Boom Flash

Yep, that's thunder and lightning and I don't get to watch it with my full attention because I'm studying. Suddenly raindrops, billions and billions of them! It's going to be hard to eventually sleep with all this racket. I may just pull an all-nighter. I gave you a bonus post when you thought you wouldn't hear from me until next month.  This is my Christmas gift for you. You can even open it early. Bye until January, for reals this time.

Why This Can't Possibly be Appendicitis

But first, the word of the day is agrarian. I'm not sure why. It's just the first word that popped into my head. I won't even bother to define it because I feel like my stomach is trying to commit suicide. It hurts like it did when I had appendicitis. There's the reason that this can't possibly be appendicitis: I had it before.  I got my appendix removed, so unless I had two appendixes (appendices?) and they just didn't tell me, this can't possibly be appendicitis.  I'm drinking a Sprite and hoping that it will help even a little bit. I have to study because my finals are both tomorrow. I need to be able to concentrate and this pain is making it very difficult.  Not that studying really helps since I have test anxiety and forget everything that I studied anyway.  At least if I study before the test, when I forget everything, I at least know that I know it and just can't remember. This is me signing off until January. I'll be back if my stomach doesn't explode or spontaneously combust or eat itself.

Magically Delicious

I just called the post that because I'm eating Lucky Charms. The word of the day is ephemera. It means something transitory or short-lived.  I just think it's a cool word. I stayed up until 4:00 in the morning studying. I feel pretty accomplished.  I also watched Let Me In, and it was amazing! Seriously, 10 out of 10 stars.  I don't even know what to say about this movie other than watch it! I don't want to give anything away at all, so I won't say anything else about it.  After Let Me In, I decided to watch Let the Right One In, since it's the film that Let Me In remade.  It was atrocious. I couldn't even make it through 20 minutes before I turned it off.  This could just be because of the fact that it wasn't originally in English, but I think it would have still been pretty bad even if it was. Let the Right One in gets 1/2 out of 10 stars, only because I would feel really mean for giving it 0.  If you want to watch a fantastic film that wasn't originally in English, I highly recommend Au Revoir Mis Amis. It is an amazing movie about the Holocaust. Another one that I give 10 out of 10.  So that's all I have to say. I'm going to go study some more so I will be prepared to rock my finals.

I Stumbled Upon this during a study break and immediately thought of the TASG so I'm sharing it with you now. I can't find any way to embed the video, so here's a link. Creep with Dolls. Enjoy.

New Design

The word of the day is revamp. It means the same thing as overhaul. Did you ever watch that show Overhaulin'? I love that show. I love hearing all the stories they tell the people about what happened to their vehicles. Anyway, as you may have noticed, I revamped my blog yesterday. I finally figured out how to use my own artwork.  I think it's looks awesome personally. What do you think? I am also going to make a banner for the top, but I haven't had time yet.  I am studying today, which brings me to my next point. I am going home on Tuesday.  I won't write any blog posts while I am home. I am really looking forward to spending time with family, so I am not going to hole up in my room, which is where I can get the neighbor's wi-fi.  I hope you won't miss me too much. I will be back January 3rd.  If you are bored, read my old blog posts, or comment on stuff, or read the other blogs on my blog list. They are all very entertaining.  I'll miss you guys. Hopefully I'll have some great stories and pictures to share when I come back. This is just a warning. I will be posting on Sunday and Monday, but I'm telling you now so you can come to terms with the fact that I won't be around for a while.

An Old Friend

The word of the day is arachibutyrophobia.  Don't even try pronouncing that one.  It means either: A. the feeling that somehow, somewhere, a duck is watching you, B. the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth, C. the fear of getting bitten(bit?) by a spider, D. the fear of Spiderman, or E. none of the above.  So, which one do you think it is? Leave your answer in a comment and don't cheat and look it up. That's no fun.

Today I saw an old friend, or rather an old acquaintance.  He is a friend of my best friend and we have run into each other a few times.  I hadn't seen him since last year.  It was nice to see that he isn't quite as awful at talking to girls now.  Last time I saw him the conversation went almost exactly like this.
Me: Hi John.
Him: I have a cactus. (He was holding a cactus.)
Me: Oh, well that's nice.
Him: I wanted to get a plant to make my dorm room cooler and cactuses are hard to kill.
Me: That's true. See ya.
Yep, that was it. Today I was waiting for my ride after class and I was reading my book when I heard someone say my name.  I looked up and saw John.  He asked if I needed pushed anywhere in my wheelchair and I told him thanks, but I'm just waiting for my ride.  He asked if I've had an MRI or anything to find out what's wrong.  We talked some more and exchanged phone numbers. He told me I could call any time I want to talk.  I might call and see if he wants to hang out some time.  I really like hanging out with H, but I don't want to annoy him by asking him to hang out with me all the time.  I get tired of being by myself all the time, so it would be nice to have another friend to watch movies and play cards with.  He's a really nice guy too.  I am running low on friends at the moment. I have H and Jessica, and now John. Also, my new roommate is my friend but I don't want to be clingy and annoying and make her hang out with me all the time.  I consider you guys who read my blog regularly my friends as well, but I can't exactly call you to come hang out, since you don't live in Seattle.

Here's some random pictures of me from last year.

 The time a dragon almost ate me in a toy store.

That's not a smile, it's an expression of pure agony.

 Me taking a picture of myself, obviously.

Not trying very hard to not fall off a log.

I didn't fall off the log though. I have astounding balance.

That's all. I have to go take a nap now. I'm tired.

OCD and Laundry

But before my riveting story about my OCD, here's the word of the day. It's lacuna, meaning a blank space or missing part.

I'm not sure if I told you this, but I have obsessive compulsive disorder.  Because of this, it takes me a really long time to fold laundry.  I have to do it in the same order every time and I have to fold everything the exact same way every time.  Everything has to be perfectly lined up.  I always fold my jeans first, then long sleeved shirts, then short sleeved shirts, then tanktops, then underwear and socks. I fold my towels last.  When I say that everything has to be perfect, I mean that it takes about two minutes to fold a shirt satisfactorily.  I fold and unfold everything multiple times until it's just right.  Some people who have OCD feel like something very bad will happen if they change their routine.  I used to feel like this when I was little.  Now, if I change my routine, it makes my head hurt and I can't think straight or pay attention until I fix whatever it was.  I am a picture straightener and a germophobic.  I wash my hands and use hand sanitizer so much that my skin gets really dry.  I wash my hands and use sanitizer at least twice an hour.  I used to take two showers every day, but now that my legs are paralyzed, I am lucky to take one.  After I set my alarm clock before I go to bed, I have to check it about 5 times to make sure that it is set for the correct time and AM not PM.  This might just seem overcautious, but I set the alarm, check it 5 seconds later, set it down, pick it up and check again, about five times.  The weird thing is that when I think about it, I know that this behavior makes no sense.  My clock will not change itself 2 seconds after I set it down.  That doesn't happen.  I know that it is silly and ridiculous, but if I don't do it, it makes my mind foggy.  When I was younger, I had to put things into my laundry basket three separate times.  After I changed, I had to separate everything into three piles and then put them into my laundry basket one pile at a time.  I am not sure why I did this, but I felt like something very bad would happen if I didn't.  It had to be three, no more, no less.  If I only had one thing to put in the laundry basket, I would put it in, then take it out, then put it in again two more times.  I never told anyone about this.  I guess that even then I knew it was kind of crazy and that it didn't make sense.  I got over the laundry thing, but there are other things now.  This next part will probably sound really crazy, so let me explain something first.  Part of OCD is the routines that you have to do, but another part is in your head.  Sometimes you think thoughts that you don't want to be thinking but you can't help it.  I don't hear voices.  I'd like to make that clear.  Sometimes, I will see a complete stranger and feel the urge to hurt them.  When this happens, I have to just keep walking and try to think of something else.  The feeling goes away after a little bit.  Back before my legs were paralyzed, when I was able to walk to class by myself, I had to walk across what I call the skybridge.  It is a pedestrian overpass that goes above the road.  Multiple times I have thought of jumping off it.  This is really frightening, because I cannot stop thinking it and I just have to walk in the middle and get down the stairs as fast as I can.  Don't worry, I don't want to kill myself.  This thought just comes into my brain sometime and it's hard to ignore.  It completely terrifies me because I'm afraid of heights, and the skybridge is really high up.  At first, I was scared to even walk across it.  I definitely do not want to jump off it.  (I have learned that this is an actual thing that happens to people and not just me.  It's called l' appel du vide.)

