A Thing Happened Today

So I have, once again, been really bad about this. I think I'll be better once my church ward changes to an earlier time.

Until then, though, I think this is worth posting by itself.

I, uh... had my first kiss today? And officially started dating a guy? I'm now a girlfriend?!

This still feels pretty surreal to me. You know me. I was always scared of getting even close to something like this, feeling romantic emotions and all that junk. So... yeah, I'm still wigged out by all this.

The only person I've told this far is my sister (kinda glad I didn't have to say it to her face since we kinda don't live together anymore, I don't know what I would've looked like), since everyone else is pretty dang gossipy and much more interested than I am. I wanna see how long it'll take for the news to spread across the neighborhood... ugh, no one's gonna leave me alone.

So... I do like him, but I'm so not used to this (how many people say that at 19?) and I think I am just naturally not as feelsy in the relationship sense than most people even with the inexperience taken out, so I don't know where it'll go. Hopefully, it'll all be good.

I kinda wanted something to happen before it reached this point so it stopped there just because I was scared... but I know I'm not gonna grow as a person and, well, never get to know what it's like until I just let it happen.

So here I am. Now a girlfriend. It's weird.

(His name is Finn the Human, by the way. It's not my best code-name ever, but I think it'll do.)

B-Day, So I Read/Watched Stuff

Hello, world.

​Yup. Slapping myself as we speak. Literally. Doing this diary just feels like such a chore (someone else said that about writing a story, and so they took a hiatus, and it seemed like perfect wording for what's happening here, especially since I've been so bad about actually doing all my normal chores at a decent time and frequency...).

I'm gonna see how much timeline I can fit into this, just with going more by topic than chronology, if that makes sense... the nice thing is that I didn't actually watch all that much stuff on Netflix over the school year (it was usually YouTube which I rarely comment on in this blog), and mostly read fics that I usually don't mention, so this might not be too painful.

Before then, though, I'll talk about my 19th birthday (everyone keeps telling me to stop feeling old because you're nowhere near old enough for that, but I can't help feeling old and like it doesn't match my internal age)!

My birthday was, for the most part, quite fun. I wore a favorite outfit (though, since I gave away my old birthday shirt to one of the girls back in my old ward for her birthday late last year, I don't have anything that explicitly tells people why I'm in a good mood)--Nightmare Before Christmas shirt with green jeans, white suspenders hanging down off my shoulders, and high pigtails. I had a pretty fun time at work because I just like my job, but also my boss took me and my coworkers (much easier to do when there's only two other girls working that day, I suppose) out for ice cream, which I accidentally treated as my lunch... so I ate my actual lunch as a quick dinner at the bus stop later (bought some fruit for myself and corn syrup for Bias). (They actually had the huckleberry flavor, which was sooo good!) Once home, another friend came over (Bias and I started hanging out with her, like, a month ago?) who I'll call Spyro because I think she'd just love that if she ever found out I called her Spyro. She brought her Just Dance game (don't remember which number, but it was from 2012, if I remember right) and then I got her to play a little bit of Kirby's Epic Yarn with me while Bias was using the corn syrup and some other stuff to make this honeycomb/honey brittle candy stuff? I liked it a lot, and I kinda wish it lasted longer... Oh, and I ended the night with watching Tarzan, because it's basically required to watch an old favorite Disney movie on my birthday now, and I had a blast.

Unfortunately, not the whole day was particularly fun. I haven't gotten to a thing that happened on the Fourth of July this year with my American grandparents, and it got carried over... I wasn't actually there, but my mom, dad, and sister had gone to eat dinner with them that day, and my dad mentioned watching the latest Purge movie and said that they all thought it sounded very similar to stuff that is happening now or could happen because of how Trump is, and... apparently, my grandpa didn't like what he was implying. I've heard that most people have seen him get angry plenty of times and that he gets rather scary while angry (we all know that's where my dad got it, though he's nowhere near as bad in comparison)... but I've never seen it, and I know I should be glad I haven't. From there, an explosive argument happened where my grandparents were saying we should support the president because he's the president even if he's done some bad stuff and that HE'S STILL BETTER THAN HILLARY, I WASN'T GOING TO VOTE FOR THAT ***** and that Mexicans are causing the most crime right now (not true in the slightest??) and that immigration laws have to be stricter for them because they're right there while Europeans are a whole ocean away?? I dunno, he apparently spouted a lot of nonsense, and my grandma was there mostly silently supporting him. Though my dad was clearly shocked and angry, my sister was infuriated and was the one arguing back the most that when he's calling Mexicans criminals, dealers, and rapists, he's saying the same thing about her, my mom, and me. Apparently, though, they just can't understand that? There's probably a lot of stuff I'm forgetting to say, but long story short, my family isn't talking to my grandparents anymore, which... I mean, it's not like we were talking to them daily and visiting all the time anyways, but it still hurts a little knowing that something like that happened and it hurts a lot knowing how it affected all of us.

Later, when my mom was recounting all of this to me, she added a warning that my grandma was probably going to do her birthday call for me still, and that if she tried to start going off about what happened that I should just politely say that I don't feel very comfortable talking politics with her. And, well, she did call me during work, and... yeah, she just started going, and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt. She was putting all the blame for the drama on my sister overreacting and being an extremist and saying that it concerns her so much that she has so much hate for the president because we're supposed to support him because HE'S THE PRESIDENT AND THAT'S IT, NO MORE REASONS NEEDED. I don't know whether I'm more bothered by how she just doesn't get that he's a bad person and our problem is with their blatant racism (especially because it's against us, even though they don't see it that way), or that she was pleading with me on how to right things with Diane because she doesn't want the family to be broken like this and not appear perfect, not because she genuinely wants to understand what's happening or... anything. It's just... I'm glad I wasn't actually there, but I don't like that she's still trying to suck me into it, and use me as an information broker on what's happening with the rest of my family because they're not talking to her because she's being a terrible person when 1. they need more time to cope with this, 2. I don't want to accidentally make things worse, and 3. she doesn't get what the point is.

I think it just proves further that just doesn't get what's happening because, when she asked me if my mom was mad, too, I ended up just saying something my mom had told me back in July, that she didn't feel very comfortable talking to them until my dad did, and she just had this moment of shock that "Your dad is mad at us, too?!" when he's the one that had brought up Trump being a terrible person and president in the first place? She apparently doesn't understand how a white dude could possibly be offended when you go talking about his wife's people like that? Who knew??

I hope I don't sound too terribly biased about all of this, even though I think I kinda have a right to be biased in this situation. I just... yeah, I ended up thinking about this for hours, wondering how she thinks like this and if I could've made that conversation go better... At least I was able to finally get my mind off it with my friends who didn't even know about the call.

​I think I left off on Sept. 27th all those months ago, so that's where I'm gonna go.

That Wednesday, I'd found that this one girl, who had once commented on Family History whether it'd be okay for her to try writing a sequel, actually did it! (Or, well, started it, I guess is more correct... last I checked, it was two or three chapters in.) It's so flattering that someone liked my work enough to try to continue it themselves! (I still feel as KYAH as that time someone wrote an alternate for me for Visiting Homeland, the "official" sequel!") It was fascinating to read it and see how different it came out compared to my own take, yet the characters actually felt like they were still the same characters! I love when that happens!

The weekend brought one of my favorite things ever, General Conference! I hitched a ride with Lia and her roommate (let's just do K because I'm lazy), and we went straight to K's house where it turns out her house is huge and her mom likes to make delicious, elaborate meals. We watched Minority Report Friday night even though we were all tired from the drive, then hung out to watch the first session of GF and drove down to my and Lia's houses a little before the second session. I just chilled with my mom and dad for a while, and had also chilled with my sis at her place for a while to do homework and listen to Dodie and friends. (Because why not add this last note now, I gave Barbie some Abuelita chocolate because it turns out she's into authentic Mexican foods, and she was absolutely thrilled.)

Because a bunch of notes don't really count for this topic, I'm now gonna skip to Oct. 28th, because I went to one of my college's theatrical productions for the first time, and really enjoyed it! It was Sideways Stories From Wayside School (you probably didn't know they made a play out of it, did you?).

The week after, Lia and I watched a school-sponsored film where it interviews Latinos that live in this city. I liked it a lot, but the frustrating part was that there were a couple things that they talked about that I wished they went more in-depth with. Lia pointed out that, though there were quite a few Latinos like us in the audience, the point was for other people to get a broader understanding of why Latinos moved here and what life is like for them.

(And, uh, I guess this doesn't count as reading or watching, but I went on a major Spider-Man artwork binge afterwards, which I am quite sure had something to do with dressing as Spidey for Halloween a couple days before... I intend to tell you about that later.)

That Friday, I brought Ash with me to a presentation about sharks. They do a monthly thing throughout most of the year where they have a guest speaker come talk on something science-y, intended for kids to be able to understand and enjoy it but anyone can come. Of course, sometimes it was like "I didn't need it so dumbed down", but other times they seemed to struggle with making it dumbed down enough so kids could follow along. For the most part, though, they do a good job, and this one was indeed very cool! I still have the notes I took during it somewhere.

Now at Nov. 9th, I indeed ended up going to Anime Club again, and got a bit of Gintama (though I don't remember that in the slightest, whoops), Cromartie High School (ridiculously weird, I wanna watch more), Konosuba (very stereotypical, from what I remember), and Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (sad kind of funny).

On the 21st, I'd taken a ride home for Fall Break (which hardly lasted, how ridiculous) and watched a bunch of movies with my parents and sis. My dad and I went to see Justice League which was quite fun (only note I've got is that Barry breaks my heart, but I do also remember that I thought Aqua-Man's newest interpretation was really cool). I also watched Shimmer Lake and The Good Son with my mom and sis, then Corpse Bride (YES!) with Sis, and IT (2017) with the whole family. I liked IT a lot more than I thought I would, even though my family was insisting that I'd like it and I tend to trust their judgement on this kind of thing more nowadays. (Also, we went for Crown Burger that day, which makes just about any day better.)

Oh, I also finally watched The Lego Ninjago Movie with my dad at the dollar theater, and loved it! (And my dad also said he liked it more than he thought he would, but I knew it was going to be good, so I was like "Told you so.") Broranges, because he's like that, had been complaining about how everything was going to be the same as in the show (which he actually hasn't seen much of, compared to moi), but you'd know it wouldn't be if you bothered to pay attention to the commercials... They changed the ages and personalities quite a bit, and it was all Lloyd-centric in a way the show never had been (I mean, it did center on his personal struggles for a while, but not to this extent because it still had a bunch of other main characters to show you meanwhile), but it was still greatly enjoyable and still felt like the same franchise, thankfully. The only part I felt bothered by was that I thought the other main characters were a little too ignored in order to focus on Lloyd and Garmadon. I know the point of the movie wasn't their stories, but they're still so integral that it hurt a little to see them hardly get any screen-time.

If only I had seen it before I hung out with my cousins at my grandparents' house that day, so I could flaunt around the fact that I saw it before them (I was a little surprised they hadn't, actually)... Maybe I can watch it with them in the future if we all get together sometime and it's on Netflix. That'd be really nice.

I believe I'm now at Dec. 1st, in which I apparently binged RWBY... because I guess that's what you do when it's finally acceptable to do Christmas-y things (in my eyes, at least).

