due to sleep deprivation.

I've realized that I have some ridiculous ambitions. Of course, almost everyone does. Here are some of mine: 1. Get into a nice college absolutely nowhere near here. 2. Have enough AP classes so that when I get there, I'll be counted as a sophomore when I'm a freshman, and therefore graduate earlier. Actually, that's not that crazy for me as of now. I have a friend who did that. I don't have too long... scary. 3. Get somewhere with this band and prove all those people who said we couldn't wrong. 4. Change someone's life. 5. Change the world.

On second thought, most of those aren't too crazy. Then again, I'm often considered relentlessly optimistic. As much as I hate saying this, I honestly think I've matured quite a bit over the past year or so. Although, I'm afraid that I have the heart of a six year old, hence putting the spongy dinosaurs in the toilet, and I doubt that will ever change, yet it's not necessarily a bad thing. A little more than half a year ago, I almost died. Since then, I've found new meaning to life and learned that there's always tomorrow, and that I don't have to act, look, or think like anyone else. A few months ago, I thought I was being different, yet I was still clinging to a group of people that were all the exact same. I think I've begun to understand people, and possibly even myself just a little bit more.

Many will say that you don't have to love everyone. Yet I think I do, somehow. Even as bad as a person may seem, there's got to be some good in them somewhere. Yes, I love you even if I don't know you at all. I do realize I'm excessively strange. I do not hate any person in this world, I might just strongly dislike some of their actions.

The world, in general, fascinates me. Next year, I hope to meet more people and possibly travel some. All I know for sure is that I need a change of scenery. I only have a few years left in this city, though. I need a roadtrip that lasts for a month or a few. We totally need a DF roadtrip, for those of us in it. Bring about 60 people. Go all over the country. Someone go get a bus driver's permit and a bus. Next summer. Totally. Kayla (glassspiderwebs on the DF and twitter) and I have already discussed this, and we officially declare it to be one of the best ideas ever. :) Drive all over the country and pick 50-or-so people up, go random places all over the US for a few week. Or a month. Or a few. How to acquire the proper funds for this, how to actually and realistically plan this out, and how to convince the parents that this is the best idea ever and they should let me go, I have yet to know, but seriously.

Someday.

Love,
Izzy

(1 hour and 57 minutes until the next decade! :D)

chaos, fake love notes, flipping light switches, and spongy dinosaurs

I shall assume it's safe to say that sometimes, all of us will find that we have wandered into chaos unknowingly. That's obvious. Whether it be that there's too much work cut out for us, we said something irrationally stupid, or whatever. But for me, it almost always involves procrastination.

I really need to stop complaining about my endless list of problems.

One thing I am simply annoyed with is that many people, or more specifically, many teenagers and young people, feel they need to adhere to a certain group, or conform to a stereotype, in the ways that they dress, act, talk, etc. "Acceptance" is something valued by the general public, it seems. Yet it's just part of human nature... I'm sure I'm not the only one who it annoys. If you truly like something, wear it. Don't wear it because everyone else is. I do not know how many times I can repeat myself to certain people. It's something that will never be changed, though.

My band, Nameless Elegy, is coming along pretty well, other than that we have problems with the bassist and drumset situations. And maybe the singer. I don't know. I've been working on all the "nerdy stuff," apparently. As in, website, finances, etc. I'm just great at those kind of things. It's probably a good idea to go ahead and get your foundations set out before you really start a big project like this, because then, it's less likely to collapse. It actually is quite astounding to me how many words I understand, yet infrequently use in everyday conversation. It really helps when reading contracts and the like. Not that we're signed (yet), but for just reading the terms and conditions, for stuff like our website hosting service. Of course, it will really be instrumental if we get signed, though. I've wrote some guitar riffs I really like, I got another guitar (which is not exactly the best brand or model of guitar, but better than my other one. yet it's not bad at all), maybe buying a new amp/pedals/other guitar stuff soon, and, yeah.

I feel excruciatingly inarticulate right now.

This morning, we confirmed another techie/tour support. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey, Frances, can you confirm that you'll be one of our techies/tour support?
Frances: Yeah, definitely, as long as I don't have to fix computers or something.
Me: Well pretty much all you have to do is flip light switches, and...
*Cate starts cracking up at this point, then we all realize how imbecilic that sounded and start laughing.*
Me: ...and tell us how much money we have to buy food with.
Frances: 'NO, YOU CAN'T HAVE MONEY TO BUY FOOD. IT'S ALL MINE...'

Friday was the last day of school before winter break. It snowed and they let us out of school an hour early. It didn't stick to the ground, though. I hugged most of my friends and told them I loved them, because it just started snowing a few minutes before we left, and we haven't seen snow in almost two years. Winter is my favorite season.

Since it was the last day of school before break, one of my best friends, Cassidy, and I had to mess up something. Thursday, a good friend of mine gave me those little sponge capsule things that expand in water. I don't know what she was thinking, knowing me. First, we put one of those in a toilet, and walked away. Later, one of my friends on the bus told me she saw a dinosaur sponge in the toilet, and that everyone found it hilarious. Another one of my friends heard this and thought it was the best idea ever. I think we should do that again at the end of the year, but get three packs of spongy dinosaurs or something. Everyone always does something ridiculous, usually fifty times worse than that. All week, we'd been cutting out little paper hearts that said various phrases along the lines of "Happy Holidays! I love you." "Merry Christmas! Ohyeah! P.S. - Ur hot." [Cassidy said that "sounded wrong."] "Happy New Year. You're awesome!" written in different colors and handwriting. We had time to stick about ten of them in our friends' lockers, and we have about ten left. The day we get back, assuredly. What's awesome about this is that our friends have a bunch of holiday and joke love notes, yet they have absolutely no idea who they're from. Yes, I am aware that we're very bad and mature kids. But we didn't want to get suspended the day before winter break. Or really ever.

Love,
Izzy

burnin the flag at half-mast...

Warning for Grey is sorta happening.

I'm editing my NaNoWriMo novel. it's based off 21st Century Breakdown. It's painful.

Finals are next week. I can't play chords... wish me luck in Music/Basic Guitar. And for the music theory shit in Choir. Ugh.

Finals

They are this really stressful time of year where all you want to do is sleep and go home for vacation except you have a ton of work to do.
Two more days.
Sadly, I got an incomplete in my form study class >.<
I did pass every other class though.

This is What I Feel, and I Refuse to Let It Control Me Anymore

I'm alone. True, I have friends, family, teachers, etc, who care about me, love me, are there for me no matter what... it still doesn’t change the fact that I feel alone. I wasn't for a long time, and I am now. So what can I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I can look for someone, but experience tells me, that the person will show up exactly when they want to and no sooner than that. Looking around every single corner I round for them will bring more disappointment than anything (though my stubbornness refuses to allow me to quit). I wont be alone in due time, when my time for love comes again. I know I want it to be soon, soon as possible. But then again, I always do. I'm emotionally needy. That will never change.

How do I feel less alone? Sad? Empty? Lost? Desperate? How do I make the memories stop haunting me? You can't tell me. No one can. Time heals wounds. Only time. It takes time, though mentally, I do believe you can truly effect how much time it will take to heal. The more active you are about your own healing, the less time it will take. Just like a wound heals faster with some antiseptic and a bandage. If you actually TRY to heal, the healing will work faster. Don't pick at your wounds, stitch them closed.

I suppose I've been fighting it a little bit. But who wouldn't? It's a whole lot to take in, and an immense amount of things to forget. Well, not to forget. I'm really not forgetting anything. I'm just, sort of taking everything, remembering it, processing it, and filing it away. Putting it in storage. Make them distant. And as time goes, I'll make more memories, which make the old even more distant, and make filing everything else away that much easier. And then, when I look back, well, I just think "Awww, I remember when", not "I miss those days", or "What if". What if sucks. Never let that become a stable part of your vocabulary. It's the question to which you will never know the answer. And I hate not knowing the answers to things. So it's just better for me to not ask that question.

Besides, how could I ever possibly benefit from any of this? From holding onto this? It's like a dead kitten. Sure it was cute and fun while it was alive, but it got sick, it's gone now, and there is nothing you can do about it. Do you really want to try to play with a dead kitten? To try to feed one? I know from anatomy class that dead cats are just... gross. I would must rather have a live one, thanks. And no, I may not find another kitten I really like for awhile, but it's not like my kitten was the last kitten on earth. There are plenty of em. Hell, just look in the classifieds in the newspaper, there are tons of em, for free! It would be... rather stupid to keep and cherish a dead kitten when I could easily get a live one!

Goodness, by now most of us should understand how disappointing life is. From the little things like having to change plans, to the bigger things like break-ups and death. Life never works exactly the way we want it to. Why? Cause we can't see what's been planned for us, we have our own ideas and plans, and when they don't work out, we are incredibly sad. See though, if we could see what He has planned, we wouldn't be sad at all, cause we would know that everything is going exactly how it's supposed to be. Not a single mistake or disappointment, but everything flowing perfectly in line as He intended it. Wish I could see that. Hope His plan is incredible, cause mine seemed pretty damn good too.

