Hello world!
We went to Brorange's house again earlier this week. He helped me a bit more with moving forward in Pokémon Emerald, and we also ate some yummy food and cheesecake!
I guess there technically wasn't much that happened this week. You know part of why? I had the hardest time getting myself to do actual schoolwork! I don't know if it was because of Spring Break last week or what, but I was rather frustrated with myself (and I know my mom was, too). I feel like I used to have much better habits about homework when I was younger...
Though I kept prioritizing other stuff over doing more school stuff at home, some of that was still productive, in a way. Some more QQ was done this week (though not as much as last week), and... Wait for it... I sent an ask to that TAU mod, and she replied!!!
It's been quite a while, I think, since I last mentioned this. I'd been writing a TAU one-shot that I was hoping to ask another author to look over before I officially sent it to the TAU page. The author I picked- as I checked a little later, she was indeed one of the page's mods- hadn't replied to my FFN message. Since I was busy most of the time, anyways, and I certainly didn't want to annoy her, I just went back to the one-shot and edited it every once in a while since then. (More often than not, it was adding detail- I managed to get my story about twice its original length!) A few days ago, I made a few more additions and revisions, and decided that... that was pretty much as good as it was gonna get until I had someone else look at it. So, I finally got the guts to go to her Tumblr page- I definitely know she uses Tumblr a lot, while her FFN looked somewhat abandoned for a while- and slurge out a whole thing about hoping for a look-through that was long enough for 3 asks.
It was... about 2 days, I think, when I saw that I got a reply from her on FFN! I was freaking out so much! (From relief and happiness, of course.)
She said she'd indeed forgotten about her FFN account for a while, and was glad that I reminded her that it still exists. More importantly, she agreed to reading through my fic! *KYAH!*
Aw man, it's a relief that she, apparently, was okay with me doing that, even though she mentioned at the end that she usually didn't do this sort of thing. I'm hoping, once I get her input on this story, that I'll then feel a little better about just sending straight to the page anything else I write in the future (like maybe something about Azul).
(Over the weekend, I also ended up looking a bit more at other Gravity Falls AUs. Though I'm still a little iffy about the Demonic Guardians AU, I like it a bit more now since I actually understand the concept, and the original comics have some moments definitely worth remembering. I also saw another comic from the same artist that was a crossover with Danny Phantom that was quite interesting, but we never get to properly understand what's going on because it's unfinished! *facedesk* I can't remember if I also mentioned looking at Fight Falls and Relativity Falls quite some time ago, and Reunion Falls and Only Child a few weeks ago... Anyway! I'll continue to look at a few more, but Transcendence AU continues to be my favorite.)
Okay, I guess I should go back to talking about school?
I chilled with Marki for a while after our Chem test, and my English professor realized that, since she was gone sick more often than a professor should be, and deadlines kept getting put off, and blah blah blah, we don't actually have enough time to do all of the remaining assignments she'd originally planned. Two of our essays are now become one longer one, and she asked us to start forming our groups for the group proposal projects at the end of the term. As I hoped for, Isaiah and I paired up, and he then included these two guys that sit in the table behind us. So far, I'm a little iffy about what our chosen topic will be... Based off the research we all already did for our now-combined paper, they deemed mine (ethics in genetic research) the most interesting, but I feel like it'd be hard to make a coherent proposal for how to deal with something in that, like return of incidental findings. I tried to look for something easier (and a more local issue, like the professor highly recommended we all focus on), and I think maaaybe government spending for public education would be a good option? Apparently, the state gov't was debating whether to start spending more on education since we're now among the states paying the least for their own education. I mean, it's obviously an intricate topic, as well, but it'd be easier to give a definitive solution- yes, pay more; no, you don't have to. If we wanted to get fancier, we could maybe say more along the lines of: no, you don't have to pay more, but be smarter about how the current amount is being used, by siphoning more of the percentage to ___ and less to ___. I dunno, something like that.
Since I'm paired with 3 other guys, though, I don't know whether it'll be easy to get them to think a little more about how the topic that we choose determines how difficult the paper will be to write!
At a school assembly this week, they announced the official prom date, which is... 2 weeks after the one I'd already given Carter. Luckily, Carter said that it's fine and even makes things a bit easier for him and his family. Not-quite-as-luckily, that means it's really close to the date of my sis's wedding. She'd mentioned maybe going to chaperone at the prom with Captain- and I liked the idea, since I thought it might make it easier for Carter and I to relax, compared to roughing it out on our own- but this means it's a lot less likely they can make the date.
And, as prom nears, my mom and sis have been putting more pressure on me to get a proper prom dress. My sister's argument is, "If Carter coming from another state to be your date, you better look like a freakin' princess for him!" I mean... fine, okay, maybe the dress I'd originally thought of using for prom isn't the fanciest thing ever, but it's just about the fanciest dress I currently own! As much as I wear dresses, they're usually not all that fancy! I can't imagine myself wearing one of those crystal-encrusted prom gowns, which is why I'd picked something that wasn't a gown, nor covered in shiny and sparkly things. That was one of the reasons I'd never even considered going to prom before this whole thing with Carter.
Carter already knows I'm not into makeup and high heels, so I don't think he expects me to go looking the same as the average prom-goer, but... *sigh* I guess I'll do my best.
Okay, I finally started trying something out that I'd pretty much never done before- pranking.
I don't think I mentioned anything about this in past posts, so I get to divulge the entire story now.
Remember how, last month, we ate dinner with Captain's family? Captain's got a little brother (and three older sisters, I believe, but they're unrelated to this tale) who is a little bit younger than me. We sat next to each other at the table, but basically didn't talk at all. I did notice him once or twice text something to Captain, and they'd both quietly snicker. With this behavior, I could only assume that he was like an average teenager, and you know what the average teenager likes? Dank memes. You know what other kind of memes I've recently got into (the blame lying a little more on Carter than Facebook)?
Trash memes.
Yessiree, those memes where the mashing together of stupid references via absolutely terrible editing and shamelessly childish jokes is somehow still funny, even as you cringe and roll your eyes and shake your head at what's become of the internet. It's literal trash. The makers of these memes literally call them trash. And yet people watch this trash anyways.
Unfortunately, I am part of those people now.
Over the past few weeks, I looked for trash memes that I found funny (and not inappropriate, because better safe than sorry), saved them all in my Watch Later, and even rearranged the order of the memes for maximum variety and unpredictability.
Why? So I could send them to Captain's little brother.
Yes, I seriously thought of doing this as I sat at their family table, considering whether I could pull it off for long enough. I'd never purposefully sent strange things to strangers, or even almost-strangers (the category where his little bro would be), but... this seemed funny yet harmless enough of a prank to try out.
It took me a bit to actually start concocting further plans beyond "I kinda wanna do this", but once I did, I gave it my all. I started with sending one trash meme somewhere between 10-12 at night (which ended up being a every-other-day pattern at the beginning, since I sometimes forgot to send one). Halfway through the week, he finally replied. And we had a full conversation- if he expressing his complete bewilderment and asking who I am while I merely just ship out random memes in reply counts as a conversation.
My sister and Captain- seeing as they'd been at his house when this convo happened- were laughing just as much as me as they got my texts talking about what was going on and saw his brother's reactions in person. (Apparently, he asked Cap is he was the one sending him memes. Nope, but he was the one to give me your phone number, bro.) I told Carter later about some of this, and he also seemed equally amused as all of us (without Captain's brother seeing us laugh, of course).
As I expected, both my sis and Cap promised to not tell him that it was me. Regardless of whether I do this for a long time (at which point, I don't think there'd even be enough good trash memes to send him) or he blocks me before it reaches that point, I'm gonna have fun with it. And, hey, it'll be a secret that I can keep for as long as I want! (I'm thinking maybe a good opportunity to tell the prankee who the pranker is may be at the wedding... though that feels a little too soon.)
Yesterday, Flower's quinceañera finally happened! It started out pretty slow and kinda weird (though the food was pretty good), but it reached a point where the songs were good for dancing, and there was a good vibe in the air. The choreographed dances (most of which my mom taught to the birthday girl and her chambelanes) were almost flawless, so that was really exciting. I spent most of the night hanging with my mom, sis, Captain, Elenita (and her friend), and Lala (since the eldest, Lia, and their mom kinda went in and out of the party). Of course, what mattered the most was the fact that Flower looked like she was having the time of her life throughout the whole shebang.
I'd only gone to one rehearsal for the waltz and stuff. There, I saw Goyo (man, ain't that name quite a throwback in this blog!) and... I don't think I came up with a name for the Elenita's brother, but he was there, too. I was also a little surprised to recognize one of the other boys there, whose name was Max. He was in my grade, back when we lived in our old, old, old house nearby. I'd literally never talked to him before, but I saw him occasionally in the crowded hallways, and... pretty much, the only opinion I had of him was that his hair was super cool. Much like Goyo and Carter, he's basically got an afro, but it's naturally blond to the point of almost being white. I mean, already, curly hair is the sort of hair that you just can't help but appreciate its coolness, but then it's almost on another level when it's also a rare color.
Even though the length of his hair was different from before- he used to cut it shorter, I believe, and had wished he'd grow it out to the length is it now- and I think he used to wear glasses, I immediately recognized him. To my pleasant surprise, he actually recognized me, too.
We ended up chatting just a bit before/after the rehearsal, and we chatted a bit during the actual party as well. Though it's pretty much just been stuff about the high school that I used to go to but he still currently attends, it was still nice talking to him. He's nice. I'm kinda hoping we could potentially become actual friends somehow, because we pretty much know nothing about each other but I can, nonetheless, see us hanging out a little.
