Thursday. I did not sign up for this.

I'M SO HUNGRY BUT IT'S 10:00 WHAT DO I DO?????????

Let me show you the fantastic desktop screen I put together to take my mind off of it.

IT IS FANTASTIC BUT I AM STILL STARVING

I just realized that throughout this entire summer, I have not once gone for ice cream or froyo. Not once. There is literally an ice cream place about 5 minutes away by car, and I haven't gone. I've really been wanting to get froyo at Froyo Twist. But that's thirty minutes away and my mom won't take me. My ice cream dreams are continually dashed! 🍦

Si tu m'oublies, je t'oublierai, et nous pouvons partir, et ne rencontrer jamais une autre fois. Mais si tu penses de moi, et penses de ce que était, puis peut-être un jour, nous pouvons être ensemble pour une autre fois.

My attempt at dramatic French.

So that was stressful. We had tornado warnings, with the sirens going off until 9, and the news channels say that the warning goes until 11. We were all in the basement for like two hours. And there's still the flash flood warning until 3 AM. So yeah. Loving this day.

My face is being awful right now. I had a bad reaction to some makeup, and not only am I breaking out, my face is getting super dry and it's even looking a bit scaly in some places. The bad dryness happened to me once a few years ago, and it took months to get rid of. Everyone thought I had burned my face or something. But anyway, I have to put on this super moisturizing stuff, and then go over the zits with a thing to dry them out... so I may have mixed results... It's really just so messed up.

Hating all of this.

My dad just made crêpes for us, which were really yummy. He's really good at making them, but he doesn't have time to cook them a lot because he's always either working or napping. He cooked them today because my mom is in Rochester visiting my grandma and helping her move into a nursing home.

My brothers' friend Jake is over (again. It's like he lives here.). He stayed for dinner because there's a tornado warning, and a flood warning. But it's not even raining right now, and he lives like 5 houses over, so I don't really understand it.

And now everyone is watching the news, because apparently crazy weather is exciting. But come on. You look out the window, and you can plainly see that this stuff won't happen here. It stopped raining, and it's even a little brighter outside. They might as well be watching a movie, because it's basically fiction considering how little it applies to us.

We're all going to watch Escape from Alcatraz later. I've already seen it, though, so I might try to catch up on my reading in The Sound and the Fury: the last book I have to read for English next year. I'm about 35 pages in, out of 200, and since I started it just 4 days ago, I think I'm doing okay. It's a bit complicated, so I'm consulting Sparknotes after every few paragraphs. Sparknotes is literally my savior.

So, yeah, that's what's going on right now.

Oh, and I cleaned out my bathroom. Because I had nothing else to do. Yay.

So my e-mail is broken. This is going to be one of those days when absolutely everything goes wrong. I can already tell.

Update: I fixed it. I googled how to fix it, but like origami instructions, after a while it just got too complicated for me. So I did what I could. And then restarted the computer. And everything magically worked again. So that's good. But my pessimistic view of today still stands.

I feel like everything on here that I post is either the stuff that I  just get really excited about, the stuff that I feel is too personal for all of my Facebook friends to automatically know, or the stuff that nobody really wants to read but I want to write.

Just a random observation.

The Type of Person I Hate

Type 3: The Insensitive Victim

The person who will make an insensitive comment about your weight, or your bad hair day, or your clothes not looking right (or some other obvious thing that you obviously cannot immediately fix, as opposed to the "oh, you have food in your teeth" "oh, thanks let me get that out" kind of thing). Especially the people who do this, but then claim they are insulted when you point out how that comment will make you feel insecure for at least the rest of the day, and how you are upset that they said that.

Example which is slightly exaggerated for effect:

Type 3: Ohmigod XXXXX, you have a muffin top in those jeans! Those are way too small for you. Why did you even wear those?
You: Thanks, Type 3, now I'll be stressing about that all day. Why on earth did you say that? It's not like I can just go change jeans... That was kind of a mean thing to say.
Type 3: Jeez, XXXXX, sorry. I was just trying to help. You don't need to go and attack me...
You: Seriously? You're the one who said I had a muffin top. I just pointed out that that was mean. I'm not attacking you or whatever. (At this point "you" may get a little rude or sarcastic due to the insanity of the accusation.)
Type 3: God, you do this all the time! You're SO sensitive. Calm down, XXXXX.

