hannahm

So, Sam's blog got me to thinking... She said, "...we are born into our religions, we only believe what we believe through way of teaching." I agree with her 100%. My parents have different religions and they chose to bring up their children without shoving any religion down their throat. My sister and I both do not believe in God, nor do we affiliate ourselves with any religion. To summarize our beliefs, it would have to be that we hope for something beyond what we have. I think it was yesterday actually, I was waiting for Sarah to finish pit orchestra rehearsal, I was sitting alone listening to my ipod in a practice room and I don't quite remember how I got to it, but I started thinking about death. When I die, what will happen with my mind? All I could think of was oblivion. I was thinking about the non-existance of heaven, if there is no heaven, my soul, my mind, will just, go out. No thoughts, ultimately, nothing. I started to feel very uncomfortable, I was even getting a little hot. I didnt want to think about it anymore, but then, lol, "Higher" by Creed started playing on my ipod. Ironic, if anything. :p But anyways, I guess that is why Sarah and I choose to hope instead of believe.

 Now here is the part where I start to get shuuuuunned.

Another thought, in form of a question: Do you believe that if a person is left to themself in the real world, they may willing believe in the Bible?

I ask this because, while I have never read the Bible, all it's teachings and beliefs that are preached just seem the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Like, no normal person living in the real world today would pick up the Bible and call it nothing other than fiction. And the people that take the Bible literally, that is just sad. But then again, the Bible was written to be taken literally, as an honest truth, so if you are not going to believe it literally, then why are you believing it at all? There is just so much hard fact and evidence that alternate things came into being and created our world. People believe both. They have to. It reminds me a lot of 1984 and "doublethink". To hold two simultaneos beliefs that contradict each other, yet believe both. In 1984, 2 + 2 = 5. In the Bible, God created the world in 6 days and on the 6th day he created humans.

I guess that is as far as I will go into it...

In other news, Sarah and I gave that presentation I was talking about on Brave New World. It went really well. And when we were finished, I was surprised at what people were saying about our website. Our teacher, Ms. Shmidt, said something alongs the lines of, "Omigod! I am SO impressed! What talent you have! I MUST get a copy of this website so I can use it as an example in later years"... or something, lol. And then a classmate of mine asked me what I used to create it and I told her I dont use programs, I hand-code everything. Well, apparently like 6 other people were listening to our conversation and when I said that they were all like " WOW!!!! You coded it?! Using html, right?! MAN! How did you learn it!?", they went on and on. Lol, alright, done bragging. xD

Sarah goes to Spain in less than a month! Crazy o.o

 By the way...

FREAKIN GLOBAL WARMING!

It was like 65 degrees here today!!!!!

ITS JANUARY 7th AND WE ARE HAVING A WINTER THAW?

i dont think so.... *smolder*

(Title lyrics by Maroon 5, "The Sun")

Today in AP Language Arts we were doing a discussion on the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The other day we were all given this sheet of paper that had 21 topics in BNW on it and we went through the entire class and each picked one topic to discuss (no person could have the same one). We started discussing yesterday, and we finished up today. One of the topics today was cloning. We were talking about it, blah, blah, blah, and in BNW, if you are familiar with it, it is the women who either are genetically sterile (which most of the people in the book are) or you arent, which is rare, usually for the upper castes.

Well, I raised my hand and asked the question why it is the women who are made to be sterile and not the men, considering it is much easier to make a man sterile than a women. Well, the class was silent for a few seconds, and then EVERYONE erupted into conversation. It honestly took 5 minutes for our teacher to quiet the class down because everyone thought it was such a great question and it was really something to think about. Some people were thinking Huxley was sexist, others were saying it was just the time and women were not thought of so highly when the book was written, or whatever the reason, I just thought it was an interesting topic.

I also brought up this question which NO ONE every thought of and which no one seemingly knows the answer to, maybe someone here who has read it can help me out: Why, if Lenina is a Beta-minus caste member, is she written wearing ALL green, which is a symbol of the lower Gamma caste group? Through the use of Hypnopaedia upper caste members are taught to dislike anything that has to do with lower caste members, so why is she wearing green? It just doesnt make sense to me. Maybe one of you can shed some light on it for me.