I was sitting there, about an hour ago, listening to Brand New, because I hadn't in weeks and I wanted to so bad. Not caring how much it would hurt if I did. And I saw the friendship we could have. I could picture us, driving somewhere, anywhere together, laughing, best friends. No pain. No sense of loss. No awkwardness. Just us, like I do with all of my other close friends, driving down the road, singing along to some song (this time it was "Jesus Christ" by Brand New), laughing and having the time of our lives. I can't have what I planned anymore. I'm trying as hard as I can to accept that. And since I can't have that, I want what I just saw in my head, so bad. It almost seems just as good as my original plan. When I saw it in my mind's eye, it made me, for a few brief moment, immensely happy. I want that. Now.

Your one of my best friends. You know me better than 99% of everyone who knows me. I cannot lose you. You said you need me, I need you too. You know so much, and your such a part of me now, that to lose you completely is an unthinkable thing. Why else do you think I can't stay away? I've known you, for not too much longer than a year, and I feel like I grew up with you. That I met you in elementary school, or middle school, like my other closest friends. I could never survive without their friendship, so how could I ever survive without yours? It would kill me inside to not have it. That's why I want to start fixing it. To make the image in my head reality as soon as I can. And how is that possible? Time... and like I said before, time repairs, and will do so faster if you actively try to help it. I'll be as active as possible, as active in healing this as my brain will let me.

You have to see how hard I'm trying. If you looked that things how I see them, if you know me well at all, you could see how much it hurts, and still how hard I'm trying to feel better and move on. The whole situation is so sad. Not bitter, not angry, just sad. It's so freaking sad. I was probably mad about it for all of, I don't know, two or three days. Now I'm getting past the sadness, and the past. It's easier to accept it all every day. Though I will have my down days. The days when I cry myself to sleep. The days when I may deny every word I've just written. My relapse days. I'll have em, but even as I do, they will grow fewer and farther in between. Gosh I can't wait for that. I want it as soon as possible.

I want to live. I want to breath. I want to not hurt anymore. I want to get some actual control over what I feel for once. I'm going to take what I want, starting now.

gagged to a chair it's so unfair...

so I've finally got a band type thing.

we're tentatively called Warning for Grey, we're pop-punk-rock, and I am the bassist/violinist/co-singer. my nickname/stage name is St. Jimmy (long story), my friend (guitarist and co-singer) is Gloria, and our pianist is Fruit Loop. we've got a gothy-grungy girl (me) a dark!prep-type girl (Gloria) and a bright happy colorful chick (Fruit Loop). we're kinda strange, but... hey.

we also have the strangest influences, and none of 'em line up. I have the longest list of singers/bassists who inspire me (bassists... Mike Dirnt and Hunter Burgan and Flea, 'course) who run the line of punk/alternative (a hint of industrial) and then they have, like the Jonas Brothers. but then again Gloria got her nickityname from the Patti Smith song of the same name so...

we just need to run Warning for Grey past Fruit and we'll be set. well, then again, I actually need a bass... and for my lil bro to approve being our drummer (he'd have a metal influence)

so anyway, Warning for Grey is like the weirdest band ever. if you happen to live *here* and ya see us advertising for like a show wherever, get the eff over there kay?


other names we though up were "Warning for Ezekiel" "Warning for Ezekiel Grey" "Warning for Misery" "High School Punk Club" "Pasalacqua" etc.

~suki

If you see odd-looking kids with a giant cd/cassette player/radio thing from the mid-90s, lettuce, a plastic jackolantern, and a collection of other random objects, dancing in the middle of the street, that's probably my friends and I. I'm the one with the weirdly-colored-orangey-brown hair (that was an accident at summer camp involving hair-highlighting stuff which you're not really supposed to use if you have black hair because it turns your hair orange. It used to be bright orange, but then my mom dyed it to look more natural and the dye faded some.) and a bunch of books on math, psychology, and other random stuff. And probably an instrument case.

I don't know why, but I just had to say that. Recent occurrences. Yay for condensing the past few weeks into four sentences!

I guess it's safe to say that my band is getting off the ground. To me, it's extremely strange to think that we could actually get somewhere with it, as in, record an album and play shows. (And we are planning for both of those things next year.) Yet, a possibility. The idea of a band has been circulating around my group of friends and I for maybe, three years now. Honestly, it doesn't even seem real. We've been having problems getting a bassist and a guy singer, but we're almost sure we've found our bassist. The singer, however, is not exactly secured. We've been trying to find a guy to sing, because Audrey (sitarist/drummer) said that she envisioned a guy singing some of the songs, and a girl singing others. (Which would probably end up being me.) The following is what would most likely happen with the lineup when Audrey was playing sitar. Somehow, it seems as if it would miraculously work out. (Because, obviously, you can't play drums at the same time. As far as I know, she hasn't grown two more arms.) The bassist, who coincidentally plays drums, would be the drummer. Then the guy singer, who coincidentally plays bass, would also be the bassist. And I will be playing guitar, no matter what odd lineup situations we configure.

Hoping to tour next year. As in, play some shows fairly close by. No further away than an hour, most likely. We all have to start somewhere, and some of us have parents, and other various hindrances, including school, location, etc.

I still can't believe it's happening, though. So I don't have to bore you with updates for this band, you can follow along here, because updates will be posted much more frequently there. I don't know how many times I've said this, but I'm really excited about what this could become. I have no ambitions of us being famous or something, but, to me, making a record and playing shows with a halfway-decent band is something to be proud of.

love,
Izzy

I have decided their should be a movie about how ridiculous my life is.
Strange things always happen to me.
Or really good things will happen right after something really bad happens.
Such as not being able to go to the NYC afi show, yet then I was a runner up in the Zukin(pumpkin carving) contest thus winning a shirt.
My schools registration site stopped working right when I had to register for class, so I decide to run up to the registration office to kick some ass (I hope I can say ass here?). So I get there.. and there are about 30 - 40 other really angry kids that had similar registration times as I did. To make a long and painful story short, they ended up hand-registering people and ignoring the website thing, but I was still there for 3 hours. The good thing after that was I won a macbeth shirt via facebook. That was pretty cool.
I am sure there are several other examples but it is 8 am and my brain is not working properly.

When we build these dreams on sand, how they all slip through our hands.

I've been really, really stressed out over the past week. Mainly due to several things: procrastination, full schedules, forgetting things, and our crazy little band project. Honestly, I don't know what direction it's going in. We have Audrey, who plays sitar (look it up) and is learning drums, and I could sing or play guitar and viola. [And about the viola: it's named Sam. I have no idea why, but it is. So Sam had to have some minor adjustments because someone messed up when they fixed it before. (In other words, they set the sound post incorrectly.) I gave Sam to my viola teacher twos Fridays before last, and he said it would probably be back on Saturday. It was not. They had to do other minor adjustments. And once again, it was not my fault. I got Sam back yesterday. Apparently the guy who is fixing it has a lot of work to do or something.]

And then I might get a new guitar sometime in the somewhat-near future. (Maybe in a few months/a year or so.) The main problems with our band are that a) we don't have a bassist. b) the name is unoriginal, and c) we probably need another singer because I'd probably get confused and start singing the chord names if I was the singer and guitarist. All the people I know that play bass opted out of being in any form of band. So we'll have to ask everyone we know if they know someone that plays bass. And I just found out that I have a bunch of friends that know a guy in my grade that plays bass and apparently his band broke up a while ago. But I don't know him. And walking up to him and saying "Hey, all my friends know you. You play bass, right? Would you like to be in my band?" would be kinda creepy. Let's just hope I have him in a class next trimester, because it ends next week, and that way I could get to know him and then The name of our band is "Nameless Elegy," and we think we've finally found the perfect name. It actually just became that today, but is has had several variations, including "Nameless," there were too many bands called that and it wasn't creative, "Nameless Sorrow", which was just plainly bad for the type of music we're playing, "Nameless Lost", which just doesn't sound good, "We The Nameless", which is not good because we're not writing The Constitution, and several others like that. It's not that we don't have anything together, we already have several complete songs that do require a bassist. Audrey can write really, really good bass parts for some reason. And our lyrics... sometimes they mean something to us, sometimes we don't know what the song is about until we're done. For instance, Audrey recently wrote a song about a homeless guy who stalks his ex-girlfriend. She did not intend it to be about that, of course. Yet, believe it or not, it's still a nice song. It's not obvious it's about that, it could very easily be about a lot of things.

And playing Girl's Not Grey and Give It All on Rock Band at 3-4 AM is superamazing. Especially when I'm the singer and my voice is messed up from screaming for several hours on end. (And apparently, I'm usually a really good singer.) And I got punched in the face by a little girl because all the lights were off and she probably thought I was one of those boys jumping out and scaring people during a Sardines game (like reverse hide and seek, where one person hides and everyone tries to find them and then hides with them.) This was at a lock-in at a church with some friends on Friday night. I fell asleep on a couch for 20 minutes. Literally. And then I woke up about 5:50 to kids running around and screaming like they lost their heads. Fun, I know.

Last night I went roller skating. I haven't been in forever. Surprisingly, I didn't fall fifty times, only about five. We skated around in a giant chain of four or five people most of the time.

[My teachers would have killed me for this, but yay for disorganization...] Audrey, from our band, is coming over today and we're going to work out songs, and maybe record something, because we have the equipment, but it's not likely that we will. But possible. Now we have a blog, too! I promise it will be interesting, and updated fairly frequently, because this project is being worked on. Click.

