Possible Hiatus

Guys, my life has been going kind of crazy lately. And not the good kind of crazy. More like the "emotional highs and lows and sinking further into depression" kind of crazy. So I may be taking a break from blogging for awhile. I just am not feeling inspired to write posts at the moment. I will probably be updating my vlog channel, so if you need a lil' bit of Hannah in your life just wander on over there.

I love all of you <3

New Vlog Channel!

I finally made a new youtube account! Now I will be uploading all videos onto there, and I probably will not be posting them on my blog homepage anymore because that is extremely tedious. If you want to check out my channel, you can do that here. I will be posting random vlogs and anything else I feel so compelled to share with the internet. I've wanted to have a vlog channel for a long time, and now it finally exists! So if you have a youtube account, feel free to subscribe to my extension of Infinitely Pi :) 

12 Months, 30 Books

I never told any of you, but last year on New Year's Eve I came up with a challenge for myself. The parameters for my challenge were simple: Read 30 new books in the year 2012.  My success is arguable, because while I did read 30 books, not all of them were books I hadn't read before. I just finished reading book #30, and I'm pretty proud of myself. Here is a list (in order, approximately), of the 30 books I read in 2012 (books I've read before will be indicated with a *).

1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (very, very good)
2. Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil (this book was awful)
3. Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yahalem
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone* by J.K. Rowling
7. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (This book was also awful, I think I wrote a post about it when I finished it)
8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* by J.K. Rowling
9. Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* by J.K. Rowling
11. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (great book)
12. Because of Winn Dixie* by Kate DiCamillo
13.Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus by Dave Barry (a pretty funny read...)
14. The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone
15.Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman (Surprisingly, I rather liked this one)
16. Comfort Food* by Kate Jacobs (inexplicably one of my favorite novels)
17. Hole in my Life by Jack Gantos (REALLY good)
18. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane* by Kate Dicamillo (makes me cry)
19. Going Dutch in Beijing* by Mark McCrum (one of my faves)
20. Brida by Paulo Coelho
21. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
22. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
23. Chinese Mythology retold by Claude Helft
24. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate Dicamillo
25. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (The last time I read this was in 5th grade so I counted it as not having read it before since I didn't remember much of the plot)
26. Paper Towns by John Green
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
29. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
30. Peanut by Ayun Holiday (this is a pre-published book I checked out from the library, am I allowed to write about it on here???)

That's my list!! I'm sure as the last month of the year winds down, I'll be able to tack a few more books onto my list. I actually did read more than 30 books already, but I don't think that any of the Dear Dumb Diary books I read when I couldn't sleep actually constitute as reading a real book. Another thing I wasn't sure about including was Homestuck/Problem Sleuth.  Both of those involve quite a bit of reading, but since they're comics, I didn't add them on the list.

Doing this 30 book challenge was so much fun! I plan on doing it in 2013 as well. Do you have any suggestions that might make finding 30 new books to read easier for me? ;) 

I see you (◕‿◕✿)

Hello my lovely lads and ladies! Guess what?

I GOT A NEW BLOG FOLLOWER TODAY!

Since this is one of the rare occasions where I do not have adequate words to express my emotions, here is a gif of how I feel:

I've actually gained three-COUNT IT, THREE!-new followers since the end of summer. Perhaps I'm just vain and I shouldn't be writing an entire post about this, but thank you to:

1. Alli Weller
2. Missy-Tannenbaum
3. Manya Sinha

Thanks you guys for joining my blog, and another thank you for all of my readers who've stuck around over the past year :)

EDIT: I just realized how incredibly silly I sound freaking out over gaining 3 followers. Oh well, there's no point in deleting this post now, is there?

Popping in for approximately 56 seconds

Sorry for the background noise--I forgot to turn off the t.v.

Well Dang

It's just about midnight, and I'm still awake. I want to sleep, but I just can't. At least this week is only going to be three days long because of Thanksgiving. That'll give me something to look forward to tomorrow when I'm trying not to fall asleep in class.

I revamped my blog yet again tonight, do you like it? I'm pretty fond of the overall look, but I'm still trying to figure out how I can make it so the options for my poll are visible. That has alluded me thus far. Fingers crossed I'll be able to figure it out.

In other news I recently finished watching "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" season 1 on Netflix. The show is better than I thought it would be, but I do have a few issues with it. For starters, it really bothers me how all the kids are running around saying "I love you" willy-nilly. It's almost like they don't know what that word means. Perhaps it's just my personal opinion coming into play, but I think they use it a little bit too frivolously. Issue number 2 is that the main character's boyfriend, Ben, needs to BACK UP. Ben isn't even the father of the baby, yet he gets mad when Amy (his pregnant girlfriend), says that she is going to get an abortion. After all of her friends talk her out of that, she decides to give it up for adoption, which makes everyone flip out yet again. This upsets me because it is Amy's baby, her body, and her decision what happens to her child. Spoiler alert for any of you who haven't seen the series, but Amy keeps the baby. And she lets her younger sister name him. He ends up with the name John, which leads me to the 3rd issue: I WAITED 23 EPISODES AND THE BEST YOU COULD COME UP WITH IS JOHN?!?! I got a little bit mad when I found out the baby's name, but whatever. I'm debating whether or not it'll be worth it to watch the other 4 seasons of the show...

Goodnight, blog readers, I hope you get more sleep than I do ;)

xxx

!!!

GUESS WHO HAS A NEW CAMERA?!?!?!?!?

Just wait, I'll be back to posting random blogs and photos of myself in no time ;) 

Quick, someone send help it's the middle of the night and I think I'm gonna be sick

Update: It is no longer the middle of the night. I ended up being awake from 1 am to 5 am :( I will spare you all the details of what is going on, but let's just say that my diet of Tostitos and Target brand fruit snacks have not been kind to me. 

:)

Today I went to Poetry Club for the first time this school year. Last year I was a regular club attendee, and this year I guess I just dropped the ball. Part of the problem is because I am very insecure about my poetry writing skills, and I never really felt like I was worthy to be a club member. Over the summer I basically gave up writing all together. It seems all I'm good for is writing meaningless blog posts, since that's the only thing I've done consistently over the past year or so. That doesn't bother me much, but some of the kids at the club are so good that I can't help but feel inferior.

Wednesday Worries Plus a Folder Filter

I just feel like writing something right now...

I spent the past hour working on a beaded bracelet, and I realized that the string I cut was way too short, so I ended up taking it all apart to perhaps work on another day. I'm sad because what I actually finished looked quite nice.

Also, I have to swim tomorrow morning first period. I hate it, because I get cold and tired and I never really recover during the rest of the day. I would just sit out, but I've already sat out of probably more than five classes so far this semester. And thinking about having to swim just makes me sad.

I've been sad a lot more recently. It's kind of strange, because I was doing so well over the summer. I don't know if my anxiety is as bad as it was last year when I started blogging, but I think in some ways it has gotten worse. I get this weightless feeling when I'm at school, like I'm filled with air. It makes me very dizzy, and it's scary. When this happens my therapist wants me to "center myself", but it's hard to do because I usually can't breathe when it gets bad, and I just start to freak out. And I still haven't been able to eat much. Whenever I try to I just get nauseous. Come to think of it, not eating much probably contributes to the dizziness.

On the bright side, we're learning a new verb tense in Spanish class (present perfect). I'm really excited to be learning something new because we've spent the past 8 months or so working on the past tense, which gets old really fast. I love speaking Spanish, and I wish the class was faster paced.