I call this type The Insensitive Victim because they will insult you by making an insensitive comment, and if you say anything about it, they play victim and act like you are insulting them.

Listening to the playlist.

We Didn't Start the Fire- Billy Joel
Be Okay- Oh Honey
Come On Eileen- Dexy's Midnight Runners
Clocks- Vitamin String Quartet
Counting Stars- OneRepublic
Dog Days Are Over- Florence + The Machine
Irrational Anthem- Plain White T's
Kids in America- Kim Wilde
Lightweight- Demi Lovato
Love Me Again- John Newman
Rhythm of Love- Plain White T's
Until the Day Dims- The Woodlands
Viva la Vida- Coldplay
22- Taylor Swift
Human- Christina Perri
I Just Wanna Run- The Downtown Fiction
She Looks So Perfect- 5 Seconds of Summer
Don't Say Goodnight- Hot Chelle Rae
Love Runs Out- OneRepublic
Love Don't Die- The Fray

I know some of these songs don't really make sense... I mean, not only are some YEARS old, but some are just not even cool to people anymore. But I only use the money I get from gift cards for iTunes music, and so it takes a lot for me to actually buy the song rather than just look it up on Youtube all the time. Like, I have to be committed to a song. And I keep it in my playlist for a while. So that is why there is a wide variety of songs in there. The retro ones I was led to by well-meaning and enthusiastic adults and old movies from Netflix.

So yeah. I made a lot of posts today. I don't know. Maybe I'm being more involved???

Or maybe I'm just bored. That's a little more likely.

Going to bed.

Ciao

 

Just painted my nails! They're not spectacular, but this hand ended up SO much better than the right one. And I made an effort. So I get a cheer.

I used a Sinful Colors polish in Gogo Girl and a New York Color clear coat. I also used a nail pen for the white, but it's so crappy that I won't even mention it in the hopes that I will someday find a nail pen worth mentioning.

Another kind of person I hate: The kind who when they have a bad day, try to ensure that everyone else has one too.

Like, just get over it and be miserable by yourself.

I understand that you have had a bad day. (Although in the case I am referring to, there is NO WAY it was worse than mine.) I understand that you are upset that you have had a bad day. But that bad day is over, so stop dwelling on it. And don't take it out on other people or make sure they feel guilty for having a better day than you. That's just not cool.

Maybe this should just be a series. "The Type of Person I Hate". For anyone who has a problem with me complaining about nameless people in my life whose personalities I am fed up with at the moment, pretend that I am saying that I love and appreciate the kind of person that is the exact opposite from everything that I say. Or feel free to move on to another blog. It really doesn't matter to me.

So yesterday I made double chocolate + mint cookies, because sometimes you just feel like baking, and I just had one and they are SO good. It's a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips and the mint comes from mint extract. The recipe is here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Addictive-Double-Chocolate-Mint-Cookies/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

You definitely need to try these! What I really liked about this recipe was that it didn't take too long to bake, and it used very common ingredients that I already had.

Here is a picture that they have on the recipe. Mine turned out bigger, just because I scooped more batter for each cookie. (Also, this is supposed to make 3 dozen cookies, but I made maybe like 20 because of the size difference.)

Oh my gosh I am in love with this stuff! I put it in my hair after my leave-in conditioner and my hair is super soft on top of being less frizzy. It is definitely a lot better than argan oil, which is what I've been using. (Say what you want, but argan oil is still oil, and made my hair kind of greasy.) This is the cashmere touch hydrating serum from TRESemmé nourishing rituals. You can get it for $8.66 on Amazon. (Or do what I did and borrow it from your little brother. Whatever works.)

Something I seriously hate right now: People that everyone thinks are really helpful but when they say they'll help you in a situation that ends up more difficult than it originally seemed, they get all annoyed at you.

It's just like, I'm sorry my life is so complicated. It must be so hard for you.

Gah. Today is SO POINTLESS. In the morning, I couldn't get a ride to tennis practice, so I figured I could bike, and be a little late. But then my bike decided to stop working (something with the chains), and I had to walk the rest of the way. By the time I got to practice, there were literally only five minutes left. And then my grandma came to pick me up, and we couldn't get the bike in the trunk. My coach told me not to leave my bike there, because some kids would steal it, so we had to leave it at one of the town service office places (you know, the kind of stuff you pay taxes for). We got someone to watch it until my mom could pick it up. It was so annoying though, because I didn't get to practice, and I have to worry about someone stealing my bike.