Sorry for the length also,

♥ Izzy

I was required to write a blog for school. Go figure, I hope you don't mind it:

Sex, Drugs but no Rock and Roll? C is for Corruption:
My first day at Bishop Brady High School consisted of ridicule and antagonizing classmates. Why? I wore a black tee shirt that had a band’s name on the front. Someone forgot to tell me that this was unacceptable--at least to the student population. Needless to say that I stood out like a sore thumb. I can not consider myself a graduate of a Catholic High School, because this would require two things of me: A. to have gone to Catholic School for four years, and B. Accepting the practices and injustices of the Catholic School System.
After the first day of school, all students were required to wear the school uniform: navy, green or white polo shirt with either khaki pants or a plaid skirt all provided by the school. For some absurd reason, I still was known as the “Goth” kid; I just did not fit in with everyone else. The more I tried to find out why, the more I decided I did not want to be anything like them.
Corrupt is a good word to describe the teaching staff at a Catholic High School. Teachers do not need a teaching degree, all they need is to know someone important at the school and then they get a job. The gym teacher in 2004 was fired (for having sexual relations in the kitchen with the typing teacher), and was replaced by the principal’s son—a stoner who dropped out of college. He would come to class smelling like marijuana and alcohol and no one did anything about it. Why would they? Most of the kids were smoking with him.
This pot problem did not stop with the principal’s son; her daughter also would smoke like a chimney. I can not recall the number of times I would walk into the girls locker room and see her in the far corner with one of her “bffs” smoking some sort of drug combination.
Drinking and engaging in sexual activities on school grounds was also a common occurrence. What did the school do about it? Almost nothing. They tried to suspend kids for it, but once they found out the principal’s daughter and the vice principal’s daughter were involved they turned a blind eye. To make a long story short; Bishop Brady High School refused to report alcohol and drug use on the campus, thus breaking a few laws, and they refused to discipline anyone engaging in other activities that inappropriate for school.
Now, if these students were willing to engage in such activities at school, one can only imagine what they were willing to do in the comfort of their own home--or lack of comfort.
The thing that I, to this day, never understand was why people would disrespect their body, mind and their relationships just for a short “high”. People who need drugs and sex to make them happy need to start listing to better music.

Post-op

I've been tending these words for weeks
Scripting them in living breath
Mercilessly trying to erase
The cold embrace of death
I can still feel it on my finger tips
Can I still beat this yet?
Fighting for all that I hang to
Scraping at the edge

Some days I walk on the ground
While others have me walk on glass
On days I stand strong
I remind myself not to tear stitches
Move slowly and resist the infection
Keep going this delicate balance
Which no one understands

Living more afraid
With much less confidence
Flinching to brace for the next hit
Beaten down
Eyes cast up to look for the sun
Anxious to see what I will find
Trying to take what's given
Bring it needed oxygen
Before a flat line

I cherish so this blessing
Take it deep
Here now and to all time
Taking only as needed
Resting up as best I can
Transplants take time to heal
Guess for this placement
First, none, or last
I don't regret

Hello Blog! It's been a while hasn't it?

This is only a quick update for now, but I'll try and post another later in the week. I've moved on from Health and Social Care to Art and Design and I'm still not happy! Isn't life funny? My boyfriend and I have been together nearly 2 and a half years now and we're happy(ish, but I'll elaborate some other time). There's so much I want to write, but it's nearly half past one in the morning and I have a half-finished essay and a sketchbook due in tomorrow. The joys of being an art student...

x

Halloween and such...

It's been a long time Cottonheads. :[
I feel horrible for abandoning you, but now I'm back, and crazier then ever!

Halloween was last Saturday. Let me just tell you, greatest holiday ever. I had way too much fun. Now, not only have I discovered that I am a "fucking adorable" ninja with a gun, but I can also get out of sticky situations quick like a bunny.

On Friday night I ended up staying up 23 hours, lost my mind, and had a phone conversation that I can now no longer remember.
On Halloween day I found out that I love my friends more then ever. Halloween night we all went to our schools Halloween dance with no high hopes, our schools dances fail miserably and are usually all rap with Sandstorm thrown in there somewhere. Out of nowhere I hear the beginning of the Time Warp. I am a flipping Rocky Horror whore, I love it like crazy. Anyway, hearing this made we bolt away from the group of people I came with into the darkness of our black out auditorium to find my fellow Rocky Whore, Mica. After screaming her name a few times she pops up out of no where and drags me across the room to where they are SHOWING THE SCENE. This is the pont where I flip the fuck out and tear off everything that I could without getting suspended. Shoes, gloves, scarf, all those juicy bits are gone. Now Here I am, in front of more then 200 people, with maybe five other kids doing the Time Warp and screaming 'group sex'. Little did I know our principle watched the whole thing >.<

So we left the dance early, after the "Time Warp" we knew it would only go downhill. On our way home we decided to stop by the local Kroger to pick up some half off candy. After finding our loots we were about to check out when these three girls come in wearing the skankiest costumes ever. Okay, they weren't really, but one of them was wearing a Robin costume. I swear to all that is holy her nipples were falling out of her shirt, so as we passed them I stated a fact rather too loudly "Or let your nipples hang out, that's cool too..."
No more then five minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. Here's some girl, she was a pretty girl, but she was a bigger girl. A REALLY big girl, wearing close to nothing. She looks me dead in the eyes and in the whiniest voice I have ever heard "Did you just call my best friend a... SLUT?" At this point we're screwed, these girls looked like bad news. If we didn't act fast, If I didn't act fast, we were doomed, they'd try to stomp us then and there. I looked over to my friends for help. At this point they all looked like nuns, clothed from neck to ankle, halo and folded hands, (backstabbers). I thought we were screwed, we were gonna die in Kroger, but then I saw Carolyn. Sweet little Carolyn whom of which we'd been calling a French hooker all night. Her top was low enough!
"Oh no, no! I was just making fun of my friend, her top's been really low all night!" (her cleavage wasn't even showing >.<)
"Ohhhhhh, okay!!!" The three girls walked away, we lived, and they still didn't get that I never said she wasn't a whore.


Moral of the story is, If you are going to do the Time Warp in public, look around before you start screaming your fondness for 'group sex'.
Another moral is that if you are going to call other girls sluts, be sure to have a skanky friend to help bail you out. :D


Alex {{{I love my best friends, even my fellow slut ninja with a gun}}} Lee


P.S. Sandstorm is an amazing dance song, the only real techno song they ever play, I'm still not sure why, no one seems to like it but me and my friends.

P.S.S. Yes, I did in fact call your friend a slut, tape dem nippies in!

Hangover

I woke up in a strange bed, not knowing how I came there, what I was doing, or why my body hurt so much. I looked around and pieces of the evening before came back to me. I was at my volunteer work, at the local stage and we had a meeting. And we also learned how to tap beer (I knew that already, but we had to do it again and show we knew it).
And then I drank a beer and another and another and another and some more. I missed the last bus home and went home with a co-worker, who's also a good friend. On the way to his house I tried to longboard, but fell down so much that I had a few wounds, that was the thing that was hurting.
Now I'm dizzy and not able to spell, make good sentences and anything like it. Stupid hangovers.

I like being able to drink beer since I were sixteen, can't even imagine waiting till 21. The drunken evenings with friends are just too much fun

this is why we should not have sleepovers anymore.

On Monday night, I saw AFI. It was just indescribably awesome. I was one person behind the barricade. In front of me was a really tall guy, who looked as if he had heard of AFI yesterday/never been to any kind of concert before. He was texting the whole time. Then he was complaining about all the people screaming the songs and stuff. XD. I did get a picture with Smith, and I hugged Adam. And Jade signed my poster. We had to leave before Davey and Hunter came outside, because my dad was worried about the people we may encounter while walking back to the hotel.

One of my good friends, Audrey, (who is also in the band I'm in, which is actually called 'Nameless'), decided that she should have a sleepover for her birthday this year. Bad idea. Better yet, extremely terrible idea. So Friday night, we saw a play about vampires that lasted for two hours. (It did poke fun at Twilight, which was enjoyable.) All the characters were played by two men. That was over at 11:30. When we got home, we had vegan birthday cake. (I have some awesome friends that really care about me.) We somehow figured out (don't ask how) that a plastic jackolantern amplified the sound from headphones. So we carried that around for I-don't-know-how-many hours. Then we were dancing to The Cure in darkness at 1 AM and eating vegan ice cream and cake and the rest of the icing. (Erin and I ate all of it, as we do not get to eat ice cream as often as those who eat dairy.) And climbing in trees like little children. Until 3 AM or so. Audrey and I snuck outside, while Cecilia and Erin were still inside. Our feet felt the need to move. So, still with the jackolantern and the ipod, we decided to walk around the pool until we got bored. We went to the swingset and randomly cussed at each other and laughed for a really long time. (That shows how mature we are. XD) Then Cecelia and Erin came outside and couldn't find us at first, as there were no lights and the stars were obscured by clouds. So we tried to swing really high so they would see us, and we almost fell off. Then they saw us and we all walked around the pool again for quite some time. Cecelia and Erin went to the swingset, and Audrey and I decided to squish ourselves in a hammock that was only made for one person and try to look for the stars, which was unsuccessful. Her parents woke up and noticed we weren't inside and made us go inside. Then, after an hour or so, we went outside again for a few minutes, and I stuck my feet in the pool, which was just above freezing, and I somehow forgot I had long pants on, so, I had to deal with up to my knees being near-frozen for the rest of the night. Then we went back inside and put the jackolantern on each other's heads. We ended up staying awake until around 5, slept until 9:30, and then we sat in the tree again and ate lettuce. (I have absolutely no idea why.) We're like little kids. :D

I am in the process of writing a 10-or-so page (and it keeps extending) poem that may one day become (a) song(s). I have absolutely no idea why or how I chose to do this, or why it ended up being so long. Or exactly what it's about. Right now it resembles a really long Mad Libs page because there's a bunch of places where I can't think of the right word.

