Happy Thanksgiving... Sort Of

*Sigh*

It was cold today. So cold, in fact, I had to wear my winter coat. As I begrudgingly pulled it out of my closet, memories of tank tops and shorts floated through my mind. When I went to pull my hands through each sleeve, I cringed as the insulation crinkled at my touch. The fact that it is no longer summer hit me like a brick to the head.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind winter. That much. Well, I really only like winter during December, because of Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. But once I mark January first off of my calendar, I hate winter with a burning, fiery passion in my soul.

Here is a simulation of what happens:

The date has been marked off on my calendar.

My drawn-out and over dramatic sigh. 

Even though Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet, I am already trying to mentally prepare myself for the seasonal depression that sets in during January. Generally I am able to pull myself out of the funk by sometime in mid-April. But that never seems to come soon enough. 

I was doing a pretty good job not hating winter today, until in the car about an hour ago. Here is what happened: 

Me enjoying my car ride in peace.

A Christmas Carol comes of the radio.

Me unsure of what just happened. 

I couldn't believe it. A Christmas carol. Before Thanksgiving. That's a first for me. I feel kind of bad for Thanksgiving, you know? It hardly gets any recognition. Christmas and Halloween always but in and get all the recognition. Poor Thanksgiving. 

Let's all have a moment of silence for Thanksgiving. 

Okay, moment over.

Anyway, here is an album to tide you over until the next post, I've been listening to it as I was writing. It's kind of melancholy*, which makes sense, since we're mourning Thanksgiving here. Enjoy. 

http://gorillaz.com/g-player/audio/d-sides

*Stop the Dams...

It's been a couple of days since I've posted last. Okay, maybe more than just a couple of days.

As I look back at some of my other posts, I realize that I've started many of them this same way. It's almost as though I have nothing better to say except to state the obvious. Over the years I have come to find that I do this in many situation outside of blogging.

Scenario 1: Meeting up with an old friend

Me stating the obvious

Their awkward response.

Scenario 2: Me making contradictory statements within five minutes of one another.

Me showing up to school well-rested and boasting to my friends of my good feelings. 

My tired friend not giving a crap about how awake I am. Usually there is silence, which triggers my next move. 

Out of habit, to fill the awkward silence, I will make some sort of inane comment that anyone can relate to. Unfortunately, it almost always ends up being about how "tired" I am, which totally made my previous comments about my alertness seem silly. 

I will try my very hardest to actually write a viable beginning for my next blog post. Wish me luck!!

Thar Be Gold in Them Hills! *UPDATED*

...I have news....

Very recently, I found out that it is not a good idea to eat more than your fair share of Tic Tacs in one sitting. Even though the good people at Tic Tacs Incorporated put dozens of Tic Tacs in a single canister, they are not suggesting that you eat all of them at once. Rather, they wanted to create a convenient way for you to have multiple breath mints on hand, all the time, every time.

Unfortunately, I had to learn the true purpose of Tic Tacs the hard way.

See, I had been on a Tic Tac withdrawal for many, many months. Too many, it seems, because when I came across an unopened container of Tic Tacs on my counter a couple mornings ago, I was in unadulterated shock.

Me in awe of the glorious Tic Tacs

I grabbed the canister and stuffed it into my bag, but not before popping a few of the mints into my mouth as I headed out the door. I felt ready to face the world. Nothing could stop me. I had my freaking Tic Tacs and nothing could destroy me- I had fresh breath.This feeling of invincibility only fueled my excitement about the Tic Tacs, causing me to eat more and more of them, until I had downed 15  in under half an hour. 

That's when I started to feel sick. With so many Tic Tacs in my system, my body wasn't responding ideally. My stomach started to ache, shooting pain through my torso when I moved around. My feelings of power and joy from earlier in the morning vanished in an instant. Ironically, the Tic Tacs, which had made me feel pretty dang positive about life, were making my stomach cramp up.

This is where I got a little confused, because, as we all know, Tic Tacs don't amount to much. I think they're only about a calorie or two, at best. But when you mess with the Law of the Tic Tacs, they bite back hard. Basically what I'm saying is that if you eat more Tic Tacs than necessary, they will give you a tummy ache. Though, now as I think about it, my stomach ache may also have been induced by the lone pickle spear I'd eaten as breakfast this morning. Perhaps the pickle didn't agree with all of my Tic Tacs. 

The Tic Tac quakes in fear as the Pickle wields his deadly swatch-bucklin' sword.

My stomach ache eventually went away, but I learned my lesson. 

Also, you may be wondering why I titled this post 'Thar Be Gold in Them Hills!'. I couldn't get that phrase out of my head today, so I had to use it as my title today. Just think of this post as a Gold Mine of information. There. You're welcome. 

*UPDATE*

I was telling this story to a friend during school a  couple of days ago, being extremely overdramatic and silly. Apparently the sign language interpreter who was sitting in the room was tuning into my story as well, otherwise I don't think this dialogue would have taken place: 

Sign Language Interpreter: I can't help but ask; did this happen when you were a little girl?

Me: Uh... no.

