Presents, Writing, Future

Merry Christmas, world!

This is different, huh? Celebrating on Sunday? I have to admit I was a little unenthusiastic about that fact before, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit now. And it certainly makes it easier to remember what Christmas is really about when on a Sunday.

Several people came to hang out at our house yesterday- the mom-and-daughter-duo family friends, my aunt and her friend, and my sister's boyfriend (though she and him went to his house for a while, too). I honestly feel like I wasn't on my bestest behavior? I wasn't feeling particularly social, so I spent part of the time reading TAU on my laptop, and I barely talked. I'm really, really hoping no one got offended. I mean, all these people already know that I'm like that, but I usually try to pay attention to the conversation anyway, and at a few points I'd given up.

We later did the gift exchange... sort of. Some of the presents were given earlier, and others weren't actually wrapped, so it wasn't all that formal. (My mom gave me a chocolate orange to munch on, and my dad gave me a Louise Belcher rabbit ear hat! Much like the one she's almost always wearing in Bob's Burgers! I'm wearing it right now, actually.) The ones that were wrapped, though, we opened just after midnight. So the presents me and my sis got for our parents were opened (though my mom already knew about hers- the first half was a makeup palette), one of the gifts my sis got for her boyfriend was opened, and my sis opened the one I got for her. (Just like I was hoping for, she loved what I got her- two packs of Hot Fudge Sundae Poptarts. So glad she liked it!)

Oh, and a few days ago, my sis gave me and her boyfriend bags of chips and some Reese's chocolates. That was much appreciated.

(I'm unsure if I've mentioned a Totem City CD yet? I feel like I should've, but I might've not gotten around to it... Anyway, my sis got a copy for herself and one for me a few weeks ago, and both of us love the CDs! She told me it was one of my unofficial Christmas presents. Nick Wilde, the little fox stuffed animal from a few months ago, was my official gift.)

The second half of my mom's present was me and my sis cooking lunch for her. So, after church (which was a special Sacrament Meeting that combined all three wards, because with so many people gone during the holidays, it would've been dumb to still have separate meetings), we went to work to make foodstuff. It ended up being rice with a sunny-side up egg and these thingies that are similar to potstickers, topped with tempura sauce and sesame oil. We ate while watching this year's Christmas devotional (though my parents were starting to feel too sleepy to pay attention the whole way through, so we're watching the last part later today). We also got some ponche cooking then, so it was ready to serve by the time I started this paragraph. It came out quite good. There are very few hot drinks that I can stand (for a while, at least), and ponche is one of them.

I don't think there's really anything else to say about Christmas Eve and Christmas, so I guess I'll go to what I did earlier in the week.

As usual, I wore Christmas-themed outfits to school, though I didn't make them as over-the-top as I kinda wish I did. We have less stuff to work with, and I didn't give myself as much time to prepare as I have in past years.

I finished up the last chapter of my Physics textbook, and read a large portion of the English textbook, so I gave them back when I received my final English grade. It looks like I had a 98 in both classes, which is pretty nice!

Beyond that, I was trying to avoid reading too much, in an effort to get more actual writing done. Though I hadn't done anything WFAM, I did get a bit more in for the demon story, I did some actual TAU writing (one is a one-shot that I'm trying to finish, and the other is a drabble that actually started as a Free Write assignment because I just couldn't think of anything else to do for it. I did come up with something that looked a lot less like a fanfic- thus, something I could actually turn in- the day after, thank goodness), and I got a little bit of the Creative Writing assignments done. As seen in the previous sentence, though, I struggled with that last part. I wrote something for that one assignment 3 times, and the third was the only attempt that I turned in. I took a really long time to come up with something for the assignment after that, too, but I've got most of it done now.

I'm a little nervous about that TAU oneshot. I ended up wanting to write about the day right after the Transcendence, which is the point where the AU deviates from canon. Basically, right up at the beginning of the AU timeline. It doesn't feel very original, compared to tons of other works there, but I suppose it's not that bad an idea, considering people mention a lot of what sorts of things happened then, but hadn't really gotten around to actually writing it all out in story form. I like a lot of what I have down, but I'm not sure if it all actually fits close enough to the AU's canon (heh, that seems like a bit of a oxymoron there) to be... well, considered canon. It's also really difficult to know whether I'm portraying all the characters correctly, both because I haven't tried to write Gravity Falls before and they're not actually acting in-character in this one-shot. I mean, I'm writing what happened right after something crazy huge and traumatic, so no one's acting quite like themselves. I guess I can really only do my best and hope that the mods for TAU like it and/or give suggestions as to how to improve my characterization.

Yep, I'm planning to send these to them. I still haven't sent the headcanon thing from earlier, as I'm kinda planning to ask permission to send all these things as a group. I've only done this once before, and it wasn't so much material, so wish me luck!

On Tuesday, my seminary class had a Christmas party, which was mostly occupied with exchanging the White Elephant gifts. We started with bingo- once you got a bingo, you got up and picked one of the presents, which were still wrapped- and then, once we unwrapped all of them, choosing whether to keep our present or stealing someone else's. I'd brought a chocolate orange, which got stolen quite a bit, and I ended up stealing a small jar of tiny Halloween erasers. All of them are jack-o-lanterns, but I'm okay with that. It was a really fun day!

The day after, the multicultural club put on another event, but it definitely wasn't as well-planned as the previous one was, when my sister was the one in charge. It was still fun, though, since I got to talk quite a bit with this one kid in my seminary class- I suppose I'll call him Nick. One of the best things to come out of that was that we discovered that we both wanted the same career! He also wanted to research genetics! (And he also agreed on the point of not really wanting to be a boss, but instead getting his hands dirty with the actual lab work.) Since then, I've been thinking about how cool it'd be if we end up getting into the same research team when we're older- even if that means one of us gets the job, and then recommends the other to be hired too.

The ward Christmas party happened on Thursday. The Nativity scene was one of the most embarrassing things I've ever endured. Dude. (I felt myself tear up as I got off the stage and started getting ready for the dance after, because DUDE.) At least the Hawaiian dance went a lot more according to plan, and I could feel myself relax and have fun as we danced, much unlike how I felt a few minutes prior. (I'm still quite upset about the Nativity, though. I am desperately hoping I will never have to deal with something related to that ever again.)

I can't even remember at this point which day of the week it was, but me and my parents watched the live-action version of The Jungle Book on Netflix, which I loved. It made me realize I didn't really remember the cartoon- like, at all- but I really enjoyed watching anyways.

I can't really think of anything else that's at least noteworthy besides that my sister got an offer- actually, technically two- from her old boss (my current principal) that's a really good opportunity for her. It'd kinda be like acting as a liaison between him and a school he's planning on opening outside the country. This is the sort of thing she actually wants as a career, so she's super stoked, and we're all so happy for her! Of course, this messes up the whole plan she had set up for next year, but this is a lot better for her than some of those other things she originally intended to do, so she's perfectly fine with that! As long as we can figure out how she can work on college classes while she's doing this job, since she had planned on going back to school next fall, everything will be perfect. (Of course, she'll have to switch to online classes instead of going to actual classrooms.)

That, plus the fact that I'll be going to college myself, makes me kinda anxious about next year, but I'm also feeling pretty hopeful. I mean, my sis and I found or received these awesome opportunities! And, as my dad loves to say, nothing is a coincidence. So, we gotta take advantage of these opportunities, because they're real and they're there specifically for us, to help us get ready for our future careers (or, in my sister's case, maybe even officially start our careers) and happiness.

I'm gonna do my best to look at 2017 as a year of opportunity and personal growth. I have a feeling there's gonna be a whole lot of change next year, and it'll hopefully all be change for the better.

Again, Merry Christmas! Enjoy the rest of your day!

20 Years! Textbooks and Writing/Drawing!

Hello world!

So... I was kinda sick-y yesterday and today? Thank goodness that it resolved itself relatively quickly. It still sucked, though.

I feel a little bad that I had to miss church because of it, but it was nice to (try to) sleep and chill for the day. I'm also quite happy that it was me that got sick and not my sister, since it was her birthday and all. (She's been unlucky enough in the past to be sick and/or in pain on holidays and family vacations, so she deserves the break.)

Man, she's 20 now! That's so weird! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was like "She's 16 now?! WEIRD!" or "13?!" But, well, that tends to happen when you know someone for as long as I have.

We basically celebrated throughout the week preceding today- she went out with her boyfriend (Plot-twist: he's not Mexican!), her friends came over to watch movies, we went to the family-fave African restaurant (per her request), and maybe something else? I also gave her presents a little early, in the form of "coupon" thingies; they were a free manicure thingie (as in, I'm gonna try my best to paint her nails) and a chance for her to put makeup on my face for anytime we're going to some event and/or public place. She can do really dramatic makeup, or gross makeup, or whatever the heck she wants, for that second "coupon". I'm both scared yet mildly curious to see when she plans to use that one.

School's been... kinda nice. I let myself get distracted by TAU (AKA Transcendence AU, mentioned in the last two posts) a little too much in the first half, but I still got much more studying done than necessary for my Physics final, which I got 100% on!

