drench yourself in words unspoken

today is the last day before nanowrimo - at least, it is for this part of the world. and so, this post is dedicated solely to writing. to start, here are a couple of links that i found to be pretty cool:

>>have you heard of the "golden ratio?" supposedly everything is divided into the ratio 1:1.618. everything. nature, art, literature... this site will help you keep your novel to the ratio. type in the number of words you plan to write and how many plot points and it'll calculate where each one should be. you don't have to really follow this, but doing it after you finish is pretty interesting because you usually find out that what you wrote and what it tells you match up pretty well.

>>while writing, it can sometimes be pretty hard to avoid making your character a mary sue. you know, the completely perfect flawless ones. i know i've written a couple myself (and though i still love the character, i cant deny that she's a mary sue). here's a mary sue test that you can use to check your character. i've heard the test may be a little biased, so don't get too worked up over your results.

>>whether you make it before you start writing or after you have a finished piece of work, you'll eventually have to think up a name for it. want to know if your title would make it in the "real" literary world? using statistics and science and magic and all that other reliable stuff, this test will let you know.

some of my favorite quotes about writing:

*I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die. ~Isaac Asimov

*Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. ~Isaac ASimov

*Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any. ~Orson Scott Card

*You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ~Jack London

*All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. ~Oscar Wilde (from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray)

i have this problem with chapters when i write. most of the time, i just can't include them. the story will go on for over fifty pages before i realize that, in my head, i'm still on chapter one. i can never find that exact place where the story should cut. the part where i'm telling the reader, 'go ahead, take a break. we'll wait for you right here.' and then when the whole thing is finished (minus the parts that never make it to the paper because they decided they liked life in my head so much better) i never get around to breaking it up. i'm trying, in the stuff i've been writing recently, to write in chapters. this might just be me, but i feel like it changes the experience of writing. it feels different. it's not better or worse. just different. this might just be because i've been going without chapters for almost twenty years.

anyways, happy nano-ing.

*Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield

everything i say to you comes out wrong, never comes out right

so i took today off, right? and i was kinda worried about making my group face class without me, but i sent an elaborate email to all of them this morning saying i was sick and including all the information they could possibly be asked about and then some. because, you know, they have no idea what's going on with anything. nice people these kids are, awful awful group members. anyways, while i was out, one of the dudes calls me. i didnt answer because i didnt want him to ruin my day off, plus i was "terribly sick." when i get home, i have a couple of new emails. apparently my professor was sick, too, and the TA would be taking over class. one group member replied to my email saying he would be free to meet up on tuesday (i asked them to). and then, ryan answers and says, "well, since none of us are able to make it to class today..." what?! because i'm not going it means none of you have to go either?? every single one of you has missed class at least once or twice (mark only showed up once). i havent missed a single one this semester. so now i dont think anyone from my group went which makes us look like total slackers. *sigh*

moving on, after shopping and getting smoothies, my sister and i went to watch a movie. we saw paris. my sister didnt much like it. she didnt hate it, but didnt really like it either. i thought it was pretty good. it was one of those movies though that kind of just go for a while without anything really happening. i mean, things happen, but like not in the normal way. okay, that makes no sense. lemme explain what i mean. so to me, there are two kinds of movies. the normal ones are like someone telling you a story. they have a definite start, actions build up till the climax and then there's falling action and a real ending, like you can put 'the end' right before the credits and it fits. the other kind is more like you suddenly start watching someone as they live their story, instead of them telling it to you. it starts, but there's nothing really significant or flashy about the start. you watch as things progress without them constantly trying to tailor everything to fit into their storyline. then the ending comes but instead of the story completely finishing, it's more like you just stopped watching. yes, things get tied up for the most part (or not) but a 'the end' would just be comical. am i making any sense?? it sounds so much better in my head...

anyways, last time we went to red lobster i saw the picture for the apple crumble and wanted it. i wanted the chocolate chip lava whatever more, though, so we hadnt gotten it. today when we went, i decided i had to try the apple crumble. it was like a little debbie snack microwaved. not bad, but definitely not as good as it looked in the picture. :/

*Why Don't You and I - Santana

oh my god what have i done?

there are four days until nanowrimo starts and i dont know whether i should panic or get excited. considering i have no idea what to write about or when to write with all the other stuff i have to do, i think i should probably be leaning more towards the panic. it's sounding more undoable every day.

did you know there are 275 nanowrimo-ers in saudi arabia? sure, it was the second to last country on the list, but the fact that it was even on there surprised me... i dunno why. US is first at 673,795 people.

on another note, i have been putting off website work. completely. remember that day when i was all productive and did a bunch of it?? yeah that was pretty much the last time i really did anything for it. i'm planning on putting in the slideshow today and fixing the relocation pages. i may make an appointment to meet with some professor, or i may just say the whole thing she wants us to do is impossible (as she said it may be) without really looking into it. i'm not going to class tomorrow (mental health days are the best) so i also have to email my group exactly what's been going on in case she asks them any questions.

take a look at what i have so far and let me know if you have any suggestions. would you consider working with lucinda based only on her site? here's her old site.

other websites i did to compare with (bookworms was the only one i really put any effort into). they make the lucinda one look better, don't they?

*Red Hands - The Dear Hunter

let's go back, back to the beginning

i think you might have to click on this for it to be readable, but please do. it made me laugh.

*Come Clean - Hilary Duff

the hardest part is letting go of your dreams

have you ever had a dream that you were annoyed at someone, and then when you wake up you really are annoyed at them because of something they did in your dream? anyways, last night, try as i might, i just couldnt get to sleep. when i did finally get to sleep, i dreamt that i was waking up after not getting enough sleep or something. i forgot why exactly, but everyone was being so unbelievably obnoxious. grr. i wake up this morning at seven thirty, and i'm already annoyed with most of my family and a few people i'm pretty sure i've never met before.

dreams are great.

