Oh yeah. A link to Sketti can now be found in the links section... Because, hey, why not?

Today has been rather odd.

First of all, I managed to make it to school on time - early, even. This hasn't happened for about a month. And I even woke up late today. So that was odd occurrance #1.
Most of the school day was normal... I went to class, did work while zoning out (apparently getting extra sleep this weekend has done nothing to help my overall sleep deprivation), and somehow managed not to fall asleep. Until 6th hour, anyways. But that's study hall, so it really doesn't count. The only thing I'm worried about is sleeping through the bell someday and missing 7th hour. So if your in my Lit class and know I'm at school but am suspiciously absent from 7th hour, please go to the library and check the quiz bowl corner. I'll probably be passed out in the comfy chair, twitching and muttering in my sleep. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Track was okay; I managed to do 4 of the 6 200m runs we were supposed to do... By the end of the 4th, I was in so much pain that I felt like crying. My knees are evil... Even trying to do a cool-down jog was torture. The only thing that doesn't make me wince in pain is walking, but even that can make me ache, especially if I'm going up stairs. Gah. This annoys me. I feel weak -- everyone else was running through their pain (and I know they were in pain) and I just stumbled off to moan in my misery. Why can't I just suck it up and go on? Grrr.

Odd event #2: Driving home from track, trying to decide if I wanted to go to the car wash or not (My car is really dirty; I should wash it. It might rain tomorrow and the washing would be in vain; I should wait). Anyways, I was weighing the pros and cons of the issue, and all of the sudden, my nose began to bleed. Now, nosebleeds are not overly rare for me. If I'm especially stressed (which I think I am, somewhat, now) or if I've been blowing my nose a lot (which I actually haven't, lately) they are more likely. But usually I can tell when it's coming. A sort of 6th sense (HaHA! You can keep your ESP and visions of dead people, I have a tingly sensation in my nose that warns me that blood is about to flow!)... But this time, nothing. Just a sudden gush of blood... while I'm driving... Driving on what is probably the busiest street in this entire town, no less (not that that means a whole lot, but oh well). So I'm continuing to drive with one hand, since I'm in the middle lane and there's no way that I can get off the road or pull over or anything. My eyes are on the road, blood is running down my face and I'm forced to wipe it away with my hand until I can the random napkins that are stored in the pocket of the door. I finally get ahold of a napkin, and yes, I'm continuing to drive with a napkin clutched to my face as I attempt to stop the blood. I go through many napkins before I pull into my driveway and the blood finally eases up.

So the nosebleed was weird. Now for odd event #3 (and I promise it's not gross like the last one)...

I get home, grab a snack, and begin to skim the newspaper. The phone rings. I'm home alone, so I'm forced to answer it. It's for me. It's a person I haven't talked in what seems like ages. A ghost from the past, if you will. (Do you like how I delibrately avoid using actually names? It's rather enjoyable for me; I can never get accused of saying anything bad about someone, since I rarely refer to anyone directly... And I suppose I like being cryptic at times... But this time I'll be nice...) It's my ex-boyfriend, who moved away due to complex circumstances during the beginning of our relationship. We tried the long distance thing for awhile, but we eventually ended it. We haven't really kept in touch since then... So getting a call from him made me do a mental double-take. Anyways, we chatted for awhile, sort of skirting direct discussion of some of the decisions he's made in the past few months (Woohoo for sort of awkward converstions! They're great fun!)... It was nice to talk to him, though. I hope we actually manage to stay in touch this time.

I'm hoping that the oddness of the day is done. I have to go battle a mound of homework now, and I really don't want to have to cope with random weirdness at the moment. I think I've had enough for the day.

Hmm. It has come to my attention that some people have come up with some... uh... interesting assumptions based on my post from April 26th. So let's get some things cleared up:

I stayed up until 2 am on Thursday night/ Friday morning, working on my Lit paper because I had been too stubborn to ask for an extension. On Friday night, after the Junior/Senior reception, I got home at the respectable time of midnight. I was in bed by 12:30, and then proceeded to sleep for about 13 hours. This large block of uninterupted sleep is what made me so happy. I am usually sleep deprieved, and since I got less than 3 hours of sleep Thursday night, I was quite pleased to catch up on my rest.

If this extra information means nothing to you: yay for you, you most likely did not read into my post too far and come up with unfounded inferences.
If this extra information disproves some theory you had about what I did Friday night: really, you should have known better in the first place. Honestly. Good grief.

And hopefully this is the end of that.

As soon as I posted that last post, my mom wandered into the room and asked me if I was doing okay. Which reminded me of something I was going to post about.

