To the jerk in my psychology class.

I can't stand it that I can't stop thinking about you.

Mostly because thinking about you makes me want to throw up, and there are so many better things to think about.

After so many years of struggling to figure out this thing called existence (which I'm still struggling with), I was just beginning to believe that there was perhaps just a little goodness in the world after all.

I try to remind myself that perhaps you're an exception - there are plenty of good people out there.

But it bothers me that people like you are even allowed to exist.

You dropped out of high school halfway through because it didn't matter to you. It sounds like you have no relationship with any family or friends, a complete loner. If you have friends, my sincere condolences to them.

You bought your high school diploma -- you fucking BOUGHT it. People worked hard for it. No, fuck them, you think. It's their fault for not figuring out how easy it is to fake through it.

You were in the army. Good. You belong there. Go back. Please.

Oh, I know, you do plan to go back. You were annoyed because you could only go so far without being a college graduate. You can't be a general. You had to take orders. So, here you are, taking classes and bullshitting your way through them, using your groupmates, your teachers, everything, to your full advantage. You don't care about "fair." You don't care about "ethics" or none of that shit. The world is yours to exploit.

That's why you're taking psychology. So you better know how to influence and manipulate people.

That's why you're taking criminal justice, so you can find those loopholes you love and exploit them.

You earn money with poker, cuz you know how to read people and exploit them. Great.

I can't wait for this class to be over. I hope to never have a class with you again.

I can't wait for you to graduate and go back to the army.

I hope your whole platoon gets blown up in Iraq. Oh, I'd feel bad for them, sure, but I'd love for you to feel guilt for something in your life.

Although you'd probably just say they were all fucking retards and they should've known better. You wont even admit that you were the one who sent them there.

You'll find a girlfriend one day who'll fall totally in love with you.

But you wont love her.

You'll use her, bask in her complete dependence of you. But you could drop her in a heartbeat, and feel nothing. She'd probably go off and kill herself. And you wouldn't care.

We in psychology have a term for people like you.

Narcissists.

oh, and another one

Psychopath.

It's a perfect definition, actually. Look it up.

Forget your platoon getting blown up.

I hope it's you who gets blown away.

I rarely ever wish death upon someone, but I can't see any reason for someone like you to be in the world.

Except perhaps to show the rest of us the darker side of things, so that the light looks a little brighter.

I can't wait for that day.

In the meantime.

Fuck off, do some work, and I don't fucking care.

So, I suppose I should update :P

So, I've been in Flagstaff for five days.

Five killer awesome days! :D

Friday I drove up, and I got to see both my wife Amber and my wonderboyfriend! ^_^

Saturday, Alyssa arrived. And oh man, she is the most awesome roommate EVER! We are so alike, I can just, yknow, be myself! :) She's messy like I'm messy, she's perverted like I'm perverted, she likes all the same things I like, and dude, we even have inside jokes going. "That was easy!" :P We also leave the door open (which I NEVER did last year), so I've gotten to know some of my neighbors pretty well. :P Specially Thea and Laura, who I knew last year, but yeah. We just randomly will have lets-sit-in-the-middle-of-the-hallway-and-talk times. :D

So, yup. I'm pretty much high on life right now, cuz I'm not, like, stuck in my room twenty-four freaking seven with my stupid thoughts. I get to see people, I get to regularly interact with people. And that makes me happy. ^_^ Although at first, I was kinda overwhelmed, but it's balanced out and now it's perfect.

I'm also totally KICKING ASS on Rock Band! Dude, I feel like a rock star while I play mah drums. Just call me Ringo. :P

Now, what I don't like about being back at NAU this year are my classes >.< Gawd, I don't want to go to class at ALL. EVER. None of them. Okay, well, on Mon/Weds, not so bad, but Tues/Thurs.... blech! I'm DREADING my Psych writing class. We have to do a study in GROUPS! And we have some very "special" people in our class - like this guy who was in my stats class last year who clearly has a learning disability, due to his constant question-asking and taking tests separately from the rest of the class (which you're only allowed to do with special permission), and then this black guy who not only had a weird accent, but he was a hardcore stumbler! He t-t-t-t-t-t-t-talked li-li-like-like th-th-this-this. He was in my small group for the day and the rest of us all looked at one another, trying to figure out what to do or say, because we KNEW he was trying to say something really, really important, but we couldn't understand a fucking word. ...yeah. I'm pretty much dreading that class and can't WAIT for it to be over. God, I hate group work :( OH! And not just that, they were like "Okay, list some things in Psychology you are really, really, REALLY interested in, and find some articles you'd love to read about that has to do with those interests, and turn them in. We'll use these to place you guys into groups!" And I was like, okay, so, crazy lots of "art therapy in depressed adolescents" articles. I'm gonna end up with a "Should the drinking age be lowered to 18" group or something. Blech.