*Sleep - My Chemical Romance

i just want you to know

apparently, i have to put a disclaimer on this blog of mine because it has been causing a bit of trouble lately. let me lay it all out for you people (not all you people, just the ones that this will apply to. you'll know if i mean you or not).

if i know you, i may put you in my blog.

if i've ever spoken to you, i may put you in my blog.

if i've ever seen you, i may put you in my blog.

if i dont know you, i may put you in my blog.

if you do not want to be mentioned in my blog then send me an email and i will most likely mock it in this blog and then completely ignore it. that's right, like it or not, i will put you in my blog whenever i feel like it.

you may not always like what i write about you. i may be mean and sarcastic at times, but at others i really can be nice. i swear. it depends on a lot more than just you, so don't let it get to you. my mood, other people, what i'm listening to... that all goes into the post too. i could rant about you one day and gush about you the next, or vice versa.

i'm not going to censor myself on the off chance that i'll offend someone. i write this blog for me. don't like what i write? no one is forcing you to read it. (but i really do like my readers, so try and take everything with a grain of salt and stay, okay?)

*I Just Want You to Know - Relient K

tale as old as time, true as it can be

so today was an extra disneyfied day. we (me, my sisters, brothers, parents, brother-in-law, and nephew) went to see disney on ice. it was good in case you were wondering, though both my parents (actually i'm not so sure about my dad) fell asleep. total waste of tickets. my main problem was that they put princess tiana into a lot of the parts. and no, before you start to think the worst of me, i'm not racist. i'm not thrilled about the idea of adding a new disney princess (i'm not a big fan of change) and a modern day princess from new orleans thrills me even less, but whatever. but seriously, your movie hasnt even come out yet, get out of the show. they left out a lot of main disney character to put her in??

after lunch and picking up the glasses and contacts from the eye doctor, we went back home and my brother-in-law announces that he feels like watching a good disney show/movie, which i'm always up for. after going through a lengthy list of disney movies we have, we decide on beauty and the beast (the original vhs from 1991) because he had never seen it before.

sidenote: i never understand these people who have gone through their whole lives without watching some of these disney classics. have you been living under a rock your whole life?? i realize that you may not have been taken to see them as a kid, but theyre on tv all the time. watch them.

other side note: my brother insists that cogsworth is me. everything about him apparently screams me. i'm not sure how i feel about that yet.

anyways, there are a bunch of parts in the movie that you have to wonder about. how did belle get the beast on phillipe? how does gaston eat those eggs with their shells? how does she just wipe the mud off her books all the time (it doesnt work)? but we overlook these things because it is a disney movie and the whole is better than a sum of its parts. except for one thing, which has always annoyed me...

where were the prince's parents in the beginning?? we all know that the rose would bloom until his 21st birthday so we can assume by the end of the movie he's 21(which by the way means i'm older than him :/). but during the be our guest song, lumiere mentions that they'd been enchanted for ten years. that would make the prince eleven when he was turned to a beast. what kind of eleven year old lives alone and looks so old in the stained glass story?? and what kind of enchantress would do that to an eleven year old?? i mean, he's a kid for god's sake, ease up a bit.

i realize that, being a kid's movie, things like this arent supposed to be looked into, but come on disney.

i have this thing where i always find the stuff like this in every book movie or show. the parts that just dont make sense or little things actors do that shouldve been cut. my older sister used to hate it. the fact that i can still enjoy/love whatever it is even with its flaws means i'm awesome. just in case you were wondering.

*Beauty and the Beast - Celine Dion

i just did it for the buzz

i did it.

by it i mean i have finally completed (signed, sealed, and everything) my grad school application.

by it i also mean have gotten my senior design group to contribute to the project. better late than never.

and by it i also mean i have registered for nanowrimo. i really really really think you should too. all of you. if you do, my username is sarah_k. be my writing buddy. throw away all responsibilities and write like crazy for a month to come up with something completely crap or completely genius... it doesnt matter. you wont regret it. and if you do, well, it'll be done and over with already so it wont really matter. and you'll be the epitome if awesomeness in my eyes.

in the welcoming email they send out (join just for the email, very witty these people are), they tell you to:

Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

so this is me telling everyone i know. looking pathetic in front of you will be my motivation for writing... and the reason i may fail my last college semester.

i have a few different ideas in my head for plots... not sure which one i'll use, if any. we'll see what happens when this thing starts... in eleven days.

there is a very good chance that i am completely insane. :/

*I Did It - The Dave Matthews Band

i'd run right into hell and back, i would do anything

google wave is the most impressive use of internet technology yet, and i am dying to use it. sooo if any of you people have an account INVITE ME! i signed up for my invite, but a kid in my class had to wait weeks for his, and i want one now. i'll do anything for an invite. anything at all.

for those that have not yet heard of the awesomeness that is google wave, here's the quick and dirty explanation. it's basically a way to collaborate on something (a document, code, picture, whatever) or communicate (like an improved email) in real time. you can edit stuff other people wrote and rewind and replay the entire wave. you can play games, import your facebook or twitter, search, ask and answer questions, and everything else you can think of. whatever you can do online, you can do in the wave. you never have to go anywhere else.

read/watch more about it here.

google is taking over the world, one computer at a time, and i want in.

