Yet another entry...

[azurite]

I am the Siren A man is often secretly oppressed by the role he has to play - by always having to be responsible, in control, and rational. The Siren is the ultimate male fantasy figure because she offers a total release form the limitations of his life. In her presence, which is always heightened and sexually charged, the male feels transported to a realm of pure pleasure. In a world where women are often too timid to project such an image, learn to take control of the male libido by embodying his fantasy. Symbol: Water. The song of the Siren is liquid and enticing, and the Siren herself is fluid and ungraspable. Like the sea, the Siren lures you with the promise of infinite adventure and pleasure. Forgetting past and future, men follow her far out to sea, where they drown.

What Type of Seducer are You?
created by polite_society

@_o... I got the same thing as Grace. Nuts. I wanted more variety here!

OMG OMG! I got a 3.5!! A 3.5! (GPA, that is!) *starts to cry* I'm so happy, I feel like I won an Emmy or something! Don't get me started, I might start reciting that stupid bit from the "I'm a Blonde!" AMV, and everyone insists that I'm more redheaded anyway, but I'm going to end up blue-haired in a few days, so why does it matter!??! AHH!

The report: (Grades for the final report card period; Grade followed by Citizenship)
Homeroom - Satisfactory (blah)
Vocal Music - B/E (I got an E even though I was tardy 22 times. Hot damn.)
American Democracy/Economics: - B/S (YESSSSSSS! I got a B!!! I raised my grade from a D to a B in ONE quarter! I RULE!)
IMP (Math) - B/S (AGAIN! Raised from a D! *glomps Jonathan* When he comes back, I'm HUGGING THE AIR OUT OF HIM!)
Journalism - A/S (of course ^.~)
European Lit. - A/E (of course-- haha, and Thompson left 4 comments: "student does excellent work/participates well in class/makes consistent effort/is improving")
Teacher's Aide - A/E (of course)

WAHOO!! I think that's one of the highest GPAs I've had in my high school career. For all your APers used to getting 4.22s or whatever, sorry, this is a big deal for me, especially after having a 1.5 GPA in my junior year. I AM SO HAPPY! ;_; Maybe I'll laminate this and cover it with smiley-face stickers and glitter glue!

Hmm, this seems to be the month of karmic-ness where guys are involved. It's not just with me either; people are hooking up, people are breaking up. It's kind of relieving and sad all at the same time. I get those bouts of jealousy that come and go with the tide almost, and sometimes I'm so proud of what I have, I just show off! I've always been ignored and teased before, and to actually *have* somewhat of a sex life, to have relationships and stuff is amazing to me. I think part of me is still in shock that I'm not halfway down the road to becoming some graying spinster with 80 cats.

And you know why I'm here? Call me mushy and all that, but it's all because of my friends. This is so dorky, but I have to say it, because so many people go through their lives without really recognizing those people that are always there for them, or if they do, it's only on this superficial, "happy birthday" level. There's always these rules I come up with, about honesty and friendship and everything, but with people you're really comfortable with, real friends, you can't write rules or predict anything, because it all just happens. And you're find for it, for the better, in the end... somewhere down that road.

What I mean is, real friends are the ones that tell each other most everything-- even the brutal truth, which always hurts. Real friends can do all sorts of weird shit with one another (like drinking vodka and eating goldfish, maybe?) and then it's a fond memory, not something forgotten or whatever. You have all these times to look back on and remember with a smile on your face. And people will come and go from your lives, boyfriends, girlfriends, all sorts of people, and you'll look back and probably feel a lot of things. But you'll have learned lessons, and the same people that were there for you then, to help you get through the tough bits of life, are still there for you now.

I'm getting sappier and sappier for several reasons:
* I don't feel like I'm there enough for my friends. I always get "left out" and I feel lonely and stuff when people I thought I was good friends with don't call, or when they do talk to me, it's over something they want. But if it's that way, then it's because I'm not being active enough in THEIR life. I have to make the effort to get out there and have fun with them, to call them up and just party. So that's what I want to do.

* Lots of my friends are starting to question their friendships/relationships with other people. I hope I'm not one of those people that someone bitches and rants about in the securely-locked sections of their journals. You know, the type where you tell people that you can't stand them anymore, or that they annoy the hell out of you. Because I do that exact same thing, and not a day goes by when I think how sickening it was of me to do that! How terrible that I can't just express myself to their face, because I'm so afraid of losing them! Won't the truest friends stand right there though, take your shit, and fire it right back at you? I think I'd want that. Every good, solid relationship needs a fight. They're tough to get through, but...