And also, if you want to watch a movie about someone who's way more messed up than me, watch Ginger Snaps Unleashed.  It is seriously messed up.  That's all I'm going to say, other than I feel sorry for Brigette and I liked Ghost, until the end.  Ghost reminds me of Luna Lovegood, and Luna Lovegood is my favorite character on Harry Potter.

And also, H came over and watched a movie with me last night.  We watched the Blues Brothers.  He is so nice.  He makes it really hard for me to be okay with being just friends, but I managed to not try to hold his hand or lean my head on his shoulder.  He wants to be just friends, so I don't want to scare him away.

I'm a pirate!

Recently I realized that when I am in a quiet enough space and using my crutches, I sound like a pirate with a pegleg. I am very pleased with this discovery. Except that now one of my crutches squeaks, and a squeaky peglegged pirate just isn't as cool as an ordinary peglegged pirate.

Since I'm a pirate, I picked a piratey word of the day. It's swashbuckling. I refuse to explain this word, if you don't know it shame on you! Get off my blog this instant! Wait, no, come back I was kidding. Don't leeeaaavvve meee!

If you are still here, then you get to read this next part. It's a movie reviewish type thing. I watched this movie last night called Ginger Snaps. It is a Canadian werewolf movie. I loved it! And there are two more movies in the series, which I am looking forward to, even though I've heard that they aren't as good. Actually, let me clarify, I loved all of it except the end. It left me with a lot of questions which will hopefully be answered in the second one. I really like movies where girls do really bad things like murdering people, but it makes you question something. Another movie like this is Hard Candy. It is about a girl confronting a child predator. I highly recommend it as well. Hard Candy is interesting because the guy ends up finding out that little girls on the internet can lie just as much as men, and be just as dangerous. Ginger Snaps is interesting because it relies a lot on choices, and shows how your choices can change everything for better or worse. It's hard to write about the movie without giving anything away, so that's all I'll say about it. Ginger Snaps gets 9 out of 10 stars. It would have been 10 if the ending didn't leave me with so many questions. I am really looking forward to watching Let Me In. It's definitely this type of movie as well. If you have seen Let the Right One In, it's basically that movie but with different actors, as far as I've heard. I want to watch Let Me In before Let the Right One In, because Let Me In stars Chloe Meretz, one of my favorite actresses. Another movie along these lines that I recommend is called The Bad Seed. It's an old movie in black and white, but it's really good. It makes you think about the nature or nurture debate.

Look at this picture I took!

And look, it's my face!

Goodbye now, I have to go fold my laundry.

Ego Sum Eriditio Latin

That says "I am learning Latin." I am, but so far that is all I've learned. Also, there's some stuff I already knew like cogito ergo sum, e pluribus unum, carpe diem, and memento mori. I haven't learned the sentence structure yet, so the title of this post is probably horribly grammatically incorrect.

The word of the day is bamboozle. It means to deceive or get the better of someone by trickery, flattery, or the like. This word is just so cool. It sounds so much cooler than bamboo and yet it also sounds a lot cooler than puzzle. It is even cooler sounding than bedazzle.

My new roommate is still awesome. Andrew is her boyfriend. I couldn't tell at first and Facebook was no help but yesterday I found out. They are such a cute couple! Andrew is really good at doing accents and different voices. They even let me tag along when they went down for dinner, since I have been living off things that I can cook in my microwave. They are really cool people. I have decided not to change rooms. It isn't really necessary since I'll be getting a narrower wheelchair over Christmas break and that was the main issue.

Here's an adorable picture of a panda for your enjoyment. Pandas are just so cute and better than cats or dogs in my opinion. My best friend's nickname is Panda. She's awesome.

Doesn't it just make you say awwwwwwww?

And here's a video. Don't you just hate it when your shadow rebels? I know I do.

The video isn't letting me embed it properly, so if you want to laugh, click the link. Math Teacher Shadow Trick During Lecture

New Roommate

She's pretty cool. She has a lamp that's the same as my hat lamp, without the stylish hat shade. Her favorite color is green like me and she has this cool friend named Andrew, who is really smart and interesting and nice who hangs out a lot.  She likes using StumbleUpon for entertainment just like I do. She also likes the same kind of music as me. She's super courteous and asks before putting her stuff in the fridge and inviting her friends over, which I don't mind that stuff, but it's really considerate of her. All in all, I think she's a keeper.

The word of the day is banter.  It means an exchange of light, playful, teasing remarks. The word sounds cool and I love to hear banter, especially when it's witty.

That's all for today. I'm going to go take a nap now.

Also, I got this Statcounter thing yesterday to get more information about what people view on my page and if they click my links and stuff, but I think it's broken, because it says that I only have 2 views, but the Google Stats thing says that I've had 19 views so far today.

What's new

I have a new roommate. She seems nice. My old roommate switched places with her because each of them had friends in the other's building that they visited all the time and it was about a 20 minute walk to go there.  I will probably be getting a more accessible room sometime soon. I have a meeting set up.

The word of the day is penumbra. The definition of it that I like best is a shadowy or indefinite region. The word just sounds really cool in my opinion.

I would like to talk about my nerdy anti-social behaviors.  I am pretty much on my computer all day long, except when I'm in class or reading a book.  I have lots of things that I like to do on the computer. For one, I like to write a new blog post every day and read everyone else's new posts.  I like to watch movies illegally.  I like to download photoshop brushes and find fun photoshop tutorials. Yes, I am a design nerd.  I also like to find cool pictures, because I really hate having the same desktop wallpaper for more than a week. I usually change it about every 4 days.  I have recently discovered the match color tool in photoshop and have become quite enamored with making my photos look more surreal or stormy or vibrant. I also learned how to create vectors by tracing photos. This is still a slow process for me, so I haven't actually finished a vector yet. I am currently working on making a Converse shoes vector for a shirt I'm designing.  There's another nerdy hobby. I love Threadless.com. I never buy anything but I like to design and critique and get critiqued and score submissions and try to enter contests but never finish on time. Okay, confession time, I like to play computer games.  I like pretty much any type of computer games but my favorites are point and click. These are often escape the room games but sometimes there are other storylines. I'm not sure what I love so much about these games, but I could play them all day. I used to play Runescape. I forgot my password and never made a new account. I like to play pretty much any kind of computer game, so if you have one that you really like, feel free to share it with me.

In case you are not yet convinced of my nerdery, I will inform you that I can solve a Rubik's cube in under 3 minutes. I also have a Rubik's pyramid that takes a little longer to solve. I know how to say hello and/or goodbye in English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish. I am teaching myself Latin. I know basic HTML.  I read novels for fun. I also do Sudoku and Kakuro and crosswords for fun, though not as often anymore. I enjoy doodling Mario and Pacman and Zelda. I also enjoy playing all of those. I really enjoy RPG games such as Golden Sun and Final Fantasy. I also like Halo, even though I'm really bad at it. I can play the Legend of Zelda main theme on my flute. I can the main Mario Bros. song on my flute, guitar, and keyboard. I used to collect Yugioh cards but my brother traded them all to a friend for some video game and I was really mad.

In conclusion, I am a nerd and proud of it, for the most part.

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tired. so tired. can nap after class. word of day is traipse. i think that's a word. sleepy.

Happy December!

The word of the day is savvy. It's the only word in the English language with two v's in a row.

In case you didn't notice it's December.  I went back to class today. I finished the first one this morning and I have one more this afternoon.  The driver who brought me to class was really nice and helpful. The one who brought me back was annoyed with my poor steering skills.  Some people are really judgmental. When I got to class, I wasn't sure where to sit so I wouldn't be blocking the aisle and I said that I had no idea where to sit. This one girl just said in a rude tone, "Just sit wherever you want" and then after I parked my chair at the front of the class which just happened to be across from the rude girl, she got up and moved.  I was pretty offended.  Just because I'm in a wheelchair, that doesn't mean I'm not human. It's not like it was my choice to be in a wheelchair.  Surprisingly enough, I would much rather be able to walk.  Hopefully the people in my next class are less judgmental and rude.  I made this awesome student driver sign that I put on my wheelchair. Here's a picture:

As the snow falls

Yep, it's snowing again while I'm writing this, hence the super-creative title.  Too bad it's not going to stick.

The word of the day is somnambulate. It means sleepwalk.

This post is going to be kind of weird and before I start, I'd just like to say that I don't do drugs.
Sometimes I wonder if dreams are actual places that we go to. At least I used to wonder that, before my family, my friends, and myself started being brutally murdered in my dreams.  The other thing I wonder is if our entire life is just a dream we are having, only we don't realize it, because you usually don't realize that you're dreaming during a dream unless you have lucid dreams.  I wonder if when people die, they're really just waking up from this dream and living their real life.  I know that that's not true, but it's kind of nice to think about when someone dies like they're just waking up instead of they're going to sleep forever.  Of course, as a believer in God, I also believe in Heaven and Hell, so I know that people don't just rot in a coffin forever after they die.  Their souls go on to live or die forever.  Thinking about eternity gives me a headache.  It's so hard to imagine anything actually lasting forever, probably because we are used to things not lasting. We even have a saying that all good things must come to an end.  As humans, the only thing that remains constant in our lives is change.  The concept of anything lasting forever is impossible to comprehend.  I just know that I'd much rather spend forever in Heaven than in Hell.