Anyways, sorry for the BNW spout today. I dont particularly like the book that much, but it when I really start to think about it's themes I get all these questions about life, society, and human nature. Like, in the book they talk about completely getting rid of family instinks. Family no longer exists, passion/love no longer exists, and people are descensitized to death. Well I believe that no matter what, you cannot stop people from feeling close to one another. Even in the book where they say they have ridden the world of family and feelings for other people, there are still subtle hints of it. For example, they talk about cloning and there is an instance that has to do with a set of 8 identical twins. In the book these 8 twins are a thought of as a group, there is no individual. They are going to be kept their whole life close together. Well no matter what, the longer you spend time with someone the more you feel towards them. It's undeniable. And later on in the book Lenina starts to get uncontrollable passion for the savage. This is proof that you cannot suppress human feelings. You cannot. So when we were talking in class today and the discussion of family was brought up, I couldnt help asking how it is possible that they believe what the book says about family and passion and love. I wasnt able to talk much though, and I was sort of shot down because I didnt have enough time to explain my thoughts. Tomorrow though, tomorrow.

Sarah and I are working on a project together for BNW. We are creating a website that is supposed to act like a cyber magazine for the year the book is set in. When we are finished I'll see if I cant post a screenshot or two of what we came up with. :)

ok, /end rant. :P

I decided to blog about this because it has to do with Red.

I had a dream last night where it was the day Sarah, Lisa, and I had to do our readings at Borders. Except, Lisa wasnt there (instead there were like 2 other kids from my school reading from Chicken Soup, dont ask me why) and we weren't at Borders. We were actually supposed to be reading in front of our ENTIRE school in the auditorium, lol. Amy was in my dream too (yea!) and she handed me Red with a few little notes in it because I wasnt supposed to read my entire essay. So Sarah and I are sitting, waiting for our turn and I wanted to go and read my essay to myself so I look for my book and I cant find it! So im slightly freaking out that I cant find my book and then I go into another dream. But in the back of my mind I remember that we are reading at borders in front of a smaller crowd, and I calm down a little. It's kind of weird that I had this dream though because Im not actually nervous of reading at Borders. Im not. Seriously. But reading in front of my whole school, yea that would be extremely scary (Dont make me do it, Amy! lol)

Oh, and Sarah and I should get the award for best daughters on the face of the planet. We should, really. It was our Dad's birthday yesterday and I actually hadn't done any of my christmas shopping yet, period. So Sarah and I went to the bank, I grabbed $60 and Sarah, $20 so we could have lunch. We ate lunch and then we were going to go to Kmart because that's where I saw Sarah's christmas present. Sarah was driving but she missed the turn onto the right street so she went on the next one which happened to be I-94, lol. Then she missed the exit we were supposed to get off at so she took the next one  and we didnt know which way to turn so we took this really odd street which happened to bring us to this one strip mall about 2 minutes from our house. Crazy. So we went into Target to look around instead, I grabbed Sarah's present, but then we spotted this ping pong table on sale for like $109.99. Our dad LOVES ping pong and he has always wanted a table. We only had about $66 in cash, but we also had like $50 in target giftcards from our sweet 16 party. Low and behold, we were like $3 short of that ping pong table. Good thing we were 2 minutes from our house!!!!!! So Sarah drove home, grabbed the extra cash and we bought the ping pong table for our dad. Oh yes. lol, Sarah's car is a Cabrio convertable, and the only way it would fit in our car is if we drove with the top down, lol. In like 30 degreee whether. xD So we drove the table to our Dad's work where they were having the staff christmas party and we showed it to him and he was thrilled. :D

That ping pong table almost seemed like fate, didnt it? OH! and I forgot to mention, when we went to eat, we went to this coney island and they were having a special on hummous, which I love. So I wanted to get some hummous but they were out. But if I did get hummous, we would have been about $7 short of the price instead, and I dont know, we might have not gotten it because we were that much farther away from the price. You never know. :o lol

HA! Omigosh, it was so funny!