I also crazy hate the altitude. I can't excercise for SHIT up here! Back in T-town, I could do the ellipticals no problem. Now? Oh my gawd, I almost died. :( No wonder I always give up in my PE classes. Cuz I KNOW I'm better than what I end up doing, and it drives me NUTS! Damn altitude. Why does oxygen hate me so much???

Um, well, other than that, not too much to report. I'm going to go back to Peter Piper, mostly cuz I'm too lazy to find a real job. I'm hoping it'll be better this time. So yeah.

Another Schoolyear Approaching...

Summer is ending so fricken fast. It went by so fricken fast (once I got that job, really...). I didn't do ANYTHING I'd planned to do this summer. :( I never visited The Drawing Studio, never took an art class, never got CPR certified, never even had a water balloon fight. I did lose some weight, which is awesome, and I got that job, but other than that, I was basically being my usual slob of a self :(

Now another school year is about to start, and I really have no. idea. how to feel about it. I want to feel super duper crazy excited, but I don't. I don't feel much of anything, but at the same time, a little of everything. I'm happy to be able to go back and see Cory and other people again after so long, but also sad because there will be people missing, like Chris. I'm a bit excited to be rooming with the uber-fantabulous Alyssa, but also apprehensive that she and I will end up hating each other, or, more precisely, that she will end up hating me because of my messiness and stubbornness. I worry that I'll continue to be stuck in this awful, confidence-shattering limbo between groups of friends, and that I'll never find a place where I am both accepted and also comfortable with the people I'm with. It seems like the people I want to spend time with don't want to spend time with me, and that the people who do want to spend time with me, I absolutely cannot stand. Like Glenn, and a girl down my hall who is the female equivalent of Glenn. I also hold no excitement whatsoever for any of my classes, even jewelry-making, and I'm downright dreading my psychology writing course. I'm just so sick of classes. And I am not looking forward to leaving Toys R Us and going back to Peter Piper Pizza, and that's if I even go back to Peter Piper. I loved it at TRU, and I've made amazing connections with some of the people who work there, particularly this woman, Rachel (what is with me and people named Rachel? :S I may have to name a daughter that one day). I felt like I was really excelling at something again, and that I could've gone on to do great things. And now I may have to go back to Peter Piper and go back to feeling like a floor mat. And all the uncertainties that surround the start of another new job just sounds frightening to me. I hate that complete feeling of cluelessness and panic over how to do things right.

I really hope this new year will be better than the two before it. I'm trying to focus on the good things coming up but it's really, really hard when you're a type-A personality... I'm trying to think of all the good that may come from having Alyssa as a roommate. I've been reminding myself that Cory has some days off each week so we can actually spend some time together. And then, probably the one thing that has me totally giddy with excitement, a week after I go back I'll be taking a four-day trip to Utah with Alyssa and Eric and Kim and people, and I know I'm going to have a blast (I've always enjoyed camping), and I'm praying that they'll all finally see how awesome of a person I am. None of them have really spent more than a couple hours with me, and even in those couple of hours, they tend to end it with "Wow, Megan. I never knew this or that about you. You're funny! We need to hang out more." Maybe after that trip, they wont forget.

Oh, some other things that're really bugging me about having to go back - cleaning my room and getting all my stuff together here, and also leaving my family and Jessica behind. So yeah.

Shopping, Dr. Horrible, and more! :D

So, I totally crazy spent like all day with my bestest friend Jessica :D

This post will be about shopping a girly stuff, and I'm sure any boys (*cough*Cory*cough*) who reads this would rather not have to read this, even if I do talk about my butt, so for their convenience...

START OF FASHION TALK

So, today, I got my paycheck which was wicked huge cuz of all the hours I got this week, so I decided to finally truly splurge a bit on myself. I've wanted a pair of wide-legged trousers, but they tend to be so expensive, so I've been holding out, getting only shirts if I get anything at all.

But lots of awesome end-of-summer sales are happening, so I also got some shirts!

I totally intended to post pictures of all the shirts, courtesy of the fashionbug and lanebryant websites, buuuut fashionbug only has one of the shirts, so screw that. But the shirts I got are SO CUTE! Like, halter top and lacy awesomeness and a cute green button down, oh man. :D Amazing.