As I mentioned before, I worked on sort of cleaning my room today. Which meant that I was isolated in my room (duh)... Which means I was not very sociable. I did not think this would be a problem, since it was at my mom's request that I was cleaning my room in the first place... (Believe me, I was more than willing to let the chore go ignored until June or so... It's a scary mess; it might eat me up and spit out my bones...) Anyways, throughout the day, my mom kept asking me if I was alright. I said yes, because, well, it was the truth. After the second time, I had to inquire why she was asking. Apparently it was because I was being so quite, or something. Which in itself is not odd, but I suppose I was being fairly talkative and outgoing yesterday (That's what being well-rested will do to you)... And then I went out, and then today I was more reserved. So she was afraid something had happened that had upset me, I guess.

Hmm. It's sort of nice to have a parent who's perceptive enough to know when things are awry... This time was a false alarm, but she's usually right. Though when she's right I don't always want to have to talk about it... It all depends. But it's nice to know that I have the option.

We're reading witness poetry in Lit class... Poetry by people who saw/experienced nasty things, like the Holocaust and revolutions and civil wars. Some of it's pretty depressing; the rest is very depressing. But I don't care, because most of it is also very good, and it's not like I'm a happy-go-lucky person anyways.

That said... I really liked this one portion of a poem... It's from Anna Akhmatova's Requiem...

Confess: I was prepared,
am somehow ready for the test.

So much to do today:
kill memory, kill pain,
turn heart into a stone,
and yet prepare to live again.

Yeah. So I like the whole depressing, twisted to do list aspect of it. I kind of wish my to do list looked like that. But no, it's boring... Homework, reply to email, clean room...

I actually did attempt to clean my room today. Or I forced the mess in the corner into a more contained area. Which is really all that can be expected unless I'm given a large block of uninterupted time (say, a week) to deal with it. I'm such a pack rat. It's really not good.

Track season is winding down. I haven't really done much, meet-wise, but that's okay. I suck and I know it. The head coach and the distance coach ganged up on me and a friend... We have to run the open mile tomorrow. *forced enthusiasm* Yay.

Hmm... I was just reading Bun-Bun's blog. It makes me happy to actually be able to put a face and voice and personality with most of the blogs I read now. I don't know why it makes me happy; it just does. I also don't feel quite so odd reading the blogs. Before they were just Claudia's friends that she had talked about. Now they're Claudia's friends that I've met and hung out with.

Sketti appears to be down at the moment. Surprise surprise. I wish it was more stable; it's so entertaining... And I did want to read some of the messages, see if anyone had replied to some stuff. But I suppose it will have to wait.

For some reason, I think there was something else I wanted to write... Ah yes, it was about my lack of social planning skills. Typical conversation with me is like this:

Friend: Hey, do you want to do something tonight?
Me: Sure.
Friend: So, what do you want to do?
Me: Um... I don't know...

At this point, the conversation usually dies. Because most of my friends also lack social planning skills. Or maybe we just have undeveloped skills, since there is nothing to do in my town. Either way, after the Junior/Senior Reception on Friday, my friends and I were standing in the high school parking lot trying to come up with something to do. We completely and utterly failed.
Other evidence that I have poor social planning skills: up until 4 hours prior to the dance, I had NO clue what I was doing beforehand. I was also half an hour late when I finally did figure out what I was doing. I have no idea what's going on for prom... And I really probably should have some thoughts on that. But no, no, I don't.

There's other stuff I should be working on as well, in addition to prom nonsense. Homework, geting ready for AP tests, and graduation stuff. The chances of me having to give a speech are looking pretty high. Gah. Public speaking in front of lots of people. I promise that I won't read from Dr. Suess's Oh, The Places You'll Go, or whatever it's called. Sure, it's a good book. But I think I've heard at least a few lines out of it at every single graduation I've attended. So yes, I think I shall be trying to avoid that cliche... And probably fall prey to another one. *shrug* Such is life.

I feel immensely well-rested. But I suppose that's what over 12 hours of uninterupted sleep will do for you. Especially if it's followed by another 2 hours of sleep. And I might have been able to go even longer if my father hadn't woken me up at 3:30. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I made up for staying up until 2 am the night before.

I am very happy.

I've decided that I don't really care enough about the Atlanta trip to write about it... My trip to California, though... It was great. Claudia, thanks again for letting me come... All of the people I met... You're all very cool and interesting and fun to hang out with... I hope to see you again. And that guy in the Milli Vanilli t-shirt riding the unicycle? Yeah, that was kind of odd... And to everyone in general: The music in the Cowboy Bebop movie is cool. Even if you don't like anime, see the movie just for the music.

I'm looking at Mama Cat's Livejournal, and she has posted a whole bunch of quiz results, so guess what you get now?