You see, we are having our kitchen completely re-done so there have been guys over every weekday doing the floor, the cabinets, the walls, etc. So this morning I came downstairs and there were 2 guys here doing something for the walls. Im pretty sure they were russian, but anyways I come downstairs and one of them asks for a glass of water and when I come back with it he looks at me for the first time and he is like, "Oh! Hi! What is your name?!", "Looking good Hannah!", "How old are you?!", "Aww, young. Oh well, looking good!". It was so funny! Then Sarah came upstairs and sat with me on the couch and like every 5 seconds that guy kept stealing a glance at the two of us from the kitchen. lol.

Yesterday my marching band held a fundraiser at Mongolian BBQ to raise money to send us to Washington (we were invited to play in their memorial day parade! HUGE honor, seriously).

We had guest grillers of course: Our band director, our old, middle school band director, the MAYOR! and I think someone's dad as well. I think we were seriously jipped though. We got all the money from the tip jars between like 6 pm and 8 pm. Now, because of the band, the place was PACKED. No way in hell could Mongolian BBQ get that many people to eat there on a monday night. We should have recieved a cut of the profits. But anyways, some of the boys also went around the restaurant singing carols! They made about $100 in tips, no joke! We also sold lots of raffle tickets for the 50/50 and cookies and other merchandise like "Yea Band!" pins, lol. We made about $2000. Not bad, but we should have gotten more. :\

I have decided that I really want more piercings. Now, don't flip out, I don't mean anything like my tongue or my nose or even my belly button. Just more on my ears. I already have my lobes pierced, and I persuaded my mother to let me get the cartiladge pierced in my right ear. Just my right ear. So my head is all lop-sided in terms of # of earings. She wont let me get anymore until im 18. I have come VERY close to just getting some ice cubes, alcohol and a needle and doing it myself, but from what I've read online, piercing your cartilade at home is very risky. SOOO.... my grandmother and my uncle are coming to stay with us for christmas and I am going to try to persuade my grandmother to take me to get AT LEAST the other ear done. If im really lucky I may be able to get one more in the right and then 2 in the left, but that may be pushing it. My ears just look weird right now. I bought a 12-pair set of earings yesterday from Hot Topic, they were on clearance for like $4. Lol, I have a little yellow ducky in right now xD

Sarah is trying to convince me to get "sweep-to-the-side bangs". She was playing with my hair on the couch and she's like "OMG Hannah! DONT MOVE!", while she ran to get her camera phone and take a picture to show me how I look with them. I think I look like a man, but she loves it and says it's just because im not used to it.

Yesterday I was lying on the couch and Ben came over and layed next to me with his head on my elbow. He smelled so badly of cigarettes. I wanted to say "Get the f*** off me, you smell like cancer", not to mention the fact his friend stole my ipod and he never said sorry for it, but I just didnt. I dont like being mean, well, sometimes. No, almost all of the time. Im just a nice person (and very humble, cant you tell? lol)

My brother's friend stole my ipod right off my computer desk today. When I noticed it missing I called my mother and my dad first to ask if they had borrowed it, but I knew the truth anyways.

Ben did feel guilty at first though. When I called him after my parents, I didnt come right out and say it was missing, I just asked if he borrowed it like I did my parents. He was at work so he just said no and then hung up. About 20 minutes later he called me back and we had this nice little conversation:

"Hey, since your ipod is missing, what do you want for christmas? An ipod nano?"

I asked him why would I want an ipod nano if I already have an ipod.

"Well if you cant find it, what do you want for christmas?"

I asked him why I wouldnt be able to find it.

"Look, im just trying to do something fucking nice for you, now what do you want for christmas?"

I sighed. I told him I dont know what I want for christmas. Then he hung up.

Its funny because neither of my parents called Ben after I called them the first time. They didnt tell him it was missing either. So when I called Ben and asked him if he borrowed it, he put 2 and 2 together and that's why he called me back. Because he realized he made a mistake trusting this friend of his.

