The Only Wedding I've Ever Been Excited For (and WFAM)

Hello world!

Happy Mother's Day!

This week was kinda busy. Just a little. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

After all, there was a super-duper important wedding!~

But before we get to that, let's go to the stuff that's a little less super-duper.

On Tuesday, there was a short assembly to award kids (mostly seniors) for completing CTE classes and concurrent classes. I ended up getting a certificate for doing 3+ CTE credits, which I was surprised to hear. I was literally questioning if I actually deserved it as I went up to receive mine. (I checked my transcript afterwards during lunch to be sure. If they were counting Sewing and Cooking from freshman year, Career Prep from sophomore year, and Child Development junior year, then I suppose I indeed earned it?) I also got a cord for finishing at least one college class. The thing, though, is that they called me up for the medallion that signified completing at least 24 credits (since it counts as one year for full-time college students), but I knew right then that I did not have 24. I'd already counted my credits at the start of this semester- though I didn't remember the exact number then, I was sure I didn't quite make it to 24. (Later, I realized that I most likely had 22 or 23 credits, which is super close.) So, I went up and told the counselor real fast that I didn't earn enough for the medallion and she switched out with a cord. Apparently, no one noticed that I was standing up there with a bunch of medallioned kids wearing the cord instead. But hey, I'm still cool with rocking the cord over my cap and gown (which I picked up at school the next day- which, by the way, I'm a little salty about how they made us pay $40, and the cap and gown are apparently only for rent!) on graduation day.

I am happy to say that, this week, my brain was just about bursting with writing inspiration, and even drawing inspiration. Later this same day, I found the urge to draw for WFAM, but not just a mere portrait. No, I wanted to draw a scene. A dramatic scene.

...One that doesn't exactly exist in the story's canon (as of yet).

So, this is supposed to be Guinn and her little sister Emily. I think, in this scene, Guinn is coming home late in the rain with mask in hand, and for whatever reason, has to fess up to Emily exactly what the heck's going on lately.

This, of course, was more work than my typical drawings take, seeing as I honestly don't really draw backgrounds often, even the super simple ones. I really wanted to do my best with this, though, so I went through (almost) the whole process artists are supposed to take. In pencil, I drew out the actual bodies of both girls, doing my best to maintain proper proportions, then drew the basic background, then layered over the hair and clothes. Then, clearly, I inked it all in. I'd considered using more colors of pens besides the black (in lieu of colored pencils, since who knows where they are), but I realized that that would feel like it would be directing the attention to the wrong things (like the sky and Emily's pajamas). Plus, I figured it wouldn't be that bad to experiment coloring in with a single pen (which I regretted quite a bit later, especially with not really being able to color Guinn's clothes black or properly smudge the shadows, but oh well).

Of course it could be better, but I'm actually kinda proud of the result. For one thing, I think I did a pretty dang good job with their bodies with proportions and all. The hands could be better, and Guinn's head refused to look right due to being tilted down, but other than that, yay! And besides issues with coloring, (and Guinn's eyes not being open, but I didn't care either way as long as she was showing some sort of emotion,) this actually looks spot-on to what I imagined! SPOT-ON! Like, since when do I actually succeed at that sort of thing?!

I definitely want to see how I can fit this specific scene into the story. I have a vague idea of where it could go, which would be more like in the second half of the story. Hopefully, this scene can help shape the second half into something that makes sense!

On Thursday, I also got a little more written for the WFAM script/screenplay thing, and got further into the timeline for the story in general (I'm almost to when Guinn and Benji meet!). A couple small things got changed/added, including a new side-character who is kinda more comedic than anything truly useful (and mildly tortures Hageshi, who's now got the much radder name Hydra, by being a total flirt with him, which is part of the comedy). One feels so accomplished when more brainstorming and writing and drawing is done for the same story in the span of a couple days! (I also thought up a bit more about the magical properties of penguins for Azul's story. Yes, that's gonna be a part of his story after all, and so will the Ningen. At least, that's the idea.)

Yay, now to wedding stuff!

...I usually wouldn't sound very excited for that, but this is my sister's wedding, and I know she's getting married to a good guy, and though more and more she's obviously been hanging out more with him than us, this supposedly isn't the end of our sisterhood. (I sure hope I don't bother her too much while we're attending the same college next fall...) And, considering how she oftentimes has good taste in clothes, decorations, and food, I could feel a little more sure that everything would actually be done well and I wouldn't be super uncomfortable and I'd hopefully actually have fun at a wedding for once.

