Song: "All the Right Moves" by OneRepublic

So that song is pretty good. It puts me in a good mood, at least for now. Though maybe I was in a good mood before I listened to it, again. Anyway, it's the day before Veterans' Day, but I'm not going to let it depress me.

Today my class and some seniors to ASVAB tests. It's supposed to help you figure out where you'd be if you wanted to join the military, to help you learn more about yourself, and to help you understand what job might be best for you. So, hearing those things, I was pretty psyched to take the test.

I have a lot of trouble trying to decide and think about my future. Supposedly I am good at a lot of things, and that's not really a great thing. I sort of wish I was great with one thing so I didn't have to figure out by myself on what I want to do. Usually when I have to think about college, school, my future, and other stuff, I tune it out and just tell myself I won't have a future. I pretty much have myself believing that, but maybe this test will help me choose something besides being a homeless person in the future.

It'll be kind of sad, or maybe ironic, if the test says I'd do best if I joined the military. I doubt that would happen, but it would still be ironic to me. Though maybe that's what I'd need.

Oh, my dog is starting to play fetch. That's kind of exciting, to me. Playing fetch with a dog is kind of amusing for me. I don't know why.

Also, I'm sort of getting back in the mood to write. Even though I'm in the mood, though, it's still hard for me to accomplish it. So far I'm halfway through writing another chapter (whether it's bad or not) but I still need to add more to it, though I'm not sure what I need to add yet.

So I'm no longer sure of what else to write. Well, the feeling of big holidays coming up is getting stronger; I'm starting to get kind of excited. I hope to sing some Christmas carols and stuff with my voice lessons soon. I think that could be fun. Plus, I sort of feel like I want to be something almost big in the future, like be in some music or acting deal. Like, I think it would be cool to go to different places and sing for people, but probably not by myself. It would be fun to have a band with some friends or something and be good at it and be recognized for any skills we have. So today I told Tyler that we should sing some sort of duet for the chorus concert, just because I want to get good at singing and sing in front of people. I once told McKayla and possibly Abbey that we should write an awesome song that people would like to sing along to (like "Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)" by Lostprophets) and sing it during the Talent Show at school. But McKayla doesn't want to draw attention to herself.

All in all, my day was pretty ok. There were moments Josh picked on me--he always seems to do that now--but I'm mostly tolerating it. In art class he didn't say much to me, but I did tell him to shut his mouth at one point, I guess. In lunch I made a shooting-myself-in-the-head gesture--I do that a lot, I suppose--and he'd said "Just do it already!" and I stared at him for a bit, but then Tyler swallowed his food and was like "Oh, nu-uh! We only do that to people we don't like; we like Amber!" I was sort of amused and kind of glad Tyler stuck up for me (usually I'm left to fend for myself), and I was still kind of happy even after Josh was like "What?! No." in what I suppose was his way of disagreeing on the "we" in "we like Amber!" But oh well. I'd just laughed.

So, yup, today was good. I'm still in a good mood. Hopefully I will be for the rest of the day, and I think it would be great if I got to stay home tomorrow and be in a happy mood. Yeah, that'd be real nice.
 

Song: "Tonight" by FM Static

At two-thirty in the morning, I woke up to get ready to go to the school. A few minutes later, my mom woke up, grumpy. Naturally, things got sort of tense on and off, and I began to think, almost hope, that something would happen to me when I was gone, as a sort of revenge, so she would be like "The last thing we did together was fight " though we didn't really fight, I guess. I was a little upset, though.

When we got to the school, I went inside with the rest of my classmates and met up in the library. We had to get our bags checked. It was sort of weird; I was uncomfortable.

The bus ride was interesting. Kate and I chatted away most of the time. It was fun. I like hanging out with her most of the time because she laughs with me sometimes. She was my travel buddy through the trip. We only argued once, I think.

It was a long bus ride, though. It's sort of tiring to go through all the details, so I'm probably just going to list stuff soon.

We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and a bathroom break. Nothing too special happened. We went to a Metro station, or something. That was interesting too. I thought I liked the Metro at first, but later that night it made me feel ill and stuff.