Did you know that I have the kind of friends that would actually skip class to hang out at, of all places, the grocery store? I did not until today. Our assistant principal was late and he saw them walking down the street. They got suspended for three days.

my friends scare me,
♥ izzy

The Secret Is Out

I knew it was true
What you knew
Swore you'd never known
But you know now
You know too well

And the secret is out
And the secret is out

The sky is colder
You look up now
Swore it was down
To find what you found
Underground

It's raining now
It's raining now

Fingers on glass
You retained their shape
Swore they melted away
Feel then fade

I've lost the day
I've lost the day

lately.

I transferred schools this year, the reasons being that it's much closer, and also, to use a euphemism, (several are used in this post), there were just some 'issues' for me at my old school. I won't go in-depth about those, because I may get strange glares if I do. [It's quite an extensive story, and if I explained it all, it would almost certainly confuse everyone that knows me even more.]

A few days ago, not only were my converse unmatched, (which was an accident and intentional at the same time), but I wore sunglasses the whole time during math and the teacher didn't notice. She was too busy talking about how her daughter took calculus three in tenth grade.

At school, this is what we did last year: literally run from place to place, live in constant fear of detention even if you didn't really do anything wrong, get pushed into a locker in the hallway because no one follows the rules of which hallways they're supposed to use, have thirty points taken off your grade because you did something like tape a piece of paper differently(actual occurrence), etc.

This is what we do this year: have friends like Austin that stand up and pull their pants down at random intervals, are extremely immature (not to say that the rest of us aren't), laugh at words like 'naked', and also do a variety of many other strange and inappropriate things. We have teachers that actually tell our friends to shut up, we go places we're not supposed to to prevent breaking a laptop and getting electrocuted, we sit in the closet for an hour and sometimes have deep conversations about life, and not have two to three hours of homework on an average day.

Lately, I've begun to realize that fairytales aren't real. [No, not Santa Claus or something. I passed the age of ten some time ago.] Quite a few of the things they've told me for so long, I am beginning to doubt and see how ridiculous and unrealistic they are. I feel much happier than I did a few weeks ago.

The new AFI album is simply amazing. It's far from what I had hoped for, but nevertheless, I love it. I have not actually gotten it, as it is in the mail and I am anxiously checking the tracking website about every ten seconds... Concert on October 19, in Richmond. Less than a month...

Honestly, I really don't know anymore. I likely have some of the strangest friends in the world, yet I love them to death.

We never can truly know who we are,

♥ Izzy.

Facing demons

Wow, the blog is all dusty right now.
Anyway, last week the first issue of the school newspaper came out. The writers had to sell it, so there you see me, running around crowded hallways asking people if they wanted it. I finally got to sell 27 newspapers in three days (phew!) It's the first time that anyone (beside my friends) read something I write. You'll see, it terrifies me. It scares the hell out of me when someone unfamiliar reads something that he/she knows is written by me. I didn't use an pseudonim, so now all the freking high school read my feelings. I'll have to get use to it, because I'm in for the whole semester. Oh, my...
On a happier and unrelated note, Crash Love is only a week away. Yay! :D

How to survive high school.

As said in my last post, I just started school today. I just realized I'm not the only one, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of how to survive high school. After all, it's my sixth year and my fourth school I'm at.

- Get to know as many people as possible. It's good to know what's going on at school
- Make sure the teachers like you. You'll get away with much more than you would if they don't
- Make friends. Walk up to strangers, talk with them. They could be friends you haven't met yet.
- Do your homework, show interest, ask a lot of questions.
- You're at school to graduate and move on. Keep that in mind.
- Don't involve yourself in the drama's. It costs to much energy
- Have fun and be yourself. If people don't like you, it's their problem, not yours.
- Be nice to the new kids, walk up to them, show them around. They'd appreciate it
- If you have trouble with a subject, tell the teacher. Most of them would be glad to help.
- If you get to much homework, make it with a friend. Let one do the even numbers and the other the uneven. Then copy each others work.
- Make notes during the classes.
- If one of your classmates is sick during a class, offer them to copy your notes. It will help you make friends.
- Don't let people take advantage of you

Just remember, in a few years you'll leave, lose most friends you had, build up a completely new life. In the end your social status won't matter, but your graduation will.

Back to school

Summer holiday has ended. Goodbye fun, goodbye staying up and sleeping until the sun reached the sky. Goodbye endless conversations with friends. Goodbye freedom.
For me, it's back to school again. And even though it was the first day, the teachers did their best to erase all summer feelings.
But it wasn't that bad at all. There were a lot of friends of mine, who failed their exams or didn't pass the year and decided to go to my school.
Let me explain a bit of the school system in Netherland.
You have the basic school, you go there when you're 4 and leave when you're 12. It's 8 years long.
Then, in the 8th grade, you get a test. Depending on the score they'll decide what you'll do in high-school.
VMBO is the easiest, it takes four years.
HAVO is a bit harder, it takes 5 years.
VWO is the hardest, it takes 6 years.
After your VMBO you can go to the MBO, where you can learn a profession.
After HAVO you can go to HBO. HBO is similar to what you call college. You learn a profession but it's more theoretical.
After VWO you can go to the university.

At my school they give the last two years in one, 3/4VMBO, 4/5HAVO and 5/6VWO. The only exception is 4HAVO, preparing you for the 4/5HAVO class.
And that's what I did last year.

Well, you'll hear if anything happens at school

-Maaike

Days Are Numbers

Had a dream
Seemed long as the night
Broken put together
I'd breathe had I the time
For tears that burn
One, two, for you
In time our moment
While endless rivers run through
Could a heart be given?
Kept secure and safe?
Please retain this for me
And I'll hold fast
Find strength to follow through
Unceasing like the river
Sifting down
They all meet at the ocean
Those oceans will greet the shore
When the wind heads me that way
I will be home
With a message in a bottle
Words wrote
You will keep
Held against that heart
I will be present, but free

Memories.

I will try to keep this post free of preaching, whining because I miss people, boys who have crushes on me, etc. That will hopefully be contained here.

I got back from another camp about two weeks ago, this time it was a mission camp over in Lookout Mountain, GA/Chattanooga, TN. It's really pretty, and in the Great Smoky Mountains. We visited old folks and played with underprivileged children. Somebody decided to put seven girls (including myself) in a dorm room (we were staying at a college) that was only intended for six people. Honestly, I think only two or three people should be in a dorm that size. It really was that small.

The camp itself and all the people were just marvelous. Not necessarily the building and actual college... [Note to self: a frequently used tactic of fancy private colleges to lure you in is making the outside and guest houses really nice, and making the majority of the dorms very outdated, moldy, extremely cramped, not exactly always sanitary, etc.]

Nevertheless, it's fun. We had a speaker guy named Chris Brooks who was really funny and everyone could always understand exactly what he meant... he also talked about everything from several different perspectives of people who believe different things. I'll stop with my camp stories now because they're probably boring/not making much sense...

And now... it's time for weird things people have written in my yearbooks! Some of these make no sense at all, just so you know...

"The Eccentric Banana! -Shivanjali! PS: Cows are coolio!" "IZZY! ILY! STALKER! ♥ Natalie" "ur so awesome and so is writing upside down! luv ya! Julia" "I am so happy I'm married 2 you AND 7 other people!!! Have an Awesome summer, Izzy. - Lizzie" "Izzy, have a fun soccer summer! - Sarah" "Naila! Burger King! Murder King! [and something else which is probably too inappropriate. XD]" "Andrew H. a.k.a Pablo M. [The story of that is he wasn't supposed to be on our bus, so on the bus, we called him Pablo so the bus driver wouldn't know he was Andrew. It worked, surprisingly.] "Izzy, web design was so much fun. I can't believe you like him‼ Enjoy next year without me, Brenna" "Hi Izzy. - Patriek. [He told me he spelled his name wrong because he was thinking about something with an e in it.... it's Patrick. Okay, then.]"

And my birthday is tomorrow. Yay. I really ought to stop typing so much.

♥ Izzy

Renewal...

I started school this week in (possibly) the preppiest school in town. I went in there because I got a scholarship. But I feel kind of out of place because it's filled with girls and boys that think that wearing expensive brands and getting wasted every weekend makes them cool. There is too much people, and I'm just with two friends in my classroom. I hope I'll adapt soon enough :/ So far highschool is just Meh for me

Jealousy

I wish there was no human need for it. It quite possibly may be the worst feeling aside from heartache. Especially when you have absolutely nothing to be jealous of. When you know the person you have loves you. When you know that any conversation that person has with another person is purely innocent on their end.