If you actually read this post, here's a gold start for you:

Look how masculine it is.

EDIT: I decided to do a folder filter with this post as well because I haven't done one of those in over half a year.

I think I used this in a Spanish project once because it was really creepy looking. 

This is probably one of my favorite lines from Homestuck, by far.*

*It comes in a close second behind "Boy I said make haste on the narrow catwalk!".

Fun Tunes Tuesday Reboot

Happy Sunday! As I am sure none of you noticed, I have taken down a majority of the posts in my Fun Tunes Tuesday series. Don't fret, I haven't deleted the posts completely, just reverted them to drafts. My reason for doing this is because I feel like my ukulele skills have improved tremendously since then, and seeing those videos on my blog just makes me unhappy. I've kept up all of my non-musical vlogs, and I think one or two songs have survived the cut. Sorry if you're disappointed with me, but this is something I've wanted to do for awhile now. I hope I can upload some new songs in the near future, and I can restart the Fun Tunes Tuesday series. My camera is still broken, though, so I have no idea how soon I'll be able to upload a video.

If you go through my "vlog" tag I think you can find my remaining vlogs/music videos. 

No promises if all the videos will work, though, because not all of them are uploaded to youtube, and the blogspot video player is shotty at best. 

:D

Yesterday I was competing at a baton competition ALL day. I arrived at the arena around 9 am and wasn't out of there until 4 pm. I got 2nd place in all of the individual events I competed in, which is actually pretty good! I mean, getting first place would have rocked, but I'm still satisfied. I'm actually surprised that I managed to do so well, especially considering how my 2-baton routine went. As I'm sure you've gathered, 2-baton routines are just like doing a regular routine, but you're using 2 batons rather than one. This also means that it's easier to drop more and lose focus, which is exactly what happened to me yesterday. The routine itself was okay, but my ending was a total train wreck. To end my 2-baton, I do one "big" trick to leave things off on a good note. At least, that's what it is SUPPOSED to do. I ended up losing control of both batons and they flew in completely opposite directions. Here is a diagram of what happened:

If you can't read all the words, click the picture to enlarge. Also note how there are no batons in my hands.

Here is an accurate visual representation of what took place yesterday. I completely messed up the trick, and one baton ended up next to the judge's table and the other ended up in a completely different lane that someone else was competing in. Because of this reason, I'm really confused as to why I got 2nd place. Oh well, I'm not gonna complain ;) 

This Isn't Happening.

GUYS.

I just may have gotten an A on my math quiz.

I think I'll find out the results on Monday. I'm scared/excited.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. 

Midwest Wildlife Safari

For those of you who do not live in the Midwestern United States, you might not be aware of all the wildlife that live around these parts. Actually, scratch that thought. I don't think that there are any species unique to just to the state I live in. Since I live in the city, I myself don't even come into contact with nature that  often, except for squirrels, rabbits, and birds. However, there are some turkeys that live in this wooded patch about a block away from my house. We used to see two or three female turkeys out at a time, and on rare occasions we'd see a Tom. A few weeks ago, though, things took quite an interesting twist.

I had stayed home from school because I had a doctor's appointment, so it was around 1 pm and just my mother and I were home. I was washing my hands at the sink in my kitchen, which has a window in front of it that overlooks my backyard. As I turned the sink off, I had to do a double take. In my back yard were 7 turkeys!! They were all hanging out at the three bird feeders my dad put in our backyard. I started screaming my mom's name, and she came running out because she thought I was hurt. But when she saw the turkeys, she got just as exited as I was. Ever since then, they've come back at least two or three times a week and just peck at our bird seed. One even flew up on top of our house. The only problem is that these turkeys are pretty fearless animals, so they have no issue going into my next door neighbor's yard, even though they have two large hunting dogs. There have been no turkey fatalities yet, thank heavens, but I'm starting to worry they'll run out of luck soon.

Even though my camera is broken, my mom managed to snap a few pictures on her Ipod of the turkeys:

Here they all are, huddled around the bird feeder!

A close-up. 

This past weekend, the plot thickened further when my dad was out on his morning jog. Out in the grass terrace in front of some apartments my dad found a baby owl! It was injured, though, and couldn't fly away. He came home and called the Humane Society, and they told  us to bring the owl in so they could rescue it. My mom went and wrapped it up in a blanket and put it in a box. She showed it to me before they departed for the Humane Society, and we snapped a few pictures of the owl. (Sorry for the blurriness, but the Ipod camera couldn't focus very well)

Here he is! We named him "Lil Guy". He was so fluffy, I wanted to pet him so bad, but I knew that wouldn't be a very good idea...

He finally opened his eyes in this picture! As you can see, he was not a happy camper. 

The Humane Society has yet to follow up with us on his condition, but if we find out how he's doing, I'll be sure to let you all know! So, do you have any interesting animal stories of your own? 

Math Class Jerks

Since I have chosen not to be in an Honors math class this year, that means that I am in a class filled with juniors. Since I'm only a sophomore, it is a little bit frustrating having to deal with the lowest common denominator of the juniors. Most of them are huge, burly boys who obviously have some sort of inferiority complex. As far as I can tell, the main word in their vocabulary is "swagg". Perhaps they use it as some sort of mating call, and that is why they are constantly shouting it. We may never know.

Most days I can put up with these neanderthals, but today they took it too far. Every friday, we have "large group", which means that all the kids from my teacher's classes (so about 3 or 4 groups of classes) all sit in the auditorium at my school and we get lectured at about math. Large groups are unbearable as it is, but in the auditorium I was in there were spinning chairs so it was a thousand times worse. The scope of movement of the chairs is only about 180 degrees, so the kids like to lean back really far in the  chair and just swing from side to side. Since these chairs are so old, they squeak unbearably loudly.

Obviously, when you are sitting in a squeaky chair, you will respect your peers and not be an asshole and not make it purposely squeak, right? You would think this would be logical, but for about 5 of the dumbest juniors, they like to be jerks and ruin the class for everyone else. For weeks on end, every friday afternoon for 45 minutes, I get to listen to these boys squeak in their chairs, and then laugh as if it is the wittiest thing that has ever been done in the history of creation. They all do it, make eye contact, and giggle uncontrollably like 8 year old girls. I'm surprised no one peed themselves, because they were literally acting like children.

Today, I decided enough is enough. Since I sit right next to them, I said

"Hey, I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop doing that."

I used my "I mean business voice", and after one of the boys apologized to me, I thought it was all over with. I was wrong. Apparently my request that they act like the 17 year olds they are made them upset. They started to squeak their chairs louder than ever, and they were seriously shitting themselves over how "funny" they were being. I was shooting all of them dirty looks, and then I started to hear:

"What made carrot top mad?"

As if they have no idea what is making me angry.

They repeated this question to each other over and over for the last few minutes of the period. Since I am a redhead, they decided that the best way to punish me for expecting them to be courteous was to take a low blow. I was so upset. Not that their comments about my hair bothered me, but the fact that they had the audacity to think that their torments would actually mean something. I'm certain that right now they're all patting themselves on the back, telling themselves and others how they really laid it on me. That is what is upsetting to me. The fact that they are probably proud of themselves and their actions is what hurts more than their childish words.

Don't believe what I'm saying? Allow me to provide an example of how full of themselves these boys are. Today as we were taking notes, my teacher was showing us an alternate way to solve a problem:

Teacher: "So, that is another way you can solve a matrix! Is anyone planning on doing it differently this evening?"

The Cretin: "YEAH, I'm gonna use a calculator!"

