and started moving away from the line which was confusing so we thought that they might be moving the panel to a bigger room.

As it turned out, everyone had to evacuate because the fire alarm went off. We got out ahead of most people cuz we were close-ish to an exit. We went across the street and up in the skybridge and Emmy and Shadow and I all clung to each other so we wouldn't lose anyone and we watched people streaming out of the building and there were rumors of gas leaks and fires and all sorts of stuff and there were police cars and firetrucks and we were gonna go somewhere else when people started going back in so we did too.

We stopped to make sure the panels were going to run again, but that precious time cost us. We didn't make it into zombies after all. By the time we got there, it was full.

So we went to the nearby Doubletree hotel and hung out in the lobby and ate chocolate and joined a pizza party with some bronies. After that we went home. It was a long, exciting day. ^o^