Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you have a great 2011. And for those of you that are in school, enjoy your last weekend before break ends. I hope there’s a snow day. The blizzard last week should’ve been this week.

Avril Lavigne is releasing her new single, What the Hell today. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I know that some fans have been waiting for today for a while. Especially considering that she’s delayed her latest album for months, which turned into years.

And for shameless self promotion, there’s a new chapter of The Timbersons. 

Anyway, enjoy your 2011!

And here are some appropriate emoticons for the occasion.

   

321 Days

The Timbersons are… over! Well, not really. But technically yes. One of the generation 8 spares had a grandkid, so… we finished our first legacy! But obviously I’m going to play until my household reaches the 10 generation mark. So maybe if I’m lucky, I can finish before school starts! And then I’ll start posting new chapters again.

It’s weird how fast this went by. I remember SS and I made Alice, the founder, because our old Sims got glitched. We originally made it as a backup, but now… we actually finished! And it only took 321 days. I don’t usually make milestones out of everything, but I remember it was the first night of Winter Break.

It’s funny how each generation just became longer and longer for me. I started generation 2 10 days after I started playing the Timbersons, and I’ve been playing generation 8 since… the end of summer. o.O

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Recommendations?

I’m in a legacy reading mood, but I can’t find anything I want to read that looks… interesting. Of course, I’ve only Googled ‘Sims 3 legacies’ and clicked the first few items, so you probably have better recommendations. 

And my Sims game is working again. 1 generation left! Then we’ll continue to write the Timbersons.

EA NEVER Stops Amazing Me

Just when I thought my game would go two months without a glitch, the game starts acting weird today. Actually, no. A few hours ago. This afternoon, I managed to play. I played last night. I’ve been able to play a lot this past week. But as of 8 o’ clock, the game just freezes on the family load screen. :/

And I’m really annoyed by this, because this week is my Holiday Break from school, AKA the only time which I could play nonstop, excluding summer. And I’m almost done with the Timbersons, but it looks like things might take an unexpected turn because of EA’s faulty programming. Ugh.

I didn’t even download any custom content or anything! What changed from 1 PM today until 8 ish? :/

Oh well. At least I didn’t buy Late Night yet. I’m starting to want it less and less. I really hope I’m not starting to outgrow The Sims. The Sims 3 is fun, I’ve made friends in this community, this blog wouldn’t exist if SS and I didn’t start to play Sims (Okay, so that’s a debatable benefit or consequence [When was the last time I didn’t rant about my private life, and commented on the Sims community, anyway? {I don’t even think I ever was that active on the EA forum}]), and The Sims 3, Ambitions, plus the laptop and all the CC we downloaded weren’t cheap and didn’t come from nowhere. I know that was a major run on and I probably broke some grammar rules… but you got the idea.  

In other news, Lily Allen is engaged, and trying to get pregnant again! I’m happy for her. I hope this time she can start a family.

Let it Snow

In NJ, there was a blizzard Sunday. That meant I couldn’t really do anything fun yesterday (Like going to the mall). But I got some homework done. Now I just have to read Lord of the Flies.

It’s amazing how much atmosphere can change things. I felt so ambitious last week, when there was no snow and it wasn’t that cold. Now, with the 20+ inches of snow, I just want to stay inside in my pajamas all day. Maybe I’ll go out and do something later.

I was on IGN and read the Late Night review there. Is it really that hard to get the LN features in pre-LN towns? Then again, I haven’t even played in Twinbrook yet, and I’ve had Ambitions since July. xD That’s what happens when you try to play a legacy in high school. I’m getting closer to finishing, though!

Happy holidays and stay warm!

Happy Holidays… Again

I felt like I should make another post right now. During our party. I hope you’re all having a great day/night/weekend. So far, I am. There’s a lot of chocolate desserts at my house and I plan on devouring those eating them in a civil manner later. I should probably be with my family right now, shouldn’t I?

And to amuse all of you, here’s a fun little Santa website: NORAD Santa Tracker. I think it’s ran by the military or someone official (North American Aerospace Defense Command), so it’s pretty cool that they care about giving kids something to look at. Or it’s a waste of tax dollars. However you want to look at it. Did Santa visit you yet? … I’m too old to be amused by this, aren’t I?

‘Santa’ visiting NYC. Thanks, NORAD!

And yes, I know Santa isn’t real. I just believe in the… image? Like God helps people with gifts, or something.

Happy holidays, and stay safe!

StudyBlue.com

I know it’s Christmas Eve and students are probably on holiday break right now, but there’s a cool website I found last week in my uber-studying mode.

It’s called StudyBlue.com. It lets you make your own online flashcards, notes, and quizzes. You can post what textbook you have, and if you’re lucky, other students who have that textbook posted things, so you can just use their stuff. Other people from your class can make accounts and you can share notes. Okay, so a school social network sound probably won’t attract attention to teenagers, but hey, there’s always a chance.  

You can divide your notes by class, and even upload your stuff online, so your notes can be seen by anything with Internet access. You don’t have to worry about your stuff being stolen or used by random people, because they have privacy settings, too, so only you can use your notes.