But anyways, here are my splurge pants, or as Jessica calls them, the booty pants! (Right, Jessica? :P)

They're very long and need to be hemmed. I need to show my mom and see what she thinks, but yeah. I considered getting one a little closer to my length, but it didn't look very good in the butt area, and these pants made my butt look HOT, so yeah :P The whole reason why I wanted to spend crazy amounts of money on pants was because I am SICK of having these pants which don't fit me right. These fit me right, even if they're a little long - a little long is more easily fixed than not fitting around other areas, so yeah.

I had uber lots of fun shopping, and I wish I could do it more often, but of course, there's that whole "money is required" thing...

END FASHION TALK

In other news, I am TOTALLY CRAZY FREAKING OBSESSED with Dr. Horrible now. I cannot even begin to explain the depths of my love for the 3-Act masterpiece... ooooooooohmigawd... :D

AND THERE'S TOTALLY GONNA BE A FOURTH ACT!! I hope I hope I hope... there's rumors - RUMORS! And kinda sorta confirmation from Joss Whedon. So yeah.

My T-Shirt Quilt

So - HURRAH! I totally found all my t-shirts (and my Harry Potter box, tee hee)! I've already begun to cut a few of them up, and with some of them I'm like "Okay, what the hell was I thinking?" or "I can't believe I wore this crappy shirt my mom bought" and other times I'm like "Hahaha, me and my nerdiness..." and then there's "Oh man... I don't know how I can chop up this shirt..." (This last one is especially true with my Jovert shirts).

But I want to chop up pretty much every shirt regardless of how I feel about it - or rather, because of all these feelings about it. I kind of want this to be a symbolic passing of an era, if you will. God, all through high school, and before, these t-shirts were what I was. I always wore a tshirt and jeans - always. It kinda came a part of my identity after my elementary and middle school years of wearing every awful thing my mother ever bought me (and my mother has pretty awful fashion sense...). But I'm beyond that now - I don't wear Inuyasha on my chest anymore. No "Muggle," no "Invade Canada." I can't stand the feel of t-shirts and I'm sick of the lame things on the front. I wanna be girly now, and you really can't be girly in a tshirt (although I'm saving a few for comfort-times).

I'd like to save all the memories, though. I thought a quilt would be the best way. So I've got all these squares already cut up, and I'm cutting up more. When it's done (and I'm planning on making it queen-sized), I'll be able to sit down with it and look over it and remember my childhood, in a way. It'll be pretty sweet to have all that, while not looking like a lamewad wearing it all out of the house.

P.S. The remaining material from the shirts, since I'm just cutting out the front decorations and stuff, is either sewing fodder for experimenting, or donation for the printmaking studio/painting studio. (T-shirt material makes excellent rags for cleaning up oil paint and stuff). I felt a little bad about not donating these clothes to charity, but really, who wants an orthodontist's t-shirt, anyway? :P

Video Blog -- Hair = tehUberAwesome!

You know, cuz Zuko would totally be all over me with this hair. :P Better watch out, Cory. ;) Just kidding, of course. I <3 you!

Some notes about my new blog

Just some things I'd like to clear up about my blog, even though no one's asking :P

1) Blog Title

This blog's title is roughly based on the song "No Such Thing" by John Mayer (whose remains I'd love to buy). Mainly, the opening lines.

"Welcome to the real world", she said to me
Condescendingly
Take a seat
Take your life
Plot it out in black and white"

I was totally going to embed a music player playing that song, until I realized that it's really hard to listen to lyric-filled music and read a blog at the same time.

The "check please" idea was just off the top of my head, thinking, okay, I sat here, I ordered, and the waiter presents with the "Real World..." and I just say "check please," because I think I'd rather have it from another restaraunt... something angsty but silly, very me...

2) Background picture

I've had this picture forever and have used it many times during this forever, as both blog and website background, and desktop background. I think I just came across it one day looking for background pictures for one layout or another, and I came across it in my photobucket while wondering what to do for my new blog, and remembered how much I loved it. The reaching for just the right key... I just kinda connect with this picture, you know?

3) Basic Layout Structure in relationship to Background Picture

I don't know if the layout translates to everyone - the internet is such a fickle thing - but I actually had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with everything else once I had that background. I wanted to be able to SEE the background, but still be able to read the journal, hence the slight transparency of the columns. I also wanted to focus on the little guy reaching for the key, so I made it so that the columns were on either side of him. Then, I realized that I could make the righthand column big enough that, as it scrolls up (or you scroll down), it would completely glide over the key the little guy was reaching for, taking it away from him. It's a kind of visual metaphor that life (symbolized by my posts about life) sometimes gets in the way of what you want (the key). I thought it was pretty and poetic. SHUT UP!