Wow, that was a pretty intense subject.  To end, I'd like to tell you about this really awesome charity.  It's called Free Rice.  You don't even have to give them any money and you can help feed starving people around the world.  If you'd like to help, go to http://www.freerice.com/.  The main way of donating is a vocabulary quiz.  You can choose other topics though, including art, Spanish vocabulary, and science.  It's a really great way to study for class, especially if you're in chemistry and trying to learn the abbreviations of the elements.  Based on the number of questions you get right, they donate a certain number of grains of rice to starving people.

Here's a completely unrelated picture:

And here's a completely unrelated video:



In other news, did you know that while a Youtube video is loading and there's those white dots in a circle, if you pause it and press the down arrow on your keyboard, you can play Snake? Try it, it's awesome.  You can also pause and do it while your video is buffering partway through.

Words

Today's post is about words, and more specifically about words that are fun to say. Let's face it some words are more fun to say than others. It's just a fact. I've decided to start some sort of word of the day type thing at the beginning of my posts. This is an introduction. The word of the day will be a word that I have fun saying. It might be partially made up, but based on a real word, such as today's word, which I'll be getting to in a little bit.  Words that end in the letter y are often fun to say, but not if preceded by a vowel. I'm not sure why I felt the need to write that last bit, but that's how I feel, so blam! I wrote it.  Sound effect noise words are also fun to say. These are technically called onomatopoeia, but that word's hard to pronounce and it's not fun to say either. And I'd just like to take this next few sentences to discuss how British phrases sometimes sneak into my vocabulary. I am not British. I have never even been out of the US. I do not have any close friends who are British, but somehow I use some British terms. For example, earlier in this post, I said "that last bit". That's a fairly British term and I have never even heard anyone with an American accent say it except for me. Yesterday, I was having Bible study with my friends, and I said that something was spot on. They didn't even know what I said, and I had to translate it into awkward American terms of "exactly correct". I don't even remember ever hearing anyone say spot on, but I must have. I just know it's British and it's a good phrase to have in your arsenal.  (See what I did there? British. Arsenal. Haha)

Without further ado, the word of the day is................................................................drum roll please......
FRIPPEROUS! I know what you're saying, that's not a real word, you made that up! Well, actually you're spot on. I did make that word up. However, it is based on an actual word. This word is frippery. I swear to you frippery is a real word. While it is fun to say, frippery is really hard to use in a sentence. It's just awkward to incorporate into conversation. Frippery means an "article worn for show: a showy item of clothing or an adornment worn for display or effect". To use it in a sentence: Your shutter shades are full of frippery and your entire ensemble is pretentious.  Awkward sentence right? Right. So to solve this problem, frippery needed to have an adjective form. After trying out fripperful, friptastic, and friptabulous, my roommate came up with fripperous. It was an obvious winner because it's so fun to say! Example sentence: Those shutter shades are fripperous and so is your so-called ironic t-shirt. Simple correct? Yes, it is quite simple. So, to make this an actual word, actual people need to use it. So, readers, as actual people, please start using fripperous in conversation. When you discuss hipsters, instead of calling them pretentious, call them fripperous. Lauren, please do not be offended by this. I do not consider you a hipster. You don't think that everyone is beneath you and you don't listen to bands that don't even exist yet. You are not fripperous, you are stupendously amazingly awesome.

It doesn't get much more fripperous than this

So, go forth and use fripperous in your conversation. Use it in your blogposts even! I leave you with this video by the hilarious Brian Regan, in which he discusses the confusing nature of the English language. Enjoy.

Getting important stuff done

For reals this time. My 7 page paper is due tomorrow and I haven't started yet. In my favor, I planned to start it last night after a power nap, but I mixed up am and pm on my alarm, so I woke up this morning at 7.  I am going to go study with some friends today and I will conquer this paper.  I did revise my 2 page paper yesterday. I know, right? I'm so productive.

blah (again)

I woke up this, um, morning (okay it was 1:00 in the afternoon) and found out that I am sick. Like the I feel like I shouldn't eat anything because my stomach is not happy kind of sick. Not only that, but remember how yesterday I vowed to do important things? Big surprise, didn't happen. I procrastinated. It doesn't even seem like a good idea when I do it. I know it's a bad idea but I do it anyway. Well, the good news is I discovered this hilarious TV show called Raising Hope. The bad news is that today I am sick and all I want to do is sleep, yet I must revise one paper and start writing another. And I actually have to do it today, for reals this time. I will not allow myself to go mildly insane after putting this off until tomorrow. So with that, here's a picture of one very "important" thing I accomplished yesterday.

It's like a Rubik's cube only it's shaped like a pyramid. This thing practically screams importance.

My Thoughts of Today

I woke up at 2:00 in the afternoon. I realized I'm pretty sick. I vowed to actually get important stuff done today. I went on Facebook and watched my friend's 9 minute long video of him doing magic tricks. I commented on said video. I went to check out my blog. Okay, now this is the actual thoughts part: I got a new follower! (Hello Drew. Thanks for following me.) I went to the blog updates to see who wrote new blog posts that I had to read before I get stuff done. More thoughts: Wait a second, why does that say Friday? Today's Thursday, right? Wrong. Today is Friday. That's why so many of my friends on Facebook have statuses about Black Friday shopping. What happened to Thursday? I swear yesterday was Wednesday. I'm so confused. Oh no, that paper I've been procrastinating is due today! Why is it due on a day we don't have school and most people are gone? Checks syllabus, okay it's due on Monday. But I'm still going to get important stuff done today, right after I read everyone's latest blog posts. I'm pretty sad about losing my Thursday. If you guys find it, could you please return it to me? Thanks.

I'm going to see what people Google the most.  Apparently it's: cyber monday deals 2010, auburn alabama game, iron bowl, auburn vs. alabama 2010, turkey soup recipe, turkey pot pie, kay jewelers, lil kim black friday, fingerhut, alabama football, amazon promotional code, jcpenny, plastic jungle, auburn university, amazon coupons, lil kim disses nicki minaj, jcp, college football, west virginia football, express coupons. Seriously people? Your searches are boring. You should really search for more interesting things like how to escape from raptors on hoverboards, where to buy the cheapest jetpacks that still work well, how to travel back in time and fix your mistakes, buried treasure, how to get more people to visit your blog, what to do when you're bored and all you have is the internet, Twilight sucks. Although I am relieved that there weren't any top searches for funny cat pictures. Kudos to you for that Google searcher people. Okay, I'm just going to hope that the new viewers to my blog will be here because of my awesome made-up search terms and not the semi-lame ones that people are actually searching for. I'm sorry people, but if you are one of those popular search searchers, you probably won't enjoy my blog, although I have discussed football once. Farewell, regular blog viewers and especially you people who follow me. If you're out of ideas on how to procrastinate, feel free to comment on every single one of my blog posts. Seriously, I won't mind and I did it to pretty much all of the people I follow, so return the favor. Seriously, I love comments and I don't get a whole lot of them.

Lastly, I would like to give shout-outs to the countries that seem to enjoy my blog the most. United States is number 1 with 447 views. Next, Denmark and India are tied with a total of 7 views. Canada and Thailand each have 4. Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore all have 3. Germany has 2. Finland has 1. I love Finland! Why don't you love me back? Seriously, you're my favorite country and I want to visit you. I think I need to appeal more to my international audience. I have a lot of other countries with only 1 view, so I think I need to figure out a way to get them coming back. I think that I'll try to target the United Kingdom first because there are a lot of people there who can read English. I hope that that last bit didn't offend anyone. I really would like to appeal to more people. I want my blog to be about things that other people can sometimes relate to, no matter what country they're from. That's my goal, and it appears that so far, I'm not really accomplishing that. I think I should also have more cool pictures in my blog for people who don't speak English. Here are some pictures that I really like:

For the record, these pictures don't actually belong to me. They are from this awesome social networking picture sharing site thing. You don't even have to have an account to browse through the pictures and making an account is free. Okay, that's all today. Be sure to tune in again tomorrow, same channel, probably a different time.

