Oohh, I have an idea. How about the people who score a four or a five on the MAP get to choose how the school spends the money that they earned the school. Now there's an incentive to do well.

La di da. Bored and ohsotired. BUUUUUUT....House is on again! And Bones! No more brain-cell killing pop wannabes singing during my shows. Good.

Apparently, or according to Spencer, the Bridge is open again this Friday. Considering the source it might very well not be, but hey it'd be cool if it was. If it's not, I might go see V for Vendetta again with Stacia. I dunno, though.

The educational system has seriously been grating on my nerves as of late. See, in our normally-asinine-but-this-is-absolutely-ridiculous fifth hour LA III class, we're doing MAP review. Now, in my opinion, MAP review kind of negates the point of the MAP. The MAP is supposed to see how well the curriculum is working and how well we're learning in school, no? So taking two to three weeks out of our normal(though not any less brain-cell-wasting, in this class) curriculum to review, specifically for that test, when we're not LEARNING anything during the review, is a little pointless dontcha think? I can understand a week of quick review before the test. But we've already had one thick packet, just got handed another today, and will probably get another one by the sounds of it. I understand the teacher hasn't been able to come up with any better use for our time all bleeping year(comma worksheets? as juniors in high school? oh what fun what fun!), but come on. When I bring up the issue in class that I'm not learning anything, I get told "well what are you going to do in college?!"

Ummm...not do mindless review for tests I won't have to take, I'm guessing. But that IS only a guess. Either way, the only way I'd do bad on the MAP is if I wanted to to make the school look worse, 'cause I gotta tell you, the school's not doing a whole hell of a lot for me at this point. I don't know why I shouldn't return the favor.

Not to mention that the MAPs bug me anyways. The basis of it, for those of you who don't know what it is(though probably have similar statewide tests), is pretty much that we do good and the school gets more money depending on how good we do.

Well, I don't get any money. I get two skip days and a $40 giftcard if I'm lucky. Which is probably not worth working for 10 or so hours. Four bucks an hour isn't minimum wage. It's not like the school spends money in ways I like -I don't learn anything, none of the classes that've been proposed that I'd love to take have been accepted as far as I know, I don't play any sports which is where all the bloody money ends up getting spent, etc. etc. All of this just leads to an increasing urge to draw smiley faces and write song lyrics(or rants, or quotes from Thoreau or somesuch, or something similar) instead of doing the boring boring asinine stupid questions in those blasted little freaking notebooks.

I can honestly say, the only class I actually learn anything in is College Algebra, and that's a stretch because most of it isn't really *new*, it's just stuff I saw last year and had a hard time with(and get it better this year). We never read anything the least bit though provoking. We never do any kind of original work or work that requires anything more than finding the answer buried in the essay or the internet and vomiting it back up onto a page without using any thought or creativity or originality.

And I have to come BACK next year. Why?

wait for it...

a PE credit. Whoop-dee-freaking-do. Because that, that my friends, is something that I will surely learn valuable life lessons from. Such as never leave your good stick of deodorant in your gym locker without locking it. Or how to benchpress correctly. You know, things that will aid you greatly in your life ventures.

Especially if you're pursuing a liberal arts degree. Yay.

The other day I got told off for reading in the same class where we're doing pointless review. Oh no, someone's trying to LEARN in a SCHOOL. We can't allow that one!

I don't like classroom dynamics either. I was thinking about this the other day too. Why is it okay for a teacher to go out of their way to embarass a student, sometimes to the point of tears, and they'll get hired back for next year, but heaven forbid a kid did that to a teacher. They'd be in trouble up to their eyes. Why is it okay to not treat us like people? Why do we get treated like idiots or like half people or like something to just boss around and get annoyed at? If we're supposed to be trying to learn, why do we get bitched at for asking questions -which, in my defense, probably come off as smartassed, but at least half the time I don't mean them that way. And why, if we treated some of the teachers the way they treat us, would WE be the ones in the wrong?

...no dark sarcasm in the classroom...

(that song came on today as we were going home, which took forever due to a roadblock thing, and I thought it was highly ironic considering my grumbly at best feelings towards school lately...)

Okay...ranting time...

Let's call these three people A, B, and C. Previously considered very good/best friends.