The Cretin turns to his friends for validation that he has done a job well done.

The Cretin : "That was a good one!" Cretin repeats this multiple times, certain that he has made a fool of the teacher for saying he would use a calculator, even though it was totally random and had nothing to do with what we're learning. He remained proud of his "wittiness" for the rest of class. 

See what I mean? This imbecile was freaking PROUD of himself for making a comment to the teacher in fromt of everyone, even though it was totally baseless and just made him look like an even bigger idiot than he already was. This is just another reason why I hate this boy and his friends.

Now, I am going to write an open letter to these half wits:

You idiots. Every day when I am forced to share a math class room with you, my hatred for you grows even more. All of you are the garden keepers who carefully tend to my hatred, providing the perfect environment so it'll grow up big and strong. Robert, I am not even going to leave out your name from this post because of how much anger you put into my day. You and your friends may think you're the clever ones, but when I am an adult who is successfully working in a job I enjoy, and you are the one who is working as a janitor, we'll see how cool it was to be an idiot in high school. 

I can finally have closure.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Hey guys! I know I've alluded before to the fact that I make bracelets, but I've never gone into too much detail, so I thought I'd supply a little more information!

I have an account on the website http://www.friendship-bracelets.net, where I am known as Fond_Of_Owls. If you want to go check out my profile, you can do that here. The reason I'm posting about this at all is because I'm going to start selling custom-made bracelets! If you would like to purchase one, you can either:

A. Send me a Personal Message on friendship-bracelets.net if you have an account.
B. Shoot me an email at: infinitelypiblog@yahoo.com with an inquiry!

All prices are negotiable, and I would love to work with you! :)

Some examples of my work:

This is a keychain!

A single-color alpha pattern. 

Traditional style Autumn pattern. 

Multi-color alpha. 

Another traditional style bracelet! 

A Legacy: The Mini Backpack

As I sit here eating my strawberry applesauce, listening to the gentle patter of the rain outside my window, I can't help but feel the urge to tell the woeful tale of my mini backpack. Many of you are aware of my back problems, and how I did not even use a backpack for the entire second semester last school year. This year, I took a more practical, albeit more painful route, and used a backpack. But this is not your everyday, run of the mill book bag. This is a MINI backpack. We're talking half the size of a regular pack, with one zip pocket on the front for storing valuables. It was like a dream come true. I found it while digging through my closet over the summer, and I knew it would be perfect. It's a shame, really, that it ended up breaking last week. I guess I don't know what I was expecting, considering the fact that it cost me under ten dollars when I bought it two summers ago. If anything, I should be pleased it held out this long.

Unfortunately, last Tuesday disaster struck me and my mini backpack. I was in the cafeteria, getting ready to sit down, and as I slid off my mini backpack, I heard a weird popping noise. I set my bag down, and upon closer examination I realized that one of the straps had completely torn off! I swear, I was about ready to flip the heck out, but thankfully I didn't. Well, at least not at that exact moment. I had a bit of an emotional breakdown later that day, but that was because of a myriad of reasons.

At that point, I was faced with quite the predicament. What was I to do? Do I try and sew the mini back pack back together? Or do I change my loyalties and buy a full size back pack? To answer these questions, I will say this: I am a filthy traitor. On Saturday I went to Target, found the comfiest looking back pack I could find, and purchased it. I was sad to have to had done this at all, but I knew that I would never again find a plain mini backpack. All the mini's they sell now adays are simply children's book bags, and I'm not too keen on having Elmo or Justin Bieber on my backpack.

I was actually considering not making this a Legacy post, but I figured it can't be anything else. No matter how often I complained about my mini back pack, no matter how many times people dishonored it by putting it on the floor and stealing my chair in the cafeteria, deep down I appreciated my mini back pack. May she rest in peace (pieces?)

Unrelated Site Note: I noticed that I've gained a few new blog followers recently. Thanks for joining aboard, I hope you have fun here! :D 

I hope this works

test title - Imgur

i made a rainbow

I should probably explain, but I won't.

Hahaha later player haters.

I want you to stop everything that you're doing right now, grab a piece of paper and a gel or ball point pen.

Write the word "allele" in cursive in really big, loopy letters.

Fun, isn't it?

That's all :) 

THIS JUST IN

Recap of today.

Life was especially crazy today. I had a Spanish quiz (aced it), a math test (probably bombed it but it's anyone's guess at this point), and the last three periods of the day I had open.

First on the agenda is my Spanish quiz. Right now we're reading this story called Una Carta a Dios (A Letter to God). It's about a poor farming family whose harvest gets destroyed by hail, and the father (named Lencho), feels that his only hope is god, and decides to write the big man upstairs a lil' letter. Overall the story's been pretty good, but the phrase "la única esperanza: la ayuda de Dios" has been waaaayyy overused. We just read part three of the story, so the quiz was over the vocab and major events that happened. Very easy peasy lemon squeezy sort of stuff. Then came the difficulties. Along with learning the new vocab this chapter, we also learned about Appositions. In short, an apposition is a phrase that starts out with a noun, then a comma, then some words describing the noun, another comma, and finally some other info relating to the original noun. If we wanted two extra credit points on our quiz, we had to write two appositional phrases. I wrote: Mary, quien es ni mi madre ni mi amiga, es muy aburrida. I was quite pleased with myself, and was gearing up to write another, when I found out that the appositions had to be about characters from the story. Since Mary is someone I made up, I had to cross out my whole sentence, and the fact that I wrote in bright pink pen didn't help.

Second on the agenda is my math test. Since I'm sure most of you reading this know of my math-related woes, it shouldn't come as a surprise that this math test was difficult for me. Last year I was in an honors level math class, and since that was a complete train wreck, I chose to stick with the "regular" level math this year. My advanced algebra class has so far been much easier than geometry, but this unit we just finished up was a little bit difficult. If someone even asked me to describe what the unit was about, I don't think I'd be able to adequately explain it. It's something to do with graphing linear inequalities. Anyhow, the test was mildly disastrous, and I didn't finish in the required time. Luckily for me, my math teacher this year seems to actually have a soul (much unlike my one from last year), and she let me come in the following period and finish up the test. Thank god I was open the period following math class, otherwise I would have had to turn in an unfinished test, which is something that I have far too much experience with. I guess we'll have to see how this one plays out.

The third and final thing on my agenda is how I was open the last three periods of the day. Sure, in theory having 120 minutes of free time on a friday afternoon should be paradise. And most weeks, it is. But after I finished taking my test, I went down to the library and sat with some acquaintances. All was well, so I started doing some homework, and I plugged my headphones in to listen to music. See, I have this rather unsavory habit where I chew on my head phone cords. And up until today, I never thought twice about it. Unfortunately, for some reason today, I decided that chewing on head phone cords is fatal and that if I keep doing it I'm surely going to die. This spurred anxiety that lasted well throughout my afternoon and into the evening. It's funny how one little thing sets me off, then everything else just keeps piling on top of things.

But enough about me, how was your day? 

Does anyone else ever see the title of an article and just wonder?

...

The title was so good I didn't even read the article for fear of being disappointed. 

When I say hillshire you say farms.

Today has been really terrible, and it's only 8:30 in the am. I forgot my wallet at home, so I can't buy myself any food. The only good thing that's happened thus far is that I got my mom to write me a note to get me out of swimming class. That's why I'm writing this post right now, instead of taking a dip in the freezing water of my school's pool.