And now I'm still not even doing anything. Like, I'm literally just eating food, looking around on sites, and watching 6teen on Netflix. SO. POINTLESS.

My new iPhone came! I got a white 4s a week or two ago, but since it was from a company that sells used phones, it was a little broken (calls only worked on speaker, and siri couldn't hear me). So we just sent that back and got a new one which works fine (But it's black. I know that doesn't really matter, but it just looks a bit depressing with the dark blue case I have.)

In other news, I think I pulled a muscle near my ankle or something, because it hurts really bad but I definitely didn't sprain my ankle because I didn't fall or anything. So I wrapped it up and I look a bit like a mummy now. (Fun times.)

Ash came over today and we finally finished Purple People Eater. (It was really only the last four 8-counts, which are during a dance break, so we finished pretty quickly.) We also planned out a school-clothes-shopping-trip-slash-adventure for about two and a half weeks from now. It's going to be super fun since I finally have someone to come with me. (And also since I finally have a card, so I don't need to drag my mom with me everywhere. Nothing fancy, it's a pre-paid card, supposed to be used only for clothes shopping, but it means some freedom.)

I'm almost done with Billy Budd, which is good because I was supposed to be done on Sunday...

So anyway, I'm going to finish some things and get back to reading...

Okay, quick question. Who are the 223 people who have seen my blog? Because I set it up not to count when I see my blog. And this URL is definitely not one where you would just randomly type words in and find something. Confused...

???

I got back today from my cousin's wedding. It was kind of iffy, because not only did I not know most of the people there, the groom and best man, who are my cousins, didn't remember my name. They remembered my brothers. But not me. And I was seated at a table with my cousins (the ones 25 and younger, I guess) for the reception. But no one talked to me. It's like no one even wanted me there. That is seriously how bad it was. I'm sure most of the people there had a good time, but I've definitely had better experiences, myself.

So my dog did something pretty stupid. Any guesses as to what it was?

I was walking him, and it was kind of late, like 8:30ish or so. So I noticed he kept stopping and sitting down, and walking behind me or something like that. I thought maybe he was scared of the dark, or tired or something. Maybe he was. I don't know. But when we are halfway through the walk, he lies down in the grass next to someone's mailbox. I pull on the leash a little, hoping he'll get the hint and keep walking. When that doesn't work, I come over and pet him, because I'm like maybe he just needs reassurement or motivation or something like that. He won't move. And it's getting pretty dark. So I pick him up and walk home. God he is such a baby. And he's pretty heavy, it's not like he's a tiny dog. So now my arms are a little wonky, and my dog snootily ignores me as much as he used to.

Great day.

I just played tennis with Olivia. I won 6-2. Which is only one set, but we were both too lazy to play another, and we were kind of almost dead, which tells you how much we actually should be doing to get ready for the season, but...

Now I feel kind of bad. Because I woke up kind of dehydrated, but it was okay because camp wasn't so sweaty today. But after tennis, I have this big dehydration headache, and I slept for like an hour because I was feeling so crappy. I had dinner a little while ago, which made me feel a little better, but honestly my face is killing me. And it's not so simple as drinking some water. Because water tastes really crappy right now. Like, I get nauseous when I drink water when I'm a bit dehydrated. I was thinking about taking some Advil, but that involves drinking water.

This used to happen a lot. On Saturdays during the school year, I would have dance class for three hours, and I guess I would get dehydrated and feel crappy for the rest of the day.

I'll probably be fine tomorrow, but it kind of sucks right now.

So yeah. But at least I won!

So I'm wondering why girls are generally really nice to each other, but guys are generally pretty mean to girls they don't find attractive. I was on Youtube, and I stumbled onto one of those "do you think I'm ugly?" videos. I was scrolling through the comments, because it can be pretty interesting what people say. Most girls were like, "You are gorgeous, don't let anyone tell you otherwise" or at least like, "Your eyes are pretty". Most guys, however, were more like, "You're so fat! It's disgusting!" or "That face is nasty" and things like that. Like, there is no way the majority of girls would tell a bad-looking guy that his "face was nasty". I don't understand it. Even if you don't find someone attractive, you shouldn't say mean things. That's just dumb, immature, and disgusting. (And for the record, guys, most girls won't date someone who is mean to people. It's not cool, it's not hot; it doesn't make you a bad-ass, it just makes you a jerk.)