*I'd Do Anything For Love - Meat Loaf

i can read beween the lines

what's been on my mind lately:

due to my complete lack of organizational skills and messed up priorities, i think i deleted some of the stuff i had for my grad school application. (arent you completely sick of hearing about that?? me too.) and by deleted i mean forgot to rescue it from the hard drive when i reformatted. so i have to refind and fill out the forms. *sigh*

end of the semester is going to come flying because midterms are officially over (or today might be the last day). after midterms, the rest of the semester always go by in a blur. in a way i'm excited, but there's also a whole lot of stuff i have to finish in that blur.

professors who like group work suck. i hate working in groups. its rare to get a good group, and unless the project can be divided into parts and then reassembled twenty minutes before class, you usually end up screwed.

rachael, a friend of mine, is also graduating this semester. she's hoping to go volunteer in bolivia for four months after the semester ends. i'm jealous. it sounds so cool.

every time we get new neighbors in this neighborhood, they end up being awful. (we used to have really great neighbors before they started moving away one by one.) our next door neighbors are building a new house and i'm hoping that the trend is broken by the time new people move in.

so i registered for book crossing. i haven't "sent anything into the wild" or anything, but when i do i'll let you know. i am also really leaning towards registering for nanowrimo. i'm waiting for the end of the week to sign up though so my sanity has a chance to have a talk with my brain an explain why adding another thing to my list (especially something as time consuming as writing 50,000 in a month) is completely psychotic, especially towards the end of the semester when i'll have a whole bunch of schoolwork to do. i'm waiting on the results of that talk, but i'm guessing i'll be signing up tomorrow.

saturday i'm taking my brothers (and the rest of the family) to see disney on ice. the last time i went to disney on ice was a million years ago when i was that really young age where i still vaguely have memories from, but not very specific ones. you know what i'm talking about? i remember getting a snow cone in a big disney mug.

i've been seeing/talking to people lately that i havent seen/communicated with forever. for example, my neighbor/friend's younger brother/really awesome kid. i saw him the other day (mahoney you are now the only person in your family i havent seen... oh and meshari). and then i also had lunch with a college friend (rachael from up there) that i hadnt seen in a really long time which was fun. it's hard to believe its been two years since we used to take classes together. time is crazy.

orlando bloom in poster form hangs on my wall. it was a birthday present from a few years back. i've had so many people comment on seeing him and making a point to see him when they come to our neighborhood that it's kind of creepy.

normally we leave the house on thursdays at 9:15. today i decided to leave at 10:15 because i'm not meeting up with my group before class. i just realized that parking is going to be impossible to find. thursday, after 10, during midterm week... i'm gonna be driving around in circles a lot.

*Read Between the Lines - KSM

your hair, it's everywhere

so i have this aversion to hair that is not stuck firmly on someone's head. stray strands found in a shower, brush, floor, shirt, wherever make me shudder. and then i saw this: ten bizarre uses for your discarded hair. and i think i'm scarred for life. i have no idea how these people can stand handling all those hairs.

the ten uses are:

1. a hairdresser made a replica of tiananmen square... completely out of himan hair.

2. another hairdresser created a hair mat which helped contain an oil spill.

3. there are dresses and entire fashion lines made out of human hair.

4. a former hairstylist designed a chair out of human hair.

5. people use it as garden mulch.

6. a chinese artist decorated walls with human hair.

7. elvis presley's hair was auctioned.

8. some artists are completely devoted to hair jewelry.

9. there is a hair museum.

10. an australian was arrested for stealing hair from women's luggage for his own collection.

ew. all those people are gross. click on the link up there at the top to see pictures of the grossness. some of it actually looks really cool (the artist's walls) until you remember what it's made of.

*Screaming Infidelities - Dashboard Confessionals

i feel like crap.

i feel worse than crap.

my eyes are puffy from crying.

i'm about to throw up.

i can't stop shaking.

i'm possibly the worst human being on the face of this planet.

i feel like crap.

maybe if i really tried with all of my heart

so ive been thinking for a while that i'd sign up for nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). the idea seemed really cool when i first heard about it a few weeks/couple of months ago, and when i reheard it recently it sounded even cooler. only problem is that i really do have enough stuff to worry about without adding writing a novel to the list (read: enough ways to procrastinate schoolwork). never heard of nanowrimo and too lazy to click that link?? this is what their website says it is:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

so i dunno... wait till next year?? fail a class or two?? register and then just not finish?? i'll let you know. maybe i could do it without messing up school?? i'll just take a break from reading or something.

another thing i thought was cool? book crossing. basically what you do with this is sign up and register a book (one you liked, one you hated, whatever) that you want to share with the world or just get rid of. you leave the book in a public place with a note. someone finds the book, finds out about the site, and enters the book info. they read the book and can then put it in a different place anywhere in the world (usually in the same city you put it unless you left it at an airport). you can track the adventures your book goes on as long as the readers keep going to the website. cool, right?

well, i have an exam to go study for/take. wish me luck!

*Lust for Life - Girls

it's just my luck to end up getting stuck

i want to create something beautiful.

i want my creativity to flow out of every pore of my being.

i want to create masterpieces on canvas but i cant paint my way out of a paper bag. i cant draw to save my life. a camera holds no magic in my hands. i can dance about as well as a rock, and sing even worse than that. the only sounds i can coax out of instruments are that of dying animals.

words are all i have, and words... continue to fail me.

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

come out of your cave walking on your hands, and see the world hanging upside down

it has been raining for the past few days. a lot. the street has a shallow river flowing down it. the other night, i was looking out the window at the cars in the little circles of street lamp light.

me: i like how the cars look like they're floating on water because of their reflection in the wet street.

my mom: *stares out the window for a while* i dont see it. i guess my mind just is more practical.

we all see the world differently. the lens i look through is sometimes clouded, putting a fictional overlay on reality. everything gets narrated in my head into something beautifully written. people in strange clothes are part of another world i wish i could see into. leaves dont fall off of trees, they float down gently to the ground on the back of a playful wind. animals can talk to each other, and fireflies are fairies. cars float on water.

other times, the lens is scrubbed clean. there are no greys anymore, just blacks and whites. at these times, my mind is void of creativity. it registers what it sees; it does not narrate. leaves dont float to the ground, they fall, not even with the intent of reaching the ground. they fall aimlessly off the trees, the ground is just where they usually end up. people in strange clothes are most likely homeless or psychopaths or both. fireflies are just another variety of a creepy crawly bug. something is beautiful, or it is not, and my mind does nothing to help it along one way or the other.

yesterday, i was walking through the mist/rain trying to explain to someone why i thought it was gorgeous. how the mist on your face is refreshing and that the way the world seems to empty of people as they all run for shelter has a melancholic beauty. how the grey sky forms a perfect backdrop to a hundred different stories, and everything is just so peaceful and pretty. he thought i was psychotic and insisted on going inside with everyone else.