Also on my list of icky things that have happened thus far today, the last 30 seconds of homeroom were extremely distressing. How can 30 seconds be distressing, you ask? Well, right after the bell rang I stood up and I noticed my fly was down. Rather than waiting until I was in the crowded hallway to fix my zipper and have no one notice, I decided to do it right that moment, and I'm fairly sure that my homeroom teacher and two other students saw. I guess on the list of embarrassing things that could have happened, this wasn't so bad. Even so, I'm still reeling from that crippling sort of embarrassment that attacks during situations like this.

How about you? How has your morning been so far?

P.S.- Matt IDK when you're going to read this, but I didn't get a chance to say that I think your haircut looks great! :D 

What the What

New Poll.

Have a blast, my lovely blog readers.

I'm pleased to see that two of you wish to reside in my pants. 

Let Me Spin You a Yarn

This is a story about rude people. About rude boys. About one rude boy.

Our story starts on a quiet morning during passing period between periods 3 and 4. Hannah, the bold seventh grade protagonist, has just finished gym class, and has to run to her locker across the school and back upstairs to her math class. Most unluckily, math is in the last room in the hall, all the way at the end. This means that Hannah has to make haste like nobody's business if she wants to get to math class on time. Which she didn't actually want, of course, but pesky school rules required she had to be on time.

Every other day she had to deal with the treacherous journey from the gym to her locker to the math room, and no matter how many times she did it, it never got any better. One particularly bad day Hannah got out of the gym locker room a bit later than usual. Her red hair was a frizzy mess around her head, and pit stains decorated her clothing as she dashed through the eighth grade hallway. The eighth graders loved to stand by their lockers and not move for extended periods of time, making it very difficult for a seventh grader to traverse. When Hannah's locker was finally in sight (she most unfortunately had a locker in the eighth grade hallway though she was only a seventh grader), disaster struck.

An eighth grader, whose face Hannah could not see, swung his hand down to his side and Hannah, in her hurry, accidentally ran into his hand. Crotch first. Hannah was absolutely mortified. She tried to brush it off, knowing it was an accident, but the boy decided to be rather rude about it, and shouted,

"WATCH OUT CHERRY PIE!"

Hannah wanted to cry. Thankfully Hannah was stronger willed than that. With as much dignity as possible, she ran to her locker and up to the math room. This story is now but a distant memory for our protagonist, but the embarrassment she remembers well. 

Goggles

Yesterday my friends introduced me into an interesting computer application called "Goggles". I'm unsure if application is the correct term to use to describe it, but that's what I'm going to call it. In the past I'd heard the term Goggles used multiple times on tumblr, but I hadn't the slightest idea what is was or where I could get it.

Yesterday Callie showed me a link to Goggles. Basically all you do is drag the application into your bookmarks bar, and every time that you  visit a website, you can click on Goggles and see what people have drawn on the web page! Most are lewd images, but some are real gems, like this one I found on youtube:

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is supposed to be Perry the Platypus. But this is not the semi-aquatic four legged mammal of action that I once knew. WHO DREW THIS? 

Otherwise I think Goggles is a lot of fun, and you guys should download it and see what people have drawn on my blog ;) 

Hannah Gets Mildly Existential

I think I should go to bed right now, but I have a headache and don't feel like laying down. I figured blogging might help relax me and get me off to bed!

Anyway, tonight I was riding in the car with my dad, and we were blasting the oldies. What I've noticed, which holds true for most oldies stations, is that only music from the 60's,70's, and 80's are played. I can't help but wonder if those decades will be forever defined as "the oldies", or if eventually music from the 90's will be added into the mix as well. Who is the person that draws the line that says "This is oldies" and "This is not"? For example, why isn't music from the 1920's up through the 50's not played on the oldies station? Those songs certainly are old, aren't they? Does that mean that the 90's will be excluded from the oldies club just like music from the 50's?

Obviously, there aren't going to be exactly clear cut lines. Just the other day I was listening to my city's "modern hits" station, and they started playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Last I checked, the year 1991 wasn't exactly modern. At least when you compare it to music of today, anyhow. It confuses me to think that the same station will play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and then follow up with "Call Me Maybe". How will our musical generation be defined? Will it be from the 90's up through the 2020's? Only time will tell.

That was my drabble for this evening. Feel free to try and answer my rhetorical questions in the comment section below ;P

My Weekend Mission

Yesterday in my Honors Lit class, my teacher gave my class a mission for the weekend. He didn't call it a mission, but it sounds cooler that way, yeah?

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to sit outside on our front lawns for an hour over the weekend with no technology.

Sound easy? I think it will be, considering I have to visit with my grandparents for 2+ hours every week. Whenever I'm there we just sit in the living room and talk, and I know my parents would bury me alive if I used my cell phone, so I don't. Not that I get that many text messages anyhow. Usually anyone who is texting me is okay with waiting an extra hour or so for a response.

I plan on breaking out a lawn chair and sitting in my drive way on saturday evening. I might play Sweet'n'Sour. Sweet'n'Sour, for those who don't know, is a game where you wave at people walking by or passing in cars and if they wave back they're sweet, but if they aren't friendly back, they're sour. When I used to play this with my brother we'd keep track with chalk tally marks on the sidewalk.

I know a few of my blog readers have the same assignment as I do, so I know you'll be participating this weekend. But for any of you who aren't in my literature class, are you going to try this too? I think it'd be interesting to hear your experiences! 

I'll Never Forget Her

This past saturday, September 15, my dog passed away. She was named Izzy, and I loved her very, very much. Sounds cliché, doesn't it? But for anyone who has ever owned a pet, they know that when someone says this about an animal, it's the truth. Izzy has and will always hold a special place in my heart. I don't know how a 13 pound miniature dachshund can break my heart, but I now know that it is very possible.

There was a quote that I am trying to recall right now, and I am not sure who said it exactly, but it sums up owning a dog quite nicely:

"No one can break your heart like a dog can."

Izzy did break my heart, but I know that it was her time to go. She was sick to the point that trying to keep her alive would have been unfair to her. She couldn't walk, eat, or control her bowels. It was weird seeing my previously lively and capable dog in such a state of decay. We chose to put her down, and on saturday morning at nine a.m., Izzy passed on. Since she was put into an IV that gave her the fatal medicine, I'm not sure exactly the moment she passed away. After I knew she was gone, I gave her one final hug and told her I loved her. My mom brother and I all took turns saying our last goodbye, and when I looked over at the nurse, even she was crying.

When they were going to take her body away, it was at that moment I knew I had to leave. My mom gave me her car keys and I ran out to the car and sat and cried. I held my head in my hands and relived my memories with my beloved Izzy.

She was approximately nine years old when she passed away. We adopted her three years ago from a family friend who was no longer able to adequately care for her. When she arrived at our house she was severely underweight and depressed. She was so skinny that we could see her rib cage. After a few months she gained weight, and was happy as could be. I knew that she loved her life with us, and she loved all of us individually. She spent many nights sleeping in my bed with me, sprawled out, with her butt in my face. Even though I expressed my agitation in those moments ("Izzy, move your butt already!!!"), I never got really upset with her.

I don't have many videos or pictures on hand of Izzy, but I do have a video of her on my blog that I took just a few months ago.  The funny thing is that when I took that video I had no idea that in just two months she would be gone. I knew that someday she would die, but it always seemed like something far off.