Up till now, I'd mostly been just listening in on the plans for the wedding, and didn't feel really like I was participating. Then, there was the wedding rehearsal on Wednesday, which I did my best to dress nice for (but it's become a little harder with my current dresses... *sweatdrop*). We didn't have to do much in it, though it was a little awkward. The part of that day that was longer and a little weirder was the dinner after.

I've mentioned before that Captain comes from a wealthier family, right? And their huge house and all? His parents had decided that they wanted to take everyone at the rehearsal (plus some more family members that had come for the wedding and were staying at their house) out to their favorite restaurant, which is the fanciest restaurant I've ever been in. I mean, bro, the fanciest I've been to would either be one of those rather sleek, contemporary sushi places we set foot in once or Olive Garden. This place topped both. It even had valet parking.

It was a little scary looking at the prices for everything, especially knowing that his parents were apparently paying for everything. (I mean, I don't think us normal folk would've dared to go here unless someone else had invited to pay, like in this situation, but it still makes you feel so guilty that they're paying, you know?) Most of my family ended up getting among the cheapest plates ($24), but they went up to $40, I think. If that wasn't bad enough, though, they first ordered 6 or 7 appetizers (?!?!), each about $20, beyond the complementary bread with dipping oil/vinegar stuff, and afterwards they encouraged us to get desserts that usually cost about $20 too! And with somewhere between 15-18 people (including the two little kids), that means those prices definitely added up. I heard my family later calculating about $500-800 for all of that food.

The meal wasn't entirely comfortable for all of us, either. I didn't really have anyone to talk to at that long table besides my mom and dad, since my sis was already busy chatting to Cap and her friends, and I think a couple other people oftentimes felt the same.

The worst part is- though the food was good, we just didn't think it was worth that much money. At all. (Our favorite part was the bruschetta appetizer!)

Frickin' rich people.

Skip forward to the actual wedding day. I woke up, ate breakfast, showered, then my mom and I rushed over to the little guesthouse (the one that Cap's parents have) where my sis was staying so she could do our hair as she pleased, then Mom left to start packing up everything that needed to go to the venue while I stayed, waiting for the other bridesmaids to arrive. I didn't even have to ask about whether I should take off the peach fuzz on my face, because that was always a requirement when I'm supposed to look super nice. I also knew I would never, ever, ever, be able to get away with not wearing makeup, especially being a bridesmaid.

The good news is, she didn't plan to put anything super heavy on me or the other bridesmaids. She also conceded to my wish of not putting foundation on. (That's definitely one of my least favorite kinds of makeup. UGH.) The bad news is, she still put mascara on me (which I despise approximately the same amount as foundation), and she had the audacity of plucking precious eyebrow hairs off of my face. I don't entirely get why, but she always hated how I wouldn't bother with such things, and threatened to do it to me for prom. As we all know, that didn't work out, but there's no way I can tell her "No, get away from my eyebrows, you buttface" on her wedding day. I was lucky enough she was okay with the no-foundation thing, but I have to let myself look the way she wants me to look on her special day.

I really did not appreciate it. I want all the "stray hairs" to grow back.

Seeing as she'd gotten a head-start on my hair and makeup before the other girls and before her own, I ended up being the one that had to go back-and-forth like a little errand boy when she needed stuff or needed me to tell Captain something in the main house.

Now that I'm thinking about it, why did I say "yay" before? Most of the stuff so far wasn't really all that fun.

Eventually, everyone else finished up, and we all packed into the car of one of the other bridesmaids (I have not mentioned yet that the others are three of the friends that she made when she was in China, so the one driving is the one that lives in the same state as us) to go to the venue. There, we all ran around, trying to figure out if we could help with the decorations or setting up for the food or what until it was time for my sis to change and for the ceremony to start. Even up to that point, people would ask Sis how she was feeling, and she'd say, "You know, it hasn't really hit me yet," and I silently agreed. Like, I knew logically what was soon to happen, but it didn't feel like it truly registered until the ceremony began and I walked down with Cap's brother (boi, you still don't know I'm the one sending trash memes!) and then Sis went down with my dad and Captain burst into tears.

At this point, I don't mind as much seeing Cap and Sis kiss; thank goodness, cuz they were doing a whole lot of it throughout the rest of the evening.

