Finally

I finally got back to posting. I've been writing down my journal entries on my laptop and since my wireless is broken and my brother is mostly on the desktop, this is the first time that I've been able to post.

December 21

Woke up ten minutes before ten this morning and my mom told me that the power was out. I couldn't tell the difference; I went back to sleep. Got up half an hour later, ate breakfast, and made a mad dash to get dressed before church. Didn't understand much once I got there--I had ended up going to Latin Mass. Dern.

Anyway, after mass, my mom cut up the last two oranges we had in the house and I must have forgotten how good oranges tasted since I devoured most of them.

Then my mom and I went to the mall. Even though I usually dislike the mall, I went because my mom said that she needed a stress reliever and she liked company so...I came. We ran into an old friend of my dad's and my mom ended up talking to them for, like, forever while I stood against the wall trying to blend in with the beige color of paint. Of course, I did my usual head nod and agreeable smile whenever someone looked my way...

Then we went to JC Penney where my mom deliberated for half an hour before she decided that the two shirts she picked out weren't worth it. I tried on shoes while she was doing this, but they were too big for me (as usual).

Finally, my mom blew a bunch of money buying me a hair straightener just because she was always annoyed with how my hair looked. It was nice meeting the Israeli girl who sold it to us though.

We came home soon and my dad treated us to lunch...dinner...something like that...at P.F. Chang's. It was the first time my family had eaten there but it came highly recommended. Our waiter was Tony. Basically, he was pretty friendly, stopping by our table every five minutes or so with a "Let me know if you need anything". I was just amazed at how he could balance all of those plates of food! Incroyable. Meal's end, we cracked fortune cookies. My dad ate half his fortune cookie before he pulled out the little slip of paper.

"Treasure what you have" it said.
"That's so true," my dad stated. My brother chimed in then.
"Dad, you should treasure your fortune cookie. That's what you have."
My dad either didn't hear him or didn't heed him for he ate the rest of the fortune cookie anyway.

At long last, we came home and had a family meeting (the majority of which I spent repainting my nails instead of joining in the proceedings). Then I looked up "stuff "on Google Images, listened to Mariah Carey Christmas songs, and wrote this blog post. The end.

There is no dream

Today, I was walking across the library bridge after my exam. The rain was falling in little thumps on my hat.

I'm just fooling myself, I thought. There is no dream.

I had looked in the mirror this morning. It had probably been a week since I've seen myself like this. It was only a glance, but it was almost enough to make me cry. I almost did, too. Twice.

So I thought about that when I was on the library bridge. The sky was a steely grey. I could see my breath, too, coming out in small, translucent puffs. I looked out across the water, at the little drops plinking on the surface of the waves. I looked out at the vast grey expanse of my life and the vast grey expanse of my future. Who was I kidding? There was nothing for me out there. There was no person for me out there. There was no one waiting....there was no one waiting. I tried to remember that I was supposed to think positively. That's a laugh, I thought bitterly. Positive thinking isn't going to help me now. I have no prospects. I have nothing to offer anyone. What can I do that someone else can't do better? I had nothing going for me.

And there was nothing left, too. Nothing left.

God is in the rain.

That's what some people say--God is in the rain. Well, is God listening now? Because all I wanted was to die.

I could imagine it, too--imagine God's arms around me, crying over my sorrow, and trying to comfort me for my loss. "I'm sorry," He says. "I'm sorry" over and over again. Well, that's a real nice gesture, God.

I guess that's why it's raining.

God is in the rain.

So I am supposed to be studying for my exams, but it is getting late so I thought I would post this instead before I go back to sleep.

So far this past week, I have:

1) Tripped up the stairs (again) and almost fell flat on my face.
2) Butchered a gift-giving mission.
3) Not paid attention to where I was going, turned around, and ran into a column. Hah!

On the plus side, my mom has just bought me two coats recently. They are both the same color although one is a knee-length coat from Guess and one is a waist-length coat from JLo. I also liked this black coat that had a trimmed waist which flared into a skirt at the bottom, but the buttons fell off so I put it back. That brand was Jessica Simpson, surprisingly. (I wonder what that says about her.)

Johnathon was just in my room recently fawning over my coats (0.0;;;), but he liked them, too. He made me try on the JLo coat just to see what it looked like. Talk about mothering me.

Anyway, that was supposed to be my Christmas present this year. My dad offered to get me a Christmas present, too (for the first time in Lord knows how long), but I politely declined. At best, he could reimburse me for the time I went and splurged on all of those novels I bought at the children's book sale. Tee-hee.

Other updates:

My writing: I've pretty much stopped writing poetry, but I do want to start writing this story called The Adventures of Paper Bag Mindy. (I think I'll change the name later.)

My reading: Haven't done any reading for fun aside from some manga and a storybook. Too busy trying to catch up on the reading I should have done a long time ago. Exam review takes up a lot of time too. I do have loads of novels and books I want to read once I am done with exams though. I am trying to regain my speed reading ability during winter break, too.

My grades: Dont' know yet. I should still have a 3.0 at the end of the semester though.

As for everything else, I'll update you on it as it comes up. Ciao, mes amis.

So what happened today?

So what happened today? I was asked to write a new blog post so...here I am. Actually, I feel kind of guilty for being here since Jaclyn came to visit and I am alone in my room writing this instead of spending time having fun with her. Yeah, I'm a bad friend.

And there's all these screams and cheers emitting from the stadium or somewhere on campus that would have been really annoying if I did not know how to tune things into background noise.

Oooh, I hope Jaclyn gets her paper done on time. She has a two-page paper to write today and it's due at midnight. Right now, it's 10:34 p.m. I don't know how long it takes her to write a paper but if it were me, I would be freaking out right about now.

Anyway, this is what happened today.

I made myself get up at nine. I could have slept later since I only had one 10:10 a.m. class today but it was my last day of class this semester so I just made myself go. Luckily I checked my email before heading out since I saw a reminder that I was supposed to go to a children's book sale that morning. Unfortunately, there were so many good books that I spent over half an hour browsing through them and was ten minutes late for class. I thought about leaving class as soon as lecture was done, but out of respect for my teacher, I stayed the whole time. Once class really was done, I rushed to Hendrix, withdrew some money, and splurged it on all these books. I was feeling pretty good until I realized that I seriously needed to get a job if I was going to keep spending money like this.

After I lugged the box of books back to the dorm, I had a bad incident with laundry that I will not detail here. Then I remembered that I had to go to a safezone workshop today so I called Johnathon and asked where it was.

Safezone ended around four o'clock and I think I was too hyped up on sugar by the time it was done (two packets of cookies and a can of soda will do that to ya).

By the time I finished the workshop and held the rainbow sticker in my hand, I was practically shaking with joy. "This is the proudest moment of my life."

"It is?" asked Johnathon.

"Well...compared to other moments, yeah."

Johnathon and I made a lot of new friends too--Margot, who is going to join CGSA next semester, Casey, a girl who lives on our floor in McCabe, and a few others.

Then Johnathon and I spent two hours watching Spirited Away and stuffing our face with fattening, salty, artery-clogging, heart attack-inducing popcorn. Finally, we went to eat dinner at Griffin's with the following people:

Craig, Khoa, Qiu, Qiu's roommate Jennifer (who happened to go to J. L. Mann High School with Jaclyn), Jaclyn, Johnathon, Tyler, Melissa, and me.

I swear, our waitress must have been psychic or something. She knew things about us without being told. Or maybe she was just perceptive.

And then we blew half an hour at Moe Joe's cracking jokes and occasionally chatting with the new blonde barista and now here we are back at square one. Whew. That was...a boring account of the day.