I guess the last thing to mention (since I couldn't think of anything else to say in this post) is that... things got even more unsure about our situation, once again. It's only been about a month since my dad moved to his new job, and he hates it. He also has a sneaking suspicion that something's gonna happen- like getting fired- if he sticks around for too long. So, he's been answering calls for job offers once again. One of them, apparently, is back near where we live right now! My mom and sis really like the idea of him working in-state again, since that would mean we'd all be closer to each other and the move wouldn't be so crazy and all. It also means that there's the possibility that I'll be able to go to the U, after all, if my parents are able to live close to the college and I could live with them. I'm... not entirely sure I like the idea? I mean, I'm relieved that, even if I don't go to that dinky college, I'd be with family, but I'd kinda like the idea of going to dorms anyways? Being in the dorms would keep me on the campus, and... I feel like it'd be my first step to learning how to properly adult. I don't really want to deal with a lot of responsibility, honestly, but I think there's a point at which I shouldn't be allowed to cling to my parents so much anymore, and living with them while going to college- at the beginning, at least- sounds too much like I'd still be clinging to them. Let's face it: I have to grow up.
So, if this conviction of mine still stands that it'd probably be for the best that I live separately from my mom and dad, even if they're still pretty dang close, the tiny college is probably still the best option. In that case, I'd still be really close to my sis and Captain, but not exactly relying on them besides asking them to bring me along to buy groceries.
And... I think, now that for a few weeks, I've been thinking that it's pretty much my only option, I don't care quite as much about going to the U.
I guess we'll see what happens.
Next week: hopefully, I'll have updates on the whole one-shot thing, English assignments thing, dad's work thing, prom dress thing, and college thing. See ya later!
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Let's Go See a Tiny College Campus!
Hello world!
I... did a lot of derping around, looking through some past writings and blog posts, before I finally opened up this new post. Silly Lily, that's for Even Older Me to do!
I forgot to mention last week that 1. Captain came to Brorange's house, too. That was the first time he met the Broranges family, and vice-versa. I heard that, while I was gaming with Broranges in his room, they chatted with Captain quite a bit, and he took a nap on their couch at some point... 2. I binged Ninjago quite a bit on... Thursday, I believe. I made it into the next season (Season 5), and I'm loving it, too! No wonder my cousins said it was their favorite season! I haven't finished it, yet, but I'm really excited to see how it ends.
This week, being "Spring Break" (in quotations because I still spent some time on school stuff), I honestly wasn't very busy. We did a couple trips to the storage unit, I went to school on Tuesday and Thursday (since I had seminary on those days), and I did much more lazing around, Facebooking, and going to bed way too late than I hoped for. (I never live up to my own expectations during breaks.)
Something fun that happened on my first school day was that, since it was Pi Day, the teachers brought pie. A lot of pie. Enough for most of the students to get a slice! And, since they started setting up right outside the room I was working in, I got to be first in line! I gots peach. Yum~ (It was also Finn the Human's birthday. In commemoration, I wore a lot of blue, black shoes with white socks, and my cat-eared hat. Oh, and my BMO headphones, of course. I'd made the unfortunate mistake of wearing my only Adventure Time shirt when we went to Brorange's house, so it was in the dirty clothes hamper! I made do with other items, but it was definitely not easy to tell what I was aiming for.)
I didn't really do much on my solo projects, but there was a pretty decent amount of QQ done. This was just about our longest streak. Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday? It's unprecedented!
One of the things that we did to work on QQ was use a character creator for a character that would soon appear in the story. Since my partner-in-crime plays a lot of RPGs, she was using the character creators for her games. One of them was actually really cool, because it had a level of detail that I haven't seen anywhere else! I kinda wish I could use just the creator, as if it was a Rinmaru game. Pretty sure that's not how it works, though.
Remember how, about halfway through last year, I'd come up with Sylvie, an OC for QQ? She decided to try to make Sylvie in the creator. Though I'm guessing I might've done a few small differences in her appearance if I'd use the creator myself, I think she did a really good job! (Hope it's okay that I post what was technically her work... But it's my character, so I guess it's not a big deal.)
The real Sylvie dresses very casually, but that's not a choice in the creator. I think the clothes she put instead were a really good choice, since they are subtler than I'm sure a lot of the other choices are, and they compliment her hair and eyes very well.
We went out to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on Friday, and... I hardly accomplished anything useful. A really great thing happened, though!
I don't know if I mentioned this. author's been my friend basically since I began doing stuff on FFN, right? Sure, we sometimes took a while to reply to each other (I was a lot more guilty of doing this, honestly), but we usually had pretty frequent and regular communications going on. Around the end of last October, though, she suddenly didn't reply. A few months later, I sent another PM, to see if maybe she'd just forgotten, but still no response. I got rather worried about her, because this had never happened before, and I didn't know what to make of her long-term disappearance. I didn't know if it was just because she was always too busy, or stopped using FFN, or (like a couple of my other online friends) got in trouble with her parents and wasn't allowed to be on FFN anymore, or some other reason that was not as innocent. That last possibility scared me a bit, even though I knew it was the least likely.
My fears could finally find relief, as she finally sent a PM back on Friday! It turned out it was indeed a mix of being too busy and dealing with her anxiety. I mean, that's not good, but sooo much better than some of the other things I was imagining. I sent her a giant virtual glomp, happy and relieved to know that she was okay.
Saturday had a trip to a tiny campus that my sis had considered attending, but I kept being Grumpy Cat about going there myself. I know I was (and, admittedly, still kinda am) not being very open-minded about attending anywhere besides the U. My mom's been telling me, though, that she thinks it'd be really hard on her and my dad if I went there; with all the moving and job-switching and the wedding, it was just going to be too much money. This tiny campus has the cheapest tuition in the state, and I knew I'd regardless not be able to spend all 4 years there because they didn't offer a bachelor's in biology. (It's one of the campuses that's part of the state university; I'd have to switch to the main campus to finish my degree.) Considering all the hype I went through for the U, and all the plans we were concocting, and the science programs I wanted to be a part of... I'm still struggling with not being disappointed by the fact that I'm now being told I can't do any of that anymore, and would probably have to instead go somewhere that I'm not as enthusiastic about. It feels like I'm missing out on opportunities that I should be taking.
Captain drove me and my sis down to the school. The trip itself was pretty fun, since we passed through roads walled by mountains and red-rock, and played a lot of Latino party tunes in the car. (I just kinda wanna send a shout-out to both of them for not making me feel uncomfortable or excluded. It was more like... a true trio. Three Musketeers. Powerpuff Girls. Not the couple and their third wheel, or the sisters and the driver, or anything weird like that. I'm starting to think I might be feeling even more at peace with the idea of my sister being with this guy than I had once been of her being with Niisan. He treats her very well, and treats me well too. I appreciate that more than I think I can properly express.)
I had hoped seeing the campus for myself would help me feel better about the change (or decide that I hated it and stick to the U, regardless of how tough it'd be on my parents), but... it felt like it didn't really sway me one way or the other. I didn't hate it, nor absolutely love it (like my sis did). I still felt... stuck. I managed to hide this from the other people present, but I was not having a good time warring with myself.
After the tour (which took a lot less time than the one my dad and I took at the U, that's for sure) and lunch break, they drove me to the nearest station to take the train home. I felt rather pathetic for feeling a little scared about riding the train by myself, but... well, I was. I knew it's something I'd have to start getting used to the idea to, regardless of which school I went to, so I agreed to it, but that didn't stop me from feeling kinda anxious about it. I think it was for the better, in that case, that my mom had suggested doing a bit of the seminary make-up work during the ride. It meant I had to do a prayer to start, and I could ask to be calm and safe while riding, which actually happened. I continued to be calm and safe once I got off, which was good, since it turned out the GPS was being rude to my mom, and she didn't make it to the station till 20 minutes later. I'd spent that time sitting on a bench singing to myself.
But, well, my calm, content attitude kinda fell apart when my mom asked me in the car how I was feeling about going to that college instead. I don't think my mom quite understands how I feel about all of this (and I don't think I do, either), despite trying to explain it for a while.
Part because I kinda wanted to distract myself from the stuff we were talking about, part because I was hungry and wasn't really in the mood for anything we had in the house, and part because I wanted to let my mom indulge in her cravings just like she sometimes does for us, I agreed to going our for burgers. We ended up going to Carl's Jr. (Man, I keep forgetting that I typically can't handle all the food within a single combo when it's not all items from the dollar menu. I played drums for a while- I've played on Tuesday and Saturday for the past few weeks, so I guess that'll be my schedule for the rest of our stay here- just to see if I could get the food in my stomach to settle a bit and give me room for the rest of my meal. I just got in my last bite of burger and the rest of my shake. I didn't eat most of my fries. Maybe I'll eat the rest of those once I finish this post...)
I think the last thing to mention is that I made a donation to a charity thing online for the first time. It's the first thing I've used my debit card for. I did so because Carter told me a few days ago that his dad offered to pay for his plane tickets here (and I also told him of some potential restaurants we could eat prom dinner at), which means I won't be helping to pay anymore. I also saw something shared on FB where a group of celebrities (I only recognize one of them, honestly) started a project where they'd send cargo planes full of tons (and I literally mean tons- I think they said 60 tons) of food to Somalia, since they are going through such a horrifyingly deadly drought and food shortage. I'd only seen news about this a day or two earlier, but- like a lot of stuff- I'd thought that there probably wasn't really anything I could do. Seeing this food project for Somalia, though, plus knowing that I could use a bit of money for things like this instead of the plane tickets... it felt right to help. After a lot of internal deliberation, I ended up sending $30. It feels like a lot and very little at the same time, but I contributed.
After telling Carter about this, though, he mentioned also that he'd like to donate to help Syria, where so many people are without food and dying/getting seriously injured in the warzone. I wish I'd thought to save some of the money I donated for Syria instead, though I'm not quite sure what to do for them... Maybe I'll come across another opportunity, and use money from my savings account instead for that? I don't know.
Well, I'm back to the normal school schedule tomorrow. Boooooo. See you later, Terminators.
I... did a lot of derping around, looking through some past writings and blog posts, before I finally opened up this new post. Silly Lily, that's for Even Older Me to do!
I forgot to mention last week that 1. Captain came to Brorange's house, too. That was the first time he met the Broranges family, and vice-versa. I heard that, while I was gaming with Broranges in his room, they chatted with Captain quite a bit, and he took a nap on their couch at some point... 2. I binged Ninjago quite a bit on... Thursday, I believe. I made it into the next season (Season 5), and I'm loving it, too! No wonder my cousins said it was their favorite season! I haven't finished it, yet, but I'm really excited to see how it ends.