So why do I get jealous? Because the person talks to other people? Because the person can connect with others besides me? Because the person is friends with people who happen to have crushes on the person? What's wrong with me? How could I feel this type of petty jealousy? Is it really just part of being human, or is my head just fucked up? How can I stop?

Now and then

I never thought things would end like they did. But life constantly seems to surprise me.
One using coke, the other smoking weed and drinking, one wanting to become a prostitute, one on the XTC. My old friends fucked-up so much.
And I just sit back and watch them fall, like they never were a part of my life, just some words I read in a book, a scene I saw in a movie. Nothing real, nothing personal.
Reminds me, No Fun At All will play in Netherland in October or something, sure I'm going there.

I went to Propagandhi last Thursday, it was amazing. I love the friends I went with.

Not much to say, but it's a small update ;)

Before sleep...

It's been a long time since I last posted, but today I wanted to share something that happened to me last night.
Do some of you get the weirdest thoughts before sleeping? I spent about an hour thinking of how much I miss one of my friends, even though I know everything that happened was his fault. I felt vurnerable and jaded. I never feel like this when I'm fully awake.
Besides this, my mind drifts off to a whole different world... sometimes happy, sometimes not.

I have decided that I am going to stop consuming dairy products for the week.. and slowly progress to vegan-ism.
It is kind of ridiculous how hard it is to find vegan food. It frightens me that they sneak animal by products into everything now a days. Especially things that one would think could be made with out animals. For instance: Marshmellows, skittles and almost all gummy candy has gelatin in it. This is not necessary.. But have you ever tried to find these products with out gelatin?
I can't seem to find them with out driving at least an hour to a specialty grocery store.
I think it is time for a change.

We're not strange. At all.

I was away at camp. I met my best friend, Piper (yes, it was like kindergarten, where you know someone for a short period of time, and then you're best friends) I don't meet people that I connect with very quickly often. One of my best friends from elementary school, Maddie, was also there. It was like we last saw each other when school got out, but it was actually years without seeing her or talking to her. Maddie has a shade of red hair that I've never seen anyone else with, and you can recognize her in a large crowd. It's so pretty, though.

Speaking of hair: part of my hair is orangey-golden blonde. Sun-In. It sort of bleaches your hair. You probably shouldn't use that stuff unless you have completely blonde hair. You will most likely regret it unless you want (possibly) extremely strange looking orange/golden hair that you can't guess the color of before you use it. My hair looks unnaturally colored, but it doesn't look too strange.

About three weeks ago, right before I went to camp, they cut off two and a half inches of my hair because it looked weird because my hair was kinda burnt at the ends from flat-ironing it so much and there were some split ends. Yes, it surely did need to be trimmed, but two and a half inches? Really? Oh and I got half my hair cut off on Monday. It's only somewhat short, not really really short. If I hadn't had two and a half inches cut off, then my hairdresser said I could have donated my hair. Life can be ironic.

I went spelunking/caving while at camp and one of my good friends, Danielle, who really spaces out sometimes, did not catch me because she somehow 'forgot', and I fell five and a half or six feet in a cave in Middle-of-Nowhere, Virginia. So I fell more feet than I am tall. I, amazingly, didn't get hurt at all. That's definitely not the first time something like this has happened. I jumped out of a tree, from fifteen feet off the ground when I was ten. I measured it.

For "cabin time", in which you... spend time with your cabin, one day we went to the zipline one day, where you have a harness on, and you're connected to a rope and a cable, and basically you fly out of the woods into the lake. I am not necessarily a fan of that. Or really anything that involves falling into water from a high elevation. Anyways, it was dark and cold and icky for anything water-related that day. There was absolutely no chance that I was going on the zipline. When we were out there, it started pouring down rain, so I sat, in a ball, under a tree on a very, very steep hill. One of our counselors, who I really think could be a much better Hannah Montana than Miley Cyrus, (I mean that in a good way) said "What are you doing? You look like some sort of creepy creature." Thus I was known as a creepy creature for the rest of camp. It was hilarious. I guess you had to be there.

Let's share another camp story. So our counselors were at a gas station when they had a night off during camp. Inside the store, there was a lady trying to steal a ham by hiding it under her shirt to look like she was pregnant. Very convincing. I have no idea why they have ham at a gas station... but okay... the ham fell out from under her shirt. Then she said "WHO FRU. DA HAM. AT ME." Sounds like something that should be on Saturday Night Live. (Actually, I think I remember this being a youtube video. I bet they were just pulling our leg.) And about SNL: some of the staff members decided to do these skits for us at one of our nightly assemblies in the gym, and I was one of the few people dying of laughter because not many other people had seen it/everyone was extremely confused. (Yes there are commercials, but it's worth waiting for.)





And I almost died today. I was seriously less than 50 feet from being struck by lightning. And I have other things to say. So if you aren't tired of my senseless, seemingly endless rambling, which to me, sounds highly improbable, then click here.

♥ Izzy

The Despair Faction

Although I know you don't have to write about AFI related things here, I just wanted to share this entry I made in another blog of mine.

Tonight I visited the Thirty Seconds To Mars (one of my all time favorite bands) forum for only the second time, and I was looking through posts and rules, but I wasn't able to stay for very long. The rules were amazingly strict sounding and unwelcoming. I was seriously repelled. Although the posters were nice enough, I felt like I was reading a book, starting with the last chapter when I read through some of the topics. I couldn't get into it at all. It just seemed like a group of online friends talking, it didn't really seem like anything more (although avid posters of this forum may tell me differently, and I respect that, this was just my first impression).

The Despair Faction boards are the complete opposite. I never felt our of place, or alone there (I love how people often greet new members with "Welcome to the family"). Most people on the boards are wonderfully patient and will gladly help you if you have any problems. They don't put up with crap of coarse, and will tell you when your wrong... but it feels like a family. Even though I'm still not super close to any of them, I feel very at home. I feel connected to them. They are all very intelligent people, but usually don't show off or try to act like they are better than they really are. I have gotten into a few arguments, but nothing major or unforgivable.

I've always felt closer to AFI as a band. They do so much for their fans, and it's extremely apparent that they want to be as close to their fans as possible. After all, we are a faction, a family, and we are in this together. They seem to very much realize this. The BEGINTRANSMISSION contest is just one more way of them showing they care and want to meet their fans. Plus, their lyrics are just so personal, there isn't a single AFI song that I can't relate to. Their music makes you feel like your not alone, that someone has been through exactly what you've been through, and that it is possible to come out of the other side.

I want to become a DF member very soon, and the next time I get my hands on thirty dollars it will be the first thing I do. Just so I become an official member of this family, for life. It's an exceptionally small price to pay really.

To The Despair Faction: I love you all and I will hopefully be joining officially very soon!
To AFI: You have no idea how much you mean to me, and how much I'm looking forward to Crash Love!

Have you?

Have you ever wanted something so bad and been forced to wait for it. Every day being teased by it.
This is how I feel with Crash Love.

It has been over three years since AFI's last album... And Finally we have a date for number eight.
I'm excited and impatient.


I am more excited about crash love than I am about college.

I'm leaving to Everett, WA tomorrow for a week.

I'm really stoked. My mother and father will also be with me. It's going to be a fun trip. Also, the weather sounds wonderful.

I put a whole bunch of new music into my iPod for the twenty hour drive. Lot's of classical jazz and VNV Nation!

Taking disturbing to a new level. (And homicidal children!)

So.

Leaving for camp in mountains on Sunday for two weeks. Away from chaos. Maybe not. Most likely causing chaos in cabin, with three friends in there with me. We're probably going to be dancing when we're supposed to be sleeping, like a few years ago. Going spelunking (caving!) while at camp. Fun.

Watch me have an allergic reaction to something and then end up in the nurse's office again. They can never figure out what it is. I tell them that it's kind of normal while I'm at camp, and a few minutes later, I'm okay. Extremely weird. But I happen to be getting allergy tested, thankfully. After camp. Insane.

I just finished being a "volunteer" (funny, because it was involuntary) for a camp. Only half a day for five days, but it is really exhausting. I was with the rising first graders. Yes, they are so, so, adorable. When they try to hurt me, first I tell them to stop, and then I say "Okay, stop. Now. Or I will tell your mommy." They get so scared. However, all of the girls will not let go of me. Literally. I mean that. They're always fighting over piggyback rides, and holding my hand wherever we go. I don't mind it too much, because they don't injure me. And then the boys. Dylan won't let go of me either. Yesterday, he kept trying to kill me during the assembly thingy they have by trying to climb on my back. (WTF moment.) And he threw a water balloon, which they were not supposed to throw, at me after we played a game together. One minute he loves me, the next minute he tries to kill me, usually on accident. Fun, as you can imagine. Riley also tries to kill me and most other people in the class. He thinks it's funny, and no one else does. And then Hooker. Yes, there really is a kid named Hooker. He's the really spacey one. I think he might have severe ADD or something. Thankfully, Lilly Gray is his best friend and she always holds his hand and watches him so he doesn't get left anywhere. Cute.