We went to Arlington Cemetery. I didn't really like it; it made me depressed, I guess. It was tiring, too. We went to museums later. That was kind of fun, because I was joking and people were laughing, even though I don't feel I was all that funny, but it made me feel good to hear them. I ended up buying this Rasta doll at the African Art Museum thing (whatever Smithsonian exhibit/museum that is) and it was fun stuff. He (that's what I believed it was anyway) acted as a sort of "conscience" sort of thing. He was bossy, too, and some people (or just one guy) got annoyed at him. The Rasta doll got threatened "a lot", too, so..yeah.

I had a headache through half of the first day. When nighttime came and thinks started getting colder, thinks steadily grew worse. On our Metro trip back to our school bus, things just became "terrible". I was nearly positive I was close to throwing up from the pain and nausea, but I held it together ok.

When we got to the hotel finally, I relaxed on the bed a bit in hopes that the headache would drift away steadily until we had to go back out to the bus to go to Don Pablo's for dinner. My headache stayed, though, and I was pretty miserable.

Outside of the hotel, I tried sitting on the ground and leaning on a trash can (because I felt I could barely stand by myself and that I would have really rather leaned on someone), but nothing helped my headache, and I didn't want to ask anyone if I could use their shoulder or arm as a forehead-rest.

When we started walking to the bus, though, I jokingly told or asked Tyler about giving me a piggy-back ride. To my surprise, though, he said "sure" or "ok", or maybe even both. I was surprised because he sometimes complains about back problems and such. So I'd said "Really?..." and he'd said something along the lines of "yeah" and stopped so I could attempt jumping on his back. I failed the first time, though, because he's a giant and I was still to shaky and stuff to jump very high, but he bent his knees a bit so the second time I successfully hopped onto his back.

I felt odd on his back, though. Every step he took sort of jolted me a bit, and I felt almost like a giant too, while I was up there. I was afraid I was going to tire him out quickly, too, or hurt him, so when we were a couple feet (or yards) from the bus I told him he could let me down if he wanted, so he did. Then I made sure to ask him if I had hurt him, because I'm pretty scared that I'd hurt someone if they gave me a piggy-back ride. But he said I didn't, so it was ok.

I still felt sick, even while at the restaurant. A couple people asked me if I was ok and stuff because I was sort of huddled behind my hands and such, trying to make my headache go away while concentrating on not getting sick. McKayla ended up saying she had to go to the bathroom and asked if I wanted to come with her, so I did. I didn't get sick when we were there, but I did lay on the floor because it was cool against my cheek and sort of helped.

I don't have too much I want to say about that restaurant, even though different stuff went on. I'll say, though, that even though I sat next to Kate and another girl, we were sort of "surrounded" by boys, and that meant I "had" to listen to everything they had to say, and since there was a pretty waitress serving us, it wasn't anything I wanted to listen to.

Not much really happened when we got back to the hotel either. I had gotten enough sugar, fluids, and food into my system that my headache disappeared, though. Kate and I were both going to have separate beds at first, but a little while before I had to change into my pajamas and go to bed, my other group-person, Teresa, decided the chair-couch-thing wasn't comfortable enough for her, and wanted to share a bed with one of us.

Teresa is nice and all, but she sort of bothers me sometimes. Actually, both of us really. I tried being nice and stuff the whole time I was with her, though, so I humored her and just let her have my bed as I went to sleep on the chair. It wasn't even that uncomfortable, but I had sort of wanted to sleep in the bed, but oh well.

In the morning I was kind of grumpy. Then we found out that our tour time for the White House was changed. So we had to rush to get there and half of us never had breakfast. I had some breakfast, though, so that was ok...Until we got to the Metro.

I was so nauseous, it wasn't funny. At first it was ok because it wasn't too crowded. I just stood there (most all the seats were taken by my classmates and other people) and pressed my head against the cold pole and tried to keep my stomach under control. When things started to get a bit more crowded, I didn't have the chance to do that.

It was that day, the second day, Wednesday, that things got odd with my classmates. The guys (and really everyone) were tired and almost rowdier. They even made "crude" sort of jokes and "flirted" more with people. The first odd experience I'd had with that sort of thing wasn't that bad; it was when I was clinging to the pole with my eyes shut that, when I opened them, a realized one of my classmates was staring at me while the other was talking. For some reason, I didn't even hear the kid until I asked him "What?"

