So it was my birthday week! (No matter how scared I get about growing up, I can't help but be excited on my birthdays.) Honestly, I think the celebrations got spread out over the past several days rather than just being on my actual birthday, which was pretty fun.
One of the first things I did after last post was continue Adventure Time. Turns out the episodes I'd been thinking about are called the "Stakes" miniseries, and they were awesome. Definitely some of the best episodes out of the whole show- and there's been a whole lot of episodes, considering they're in the 7th season right now.
There's this one song from it called "Everything Stays" that I actually watched the clip for a long time ago. I'd thought it was okay, but of course didn't understand the significance of the song then, and was curious to discover what it was about. Now that I've actually watched those episodes and heard the song in its proper context... It's one of the most feelsy and beautiful songs in this show, hands down.
Watching these episodes and listening to this new song and everything really ignited even more the AT fangirl in me. I'd already had the ghost of the idea of making a mashup of some of my favorite songs from the show, but now it was no longer a ghost. Now it was... a ghost who possessed a person? Is that a good metaphor?
So, I actually worked on that for a few days, and I think I did a pretty decent job, even though I couldn't help myself and put 10 different songs in there... And there were still a few more I'd considered putting in, but they didn't quite fit. I'm pretty sure I have 15 or so favorite Adventure Time songs. I'm posting it after this entry and hoping I don't get sued.
We chilled with those Ecuadorian girls I mentioned last week (I'm really unsure what codenames to give them... maybe B, C, and D? That's what their names start with, though not in order of age) quite a while again. On Monday, we went to East High (apparently, they were all big fans of High School Musical) and then to that house that's painted like the one in Up. (It was so adorable, and people actually lived in it!) After, we went for donuts (the kind that my whole family's a huge fan of because they're SO good!), because I wanted them for my birthday, then Subway and ate our food at my house. Unfortunately, it was really hot outside the entire time, so we were all dying almost the entire day. There were few moments of relief and it was difficult to even think of having a conversation with anyone in the car, so there was often an awkward silence in there.
Something I like about hanging out with these girls is that B and D actually play the Wii with me! They wanted to try out a few more games, but we've by far done Michael Jackson: The Experience the most, which is good and bad exercise-wise because I can't help but want to dance for all the songs and put in my best effort. I can't handle it! I'm fortunately not getting to the point where my chest hurts, but I'm still getting exhausted.
The next time we hung out, I also tried to show B and D how to do the most basic beat in drums and they just found it impossible. I did my best to help them, but either I suck at teaching or they just can't even. Or maybe both.
They also showed me this cool show on Netflix called Prison Break that was quite interesting and suspenseful. The prob, Bob, is that they were able to watch it with Spanish subtitles in Ecuador, but once they logged in here, there were only English subtitles. They still got the gist of what was going on- I mean, they'd already watched this before- but couldn't understand most of what they said. C (she's the oldest), D (middle), and I got really sucked in, while B (the youngest) was really bored and frustrated with us and the show.
Eventually, C and I tried looking at sites that gave you information on different scholarships that you can earn. Since she isn't a permanent resident or anything, she usually couldn't find very many, but I got a huge amount. Most of them involved essays since I put "Prose Writing" in my list of hobbies. I think my skill with essays, though, really varies on the subject and how much creative freedom I can have, so I don't know how many of these I'd actually be able to come up with something good for. Since I said I was interested in science, the site gave me several that involved a science-related research project, which I think I'm a lot less likely to do something good for. I don't get along with research projects, mainly because of the stress they cause me. My parents were completely unconcerned about it, though! Excuse me, mother, but did you forget those times I cried because I was so stressed about my school projects? Or that I always avoided participating in the science fair? Or that I've never even had ideas for science-related projects in he first place?!
I also don't really like the idea of competing for these scholarships because I already know it's extremely unlikely that any of my essays or projects or whatever will be good enough in comparison to everyone else's for me to win. I am not the smartest or most brilliant in anything. I'm an amateur.
We need that money, though, so I guess I'm gonna be working on those throughout the school year and hope I can manage to get something.
There was the school registration this week, and they took school pictures there. I have a feeling my picture didn't come out very good, though, which sucks.
