I probably have my priorities in the wrong places.

It's getting to the point where I'm actually sick of my own bitching in my head.

I'm looking for things to be enthusiastic about.
Suggestions?

But I keep promising a non-angsty post, so here we go.
( This somehow became a paragraph about food. )

Of course, skipping out on the dining hall comes with the added factor of me never needing to find people to sit and eat with. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
I suppose I complain about them enough so here is a rundown of the people here worth mentioning:

( Your Social Links are what creates your 'world'...jeebus, I hope not. )
And then also hnnnnngrh classes and Field Work Term and a whole huge pile of things I just do not feel like dealing with right now.
There's plenty of angst to be had about my lack of personal development, but.
I'm still not entirely sure if I want to change or not. (I'm pretty damn twisted for even being willing to do this to myself again...)
But you'll notice the near-lack of that in this entry! See? I'm getting better at this!

( Please to be ignoring. Angst within. )

Even after I waited until I felt a little better, I just kept getting drawn back in. I guess it's just one of those kinds of nights.
Maybe I should focus on the real world for a little.

I'm sorry for posting this, but I feel like if I just deleted it it would be the wrong move for me.... Please pardon the general wangst of this journal. I'll try to write something fun next time, okay...?

[sigh]

In high school (the parts of it that I showed up for), I used to open up a computer file every night before I went to sleep and write about...nothing in particular. My day and what I thought about it. As you can imagine it's quite angsty, but there are some good parts. (But then, urgh. I have a complex about my own writing where it always sounds great to me and at the same time it always sounds horrible.)

I dunno, I guess I wanted to document because I was always afraid of forgetting things. It sort of made me feel refreshed at the end of the day.
Is it bad that I don't want to become the kind of person who can forget things and just be happy? I sometimes feel there's no point in holding onto some memories if they just make you miserable, but then the other half of me recoils in disgust at that kind of thinking.

But like, at what point are you remembering, at what point are you learning from the past and at what point are you just holding a grudge? (Not that I'm above any of these things, but...)

And, if you like yourself the way you are, is it all right to want to change anyway?
I always wrote about these kinds of thoughts. Almost every night, for the portion of time that I actually attended school. The purpose was to document school life, I guess, so I didn't write about weekends, and I didn't write if I skipped a day. By the middle of junior year there was barely a point in pretending to be able to write it anymore, because...yeah. I always sort of thought of it like looking in the mirror. By that point I couldn't stand the sight of myself, you know?

And so, I kind of want to go back and read, sometimes...but then I also kind of want to forget and move on and be happy. We're a people eternally clinging to the past, hoping to learn something.

The ideal of learning. Huh.

So, I'm always the kind of person who, when re-watching a movie, skips over the part where the really painful mistakes are made. I just...can't stand to watch stuff like that, people suffering. I feel like a bad person if I watch and a bad person if I don't watch. There's no solution. Other than to dive in and solve the problem. But when you're watching a movie or remembering the past (or you're just a coward or some powerless person) that's impossible.

....hmmm.
I'm always writing about such serious things. Need to delve into a topic that's more enjoyable for both writer and audience.
Anyway, the reason I started thinking about all of this is that I'm kind of used to sitting down and writing at the end of school days. So hey, maybe you'll see more of this dribble. If you filter me out of your friends page I won't be offended or anything.

"Don't use boredom as your central conflict."
This advice was given to me by a couple of people who I deeply respect and admire. I've been trying not to write about boredom ever since. The intrinsic flaw there seems so obvious.
But a few of my new D! friends added me and I suddenly felt inclined to update here...and the only thing I can think to write about is boredom.

I feel like there's some meaningful, existential activity I need to do before I feel like I'm ready to leave home, but...I just don't know what it is yet. Maybe I should set my old schoolbooks and binders and such on fire. That might be cathartic somehow.
Maybe it's time for another episode of Impressive vs. Unimpressive!
But I recently broke my M key and typing out those two words is going to be a pain. Uwahhh. Feeling lazy. I should get some hot glue for this M key or something, but it's too much work...

Man, though, I'd better do something about it before anyone else has to use this thing.