Actually, nothing to do with anything, but I genuinely enjoy watching the Sanders Sides Christmas episode randomly--pretty much one of the only Christmas specials I can stand to watch when it isn't almost Christmas. It's just so funny and iconic! I've watched it at least twice just this summer! Out of nowhere, actually, I'd suddenly remembered a couple lines from it a few days ago and had to try to stop myself from laughing in the middle of work. If only people around here actually knew Sanders Sides so I could quote characters with them and stuff! (I will admit, though, I have very mixed feelings about the fandom since a lot of it is comprised of heavy shipping, and it's weird to me because they're essentially shipping Thomas with himself, and yet somehow, sometimes they manage to make it so gosh-darn cute that I still kinda like it?? What the?? How????)

I think I'll now skip to spring semester. (See? That wasn't too painful after all!) A decent amount of spring was dedicated to... Doki Doki Literature Club gameplays and fandom. I apparently started watching a Let's Play in the second week of January and got sucked in. (More specifically, my note says, "All this week I've been watching [DDLC] and I've been 'WHAT THE HECKIN HECK'.") I haven't actually played it myself, and I don't know if I ever could despite knowing what happens... or, well, I guess it also seems more pointless because I know what happens. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating game, and though I'm quite sure the Doki Doki craze has died down by now, it's still something I think of every once in a while and I'm like "Dang it, hardly anyone would get it if I said 'JUST MONIKA' right now".

Feb. 9th (at this point I'd been putting dates in my notes, which is many helpfuls), I went to see another school play, this time with Ash and Barbie. It was called The Great God Pan, and we all really liked it, even though it was also really intense? We then went to Wendy's after that (where the poor cashier messed up Barbie's name on the receipt hilariously), and then ice cream. After that, I... don't remember if that was the reason, but Ash's family had gotten cookies (there's these two local companies that are pretty popular) and Ash brought us to their house to eat some of the leftovers. So, I got to more officially meet her mom and see her dad and little sister for the first time. They also let us borrow a bunch of movies (DVDs), though we ended up not watching most of them... which is good in a way, frustrating in another. We did watch The Lizzie McGuire Movie that night, which is one of those movies where I just figure I probably saw it as a little kid but I don't remember doing so in the slightest, so I was essentially watching it for the first time. I hardly remember the show at all, either, but I'd blame that on just preferring cartoons over live-action, especially when I was younger.

I went home for the weekend after riding with this one girl from my ward who I hadn't really talked to before that, but she was super cool and I'm kinda sad we didn't talk much after that either? While there, I watched some Monk with my mom (man, that brought back memories) and went to see Black Panther (I've seen it at least two more times since then, hah) with my dad. Also, somehow... my dad joked about wanting to go eat something even though it was really late, but then it turned into a half-joke and then I was like "Actually I do have room to eat right now" and then we ended up going to Belgian Waffle House and sharing a massive plate of garbage hash at one in the morning... That was so bad and yet so worth it at the same time.

March 3rd, I finally got the guts to watch the live-action FMA movie... and I was surprised and so relieved that I actually enjoyed watching it. It wasn't my absolutely my most favorite thing ever, of course, but I actually had fun, and so it got a point in my book. I loved Ed's actor, who did an amazing job, better than I could've ever hoped for, and of course the special effects were frickin' sweet. Yes, they kinda changed stuff around, not always for the better, but that didn't bother me terribly. The part I'd personally been most disappointed about was that Alphonse wasn't likable (which I'll agree with Terra on, that putting in the whole "doubting my existence" thing that happens in this movie did not help). The same thing happened to some other characters, but it's nearly blasphemy to do that to Alphonse, who is the co-protagonist! It's not even a matter of whether they messed up my personal favorite character, but it ruins the point of the show and it kinda ruins Edward, too, because no one would get why he'd sacrifice himself like that in the first place if his little brother wasn't the sweet ball of sunshine he's supposed to be, you know?

That day, I also watched Brother Bear and Wreck-It-Ralph with my roomies, which was super fun and nostalgic. We also had a short dance party jamming to "When Can I See You Again?" afterwards because Owl City. (It was kinda a follow-up dance party for me because I kinda put on my own private party in my room, dancing with myself... that kind of thing is super embarrassing to admit to, but it can be so fun!)

The week after, I was on Spring Break, which I spent most of at home (though I did do the lab safety course that Monday since it was going to be easier then than trying to fit it in some other time with classes in session). My mom had been organizing papers and found some old printouts Sis had of a Harry Potter book, which turned out to be because she had asked for them during the HP class back at the high school, but she didn't have the whole book. Nonetheless, I was bored, and figured "They're here, so why not try Harry again?" I'd only tried reading the first book once when I was 10 and got too bored and put it down halfway through, sooo... I think this was the fourth book? And I actually did kinda like it (Harry has sass, goodness). Nonetheless, who knows if I'll ever finish one of those books or even re-watch the movies... Don't think I've seen even half of the movies...

I also watched A Wrinkle in Time (2017) and Thor: Ragnarok with my dad. The first was still fun and it had some spots I liked, but in general I just don't think it's something I'll bother watching again? And I still don't really get what everyone likes about the story? The Thor movie was awesome, though, and so I ain't even mad that I've seen that one a couple times more afterwards, just like with Black Panther.

Last one I'll talk about is rewatching the very beginning of Avatar: the Last Airbender with Wan, Ash, and Barbie. Forever ago, all the way back to when she'd been helping me come up with my Relief Society lesson, we'd had the Avatar inside joke and been saying we'd watch it together. For some reason I'd been remembering it happening later, but it was actually March 10th when we'd watched it the first time together, and we'd both brought a couple other people to watch with us. Yep, it was awesome (and I think my roomies, who hardly knew anything about the show, were a little like "Okay, girl, you're being a little too much with your excitement right now", but I couldn't help it!). Ash and Barbie said they liked it, but they never came again... Ever since we've been watching in the summer, though, Wan's roommates sometimes end up watching some with us and laughing at our attempts to imitate the opening moves.

Okay, I'm gonna stop there, but that was a pretty decent amount of info I put down! Soon after this, I'm gonna update my profile, as I do on my birthday (though I'm almost a week late this time). K bai!

What Have I Been Up To All Summer?

Hello, world!

So, clearly, thinking that I would actually catch up on everything over the summer was not realistic... It's just about halfway over now, which is crazy to think about. I don't think I'm ready for summer to end! Gimme, like, three more months? Does that sound fair?

This time, I'm just gonna worry about catching up on what I've done since school ended. Conveniently, I've kept notes separated by week this time, so there's still some structure to this!

Right before that, though, I'll just give a little update on Arm: we texted a while a couple days after my last-last post, in which he said that he was having fun travelling, then a couple days after that confirmed that he made it home safely. A couple weeks ago, we chatted again, and apparently he's been presenting on programming over the summer with his friends, which sounds pretty dang cool and impressive. I hadn't thought he'd be the kind of guy interested in something like that, but he did show me a Youtube video where he did a magic trick in front of a massive audience and seemed to really be enjoying himself (though still nervous, of course), so I think it's one of his things after all.

From this point on, I think we're just going to be texting on WhatsApp every once in a while.

First week:

Okay, so I know I mentioned the internship before, but not what I actually do for it. Since I have been working for nearly two months now (THAT'S SO WEIRD), I think I can give a decent answer. ...I've avoided using emoticons for a long time in this blog, but I really feel like a :P is needed here.

Basically, there's a whooole process that needs to be done in order to convert a sample into a readable DNA sequence, and that's what I do. I receive samples of alfalfa weevils, crush them up (yeah, it's a little gross), then do a whole lot of pouring chemicals into little tubes to isolate the DNA, do a PCR (which makes a gazillion copies of the desired piece of the DNA- usually only certain parts of the code are actually useful in determining species and differences between groups and stuff), stick that into an agarose gel, take it out of the gel (I dunno either, man), and then purify the DNA to be sent off to a sequencing lab. That's what I'm doing just about every day. A couple days, though, I've spent some time on the sequences that came back and marking where there might be hybridization between weevil species. So, uh, yeah. I really like it! Pretty much the only sucky parts are sticking samples into tubes because they're either alive and running around or basically dead and squishy and gross, and some of the waiting you have to do between steps. Uuuuuugh. The boredom is real right there.

One of the other girls interning there (though she's working on different stuff from me) has the same major, actually! She's the first Cell/Mol Bio major I've met! She's also quite fun to talk to and we have a lot of interests in common. I think we're the ones that end up hanging out the most during work, but I do like everyone else, too.

Besides starting to work, I was enjoying the peace and silence of being all on my lonesome within the apartment for the week. Nonetheless, I still hung out a long while with Marae (haven't mentioned her yet, but she lives a couple buildings down and is fun) on Sunday, then during FHE the day after, I ended up talking a while with Ellie, who's in middle school (daughter of one of the bishopric, so that's why she's in our ward) and I always felt like we could be good friends over the year but I didn't really know how to approach her? We talked about some random stuff for a while like odd fashion trends, then somehow, we got to the anime conversation, and it turned out she's really into some of the classic childhood animes, and I'm like "HALLELUJAH, COMMON INTEREST KINDA!" I told her I'd watch My Hero Academia (even though Coatrack already told me it was heckin' good and I'd seen the first couple episodes with Terra forever ago) and she said she'd watch Violet Evergarden, but apparently neither of us have found where to watch our respective animes yet? I promise I'm gonna look for MHA once we finally figure out how to get me into the family Amazon Prime account, since I have a feeling it'll be there along with a bunch of other shows I need to get caught up on...

Also, she said she doesn't like Tom Holland's Spider-Man, and I'm trying so hard to not be salty about it.

The second half of the week, I was brought home by my parents. We went for a doctor's appointment for the... um... thing I probably mentioned a long time ago, and looks like things are still fine. Also, we went on a massive Costco shopping trip, most of which was food that they were making me take home with me. I watched Infinity War with my dad, and MAN. Ugh. No wonder Carter had told me it made him feel a lot of feels. DON'T DO THIS TO ME, PETE-

And, lastly, they brought me home with a freezer to stick all the many frozen foods they'd bought me into.

Second:

Remember how I mentioned my calc friend? I don't think I gave her a proper code-name. I feel like it'd be rather cruel to give her this, but... I'm feeling like a rude friend today, so let's go with Bias. She had officially moved in by the time I returned with the freezer, along with the roommate we all hardly ever see (and she's been really gone for at least a week now, so pretty sure she's on vacation or something?), and the last two came in the day after. So far it's been pretty fun being roomies with her (and I don't just mean the delicious food and desserts she makes all the time). She has a great sense of humor, which means general goofing off with her is very fun. We do also have a couple common interests, but mostly we just show each other stuff and the other's like "Uh-huh, sure, I kinda like it? I guess?" Mostly, she shows me stuff about K-pop and Korean TV shows. She's a huge fan of BTS, and I'll admit I've liked more of the BTS songs she's shown me than the ones from other groups, but the only one I really, really like is "The Truth Untold", so I guess I still can't really call myself a fan. Also, I'm just not into the biasing and stanning and other stuff for the K-pop culture. You know me, I don't go "OMG" over boyz, and that's 90% of what they do. I still have fun dancing to songs with her in the living room, though, and she puts up with my Vocaloid, so I can't really complain.

