Song: "Live Like We're Dying" by Kris Allen

For the people out there who like to think they want to live life to the fullest, then that song might be for you. It talks about "would you have any regrets before you die?" or if you'd want to tell anyone "I love you" or maybe "I'm sorry" before you passed away. It's interesting. There's a handful of songs out there like this, but this is the only one so far that doesn't make me feel like crap.

Why would I feel like crap? Because I don't really live my life to the fullest. Don't judge me. I just feel safe in my stupid shell. So, no lectures either, thank you.

If you noticed that I was kind of grumpy or anything, good spotting. I'm not in a bad mood, but songs about life or helping the world make me tense and sometimes tear me apart inside. I have moments where I feel like a terrible person or a secluded hermit, so when songs preach about doing the opposite, it sets me on edge. They make it sound so friggin easy. So it makes me wonder what's wrong with me. Why can't it be easy for me, too? Why don't I suddenly want to jump up and live life like I should? Why don't I have the sudden inspiration to go help random people? Am I a bad person? Do I really deserve to be here?

Of course, those are rhetorical questions, and just for the record, I'm not a philosopher. Those aren't my life-long questions. I don't give a rip half the time. I'm not going to go through life seeking the answers. It's a waste of time, for me. I'm already wasting time, so if those songs say to go live life, I'm not going to go answer hunting.

Anyway, lately I've been mega-song-searching. The song I mentioned earlier was one I came up with. Fun stuff. Another song I'm loving is "Fifteen" by Taylor Swift. I just love her music. Supposedly she believes in true love. Which rocks because I think I do too. The down side of that is: How am I supposed to know if this person is the one for me? I'm deciding not to worry about that stuff, though. I suppose people will know who is or isn't for them, at some point.

Oh, if, while reading that, you wanted to debate or something, you could try. I've wondered about the people who aren't monogamous, like some tribes or whatever in Africa. In the Bible, one time, we were going over stuff and it said that there is a perfect counterpart (a girl for each boy and vice versa) for everyone, so I believe it. When I remembered that some men have more than one wife, I got confused. Why would they have so many wives if there's only one perfect person for them? Would they marry a woman who was perfect for some other guy? I don't know, but I've kind of decided that if it were meant to be, it would happen, and stuff.

I know there's people in the world who get divorced a lot, or people who end up alone, and I don't know why that is or where their counterpart is, but I'm sure they're out there somewhere. I find it sad that they weren't able to find them, though, or they let them go or something. I could probably talk about all my theories and opinions and stuff, but I probably won't. It would take a while.

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In school today we had a test in Chemistry. I'm not sure how I did, but I don't think I failed. In Music Theory we did interval stuff. I'm starting to really not-like that class. Oh well. In Algebra II we worked in workbooks on PSSA Math testing stuff. We did that once before, and I hated it. We didn't do that bad today, but I still didn't enjoy it.

In my art class we worked more on our Calacas, a Day of the Dead (Dia De Los Muertos) thing from Mexico. Mine is turning out okay. It's sitting on a chair, at a desk, drawing. It's kind of cute, but still not finished. I was cutting toothpicks the other day, to make "pencils" to put in my "pencil holder" on the mini-desk. For the pencil holder, I took the metal, eraser-holder thing on the end of my old pencil and popped the eraser out. So now it's a prop in my sculpture. So, I was cutting the toothpicks down to size. the first time I did, the other half went flying, so I decided to hold both sides of the toothpick while I cut it in half.

Not a good idea.

The second or third time I cut the toothpick, my finger was suddenly in between the blades right when the snapped the toothpick in half. So I got pinched, and cut. It left a v-shaped cut on the side of my finger that kind of stung for awhile. It had happened the day after my dog bit my index finger for messing with her while she was eating. "Bad Karma" (punny because that's my dog's name. Ha. Ha.). When I showed my mom the v-shaped cut, she asked if I was trying to get bandaids on all my fingers. Sort of amusing at the time, because I'd thought that earlier in the day.

Oh, yesterday the senior class got a new student. She's in my art class, which is how I met her. She's the school's new awesome drawer. She draws anime really well. She also has an attitude. And she's also from California. We supposedly got a new girl from Hawaii, too. Why these people are moving from those awesome places to come to my town, I have no clue.