My grandparents are supposedly going to pay for my new computer but I don't think they know about it yet. Wondering how and when it's going to go down. Mostly wondering how much I'll be able to spend and if it's worth it shooting for an alienware.

...damn, though, I wanted to go on a big adventure...
Why does this feel like my last chance?
I'll have plenty of time for adventure later on...

Everything costs money, no one can get a job. Critical glitch. System failure.
Got to convince Mom and Dad to stop freaking out if I go on the highway. It's become one of those situations where I don't mind doing something until they point out how amazed they are that I actually did it. Suddenly driving becomes irksome not because I have a problem with it but because I don't want to hear, "YOU WENT TO THE DUNKIN DONUTS BY YOURSELF? THAT'S ADORABLE! I'M SO PROUD!"
Urgh. That kind of thing makes me lose Aspiration points.
Did I mention that now that it's obsolete I've been playing the Sims 2? Yep...it may or may not make sense, depending on if I ever get that computer. -le sigh-

When there's nothing to do but wait...I used to entertain myself by making up stories.

Recently I've been sort of thrust into contending with some serious things...
( Existential angst, what fun. )

So this one really disturbing moment, which I feel is sort of related, just happened a few minutes ago, here in Brooklyn...
( It was kind of scary. )
I don't get it. It's never been this confusing before...
I guess I'm just as calm as usual, though.

It's true.
And I don't feel like writing about it in detail, so I'll just highlight the most interesting parts.

Basically, the trip was last weekend to onee-san's graduation in Poughkipsee, and it was much, much longer than it needed to be. We had to go up on Friday because they were having some lame little barbecue in front of their dorm. The most interesting event there was that I caught a mosquito in the act of biting me.

The most interesting moment of the whole trip was on the way to our uncle's house after that lame-ass barbecue.

Somehow the topic of Japanese came up, and Jess said something like, "You're lucky, though. At least you have something you're passionate about...I don't really."
They were really the last words I ever expected to hear. As she said them, we passed this moonlit lake and I stared at it dramatically. I guess I'd never realized it before, or maybe I was too jaded by the Spanish thing to believe it or convinced that it was just my anime fandom nerdiness overriding anything else, but...I think even without it, I really would still love the Japanese language. I dunno...does that merit calling something a "passion"? After all this time whining about it, I guess I still can't really say for sure what passion is. So, I hadn't realized it until it was pointed out to me by someone else, but maybe I've had what I'm looking for the whole time.

Or maybe I'm just hoping that's an accurate representation of the situation.

Oh, and relatedly, we stayed a night in a hotel that had  a Japanese-language television channel. I almost got addicted to a J-drama without even knowing what the title was. They flashed it faster than I could read it...but it was very cool.

The rest of the trip was really, really miserable.
Well, okay, no, the food was good. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and then the next day at this seafood place that had free samples of their soup. Oh, and Fridays, too. Yeah, good restaurants. The rest of the trip sucked.

YES.
TAKE THAT, ALLSTATE ADVERTISEMENT.
I'LL TEACH YOU TO CHARGE ME TWO FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS JUST TO BE ABLE TO LEAVE MY STREET.

Edit:
Okay, has anyone else seen this?


Trying to invoke nightmares based on caricatures in their advertising? Allstate, this is more than just rude. It's blatantly offensive. A person is not a hazard. Even a person who can't vote. Look at that picture--it looks like a monkey driving.
I hate saying this, but if someone put out advertising based on the premise that say, black people are hazards? The NAACP would be all fucking OVER their asses. This is discrimination and propaganda. Why isn't anyone doing anything about this!? Well, it's mostly because the people involved can't vote. Ugh...
This makes my stomach churn.

( Colleges and my lack of getting into them. )

( Philly -> New York )( Penn Station )

( The rest. )
I guess that's it for now. I'll update at later convenience.

( It's a meme. It's under the cut. )

Apparently, I'm between the US and Lithuania. But, that meme could have done better, IMO.

( Bit of angst... )

Oh, I joined a Hogwarts panfandom. That's fun/messed up.
Of course, my viewpoints of the houses are markedly different from the internet at large, now. Silly H_E, changing my perceptions.