4) Twitter?

Hey, if it's good enough for Jeph Jacques....

5) Also, Facebook

I am no longer importing this blog to Facebook. It relieves alot of the pressure, really. I just hope that if anyone from there comes here, they'll let me know.

Growing Up

So, I did this huge crusade to create the perfect blog, so I could write this particular blog post.

It's occurred to me that I've changed... or, that I'm growing up. I'm not the same girl I was back in high school, where so much of my time and energy was expended on fantasy worlds, internet worlds, etc. I spent hours writing fanfics or drawing fanart, or daydreaming fandreams, and I spent so much time in blogs creating layouts for them, writing silly entries, doing countless quizilla quizzes and posting the results, doing my harry potter club and nerdiness, etc.

That was who I was. Senior year, it all kinda changed as all my energies poured into a doomed-to-fail relationship, and school. (gag on both). It sorta all completely overturned my life. By the time I got to college, I really had no clue who I was anymore. I wasn't obsessed about things like I always had been. I couldn't be funny like I used to, or grip thoughts like I once could, or any of that. I didn't know who I was, so it's no surprise I didn't make good friends easily - I'm sure none of them really knew who I was either... probably just a bitch who complained alot and hated herself...

I've noticed alot more changes lately. I can't stand the music I used to love. I'm so sick of it. It's probably just being overexposed to it, you know? So I'm trying to find new stuff. Thank GOD for the internet. I'm sick of all the movies I used to watch over and over and over again - again, most likely overexposure. So I started up Netflix. Furthermore, I've grown sick of the clothes that I used to always wear. I can't wear t-shirts AT ALL anymore - can't stand em. (if it's a really light fabric, I can deal, and if it's a girl-style t-shirt, I'm good). I've also gotten sick of jeans. I've been watching What Not To Wear, and if it wasn't for the fact I've only got maybe 200 bucks in the bank right now, I'd totally go on a shopping spree, because I want new clothes. A new wardrobe would rock. And speaking of tv shows, I'm sick of the tv I used to watch. I suppose you could only call that growing up, because for a good 15 years of my life, Nickelodeon was my channel of choice. But now I can't even stand watching Spongebob (although I can still watch Fairly OddParents from time to time...). So I rarely watch any tv now. Just TLC, for the most part. Jon and Kate plus 8 (which I've already seen every episode of), and random other educational shows. I think I need to get into more adult shows, like House! I love House. I need to watch it more. Maybe I should try Scrubs too....

So, yeah. I'm changing. I'm growing up. And I thought that as I got sick of all these things that made up who I thought I was, I'd get even more depressed, but actually, lately, I've been feeling pretty good about myself. The other night, I spent a good couple hours watching youtube videos on hairstyles and make-up and stuff, and now I'm so excited about having long hair. I've been wearing camisoles like they're bulletproof material during a war, and I've been drooling over clothes and jewelery. I've also dropped a couple pounds, which makes me feel great, even if I still weigh more than I did at the end of high school.

Just in all, I want to be a better me. And I hope I'm on my way to it...

Working Out

Not as in "I'm working out my problems." Pshawr, like that'll ever happen (I know, I'm SUCH a drama queen. Adore me! *pouty face* :P j/k)

Nah, I'm TRYING to actually WORK OUT, as in, physical, manual, painful labor solely for the purpose of healthiness.

My mom and the family joined the Tucson JCC (Jewish Community Center, lol!), and I actually rather like their gym. They have everything that the NAU Rec Center has, and then some. (Including seriously wicked old NAKED ladies in the locker room.... *twitch*naked old people!*twitch*) I really like their treadmills, which is one of the things the Rec Center does not have. Well, I kinda liked the treadmills. I was all like "SQUEE! Walking machine!" and pushed all sorts of buttons when I first started, and then as I walked/jogged a bit, I realized just how much I SUCK at jogging/running. Also, I discovered that my shoes are not good running shoes. They're too big. I've had them for like two years plus, and never noticed how big they were. Soooo... my feet hurt. Like they were JUST about to blister.

After I walked and kinda jogged over a mile (over several different sessions, since I was testing out the different machine settings, and switched machines once), I decided to go on the rowing machine, and rowed 2000meters. That was fun....

I hope one day I could do a 5K (3.1miles). That'd be awesome. A great goal....

Bummer Summer

I know the title is lame. Sorry.

So, my summer has, overall, sucked royally.

I came down to Tucson hoping to find a job and unwind a little, get some projects done, etc.