One of our things has been to go to the library together every once in a while. We did our first trip this week, in which I mostly grabbed Natsume's Book of Friends (I think I'm caught up now, woot!), along with a couple Adventure Time and Avatar: the Last Airbender comics. The last one I shared with Bias and one of my new roomies, Lie (I'm just being lazy with this one). Lie and Bias have bonded a little over their mutual love for Japanese food, actually, since both have been to Japan. I also shared them with the Relief Society pres down the street, who greatly appreciated them. We all agonized over the The Search arc.

Did I ever name the Relief Society president either? I know I talked a little about her all the way at the beginning of the school year. I'll call her Wan. I'm quite sure I'd also mentioned how we wanted to watch Avatar: the Last Airbender together. We've actually made good on that goal this summer (though we technically did the first two-ish episodes a few weeks before school ended). Just yesterday we finished the fourth episode from Book 2. Man, this show is just so good, and it's so fun to watch with Wan! Her roommates also apparently have fun watching us watching the show... but we get so excited that I haven't gotten terribly embarrassed.

This week (as in, the week that I'm writing this post in) we actually added a new thingy to our marathon: imitating the moves they do in the intro. Like, a couple times before we tried, but it didn't go so well, but this time we were determined to learn them and do them right. I took a good chunk of time watching the different moves slowed down a lot (thanks, Youtube, for letting me do .25 speed) and practicing everything until I felt pretty confident that I was doing it right (besides substituting out Azula's crazy jump for a floor sweep because jeez, that wasn't happening). I made myself get real sore from that, which is pretty embarrassing.

I hung out on a date-thing with one of the boys from my ward, though I feel bad since I don't think it went quite as he had planned... I said that we should just eat a couple ice-cream sandwiches left behind by my old roommates instead of going out for ice-cream, then we played billiards in the Institute game room for a while, then we came back to watch Ice Age (wow, it's been absolutely forever since we'd seen it!) but Bias ended up watching with us... He was a good sport, the poor guy.

I'd also made a friend in my spring Institute class who I'll call Skydive for lack of a better idea right now, and I ended up running into him on-campus and we talked for a while. I'll probably say more about him when I actually start talking about spring semester, but to be honest it's mostly been hanging out while I gorge on food he offered to the class. ...I promise I don't always become friends with people because they give me dinner.

Right after, I went to hang out with Al and his old roomie. I am tempted to lay out how I met Al and stuff, but I'm already taking long enough as is to write this so I guess I'll leave it for later. We all played this game that was basically the PS4 version of Super Smash Bros. and I totally sucked yet I managed to win one of the rounds, then went for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. The first and only time I'd gone was when my mom and I were on our road trip years ago, and I remembered that I ate macaroni because nothing else really sounded appealing enough for the price... So yeah, I got mac again, but apparently they've always had a cheap boneless wings deal on Thursdays, so I actually got some wings and I thought they were pretty good. Lastly, I played billiards with Al, but he was actually pretty good at the game unlike me.

I binge-read the entirety of Book 1 of The Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan on Saturday while Bias binge-watched a Chinese drama.

Okay, I'm just gonna end here for now... please scream at me if I don't come back within a week.

Please, Let It Be Me.

Hello, world! I'm finally writing another installment to the already-completed Faith project from a few years ago. And this one's got a lot of juicy secrets, so get ready.

I started writing all this at, like 1 in the morning a few days ago nearly a month ago (because I kept procrastinating actually finishing this post), but it was because I kept feeling like I needed to since Relief Society the week before, and just... I gave up and started because I couldn't put off starting any longer. I can't even remember what the topic in class was- wait, no, I kinda do. It was about how the Atonement helps us, and one of the first things in the lesson was to think about how the Atonement helped us through very hard things in the past. I haven't made the impression that I think about this as much as I really do, but... What I tend to just refer to myself as "Alabama" is what I always look back on as the hardest time in my life ever, despite a couple similar contenders. The reason why wasn't that it was the move farthest away from home-base and we had to learn to live in the culture. It wasn't Ivan being kinda creepy and never letting me be alone in school. It wasn't the vague sense that people sometimes looked at my family a little too weird, or even the fact that my mom legitimately was discriminated against while there (thankfully, not as intensely as so many other people have been, but it still shouldn't have happened). The part that makes me at least tear up every time I think about it is what was happening to my sister this whole time. Long story short, she was struggling through depression.

This hadn't been when it technically started, but it really hit the hardest while there. I remember after we came back from Mexico and my sister was dealing with her physical problems- scoliosis and ovarian cysts. It pained me to see, well, how much pain she was in. But even then, I guiltily tended to get pretty irritated with her. She usually spent the whole day on the couch watching TV. I heard it again and again that the couch was the thing she felt the most comfortable on in our house even though her back still hurt so much on there, but it still bothered me. Why did she hog the TV all day? Why didn't she do anything else? Why couldn't she just give it a break and talk to me a little more?... Pretty much the only sibling bonding time at that point was watching something we both liked (or at least tolerated) together. I'd always catered more to her tastes because I felt the duty to do so and because I much preferred the possibility of cheering her up with her favorite shows over fighting over the control and darkening further her now-ever-present mood. Once, though, she had put on the newest Adventure Time episode for me, and I had felt so touched by the gesture. Despite the circumstances, she still wanted to look out for her sister and show she loved me and wanted me to be happy. It was such a small thing, but it meant a lot. And, of course, there were other little moments where we had fun together and things felt okay and like our strong bond was still there. It was still... different, and I couldn't figure out if it was just because we were now older.

Then we moved to the other end of the country. Her back was doing better, but it seemed her behavioral shift only intensified- she still spent much more time on the couch than typically considered healthy, but then she was also spending a lot of time lying down in her room, door closed. Sometimes, I felt like I hardly ever saw her. I still tended to feel anger about it during these spots when she was hiding away and in the kind of mood where I felt like I couldn't talk to her- though my irritation was easily combatted by my proportionally increasing amount of guilt and worry. I knew she was in pain, and she didn't get to socialize much with being out of school (though it also tended to feel like she wasn't really trying to socialize, either, despite being much more social than me), but... She couldn't just be acting like this because of that, right? What else could be making my sister so... this?

The worst part was, every once in a while, I would hear my mom consoling my sister as she sobbed in her room... and I usually couldn't think of a reason for why she'd be crying.

I guess I'm not doing a fantastic job at explaining all of this, but there were signs of depression, yet I was still rather oblivious to them. Even if I had started making the sneaking suspicion, though, I probably would've tried to avoid the thought, considering... well, I wouldn't want to be thinking that that was my sister had (especially after having to read 13 Reasons Why [still don't like the book, and I don't dare to watch the show]) .

So, the way I ultimately found out was... I was taking the laptop we used for seminary to start on my lesson for the day, but a couple unrelated tabs were still open. They were Google searches about how to deal with depression.

That had really shaken me to the core. I wanted to believe it hadn't been my sister who Googled that, or that she had been doing it for someone else, but I couldn't lie to myself. It only made sense with how she acted. Nonetheless, I shakily got up to tell my mom what I found, and she confirmed. I think she said they hadn't yet gotten my sister officially diagnosed with clinical depression, but it was now clear that she had it.

I had a hard time concentrating on anything with the revelation bouncing around my head. It explained things, but it was not the explanation I wanted. More than that, it was an explanation that I couldn't do anything about, and it killed me. I didn't know much about depression, but I knew it wasn't something that could really be cured, especially by a naive 15-year-old.

I became more and more acutely aware of her misery, and, respectively, my own continued to engulf me. I wasn't depressed, not like her, but I did end up thinking a lot of stuff that contradicted the still typically happy self I portrayed, the one I actually used to be more until I knew my sister wasn't okay. Stuff I didn't dare to tell anybody, because my family already had enough to deal with and I didn't have strong enough a bond with anyone else to spill my thoughts to. 

I don't know how well I can show my thoughts through the written word... but it tended to fall along the lines of "Why was it her and why wasn't it me?" I was aware that I was being a special kind of angsty teenager then, but I just couldn't help it. I couldn't comprehend why my sister, one of the best people I knew on the planet and one of the people I looked up to so much had to have depression and the intense physical problems (plus the occasional drama with old friends- but, like, intense drama). Why couldn't she just be allowed to be happy instead of have all this bad luck? I wanted so, so bad to take on the burden for her instead. I begged in so many prayers for at least a little bit of her weight to be put on me, for me to be able to ease her pain at least a minuscule amount. I was sure I could handle the physical pain better than her, especially if I knew it would otherwise fall on her. I would take on anything for her. If I needed to take Atlas's place in order for my sister to be okay again, I would do it in less than a heartbeat. I would even take on her mental and emotional hurt- I'd gladly take all of it on if I could. I really did pray for this to happen- I just about pleaded to be given her trials every night. But, well, as we all know, that's not how it works, so there was no transfer of burden to speak of.

I hope I didn't sound too crazy... I was sure that, even if I explained the entire sentiment the best I could, none of my family would have understood (it can sound nearly masochistic if taken the wrong way) or wanted to hear it. I mean, I spent who knows how long asking to be given bad health and mental health conditions for my sister's sake, and I felt very strongly about it despite knowing it would probably never happen. It was pretty much the only thing I could think of that could genuinely help her. I was adamant that it was very unfair that she had all these problems when she was an amazing person who didn't do anything to deserve any of it, so if somebody had to suffer, why wasn't it me? Why couldn't it be me?

Please, let it be me.

I have to admit my admiration for the Elric brothers (FMA, of course) did not exactly help. I mean, they're amazing, but also so infuriating when they're too self-sacrificing- yet that's exactly what I wanted to do, too. Around this time, I wrote a little... it wasn't a story, or essay, but more like a declaration of how I would rather that terrible stuff happened to me- as an example, it was limbs being chopped off- and live in absolute misery and trauma if it would mean my sister would be okay (which, in that case, would mean I would feel less miserable because it would be helping her).

I don't know what to say about how I feel about my younger self. In a sense, I guess a bit embarrassed because I'm finally admitting all of this, and to the whole world at that. Maybe a little sad because it was the only solution I could think of, and I thought about it constantly. I just couldn't understand why things didn't happen that way in the first place- I mean, I know we are supposed to be challenged a lot in this life, but it's all stuff He knows we can conquer in the end. Yet... my sister had already gone through plenty more than I ever did, and deserved to be happier, yet she was instead being eaten up by the depression. I couldn't understand what it was really like, but I knew it sucked beyond description. What right did I have to not be going through this instead when I hadn't had so many trials yet? I know she's strong, but I was still scared she wouldn't be able to handle it much longer unless something changed...

I pleaded for something to change all the time, at least every night. I just wished I knew better how to cause the change because, as much as I asked to be taken as tribute, I knew it was very unlikely to happen.

I felt even worse because I didn't know about when her depression started. I... don't even remember when it was first explained to me, but my mom told me while in Alabama that they thought it began when she was 12 or 13. I never thought anything was wrong at that point, though. I mean, she was just barely a teenager, doing teenager-y things! Like, I knew that she wasn't playing with me because she was too cool for toys and the Wii, but I still felt a little sad because she all-around wasn't talking to me as much anymore around then. Beyond that, I was very much the kind of kid who was in their own little world, letting adults deal with their adult problems and just thinking that nothing older people discussed (even just a couple years older) was of no interest to me unless I was spoken to directly. It was for that same reason that I was oblivious to a lot of other stuff, like the financial crisis of 2008- I mean, I know I was just 8, but couldn't I have bothered to pay attention at least a little bit? My childhood, despite the moving around, was quite carefree and innocent, and it was my own fault.