Saturday I called A to see if she wanted to spend the night. She said there was no way she could do anything, so I called B...she said she couldn't do anything either. Two hours later, A calls me wanting to know if I know the number of B because she left a message at A's phone telling A to call her. Okay...so yesterday I text C and ask if she wants to do anything/is busy. She doesn't even bother responding. I went into Joplin to go shopping with my mom and sister and see her car driving around. And then, at 10:30 last night, B calls me wanting to know if I know where she can reach C at so that they(probably B and A) can ask her for Kelton's number. This morning I call C to see if she wants to do anything, she said she was hanging out with her boyfriend all day yesterday, it was lots of fun, and she wants to sleep more so she'll call me back later. That part really annoys me, because it's very demeaning that I'm the supposed best friend and I'm so obviously less important than C's boyfriend, when she'll probably have a new one in a month because she's so boy crazy/lacking in self control anyways.

Not to mention messages from someone that I don't know how to deal with because I can't decide whether they're pathetic or if I should just give the guy points for trying to be nice...

So yeah, all in all, the actual weekend part of my four day weekend = suckiness incarnate. Excepting that Casey, who is indeed a good friend(unlike SOME people) found a damaged copy of the PostSecret book at work and is giving it to me. Yaaaaaay Casey!

Haha. I found this quote regarding V for Vendetta that's accurate and amusing:

"The Wachowskis are back and Rush Limbaugh will not be amused."

-- Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS

I'm thinking today will be a "well I don't want to do anything with YOU either so *raspberries*" day of Buffy/crocheting/making clothes and etc. I already finished this nice black and white plaid skirt that only needs a few finishing touches(stencilling, but our printer's out, so I'm going to have to think of some other way), and reconning that pink and yellow Clash shirt I had. It fit REALLY weird - so I cut out the front and back, added black panels in the sides, and straps that consist of grommet tape over black material. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Pictures might come later today along with the very belated pictures of the bright blue hat.

How to make a Michelle

Ingredients: 1 part competetiveness 1 part crazyiness 5 parts empathy

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add a little fitness if desired!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

How to make a Vegan

Ingredients: 1 part pride 5 parts arrogance 3 parts empathy

Method: Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Add sadness to taste! Do not overindulge!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

You Are A Hazelnut Tree

You're a charmer with a killer sense of humor. You are very demanding, but you can also be very understanding. No matter what, you always make a lasting impression - you're quite popular. Passionate, you are an active fighter for social causes and politics. In general, you are moody, honest, a perfectionist, and very sexual.

What is Your Celtic Horoscope?

Interesting.

I should go to bed...I wonder if I'm going to end up doing anything tomorrow...

So far, the four(and a half) day weekend has been alternately good and boring. Thursday afternoon/evening, Lydia and I went craft-store shopping, and then when we got home I attempted to teach her to crochet. Extremely unsuccessfully. I let her borrow the Happy Hooker, to learn from that, and I've missed it, 'cause although I hadn't touched it for three or four days BEFORE I let her borrow it, of course after it was gone I kept running into little things I needed to look up.

Friday morning, I went to my aunt's. My mom and Ashley got their hair trimmed, and I got my hair chopped off. We still haven't mailed it to Locks of Love though. But yeah, I like it much better now. It's longer in the front than the back and she put in some layers too. I didn't think to get a side picture, but here's a front mugshot:



Then we went to the sneak peek thing at the new Bridge last night. It was very cool - I *love* the new building and everything. It's so much bigger and nicer. There's a full basketball court, much bigger(and higher, eek) rock-climbing wall, full concession stand, HUGE ramp park thingie(with a little balcony-esque place where you can watch everyone skate/BMX) and I hear the concert venue looks great; we didn't get to take a look at that because the concert was $12 to get in. But apparently they geared it towards an older crowd than the other Bridge, according to one of the people we talked to you're not even allowed in unless you're sixteen. It's too bad I probably won't get to go to some of the grand opening stuff because of prom and AQT districts. I'll go to whatever I can though, that's for sure.

Today was not horribly exciting. We went and looked at a few cars, nothing good. I finished the hat that I started yesterday - I did most of it today, which shows about how bored I was...I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Going to go watch movies now...

So I finished the hat - yay me. Here's a picture:



My eyes look freakishly blue in that picture.

Today was a, as Alexander and Tsunami Bomb would put it, a no-good-very-bad day. The only part of the day that was decent was after school. School it itself, for lack of a better word, sucked. Big time. People kept making comments(or giving me lectures...) that I don't think they meant to be snide or patronizing or rude, but that seriously came off that way. It wouldn't have meant anything by itself, but all together they were just too much. And then, of course, our Bio teacher proceeded to make a jerk of himself. As per usual. We got assignments back from over a month ago, where I had(and the other "dirty bloggers") had been counted off 40% from it because it wasn't typed. When we couldn't type it. If I'm recalling right, at the time he never specified typing anyways. So we pointed this out to him, and he goes "Oh. That's right." and walks off. And ignores anything else we say to him. Joy joy.