My Friend: It happened last week!!! :D 

Sign Language Interpreter: ...Oh.

That's about what happened, and my face turned as red as a tomato. So, according to a Sign Language Interpreter, I have the decision making skills of a small child. Great. 

Bleh

I couldn't think of a legitimate post topic today, but I still wanted to update. So, without further ado, here are some pictures I drew during study hall this morning:

I call it "Noodles". This is me trying to abstract. Didn't go over well.

This is a baby who is the captain of the ship the 'S.S. Diaper Rash'. His crewman is a starfish who is looking quite fashionable in his sombrero. 

I am not entirely sure what this is supposed to be. I saved it as 'The Scholar', so I suppose I thought he was supposed to be an alumnus or something. I was hesitant to post this picture, just because it has no point, but here we are now. 

Every now and again, I try really hard to actually look nice. Most days when I pull myself out of bed in the morning, my outward appearance is the last thing I care about. But about every three or so months, I decide this isn't good enough, and that I should care more about how I look.

I had a short bout of this attack me about 3 hours ago, as I sat in my room. I don't remember how it came up in my mind, but it did. As I sat on the floor, computer open in front of me,  I looked down at my nails. Something in my brain clicked in just the right way at that precise moment and said,

You really should paint your nails, you know. They look disgusting.


After a moment of thought, I agreed with myself, and for lack of anything better to do, I grabbed a nail file and got to work, sanding down my fingernails before searching my room high and low to find some polish. I eventually found some that I liked, and set to work.

If I haven't mentioned before, I have a short attention span when it comes to tedious tasks such as nail painting. I can usually hold out to get one hand done, but then I grow bored. Tonight was no exception. Once I had my left hand painted with red polish, I looked down at my other hand, and heaved a great sigh.

I knew that if I didn't regain interest soon, that I would completely give up on painting my nails, and end up going to school the next day with only one hand done. I'd done it before, and I was preparing myself to do it again. 

A general sequence of what happens when I show up to school with one hand polished.

Finally I managed to get the gumption to go and scavenge for more polish to paint my nails with, to keep things interesting. I settled on a sparkly purple polish, which I applied to the tips of my nails, sort of in a manicure-ish way. But in retrospect, as I now look at my nails, they sort of look like those cheap fake nails you can buy at the mall for $3.75.

I have considered removing the polish, but, hey, I don't want to deal with that. Besides, I have swimming class tomorrow anyway, so it'll probably just all come off then. I suppose my mission to look fabulous failed once again...

Also, as an unrelated side-note, I kept my promise of updating once everyday this week >:D Pat on the back to myself! I will try to update often, I promise :D

I Need a Band-Aid

Once last year, I took a very bad tumble.

It was sometime around mid-March, if I remember correctly. The bell to release me from Spanish class rang, and I was walking out of the classroom. The class was held in a portable, and to get back inside of the school, I had to walk down a 25 foot long wooden ramp. I had been able to go up and down this rickety  structure without fail every day that year, even when it iced over in the winter months.

But on that fateful day, none of that mattered.

I had been talking to my friend Amy, and things were going great for the first 5 feet. Then that's when the nail entered the picture. One of the nails that was holding the ramp together was protruding from the wood, just waiting to catch me off guard.

My shoe got caught on this bad boy, causing me to trip. All of my books flew out of my hands, and I started to topple forwards. I thought I managed to catch my footing, but I was very, very wrong. Seeing as I forgot about the law of Inertia, my body wanted to keep on going in the direction it was going: down. 

I face-planted into the ramp,landing on my knees and elbows. I scraped myself up pretty good, and I stood up, fighting back the tears that always come when I'm embarrassed and injured. My friend Amy stood by, trying her hardest to be concerned as she fought back laughter. Grudgingly, I scooped up all of my books, and tried to walk off the scene with the most dignity possible. But it was too late, the deed was done. 

As I assessed my wounds, I realized they were a little more serious than I had initially thought. Blood was starting to ooze out of the scrapes on my knees, and purple bruises were forming on my elbows. It hurt to move. Amy advised I pay the nurse a visit. I didn't want to, but I knew I had to. 

I pushed through the crowds of kids in the hallways, trying to get to the nurse without others noticing my teary eyes. I don't remember much about that trip to the nurse's office except for the fact that I had the song "I Will Survive" stuck in my head as I walked there. It made me feel much more purposeful on my walk there. It made me feel as though I was the character in some movie about overcoming adversity, when in reality I was just a teary-eyed eighth grader in need of a band-aid. 

Once I got to the nurse, I was about to lose it. I was in so much pain, and had blood all over my legs. 

The nurse was pretty surprised to see how serious my cuts were. I asked her if I could have some Neosporin to help stop the burning in my cuts, but she said that she wan't authorized to. Instead, she helped me clean them out with damp paper towels. The pain was excruciating. After we were done cleaning me up, I had to put huge band aids on my knees. Not the normal kind you usually get from the nurse when the teacher sends you down there. No, these were serious, humgo band aids. 