After that, I started with reading the last two chapters of the textbook (which I haven't finished doing), which completely boggled the mind of one of the tutors at my school. ("Even I don't do that!" he proclaimed- and he's big on science and engineering.) On Friday, I also spent most of my free time at school reading some of the essays in my English textbook. Not because I love essays, for some reason, but because these were usually cut out of books and articles with lots of interesting information and perspectives on things.

I've decided that I'm definitely buying a copy of my current Physics textbook in the future. I mean, I don't wanna lug around any more books than necessary now, considering I'm highly likely to move into a dorm and stuff next year... but once I feel like I've got everything figured out regarding how much stuff I'll have with me for the next few years of my life, I'll get the book on KSL or something. Maybe, by then, the book will be cheaper because it'll be an older edition of the textbook, and it'll be cheaper then anyways.

I had intended to do a lot of the Creative Writing class, but... I guess I got writer's block for the next assignments I was supposed to do. I believe I only managed to turn in one assignment throughout the week. Not cool. (On the upside, my English teacher told me on Friday that she absolutely loved some of the stuff I submitted for that class. That was really nice to hear.)

Instead, I ended up doing stuff for my own stories. I edited what I had so far in the demon story and figured out a few of the details I'd been unsure about before. I only got an extra paragraph further from where I'd left off, but I know the story looks better than it did before.

As for WFAM, I took some time from the second half of the week to write down a few ideas I'd jotted down in my phone forever ago and try to draw a few of the characters. (I mean, seriously? I'd only bothered trying to draw Guinn, Cami, and Ben so far, when there's plenty of other characters that need to be worked out? Get it together, Me.) I intended to draw Rory (the version that will appear in WFAM), Benji (the baddest guy of them all!), and Heart (the lady that is Cami's boss). The last one just refused to be drawn, but I got something decent for the other two.

I'm not as happy with Rory's drawing as I was hoping for. My hand didn't want to show her like how I imagined (and she looks a little disproportional?). I guess it was less necessary to draw her, since I knew pretty well already how I want her to look, but whatever.

I think it's kinda funny, now, how I'd made a redhead who looks relatively harmless, but can definitely kick your butt and enjoy doing so, when I've now found TAU, and a bunch of the main characters in it are much like that, too. Rory's a little more into showing her tough side with her clothes and attitude, though, while the TAU gingers have more of just an aura that comes out of them when they have reason to release it. (Also, they're all curly-haired, while Rory isn't.)

Anyways~ her typical sort of ensemble is a navy blue shirt- likely long-sleeve- with jeggings, paired with steel-toed leather boots and a pair of leather gloves that look much like Alphonse's, for they have small steel plates on them to make punches really hurt. When she's on-the-job, I guess I can say, she also wears a bullet-proof vest, which I'd attempted to draw. (...It failed a little.) Even if no one's fighting with a gun, wherever she may be, I assume such a vest would be very useful anyways.

Benji's results are a little more surprising.

(I just took these pictures from when I sent them to Carter, thus why I tried a little less to make the picture nice.)

I knew his hair was brown, but I hadn't really considered what sort of haircut he'd have. I ended up just thinking, "Well, hey, he'd probably like having tall hair," so I tried to draw that one haircut guys used to do a lot where the sides and back are shaved and the top is very voluminous, even though I never really liked that cut. It was harder to draw than I expected... and I think something mildly different is in order for Benji.

His face came out so creepy, when I hadn't even tried all that much! Frankly, I'm quite proud of myself! Though I guess I hadn't thought of making his creepiness so overt, he certainly looks like he holds the sort of personality I intended.

One of the first traits I had made for him was that, for some reason, he'd wear monochromatic outfits every day. (This is inspired by this one guy in my old middle school that did this very thing for the entire school year. White with white, blue with blue, even yellow with yellow!) He'd likely wear blue most often, but it'd depend on his mood and what he planned to do for the day, so there'd also be a fair share of red, black, brown, and maybe white and purple? A detail I'd thought of later was that he'd probably also like wearing suspenders daily. (I considered giving him a bow-tie, too, but dismissed it when I remembered that bow-ties are used a lot now. ...Well, I guess suspenders, too, but they're most commonly used with ties and bow-ties, not just by themselves. I can think of only one exception right now, which is Dez in Austin & Ally, but even then, he always had his suspenders off his shoulders. (Honestly, he's one of the reasons why I got into suspenders a few years ago. I seriously need to get back into them again.)

I'm unsure about footwear, but I feel like it's a little more likely to be something casual, like Converse, than a loafer. Is it odd to find 30-something-year-olds that still wear Converse, though? I don't know very many 30-somethings. I probably should, in order to make the older characters, like Benji, act realistically for their age.

Unfortunately, when I'd been intensely reading TAU and writing in my little notebook for WFAM, I missed that everyone had gone to an assembly... and my mentor teacher had sung praises about how I was cool and got a 34 on the ACT at that assembly, but didn't know I wasn't there until it was too late. I feel kinda guilty about it. Even worse, I don't have much of an excuse as to why I wasn't there!

There's not much left to say... Well, I finally learned just what the lyrics are to "No Surprises" by Radiohead, watched Elf at school on Wednesday [and Santa Claws today with my sister (though she fell asleep a third of the way through), which just about as cringe-worthy as we expected], and a kid at school showed me that he had a crazy cool, fancy calculator... and I ended up fiddling with it a lot.

It had buttons for every letter of the alphabet, which I used to type down several messages and jokes. The first was "it has a little mouse oh mylanta" (hadn't found punctuation and caps lock yet) because it had a touchpad that showed a mouse on the screen! And my sister and I have been watching Fuller House lately!

The second message on this picture was specifically for my sister, cuz I wanted to send this to her for her amusement. Apparently, she indeed found it quite funny.

I put down a few other things, like the first few lines of "Baby Got Back", before I gave the calculator back (after trying the third time before the owner and I found some other cool feature on the calculator and I played with it all over again) and ran away. The temptation is strong in this one.

Okay, that's pretty much everything, I think! I wonder if I'll actually get around to doing everything I was hoping to do this next week?

WAIT! Dude, I can't believe I almost sent this without putting in that the family Christmas party was yesterday! Unlike most previous parties, which were linners hosted at my grandma and grandpa's house, they apparently tried mixing it up and did breakfast at Golden Corral. (I saw Beka's mom there, by coincidence.) Though I didn't really talk much to the more distant relatives, I had fun with Cam and Ash and their parents. Even though I'd already been feeling mildly nauseous when we were there, I managed to eat most of the food that I put on my plate (even though I took longer to eat that food, in the process), so I was mildly proud of myself. And yeah, it was fun despite that.

Super-Duper Long Winter Break? THE DOOR!!!

Hello world!

It was rather odd last Sunday... I just didn't feel like writing my next entry here. I instead read some of my old stories and took a short nap. Oh, and after Family Home Evening (we've always done them on Sunday rather than Monday), we were looking at what of our children's books (mostly heavy collection books) we wanted to keep or donate/give away. My family's been doing a bit of donating and stuff this month, so.

It's not that bad that I skipped a week, though, cuz not much has actually been going on lately.

(I know! Crazy, right?)

In school, I'd basically just been finishing up my English paper and project (which we finally got to turn in on Thursday and Friday). The Transcendence AU mentioned earlier certainly didn't help me with concentrating on my work, but I managed to pull through regardless.

Something very cool happened in school, actually! I believe I'd mentioned that I still had just a few assignments left for Financial Lit? Well~ I decided to start on those on Thursday. I had the name of the three assignments I still needed to do written down, so I just looked for the names of those in my class.

However, I'd been put into this year's Financial Lit class just a few weeks ago, which turned out to be quite a bit different from the class that I'd been working on last year. Though I managed to find 2 assignments with the same names as the ones I needed to do, I wasn't entirely sure they'd actually be the same, and that third one has just disappeared entirely. That... made me quite nervous.

So, I went over to ask the teacher what I should do. He looked me up in the school records, and saw that I'd had almost everything for that class done, plus had a really good grade, so he said, "Oh, you're basically done! I'll just give you the credit." And he did.

So, just like that, I finished Financial Lit, which I hadn't worked on since last summer! I guess it's not a big deal, considering I had technically done a lot of work for it already, but it was a pleasant surprise that I wouldn't have to fret over it any longer.

I still have my Physics final to study a little more for (though my professor said he was confident that I could get 100% without trying), and besides that I only have Creative Writing, which I don't even need the credit for!

Since my PE and FinLit credits are in, and my final grades for English will soon come, I've basically graduated high school! Weirdness!!!

But, well, that doesn't mean that I'm actually leaving it. Even though I'm scared about it, I'm going to try my hand at 3 concurrent classes next semester, just like the real college kids. You haven't gotten rid of me yet, High School and Community College. (...I'm referring to both as people, hence the capitalization.)

As of now, it looks like I'll be taking College Algebra (MATH 1050), English 2010 (with the same professor, which I'm hoping was the right choice), and Intro to Chemistry. According to the U's website, taking these courses will actually go towards my generals.