I guess, to be chronological, I should be putting this detail at the end, that one or two nights before my sister moved out of our house, I admitted this to her, that I hated that I didn't know for so long and she said that that was also because they were actually trying to hide it from me so I wouldn't be worried about her and could just be a normal kid (or as normal as I ever got). It's still a little hard to decide how I feel about it, because I am glad that they did that a little, but also a little disappointed that I never saw what must've become obvious to everyone else and never made more of an effort to, I dunno, be a nicer little sister at the very least?

I've typed out a lot, but I guess the main take-away is... I felt guilty and helpless. Nobody knew I was struggling this hard, but I thought what I was going through was minuscule compared to real, genuine depression. I didn't think I was even going through anything, because I wasn't thinking about myself all that much.

She couldn't take anymore living so isolated from everyone we knew and feeling like it was so much harder to live like a normal person- her small internship-ish thing didn't last long, the community college was too far away to be worth it, and there weren't many opportunities to hang out with people her age or Latinos. I really didn't blame her, and was excited that she was gonna go out in the world and make herself happier- especially since she had a decent pill to take at this point that actually helped- though of course I was also worried as heck. That's part of why I needed to admit how I felt before she left. I knew there was a very small chance that I wouldn't ever see her again, but my nerves had me wrecked and I couldn't leave it unsaid. I cried a lot, and she did too. She was understanding of my emotions, and we shared a lot of the same sentiments. I don't remember all I said that night, but I know it ended with me saying "I'll miss you" and her saying it back, hugging each other hard enough to pop our backs. I also know I didn't say a lot of what I've managed to get myself to say in this post. She is my closest confidante, but even she didn't know. I mean, some stuff just seems harder to admit to the people closest to you.

Then, somebody knew.

I know I wrote a little bit about what happened on this day, the Sunday after my sister left. Up to that point (and, well, some time after that), being in the house just... hurt. It felt so empty and quiet without her. I felt a little empty, even though I heard her on the phone and texted her. Like other stuff I know I probably shouldn't think about or don't want to think about, I tried to ignore it and focus on, ya know, school and stuff instead. Didn't always work. I've always had this thing where I can be all normal and ignore the thoughts I don't want to think, then the moment something reminds me of that- like when people had asked if I missed her- my usual little smile drops and I can't get it back, and I'll probably start crying in the middle of nowhere, and it takes a long time for a distraction to work again, but once it does, I'm totally fine and you can't even tell. It doesn't take much to make that happen- even now, a mention of depression quickly ruins my mood because it brings back memories from Alabama, and I am not good at hiding that kind of shift from people, which I find a little unfortunate.

Anyway- here I was in church, doing pretty good ignoring the fact that my sister wasn't in the classes with me, and then we get to the Young Women lesson. I don't even remember what the lesson was about, but it started with us pretty much going around the small circle of girls and women telling about things that were very hard to get through or we were going through at the moment. Like, intense and intensely personal trials here. Most girls cried while talking about their own thing, as expected, but the others would try to stay strong for them and not shed a tear even if we were still obviously sympathetic/empathetic. I... had a harder time. It felt like the girls were giving me a lot of reminders of my sister and what she'd gone through and was still going through. The only one I can remember well enough to bother writing down was that her cat had to be put down (and that one was a story that didn't make me agonize over my sister's matching experience, but still hurt because then it reminded me of Mittens and Milky-Way), but that probably speaks well enough for how heavy this whole thing was. If you thought I was already getting worked up over things I couldn't fix before, hoo, this moment trumped all of that. All the horror and guilt just pounded me as I remembered her back, her cysts, her depression, her feeling alone, her useless little sister, her deserving so much better at 17 years old- how she did get the medical help needed but it took far too long, how I was often a ball of flimsy flesh shedding tears at the foot of my bed secretly asking why it wasn't me instead and it didn't help anything.

I don't even remember all that well this part, but if I'm right, it had snowballed until I apparently looked not-okay enough that one of the leaders paused and hedged out, "Are you okay?" and the dam freaking burst right there. Everyone looked really concerned because everyone was crying but this looked like an unrelated crying, and I just wanted to scream that I wasn't the one they should be worried about! Some tissues were passed over to me, and the girls sitting next to me hugged me for a while, and I think I'd been able to pull myself together enough that by the end I could offer up my own little story about how I really missed my dad while we were in Mexico (because I did and it was hard, but it was also so much easier to admit that, and distract myself with telling that, than try to say anything about my family's current issues).

The lesson eventually ended, and I was ready to get out of there and put my normal face back on and go home after that embarrassment, but the other leader wouldn't have it. She kept me in the room and asked if I missed my sister, aaaaaand I started crying all over again. This particular leader tended to feel a little hard to approach before this- not that she wasn't nice or anything, just... I dunno how to explain- so I'd been a little surprised she was the one to push the issue and be soft and patient as I finally... admitted what the problem was. Out loud. To a lady that, after all this time, I didn't feel like I really knew all that well. I think that's what I really needed, though, was someone I wasn't as close to as my family. She actually seemed to understand my feelings, even.

I'm pretty sure she'd said some stuff about how my sister was doing better now so I didn't have to dwell on it so much, and other stuff I didn't want to hear, but then... she said something I didn't expect.

"It seems obvious to me, with how much this hurts you, that she isn't the only one suffering."

She said that, of course, this was my sister's trial, but having to watch her was mine. It would mean that I'd be more sympathetic and caring and kind to people later, wouldn't it? That I'd pay more attention to how I could maybe help other people in the future, wouldn't it? And just like how my sister had a hard time handling these things- maybe it was true I could've handled them a little better in her position, and so I had to instead watch someone else, someone I loved, go through it instead because that was harder for me. I'd been shocked to be told all of this, because I never thought about that way, but now it was just... duh, of course it was true! She helped me immensely with her wise words, and I felt a little more at peace with the whole situation, even though it still was... well, hard.

I thought it was funnily ironic that being told this stuff legitimately made me feel better. Why did "she isn't the only one suffering" help at all?

The leader, who I am eternally grateful to for being there at this moment to give me the truth and comfort I needed, had said that, but it also implied my sister isn't alone.

Our struggles were a little different, but we were still going through them together, and that eased my soul more than anything.

It really wasn't until a long while later that I put two and two together- this is exactly how the gospel works. Christ had put upon Himself all our inflictions and sorrows (and I'm really hoping some other stuff that sucked less to feel) so that He could then go through these hard times with us. It means we are never alone, and we are always understood.

And it didn't hit me until I just barely started to write this that that's what I'd been trying to do, all the way back in Alabama. I'd wanted to take on her troubles and pay them in her stead. I'd never realized I was basically asking to do what Christ did for her. What he did for her already. If I think about it now, it really doesn't make sense for me to take on her troubles because someone had already paid the price in order to try to help her with them.

I like to think that He did help her, though exactly how He did it I don't know. That's between the two of them. After all, she did get better and is still doing a lot better. Things still aren't perfect, and if I could take that imperfect part away, even if it meant it fell on me, I would still gladly do it, but I feel more okay with not being able to. She is strong, and she's only stronger when she leans on Him.

So... yeah. Reflecting on this again (even though it made me cry yet again) with that last realization hitting me upside the head really strengthened my testimony, and I hope the same could perhaps be said for anyone else that bothered to read this whole thing. He is actually there, and He actually helps us, and no matter how cliché I'll continue to affirm that because of that, everything happens for a reason. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hors Arev Hayeri Janin Mernem (and Freshman Year is Over)

Did you know I'm still alive?

Well, I am. And I think today is actually one of the best days ever.

It's so weird thinking about it, but I just feel so at peace today. It's one of those things where I know exactly what I want and not at all at the same time, that the stress of everything is gone yet I still have things to stress a little over, and yet it all just feels so okay. I hope the rest of the summer is like this.

Yes, that's right, boy-o, it's summer! Even though spring seems to have just barely begun! It's weird having more time for a school break this year than I usually do (well, I guess more like around the same time as the one between 10th and 11th grade, isn't it?), but especially starting it this early. The weather's (mostly) been very kind and paradisaical (wow, I didn't even know how to spell that), and it makes me really excited that this is what I have to look forward to throughout the summer. Feels like this beautiful town is all mine without the worries of schoolwork (though, if all goes well, I won't be abandoning studying completely so I can prepare for my classes in the fall). MINE! I'd thought it was generally a town too small for me, but now I'm like "What are you talking about? It's perfect!"

I know I haven't actually given context, and I haven't actually even attempted to catch up a little on all the stuff that happened throughout the school year- yes, I did actually make notes of everything that happened that I thought was noteworthy- which I've hardly touched because it's such a daunting task to accomplish but I feel like I will be able to tackle it over the summer because I feel like I can just tackle anything I want this summer! But yeah, I... don't think I'm actually gonna do much of that today.

I just wanna talk about how I feel so good. And weird. This is weird.

First of all, yesterday was officially the last day of school. (I dunno, feels kinda ironic that tons of people graduated right around when everyone's thinking "May the Fourth be with you"... and also that reality may just be catching up a little to those graduates when it's "Revenge of the Fifth".) As in, starting today, I am no longer a college freshman. For a while, and just every once in a while after that, it'd just hit me like "Wait a minute, I'm at college? And I'm old enough to be here?!" and so now it's even more alarming that I just made it through my first year here and I don't know what to do with myself...

I can say, luckily, that my grades weren't that bad. I don't remember if I already said how I did in my classes in the fall, but that was all A's besides an A- in my bio lab (which I'm still a little mad over because it's just because I forgot one tINY LITTLE THING). This semester, I ended with A's in calc, bio, chem, and the bio and chem labs, and an A- in U.S. Institutions, which is basically an intro to American government, politics, and economics, and is largely discussion-based (I finally managed to get myself to say something in class during the last couple weeks!!!) but most of the grade is dependent on essays. Man, those stressed the heck out of me, especially once I got a C on my first big paper in there (I will fully admit that, like any other annoying kid used to A's, I cried over it), so I was this close to crying (this time from relief) when I saw that I did really good on my final paper, just enough to bring me out of the B's. I made it over 90% somehow! I know I shouldn't be so stressed over doing amazing in all my classes even with a scholarship GPA to maintain and that good grades don't define me, yadda yadda yadda, but it just feels so nice that my hard work paid off in the end, you know? I can breathe a little easier, and I feel a wee bit more confident for the next semester, even though I never got to stay at a 4.0 GPA.

One of my new friends said that that was probably for the better (that I couldn't keep myself at a 4.0) because it would've made me stress that much more and it would've hurt my soul that much more if I broke the perfect A streak further down the line to my degree, which... is probably true. Apparently, he knows me pretty well now.