Then he'd asked me things like if I was trying to "be the pole" and if I was "practicing" or something, and asked if I was a sort of "pole-dancer" as a sort of "after-school" or whatever job, so I'd laughed shortly and sarcastically said "Oh, yeah" because I knew he'd laugh and leave me alone afterward.

The White House was pretty, though I didn't learn too much. We also went to the Capital Building, which was interesting. It was tiring, though, too, and our tour guide bothered me. He was sort of enjoying that we didn't know the answers to his questions at first, and I wanted him to just educate us rather than make us feel inferior. So when our brilliant History Teacher started answering the questions (and getting them right), I was happy to see the smirk in the tour guide's eyes disappear and be replaced with a tinge of annoyance. That was plain great.

In the Library of Congress (possibly; I can't be sure I have the name right), we were able to relax a bit. I laughed a bit with some of my friends and stuff. I was even able to tolerate some of the inappropriate jokes Josh had said toward me when I went to stand near Kate who was sitting on a bench with him and Teresa.

Eventually, we made it back to the Metro and I got to stand again through the whole thing. It wasn't that bad that time and I got to talk with one of my chaperons and Kate. The other, and last, weird/odd moment I had to go through that involved a tired/"flirty"/joking guy/classmate, was when I was standing near the train doors and he was shifting around on the train so he was swinging slightly on the bar hooked to the ceiling of the train. On one swing, though, he could have probably head-bumped me if he stretched far enough, and he noticed me and made a kissing noise, and after I held out my hand in defense saying "Whoa there" he laughed and backed away.

From most of what I saw and stuff, though, I didn't get the worst of any of the crazy flirting going around, so it was bearable and such. I didn't even really get bothered by the other jokes Josh said, I guess, even though they weren't too funny. Like, as we were walking, he would randomly say "Hey, go play on the yellow lines" or make a pushing gesture at me and say "Next speed bump" and stuff.

He'd laugh, though, so I wouldn't take him seriously. When we were running to catch up with our one chaperon who was speed-walking, he said (before we started crossing the street) "Don't feel bad if I get hit by a car, because I'll just throw you out in front of it first." so I'd half-laughed and said "I don't think so" and started running past him, but then he grabbed my hood and I had to push myself harder to get away. I ended up getting away from him and was safe from his weird sense of humor, eventually.

Something amusing about the trip was that my class seemed to "break"/stop three to four escalators. We aren't really sure why. It just happened. Something annoying, though, was that some of the metal detectors in some of the buildings required me to keep taking off my belt, and I started to get angry by the third time. I was about ready to keep it off for the rest of the day, but since there were times I had to run and stuff, I needed it on so I didn't have to hold on to my pants as I ran. One time I had to do that, though, and it wasn't that great.

All in all, the trip was nice. I had fun at times, though there were boring parts. Another fun thing was when Tyler and I sang to songs on my MP3 player, and we even got some other people to sing along. It was great. I'm glad I get to do those things with my class, because they can be amusing. I don't usually have as much fun when I'm on trips with my family. It was a nice experience.
 

Song: "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train

So, me and my class will (hopefully) be heading out to DC tomorrow. Yay. I'm sort of excited. I'm kind of nervous too. I'm mostly looking forward to the time I'll spend with my friends and stuff, but the things we see should be interesting too. When I go on a trip, though, I don't pay as much attention to the things I see as much as care about who I'm with. It's the people who make things worth while, I feel.

Today was kind of a laid-back day, thank goodness. We seemed to have a lot of substitutes, which was ok. In English we read more of The Scarlet Letter; in Chemistry we took a quiz; in Gym we played "Pickleball"; in Music Theory we did "modes" and scales and stuff; in Chorus we sang "Softly, Sweetly", a "Carol of the Bells" jazz thing, and "All I Want for Christmas" and my class had a class meeting during the first part; in art we made whatever we wanted out of clay, so I made a rhino "eating" a carrot (because it's one of my "goals in life"); in I-block Kate and I worked on our kids' book ("Pedro the Platypus Goes to the Zoo"); in Algebra we "studied"; in World Cultures we researched our Africa country and stuff. Mine is Kenya, because it's safari-ish and makes me think of the awesome African animals.

It was a bearable day. Now all I mostly have to worry about is packing everything I need for tomorrow.