Izzy's death was so shocking because she didn't show any signs of illness until last Monday night. She started to throw up and go to the bathroom everywhere, and it was really hard to see her so vulnerable. Her stomach bloated up, and I could see the pain she was feeling expressed through her eyes. I'm certain it is something I will never forget. Her eyes were always immensely expressive, and even during our final moments with her when we said goodbye before they put her down, I could still see the spark in her eyes. She was saying how confused she was, but I could also see that she knew it was her time to pass on.

I didn't cry quite as much as I thought I would over the weekend. After we got home from the vet, I was sniffly and bleary-eyed for quite some time, but I managed to bounce back better than I thought. Even though I can feel Izzy's absence, I know she is not gone from my life. I will always have my memories of her, and while it doesn't feel like enough, it's better than nothing.

As I wrote this post, I listened to the song "Honeybee" by Steam Powered Giraffe, and since I'm already playing with clichés tonight, why not I add on another? Towards the end of the song, they repeat the same five or so lines over and over.

"Hello, goodbye, t'was nice to know you. How I find myself without you... that I'll never know. I let myself go. But what do I know? Now you have to go."

Listening to this made me think of Izzy, and loving a dog in general. No matter what happens after a dog's passing, I have not met a single person who regretted owning their pet. There is something about owning a dog that allows you to release your inhibitions, and love something without rhyme or reason. It remains a mystery why they touch our hearts in this way, and how we manage to carry on even though it was their time to pass on. These lyrics made me think of this, and I'm not sure why.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love Izzy. I cherish every memory I have of her, and I know that she will always be regarded fondly in my household. I wish that she didn't have to go so soon, but I know that it was her time. Having Izzy as a companion was a rewarding experience, and I wouldn't trade it in for anything in the entire world.

Carpe Diem!

At the request of Lizzie, I am writing a blog post today. Things have been terrible lately, but luckily I won a pencil in Latin class yesterday that says "Carpe Diem". I plan on carpe-ing the living hell out of my diem tomorrow. The reason I won the pencil is because in Latin class we play a game where we all sit on our desks, and take turns answering what a vocab word means when the teacher holds up the flashcard. If you answer incorrectly, you have to sit in your desk. Whoever is left sitting on their desk after she's gone through all the cards twice gets to choose from the prize bucket. Let it be known right now that my Latin teacher has the best prize bucket of any teacher I've ever had. She has temporary rainbow tattoos, pencils with semi-inspirational phrases written on them in Latin, and miniature rubber duckies. The greatest thing about the rubber duckies is that they're all dressed up in different little outfits, and one was actually in workout gear and had a little duckie sweatband on its head. Most. Adorable. Thing. Ever.

La da dee.

There's close to 15 minutes left in the school day, and my throat feels like a little animal is scurrying all around inside of it, it's so itchy! All day it's been itching on and off, despite the fact that I took my allergy medicine this morning. I decided to blog to try and take my mind off the discomfort I'm in right now. I tried reading a book, but I couldn't concentrate. Luckily, I don't have much homework this weekend, so I can relax some.

In other news, Homecoming is tomorrow. Am I going? No. Do I wish I were? Well, sort of.

A lot of my friends are attending this year, and as much as I would love to go, I just do not have the money to buy a dress. I was going to ask my mom to take me dress shopping on Wednesday night, but my dog ended up having a medical emergency and we had to spend the evening at the veterinarian office (more about that escapade will come in a later post...). Basically, I don't have anything to wear, and my parents still don't know the dance is tomorrow. I think I might go to the football game tonight, just for shits and giggles.

I know that Lizzie is going, and my friend Anna, who recently moved away, will be stopping in tonight at the game. I really want to see her, so that is another thing spurring me towards going to the game.

STOP THE PRESSES.

Okay so I'm currently sitting in the school library and on the sides of the bookshelves are magazine racks and I glanced over at an issue of Mad and I looked at the title and I thought it said "ERECTION FROM HELL". After freaking out a little bit, I checked again, and as it would turn out it actually says "Election from Hell." Well, this certainly has been a long week, hasn't it?

BACK TO REGULARLY SCHEDULED POST.

I really want to go hang out with my friends tonight, which is unusual considering these past two weeks or so I've just wanted to be alone. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm hoping it'll pass soon, because being sad and alone isn't necessarily fun, even though when I try to hang out with friends I just get anxious. Go figure, huh?

Welp, it's six minutes until the final bell rings, so I suppose I should call this a wrap. Guess what? My throat doesn't itch anymore ;) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

WHOA. I just realized something this morning as I washed my hands in the smelly school bathroom.

My blog is one year old.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!? It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my poorly lit bedroom choosing a theme for my new blog, Infinitely Pi. It's almost surreal, to be honest. When I first created my blog, I had absolutely ZERO intention of keeping it updated, let alone investing time in it everyday. I feel like a momma whose baby is all grown up. Despite this monumental moment in my blog's history, do not expect this to be the last of me. I am planning on continuing to update my lil' 'ol blog. Rather than screaming at all of you about how excited I am for the rest of this post, let's take a look at some of my blog's best moments in time:

• My first blog post on Infinitely Pi!!!
• When I decided I was going to blog more often.
• DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING EXCEPT "SWAG SNOWMAN"??
• The Tic-Tac incident.
• First documented post about math-hatred.
• First Top-40. 
• The day of the Muumuu's.
• Overly-dramatic haiku monday. 
• R.I.P. my favorite pen. 
• WWND?
• Baby, won't you be my girl? 
• The Olive Garden Incident. 
• My artsy-farsty day. 
• The Blueberry Hands.
• Remember when I was a champion?
• My lawn gnome with the over-done name. 
• Sketch
• That day I quit blogging. 
• 100th post.
• The first song I posted on my blog.
• Josalyn's rockin' b-day party. 
• When I FINALLY passed Honors Geometry.
• In which I was peer-pressured into watching "Beauty and the Beast".
• NGTJAW.
• Ew gross Driver's Ed.
• I really like the title of this vlog...

Whew. Was this post self-indulgent? Yes. Is that any different from usual? No. 

I am feeling to elated right now because going back and looking at all of those old posts brought back so many fond memories. This has been a journey of epic proportions for me, and I am so glad that it is going to continue. Where is my next destination for Infinitely Pi? I'm not sure. But I know it's going to rock. 

Synopsis of the Past Week

Long time no see?

I don't know why a week long break in blogging seems so long for me, but this week has just dragged on. There is so little I want to blog about anymore, it's sort of weird. I thought that school would inspire me to blog 24/7 all over again like last year, but so far that has not been the case...

Perhaps it's because of the fact that most everything that's been going on in my life is not blog-worthy. Some things are too boring, some wouldn't make sense unless you knew my friends, and others I have deemed too personal to share with the internet. Because of these reasons I feel like I'm stuck in a rut.

Even right now as I sit in my bed, listening to melancholy music, I feel like I have nothing going for me anymore. I'm lonely and I miss Lizzie. Even though I saw her on friday I usually don't see her over the weekends and it makes me emotional. Even just typing those last two sentences makes me want to say so much but I know that I simply cannot. I feel like I'm a bottle that someone's stuck a cork into, and it's so frustrating. This is my blog, so why is it so hard to share nowadays?

Will this post get deleted later? Probably. I'm going to try and practice restraint and not delete something for once. 

Sewing Misadventures

This weekend I tried to do something I haven't done in years.

I sewed. Like, on an actual sewing machine. The last time I did this was probably in eighth grade, and since I'm a sophomore now it has been a considerable amount of time. I actually forgot how to even set up a machine, and my mom had to reteach me how to do everything, which was annoying, to say the least.