But then Ben started to think only about himself. He didnt want to be blamed so he started changing his story. First he tells my parents that Yes, he and his friend came over, but they never went downstairs. Next, it was "We only went downstairs so I could get a clean shirt". Then later it was "No, my friend didnt come over today, it was yesterday that he came over, so it couldnt have been him, I got confused."

I had a concert tonight. When I came home Ben was eating in the kitchen. He didnt say anything to me when I walked in. He is never going to apologize now. His story goes along the path that it wasnt his fault, so he shouldnt say sorry.

I feel very strange right now as I am writing this. I am not a material person so I dont really care if Ben buys me a new ipod or not. I dont think I would accept it even if he did. I feel so betrayed. Im shaking all over. I feel lightheaded. Ive never felt this way before. I feel sick.

Im not mad. Not mad at all. Maybe this is what heartbreak feels like. I hated Ben, but I still loved him. He wont say sorry. He isnt going to confront his friend. He probably wont even mention it. He will still hang out with this kid. After selling my ipod he'll probably even split the alchohol or drugs he buys with Ben. I wont leave my new digital camera by my computer anymore in case Ben decides to invite him in again.

Im still shaking. Im not crying. Its a waste of time. Crying is when you are sad and I am not sad.

I dont want my parents to buy me a new ipod. They gave me that ipod for christmas last year. How funny. They shouldnt have to buy me a new one. I'd rather buy it myself. My throat feels constricted and I am still shaking. I dont know if I am making myself shake or if it really is my body doing it. Shaking to the point that my legs are twitching.

Ben has never read my essay in Red. He probably never will.

I just finished reading '1984' by George Orwell today. It was for school, but I actually picked it up maybe 2 years ago(?), got almost halfway and then life got a little busy. I actually borrowed the original (non-school) book from a friend, who borrowed it from a friend, and still I haven't given it back. Have you ever done that? When you borrow something and forget to give it back for a really long time and periodically you remember you still have it but you feel like if you give it back the person would be like, "What the hell took you so long?". Yea, this is one of those moments better left forgotten. Until the other person remembers you still have it. Then your fucked.

Yesterday I spent upwards of 5 HOURS in the band room, playing the french horn. I didnt plan on it, nor am I a super-band-geek (well, maybe). It started for 45 minutes during '7th' hour (which happens every tuesday and thursday), then 50 minutes for my actual band class. Then I had to come back at 4:00 to practice with these 9 other people because we are playing at this one restaurant to raise money to go to Washington D.C. for the Memorial Day Parade. So that lasted up until Orchestra practice! 5:30-7:30. Strange thing happened though, it seemed the more I played throughout the day, the better I got! Curious.... xD

Sarah made a very good point today. She said that whenever her and Ben are in any contact whatsoever (which is very rarely), they always get into a fight. Today after school Ben was home because he was 'sick'. All three of us were getting food, Ben and I made sandwiches and Sarah was heating up soup. There are only 2 chairs at our kitchen table, and I was taking up one of them and Sarah claimed the other while she was waiting for the microwave to finish. Ben was still making his sandwiches. Sarah got up for, it must have been 2 seconds, and she was barely even out of her seat (she even said "im sitting there"), when Ben plumps his skinny as down on it. I mean, Ben pretty much PUSHED her out of the way to sit down, she was so close to the chair. Sarah and him fight about it, names are called, some actions are taken, until Sarah picks up a half of his sandwich, and then very sarcastically drops it on the floor for the dogs. Omigosh, it was the funniest thing! Then Ben picked up Sarah's bowl of soup which she had taken 2 sips of and dumps it all in the sink. xD

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Sarah and I were talking more about the 4/5 family cruise this year. With Sarah away in Spain it is only going to be Ben and I in the cabin. Ben will be turning 18 on the ship. He was trying to talk with me about what happens when the "Do not disturb" sign is hung on the doorknob. F**k you Ben. I am not going to be denied entrance into my own Cabin because you have found some whore to sleep with you. If you want to f**k someone, do it in their cabin. Stay out of mine.