*The Cave - Mumford and Sons

i will hold on hope, and i won't let you choke

so today, my family went to the eye doctor... or my family sans me because i was at school getting absolutely nothing school related done. but thats another story. hilariously awkward if i may say so myself which i may or may not tell later.

back to the point: the eye doctor. i love our eye doctor. he is awesomely amazing and the best one i've ever had (i've been in glasses since i was 5... i've had quite a few). so my family goes and my youngest brother, the only one in our family not to have glasses, is now getting glasses. our entire family is now visually impaired. me and my sisters wear contacts, most of the time, but we're all glasses wearing people inside. ali is excited for the glasses and can't wait to get them. i remember when i got glasses (in kindergarten!), i always "forgot" them in my desk at school. in first grade, my teacher tried to convince me to wear them by saying "me and you will be glasses buddies!" yes, because that is what every first grader wants to be at a new school. the only one in the class besides the teacher wearing glasses (which were as big as my face if not bigger).

anyways, here are some of mumford and son's songs that i said i would put for your listening pleasure. like them... or dont. it's up to you.

that's all for now, but i suggest you listen to all of their songs if you like these. they only have a few out.

*The Cave - Mumford and Sons

you have neither reason nor rhyme

so i was planning on writing a post on the absolute best professor in the world and how i would like nothing better than to see her drop dead... and maybe dress nicely/do her hair for once. i had started, with the post title, "i'm gonna hit her in the head, i'm gonna knock her down, i'm gonna drag her by the hair all over town" by the donnas. but half way through i had to delete it. my words made it sound melodramatic, and my hatred for her really isnt. i have never in my twenty one years ever talked back to a teacher. ever. until her. when she pushed me over the edge. but that is a story best left in my head or written in the heat of anger where emotion just drives the words instead of waiting around for my brain to make sure they make sense and look pretty.

instead of doing that yesterday, i downloaded a whole bunch of new music and spent the day listening to that. mumford and sons = amazing and i love them. i'm sure a lot of people wont love them so much, but thats fine. i mean, everyones entitled to their own opinion and allowed to have awful taste in music if they want to. i'm not here to judge... much. i'll embed a couple of their songs later, but i just dont feel like it now.

i just woke up. actually thats a lie i woke up close to forty minutes ago. and when i woke up i had this idea that just really wanted to get into my blog. unfortunately, it got cold feet when joe was starting up, began to shake with nerves as blogger opened, and pulled a disappearing act as soon as the new post button was hit. and now i cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

instead of just not writing anything like a normal person might do, i decided to let you waste your time reading my rambles. fun, right?? but my brothers have homework they need help on downstairs and i have a group to get to later today and there are lunch plans with the family. soo i better go do my stuff and leave you to do yours.

i feel like i should leave with some parting words that you will remember and cherish for the rest of your lives. but having just woken up, i cant think of any. so i'll leave you with the wise words of professor garrison (an awesome mason prof). "don't run in the street naked, you might get sick."

*Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford and Sons

somebody tell me why i'm on my own, if there's a soulmate for everyone

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents,
through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings?

-John Ashbery, "At North Farm"

i fell in love with the first stanza.

*Soulmate - Natasha Bedingfield

make a change

i decided to take a break from talking about myself to get involved in something a bit (or a whole lot) bigger. today's blog post is part of 2009's Blog Action Day. for those of you who don't know what blog action day is, it's basically a bunch of bloggers from all over the world (it was over 7000 last time i checked) all posting about the same thing on the same day. this year's topic is climate change, and since i have tons of time to procrastinate, i figured i'd at least try and save the world or something while doing it. or at least spread the word so someone somewhere can save the world... i'll be in the background blogging about it.

just in case you've been living under a rock for the past few years and have never heard of climate change, here's wikipedia's definition: a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. It can be a change in the average weather or a change in the distribution of weather events around an average (for example, greater or fewer extreme weather events). got it??

we've all started to feel the effects of climate change. you know the feeling that mother nature is suddenly menopausal?? yeah, that's because of global warming. but weather on crack is not the only thing we can look forward to if we dont start to do something. if you like skiing, christmas trees, baseball (bats are made of ash tree which are disappearing), salmon, lobster, or coral... well, your luck sucks cause they're pretty much goners. so are wildflowers, guacamole, almonds, and french fries. if you like mosquitoes, poison ivy, bear attacks, and cannibal polar bears, though, you should go buy yourself a lottery ticket! we'll have loads of them once this global warming really starts to kick in. oceans are turning to acid and diseases thought to have been wiped out are making a comeback.

picture this: winter vacation spent scratching rashes and bug bites as you sit around a fake tree locked in a cabin because of the starving bears surrounded by fake snow... sounds great, right??

if you were crazy enough to answer no, then there's a bunch of stuff you can do to prevent it from happening. there's all the normal things like using those "green" fluorescent lights, takingshorter showers, and using recycled paper. turn your thermostat down two degrees in the winter and up two in the summer. plant a tree and turn off electronics when youre not using them (and no, screen savers dont count). but things like covering your pots while cooking, unplugging electronics when not in use, and using an old-fashioned lawn mower (the push without an engine kind) also help. oh, and harassing congressmen and other more important people than yourself until they do something is always a good idea.

use one of these carbon calculators to find out just how much of the destruction of the world is your fault and how much money you can pay to make up for it. do you really want the death of the koala bears on your hands? do you?

click here to read more effects of global warming that you can use to motivate you to get out your cape (made from all green recycled materials of course) and save the world.

go to www.blogactionday.org to read/learn more.

*Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson

tears of pain, tears of joy

don't force big words. small words can mean big things. can make you feel. love and hate, joy and grief... all small words.