* We're getting closer and closer to July. I don't REALLY have a boyfriend in so many words; I don't know what this thing with Jonathan is, and the more I think about it, the more it drives me nuts. I'll ask him what I want to ask him WHEN he gets back. That's not the topic at hand is right now. I mean, I don't have someone to NEED to be dependent on, to lean on and sob my eyes out. When I do that, especially during this time of the year, I feel like I'm using them, passing along some sob story. Instead, I think it's best to tell my friends what I feel, instead of bottling it up and "smiling and nodding" like I usually do.

I'm sad. I miss my sister. I really miss my sister. More than words can say. But I am SO... so proud, so happy, so blessed, so incredibly LUCKY to have the friends I do. This one time in elementary school, some jerkass told me to count my friends. And being the naive pup I was, I did, and I was incredibly sad to find that of the friends I had, I could count them on one hand. This caused aforementioned jerkass to laugh and run off.

But you know what? It's not quantity, it's quality. I wonder if that same person still knows and talks to all THEIR friends from elementary school? True, I don't either, but then, I consider the friends I have some of the brightest stars I've ever had the pleasure of being in the company with. To list them all would take forever, because I'd end up waxing eloquent (and probably bitching, too ^^;) about all of them. It's not the amount of time that you've been friends with someone (but hey, 1 year is a big deal!!) but who they are, how they treat you, what they mean to you in any situation.

I think if I ever had to pass a message onto my friends, it'd be something like this:
Thank you (repeated a million times). You guys don't know how incredibly cool you are, but I'm not going to say why. Because that might make your ego swell (*wink*) I'm not going to crush my own ego to say how cool you guys are, for hanging out with "me" or whatever. That's not it at all. The big message is that I feel so lucky to have you guys in my life, and I love spending time with you, even though sometimes it seems like I'm stewing in my own PMS. (eew!) Through thick and thing-- wow, we've been through a lot, and we're still going strong, still living, still having fun! We're the best!

After losing my sister, I think I realized the one thing people don't do enough is appreciate others. I was going to ask Jonathan if he'd come with me to Land's End on the 20th of July (the anniversary of when my sister died 7 years ago), and I'd tell him what I've told other people before-- love the people that surround you. Appreciate them, because life might decide to throw a curveball at you one day, and it'll knock you flat on your back. You won't know what hit you, and you won't understand. You can complain all you want about all the injustices of life everyday, how badly your brother treats you, or how much your sister's a bitch, but think about it-- when you say you wish s/he'd go away and die, can you even imagine what it would feel like if that actually happened? If one day, someone called you up and said-- that person is no more?

This isn't just for family, it's for friends too. Moreso with friends almost, since you don't live with them, don't talk to them everyday. I've lost so many of my friends to idiotic, sad things. One of my friends was murdered. Another moved away. Another stopped talking to me because of a stupid thing I did in 5th grade, and it wasn't until THIS year, our graduating year, that we started talking again. Plenty of other people lose their friends to drug abuse, suicide... so many other things, and it suddenly occurs to them that NO, LIFE IS NOT FAIR! Life can be so much fun, but only if we make it so by making the best of what we have, by treasuring it and loving it for every second.

I'm not saying go walking around always holding hands with your best friend, or always stay attached at the hip to your SO or even your siblings... but that doesn't mean that for some inexplicable, out of the blue reason, you can't say "I love you." Those words can actually have a greater effect on someone than you'll ever know, especially if you mean it. And a hug, or a hand squeeze can really brighten someone's day.

It's nice to feel loved. So pass it on, even if it makes you feel sick sometimes, or this sounds like one of those sappy chain letters. ^_^

I know I promised Nikki that I'd try and make my entries shorter again, but look-- 3 entries today and they're not short! I can't do it! I can try and save your eyesight though, along with your pretty layouts. Here, I'll LJ-cut it.


Kathleen was nice enough to pick me up and give me a ride to Petaluma. We talked a little in the car, and I was surprised to find out that ny dad decorated his place with pictures of me, and that his desktop was the picture he took with me on graduation. I spilled root beer on the "Wicked" book though, so in addition to the wrinkles I created with my backpack, that's another $15 I have to spend. Not that I mind, it's a really good book, and I'd feel terrible if I tried to give a book in bad condition back to Mom's friend.