I finally got to say hi to my grandparents, and the aunts/uncles/cousins that were able to come, as they started doing the photo shoot of the happy couple with their families and friends. I also got to do even more running around, trying to see if I could help get things ready for serving the dinner.

Once we could start eating, I went to sit next to my sis at the table that included her other bridesmaids and a couple other friends. The food, as expected, was definitely yummier than the typical catering, considering my mom and family/friends were the ones responsible for making almost everything by hand. I am happy to report that people ate a lot. There were also some mini pan dulce (which my mom and I sampled the night previous, shhh), awesome cookies made by Flower's dad, and chocolate-covered things (mostly strawberries) made by Cap's mom out. That, however, is not even taking into account the gorgeous 3-tiered cheesecake I'd been hyped up for literally for weeks that came out when the reception was officially starting. MMMMMM!!!!!!!

After that, I went to talk with Flower for a while, and then with Klaus (who was there with his mom and Sunny). Eventually, they started with the first dance, parents' dance, and Dollar Dance (Hispanic tradition, look it up), then a lamentably sad amount of people out on the dance-floor while the couple took a break. They returned to perform the special choreography my mom made to a concert version of Juan Gabriel's "El Principio" (I think that's the name?) that included more traditional music from different states in Mexico. They didn't have much time to come up with it and practice, but it came out quite cool. Then, the rest of the night was supposed to be for dancing, but the dance-floor really wasn't particularly full most of the time, which I was frustrated about.

The cool thing, though, is that I got to not just dance with Klaus, Flower, Elenita, Lala, and Lia, but with my little cousin! Cam and Ash moved away with their parents to another state a few weeks ago, but the cousins from Nevada are still at my grandma and grandpa's house (along with their hilarious Sphinx kitty). They usually aren't very enthusiastic about things like eating properly (they are among the pickiest kids on the planet, jeez) and doing something they think is embarrassing. Therefore, it was to my surprise (and that of everyone else in our family still at the party) that the older one- since I'm feeling particularly uncreative right now, let's go with J- had actually gone onto the dance-floor! I did not want him to back out, so I went to join him and show him some simple dance moves beyond the most basic back-and-forth. We had to go real slow, since the poor thing's only 11 and hasn't done Latin dancing before, but I was so excited that he was going along with the stuff that I was showing him, and we talked quite a bit while dancing, even when everyone else had already abandoned the floor. Fortunately, a couple other people were supportive, saying he was doing a good job, and Lala even did a song with him! (As of now, I'm pretty sure J has no idea that his dad had been recording when we broke apart and danced ridiculously to "Funky Town".) So, honestly, hanging out with him was one of my favorite parts of the wedding.

We lined up outside the front entrance of the building to do a sparkler send-off for Sis and Cap. They rode off dramatically to the hotel, and everyone left behind started to clean up everything. We all started picking up trash, trying to figure out who should deal with which decorations, and getting some of the leftover food (which was quiiiiite a bit) to take home. The guests were rather generous with what they took home, but they still left a whole cheesecake (as there were more cheesecakes besides the tiered one), some salad, and some picadillo for my mom and dad.

With all that craziness finally over, we trudged home, and my mom and I barely convinced ourselves to take off the makeup before plopping into our beds. (I didn't do as good a job with taking off the mascara as I should've, but I seriously just did not have the energy to do any better.)

So, just like that, all the planning and anticipation for the wedding was over. I haven't seen if the actual marriage license/certificate/whatever got properly signed, but I'm guessing it did, so they should be officially married now. I'm tempted to come up with a stupid couple name so that I can stop saying "my sister and Captain". Even "Cap and Sis" feels like a lot of work.

SisCap? CapSis? Yeah, CapSis looks a little better. Hah, that's even worse than the nickname I've called them by a few times in real life!

Yesterday was kinda nice, since I basically spent the entire day reading and interneting in my room. (We discovered, though, that I won't notice Lala coming to Flower's room even when my bedroom door's open! That's even more depressing than me not noticing her presence the week before!) Annoyingly, though, I reached a point in the evening where I really wanted to do something, but just couldn't figure out what. I eventually settled for putting on Netflix. I'd had the urge to watch Oliver & Company, but it wasn't available, so I instead went to My List and found Silver Spoon there. If you're wondering, that is actually the series Hiromu Arakawa did before Fullmetal Alchemist, though the anime adaptation was apparently just barely made in 2013. All I really knew before watching was that it had to do with farming somehow and some of the characters look like prototypes of FMA characters. That farming part means that I would probably never touch this series if it weren't for the fact that Arakawa made it.