“I don't want to die,” she breathes.
“You won't,” I vow. “I won't let you.”
“I'm scared." Her voice is soft, and she lets her eyes close as if it's too much to try and stop them.
“Don't be. You'll be fine.” I hold strong to my hope, but my voice breaks. Her pale as a ghost face, short breaths, and the pool of blood that grows and stains the ground taunt my words.
Her mouth stays shut, but her eyes find mine. In spite of her words, I find no fear in them. Just the will to resign. A mute plea for me to let her go. And guilt. Leave it to her to take the blame for death. It does not ease my pain. It makes it worse.
“You will not die,” I spit out through clenched teeth. She can not give up. She can not leave me. Not here. Not now. “You can't.”
Her hand moves and I grasp it in both of mine. “It will be all right,” she says, but her words are faint, her breath snags. Her body calls her on her lie.
When did she start to try to put me at ease? I shake my head as tears slip down my cheeks. It won't be all right. Not if she leaves. It can't be all right. Ever.
“I love you.” The words only just make a sound, but they are all I can hear. She says them in a tone that could mean just one thing.
“Don't. Don't you dare say good bye,” I growl. “Don't you dare give up.”
I wait, but she says no more. I keep my gaze fixed on her eyes as I will her to stay with me.
But she doesn't . With a breath the same as all the rest, she fades. The light leaves her eye. The rise and fall of her chest is stilled. But the blood still flows.
“I love you, too,” I say. You can not quite make out the words through the tears in my voice. Tears which blur my sight and block her death from my eyes and brain. “I love you, too,” I sob.
But my oaths fall on deaf ears. She is gone. And I am on my own.

***

so i was discussing words with someone the other day, and they said that in order to get a point across and sound intelligent doing it, you have to use big words. i disagreed. i said that you could say almost anything in one syllables. i wrote that thing up there a year or two ago (you can tell by the writing) and changed it a bit to make it all one syllable words (which turns out to be harder than it seems. try finding one syllable words for stuff like barely and agree :/). so yes, it may not be worded in the exact way i wanted it to be, but i think it does a good enough job to get the point across and doesnt sound too awkward. so i win. small words can be just as powerful as big ones.

*We Are One - The Lion King 2 Soundtrack

all these things that i've done

i feel so productive. here's what i got done today:

did more of the website. put on the buttons. found an open source software for the slideshow (i just have to figure out why its not working lol). made the shell for the extra info on listed houses for sale/rent. centered the real estate page which wouldnt work before. i fixed some of the typos. and i did other stuff too.

i finally finished that grad school application ive been putting off. actually, i still have to get the recommendation letter, but the professor should have it done by the end of the week so let's just call it done. oh, and i need to do a last minute edit on the essay.

i did half of my 441 project. and i could have finished it but i needed something to do between classes tomorrow so that i can pretend to be busy and not talk to someone.

i did part of my 493 presentation. yes, not a big part, but still a part.

im about to cut out letters for ali's poster. he wants them for the title.

okay so it might not be a lot a lot, but if you know me this is beyond amazing. and none of this stuff is due tomorrow. except for the 441 project which was technically due today, but he gave an extension after i missed the deadline so its okay.

*All These Things That I've Done - The Killers

just give me some candy

candy corn... it's absolutely one of the best creations in the history of the world. i love candy corn. and it's fat free! lol. but you know what i dont love about candy corn?? the size if the bag. it's more than twice as big as it needs to be which means they fill it less than halfway. and no, fattiness is not the reason behind this annoyance. but do you know how much plastic they could save by cutting the bags in half?? plastic that could better be employed in making barbies to give people unrealistic expectations about their appearances and life in general. barbies that 19 year old girls who need lives could be buying. and it's not like they need the big bag to advertise on. most of it is just empty space. plus, if they cut out half the bag there will still be space for the candy to move around in. and yes, i do realize the same thing holds true for everything else in a bag so dont bother telling me.

on another candy corn note, we (my sister and i) noticed that this year's candy corn is flatter than usual. noticeably flatter. not just one or two... all of them.

i remember one semester i had this really awesome class taught by two amazing professors. we somehow got into a conversation about how we eat candy corn. one professor ate it the normal way, biting off one color at a time. the other one just popped the whole thing into her mouth at once. *gasp* i know. how do you eat candy corn?

oh, and have you ever realized the different colors have different tastes? the white layer is my favorite. it's the lightest and sugariest. it's also the bottom even though most people think that the yellow is the bottom.

and october 30 is national candy corn day because it is awesome and deserves its own day. you know that if the amount of candy corn americans eat a year were laid end to end it would go around the world four and a half times?! that's a lot of candy... and that's only americans.

on a completely unrelated note that shows that my intelligence goes beyond candy, who thought that obama deserved winning the nobel peace prize?? yeah, me neither. you don't give someone the prize for stuff they say theyre gonna do. sheesh.

*Candy - Paolo Nutini

maybe this is how it's supposed to be

thoughts are beating tattoos on the inside of my head, intent on escaping the confines of my skull. desperate to be screamed till theyre branded against the sky.

unsaid words are fighting their way up my throat while my tongue repeatedly pushes them down. they are clogging my lungs, choking my breath, making it impossible to breathe.

unshed tears break through the dams built to contain them, poisoning the blood coursing through my too tight veins.

sentences race against the backspace button, determined to make their mark on the pixels flying through the world.

i'll die if they do, i'll die if they don't. but jack told his story anyways... maybe i should too.

maybe secrets really are better when theyre shouted from the rooftops. maybe the truth will set me free. maybe cliches exist for a reason.

perhaps ill feel relief if i push away the elephant that enjoys sitting on my chest. perhaps i have forgotten how to live without it there. perhaps i'm not willing to take that risk.

i'll die if i do, i'll die if i don't.

language may hold the key to liberation, but in order to hold anything it must have hands suitable for strangling, and my body bears witness to invisible bruises.

ive dissected the sentences, the words, until all thats left are mismatched letters that make less sense than a penny. but their edges are sharp, and i could never stand the pain of a paper cut.