This week, being "Spring Break" (in quotations because I still spent some time on school stuff), I honestly wasn't very busy. We did a couple trips to the storage unit, I went to school on Tuesday and Thursday (since I had seminary on those days), and I did much more lazing around, Facebooking, and going to bed way too late than I hoped for. (I never live up to my own expectations during breaks.)
Something fun that happened on my first school day was that, since it was Pi Day, the teachers brought pie. A lot of pie. Enough for most of the students to get a slice! And, since they started setting up right outside the room I was working in, I got to be first in line! I gots peach. Yum~ (It was also Finn the Human's birthday. In commemoration, I wore a lot of blue, black shoes with white socks, and my cat-eared hat. Oh, and my BMO headphones, of course. I'd made the unfortunate mistake of wearing my only Adventure Time shirt when we went to Brorange's house, so it was in the dirty clothes hamper! I made do with other items, but it was definitely not easy to tell what I was aiming for.)
I didn't really do much on my solo projects, but there was a pretty decent amount of QQ done. This was just about our longest streak. Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday? It's unprecedented!
One of the things that we did to work on QQ was use a character creator for a character that would soon appear in the story. Since my partner-in-crime plays a lot of RPGs, she was using the character creators for her games. One of them was actually really cool, because it had a level of detail that I haven't seen anywhere else! I kinda wish I could use just the creator, as if it was a Rinmaru game. Pretty sure that's not how it works, though.
Remember how, about halfway through last year, I'd come up with Sylvie, an OC for QQ? She decided to try to make Sylvie in the creator. Though I'm guessing I might've done a few small differences in her appearance if I'd use the creator myself, I think she did a really good job! (Hope it's okay that I post what was technically her work... But it's my character, so I guess it's not a big deal.)
The real Sylvie dresses very casually, but that's not a choice in the creator. I think the clothes she put instead were a really good choice, since they are subtler than I'm sure a lot of the other choices are, and they compliment her hair and eyes very well.
We went out to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on Friday, and... I hardly accomplished anything useful. A really great thing happened, though!
I don't know if I mentioned this. author's been my friend basically since I began doing stuff on FFN, right? Sure, we sometimes took a while to reply to each other (I was a lot more guilty of doing this, honestly), but we usually had pretty frequent and regular communications going on. Around the end of last October, though, she suddenly didn't reply. A few months later, I sent another PM, to see if maybe she'd just forgotten, but still no response. I got rather worried about her, because this had never happened before, and I didn't know what to make of her long-term disappearance. I didn't know if it was just because she was always too busy, or stopped using FFN, or (like a couple of my other online friends) got in trouble with her parents and wasn't allowed to be on FFN anymore, or some other reason that was not as innocent. That last possibility scared me a bit, even though I knew it was the least likely.
My fears could finally find relief, as she finally sent a PM back on Friday! It turned out it was indeed a mix of being too busy and dealing with her anxiety. I mean, that's not good, but sooo much better than some of the other things I was imagining. I sent her a giant virtual glomp, happy and relieved to know that she was okay.
Saturday had a trip to a tiny campus that my sis had considered attending, but I kept being Grumpy Cat about going there myself. I know I was (and, admittedly, still kinda am) not being very open-minded about attending anywhere besides the U. My mom's been telling me, though, that she thinks it'd be really hard on her and my dad if I went there; with all the moving and job-switching and the wedding, it was just going to be too much money. This tiny campus has the cheapest tuition in the state, and I knew I'd regardless not be able to spend all 4 years there because they didn't offer a bachelor's in biology. (It's one of the campuses that's part of the state university; I'd have to switch to the main campus to finish my degree.) Considering all the hype I went through for the U, and all the plans we were concocting, and the science programs I wanted to be a part of... I'm still struggling with not being disappointed by the fact that I'm now being told I can't do any of that anymore, and would probably have to instead go somewhere that I'm not as enthusiastic about. It feels like I'm missing out on opportunities that I should be taking.
Captain drove me and my sis down to the school. The trip itself was pretty fun, since we passed through roads walled by mountains and red-rock, and played a lot of Latino party tunes in the car. (I just kinda wanna send a shout-out to both of them for not making me feel uncomfortable or excluded. It was more like... a true trio. Three Musketeers. Powerpuff Girls. Not the couple and their third wheel, or the sisters and the driver, or anything weird like that. I'm starting to think I might be feeling even more at peace with the idea of my sister being with this guy than I had once been of her being with Niisan. He treats her very well, and treats me well too. I appreciate that more than I think I can properly express.)
I had hoped seeing the campus for myself would help me feel better about the change (or decide that I hated it and stick to the U, regardless of how tough it'd be on my parents), but... it felt like it didn't really sway me one way or the other. I didn't hate it, nor absolutely love it (like my sis did). I still felt... stuck. I managed to hide this from the other people present, but I was not having a good time warring with myself.
After the tour (which took a lot less time than the one my dad and I took at the U, that's for sure) and lunch break, they drove me to the nearest station to take the train home. I felt rather pathetic for feeling a little scared about riding the train by myself, but... well, I was. I knew it's something I'd have to start getting used to the idea to, regardless of which school I went to, so I agreed to it, but that didn't stop me from feeling kinda anxious about it. I think it was for the better, in that case, that my mom had suggested doing a bit of the seminary make-up work during the ride. It meant I had to do a prayer to start, and I could ask to be calm and safe while riding, which actually happened. I continued to be calm and safe once I got off, which was good, since it turned out the GPS was being rude to my mom, and she didn't make it to the station till 20 minutes later. I'd spent that time sitting on a bench singing to myself.
But, well, my calm, content attitude kinda fell apart when my mom asked me in the car how I was feeling about going to that college instead. I don't think my mom quite understands how I feel about all of this (and I don't think I do, either), despite trying to explain it for a while.
Part because I kinda wanted to distract myself from the stuff we were talking about, part because I was hungry and wasn't really in the mood for anything we had in the house, and part because I wanted to let my mom indulge in her cravings just like she sometimes does for us, I agreed to going our for burgers. We ended up going to Carl's Jr. (Man, I keep forgetting that I typically can't handle all the food within a single combo when it's not all items from the dollar menu. I played drums for a while- I've played on Tuesday and Saturday for the past few weeks, so I guess that'll be my schedule for the rest of our stay here- just to see if I could get the food in my stomach to settle a bit and give me room for the rest of my meal. I just got in my last bite of burger and the rest of my shake. I didn't eat most of my fries. Maybe I'll eat the rest of those once I finish this post...)
I think the last thing to mention is that I made a donation to a charity thing online for the first time. It's the first thing I've used my debit card for. I did so because Carter told me a few days ago that his dad offered to pay for his plane tickets here (and I also told him of some potential restaurants we could eat prom dinner at), which means I won't be helping to pay anymore. I also saw something shared on FB where a group of celebrities (I only recognize one of them, honestly) started a project where they'd send cargo planes full of tons (and I literally mean tons- I think they said 60 tons) of food to Somalia, since they are going through such a horrifyingly deadly drought and food shortage. I'd only seen news about this a day or two earlier, but- like a lot of stuff- I'd thought that there probably wasn't really anything I could do. Seeing this food project for Somalia, though, plus knowing that I could use a bit of money for things like this instead of the plane tickets... it felt right to help. After a lot of internal deliberation, I ended up sending $30. It feels like a lot and very little at the same time, but I contributed.
After telling Carter about this, though, he mentioned also that he'd like to donate to help Syria, where so many people are without food and dying/getting seriously injured in the warzone. I wish I'd thought to save some of the money I donated for Syria instead, though I'm not quite sure what to do for them... Maybe I'll come across another opportunity, and use money from my savings account instead for that? I don't know.
Well, I'm back to the normal school schedule tomorrow. Boooooo. See you later, Terminators.
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Pokémon?! God Cycles?! PENGUINS?!
Hello world!
I'm just gonna start by saying... I never expected to get into Pokémon. They just didn't interest me, no matter how much stuff Darkrai and Broranges told me about them. The 1 also played it a lot, and I'm sure tons of my other friends did, too! But... just... no.
Until today.
We went to visit Brorange's house, and- unlike what we usually did- he showed me a bit of his new Pokémon game, as he'd recently bought a 2DS. I was kinda "eh" about it, and asked him if he also had other games, like Scribblenauts. He said yep, and passed over his old DS with his Scribblenauts game. I tried playing for a bit, but it only wanted to work for a few minutes, for some reason. He offered instead GameBoy games that went into the other slot, and the one that seemed most appealing was Pokémon: Emerald (which said a lot about my interest for the other choices). I was really skeptical about whether I'd actually enjoy the game, but... I actually did. Quite a bit.
What. Even.
It's really weird how I feel like I suddenly like something I never really liked. I doubt I'll ever get into the shows, or the card game, or the comparing-characters-to-Pokémon thing, but now I know that I don't mind the video game at all.
We ended up playing side-by-side on his bed for the majority of the visit, me making a lot of ridiculous commentary about the game (I felt like a gamer Youtuber with all the weird jokes I ended up making) and asking for help/advice occasionally. It didn't take very long for him to suggest that I just take his old DS home with me to borrow it for some time. I was hesitant, considering I was still digesting the fact that oh my gosh I think I like this game and... well... I already get distracted way too much with Facebook and TAU and FFN and who knows what else. But, by the end of the visit, I ended up agreeing to it.
And now the DS is staring at me. Taunting me. (And Carter did not help, texting back a Joker laugh and "One of us! One of us!" when I told him about this.)
Well, let's get on with the rest of the week.
Nothing particularly interesting happened in the first half; I practiced more drums on Tuesday, and we ate out at our fave Vietnamese restaurant on Wednesday (according to my mom, cuz I don't remember the day).