Also, my cousin and I made a bunch of dumb videos today. He's 9. We tried to yesterday, but we ran out of time because he wanted to play guitar hero. I spiked up his hair, and he thought it was really cool looking, and then put foundation on his face so it wouldn't be so pink, cause it looks funny on our camera. Then I showed my aunt, who was watching Twilight, because he looked a lot like Edward Cullen, who disturbs me very much, by the by. [Yes, by the by. Oh how I love Alice In Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat.]

I am in the process of writing another [really long] letter to AFI. I ascribe them to saving my life. There was a time a few months ago when I had what I, and others, believed was chronic depression. I went to a psychologist, and even though she was really nice and tried everything she could, she just couldn't I almost killed myself. I mean I was really, really close to doing it. Then, I decided not to, because I thought of some AFI lyrics. I can't remember exactly what they were, but I believe it was something out of Now The World or God Called In Sick Today. Spontaneous miracle. After that, I started paying more attention to AFI lyrics, and realized that there could be deep meanings in some of the songs, for me, at least. Davey said "Lyrically I write what I feel and believe - nothing more, nothing less." I guess sometimes we feel the same way.

Most of my friends wonder how I'm so happy and optimistic when something bad happens. Anyways, I believe that I've become an optimist because of AFI's music. I love them, meaning being eternally grateful for saving your life, as much as you can love someone that you don't really know. Because without them, I would almost surely be dead/in a mental hospital. I mean that.

Sorry for another excessively long post.

Sometimes I'll be someone, somewhere, somehow,

♥ Izzy

[I make absolutely no sense at all. (Especially when I get nervous. Because then I'll do something like saying "Norway" instead of "drawing" or I'll just repeat things like "somewhere, somehow, something, someone, someway" etc, or start skipping words, or talking in Japanese, German, French, or even sometimes Russian. Haha, I can't speak much Russian, but Julie taught me some.) Or maybe I do. Sometimes. :)]

Graduation.

I graduated High School. 

No.. I do not feel any different than I did a few days ago. 

I do not feel older, wiser, free....er? 

Maybe slightly liberated.. Not really though..

It will probably hit me in a couple of weeks..

When I realize I only have to see people when I chose to see them.

This is going to be awesome.

A side note: I recently discovered how amazing cannoli-s are. 

The only down side is I am lactose intolerant. 

Life can be ironic. 

About the music and the friends

If someone two years ago told me that I'd be spending my days by going to shows, volunteerswork at the local stage and being way to enthousiastic about my friends their bands, I'd laugh at them.
Now, I found out, it works as a drug to me. My volunteerswork is taking almost all of my free weekends, I'm working at metal, drum and bass, house, jazz, hip-hop and all other kind of music shows, standing behind the bar, selling tickets or the garderobe. Because it's in a different town than that I live, I'm sleeping at colleagues houses most of the time, who became my friends. People I talk to on weekly base, who I'm also seeing outside my volunteerswork. Sometimes, when I'm in this town for other reasons, I'm just dropping by there, talking to everyone, drinking a beer with the people there. It became such a big part of my life, that I couldn't imagine doing something else on my friday or saturday evening.
When I'm doing something else it mostly involves going to shows. Sometimes in bigger venues, bands like Less than Jake and Alkaline Trio I saw this year and I'm going to Sick of it All, Atmosphere, Sociale Distortion and Propagandhi the coming 30 days. Sometimes just local gigs or friends bands. My love for the bands of my friends is really big and I'll support them any way possible. We go to bigger shows together and I'm at most of their shows, even if it involves sitting 2 hours or more in a train. Even then, I mostly stay at their place that night, because my home-town is impossible to reach after 12 if you don't have a car.
Like a drug, I became addicted to this life of travelling, working, seeing bands, meeting people. At school, I'm dreaming, writing and thinking about music, the next gigs I'm attending, the festivas I'm going to, upcoming releases, the coming weekend at my volunteerswork. Without, I'm nothing.

I live on my teenage dreams, raging on the volume of control, without this I'm nothing.
Vine Yard - Teenage Dreams
www.myspace.com/wearevineyard

We offer you this new resistance, instead of forcing you into their acceptance
Question Mark - Independant
www.myspace.com/qmcore


<3>

Le Future

I need to stop worrying. My mind is constantly occupied by thoughts of what will happen in the future. if I'll get enough scholarships, if I'll be able to get into the college I need to go to, if my mom and her husband will make it (he's her third husband), and if my father will ever actually get a job. Not to mention the whole financial situation as a whole: my dad is unemployed, my mom has a disability and cannot work, and my stepdad works in the RV industry, and we all know what's happening with that. Will we even have enough money in the future for me to consider college?
Aren't teens supposed to be able to be carefree worryless beings? I certainly don't have that part of being a teenager down yet. I'm surrounded by others of my generation who worry about nothing more profound than if their parents will raise their allowance or if their boyfriend is worth the time.
Ack. I don't even know. Is this entry even worth publishing?

And We Will See How Godless A Nation We Have Become.

That was a totally random title, but I'm hooked on East Jesus Nowhere so OH WELL.
This post is about my four friends.

SILVER:
She's been my friend since last September. We became friends because of, well, Eragon and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Tibby ♥). She's older than me by a few months and taller than me by a few inches. Her favorite bands are Within Temptation and Evanescence. She also likes AFI and Blaqk Audio (all my fault, I'm dragging her to a concert or two). Silver also loves the TV show Doctor Who (which I now also love) and her favorite book series is Lord of the Rings.
She writes crazy well. I have a minor part in her Doctor Who fanfiction, as the Doctor's companion's assistant. So I don't do much till the second book.
LAst year, we had all the same classes together.

TOKI:
I've been friends with her since October of '08. We became friends through PE class. She's insane and weird and random, she loves Nickelback. I'm forcing her to learn many AFI lyrics this summer so I can also drag her to a concert. She adores manga, especially NAruto and +Anima. And the anime Howl's Moving Castle. Yum, Howl ♥ She's also older than me, but shorter than me.

AIKARA/JADEN:
I became friends with her through Toki, and we've been hanging since December or January. She fueled my love of Afee (I'd already heard GNG and Silver And Cold, but she played Toki PRelude 12/21 and Toki played it for me and got me hooked...). She draws insanely well.
She is a lover of all things Jade, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter. She's also the only one of my friends who can symphasize with my Red Hot Chili Peppers obsession.
I won't have to drag her to a concert, XD. I'm also going to the Green Day concert with her, Shika, and my mom!
We sometimes play the AFI game. She's always Jade, I'm always Davey.

SHIKAMARU-HIME (Shika):
I became friends with her through Jaden and Toki. We started hanging out in January, during and after the local ComiCon. I have no clue what her favorite band is, but I think it may be Green Day.
She also draws pretty well.

So these are people I'll be talking about in my posts. BTW, Silver and Jaden totally hate eachother and Toki really annoys Silver, so...

--Suki

Pasta and spiders and dancing. Wow.

So on Friday, I'll be stuck with a bunch of six and seven year olds for seven and a half hours, half of that being outside on 'field day.' Essentially running around outside, and trying to avoid heat stroke. Little children love me. I don't really know why.

Then on Saturday, I will be at my grandma's with my mom's side of the family for a Father's Day lunch thingy. My cousins and I should play that game where we were pretending to be AFI. I was Jade, since someone told me that I'm a lot like him, once again, I don't really know why, and Ryan, who's almost 11, was Davey, Mike, who's 10, was Hunter, and little Marie, who's 9, was Adam. XD. No one in my family or AFI really is anywhere close to Adam or Marie's personality.

We were talking about having problems, and then Mike/Hunter told Ryan/Davey "Well you express your problems in your songs!" That was really funny. I mean Davey doesn't have problems, and he doesn't express them in his songs, and I definitely don't want to make fun of AFI, but we just joked around and acted stupid like we usually do the whole time. And made up "the spider dance." Don't even ask about the "circus in the woods," where there's (really) a black pond and (not really) an "old hermit that had liposuction who lives in a tattered blue tent." Don't. We definitely don't have overactive imaginations. Grandma has an interesting house... there's a rusty old chair that's been there for maybe fifteen or twenty years, of course the whole "circus in the woods" thing, and there's also a lot of barbed wire and piles of wooden structures that were broken down. Since she lives almost in the middle of nowhere, but sort of near Fort Bragg, which is a military fort, we can always here shooting and stuff.

Maybe kids love me because I go along with all their games. Maybe because we go to "circuses in the woods."

I was singing and dancing around the kitchen while waiting for water to boil. Oh how I love being home alone sometimes, or with my friends that tolerate/join in on weird things like that.

♥ Izzy.

Laurel's First Post

Hello, all. This is my first post, quite obviously.
I'm a very animal-oriented person. I have somewhere around 35-45 pets. It changes a lot, due to the fact that I breed mice and African soft-furred rats for my snakes, and the mice and rats are often being euthenized and frozen/fed to my snakes. However, I do consider my mice and rats as pets. They have names, I handle them, they have large tanks and lots of toys.
I'm here today to talk about hermit crabs, however. I have 17 of them. I have a 50-gallon tank for them. They eat healthier than I do. Hermit crabs actually can't eat commercially available food, because they are very sensitive to preservatives. Anyways, mine get gourmet chicken, fish, fish eggs, shrimp, all sorts of vegetables, all sorts of fruit, exotic seaweeds, bee pollen... the list goes on. Like I said, they have a more varied diet than I do.
My life is centered on my animals. As you can imagine, the majority of my free time is spent on my pets. I plan on becoming an exotic (invertebrates, small mammals, reptiles) veterinarian. I'm sure you're like "Well, no kid actually becomes what he/she wants to," but honestly, I'm already focusing on biology and science in general in high school and have been researching colleges and scholarships. Animals are my life and have been since I got my first snake when I was 6.