I wanted to take chemistry anyways, since it was one of my preferred science classes in high school, and I figured it'd just be a lot smarter to get English done and over with now. (It can be a rather stressful class, and I'd rather not torture Future Me with having to deal with it among the other difficult classes she'll be dealing with in the near future. Plus, the professor had pointed out that it's much easier to do 2010 right after 1010 rather than waiting a year or whatever. I'm already a little sick of English, but I bet Future Me would be even more sick of it.)

As for the math class... I mean, I could technically do 1060, but that's trig, and I'm not big on trig. Like, at all. It's incredibly difficult for trig stuff to stick. Dude, I even forgot SOHCAHTOA for a while. Isaiah's in it, and just from the glance I've done to his homework, I know I'd hate myself for going into that class.

I also know that a lot of the stuff in 1050 I'll have already done, or at least be somewhat familiar with. I suppose that could mean that I'm just taking the "easy" class, or just a review. I dunno, maybe I actually will. But, frankly, that's going to make my first venture into a full college-kid schedule so much easier, if at least one of my classes is relatively easy compared to the others. I want that stuff to stick, anyway, cuz I know I'll need to have a good math base for the sort of stuff they'll make me do for choosing a science degree.

I can already tell I've been slipping with the math stuff, just for not taking an actual math class this semester. I've been doing pretty dang bad in the math club meetings in comparison to the others there who assisted the math banquet a few weeks ago. I need to practice math more, especially the stuff I'm more familiar with.

So... yeah. I think that's what I'm gonna be doing. I was hoping for Humanities rather than English, but it's just gonna make more sense to leave Humanities for later. (I don't even know if the Humanities class would've counted for credit at the U anyways.)

I guess back to what I've been doing in school. So, since all I have to worry about for this semester is my Physics exam, I have been having a little more time to chill and read whatever and write during school hours. I read a bit of my old works from my flash drive and, of course, read more Transcendence AU stuff. (Dude, I still had stuff to read open on Chrome on my phone for 2 weeks. I finally finished my insane TAU binge yesterday. 2 weeks. I thought it was pretty bad the last time I got sucked into Gravity Falls AUs earlier this year... And once I catch up on the updates to fics on FFN- thank goodness that there weren't many updates on my usual reads lately- it's back to TAU. There's still so much that I haven't read there yet. Why did I do this to myself?)

I also got two Free Write assignments done for the Creative Writing class, when I found out that I wouldn't have Financial Lit anymore. I'm hoping to binge on CW over this month and see how close I can come to finishing at least the first term of it. I might as well make the most out of the time I have free of other responsibilities at school, right?

Dude, seriously, it's such a relief to feel like I can relax now, even though Winter Break's still two weeks away. (I know, it's a really late break! Any other year I would be out in one.) I'm just gonna consider it an extra-long break, and also a break that makes it much harder to just waste my time watching TV. TV's great and all, but I just haven't done much besides read and watch TV in forever. ...I'm still probably gonna do quite a bit of reading, honestly, but I'm gonna try to get myself to do as much writing as possible- for the demon story from last summer that I need to finish, for WFAM, for fanfics (I haven't posted any since last summer!), and for whatever else I can think of! I desperately need to focus on writing, cuz I doubt I'll have the chance to do any next semester, nor during my time in college!

(I've actually gotten a bit of a head-start in that. Liz and I have returned to working on our fics together, after a long time of me not having the time for it or, honestly, not really feeling like working on it. We've worked together a couple times these past two weeks.)

I'm also hoping that the "scholarly atmosphere" (as if that actually happens at my school, but I can still try to pretend that there's one) will get me to do the small amounts of research I've wanted to do. I found a few notes here and there of stuff that I wanted to look more into over the semester, but never got myself to do, since- well, I had other things to worry about. I also want to read some of the stuff that we never got to in my textbooks before I have to give them back to the school. I mean, might as well, right?

I guess I can just get out of the way now my entertainment tidbits before returning to talking about writing. I watched Angel in the House (which is nothing like Corey in the House, despite the deceiving title) with my mom 2(?) weeks ago, which we actually liked quite a bit.

Also, on Friday, my dad took me out to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them after school. Like, literally. He picked me up at school and drove us straight to the movie theater with no previous warning. There was some pretty dang cool stuff in the movie- like, say, the fantastic beasts?! Newt's workplace is also very awesome, and I liked one of the characters quite a bit. I dunno why, though, but there was just something about the movie that made me not like it as much as I was hoping I would... Don't make what I said stop you from watching it! Maybe it just means that I am indeed not as big a fan of Harry Potter as I think. As in, I'm not much of a fan, as suspected, and this is proving it. I have a very mixed relationship with HP and its universe and its fandom, as I believe I've described before.

The second season of Fuller House finally came out! ...And my sister had watched almost half of it while I was at school and watching Fantastic Beasts on Friday. She asked for forgiveness, but I can't forget such treachery.

Apparently, it tends to not be considered super normal to read and watch a lot of stuff that involves demons? I tried to tell Isaiah about something that I found, but I was pretty sure he wasn't familiar with anything Gravity Falls, so I only came up with saying that Transcendence was a fandom that involved a lot of stuff about demons...? I mean, even in-context, I guess that's kinda weird to hear, but it got worse because I had to just release a rant about finding a secret page where supposedly you summon Alcor, who bounces around on the screen and "talks" to you and stuff, and it'd gotten me all terrified even though I know perfectly well that Alcor doesn't exist, especially when I found the button that says, "I want to make a deal". He showed mild concern, and said "What have you been looking at lately?"

And it did not help that the day after, we found a random prop door in the school hallway (which we never found out the reason for). It made me immediately think, "Oh my gosh, Monsters, Inc." We eventually tried to open it, and it turned out it didn't actually open? I mean, it had a frame, and I assumed it had a hinge, but it didn't open, which even prop doors are supposed to do! So then I got really mad at the door because it scared me like that! And then turned out it was even faker of a door than a fake door! Just... who does that?!

So... yeah. I experienced a few moments of oh-my-gosh-what-if-that-cartoon-was-actually-real and what-is-wrong-with-people. Thus, spilling the rant to Isaiah mentioned earlier.

(Now that I'm thinking about Isaiah, I'm remembering that I hung out and sort-of studied with James, which we hadn't done for quite a while. It was nice.)

I guess something I can appreciate about TAU is that it proves that the main character (Jethro) in that short story from the summer is not the same as other interpretations of demons. I guess I can't say he's the most unique kind of demon ever, but at least I can feel confident that it's less likely someone will think I'm ripping off someone else's work? Maybe? I mean, the idea for him was mildly inspired by Gravity Falls, but he's proving to be very different from actual GF demons. That's good.

Though it also proves that I like reading stuff with demons. And Isaiah gets worried when people like reading stuff about demons.

I went to KF both Saturdays, and yesterday we went to a quinceañera. It was... basically the weirdest quinceañera we've ever been to. For real. Everyone just seemed so lost and confused and like there wasn't enough practice/preparation for just about anything.

On the upside, it helped me think of something for TAU fluff! When I first heard of the quince happening, I had a small, amusing thought of how Mabel would probably like to have a party like that, even though her family isn't Hispanic. If any "white" girl ever was gonna do something like that, it'd probably be Mabel.

Specifically for the Transcendence AU, this is what I came up with. If I gain enough confidence in it, I might actually send the headcanon(?) to the TAU page and see if I get a response about it. I have no idea if I will.

I think Mabel would absolutely love the idea of having a quinceañera, despite not being part-Hispanic (as far as we know), when she was younger. I mean, what wouldn't be appealing about basically being a princess for a day? However, concerns for it cropped up in her mind as early as her 13th birthday. Even if she wasn't worried about the fact that having such a party would mean the spotlight was only on her rather than both her and Dipper on their birthday, things changed far too much. What was celebrating a birthday if people thought she was the only twin left? What was celebrating another year of her brother losing his "human" status? People in their hometown didn't really like her or Dipper much anymore, anyway, and wouldn't want to assist a party held in her/their honor, whether their parents tried to deny that or not.

Instead, their 15th birthday was a rather small, awkward affair: the family opted to keep the festivities within their house- their mom prepared an elaborate breakfast and dinner, and their dad put on every movie Mabel and/or Dipper wanted to watch on the family TV. (As for presents... I don't even know what they'd try to give Dipper, honestly.)

When the twins moved back to Gravity Falls, it was easier to be happy in such a supportive community, and it felt more okay to do happy things. So, with months in advance, Dipper began a scheme to let his sister's dream come true after all, and throw her a Sweet 16. He enlisted the help of Soos and his grandma first, and then let in more and more people to the secret as he found that there needed to be damas, chambelanes, and who knows who else.

Of course, he couldn't keep it a secret from her for very long, considering she needed to pick a dress and practice the choreographed dances. She was absolutely touched that he went through all the trouble- especially considering he was still having a hard time maintaining a corporeal body in this plane for more than short bursts, along with all the other difficulties that inherently came from being a demon trying to interact with humans.

He assured her that he really wanted to do this for her and thought she deserved it; his sincerity and determination were enough for Mabel to agree to the whole thing.

Thus, the dieciséisañera- as it was called by those who could actually pronounce that- became the talk of the town, and it seemed just about everybody who knew the Pines was pitching in to make it possible.