On Thursday, the Math Club did the final ASMA test for the school year. I think there was the smallest group of people this time. I had fun chatting with people afterwards, though, as we ate donuts, Popsicles, and Ruffles chips (instead of the usual pizza). I think I'll mention now, since I will likely forget to later, that there's a kid in Math Club I call Big Ian. It's an inside joke. Older Me will likely still remember it.
Oh! I believe Rubik met my mom the day before the test. He walked out with me at the end of school, and we chilled together for a bit until she arrived to pick me up. (It started finally feeling like spring from that day on! And today, Daylight Savings ended.) My mom could immediately tell that he's a sweetie.
Friday was a lot weirder. Its events actually started with my dad and I talking by phone the night previous, in which he left me feeling upset because he was saying that we should've fixed the seminary issues earlier, and you should do this and that or it'll be too late, and stuff like that. (It's not so much what he's saying, but the way he's saying it, that tends to hurt my and my sister's feelings.) He had a proper reason to do so- I still hadn't received my makeup work for seminary for the term, and considering how many times I ended up missing the class, we were scared it was going to be way too much work and I'd end up not being able to graduate seminary. Besides that being very disappointing, my dad pointed out that, if I ever ended up going to BYU, completing seminary is required to be admitted (as far as he knows, anyway).
My mom and I ended up going to the seminary building of the high school that is in charge of my seminary class (because my school isn't big enough for its own building and such), and talking to the principal there. (I realized that I actually recognized him, from the one or two times he visited my class. Surprisingly enough, he actually remembered my name! How even?!) He was super nice, and excused a ton of my absences (since I actually had a reason to not be in the class those times), leaving a relatively small amount of makeup work for me to do. He also said he'd try to work out what makeup work I'd have for the last term of school by Spring Break (which is halfway through next month), so I could make sure to get that done before the year ends and be able to graduate!
This week is the community college's Spring Break- meaning, I've got no classes besides seminary- so I'm hoping that I can get some of the makeup work done this week, along with get a little further ahead in my Chem homework and get started on my newest English paper.
I'm gonna go on a tangent, now, since I also hope to maybe, maybe, do some personal writing this week, as well. I actually started on a new project that may or may not actually come to fruition- I think the initial idea may have come to me on Tuesday. It's for a potential TAU fic- one that I can actually send to the official TAU page, since it wouldn't be a crossover. (Oh, and I did a bit of editing for a fic I'd finishing the first drafts of in January/early February. I think I'm really close to being happy enough with it to try sending it to the mods!) It would be composed of all OCs (except Dipper, if/when he shows up), and this is the main one:
I drew this yesterday morning. (I already have hard enough of a time making male characters look like guys, but it just gets worse when they have long hair.)
I know how just about everyone who writes for TAU has very liberal values, and likes to embrace gender issues and gender fluidity in their characters, so I decided to try dipping a little into that myself. Just a leetle. His name is Azul (which, as far as I know, is pretty much just used for girls, except for the Spanish dub of The Smurfs movie), which I figured could work, considering this is set further into the future, and name trends could totally allow for such a name to become acceptable for males. As seen above, he also likes having longer hair (which I originally imagined to somewhat radiate away from his face like a lion's mane) and wears penguin hats and other apparel shamelessly. And it's not just because he studies penguins.
Yes, the winter clothing (I think it might not look like it, considering I basically didn't color anything in, but it's a turtleneck sweater he's wearing) is because he resides in Antarctica, investigating the magical nature of the continent and/or its inhabitants. The idea came about when I suddenly had a moment of contemplation as to what affect the Transcendence could have had on the most barren places in the world. I mean, would they be as alive with magic as any other place, or even more-so, or would it continue to be barren of even that? I've sent the mods an ask of exactly that, but meanwhile have been thinking more on the characters and potential situations.
There's a few different directions Azul's story can take, based on their answer. (I know people are allowed to use whatever ideas they have in TAU, even if it contradicts other established canon/fanon, but I seriously just have no idea what the most realistic possibility is, and would prefer to leave that to the experts before adding onto the idea.) One is that he likes his choice of occupation not just because of penguins (he loves the little guys), but because he's extremely sensitive to magic, and the frozen land at the bottom of the Earth is very quiet and relaxing compared to the rest of the world. Another is that he encounters the most important character in TAU by mere coincidence. (I think to have R!Stan and R!Ford as fellow scientists in his base as part of the reason for why this happens. And also penguins.) Another is that he discovers that Antarctica kinda has magical creatures, after all- the Ningen, which roam the ocean surrounding this continent. (I'd never even heard of this cryptid until I did a bit of research for where I could take this story.) Finally, I thought that maybe he had some sort of acquaintanceship with Mizar- more specifically, the Mizar for the suggestion I sent to the mods of a potential Mizar personality, where I basically imagined her being a lot like Louise from Bob's Burgers. (They understood it more like she's just super active and hyper, which also works.) I don't know, maybe I end up somehow using all of these (though likely in different installments, all under Azul's name). Man, how insane would it be if I became one of the people who started something as big as RRR, or RB, or Bentley, or Brian?! (I doubt it'd actually happen, but it's something worth daydreaming about.)
Oh, and my first thought was to have him be from Chile- a pretty dang decent amount of cultures have been represented in TAU's characters so far, but Latino/Hispanic hasn't appeared much. If I actually get somewhere with Azul, I'll have to check up on Chilean culture so I don't accidentally make him Mexican instead. (Regardless, I'm really hoping tamales or something similar are a thing in Chile, because I've been wanting pineapple tamales lately, and so I want Azul and his friends to eat a lot of tamales.)
If the drawing ended up getting inked and colored in, he'd likely have a skin tone either in the medium or light-medium parts of the spectrum for Latinos, black or really dark-brown hair, dark brown eyes (though I'd probably just leave them looking black in the pic, to make it easier on me), dark blue sweater that may have a ribbed texture, and usual colors for a penguin beanie.
Since this tangent relates to stories, I'll just insert now that Liz and I did a bit of writing in the newest QQ chapter last night. We hadn't touched it in over a month because I had the move and homework and everything to deal with. It was nice to do that with her again- and I even enjoyed the phone-call part of it. (I tend to prefer just messaging with her on the doc or Hangouts instead of calling.)
And, with wrapping up the seminary topic this tangent had originated from, I had a mind-blowing idea that's probably partly influenced by TAU. There's a part in the scriptures where it talks about how the souls that make it into the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom in the second life will becomes gods and goddesses themselves, and will be able to create worlds of their own, and awesome stuff like that. (The teacher and a friend mentioned another part that apparently says everyone else will become angels that help the gods and goddesses, which, honestly, sounds pretty dang cool to me too.) Realizing, though, that it could potentially turn into a cycle (God sets up universe and plan for his children, helps them become gods themselves, then they set up worlds/universes and plans for their children, and they could become gods themselves, and on and on and on...), I thought- wait a minute, could this have started before our Heavenly Father? Like, is he the son of a previous God, and went through what we're experiencing now? And that God might've gone through the cycle too? Is this something that's happened over and over since the beginning of the existence of anything? This is definitely a stretch, and don't even think to call this doctrine, but... I don't know, I thought it was a really interesting concept to think about- that we're not really the first ones to have gone on such a journey. If nothing else, it could be the starting point of an incredible fictional story. Juuuuust in case I ever return to this concept later, know that I'll refer to it as the "God Cycle".
Okay, now to something else that happened on Friday. I may have mentioned before the gaming club at my school? They did an event where kids brought their own games from home for other people to play. It lasted longer than their usual meetings- it was about 3.5 hours long!- and... actually didn't have as many people as I expected. I wanted to go, though, and I ended up making my down with a girl from seminary. (We've been talking more outside of the class lately.) I'll call her... Finn. She's super cool.
We played a couple of the available card games together for a while. We started with Sushi Go! (which has adorable illustrations, and we said "SUSHI GO!" really ridiculously during the game), then went to one called Exploding Kittens. We both took quite a liking to the second, and played that one for longer. It was really fun to hang out with her, and I also seriously considered buying that game for myself, considering how much we enjoyed it.
They'd said there'd be food, and it turned out they meant the cheapest stuff off McDonald's menu. Finn and I got a small burger each (dumping our respective choices of sauces in them first) and shared a small box of fries. We had to hold our cards really weirdly to try to not touch our food-handling fingers to them.
After she had to leave, I wandered over to the other end of the event, where some kids were playing the usual Super Smash Bros. that the gaming club plays every Friday. It made me happy when I was immediately invited to join in by one of the regular club members. Considering I'd only ever played this game against Cam and Ash once when we were a little younger, though (see the posts from December 2014)... Yeah, I never got close to winning any of the rounds. Though that was a bit frustrating and disappointing, of course, it didn't prevent me from having fun. (Also, I used the moniker "TACOCAT" for my character the majority of the time. Despite how much I prefer authentic tacos over that thing Americans call tacos, I love the word "tacocat". Exploding Kittens definitely influenced my decision to actually make it my gaming name that day. Who knows? I'd probably use it again in the future, especially if said future includes going to another meeting in the gaming club.)
I went to KF for the first time in over 2 weeks on Saturday. We were fully prepared to tell the teacher/master that I just wouldn't be able to go anymore (not just because being a higher belt typically means spending a lot more time there, time I don't know I'll always be able to spend, but we'd rather use the money for tuition on something else, like my sister's wedding or tickets to visit Mexico). He told us then, though, that the extra helping out some of the higher belts do actually counts as credit off of tuition and fees and other stuff that they'd otherwise pay full price for. Every time they helped out with teaching in lower belt was the equivalent of $5 credit, for example. (And I'd been planning to go to lower belt to help out whenever possible, anyways!) So, if we helped out enough with teaching and upkeep and such, we could basically work to pay off the tuition!
I'm still a bit worried about whether the fact that we'd be there longer than I used to be as a lower belt would be difficult to deal with alongside schoolwork and the wedding and such, but my mom wants to try it out.
(Once he'd finished informing us as to this program we could take full advantage of, I had my first brown-belt level class. I've been pretty sore all day today. Dropkicks do that to you, apparently.)