5 Things I'll Most Likely See at DC:

1. The White House
2. Art
3. Museums
4. Animals
5. Memorials
 

Song: "Untitled" by Simple Plan [this is important to my short story, so I advise that you watch the music video and listen to the song. Carefully. Please.]

During school we had an assembly and a mother told us about MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). It was sad. She and her pastor-husband had six kids. She would tell the story better, because she's done it a lot for different schools, and the bottom line was that her husband, two daughters, and oldest son got killed. And the two people in the other car were killed as well, one or both of them having been drunk, and driving. Her other daughter that had been in the car had a severely broken leg, so the doctors weren't sure she'd ever be able to walk again, and the girl also had a fractured skull, so she became mentally retarded.

It was a sad story.

So, that's all I'm really going to say, because I'm distracted by other things. But I wanted to say what I had because I want people to understand this:

DON'T DRIVE UNDER ANY INFLUENCE!

Thank you.
 

Today during Music Theory I felt inferior and all, I guess. There are only three of us in that class, and I'm the only one who doesn't really understand what is going on. I felt like an idiot, and eventually started tuning out the teacher. I probably should have tried harder to understand, but I'm not that kind of person.

Every once in awhile in the class I'd pretend to shoot myself in my own disturbed way of venting. It didn't really help, but I still do it.

That class pretty much messed up the rest of my day.

After it was band, another class I don't like. A kid, one of the obnoxious boys that "pick" on me during World Cultures along with Josh, said something pretty stupid to me. And by "stupid" I meant that he probably could've gotten in a lot of trouble with the school had a teacher heard him.

What had happened was, I was talking to McKayla, and he'd seen me pretend to shoot myself, and he'd said something like "I could bring my gun tomorrow and you could actually do that, you know."

I'd turned to glare at him a bit, seeing that he was grinning at his "joke" and only said in a sarcastic/caustic tone "Yeah, sure."

For most of the day, I thought about death and suicide and stuff. I thought about how people who commit suicide don't get to go to Heaven, and sometimes I wonder if it's true that they have a special place they go to (like floating in nothingness forever, or something) or if they just go to Hell. I don't really know, and it's not something I'm going to debate over. I just figured that, even if I end up finding one day that I have nothing to hold me back on earth, that I'll try to keep myself together enough that I don't do something that will send me to Hell. It's probably not the right reason to stop myself from that crap, but it's one that could help.

Usually when I think of those things, I tell myself that I'd only hurt the people I love, and that stops me from thinking much about it. A book I've been reading where a girl kills herself, or wants to, kind of messes that up for me, though, because she had a boyfriend and family to consider, but just looked past them and did it anyway. Hopefully I'll soon get over that stuff and realize suicide is unnecessary drama.

I really don't believe I'm scared of death, though. I've had stupid thoughts and ideas about it, too. I'm not sure I should share any, either. They're kind of upsetting.

Anyway, I feel like I've explained more than half of this wrong, so I'm going to "cut this short" and go. It's late and I'm tired. I'd gotten less sleep than I'd expected this morning, because I got woken at five something and had to help my mom with stuff. I'm also probably getting sick, too. I just hope that I'll be better when my class heads to DC and stuff.

So, I'll be writing in this later. Someday. I pray that everyone else out there who has it worse than me, or also think about suicide stuff find the strength to make it through the days. There's always something good to come. And I hope you all get to see it.
 

Song: "Fireflies" by Owl City

I really like that song. I also really like "Beside You" by Marianas Trench. They both lift my spirit a bit. But also feel kind of painful. I'm not going to try to explain it.

Right now I feel like I'm kind of falling to pieces. I probably won't go into explaining that either.

I heard all, or most, of that song today during gym. We were playing capture the flag again. I like that game. I tagged a couple people, so I felt I accomplished a little during the game.

I also had a half day of school. It doesn't matter why.

I drove my grandma to Wal-mart so she could get groceries. I was nervous somewhere in my mind about parking in the lot, but I didn't hit anything, so it was ok.

My cousin came to visit for a while. We didn't talk much. She played a board game with my grandma. I read and watched tv.

We had a "fiesta" in my World Cultures class. I can probably truthfully say I don't really trust Josh. Every time I leave my seat I have to ask what he did when I come back because in the past he stole something of mine briefly or taped some of my book pages shut.