Though most Gravity-Fallers had never gone to this particular sort of occasion before, they were all sure that it was the most spectacular 'ñera in history. The venue- a room in the Shack much larger than before, thanks to a deal with Dipper- was beautiful, the food was delicious (especially the cake), the entertainment was spectacular, and the birthday girl herself shined above all of that. Mabel radiated in her colorful dress, and grinned throughout the dinner, the waltzes, the ceremonies, the everything. She was having the time of her life, and her happiness was contagious.

By far, it was agreed that the highlight was the traditional "first waltz", which- of course- she danced with her brother (who changed his usual suit to include a vest, bow-tie, and pair of shoes that matched her dress). He spun her, swung her, and floated both around the spacious room in a fantastical display that only those within the room could appreciate, unlike the people back in California. He elicited squeals and giggles out of her with every move, and he laughed with her. The townspeople knew Dipper didn't laugh as much anymore.

When the party finally ended and cleanup began, the twins went over to the table of presents and discovered that there were just as many gifts left for Dipper as Mabel. If they were still wondering where their true home was, where they truly belonged... they were expelled right then and there.

A picture of the twins dancing in the ñera is within the scrapbook at the end of Book 3. 

I can't say for sure whether Mabel would really consider having such a party, but I wouldn't doubt that Dipper would do whatever he could to make it happen if she did. It would be just another show of how much he cared for her, and how he'd do anything to make his Mizar happy.

Hello John, Thanksgiving, and AUs!

Hey world!

I had a full conversation with my new bishop for the first time a little over an hour ago, so that's cool.

I guess one of the biggest things this week is the fact that it was Thanksgiving last Thursday. That means not only a lot of food, but Thanksgiving Break. I tried to not relax too much and get some work done, but it wasn't as much as I was hoping for. (See, I still had quite a bit to do regarding the BYU application's essay questions, and I found out that my last paper for English was due a week earlier than I thought. I'm still wondering if I'll have everything ready for the app's priority deadline, though now I'm wondering if it'd be okay to just wait till the regular deadline... As for the paper, I'm gonna have to dedicate a whole lot of school-time the next few days in order to get it done.)

As per tradition, we ate at Grandma and Grandpa's house at around 3 PM. Cam and Ash were there, along with their mom (my aunt), but no one else from the family showed up. It was still fun, though. (Besides eating, I also got to do turkey coloring pages with them and my sis, and my little cousins showed me how the Poptropica app worked. I got a little mad when I thought you had to make a new account for the app, but then found that you could import the name and appearance of one of your old Poptropica avatars, at least. I'd forgotten what some of mine looked like, so that was neat. I thought it was amusing that all of them still had braces.)

Though I still got pretty full, I was proud of myself for not overdoing it as much as I have in past years... but then we went to Brorange's house, and they offered us more food there. (Broranges didn't get to have Thanksgiving off at his work, so he wasn't there. Mrrrr.) I tried to eat as little as possible, but... with so much food in front of me, I couldn't resist getting a little bit more of something every once in a while.

When we'd finally made it back home, we watched what I believe was called Hearthstone Asylum? *goes to check on Google* Oh, it's actually Stonehearst Asylum. I was pretty dang close, though!

It's based off of "The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether", one of my favorite Poe short stories, so the moment I realized that (it was just a minute before the opening credits said it was based on Poe), I knew it had to be a good movie, and it was. Besides being a really good adaptation of the short story while still having a lot of unique aspects, I was also pleased to see more done for the female character (I think her name was Emily in the movie). I think something that had mildly confused/bothered me in the original story is that the narrator expresses an interest in one of the female patients, but then nothing actually happens with her after that... it kinda made it feel pointless that he mentioned her at all. In Stonehearst, though, she has a much bigger role, and it makes much more sense for her to be there, so I liked that. Love Poe, but ya gotta give respect to the people who make their own good work through Poe. Yes, such people exist.

The day after, we had John over for dinner. He absolutely loves my mom's cooking, and he seems to really enjoy hanging out with us. (He didn't have a prosthetic leg this time, but apparently they're making a new one for him, so he was stuck with just crutches.) I felt a little bad that my dad, as usual, dominated every conversation, and sometimes John would start saying something but then my dad would interrupt, as he always does. I feel your pain, John.

I just so happened to be wearing a Popeye shirt (which I don't wear often, due to it being white), and when he noticed, he went into a small rant about how horrible the plot and characters in Popeye are. Though he was rooting for me getting rid of the shirt, I only promised I wouldn't wear it in public. (I mean, it's a perfectly good shirt!) And, well, since I like to keep promises, I'm actually gonna do that, even though he wasn't entirely serious about that. (Even if his request wasn't serious, though, his despise for the sailor-man is very real.)

He hung out on the couch with my dad for quite a while after we ate, and I just stuck around, paying attention when I was intrigued by their conversation. I had the distinct desire to make something for him, like a doodle on a sticky note or something, but I took a while of just staring at paper, deciding what to do. Since I couldn't think of what, exactly, he'd like drawing-wise, I instead folded up a little origami crane. (Apparently, that's my default present to people, like my mom and teachers?) I gave it to him just when he was about to leave, and he seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

Since I still had a pen with me, I proceeded to try just doodling whatever came to mind for myself. It... didn't work out as well as I was hoping. I kinda had a bunch of ideas all at once, and so it's all rather mismatched. (I was too lazy to edit these pics at all. Sorry 'bout that.)

So it started with the legs, then the bottom of the dress, then the top, then the arms, then the head. Basically, the reverse of my usual order. I'd started with thinking both of how I wanted to draw a pose similar to the copy of May Chang I did in the FMA manga a few years ago (though it's also like a typical Powerpuff Girls pose) and I wanted to draw a girl with a white dress paired with white shoes and black tights. (Girls usually have white tights instead of black and black shoes instead of white, so I wanted to try the reverse.) Since May and the PPG have similar shoes, that kinda just happened. But then, I started thinking that I wanted to do a hi-lo dress instead of the cupcake dress I originally intended, and then I accidentally started doing a woman's figure when I moved up instead of just a girl's, and so suddenly she was older, and then... yeah, stuff like that. Now, it looks kinda like a futuristic Chinese woman who also likes shoes and hair accessories for little girls. In my opinion, anyway.

(I don't even want to talk about what I folded back so you wouldn't be able to see it. *shudder*)

Seeing as that ship crashed and burned, I tried again on the other side, going a little closer to my original intention of reverse-color scheme for a typical girl character. (I was mainly thinking of the Vocaloid Mayu while drawing this.) It went much better, though proportions and stuff are a bit off.

I then tried a side-view for the same girl, and things again went okay-ish, but then her face came out way wrong. Like, it looked like it was for the Wicked Witch of the West. NO.

I then decided to crop out everything but her face... And by the time I'd done that, I realized it would've made more sense to instead just use one picture but black out the face or something instead of what I actually did. Oh, I'm an idiot.

Ignore the black scribbling in front of her neck. That was my attempt to make it look better. Didn't help much.

Besides the horrendous things I did to her poor face, I really only needed to have the legs a bit further back. The proportions are pretty decent, so.

The day after that (yesterday), I had a KF class (my mom had my patches sewn onto my uniform during that, so my uniform's finally complete!), and we later went to a Korean restaurant for sushi. (The wait was long, but the sushi was pretty good.) In between both those things, however, I kinda felt like looking up Wesley Weston fancomics (Wes was mentioned last week), but then a short chain of events led me to instead discovering a Gravity Falls AU called "Transcendence". When I realized just how complicated it was, I wasn't sure I'd have the patience for it; once I found the summary and character bios, though, it became much easier to figure it all out. And now I know I'm gonna spend, like, at least a week going through the entire Transcendence Tumblr page. It is indeed very complicated and more different from canon than any other AU I've found, but it is so far a very cool AU. It's got a lot of feels, but also quite a bit of small headcanons within that are cute and funny. I don't even mind the OCs! Who knows? Maybe I'll find the inspiration to write for the Transcendence!AU myself...

Throughout the week, I'd been keeping "Don't Know How it Goes" by Julian Smith stuck in my head, especially when doing homework, but a few days ago I instead thought of "Just Give Me a Reason" by P!nk and Nate Russ (or whatever his name is), and so I've also been thinking of that "music video" thing I'd come up with for that song a few years ago. I actually remember my ideas very well, but I've mentally been making tiny tweaks to the "choreography". I think I should try to write out everything that happens so that I can't lose any of it when I'm older. Just cuz I remember it now doesn't mean I will in a few years.

Darkrai recommended me to watch a certain Youtuber (8-BitRyan) play Hello Neighbor. I didn't think I'd get hooked, but.. I think I am. For that game, at least. Man, I thought I escaped the "Let's Play" addiction years ago! Hello Neighbor is an absolutely fascinating game, though, so at least it makes more sense for me to be like "I must know what happens next!!!"

It took a while for me to realize, but it's a very pleasant surprise that 8-BitRyan barely swears, and hasn't made any dirty jokes, unlike just about all the most famous Youtubers that I watched a lot back in 8th and 9th grade. He's still funny, but it's the kind of funny I approve much better.

I still keep getting jump-scared, though. Ooooooh, all the jump-scares.