This friend was actually on a study abroad here for the semester. His home country is Armenia (and you can bet he has been very excited and patriotic since he found out about the huuuuuuge protests that successfully got their prime minister to resign, and no one died- even more now that some Russian protesters have taken inspiration from the Armenians today), so I got to learn some stuff about his culture and his perspective on American culture, and just hang out with a super cool dude. One of our things was watching movies (Mr. Nobody, Oculus, The Sixth Sense, A Quiet Place), sometimes with one of my roommates (either Ash or Cali), and his favorite episodes of Black Mirror (plus some Phineas and Ferb since he absolutely loved that show too, I wish we did that again because it was so nostalgic, though yesterday he said it was most definitely better than Adventure Time and I don't know which show would win out in my heart because I love boooooth!). A couple times, we also ended up talking and walking, especially the second time we hung out where we wandered around town and ended up making it to the middle school, temple, and a lookout to the rest of the city below us, part of the time carrying a couple groceries from Smith's that weren't even heavy but became not so fun after a while. Ooh, that second time we ate at the nearby burger place and I had him try sweet potato fries! Things got a little weird after that hangout, though, since there'd been quite a bit of discussion of religion and I knew he wasn't really attacking me for my beliefs but it felt like it, and though he said he didn't think I reacted badly or anything, I still felt like I did and stayed guilty for a long while after that. We just kinda... made up somehow, I guess, and I think we were stronger friends with that out of the way...

I didn't even say how we met yet! It was when Adam Grabowski (awesome comedian, he's now a favorite even though I hardly ever watch comedy) came to perform during my college's Mental Health Week, as his act was part-funny, part-stuff about mental health, mostly his experiences and advice on that. Before entering the auditorium, I had started grabbing food outside, but then I felt kind of weird about just strutting into the auditorium with my plate because it was not allowed but I didn't know if it was allowed this time? And I saw this dude getting water and I just ended up asking if he knew we could bring in food. He looked a bit weirded out by me just coming up to him randomly like that, but then since both of us had come alone, we ended up sitting next to each other because of a now-kinda-familiar face and talking during the show and BOOM, we became friends. He brought me to the school weekly game night after that (where I also hung out a little with a girl that had been in my Fiction Writing class; I liked her a little more in the game room environment than the classroom, I think). We participated in Two Rooms and a Boom (I helped the Red Team win in the last game!), Hive (AKA bug chess, which I did waaay better in than I expected considering my normal chess abilities), and Cards Against Humanity (again, actually did pretty dang good, though apparently I'm not entirely un-innocented since a couple of the cards I didn't know the meaning of and didn't ask for someone to explain them to me).

Our interests didn't entirely match up, but it still worked out pretty good for both of us, I think. We went to game night again another time (bringing Cali along); went to the school's "Dancing with the Stars" together, though we didn't entirely agree on which were indeed the best performances; tried teaching each other a bit of Armenian and Spanish; showed each other songs (his were from Armenian and Russian performers, while I ended up showing him a bit of Vocaloid and Victor Garcia), along with some Youtube videos- his picks were the ones from Conan going to Armenia, some CollegeHumor, and a couple about Creepypastas that he said scared him when he was younger (and I actually knew about most of those, but the Suicide Mouse was new to me and Squidward's Suicide new to both of us), while mine were a couple awesome Doki Doki Literature Club fansongs, and... yeah, I guess the Vocaloid, partly to weird him out and partly because I figured he'd feel like he learned something about a subculture and about me from it; we played video games a little bit on my laptop once, though my laptop definitely isn't the best for games since it's kinda old and slow, so it was just a little bit of him having me play One Chance (apparently, he had no idea one of the endings was that one of the protagonist's coworkers kills the wife and daughter and hangs himself, while protagonist had to go bury them all and then ended up dying at work during his last-ditch attempt to fix things at the lab... so yeah, that happened) and Life is Strange (I desperately need a computer mouse on hand if I want to play this, it's difficult with just a trackpad), and I had us team up for Electric Man 2 just like I used to do with old friends... Also, once, we literally stayed up almost the entire night and we both fell asleep at some point past 3 AM (probably more like 4-ish) and I woke up at 5-ish, which is when he said he'd leave instead of asking if I wanted him to leave... Yeah, I've never done something like that before, and it made me so incredibly guilty while we were up because I knew I should be sleeping and my mom would be upset and I was falling asleep during our conversations but it was also still kinda fun hanging out with a little bit of delirium setting in, so...

Last couple days of this week were a bit different. He was sweet enough to give me a small box of chocolates he bought in town (which I shared with him, of course, and they were gooooood), and also went along with my suggestion of recording a video of me saying something funny in Armenian for him to show to his mom (and I'm guessing his friends back home, too). He first had me say something like "You are great because you're [his name]'s mom", but then yesterday, right before we parted ways, he was like "Wait a minute, why not something more like in the Conan videos?" Thus, the title of this post. It was so weird seeing him be so giggly and it made me really self-conscious trying to say this stuff, but he insisted he was laughing because of what I was saying, not because I was saying it badly (and assured that I was doing a surprisingly good job, actually, which I'd say is because I was saying the words in a mix of my English and Spanish accents, so more evidence that knowing 2+ languages makes it easier to at least fake it decently in many others!).

In case you're wondering, the phrase is basically "Armenians are very cool", but more literally is "I want to die on Armenians' bodies" because that is one of their classic examples of really weird idioms. (Then again, he could've been lying to me about the meaning, but I think it's more likely he wasn't.)

It's weird, I didn't think I'd end up getting all the stuff about him out of the way in this post, but apparently that's happening.

He's now at the airport (luckily, he got to wander around the city a little bit, and hopefully he liked my suggestions), and I'm sad to see him go because, though I definitely hope to see him again in the future, it's probably the relatively-distant future at best. We did pretty dang good with becoming good friends (and hanging out more than I ever usually hang out with friends, perhaps Beka excluded, without our GPAs absolutely going down the drain by some miracle) considering we first met in March!

Oh yeah, I'd been talking about why today's weird. Though I had to say bye to him, I had to say bye to all my roommates, as well, which hurt a little even though I know I'll at least be seeing all of them again in August (and Ash will just live a few houses down now). I would've liked it more if we could've been able to have one final hurrah and go for ice cream or something, but for each of their disappearances from the apartment we'd been being pretty exhausted from cleaning the place up. That's one of the not-fun things about people having to worry about moving out right when Finals Week ends, bro. I did get to hug Terra, Cali, and Ash, while the last roommate literally just left without saying bye to any of us...

And maybe the last part is that there's still stuff to stress over. Like, I worry that maybe they won't think we did good enough of a job cleaning, or that I have too much stuff because some of it isn't actually mine (hopefully, I can soon talk about my calc friend who's moving in for the summer and left her stuff early!), or that I'm gonna end up not enjoying my internship as much as I hope I do or doing really bad at the work... man, I haven't even talked about that yet! The (paid) internship's my main thing this summer, which is a major reason why I'm so pumped. Even better, I'm gonna get 3 credits for it! I have to present a poster about what I did over the summer in the fall to successfully earn them, but that's a major thing that I'm getting all that undergrad research credit when I just barely got the job as a freshman, and I feel so excited for not just this opportunity, but the doors I'm sure it'll open! I'll talk about it in the next post (which is hopefully within the next couple days), because I want to post this by midnight.

Nonetheless, I just feel at ease, one of the moments where I'm most at ease in a loooooooong time. I hope this feeling doesn't entirely go away.

It was nice to ramble on, even though I don't know how much of this will make sense when I read it later. Oh, speaking of rambling, my Armenian friend and I (he has a very common name, yet I still feel hesitant to make that part public, too) had filmed a couple little videos on his phone, and one of them we just started asking our future selves a couple random questions. I know one I said was, "Are you a cat lady? Because I would be so cool with that." Another I want to ask is, "How many of my friends do I actually get to keep after all this time?" I mean, there's the ones from my childhood, like Beka, high school like Coatrack and Carter, online like Darkrai and The Smiling Crow, and my friends from this year- Ash, Cali, Arm (I guess that's his nickname now?), and a ton of others I haven't even talked about yet because I've barely touched this blog all year. I hope at least a couple make it through to the end. Please tell me they do.

Okay, I'm gonna try to sign out now so I don't ramble that much more. Wish me luck on the internship, and I hope everyone has an amazing summer spent just the way they wanted to and we all find chances to help each other, no matter what that entails. Since I'm feeling nostalgic: K bai!

How I Chilled During Rest of Break and Resolutions

Hello world!

Look, I'm actually coming back when I said I would! Whaaaaaaaaaat??

Also, here's the Henry doodle:

Remember last post, that I was trying to have a wee bit of a Tim Burton vibe with these TAU doodles? That's what I was doing with the big, dark-circled eyes and super upturned nose (I hadn't really thought of how he tends to draw noses like that and so do I... non-coincidence?) and such. The part that frustrates me is that there ended up being some pen inside his eye that makes it look like his eyelid, which totally ruins the whole big-eye effect and gets him closer to Lazy Susan. Not what I wanted. Maaaybe I could fix that in Photoshop, but I don't have it (my dad does, if I was that desperate...).

I also considered maybe putting pictures of some of the clothes and trinkets I got from Mexico, since I think I've done that to an extent on previous trips, but I'm just gonna not bother this time. I will mention something I accidentally left out in the last post, though- we bought my dad a bamboo recorder on our last Saturday, along with a little snare drum keychain, along with a couple things with the Aztec calendar on them. Apparently, he liked everything (and he actually put the keychain with his keys! Awwww).

Okay, so since we left off at Christmas Eve, I'm gonna pick up at Christmas all the way to the present. Which isn't all that much, but hey, it'll be off my list, right?

I actually spent most of my Christmas on my laptop, headphones on, on a voice call with my Hangouts friends while trying to write a Christmas crossover one-shot together (which ended up involving FMA, Kuro, Bleach, and OCs from our fics). It took hours (and even then we only got almost halfway done), and fun, but also tiring. I felt kinda bad that I was kinda ignoring my family in the process... But apparently, as long as I wasn't talking loud, they didn't mind. They were all just watching Netflix and stuff anyway.

The next day felt a little more like a proper Christmas, as we went to have brunch at Golden Corral for the Christmas family reunion party... thing. I got to talk with some of my cousins (including the ones from Texas, whoop!) and they did a whole White Elephant gift-exchange that ended with me owning The Very Merry Muppets Christmas Movie... Who knows if I'll ever actually watch it. The game got surprisingly intense a couple times (cuz, I mean, this side of my family is not particularly crazy) since people fought over some of the gifts (including a fancy pen?) and my sister totally went into savage Swiper mode and stole J's Family Feud game at the very, very end, leaving him with a puzzle she'd been plotting to get rid of since the beginning.

I also watched a Pedro Infante movie with my mom, since I hadn't in forever! It was Dicen que soy mujeriego, which I liked quite a bit. Unfortunately, we didn't get to hear some of the songs because copyright or something. I WANT TO HEAR YOUR BEAUTIFUL VOICE, PEDRO!

The next day, she also decided that she wanted me to watch one of her favorite TV shows, Nosotros los guapos, joking that this was teaching me "real" (stereotypical naco Mexican) Spanish. Just like with the old movies she's shown me thus far, she stopped every once in a while to explain things and make sure I was on the same page, because they talk really fast (dangnabbit, Mexicans, stop doing that!!!) and say a lot of stuff I've never heard before. Though I had to concentrate quite a bit to get through watching it, I was surprised to find that I was enjoying it and laughing with my mom (sometimes without even needing explanations!). She did another "real Spanish" session the day after, too, but I guess it got forgotten at a point. We're probably gonna end up picking back up on it next time I visit home.