What I meant by "fiesta" was that people brought in food (chips, dip, salsa, Latin American stuff in a way) because we were finishing the USA/Mexico/Caribbean/South America unit, I guess. We'll be moving on to studying Africa stuff soon. Yay.

I mostly finished my coil pot in Ceramics & Sculptures class. It just needs a handle. It's kind of smooth, too, so that makes me happy sometimes.

My class will be going to DC sometime in November. That should be fun. It's cool there. I'm sort of excited.

I got a hair cut yesterday. A few people that noticed said it looked nice or cute. I didn't agree, but I tried not to complain a lot. I'll be waiting for it to grow out a bit.

5 Places That Interest Me (I suppose):

1. California
2. Ireland
3. Italy (Venice, Tuscany)
4. Philadelphia, PA
5. New York City, NY
 

So there was church today, and we went to the mall. The mall trip was sort of boring. I tried to take a nap on the way there, but I guess I didn't get too much sleep. Oh well.

At the moment, I'm not doing much, except moping. Maybe I'll try reading or something later, or maybe take another nap. I kind of feel like I just want to disappear. As if it would help escape depression and stuff. Oh well. Again.

5 Quotes:

1. "You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at
you because you're all the same."
2. "To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world."
3. "Well, diamonds they fade/ And flowers they bloom/ And I'm telling you/ These feelings won't go away." - Citizen Cope, "Sideways"
4. "A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle." - Erin Majors
5. "You're free! You're free to love each other completely, totally. Just no fear. So there's nothing you don't know about each other, and it's okay." - Quince, "Meet Joe Black"
 

Song: "Night and Day" performed by The Temptations

I guess that song was performed by a lot of people, and the version I liked I heard during the movie "What Women Want". I think it's a great song mostly because it's "mellow" and soulful. It kind of makes me imagine a cruise ship at night with people all dressed up and dancing and whatnot. The song "Moon River" performed by the Percy Faith Orchestra, or whatever, also makes me think of stuff like that.

I think it would be nice or cool to do things sort of like that. Things like dancing--actually dancing, meaning waltz and such or plain slow dancing, not the club dancing sort of deals--or going to places with lights, which is common everywhere, but I mean sort of cities at night. Like, Paris, I guess. All that romantic sort of stuff.

Watching a "chick flick" got me to thinking about that kind of stuff, I get, but that's ok. I don't mind imaging those things, and whatnot.

This morning I woke up with a headache, and from having a weird dream. I can barely remember it now, but I was thinking way too much while I was sleeping. That may be weird or hard to believe or whatever, but it's true. Everything that happened in my dream happened because I might have been half-awake, and communicating with my brain on how to change my dream each time. So while I was thinking through most of my dream, I woke up and had a headache from it, because I didn't get much sleep, though I had slept for-ever.

This morning/afternoon has been ok so far, though. I just hope the rest of my day goes alright.

5 Things That Would Be Nice (and Possibly 'Romantic') to Do Someday:

1. Visiting/seeing Rockefeller Center at Christmas
2. Watching a sunset from a beach
3. Watch the stars
4. Take a walk in the woods
5. See fireworks (maybe)
 

Song: "Apologize" by OneRepublic

This morning I woke up around six, kind of feeling like all my senses were dulled, kind of numb. When I focused more on what I was hearing, the first thing that came to my ears was my alarm clock which is set to play the radio when it goes off. The first words I heard was "No matter what you've done, I still love you."

That fixed the numbness and my senses, but not really in a positive way. What had happened was it helped my brain work back up to pace, getting out of it's recently-woken-up state, but it had me focusing on stuff that didn't really put me in a good mood.

So for most of my day, including now, I've been depressed. Also, I know I've said I'm pretty good at hiding the fact that I'm crying, but I felt pretty surprised when I was crying on a bus with at least thirty people and no one really noticed. Of course, it wasn't too hard to hide. I pretended to be sleeping, and no one bothered me or asked what was up. I had had enough time to cry a bit, wipe my tears inconspicuously and act neutral when we arrived at our field trip destination.