In our third grade(or might as well be) language class, we're having MAP review. I have to wonder, sincerely and without any smartassed intent(well, maybe a little bit, but much less than usual), what the point of the review is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point to see what we're learning in our normal curricula? Soooo...doesn't taking a week out of our normal class, where we're actually learning something(not in this case, but hopefully in a normal classroom), to say "ok this is what you need to know for the MAP" kind of defeat the purpose? Entirely?

So I came home, surfed, finished the hat and watched some Buffy. I think that's my comfort tv-show.

I did add the aforementioned links - I might add some more tomorrow. I think they're pretty self-explanatory; dirty bloggers(a reference to the whole school-big-brother-fiasco) = blog, listening = record labels, and get active = resources for...getting active. voting and issues and such. If I add any more, it'll probably be in that section.

Going to bed...I have AQT practice in the morning. Night night.

I just finished reading Vote for Larry, which is the second book in a two-part series(duet?). The two books were awesome thought-inspiring reading, and I'm actually going to buy my own copies just because I'm sure I'll want to reread it.

It just makes me wonder - where'd all the apathy come from? When did people stop caring? And why are the majority of people in politics, the people running our country and making decisions that affect ALL of us, the people that are old, rich, white, and overwhelmingly Christian? Does that represent America? I don't think so. I don't know why people my age aren't more concerned with politics - when someone makes a comment about how opinionated I am, I just want to shake them and go "They're making OUR future! We have to live in the world they make following the rules they're making now!" If we don't tell them when we don't like it, if we don't do something about it, then what's going to happen? There's a HUGE amount of people between, what is it, 18 to 25, that don't vote, don't stand up and be counted, don't make themselves heard. "Oh, I'll never change anything by myself. One person can't change the world." Sorry, but I'm calling BS in the extreme. Do you know what happens when a thousand people that don't matter by themselves get together and do something? A hundred thousand? Hell, why not a million?

Aside from that, what's to stop an individual anyways? What if Thoreau had decided he didn't matter? Emerson, Curie, Einstein, Gandhi, MLK Jr. Hitler, for crying out loud, if we're talking about change regardless of good or bad. Who says one person can't change things, or at the very least help to change them?

So hey. Register to vote. You can do it at PunkVoter, you can do it at Rock The Vote. I'm sure you can probably find other forms online where all you have to do is print it out, fill it out, and send it in. How much effort does that take, when the result is that you get to take a part in something that ends up affecting you, maybe in the extreme? Trust me, I'll be doing it as soon as I turn 18(right after the tattoos, haha).

I think I'm going to put my money(or actions, at least, seeing as how I haven't got much money lately...*grumbles about lack of job*) where my mouth is on this one. In the most hands-on way possible. I don't know how much I can actually do, not being eighteen yet, but I'm going to try. It's my vernal equinox(who needs New Year's?) resolution. At any rate, in the next couple of days you'll probably see a few more links added to my sidebar, of various parties and persuasions and kinds of protesting and etc. If you want to do something too, check 'em out. I'm not going to lie and say that most of them aren't going to be leftish, but there's at least one that just wants people to stand up and get counted, no matter what you're yelling about.

On a side note, I think I'm going to cut my hair off for Locks of Love. I haven't decided how short it'll be yet, but it's going to be shoulder length, at the longest. I think I'm going to do it this weekend before I lose my courage. There'll probably be before-and-after pictures, if I have the presence of mind to bring along a camera...

Also, I'm almost done with Casey's hat v. 2.0. The first one turned out SO small, it wouldn't even fit my brother. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but yeesh. I found a method for doing hats vertically that works really well and IMO creates a nicer fabric. Also it's super easy because it's just SC DC over and over again. Woo-hoo. Pictures shall come.

Just got back from watching V for Vendetta with Lydia and Ashley...I liked it. Can't really describe it, but I definitely liked it and will probably be buying it on DVD the day it comes out.

I dropped in Hobby Lobby before we went to the movies, and they have a MUCH better selection than Michael's or Jo-Ann's. However, apparently they just had a clearance sale in almost everything I'm looking for, which means that there were pretty slim pickings. I'm kind of annoyed about it.