The website also has recommended studying stuff, which the most viewed and liked notes are recommended. For me, it’s currently not helpful, because curriculums are different, but there’s usually stuff you can use. I’ve used it for 2 classes so far, and I’ve found things for both classes, so 2/2 is pretty good.

And best of all? It’s free! They have a premium account thing, but I don’t know much about it, and since the free account already offers so much, I just use that.

And no, I’m not being paid to write this. Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve to my fellow Christians. Happy holidays to non-Christians. And enjoy your day if you won’t be celebrating anything.

Tomorrow, my family is having our party. I probably will go to the mall to just browse for no reason, or do my homework, because the party is at night, so yeah.

I hate how I had like a whole list of LiveJournal Sims legacies I wanted to read, but now I can’t find any of the ones I want to read. I had like a handful of interesting ones, too. Okay, so the founders looked pretty. And they were Sims 2 legacies. I remember I started reading Sims 2 legacies in 8th grade when I was depressed-ish, and they gave me something to look forward to when I came home. But… I finished reading them in like 2 weeks, so for the past 2 years, I’ve been trying to find legacies that last for more than 5 generations and update often. Oh, and sometimes for added funsies, the legacy author’s PhotoBucket account will run out of bandwidth, so there will be chapters of just that ‘You need more bandwidth, upgrade to PhotoBucket Pro now!’ message. :/ So Sims 2 legacies remind me of 8th grade, and some of my better memories of it… which were spent online. Anyway. I’m going into flashback mode, so I might as well tell a story from *gasp* 2009!

So the powers that be at my middle school somehow decided that letting 8th graders pick out their own roommates would be a good idea… for an overnight field trip. SS and I were new-ish… look, it's a complicated story that I’ll explain later, but all you have to know is that we didn’t really have friends because we were new and then our old friends became jerks. So we needed to fill out a sheet with who we wanted to share a room with, and they said they would split up any ‘problem groups’. SS and I just assumed any ‘popular’ kids would be split up, so we just left our sheet blank (Well, with our names, but 2 empty slots). So then…. we got partnered up with that guy. You know, the one kid everyone unanimously hates, for an actual reason. He’s a jerk, who has real issues. But yeah.

Word spread that we were stuck with him. And some jerks (In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to censor myself because it’s Christmas Eve and all) jokingly asked us ‘So, who’s your roommate?’ and stuff. Repeatedly. Like, okay, MYOB much? And my ex friend asked ‘Who are you sleeping with?’. I mean, gay jokes were never funny, it’s okay to be gay, and sharing a room =/= sleeping with someone! Besides, if those roommates were, um, friends with benefits, then my ex-best friend would’ve been practically married with his best friend (AKA my replacer from my uber rant last week [I need a separate page explaining everyone in my life, don’t I?]), and their two other roommates. I’m not even kidding when I say that Replacement Boy is co dependent with Ex best friend, and he’d literally just follow him around, agree with him on everything, and so on. But yeah, ex best friend was just annoying and hypocritical.

So then, the day after, apparently some people were perceptive enough to realize that SS and I are brothers, so we probably would share a bed, which means they would have their own bed, and since we were quiet, it would be like having a room to yourself. And people started asking if we shared a bed.

Yes, we did. But so this won’t end up screenshotted on The Mare’s Nest or something, we share beds for vacations and sleepovers and stuff. I’m pretty sure anyone who is middle class and has a sibling has done this. But yeah, once I said yes, they started going like ‘Aw, man. If I knew that, I’d room with you guys.’ . So technically, everyone wanted to sleep with me at 8th grade. (Forgive me for the horrible joke ). So I guess we have potential (possibly rich? ) roommates for the next overnight field trip. Okay, so I’m somewhat gold-digging, but then again, so are they. And maybe that one field trip could become a genuine friendship? Ugh, there’s no way I can phrase this without making it sound like I’m sleeping with people, or turning a 1 night stand into a relationship.

But yeah, people were nosy when they didn’t have to be.

 

Then, a few months later, there was the school dance. People started asking others out, and then nosy people asked others who they were taking to the dance. I found this annoying, because the dance already bothered me enough. There were some people who didn’t even begin puberty yet, and others could pass off for high school seniors, and they were supposed to dance together? But yeah. People couldn’t mind their own business, and awkwardness occurred. That sentence could describe high school.

 

Wow, only I could turn a ‘Happy Holidays!’ post into a rant about myself. o.O 

So Happy Holidays, and don’t drink and drive!

Vacation!

I’m finally on vacation! Even though my school keeps making it shorter each year, my (small) holiday break is really appreciated. I only have to read 1 chapter of Lord of the Flies and do some assignments with it, and do ~60 vocab flash cards for SAT Prep.

I won’t be mundane so I’ll save you the extremely boring details of my week. But I’ll just focus on some key points:

- My grades are getting worse. Actually, I’m not sure. The classes I’m doing bad in (Biology and APUSH), had major assignments this week so that could help or hurt my grade. The classes I was doing borderline-okay in (Spanish 3 and SAT Prep), are getting better… slowly. The classes I actually was doing good in (English and Geometry)… well…. . English; my teacher is being… lazy, and he’s not grading that one essay from last week. But he put it on the website, but since he didn’t put the actual grade yet, it’s 0 out of 100, so my average went down. :/ And in Geometry, I understand the lessons, finish my homework in class, and get As on quizzes, but I’ve been getting Bs on my tests. And my average is slowly going down. I don’t have any grades in Photo yet, but I’m behind on projects, so that’s not a good sign.

