Finally! A blog post that won't make you cringe to read!

I've managed to pull myself out of the dark depths of depression, through a combination of pushups, DDR, going to Louisville, sushi, and my male ability to cast off emotions when I get sick enough of them.

That's right. I'm not that depressed right now. Pack up the kids and kerosene heaters, the world must be ending.

But anyway. Got up at 9.30 and went to Louisville with Venus, her sister Val, Val's friend Ethan and their dad. Went to an organic grocery (I know, sounds strange, but bear with me), and I tried sushi *and* sashimi (at least, I think that shrimp was raw) both for the first time. I also got some weird organic peach tea which I started off kind of questioning but I'm liking more and more every time I take a drink.

They were also having a chili cookoff at the grocery store today. So lots of free chili samples. It was all good, but the best was chili soup with noodles and stuff. It was kind of sweet. Everyone else liked the reigning champion's, though, but I voted for the sweet stuff. Yum.

We went to the pro bass shop in clarksville after that, and we just walked around. And this place is gargantuan. Three floors, 46,000 gallon fish tank, huge laser-rifle range (you put in 50 cents and get 25 chances to hit little targets placed throughout the range), a putting green, 3 elevators, a starbucks... It's insane. You can spend hours. We did.

Came home... This is when I decided that instead of moping I am actually going to do something. So I did pushups and crunches. Then the post-exercise tiredness was maldistributed... all upperbody. So I played DDR. Now I ache a tiny bit all over. And I feel a lot better, too.

Man, this tea is starting to taste really good.

Ima, kono cha wa umai desu yo.

I'm just in a japanese sort of mood, I guess.

EDIT: Because Kaisha asked, I posted on my poetry blog. Link on the sidebar, you know the drill.

P.S, yes, this is not exactly parallel to the mood portrayed here. I wrote it a week or two ago and only bothered to post it today. No worries.

You'd think I would get it by now

As usual, monday's suck, but I'm never nearly as depressed monday evening as on Sunday.

So, now I can offer a more worthwhile blog post. Well, at least less 'anti-climactic.'

Yeah... I'm torn on the whole Olympian Flame issue. I don't really connect with the people on it, for the most part. It's not really my scene, I guess, as odd as that sounds coming from me. But, first mod could be spent worse. All in all, it's pretty enjoyable, and I don't regret doing it. So, that begs the question... Next year or no? I dunno. Practically, I probably won't end up taking it. But, I'm still weighing it.

Chem... I feel pretty solid in there... it's always throwing me for loops, though. I think I know it, then I don't, then I do, then I don't.... Whatever. Once I get out of chem, I'll never use it again. It's not crucial that I retain it after the final.

Japanese is one of those rare classes that I don't even have a thought of reconsidering right now. I don't know what the deal after high school will be, but I have no doubt that I'm going to be taking it next year. Frankly, the language is freaking awesome, Lykins rocks so much, and it's one of those things that I'm always learning new things about, but none of it requires me to bend my brain that much. So hooray for Japanese.

Choir... The work ethic issue is getting better, in my opinion. Maybe it's just because solo and ensamble is in 12 days, but we're complaining less and working more, at least in my ensamble. Hey, we still suck ass (or kill cows as we like to say), but I guess it's the effort that counts.

English. BAH. Don't get me wrong, Galbraith is an awesome teacher, and to a certain extent he makes english enjoyable, but that can't erase the fact that I simply am not a Language Arts person. I. Hate. English Class. My God.

Geometry. I've decided that I can deal with Campbell now, and I'm good enough at the subject matter. Not my favorite class, but easy on the mind.

Theater Arts. Actually requires an element of work to do well... And focus, too. That's the difficult part, the focus. I may be smart, but if I spend any significant amount of time focused on one thing, chances are I will never want to touch it again. Fortunately, I'm not quite that bad about drama, but still, it's interesting.

So there's the classes.... none of it really worth reading, though.

My muffler is now dying. Oh yeah, a recap:

I got the truck. Really dirty. Cleaned a bunch of places.
Took interior apart, made entirely new holes for speakers and replaced speakers and stereo.
Replaced starter.
Replaced speedometer cable. (more work than it sounds like)
Remember... I have been driving since september. Sigh.
So, now I need to get my muffler replaced, cause every time I stop, it goes RRRRGGRRGHHGGRRRRGGGHHRR (or some variation of that) until I start up again. And this is really annoying at traffic lights. Also, I'll be accelerating, and it makes normal accelerating sounds, then I catch up to the car in front of me, slow down by 4 miles an hour, and THEN it shifts up. Grrrr automatic transmission. So that results in a big th-thumpJERK FORWARD when it does shift. It feels.. odd.