I skipped the first half of the week, so I guess I'll return to that now.

I believe it was on Monday(?) that we realized there were still a few Icelandic foods that my sis had brought with her that we hadn't tried yet. Two of those things were dry fish and pickled shark. The first was a bit weird (and so difficult to eat!), and the second was pretty gross. Just... eugh.

I finally did the Physics presentation... As usual, I could feel myself shaking while talking. I ended up talking really fast because I had a lot of information I wanted to dump, but not the time to do it. Nonetheless, I think our presentation went okay. Man, that was terrifying.

Last thing is that, in Young Women's today... one of the leaders was talking about depression and stuff. She told us how her mom has depression, and how her own YW leaders were very caring, and both of those made me think of how my sis was back in Alabama, and that Sunday after she had left... Though I didn't really get to exactly tell her why, I went to hug her after the class, and we were standing there hugging for, like, 5 whole minutes. I needed the hug, and I felt like she needed it too. She was very heartbroken and teary-eyed she told us about her mom, which I could understand much better than just a few years ago.

Alrighty, that's all! (All of this was written on Sunday except for the last few paragraphs, so pretend I posted this yesterday.) Wish me luck on everything I still have to work on, please! Bye!

ACT Scores, Westons, and the Ol' Dancin'/KF Razzle-Dazzle

Hello world!

Sooo I got my new ACT score on Monday~ I'd been at school, working on one of my school projects (YAAAY stress!), and decided to take a break to check my emails. (At least, I'm assuming that's what happened at the moment, seeing as that is a regular occurrence.) To my pleasant surprise, I got an email from ACT that my new score was in. I logged into ACT, and took a deep breath before clicking on my October results. I was so anxious, because I thought that I might've not gotten a better score, and the money, effort, and stress over that test wouldn't have been worth it. Dude, I even closed my eyes as the page loaded. Once I opened them back up, I'm pretty sure I forgot how to breathe for a second.

It was a 34.

Already, the 31 was impressive, but this is insanely good! Even my math score went up by 2 points, when I was absolutely sure that was the one I messed up! And I got a perfect score of 36 on Reading!

As for the Writing Test, it gave me an 8. Apparently, it is out of 10 points, so that was also pretty dang decent. Oh, if only I could put that instead of having to do essay responses all over again for my college application.

I guess I should mention now that I agreed to apply for BYU, and so began my application on Friday. Though I expected some essay questions, I assumed they would be short. The ones I actually have to respond are not super long, but it's still longer, and I'm gonna have to take a while to make good responses for these. Unfortunately, I don't know if I really have enough time to make responses that I'll be totally happy with by the time I have to submit the whole thing, seeing as I only have till the end of this month, and I have a lot of schoolwork to do! *really annoyed groan*

Anyway, back to when I saw my score. I basically stared at my screen for a full 5 minutes as I processed the fact that that was a flippin' 34 and that flippin' 34 was mine. I have no idea how I pulled that off, man. I was shaking for a while from the shock and relief and happiness. Mostly the shock.

I didn't even tell anyone about my score for, like 15 minutes. I instead- wait for it- pulled out my mandarin oranges from my lunch and ate both as I continued to stare at the screen and freak out. Because, of course, that is a normal reaction.

Once those were done, I finally got up to tell my teacher, who, of course, hugged me for, like, another 5 minutes. Then I finally got around to sending texts to my parents. (Wait, I might've sent the text to my mom right before going to my teacher... Whatever, you get the point.) (The teacher actually sent a Facebook message to my sis, but that apparently never went through. Weirdness.)

My dad had already wanted to go eat out on that day, but my parents then decided to treat the eating out as a celebration of my new ACT score. We ate at a Chinese restaurant we'd never gone to before, and it turned out to be very delicious! Something cool about it was that they serve dim sum at all times (when all other dim sum places only do it for breakfast/lunch hours, and likely only on the weekends). Rather than the usual of going around with the different food items on carts, they just let you order the items you want on the little paper. They take a while to give you your food, but my dad was perfectly happy with that, since it meant they were making everything on the spot for us.

Ironically, one of our fortune cookies said, "If you succeed the first time, try something harder."

Okay, so last week, the lady who my sis was going to work under in Spain basically said "I don't want you anymore". (Thanks, lady.) Seeing as she wasn't going to have an actual job to look forward to, she decided to just come back here after her time in Iceland, which had been her original plan with her Icelandic vacation anyways. She arrived late on Monday. She was looking a lot better than when she had returned from China, but she was still clearly tired. She was very happy to hear that we left some pho (which my mom tried making at home for the first time the day before, and it came out quite tasty) for her, plus we'd bought some extra BBQ pork buns at the dim sum place for her. (Pork buns are always our favorite dim sum item, no matter which restaurant.)

The day after, she was in the mood for Crown Burger, so we got overstuffed on burgers, fries, and shake. ...And then I went to KF. That was not a very good idea.

On Wednesday, there was a special event at BYU- a banquet put together by its math department for high school students and their math teachers. Basically, if the teachers at the school thought you were a really good math student, they nominated you to go. A school could have up to 5 nominated students, and I just so happened to be one of them.

It was actually pretty cool. The dinner wasn't super fancy, but still good. While we finished up eating, they started some presentations: first, one about the programs and stuff you can do if you study math at BYU; second, one about different applications of math, like animation; third, one where the guy was basically saying "What cool stuff can you actually do with a math degree?" There was a really cool demonstration where, just as there are paths from one point to another you could do that would take the least amount of time (1D lines on 2D planes), there were minimal areas (2D) in 3D spaces, which he demonstrated by holding up an open cube (no faces on it, only vertices and edges) and similar shapes and dipping them into bubble solution. The bubble film acted as the areas, and the results were really cool and interesting. I sure hope I remember that trick!

After these presentations, they had students go up (called by school) to take a picture with a big Y and then receive a certificate. They also gave us some BYU Math shirts and other little goodies on our way out.

Though it's too late to add this to my U of U application, I can at least have it on my BYU app. That, coupled with my ACT score(s) and my time in math camp, should hopefully give me a decent chance to come in for science.

I'm still iffy about studying just math, but it's generally not as horrible as people think, and math nerds are awesome human beings!

This is completely unrelated to anything, but I just wanna keep this as if it's actually vital information. Throughout the week, I was reading a Danny Phantom fic from an old FFN friend. I made two fantastic discoveries due to that.

1. This was an AU, in which Danny is actually a ghost when the accident happens, so it's basically the reverse of the original story. (This is my second time reading a fic with this sort of AU, and I absolutely love both.) This Danny had died in 1897, so a lot of things are new for him. One of my favorite things about this AU Danny, though, is that he occasionally uses really outdated slang (like "schmuck"). I was curious as to whether the slang he uses was actually accurate for his own time period, so I looked it up. Turns out it was all indeed correct- some slang is really old, whether we still use it or not. I recognized quite a bit of it, so it was shocking to realize they had said the same things as we say now over a hundred years ago! And then, of course, some of the slang that I hadn't heard of before was sometimes hilarious. I think I'll do a more thorough research on old slang in the near future and start using some of it to see if it catches on (with my friends, at least).

2. There is a fan-made character named Wes Weston that's practically canon in DP, and I had no idea until the author asked if we wanted him in the story. (Apparently, the reviewers had said no.) I looked him up, and found an article that gave quite a bit of detail as to his character and how he came to be. This whole thing is really fascinating! (Oddly enough, there was apparently more romantic stuff about his dad than himself... As far as I understood, at least.) I should also see if there's some good fics that include him and any other fanart and fancomics about him that were not already shown in the article.

So, two more reasons to be happy that I read a fic besides the story itself!

On Thursday, I did a lot more stuff at church than usual... Before the usual YW activity, one of the sister missionaries had hosted a tiny makeup class, and- since I was the only one that didn't really care about seeing her do the makeup- I volunteered to be the model. (At least it turned out they had brought some makeup wipes, so I was able to get everything off. I guess I tried a little too hard, though, since I think a bit of the stuff on the wipe got in my eye. *sweatdrop*) The actual YW activity was heart-attacking the old YW president's door (our presidency was changed last Sunday). Then after that was my mom's dance class.

Something that's making me really happy about the dance class is that everyone is having a ton of fun. Even though some people are having a harder time figuring out how to do the moves, they're still laughing and carefree and enjoying themselves. It feels like everyone is truly letting go of everything that is stressing them out or pulling them down, at least for a moment.

It's because of stuff like this that makes it frustrating when so many people don't want to dance.

I think all that's left to talk about is the stuff from yesterday.

I had another special KF class on Saturday. This one was about being able to withstand very hard blows, basically by tensing as many of your muscles as possible at the same time. The form itself is not all that short, but exhausting because of the tensing and the stuff you do with your breath. The last bit of the form, though, is when you let go of the tension and scream as you do some movements as fast as possible. (New philosophy: It is much better to scream with others than scream alone.)

That, though tiring, I could handle decently. However, people then started getting wooden boards broken over different parts of their bodies (thigh, back, ribs, arm, and throat). Even though I was seeing that no one got really hurt, it was still scary to watch. The only person, I guess, was one kid that went into a pseudo-seizure because of the stress/anxiety of the board hitting his back.