Once I was set and ready to go, she sent me back to class, and I had to walk into my second period class as quietly as I could. Everyone noticed me anyway, though. I gave the pass to my Pottery teacher, and she looked me up and down, and said, 

"What the heck did you do?"

I tried to explain the situation to her, and she let me go and start working on my pinch-pot once she was satisfied with my recollection of my clumsiness. 

The rest of the day was a blur of embarrassment and pain. 

Thought Process

There are times in my life where I get weirded out. I used to not like to admit it, to pretend that I was some stoic guardian warrior or something like that. But now, I've come to accept the fact that I am bot as hard core as I wish I was.

Generally I will get freaked out when I see something rather disturbing, but other times, I just create a bunch of nonsense in my head. WebMD does nothing to help this situation.

Scenario #1: Gross spot in baked potato.

What could the spot be? A piece of dirt? A rogue mealworm? A different nasty thing? No matter what, I don't finish the potato. 

Scenario #2: Self-diagnosis

A bruise of unknown origin appears on my arm. Get on WebMD. Assume I have contracted a disease only found in the jungles of South America. (Later I will figure out bruise is from when I hit my arm on doorknob).

Scenario #3: Dog's butt is by my head. I think it's her face.

The Before

The Aftermath. Once I figured out my face had made contact with her stinky behind, I didn't know what to do with myself. Don't get me wrong, I love my dog, but that was gross.

This is Why I Shouldn't Have Access to the Internet

Last night when I was up late creating a new post, I came across a wonderful website. One of mystery and wonder, filled to the brim with exotic experiences and enticing images. This beautiful site goes by the name of billybear4kids.com/Learn2Draw

When I had typed 'drawing online' into my google search bar, I hadn't anticipated that I'd come across such a gold mine of information. Not only am I able to paint my own pictures on this site, I am able to save them to my desktop to admire at a later time.

Here, in no particular order, are my highlights:

My lovely garner snake. He's striped!

The penguin who isn't quite sure what's happening. 

My echidna. Él habla español.

This is a duck my friend drew for me. Isn't it lovely? 

This is a Fabergé egg. 

Finally, this is a cat I drew for my friend Lizzie. Her name got cut off, though :(

I hope you all enjoyed my creations. I'm still debating whether or not it was a good thing I found this site. But who's to say it's a bad thing? 

Guess who almost forgot to make a blog post for today....

This chicky right here.

Right as I was about to doze off, I realized that I still had not written a post for today. And, not wanting to break my promise, I knew what I had to do. I trudged out to the living room to get my laptop, and here I am now. It's 10:17 at night, I'm tired, my throat is sore, and all I want is to sleep... Gosh, this is becoming more of a complaining fest than a post, wouldn't you agree?

In other news, it snowed for the first time this year today. When the weather man announced that the chance for heavy snowfall was very likely, I just scoffed, and walked right out the door on my merry way. A couple hours later during school, probably sometime around 11 a.m., the thunder started. Now, you may or may not be aware of this, but thunder storms are not terribly common in November, so I was a little bit off put by the whole thing. My creeped out level only increased because of the way my school is set up, making the thunder echo extremely loudly throughout the open space where I was having my study hall.

See, my school was built in what I believe was intended to be the shape of a spider. There is an extremely wide, open center, with a large landing and two equally large connecting stairwells. Veering off from this main body structure are the legs, and though my school would only be a six-legged spider, I assure you my description is accurate. Just in case you are having issues grasping this concept, I have provided an easy-to-follow diagram:

As you can see, I have added myself in the diagram, as well as a lightning bolt, for dramatic effect. I hope this clears up any of the fogginess there may have been about the central part of the school. My point here is really just that the wide open space, akin to the body of a spider, makes noise echo easily. And what would have only been a moderate thunder storm, when intensified greatly, sounded near apocalyptic. 

Soon after this thunderstorm, the weather did a 360, and started blizzarding outside. I didn't even know it had started snowing until about an hour after it had happened. I was walking to one of my classes, chatting casually with some friends, when we passed by the cafeteria window. What we saw next blew our minds. Humungous snowflakes were falling in masses from the sky, creating a white blanket all across the school parking lot. It was beautiful. And, once again, to clear up any misconceptions you may be having, here is a comparison of snowflakes: 

A normal sized snowflake

The ridiculously large snowflakes falling outside my school. I feel the face is appropriate. 

Once everyone realized that it was snowing, chaos ensued. When everyone was promptly losing it and staring out the windows with child-like amazement, teachers tried unsuccessfully to corral us back into the spider-leg hallways. Their attempts proved to be fruitless, and they eventually gave up as everyone jumped giddly and spoke of their plans to make snowmen after school. Here is a plan I drew up of what I wanted my snowman to look like: 

He's cool, and you better believe he knows it. 

Bananas, Amongst Other Things

Today, I was google searching clip art for a class project. I was planning on doing a commentary for each picture, but I have decided to let them speak for themselves.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of these images. 

Also, just for fun, here are some other ones I found: 

*If any of these images belong to you and you do not wish for them to be on my site, please just let me know and I will remove them right away!