I made it through... 6 or 7 episodes, I think, but I had decided all the way back in the first episode that I actually liked this a lot. It shared more similarities with FMA than one would expect, since both have stuff about morals/ethics in relation to the worth of a life (the difference being animal or human lives) and very much showed Arakawa's brand of humor. As I imagine was one of the purposes, I'm also understanding more about the struggles farmers go through in our modern day, which hopefully translates into me holding more respect for them as well (but that doesn't exactly mean I want to become a farmer myself...). I'm excited to hopefully finish the rest of it tomorrow (I think it's only one season) and see what happens with all the characters by the end.

Last thing to mention is that we went to eat at Grandma and Grandpa's house today. I was mostly hanging out with the adults, since my cousins decided to ditch dinner early (of course) and were being rather quiet, but their dad eventually asked me to help J with practicing his lines for a class play. So, for a while, I was downstairs doing ridiculous voices for all the other characters in the play to entertain J and his little brother while the former practiced. (You don't know how tempted I am to make one of their code-names "Yee", considering the whole meme thing that happened a while ago.)

The post is finally over! I hope that's enough detail about the wedding to satisfy Future Me (besides the pictures and video that we'll hopefully get to see relatively soon), cuz I should seriously be going to bed by now. Bye, until next post!

Finals, Characters, La La Guardians

Hello world!

Didn't post last week because we spent a whole lotta time at Brorange's house.

If I am permitted to speak sarcastically, some super fun stuff happened in the past couple weeks! Yaaay finals!!!

Okay, so they actually weren't that bad. I got 92% in College Algebra and 95% in Chemistry (though this one wasn't really a final, just a unit test). It was more stressful getting the projects done, though they did get finished on time (barely).

All I have to worry about left is making up for all the missed classes in seminary over this term. I'm supposed to try to get the rest of them done this week, though I honestly just wanna say "Whatever" and not rush through them. It's not like I really care that much about being in the seminary graduation ceremony. In fact, I think I might prefer to not be there?

Well, let's continue on with proper chronology of the last two weeks! (Or as close as I can get to that, anyway.)

Nothing particularly interesting happened on Monday or Tuesday, I believe, but it was Carter's b-day on Wednesday! I wish I'd got a calendar notification about it at least one day before, so I could think more on a present, but I still did something decent. I usually wouldn't worry too much about presents, but he had to tell me on that day that he wasn't able to do prom anymore, and I wanted to cheer him up.

Okay, I don't think I've mentioned it before, but a long while ago, he had asked me a couple questions to help create a new character for his story (much like I asked him some things to come up with Ben for WFAM). Thus came about a character named Lillian (which is extremely close to my name), who is a girl who wears glasses, and I imagine she tends to have a spring in her step (like I generally have when I'm not stressed)... which are pretty much the only similarities she shares with me. Everything else is super different. But the point wasn't that she was supposed to be based off me, so that's perfectly fine. You be you, Lillian!

Anyway, she's one of the characters I know quite a bit about, even though she's more like a side character, and he hadn't as of yet made an actual drawing for her. So, I made one! (I guess it's okay to post since I was the one I made it, plus I had a tiny part in making her?)

Once all the hard work was done, I added some text above her head wishing him a happy birthday and sent it.

It's not absolutely perfect (and I realized later that the two halves don't match up 100% after all), but he said he could immediately tell who it was, thank goodness, and seemed to appreciate the sentiment. Hopefully, she is indeed close to what he imagined.

The day after, our family took a trip to Leatherby's. Of course, I got a hot fudge brownie (and actually finished most of it!), my parents shared a giant banana split, and my sis shared a raspberry shake with Captain. We all came out of there with way too much ice cream in our bellies.

(Then, we ended up eating a bit of pizza, which just made things worse.)

Earlier that day, Sis and Cap had actually gone to hang out with the animals at the animal shelter, and fell in love with this sweetie of a cat, and ended up adopting her. My sister's friend is taking care of Princess Peanut-Butter Cup (yep, they decided naming her something ridiculous was the right way to go) until after the wedding, when they are moving into their new apartment. They brought me to go meet her a little after we had overstuffed ourselves, and I agreed that this cat was awesome. She was a huge fan of mutual love and affection.

