Pressure to fit in, vs. pressure to be unique.

It's really pretty funny how some kids are so horrified of being 'unoriginal', and of having any association with 'popular' things, that they actually say things like, "Well, I was going to say ____, but that would have been unoriginal! *shudder*" Come on, how sad can you get? When you start thinking like that, that's when you let the things you hate and don't want to be, control you. When those...
October 11th, 2009 at 08:09am

Ambitions and epiphanies.

I've decided that, at some place in the future, I will acquire a minor degree in photojournalism, travel to the Middle East and Africa and other such countries and take pictures of what is going on there. Of course, since this is all relatively far in the future, for now, I have decided to become an undercover do-gooder. Like in Amélie. Problem is, I don't exactly know how to go about doing this....
September 17th, 2009 at 05:32am

Travelogue 5

[August 4, 2009]I am back in the country, we came back on the 30th.Twenty-seventh: In the morning, my mum and I went out to hunt down a music and video shop. There was a tiny one in a comparatively loud and smelly section of the city - oh well, it was good enough. I was hoping to snag a copy of Regina Spektor's Far for cheaper than in the States, but nope, they were all over Britney Spears and...
September 17th, 2009 at 05:28am

Travelogue 4

[July 26, 2009.]Tuesday: Went to Tianyi Market. It was...wow. I mean, it was like a marketplace and the front entrance and the front sides of the buildings facing the street were all rigged up like Walt Disney went partially blind and then went on crack. I mean, there were these gaudy plaster animals or animal heads stuck all over the place and a line of little dwarf figures stuck on a stair...
September 17th, 2009 at 05:23am

Travelogue 3

[July 12, 2009.]I went on a subway for the first time today. It was nice, a lot better than the buses. Two things happened on the subway which I think are significant. The first was when a couple boarded at one of the stops to walk about the car, holding out a bag for people to drop money in. I thought they were just a regular pair of homeless people until I realized both the woman (who was...
September 17th, 2009 at 05:17am

Travelogue 2

[July 11, 2009.]I climbed approximately 553 staircase steps today at the Summer Palace. That's not counting the ones I climbed before I got it in my head to count my steps, or the ones I climbed back up or down for a second time. So probably nearing 600. To most people, that's probably not that many, but to me, that's a damn hell of a lot. I'm weak and lazy, what can I say? Great workout, huh? The...
September 17th, 2009 at 05:13am

Travelogue 1

July 10, 2009.In China. First official outing since I got here - Tien'anmen Square. I expected to feel numb upon seeing it like I did once when I saw the Grand Canyon, but I didn't, and I was glad of that. The buildings there were beautiful and old and ornate, but it was a bit of a tourist trap, honestly, which was a bit sad. There were way too many people for anything that was supposed to seem...
September 17th, 2009 at 05:06am

"We are lucky, we are golden."

1) Is everything going okay?2) The Dance teacher put on Let It Be during conditioning today. Yes, she made us condition for about ten minutes even though it was a Friday. But I think hearing the song made up for it. It's a beautiful song. The instrumental part in the middle made me think of an old-school prom. It's lovely.3) I finally went to Chinese Club this afternoon, for a change, but still...
September 5th, 2009 at 08:24am

The Unbearable Umbrage of Being.

Friday sucked and Saturday sucks. The former featured: crappiness at improv, acute social dysphoria, acting like an out-of-it dumbass due to consistent lack of sleep because they lied to me about sophomore year being easier than freshman year, everyone suddenly being able to pronounce French just slightly better than me, jealousy of intimacy between siblings, realization that there are now two...
August 30th, 2009 at 07:56am

This was too good to NOT put on Mibba.

[From my LJ]1) Sososososo. Today. I found out that I'm not the only one that does the imaginary cigarette thingy. So people in Coffey's class were reading their summer-vacation narratives during lunch (except since it was Coffey's class, it didn't have to be strictly factual), and this girl named Janey's included this part about how she wished she had a vice, like smoking or even excessive...
August 25th, 2009 at 06:29am

Help, this isn't in any books.