I also ended up watching some That 70's Show with my sis and helping (or trying to, at least) her with dying her hair. My mom did all the bleaching, and then all three of us worked on putting in the purple and pink dyes. I ended up with Barbie pink on my hands (mostly my left, since that was the one holding hair and my right was holding the brush), which actually looked kinda cool, and the nails on my left hand are still stained pink. I have a feeling that's permanent... Guess who's gonna be walking around with randomly kinda-pink nails, waiting for them to grow so I can look normal again! *points to self*

Last Friday, my dad wanted us to try this place that he said was almost Indian (pretty sure that's literally what he said), which turned out to be called something like The Bhutan House. It was really good! I had no idea that that's how Bhutanese food tasted like (and, well, to be honest, have barely even heard of the country itself). I have a feeling this is gonna be one of my family's new favorite restaurants.

I also picked up my new glasses! I had those clear frames for forever, and was honestly getting kinda worried about how outdated my prescription might be, so when my mom said I'd be getting a new eye exam done and new glasses, I was kinda excited. I promised her that I was gonna look at the ones made of metal, just like the ones I wore when I was younger, but they just didn't feel right. I really wanted big frames- ones that beat the clear frames, and maybe even beat the teal ones that I rarely wore in 10th grade- and there weren't any that satisfied me made of metal. So, I looked in general for frames that seemed big enough, and then- I came across this beauty.

These are the biggest frames I've ever seen (besides those giant oversized party glasses they sell around New Year's). The bottom basically goes past my cheekbone! I don't know if I can find a picture of the specific ones I got since they weren't from an online store this time, but I don't think a picture of just the glasses would've worked anyway. I didn't bother with a full-face drawing, so here's the next best thing:

Yep, Microsoft Paint is a thing I have on my laptop. Are you jealous of my mad skills?

The awesome thing is, that is actually pretty good accuracy proportions-wise, so I'm not kidding about my glasses having such big lenses. (They're not just real big in this way, though; my eyes have gotten worse, and now the glass is actually pretty thick.) I absolutely love them.

Besides finally reading through some of the bookmarked fics and articles on my laptop and catching up on RWBY (got pretty far behind, oops), I also watched Murder on the Orient Express with my parents. I'll have to admit, the final result of who actually killed Johnny Depp got all three of us good. (Just realized I haven't mentioned that I also watched The Last Jedi with my dad, but I don't quite remember what day it was... It was crazy good, dude!)

Lastly, I took this day and the day after to take proper notes about the Arabic alphabet and some words given in an online lesson I'd looked through a month or so ago. ...I just have the last page of info I still need to write down, but for some reason the last page confuses me quite a bit. I'm also confused about how you're supposed to be able to write this language in fluid cursive, because I had the impression that cursive means "your pencil rarely is taken off the page" and most of these letters are making that really hard. I might just be overthinking this and people don't actually do it as cursivey as I thought.

Sunday, we went to my grandma and grandpa's for dinner, so I got a better opportunity to properly hang out with my cousins. My grandma made funeral potatoes, by far one of my favorite things she makes, and dessert was pumpkin pie and chocolate cheesecake (both store-bought, but who cares!)~ Besides that, the whole gaggle of cousins (besides my sister, who's been too cool for us for years, but at least now I'll admit it would've been weirder to hang out with us with Captain there, too) did a lot of random chatting, and we also played Clue together for a few rounds (my first time, according to my memory). At one point, Holly (that's the new code-name for one of my Texan cousins) mentioned to J that she'd heard he's a good singer and wanted him to sing, and he made the deal that if he lost this next game of Clue, he'd sing. And so, we (the other players) conspired to win by sharing our notes and knowledge, so obviously he lost (I felt a little bad about it, but he'd seemed resigned to his fate) and sang (specifically, "Cave In" by Owl City, which I'd never heard before this but it was really good). He really did sound good! His little bro (since I don't think I ever said otherwise, I think he really is stuck with the nickname Yee, the poor thing!) then got excited and gave his own rendition of "Bulletproof" by Sia. Then Holly and her sis (can't think of a decent name for her, ah!) sang together "Ask of God" (that brought back some FSY memories for me), then I did "Cough Syrup" (in my deeper range, which didn't sound quite as good as I was hoping for in a few spots, but I guess not too shabby for my first time actually performing it). We'd egged on Cam to go stand in front, too, but the poor thing was nervous as heck, so we sang "Fireflies" loudly with him as well, so I guess it didn't really count as him performing for us but it was fun. J ended up going one last time (don't remember the song), but we all somehow moved on to other things from there. Holly, her sis (I'm sorry, I'm seriously blanking out on a decent name for her, but I've come up with Cloudy for her older brother [who's currently on a mission in Argentina, being the only sibling who doesn't already know Spanish, hehehe]), and I went through some Disney songs while the male cousins were doing... something else (I think just watching TV and goofing off?), and later all of us were together again to just chat and have fun. When we were leaving, I initiated a group hug with my cousins fake-bawling my eyes out because "I won't get to see you guys until next year!" (because it's New Year's Eve, and we're dorks). Even better, when they started gathering, they started wailing along with me, loud enough that the adults upstairs apparently got concerned about what the heck could possibly be happening for us to be so loud (not sure if they could tell it was supposed to be crying, though).

This Monday and Tuesday I was beta-ing Carter's third chapter of DoH (for some reason, it was really hard to focus, so I took a lot longer to finish since I ended up doing tons of breaks and stuff). Dude, I'm jealous of how well he writes fight scenes. I can't even think in fight scenes, but I really want to learn how to do it like him. (Also, characterization and overall likability of characters [except Anguis, one of the nastiest bad guys I've ever seen] is top-notch. Lillian's also playing a bigger role in these first chapters than I'd expected, and kicks so much butt!!!)

Monday also led to eating sushi with my parents and hanging out with Broranges! He picked me up from the restaurant (after a while of talking and eating as well) to take me to his place, and we just chilled for a long while. He got an electric guitar for Christmas, which he apparently favors a lot more over his old acoustic ones, and we did our whole shindig of playing and singing songs. He always brings in a couple Steven Universe songs, which I have barely watched (I KNOW IT'S A GOOD SHOW ALREADY, BRO'S ONE OF THE MANY PEOPLE HOUNDING ME TO WATCH IT), and I decided to fire back by asking what Adventure Time songs he was familiar with. And then... we ended up remembering a video from years ago (I think it counts as a meme, though I think it was a little closer to just super-viral video) where someone overlapped "Bacon Pancakes" and "Empire State of Mind" together, and then he wanted us to sing it together (to him playing the simple chords on his guitar) to put on the internet. I've rarely done anything of the sort, but it was fun once we figured it out, and it didn't sound too bad! It was yet more proof that I need to work on singing lower keys, though...

The last thing we did was watch Akira (which I haven't seen yet, though I probably mentioned reading a wee bit of it a few years ago) before he dropped me off at home.

Tuesday, I finally went to properly get a state ID (because I don't drive, derp), and it turned out that I could register as a voter while I was at it. (Dang it, now I have to pay attention to politics. UUUUUUUUUGH.) It was a lot less painful than my mom said the whole process was in Alabama and Mexico, so thank goodness this is one of the things Utah does well. I also watched the new Jumanji movie with my parents, and it was a lot funnier than I expected. Also more adult. I hadn't realized that it was PG-13, but I think that was to this movie's benefit, because it would've been hard to keep it good and tame enough for kiddies (though there were some kids in the theater...).

Not much happened Wednesday (reading fics the entire day, oops), and yesterday my parents were driving me back up to campus. A new girl moved into the apartment, so I'm hoping we get along. I was also gonna say she has pretty good taste in music (yesterday she was playing really loudly some music that sounded along the lines of 30 Seconds to Mars, some a little heavier than that; not stuff I usually listen to, but I can dig it) until I heard her playing all Taylor Swift earlier today... Today, I was working on this post, watching Youtube (I've really gotten into watching 8-bit Ryan the past couple days), and seeing about maybe doing on-campus housing next year? I know I have to decide ASAP where I wanna go so I don't lose all my options, but I just don't know what I prefer yet.

All that's left to say is New Year's Resolutions. Here's what I've got:

• I declare from henceforth I will dedicate at least 5 minutes of every weekday to practicing drums or Arabic (which can include watching a Youtube video, going over notes, etc.). I think 10 minutes would have a bit better of an effect, but we'll see how 5 goes first.
• Get caught up on diary material. I'll probably try to get what I can in done over the rest of this month, since this is probably my best chance during the semester to put in the time toward personal projects.
• Along those lines, I also am determined to get that short story my professor liked to a place where I feel confident enough to submit it to that competition, and get it done in time. My deadline's the beginning of February, so I honestly should focus on that more than my diary, but I'll try to get diary done as well.
• Actually fast every Fast Sunday. (This Sunday's one of them.)
• Dedicate at least one Sunday every month to family history work and/or indexing. All I'm looking for is a couple hours. I'd also like to have 5 names ready to take to the temple (and actually go to the temple with them) by the end of the year (though preferably earlier than that, obviously).

There's a lot of other stuff I'd love to do this year, like finish Azul (for goodness sakes, it's nearing a year since I first came up with the idea, yet I still feel like I haven't put together a real plot!) and start again morning warm-up routine, but I think I'll really only make myself accountable for what is above. I'm the most scared of what'll happen with the first one, but I really want it to happen.

Alrighty, until next time I post (which is hopefully super soon)! Wish me luck on my second semester of full-time college!

My 'Sides, Mexico, and Alcor

Hi world. Happy New Year. Go ahead, hate me. It probably won't happen as much as I hate myself for once again not updating in yet another 2 months. How am I even?!?!

It probably comes as no surprise that one of my New Year's Resolutions is to get caught up in this. I really don't want to skip months of stuff happening, so I'm gonna put in the effort to actually get through everything from the past. This post, though, I feel like I should get the most recent weeks over with instead of starting directly after what I'd been talking about last month, since we were in Mexico last week.

Yep-er-ooni! The day right after my last final, we got on a plane to Mexico and came back Christmas Eve. (I didn't throw up on the plane either time, thank goodness, and the second was just about the smoothest landing I've ever been in! Now I know that eating chips and being distracted by a game while going down does wonders for my stomach.) Unlike the couple other times we went to Mexico since I started this blog, it was just about a week instead of three, and we also had Captain with us! And it is the first time we've gone during Winter Break (though I heard that we'd come in December once when we were babies, which I guess doesn't really count)!

Plan for this post: Add to something I'd mentioned in the last post in case I forget to later, then start at Finals Week until the present (with, hopefully, an official record of my 2018 Resolutions). That'll wipe out three weeks and a wee bit more, which is super cool.

Okay, remember the list of my four "Sanders Sides"-esque characters? A little bit after posting, I started working on what their names would be. I ended up deciding that I wanted them to all be flower-related (but not all lily-related specifically because that limited my options more), and that I wanted them to sound good in an American and Mexican accent. After a whole lot of deliberation, this is what came out:

Adult/Mestiza=Rosalind ("pretty rose"). I got this from wanting to give her something related to my career interests; when I came across the name Rosalind Franklin, it was suddenly super obvious. I'd considered modifying to Rosa or Rosalinda for the ease of saying it in Spanish, but I didn't want all the characters to have the same ending on their names, and it just seemed to fit a little more as Rosalind. Appearance-wise (will I ever attempt to draw them? Who knows), I think she'd stick to having her hair in a braid (they probably won't be static about hairstyle, so it'd change between normal braid, side braid, twin braids, etc.) and wear the things that make me feel a little more grown-up, like blouses with pencil skirts, flannel/blouses with dark denim, maybe dangly earrings?