In I-block there wasn't much fun singing going on. Instead, we were going over answers on a Science thing we're doing. We're trying to do Science stuff so we get a bit smart with it (we don't have any science classes this year) so that we're prepared and don't fail the Science PSSA's. Whenever Kate and I got an answer right, we'd say "Woo!" A little while later, McKayla started to join in. Then we got some other classmates to decide to join in. It was the best thing since sliced bread. I was so proud of us and our obnoxiously loud Woo!-ing.

Today we were starting Activity Period, so we had to go to our Advisers (homerooms) after I-block. We had a substitute today. No one really likes that substitute. He talks and talks and is rude and tries to be our friends, but doesn't pull it off. He likes silence. Silence and Fridays do not go together. He kept bossing us and stuff. Kate and I were talking with Tyler and McKayla and the guy walked up to us and was like "Get a computer, sit down, and do something. You aren't going to stand around and talk and do nothing." He kept having to tell the class that because we just wanted to chat with each other and laugh and have a good time. A couple times it was my fault for us getting in trouble because I have a really loud laugh (that's ok, though, because I love my laugh and how annoying it is). One time Tyler must have choked on his food (he hadn't had lunch because he went to college for some classes and got some food before he got back) because he started talking like he was an old man, so McKayla kept picking on him by imitating his voice. It was wonderful. I got her to say "Young whipper-snappers." and stuff. She had us busting a gut. I think Tyler had been taking a sip of his soda when she'd turn to him and put on an old-person's voice and said "Young whipper-snapper." when he choked again as he started to laugh. That was when I started laughing loudly and the guy told us to be quiet again, so I'd said, "But Tyler's choking and we have to help save him!" as an excuse (because I'm a pathological liar) and he'd said "Well, do it quietly."

That guy really got on our nerves, though. At one point he got in front of the class and started talking to us about teenagers and college and stuff. And he had the nerve to say McKayla was immature! Sure, she was acting like a child then, but, uh, hello? Does that give him the right to judge? Especially in front of our whole class? No. No, it doesn't.

Man, did we sober up real quick. McKayla and I wanted to take him down right then. He had no right, no right at all, to verbally bash her, even in that slight manner. Pretty much our whole class was trying to defend her, and I saw the fire in her eyes when he started saying crap like that. People are allowed to act immature. Especially teens (though adults, too, and stuff) because when we're trying to make it through life and pass school and stuff we have to relieve stress sometimes! She was ready to go after that. By "ready to go" I mean fight. She even tried to argue politely with him, but he kept having a sort of smug attitude saying that she was acting immature and everything. It just was not good news. He kept saying she could change, too, and act more mature. McKayla is a pretty mature person (when it doesn't come to revenge and stuff, though), so she doesn't need to change. My friends, all of them, are great just how they are. "Back in the day", there was this kid who liked using the phrase "Wanna box?!" when he was angry. That was how I felt at that time.

After that, we went to our Activities. Tyler and I went to Drama Club and stuff. That had been kind of cool. At first the teacher asked why we wanted to join. I'd been the first person he asked, and he had been impressed with my answer. I'd said "I wanted to join Drama club to have fun and be able to do stuff without getting judged." and later he said that that was one of his rules to the class and that's exactly why he liked acting and stuff: Nothing you do there is wrong. After that, Tyler and I high-fived. That was fun. We did some fun warm-ups and stuff, too. It was pretty cool. Just as the bell rang, we were in the middle of this name-game where we were supposed to say our name and what we like to do, along with an action, so it was amusing. He said "My name is Rob and...I like to rumble." while shaking himself a bit for the "rumble" thing (that had only been the example, though). One girl was like, "I'm Alexis, and I'm artsy." while doing a painting motion, so we were supposed to repeat that and do the same movement, and it was funny because we made it sound funny when we said "artsy". We said the "y" with a long "a" sound and stuff. One guy was like "I'm Tanner and I like to tickle!." and made tickle gestures while going "Tickle, tickle, tickle!" That had made us laugh a little, because we weren't really expecting it. I had no idea what I was going to say when it got to me, but I'd decided that I'd say "I'm Amber, and I like to give attitude." while putting my hands on my hips and, of course, giving an attitude by slightly "shaking" my head and body/hips at the same time, because I've seen little kids and teens do it a lot. I never got to try, though, because the bell rang a couple people before it was my turn.