Just a small side-note for this day is that I was temporarily addicted to the song "The Woods" by Hollow Coves throughout. It's a really pretty song that I've recently thought could be mash-uped with some other songs like "Home" by Phillip Phillips and "To Build a Home" by Arrival of the Birds. I'd love to make that happen, if someone wanted to help thoroughly mash them together then perform it with me.

Next day, I was temporarily addicted to "Saturnz Barz" by Gorillaz (clearly one of my favorite songs from their new album; this definitely motivated to try more of their older songs, as well). Also, I had suddenly had the thought, "Wait a minute, what happened to that Disney Fairies game I used to play?" I had honestly not touched it for years, but with Bearville dying back in Alabama, and BK Club long before that, plus the recent killing off of Club Penguin (I watched a couple videos on Youtube about Club Penguin's final minutes, and they're so depressing), I was kinda hoping it wouldn't be yet another game I used to play that shut down. So, I looked it up. I found no traces of it on Disney's website, which was where I was originally able to access it, but I eventually found a Pixie Hollows wiki that had a page talking about when the game died. Turns out, it was in 2013, maybe just 6 months-ish since I last played. *sad sigh* I know it's a game that I started playing more like around 7th and 8th grade (I especially played the app game Fashion Boutique while we lived in Mexico), but still... Where's all my childhood going?

At least I know Poptropica's still alive and well... And I'm pretty sure Webkinz is, too. I'll have to check about Shining Star and a couple others. And hey, AQ is surely alive and well (which I also started in middle school)!... right?

We had some Hot Cash, and my dad took me to Hot Topic to see if I could use it. They had this Ariel dress from the same collection as the Lilo & Stitch skirt that I hadn't considered before, but turned out to fit me quite well, and the price basically got cut in half with the Hot Cash. Since it was teal, similar to my sister's wedding color scheme, (and I looked super cuuuuute,) I decided to wear it to her bridal shower the next day.

The shower had been kinda awkward. Well, more like a lotta awkward at the beginning, since the sister who was going to bring the hot dogs, table-cloths, and other decorations got there about half an hour after the party was supposed to start. Not very many people were there at that point, but it was still like "Uh... what do we do until then?" Once she got there, and everything was properly set up, and most of the guests arrived, we began to eat, and it got pretty fun. There were still some weird moments later, but not as bad. The gifts were mostly things for their new apartment, along with a couple pieces of lingerie (Sis, how did you not get why I later said I was kinda uncomfortable with seeing you get lingerie? It's frickin' lingerie). The guests also were supposed to write cards with pieces of advice (or recipes) for her, and I was the only one who didn't say something super thoughtful and sweet (because what kind of serious advice can I give my older sister?). I guess she might've appreciated getting a laugh in the middle of reading them out loud, though, since she started tearing up for the other ones. Getting a random card that says, "Stop twerking in your little sister's face" surely does the trick...

So, as mentioned before, I was hanging out with Broranges on Sunday, mostly playing Pokemon or listening to music together. We also ate some of the leftover brownies from the bridal shower.

Also as mentioned before, it was now time for finals. On Monday, I did my chemistry test, hung out a bit with Marki for the last time, then went with Isaiah to turn in the group project (which wasn't as good as I hoped for, but it's something). Later that day, my sis also wanted me to help her with making these lace barefoot sandals that she planned to wear when dancing at the wedding instead of the giant heels she'll have in the ceremony.

Technically, my last classes for all the semester had been on the previous Thursday, but we had been one class behind in math, which meant we didn't have time for all the final review days the teacher had planned on, and so she tacked on another extra class on the Tuesday after. She only had time to do it at 8 in the morning instead of the usual 10. Nonetheless, I went (thus making it just about the earliest I've gone to school since taking the ACT). I'm glad I did, since we went over some things I was less sure about, and it was one more day that I could be hanging out with one of my favorite teachers ever.

That wasn't enough for me to feel completely confident about taking the final, though, so in the afternoon (after I used my school time to write up the chemistry project), my mom dropped me off at the public library to study. I wish I still had a bit more time, then, but I still got a pretty dang decent amount of mathing done.