While there, we told my teacher about my concern with the PACER. My mom told her we thought there was something up with my heart, but I felt like that was a lie, since the cardiologist agreed something was up but was pretty sure it wasn't my heart. Nonetheless, I'm still scared about the PACER, but I also just wanted to pass the test and not have to deal with going to the class or anything. I mentioned I had been planning to take a martial arts class, but then my teacher expressed concern about whether that would be too heavy for me. Honestly... I hadn't really thought of that. But I'd been so confident in doing that, and I was pretty pumped about it! And we'd done that searching for the cheapest class, but now it looks like I might not after all? (You're killing me, Smalls. *tear*) There's nothing wrong with yoga, but I wanted to do Kung-Fu more than yoga! Is that so horrible?
On Thursday, I got my own savings account at the bank again, but this time I also got a checking account. As in, now I can use a debit card. Not that I imagine using it much, but I can.
More than anything, it was so any scholarship money I end up earning actually has a place to go. At least, still being a minor, I don't have to pay to have my accounts open with only a meager total of about $200. And maybe that 1% interest will help me at least a bit. My Financial Literacy class convinced me that credit unions tend to be better than banks (more in interest rates than anything), so I think I might end up switching to one as an adult... Unless I end up moving often.
Okay, I think that's the biggest stuff from Monday through Thursday. More of the official celebrating happened on Friday and Saturday.
My sister had suggested some places that we could go to, like the aquarium, but my mom was feeling kinda sucky, so we basically just stayed home. It was okay, though, because I still had fun!
Since there was the whole 10-year anniversary recently, plus the "Bad Lip Reading", plus visiting East High, I had been in a High School Musical mood. The first and second movie were on Netflix, so my sister and I watched them together with my mom sleeping nearby. I seriously can't even remember when I first/last watched them, so I'm sure I just saw them once when I was about 7 years old. I didn't even remember that they had decent plots, so that was a pleasant surprise. I just remembered most of the first movie's songs (mostly because we used to have a CD that had those songs on it) and half-remembered a few from the second. It was pretty fun, even though their fashion and characters' choices sometimes made me cringe.
HSM always makes me think of those times I told my friends to do a "High School Musical jump" with me to cheer ourselves on and this one stupid unpublished fic where Ed and Al kept teasing each other with embarrassing facts about the other. Al got the upper hand, but Ed ultimately brought him down with bringing up that Al's favorite movie was High School Musical. Of course, most of these "facts" I just made up, but I thought it was kinda funny. And only Ed would start singing "You gotta getcha, getcha head in the game!" to make fun of his brother.
At some point after that, I started making this little Japanese candy kit similar to ones I've seen on YouTube, since I wanted to make it for my birthday.
When those were done and everyone was home, we went to eat at Crown Burger, which was delicious, and we managed to eat everything except some of the raspberry shake. I'm kinda surprised we actually pulled that off.
My family started giving me my presents even though it wasn't midnight yet, and honestly I love them. My dad got an adorable panda stuffed animal (you really can't go wrong with giving me a stuffed animal), and my sister gave me this awesome holographic Spider-Man picture thing. Next time I move, I plan to put that on display with my other two Spider-Man pictures (what's it called when it's supposed to be on the wall but isn't a photo?) and make my room even more awesome than it's going to be anyway. There isn't really room for them currently unless I start rearranging things, and I'm not sure if we're sticking around here long enough for all that effort to be worth it. (We don't have the 3M strips for putting them up anyways, so I only have up posters and artwork that just require tape.)
(My mom gave me a pair of flats with cat faces on them after midnight, but.. Turned out they were a bit too small for me. *sweatdrop* We're gonna go to the store to see if we can find a pair that fit better or, otherwise, just look for another pair of shoes that I like.)
Something I did after that was watch a lot of LangFocus on my own (though I'd already watched quite a bit with my dad a few days ago). It's a YouTube channel made by a guy who loves languages and studying languages, so he makes a lot of interesting videos based on those things. I've always been kinda lacking the interest and motivation in learning a language, besides those times when I tried to learn Japanese honorifics and when my sister and I did Signing Time! to learn ASL. (We need to look at those videos a lot more and try out more resources for all of it to really stick. I just remember a few here and there.) But now, watching these videos, I think I feel a little more of a desire to learn a language for realsies.