Oho, and of course, craaaaazy things are happening in crossover-generation land. Yesindeedy. Also, I think I might have recently become either Pink or Red in the world's most ridiculous series ever to exist. Like, you have NO idea...



Unrelatedly, I'd now like to introduce my new segment: "Impressive vs Unimpressive"!
It's, um, pretty self-explanatory.
( Impressive vs. Unimpressive! )

Well, that should be about it for this morning.
I probably enjoy the sound of my own writing a little too much.

Okayso.
Irl is being pretty damned angsty with me right now. But I figure, what better time than now to lose myself in a fit of reality avoidance video games?
( Geekery under the cut! )
I kinda wish that life was either simpler, as in Animal Crossing, or more complicated, as in modern fantasy stuff. This is JUST the wrong amount. And I still remain not fond of the whole "live with your parents forever" thing.

Oh, if only I could win a game show or something~
I'd take off right now and leave for one of those towns where $300,000 buys you a huge mansion...
-_- The fact is that I could live comfortably on the amount my dad spends paying for his ridiculously overpriced car every month.
But enough of that, back to not thinking about reality for me. Ohh, I wonder when there will be a new Hetalia...

My new career ambition: To be the person who drives around and takes pictures for Google Maps Streetview. That thing is so fricking awesome. Want to go check out the 109 building in Shibuya? Google Maps! Awesomeness!

Of course, just rambling around on Google Maps isn't as good as rambling around in real life. Oh, maybe the geohash will be in-state today and I can drag Becca to one. Let's see...
Hahaha, it's near the airport. Woah, and someone else is going to it! Insanity!
Chhhh...I don't think I'll be able to convince her to let me drive there, though. It's only 15 minutes away, but...."random online coordinate adventure" seems like it might be a hard sell. Damnit, I'm sick of missing opportunities just because I'd have to convince someone to give me a ride. Gotta learn to parallel park so I can pass that test. Jeebus, it's in like, 3 days. I figured that the deadline would inspire someone to actually teach me some shit. Can't rely on anyone in the adult world.

Anyway, I eventually did end up writing college essays that I thought were pretty satisfactory. But then, everything seems pretty satisfactory when your life depends on getting it done and sending it in before midnight.
I ended up writing about The List, of all things. (For those unaware, The List is a list of female characters that meet my standards in non-suckiness. There are about five characters on it, so far. -_- )

Oh, I got an email from some guy who does the admissions interviews for Brown. I dunno, I really don't interview well. And I don't know how much information they actually give him-- is he gonna look at my transcript and be all, "WTF?" Because if he asks me about the transcript, I'm kinda in trouble. But I don't think that I really have a choice in this. I don't know how much chance I really have of getting in otherwise. And if I just ignore it, I don't look serious. Better email him back, I suppose.
Actually, I'm not even entirely positive that he's the real deal. Nothing on the website says anything about interviews. But I don't know how else anyone would know that I applied to Brown. Geez. There are only a few possible positive outcomes of this endeavor. Guess I'd better come up with some interview stuff...this probably will be the first, but not the last. Guh. I'd better get in SOMEWHERE. I mean, there's always Temple Japan...

Muhahahaha, Cousin Max finally got off his butt and bought a copy of TWEWY.
Now I need to get off my butt and buy Rock Band 2. Or maybe that track pack. Or maybe pre-order the Sims 3. It's gonna be a big seller...they pre-order PC games, right? Man, there are so many good games out there, and so little time! Oh, and I guess I should get that new Animal Crossing. I'll pay for Jessica's half as a birthday present to her...but then, should she pay for my half as a birthday present to me? That'd just be roundabout....

Being on a "normal" sleep schedule is weird to me. Oh, it snowed...

It's gonna be WEIRD to turn 18.
Weird stuff is happening.
These are the days that I've been looking forward to for so long. THE January.
College applications. 18th birthday. The inauguration.
We spend a lot of our lives waiting...

So, I've had fun. I guess I still would have been better off writing 50,000 words of a novel this month, but I really hate writing stuff without any solid ideas. I mean, I could have written an epic 50,000 word fanfiction, but it would have been awful. I probably just would have gotten sick of it. But I do have to get back into writing fiction. Too much reality.
I wonder how many words this month's entries have added up to? Let's see...
After copy-pasting everything entry by entry, it comes to 13846 words. Wow, I thought it would be more than that.