Kid/Creep=Azucena (lily/iris, "innocent heart", "white and pure"). This is, of course, heard more in Spanish-speaking countries (though it comes from Arabic, which is cool). (I ended up seeing/hearing the name a couple times while in Mexico this year when I don't remember ever hearing it before. Weird how stuff works out like that.) Besides having appropriate meanings for her traits (aligning with the innocence of children and the irony of her being creepy sometimes), it also reminds me of "azucar", the Spanish word for sugar (probably from Arabic, too, from the sound of it). She'd probably be called Cena (hehe, "dinner") more often, though, since it seems like it could be a bit of a mouthful. Appearance would definitely be pigtails and half-space buns (I didn't know they're called that until recently?) and that kind of thing, along with... Hm. I suppose there'd be some dresses, though I didn't really wear dresses outside of church and special occasions as a kid, and there'd be more colors. Now that I've slowly gotten rid of more of my really old shirts, I have less access to those kinds of things, but I could probably do my best with the stuff I've still got that's pink, related to Hello Kitty/cartoons, etc. and have something sufficiently girly/childish to work. She'd be the most likely to wear my old Claire's jewelry and the like.

Love/Fangirl=Florie (from Flora- you can figure that one out). It seemed kinda weird to give someone a name that doesn't really have meaning beyond "flower" (even though I know someone named Flor- don't tell her I said that), but the opportunity for a nickname made it sound more... namey, I guess (and helped with the "not same ending for all the names", even if it is a nickname-name). It gives me a cheerful and artsy vibe, right where this character would be just about all the time (besides when she was crying over angsty fanfics, but let's not talk about that), yet it also seems open enough to interpretation and different personalities that she wouldn't really be held down by certain expectations like the name "Azucena" would. I think she'd wear hats- since my hat collection continued to grow this year, she'd have a lot to work with and show off. She'd also be more inclined to wear braver outfits, and she'd be the sole owner of my anime T-shirts among the four.

Tomboy/Insecurity=Calla (type of lily, "beautiful"). Okay, two still ended up about lilies, but picked for good reasons. What got me to choose this one is not wanting a boy-ish name for the tomboy (felt kinda cliché, and more realistic for her to end up with a pretty girly name, I think) and the alternate meaning- if spelled Cala, it fits Spanish pronunciation and also lines up with the Arabic word for "fortress". I dunno, having something about this character being tough despite being made of insecurity sounded really nice. She just leaves her hair down (loose low ponytail when necessary), and wears a lot of T-shirts (especially my Spider-Man shirts) and my black fishnet gloves (which Florie would occasionally steal). If she wore any jewelry, it was probably most often black and/or Spider-Man, Alice in Wonderland, or Nightmare Before Christmas-related. I hope she'd wear If she ever wore anything besides a T-shirt (like a dress- thinking along the lines of the black and dark blue Alice dress I own), it was probably from Hot Topic.

I realized later that I'd also kinda neglected to consider the spiritual aspects of these characters, considering that's a pretty big part of me too. I found that Azucena had a strong faith (because a childhood experience fueled and continues to fuel my testimony in prayer), Florie tended to flip-flop between doing stuff to add or distract/detract from testimony (probably distract more often, though, because she gets distracted a lot), and Calla cares the most about increasing the testimony. I also feel I should mention that Azucena looks up to Rosalind and my sister fiercely (because, even more than I do now, I would follow my sister around like a little puppy when I was little- she was my best friend and my biggest role model), and Calla plays music more often than any of the others.

Whoo, I think that's everything for that now. (Oh, maybe I could say now that I finally let myself go somewhere I never thought I would- I tried reading a Sanders Side fanfic a few days ago. Even worse, I liked it. I still just don't like shipping anybody with anybody [though I've heard there's such thing as Roman x Roman, which is probably hilarious], but the fic had a lot of good stuff about it that made me press on. It was angsty, heart-breaking, cute, and Roman played a part even better than I could've ever imagined! I don't know how to feel about how I still don't have a favorite character in Sanders Sides... But now I like all the characters even more after that fic. Maybe I should just say that Thomas is my favorite and be done with it.) Now onto Finals Week!

Wait... first thing on the list for that week needs more explanation. Okay, so I met this guy who I have just now decided to dub Math Nerd (because he's a math ed major, but I'm just doing the name teasingly) while I was- ironically- doing my math homework on a couch in the student center on campus. He came by and said that he was doing a podcast project about different students' opinions on math (AKA if it's important and stuff), so I gave a surprisingly eloquent answer about math about how it's one of the ways to explain things about the world (since that's one of the big take-aways I'd gotten from math camp back in high school, that some people think better in words and others in numbers, and they're both valid and important ways to express the same thing), and we talked a bit more because he was impressed by my coolness (I know, how could he not be impressed?) and then he asked me if I wanted to go out for lunch with him sometime. Despite how I was supposedly not gonna date this year, I ended up saying yes. I mean, partly because I was startled because I'd only known him for 5 or 10 minutes, but also... I dunno, he just seemed like a cool guy, and there wasn't really any harm in saying yes. Of course, that was a little worrisome, because that's exactly what I'd thought with that kid (Brandon) I went out with in the summer...

Thank goodness, he turned out to be pretty different. He kept his space besides when we hugged at the end of the dates, and didn't go saying stuff that felt like he was already assuming we're boyfriend and girlfriend (though the girl who got our orders definitely was thinking "This is a date"). He was chill and easy to talk to, and both of us were excited to keep the conversation going. It felt a lot less like what I thought dates were like, it was more like we were just new friends wanting to get to know each other more. We talked about our families, interests, and made lots of silly jokes.

The first date was going to a pizza place off-campus for lunch, and he'd walked me to my next class afterwards. The one after was Monday of Finals Week, spent by going bowling (I won the game, doing better than I expected, but only by 10 points or something) then getting a little snack at Kneaders (I've never been to a Kneaders before!). He found out just how germaphobe I can get about sharing food, but he still convinced me to try a bit of his drink before he started drinking it himself (it was like hot chocolate, but didn't use cocoa? It was pretty good, since it tasted like white chocolate and raspberries). I had a fantastic cream cheese brownie that made me glad I didn't live close enough to a Kneaders to gorge myself with one of those daily.

I don't really know what to say besides that I had a lot of fun (now I get what my mom and sis were talking about) and we'll... just have to see where this goes.

Oh, I also talked to my adviser that day, and one of my questions was... were there actually other people on campus in the same major as me? And thus, I found out there were 54 of us in total declared as a Cellular/Molecular Biology major... which is kinda weird to think about. I didn't realize I'd be in that much of a minority major-wise, which feels almost embarrassing, but I also kinda like it... At least I know there's not really that many people that I'd be competing with when I'm trying to get a job, I think?

After that, I mostly just tried to study my butt off for my finals. I managed to get an A in chem, B in biology (I'm gonna check out what I got wrong for that one because I was hoping for a bit better, but my grade got massively curved so I still ended with an A), and 100% in trig(!!!). That means that I barely made it through the semester with As for everything!... except my bio lab. That one's an A- just because I hadn't checked the deadline for rating individual contributions in my group. I was this close to maintaining a 4.0, which would've been sooooooo cool. *slowly facedesks miserably*

Right after my last exam, I went to try to get my room clean and have everything I could possibly want to bring for Mexico or chilling at my mom and dad's place. (I'll be honest, there's some stuff I still haven't bothered to touch, and we're going back up to my apartment tomorrow... Oops. The struggle to be useful is real.) I also ran up to campus again to meet with my Fiction Writing professor so she could pass me back my last assignment.

I might as well talk about it now, that... the most astounding thing ever happened for my last short story in that class. I'd struggled a lot to write it, and spent hours on it, and it still never got even close to a point where I felt it actually made sense and that it was good. The first draft was missing explanations, and both drafts were missing a consistent POV and letting the characters speak for themselves in the right way (yeah, I still get so wordy with the narration, something I think Carter needs to work on too). I felt like I was kinda reaching a new low in my writing, and proving that I wasn't actually getting any better (or, at least, that the deadline was making getting any better in time a near-impossible feat). I figured it was my own fault, too, because I was trying to do something different with the POV (make it more omniscient and objective, not delving into thoughts) just to prove that I could (when I knew it wouldn't entirely work out) and come up with the backstory as I wrote, which is great for discovery and all but not so much when you want to have a coherent story completed within a couple days. Everyone who read it in the class all confirmed what I already knew (though they went on longer than I was expecting about the good things about the story, which I hadn't expected, and it meant a lot more than I think I could ever express), except the professor. Even more than my previous stories, her comments seemed focused on entirely different things than my peers, and she apparently loved the story?!?! She'd mostly just wanted me to clean up the writing style! (Well, and admitted that the POV was a problem, of course, but it wasn't her focus). She even went as far as to tell me that she wanted me to submit this story into a student competition advertised on flyers in the building! She'd repeated that on the last day of class the previous Friday (where she brought us soda and bagels from Einstein Bros. and they were delicious), and I asked her a little more about what kinds of changes I should be focusing on so it could stand a chance in the competition (the winners would be put into a little literary journal). I was supposedly gonna work on that over the break, but I really couldn't get myself to do that... I think it might be because it was technically school-related and my brain hissed at it like a vampire at the sun. I've got the entirety of this month to submit it, so I'm hoping I'll be able to take advantage of the light couple weeks of the semester to hunker down and try to make the story as good as my professor thought it was (or had the potential to be).

Anyway, I ran back home, shivering and excited and anxious about the short story, and tried to finish up everything before my dad got here. Everything but washing my dishes got done, so he just stood by and chatted with me while I did that. We ended up going to the campus store for the calculus book I needed for next semester, then started the drive back home. We listened to classic rock/grunge/etc. and talked about who knows what random things, and we also stopped at an Amish store that my dad wanted to check out (and shared a sub sandwich to go that was pretty good). Once home, I ended up hanging out with my sister for a while, checking that we had everything for Mexico and making food for right then and watching Corpse Bride (take that, Ash!) and such. It was pretty nice, just hanging out with my dad and sis, because things were about to get cray-cray the next day-day.

So yeah. CapSis and I did the whole thing with the airport and plane, and when we arrived we were quite exhausted (and irritated because the people on the plane hadn't given us the little paper you're supposed to fill out to give to customs, so we got held up a lot longer than necessary to get that done). Nonetheless, we all filed into the car with my aunt and cousins (and I ended up basically sitting on top of everyone in the backseat because there wasn't enough room) and while everyone else chatted, Captain was just staring out the window, fascinated by Mexico City (none of us blamed him). I still kinda was, even after all this time, more-so because we ended up going through a couple areas my sis and I had never seen before. Cap got the chance to see nice parts, not-so-nice parts, and the overall insanity of traffic in the city on his first day, which apparently rattled him a lot ("I'm never going to complain about traffic back home again," he swore). It was nice to see that he was already getting to see the differences in culture and enjoying it, despite being tired as heck and scared for his life on the road.