Today I'm sporting my latest creation, which is a headband! I decided to ease myself back into sewing with something tiny and easy, and the headband proved to fit the bill. The only problem is that I have a rather large head and the first one I made I followed the pattern exactly and the finished product was way too small for my head. The second attempt went much smoother, after I added two extra inches of fabric onto the pattern! It took the greater part of my Sunday afternoon to finish it, but it was well worth the effort.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to make a purse, since I bought a pattern and some fabric to make a purse a few months ago. I never had the gumption to make it, though. Once again, my mother had to basically spoon-feed me every step, and now I'm almost done! I'd never made a purse before, so it's really challenging! I have to use interfacing, which is really hard to pin. I also have to pleat and use basting stitches, which are two other things I'd never done before!

The only hitch I've had to deal with thus far in making the purse is that I purchased the wrong size zipper!! So I had to stop production yesterday and since my mom has today off she agreed to go to Hobby Lobby and buy an appropriately sized zipper.

I would post pictures of my creations, but unfortunately my camera is broken :( 

Hannah Shut Up

What if I decided to rock all of your worlds by writing my blog posts in different colors?

How do you feel about this. Pretty dang amazed, is my guess.

I have a lot of ideas but no posts to write about because I'm lazy. 

Also Callie I'm giving you three more days to finish that post about the backpack kid from lunch last week before I take the idea. 

I'm joking, of course.

Sort of. 

Since my theme of the week seems to be making meaningless posts and then hastily deleting them, why not add another to the bunch?

This is actually something I've been wanting to write about for a long time, and as a blog reader, you probably had no idea it was going on. Considering the fact that I am very in touch with my blog, and treat it as an extension of myself, I take great care in keeping it in tip-top shape. In other words, I stare at my blog for hours and mull over how great/terrible it is. One thing I noticed about six months ago is this:

Now, before you get all angry at me for the shitty screen shot (you can click to enlarge it, yeesh), and how completely random this is, just bear with me so I can explain myself. If you'll notice there is a red arrow pointing to the third post in my list of "Most Popular Posts". This is a list of my posts that have gotten the most hits, and Blogger has ever so nicely compiled them for your viewing pleasure. This feature is really handy for most bloggers, because it will present their best work to newcomers to their blog. The bad news, for me at least, is that that is not really happening.

The post the arrow is pointing to is titled "Warning: This Post Contains Excess Amounts of Water Fountains". (I've chosen not to link you to this post because it does NOT need any more page views). Ever since March/April-ish that post has been in my list of most popular posts, and I have no idea why. That post is not funny, it probably doesn't make much sense to people who don't attend my school, and the title is really sucky. 

I'm just a little bit upset by this. At least it's not number one on the list anymore, because that was too much to deal with....

Edit 8/29/12: AS OF TODAY THIS WATER FOUNTAIN POST HAS PASSED UP A FAILED ADVENTURE IN BLOGGING AND IS NUMBER TWO ON THE LIST NOW HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?!???

Ew

**9/3/13: This is pretty funny. The person I wrote about in this post I ended up dating. We're not anymore, so it's kind of interesting to see my reaction to them pre-dating**

Well, well, well, it would seem I am spending yet another open period at school sitting by myself in the library. For some reason the person who set up my schedule wanted to see me go through a large amount of emotional turmoil because I have NO friends in any of my opens. It's mind numbing sitting by myself for long periods of time, not to mention awkward. I usually just sort of chill and pretend like I'm too cool to care and that I'm not scared as hell.

You would have thought that I would have learned to deal with this by now, considering this is my second year of high school, but that is an incredibly wrong assumption. Even though I am a year older I am still as terrible at initiating conversation as ever. It's not that I don't like talking to people. I love it, really I do. The problem is approaching someone and saying "hello". I've grown accustomed to just talking to my friends and greeting them with a cheery "sup bitches" (even then, I only reserve this for people I know very well).

Right now I am plopped in the library at an individual study station (read: sitting at a desk facing a wall). There is a girl who I am acquainted with who is sitting no less than ten feet away from me, and I am too scared to approach her. Sure, I've sat with her before, mostly at social functions where our mutual friends would do the dirty work to keep the conversation going. I keep looking back to see if she notices who I am, but she's fixed on her computer, and she's sitting in an arm chair by herself so WHAT DO I DO? THE INNER CONFLICT IS ALREADY BUILDING UP.

I'm going to try and calm down and probably edit the shit out of this post then post it and by that point this moment in time will be long gone. I hope you, blog reader, have a ravishing day. 

Wanna know what I like? Youtube.

My love affair with this website started when I was in about fifth grade, and I went through a phase of watching "Fred" videos. I'm pretty sure most elementary schoolers were obsessed with those videos (at least all the kids I went to school with were...). The weird thing is that I went back a few weeks ago to see if all of the "Fred" videos were still on the site, and sure enough, they were. After rewatching a majority of them I really questioned why I liked them in the first place. The only one I still think is even remotely funny is this one. And saying that I enjoy watching it is a bit of a stretch, but the line about him being "top dog" gets me every time.

A couple months ago, way back in April, I got back into the Youtube scene, after a three year dry spell where I didn't really use the internet too much. The first youtuber I really loved was Nerimon. I first found his "Alex Reads Twilight" series (which I would recommend), and from then on I went and watched pretty much every single one of his videos. After that I moved onto Charlieissocoollike, then Danisnotonfire, and most recently I found a lovely vlogger named Jenna whose channel is called LesbianAnswers.

At this point in time I have pretty much run through all of the videos uploaded on each of those channels, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not. Do you have a favorite Youtuber?

Back To School

Yesterday was my final day of summer vacation. Considering it was such an emotional day for me, I refrained from blogging. I have a very strong connection with summer, and all of the hours I spend indoors plopped in front of the computer are well earned after a long school year. This summer in particular I was more of a shut-in than usual. Since most of my friends were living their exciting lives, and were on vacations in exotic places, I didn't have many people to hang out with. Lizzie, for one, was in Illinois the whole summer, so I didn't get to see her until just last week.

Meeting back up with Lizzie was quite the emotional experience, to say the least. Saying that I embraced her was an understatement. It's funny how even though we sent letters and emailed the whole summer, I didn't realize how much I'd missed her company until she was right there with me. We hung out as much as possible before school started, but before I knew it all of our days were up. We spent yesterday afternoon at the park, and we both almost died of heat stroke because of how hot it was. All in all, though, it was really fun!

Today, on the other hand, was not much fun at all. The only high point in my day was getting back my Mac book (our school issues us laptops each school year that we are allowed to take home with us and use 24/7). I got almost as emotional when I got my laptop back as when I saw Lizzie again. I'm just kidding of course... sort of.

Nah, I'm not actually that obsessed with my Mac. I think if I had to describe my relationship with it, I would say it's only mildly unhealthy. C'mon, I have a strong bond with this laptop, considering it is the very machine which I created Infinitely Pi on, as well as my Tumblr account!! Both of these are two things I hold dearly to me (well, tumblr not as much so). Every time I look at my computer, I'm reminded of many great memories of internet shenanigans. This bad boy helped me survive my freshman year of High School, which is something I never thought I'd ever be able to say.

Tomorrow is picture day, which is a day I have loathed since childhood, despite the fact that I love looking at myself. For some reason I always found it rather agitating trying to look absolutely perfect for the photo. I much prefer impromptu photo ops, since I always look more relaxed in those.

Take this for example:

This is probably one of my favorite picture of Lizzie and I. In case it wasn't obvious, I'm the dork on the right.