***

yeah... i dont know. i blame not getting enough sleep for the nonsense that has been filling my head lately. i blame joe's brainwashing for me writing this into google's cloud instead of my documents. i blame you for subjecting yourself to reading this in the first place. i don't know what to blame for the stinky cheese man's reference up there. if you didnt get it, here's a hint:

i havent read the story in a zillion years, so dont know why it was still in my brain taking up space that should have been used for things like javascript coding.

i've also gotten re-into jack johnson. but only when i write.

*Supposed to Be - Jack Johnson

i cannot remember what life was like through photographs...

...so thank god for video. i was looking through my old pictures with ali today, and came across all the old videos i took of my brothers. i cant believe they got so old! here are a couple of them (the first three in the folder). excuse the bad video quality (my camera sucked back then) and the messy backgrounds (so did my cleaning skills).

ali singing the song from his duck duck goose game.

abdullah singing the song from brother bear. i love the facial expressions.

the boys dancing. just in case you dont understand him, aboodi's saying, "ali come on dance!"

last night i noticed ali started saying magazine instead of mazagine, guitar instead of kintar, and construction instead of destruction. it broke my heart a little to have the past fall out of the present so suddenly.

*The Sun - Maroon 5

why do i tire of counting sheep?

i’m tired
of you, and
i’m tired of
Miss Irony;

i’m tired of OCD,
i’m tired of poetry,
i’m tired of counting
and miscounting sheep,

i’m tired of losing my mind
to cosmetic con artists who make
more money than banks,
who make more sense
than a vending machine;
who make their mind up,
down,
not minding their dirty,
shady business.

oh, how i envy those poisoned Disney Princesses

i’m tired of blitzkrieg alarm clocks that snooze louder than me,
and
i’m tired of vinyl pinups (un)dressing up my hypnophobic lids
and
i’m tired of the poltergeist who keeps fucking up cushion clouds
and
i’m tired of my revolving eyelash nightmares opening too soon;

and i’m most certainly tired of the technicolor monsters
living six feet under my bed–
the ones that scream me caffeinated lullabies,
beneath bedlam bedbugs, to scare me awake,
so i can daydream of dormancy
the next morning.

the crows have risen,
and the roosters snore
until i wake up from
midnight reveries to
old Spanish castles.

i’m tired
of sleeping.
i’m tired
of insomnia.
i’m tired
of lethargy.
i’m tired
of tiring.

i’m tired.

*CholoroformBoy

*Fireflies - Owl City

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.

~Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

you varnished all the leaves, didn't know they couldn't breathe

he collects all things beautiful to surround himself with beauty. he doesn't know he's robbing the world of it.

he fishes out coins from fountains to collect people's wishes.

he plucks butterflies out of the air to create rainbows on his wall.

he pulls flowers from the ground to perfume his house.

he captures children's laughter on old cassette tapes to battle the silence.

he doesn't know that the wishes won't come true without the water to nourish them, the butterflies will die without their freedom, the flowers will wither without their roots, the laughter loses its magic confined in the tinny restrictions of a cassette. he doesn't know he's responsible for the destruction of beauty.

***

this dude has been in my head for a while now, desperate to get out. and, no, i'm not schizo. unfortunately for him, my mind has not been able to think up any story to go along with him. he's been waiting, but he's growing impatient - he's beginning to fade. sooo i thought i'd immortalize him here instead of in a story. maybe being out in the world will eventually land him into one. and yes, i do talk about my characters as if they have conscious thoughts. and no, it does not make me crazy. i think.

and the fact that i've designated this day for school work is in no way responsible for my sudden need to start writing him out... yeah, even i dont believe that.

and credit for the title goes to tooly for introducing me to the song.

*Treeology - Shady Bard

why is kiss still having concerts??

when your theme or whatever is "35 years rocking," you know it's time to sit back and retire. i mean, who wants to see a bunch of fifty something year olds dancing around a stage in make-up and spandex?

ha ha ha bless your soul, you really think you're in control?

i hate the feeling that sometimes (or most of the time) i have no control over what happens in my life. i dont mean all the predestined fate stuff... i'm talking about my own decisions. for example, i have this really awesome ten year plan (okay maybe not really awesome, but i mean the fact that it's called a ten year plan is awesome). only problem is that i kind of have no control over it. it all depends on whether or not my family moves back to saudi, on whether or not i get married, on whether or not my husband wants to live here or there. there's more, but see the pattern?? my plan, my life, depends on way to many people and outside forces - none of them me. (i cant see my bookstore being to popular in saudi... at least not the way i see it in my head. nor do i see myself working for seven years in a really high-paying job there first).

another example, my choices for majoring (both undergrad and masters). i originally wanted to do psychology but the embassy people wouldnt approve of it so i switched to IT. i mean, i didnt really mind since i wasnt completely decided, but still. and same thing with my masters. forensics was awesome, but maybe i want to major in something fun and cool like english. the embassy people won't agree. and yes, okay, so i know that i could technically just go without them and pay for my own schooling and not get the monthly money, but thats not very practical. majoring in english or whatever is not very practical either, for that matter.

decisions are taken away by religious, cultural, and familial factors. don't get me wrong. i love my religion. i love my country. i love my family.

sometimes, though, i just really wish i had some control over where i'm going in life.

*Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

you brush your teeth

so im sitting in the shuttle going to the prince william campus. we stop at a red light, and since im looking out the window, my glance falls upon the dude in the truck next to ours. and you know what he was doing?? brushing his teeth! he had the toothpaste on the dashboard and was sitting there brushing. then, he reaches down and grabs a water bottle, rinses out his mouth, and spits into a big gulp cup. i have never seen anyone brushing their teeth in their car, but the person on the other side of the truck glanced at him and looked away, which made it seem like it wasnt that big of a deal - like he sees people brushing their teeth in their cars every day. this is like the whole washing machine in the kitchen (it turns out it was only me that thought it weird. most people saw no problem with it.), but i thought it was weird.

