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!
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