Concerning my job search:
May 13th, the week after school ended, I had a nerve-wracking interview at Build-A-Bear. They didn't call me back until June 2nd to tell me they didn't have a position for me, but they'd be sure to "keep my application available just in case."
May 20th, a week after my Build-A-Bear interview, I had an interview at Toys R Us. The reason I never called Build-A-Bear to try and lasso in that job was because it sounded like Toys R Us would be a done deal. The Sunday afterwards (May 25th), I got a call from the hiring lady, like she promised, to tell me "Oh, well, I didn't want you to feel like we forgot about you! Your background check hasn't come in just yet, but it should soon, so I'll call you either Monday or Tuesday and let you know when you can start orientation!" Well, almost 3 "Monday or Tuesday"s have passed since then. I called almost every day after that first Tuesday, but never got a hold of her. On Sunday, I was finally sent over to someone else at Toys R Us who explained to me that the hiring lady had some sort of family emergency, and wouldn't be back for at least another week.

Guess who's bank account is just about dead from over a month of unemployment?

Meanwhile, I am keeping myself busy by laying around on my bed, staring at my computer screen. Doing nothing. I don't want to photoshop. I would like to paint, or sew, or do something, but I know full well that my mom would come in and basically have a hissy fit that I'm making my room more messy (and I've even cleaned my room). It's only a matter of time before she and my dad start asking why I haven't applied to any other jobs. I really don't want to, after all the anxiety and panic attacks I've suffered with the last two job interview processes.

I'm also sitting around with my mind totally being ripped apart with confusion and anxiety concerning my relationships with pretty much everybody in my life... save maybe Jessica, who's just as awesome, possibly fifty times more awesome, of a friend as she was before, and Alyssa, whom I'm excited to be able to get to know next year, since we'll be roomies. But with everyone else, even family.... well, it's the usual bullshit you all hear from me, but it plagues me nonetheless. I just don't know how I feel about anyone anymore, and I have no clue how they truly, honestly, feel about me. I wonder why some people I consider friends don't wallpost me back when clearly they do to other people. They just care about them, I guess. I wonder whether or not people really care about me. Once again, summer is going by with everyone writing back and forth "How are you? How's your summer?" And I maybe get one or two of these, and I maybe feel compelled to write a few to people, but the conversation back and forth feels forced, and is very short-lived, if it even occurs at all. I know it's all me. I know I've driven people away with these stupid blog entries and my shyness and alcohol-abstinence, and my inability to ask people to hang out. I just don't feel worth anything anymore. Cory would say I was worthwhile to him. But after this last week, I no longer believe him.

I feel very alone. I have no one I can really, truly talk to. I talk to people, sure, but, it's always the same thing. It's never this sort of stuff. If you ever wonder why I spill all this out on my blogs, well, it's because I can't talk about this stuff in real life. Not unless it's asked of me.

And I've heard it before, people. "Oh, hun, I'm here if you need someone to talk to."

You know what I would prefer?

Someone to call me or beat down my door and fucking demand to be the one I talk to. Even if I don't manage to talk at all (because I usually can't verbalize these things - the effort of moving difficult problems through my windpipes makes me burst into tears, while typing problems out on a keyboard makes me only mildly tear up), it's nice to know there's someone who would willingly sacrifice their own time to me, as much of it as I need, not as much of it as you are able to give (which for the only person who has called me this summer, has been an average of 7 minutes) without me begging for it first. It's a sense of security I don't think I've ever truly experienced. The closest I've been is the time I lost my English binder (which, if I had not found, would have meant automatic failure in the class), and my next-door neighbor Rachel, who I barely knew at the time, stopped by with candy and a smile to make me feel better. And I did, and managed to find my binder. It's amazing what a random act of kindness can do. It just no longer ever seems to happen to me. Not even from those I consider closest to me....

I feel numb. I feel zapped of all strength and energy. At this point, I don't really care what happens, or whether or not things get better. I no longer expect a phone call from Toys R Us. I don't really care if anyone calls me anymore. I can't stand art or tv or movies anymore. I basically just want to disappear.

Lyrics...

I'm not able to fall asleep tonight. I have a lot going on inside my head. It's not fun.

There's this one song that's been stuck in my head for the past few days, and has particularly been strong tonight, especially one line in it in particular (which is in bold). I just thought I'd post it here.

It's Vanessa Carlton's "Rinse."