*Brush Your Teeth - Raffi

it's gonna lift you up and let you down

Treat hope as unwanted, yet needed medication, for it often proves false: When given, only receive a small measure, just enough to lift your spirits but not enough to disappoint. This way distress does not come easy ~The Lie

*Hope - Jack Johnson

so i just got out of my exam. if my calculations are correct, i can't get lower than an 85, and probably got a 90. so im happy, not that i was too stressed about it (despite the vibes coming off the previous post. i swear that wasnt stress talking.). the meeting turned out to be 5 minutes since my group didnt show up so it was me and the professor for a few minutes. i asked a couple of questions and left. and the studying? yeah i didnt do much of that.

so what did i do all day besides rant in my blog?? well, i just got that book last night and started reading it even though i said i'd wait for the weekend.

and my brain is still malfunctioning just in case you were wondering. but if i could take an exam without it (it's still insistent on that lame duck thing. i cant get it out of my head) then ive decided i can do pretty much without it for the rest of the semester.

actually, this is the first time i've felt completely on top of everything so far. and all it took was for me to lose my brain. i consider it a fair trade.

i have an exam today. i have not studied. at all. i have not paid attention in class. at all. my brain does not want to function. the phrase "you should never shoot a lame duck in the beak" has been going through my head all day. i have no idea why or how it came up with that, but its there. going over and over and over.

i have four post drafts just from this morning haunting me. paragraphs and paragraphs that end midword or midsentence of stuff that i just cant write let alone publish, but really should because if i dont i will surely explode. and i cant afford to explode because i have a busy day. studying and meetings and taking exams.

none of which i can do because my brain refuses to function.

and no, none of this has anything to do with stress i swear.

GAH!!

you should never shoot a lame duck in the beak.

stupid brain. this is not the time to malfunction.

this anxiety i keep through another f*cking day. my life's so pitiful.

you know the worst part about this semester?? people are starting to pity me. i'm being pitied. and i hatehatehate it. i abhor pity. even the sound of the word makes me angry. pity... yuck. i can handle the stress, ive resigned myself to failing, i can deal with the fact that we've been thrown into a project with absolutely no background skills and no time to learn any (stupid mason for cancelling the security senior design section last semester). i can live with all that. what i cannot live with is people feeling sorry for me. talking about me to other people in hushed tones so i dont hear them (the fact that im not deaf seems to have slipped their notice) as they discuss "my fall." yes, apparently i fell from power i was not aware of having this semester. huh. if appearing like i am not completely on top of everything school related for once warrants your pity, then from now on i will (at least on the outside) be as unstressed and ready for anything as ever. you will not, for the duration of the semester, hear one word of stress or overwhelmingness or bewilderment or anything pass my lips. i will not speak of it out loud. i will not write about it in my blog. i will not let it show on my face. it will stay hidden under the layers of nonchalance i am actually pretty good at conjuring. nervous breakdowns will be confined to my dreams.

i would rather be stabbed to death by a dull pencil than be pitied. it's that bad.

*Pitiful - Sick Puppies

you take this bat and bash my head into the street again

top five reasons i think my professor is on crack:

1) we have our big projects to work on. projects that take up lots of time and are really important. so of course it makes sense for you to give us weekly assignments of stuff that we did last semester, like calling cards and resumes. and then, on top of that, give us other presentations and research projects too. and because thats obviously not enough, please let us plan out your marketing strategy for your book. there is nothing i would love more. except of course random pop quizzes on random facts that pop up in bloomberg, the wall street journal, the economist, barons, the washington post, the new york times, and bbc. oh, and those self-help books from amazon that you keep sending me links to telling me to read the first chapter and then buy them?? i ran straight out and bought each and every one of them. i look forward to reading them in all the free time i have. unless of course i'm working out which is another one of your weekly assignments for us.

2) no, cyborgs will not be walking the earth in your lifetime - and not just because your lifetime is looking pretty short if you dont calm the hell down with the crap you give us to do. it will not happen so stop telling me it will with that stupid smug look on your face like you are all-knowing and sharing some of your knowledge with us little people. and that alien abduction?? yeah, that didnt happen either.

3) we will also not be making designer babies in the next ten years. i watched gattaca too. but it was just a movie. as in, not real. as in, you will not be able to help choose out your grandkid's personality traits from a catalog. the fact that you think you will scares me.

4) "fine" is a perfectly normal reply to the question "how are you all doing?" it does not warrant a freaking attack of the giggles. and when we elaborate (after you ask us to) with "we're working on our projects," that does not give you any reason to break into a full fit of laughter. it is not funny... unless you are a) drunk or b) high. you should not need to collapse into a chair and gasp for breath after that very common answer. i dont care if it does "fill your heart with joy to hear it."

5) maybe in your world where everything is sunshine and butterflies, a college graduate can demand over 70k from their first job, but this is the real world, and that does not happen. we also cannot demand to work four-hour work weeks. working from home from the start is also not an option. i do not appreciate the looks of sadness that come over you when i tell you this. you cannot force me to "not sell myself short" nor can you convert me to whatever crap you believe in. maybe i want to be "a slave to my career." frankly, it's none of your business.

*Overweight - Blue October

i'm growing weary of the point you've been trying to make

i hate it when people, in their about me's, say stuff like 'i hate fake people' and 'i hate two-faced people.' umm... seriously?? do you really hate them?? cause for the rest of us, who werent smart enough to put that in our profiles, those are our favorite kinds of people. given the choice between a two-faced fake person and someone else, we'd obviously choose the fake person. theres no one better to be friends with, no one better to hang out with. a knife in our backs is our favorite present and worrying if our friends are really our friends is our favorite pastime. you should probably also mention in your activities that you do things like breathe and pump blood through your body. we need to know things like this that set you apart from the rest of us.

i do like reading interesting about me's though.

on another note, i was saving a movie i made for class on my flash drive and it was taking forever and half way through saving i pulled out the flash drive. i dont know why. now, i have to resave it. and it's taking forever. again. grr.

on another another note, i want to set up our kiln and buy clay and get back into ceramics.