So yeah. Used truck. Gotta love it.

Yup. I drove my RRRRGGHHHGGRRRRRRGGRRHRR/Jerky truck to the mall, where I paid 72 cents for a cd (The Academy Is... - Almost Here). Well, not really. $10 was my prize from the talent show, $3 something was what was left on my sam goody gift card. 72 cents was out of my own pocket.

Now a sample of lyrics from my new cd.

"Why oh why d'you wear sunglasses in the home when the sun went down about an hour ago?"

Hmm. I think I'll just stop listening to the words of songs now.

All in all, though, it's good.

Anyway, that's all I can be bothered to regurgitate right now.

Beannachd Leibh.

Consistency would be great.

Post, post, post, post post... nothing... postpostpost... nothing...

Story of my blog.

Go figure.

Anyway, life.

Life sucks, and I'll just leave it at that.

I went on a musical writing "binge" to steal a word from the lovely Emily, in which I wrote about 4.5 new songs on Finale notepad. Yay for me.

In a desperate attempt to escape all-consuming depressiong today, I wrote more music, played DDR, wrote more again, memorized my monologue for theater arts, went across the street and moved furniture... And yeah. Now I've achieved a state of sullen, but not overtly pained, apathy. Yayhoo.

Life itself over the past week has been uneventful, but depressing nonetheless. Same old, same old, essentially. Same old schoolwork, same old drama, same old everything. Except there's also the group spontaneously combusting, some relationships strengthening, some weakening, every negative aspect of the new semester, social and academic, is intensifying, and there's no doubt that it will all get worse.

And that's life.

And now I've blogged.

Yesterday was productive.

So productive, in fact, that by the time it was done it might as well have been 3 days. But I don't really feel exhausted. Kind of energized, really.

Got up at 9.30. Was going to eat, but I never did. We went to North Vernon (me and dad, I drove)... bought a piano from a guy... Dad drove home with it in the back of a truck, cause I don't want another $450 riding on my driving skills, especially when $450 worth of piano is solidly blocking my rearview mirror and 10-foot boards are sticking out the back. So yeah. Dad drove.

Did I mention that the piano weighs about a million pounds, and it took 4 guys to get it into the truck? Well, it was just me, dad, and mom getting it into the house. So yeah... Dad backed the truck through the yard, over the shrubbery (we always did hate those damn bushes) and right up to the front door.. Oh yeah, we live in a split level. There are 6 steps in front of the front door. We slid the piano up the boards into the house, and finally into the living room.

Well, there was nowhere for it to go with the current living room layout. So we moved all the furniture to the other side of the room. I got to hook up the stereo/dvd/vcr/tv system. Every component in our stereo is seperate. You have no idea how much fun I had with that. :P

I went to the mall with mom... Bought some clothes (haven't bought clothes since fall, and all of them are suspiciously summer-ish)... and a lamp.

That was basically my day.

In a really drawn-out sort of way.

Life is kicking our butts

It seems like most of my group is pretty run-down lately. Nicole left, classwork is picking up again, the play is starting up full force, and it's easy to tell by the moods. The past week has been very draining. So much that in the past 3 days, I haven't been able to drag myself onto the computer. We may be handling the situation, but it's taking a lot out of us.

Anyway, my situation. I don't have tech today... Huzzah. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but I like having more down-time. Going over to Chris's today to do whatever... Then waking up at about 9 tomorrow and driving to North Vernon to check out a piano, and maybe buy it and bring it home, not really sure what the situation is there. Sometime this weekend I have to buy clothes, and also we have to fix my truck in there somewhere.

I'm just glad it's the weekend. We have monday off for MLK Day. Also pretty glad for that.

I can't really pull much more out. So, you'll just have to live with a short post.

Mental Cleansing

I don't really think that I have any specific theme for this post. I just need to clear my head a little.