- This week, I started to think about my life. Like, what have I done this year? What am I doing with my life? I think I’m socially failing as a teenager. I’m not one of those loud social people who talk with everyone in the hallways, and I don’t sit with people at lunch, hang out with people outside of school, or go to parties. I don’t date yet (My personal rule is it’s not dating if your Mom has to pick you up from the mall. And it’s not a romantic kiss if 600 people are watching you in the hallway), and I don’t have a part time job. I know life isn’t about doing what all the cool kids are doing, but it makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. If school’s the only the only real commitment I have, and I’m not doing so good there, then what does that say about me?

I’m kind of scared of Holiday break, in a way. If I spend it incorrectly, I’ll regret it for the next few weeks, but I don’t know how I want to spend it. In my basement, relaxing? Around town, shopping? At my desk, studying? Okay, so definitely not the last one, but you get my point.

Happy Holidays!

Hot and Cold About Katy Perry

My thoughts on Katy Perry have been, well, Hot and Cold. When she first came out in 2008, I thought she was annoying for making her main marketing strategy homosexuality and homophobia (Okay, I apologize for the lame and unintentional pun ). Then I liked her when she made Hot and Cold. Then I kind of forgot about her. When she made Thinking of You, I was happy and I liked it, but it was kind of… delayed. And with Beyoncé's Single Ladies and Lady Gaga’s Just Dance I thought that she was going to be forgotten about. I was kind of right.

She like, disappeared until Waking Up in Vegas. Then she kind of came back. With a bunch of Betty Boop like stuff. But she was still forgotten about, because, as my friend put it, ‘You can’t dance to Waking Up in Vegas!’. And she had stronger competition.

Katy Perry’s first album was okay, but the songs were way too bland. They sounded like they belonged on a soundtrack for a romantic comedy or something, not the next Britney Spears. And again, with competition from Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, Katy was forgotten about. On Music Choice’s Certified, there was a Lady GaGa vs Katy Perry episode. GaGa won, and Katy didn’t even come close.

Then she disappeared, fell in love with Russell Brand, and came back this summer with California Gurls. I remember thinking ‘Ooh! Katy Perry’s back! With a summer song!’ and all was good in my little music corner. Then, I watched the video and I was disappointed. No, I’m not saying I wanted a full nude scene, and I’m not saying she can’t sell herself out if she wants to, but she got attention for her body more than her singing ‘skills’. So I just ignored her for a while. Besides, Lady GaGa had better singles at the time.

Then, summer ended and Lady GaGa won a lot at the VMAs. And she disappeared for a while. Actually, she’s still working on Born This Way. And she became too political. Now, all of her music is about being creative and unique and she’s trying to find a hidden meaning in everything. I guess I just feel that Lady GaGa lost her fun and why I originally liked her: She was fun but serious. Now it’s just ‘Little Monster’ this, politics that. And it feels like she’s telling her casual listeners that if they don’t think about the hidden meanings in her songs, then they shouldn’t listen to her at all.

Friday night, I watched VH1’s Top 40 Videos of 2010, and I listened Katy Perry’s video, Firework. They said it was a nice motivational video, and the message was good. The clips looked pretty (The scenery, not her cleavage ), so I decided to listen to it.

And it’s awesome.

The song is about how everyone has an inner spark to be who they want to be, and they can change things. Or something like that. The message sounded like ‘We’re all normal. Don’t let anyone bring you down.’. If Lady GaGa sang it, however… something tells me it would be ‘You know what? We can be weird together, my Monsters. Don’t forget to buy my album! Oh, and here’s me wearing a float from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.’. Like, Katy Perry says everyone is together, and Lady GaGa says her crowd is weird, but it’s okay because she’s wearing some complex outfit and they’re buying her stuff.

And I’ll end this text parade with some videos.  

The Official video. :)

The Venetian Princess parody.

And of course, the Sims 3 version.

I apologize if A) this song gets stuck in your head after, B) your browser crashes/this page loaded slow from the videos.

MegaRant

So, remember how I said a lot happened to me this week? Well, here’s my mega rant. I’ll start from Monday Morning.

Monday

In photography, I had to retake and develop pictures. We have to use a timer to know when to rinse the tank, and the timers, for some reason, are on the other side of the classroom. So I set mine up, and I was looking at it, like, OCD glaring. There’s this boy in my class who dislikes me [The replacement], and he saw me look at the timer. Do you know what he does? The asshole just played around with the time for no effing reason! Oh, no, I know why. Because he’s a creep who hates me. Seriously. He has my hairstyle, was friends with my 7th grade friends in 8th grade, was friends with my 8th grade friends in 9th grade and wears a lot of the same clothes as I do. I think he has an idea that he’s trying to replace me, or something.  But yeah, he played around with my timer, and when I yelled and glared at him, he was like ‘Uh, how was I supposed to know?’. First of all, any idiot can look at a timer and think ‘Gee! It’s moving! I better not touch it!’, and there were other timers, so if he had such a burning desire to move the timer, he could’ve use one that wasn’t in use. And he saw me look at the timer, so he’s obviously trying to sabotage me.