Though I still didn't talk all that much in the car compared to all the other women, I actually did participate in the ongoing conversation more than I ever have before. It was so weird, because I'd rarely been particularly comfortable talking to this side of my family, especially the adults; apparently, I've finally become a bit more comfortable after all. Likely because I've improved the slightest bit at Spanish over the years, and maybe being an adult myself (and having to learn to adult a little at college) helped too? I dunno. Whatever the case, it's honestly a bit of a relief.

The next day we all ended up going to my little cousin's birthday party for the day... which people were not happy about. Especially my sister. Which, I mean, I totally understood, because she didn't want to use time where she and Cap could be exploring something new and unheard of in the US instead of being at a fun center, nor letting him get a little overwhelmed by meeting a lot of my family at once at their craziest... I ended up spending quite a bit of the time at the party hanging out with one of my other little cousins (I don't think I have given them nicknames, huh?... Sorry, fam), the one who loves Mario and El Chavo and is one of the youngest of the cousins (not sons/daughters of the cousins, like the birthday boy), just talking and bowling (along with CapSis) and stuff, so at least we still had some fun.

Later that day, one of our adult cousins decided to make it up to us by taking us to Coyoacán. We got some really yummy street snacks, saw a whole motorcycle gang gathering with people dressed like biker gang Santas, watched a guy dressed up and dancing like Michael Jackson (and my sis and cousin got invited to join in the act for a bit, which was way cool), and went on a little trolley trip that went through the streets of the town and a lady narrated some local legends (which were in general pretty weird, but I liked a couple of them). CapSis were pretty in love with the place, saying that they'd like to live there someday.

Next day, another cousin (probably have mentioned her before, that she knew more about American culture and loved Hello Kitty and such? She was one of the adults in the family I'd had an easier time talking to as a youngster) took us to Tepotzotlán (AKA Tepo) to go through the museum/old school church there and enjoy the stuff being sold nearby like snacks (got my first try of gorditas de nata and now I want them forever), clothes, and trinkets. Captain probably got the most clothes-wise, and seemed to really love the stuff he got.

There was also an old lady with pipe cleaner figurines (I got a grasshopper figurine of that kind in Querétaro years ago) that came up to us and pretty much got to selling one of them to us by... shamelessly flirting with Captain. Everyone kept cracking up, and he turned red every time something she said was translated to him. So yeah, I got a butterfly from her, and I doubt any of us are going to forget her selling point... (Captain loved this town too, but my sis teased that it'd probably be best to not live there since the old lady would surely find him again.)

After that was my sister's birthday! Since it turned out a lot of touristy places close on Monday, though, it was mostly just chilling and taking a break at my aunt's house. We all visited the internet for a while (I think just about the only time I ever did during our trip, though Cap was using data almost all the time to look at Imgur all the time, and I wondered more than ever how my sister could stand that), and my cousin made some delicious carrot cake cupcakes. ...Carrot cupcakes? Whatever, they were so good. We also ate some birria, too, if I remember right.

Oh, and I think I found out then that my nieces/nephews (I just don't get what to call the kids of my cousins) watch some pretty good shows, as they recognized the buttons on my tiny bag immediately. You know, the ones from Comic Con forever ago? They started naming off the symbols on Bill's circle and stuff like that. They didn't seem to recognize Doge, though, which I'm kinda thinking could be for the better, since that means they're not like my American cousins and entrapped in the dark world of internet memery at their young, delicate age.

They also educated me on Yokai Watch, which sounds somewhere between Pokémon, Ben 10, and Natsume's Book of Friends. Weird.

Next day, we visited a tianguis in a town on the way to Teotihuacán (I think the place was called Choyacuac or Coyoacuac, but don't quote me on it), where we ended up finding some more clothes, then me and CapSis went to see the pyramids. I had the fortune of stepping on one of the steps wrong literally the moment we were entering Teotihuacán, which didn't seem all that serious, but it hurt enough that I was like "Yeah, I guess I won't bother climbing any pyramids today." (It also hurt quite a bit the next day, possibly a little more, but at least the day after that I pretty much felt fine again.) Captain, though, because he's a show-off mountain goat with rippling muscles, went up both pyramids like it was no big deal. Like, seriously, he went up and down the Sun pyramid (the big one) in 10 minutes total. My sis and I were really mad. My sis went with him for the Moon pyramid, so he went a lot slower to keep at her pace and keep her steady. They also bought a Christmas present for Cap's parents, Cap's brother, and me (Aztec calendar, necklace, necklace, respectively). We ate good and cheap at a little restaurant just about right across the street from the ruins after. (Oh, and we also found out that there was a lady that gave an intro on a couple of the crafting methods of the Aztecs, like all the uses for the maguey and how they sculpted obsidian and such, which was pretty cool.)

So you know how I like movies like Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas, right? And how my sis started getting me to watch some of Tim Burton's other famous works since I was... around 6th grade, I think? Yeah, so we found out that there was a recently-opened Tim Burton exhibit in Mexico City, and since the price was looking like it'd be a whole lot cheaper than if we waited for it to come around to the States (since it sounded like a travelling exhibit to me), CapSis and I went. It was really cool! It contained information about Burton's life and tons of cool sketches and stuff that none of us had never heard of, and had a really impressive collection of drawings from when he was creating and finishing movies and other projects, and of his own personal projects or even just random one-off doodles that were super cool to look at. Captain seemed to be in a really weird, quiet mood for most of it, though, and my sis and I weren't entirely sure if it was just because he was just exhausted (all of us were, considering not the most comfortable sleeping arrangements in the world were made available to us) or what... I'm hoping he still enjoyed himself at least a little bit, because that exhibit was one of the coolest ever. (Even better, my mom had found a couple T-shirts a girl was selling nearby that are totally sick! One was a close-up of Emily from Corpse Bride, another of Edward from Edward Scissorhands, both in sepia and covering most of the T-shirt, and they seemed well-made too.)

Getting there, we'd just used an Uber (we got on Ubers about four times while in Mexico, which felt weird to me because I've never used one before, but it looked like it was generally a little cheaper and more reliable than normal taxis), but the way back involved using public transportation. More specifically, I think we'd gone onto the metro (they nearly shoved us off the train because it was so full!), then into a combi to get near the house. Hey, at least Captain got to experience more about life in Mexico, right?

Thursday was another chill day, since my sis had ended up feeling too sick to really go anywhere for most of the day (and Cap probably needed to try to catch up on more sleep, the poor thing). And so, we were hanging out more with our cousins. One owned the apartment Abuelita was staying in (has same name as Cap, which is kinda funny), the other was the same that I was playing with at the birthday party. Besides doing stuff like playing on my DS with my little cousin and doodling other little games with him in my blue notebook (he was such a cheat, and he had to nerve to call me one! I showed him!), we also ended up going for ice cream at the nearby La Michoacana (we went through all the effort of naming all the flavors, and Captain had the nerve to just pick Cookies and Cream instead?!?!) and going to Walmart for a bit. Though my little cousin can become a little... much sometimes, it was overall a pretty nice day.

We went to the Castillo de Chapultepec the next day, which involved a whole lotta public transportation again, to and from, though at least it was much less crowded at that hour. As usual, the castle was awe-inspiring and even more rage-inducing. (We saw a sign that seemed to say that it was built on top of where once stood a church, and that church had been built on top of the base of a knocked-down pyramid. We'd also learned that about the church at Tepo. Thank you, Europeans.) Los Niños Héroes is still the biggest piece of Mexican history that... well, I guess I can't really say it's my favorite because there's a lot of unjust death in it, but it's a piece I care a lot about. I feel like I'll end up starting a really long rant if I don't just move to the next topic, so let's press enter twice.

Much like when we'd visited the castle when I was 10 years old, we went up into Chapultepec's streets to look at all the vendors. We ate tortas and a couple other snacks, and watched the voladores right across from the National Museum of Anthropology, but... attempting to conquer that monster of a museum will have to wait another day.

Once back home, we chilled (or, in CapSis's case, slept), besides when one of my cousins came to visit (the one we call el Güero) with his 5-year-old daughter. She's cute, but she also got cat hair in my previous Play-Doh and gave all the women in the house makeovers that resulted in all of us getting lipgloss inside of our mouths... And the sparkles hadn't entirely gotten off my eyes until the next time I showered.

Our final adventure took us to downtown Mexico City to look at Bellas Artes, go through the Torture Museum (man, traumatic and even more rage-inducing towards early Europeans!), and look at some of the artisan works sold nearby. Ooh, and we also saw a couple groups performing tribal dances and gazed out over the Tenochtitlán ruins. They've uncovered a lot more of them since the last time we were in the area, which made it slightly less sad than then, but still- you guessed it- rage-inducing.

Abuelito, plus a couple aunts and cousins, were over at Abuelita's by the time we got back. I ended up listening to Abuelito talk for a while. It worked out better than usual, because he didn't immediately assume I knew who he was talking about, and seemed to not mind too much that I mostly didn't really know what to say back. Much like my dad, he just likes to talk. He told me about how he managed to get himself an invitation into a giant family reunion with one of the former presidents (because they share a last name), which he swears was a big reason why his retirement papers got processed within a couple hours instead of years. He also told me about a famous crime boss who once lived just a couple houses down, and finally got caught after his disappearance when the police found him taking a dump in a bush. At a point, though, I was getting sick of being in a just-about one-sided conversation and took my escape when one of my cousins appeared.

That night, CapSis and I got introduced to some cousins we'd never met before, which was weird since they were all in their twenties... They made good tacos.

That's pretty much everything vaguely important up to when we got back to the airport... I guess, besides that we were given ponche a couple times, I tried to write Azul (and, inadvertently, something that was probably more TAU in general), and read a bit. I got most of the way through Book 1 of The Zodiac Legacy (still don't get what the Boar's power had to do with boars, but okay, Stan Lee) and a couple chapters into the Spanish version of The Psychoanalyst by John Katzenbach. Oh, and we ate more junk food than I'd like to admit. Oh, and we thought it was interesting to see houses with Christmas lights and Christmas trees in major plazas (usually made of metal, though).

Ugh, I already miss Abuelita... I'm so glad we got to see her.

Ah! Going along with how I'd been trying to write some TAU, I also ended up doodling a bit. I really wanted to draw after the Tim Burton exhibit, seeing if I could kinda draw in a style inspired by his, and just kinda started thinking "Ooh, TAU+Tim Burton=awesome creepiness!" Right then, I realized that I'd never tried to draw Alcor before... so, despite not having any references, I tried to draw him. (I mean, you just gotta remember a couple major features and know basic human anatomy to get a picture of Alcor to come out right. Unfortunately, I done-goofed on the anatomy part the first couple times... I'm not even gonna show those doodles.) I also did a doodle of Henry, which I really liked except that for one tiny thing. I might insert a pic of it in my next post.

The best one by far was one I did on the plane back home. Just messed up a bit the nose, but it came out pretty good considering it was just pen.

(Bonus sepia filter, which seemed appropriate for Alcor's gold and black color scheme.)

I sent the doodle to the TAU blog last week, actually, and it appeared on January 1st, which I think is pretty cool. They also added a pretty funny caption, though it involves a swear word so let's not repeat it.

Okay, I know I said I'd talk about the weeks after within this post, but I'm gonna call it quits for today and post this then get to those over the weekend. I already took days to finish this one, and I'm not gonna let it sit un-posted any longer.