Casey's hat is coming along, ish. Either there's something wrong with the pattern or I screwed up somewhere, because it's really small so far, but not to worry Casey, I fixed it. I think.

Blah.

Recap:

Yesterday really kind of sucked. I think there's some universal law that says the more you look forward to something, the more you'll be disappointed. I like St Patrick's day, fun holiday, and I figured there's no way it could suck...well it did. School was blah, I thought it would get better after that and it just kept going downhill quickly. Didn't really get to do anything I'd planned or wanted to do, and everyone ended up in a pissy mood. Went home early because I felt like crap.

Today, it looks like almost nobody's available; whether from work or, well, to put it discreetly, sleeping off a headache. I might call Lydia and see if she wants to go into town, I really want to see V for Vendetta and it seems like something she might like.

I had an extremely weird and disturbing dream last night. I wonder if it means anything when you have much longer, involved, more vivid and weirder dreams than anyone you know. Anyways, I had this dream that there was some disturbing evil ancient force blah blah after me, and it kept making me hallucinate and talking to me...for some reason, the only thing it was afraid of was cobras. So I had to keep a picture of a cobra on me at all times. It wanted some old necklace that I found that was going to be exhibited in this HUGE museum. It could also possess people or turn into people or something like that. There was this big long involved thing where it kept killing people, and it was disturbing vivid. I also kept getting this weird deja vu feeling like I'd had this dream before, but for the life of me I couldn't remember how it ended in the dream. I don't think I have had it before at any rate...and then it was the opening day of the museum and Jessica, Lydia, and I were trying to stop it, running around through these big halls to get to the necklace before it did. Trying to keep people around at all times so it couldn't kill us. Suddenly Jessica and Lydia are gone, and the hall I'm running down is the one at home. I turn into my parents bedroom - the necklace is on the bed. I drop to my knees to grab it and a train suddenly appears outside the door, coming through it. The lights were incredibly bright. I get the necklace and the cobra picture while running to the door, but I tripped and fell. I threw up my arms in front of my face and scream bloody murder, but the train just goes over me. I open my eyes and everything's purple and black - like under a black light or something - and I stood up. Then I woke up.

The thing that bothers me most is that it didn't really have an ending.

That is ridiculous. One of the neighbors is playing bass in some kind of stereo, and it's so loud I can tell what song it is(or I could with the one song I recognized...some Eminem song..). I miss the days when we had no neighbors...

I love Calvin and Hobbes...

I gave blood again today. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first time, I don't think. My reaction wasn't half as bad, although I keep having pukeariffic urges for bursts of about 30 seconds. Yummy. Lingering headache too. The lance(thingie where they poke you in the finger to test your blood) didn't hurt NEAR as much this time, but the needle hurt more than I remember...of course, they couldn't find the vein right away again and had to move it around inside me. Yick.

I called Mr. Bulky's again...failed to get ahold of their manager. I did, however, get ahold of the manager at Jo-Ann's, and she said that she was hoping to schedule some interviews soon but probably wouldn't call back until the end of this week or the start of next. yaaaaaay.

No fair - I can't use the seam ripper right because holding my arm in that position hurts from the needle-poke. No sewing for meeee...

I got the Happy Hooker book yesterday, along with the Joe Strummer book and Cinderella's Big Score. I'm about halfway through the first part of the Happy Hooker...it turns out I've been doing some very minor things wrong. Anyways, I'm probably going to spend most of tonight relearning/starting on Casey's hat...assuming I can manage to hold everything right, anyways :P

...which happened not two minutes after I posted that...and which happened last night, so the modem on our main computer(the one we ran the internet through) is busted now. So we hooked it up to the other one. Anyways, Casey said he'll find one, since the leftover modem we had didn't fit. Yay!

This has been a Pretty Good Weekend.

A lot of yesterday was spent cleaning, and then Tammy came over. We generally goofed around, she taught me how to crochet(or do single and double stitch anyways, it turns out I was pretty much just making the stitches way too tight and that's why I was having a problem), and we watched The Breakfast Club and The Big Chill. Yay for eighties movies! I thought they were both decent at least and liked the first one more than the second. That might've had something to do with the fact that the second was depressing and I was too tired to pay the utmost attention to most of it.