In APUSH I, my teacher got mad at our class for talking and gave us a lot of busy work to do in addition to the chapter outline we had to do for Wednesday.

In English, we got grades back. Apparently, some people are doing really horrible, so he assigned us an in class essay Tuesday. This annoyed me, because the class isn’t really complicated, and the teacher is an easy grader. He even admits it. So because some people don’t care about the class, we all had to do an essay the next day. Seriously, why? If they didn’t care about the first essay, why would they care about the new one? And he told us we needed specific, word for word quotes from the stories too. I had too much homework that night, so I decided to just go to the library at lunch and get quotes then.

Mood =

Tuesday

I couldn’t go to an after school club/trip, because I had a lot of homework. I was disappointed.

In SAT Prep, we had a vocabulary quiz. Except my teacher copied the wrong quiz, so she had to postpone it for Thursday. I was annoyed, because I spent an hour studying for this quiz, and she copied the wrong one, so that hour went to waste. And I also had a Biology quiz, which…

… went horrible. I failed, and my teacher was a jerk about it. I studied for 4 hours, and she said ‘If you’re failing these quizzes, then I don’t know what to tell you. They’re just vocab, straight out of the notes. You’re just not studying.’. The class is filled with freshman, and their classes aren't that hard or time consuming, so they have more time to study. As a Sophomore, I can’t just spend 3 days working on a biology quiz, so I just cram the night before, and apparently, that’s not enough? She’s acting like she’s my only teacher.

At lunch, the library was filled with the same people who BS all their assignments in English. Gosh. They can’t even do one assignment without depending off of SparkNotes.

In gym, a freshman girl yelled at me because I was ‘in her way’. She said it in a really angry tone, and her friends made her apologize. She was really reluctant, and she just whispered sorry to herself. The next time I passed, her friends were like ‘Kayla, say sorry!’ and she was like ‘I already said sorry! ‘ and then her friends must’ve glared or something and then she said sorry. I got annoyed because I did nothing wrong, and even if I did, she shouldn’t have freak out like that. Goodness. If I yelled at everyone who got in my way, I’d lose my voice.

At the bus, there’s this one seat that has less leg room because the bottom has this heat thing which takes up a lot of space. SS’s and my legs were leaning against the seat before us, and the kid who sat their went batshit crazy. He just stood up, turned around, and started yelling at us about how we were kicking his chair and how he saw us and crap. Bullshit. We so weren’t kicking his chair. And when him or obnoxious timer boy from photo class sits behind us on the bus, they always kick our seat, and when we confront them, they make us look like we’re the bad ones. We were going to tell him that, but he looked like he was going to kill someone, so we just played along. His friends told him to chill. He didn’t apologize at all. I mean, when we confronted him previously, we just suggested that he was kicking our seat politely, not break into some angry monster. Gosh.

I slept at 12:30 AM. I started my homework around 4:00 PM.

Mood =

 

Wednesday

In photography, I couldn’t retake my pictures (Which didn’t come out, btw), because the teacher spent the class talking about a future project that could’ve been summed as ‘Use lights to change how your picture looks. Partner up and use these portable lamp stuff’, but he had to explain a project that nobody was going to reach for another week. There goes my goal of trying to finish the current project (Which I’m behind on because he’s so vague) by the end of this week.

Other then that, Wednesday went relatively okay. I found out some bad grades and realized my classes might not be all honors/AP next year, which kind of stinks. I’m not an elitist, I just like to be in a class with people who actually care about school.

Mood =

 

Thursday

In photography, a boy (Who from what I’ve heard, is from special education classes, went to a ‘special’ school because of bullying, and tries to act ‘bad/weird’ for attention) complained to the teacher that he’s giving too much projects, he only helps the same handful of students, and he never helps some people and gives them bad grades. YES! My thoughts exactly. I got an 80 on my project, but he told me two out of three of my pictures were good, so…? And I noticed he graded something incorrectly. I was supposed to get an 85, but he added the numbers incorrectly, so I got an 80. I showed him, and he was like ‘Oh, sorry. Actually, you know what? Let me take a look at this.”, so that’s probably his way of saying ‘an 80 is too high’. So…. D: . But my pictures came out, so yay!

The SAT Prep vocabulary quiz was okay.

In APUSH I, we did a debate about court cases. We were divided into two groups (Guilty and not guilty, if you had to know ) and my side was literally just SRB from a few posts ago talking over everyone. Seriously, WTF? If anyone else dared talk over someone else, all hell would’ve broke loose. But because it’s the class president, it’s okay? WHAT?

English… ugh. We had to do book club stuff out of 8 books. We had to pick the three books we wanted to read the most. While SS and I were picking, he asked if we were thinking of working together. I just went to ‘look at books’, because I was too angry to respond, but SS just said it depends on what’s available.