He even asked me if I was going to get drunk with him. F**K YOU F**K YOU F**K YOU.

-GRRR! Sarah! She went to see DANE COOK today! I am so jelous. But that's ok, as long as she had a good time, right? Im over it. :)

I went to see Enchanted! Lol, surprisingly, it was a really great movie! Funny. I love Giselle's dress that she made from the curtains (the greenish-blue one) and I love her long, princessy hair. Ive been in the process of growing my hair out too. Long hair is so beautiful to me. But I need to learn how to style my hair when I wear it down so it doesnt look like im an emo or goth, lol. My hair is thick so if it gets really long and I wear it down it might hide me in it. I'll look like Cousin It.

-I mean, Dane Cook! Really! No, no, good for her.

I cant believe Thanksgiving is already over. It's almost Christmas! The school year is just blowing by. Ill be a senior and off to college before I can blink.

-Seeing Dane Cook AND Mariska Hargitay! In the SAME WEEK! Geez!

Hey, its only been a week since we were in New York. It seems like that was forever ago. Crazy what these little vacations do to you.

-She better have taken pictures. Thats what I gave her my camera for.

But shes not the one going on a cruise come this February! Hahaha! No, I'll actually miss her. It wont be as much fun. Ill be stuck either alone, with my parents, or forced to be with Ben and his newly found drinking buddies (not). You know what really bothers me? I dont get this. Whenever we go on a cruise, Ben -always- finds himself these 'friends'. These friends that are just like him. Smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, you name it. A big group of them too! They all rally together. Is that how you become cool? And this happens wherever we go.  In the past, every year for like 6 years we went to this summer camp in Canada. Everyone loved Ben. The counselors were his biggest fans. And the crazy part is this camp is Christian-based (even though our family isnt very religious, we just went because of the programs). So these counselors are supposed to be role-models, right?. Well if that is so, why do they support a kid so set on ruining his life? Sure, they liked Sarah and I, but not as much as Ben because we werent 'crazy'. We didnt set our porch on fire. We didnt sneak money to our counselors on their day off to buy us booze. We didnt have a clear disregard for the rules. But please dont think Sarah and I as 'goody-goodies".

Here is the fact plain and simple: Sarah and I dont need to be drunk or high to have a good time. And that seems to be the problem with a lot of teenagers these days. We have the personalities to keep our friends entertained. I guess some people just cant stand to be around other people without being out of their minds. That is just sad. Some of you may disagree, I have afterall, never been drunk or high so maybe I just dont know. But to me, I would much rather be high off friendship or laughter or love. The love of being around people who make me laugh purely off their own god-given humor instead of on some drug that makes anything look funny.

Ahh, Dane Cook. :)

 Yesterday in band class we had a playing test. We have one every monday usually, but our band director was off doing something. Anyways, the tests are really easy. Just play one scale (different one every week), in a certain rhythm, in a certain style. Easy. But for some reason, I am terrible at them. It comes and goes. One week I do the scale perfectly, but another, I can't get the fricken notes out!

Well that happened yesterday. It was probably the easiest scale we could ever do. And even to make sure I didnt fail, I quietly fingered the notes to myself on my french horn about 85 times before it was my turn. I had this in the bag.

Then, as soon as I play my first note, I completely forget how the scale goes. I tried it over and over like 5 times before I just gave up. How does that happen?! And then right after I give up and take my nice 79% grade, I did it again perfectly. I dont know if I just got nervous and flustered or what, but I hate it. It sucks.

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You know what else sucks? Cheerleaders. Now, no offense to those of you who may be a cheerleader, but in our school the cheerleaders are all, of course, very pretty and popular, but then just stink at the whole 'Cheer' part. They come to every football game, just like us, the marching band, but they deliver all of their little cheers in the same monotone, lack of enthusiasm, "I dont want to be here but Go Team Go", voice. And what is with their strange hand movements?! Flailing their arms up and down after every stupid cheer, and for what? What do those hand movements accomplish? 