Now Dad doesn't actually LIVE in Petaluma anymore, leastwise, not like I remembered it. Of all the places we lived there, at 523B, in that row of cottages, and then later at 25 Western, smack in the middle of downtown... well now he's on a ranch. I mean it, a real, honest-to-god ranch. WITH HORSES. OMG, HORSIES!! REAL HORSES!! He pretended to be surprised, and I was really happy to see him. Kathleen left sometime later, and Dad made some lunch while we just hung around.

Dad has Photoshop 7.0, which I installed on the computer, but he didn't stick around much to see what we could do with it. Whatever "iCandy" he was talking about, I didn't see it-- there didn't appear to be any difference between his legal Photoshop and mine. ^^; Still, it's pretty cool how he WON a $600 piece of software. Dad's got a lot of that stuff on his computer, but since he's 4 miles from Petaluma, he can't get DSL or cable like we used to have at 25 Western, and he's only got 31.8 KBps connection (wow! even slower than mine!) and this super high-powered phone that he can "almost make it out to the mailbox" with. In case you didn't know, the mailboxes are like, half a mile from the actual houses.

I met the neighbors too-- at least, the family that was there. The whole establishment of houses on the ranch is owned by some rich guy with lots of cars, and his wife and daughter (I think) are big horse fans, hence the boarding stables. There's one guy that is the last of the dotcommers in Petaluma, and he's always traveling around the world... but the other family is all nice and cozy, they have cats and stuff, a little girl, a mom, dad, and I think an uncle. Must be nice all living together like that.

Dad and I hiked up around the hills (the ranch is 212 acres or something. Friggin' huge!) and looked at the huge pond. Dad said that during the winter storms, they almost had a huge flood, and he had to go up there when it was storming and pull away the boards and the tarp so the pond didn't flood over and flood all their houses. WOW. @_@ I was trying to picture exactly what he did and everything, but the pond was so peaceful looking and held back by the dam, so... pretty impossible to imagine a raging thunderstorm and 8 more inches of water.

It'd be cool to go swimming or boating on the pond, but dad says you shouldn't swim in the water that horses and cows drink. @_@ Eew, he's probably right. But the whole place reminded me of Ocean Song, this camp I went to a long time ago in Sebastapol. Man, that was fun. I want to go camping again. I don't mean like go TO a camp, or go stay in some log cabin, I mean go out into the open, the wild, and not with one person, with a BUNCH of friends. Like a big extended bonfire. Does anyone want to do that this summer?

We went hiking all around, talking about my college plans (he says that I should consider CSU Northridge... which I was for a while. I mean, I didn't want to impose on Baba and Grandpa, living with them, but I would, of course, do my share of help, I'd have a huge room, DSL, friends nearby at UCLA and Mount St. Mary's, and that cool mall. And Dad goes down there once a month to help them, since Grandpa's getting old and stuff.) and the continuing adventures of Dad versus Mom in Court, Part XVIII. We eventually settled to eat lunch on the old tractor, and Dad explained why some parts of the hill were bright green with fresh longgrass, and others were as dry as bone.

We started walking back to the house, and when we were on the walkway, I nearly stepped on a snake! All that time we'd been walking in the wild and the bushes, saw a bunch of birds and lots of bugs, but a SNAKE! He told me I might see one, but on the road!? It was easily a foot and a half long, this huge thing just slithering away into the reeds and I was like "WOW, COOL!!!" and I was pretty freaked out too-- if I'd stepped on it, I would not be a happy camper right now!

I'm trying to speed this up since I have to leave to go to classes soon... damned CCSF is so far away! Anyway, so we went for ice cream, and went to the new Copperfield's-- turns out a bunch of stores along that block BURNED to the ground. I mean it, these old brick buildings that have been around forever, and all that's left is the storefront. You look through the window, and you can see through to the other side of the street, with the foundation just lying there like it's a rooftop! Quite freaky and sad. Yeah, and Copperfield's is Borderizing themselves, as they've expanded into what used to be that cute greeting card store. It's friggin' huge now, but a lot of the sections are the same-- and now they have manga! I sat there reading Vol. 8 of Fushigi Yuugi for a while, I was very content! WOW. I want to go back there!

We went back to the ranch after a while, and it turned out Joyce, Erin, and Neil were up in the wineries and such, so they were going to come down for dinner. It was too short notice to do something there at the house, which would have been cool-- like a BBQ or something, like Dad and I used to do on the bug holidays. Dad is a great cook, and he's fun to learn how to make stuff with. On his birthday, he's going to Northridge to be with his Dad and such, and then maybe a few days later I'll pop by for fourth of July and stuff. ^_^ That'll be fun, I hope.

Eeyah! I really gotta get going now. Class! TTYL...