Today Jessica and I went shopping - it turns out Mr. Bulky's still has an opening, and I'm going to call about that and JoAnn's tomorrow. Either one would be a pretty cool job. Anyways, I went to Michael's and got some yarn for the Anarchy Irony Hat from the SnB Happy Hooker book. Casey says he wants the red on black version...I dunno if I'm going to do black on red, or black on some other color...blue maybe. Or green. Neon green, haha. Make it an unstereotypical anarchy hat. I also got a pin that says "I will shamrock your world", a sticker that has a picture of a cat and dog taking a test and says "Against animal testing", and a huuuuuge XL shirt that says 'death eater'...I know it's geeky but the design was so nifty I couldn't resist. I think it might be a dress soon.

Anyways, I met Phil. He's pretty cool, nice, and not a Bush fan. He has the best-friend stamp of approval as far as I'm concerned.

It's all stormy and rainy outside, so I'm going to post this before the electricity goes out and all of this gets deleted...

Three things I forgot from yesterday...

-cockiness aside, Jessica and I must've looked really good or something, because I swear I have never been checked out so many times in such a short period of time(while we were at the mall/in the car). It was getting a little weird.

- Joey, who has texted me every day since Monday, didn't give up the routine last night. Oh no. I felt bad for ignoring him all the other days, so this time I responded to his ever-so-creative query of "What's up?" with "Nothing, hanging out with Jessica." "Oh, sounds fun." I didn't reply. He sent another one anyways. "What are your plans for SATDAY?" "Hanging out with Tammy all day" "Oh, well if you want to do anything with me tomorrow, call me"

He's not a big one for hints...

- Brad really pissed me off last night. He said something about an Amy being drunk. I said "Wait, Amy who?" He said "Oh, Amy C------." "Ugh, I don't like her at all. She's our neighbor...probably the one that hit our dog and didn't even have the decency to tell us about it."

Brad starts LAUGHING. As in, mirth. Jessica and I just looked at him, dumbfounded.

"Uh, that's not funny," I say.
He keeps laughing.
Jessica chimes in with "Seriously, Brad, that's not funny. He was a family pet..."
Brad says, "Oh, well, cats and dogs are like toys. They're disposable, if one dies you can just get another one."
Now getting rather irritated, I say "Um, no, they're not. They're living things - that's like saying 'Oh you can just get someone to pop out another one' to someone who's relative just got hurt or something."
He insists his viewpoint is right and eventually runs off to do something spazzy and Bradlike.

I just...holy crap. Do we really live in such a throwaway culture that people are starting to consider living things just another throw-away-toy? Get rid of it once it's not fun any more. They're alive - life is not disposable. Period.

Rant of the day...check.

I should really go vacuum now that I'm done messing around on the Fat Wreck Chords site. I'm supposed to do that today(clean house so Tammy can come over, not look at record label sites).

Two stories from the Globe, with very different reactions from me:

Here - hahahahahahahaha...so I'm not the only one who thinks so...granted the writer might not think much of my music either, judging by the way he speaks about music in general, but I gotta say we definitely agree on that point.

And this one, which just gets slack-jawed amazement/confusion from me. I don't get what they're complaining about. Yes, Christians are so obviously persecuted in this country. As we all know, there's Islamic temples on nearly every corner, and not a church in sight. Students are forced to recite a pledge that mentions Buddha in it every day, and it's a common sight to see bumper stickers that praise Ganeshu and have Om symbols on them. Our school even has a Fellowship of Confucist Athletes, but not a Christian fellowship, no sirree.

I really have no problem with the majority of Christians. I just really really don't like victim complexes, and I don't get what this resolution is supposed to be doing. If it's symbolic, and doesn't establish anything, why is it needed? What is it doing except for dividing people? There is absolutely NOTHING stopping people from praying in schools, so long as the teacher doesn't stand at the front of the class and say "Okay students now it's time for our daily prayer." That is wrong. I don't care what people do so long as they don't try to drag ME into it, which is a concept that seems to go over everyone's head lately.

While we're at it, I'm reminded of some stupid old forward that said something to the effect of "75% of Americans(or some other BS made up statistic) believe in God. Would it be so hard for the other 25% to just SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP?!?"

Uh. Yeah. That kind of goes against, oh, I don't know, everything America was founded on, you twits. Maybe the group that thought England was wrong was a minority, by however a small amount. Now what would've happened if they'd just sat down and shut up?

Anyways...last few days....

Wednesday...ummm....I really don't remember(little tired now). Nothing interesting, AQT practice as usual. Thursday, the plan was for Jessica and I to go to the mall and Dioko's with Phil, but that fell through because Phil apparently got in trouble or something, we went anyways, Jessica DDRed with a cute guy, got back later than planned and was mildly irritated about it...that's about the sum of the night.