First Post

Well, as my title so clearly states, this is my first post here. Let's see. I guess I'll write about school.

Ah, I finished my sophomore year about two days ago. It's pretty shocking knowing that I'm half way through high school. It feels like I'm still a freshman. Anyway, I'm pretty stoked for next year. I'll be taking Physics, Math Analysis Honors, AP English Language, AP US History, Spanish 3/4, and Marching/Concert band. As I won't have space in my schedule for Jazz, I'm going to try to just practice the music at home and perform with the band. Also, they're cutting French, so I'm going to have to finish the course at a community college (which I'm pretty stoked for as well).

My AP World teacher totally boosted my self esteem on Friday. He told me that, if I focused, I could make it to valedictorian. He said that I'm his best writer, and the best test taker he's ever had, which was completely astounding because I know of so many really, really intelligent kids who've taken his class. I feel more motivated now, haha.

These amazing people

I love my friends so much!

Yesterday I went to Amsterdam with one of my best friends, Kevin. We both aren't into shopping, we both don't smoke weed, so it ended up with sitting in the sun, watching people all day. It really liked it.
Today, a Jerney actually borrowed me money so I can go to Less athan Jake tonight, another day of Amsterdam!
Maurice told me the Bouncing Souls will be playing in Amsterdam, somewhere in August, we decided to go there.
Martin, Timo and Dave will be playing with their band Question Mark, on Nick's birthday party the 27th. I love their band, I love those guys, I've known Nick now for a few years and I'm looking forward to it.
Only amazing stories about the great people my friends are!

So, about my life, there are just a few days left and I'll have summer holiday. We're going to Turkey this year for two weeks! A few days before we leave I'm going to see Social Distortion live.
And next week I'll be going to see Atmosphere the 25th, Sick of it All the 26th and to the free festival Parkpop the 28th were The Pretenders, The Buzzcocks and the Skatellites will be playing. Actually busy with seeing bands, I love it!
Saturday I have to work at a Drum&Bass party as volunteer. Basic Base is one of the best evenings to work, it's crowded, you are actually doing something, there are many people I know who come.

Non-music related, I'm losing friends because of weed. Finally I came to the conclusion they could just fuck off. If they want to smoke daily and become stupid idiots who lose their brains and can't understand anything at all, that's fine with me, but they shouldn't expect me to be there for them.

Well, how's your life?

<3>

Wowzah!

I haven't been here in quite a while! This blog isn't going to be anything too interesting, it's just that no one has updated in a few days so, yup.

School's out for summer now (SCHOOOOOLS OUT. FOR. EVAH!) and my summer is currently... not completely boring. But I haven't hung out with any friends since the end of the year feild trip :( . Also, my two very best friends moved.  It's tough having to watch two of the people that stuck with you during purgatory, oops I meant to type middle school, both move away at once. I hope I'll also be able to make new friends in highschool. I'm very quiet when you first meet me (Hard to believe, I know) and a lot of people think that I don't talk much simply because I don't like them, which isn't true. I have a feeling I'll make some because, hey, I made some in middle school. Okay, I'm trying to be optimistic! Hahah

I ate a salad today. I'm bringing this up because it was a very delicious salad. Like, very delicious. Omnomnom. It was a Caesar salad complete with romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, parmesean cheese and croutons that made my tummy smile. One tip though, don't drown the stuff in dressing. Seriously. Don't.

When best friends turn to enemies

Hey, I'm back for once

Feels like a long time since I posted here, but I've been busy living, loving and losing. Especially losing, a lot. All my old friends, they're gone, became strangers on the streets.
I hosted a barbecue party last Saturday, I did invite them, but they didn't came. I was so scared no one would come, but in the end of the evening I found myself surrounded by 25 others, friends to me, family to me. People who actually did care, who actually wanted to come. So I'm happy now I guess.
When I brought Dave back to the bus, I saw my old friends sitting in the grass, smoking grass. I said hello and walked on by, like greeting acquaintances. It weren't the people I grew up with any more, the ones I once loved till dead.

About loving, there are two totally different stories. The first is about a guy in a band, who became a good friend of mine. I did like him, but he's so distant. I think I'll keep it at friendship. If I put some more effort in it, took the time to get him to get to know me better, it could possibly work out. But I don't want to live in maybes, I want to live in reality.
On the other side there's a guy who does the light at my local stage. I started to work as a volunteer there, about a year and a half ago, because he told me it was great working there. We became friends somewhere last December. Now, somewhere between our laughs and endless talks on-line until deeply into the night, we've gotten to grow feelings for each other. Ones we want to, but can't, deny. He's working as a safety guard on the beach the coming month, some place far away from here. I wonder what will happen, especially because I'm still dealing with feelings for 'friend-in-band.' But as the days pass, my feelings shift.
What will it be? Friend-in-band or friend-doing-light? Or just maybe none, maybe I'm just pretending there are any feelings and I'm just getting desperate after not having a relation for 9 months.

I feel so old, even though I just turned 17. I'm moving out by the end of this year and it pretty much scares me. I never imagined how living my own life would be. I always was dependant on everyone, now there's going to be a day I've got to do it all alone.

Well, I'll start packing my bag and heading towards school. You'll hear from me as soon as anything changes.

<3>

these 120 hours could go on forever...

Since not many people are posting, :[, I will just post again. XD

In the past one hundred twenty hours:

• I have been dubbed "Miss Murder", who knows why.
• We've got our little group of kids that are going to Warped Tour.
• I found out that I love Alesana and I Set My Friends On Fire.
• I made up a completely random saying "Running with scissors can set people on fire." And that has absolutely no correlation to anything, it was before I heard of I Set My Friends On Fire.
• My quote has become quite popular with my friends.
• I wrote my quote in Rachel's yearbook because she wanted me to, and then Emilie thought that "set" kind of looked like "sex", so she drew an x over the t. I hope her parents don't read that.
• I drew an array of Pacific blue-ringed octopi in my closest friends' yearbooks. They were all different, and include a radioactive biohazardous one, a checkerboarded one, a tiger-striped one, and a Disney one. Yep, I am a special person.
• I brought my grade up sixteen points in two days.
• We ate pizza in science. And we're eating pizza again on Monday.
• I wrote my name kinda like I 2 2 y on my yearbook, and Walter said "Wait, why did you write 'I Qui Qui' on your yearbook? Oh, wait, it says Izzy. Well, I'm calling you I Qui Qui now." Haha, like Bon Qui Qui. We're not weird at all. XD

That is all.

♥ Izzy.

Hey guys.

Tomorrow at school, I'm going to have to sit for like 2-3 hours, watching the school's yearly musical. Yeah, it's compulsory. After the show, if the weather is good, our class are going to participate in the school's yearly brännboll tournament (for you who doesn't know what brännboll is, it's a Swedish game that could be described as a simpler form of baseball or cricket. Here's a link if you are curious: Brännboll)


"We shall conquer!"

whatever. and update stuff.

***Update: I think we ought to have a few more admins, because Natalie and I have a hard time keeping up with everything sometimes, and if you are interested please contact me somehow. For admin-ing, all you have to do basically is fix things when needed and make polls and clean up the layout and kinda whatever you want as long as it's not strongly opinionated. Not that much, actually.***

So, my friend Alli and I had a sleepover yesterday/today and I temporarily dyed my hair blue. Wanted to play my currently 5-stringed guitar. It just so happens that I broke the sixth string, and that happens to be the one string that I don't have (a) replacement(s) for. Story of my life. Oh, and I wanted to run around with caution tape draped over ourselves. Like last time, with Alex and Anna. And we got really bored at one point, so Alex took a picture of Anna and I being random in our cavernous basement. Sadly, Alex is away at her dad's house for the rest of this weekend, which is pretty far away, in another city.

Allison almost started a fire. She was using her hairdryer, and then there was an orange glow coming from the inside of it, and she just stared at it for a few seconds and then I freaked out and ran over to unplug it and gave her a lecture about taking action before something causes a bigger problem than it needed to be. The hairdryer popped open and a bunch of smoke came out of it for maybe, ten minutes. We told her dad and then put it on the counter to cool off, and threw it away. Then later, I told one of my friends that there "was AFI Allison's hairdryer!" because I thought that she would laugh, but then she looked really confused and so I told her I meant "a fire inside." She likes AFI and knew that it stands for A Fire Inside. It just didn't exactly click at the time and then she looked really weird when she laughed thirty seconds later.

At the moment, I'm busying myself with cleaning the basement, but other than that, website/graphic design. I have Photoshop Elements 3.o. It kind of fails, but it came with my tablet. So it was "free", but I think I kind of paid for it when I bought the tablet a year and a half ago... It's better than nothing, but lacks quite a few crucial features in Photoshop. And the current version of Photoshop Elements is 7.0. It would cost $119.99 USD for me to upgrade. No way.