So that is my important thought for today.

We were choreographing a dance to Purple People Eaters, if you were wondering, for a theater camp we go to. The directors were starting to get a little miffed at us for taking so long to finish, so we got together on a non-camp day and worked for about three hours on finishing the dance. To be honest, a lot of that was spent on one very annoying line where we could not think of anything. And then when we went on Youtube to search for ideas and ended up watching some music videos and clips from old TV shows. The good news is that all we have left is the sax solo at the end. The bad news is that we choreographed a dance to Purple People Eaters.

I was going to start a new paragraph on something else I was thinking about, but it has nothing to do with this, so I'll just make a new post. Also, according to Facebook, the mythical creature that matches my personality is the unicorn. Thought that was important to know.

Choreographing with Ash!!! Not loving this song though... lol Honestly it's pretty bad

So I have finished that book and am onto the next: Billy Budd. Which looks really short because its like only 115 pages or something but is actually a death sentence because when you open it, not only is the print very small, but the language used makes it difficult to tell whether the captain of the ship is a super cool guy that everyone likes, or if the main character is a sailor that no one likes who is being sent to the military, or if the sailor is the one that everyone likes and he's being sent to the military, or if the guy coming to get someone for the military is the guy everyone likes. So I think I'm just going to bluff my way through this one.

Also, right now I'm having one of those moments like when you give someone your phone so they can see a picture, but then they keep it for like five minutes and press buttons and stuff and you have no idea what they're doing like maybe they just set your phone to Japanese. Except its my mom trying to set up my new phone. She has a trial-and-error way of doing things. So I think my phone may either be completely erased or include a multitude of her knitting videos when she is done. Normally, I wouldn't really be so worried, but she keeps hiding what she's doing when I try to look and see what's going on. So... (secretly changing my ringtone to something weird? changing the language? renaming everything George? I don't know what to think!)

Woo! 80 pages to go! (Kill me.)

What's annoying is that it would be interesting. Like, the storyline right now is pretty crazy. Hepzibah's cousin says he'll put her brother Clifford in a mental institution if he doesn't tell him where the deed to the land he should've inherited is. But Clifford probably actually doesn't know where it is. And Hepzibah and Clifford just ran from the house while the cousin was sitting in the parlor (or sleeping? maybe? It's a little hard to tell). So they're on the run. Which should be exciting.

It's just that it takes forever for the author to get to the point. Like, I understand that it's important to know character's thought on things. I'd be fine with just that. But when looking out a window takes up four pages, you know it's a little excessive. And the word choice just makes everything sound kind of boring. Like, there is definitely a way to make blackmail sound interesting, but the character sounded like they were about to fall asleep.

It's also a little hard to read because every time I turn a page, I think "x pages left". Because I need to finish this soon, I am even stressing out while I'm reading the book, which makes it a little harder to concentrate.

I just hope this all works out. I'll actually probably forget the whole thing by the time school starts. (Sparknotes will definitely be my best friend a few days before the start of school.)

I'm going crazy. I'm procrastinating stuff that I kind of need to do, but also bored out of my mind because I want to do something fun. I know I should really just get this stuff done but I seriously just can not make myself start. I have to read about 100 pages in The House of Seven Gables by like Friday to stand a chance of finishing all the English books I have to read this summer, and I know that I could do it in a day or two if I tried, but I really don't want to try because it's SO boring. The thing after that is I'm supposed to choreograph a song for my theater camp's play, but I'm doing it with a friend. The issue is that I need to start working on this, because we have to teach it next week, but I don't want to start and then have to completely change everything because we don't agree. That's why I really can't make myself start that.

I guess I'll start that reading. Maybe do it in twenty page intervals to stay awake.

Gah.

Planning a Les Mis movie night with my camp buds. They're all super fun people. You know, the kind who quote the entire movie and sing every single song with the actors/actresses. Going to be fun, if I can find a day that actually works for everyone (a little impossible). Hoping it all works out...