[I copied this from another journal I have.]I have a friend that I used to be so ridiculously close to in middle school, but she's never read a word of my writing (one of, if not the most important thing in my life) and if I burst into tears in front of her without any warning, she wouldn't know what to do.She'd just stand there, awkward, like we were strangers.She might ask what was wrong, but...
July 1st, 2009 at 04:51am

First time ever, ever, EVER deleting a story. Congratulations? Beratings?

Yeah, I guess the title says it all. The story in question is (or rather, was) Just Like Heaven, which no one ever really read, and thank God for that, because it sucked shit and Jesus Christ I cannot believe something like that ever came out of me.I mean, I think all my stories are my children. And in that case, JLH would have been the ugly, useless, repulsive one that isn't (or rather, wasn't)...
May 17th, 2009 at 07:28am

Help, I've become surrounded.

Is it just me, or has there been a veritable algal bloom of girls calling themselves Bella immediately after the Twilight series gained ground? I mean, seriously. When Twilight was still relatively unknown, I don't believe I've ever come across a Bella on the Internet. After the whole thing exploded (leaving what was to become a huge, un-clean-up-able mess) I've been steadily seeing more and more...
April 19th, 2009 at 06:23am

Okay, like, awesome?

So that, is like seriously cool. I don't know what's up with that, but it's pretty awesome. So yeah. This is to prove I was not hallucinating it after all.Okay, this is obviously not 100 words yet. So what can I say to fill up this space?I love The Decemberists. I love them. I love them, I love them, I love them. Los Angeles, I'm Yours is a song more beautiful and heartbreaking than sex. Okay, I...
April 18th, 2009 at 07:10am

Most Boring Cities in America

According to WalletPop and a study of news archives, the top five cities that appeared in the paper least often are:No. 1: Chula Vista, Calif.No. 2: Hialeah, Fla.No. 3: Mesa, Ariz.No. 4: North Las Vegas, Nev.No. 5: Chandler, Ariz.Notice that two of them are in Arizona. Because, kids, Arizona sucks. Old people, conservatives, and heat. And the Grand Canyon is seriously not that amazing.Now I bet...
January 3rd, 2009 at 02:45am

Why Spammers Need Brain Transplants.

A real, actual chain letter -why girls should'nt cheat on boysOh, dear! You haven't gotten four words in and you already need to look at your second-grade grammar worksheets again. An apostrophe replaces the missing letter(s) in contractions, darling.There was once a guy named Jack whohad agirlfriendnamedAshley.Ashley was the most popular girl inschool.The three mostpopularguys wereTom, Jack, and...
December 24th, 2008 at 02:59am

Holiday Cheer, Etc.

Holiday plans. Everyone has them. Sadly, whilst everyone else is boarding planes, leaving little dotted lines behind them to various colored dots on a map, I'm stuck getting dragged to church and half-baked holiday concerts. I'm stuck in the stupid desert again for Christmas. Not that it's ever been different, so I don't know why I'm complaining about it now.Church was different this year because...
December 24th, 2008 at 02:26am

Conor Oberst

Of course we all love Conor Oberst. I mean, we've established that for a long time now.So maybe he didn't 'save my life', if I ever had much of a life to begin with. Yes, even for saving. But, well, for example, because this is really best told in examples, I've really told anyone how being sad makes me happy. How I've daydreamed of going to funerals, of losing blood, of how feeling hopeless makes...
December 14th, 2008 at 08:28am

Human Nature/NaNoWriMo/Bitching in General

It's getting increasingly hard to tell the enemies from the friends. I mean, it used to be so easy to hate people. 'Oh, so-and-so's a bitch, let's hate her.' 'All right, ace idea, let's then, mate.' The End. Maybe good ol' so-and-so ain't such a bitch after all. One of the reasons I don't want to get close to people is, if they're someone I don't like, I don't want to end up finding out they've...
November 8th, 2008 at 06:20am

Eureka Moment #56

Listening: You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds (ft. Regina Spektor)Reading: The Phobia ListDrinking : Dihydrogen monoxideFirst of all, I just wanna say that everyone should go and listen to that song up there because it is really, really nifty. Like little cakes. I mean, who doesn't think little cakes are nifty, right? Although, knowing certain people, there's probably gonna be a heated debate over...
October 10th, 2008 at 07:46am