Today was bad, and then good, and then bad-ish again. School = bad. End of story. And then, Jess and I went to the mall again, picked up her check, went to JoAnn's(where I got clearance tulle, yay), and then went to NBC, which is still having a bunch of 99 cent deals. I got a HIDEOUS dress that looks like something a Puritan schoolteacher would wear(but has a ton of black fabric for easy mutilation), a striped sweater(to make shoes with - pictures tomorrow), another striped shirt that I'm going to put something on the front of to cover a small hole, and a b+w plaid skirt, which is ubercomfy and shall also be mutilated, plus a pair of plain slip-on canvas shoes, for $8.50. Freakin' sweet. We went to Saginaw(I feel like a hick saying that one..), where Compton(don't ask) was at, and that was actually decent. Jerome was an ass, which was the bad part. Compton made up for it by being funny in the extreme though.

Tammy's spending the night tomorrow night. We're going to crochet, haha. Too bad the Stitch 'N Bitch Happy Hooker book hasn't got here yet.

Oh yes, and new purse:



(the inside has a pocket that's storing my mp3 player right now, but's big enough for most anything...and yeah, I carry around a lot of stuff. That hot pink thing is a travel toothbrush, yeah those are chopsticks...)





I love it. I gave it a front pocket so I can carry around my sketchbook and/or another midsize book, and I can fit EVERYTHING in the main part. Hell, Jake discovered he can fit his entire head in there with everything I already have in there.

Guess I'm not doing anything with Jessica after all...she was going to go on a date-ish type thing with someone(apparently Phil...wonder if he's a 22nd century kind of man...sorry, bad joke), and wanted me to meet him, so offered to have him get a friend to come. I called her around sixish and cancelled on my part, I'm not feeling so hot(tired, stuffy nose, sore throat) and I've got homework anyways, so yeah. Not to mention my stellar record with blind dates. Yippee for various language classes...

Yesterday was an AQT meet at College Heights. It brought back great(or humorous, at least) memories of eighth grade; CH was the meet where we were standing outside, in front of big windows and glass doors, I might add, when someone kicked their hackey-sack up on the roof. Oh, and this was when Mr. T was subbing for Mr. Augustine. We all kept trying to figure out how in the world they were going to get it down, and we decided the best way would be a pyramid-type thing, with me at the top of course(since everyone can pick me up, yay). Well, Mr. T comes around the corner and looks outside to see this pathetic trying-to-be-a-pyramid formation with me at the top that fell over as he watched. The look on his face was pretty priceless, I have to say.

Anyways, we got our butts kicked. One out of three rounds was victorious, one was an okay loss, and the other one we were TRAMPLED. The coach for El Dorado(the team that smushed us) was this old tall thin man wearing a black shirt. Right before the first round started, Alicia leans over and whispers "Their coach looks like Death...". Later, when it was apparent how badly we were being beat, Zach and I were writing notes - we weren't playing - and I made a comment about how they were probably using some kind of voodoo and giving us bad juju. Zach replied "well when you have Death as a coach..."

We stopped at the food court at the mall to get food before we went to the meet. I was wearing my Interpunk.com shirt that I got from Warped Tour, and as I'm getting some gelato from the new place(called, coincidentally, Gelato Primo), the guy looks at me a little funny and says "Hey, did you get that shirt at Warped Tour?" I was a little shocked, but said "Yeah, did you go?" Turns out he went to the one in KC. So we talked for some 10ish minutes about it until I had to go(and a slew of customers came up, darn them).

There were some fellow AQTers, though I didn't know it at the time, that I gave ten cents to at DQ so they'd have exactly $2.99 to pay for their food. Later one of them walked up to me, showed me four different pictures of some guy in a picture booth and asked me if I'd like to adopt a Thomas. I said sure why not, so he goes "Okay, so would you like gangsta Thomas, stripper Thomas, (something I forgot) Thomas, or emo Thomas?" "Emo Thomas, 'cause emo kids are funny..." Result being, that I have a picture of some totally random dude in a photo booth pouting. Interesting.

The downside to the night being that Joey texted me somewhere during the second match with "Hey". I didn't recognize the number, and the text conversation went something like this:

"Uh, who is this? Sorry..."
"Joey"
"How are you" (from him, before I even got done replying...that's a pet peeve of mine...anyways)
"Oh, okay, I'm at an AQT meet right now"
"Oh, sorry to bother you"
"That's okay but I can't really talk any more"
And he continues to text anyways...something about going on a date Saturday night. I told him I just started dating someone. I might do something with Jessica later. Maybe.