I went to the library after school to get some books. I've been hearing about some interesting books lately that I sort of thought about reading, but awhile ago I started these books about bird-kids....If you guessed "Maximum Ride" you're right.. A couple people I knew mentioned them and stuff before, and I saw it in this one bookstore and decided to buy the first book and read it. It took forever to finish the first one, because I couldn't get interested in it with all the violence, but when the humor and stuff showed up more, it pulled me in for awhile. So I decided to get the "last" one today to read. I also got.. "Fire", I suppose, and a "Daughters of the Moon" book because I started those forever ago, too.

When I got up to my grandma's, I was uber tired. I didn't take a nap at first because she decided she wanted to hang a Christmas wreath on her door. So I went upstairs to grab it, went downstairs to stick it on the hook, then took the fall wreath upstairs to put on the hook up there, then I went downstairs and laid down on the couch. After a few moments of watching the Food Network (because my sister had it on, though sometimes I find it fun to watch, just because; and yes, I guess that's typical for some women), I curled up and sort of "hugged" the blanket on the couch so I could have a pillow, and eventually I fell asleep. What was probably a few minutes later, though, I regained consciousness and sat up on the couch and asked "What happened?" because I had this idea that I was late for school and wanted to know why. My sister laughed, though, because she thought it was cute that I'd "sat bolt upright" and asked that immediately after I'd been almost dead asleep. I suppose it could be cute, in a sense, but I mostly found it amusing.

Sometimes I do similar stuff when I'm at home sleeping. I'd jolt awake (almost jumping in the air while still laying horizontal), thinking I forgot to do something important, finding out that I'd already done it. I think this is the replacement for my old days of sleepwalking. Those days were amusing, I guess, even though I never remembered them happening.

Overall, today was an okay day. It had some fun moments. So, that's good. Tomorrow I might be starting to put up Christmas stuff. So yeah. That's the end of what I'm writing today. Good days to you all, I hope.

[Random last tidbit: My words of the day. 1. Inamorata. 2. Inamorato. Yeah, they're pretty similar, but that's ok. The plus sides: 1. It's Italiano. 2. It's lovey. Just in case you want an idea what they mean, here it is: inamorata = a woman who loves or is loved. Inamorato = a man who loves or is loved. Pretty sweet, huh? I thought so.]
 

Song: "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica

That has to be my favorite song right now. The second song I like by Metallica. It's a nice love song that bends (yes, "bends", not "breaks") my heart, I suppose. It may sound sort of sad, but the message isn't, I guess. It talks about how their love, or his feelings for her matters more than anything else, I think. Supposedly the guy wrote it when he was away from his girlfriend and missed her. It's nice. I first listened to this song done by Apocalyptica, which means there were no vocals and it was all orchestra and stuff. I was surprised when I listened to the original because I'm used to more heavy rock when it comes to Metallica.

I find it sort of amusing that I was "exposed" to Metallica before I was even born. Supposedly my step-dad would blare the music while my mom was pregnant for me. I remember riding in the vehicle with my step-dad once (or a couple times) before and having some sort of heavy metal rock playing loud enough that the bass drum (or whatever) was reverberating through my whole chest so that it felt my heart was beating in sync with the music. So, it's kind of like I got music beat into me, only in a nice way. Kind of interesting.

So, I haven't written anything in this blog for awhile. A long while. But that's ok. Thanksgiving is now over, but I'll say that I had a nice holiday. Christmas is coming up and sometimes I feel the excitement for it, but other times I get kind of anxious because I haven't gotten any shopping done yet. Yikes. We don't even really have decorations up, but this weekend I might be helping my grandma put up some of her outside lights. That should be fun. I'll get to stand on a railing and stuff. Awesome.

Today in English we were reading the Scarlet Letter. We found out "who the baby' daddy is." I'm not going to give it away for those who haven't read it yet, but I'll just say this: It was exactly who I "first" guessed it was going to me. Cool beans. It's fun to guess sometimes. I just don't like being wrong when it's something almost-important. Good thing that was all fun-and-games. Even though I would have won anyway if it were a bet.