Our field trip was to a college for career day. It was an ok trip. Nothing too special. It didn't help me plan my future or anything, and all it really did was make me tired again. I did get out of my depression for a bit while we were walking around learning stuff, but when I got back on the bus and had to settle back down, I almost instantly went back into my earlier state, but this time I didn't hide my face and cry some more. I'll probably do that later.

5 Things I Like about Winter:

1. The colors: white, green, brown
2. Sleigh riding
3. Christmas
4. Cocoa
5. Heaters

Something I don't like about the season is that it gets cold here. It was snowing outside almost all day, and we had to walk in it for awhile. That part wasn't too fun. I was glad when we were able to stay inside for a bit.

And there's the winter tidbit.
 

Song: "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey

Today was an alright day, I suppose. But guess what happened?

It snowed.

I'm not even sure it's the right time of year for that, but it did. And it was cold. I was shaking like a chihuahua.

Well, we played baseball in gym. It was alright, for baseball. I got out a few times, but that's ok. McKayla was passing me one time (we were on different teams) and she said something about me never going to get her out.

Just before the game ended, she was running by and I was trying to pick the ball up, and one of the rules was we weren't allowed to throw it, so I rushed to grab it, and spin around and I barely touched her. But, knowing she realized she was out, I shouted "I GOT YOU!" and, boy, if looks could kill, I wouldn't be here right now.

I'd thought she was going to attack me, so I'd ran a few steps away from her, all the while hearing some other people in my class laughing at my reaction to getting McKayla out. And one of my old friends, Cassi, gave me a sort of weird smile while telling me I was funny, but probably in the sense I was odd.

Ever since Cassi came back to school, things have turned back to how they were a little bit. I'm glad she's back, but now it means I have to watch my back more. She's not a bully or anything, but she'll randomly kick someone in the butt, or jump on my backpack so I almost fall over backwards, or bump into my side with her hip, or shove me slightly. And she's not even that tall. She's, like, half my height, so...I don't know, it seems kind of odd to me, though I'm not sure why.

Anyway, since she's come back, I almost may be getting a tad bit (which really means only a little bit) more "aggressive". When she relatively butt-bumped me today, it had hurt my back (only because I've been sore since playing hockey) so I'd shoved her away. I'd also been patting her face as she walked by me in gym because she'd walk over in a way that she was aiming to bump into me, but I'd move and she'd walk after me a bit, so I'd reach out and pat the sides of her face a bit, then push her away gently to keep her walking like she was supposed to.

Then, in my last class of the day, Josh (like I'd mentioned before, Tyler's cousin) had intruded on my space a little, which is sort of normal sometimes. But we were supposed to be coloring our maps for World Cultures, and so I got my colored pencils out and opened the box slightly, and he'd reached over (which isn't that hard since I have to sit by him) and kind of yanked them away from me, spilling some of them across the table. I got annoyed, and I punched his hand.

It probably wasn't the right choice of action, but like I said, I've gotten a tad bit more aggressive. I didn't hurt him, though. I hurt myself more than him, because punching walls has messed up my hands, I feel, and stuff.

All he really said was "You had to punch?" which I'd replied to as "Yes, I did." It didn't make him stop teasing me, though.

Later on he was messing around with tape and decided to try putting it on some of my stuff. He thought he was being all sneaky and everything, but when I can tell out of my peripheral vision that someone is starting to handle my books or other things, or get around it, I get sort of suspicious. But I let him think he was tricking me, and when he moved his hands away, I just reached over and took the tape off.

He ended up trying to put some tape on my arms and was thinking about putting it in my hair, but I took it away from him. And eventually him, me, and the guy sitting on my other side started trying to steal the tape away from me. So I was outnumbered, and eventually left with no tape. When the other guy wasn't paying attention to me, though, and was trying to trick a girl across the room into thinking a piece of paper was sticking to his finger when it was actually tape, I snatched it back from him, which made the girl laugh.

After school I had to stay after with Cassi so we could make up a chemistry lab we missed. We were working with zinc and NaOh (sodium hydroxide which is dangerous) and fire. We took some pennies and stuff, and we ended up making them look silver, then gold. We got to keep them, and they look cool.

5 Colors I Like (Because I can't think of anything better to list):

1. Lilac (possibly my favorite purple, and color)
2. Light blue
3. Green
4. Midnight blue
5. Orange