LeAnn spent the night last night; we watched the Power Rangers movie and Flatliners(again, although it's been a while). It was great, and this morning she came up with this masterpiece(with a little help from your's truly and Ashley):

The other day I was walking through the forest,
When out of the blue I got roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris.
I flew the air with the greatest of ease,
When I landed on the ground I shattered my knees.
I begged and I pleaded for Chuck Norris to stop,
Then out from the trees fell a Sugar Pop.
It hit Chuck Norris square on the head,
Then right there in front of me Chuck Norris was dead.
I cried "OMG How could this be? I killed Chuck Norris but he couldn't kill me."
Then God said "Let there be light, thank you for killing Chuck in that fight,
You see Chuck Norris wanted me dead, He threatened to grind my bones to make his bread."
I said "Well God I deserve a place of power, so give me a super tall tower,
So I can see naked hot guys, with my X-ray eyes...
Wait I should get some of those too, Can you please make those blue?"
God said "No I won't give you those things!"
So I punched him and cut him with my ring.
God started crying but I showed no remorse, Then I started beating him even worse.
After a while God had died, "Oh no what have I done" I cried.
Then I heard a ringing sound, I woke up and looked all around.
I realized it was all just a dream,
Then I got hit by a lighting beam,
Oh crap I really did kill God and Jesus is mad,
He was upset that I killed his dad,
But wait I woke up once again, and got ready for school and that was the end!!!!

Hahahaha. Anyways, I'm working on a purse(and my I-Search), the purse is actually totally done except for a small detail stencil. It turned out pretty good, I'll post pictures ASAP(which might be a few days, 'cause I have AQT tomorrow night). Mom's coming back from Las Vegas tomorrow.

On second thought, I'm not doing the stencil. I tested some paint on a scrap piece and the paint didn't take good(to the shinyish black fabric), so I think I'm going to do the Day of the Dead-esque skull on a pair of pants instead.

Wow. I just heard about the army funeral protest thing on the news. Here's a link for those of you who haven't heard - basically, there's a new law stating that it's illegal to protest at military funerals, and the superfundies from Kansas(bum bum bum) are planning on protesting anyways, saying that the reason people are dying in Iraq is because God hates fags and America doesn't. Or something to that effect. Let's deal with this step-by-step:

1. If it's illegal to protest at a military funeral, it should be illegal to protest at everyone's funeral because
2. as much as I'm a fan of protesting rights, a funeral is absolutely no place for a protest. Tasteless and tactless and completely thoughtless, and it's not going to make anyone listen to you anyways because they'll be so pissed that you're protesting at an event that's supposed to be for remembering a dead person that they'll immediately disregard anything said. But you can't expect the superfundies to see reason, especially considering that
3. the reason our troops are dying in Iraq is because our president is an idiot and sent them over there. I can't think of a segue but anyways,
4. if you're taking the bible literally and that's where you're getting that god hates gay people, then you also have to accept that god hates a whole lotta other groups too. But I think it's interesting
5. considering the number of preachers of this type that have been caught in gay bars or doing things that would most definitely send them to hell(check out a recent case). Which just goes to show that repression is not healthy by any means. Not to mention that
6. American really isn't all that pro-gay, or hardly neutral by that matter, considering the number of states that are absolutely scrambling(or have already scrambled) to prove just how straight, upstandingly moral, and Christian they are by passing laws outlawing gay marriage.

It's also interesting how these people screaming about their first amendment rights are so quick to deny other peoples' first amendment rights when it comes to things that don't involve preaching Christianity. Hum.

Ashley got that freaking Killers song stuck in my head. Blah blah blah.

As mentioned in the entry before, our bio teacher really irritates me. Let's figure this one out: He refused to let a student that has a bladder infection go to the bathroom. It's asinine when he doesn't let people who just have to pee go to the bathroom, but when they have a bladder infection? They went back and forth for five minutes when Darci said "Just go, and have your mom write a note excusing you". Teacher flips out and says "WELL I'M STILL WRITING HER A REFERRAL FOR IT!!" as girl gets up and leaves the room. Darci said "What'd you want her to do, pee in the trashcan?" "Yeah, I'd have preferred she did that!"

