Recipe for Getting On a Teacher's Nerves

[we had to write a 'recipe poem' for class. i was sleepy.]

* 1 cup of random outbursts
* 2 tbsp of ridiculous questions.
* 1 tbsp senseless answers
* 1 tsp illegible handwriting
* 32 oz caffeinated drinks
* 1/4 cup falling out of chair frequently
* 3 tbsp wandering around the classroom
* 2 tsp spontaneous funny faces and dancing
* 16 oz uncalled for humming and snapping
* 3 cups being a smart-aleck
* 5 shakes of periodically announcing to the class that they just lost The Game.

I'm good at making people laugh. (If you don't know what "The Game" is, it's just something we do where if you think of it, you lose it. Entirely pointless. :D)

In other news, I've been writing songs for my band. We want to try to get on Warped Tour within the next few years. I asked my mom, and she said she'd let me go if we got in. She's starting to get more supportive. Today we looked at Les Paul Studios. I like this one. Although, I'm unsure. Maybe one of these instead. She asked the salesman a lot of questions about financing. There's a $100 mail-in rebate we can get. So the first one would be $1,299. I'd still be $600 short, as of now. Although, there's layaway. I know I can get a few hundred this year, with babysitting (hey, it's more flexible than an actual job. and kids love me.) and birthday money and such. Audrey (drummer/sitarist) is coming over Monday and we're going to work everything out. And I am going to return her pants, that have been at my house for months. She left them once, and we keep forgetting. Anyways, I'm definitely getting a Les Paul Studio in the near future.

Cover of Holiday by Green Day soon? I think so. And I recently started a tumblr, here.

Love,
Izzy
[PS - My mom wants me to go by my first name, (which is not Izzy, that's derived from my middle name), and it gets kind of awkward and embarrassing when people find out my first name because it's so far from Izzy, so I'm going to go by Carly next school year. But you can still call me Izzy if you want to.]

questions, but no definite answers. yet.

I've been thinking a lot lately. Which is always a good thing, but, more specifically, thinking about subjects such as existence, the human thought process, time, etc. And the past.

As you live longer, you begin to find that sometimes, if you truly love someone, you just have to let them go. Along with that, to let grudges and mistakes go. Disconnect from dismal things, to the best of your ability. Know when things are worth fighting over. People can and will change, but don't always try to change them. Surround yourself with those you love and who love you in return. Carefully choose the people you show affection to. Love just a bit more in general, but be careful who you become emotionally attached to.

I know this is pretty much common sense for everyone, but I think we, as in the world in general, should adhere to this thing we know as "common sense" a bit more sometimes. It doesn't always seem so common.

I think I have a crush on one of my good friends, and the boy who I used to like has changed. They are always so awesome, for lack of a better term, and we share so many interests. (I love being vague.) Yet I confuse myself. I don't think I'll tell them for... a long time. Because with me, if I hold my feelings inside, and not show them too often, it tends to work out better.

I've also realized that I don't belong here. Maybe taking a really long road trip would be a good idea. Yet last time I tried to do that, it never really materialized. Money is an issue, so is parental consent. I want to go to Mesa and Phoenix, AZ and visit my family. A lot of them live there. Plus I have a close friend there.

Enough rambling.

Love,
Izzy

Well.

I don't really know anymore.

Things happened, I don't think I'm emotionally or mentally competent anymore, people are being irrational (as always), the world never ceases to greatly exacerbate me, and I'm still the imperfect mess that I'll always be.

As one of my dad's friends said, "Sometimes, I just want to spank myself because I spend so much time brooding and wasting energy over things that don't really matter."

And as a girl in my class (who is also in advanced English) said, "May you please come over here for I can ask you a question?" I have a strong desire to ask a lot of people questions. Those questions that you can't really ask. Such as, "Why did you do this?", "What is your problem?", etc.

When things are said, even if in a facetious way, that should not be said in the current predicament, sometimes more is damaged than known. I consider myself relatively magnanimous, and it's not like it doesn't ever take time for me to forgive people, but there are those who hold grudges for way too long, to the point where it simply turns the situation much worse than it ever needed to be.

I sincerely apologize if I seem terribly morose, but I've just been holding feelings inside for quite a while, and I assume that it's beginning to leak out.

In other news, I've decided that I'm going to learn bass. I'm still going to focus on guitar, yet I want to learn bass because it would be good to know. I plan on buying a Gibson Les Paul Studio, and then a random cheap bass. Cassidy has determined that she, Gina, and I talk extremely loud because we're part Italian. We've also determined that I am Geeky-germaphobic-guitar-Hispanic-nerdy-piano-procrastinating-viola Woman. I looked into my family history. Seriously, 80% of all my female ancestors that I know of are named Maria. We've traced a few people back into the 16th century. :D (Gaspar de Vera was born in 1861 in Nuevo España, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.)