That statement bothered me. A lot. Seriously, wtf? He’s normally a chill teacher, but suddenly his ‘great injustices of society’ radar went off at the thought of –gasp– twins working together in a book club! Besides, there are people who are way more single minded than SS and I are, and they’re allowed to work together. Just because we shared a womb and now a room, we’re suddenly not allowed to read the same piece of literature?

We had to play a word jumble to get guaranteed first pick. I was trying so hard, but at the last minute, I just thought ‘You know what? This is bullshit. I won’t get to work with SS anyway, and I’ll always get the short end of the stick”, so I just packed up.

And that night, I only had a Spanish worksheet and quiz to study for.

Mood =

Friday

My photography teacher said he fixed my grade, but he didn’t show me. So I’m paranoid that he made it worse without telling me. D: I got a picture done, so I’m halfway finished with this project. Then, he started to tell me a motivational speech about how I’m finally learning things in photo and my pictures are coming out better… or something like that. I just smiled and nodded.

In math, my teacher got pregnant and had a baby, so we have a maternity sub. We had a quiz last week, and today we went over it. A girl was complaining about how MS graded everything wrong, and then more people joined in the complaints. Pretty soon, 90% of the class was yelling at her. She was trying to deal with each complaint individually, but then just walked over to the door and yelled at our class. Actually, no. This is what she sounded like.

Hey guys, be quiet. If you have a problem with my grading, then say it nicely, like ‘Oh hey, I think there’s something wrong with my test’, not ‘You graded my test wrong!’. Like, be nice. Don’t just yell at me like that.

I felt bad, because she can’t control the class, and she’s the only teacher who I have this year, who as of this blog post, seems genuinely nice and real. And her voice was going from loud to quiet and back to loud and she felt like she didn’t want to do it. It reminded me of Carrie, because she closed the door and told the class off, which reminded me of Carrie, so I laughed, then I remembered ‘they’re all going to laugh at you!’, so I laughed even more. It doesn’t help that she kind of looks like Carrie. But yeah, my class was just being rude to her . They just want to watch Numb3rs because she played it once, on the day before Thanksgiving. They threw a tantrum at her when it didn’t work this Monday, and next week, she’s going to make a review game and show Numb3rs, because our class is ugh. There’s this one girl who just wants free handouts for her grades. She’s so lazy. She spends more time making excuses than actually learning or trying to learn. She complains about bringing a textbook to class. Ugh.

In English, we got out book club groups. Thursday, we had to write down three books which we wanted to read from his list, and he said that everyone either got their first or second pick. Guess who got third choice from the list? Seriously, I just put it as a last resort option, but he gave me my third pick just to keep SS and I apart. Why? Ugh. I saw a bunch of single minded people work together. Hell, one group is filled with the ‘same’ person! When we had to sit with our groups, I happened to sit in SS’s seat from before, and this conversation happened.

Him: SS?

Me: *silent, not paying attention*

Him: SS?

Me: *still not paying attention because I didn’t know he was talking to me*

Him: SS?

Me: *Oh crap he wants to talk to me, *looks around**

Him: Hey, SS, why didn’t you look?

Me: I’m not SS. I’m AT95.

Him: Oh, then why are you sitting in his seat?

Me: For my group.

Him: Oh. Well, I didn’t see your watch, so…

Me: Oh, okay?

Him: I just wanted to let you know why you and SS aren’t working together. It’s for a new experience.

Me: *packing up* Umhm.

Him: And you wouldn’t get that if you worked together.

Me: Umhm.

 

Like seriously, wtf? Like I said before, there’s one group filled with hive-minded people. There’s another group with people who BS their assignments. And I can’t even read a book I wanted to read that much (Lord of the Flies, btw), because he thinks he’s giving us a learning experience. I don’t even remember the last time I worked with SS for a project longer than a day (As in, not just one class period). Okay, well, I do, but it was for a debate that lasted 3 days. But anyway, he’s acting like us reading the same book is going to create chaos. I felt more offended that he had to tell me.  Like he thought I was too stupid to add the clues on my own. Ugh. I don’t hate him, I just disagree with his beliefs for this. I mean, how is this supposed to teach me anything if I’m spending the whole time regretting this?

 

Mood = but then I remembered it’s Friday, so

Thank you for reading this. This is probably my longest post ever.

SOS!

My teachers are being extremely irritable this week. And students are also. Like, extremely pissy moods. I just want to go to next week already. D:

My grades are getting worse. I have B’s in 4 of my classes. And one of my four non B’s has no grade yet. So ugh. And apparently, just because I’m in APUSH this year doesn’t mean I’ll be recommended to APUSH II next year, which means this year is a waste. –_–

I have a lot more stories to tell. So don’t feel like I’m ignoring you guys this week. I’ll comment on posts and stuff Friday, if I’m lucky.

What do I want for Christmas? A stress free school, or at least more A’s.

Thank you IlovetheSims/Mike!

Thanks for the hair that you gifted us! It looks great! :)

Cabin Fever

In New Jersey, winter is cold and somewhat boring. And the bad weather makes it somewhat hard to leave the house. So weekends are going to be a little… boring now. Today, I couldn’t go to Church because the weather was really bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to just play video games and watch TV in sweats all day, but I feel like I need to get something accomplished, or else I just feel lazy. It’s only been one day, but I already feel like I haven’t been in touch with the world forever. Procrastination also pops out of nowhere during winter, for me. I just want to lie down or be lazy, and doing history outlines, biology labs and vocabulary logs is not my idea of laziness.

