Once you've met someone you never really forget them

Alas, my winter break has finally come to an end. It was short, bittersweet, and reminiscent of my vacation last year in which my family drove twenty-two hours straight into Florida. For some reason I'm stuck in this pessimistic mindset of thinking that "it was better last year." Even though come Christmas time I always wind up doing the same thing. This break like most went by way too fast. It's the same awful feeling you get after you finish a really good book. At first there's that feeling of accomplishment, but then you realize that the book's over and you're not sure what to do with your life. For those who repel any form of reading, I suppose you could equate the feeling to finishing a movie, or tv series... You catch my drift. Though I was presented with a vast array of opportunities, I decided to take the route of doing as little as humanly possible.

Going to New York with my father was probably the most climactic thing to have happened. I basically spent too much money and got hit on by the creepy subway dwellers. You know, the usual. While walking in Soho these two women passed me and quite loudly made the remark of "What exactly is she wearing?" Perhaps if I had been in Idaho I would have taken some offense, but for someone to question another's clothing choice in New York City? That's a compliment.

Sometime after returning from the city... I came down with a terrible cold. Instead of lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself (my favorite pastime), I went to the Gym. Haha. You Leah, are Hilarious with a capital H. No seriously, my mother signed my entire family up for a Gym membership and I being the wonderful daughter I am agreed to go with her. I'm not trying to sell myself as some intense body-builder. I just go for the Pilates classes. It's not too painful of an experience... After all I am the youngest member in the room by about forty years. If that's not a motivator, I don't know what is. Other than that, I actually have been lying in my bed and drowning in my own misery. I lied earlier, but on top of that I went on a bit of a Hayao Miyazaki binge and watched Spirited Away for what seems like the hundredth time. I strongly advise that if you have any time before school starts to watch this movie and in the holiday spirit I'll even provide you with the links.

D U B B E D
S U B B E D

Dead Hearts

I keep forgetting that I don't live on a sprawling estate of 100+ acres and that I'm not entitled to have the woods as my private photo studio. Today, a group of elderly women stopped and asked my mother (who was sitting in her car on the outskirts of the forest) what I was doing. Their conversation went down like this:

"Oh my, isn't that young girl freezing? Do you know what's going on? Is this going to be in a movie?"
Not exactly. She's just taking pictures.
"Really? Of what?"
Herself.
"Oh... I see. Is it for a class?"
No. Just for her.
"That's very interesting. I think you should tell her to put on a sweater."
I'll be sure to do that.

End scene.

And now you know where I get my enviable social skills. While I'm flattered that the women thought that I was some kind of local movie star... I have to bare in mind that they were at least seventy years old and with my luck they probably thought that I was shooting a scene from "The Blair Witch Project." There were presumably a lot of awkward pauses and uncomfortable glances shared between both parties so it was probably fortunate that I wasn't there. Oh the life of an artist. So tortured. So misunderstood.

Over the course of the year, I've accumulated a lot of runs in my tights. Virtually ever single pair of stockings I own contain at least one hole. I've been dubbed the Asian Taylor Momsen of Pennsylvania and we're not talking Cindy Lou Who.

The past two days I've been lying in my bed doing absolutely nothing. I try to get up and leave, but my bed's all like ""No one's ever gonna love you more than I do. STAY WITH ME, I'LL PROVIDE YOU WITH WARMTH AND COMFORT" and so I'm compelled to climb back in. It's a vicious cycle. Though this time I had an excuse. After school on Monday the doctor diagnosed me with having a kidney stone. Instead of doing anything productive, i.e start my English essay... I made my Christmas list.

1. Starry Night Knee-Socks
2. Heavy Rain
3. Instax-Mini
4. Dreamy Focus Lens
5. Peter Pan Collar Necklace
6. Bambi Sweater
7. Studded Heart Bag
8. Bunny Ring
9. Double Bird Ring
10. PS3
11. Missed Connections

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Golden Baby

I'm going to save you all the arbitrary details and cut right to the chase. In short, my life has been taken over by the monstrosity known as every high schooler's worst nightmare, the SAT. Normally I'm not one to stress over tests because school has shown me that "winging it" is not only an art form, but a way of life. Unfortunately though, as I need a 2100 to get accepted into essentially any college I'd want to apply to... I'm going to have to reacquaint myself with the two subjects that I've grown to hate. Meet Algebra and Grammar. So for the next month I'll be taking up permanent residency at my local library and eating nothing but nutrigrain bars and green tea. The only good that's come out of this pre-college anxiety is that I think I finally know what I want to do with my life. I'm planning on majoring in Public Relations and taking up either Journalism or Marketing as my minor.

If we were playing word association games just by looking at these pictures, the two words that come to mind would be 1. gypsy 2. skank. That's completely okay. I take your comments in stride. The skirt was only seven dollars at goodwill. When presented with a price that contains only one value place, I'm sold. Apart from my goodwill hauls, my wallet's been taking quite a beating. I finally convinced my parents to take the perilous trek up to the mall, so I could do my last minute Christmas shopping. I believe that after today Mariah Carey's voice has been permanently embedded into my brain from having listened to "All I want for Christmas" for what seems to be the 100th time today... Other than that, the mall wasn't too unbearable.

Let's Dance to Joy Division

This week has contained nothing but copious amounts of stress. It's now November, which means it's the end of the first marking period. The end of the first marking period translates to only one thing for me and that's "holy shit". Various forms of the f bomb occasionally get thrown in the mixture depending on how creative I'm feeling that day. I take on the appearance and mannerisms of Gollum. If you were to ever pass me in the halls, you'd see a little angry sleep deprived Asian girl mumbling foul words under her breath. See stress this is what you do to me...

In other exciting events in my life, I contracted an eye infection. Meaning I couldn't wear my contacts all week. And because I wouldn't dream of wearing my glasses in public and would rather fumble haplessly around the school... That's exactly what I did. This proved to be a win-lose situation.

Win: I had a viable excuse for ignoring people in the hallway. If I can't differentiate between the faces of my friends and my eighty year old history teacher, then how am I supposed to acknowledge you in the halls?

Lose: I was accused of being either a. drunk, or b. just plain stupid. If on the odd chance someone would in fact try to talk to me. I would have to get extremely and uncomfortably close to their face, just so I could identify whom I was speaking with.

Lose: The process of copying board notes was next to impossible.

Lose: My lack of vision combined with my non-existent coordination = frequent and embarrassing collisions in the stairwell.

Also last week was my schools annual ~Pep Rally~. Cue the confetti and school spirit. I have really nothing to say about that other than it was really loud and awful. One of the kids in my class brought heavy duty sound blocking (I'm a construction worker) type headphones and his Nintendo DS. Honestly I think he had the right idea.

I leave you with a hipper than hip downloadable playlist.