She'd do anything to sparkle in his eye
She would suffer, she would fight, and compromise
She's been wishin' on the stars that shine so bright
For answers to the questions that will haunt her tonight

She must rinse this all away
She can't hold him this way
She must rinse this all away
She can't love him this way

How she'd be soothed, how she'd be saved if he could see
She needs to be held in his arms to be free
But everything happens for reasons that she will never understand
'til she knows the heart of a woman will never be found in the arms of a man

She must rinse this all away
She can't hold him this way
She must rinse this all away
She can't love him

And if she runs away she fears she won't be followed
What could be the worse than leaving something behind
And as the depth of oceans slowly become shallow
It's loneliness she finds...
If only he was mine

She'd do anything to sparkle in his eye
She would suffer, she would fight, and compromise
She's been wishin' on the stars that shine so bright
For answers to the questions that will haunt her tonight

She must rinse him
She must rinse him
She can't rinse him
She can't rinse him
She can't, she won't, she must rinse him
She can't, she won't, she must rinse him
She must rinse this all away
She can't hold him this way
She must rinse this all away
She can't love him this way

I guess I just feel very alone and left behind right now. Extremely. But I doubt it will change anytime soon.

Job Update and Summer Plans

So, the past couple days I was having a crisis/panic attack about summer.

I had my job interview with Build-A-Bear, and was a total and complete nervous wreck during the whole thing. I didn't know if I had the job at the end, and found out that I wouldn't know for at least another week and a half, which totally chewed me up inside. I'm probably going to call this weekend to find out...

So with this uncertainty about Build-A-Bear, I was just like, crap, if I don't get a job, this summer will definitely suck, plus my parents were all over me about "Apply anywhere and everywhere! Have some initiative! Blah blah blah!" and it's hard enough with my social phobia to apply to one job, the thought of having to figure out other places, getting applications, turning them in, interviewing, all that, was just a bit of an overload. So on top of that stuff, being stuck at home was already starting to drive me nuts, I just didn't know what to do with myself. I started thinking about Flagstaff and how much I could get accomplished over the summer if I had stayed there - two art classes, Peter Piper, plus I would get to see Cory, who I miss terribly, plus hang out and have fun without my mother or little brother hounding me about stuff.

Well, I had an interview with Toys R Us today, and I appear to have gotten that job so hard that the lady barely asked me any questions. She was like "I need summer people." So it was like I got hired before I got there :P It was a fun interview, full of Legos and talking to the other interviewees, one of whom I really got talkin to, oddly enough, while we were sitting in the break room, watching Curious George while we waited for our one-on-one interview. The job sounds like loads of fun, the people seem nice, and it'll keep me out of the house, so I guess I'm staying down here. If Build-A-Bear wants me, I'll see if I can have BOTH jobs (how cool would that be??). Or maybe I'll apply still to In-N-Out and get that $10 salary they boast about.

But now I've been trying to think up other things to get accomplished down here so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time (Being a perfectionist type A personality really sucks). So, here begins my To-Do List

~ Make money! :) Well, this will happen now.
~ Take an art class at either the The Drawing Studio or Parks & Rec, for fun, for once.
~ Go to open studio at The Drawing Studio
~ Volunteer some at The Drawing Studio's teen program
~ Get CPR certified!! :)
~ Hang out TONS with Jessica and Sarah and peoples!
~ Work out at the JCC twice a week (my family are members of the Jewish Community Center. How weird is that? :P Mom gets a discount cuz she works at the Jewish nursing home in town)
~ Spend time outside with Donald knocking some items off that other list of little kid things I wanna do.
~ Visit Cory at some point :)
~ Do loads of artwork, including finishing this crazy ink drawing I've been working on, and an oil painting of Donald
~ Figure out my plan for grad school (as in, what classes do I need to take when, how soon can I graduate, etc)
~ Eat lots and lots of SUSHI!!! :D
~ Learn to cook some
~ Read some books, including some on financial stuff that I'd like to borrow from Sean....

I have a feeling I'm missin something... ah well :)

School's (almost) out for Summer! :P Or, how I went to Vegas

This is quite a long-overdue post.

First off -- I AM SO EFFING DONE WITH THAT EFFING PRINTMAKING CLASS!!!

The last inked project wasn't all that frustrating (except for when the block/paper kept moving a quarter of an inch in one direction or another, screwing up margins and causing smears, but I kinda sorta fixed that, or at least made it consistent....), and it turned out really good. That particular evening was enjoyable as well, because right as I finished with printing, Chris, Jasmin and I had sushi, and simultaneously, Cory, Mel and Meaghan showed up with ice cream from 31 cent scoop night! Later, I had thai food with a ton of people from Cory's work. That was... interesting :P The next afternoon I spent working on my embossment print, which I did in an effing HOUR! :D Amaaaazingg! So that was pretty awesome.