The torture's almost over! I just wanted to add in a final thought about how, during our time working on QQ, I ended up occasionally scrolling through fanart of Alphonse Elric. (This happened because, a long while ago, she'd wanted to look for which version of him would fit better for QQ. I noticed the pics she'd copied-and-pasted at the bottom of the doc from that, and I wanted to save one of them on my computer. It escalated quickly from there. Very quickly.) Can I just say... there's some really great art, but I just don't like the very large percentage of yaoi pairings represented in the art that is more specifically Conqueror of Shamballa? Especially considering CoS shippings mostly consist of the more disturbing shippings in this fandom? I'm glad I ended up mostly seeing more like fluff/subtle hints to those relationships, but still! Ugh, people! (I end up keeping a few of the ones that are more like "they're just holding hands" anyways, since it's easier to pretend it isn't most likely representing a romantic relationship and sometimes a picture is just too adorable and/or beautifully drawn to not be kept, but it's incredibly difficult to not feel a little squeamish about the implications.)
That's everything, finally! Have a wonderful day/week/life, and hope that these next few days include something good to write about! Bye!
I'm just gonna start by saying... I never expected to get into Pokémon. They just didn't interest me, no matter how much stuff Darkrai and Broranges told me about them. The 1 also played it a lot, and I'm sure tons of my other friends did, too! But... just... no.
Until today.
We went to visit Brorange's house, and- unlike what we usually did- he showed me a bit of his new Pokémon game, as he'd recently bought a 2DS. I was kinda "eh" about it, and asked him if he also had other games, like Scribblenauts. He said yep, and passed over his old DS with his Scribblenauts game. I tried playing for a bit, but it only wanted to work for a few minutes, for some reason. He offered instead GameBoy games that went into the other slot, and the one that seemed most appealing was Pokémon: Emerald (which said a lot about my interest for the other choices). I was really skeptical about whether I'd actually enjoy the game, but... I actually did. Quite a bit.
What. Even.
It's really weird how I feel like I suddenly like something I never really liked. I doubt I'll ever get into the shows, or the card game, or the comparing-characters-to-Pokémon thing, but now I know that I don't mind the video game at all.
We ended up playing side-by-side on his bed for the majority of the visit, me making a lot of ridiculous commentary about the game (I felt like a gamer Youtuber with all the weird jokes I ended up making) and asking for help/advice occasionally. It didn't take very long for him to suggest that I just take his old DS home with me to borrow it for some time. I was hesitant, considering I was still digesting the fact that oh my gosh I think I like this game and... well... I already get distracted way too much with Facebook and TAU and FFN and who knows what else. But, by the end of the visit, I ended up agreeing to it.
And now the DS is staring at me. Taunting me. (And Carter did not help, texting back a Joker laugh and "One of us! One of us!" when I told him about this.)
Well, let's get on with the rest of the week.
Nothing particularly interesting happened in the first half; I practiced more drums on Tuesday, and we ate out at our fave Vietnamese restaurant on Wednesday (according to my mom, cuz I don't remember the day).
On Thursday, the Math Club did the final ASMA test for the school year. I think there was the smallest group of people this time. I had fun chatting with people afterwards, though, as we ate donuts, Popsicles, and Ruffles chips (instead of the usual pizza). I think I'll mention now, since I will likely forget to later, that there's a kid in Math Club I call Big Ian. It's an inside joke. Older Me will likely still remember it.
Oh! I believe Rubik met my mom the day before the test. He walked out with me at the end of school, and we chilled together for a bit until she arrived to pick me up. (It started finally feeling like spring from that day on! And today, Daylight Savings ended.) My mom could immediately tell that he's a sweetie.
Friday was a lot weirder. Its events actually started with my dad and I talking by phone the night previous, in which he left me feeling upset because he was saying that we should've fixed the seminary issues earlier, and you should do this and that or it'll be too late, and stuff like that. (It's not so much what he's saying, but the way he's saying it, that tends to hurt my and my sister's feelings.) He had a proper reason to do so- I still hadn't received my makeup work for seminary for the term, and considering how many times I ended up missing the class, we were scared it was going to be way too much work and I'd end up not being able to graduate seminary. Besides that being very disappointing, my dad pointed out that, if I ever ended up going to BYU, completing seminary is required to be admitted (as far as he knows, anyway).
My mom and I ended up going to the seminary building of the high school that is in charge of my seminary class (because my school isn't big enough for its own building and such), and talking to the principal there. (I realized that I actually recognized him, from the one or two times he visited my class. Surprisingly enough, he actually remembered my name! How even?!) He was super nice, and excused a ton of my absences (since I actually had a reason to not be in the class those times), leaving a relatively small amount of makeup work for me to do. He also said he'd try to work out what makeup work I'd have for the last term of school by Spring Break (which is halfway through next month), so I could make sure to get that done before the year ends and be able to graduate!
This week is the community college's Spring Break- meaning, I've got no classes besides seminary- so I'm hoping that I can get some of the makeup work done this week, along with get a little further ahead in my Chem homework and get started on my newest English paper.
I'm gonna go on a tangent, now, since I also hope to maybe, maybe, do some personal writing this week, as well. I actually started on a new project that may or may not actually come to fruition- I think the initial idea may have come to me on Tuesday. It's for a potential TAU fic- one that I can actually send to the official TAU page, since it wouldn't be a crossover. (Oh, and I did a bit of editing for a fic I'd finishing the first drafts of in January/early February. I think I'm really close to being happy enough with it to try sending it to the mods!) It would be composed of all OCs (except Dipper, if/when he shows up), and this is the main one:
I drew this yesterday morning. (I already have hard enough of a time making male characters look like guys, but it just gets worse when they have long hair.)
I know how just about everyone who writes for TAU has very liberal values, and likes to embrace gender issues and gender fluidity in their characters, so I decided to try dipping a little into that myself. Just a leetle. His name is Azul (which, as far as I know, is pretty much just used for girls, except for the Spanish dub of The Smurfs movie), which I figured could work, considering this is set further into the future, and name trends could totally allow for such a name to become acceptable for males. As seen above, he also likes having longer hair (which I originally imagined to somewhat radiate away from his face like a lion's mane) and wears penguin hats and other apparel shamelessly. And it's not just because he studies penguins.
Yes, the winter clothing (I think it might not look like it, considering I basically didn't color anything in, but it's a turtleneck sweater he's wearing) is because he resides in Antarctica, investigating the magical nature of the continent and/or its inhabitants. The idea came about when I suddenly had a moment of contemplation as to what affect the Transcendence could have had on the most barren places in the world. I mean, would they be as alive with magic as any other place, or even more-so, or would it continue to be barren of even that? I've sent the mods an ask of exactly that, but meanwhile have been thinking more on the characters and potential situations.
There's a few different directions Azul's story can take, based on their answer. (I know people are allowed to use whatever ideas they have in TAU, even if it contradicts other established canon/fanon, but I seriously just have no idea what the most realistic possibility is, and would prefer to leave that to the experts before adding onto the idea.) One is that he likes his choice of occupation not just because of penguins (he loves the little guys), but because he's extremely sensitive to magic, and the frozen land at the bottom of the Earth is very quiet and relaxing compared to the rest of the world. Another is that he encounters the most important character in TAU by mere coincidence. (I think to have R!Stan and R!Ford as fellow scientists in his base as part of the reason for why this happens. And also penguins.) Another is that he discovers that Antarctica kinda has magical creatures, after all- the Ningen, which roam the ocean surrounding this continent. (I'd never even heard of this cryptid until I did a bit of research for where I could take this story.) Finally, I thought that maybe he had some sort of acquaintanceship with Mizar- more specifically, the Mizar for the suggestion I sent to the mods of a potential Mizar personality, where I basically imagined her being a lot like Louise from Bob's Burgers. (They understood it more like she's just super active and hyper, which also works.) I don't know, maybe I end up somehow using all of these (though likely in different installments, all under Azul's name). Man, how insane would it be if I became one of the people who started something as big as RRR, or RB, or Bentley, or Brian?! (I doubt it'd actually happen, but it's something worth daydreaming about.)
Oh, and my first thought was to have him be from Chile- a pretty dang decent amount of cultures have been represented in TAU's characters so far, but Latino/Hispanic hasn't appeared much. If I actually get somewhere with Azul, I'll have to check up on Chilean culture so I don't accidentally make him Mexican instead. (Regardless, I'm really hoping tamales or something similar are a thing in Chile, because I've been wanting pineapple tamales lately, and so I want Azul and his friends to eat a lot of tamales.)
If the drawing ended up getting inked and colored in, he'd likely have a skin tone either in the medium or light-medium parts of the spectrum for Latinos, black or really dark-brown hair, dark brown eyes (though I'd probably just leave them looking black in the pic, to make it easier on me), dark blue sweater that may have a ribbed texture, and usual colors for a penguin beanie.
Since this tangent relates to stories, I'll just insert now that Liz and I did a bit of writing in the newest QQ chapter last night. We hadn't touched it in over a month because I had the move and homework and everything to deal with. It was nice to do that with her again- and I even enjoyed the phone-call part of it. (I tend to prefer just messaging with her on the doc or Hangouts instead of calling.)
And, with wrapping up the seminary topic this tangent had originated from, I had a mind-blowing idea that's probably partly influenced by TAU. There's a part in the scriptures where it talks about how the souls that make it into the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom in the second life will becomes gods and goddesses themselves, and will be able to create worlds of their own, and awesome stuff like that. (The teacher and a friend mentioned another part that apparently says everyone else will become angels that help the gods and goddesses, which, honestly, sounds pretty dang cool to me too.) Realizing, though, that it could potentially turn into a cycle (God sets up universe and plan for his children, helps them become gods themselves, then they set up worlds/universes and plans for their children, and they could become gods themselves, and on and on and on...), I thought- wait a minute, could this have started before our Heavenly Father? Like, is he the son of a previous God, and went through what we're experiencing now? And that God might've gone through the cycle too? Is this something that's happened over and over since the beginning of the existence of anything? This is definitely a stretch, and don't even think to call this doctrine, but... I don't know, I thought it was a really interesting concept to think about- that we're not really the first ones to have gone on such a journey. If nothing else, it could be the starting point of an incredible fictional story. Juuuuust in case I ever return to this concept later, know that I'll refer to it as the "God Cycle".