If I combined all my female ancestors' first names and last names in my family that I know of, I would be Ana-Beatrice-Beatrize-Betty-Catilina-Elma-Francesca-Francisca-Gertrudes-Josefa-Juana-Junana-Karin-Lucia-Manuela-Maria-Miranda-Nepomucena-Paula-Teresa-Vicenta

Aragon-Armijo-Baca-Blea-Brito-Castillo-Chapa-Chaves-Clark-Diaz-Duran-de la Fuenta-Garcia-Holguin-Hurtado-de Jesus Ramirez-Jorge-Kropot-Kuczynski-de Losada-Lucero-Madrid-Moya-Nativiad-de Noriega-Parras-Porras-Ramirez-Romero-Sanchez-Sandoval-Segura-Qintana-Tapia-Ulibarri-Urioste-Vallejos-de la Vega-Vela-de Vera-de Verla

If I combined all the male names... :/ you don't want to know. This includes direct ancestors, not aunts or uncles.

Well, now that I wasted a few minutes of your life, I encourage you to go research your family history if you haven't done so already. All I found out is that EVERYONE was Mexican. Except back into the 16th century, there were a few people from Spain and Portugal/etc. It's pretty cool. I'm thinking I'm going to go by Sanchez one day, because that's my mom's maiden name and no one, absolutely no one, can spell or pronounce my last name without help. I've met about three people who could in my lifetime.

I just should change my name to Maria Sanchez. There. Because I don't like my first name either. I think it sounds like an old lady name. And, no, it's not Isabella. You know, I'm just about to completely give up on boys for a while. Or relationships, in general.

I'm such a messed up person.

Oh! And random quote time!

"That's all youth group is. Homosexuality and pain. Because, first, they made us see who could stick their feet in a bucket of ice the longest, and then they got the women counselors and some blindfolded boys had to feel their legs and guess who they were. But then they switched out a few of the women with men. So they made boys feel mens' hairy legs when they thought they were going to touch a woman's leg. That's just cruel and unjust." - Stephen.

Love,
Izzy

i must have done something wrong, or maybe pissed off god.

Well, now... not way too much has happened since my last update, other than typical teenage drama, pretty much. Except:
1) My grandpa died on Wednesday.
2) I have terrible luck with everything. Except the Saints won the Superbowl. Other than that, everything's gone wrong. Honestly. But it can, and will, eventually get better.

...and, well, there's been a few good/funny things that happened.

1) The substitute teacher accidentally called Daniel Danielle.
2) Gordan, Sean, and I are changing our names on facebook to Backothebus. The conversation at our lunch table went something like this:
Gordan: I don't get why they aren't letting boys and girls sit next to each other on the bus.
Me: They're afraid that kids will start kissing or something.
Sean: Yeah, like ten people got in trouble last year on a field trip for, um, doing something.
Gordan: I heard about that... they caught someone doing it on the bus.
Me: Okay, now first of all, why would you do that, and second, how would you do that?
Gordan: Apparently they were laying down on the floor... and kids are just stupid. I'm sorry, but we are. We, as in ourselves, are not that kind of stupid, though...
Sean: True, true. But there's also the back of the bus, there's three or four seats back there. Still. Who would be dumb enough to try that?
Me: Uh, teenagers... yeah, a lot of bad crap happens there.
Gordan: HAHA, BACK OF THE BUS. THE KIDS BACK THERE ALWAYS HAVE DRUGS AND STUFF AND NONE OF THE TEACHERS CARE.
Sean: You would know, wouldn't you. And that's definitely our new inside joke. Let's all change our names on facebook to Back-of-the-bus.
Gordan: No, Backothebus.
3) Stella, out of the blue: Do you want a cookie?
Me: Uh, no, they have dairy and eggs, which I do not consume, and you have absolutely no idea how creepy that sounded.
4) Liz to Ruthie (kidding, of course): STOP TOUCHING ME. I AM GOING TO RAPE YOU.
Liz later: Seriously stop it. I AM GOING TO THROW YOU OUT YOUR WINDOW ON YOUR SLED, AND YOU WILL FALL DOWN YOUR ROOF AND THAT STEEP HILL IN YOUR BACKYARD, AND INTO A CREEK WITH SHARP ROCKS.
Liz again: Ruthie, I am going to tie you to a tree and hit you with a belt repeatedly.
5) Good stuff has happened. But people are being confusing. Stating the obvious is fun.