Now the Marching Band, we are cheerleaders. We are 10000009897x louder and 'peppy-er' than our cheerleaders anyday. Hell, we even START the cheers! And we always get the crowd going with our renditions of "My Girl", "Smooth", and "The Final Countdown".

I love band. :D 

Here's a story that really boils my nerves. About a month ago, there was a home football game against our school's rival team. Something bad always happens at one of these games. In the past there are have been tons of fights and lots of flying garbage.

For our band's halftime show, we march around to the other side of the field to line up. As we were marching over, the ENTIRE rival team's stands BOOs us. Like, hardcore. You could barely hear the announcer speak anymore.

The halftime show went fine. It wasnt until after that the trouble started. We were marching back up to our stands when we haulted in order to re-group. We must have been stopped for less than 2 minutes. I didnt see anything happen.

When we were back up in the stands, half the band starts just talking and yelling in outrage! I learned then that while we were haulted, some kid from the rival school came up to the band, spit on a colorguard member, ripped off another's plume, and THEN. He grabbed a girls clarinette, broke it in half over his knee, and then TACKLED her to the ground, where he proceeded to try and punch more bands members before running off.

Is that how our society is these days? Where you go to school determines whether or not people want to kill you? And the worst part of all was that this football game was packed. There must have been over 1000 people at this game and there were tons of people standing around the band when we were stopped. They were right next to us. Parents. But, they were from the rival school, so they let this kid run off. We werent worth helping. They didn't do a thing. These parents. They stood there while this 6 foot kid beat up a sophomore girl right in front of them. Bastards.

Is it possible to become artistic?

I want to be able to draw. To draw well. Im already 16 and so far nothing has really kicked in. Is it too late for me? Through observation and practice can I just pick it up?

 Deviantart.com is one of my favorite places to go on the web. Im pretty sure it is the largest collection of artists on the web - from writers to traditional art or digital art, jewelry, anything that hints at creativity.

I want to have a character. All the great artists I know have many characters that they alone can draw better than anyone else because this person comes straight from their imagination. Everything about this person or animal or even a mixture of the two they created.

Lately I've been thinking about who my character would be.

Male, definatley. Vampire, yes. When he smiles, which he doesn't do very often, you can see his moon-white canines, enlarged for his purpose. He would be very dark in personality. A sexy, mysterious dark. His hair would be jet black, preferably short, but maybe a little longer in the front. It would flow over his eyes to give that mysterious feel. One of his eyes is the purest green while the other is a magical grey. Looking into the grey eye you feel as if he can see into your soul, assessing your being. He has a stud in his labret and in his ears a few more studs and a couple rings. From his collarbone up to where his chin meets his neck, is a tattoo all the way around of black flames. At the back of his neck, there is a gothic cross rising out of the black flames with a red ruby in the center. In particular places around his neck there are small painted red dropletts of blood at the tips of the flames. He has more tattoos, but I have yet to imagine them, most likely one on his chest, his wrists, and maybe even his ankle. The one on his ankle you will just have to believe is there even if you can't see it. He wears tall black boots most of the time. He is very tall. 6"1 or 6"2, very muscular - a girls dream. But he is gay, sorry ladies. Today I tried to draw him and I asked Sarah what else should make him up. She didn't offer much help, she even critisized the way I think in a very subtle way.

I think this is one of the major, major places Sarah and I differ. Maybe even our greatest difference. The one thing Sarah knows very little about is my imagination. Sarah's mind is grounded while mine is up in the clouds, I guess you would say. I don't like 'coming back down to earth'. In dreams anything is possible, anything can happen and it will. It doesn't have to be logical or acceptable. In dreams anything goes. We both love books, but Sarah reads those books in the Teen Girl section of the store (where you will probably find 'Red', lol), the books about a girl's trip to become popular or how many boys she can date in a week. I read Anne Rice, I've read all the Harry Potter books multiple times (Sarah has only read the first two, and that is after I begged and pleaded her. She doesn't plan on reading the rest, can you believe it?), I love reading books in the medieval era. Unrelated, one of my favorite series is the 'Black Jewels Trilogy', look it up because it would take quite a lot of typing to describe it, but I highly recommend it. I convinced Sarah to read them and she loved it too. I often find that Sarah likes the types of books I read, but she doesn't go and search for them like I do.