You are Tatyana from Tchaikovsky's "Eugene
Onegin"!
You're definitely a dreamer, and though you may
seem reserved you're actually a very warm and
passionate person. Unfortunately, not a lot of
people get to know the real you since you tend
to keep to yourself and your books. You love
deeply--just try not to get too crushed if
things don't work out.


Which DIVA are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


What Type of Sexy Are You? (with pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

I scored 86¼% on the classic 400 Point Purity Test!

Take the test here!

I was going to work on my Frankenstein paper, but it looks like I'll try to go to bed early instead... Yay.

I leave for California tomorrow... I have not packed anything yet... Gah... But it doesn't matter. Because I am going to California, and I will see Claudia tomorrow. So it doesn't matter that I'm really tired or that I have an English paper due a few days after I get back... I just don't care. I have been looking forward to this trip, and I will enjoy it.

I've been listening to the Chicago soundtrack, and I have one major question: what's up with the "squish" in "Cell Block Tango"?
At the opening of the song, and in the background throughout the remainder of the song, the murderesses say "Pop... Six... Squish... Uh-uh... Cicero... Lipschitz"... All of them relate to the murders. Fine, I understand that. But the "squish" goes with a woman who stabbed her husband with a carving knife. Squish is not a stabbing sound word. How about jab, rip, or even poke? Squish just doesn't make sense to me... Anyone have any explanation for this?

Moving on. Imagine this scenario: Someone is standing next to you. All of the sudden, they inhale deeply, turn to you, and say, "*sniff* Wow, you smell really nice." Am I wrong in saying this is a somewhat unusual compliment? Most people get a "You look nice today" or "Nice outfit" or something like that. Time and again, I get "You smell nice." It just strikes me as odd.
*sniff* But I do suppose it's true.

Oof. Track practice wasn't fun. It was a hard day, but I only ran some of the repeats. I just couldn't do it, for a variety of reasons. I haven't run since last Monday, so my legs were hurting... I'm sick, so I couldn't breathe very well at all... And a combination of me being dead tired and it being rather warm made me feel weak, like I was on the verge of blacking out. So yeah. I stopped running. I realize I'm a slacker and I should have just kept going and sucked up the pain and so on... But I didn't; I never do. For some reason I just don't see the point. I do that with other stuff, stuff I'm good at, like school - I'll stay up late to finish a paper, even if I'm exhausted. But I am well aware of the fact that I am not much of an assest to the track team, and what I do doesn't really matter. In a situation like that, it can be hard to motivate yourself to keep going when you feel like crap.

I want to write a bit about the Atlanta trip, but I don't think I'll do it now... I need to gather trash, do some homework, and get to bed at a decent hour. I lead such a thrilling life.

I made it through the music trip without any permanent emotional damage, I believe. I'll get around to relating some of the interesting experiences of the trip eventually... But not now. I'm tired... And I have to unpack some of my dirty laundry and get my stuff ready for school tomorrow and all that jazz. Which leads me to another note: I borrowed a friend's Chicago soundtrack (even though I haven't gotten around to seeing the movie yet) and now I have all the music stuck in my head. It's great fun.

I've missed my computer and the Internet quite a bit. It wasn't as bad as I had feared (I acknowledge the fact that I am indeed a computer junkie and Internet addict) but it's still very nice to be able to check my email again.

Off to bed now... In my own comfy bed... Yay!

Sketti.net lives! Right now it can only be accessed through skettinet.kicks-ass.org... And it's pretty slow... But you know what? No one cares. Because Sketti is back! Booyah! For the benefit of the people who read this who aren't familiar with Sketti (I'm thinking that's... um... One person (Claudia) and maybe a few others (mysterious individuals who I am unaware of)... (ooh, check out the parantheses inside the parantheses))... Uh, where was I? Skett, right. Sketti.net is a website/forum where a group of my friends post... It's been down for a year or so... Anyways, from an outsider's perspective, it's a lot of inane and odd posts/ramblings. Even from an insider's point of view it's pretty inane. But that's okay, because we don't have lives, and we really don't care. Booyah.

I leave for Atlanta tomorrow, and I won't be back until sometime late Sunday. It's highly doubtful that I will have any access to the Internet while I'm there, so the earliest I'll be posting again is most likely Monday. Sorry children, you'll just have to live without me. I'm pretty sure that you'll survive. If you can't, well... um... I feel sorry for you.

*sniffle* I'm not faring well. *sneeze* These allergies (I think it's allergies, anyways, not entirely sure) just came out of nowhere and have completely wiped me out. Sure, I've had a runny nose for awhile, but that's normal for me. Today I was hit with a constant drippy nose and impressively loud sneezes... My nose is red from the cheap school tissues, and my throat is sore... Blech. This sucks. I would love to just sleep the sickness away, but that's not really an option right now. Gah and yarg.