I have returned! After a one and a half hour flight, three hours of sitting in the airport, a four hour flight, and the hour drive home, I finally made it back to XXXXX! (I may be writing my whole life on here, but I still believe in some degree of Internet privacy.) I need to unpack, clean my room (which is for some reason dirtier than I left it?), practice my violin before Wednesday when my teacher will realize I have once again accomplished nothing, and deal with the repercussions from the vacation (many more zits, loss of much money, and gain of at least five pounds from all the restaurant food). But I am a professional procrastinator, so we'll see when that all gets done. I may still be unpacking when school starts.

I did not write about our last day on vacation, I don't think, so I'll do that now. First we went to this redwood forest and looked at trees. (I think it was a state park, but it's hard to tell when no one thinks you need to know where you are. As a result, I don't know what city we were in, or even if we were really still in California, although since it was a less-than-three-hours trip, I assumed we were.) That was kind of fun, but my mom kept stopping to take pictures, and everyone else would keep walking, and then we'd have to walk back because my mom has this thing about "how dare you go on ahead we're all supposed to stay together what kind of rotten children are you". I tried to enjoy it, I really did. The trees were pretty cool, and pretty wide. (Although I didn't get the whole height thing, because they weren't as tall as I'd thought they'd be. Honestly, we have trees that tall here.) But with my brothers bothering each other and me, and my dad yelling at us every time someone said anything, and my mom yelling just because, it was a pretty iffy trip. I got a cool wooden owl there, though.

After that, we visited Stanford. I'm not sure what the point of that trip was. Yes, I get the point of visiting a college, but when all you do is walk around looking for the gift shop (they call it a "book store" but it's really a gift shop), what's the point? There were some cool old buildings, and the weather was nice. But everything was ruined again by my mom trying to find the gift shop, and my dad yelling at all of us when he was mad at my mom for walking off in some direction without telling anyone where she was going, and my mom yelling at us for not telling my dad where she was going, even though we had no idea where she was going either, and everyone was just mad and it wasn't fun. I got a Stanford shirt there, though. Not to remember this particular visit, but to imagine a better one, I guess. I've thought about going there when I graduate from high school, but I'd imagine you'd miss the fall college atmosphere, because of the year-round fantastic weather. I'm thinking more New England area right now.

Then we visited my dad's old house in Palo Alto, on Lois Lane. (You can laugh, it's hilarious.) He lived there only until he was four or five, so he wasn't very emotionally attached to the place, but he still got upset when his house looked different from what it was when he lived there. But honestly, what did he expect? It's been like 46 years. Even houses evolve with time. He was also upset that the swirly slide he conquered just before his family moved was not there anymore. I'd be concerned if it was, because park and playground equipment tends to deteriorate pretty quickly, and a 50 year old slide sounds pretty dangerous. (The Conquering of the Slide is a fun story though, I might tell it sometime.)

So then we drove back. My mom had to get an ornament from San Francisco, so we stopped by Pier 39 again. I got a snow globe to add to my imaginary collection. (I was starting a collection a while ago, but half of them broke, so now I just have a snowman one, one from Chicago, and now one from San Francisco.) Then we got mini donuts because my youngest brother was upset about not getting ice cream. (It was 10:00, and 50 degrees.)

And that is the end of our vacation story.

Remember,

La vie est courte, mais elle est large.

Now we are in San Francisco. I got these cool San Francisco notebooks from an Alcatraz gift shop. So obviously we went to Alcatraz. That was a little creepy, honestly. Especially the "dark isolation cell block D" cells. There were also a lot of seagulls. My mom recorded them, and might be planning to use the recording as her ringtone. (I can see that being SO annoying in the future.)

We also went to pier 39, where there is a bunch of stuff (stores and restaurants and things). Yesterday, we went to this place that had a bunch of old arcade and pier games, which was really cool. There were fortuneteller machines, racing games, strength testers, pinball machines, etc. It was all pretty cool.

My parents have these fancy pedometers, and we walked about 17,000 steps and 69 flights of stairs. (San Francisco has WAY too many hills.) So now I'm kind of exhausted, and we're just relaxing and watching TV. Right now, I'm watching something with John Green on it. At our hotel, they don't tell you the actual channel, they just say Comedy, Drama, Kids, Food, etc.

Speaking of John Green, I recently finished Paper Towns. I liked it, although the storyline was eerily similar to Looking for Alaska. 8/10.

So I'm kind of tired, and I'm going to stop writing now.

Apprécier les choses douces dans la vie. <3