...anyways, we're almost at 150 posts, and I believe the blog will hit its first anniversary on February 28th. I think that's relatively awesome.

Love,
Izzy

"get your pants off the ground!"

Frequently, my friends and I demonstrate irrational stupidity that probably no one ever thought possible. Examples include the following:

Cassidy and I were messing with textbooks in math because we already thoroughly knew the material and had nothing better to do. The textbooks all fell onto the floor. We picked them up. Then somehow, we grabbed wrists and I fell and knocked over Austin's desk. Then Gordan ran through the hallway singing about windows. Later, he tried a piece of dark chocolate, and was very melodramatic about how bad it tastes. Cassidy and another friend thought it was fine. It was only 70% cacao... Austin layed down on the floor in math for about ten minutes. The teacher didn't notice. Stella and I walked into school very solemnly, with dark sunglasses on. Several friends of ours decided to yell out revolting things at random intervals. At the end of the day, Stella, Amanda, and I all hugged each other. Amanda would not let go for seriously, five minutes or so. Relatively awkward. Stella and I said multiple times "Hey, Amanda, I love you too, but I really need to go home now." I have an unshakeable feeling that we'll always be little children deep inside.

Not too much has happened recently, other than I reconnected with some old friends, and bought tickets to see AFI in Charlotte, on March 13th. I actually paid for all the tickets this time. It was definitely worth it. I probably won't see them again for at least two years. And the concert is on a weekend.

Love,
Izzy

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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. :)]

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.

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.

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.

So, now I've been pretty strongly electrically shocked.

On Friday, at our annual youth group beach trip to Myrtle Beach, SC, in the hotel room, I was trying to turn the lamp on because there weren't any ceiling lights, and it was really dark. I failed to notice that the switch was on the wall, so I was trying to find it on the lamp. I touched something on the lamp, and it sends a really big shock up my right arm. It still feels weird, but it doesn't hurt and it isn't a strange color on my hand. Good.

No longer afraid of any carnival rides! Except giant rollercoasters. Went to a carnival on Saturday at Myrtle Beach, and rode that spinning thing that goes in circles really fast, and then it goes backwards and you feel like you're about to fall out, those giant swings that you end up almost completely horizontal at one point, a little kid ride that goes really slow in circles and you're in giant strawberries but you can spin around extremely fast, and a little kid car ride, and a little kid train ride that you could practically walk out of and we actually considered doing that because it was so slow, bumper cars [which I totally fail at driving. I can drive a car or a go-kart well, though.], and another spinning thing. [Very descriptive!] Then on the ferris wheel. Holly started talking about how it would be nice to be proposed to on a ferris wheel, and I got several pictures (around 15) of a beautiful sunset. Took them on a disposable camera, and haven't actually gotten to see them yet. One I particularly think will turn out well is of my friend Stuart looking at the sunset while we're near the top of the ferris wheel. I didn't originally intend to get her in in, but I didn't have much choice. It's nice, though.

And I just found out that I'm related to the prime minister and president of Poland. OHYEAH.

And today all these kids in science class were yay-ing when this animation of RNA linked together, because there was a sparkle after each one. (???) Then our teacher said "Ya'll are stupid." Allen replied "Whatt?" Then our teacher said "I didn't say anything." And then the whole class started laughing. Except Allen.

DC? yes.

[NOTE - Authors, please try to post AT LEAST once a week. Some of you have never posted/only made one post. I'm definitely not mad at anyone, of course. Just saying.]

I got a bright yellow raincoat (like Paddington the bear) a few days ago and some kiddie shirts. I almost got a SpongeBob shirt, but we had to leave. I remember I had a SpongeBob shirt when I was five, and I loved it. I have awkwardly painted/colored nails right now. They're bright orange. yay.

I like to draw.
↑ My favorite ones are that Jade Puget sketch and the angel (pencil/colored pencil) I'm working on coloring digitally. There's quite a bit of stuff I drew a while back on there. I'll probably upload some newer stuff soon, some of which I'm actually kinda proud of.

Twitter!

Anyways, FREAKING WEIRD DREAMS. All the time. One I distinctly remember was when there were a bunch of "zombie-aliens" that looked like my friends and were in flying music notes that said "Weather Channel" on them. Also, not too long ago, I had a dream that a bunch of my friends and I were spending the night at my grandma's house for whatever reason, and there were, once again, zombie-aliens, and this time they were in a limousine. They were all wearing boldly-colored t-shirts with random phrases on them. We figured out that if we stopped running and screaming, they wouldn't chase us. So then we went to bed because they went away. Then we tried to lock all the doors and shut all the windows in case the zombies came back in the middle of the night. But the windows were computer screens. My friend and I couldn't close all the advertisements. (Hah. Windows. Word pun while sleeping.) Somehow in the same dream, a girl I don't really know that goes to my school became president. I don't really get how that tied in.