First Thanksgiving without Family

I woke up this morning and then my parents called to tell me Happy Thanksgiving. I went downstairs to get some breakfast and found out the cafeteria is closed. I am out of breakfast type foods in my room. I am thankful for my roommate, because she always encourages me to help myself to her food. I am now eating a bowl of her cereal with her milk. I am thankful that she gets good cereal. Later, not sure what time, my friend will be picking me up and we'll go over to another friend's house and eat soup and watch Harry Potter. I'm thankful I have friends to spend today with. My main goal for today is to somehow get a piece of pumpkin pie. Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. If you are able to spend it with your families, make sure to give them hugs and tell them you love them.

This should be something descriptive about the post

I decided to save some brain power by not coming up with an actual title. Why, you ask. Well, it's really a funny story, that actually isn't funny at all but I'm just saying that so maybe you'll keep reading. I have a final paper due on Friday. That's right Friday, as in two days from now. Somehow it managed to completely slip my mind, but luckily for me the professor emailed something related to it yesterday which caused me to instantly remember. It is 7-10 pages and I can't believe I forgot about it. Usually I get these things done about a week ahead of time. So that's what I'll be doing today. And it's not like I have anything better to do. The roads are like ice rinks, so going home is totally out of the question. My legs worked all day yesterday, giving me some false hope that maybe they were better for now. This hope was swiftly murdered when I woke up this morning and my legs didn't work at all. Oh well, at least now I won't be tempted to go play in the snow, or do my dishes, or wash my laundry. I can just focus all my energy on this paper and get it done.

Things didn't quite go as planned yesterday

First, since it's almost Thanksgiving, I am thankful that my throat doesn't feel like it's commiting suicide today. So remember how I went to yesterday's neurologist appointment even though I was kind of sick? And rememeber how there was a little bit of snow in the morning? Well after my friend left to take me to my doctor appointment, the little bit of snow must have bored all by itself so it invited a bunch of snow friends and some ice and had a party. I made it to my appointment 40 minutes late and the appointment lasted all of 5 minutes. The doctor decided that I should see someone else. Haha, when I put it like that, it sounds like he broke up with me. Anyway, he wants me to see someone from my school's medical department because we have a big hospital and state of the art equipment and stuff. My amazing friend had left to get us sandwiches. I texted her that I was done and she said she was on her way. About 30 minutes later, she texted that she was stuck in traffic. The office was closing so I hobbled down to the main lobby and waited there. I had managed to arrive at my appointment at 4:00. I left at 6:45. I found out that my friend had almost died on multiple occasions slipping on the ice. There was this really nice old lady who had been waiting for her ride since 3:00 and when I left, she was still there. I hope she got home okay. By the time we made it back, Thanksgiving dinner was over and everyone was leaving, but my friend got me a huge plate of leftovers. All of the pumpkin pie got eaten though, so I didn't get any. I came back to my dorm and ate some delicious Thanksgiving dinner and watched the 5th Harry Potter again. Then I had some hot chocolate. Then I went and talked to strangers on Omegle. Guess what, people still use that and not all of them are jerks! Sometimes I go chat with people there when I'm bored. I ended up finding this really nice guy and we had a long conversation. Then he had to get ready for class, but we exchanged e-mails. He seems like a really cool guy. I would add him on Facebook, but I have this rule where I never add anyone I don't know in real life. I went to bed at 5:30 in the morning. Classes are canceled today because of snow and ice and Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow, but it is highly probable that I won't be able to go home. It is normally a four hour drive but in these conditions it would be more like 12 hours, risking my life the whole way. It's kind of disappointing but can't be helped. I hope my legs decide not be paralyzed today. It hasn't happened for a month, but I can still hope. I want to play in the snow. A whole bunch of people stole cardboard out of the recycling and are sledding on it. Plus, snowball fights are awesome, but difficult with paralyzed legs. And then I still don't have gloves.

It Snowed!!!

Chapter One: I woke up at 12:00 in the afternoon today and discovered three things. Number one, it snowed. There is about an inch of it, but apparently in Seattle, that is enough to get classes canceled and make people freak out about driving. Number two, I am sick again. My throat feels like I tried to become a sword swallower and fire breather at the same time and failed at both. I won't go into details about the stuff I've been coughing up. Number three, I don't have mittens or gloves here. I have at least six pairs at home, but somehow I didn't manage to bring any to college.

Chapter Two: I am sick but I am still going to my neurologist appointment today. I wouldn't except that I'm pretty sure that I caught this from the doctor in the first place and I've been getting various degrees of better and worse ever since. Also, I want him to find out what's wrong with me.

Chapter Three: I am having Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of friends from church tonight. I am excited because I love any and all food that has not been cooked in the microwave, and when it's free it's even better. Plus almost all of my friends will be there and it will be a ton of fun.

Chapter Four: I learned how to make vector illustrations by tracing photos. The process actually isn't very difficult, but it is fairly time consuming. As a future graphic designer, this is a very important skill to have. Also now I won't have to feel guilty about using other people's free vector images in my designs because I can make my own. That might not mean a lot to you, but just know that it's really good.

That's all for today. I am going to eat my breakfast now. Yes it is 2:30 PM. Don't judge me.

How I spent my day

I watched football with a bunch of guys. We watched two games at once and the Seahawks and Colts both lost. The Colts almost made a comeback but the Patriots intercepted the ball and it was all over. After that, I went to a baby shower. Oh yeah, after church this morning it was snowing a little bit and I got super excited but was also very cold. The snow didn't stick but I enjoyed watching it fall.

Classes

I registered for some, well two actually. I need to register for one more but everything seems so boring. I have decided that I want to learn Latin, but that class is full. It's not even sensible for me to learn Latin, not even a little bit. Latin is a dead language, which means that nobody speaks it as their main language anymore. Basically, the only reason that I want to learn Latin is that my strange brain thinks it would be really cool. I don't even know what I'd do with it after I learned it. I certainly wouldn't sit around reading classics in the original language. I guess the only purpose of knowing Latin would be so that when I'm meeting large groups of people and we go around and introduce ourselves and share a fun fact, mine could be that I know Latin.

I Get to Go to Classes!

Believe me, that's something I never thought I would be excited to say, but sitting on my bed all day is starting to become boring. The Disabled Resources for Students people finally decided to help me, so I'll be going to classes again starting Tuesday. Today I have to make up a midterm and Monday I have a doctor's appointment. But Tuesday I will be back in class struggling to stay awake and doodling in my notebook just like old times! And I only have two classes now. I think I mentioned that I dropped one. These two remaining classes are both History and History is by far my weakest subject, but I'm still excited to go back. Yay! I'm doing excited cartwheels in my head right now because my paralyzed legs make them hard to do in real life. Adios.

P.S.? I won't be getting to the Twilight review thing yet this week, because quite honestly watching Twilight is not high on my list of priorities. Sometime in the future  I will watch it and then make a list of why it's so horrible.

P.P.S.  I'm probably never going to watch Twilight, but if I ever do, I will review it.

Study study study: A Haiku

Study study stu-
dy study study study
study study learn

If you can't tell by my riveting poem, today I will be studying a lot, because I have a makeup midterm tomorrow that I may or may not be able to get to. It's in History of Modern Japan.

Assorted Happenings

This morning I accidentally poked myself in the eye really hard trying to brush hair out of my eyes. It hurt really bad and got all watery.  I ate leftover chinese food for brunch at 1:00. I downloaded free Photoshop brushes. I designed shirts. I redesigned the shirts. I got accused of copying a girl's idea and then redesigned the shirts again. I saw a gorgeous sunset. I redesigned the shirts again. Well that's all. I have to go redesign some shirts now.

My Motivation for Procrastination

Today, I need to write a paper. It is only two pages long, double spaced and it is due at midnight tonight. This sort of assignment not only encourages procrastination, it practically requires it. You see, this assignment was given two weeks ago. That is correct, two weeks to write the rough draft of a two page paper. It should take me all of an hour to complete at the most. How could I have received this assignment and thought, "Oh, goodness, this is of utmost importance and must be completed immediately." I could not. There is no way a two page paper could be regarded as a priority. So today, I will write this paper while watching a movie on my other laptop. I'm not sure what movie yet. I find that using two laptops at once while sitting on my bed and curled up in a blanket is a pretty good way of getting warm. I will also design another T-shirt today. It will be a spin on the common crows sitting on a wire design. I'll let you guys know if it actually goes up for sale. That's all. Auf weidersehen.