WTF, mate? Was there *any* point in that other than to go on an insane power trip? Any at all? But then, this is the same person that gave us computer-based assignments while we were banned from the computers and who refused to give us alternate assignments, saying that it'd all balance out in the end. Well, it's less than a week 'til quarter's over, we haven't got to see even a rough grade since midquarter -- I'm betting that he's going to not tell us our grades until the day before quarter ends when it's impossible to do any kind of alternate assignment and then we'll be up a creek without a paddle. Yee-haw, Batman. That sounds like a party.

Speaking of yee-haw, there's now a sign in our commons area that says "No Chewing Tabacco Allowed". You know you're in a hick school when...

And, although I know this is EXTREMELY late, I just now read about that outburst Kayne West had on live TV about Bush being stupid and Katrina. Very funny scenario. It's also nice to see that not all mainstream artists are the stupid sheep a lot of people make them out to be.

Man I feel like crap.

I'm in a bad mood and I don't really know why. My throat hurts, my back hurts, and I'm tired, but that's it. I've had a relatively good day. I turned in my application at Sprouts(local vegetarian-ish - mostly, but a few dishes with meat in them - restaurant), which wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and hung out with Stacia and LeAnn for a while afterwards. I'm not feeling too hot overall and I'm reading some depressing news - such as this...just, wow. I don't even get it. Do you really think the vast majority of people who get abortions are going to use it as contraception, and if they are, d'you think those kind of people should be reproducing? I just...dunno. I think lots of things are wrong but I don't try to keep people from doing them. I'm strongly opposed to factory farming but I don't go running around at lunch tumping over everyone's tray that's eating meat. Or go ripping off leather shoes or jackets or belts. I know some people do that, and I don't agree with them. And something else I don't understand - there are some of the super-fundamentalist sects that say no hospital care for anyone, and so their children end up dying AFTER they're born from some disease. Now wait, these are the same people that are pro-life and that I've seen a lot of pro-lifers defend. So it's not okay to kill a fetus that's not all the way developed but it's okay to kill a six year old, possibly slowly and painfully, because the parents are forcing their religious beliefs on him/her? Say wha now?

It just reminds me of the whole morning-after pill thing. I'm sure everyone that reads my blog knows my opinion on that. If I worked at Subway and said "Oh hell no I'm not giving that man a pastrami sandwich, don't you know the evils of factory farming?!" I'd be kicked out on my liberal vegetarian ass faster than you can blink, but because someone says God told 'em to, it's okay to deny that rape victim birth control. If you aren't going to do a job right, you shouldn't get hired. End of all stories.

I guess this is what we get for having a Republican president and a Republican majority in both classes. So much for checks and balances(and freedom, too...).

Completely unrelated notes:

I'm going to stencil our little group shirts that say "I'm blogging this". We're all going to wear them on the same day.

The seniors piss me off. There are some of them I'll miss, but holy crap I've never met a whinier bunch of people. They're all askew because the juniors aren't raising enough money in their opinions, and our coordinator is having a baby cow about it(despite the fact that he's male). The thing is though, that he won't accept any kind of suggestions. Apparently he freaked out at people for suggesting things at one of the meetings(I haven't been to any but the first one, because the geniuses keep holding them during the last 5-10 minutes of lunch. I dunno about anyone else, but they only give us 25 minutes to get food and eat, and there's no way I'm wasting what little time I have for eating on listening to people talk about things I don't care about), and I saw him freak out at Lydia for asking if she could have her parents donate $20-40 instead of trying to pawn off cheapie pictures to relatives and friends(we were supposed to sell two for $10 apiece). He told her yes, but she'd have to sell two pictures too. Boy, that makes a whole load of sense. Refusing a $40 donation that can be all yours so you can get whatever percentage of $20 you get from near-forcing people to take advantage of their friends and family. Woo-hoo that makes sense. ANYWAYS, back to the senior issue. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to bust my butt so that a bunch of ungrateful people who, for the most part, are rude to me, can get what they want when the only reason I'm going is because I have a dress.

Weird. Deja vu.

Our Bio teacher really pisses me off.

Not to copy off Alicia or anything, but it really is amazing how people come up with their version of reality. You watch an event, and listen to one person recount it, and another person recount it, and it's almost disturbing how different the stories are.

yeah I think I'm headed towards bed now...

And oops, I'm a ditz. Turns out that concert was for the fourth, not the third. So it's on Saturday. Which probably screws everything up, because I've been asking people about Friday for a week now. Yippee!