Then I remember having a dream about an ecstatic saber-toothed strawberry (???) when I was seven or eight. That was a subject of discussion amongst my friends and I for days. And a day or two ago, I had a dream that I was in college and I had a boyfriend with blue hair. I do not know of anyone with blue hair. Except Ashlynn, who rides my bus, but she's a girl and she no longer has blue hair. [And I had dark green hair in my dream. I do not plan to ever dye my hair that color.] He had beautiful eyes, which I cannot remember the color of. And several of my friends were in this dream. Cole could not stop laughing for whatever odd reason.

Dreams can be... interesting, for sure. I just got back from Washington DC. I bought sunglasses + a Chanel (knockoff, obviously) bag + glow in the dark Buddha < $40. Everything is really well made. So I'm happy. The things I took pictures of there were a tiger at the zoo, J.F. Kennedy's grave and a video of the eternal flame at Arlington Cemetary, a partially albino pigeon in the city, the president and I (long story), the Chinatown archway, the illuminated giant Chinatown fan in the subway station, a picture of a train pulling in that's pretty close, and a circular rainbow. Weird. But intriguing. I wish I'd taken more pictures at the zoo, but my dad forgot his camera battery (which had been charging) at the hotel. And now I just got an Indian bracelet that I got a few summers ago from my friend permanently attached to my ankle. So now whenever I walk, it makes a jingly noise. :D

I seriously need to shut up sometimes. (more like often.)

♥ Izzy

Giant Evil Gummy Bears

So in Sunday school yesterday, we had to talk about things someone might ask us to do that we wouldn't want to for whatever odd reason. People came up with a) going near sharks. b) someone shooting a bird out of the sky and making you eat it. c) sitting on a toilet that you knew a snake was going to come out of. d) streaking around the mall. e) jumping off a cliff into a trench with spikes and fire and giant evil gummy bears.

7th and 8th graders came up with those ideas, of course.

One of my best friends Alex came to my house for a few minutes and we made a video of me playing Love Like Winter on the piano and singing/Alex screaming. You really want to see that. On the way to the mall, we saw this boy waving a pink pom-pom out of the back of a car. We started pointing and giggling at him, he got really embarrassed and then Alex took out her camera and took a picture of him. I don't know why, but it was really funny. His sister got really embarrassed and slapped him. It's definitely a really good thing to have teenage girls pointing and laughing at you or your younger sibling. Then we were at the mall with Avery, Hannah, Morgan, and Naila, and we went on the carousel and almost got motion sickness because we went on the spinning teacup thing. Alex and I danced around Hot Topic with one of the employees. Then Avery, Naila, and I tried to go to all the perfume stores in the mall and spray each other. Avery has asthma, so that was not exactly the greatest idea. I took a shower and the perfume did not completely go away. That's how much perfume we sprayed on ourselves and each other. XD We started running and jumping off staircases. And we made sure no one was anywhere near us, of course. Then we saw one of those Easter bunnies that little kids take pictures with, and it was just plain terrifying. Really.

At youth group we were talking about our beach retreat, we had to introduce ourselves, and I said "I'm Izzy, I'm in Ligon Middle School and I go to the seventh grade." That was funny. And an accident. We had to come up with a name for our team, and each team had a color, ours was cerulean, which is a shade of blue. Edward (who also came up with the idea of streaking around the mall at Sunday school) said we should be the Cerulean Cereal. Someone else said Cerulean Clowns. We settled on Cerulean Centaurs. A centaur is a half-horse half-human thing. Alliteration rules.

After youth group, Alex decided we were going to walk down the street to our friend Jake's house. We tried to call him, but he wouldn't pick up his cell phone. Or his home phone. We saw lights on, and we were thinking about ringing the doorbell just to say hi. But we decided to stand outside of his house and scream his name. Then Alex called Anthony because we didn't know what to do for whatever reason. Then today Jake told us he was kinda creeped out about us standing outside his house at 8:00 at night. Not surprising. I'd probably be worried if he wasn't.

And I found out I'm shorter than Brenna, who is pretty short. So now I'm almost one of the shortest people I know. It was the polar opposite two or three years ago. We all have to stop growing some day. Except I hope I grow a few more inches.

[Note to self: stop rambling.]

♥ Izzy