Actresses

Up until a few years ago, you could have asked me who my favorite actress was and I wouldn't have a clue. I hadn't even heard of very many actresses. I described movies by what they were about and not who was in them. I still do that. People will ask me, "Oh, is so-and-so in this movie?" and I'll reply that I have no idea. Anyway, I now know who my favorite actresses are: Zooey Deschanel and Ellen Page. I also just found out about this girl named Chloe Moretz who seems pretty interesting. I was watching "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" today for absolutely no reason. It's an alright movie, I guess, good for wasting time. I'd give it 2 stars out of 5, certainly not fantastic or one I'd watch again. Anyway, Chloe Moretz was an actress in the movie. I'm not really sure yet whether I like her as an actress or I just liked her character, so I'll have to watch some more of her movies soon and figure it out. The one that I'm really looking forward to is called "Let Me In" and it's about a 250-year old vampire in a 13 year old girl's body. Chloe Moretz plays the little girl. The best part of the movie is that it's nothing like Twilight, which is good because I hate Twilight. I've never actually seen it and sometime I will actually torture myself by watching it so I can provide some sort of list of reasons that it's stupid and ridiculous. Maybe this week, so you can look forward to that. I haven't read the books either, but I have watched all of the "Alex Reads Twilight" videos on Youtube, so I have heard all of Twilight. It's poorly written and Bella is angsty and ridiculous.  Anyway, back to the topic of actresses, I guess that I like actresses who remind me of myself somehow. In "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" Chloe Moretz' character (I don't remember her name) is in middle school and she's one of the only kids not trying to be popular. She is comfortable being herself and at one point she says that girls she's known since Kindergarten won't even talk to her anymore. That was me in middle school, only I was shorter. I knew who I was and I wasn't going to pretend to be someone else just so people I didn't even like would like me. I feel like Ellen Page is sort of a younger version of Zooey Deschanel. I like them because they always play characters that are unique and quirky. I'm sort of quirky myself, even if I don't own a hamburger phone. I also really love the way they talk. It is the sort of witty banter that I expect from Gilmore Girls, a show which I love. I don't talk cool like that, but I like it when other people do. Well, I think that's all I wanted to say. I sort of just typed stuff as it came into my head, and sorry for the rant but I really do hate Twilight. Look for that anti-Twilight post sometime this week, probably. It promises to be scintillating. Au revoir mis amis (That's a really good movie by the way. It's in French but there's an English version. It's kind of sad because it's about the Holocaust)

Musings on Superpowers

When offered any superpower imaginable, why would anyone choose invisibility? How would that even be helpful as a superpower? I mean, I can understand that it would make it difficult for villains to find you, but how does it help you save people? I think that super strength would be a much more helpful superpower when it comes to saving people.  Either that or mind control, but you'd have to be careful or you might use that power for evil. Teleportation and flight would be pretty cool, but only really useful after you already saved someone and need to get out of there.

Decisions Decisions

If anyone cares, I did end up dropping my Physics class so I can focus on my other two classes. Still debating about Cornish. Filling out an application. I have to get some more scholarships if I go there because it costs more. That's it.

Prepare Yourselves...

...for a short and boring post. I stayed up last night until 4:00 for absolutely no reason and then slept in until 1:00 this afternoon. I started watching Lonelygirl15 on Youtube which I hadn't even heard about until a few days ago. I guess I'm out of the loop. Anyway, I know it's fake and everything but I can definitely see how people fell for it. And it's a really interesting show. So that's what I did until 4:00 in the morning yesterday. I didn't even make it through the first season. That show really makes you think about a lot of things. So today,well what's left of it anyway, I will be watching more of that as well as catching up on my other shows on Hulu.

I Am Very Frustrated

In case the title wasn't clear enough for you, I am very frustrated. Specifically with my neurologist. I had an appointment with him yesterday but he was out sick, so it got rescheduled for today. That is not why I am frustrated. I totally get being sick. It happens to me a whole lot more than I'd like, which is never, but I am sick most of the time. Anyway, the reason that I am frustrated is that I'm pretty sure that I figured out what's wrong with me that's making my legs paralyzed. I think it's a rare genetic condition called periodic paralysis. I printed out massive amounts of information on it for the doctor so he could see how much it corresponds to what I have and then test me for it. It's just a simple DNA test. This would be the ideal circumstances: Doctor says something about how this sounds like it's indeed periodic paralysis, tests me, yep I was right and that's what it is, tells his findings to my university, they finally help me with class stuff like getting me a notetaker since I can't get to class. Unfortunately, none of that actually happened. What ended up happening was this: I share my findings, Doctor explains how stupid I am to believe that I am at all correct, Doctor further explains why I'm wrong and backs this up with misinformed beliefs about the disease such as that it is caused by hyperthyroidism and my whole body would be paralyzed, Nurse takes vital signs, Doctor sets up appointment to observe me and test me again when I'm paralyzed, tells Receptionist that it's NOT URGENT so I get an appointment for November 22nd (Ya, sure Doctor, my legs don't work and it's really hard for me to even dress myself, but it's definitely not urgent, just take your time! Totally sarcastic, in case you didn't catch that.), blood gets drawn even though they just assume that I know I have to go downstairs to the laboratory and I sit there waiting for about 20 minutes and then they tell me after I finally ask. So that was my day. I'm going to try to find another doctor to give me a second opinion, or a first opinion really since I don't consider you-are-stupid-and-wrong-and-I-am-all-knowing an opinion. Yep, that's it, just me being frustrated. Feel free to proceed with your life.

A Fantastic New Product

Guess what everyone! I invented something, only not really! But I have a cool idea for a versatile and stylish product for your homes! Are you excited yet?! It's the Hat Lamp! I know, I know, you're thinking that this sounds completely ridiculous, but let me explain. It's a lamp but instead of a normal lampshade, there's a fully functioning hat! You can even use a hat that you already own. Then, the lamp will cost less than an ordinary lamp. The way it works is you put the hat over it instead of a lampshade. When you want to wear a hat, just remove it from the lamp and place it on your head. The downside is that you could be potentially blinded if you leave the lamp turned on while wearing the hat, so I would recommend that you have at least two hats. That way while you are wearing one, you can use the other as a lampshade. This makes it really simple to change the look of your lamp. Have you ever had an embarassing experience involving drunkenness and wearing a lampshade on your head? That won't be a problem with Hat Lamp. Nobody will notice that you are wearing a lampshade on your head! If you don't want to rush out and buy a Hat Lamp right now, I don't know what to say. You're really missing out on a great idea and a creative yet functional decorating solution.

The Hat Lamp in action

So I actually do think that this is a pretty cool idea. I have a lot of hats and one day I just put one of them on top of my desk lamp because the bed posts already had hats on them, and I thought it looked pretty cool. My lamp is pretty awesome. Not only is it my favorite color, it has storage in the base and an extra plug in that's perfect for my cell phone charger or my laptop. Fantastic. Add a hat and your lamp can be a hipster or a cowboy or Charlie Chaplin or a sports fan. Just for the record, I'm not a hipster, I just have a fedora but none of the ironic clothing or the better than everyone attitude.

I'm out of unique, some would say creative, ways to end posts, so goodbye.

There's nothing on TV

It seems like the number of really good TV shows has dramatically decreased since I was a kid. When I was really little, I enjoyed shows like Fraggle Rock, Under the Umbrella Tree, Duck Tales, and Gummi Bears. As I got a little older, there were The Amanda Show, All That, Kenan and Kel, Rocko's Modern Life (that was a seriously messed up show but I loved it), Ahhh! Real Monsters, Rocket Power, The Angry Beavers, and Tiny Toon Adventures (also a pretty messed up show). There were so many good shows! I don't know why they all died off. Now, pretty much the only good shows, in my opinion, are Bones, The Office, Modern Family, The Middle, Life Unexpected, and Survivor. You may think that I forgot about Glee, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, or Gossip Girl, but I assure you that I did not. I was listing good shows, and as far as I'm concerned those ones do not qualify. There is such a disturbing lack of quality television nowadays that I can't understand why anyone would pay for it. I prefer Hulu, but you already knew that.
Now stop procrastinating and go do important stuff.

Throw away your television

Don't actually do that. If you are actually going to get rid of your television, at least try to sell it. The title is some lyrics in a song. This is kind of a letter to Hulu, but not really. That made no sense and was kind of unnecessary but oh well. Anyway, post commencing in...3...2...1. I like Hulu because it allows me to catch up on my favorite shows whenever I have the time and it's free, which is a big yay for any college student. Free stuff=awesome, especially free food. Free food is like awesome squared. I use Hulu to watch Survivor, The Office, Modern Family, The Middle, and Life Unexpected. One of the reasons that I found Hulu so enjoyable in the past was the fact that the commercials were only about 1 to 2 minutes long. Sometimes you could even choose to watch one full-length commercial and then view the rest commercial-free. Well recently this all changed. Maybe it was just a change that the CW website made but they now have normal TV commercial length commercials. You'll be sitting there happily watching your show when BAM! out of nowhere comes a barrage of about six or seven commercials in a row. I combat this by having a book to read and pressing mute, because I didn't want to watch those commercials the first time and for all five-ish commercial breaks you show the exact same commercials. The point is, if there is a point, that I still like Hulu because it is free and it gives me something to do while I'm stuck in my room. I apologize to all 5 followers for this monstrosity of a post. I promise that I will attempt to post slightly more coherent things in the future.