I finally got that annoying patriotism essay done. Thank goodness. If the guidance office calls me again and tries to hand me another application for some scholarship/award/whatnot, I'm tempted to be very ungrateful and just turn around and walk out the door. I won't actually do it, of course, but the idea sounds very nice.

I think I shall go sulk about being sick some more. *snuffle* It'll keep my mind off the packing I should be doing for the music trip to Atlanta.

The weather sucks. It's grey and rainy... It was hailing earlier, then it was sleeting, now I don't know what's going on. But it's gloomy, whatever it is.

I'm pretending to work on my essay on patriotism for the Exchange Club Student of the Year award/scholarship. Well, I suppose I actually am working on it. If having the document open and minimized counts as working. Hmm. I need to have it done tomorrow, or Tuesday at the absolute latest. Gah. Stupid topic, annoying length requirement, infurirating application... Darn you all.

I was looking through a college guidebook today, reading a bit about some of the schools my friends may be going to, in an attempt to make my procrastination look productive. Anyways, since I had the book out, I read Swarthmore's thing. The whole book is based on student surveys, so there are quotes scattered throughout, including the ever-so-delightful "Everyone here is more or less an opinionated weirdo. It's rather comforting." *grins gleefully* Is it any wonder I'm so happy to be going to this school? And it's becoming more real to me every day. Only a quarter of high school left, then this summer... Then off I go. I'm thrilled, even though I know that it will be a lot of work. I think part of the reason I'm so excited is that my brother was home for a few days over his spring break. He and a few of his friends were doing a road trip, and they crashed here for a bit. Talking to them was fun; the conversations were interesting and intelligent. It's people like that and the girls I met at WFC that make me eager to go to college, far away from most of my airhead high school peers. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.

Oh, random note. I am the proud almost-owner of a PDA. Woohoo! Yay for electronic organizing devices... Just what I need to fuel my already anal-retentive nature. Seriously, I think it will be useful. I'm constantly writing various notes down: things to do, movies to rent, books to read, reminders about random stuff... It'll be nice to have them all in a central location, as opposed to on bits of paper scattered all over the place. Plus it has Solitaire on it.

I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs. I get straight A's, I've never gotten a referral or detention. I've only been grounded once in my life (and it doesn't count for much, since my parents didn't inforce it... It was more of a threat to be grounded...) All in all, I am your standard "good girl". In light of this, people's apparent paranoia about me becoming pregnant strikes me as hilarious. The latest incident of this ever-growing fear? My English teacher. She had a dream the other night, and in the dream my boyfriend and I were in the teachers' cafeteria, just hanging out and talking with people. I was pregnant and not going to attend Swarthmore. Instead, both my boyfriend and I were going to the local community college and didn't seem to care too much. My teacher apparently woke up distaught... And I laughed hysterically when she told me about it. I find this whole thing amusing and strange. Why are people worried about this? And only with this current boyfriend, no others? *shakes head* It doesn't make sense to me...

I have a large amount of chemistry to go work on, but I don't really want to... Arg.

Ran in my first track meet of the year today... 400m in 74.3 seconds, got me 4th out of 7. I suppose it's alright... But there's definately room for improvement. I don't know if I'll be going to the meet on Saturday. I sort of want to go, but at the same time, spending the day lounging around at home sounds really nice. Yes, I know I am a lazy slacker at times. But hey, I think I more than make up for it with my overachiever tendencies in other areas. So it all evens out.

Off to battle the chem monster... Eek.

I'd just like to say that I adore the cross country boys. They made my day with their act in New Faces. It was hilarious, and also in tune (the latter being a definite improvement over last year)... Go guys!

I Am

Which tarot card are you?

Manifestation through will. Imagination, concentration, action. Spirit and Matter united.
A young man raises a doubly terminated wand in his right hand. The wand is held vertically, a tool for the unification of heaven and earth. His left index finger grounds this duality into creation drawing from the original chaos to bring into being the flowers of creation. His aura is shown as the horizontal figure eight, symbol of eternity, while about his waist is wrapped the serpen-cinture, the serpent devouring its own tail, another symbol of eternity. In front of him are the creator/magicians tools, wands, cups, swords and pentacles, symbolizing fire, water, air and earth.

Would say more, but I'm off to New Faces. Woohoo!

I am dead tired. I'm hardly able to stay awake... I have to go vote for school board stuff, then I'm going to take a nap.

I don't remember most of today. It's like I didn't actually live today... I can tell you sort of what I did, but it's just like me repeating a story that someone else told me. I remember little snippets, like little snapshots, of the day... And the rest is just a fuzzy unknown. It's rather disconcerting, not being able to recall what you did, not knowing what really happened and what you may have dreamt... I don't like it much at all.