*Come Right Out and Say It - Relient K

i'm stuck inside this rut that i fell into by mistake

do you know how many blog posts i have started and deleted today?? well, i didnt exactly keep count, but there have been a lot. there are things i want to say, but my thoughts have been choppy and my words wont flow. it's obnoxious to say the least.

soooo because i really should post something today, since ive been struggling for a while, here's a quiz i saw on another blog and thought id do. all the answers are the songs of a band.

Pick your Artist:
Relient K

Are you a female:
Plead the Fifth

Describe yourself:
More than Useless

How do you feel:
Apathetic Way to Be

Describe where you currently live:
The Scene and Herd

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Balloon Ride

Your favorite form of transportation:
Jefferson Aeroplane

Your best friend is:
Nancy Drew

You and your best friend are:
College Kids

What's the weather like:
High of 75

Favourite time of day:
Breakfast at Timpani's

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry

What is life to you:
Forward Motion

Your relationship:
Gibberish

Your fear:
Deathbed

What is the best advice you have to give:
Maintain Consciousness

How I would like to die:
Faking My Own Suicide

My soul's present condition:
Down in Flames

My Motto:
The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse is Betting On One

*Be My Escape - Relient K

it makes me smile

things that have recently made me smile:

>>i got a new follower (Dreaming) that doesnt know me who comments which makes me happy. and now i have a double digit following which i wanted before... even though i stopped caring bout the numbers.

>>i am soon to be the proud owner (again) of:

i used to have two, but they have both either been donated or are hidden deep in the garage and i cant find them. so i bought a new one.

>>my brothers can use big words right.

>>there are only eleven weeks left and the semester will be over, for better or worse.

>>i am exactly halfway done with a project that has taken forever. this has given me incentive to actually work on it.

>>i may not be dying from stress. actually, i think i'm just in denial, but it amounts to the same thing. kinda.

>>i am starting (albeit slowly) the refilling of my itunes. i now have enough songs that i have to scroll. yay.

*Smile - Lily Allen

they said, "i bet they'll never make it."

remember that stress thing i mentioned before?? okay well i have decided that i absolutely hate it and cant believe some of you people have been experiencing this your whole lives. two weeks and i think it might kill me. it is messing with my sleep now. grr.

so last night after not being able to sleep without dreaming that i missed my stupid senior design class and my group presented absolutely nothing because i had everything with me and so we failed both the class and lucinda, i suddenly remembered something my art teacher once said to me senior year.

it wasnt just to me, it was more to a group of us. we were sitting in art doing something artistic, or reading the story, or a combination of both. and then (i'm sure we were talking to her about school or something, or she was listening to what we were saying to each other) she says, "you guys might feel smart and do well in school, but i'm sure all of you are going to fail out of college... if you dont change how you are. procrastinating and cramming might be enough to pull As in ISA, but there is no way it will work at real universities." we of course argued with her, and the whole thing ended up with her giving us her email so that when we failed after one semester we could email her and she could say 'i told you so.'

yup, she gave the best pep talks.

anyways, one of the people she told this too has already graduated... a year early. so it obviously wasnt prophetic for her. another one moved across the world and i dont really know much (read:anything) about what she's doing, but im sure she's fine, making mrs. art wrong again. the third is going to graduate this year and be an awesome doctor and she's also working which makes the lady, once again, incorrect.

and then there's me. who's basically sailed through college like everything else without worrying or stressing or pulling a single all nighter or anything, because that was not how i did stuff. and up until now, it seemed to work. now, in my final semester, i have mrs. art's voice ringing through my head, and i have a really big feeling that i'm going to be the one she'll be right about. and i dont like the feeling. not at all. i should probably start looking for her email address. *sigh*

*You're Still the One - Shania Twain

sit me down, shut me up

i cannot for the life of me focus on my homework. this is the case study one i refused to do before. i figured i'd get that out of the way now, work on the website sunday, study for my midterm monday, and, well... thats as far as my planning went. it might be because i'm three quarters of the way done, but my brain refuses to focus. and this is the song that is my distraction:

actually, you should really watch the music video.

oh, and Someone Else, i know this is an old song. i still love it. i lovelovelove the drummer. and the lead singer is awesome, but he's najwan's.

*You Only Live Once - The Strokes

all the things that i used to say, all the words that got in the way, all the things that i used to know, have gone out the window

i hate how i simply cant follow through on anything i say (to myself, not to other people). for example, following a recent almost nervous breakdown caused by a stupid professor and stupider group, i said i would concentrate all my free time on actually doing work. yup, i was going to not procrastinate. the planets were going to align and pigs were going to fly, and i was going to do it. i was going to not read anymore fun books (except on thanksgiving break) and instead concentrate on all of the school related reading ive been putting off. i was going to stop writing all the random stuff i write and instead write stuff i should be writing for school. i was going to wake up early on fridays to make the day productive. i was going to avoid blogger because i become unaccountable for time the second i log in. i was going to finish this semester completely unstressed because i would be on top of everything.

instead, i bought a new book the other day that just got shipped yesterday and should be here in five to seven days according to the website. i'll read it the second i get it. i bought a whole new notebook for writing random stuff in, ostensibly so that i wont waste my note taking notebook and ill have room for notes, but we all know it was just so that notes wouldnt get in the way of writing. today is friday, i turned off my alarm and slept until nine thirty. i havent looked at work yet and it's almost ten thirty. i'm obviously back on blogger. i can feel the stress (a foreign feeling before this semester, let me tell you) bubbling up inside of me while i try to push it down and adamantly ignore it.

i'll get around to everything eventually.... right??

*Out the Window - Sugar Ray