Life has no limits if you're not afraid to get in it

Those are some lyrics from a song, 5 internet points for you if you can name it. They are completely true. Lots of times the only thing standing between you and greatness is fear. It could be fear of failure, fear of embarassment, or fear of getting injured. I conquered one of my fears today. That was the fear of using the stairs when I'm on crutches. It's still really scary and I usually trip, but I am capable of going down or up about 10 steps. This is pretty awesome because the stairs are way quicker than wheelchair ramps and it helps me not feel quite so helpless, even though I have trouble putting my own shoes on. I guess that this whole experience has taught me how to rely on others instead of just trying to do everything myself. So this is me encouraging all of you to face a fear, even a little one. You'll feel so much better after you do.

Children's Songs

At first, these children's songs seem sweet and innocent, but after I reveal the supposed truth behind the lyrics, you'll never look at them the same way again.  Are these stories true, or do some people just want to ruin everything that's happy and good? I don't know. There is a lot of debate over most of these.

You might already be familiar with the backstory for this one but here it is anyway:

Ring around the rosy
Pockets full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down

This song is about the black plague. I do not know how it became a popular children's game but it did. Red rings surrounding rosy bumps were one of the first signs of plague. People carried little bags of herbs, or "posies" to try to ward off the disease. The bodies of plague victims were cremated to avoid further spread of the disease. "We all fall down" refers to dying.

That is the supposed explanation anyway. According to Snopes.com, it's wrong. Could this innocent children's song reference something other than happiness and flowers? You be the judge.

Rock a bye baby in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all

How this ever became a popular lullaby, I have no idea. Seriously people, you're singing a song to children about a baby in a cradle in a tree. Then the cradle gets blown down by the wind. The baby probably dies from this fall. Yet you sing this song to make children fall asleep. That's sadistic, in my opinion.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down
London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady

Innocent enough, right? Well it's just a song about a bridge falling down, what could be wrong with that? Well, there is a theory that this song is about burying children in the foundations of the bridge, possibly alive. It was based on the idea that a bridge would collapse unless a human sacrifice was buried in its foundations. It seems to me that this idea is a little bit far-fetched, but who knows?

There are some other nursery rhymes with far more sick and twisted theories around them, but I won't get into those. Have a nice day.

Movies

I am getting a wheelchair today, so I'll be a legit disabled person. The only problem is I can't drive it myself so I still won't be able to get to classes. It will pretty much only be useful for getting outside when it's not raining and my awesome friends feel like pushing me around in it. But being outside is good so I'm glad.

Now to the real topic of this post. Being forced to be a recluse has given me lots of free time. In this free time, one of the things that I enjoy is watching movies. I recently discovered this awesome movie site that has a ton of movies to watch for free. You don't need an account and there are no annoying advertisements. I'm not positive that it's legal, but here's a link: Woohoo, linkage, click me please I recently got into Harry Potter. My awesome friends are big fans and want me to go see the 7th movie with them when it comes out. I hadn't seen any of the movies or read the books, but I have seen the first four movies now and they are fantastic. I'll probably watch the fifth one today. Other movies I've watched lately are "The Shining", "Shaun of the Dead" and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World".  The Shining is a classic horror movie, and I was feeling bad about not having seen it so I watched it. It was interesting and kind of confusing. I guess that Jack Nicholson went insane which explains why he was talking to people who weren't there. Also, that kid is so creepy. I now have another good reason not to have kids: I don't want a creepy kid like that. I'm trying to avoid plot spoilers in case any of you haven't seen the movie which I highly doubt, because apparently I was the last person in the world to watch it, besides my roommate who still hasn't seen it.  I wasn't a big fan of it actually. I wouldn't want to watch it again, but now I don't have to live with "OMG, you haven't seen The Shining!?!?! It's a classic! What is wrong with you?!?!?!?!11" so there's that anyway.  The Shining gets 4 and a half stars out of 10. I watched Shaun of the Dead because it's supposed to be pretty funny and I guess it's almost a classic itself. I have never seen Dawn of the Dead, which it is a parody of, but the film still made sense anyway. It was pretty good. I don't think I would have enjoyed it quite as much if the actors didn't all have British accents. I would have enjoyed it more without the overuse, or use really, of the F word. I'm a strong opponent of cussing. If your vocabulary is large enough, you should have quite a few other ways of expressing anger or annoyance or pain. That's just my opinion. So Shaun of the Dead was overall pretty good. I'd give it 7 stars out of 10. Which brings me to my last movie. As a sidenote, don't you just love all of these sentence fragments? I know I do. I am still kind of undecided on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It was interesting and unique. Also, Ramona Flowers is awesome. I think I might be her next year for Halloween minus all the exes and the rollerblades. Parts of this movie were kind of confusing. There was a lot of stuff that seemed like dream sequence but then it might have actually happened and I'm not really sure and some confusing transitions. If you're a nerd like me, I'd say give it a try. It kind of turns a love story into a comic book/video game. It's a good movie to watch if you have nothing better to do and don't mind being completely confused for most of it. I wouldn't watch it more than once, but I'll go ahead and give it 6 stars out of 10.

Wow, you weren't expecting a movie review, were you? I might keep doing these every once in a while. Then again, I might not. Who knows? Not me. That being said, be excellent to one another and party on dudes. (Probably a bad Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure reference. I haven't actually seen the whole movie yet, just the end, but I will soon and it looks like a great movie. Also, there were two guys dressed as Bill and Ted at last night's Halloween party. I'm going to end this parenthetical nonsense before it gains a life of its own and tries to take over the world or something equally crazy/bad.) Um, the end!

Update: still trying to figure out how to use my own picture for the background. Any help would be appreciated. But for now, hello blurry birds. Also, whoa look at that, I'm not a robot! Profile picture is now an actual picture of me.

Happy Halloween!

I am going to a Halloween dance tonight, and my legs still don't work, but I'm going anyway because I'm cool like that. I'm going to be Alice in Wonderland. I'm really excited because I was never allowed to dress up or go trick-or-treating so this is my first Halloween where I'm actually doing something fun.  I didn't actually buy a costume though; I'm wearing stuff I already have. That's all I have to say. Bye.

Today

It is cold and dreary outside so I don't mind being stuck inside as much. I'm having Bible study in my room with my friends and we're going to watch Harry Potter, either the 4th one or the 6th. I'm going to read medieval ghost stories for my Medieval Mysteries class, and I'm going to enjoy them. I'm going to feel all alone later tonight when everyone starts going out for Halloween parties. I'm going to remind myself that I never actually do anything on Friday or Saturday nights even when my legs do work. I'll probably find a movie to watch and try not to bug H on Skype with the random things that I'm thinking. Eat some junk food and think about something I can use as a prop to make my Alice in Wonderland costume more recognizable, since it is composed of stuff I already had in my closet and I'm broke. Comment if you have any ideas on that. Potentially start reading another book or play my neglected Nintendo DS, because I'm a nerd like that.

In other news, my roommate and I get along really well. We are both annoyed by the annoying girls down the hall who scream for no reason and sing annoying Spongebob songs and always sound like they're either laughing or crying, but you can't really tell which. We are both disgusted by the fact that girls like to use Halloween as an excuse to wear the least clothing possible. She is dressing as a nerd for Halloween. We both like to watch The Office and don't like to have Awkward Nate watch it with us. We both wish we had a boyfriend who was around all the time and neither one of us does. In conclusion, my roommate is pretty cool and I try not to annoy her by having her go get me grocery bags of food all the time. I have my friends go downstairs and get me food sometimes when they come over, with my own money.

Hmmm, maybe I'll try to teach myself some more keyboard today. Maybe I'll try to learn to play Avenged Sevenfold songs on both my guitar and my keyboard. Maybe I'll fail miserably but who cares. Not me. That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett

That's all folks.

My Agenda

I'm just going to write what I'm going to do today. Design T-shirts, read Forever Odd, watch The Office, Modern Family, Survivor, and The Middle, play my guitar, look at the beautiful weather and wish I could go outside and take pictures of the changing leaves against the blue sky with a few puffy clouds, watch the 4th Harry Potter movie with some friends. Those are my plans for today. That's it, go away.