Well, there we have it. A month of my life in which nothing of interest has happened. It feels like it's been longer than that. In theory, every seemingly insignificant even in life could potentially hold great importance. But it just doesn't always work out like that; that's why they invented the cut-to-next-scene. 
I've definitely written that before. I tend to think the same things over and over.

I don't have any parting words or ending thoughts. I'm still going to write in this journal occasionally, of course. It's just going to be less pointless and much less routine. I'll actually be very happy not to stop every night and check if I have to rush an entry before midnight.
Hm, they give away prizes to random blogs on the NaBloPoMo site. Most of them are pretty pointless...still, everyone loves free stuff.

I dunno, I was planning to use these blog posts to write some exposition or something, but I've just ended up rambling about what has (not) happened in my days. Oh well. The exposition wasn't really necessary anyway. If you need to know something about me, then chances are that you already know it. Honestly, there isn't really anyone who would need to know more about me than they do already, so I guess there's not really a point in exposition.
I would be well-advised to get over myself and start thinking about other people once in a while.
Hahahahahahaha, maybe I'll start a "Blogging for Charity" movement. Gawd, that would be absurd.

So I guess I should be figuring something out, or drawing some conclusion? I dunno, I guess I feel like there needs to be some resolution here, even though I'll still be writing here once in a while. Well, too bad. I guess it's just going to be a Sopranos ending where I end the thing right in the middle of

Derrff, I can't wake up...
Admittedly not being able to wake up at 1:30 in the afternoon is kind of lame. Hey, shut up, sleep scheduling isn't really my thing.

My nose has been stuffed on one side or the other all week...it's so annoying. Stupid sinuses. The worst part is that it keeps coming back no matter what you do about it. Even if I get rid of it for a while, it just returns every couple months or so. I guess I need to start drinking more water...that usually helps.

So today is going to be another one of those schlepping days. I feel bad for my grandparents and I love them, but visiting their apartment is always so unpleasant. My grandfather is getting more and more crotchety and my grandmother's mind is falling apart at the seams. It's a little depressing. The best I can hope for is that I won't inherit those genes. Of course, if not those, I'll probably inherit my other grandfather's genes of dying young. Shit.
Ugh, that apartment always has this smell...how on earth do they even tolerate it?
And EVERYTHING in there is old...is there a part of the theory of relativity that says that being around old people makes things age faster? No? Well, I guess they don't shop much.

I guess I'm being kind of harsh. It's just early. Well, no, it isn't.
Anyway, my grandfather's old-person-hobby is BLOGGING of all things. He argues politics on some blog website. I'd join him but I think we would end up hating each other. Honestly, there aren't that many people online who really have any idea what they're talking about.
Well, at least it gives him something to do. I think it might be time for my parents to start their own old-person hobbies. Dad has the sailing thing, but we can't really afford to do it that often. Sailboats are really cool, actually, and it's a nice way to spend a day.

Even though I don't want to spend time with them anymore, I can't deny that the little things my family did influenced me a lot.
My dad loves boats, and we used to own one back in New Hartford. To this day, I can remember falling asleep on the waves...summer days, jumping from cliffs, that restaurant we used to go to near the marina...somewhere along the line I picked up an appreciation for watercraft, oddly enough.
My mom always read books to me and taught me to read when I was quite young. If you influence your kid in only one way, make that way to encourage them to like reading. Well, ok, I'm not in a position where I can give advice like that... I dunno, I have a hard time believing that my life would really be better if I'd waited until I got to school to start reading. Whatever, if I have kids, I'm teaching them the alphabet as soon as they can hold their own head up.

Well, I guess I ought to hit the old dusty trail before they come in and start their "why aren't you ready to go yet" routine. Gawd, I appreciate them, but...I really need to get out of this house while I still can.