Yeah... I, um, kinda started crying a bit once the teacher directly asked me if I wanted to take a turn after that kid went down.

Lately, it feels like I'm crying a lot, and for reasons that people can't understand completely... and often ones I myself can't entirely comprehend, either.

I felt like such a wimp for basically being the only person who didn't do it, but I couldn't bring myself to participate in that. I was just too terrified. At least no one forced me into it anyways, and my dad didn't get mad at me when he realized how upset I was. He was like, "You know how to do the technique, and that's what matters to me. The board-breaking's just for show."

Ugh. I already started crying again just thinking about me crying before. I really wish that wouldn't happen.

In the late afternoon, there was the ward's Thankgiving party. My feelings are mixed about it, but in general they lean towards the bad end of the feelings spectrum. My dad was in charge of the dance music for the party, but for the most part, people refused to dance. We had to resort to frickin' line dances, and some people didn't even know the line dances! (Since I knew all of them, though, I ended up being in all of them in the hopes that it would help draw more people in to dance. I don't think it worked very well.) People were so weird about the dancing, too. For at least most of the songs, at least one person was recording with their phone, and everyone applauded at the end. I just... what???

Well, ain't it great that, now, everyone thinks I love line dances when I don't? (The only one I truly enjoy is the one called "Cha Cha Slide", and I kinda like "Cupid Shuffle"?)

Ugh. Not my favorite ward party. At all.

Okay, I think that's everything. Wish me luck on everything, yet again. I think I'm supposed to present my physics project with my group this week! *so scare, much terrify*

Four-Winged Pigeons and Sucky Elections

Hey world.

I'm assuming practically everyone in the entire world that has access to the internet knows that Donald Trump indeed got elected to be the next president of the United States.

So, SO badly, I want to be nice to the people who voted for him, but this is testing my ability to love others no matter what. I was really upset this whole week because of this. Dude, I cried on Wednesday. I'm unable to comprehend how so many people don't understand how scary all this is to us. Dude, I'm not an illegal immigrant, nor are my parents or my sister, but I still feel like something bad is going to happen to us by his hand.

I'm a female, a (half-)Mexican, and a Mormon. I wasn't old enough to vote in this election, but if I was, I wouldn't have voted for him.

Those are 4 kinds of people that he and/or his followers have shown animosity to.

Even though I was born here and am half-white, are they going to do something to me and my family? Are they going to punish me because I exist? Is anyone even going to help us, if this happens?

This is what scares us- the fact that not only are people being hostile to different kinds of groups, and are being just as sexist, racist, etc. as Trump himself, but so many people see this going on and don't care. It practically feels like a betrayal, especially since we have seen relatives and old friends that support Trump or think that it's pointless to "whine about not getting our way". (I'm not kidding, someone seriously said that.)

Excuse me?

I am not part of the anti-Trump protests, and can't agree with them if they get violent, but this isn't pointless. This isn't frickin' whining. Families will be torn apart; the economy will go down the toilet; so many more people won't be able to walk down the street without being physically or verbally attacked. The equality that people have fought for in this country for, what, over a century? That is already being destroyed.

As far as I can tell, Trump is a bad person. One who makes others become bad people too. And the ones who aren't straight-up bad people are led away by their own ignorance. Just with his campaign, he's made the country regress who knows how many years. If he makes it to the moment he officially replaces Obama (which he'll likely achieve, even with all the backlash and protesting), the Trump Regime will only make things worse.

Like I said, this has really made it so much harder to keep a positive disposition about everything, and it really sucks. I don't like feeling like this.

And I don't like fearing my own country's leader. He's probably gonna act a lot more like a dictator than a president. He already emulates Hitler, after all.

All I can think to do at the moment is try to remember what I'd sent Carter the night he texted that Trump was about to win. I was only half-asleep and incapable of anger, but I was still able to feel pure shame and disappointment.

Me: ... I'd been praying that the least-worst candidate would win and ruin our country the least, though I admitted I was pretty sure Trump wouldn't be that person.

But, well, since he's basically won... I dunno, maybe it's a sign that Clinton would've been worse, somehow. Or maybe in the near future, we'll realize that just about the worst thing we think can happen to this country happens, and in the end everything was okay. At this point, that's what I can hope for- that this is just to prove that what we think is the very bottom isn't after all.

That's about as close as I ever got to being optimistic. Well, besides hoping that he was seriously just making all of it up to get the presidency and doesn't follow through with absolutely anything he'd promised.

*deep sigh*

This is a very depressing topic, and I've already talked about it with a bunch of people throughout the week, so I'll change to what else happened.

We had a cardiologist appointment, where I did the dreaded exercise test. (That test seriously sucks, in case you ever wondered. I never even liked treadmills in the first place...) The doctor officially decided that there wasn't anything actually wrong with me (would've been nice if you said so the first time around, Doc), and was even hesitant to give a doctor's note, which is required for me to turn in exercise logs instead of take normal PE at school. At a normal school, I guess I'd be less of a poo about it, but it's much more of an inconvenience if I do it here- plus, I already finished them, dude- so I really needed it. He did, though he was still kinda iffy about the whole thing.

What I didn't understand was that, apparently, my results were a teensy bit above average for them. I lasted a minute-ish longer on the treadmill than usual. Does that seriously count people who are healthy? I can remember so many times in PE and self-defense club that I lagged behind most people. Though I can agree that I do better than people who have lung issues or heart issues or whatever, I don't think I'm at the average. They need to clarify what the heck that was even supposed to mean, cuz I refuse to believe what they seemed to be telling me.

Well, whatever the case, I got to finally turn in my PE stuff. I'm gonna check if my GPA's still good, and hope that I can get around to the rest of my Financial Lit assignments before the semester ends.

For the first time, I went to KF on Wednesday, rather than Tuesday or Saturday. Suddenly, some people I'd never seen before were there. Even more sudden, there were a lot more people than I was used to. More than the previous Saturday, and a whole family had been taking a trial run then. (Most of the family was here again.) It was fun, but also kinda uncomfortable to me. I liked having less people before, even if one of the reasons is only that there's more space for everyone to practice when it's not cramped. I'm hoping that my usual times haven't suddenly gotten so cramped either.

On Friday, my mom and I went to my aunt's house for three more episodes of Hasta que te conocí, which is the name of the series about Juan Gabriel. I think we're near the end now!

You know how I mentioned crying earlier because of Trump? (More specifically, I told my mom I wanted to say much of what I actually wrote earlier in this post directly to Trump's Facebook page, but she told me not to, fearing that doing that would make me one of the first targets, if he or his followers ever wanted to go searching for people to target. That made me cry.) Yeah... I sort of cried later, partly to do with him again. Really, I think it was kinda more like three things.

One is just the stress I've been dealing with. I only got but a short reprieve from my heavy to-do list last month. I've been getting less sleep, and my eyes and/or head hurt a lot more often than they used to. The fact that it was harder to focus in school because of a certain president-elect certainly didn't help matters.

Two was that I was feeling pretty indecisive about where else to apply besides the U. That's yet another stress in and of itself.

Third was... well... as you might've noticed, I wasn't only upset about the Trump situation itself, but how it was making me think, feel, and act. I was a lot more bitter than usual, as much as I tried to not be. I was not able to think about how good people are, only thinking about the bad. Even worse, when I realized this, I started thinking that Trump might've been turning me into a bad person, too, or making me more like how I used to be in 8th grade. (How I would be on Facebook, FFN, etc. was often not very pretty.) While there was a lot of things I liked about 8th grade, that was one aspect of my personality that I'd tried to leave behind in the past. To feel like it's crawling back into me is terrifying.

I told my mom this stuff when I was about to go to bed, making me cry all over again con enjundia, and she seemed rather shocked by the third one. If she'd been on Facebook years earlier, though, she surely would've understood what I meant. (Speaking of, I don't think I've hidden those old posts on my timeline yet. I really need to, cuz I'm just so ashamed of that.) When she got over it, she said that I was still better than that, because I was actively trying to not be mean. I still don't think that's enough. I'm not going to be happy with being bitter, whether I'm fighting it or not.

By the time my dad came around, all I could come up with to explain my crying to him was that I just couldn't relax lately, and I've kinda been beating myself up a bit.

At least we resolved a little more the second reason today, and I'm gonna be praying even more than usual to be calmer and be able to get everything I need (and want) to get done without exploding.

(The people who said senior year was the best and most chill look like total liars to me right now.)

At least something really cool happened this week, considering how sucky things usually were. Yesterday, I went to Science Day at the U!

The first class/workshop/whatever was some undergrads telling us about how they got to where they were now, how they got to do research, and what they were researching. They told us about serpentinization, how plants and animals chemically defend themselves (the manchineel tree,  "manzanilla de la muerte", employs at least three different ways intended to savagely kill caterpillars), and some stuff about mutating worms.

The second was about studying animal genetics- specifically, pigeons. Trust me, it was a lot cooler than it sounds. (I was also happy to hear that the people in animal genetics helped those in human genetics with their findings and technology, and vice versa, so I could help advance more than one kind of genetics no matter where I ended up working.) I found out some fun facts about pigeons, learned a bit of how they study genetics in actual labs (I mean, that's what I intend to do, so SCORE!), and actually feel like I might have found a lab I'd want to be part of, when/if I go to this university.