But next week is the last week before Holiday Break for me, so maybe that could add some excitement? Probably not. I need chocolate. And tea. Woah. Windows Live Writer added smilies? That’s cool. Kudos to them for not adding the same ones you find all over the Internet.

(Student) Government

Remember when I said I didn’t want to talk about politics that much? Does high school politics count?

I’ll start off this (long) story chronologically. In October 2009 (Freshman year for me), our class was picking candidates for our president. A lot of people got nominated, but in the end, it was basically between Athletic Rich Boy and Smart Respected Boy. SRB won, but ARB argued that he couldn’t win because the school newspaper, which had the speeches, didn’t get released on time, so he couldn’t win, so we had a petition for a revote. I didn’t sign the petition, because frankly, I thought that ARB, who is more ‘popular’ and cares less about school, would screw our grade, and I thought SRB, who was probably one of the smartest students in the grade (And Indian [Okay, so I admit, I was kind of racially prejudice back then, but aren’t we all a little biased, somehow?]), would be better. I was wrong.

ARB lost, but got a famous speaker to have an assembly. Like, legitimately famous. Do you want to know what SRB did?

• Have one of those customized-clothing fundraisers. The problem? It was for our grade, so we basically lost money. Oh, and he just got the forms off a website.
• Act extremely snobby for just printing out a couple hundred forms.

Then he got really annoyed with our grade’s efforts and just sent us demeaning Facebook messages, like ‘The class of 2013’s humiliating efforts’ and everything, and he’s acting like he found out how to end world hunger or whatever. And reelection season came, and he just annoyed everybody on Facebook even more. Like, ‘Vote for me, SRB, or else you’ll be lost and our prom will be in the gym, with iPod speakers and microwavable food….’ and stuff. He’s acting like just because he’s in some advanced classes, he’s a MENSA member or something. I know I’m not Einstein, but I can admit that. He can’t. So I didn’t vote for him. But he won. Against Girl who Actually Cares. I voted for GwAC, but I never even met her. That’s how annoyed I was with SRB. Do you want to know something really annoying? SRB told my ‘friend’ that she should run for Treasurer, because ‘It’s easy, you do nothing, and it looks great for college'. SO YOU DON’T EVEN FREAKING CARE ABOUT OUR CLASS? WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ADVERTISING HOW EASY YOUR JOB IS. I seriously wonder what his intentions are. Actually, no. I don’t. He’s just trying to go to some Ivy League School the easiest way possible.

This year, he’s in my APUSH I class. He’s annoying. And for the Pep rally, there’s a grade scream off between each grade. Our class did like nothing. Guess who got annoyed? Seriously, he could’ve humble himself and yell or something.

And now, for a hallway decorating contest, there was a meeting Thursday after school for theme ideas. I couldn’t attend, but according to what other people’s Facebook walls say…

• SRB didn’t listen to other people’s ideas.
• People are not happy with the student government.

Seriously. This situation is becoming frighteningly scary. I just want to run for something this year for several reasons.

1. I can’t say I didn’t try to do something about SRB.
2. I want to actually make a difference.
3. I might have original ideas that aren’t just ripped off from the Internet.
4. I won’t tell everyone that they suck on a bi-weekly basis.
5. I’m tired of complaining about things I can’t change. But, I can change this, so I might as well try.
6. Personal benefits. I’d be lying if I said I was completely selfless. But, my extracurriculars are low, I want people to know who I am and respect me, and I want to prove that you don’t need to be Asian, on the high honor roll, and taking 9000 advanced classes to be a class president.

I mean, I know that people wouldn’t vote for me, because, in the end, it’s a popularity contest, I can’t change anything, I’m not that charismatic, and I don’t have a lot of friends to get votes from, so the odds of me winning are low. And I have some enemies…. so yeah. i’d probably get votes for being the only ‘neutral’ candidate. Then again, most people don’t vote, so… yeah. The worst thing that could come out of me winning is probably less free time and more stress, but Junior year is tough anyway.

…I think I proved how much I want this by typing this entire speech out. xD

So, do you think I would have a chance of winning, or at least making it far?

Back?

This week, I had like no homework. And, I spent it by…. relaxing. :o Not even blogging. I felt like I needed a break, because November was really stressful because of 2 long weekends and the first quarter ending at our school, so we were overwhelmed with assignments. And with the holiday break coming up, teachers are going to overwhelm us more. So, why not just use the rare free time I have, right? :P

Apparently, this weekend already supported my thoughts. I have homework in half of my classes, though to be fair, only two of it is specifically for Monday. My history outline is due Wednesday, but I’m going to an animal shelter with a club Tuesday, so I need all the time I can get. And my biology lab packet is due Tuesday, but I also have two quizzes Tuesday, so I can’t finish that, either. And did I mention I might go to NYC tomorrow? Honestly, once this semester ends, my weekends will probably have less homework. My SAT Prep class makes me do like 20 vocabulary logs plus a quiz every week. And this week, I have 3 assignments to do along with the vocabulary, so… fun. I realized I should’ve start earlier, but I make bad decisions when it comes to things like this.