For some reason I can never pull off a smile like that during picture day. 

To wrap this up, just know one thing: I am completely unprepared for this school year, but I guess it's happening and it's gonna keep happening for the next nine or so months. Let's see where Infinitely Pi is then, shall we? 

EDIT: I forgot I added more onto this page today!

It is Hotter Than a Biscuit Outside So I Made a Vlog

For any further information please refer to the title of this post. I wanted to say "hotter than a fresh-made biscuit" but I thought it would have been too long.

Anyway, I didn't feel like typing and I haven't vlogged for awhile, so I made this video. The quality is poops and my camera is almost broken, not to mention I didn't edit the video. But I pulled through. If you watch it all the way through I will give you a hug and a sweater with love in every stitch.

I was literally so tired when I made this.

Links I mentioned in the video:
-National God Tier John Appreciation Week
-Callie I linked your tumblr because you use it more.
-Bracelet Tutorial
-P.J. Coolstar 

That's it!! I'm really bored today and I hope your day is going wonderful for you thus far! :D

Edit 8/9/12: I just decided that since there is fanart for it, we can have a P.J. Coolstar fandom. All of my blog readers can be members. Don't expect me to forget about this anytime soon...

Edit 8/29/12: I wore that shirt today.
Edit 9/6/12: I wore the shirt again today. 

"The Stash"

As you all are well aware, I've made a few decisions in my life that might make one stop and ask "Hannah, you're an intelligent, quick-witted, and sensual woman, what could have ever made you do that?".  I would just have to say that I have a complicated psyche that is just not understood this day in age. In other words, I make a lot of stupid decisions that I regret later.I think the most recent incident was the Tic-Tac Fiasco, but this one I'm about to tell you about, even though it took place awhile back, definitely takes the cake.

 When I was a sixth grader, I had very few friends, and the friends I did have were also going through the uncomfortable growth spurt that shows up right before middle school. We were all just bopping along, sort of doing our own thing, trying to create a facade that we were totally cooler than we really were. I regret a lot of the decisions I made in sixth grade, but the one that makes me cringe the absolute most was a string of events that I usually sum up by calling "The Stash".

The origin of the stash was sometime in the middle of the  school year. Summer had been long forgotten, but Spring Break was still just a distant dream. Since all of the kids I went to elementary school with were absolutely avid talkers, the teachers gave us seating assignments at the lunch tables to try and cut back the amount of chatter. Unfortunately, they chose to seat us alphabetically, and while some kids got put next to their best friend, I got put next to the grossest kid in our grade. Maybe even our whole school. Let's call him Shawn. The problem was the Shawn probably showered about 5 times a month, so he SMELLED. Imagine trying to enjoy your lunch sitting next to someone who smells like B.O. I would all but gag on my food, so I had to come up with a better way to eat lunch. Since switching seats with someone else was out of the question (you better believe I tried, though), I had to come up with something else that could remedy the situation.

After about a week, I figured out the best possible solution my twelve year old mind could come up with. The idea hit me one day while I was at recess. Since the sixth graders were the biggest kids at the elementary school, we had to walk down a huge flight of brick stairs (71 steps!) to the baseball diamonds, which were surrounded by a big track for recess instead of playing on the playground. Most kids would walk around the track or play kickball, or just sit on the hill. I was one of the track walkers, wasting away many recesses by playing truth-or-dare with a group of cackling girls. While walking around one day, I stopped and took a break on one of the two baseball diamonds, the one that was rarely used. Kicking up the dirt of the baseball diamond, I walked around and I eventually ran into home plate. After some inspection, I realized that I could pick it up, and it wasn't stuck to the ground as I had originally thought.

The funny thing about the home plate was that the sides were thick and stuck deep down into the ground, creating a little air-pocket in between the ground and the top of the base. It was probably about three inches tall. Suddenly, what I thought was a stroke of genius stuck me. I would sneak my lunch outside and hide the remains under home plate!!!


I can't exactly remember why I thought this was a  good idea, but I quickly told all of my friends, and they thought it would work! Of course, I can't blame them for what happened next, it's all on me.

For the next two weeks or so, I'd hide bags of food in my coat pockets each day as we left the cafeteria. Since I hadn't eaten during the actual lunch period, I would sprint down the stairwell to the baseball diamond, and eat my lunch hastily in the dug out. When the coast was clear (aka, no teachers were around), I would run over to home plate and quickly stuff the wrappers underneath it. Home plate became known as "The Stash" to my friends and I, a name that was much too cool for what it was describing. Hiding the wrappers worked for the first five days or so, but in the second week, things were starting to get a little bit cramped under home plate. For some reason I didn't have the foresight to remove the trash once it started getting packed, so I just left it in there.

Then on one cloudy day the jig was up. I knew it from the moment I ran down to the field and saw all of my trash of the last two weeks blowing gently in the wind and across the baseball diamond. The teachers as well as the students were all nonplussed, and everyone was trying to figure out why so much trash had magically appeared on the field. I, for one, ran the hell away from where everyone was, which I didn't realize made me seem really suspicious. Luckily, the event blew over after a week or so, but I'm fairly sure that if you ask some of those teachers if they remember the day when a hoard of mini pretzel bags and half eaten PB&J sandwiches littered the field, I'm sure they would have a very funny story to tell you. 

Living My Life on 8tracks

For those of you who aren't aware, there is a music sharing website called 8tracks that I absolutely adore. I found it a year ago back when I would use StumbleUpon to find new websites. Basically what people do on 8tracks is make unique play-lists with music from their iTunes library. While I must admit that you have to sort through quite a bit of crap, there are some very  good mixes on that website. I've made a few myself, and while I wouldn't say they were particularly bad by any means, it is very hard to become "8tracks famous". There are hoards of people who frequent that site, so my pipe dream of getting a mix that becomes popular is a long way off.

The funny thing is, I forgot about this website after winter break of 2011, and I just started using my account again this summer. I think part of the reason is because I associate 8tracks with a time in my life (the beginning of freshman year), that was very stressful for me, and I knew that this website helped me calm down. I would literally just listen to 8track mixes and surf blog spot all day at school first semester of last school year.  I think I may just have to resort to that again. I've actually found quite a few new blogs these past few weeks, and I've followed them, so hopefully blogging joy will abound.

I just made a mix on 8tracks today because I was bored, so feel free to check it out! I made the mix as a sort of "Final Hurrah" for my freshman year. In other words, I just took all my favorite songs from when I was a freshman and plopped them into one mix. Link is here!

Side note: My profile picture on 8tracks is the Swag Snowman. More than likely that is the best piece of artwork I have ever come up with.

It Is High Time I Wrote About That Update

Warning to my non-Homestuck blog readers, fangirling and excessive use of caps lock is on the horizon...

I'm really surprised I've held out this long. JakeDirk has been canon for almost an entire month now and I have yet to blog about it. Part of the reason I think I waited this long to write about it was because I knew if I blogged the day of the update I would have just made a post of me crying and there would have been a lot of "OMGGGGG's" and "SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY" and we simply can't forget about "I CAN'T ANYMORE GUYS SOMEONE PULL THE PLUG". Since I know myself so well, I decided to spare you all from my incoherent ramblings about how two of my favorite Homestuck characters locked lips.