Gym had its amusing points. We were playing matball and both my gym teachers were pitching the ball, and the guy-teacher set his cup down between them, and my goal was to knock it over at some point. Each time I kicked the ball, though, I got out, or at least almost every time I kicked. So I didn't knock over the cup (it was empty anyway). But the one time my gym teacher (the awesome, girl-teacher who is much more fun) went to pitch the ball, she hit the cup, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was a yelled "YES!" and my friend, Abbey, who was standing next to me started laughing hysterically and my gym teacher was busting a gut, too, though possibly because she felt kind of embarrassed. The other gym teacher sort of glared at her because the cup got kicked around briefly, and she said sorry, though she was trying to fight back laughter at the same time. But I was happy. My goal was accomplished, in a way.

In lunch, I have a sort of routine. I show up late, get my lunch when our table is called up, sit down and eat and talk a little with my friends, give away whatever is left, take up my tray, sit back down and start singing "to" Abbey. Near the end of lunch I got McKayla to come over and we started singing together. I love singing with my friends, even if it sucks.

At the beginning of I-block McKayla and I stood at the front of the room (because she'd been drawing on the blackboard) and continued singing. Some of the guys laughed and told us not to quit our day jobs. That's when my defensiveness and attitude kicked in. I don't remember what my exact reaction was, but I probably snapped (my fingers) at them and said something like "I'm going to become the best singer and you guys are going to be like 'Oh, Amber, I'm sorry for picking on you! You're the best singer ever!'" but they laughed again at the ludicrousness of it. I just smirked because I knew it was silly, too, but I sort of felt sad that they picked on our singing. It probably wasn't pretty, so I understood what they were saying. I'll have to remember in the future, though, if we do become good singers, to pay them a visit and possibly rub it in their faces that we did become awesome singers. "So ha!"

I got elbowed in the chest at some point, though, by another of my friends, Cassi, because of a similar reason. She thought I'd been singing to her, when I wasn't. I'd been surprised and got annoyed so I'd hit her in the stomach back, though not roughly. It was sort of a game, I guess, though I wasn't laughing. It's those sort of moments when people do stuff like that and make me feel like crap that I want to make sure that they never make me feel that way again. Like when people pick on me about my singing that I decide to torture them with it or something. I feel I'm an adequate singer, so I don't really feel they should put me or anyone else down, so if making their ears bleed by purposefully doing what they don't want me to do is a safe revenge, I'd probably do it. I'm a competitive person and very prideful, so I have to feel I'm pretty good at something and make it out with my ego intact, I guess. I'll have to work through that stuff, though, because I'm not the best at anything, or very good at anything, so I'll have to try to toss those traits out of my personality.

Proof is that I'm no longer "1st" in my grade. Which means other people are starting to get better grades than me. That might hurt my pride a bit, but the truth is starting to show, that I'm not as smart as people believe I am, so I'll deal with it. Also, a new girl showed up today who can draw super awesome, better than me. I was impressed. So, now that someone else is "taking that from me", it's one less thing people can say I'm good with, which will also just help my point at not being very good at anything. And there's at least one girl in my chorus who sings "better" than I. In Music Theory and Band, pretty much everyone knows their music stuff more than I do. I haven't tried looking into it, but I'm sure there are people (possibly like Kate) who are better at writing than I am.

I'm not trying to have a pity-party. I'm not upset over these things. I feel it's just how it is. I'm just throwing out proof that I don't really have much of anything "to my name" (for lack of a "better" quote). I feel I'm fine as I am in these things. I could be much better, but this is me, and if things are starting to show that I'm just a simple, normal, average person, then maybe that's fine. It sort of makes things difficult about where I'm going to go in the future, but still. Things should work out. So maybe that's "me in a nutshell". Probably not, but yeah.

Tomorrow is Friday. It should be interesting. Tyler and I go to Drama club with a bunch of "little" kids, again. I hope it's funner than last year...Hanna might even show up this weekend. That would be nice. She could help make sure I don't fall off the railing when I'm helping put up Christmas lights. Yippee.