Okay, now to something else that happened on Friday. I may have mentioned before the gaming club at my school? They did an event where kids brought their own games from home for other people to play. It lasted longer than their usual meetings- it was about 3.5 hours long!- and... actually didn't have as many people as I expected. I wanted to go, though, and I ended up making my down with a girl from seminary. (We've been talking more outside of the class lately.) I'll call her... Finn. She's super cool.
We played a couple of the available card games together for a while. We started with Sushi Go! (which has adorable illustrations, and we said "SUSHI GO!" really ridiculously during the game), then went to one called Exploding Kittens. We both took quite a liking to the second, and played that one for longer. It was really fun to hang out with her, and I also seriously considered buying that game for myself, considering how much we enjoyed it.
They'd said there'd be food, and it turned out they meant the cheapest stuff off McDonald's menu. Finn and I got a small burger each (dumping our respective choices of sauces in them first) and shared a small box of fries. We had to hold our cards really weirdly to try to not touch our food-handling fingers to them.
After she had to leave, I wandered over to the other end of the event, where some kids were playing the usual Super Smash Bros. that the gaming club plays every Friday. It made me happy when I was immediately invited to join in by one of the regular club members. Considering I'd only ever played this game against Cam and Ash once when we were a little younger, though (see the posts from December 2014)... Yeah, I never got close to winning any of the rounds. Though that was a bit frustrating and disappointing, of course, it didn't prevent me from having fun. (Also, I used the moniker "TACOCAT" for my character the majority of the time. Despite how much I prefer authentic tacos over that thing Americans call tacos, I love the word "tacocat". Exploding Kittens definitely influenced my decision to actually make it my gaming name that day. Who knows? I'd probably use it again in the future, especially if said future includes going to another meeting in the gaming club.)
I went to KF for the first time in over 2 weeks on Saturday. We were fully prepared to tell the teacher/master that I just wouldn't be able to go anymore (not just because being a higher belt typically means spending a lot more time there, time I don't know I'll always be able to spend, but we'd rather use the money for tuition on something else, like my sister's wedding or tickets to visit Mexico). He told us then, though, that the extra helping out some of the higher belts do actually counts as credit off of tuition and fees and other stuff that they'd otherwise pay full price for. Every time they helped out with teaching in lower belt was the equivalent of $5 credit, for example. (And I'd been planning to go to lower belt to help out whenever possible, anyways!) So, if we helped out enough with teaching and upkeep and such, we could basically work to pay off the tuition!
I'm still a bit worried about whether the fact that we'd be there longer than I used to be as a lower belt would be difficult to deal with alongside schoolwork and the wedding and such, but my mom wants to try it out.
(Once he'd finished informing us as to this program we could take full advantage of, I had my first brown-belt level class. I've been pretty sore all day today. Dropkicks do that to you, apparently.)
The torture's almost over! I just wanted to add in a final thought about how, during our time working on QQ, I ended up occasionally scrolling through fanart of Alphonse Elric. (This happened because, a long while ago, she'd wanted to look for which version of him would fit better for QQ. I noticed the pics she'd copied-and-pasted at the bottom of the doc from that, and I wanted to save one of them on my computer. It escalated quickly from there. Very quickly.) Can I just say... there's some really great art, but I just don't like the very large percentage of yaoi pairings represented in the art that is more specifically Conqueror of Shamballa? Especially considering CoS shippings mostly consist of the more disturbing shippings in this fandom? I'm glad I ended up mostly seeing more like fluff/subtle hints to those relationships, but still! Ugh, people! (I end up keeping a few of the ones that are more like "they're just holding hands" anyways, since it's easier to pretend it isn't most likely representing a romantic relationship and sometimes a picture is just too adorable and/or beautifully drawn to not be kept, but it's incredibly difficult to not feel a little squeamish about the implications.)
That's everything, finally! Have a wonderful day/week/life, and hope that these next few days include something good to write about! Bye!
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Dance, Fast, Febreze
Hello world!
As I think I said last week, there's not as much to say this week, so that's a relief. I'm gonna start with a rundown of this week, and then say some stuff I didn't have time for earlier.
On Monday and Tuesday, my mom was finishing up with taking stuff out of the house. I helped her as much as I could on Monday, despite having some math homework to do, and then Tuesday... she ended up leaving me at school till 5-ish while she did some final rushing around to complete the job in time. On the upside, we ate some pupusas on Monday, and then Subway on Wednesday! *silly shrug*
I believe it was on Wednesday that I played my drum set for the first time in this house. I waited for only my mom to be in the top floor of the house (I mean, how am I supposed to know when the people who live downstairs are around or annoyed by such noise?) before doing so. It was... kinda rough. It felt like some of the sounds produced were different from before, and of course, it wasn't the exact same placement for everything as before. I eventually figured that it was likely because I was somewhere else in a room with a different size and flooring and what have you. With some more adjustments to layout and practice to get used to it (once again), I'll be fine.
On Thursday, my math teacher told me something amusing. I'd already noticed that she would do little things that showed that she was a little fond of me, like how she'd giggle every time she passed by me crouched over my math homework on a set of stairs, or the time she patted my shoulder as she walked around the room. (I dunno why, but that second example felt really affectionate, and it leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy and smiley every time I think about it.) She finally revealed the reason why as I was leaving the classroom: I remind her a lot of her 11-year-old daughter. She mentioned black hair, for example (mine's really dark brown), and having similar facial features, but I imagine the way that I dress and act certainly don't help the resemblance. I grinned on hearing that, and lightly commented, "I've been told the same by other teachers," as I went out the door, hearing her laugh in reply.
When I recounted the incident to my sister and mom, they also laughed, and thought of exactly the same past occurrence as I had- how my 2nd grade teacher had said I reminded her of her granddaughter. (If I remember correctly, she had shown me and my mom a picture of this granddaughter, and we really did look quite alike.) I think there may have actually been another teacher who said something similar, but I'm having a hard time remembering what exactly.
Nothing particularly interesting happened on Friday, since I spent the day going through my Watch Later videos on Youtube (man, I've been using that feature a lot more than I used to), reading fics, and listening to Nightcore Radio. (Remember the kid with the calculator? We're pretty good friends now, so he defs deserved a code-name by now... Considering he's really into fiddling with his Rubik's Cube lately, I think Rubik is fitting. Some things we share in common are liking Ninjago and Nightcore. He and a few of this other friends assured me last week that it was perfectly a-okay to be excited about The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie and etc. and he told me about some of his cool Ninjago Lego sets. I'm also getting more into Nightcore again- I mean, I already was a little bit, but finding out that he's way into it has certainly sped up the process- and we've exchanged recommendations and stuff. I also found a live feed on Youtube where they play Nightcore songs 24/7. I can be kinda iffy about some of the ones they play, but some are really cool! Unfortunately, I indulged in my curiosity about where the heck Nightcore came from, and ultimately found out that what I've been listening to is fake Nightcore? Like, it used to be a band who wrote original music that had being sped-up as part of their aesthetic, and then some people suddenly started taking that aspect and speeding up already-existing songs and called it Nightcore, and now people only know that as Nightcore when it's just a cheap imitation of the inspiration. It makes me feel a little bad for liking it, especially with the tone of the article I read. I don't have the heart to pass on the info to Rubik.)
Oh, and a kid at school had shown me this online/app game called LittleAlchemy, which I played for hours on Friday. At one point, I got really serious and methodical about it: I put all the elements in alphabetical order on the playing field (no idea what it's really called, but just roll with it), and then took one element and paired it with everything, and kept doing that, both elements I already had and the new ones that cropped up as I went through this process. (I'm suddenly thinking about it like a code, the kind that loops. Except I had to do everything in every loop by hand.) I know you're more supposed to do it with getting a specific element in mind, but this is still fun. I haven't found how to make a human, but I've got 127 elements/products at this point, so I'm bound to get it soon! (Plus, I found a secret element~)
I was a little busier yesterday (Saturday). Right before 10 AM, my mom drove me to the stake center, as there was a stake youth activity to watch the Face-to-Face session with Pres. Eyring and Elder Holland. They started with making waffles for everyone (which ended up being kind of a mess since it looked like the leaders just brought whatever they had at home, and some were not particularly fast), and by the time everyone was finishing their food, the broadcast began. Throughout, I was hanging out with Elenita's older sisters (let's call them Lia and Lala) and Nutella's younger sister (I don't think I've called her anything, so... Flower?). I hope they're not bothered by me being like "Halp I don't want to be alone"...
When that was over, I did some more reading and laptoping, and I found a golden opportunity in which no one was around! (Again, can't speak for if people are downstairs or not, but at least I try to keep the quiet kick drum from touching the real one so that the thumps are a lot softer for anyone who just so happens to be below me.) I played a whole lotta drums, and I did a lot better than the time before. It's so much funner singing and playing when I'm not worried about being too loud!
Unfortunately, it turned to might've not been the wisest decision... Because once people started coming home, including my mom, said mom informed me that Lala wanted me to go to a stake dance with her. And she'd be going in an hour.
I already can't handle much dancing anymore, but then with having played drums earlier, and not eaten in a few hours, I had an even harder time staying on the dance floor as often as I wanted to. I had to take a looooot of water breaks, but they were never as much of a break as I really needed.
Regardless, I had a lot of fun during the good songs. I got my groove once they played "Cupid Shuffle", and from there I went hardcore on the songs that were my jam, and did my best with the songs I was less sure how to dance to. I think dances are probably the one place you're more likely to see me get a little braver, when I've got a good groove going. I even went into a circle for a few seconds! And, well, I know that some of what I call "dancing" is not particularly normal, and often rips off from choreographies I've done over the years, but whether those count or not, I've got some pretty good moves!