I took the math final the morning after, then spent the rest of the school day (just like the day before) finishing up the chem project. As celebration, my mom let me go take the whole afternoon and evening to just read manga at the library. Of the three I read, the one I liked the most was Parasyte. The style was actually a little more different from the movie than I expected (and Shinichi's personality wasn't really the same, either). I hope I can have the chance to read the rest of the manga over the summer. I also took home a thick novel titled Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I'm certainly interested to see how the two sides/perspectives will end up connecting.

K, so I actually drew a character for Azul's story on Thursday, though more in my usual style. I also did it on a sticky-note.

As you can see, I stuck it into my notebook at home.

This is supposed to be the Mizar, who's changed quite a bit from my first concept of her being like Louise from Bob's Burgers. You could say she shares living in a restaurant, and occasionally trying to get away with doing crazy things to the food (and creeping out a customer, a new detail I just barely thought of), but that's not even the Louise aspect I'd been originally looking for. I guess I'm gonna be leaving that idea for some other time, then.

Anyway! I started sketching, not entirely sure where I was going with it, but I was able to pick up more concrete parts of her personality along the way. I was also able to see that, of the different names I'd been considering for her, these two were definitely the ones that fit. Well, Alaia's the one that makes more sense of the two for the place of origin I'd been considering for her (Mexico), but for some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to let go of Phoebe yet. Since Carter- who I'm pretty sure didn't know that she's supposed to be Mexican- said he thought Alaia worked better, then I finally could say that this Mizar is officially named Alaia. (I really wanna try to use the name Phoebe some other time, though.)

Major successes: the proportions are good, and actually more accurate than usual, besides the hands. I'm also pretty happy with the face and apron.
Major flaws: THE HANDS ARE KILLING ME. One is way too small, and the other is a fail at trying to draw a peace sign because I tried to make the hand a bit smaller while penning in the original pencil. It'd looked a little better before then. Also, I really should've been more careful with the bandana. I'm pretty sure I've never really drawn one, plus I didn't want it to look super stiff. Those two things resulted in it looking like... that. But hey, it could be worse?

Also, in case you're wondering, that's a bouquet of kittens on her apron. Because, I mean, we can all imagine some Mizar to have an article of clothing with a bouquet of kittens on it. Come on.

So, there's another character down! I still haven't drawn Lin and Vin (and now that I think about it, maybe I should start trying to draw penguins that aren't like Bob the Penguin that I used to doodle in 6th grade), but I've been slowly getting more and more done in preparation for this story. And, by this point, I'm actually kinda hoping the mods don't publicly answer my question, on the off-chance that someone else will also want to make something out of the idea before I get to post this. *sheepish*

Later that day, we also went to the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2!!! Turned out I could get cheaper tickets at the college with proof that I was a student (eg. student ID), so I bought tickets for me, my dad, my sis, and Captain. At that point, the only seats left were on the front two rows, so I was a little worried about if it was gonna be way too close. Fortunately, when we got there, it turned out the seats weren't that bad after all. And, man, the movie was awesome! I guess saying I liked it a lot more than the first movie doesn't mean much when I hardly remember the first (partly because we watched it at, like, 3 in the morning), but I do. I hadn't originally been exactly as pumped for this movie as, say, The Lego Batman Movie, but with the prospect of seeing it with Carter (then instead the prospect of seeing it with my family), I'd gotten more excited for it, and I'm so glad I did.

I didn't go to school on Friday, instead using the first part of the day to help my mom move a bunch of our clothes and some other stuff to our new home: Nutella and Flower's basement. I don't even wanna get into how I feel about being in such close proximity to Nutella when I still haven't really gotten over the stuff from 7th grade... So let's leave it for later. After that, my mom dropped me off at the library to try to get some seminary make-up work done (seriously, these assignments are supposed to take 45 minutes? I've almost always ended up using at least double that time, and I don't think it's just me being slow!), while she, my dad, and their dad moved some more stuff in. By the time I had to leave the library (because it turns out they close at 6 on Fridays), my sis and Captain had also showed up to help with the mattresses. I had to walk there from the library, since everyone was too busy. The good thing is that the library's not really that far from this house, just about the equivalence of two or three blocks. The bad thing is that, in order to cross the busy street that the library's situated at safely, I had to take the bridge that they had built over it. It's a little terrifying, because not only did I have to be high up above the ground, but high up above a bunch of fast-moving cars. So, as much as I love knowing I could just walk to the library from here if I needed to, I'd really prefer to not do it, unless I lose my fear of heights and getting run over anytime soon.