Really, whenever there's anything to do, it comes in big rushes. Like, THIS is the weekend that I have stuff happening in my life?
Urgh, whatever. At least people should be able to do their own thing next weekend when I'm in Chicago. My dad likes taking me with him to medical conferences, you see. I don't really do anything but it's a chance to get out of the house and spend some time by myself while he's in classes. Well, "by myself" is really most times, but it's rarely in any interesting location. I wonder where we'll be staying...? Hey, at the very least, it means a weekend of getting to eat out of the house.

So yeah, Jesse and Ben are at the house, and I'm like, "Wait wait, are they going to be here until midnight?"
Probably not but I'd rather not risk it, so I'm letting them play Pok-Bat-Rev against each other while I type this on my mom's computer. By they way, her screen resolution was meant for the legally blind. Everything is so unnecessarily big.


Man, Pok-Bat-Rev could have had just a LITTLE more effort involved and it would have been really awesome. Maybe if they threw in a minigame and a tiny bit more...uh, believability. It's really nice to have, but it's not something I would want to pay $50 for.  I sort of feel bad about not giving it back to Abbey's brother, though...
Still, I'll give it back. Eventually. Once...some stuff happens...

When are they translating Pokemon Platinum, anyway? I was thinking about importing it over here (DS games have no region coding!) and trying to translate it myself, but that would be a project that's just a little bit beyond my skill level at this point. Children's game or not, I still really don't know that many words...or sentence structures...or articles. Whatever, I'll get there eventually. If I imported it from Japan there would be no point in getting it in English, anyway.

Hmmmm...sometimes I feel like, "If only things would return to the way they were in the good old days."
Aren't I a little young to be thinking stuff like that?! --gonk--
But I do miss those times...before Max spent every weekend doing that stupid pre-Juliard thing. Before snotty old people got mad at us for tresspassing. Before certain horny idiots screwed up the dynamic of everything. Before people were radicalized, you know, in the innocent days. Change is natural, but it doesn't ALL have to be negative change, you know? 
Well, I guess that you could call it plot development. But jeebus, sucky plot development.

It's Thanksgiving. What are we celebrating, again?
Something along the lines of natives helping colonists survive and then the colonists showing their "thanks" by infecting them with whooping cough?
(By the way, if whooping cough weren't so deadly, I think it would be pretty hilarious. -cough cough cough WHOOOOOP cough cough WHOOOOP-)

Because Christmas is such a big moneymaker in this country, it has to start on Thanksgiving. Last year Mom and I actually went to the 4AM sales for a laugh. It was INSANITY. It was five in the morning and we went to Kohls, and the checkout line was literally halfway around the store. Kohls is a BIG store, too.
We bought a waffle iron. I don't think it's an experience I want to repeat this year, though. Mom pays attention to sales, and apparently they weren't any better than the usual sale that these stores run every couple weeks.
Gawd though, this means that it's officially beginning. Call me the Grinch but I HATE Christmas. Everyone else in the world gets to have a great f-ing time while we sit around feeling left out. It's like kindergarten all over again. I can't stand it when people have fun without me...
I mean, if people were actually celebrating the religious meaning of the holiday, I guess I'd be okay with it, but it's FULL BLOWN CRAZINESS for two straight months...and it's unavoidable! Turn on the TV? CHRISTMAS! Go to the mall? CHRISTMAS! Surf the net? CHRISTMAS! I mean, if I had a billion dollars, I would just fly out to Israel at the end of every November and lay low there until New Year's.
Now, New Year's, I really do like...but gawd, I can't stand Christmas. Ugh, at least we might get to see a couple Goys Gone Wild (you heard me) before the season is over.

Cooking is exhausting...
I don't think it would be that hard if I didn't have a pantry with enough crap filling it up to survive a zombie apocalypse. But I had to spend like, half an hour looking for baking powder for the cornbread. It looks like it came out pretty good, but we haven't eaten it yet. I also was in charge of making dessert. As usual with Mom and Dad, even though I went out of my way to make stuff, they went to the grocery store and just bought premade food anyway. Seriously, we won't have to go shopping for like, a month. The thing is that no matter how much food we buy, we always finish it in about the same amount of time, so there's no point in overbuying. Jeebus we're dysfunctional.

Well, crap in a basket, my entries are getting shorter. I keep getting in situations where I'm pressed for time. Good news for you, I suppose.