An Open Letter to Hot Pockets, and more specifically, to Hot Pockets Packaging Designers

Okay Hot Pockets, I get it. With your cool little crisping sleeve, I can eat you on the go! Well, I understand your need to shout this at the top of your lungs, or rather write cute, some may say clever (but not me), sayings on your handy dandy crisping sleeve, but I have some problems I'd like to address.  First of all, it is possible to eat almost any food while on the go. A banana is an extremely portable food item, but it doesn't write on its peel, "Whoa, look how much cooler I am than all other foods because you can eat me on the go!" Banana doesn't feel the need to boast about its portability. Banana lets its awesomeness speak for itself. Fear not dear Hot Pocket, that is not the only issue I have with you. While we're on the topic of your insane need to scream about how wonderful you are, I would like to address the issue that you are not as wonderful as you claim. Sure I can take you on the go, but I have to let you sit for two minutes to cool off if I don't want to get a third degree burn on my hand while living my busy life.  That time doesn't even include the time it takes to cook you. If I want to eat two of you, because I'm just crazy like that and have this mad desire to actually not be starving five minutes after eating, I have to cook you for three whole minutes. Hot Pocket, as annoying as you are to try to eat while on the run, you are even more annoying in quantities exceeding one. Let me explain. When I'm on the go and getting things done, I am usually carrying things. The type of things I am carrying does not matter, so for the purposes of this discussion let's just assume that I need to carry a watermelon and a baby armadillo. Well guess what Hot Pocket, I need an entire hand to hold each one of you, so I can't carry my watermelon or my baby armadillo. Thanks to you, I cannot attend my Baby Armadillo Watermelon Enthusiasts Party. That's right, Hot Pocket, now I'm not even going anywhere. Thanks a lot! The last problem that I have with you is that at times my legs become paralyzed for no apparent reason. Since you're remarkably convenient when it comes to making breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, I pretty much live on you during these times. Seriously, there are four boxes of you in my mini fridge even as you are reading this. You taste good and your broccoli chicken cheddar variety may even be moderately healthy. However, when I am not able to walk, it seems incredibly insensitive of you to say things like, "You can sit and eat when you're dead", and, "I have nothing against tables except that they're stuck inside all day". So Hot Pocket, while you think you're being cute and clever, you're making me feel helpless and pathetic. Thanks Hot Pocket. I really appreciate it.

-Jay

P.S. That's right Hot Pocket, you don't deserve a "Sincerely" or a "Best Regards" or even a simple "From". You don't even deserve that dash, but I gave it to you anyway, because I'm a nice person and that's the kind of thing that nice people do.

Seeing Stars

Warning: This blog post will be extremely short. If you were planning to procrastinate by reading my blog, you'll have to look elsewhere because this warning is longer than the post will be.

Now that I live in the city, I miss seeing stars at night. I hate light pollution.

Yep, that was the whole post.

Completely Unrelated Update that will Probably be Longer than the Original Post:
My friends came to visit me, and they informed me that the shoes I was wearing were not mine. At the event last night, they had to help me with my shoes because it's really difficult to take your own shoes off and put them on when your legs are paralyzed. I was wearing black Converse. I was not aware that the black Converse that they grabbed for me at the end of the night were not mine. They were the same size as mine and they actually belong to a guy. I have large feet. Anyway, after putting on those shoes, I did notice that they were much looser than mine and now that I think about it, they were actually laced differently. My brain somehow managed to not register that these were not my shoes. I noticed a little bit ago that the white part on the toe was getting pretty scuffed up. The really funny thing about this is that one of my shoes had been signed by Thousand Foot Krutch, a Christian metal band. There are three signatures in black on the toe and one in silver on each side of the shoe. I have no idea how I didn't realize that the shoes I was wearing today weren't mine. I guess it's just not a normal thing for me to go, 'Hmmm, I wonder if these are really my shoes', before putting them on. Daniel is getting his shoes back tonight and I should be getting mine back soon. It's okay, because I have other shoes, and it's not like I'm walking anywhere anyway, because in case you forgot, my legs are paralyzed.

Haha, that was a lot longer than the original post.

Glass Half Full

My legs are still not working, but it isn't going to help to feel bad about it. The one thing I can control in this situation is my attitude and I am choosing to have a good attitude. Two of my friends came to my room and had bible study with me and it was really encouraging. We're going to have pumpkin pie and ice cream and play Mafia (a card game) tonight. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to leaving my room. Here's a brief list of things I'm thankful for:

1. I live in the United States. I don't live in a third-world country where food and water are scarce.
2. I have awesome friends, and who cares if H put me in the friend zone? At least he is my friend. I will no longer be upset about that.
3. I have all of my mental abilities fully working, even if my physical abilities aren't.
4. I can curl up in a blanket on my bed instead of having to sit in a chair and listen to a monotonous professor.
5. I have extra time to study for my mid-terms this week. Some people skip class to study, but I don't have to. I'm skipping class because my legs aren't working but I have tons of extra time to study now.
6. I also have extra time for entertainment. I finished the book I was reading. I also watched the first Harry Potter movie.
7. I've never been abused or neglected.
8. I have the opportunity to further my education.
9. There are so many people who care about me. I have a fantastic support network.
10. Even when I feel all alone, God is with me. He helps me make it through, and I'll be stronger because of it.

That's just a few of the many things I'm thankful for at the moment. Sometimes I need a change in perspective and I need to focus on the good things instead of the bad.

Listening to this song always puts me in a good mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73aMawhB0TE

Have a great day, everyone. I know I will.
      

I'm Not A Fan of Doctors

Guess who's sick again! If you guessed me, you are correct. Also, I need to do my laundry soon and I have no idea how that's going to happen with the whole leg paralysis thing. H is really concerned about me, and it's kind of nice, except for the fact that he just thinks of me as a good friend. He thinks I need to see a doctor or a specialist or something and not take risks, but my past experience with doctors has consisted of getting jabbed with needles and told either they don't know what's wrong with me or that it's all in my head. So I am convinced that doctors can't help me and neither can anyone else. I just need to get through this on my own. I may just be being stubborn, but I really don't know how anyone could do anything to help.
~Fine~ (that means end in French or something. It's a music term)

Blustery Weather

I guess that the weather finally got the memo that this is October, and therefore it should be fall. This morning, I got up and went to church with my friends. My legs were working before church but I sat for a long period of time, so now they're not working again. After church, I had sushi for the first time and it was really good! Except the octopus, that was weird and slimey. And I even kind of figured out how to use chopsticks, which I have been a complete and utter failure at up to this point. I swear that the leaves changed colors overnight! I could be wrong about this because I haven't been outside since Friday, but to me it seems like it was overnight. Also, it's cold! One of my friends was wearing two coats and she was still cold! I usually jump up and down when I'm cold to warm myself up, but the whole jumping thing isn't really going to be possible because of the whole paralysis thing. Anyway, it was really cold and rainy and windy. I like the way the wind stirs the leaves up. It's very blustery, which is a fantastic word. So, in case you didn't notice fall fell, or fall has fallen; either way sounds kind of weird, but oh well.

Unhappy Camper

I woke up this morning and my legs were working. I managed to take a shower before they quit working again. So now I'm confined to my room once more. I'm not in the best mood. At least my roommate bought me some food so I won't starve. That was nice. My bed is pretty high up and I usually have to jump to get in it, but now I can't jump. I have figured out a way to get in using my crutches, but it's really difficult and having that much trouble just getting into bed makes me feel really pathetic. Anyway, I'm struggling but I'll get through it. I'm trying to get H to come hang out and keep me company. He was busy yesterday but I'll try again today. And I don't get to go to Halo Laser Tag today! I was really looking forward to to it too :(

Update: I told H that I like him, and he said that he thinks of me as a good friend. Luckily, it wasn't actually to his face though, so he couldn't see my disappointment. That was actually the first time I've had the courage to tell a guy I liked him, when he hadn't told me first (which has only ever happened once). I only told him because I kind of had the impression that he liked me too. He talked about random stuff for hours with me and acted jealous of the other guys in the hacky sack club. He even offered me a ride home on break, which is a 4+ hour drive. So anyway, I'm pretty bummed.

Paralysis

So I think that I mentioned that sometimes my legs become paralyzed for no apparent reason. The doctors are baffled. Well, my legs had been fine for a little over a month now, but today they are paralyzed again. It happened while I was in class and my friends came to help, but they're pretty small and couldn't help much. They called one of their friends to come help. I had to have this random guy carry me out to the street so I could get in their friend's car. He was really cool about it. So anyway, no laser tag for me :( I'm confined to my room until further notice. I have mid-terms next week, so I had better be better by then. Otherwise, I'll have to hobble to class on crutches, and there are a lot of stairs on campus. I'm pretty disappointed but still trying to remain optimistic. That's all for now.