With most of the moving already done by the time I returned, I didn't really have much to help with, and we pretty much got the rest of the evening to relax. Since we now live in the basement, and Flower does, too, I'm next-door to her. Turned out I could help her with some of her math and chemistry homework, so we did that for a while. It was fun to hang out with her, just the two of us, which I don't think we've really done before, and I was happy to know I was able to help her. Lala later showed up so she could help Flower with choosing her prom makeup. Both my mom and Flower's mom came in to hang out, as well, and I ended up mostly playing Pokémon Emerald on her bed while the others did makeup stuff.

The next morning, I read fanfics until my phone died (ah, how refreshing!), then tried to get a bit more done of seminary make-up. Apparently, I'd been oblivious enough while hiding in my room that I hadn't realized more people had come and gone from the house than I thought, including Lala being in Flower's room for a few hours to help her get ready for prom.

I haven't actually mentioned why Carter couldn't do prom anymore, huh? I didn't want to, before, on the chance that it would all work out anyway, but, well... no. The thing is, both he and Coatrack are in the choir at their school. Their choir qualified to go to State. Since a lot of the boys weren't allowed to go because they didn't keep up enough with their grades, and Carter has good grades... he pretty much had to go so there would still be enough boys. And it was on the same day as my school's prom. So, like said earlier in this post, he had to tell me that he wouldn't be able to come anymore. Of course I'm sad that it didn't work out, but more-so for the fact that I wanted to see him than that I wanted to go to prom. Before he'd asked if I wanted to go, I would've said "To heck with prom!", because I'm just not really the kind of girl who finds prom super important, and I really didn't have the desire to just go to prom without him, or with someone else. That didn't feel right.

Though my sister's upset about me not going, and she apparently said to my mom that she thinks I'll regret it in the future, I don't think I will. The part I really cared about was going with Carter, not just going. As long as we get the chance to meet up some other time, then I'm going to be happy.

I hadn't seen Lala earlier that day, but I ended up hanging out with her later while everyone else was at prom (and my family decided to go for sushi). She took me and Elenita to see La La Land at the dollar theater, then we got some ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins next door (though I got the smallest portion of ice cream available). Her parents had dropped us off at the theater, and they also picked us up again to go hang out in their room. I helped her a bit with her own math homework, but we mostly spent the time just chilling and listening to music. The oldest sister, Lia, later came in to hang out as well, and she was the one to bring me home once it got to 11 PM.

Though I'd already known that I wouldn't be going to prom anymore at that point, I still wanted to participate in nominating people for Prom King/Queen. I put a bunch of my friends' names in, and three of them actually made it to the official list! (One of them seemed to be kinda mad with me for doing that. Sorrynotsorry, girl.) Rubik also made it to the list, which I was happy to see (but I hadn't nominated him since I wasn't sure which grade he was in), and he was hilariously shocked to hear that when I told him. I'm curious to see who won all the different titles when I go to school tomorrow. Hopefully, some of my friends became Prom Royalty!

Last thing I'm gonna talk about is that, at some point these past weeks, I thought of a nice gesture that could be done at my funeral (not because I'm expecting it to be sometime soon or anything): passing out a Book of Mormon to every person/family who arrives. It would be a chance to be a missionary, even after death, and say something about how much I appreciated having it while alive. Upon thinking of it, though, I realized... as I currently stand in life, it doesn't make much sense to do that. I mean, I've given a couple BOMs in my lifetime, but not enough to exactly be known for doing such a thing. And who would care about the effort being put in by whoever plans this funeral to commemorate me in this way if I wasn't much of a missionary before then? I'm honestly quite a bit of a coward, and though I've done my best to take the opportunities when I see them, it's done extremely cautiously, and I guess I've probably hardly taken all the opportunities, and I don't think I really made my own opportunities, either. I feel like my excuses for why I've tried to limit it with my friends are pretty legitimate, but it's clear that the people from the scriptures had all the same reasons and more, and they still did way more than I've ever done.

So... the thought resulted in me thinking more on what sort of legacy I want to leave behind, and whether I'm truly as much of one of Christ's disciples as I want to be, and whether I'm really helping the Church grow and help more people be happy than I could be.

I hope I can fix that soon.

Alrighty, I should be getting ready for bed now! Man, the wedding is this week... We'll have to see what the week has in store before that, and I desperately hope everything goes as planned! *crosses as many fingers as possible* Bye!