ASL is one that I want to learn more for anyways, but of spoken languages I have been thinking a little about ones I'd already once entertained the idea of, like Italian (fun fact: I once watched the Muzy videos for it years ago) and Japanese (but this makes me really apprehensive because I don't want to feel like a weeaboo), and now also considering new ones like Esperanto (now I understand the joke about Lindana's song being translated into weird languages like Pig Latin and Esperanto in Phineas and Ferb!) and Swahili. I'm gonna watch more videos and think more on these, and see if I think I have the motivation to actually try learning one of these. I mean, if I start one, I want to be serious about it.
My family sang birthday songs to me once we were all feeling tired and a little loopy. After that, we all just kinda chatted about whatever, and eventually my sister wanted to look up this video of misheard lyrics to the "Numa Numa" song (which I know is really "Dragostea Din Tei", so don't yell at me). We used to watch that when we were little, so we got to share the comedy with my parents who had never seen it before. The video turned out to be almost exactly 10 years old! That seemed pretty cool to me. (I know there was another video like it that I used to watch, too, but I couldn't find it, so I guess it's not on YouTube anymore. What a shame.)
Late Saturday morning, we all woke up and started getting ready to go to Sunny's baptism. It was a really tiny baptism, but the Spirit was so strong when the ordinances were performed, and I felt so proud and happy for her. Turned out her mom actually gave the talk to someone else, so I was just conferring for the hymns (and Klaus was at the piano, of course). He said I did a pretty good job!
Like I said, the Holy Ghost was definitely there, and I could just feel joy for her and for me being able to be baptized when I was eight. It was just a feeling that made me be like "I don't think someone can feel this so strongly in any other church." There's so many things that make me happy to be a Mormon. Things aren't always easy, but I know He is always there for us, and I can always have my family, and I can always have the Holy Ghost to be comforting me and reminding me time and time again that this gospel is the one I should be living by. He helps me know that I'm on the right path, even though I've been so unsure of my future for so long. Life really is better with the Church in it.
(You know, my mom and I actually share our testimonies in Sacrament meeting today... That was scary, but I still felt good about it. My sister- and my dad for part of it- were translating for the meeting, and they apparently did very well! Good for her!)
Afterwards, we went to hang out at their house and eat. (Their mom made burgers... Oops... But they tasted different from the ones the night before, so I still enjoyed the food.) I spent most of that time talking with Klaus. I wanted to talk with Sunny, too, but she was always off playing with the kids that were actually her age besides when she was eating. We talked about TV shows, movies, and school. I also asked my sis to tell us more about her time in China. I think there were a few other things, but what surprised me the most and made me the happiest was when he asked me if I had ever watched the asdf movies.
Uh, YES?!
We passed back and forth a bunch of quotes from them and had a blast with it. He made me so proud right then. *happy tear*
There was a barbecue at the same place that we went to the sister missionary farewell (she actually came back early for a mystery personal reason). We sat at the same table as a woman who had an adorable baby who did some weird and funny stuff.
When we returned home, my sis and I watched some Prison Break and ate the little mushrooms that I made!
Oh, I haven't mentioned that I wore the same dress as I wore on my birthday last year! And today, I wore my Alice in Wonderland dress from Hot Topic that I've only put on one other time to Klaus's recital. Two of my fave dresses~
All that's left to say today, I think, is that we went to eat at Brorange's house again, and I spent most of that time hanging out with him in his room while everyone else is in the dining room, as usual. We talked about TV shows and YouTube and shared music with each other and stuff. His friend actually came by at one point. He seemed okay, and actually liked FMA (though didn't know the acronym), but then he said that he didn't like Alphonse because he's too cliche! And Broranges actually agreed with him! Just... ouch, that hurt. I didn't like this friend as much anymore. (I know it's a stupid reason and I was being butthurt, but I thought it was rude to bash on Al so harshly the moment I said he was my favorite character in the series! At least we could all agree that Envy's horrible, though.)
Broranges is going on a trip to visit his older (half?-)older brother in another state for two weeks, and is gonna be going to and from by plane all by himself. I wish him good luck!
Okay, that's everything. Now I'm gonna post that mashup like I said I would and then update my "About Me" now that my birthday's passed! K bai!
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