I love to read fanfictions on the web. That was something of a secret to Sarah in the past, I just recently told her but she still doesn't know too much about it.

Right now I don't long for relationship. I don't need someone to smooch everyday. I love men, but I love the ones in books and in my imagination better (kind of sad and desperate, don't you think?). Sarah has a boyfriend right now. Shes had a few relationships and they aren't very far between. When she is out of a relationship, she often goes right on pursuing another. She calls them her 'projects'.

Okay, honestly, in a way, Sarah doesn't understand me. At least a certain part of me. Neither does my family. It scares them when I want to go into Hot Topic and look around for a little bit. Sarah hates Hot Topic and she critisizes me for liking it a lot. My parents slightly freaked out when I told them I wanted to get the top of my ear pierced. It took almost 2 years of convincing to let it happen. My parents hate it when I buy (or even say I like) anything black. One of my favorite bands is My Chemical Romance and when I saw this zip-up hoodie I really liked they almost didn't buy it for me because of the color. Actually, I kind of lied to them. I told them it wasn't black, it was actually a dark grey (lol).

So many things are going through my mind right now. I've never really sat down to think of it, but Sarah and I, we are very different. 'Two peas in a pod' people say, but in the pod Sarah is a green pea and I am most definatley a black pea. In her essay she rants on about how she wishes I could be like her, but I am not like her and I don't want to be! She may be skinny and pretty, but I accept the way I am and I am not ashamed of it nor am I desperatley trying to change anytime soon.

Arg! I just don't know what to think. I feel sort of mad at her right now, but also mad at myself because I just realized all these secrets I have. In my essay I wrote about how we had no secrets, but now im thinking what the hell!? When did I stop trusting her? I kept these secrets because she was always critisizing me, telling me that she didn't like the things I liked, that I was starting to be weird. I feel like if I tell her my secrets she would think differently about me, she wouldn't understand.

SO MISUNDERSTOOD.

That's why I want to draw. To show them my secrets, illustrate them. Maybe my family, and especially Sarah, would get it. In my world it's not the popular, brunette, swim-team member, hollister babe that catches my fancy. Its the dark, brooding, mysterious night-walker that is plagued with deep battle wounds and inner scars that my heart belongs to. I want to be the one to heal those wounds and erase those scars.

I love you Sarah, but I am fucked up.

My mind is twisted and tangled to a point where no one can get in and nothing can get out.

wow. This post really did a 180 on me.

Sarah and I just got back from NY a few hours ago. With my new brown camera (my favorite color) I took a total of 161 pictures! As soon as we got home we went over to our friend's house and we just lounged around talking. A few other people joined us so we decided to share the stories from our amazing trip.

Wednesday

• Our Flight was delayed 2 hours because "we, the passengers" failed to board the plane fast enough so we missed our window. It of course had nothing to do with the fact that the flight attendants started boarding the plane 15 minutes before the window closed. /end sarcasm.
• I took the window seat and Sarah and I spent the plane ride taking ridiculous pictures of ourselves. We kept on snickering because they were so funny and I guess the woman in front of us was getting annoyed. xD The woman sitting in back of me, however, she must have that thing where you can't control the sound level of your voice, because when she started talking on her phone, I swear, the WHOLE plane could hear her. And she was sitting right behind me. Glorious. It was pretty amusing though when she shouted, "You are my savior! My guardian angel!". It must have turned a few heads.
• I was re-reading some of my favorite 'Red' essays and then I really wanted to read the comics in the newspaper, but my Dad, who was sitting across the plane, had it. So I tried to tell to him but he couldn't hear me. Then we played charades!!! I mimed '1 word' and then 'sounds like' and made it look like I was reading the newspaper. And then Sarah shouts out, "COMICS!". She is the only one who could get that Newspaper sounds like comics in charades. But that's why we're twins. xD
• Did you know that NY does their construction at night because it's apparently too busy in the day?! I swear they were knocking down the building next to us at like 2 in the morning!