One really awkward kid- I think his name was Hayden- asked me to dance at one point. It turned out he was in 8th grade, and this was his first stake dance, so he very much looked like he didn't know what to do, but he was still a good sport, and did stuff like when everyone would group up in preparation for the beat-drop in the song (a new thing I saw this time around was that, not only were we all encouraged to pack together, but everyone rubbed their hands together like to warm them, and the guys in the middle would say "Heat it up, heat it up!" which I found amusing), and do the limbo (he actually got further in the game than I did!).
The funniest thing to happen was when "Party Rock Anthem" came on, which became one of my moments to shine. I pulled out some wicked shuffling and others of my best moves, and this redheaded girl just gawked in amazement as my awesomeness. She literally blurted out at one point, "Who are you?!"
There was a few other people who showed appreciation for a certain step, but the one who showed the most was a different girl with her hair in cute twin buns. She was very enthusiastic, and started adopting a lot of my moves, and also showing me some of her own stuff. I was particularly impressed with some of the stuff she already had for the very few Latino songs played. She could work a little more on hips, but otherwise, she's pretty dang equipped for pretty much any song with Enrique Iglesias and/or Pitbull! (And probably Sean Paul, too!) She actually wanted to exchange phone numbers so we could hang out sometime. We'll see what happens with that!
We stayed till the party ended at 11, and by then I was almost dead on my feet. I usually wouldn't wanna bother with showering when that tired, but I knew I was just too sweaty and gross to go to bed like that. So, once my sis got home from whatever she was doing with Captain and showered, I took my turn, and then my mom realized- we were going to do a fast.
Yup.
I mean, we had a more immediate reason for doing a fast, so I still felt like I should do it, but, well... I'd basically burned everything that I had eaten earlier in the day with the drumming and especially the dancing. And I knew I was going to be even more sore the next day (which definitely came true- my shoulders and lower back are having an awful time today). So... I ended up eating a protein bar real fast before we did the prayer.
I actually lasted longer than I expected, but I still feel pain in the aforementioned areas, plus I've got a bit of a headache, and ugh.
As for why we were doing the fast... Well, two main things. One, plans as to which college I'd attend quickly changed within the week. I don't know exactly why, but I really disliked the idea of going to USU. I mean, besides the fact that I knew the U of U was better-known for their science and technology stuff, and there was the potential of being part of a really good opportunity over the summer and first year. My mom's been pointing out, though. that USU would be a whole lot easier on my parents' wallets, especially if I went to Eastern. (My sis and Captain have actually been considering going there next year, so that'd be another plus!) We wanted to do the fast just to be able to figure out if it truly is the best option, or if another college is (ooh, I'll just insert here that I got my BYU acceptance email yesterday), or what.
And two is a little weird and uncomfortable to talk about... But, basically, at one point in the weekend, I discovered that there was a lump in my chest that did not belong. (I believe I'd been scratching my side and inadvertently came across this weirdness, so don't think otherwise!) My heart kinda dropped to my stomach when I found it, because I'd heard plenty of stuff about how women are highly recommended to do breast-checks in order to find breast cancer. I was pretty sure I was pretty dang young to be getting something like that, but it can't possibly be a good thing to find something that shouldn't be there!
I told my mom later that day, and she got really scared and worried, and called my dad, and we later told my sis when she came home. (I think this was on Friday.) My mom did some research as to what it could mean, plus asked the lady we live with (I'd forgotten that she used to work as a nurse), and both resulted in saying it's much, much more likely to be something that isn't a big deal. Nonetheless, my parents wanna get me to a doctor ASAP to get my prob checked out, and do the fast in order for that to happen and for it to not be something serious.
I don't know if it sounds weird or not, but my immediate thought on finding that was, "Yet something else on top of everything we're already dealing with?!"
Church today, as I expected, was a little weird. This is one of the few times in which I attend a place that is technically new, but I already know some of the people there for years. Most of the branch I don't recognize, but the ones I do I knew since I was 9 or 10 years old.
As usual, the boys act a little dumb in Sunday School, and the Young Women generally don't talk much besides to their closest friends, but the YW leaders aren't that bad. They're more organized and purposeful than some previous ones I've had, I guess I could say. I'd usually be fine with it, but I feel like I'm going to stress out more without having my old Personal Progress book. I hate the idea of using a new one, especially since I have less than a year left of being a Young Woman, but this particular presidency does a lot of PP stuff. They're probably also gonna be pushier about me finishing it than all the previous ones (and some of them were pretty dang pushy). That doesn't sound very fun.
I really don't have much time left today, but I wanted to end with a couple thoughts I had during the moving process.
If someone read the posts from around May 2015, they'd learn that, for about a month, my dad was in Oregon and my sis was in Utah, leaving me and my mom in Alabama to survive moving our stuff on our own (with help of people from our church, but still). It'd been the very first time for me to live in a house with two-thirds of my family gone, and I think it was pretty tough for both me and my mom. Nonetheless, we made the most of it, and I ended up feeling closer to my mom than ever before.
Though, technically, my sis still lives with us this time around, we kinda switched between which of us was helping my mom with packing over the big moving weekend. So, the times that I went to the slowly-emptying house with my mom to get more stuff done... it reminded me of that time we spent together in Alabama, and I didn't really mind. We still got up to some of the same antics of playing 80's music loud and proud while sorting and packing, and cooking stuff together in the kitchen with whatever we had left, and talking about stuff completely unrelated to whatever we were doing. It was something nice in the midst of the awfulness of moving, being able to reminisce and be with my mom and nobody else.
(Of course, this doesn't mean at all that I didn't miss my dad and sis back then, nor that I don't miss my dad now. I actually cried quite a bit on the day that my dad left, when it hit me how this was just the beginning of our family splitting apart to different places, and if my sis moved out of the state later this year, I'd be all alone without the people who'd been there my whole life.)
Again, much like our move from Alabama, we ended up selling, donating, and giving away a lot of stuff, and I had to learn once again to decide what truly mattered to me and let other things go. Considering how I've always put a lot of sentimental value in the most mundane things (dude, I think I still have somewhere this one Popsicle stick a friend gave me in 7th grade- yes, a Popsicle stick), it was a victory to be able to look at some of my things and decide I'd be okay without them anymore. This pertained mostly to clothing, rather than the stuffed animals (I think my mom still thinks I have too many), but that was perfectly fine, because we suddenly realized that I have a lot more pieces of clothing than we thought. I still had many things I wanted to keep for storage, but we ended up removing a significant portion of my whole collection, a portion of things I was finally okay with letting go of. I hope I can continue to do this a little more over the next few years, so that I have a good amount for starting out a new life with whoever I end up marrying. (Whoever he is, I sure hope he can deal with my stuffed animals- I still have enough to fill a box or two.)
Alrighty, looks like that's everything! I wonder what will happen this next week...
(Wait, last thing! Due to a certain text conversation I had with Carter, the idea for this pictoral representation of the inside joke came about, and it became a reality through one of the girls at my school, one who was bored and wanted to Photoshop something near the end of the day. I found the opportunity, and I seized it!
Carter loved it.
Perhaps, if you're lucky, I could tell you what exactly the inside joke is! It relates to personal information, however, that I definitely don't want to share to the general public.)
As I think I said last week, there's not as much to say this week, so that's a relief. I'm gonna start with a rundown of this week, and then say some stuff I didn't have time for earlier.
On Monday and Tuesday, my mom was finishing up with taking stuff out of the house. I helped her as much as I could on Monday, despite having some math homework to do, and then Tuesday... she ended up leaving me at school till 5-ish while she did some final rushing around to complete the job in time. On the upside, we ate some pupusas on Monday, and then Subway on Wednesday! *silly shrug*
I believe it was on Wednesday that I played my drum set for the first time in this house. I waited for only my mom to be in the top floor of the house (I mean, how am I supposed to know when the people who live downstairs are around or annoyed by such noise?) before doing so. It was... kinda rough. It felt like some of the sounds produced were different from before, and of course, it wasn't the exact same placement for everything as before. I eventually figured that it was likely because I was somewhere else in a room with a different size and flooring and what have you. With some more adjustments to layout and practice to get used to it (once again), I'll be fine.
On Thursday, my math teacher told me something amusing. I'd already noticed that she would do little things that showed that she was a little fond of me, like how she'd giggle every time she passed by me crouched over my math homework on a set of stairs, or the time she patted my shoulder as she walked around the room. (I dunno why, but that second example felt really affectionate, and it leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy and smiley every time I think about it.) She finally revealed the reason why as I was leaving the classroom: I remind her a lot of her 11-year-old daughter. She mentioned black hair, for example (mine's really dark brown), and having similar facial features, but I imagine the way that I dress and act certainly don't help the resemblance. I grinned on hearing that, and lightly commented, "I've been told the same by other teachers," as I went out the door, hearing her laugh in reply.
When I recounted the incident to my sister and mom, they also laughed, and thought of exactly the same past occurrence as I had- how my 2nd grade teacher had said I reminded her of her granddaughter. (If I remember correctly, she had shown me and my mom a picture of this granddaughter, and we really did look quite alike.) I think there may have actually been another teacher who said something similar, but I'm having a hard time remembering what exactly.
Nothing particularly interesting happened on Friday, since I spent the day going through my Watch Later videos on Youtube (man, I've been using that feature a lot more than I used to), reading fics, and listening to Nightcore Radio. (Remember the kid with the calculator? We're pretty good friends now, so he defs deserved a code-name by now... Considering he's really into fiddling with his Rubik's Cube lately, I think Rubik is fitting. Some things we share in common are liking Ninjago and Nightcore. He and a few of this other friends assured me last week that it was perfectly a-okay to be excited about The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie and etc. and he told me about some of his cool Ninjago Lego sets. I'm also getting more into Nightcore again- I mean, I already was a little bit, but finding out that he's way into it has certainly sped up the process- and we've exchanged recommendations and stuff. I also found a live feed on Youtube where they play Nightcore songs 24/7. I can be kinda iffy about some of the ones they play, but some are really cool! Unfortunately, I indulged in my curiosity about where the heck Nightcore came from, and ultimately found out that what I've been listening to is fake Nightcore? Like, it used to be a band who wrote original music that had being sped-up as part of their aesthetic, and then some people suddenly started taking that aspect and speeding up already-existing songs and called it Nightcore, and now people only know that as Nightcore when it's just a cheap imitation of the inspiration. It makes me feel a little bad for liking it, especially with the tone of the article I read. I don't have the heart to pass on the info to Rubik.)