Friends

I have some really great friends. I just met them about a month ago, but I feel like I've known them for my entire life. I'm a Christian and they're part of the campus ministry, so the first time I met them they invited me to play Ultimate Frisbee with them. You weren't expecting that, were you? After playing Ultimate Frisbee, they invited me to come to their bible study, and at bible study they invited me to church. There are about 20 of them total, and they are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They ask me how I'm doing and I don't feel like I just have to say "Good" or "Fine" because they aren't just asking out of habit, they actually care how I'm doing. I can tell them if there's stuff that's bothering me and I know that they'll pray with me and help me through it, and not spread it around. In case you didn't know it, Christians aren't boring. We love to have fun. We hang out and watch movies and go out to dinner and play Ultimate Frisbee. We also went to a corn maze and had a mud fight. On Saturday, we're going to play Halo Laser Tag, which is like normal laser tag, but with Halo sound effects. I'm so excited. I've never played laser tag before, but it seems like lots of fun. Hopefully I don't die as often as I do in Halo, which is a lot; I die about every 5 seconds sometimes. Next week we're carving pumpkins, which I've also never done, but I'm looking forward to it, because if I haven't told you, I'm an art person. I'm going to be a graphic designer and I love doing creative stuff like taking pictures, making jewelry, designing T-shirts, doodling, playing music, etc. so like I said, it should be fun. I'll post pictures, probably, not making any promises. I know Thanksgiving is still over a month away, but I'm thankful for my awesome friends. It's not just something I say at Thanksgiving dinner when it's my turn to share. If you have awesome friends, let them know how much you appreciate them.

Awkward Nate

There is a guy on my floor who my roommate and I refer to as Awkward Nate. We call him that because he's awkward and his name is Nate. We're creative like that. The first encounter with Nate was when my roommate and I were watching The Office. This random guy walked through the open door and I didn't turn around because out of the corner of my eye, it appeared to be my roommate's friend Tyler. They're both tall so you can see how I would make this mistake. My roommate did turn around and didn't recognize him, but assumed that I must know him, because otherwise why would he just walk into our room like that? Being polite, my roommate introduced herself. She realized I didn't know Nate after I introduced myself. He said that he heard The Office and he loves that show and we said something about it being really funny but Hulu is taking forever to buffer. Then he left. My roommate and I began discussing how awkward that was, but at least he was gone. About five minutes later, he came back. My roommate and I exchanged annoyed glances. He sat on the floor and ate his pizza while watching The Office. He didn't even say anything at all. After he finished his pizza, he picked up my Rubik's Cube and started to mix it up without asking. It sounded like he knew what he was doing but after about three minutes, he stated that he forgot how to solve it and left, with my Rubik's Cube sitting there unsolved on my desk. I have OCD and I cannot stand to see an unsolved Rubik's Cube. I have to pick it up and solve it before I can even remotely concentrate on anything.  So I set down my ice cream, which had already started melting and solved my Rubik's Cube. About five minutes later, the episode ended and Nate came back. We informed him that the episode was over and he asked if we were going to watch another one. We explained that there weren't any more. That was the last one they've made so far. He asked if there were any other shows we liked to watch and we both came up with the excuse that we had to do homework. He started talking about some movie that he was going to watch and asked us if we've ever heard of it. We hadn't so he explained it to us. It sounded so completely ridiculously nerdy. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge nerd. I took a class on Science Fiction literature last year and I loved it. This sounded like the most generic science fiction movie ever made. What I got from the explanation was something about spaceships and aliens and basically no plot. We explained that we really needed to do homework and then after he left we shut the door.

We decided that we would keep the door shut to prevent Awkward Nate from popping in unannounced. Unfortunately, this plan didn't work out very well since our room becomes like a sauna during the day. It must be about 90 degrees most days, so we have to have the door open for a cross-breeze to make the temperature remotely bearable.  The other day, Harley and I were sitting on the bed watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the door open because of the ridiculous heat I just discussed. The movie had just ended and I exited to my desktop when Nate came in and said, "Oh sorry, I didn't realize...", looked awkwadly at us, mumbled something about seeing a cool picture, and then left. Harley asked me if I even knew that guy and then I told him all about him. He said that he's pretty creepy and I said that I definitely agree.

The final time Nate visited, I had just updated my blog and I was checking my E-mail. He stood in the doorway and stared at me for a little bit and I said "Hi?" in an attempt to diffuse the awkwardness of the situation. He misinterpreted this as an invitation to come in. He walked over to my desk and stared at my computer screen and asked what I was doing, to which I replied that I was checking my E-mail. He left. I closed the door and went on Facebook, and was extremely grateful that I hadn't been doing something interesting, because he probably would have stayed, and watched.

Fortunately, I haven't had any Awkward Nate visits for a few days. I got to hacky sack with H today and I attempted to invite him to go to laser tag with some of my friends and I on Saturday. I can get kind of tongue-tied when I talk to him sometimes. He said he'd never done laser tag before and I said that neither have I but it sounds like fun. He asked where it's at, and I said that I don't know and then another guy came up and started hacky sacking with us.

President Obama is coming to my school tomorrow! I don't get to see him, because I already missed one lab for my class because of my illness and I can only drop one lab, so I have to do all of the other ones. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! One of my friends is going to tape his speech so I can see it, but that hardly compares with actually seeing the President. I'm not the biggest fan of him, but still, it's the President. Oh, it's at 12:00 so I could go, that is, if there weren't already over 3,000 people going and it being first come first served starting at 9:00.

Laundry Day Can Be Difficult if Technology Hates You

Guess what today is? It's Laundry Day! In celebration of Laundry Day, I got in the elevator to go to the Ground Floor to wash my clothes. Some people got off on the first floor and then the door closed, so I assumed that the elevator would fulfill it's duty and take me down one more level. I was wrong. I did not account for the fact that I must have done something that made the elevator mad at me without knowing it. It closed it's doors and just sat there, with a smug expression on its face, I'm sure. After about a minute of the elevator just sitting there, and these are really fast elevators so I could have gone up to the 11th floor and back twice in that time, I realized that the elevator hadn't understood my request when I pushed the button for the ground floor, even though the button was lit up, so I pushed the button about five more times. The elevator sat there. Then, it's doors opened and I said to the people who got in while I was angrily jabbing the button that for some reason the elevator wouldn't go down. The elevator shut its doors and proceeded to the ground floor. I'm pretty sure I heard it laugh. I managed to put the laundry in the washers and get it washing with no trouble, and I took the elevator upstairs without incident. It was a different elevator than I had taken down. I think it was the good twin.  I got up to my room, dropped my keys three times, then unlocked the door and walked in to the ridiculous hotness. I swear it's 90 degrees in here. I even have my door open for a cross-breeze despite the risk of Awkward Nate who I'll introduce in tomorrow's post.

Update: I think that the elevator has been talking to the washing machine because according to Laundryview (this awesome website my school has that notifies you when your laundry is done), my laundry was done but when I got downstairs, it hadn't even started washing.

Update 2: I had to reselect the cycle a second time but when I last went downstairs, my laundry was actually done. I cannot say with any confidence that the washer actually washed my laundry. I had to wring lots of water out of some of it, and some of it was still completely dry. I put it in the dryer anyway. I'm definitely not running it through the washer again.

Apples

Apples are altogether fantastic. They're crisp and juicy and delicious. The only downside is that you have to type with only one hand while eating them, like I am right now. Remember that game you used to play as a little kid where you say the alphabet while you twist the apple stem, and then when the stem breaks, that's supposed to be the first letter of the person's name who you are going to marry. Well I still play that game. I just got a B. Yesterday I got a C. This makes me think that the person I will marry has B 1/2 as the first letter of their name. Wouldn't it be weird if letters had fractions? It would be so much harder to learn how to read, and the alphabet song would be way longer. Just a random thing that my brain thought and then I shot it out of my fingertips like lightning. I say that about lightning because lately in my dreams, I have had the ability to shoot lightning out of my fingertips. Last night it was purple and the night before it was green. Last night, in my dream, I was flying and someone fired a bunch of missiles at me. Luckily, I blew them all up with my awesome lightning before they could blow me up. Speaking of apples, have you ever played Apples to Apples? It's such a fun game. I am going to play it later with some friends while drinking hot chocolate. That's all folks!

Early Morning Post

I woke up this morning and looked out my window. The world was shrouded in a fog of mystery with the sun straining to shine through in that orange sunrise way.  It was one of the most beautiful things and I attempted to capture it on camera, but it looked way cooler in real life. Here are the pictures anyway.

Now the fog has burnt off and the once-hidden world has been revealed. Have a great day, everyone.