♥ Izzy.

Holy Crap.

School's over already?!
Last night, I graduated into high school. Today's the last day of school.
It feels like just yesterday that I was in 5th grade...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
YAY SUMMER VACATION!
--Suki

EDIT: I meant that to mean that I feel like I was 10 years old just yesterday. No, I'm no longer 10, I'm 14.

I dyed my hair red.

It's gone pink. Eeep.

Is it wrong to hate a member of your family? Because I hate my sister.

And not in a my-sister-borrowed-my-skirt-omfg-i-hate-her! kind of way. More in a kind of I-wish-you'd-get-help-for-your-psychological-problems-and-sort-your-life-out-so-you-stop-making-everyone-else's-life-so-miserable kind of way.

She makes everything so difficult, but won't admit to having problems, or admit fault for anything. She'll just continue to make excuses for herself.

I'm not going to go into everything she does, or everything she has done. It would take far too long.

Blurgh. I need some space. I need time away from this place, and from her.

Ninetieth - More updates.

Yup. Updates. Self-explanatory, maybe? New poll for the background, since I think many of you would like to see a change. Let me explain one of the ideas that may sound confusing. All of the authors that want to, send in a picture of themselves or of their life. All of the pictures will be put together and that will be the background. I thought it would be interesting. So vote on the new poll, be sure to comment with ideas if you vote "other," and also vote on the next song of the week!

I have not written for a week, so Here are some updates:

Doctors never have answers.

High School girls can almost never be counted on.

Angry teachers who are losing hair do not enjoy being told they need rogane. (sp?)

Eating too much is a bad idea.

Letting someone pick you up and spin you around in a skirt is a bad idea.

Once one of your best friends stops using their nick name you feel lost in life. 

Psycho-analyzing people is entertaining but they tend to not like it.

Cancer is horrible in every way possible. 

Graduation is slowly approaching, and everyone is moving apart or clinging on to the strangest people. I do not understand  the point in any of it. Distance or clinging will not help the process at all, and it is not hard to keep in contact with people. Internet is a great thing. 

Or a horrible thing at my school. They are suspending kids for "cyber bullying" I am not really sure what that is though. 

I hope you all have a great week and I can attempt to update more often once I figure out what you want to hear.

why must you confuse me so?

A girl who I thought was my friend just called me to rant about me being mad at her for lying and she said that I never had proof that she was lying. I'm not an idiot. Scratch that. XD I'm not as much of an idiot as to keep trusting someone when they say amazing, highly improbable things about themselves and what they're going to do, not like they want to be the best musician ever, but when they say they're traveling across the world with my friends. Especially when they have nothing at all to prove it. Like when things just start getting flat-out ridiculous. I told her that I just don't really care anymore. She said something like "You do care. You know what? You're not right. You're never right." I laughed loudly and said goodbye.

How I described that might have sounded like I was the mean one and didn't let her talk or give her a second chance. I did listen. I've given her a third chance, fourth chance, one thousandth chance, even. But does she ever show any regret for past actions? Ever say "I'm really sorry about how I've lied to you so many times. I know it hurt your feelings and I hope we can still be friends."? Nope. Not once. I've known this girl since kindergarten. I'm not the one that instigated problems in this friendship. True friends don't lie to make the other person feel bad. True friends don't pretend to be other people and say things to you and try to hurt your feelings, and say that your best friends, whom you have absolute faith and trust in, said bad things about you.

Let's walk away and forget, then. Because I truly don't care at all. So much in my life has killed my emotions and feelings to the point where I'm emotionless or really apathetic half the time.

Anyways, I hope to go to a therapist soon. My mom and I think I have depression. I have a lot of other things wrong with me, probably. No, and I'm not being a hypochondriac. That's my granny's job.

I aspire to have a happier post next time.

♥ Izzy.

[Edit: she called me a few minutes ago and said she was sorry and now we're ok.

And to end on a lighter note, on Saturday, while we were in Disney World, someone was skywriting about Jesus, and Zach thought it said something about PMS. I don't know why I thought of that.]

Back

Haven't posted on here for what feels like forever. Well, it probably hasn't been so long, but there has changed so much in my life.
First of all, my friends.. The friends I used to hang out with got stuck in a rut of smoking dope and drinking. I decided it couldn't go on this way and quitted with it. Because of that, I don't see them as much anymore. I don't hang out with them in the weekends, I ain't smoking joints with them in our spare time. I pretty much miss them, but it's okay. That's because of my new friends. Some straight edge guys in a band. I knew one of them already, but since I went to their show, I talked to the other two and they are pretty nice. So now, both singers/guitar players (who also drum, they switch) became good friends of mine.
For that, I have to thank the Groezrock festival. It was amazing. I was with those guys and they actually listen to the same bands as me. The Vandals, the Aquabats, No Fun At All, NOFX, This is a Standoff, Bane.. Just amazing bands played there. I had such a great time.

Maybe I will have my own place at the end of the year, but not sure about that.

I'll update soon

Love, Maaike

How is your week going?

I do not understand why my health is so horrible. I feel like a hypochondriac, but I am not... I promise.

I have asthma, I'm lactose intolerant, I have hyper mobile joints, I have horrible eye sight and I am starting to think my ears are not doing so well due to too many shows.

I do not understand. Like really, if there is a higher power they just enjoy throwing illnesses at me.

I am going to the hospital on Monday so they can take pictures of my insides. Doesn't that sound like fun?

On the bright side, I am graduating in June.
All my school classes are wicked easy too.
Horray for having almost all art classes.

How is your week going?

For lack of a Title.

Hello everyone.  I am Kayla, and I figured it might be interesting on a "teenage" blog do have someone overly logical and rational. =] This is why I am here. I hope you all enjoy my odd stories and what-not. Feel free to say what you want and comment as you please. If you want me to never blog again, just tell me. 

You may need a slight bit of background information. 

- All of my classes are art classes except Gym and Writing Workshop

- I have horrible health issues and am always sick, yet I eat very healthy. (Veg)

- I talk before I think. 

- Favorite bands: AFI, the Cure, Tiger Army, exc. 

Hello.

Hello, im Makayla from Upstate New York. i just learned about this blog on the Despair Faction and thought the concept of looking into teenagers minds through a blog was a pretty interesting idea. About myself in a few words are that i am not an average person. My favorite things are writing, playing guitar, photography and music. i think that things are not as they appear and can be disected into something more than just an average idea. Sorry this was sort of a quick post but when i have something more interesting to talk about, trust me i will, it will be here.

I Don't Want to Remember Halloween

I just have to share this story...

Last Halloween, I was staying over at my friend Silver's house (yeah, we all went trick-or-treating, even though we're way too old to. my costume was Count D from Petshop of Horrors and it owned). She had two friends over -- let's call them Allen (who is dating my other friend, Toki) and George. After consuming a bit of sugar (and after I pretended to be drunk from all the CHOCOLATE), we went back to Silver's house.
And we wreaked much havok havoc.
We relaxed for a bit and had a seance (which was pretty freaking awesome and not scary). Oh, and then things got really insane.
Truth or Dare, anyone?
To sum it up, I made Silver shout "F*** YOU!" at the top of her lungs, she made Allen scream "HOLY S***!" and we all made eachother kiss eachother (on the cheeks, thankfully).
The most embarrassing, however, was what they made me do. In very poetic terms, they all made me say what I felt about the guy I have a crush on. Then they sang what I had just said.
Oh my God was THAT embarrassing.

Much chocolate to all
--Suki

Sukita is Here

Why, hello there!
I'm Sukita (call me Suki) and I'm a freakish teenager who writes too much (I'll write anything -- fanfiction, fiction, screenplays, stageplays, whatever). I go to a school for freakishly smart people and I'm in Algebra 1 class, my best class being English, probably (since I flunked that Chem exam last week x_x).
What I Like: Pie, Throwback Pepsi (REAL SUGAR!), Kingdom Hearts, seafood, sushi, chocolate, writing, taking pictures, hanging out with my friends, cinnamon gum, my iPod, the number 6...
What I Dislike: Being called short (DON'T CALL ME SHORT!), people who call me emo for listening to the kind of music I listen to, the guys in my PE class...
Right Now My Room Looks Like: A mess. You can see the floor, however. When you first walk in, you see my hamper, then my desk with my boombox on it.
I also love my blue Sharpie ♥
That's all I want to say for now!
TTFN! (Ta-Ta For Now!)
--Suki

First Words...

Hey! I'm Denise and I'm from Mexico. I learned about this blog through the Despair Faction and I decided, since I'm a writer, that I should contribute. Just a little, because my life is not that interesting. My family is quite normal, just me and my parents. My house is small and my neighborhood is quiet. My house was haunted until 1 month ago, haha, I don't know what changed that status.
I'm writing a novel in English at the moment (which is hard because I'm not a native speaker) and I write songs for a band that I'm trying to put together. But, here's an interesting situation that happens to me: the story that I'm writing has taken up my life in such way, that sometimes I feel and act like my main character. Maybe it's inmature and silly, but that's the way things are right now.
I'm a little disappointed of love at the moment, because whenever I have a crush on someone that turns out to be a total jerk, I feel really stupid
I believe that was a good first post :)