Oh, and a kid at school had shown me this online/app game called LittleAlchemy, which I played for hours on Friday. At one point, I got really serious and methodical about it: I put all the elements in alphabetical order on the playing field (no idea what it's really called, but just roll with it), and then took one element and paired it with everything, and kept doing that, both elements I already had and the new ones that cropped up as I went through this process. (I'm suddenly thinking about it like a code, the kind that loops. Except I had to do everything in every loop by hand.) I know you're more supposed to do it with getting a specific element in mind, but this is still fun. I haven't found how to make a human, but I've got 127 elements/products at this point, so I'm bound to get it soon! (Plus, I found a secret element~)
I was a little busier yesterday (Saturday). Right before 10 AM, my mom drove me to the stake center, as there was a stake youth activity to watch the Face-to-Face session with Pres. Eyring and Elder Holland. They started with making waffles for everyone (which ended up being kind of a mess since it looked like the leaders just brought whatever they had at home, and some were not particularly fast), and by the time everyone was finishing their food, the broadcast began. Throughout, I was hanging out with Elenita's older sisters (let's call them Lia and Lala) and Nutella's younger sister (I don't think I've called her anything, so... Flower?). I hope they're not bothered by me being like "Halp I don't want to be alone"...
When that was over, I did some more reading and laptoping, and I found a golden opportunity in which no one was around! (Again, can't speak for if people are downstairs or not, but at least I try to keep the quiet kick drum from touching the real one so that the thumps are a lot softer for anyone who just so happens to be below me.) I played a whole lotta drums, and I did a lot better than the time before. It's so much funner singing and playing when I'm not worried about being too loud!
Unfortunately, it turned to might've not been the wisest decision... Because once people started coming home, including my mom, said mom informed me that Lala wanted me to go to a stake dance with her. And she'd be going in an hour.
I already can't handle much dancing anymore, but then with having played drums earlier, and not eaten in a few hours, I had an even harder time staying on the dance floor as often as I wanted to. I had to take a looooot of water breaks, but they were never as much of a break as I really needed.
Regardless, I had a lot of fun during the good songs. I got my groove once they played "Cupid Shuffle", and from there I went hardcore on the songs that were my jam, and did my best with the songs I was less sure how to dance to. I think dances are probably the one place you're more likely to see me get a little braver, when I've got a good groove going. I even went into a circle for a few seconds! And, well, I know that some of what I call "dancing" is not particularly normal, and often rips off from choreographies I've done over the years, but whether those count or not, I've got some pretty good moves!
One really awkward kid- I think his name was Hayden- asked me to dance at one point. It turned out he was in 8th grade, and this was his first stake dance, so he very much looked like he didn't know what to do, but he was still a good sport, and did stuff like when everyone would group up in preparation for the beat-drop in the song (a new thing I saw this time around was that, not only were we all encouraged to pack together, but everyone rubbed their hands together like to warm them, and the guys in the middle would say "Heat it up, heat it up!" which I found amusing), and do the limbo (he actually got further in the game than I did!).
The funniest thing to happen was when "Party Rock Anthem" came on, which became one of my moments to shine. I pulled out some wicked shuffling and others of my best moves, and this redheaded girl just gawked in amazement as my awesomeness. She literally blurted out at one point, "Who are you?!"
There was a few other people who showed appreciation for a certain step, but the one who showed the most was a different girl with her hair in cute twin buns. She was very enthusiastic, and started adopting a lot of my moves, and also showing me some of her own stuff. I was particularly impressed with some of the stuff she already had for the very few Latino songs played. She could work a little more on hips, but otherwise, she's pretty dang equipped for pretty much any song with Enrique Iglesias and/or Pitbull! (And probably Sean Paul, too!) She actually wanted to exchange phone numbers so we could hang out sometime. We'll see what happens with that!
We stayed till the party ended at 11, and by then I was almost dead on my feet. I usually wouldn't wanna bother with showering when that tired, but I knew I was just too sweaty and gross to go to bed like that. So, once my sis got home from whatever she was doing with Captain and showered, I took my turn, and then my mom realized- we were going to do a fast.
Yup.
I mean, we had a more immediate reason for doing a fast, so I still felt like I should do it, but, well... I'd basically burned everything that I had eaten earlier in the day with the drumming and especially the dancing. And I knew I was going to be even more sore the next day (which definitely came true- my shoulders and lower back are having an awful time today). So... I ended up eating a protein bar real fast before we did the prayer.
I actually lasted longer than I expected, but I still feel pain in the aforementioned areas, plus I've got a bit of a headache, and ugh.
As for why we were doing the fast... Well, two main things. One, plans as to which college I'd attend quickly changed within the week. I don't know exactly why, but I really disliked the idea of going to USU. I mean, besides the fact that I knew the U of U was better-known for their science and technology stuff, and there was the potential of being part of a really good opportunity over the summer and first year. My mom's been pointing out, though. that USU would be a whole lot easier on my parents' wallets, especially if I went to Eastern. (My sis and Captain have actually been considering going there next year, so that'd be another plus!) We wanted to do the fast just to be able to figure out if it truly is the best option, or if another college is (ooh, I'll just insert here that I got my BYU acceptance email yesterday), or what.
And two is a little weird and uncomfortable to talk about... But, basically, at one point in the weekend, I discovered that there was a lump in my chest that did not belong. (I believe I'd been scratching my side and inadvertently came across this weirdness, so don't think otherwise!) My heart kinda dropped to my stomach when I found it, because I'd heard plenty of stuff about how women are highly recommended to do breast-checks in order to find breast cancer. I was pretty sure I was pretty dang young to be getting something like that, but it can't possibly be a good thing to find something that shouldn't be there!
I told my mom later that day, and she got really scared and worried, and called my dad, and we later told my sis when she came home. (I think this was on Friday.) My mom did some research as to what it could mean, plus asked the lady we live with (I'd forgotten that she used to work as a nurse), and both resulted in saying it's much, much more likely to be something that isn't a big deal. Nonetheless, my parents wanna get me to a doctor ASAP to get my prob checked out, and do the fast in order for that to happen and for it to not be something serious.
I don't know if it sounds weird or not, but my immediate thought on finding that was, "Yet something else on top of everything we're already dealing with?!"
Church today, as I expected, was a little weird. This is one of the few times in which I attend a place that is technically new, but I already know some of the people there for years. Most of the branch I don't recognize, but the ones I do I knew since I was 9 or 10 years old.
As usual, the boys act a little dumb in Sunday School, and the Young Women generally don't talk much besides to their closest friends, but the YW leaders aren't that bad. They're more organized and purposeful than some previous ones I've had, I guess I could say. I'd usually be fine with it, but I feel like I'm going to stress out more without having my old Personal Progress book. I hate the idea of using a new one, especially since I have less than a year left of being a Young Woman, but this particular presidency does a lot of PP stuff. They're probably also gonna be pushier about me finishing it than all the previous ones (and some of them were pretty dang pushy). That doesn't sound very fun.
I really don't have much time left today, but I wanted to end with a couple thoughts I had during the moving process.
If someone read the posts from around May 2015, they'd learn that, for about a month, my dad was in Oregon and my sis was in Utah, leaving me and my mom in Alabama to survive moving our stuff on our own (with help of people from our church, but still). It'd been the very first time for me to live in a house with two-thirds of my family gone, and I think it was pretty tough for both me and my mom. Nonetheless, we made the most of it, and I ended up feeling closer to my mom than ever before.
Though, technically, my sis still lives with us this time around, we kinda switched between which of us was helping my mom with packing over the big moving weekend. So, the times that I went to the slowly-emptying house with my mom to get more stuff done... it reminded me of that time we spent together in Alabama, and I didn't really mind. We still got up to some of the same antics of playing 80's music loud and proud while sorting and packing, and cooking stuff together in the kitchen with whatever we had left, and talking about stuff completely unrelated to whatever we were doing. It was something nice in the midst of the awfulness of moving, being able to reminisce and be with my mom and nobody else.
(Of course, this doesn't mean at all that I didn't miss my dad and sis back then, nor that I don't miss my dad now. I actually cried quite a bit on the day that my dad left, when it hit me how this was just the beginning of our family splitting apart to different places, and if my sis moved out of the state later this year, I'd be all alone without the people who'd been there my whole life.)
Again, much like our move from Alabama, we ended up selling, donating, and giving away a lot of stuff, and I had to learn once again to decide what truly mattered to me and let other things go. Considering how I've always put a lot of sentimental value in the most mundane things (dude, I think I still have somewhere this one Popsicle stick a friend gave me in 7th grade- yes, a Popsicle stick), it was a victory to be able to look at some of my things and decide I'd be okay without them anymore. This pertained mostly to clothing, rather than the stuffed animals (I think my mom still thinks I have too many), but that was perfectly fine, because we suddenly realized that I have a lot more pieces of clothing than we thought. I still had many things I wanted to keep for storage, but we ended up removing a significant portion of my whole collection, a portion of things I was finally okay with letting go of. I hope I can continue to do this a little more over the next few years, so that I have a good amount for starting out a new life with whoever I end up marrying. (Whoever he is, I sure hope he can deal with my stuffed animals- I still have enough to fill a box or two.)
Alrighty, looks like that's everything! I wonder what will happen this next week...
(Wait, last thing! Due to a certain text conversation I had with Carter, the idea for this pictoral representation of the inside joke came about, and it became a reality through one of the girls at my school, one who was bored and wanted to Photoshop something near the end of the day. I found the opportunity, and I seized it!
Carter loved it.
Perhaps, if you're lucky, I could tell you what exactly the inside joke is! It relates to personal information, however, that I definitely don't want to share to the general public.)
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