Even if you don't read Homestuck, here is the flash that rocked my world. I'm not saying you should watch it (but you should totally watch it beCAUSE THEY KISS OH LORDIE). I've been sailing this ship really freaking hard for quite some time now, and that day in July just made my life. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I was pretty dang pumped. When I had got up in the morning on that fateful day, the thought that my OTP might become canon hadn't even crossed my mind. I ate breakfast, did my chores, surfed the web. All was well.

And then tumblr happened.

I saw tags of update spoilers, so I hopped on the MSPA site immediately.

Ever since my induction onto that site in April, I have learned A LOT  about the Homestuck fandom, and one of those things is that when there is an update, they freak out FOR A  REALLY FREAKING LONG TIME. It was probably a good three or so days before the fandom calmed down. I am actually still seeing gifs and text posts about the update, but they are much more scarce than before.

I just. Oh god. My feelings. Are back. ;iuadg;uiaguiadfguiaeighaer;uig;lughadrgiuadrguiaerghaerugaergae

LIKE CAN YOU BELIEVE IT I CAN'T EITHER I JUST WANTED THEM TO BE HAPPY SO BAD AND I DON"T CARE IF DIRKS HEAD WASN"T CONNECTED TO HIS BODY IT HAPPENED AND I ROLLED AROUND ON THE FLOOR FOR A GOOD FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE CALLING ALL MY FRIENDS AND EMAILING THEM AND FLIPPING OFF THE WALL.

...Wow. I lost control their for a moment. That paragraph up there pretty much describes my emotions every time I think about that update. That is why I took so long to write this. Would you rather have one paragraph of my full blown freak out, or an entire post?

There are so many great things about that update, not to mention that Dirk kissed Roxy as well as Jane. I actually ship all of those (not quite to the extent of DirkJake, of course...I ship Dirk and Jane as just friends??!?!).

I mean, I could delve into all the theories that arose along with this update as well, but I am all plum tuckered from that fangirling, and since most of you don't read Homestuck anyhow, I'll just leave it at this. Besides, I need a reason to justify my laziness, right?

Unrelated side note: I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST TODAY :D :D :D :D TO QUOTE JOSH FROM DRAKE AND JOSH:

"I'M STREET LEGAL!!!!!!!!"

I'm Returning to the Flaming Dungeons of High School

I just realized that tomorrow is August 1st. How did this happen? It seems like just yesterday I was lounging in my room trying to beat the June heat wave and gorging on mac n cheese (Easy Mac was my drug of choice this summer). What I find especially distressing about all of this is the fact that I will have to make a big decision about whether or not to use a back pack again this school year. Last year for a majority of second semester I had to roam the halls back pack-less. In a school where you're allowed to carry back packs, I was making a major fashion faux pas. It wasn't even my decision to get rid of my back pack, it was the doctor's orders! If you'll recall, I actually wrote an entire post about the trials and tribulations of being without a book bag, crappily illustrated and all. 

My back is actually much better than it was when I wrote that post (I'd really rather not go into my actual injury, mostly because the doctors still have no clue what's wrong). Even though I'm in much less pain, I don't know if I want to take the risk of the back pack again. I experience enough self loathing because of my back pain, and the decision to make myself more unlike everyone else by not carrying a back pack again would probably send me into another state of spiraling depression, much like the one I was in before I started this blog (okay, I probably shouldn't call it "spiraling depression", but I was not doing too well for a few months there).

If I do choose to go the route of the book bag, I do have one type of pack in mind. They're called Dakine back packs, and I heard from a girl, who I am no longer friends with, that they are just the best. I probably shouldn't trust her, considering by this point I have cut off most all ties with her, but she could be on to something. I was told that they come with a case for a laptop to slip into, and since I have to accept the school issued laptop, I could stick that in the book bag, and hold everything else! That is the best option I've come up with thus far. It would at least be better than carrying everything around like I used to. It actually made my upper back start hurting, because I was carrying an entire accordion folder plus a laptop. So I pretty much got to choose between lower back pain with a book bag, or upper back pain by lugging around all my school crap. I think that by getting one of these Dakine packs I could create a happy medium?

Now this is where you come in, dear reader. Yes, you! I know that a lot of you who read this never comment, and I suppose I'm okay with that. But I would LOVE AND APPRECIATE any input I can get at this point. So if you're a regular commenter or not, I would be so grateful if you could give me any ideas.

School starts in less than a month, I need to figure this out fast. 

Driver's Education

Driver's Ed, more like rip out my brain and drag it across molten concrete because that is how I have felt all week having to learn to drive. Most unfortunately for me, though, the class lasts two weeks, so I'm only half way done with the torture. The first day wasn't actually half bad! I went to the Health and Safety council building where the class was, and pretty much just filled in a worksheet from 8 am to 1 pm. Very low stress, low key (if not incredibly boring). No, the fun really started on Tuesday, when I actually had to get behind the wheel of a vehicle. I was tasked with driving around in a white Pontiac, my driving instructor sitting in the passenger seat, and all I had to do was not get both of us plus the other student sitting in the backseat killed. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong. 

Very, very wrong. Despite the fact that I have had my learner's permit since February, and have been practicing driving a lot since then, I still did a miserable job driving the first day (and the days to follow, might I add). I would like to blame children's television partly for my faults, though I really know that's a bit of a stretch. Really, though, didn't we all think we learned a little something from all the episode's of Spongebob where he was in Ms.Puff's class? And I'll be damned if you try and tell me that The Suite Life of Zack and Cody didn't teach me that the technical term for the "PRNDL" is 'gearshift'. What stinks though is if I try and explain all this to my driving instructor, I doubt he would take me seriously. 

"But... I'm really not a bad driver! I'll have you know I watched the episode of Spongebob where he wrote an essay about What Not to Do At a Stoplight!"

"What, that doesn't even make any... DEAR LORD, EYES ON THE ROAD HANNAH!!"

If that conversation went any other way than this, I would be completely and utterly shocked. 

Luckily on Wednesday, I got a day to recover. Back in the classroom from 8 to 1 again, I was able to sit back and relax as the teacher played movie after movie about proper driving techniques. A guest speaker also came and talked to us about organ donation, and I quite liked her. She had nice spunk. 

But like all good things, they must come to and end eventually, and on Thursday I was back on the road. Pretty much what happened was instead of driving around residential areas like we had on Tuesday, my instructor made me go out on the highway, and believe me when I say I was NOT ready for that. It sort of came like a punch in the gut, with me happily driving along neighborhood streets when all of a sudden we were on the merge ramp leading up to the highway and the instructor was yelling "FOOT ON THE GAS, HANNAH, YOU GOTTA SPEED IT UP". I think I more stressed then than I had been in a long time. I felt like I had reached the level 'Moonview Highway' on Mario Kart, and cars were coming at me from all different directions. I managed to hold back my tears as the instructor kept yelling, and I am unsure whether or not the other student sitting in the back seat was snickering at my distress, or horking snot back into his nose. 

I really could go on about Thursday, but I'll just leave it at that. Friday was my day off, so Josalyn and I spent some quality time together (which I actually plan on posting about later because it was amazingly fun?!?). But last night I was really upset about having to drive again today. It turns out driving today wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be, but I had to drive on the interstate, which was even worse than the highway and I probably almost peed myself about four times. After the interstate we headed to downtown, and that was especially terrible because of all the construction, and we had to parallel park. 

There was so much more to my week than this, but I think I'll be done writing about it for now. I cringed just bringing back these fresh memories to write about. Maybe I'll write a reflection post for week two? Maybe not? All I know is that if I fail my driving test next Saturday I am going to go insane. 

Goodbye for now, my lovelies.