Thursday

• Bright and early we woke up to tour NY. It was a rainy day but we walked down to Times Square. We saw where they filmed Oprah and the Late Show, we visited the M&M store, I bought a cool purple zip-up hoodie that says 'New York' on it, and we watched the pickitters on broadway. Really a shame that they had to go on strike this weekend. I am all for the writers and stagehands, but I really wanted to see 'Chicago' on Broadway. :(
• When it was getting late, we high-tailed it back to the hotel to get ready for the party. Sarah did my hair, and I love her for putting up with my crankiness because it failed to cooperate. We had to be at the party at 4:30, but my Dad thought it would be OK to leave at 4:00. We stood outside for 20 minutes trying to get a taxi, so we abandoned that thought and ran to take the subway - not smart if your wearing heels. After taking the subway we had to walk 7 blocks to Elizabeth street! My feet were killing me. This one guy said, "Oh, Happy Birthday!" to us as we walked by, lol.
• The party was so amazing! Amy did a really good job setting it up. Sarah and I finally met Lisa Chau! You rock Lisa, don't party too hard when you get back to Michigan :P Those egg rolls at the party were yummy. I ate like 6 of those lip cookies though because the girls who made them kept shoving them in my face, lol. But they needed to get rid of them. Good cookies, for sure. Oh ya! Katrin Wiens, the graphic designer for Redthebook.com introduced me to John, the webmaster, because I told her how much I wanted to be a web designer so he gave me his contact info and told me about a possible internship with his company. I was so ecstatic :D
• On the walk home my feet were killing me so bad I almost couldn't walk anymore. My dad offered me his socks to walk in, but I really didn't like the thought of walking in NY without shoes on. So I dealt with it and pushed on.

Friday

• Our sight-seeing day. :)
• We started off heading towards 5th ave. Prada, Burberry, all that good stuff. Labels don't really mean that much to me, so I wasn't all, "Oh em gee I must go into Prada and buy a $4394039483 bag that I am going to use 4 times and then never look at again", so we never went in to any of those stores. We saw the Trump building! Good ol' Donald.
• Right across the street was Abercrombie & Fitch and unlike the stores in Michigan where all they have are large pictures of models, they had REAL MODELS. There were two of them holding the door and welcoming us in, and then there was one where his sole purpose was to stand there looking sexy and taking pictures with ooglie-eyed girls - including Sarah and I, of course. We named him 8-pack, because that is what he had. :) Oh happy days.
• A little later on we browsed Canal St. I bought a cute red-strawberry pendant necklace and some star and moon earings. The strawberries also came in black and white, and my dad thought they looked really cute so we wanted to go back and buy the other two as well, but we were all getting hungry and we were going to meet a friend for dinner.
• The friend treated us to Dinner in Little Italy! I enjoyed a large bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo Con Pollo (with chicken) and Sarah had some salmon-type thing, I think. It was some kind of fishy substance, at least.

Saturday

• Last day in NY :(
• Before our check out at 1pm, we did soem last minuted sightseeing.
• We took a horse ride through Central Park - that was fun. My father has ALWAYS wanted to do that. Sarah and I really wanted to see those yummy Abercrombie models again so we walked back and got another picture with 8-pack. We stroke up some friendly conversation and after the picture I told him he had very nice abs. xD
• We went into a few more stores and after this one, my Dad goes, "Oh ***!" and my mother and I both turn to look at him. He started babbling on about some store he forgot to go into and all the while neither of us are paying attention to Sarah going, "Dad? Dad! DAD!?". Finally we turn and look and ask her what and she says "Olivia Benson from Law & Order SVU just walked by!!!!!". It was true, Mariska Hargitay walked right by us with her husband and baby. I got to see her from behind, but I was downright pissed at Sarah and my Dad for missing it. :( I love SVU.
• On the flight home I snoozed the whole way. It went by pretty quickly actually.

Now for some much needed sleep. New York was amazing. What a trip. :D