And then I decided I needed to take a vacation.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!!

Chris needed to hit Vegas to take her old roommate's tv back to her old roommate's house, but didn't want to go alone. So I decided to take up her offer and go with her. Ooooh man, it was so fun! (And Meaghan was right -- Phoenix is oddly reminiscent of Vegas, just without the casinos and prostitutes) We tried Julie's house first, but no one was home, so we left a note and drove around the strip awhile. Then we got a call and headed back to Julie's, dropped the tv off, and hit the strip for real before heading home. We ate at an expensive Chinese place in the Mandalay Bay hotel (where we parked for free, hells yes). My food was hella spicy and it took me much strength to finish as much as I could, but their pork dumplings were exquisite, and I had some of Chris's coconut ice cream and that fixed the burning. Then we walked down the strip, hit the New York-New York hotel, where I just HAD to ride the roller coaster (OH MAN! SO MUCH FUN!! :D I'm working my way slowly up the roller coaster thrill chain. I want to go to Six Flags soooo badly now). We then walked a looong way to the Bellagio, and saw probably THE most amazing thing I've ever seenthe Bellagio light show. It blew my mind. I swear to God (but cannot find online proof, and sadly, if it's not on wikipedia, it doesn't exist) that the finale of the show had jets of water which shot up faster than the speed of sound, because I saw the fountains already at maximum height (of 250 feet, according to internet) before I heard the shot it caused. After that, we ran into some shops (there's a BUILD-A-BEAR on the strip! :P) and I oggled at the strippers in some of the bars we passed (I fully admit it - they were hot.) It took us forever to get back to the car, and FOREVER to get out of Las Vegas - Chris and I were both horribly tired and cranky by the time we left Mandalay Bay, and we kept going in circles and taking wrong turns and not looking at the map and taking more wrong turns and in the end I kinda had a bit of a meltdown because I knew I had work, and the idea of getting back to Flag at 4:30am was a little too much for me, especially because I really wanted to drive and give poor Chris a break. But despite that meltdown, it was totally the most awesome trip ever. My first interstate roadtrip with people unrelated to me! (And not part of school group, like when I went to Europe).

Tomorrow is my last day at Peter Piper before summer break. I hadn't been enjoying it recently, probably just because I've been so stressed overall, but except for another meltdown I had yesterday when I neglected to get appetizers taken care of when one of our printers went down (soooo many customers got their appetizers a good 15 minutes after their pizzas, and one woman had waited over 40 minutes for an appetizer that takes 3 minutes to cook - but which I screwed up 3 times making. That's when the meltdown happened). Today was just hella fun. I did make table pretty much the whole time, which is a bit different for me, and I did pretty well at it. I only needed help when a couple birthday orders tied me up.

My room worries me, of course. I'm going to work very hard packing it up as soon as possible. I already have a bunch of boxes going, clothes separated into either my plastic dresser (winter stuff), my laundry basket (going home) or a plastic bag (Goodwill), piles of stuff either going home with me or going into my storage locker, etc. I'm leaving Friday, staying as late as possible so it's all gone and cleaned.

Erm, very little else to report. Oh, I suppose I can mention that Cory is amazing, and I'm glad he got his VC251 assignment done. I love him and will miss him, and everyone, very much during the summer. I'll also especially miss Chris for the rest of my life, since she's not coming back next year.

Hope everyone has a watermelon-blasted summer!!! See you all in the fall!

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER!!!

Okay, so, another fact you may not know is I'm horribly obsessive. One more fact: I love cartoons, specifically NickToons.

My latest obsession is Avatar the Last Airbender

It is by far THE greatest show I've watched in a long, long time.

It is NOT a "Wannabe Anime" like some non-watchers want to believe. It's style is distinctly still a bit American, but has all that wonderful flava and awesomeness of a really good anime series. They did everything right.

The series is ending soon. At least for the characters and plot that we know now. Series finale is rumored to be the end of July, and new episodes starting in the middle of July (I don't know which is more fact -- stupid internet).

Well, for anyone who HAS been keeping up, like Jaymie, or perhaps Chris or someone, the next two episodes have been LEAKED ONTO THE INTERNET!! WEWT!

check out www.avatarchapters.org to watch! If you haven't been watching, well, here's a summer project for you -- WATCH IT!!! You'll be hooked. I promise.

Random Facts About Me

Tee hee, this is fun.