The "Four-winged pigeons" in the title is because of the discovery they focused on for this class/lecture/whatever. They'd been trying to find the genes responsible for whether pigeons have scales or feathers on their feet, and found that the feathered feet appeared to actually be caused by the normal (scaled) feet gene being overrun by the gene that puts feathers on their wings. Thus, their feet were basically being turned into a second pair of wings.

It sounds totally crazy, but you see the feathers some of these poor pigeons have, and they're literally the exact same as the ones on their wings, and sometimes just as long.

The third was about forensic identification. The subject matter was already pretty interesting, but it was made so much better by the guy that was actually teaching. He was a total jokester, and had a lot of different experiences to tell us about beyond the main information. He made us smile and laugh a lot, even though he was freaking telling us about dead bodies!

At different points in the day, I was pretty sure I spotted two or three kids from my school, but what freaked me out a bit was that I'm pretty dang sure I saw one of my friends from 7th grade. I had no idea what to do!

Look, I already have a hard enough time keeping up with old friends, because once we stop talking, I kinda feel like I should just let them remain part of my past. My friends from 3rd grade and Beka are practically the exceptions- and even then, I rarely send them messages or anything; I only get all hyped up if I get to see them in person.

This was one of the friends that I thought just didn't want to hang out with me anymore. It hurt when I finally accepted that as fact, and I'd therefore decided that I'd basically return the favor.

I somehow didn't ever expect to see her ever again, despite still living relatively close to my old house and school. Yet here I was, seeing her within the 540 kids that attended this event.

I honestly stared at her a bit, trying to figure out whether it was really her. I'm pretty sure she glanced at me, surely feeling my gaze, but I have no idea if she'd actually recognized me or not. The moment still left me shocked and a bit anxious. It didn't even last long, because just a minute later I glanced back around, and she'd disappeared.

Yeah... I'm not sure what to do. Should I be attempting to start up a friendship with her again? Or just pretending it never happened?

Last thing that happened this week was that there was this year's Young Women's in Excellence (or whatever that's actually called). Weirdly enough, they did one event for the young women in the whole stake, rather than each of us doing it within our wards. And instead of having the Young Women coming up to talk about what they'd done throughout the year, then having refreshments, they served us dinner, then gave chocolates to the girls that had done stuff in their Personal Progress. (I wasn't one of them.) Dinner was lasagna.

'Kay, I guess that's everything... Well, besides this pic of the moon. Of course, my phone's camera sucks at taking pictures of the sky, just like any other phone. I did my best to edit it, though, so the second should look cooler. Just a little bit.

PPG for Halloween! MSA and Many Movies!

Hello world!

Halloween was pretty fun at school. I was part of a group costume: the Powerpuff Girls! I was Blossom, my sister was Buttercup, and her friend was Bubbles. We took some pictures together, and actually took a few with a fellow student who is quite tall and had a doctor's/lab coat on. Seeing as we're all pretty short compared to him, he really did look like the Professor.

Few people could really tell I was wearing a costume, despite the bright pink eyeshadow my sis put on me, and the red bow on the top of my head. I've desensitized everyone from being surprised by my dresses, especially the ones from Hot Topic. *sigh* But still, some could tell, and people could definitely tell when we were all standing together.

This reminded me of when I was in 8th grade and made up Buttons, the orange Powerpuff. Her hair was brown, wavy, and in a side part (I raged when I realized that all the PPG have middle parts!). The more embarrassing part is that, since I was into nekos back then... she had cat ears. She needed something on her head, and I obviously couldn't use a bow!

When my sis was saying PPG she thought fit me the best, I was thinking, "Pretty sure Buttons, but she isn't canon, so I can't say that." *sweatdrop* (I found that I talked about Buttons in a post in May 2013. Dang, dude.)

I dunno if I've mentioned a multicultural thing going on at my school? (Probably not.) It was basically the first event done by the Multicultural Student Association, a new club at the school in the process of getting all its permissions to be an official club. I was basically thrown into that by the hand of my sister (as far as I know) without her actually asking if I wanted to, so I have to admit I wasn't very happy about that... A bit hurt, too. I still am, actually.

I had to help them with making their posters and setting things up and (sort of) running one of the tables when the actual event happened on Wednesday. I don't mind it as much now that I know the event was pretty fun and quite a success (though I felt rather grumpy and unwilling to talk afterwards, maybe cuz of all the socializing), but when I ended up stuck with them for the second half of my day on Monday (Halloween!) with their rather last-minute preparing... I wasn't super chipper about the situation.

They didn't really inform me nor any of the other helpers as to what was going on, either. They were never like "This is when we were planning to prepare this," or "Oh, do you know what you're gonna do? Please try to have that done by tomorrow," or anything. At all. I'm pretty sure they'd forgotten we existed.

For those reasons, plus maybe a bit of feeling uncomfortable around such loud girls, plus even some other unidentified reason, I have to honestly say I'm not the biggest fan of the club leaders or whatever they should be called... And I feel really bad about it because I'm usually considered so nice and I don't like making a bad impression on people. And, well, I don't want them to be like "She doesn't like us at all", because feeling like someone doesn't like you sucks, no matter how close you are to them. I just am having a hard time figuring out exactly how I feel about them, and I kinda need to do that in order to start letting go of the mild grudge I think I have against them...

It doesn't help that my sis was then saying that I should ask for an official title in the MSA so I could put that on my college applications, but... I didn't have the heart to tell her that I rather dreaded working with those girls longer than I already have. I managed to tell my mom later, though, so now she's not bugging me about officially being part of the club too.

Speaking of college applications, I finally sent one to the U on Friday, with help from my parents. Now I can think of one or two things (mostly math-related) that I wish I put on the application... I think there might be a way to revise the application before the deadline, so I'll check on that and ask my mom and dad if I should add that stuff if I can. But still! It's in, and I don't have to worry about it (that much) anymore!

Earlier that morning (Friday, I mean) was when my sis left for Europe... Now I'm wondering if I've mentioned that either. Okay, I probably have... probably.

*goes to check*

Woah... I don't think I did!

Okay, so she's first visiting Iceland, then maybe Denmark and England (or maybe even some other place- the middle part of her trip isn't set in stone), and then beginning her job in Spain as a private English tutor.

She made it safely to Iceland, and is hopefully enjoying her time so far. (The girl she's staying with posted a picture of them together, and they practically look like identical twins! It is ridiculous how close their appearances are... Yep, an Icelandic stranger looks way more like my sister than I do.

The day before she left, we went to eat at her favorite African restaurant, though we brought along one of her good friends. (He's the one we've gone to some Latin dances with.) I think I liked it more than I used to... And I already liked it quite a bit. It was pretty nice to eat together there, even if Modern Family was being a little loud on the restaurant's TV.

I've gotten most of my English paper done, though I'm still a little worried about it... It seems a little harder to talk about a social issue in a purely informative essay, since that's the kind of thing that you just automatically add your opinion to when talking about it. It was the most interesting topic choice, though, so I stuck with it, and am trying to work out the bias the best I possibly can.

I did my blue belt test in KF yesterday, and passed! It was about as scary as the yellow belt test, except I had to do more. Wooo. Just need to do the required questions for that level and I receive my belt!~

We watched Kung Fu Panda 3 together later that day, which was pretty fun. Apparently, my parents actually liked it! We've actually watched quite a bit of movies this week, actually; my mom likes romcoms, so I ended up watching a few with her (weird, right? Me, watching something romantic? I basically just watched everything but the kisses), plus we found some Dreamworks shorts (including some that were specifically Halloween) based on Shrek, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Megamind (all of which are movies I really wanna watch again soon!). We also watched a few Disney Channel movies (Geek Charming and Princess Protection Program). I ended up seeing quite a bit of stuff I just don't normally watch, huh?

Oh, and duh! My dad and I watched Doctor Strange at the actual movie theater right after my KF class and test! That was a pretty dang cool movie, and some parts are sooo trippy... My dad was saying that it was great that they got Benedict Cumberbatch to play the part, since he's just so darn likable, even when playing a rather arrogant character. (Fun fact: One of the characters is named Wong, and it turned out the actor's name is Benedict Wong! So not only did they use his real name, but he just so happened to have the same first name as the starring actor! That was pretty amusing, especially since Benedict is not a common name at all, as far as I know.) I was mildly frustrated that he was doing an American accent, though, since he has such a nice British accent naturally.

Okay, um... I can't really think of anything else, so I guess I'll end here. Please, whatever you do, DON'T VOTE FOR TRUMP! It's gonna be Election Day in a few days, and we participated in a Nationwide Fast for it so we can know who to elect and stuff. Me, personally... I just want the person least likely to absolutely mess our country up to be the one elected, whoever that is.

Microaggression Rants + Reunions at the ACTS

Hello wooooorld!

Ugh. *Angry Kid impersonation* I feel sicky.

I'll admit that I'm pretty sure I got colds less often in the other states we've lived in... And it was a lot easier to clean my glasses in those states, too. My glasses have looked gross lately.