Happy Holidays! If I have any free time, I’ll probably be watching my favorite holiday movies:

• Home Alone
• Home Alone 2
• Marley & Me (I know it’s not a real holiday movie, but I like to pretend it is :P)
• Christmas with the Kranks
• Most family movies like Cheaper by the Dozen (1 & 2), Yours, Mine & Ours, and The Pacifier
• Oh, and Are We There Yet?

Okay, so I just completely changed the meaning of holiday movies, but to me, the holidays are about spending time with loved ones, and worrying about psuedo-problems, like who sleeps on the couch, and what Best Buy’s return policies are.

Internet Safety Should be Taught to Adults

Remember that Facebook cartoon character profile picture blog post from a few days ago? Apparently… it’s a scam ran by pedophiles to trick kids into friend requesting them. I’m personally disgusted. I had countless friends who changed their profile pictures to stand against child abuse, and we were all tricked into getting minors stalked and raped. I feel horrible for children who were tricked into friending those creeps. It’s weird how ABC News and other major news websites talked about this, and yet it was only discovered last night. Yeah, their parents are supposed to monitor their Internet use and Child Abuse Awareness Month is April, so I shouldn’t feel this bad about it, but still.

And EA got hacked. This time, a hacker hacked a ‘Guru’s’ account and sent everybody a link to a… um, inappropriate website. Sim Guru Hydra just said it’s being solved and locked the discussion thread. The end. Seriously? Possibly endangering children over a Facebook myth is one thing, flat out giving illicit links using official privileges is another! I’m sick of EA’s BS. "If we give you guys PMing, minors will be in trouble!”. Then guess what? Thousands of people get a DISGUSTING link, because EA is too stupid to upgrade their security. How is this NOT endangering minors? I mean, links to cheap content was bad enough, but I do not have to go to my inbox expecting an important announcement and getting something revolting! I’m going to send the links on the left this news, so EA can get sued endlessly.

Internet Safety should simply be abridged into:

• If it’s online, someone will always have proof of you doing it. Big Brother is usually always watching.
• If you wouldn’t say it in front of your Grandmother, don’t say it online.
• If you feel like you can use it against someone later, take a screenshot.
• Share your passwords with people you trust, IF anyone.
• Don’t make your password ‘123abc’ ‘password’ or anything else like that.
• Use Caps Locks, $ymbols, and numbers in your passwords.
• If it’s that bad, report it to the police.

And most importantly,

• Social networking websites WILL be addictive and lead to procrastination. So, always remember how to shut your computer off.

Holiday Shopping

So, with the holidays coming closer and closer, gifts are a big part of the experience. And with my family being vague with their interests, it’s hard to shop fo them. I understand holidays are about being selfless and giving to those in need, but it’s hard to be generous with…

• My Father who is vague about gifts. He doesn’t really have hobbies, or at least none that I know of. If he was a Sim, he’d have the handy trait because he likes to watch HGTV and DIY and stuff. He watches Two and a Half Men, but those season DVDs are expensive for a teenager who doesn’t have a job. Especially considering that FX usually has reruns of it on, so yeah.
• My Mother who says ‘You shouldn’t have gotten me anything! No, really!”. I usually just buy her gift cards or shirts, but I want to get her something more this year. Maybe a lotion/candle/sanitizer thing from Yankee Candle or something from that tea specialty place. I went to a tea specialty place and saw this Arabic CD, so I might get her that (We’re Armenian, but my Great-Grandparents went to Syria as a result of Diaspora from the Armenian Genocide… so my parents grew up there and stuff so yeah) .
• My Grandmother who does the same things as my Mom. Except she feels guiltier, because my cousins/her grandkids, who have part time jobs and do a lot of spending don’t get her anything, but I try. My Mom said she saw a shirt from Macy’s that was nice, so we’ll(Did I mention SS and I do joint-shopping?) probably get that.
• My Brother… who, while I know his tastes, it’s like shopping for myself, so I don’t want to buy myself a gift. Like, just something he can use, not for myself. We don’t have time for video games (D:) and clothes, we share. Ooh, I just had a great idea! I can’t say it because he reads this blog, so yeah.

I mean, I love them, but sometimes I just want to give them one of those ‘Here’s a free hug/raking/shoveling coupon. Expires 12/20/11.’ kind of thing, you know?

Gifts.com is helpful with their personality profiler, but I dislike how you have to buy everything online because the stores they’re in are too far away. And my Mom gets the mail before I come home from school, so she’d probably notice if she mysteriously got a perfume set thing that was shipped to myself. :P

I want Late Night for Christmas, but I don’t want to support EA. But then again, a lot of you anti-EAers caved in… so yeah. :P My brother saw a graphic T shirt maker which he said he’d buy me, but I know I wouldn’t use it at all, or after once, or something. :P

I should add a Holidays tag, shouldn’t I?

Have you done your holiday shopping yet?