Titan's going away party was today. It's kind of a lot, three goodbyes in two days, but there's not a lot to do about it. So, basically, it was a bit more partyish, and since the 'away' is a bit more short-term (at least for now), it wasn't as depressing, either. So, there was DDR. Of course. And pool (billiards, no water involved). And a little bit of Mortal Kombat near the end. I wasn't quite as outgoing tonight as I have been at recent parties. I was just too mentally tired to be going at full force for 6 hours. But, it was still fun.

It's kind of strange how quickly things can change. In the matter of a week, whole daily routines were changed, three people left town, one for good, and entire relationships can shift focus permanently.

It kind of makes me happy, in a way, just to see how well people can persevere. In my mind, there's not really anything I'm comparing it with... I mean, you can't just give up on life because it changed a little bit, right? But I'm still kind of astonished just how adaptable people are.

It seems so condescending when I type it out. The whole thought process is kind of strange in my head... It's like trying to catch flies.... You can always tell it's there, and can usually point it out at any one moment, but as soon as you try to corner it and kill it (or as the case may be, understand it), it flits off in another direction, and you're left scratching your head, wondering where on earth that came from.

I just needed a little bit of release. Of what? Who knows.

What can you do.

Yeah, Nicole is leaving. Tomorrow, I think. Tonight, we all went to see The Family Stone, just so that we could all be together. We filled up an entire movie theater row, -1 seat, +2. Biggest group I've ever been to the movies with. Basically, it was to say goodbye to Nicole.

Since I heard the news, I haven't really known what I thought. I can't say I'm surprised, because Nicole's been through this before, it was bound to happen again. So I never went through the shock part, really. I confess, things have been a *little* awkward between us, understandably but regrettably, and I thought I would just say goodbye, and it'd be done with.

We saw the movie, kind of avoiding the subject throughout. Afterwards, we just congregated in the corridor outside the theater, and talked for a few minutes. I watched goodbye after tearful goodbye. Also in the works: Sam was going back to college in Virginia after a few weeks of visiting over christmas break (for her it was a good week and a half longer than ours). So more goodbyes for her, if not as dramatic solely because it was less of a change, more back to the way things were.

We eventually made our way down the hallway, many of us red in the face and a few tears still streaming down a few faces. We went outside, making various small-talk about worthless, unremarkable and wholly unremembered things. A few calls home for rides were made, a few more goodbyes from the people leaving at the time, then we went back into the vestibule. It's really cold outisde in Indiana in January.

My mom's car showed up. So, that was the end of it for me. A couple brief waves and see-yous.. I'll see them all on Monday. But there was no way I was going to leave without a proper goodbye to Nicole. I may never see her again. So, I walked over and hugged her.

Sigh. It turns out, my friends, that history never leaves. It may fade, and become fogged, a long-lost scrap of the life of someone who you used to be. But it's always there. So, as I stood there and hugged my Ex-Girlfriend of 13 months, I discovered, far too late, that just because you say the words, it's never over. Nothing is ever over. I actually do still care.

When you give someone a piece of your heart, that piece will never be the same. That's not to say that it will necessarily end up on the floor, ground to a pulp, broken and bleeding. But that person will always be there, in that piece of your heart that you commended to them.

Slightly aged new year

So, the new year post is off by a couple days. But it's not too late to say

I hope you have a happy, prosperous, and politically correct 2006.

Heh.

Anyway. Went back to school today... It's strange, after every break, I think it's going to feel weird, but it never does. It's just a little sad. Though, it's the first day of the semester, so nothing too rigorous happened today. Got a couple new seating charts, got some grades and papers back. Mr. Galbraith put "strange organization" on my oral book report. Lol. I don't like presenting in the order of the rubric. It bugs me. So I didn't. And it got "strange organization" and a point taken off. I'm not too bothered, though, cause I missed five points on the "quality of presentation" section. I'm just not that good at that type of thing, really.

Still no new choir songs today. Big surprise there.

Played the piano in resource. An *actual* piano. A grand piano. It sounds so cool after playing a bunch of keyboards. ^_^

Mmm-hmm... our little group is kind of dissheveled right now, because apparently Nicole's dad blew up at her *again* and is threatening to move her *again*. To NC this time. But it's seeming actually serious, because she wasn't at school today, and we all just kind of had various pieces of info and pieced it together... but no-one really knows what's going on. I don't think any of us have actually talked to her.

This town can be so dramatic.

First day of tech was today... Nothing really happened basically at all. Go figure. So yeah... some stupid shit, some stupider than other... Not really much else worth mentioning.