Honestly... not much happened this week. (It's a good thing, though, since that means I can devote quite a bit of time to what I wanted to talk about last week!) Besides being kinda sick (I threw up on Tuesday! *yay!*), there's really only that I've started a new English paper (of the informative sort) and Spirit Week. Well, I guess there's also that I feel like I've been accumulating mild injuries, lately...?

Spirit Week wasn't as awesome as I was hoping for. I just don't understand why most people don't even bother! I understand when you literally don't have anything to wear for one of the days, but why not try for all the others? You lame-o's. (...Should the apostrophe be there? It looks weird either way.)

What I'd been trying to do was take what we were supposed to wear for every day of Spirit Week and make a costume out of it. I mean, it's almost Halloween, and it's looking like I'll only get to wear one proper costume on the actual day! I wanna make the most out of October, since the month has been a little sucky!

Unfortunately, a few of the days I couldn't figure something out for. I thought it wouldn't be that hard. *tear*

But, I did still get three full costumes! I dressed up as Alice in Wonderland, Batman, and a panda. (The last one had a lot of thick clothes, so sometimes I had to take off my hat or my vest or even both... and without those things there, I just looked weird.) And I felt pretty cool, even though most people didn't know what I was doing.

I'm writing my English paper about microaggressions, since that was one of the teacher's chosen topics (well, it wasn't specifically just microaggressions, but it was just generally terms like microaggressions that have apparently been showing up a lot in colleges and the internet). This issue makes me a bit... angry.

Besides the fact that people are taking the original term and using it to gain attention, they are also doing it to be racist towards white people. (I hadn't intended to make that italic and bold, but I'm leaving it because this is important.) I mean, yes, a white person may accidentally say something offensive to a Hispanic or black or whatever person, but that doesn't mean any other race isn't as capable of being accidentally offensive. Anyone can be, and most likely is, at least a teensy bit racist, including to their own race. They're almost most likely going to be racist against their own people, in fact, and that tends to hurt the most. But who's being accused of saying the wrong things? Only white people. It is literally in all the definitions given in the articles, scholarly journals, research papers, etc. that I've read. The term "microaggression" only applies to things white people say to non-white people (or, as they sometimes say to sound a little less blunt, what "people belonging to the majority" say to "people of minorities"). That seems a little unfair, especially considering the newer generations are generally more equality-oriented than the older ones anyways, but they're the ones that have to deal with this. Real microaggressions should be fixed, but most of what's going on nowadays regarding microaggressions is because of butthurt people who want to make white, straight men pay for their "wrongdoings" when they literally did nothing wrong. In fact, I don't think these people are even butthurt; they're just taking this chance to make people feel guilty for being part of the majority.

And you know why I can say that white people are being a little mistreated? Because I'm Hispanic/Latina. I'm not even fully Hispanic/Latina- just half- but I don't look like I'm also half-white, so I can say things about white people without people screaming about racism and injustice in my face. I guess that's just one of the advantages of being in a minority.

Also, there's some people that think certain things offend Mexicans, like calling us "Hispanic" and wearing Day of the Dead makeup? As my sister said today, "I think I'd know if I should be offended." If you don't look like you're trying to offend us, we're most likely not going to be offended.

Oh, and saying "you guys" when referring to a group does not make women feel left out! What the heck?!

Okay, so finally, what happened at the ACTs last week.

So my mom and I got up early and drove over to where I was taking the test. It was at the high school where I would've gone if we stayed in Murray (the house I lived in during 3rd and 4th grade). I'd never been inside, so it was kinda weird.

My mom stuck around for a few minutes just to ask about what they do with phones and stuff during the test, then left me to my own devices. I stood off by myself, observing the surprisingly talkative teenagers around me. I realized quickly that most of these people already knew each other and already had their separate groups of friends, so I came to the reasonable conclusion that most of them went to this high school. But then-

Wait.

Wait.

If most of the people here went to this school, and I was pretty sure my friends from 3rd grade went to this high school, too... Did that mean I might see my old friends today?

I'd thought the likelihood was more like... medium, since people had to pay to take this date for the ACT, unlike waiting till the end of the year for the free ACT, but I also was pretty sure my friends all cared about having good grades and such. So, yeah. I was a little unsure about if they'd actually show up or not.

Absolute craziness time? Yes, because I saw all three friends that I'd actually hung out with after 3rd grade! I don't know if I've actually given them codenames, but Future Me can't possibly not know who I'm referring to if I say "my friends from 3rd grade". (My bestest friend from that year, though, doesn't quite count, unfortunately, since I hadn't hung out with her any time later, unlike my other friends.) First I saw... okay, what am I gonna call each one? Hrm... I guess I'll go with Anne, which is pretty close to her real name. When I saw Anne walk through the door, I grinned and excitedly ran over to her and said, "Hi!" She looked somewhere between pleasantly surprised and downright confused, especially when she asked "Why are you in Utah?!" but she hugged me all the same, and we talked for a bit.

A little after that, when we were already in the line to be checked off the roll, I saw another friend. I'm having a hard time thinking of an easy codename that won't sound like I only define her by her race (which I don't), so I'll call her Yoshi since I remember thinking that her little brother's name sounded a little like the name of that green dinosaur thing. (Now I can't even remember what his actual name is, but thinking of his name being like Yoshi's had actually helped me for a while when I was younger. Heh.) I rushed over to say hi (after I stared a bit longer to decide that, yes, it really was her), and she just seemed... a little weirded out. Like, she even said "This is weird." She wasn't rude or anything, but didn't seem as excited about seeing me as I was about seeing her. It was pretty awkward.

At least I felt a bit better when I went back into my spot in the line and informed Anne about what just happened. She was like, "Yeah... Yoshi's just awkward. That's how she is."
I added, "Well, that's probably why we became friends in the first place. I mean, come on, all of us are a little awkward." She laughed at that one, and didn't even bother denying its truth.

Once we were admitted and could check the posted lists of who was going to test in which room, I saw yet another name- that of the friend I will call Ballad, since that sounds close to "ballet" and is still music-related (she comes from a very musical family) and it's apparently an actual name. I grinned again at the prospect that I was most likely going to see my third friend from this town, and she actually did show up a few minutes later! She seemed to be the most excited to see me, which made me happy. I hadn't seen her for the longest time out of all of them (besides the bestest friend mentioned earlier), but things still felt pretty natural and normal between us. It was kinda funny, because she was pretty tired from waking up early, and she said a few mildly-loopy things because of it. We actually sat right next to each other in the testing room (the teacher put us like that), so it was nice to know one of my old friends were there with me.

A smaller, but still pleasant, surprise was when Anne pointed out a few people we'd gone to school with. Since I'd only been in the same school as her for one year in elementary school and we're now looking at high school kids, there weren't all that many. She found two kids within the vicinity at that moment, and I actually recognized both- a kid named Jacob and a girl who I remembered went by Claire. (It was weird when Anne referred to her by her full name and I was like "Wait, Claire isn't her real name?!") As much as I say I don't remember much from when I was little, some things stuck quite well. A little later, when I was talking to Ballad, she actually went to say hi to Claire and then asked her if she recognized me. (Not before motioning to me without looking and thus hitting me in the face. It was hilarious.) She did! That is always something I wonder about people I used to go to school with... Do you remember me as much as I remember you? I know I'm usually one of the quieter kids in class, so it's nice to know that I wasn't invisible or forgotten, even if all they remember is my face.

After we finished the test, Yoshi came over and chatted for a minute, asking what school I went to and stuff (which Anne and Ballad had asked too) and said it was nice to see me. I don't know if it really was as awkward as it felt, or it just felt like that because of earlier, but... yeah. I dunno, it just felt really weird, which is disappointing.

Anne was already gone, since she'd done the no-writing test, but I still got to chat a bit more with Ballad and just enjoy being with her for a bit longer. Since we left at the same time, she actually was okay with stopping over to my mom's car to say hi to her. I don't remember if Ballad and my mom had talked much in the past, but it was enough for them to be happy to see each other.

Once we started leaving, my mom was saying how different she looked from when she was little, and that she'd been unsure at first of whether it actually was her or not. I can definitely attribute recognizing Ballad so easily to seeing pictures of her on Facebook.

I'm nervous of this ACT, since I feel like my pacing was worse than the first time, at least on the math portion. That was the score I'd been most disappointed with, so the fact it's most likely lower this time around is just... urgh. Then there's the fact that I did the writing test, and I have no idea if I'll get a decent score on it or not.

Okay, that's just about everything. Since I have a bit of extra time, I guess I'll add that, the day before the ACT, I'd been studying in the campus's cafeteria, and a man from Afghanistan came over excitedly and asked where I'm from. He thought I was Middle-Eastern. *sweatdrop* Specifically, he said I looked Persian, and I Googled pictures of Persian people once I got home. Yeah... me and my sis could see why he thought that. Not so much the face shape, but other aspects like my eyes, eyebrows, and skin color. We still talked for a little bit of time, even after I told him that I'm part Mexican, and don't really identify myself as Middle-Eastern. I know I have Middle-Eastern blood in me, but that's not really the same thing as what he was asking.

Happy Halloween (tomorrow)!!! We'll see how November goes... K bai!