Facebook Profile Pictures

If you’ve been on Facebook this weekend, you may have noticed some people changing their profile pictures to cartoon characters. It’s to fight child abuse, or at least stand up against it. I like it because it’s uniting a lot of people in my school. The athletes, the GLEEks, the mean girls, the girl with the bad reputation, and everyone else is changing their profile pictures for this cause. Okay, so I’m not sure if they’re doing it knowingly or not, but it’s nice to pretend that everyone cares about child abuse. I changed mine to Bloo from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. :) You know how it says ‘So and so and 23 other friends changed their profile pictures’? For mine, everyone has a cartoon. It feels like a pretty good accomplishment. I’m just disappointed with this one girl from school who’s a bit slutty and just takes those annoying phone-mirror or webcam pictures with that duck face and peace sign. She has like a new profile picture up every two or three days, and she has changed her picture to celebrity guys that she likes before, but she can’t just Google a cartoon character? Seriously, that’s like a new low for her.

Have you changed your profile picture to a cartoon character on Facebook?

Washups of Waverly Place

This season of Wizards of Waverly Place has been alright… but a little weak. Sure, it’s only been 2 or 3 episodes, but with a huge fake cliffhanger, Alex and Justin losing their powers, Alex quitting the competition, Mason’s return, and Max probably winning the competition, I might actually be happy that the show is possibly ending. The only thing I like this season is the new theme song, and how they didn’t choose ugly random poses for the clips. In a new episode I’m watching, the Wizard Council is breaking up Alex and Mason because ‘werewolves always eat the human!’. I’m not a Mason fan, but ugh. They couldn’t get a better reason or plot to break them up? Or at least open the purse strings to buy wardrobe for those WC? Seriously, snuggies that are just bedazzled with things from the local craft store shouldn’t count as wizards, for Disney. Their sister channel, ABC Family, has 24/7 Harry Potter marathons. The only reason why this Mason break up (Which won’t last, probably) is good, is because that could open a possibly Mason-Alex-Dean love triangle. Alex and Dean had growth in their relationship, where as Alex and Mason just had a love montage (Or a parody, anyway). If Juliet and Justin hook up again, that would be nice.

I mean, I already was starting to have several problems with the show in season 3, like

• Why was Stevie’s wizard revolution plan so bad? I understand if magic was finite, how that would pose a problem, but really? Killing her because she wanted all wizards to have power? On a Disney show?
• Why was Alex trying to shoo away Juliet and tell us that she has no hope to come back to a normal life when Alex later tried really hard to get Mason back? I’d be pretty pissed if I was Justin.
• Why is everyone all ‘Mason I miss you! <3333’ in the new episodes when he told Juliet he loved her? TVTropes and TV without Pity say that Mason also physically hurt Justin, but I don’t remember that part of the episode… so yeah. But really, how many of us would miss someone who basically cheated on a family member? And physically harmed another one, too?

But I still watched the show, as it was the best thing on Disney Channel, IMO. It’s not too babyish (SLOD, Shake it Up! and Sonny with a Chance, I’m talking to you) or too fake-drama-y (Hannah Montana, JONAS LA) and it has continuity (Sorry, Good Luck Charlie). And everyone on the show is kind of a legit actor/actress (Maria Canals Barrera has done a lot of guest appearances and voice over roles, David Henrie is on How I Met Your Mother, David DeLuise is from the DeLuise family, has done a lot of guest appearances, and 3rd Rock from the Sun, Selena Gomez has a CD or two, and been in Ramona & Beezus  as well as that new Monte Carlo movie [And has done a lot of stuff for UNICEF but that doesn’t count for her acting :P] and Jake T. Austin, who turned 16 yesterday [Happy birthday, Jake!] has done Go, Diego, Go!). But yeah, it’s confusing plot holes weren’t that bad, but now, it might actually risk my interest. Then again, I’ve dedicated 3 years to this show, I don’t have Disney on Demand anymore, and I know Disney will drop it after they air the finale, so I want to see how things end.

Side note: Now there’s an episode where the Russos are hanging out with a rich family. It reminds me of any Roseanne season 9 episode. I really hope Russo Child #4 makes things better.

Hillcrest High Alumni

Hillcrest High School has produced successful alumni. Fran Drescher and Ray Romano are successful now. No, really. I feel like I can't avoid them. For example, Ray Romano’s show Everybody Loves Raymond used to just be on TBS. Then it creeped over to the local ex-UPN channel and TV Land. You know, because one channel wasn’t enough! Meanwhile, my Friends friends are gone (Well, except from the CW but I don’t have time to watch it then :(), because network executives like Ray Romano more.

And Fran has a new talk show. I liked it, because she says things that aren’t ‘Guys! food is badz!’ or whatever, but her show had substance. And she didn’t overwhelm us with the cast on the first day. I just don’t like how she’s always referring to everyone as ‘her Jewish friend/cook/lead guitarist’ and so on. I don’t have a problem with her referring to people by their religion, but she made it sound like she discovered them in the middle of nowhere or whatever. Yeah, part of her humor is Jewish humor/jokes, but I feel like she was trying to mention ‘Oh, by the way, did you know ___ is Jewish? So am I! *laughs*.’ I only saw the first episode, but still. Oh, and I heard that some people can’t watch it, so uh oh. D: Apparently, she has a new pilot for TV Land, so maybe that could bump Ray off of it. :)

Happy December!