So, I'm clearly procrastinating doing some kind of work or another, plus I'm hyped up on diet coke, so I thought I'd supplement my last post with another post.

15 Long Winded Random Facts About Me Which You May or May Not Know

1) I had 3 eye surgeries throughout my childhood to correct my lazy eye. My eye will wander at times. I will often use this to my advantage to freak people out.
2) I dislike my thighs, but not necessarily because they're as big as whales. It's actually more because of this huge misshapen bulge of a scar on my left thigh I got when I ran into a water spigot after I found out that my orchestra had already gone onstage during a concert, and no one bothered to tell me. (I had been busy drawing Bill Weasley from Harry Potter)
3) At my kindergarten graduation, we had to stand up in front of all our families and friends and announce what we wanted to be when we grew up. I proudly stated I wanted to be an artist. :) Look where I am now.
4) I'm a certified teacher's pet. Okay, that's a lie. There's no certification for that... unless you count the Student of the Quarter certificates I received in High School >.<
5) My dream job, at this point, is to be a camp counselor at my old girl scout camp. Unfortunately, I think I missed out again this year.
6) I know how to play a wide range of musical instruments - viola (7 yrs), steel drums (3 yrs), piano (sporadically self-taught), clarinet (1 yr), and kazoo (naturally gifted :P)
7) I still have my baby blanket. It's so ragged and small now I can wrap it completely up in my fist and you wouldn't know it was there.
8) I love teddy bears and angels!
9) My actual main determining factor for picking the high school I went to was not entirely because of the orchestra program or art endorsements, but because we could eat lunch outside :P 10) When I was 9 I won first place at a swim meet, but got disqualified for not touching the wall correctly at the end.
11) One of the biggest regrets I have in my life was choosing to do computer club instead of sports 7th grade. That's when my health went to hell.
12) I had my portfolio accepted at my second-choice art school (which would now be my first-choice), but never actually applied because my dad complained so much about money, and I would've had to submit an actual slide portfolio to get financial aid, and did not know how to do that at the time.
13) I work at Peter Piper Pizza and still do not have a black hat. I want one so bad. (A black hat signifies you as a "Team Leader," someone who knows how to do pretty much everything a normal Team Member can do, and is certified to teach others. I missed out getting certified because I did not know games or birthdays during decision time. But neither did Angela, until the day before training).
14) For some reason, I find math incredibly enjoyable. Maybe it's because it causes me to use my brain another way. Maybe it's because, unlike art and writing, it's definitive in it's perfection. You find the right answer - bam, done, perfect. When I was younger, I would get to craving school so bad in the summer, that I'd start doing Order of Operations problems while on vacation.
15) I love children so much. Anyone younger than me. I've always gotten along better with my younger cousins. I always got along better with the younger kids in my afterschool daycare class. I always made more friends in the other, younger units at camp than my own unit. It's because they don't judge as much. I feel I can be myself around younger kids much more than around my own friends, even.

So, dunno how much of that you really NEEDED to know. But it's all stuff about me that's good to know. See, I'm not just a depresso emo little facebook girl.

Not-Facebook Blog!

So, I've decided to switch over to using an actual not-Facebook blog. I'll transport them as notes, but they don't seem to show up in news feeds or whatever. At least Cory's don't. (I may change that privacy setting on facebook anyways). So, basically, I wont really be pouring my heart out for people to see all the time. "Watch what you put out there, Megan. People judge you by that," my dad says. So, basically, I'm sure everyone sees me as a whiny complainy little baby, when that's only a fraction of who I am. It's just what I need to release on the internet. It's healthier than any alternatives I have, but it's backfiring because I know it's turning people off. So I'm stopping that. I also feel like, in a real blog like this, I can talk a little more freely about other things. For some reason, I find happy things to be more of a waste of time for people to read in notes. Not in blogs though. So, you'll be seeing a lot more happy from me. Just look at my template! It's happy-snappy!

If anyone is curious, my blog is melimsah.blogspot.com and you can RSS feed it I think...

Now, because this is a new blog, I feel like I need to establish some facts about me for random people to know about.

Name: Megan
Current Age: 20
Current Schooling: Art Major/Psych Minor, ending my sophomore year
Location: Flagstaff, soon to be Tucson, later to be Flagstaff again
Relationship status: Quite Taken
Favorite Food: Chinese food
Idiosyncrasies: very messy, doodles during class, perfectionistic but clumsy, childish, suffers from poor self-esteem, depression and social phobia, and is incredibly obsessive about things
Personal Quote: I am Hephaestus. I create beautiful things. But what I want more than anything is to be the very things I create.