Charyeot.

Today was my first day learning Tae Kwon Do.
It is a Korean martial art.
Which I did not know until today.
I learned a lot of things today, actually.
About 60% of them, I cannot quite remember.
However, I do remember the 10 Step (1?) we learned.
I shall practice it and get the movements easier.


Going to Grandma's house tonight for supper.
Working of my list until then.
Tomorrow is gerbil day!

Yes.

It's been a good day.

OH AND DID I TELL YOU I'M GETTING A GERBIL ON SATURDAY????

La Valse d'Amelie

Shnow is melting!
Yes, 'shnow.'
It's sad to see it go... Really. I miss it.
Even though most of the snow is already gone, they'll have a 2 hour delay at CCCC tomorrow. Which I find kind of funny. But it won't affect me, since my first class doesn't start 'til 11am.

I've been using time that I should be using for sleep, watching Amelie from Montmartre. I'm nearly halfway done with it. I have to keep pausing it when I talk to people (Skype) because the movie is in French and there are English subtitles that I have to pay close attention to..
A quote I just heard that I found thought-provoking is:

"We pass the time of day to forget how time passes."


I really ought to be sleeping...
7am wake time for me tomorrow.

Bah.

Oh yeah. CCCC is closed tomorrow, too.

White Is in the Winter Day

Today was a nice day.
What am I talking about?
It snowed! It was a Great day!
We actually got about 7 inches of snow.
Definitely something not seen often around here.

Gate to the blanketed forest.

Tree branches can be magical, too.

Beauty.

Anybody home?

Icicles!

Magic fills the cold, crisp air.

It is snowing! I see it!
It is... small. Slightly anti-climatic.
For now.
I'm sure we will have more, and it will fall heavier in the next few hours.


I painted a picture. I also drew a picture.
Painted me. A sort of.. self potrait, I suppose?
And drew a mouse. Any mouse. Probably a grey mouse.
It took one hour to paint the picture.
Nearly two hours to draw the mouse.
And now it's quite late.
But it's snowing!

Rue des Cascades

Tonight is bound to be a fairly eventful night.
It is going to snow!

Now, it is not often we get snow where I live.
In fact, if we get snow at all, it is usually only a few short flurries, hardly enough to give the ground a tint of white color.

But tonight, after midnight, it is going to snow well into tomorrow. The weather report calls for 2-4 inches. More or less in certain areas. I live right in the middle of where the snow is expected to fall most.

Tomorrow, CCCC will be closed. I will be home all day. "Snowed in."
Yes, 2-4 inches is a big deal here. Everything is closed. Everyone stays home.
I am looking forward to it.
I plan to take a camera out into the woods while my siblings sled down our hill behind the house.
I want to capture the magic of winter.
The mystical aura of first snow.

But tonight, as I await the arrival of the white magic, I will use last night's inspiration in a few potential paintings. Maybe drawings.
I'm not too sure yet.
But it will be beautiful. If not to me, to somebody else.

I have not listened to any music since this morning when I woke to Rue des Cascades by Yann Tiersen, but I have had a song by Yann in my head all day. J'y Suis Jamais Allé is the name of the song. Absolutely beautiful.

NAH-BLAH

I did not like today.
Well, most of it.
It had one good part.
I talked about gerbils with my parents. They don't seem to be completely dismissing the idea with a "no."
In fact, they asked questions...
So maybe I have a chance with getting one.

I did not like the rest of today because, #1, Troy did not show up. I learned later today the he forgot to set his alarm clock last night and didn't wake up until 11:30am.
#2, We ate at Moe's after church. I'm beginning to not like that restaurant very much.
#3, We went straight home; no crickets.
#4, We watched television with and after supper (something I strongly dislike doing).
#5, Tomorrow is going to be used as a "school day" instead of a holiday. Which means I can make no plans of my own.

And I do not like tomorrow at all. Not at all.
I am planning to go to sleep early tonight (something I ended up not accomplishing last night...) so I can wake at a reasonable time tomorrow without being tired.

Bah.
I am not looking forward to this week.
Not at all.

D:

I want a mouse again.
I am really missing Pocket Mouse.




Officially saved money: $100.

$4 worth of dollar stars.
$7 in my wallet.

*yawns*

My cleaning day may have to permanently move to Saturdays.
Though I do think I'll try to at least start on Thursdays and get a good amount done before the weekend.
I believe I have made $32 today.

I did hardly anything besides cleaning, really..
I made a list. Marked everything off.

I want to take a shower...
I should probably do that and reply to that message before supper. Then, after supper, I'll be free to watch some Monk and go to sleep early.
Sound like a plan?

Uhm...

DORMIR BIT MY NOSE.

>.>

I drank Daly's tea.


Accidentally. I set my tea down and since we have the same kind of cup (they look exactly the same), I didn't realize it was his until I drank it and tasted that it was not my tea.
He had Zen tea.
I had Green Tea Kombucha.
They definitely taste differently.

I don't think he drank his tea after I did.
But I didn't expect him to.

I still burst out laughing or at least smile fairly largely when I think of it.

Best friends.

Something has been officially established this evening.
Daly and I,
we are best friends.

And he has spent the past hour or two giving me pretty much his life story (it started with me asking about his first car, which he had a collision with from running a red light after getting about two hours of sleep the night before).
He's still telling the story, actually.
But we're getting closer to the present.

I do believe this is the first time I've officially had a best friend (or a person I could consider a best friend, really) since the 2nd grade.
With changing schools as much as I did, it was hard for me to know and keep in touch with the same people for more than two years.


I made two bracelets today. For Ryan and Leesha. Even made spiffy little tags that explain quite clearly that they are not only tags, but what the bracelets are (Anti-Water Pipe Fairy bracelets, actually..)
I also made Daly a new one.
His old one is getting a bit... old.
I'm honestly surprised it's lasted this long, since I didn't really spend much time on it in the first place(which I feel a bit bad for, but it was back when I first met him and I randomly made a bracelet and gave it to him since I was walking with him at the time). But it has lasted about five months...

A bit of a disguise.

I went to school today.
Just like any other day.
When I got there, I looked for Daly in the Fitness Building.
Didn't see him.
In fact, the only person in sight was someone with their back leaning against the wall next to the elevator, head down, with a hood hanging over their face, concealing their countenance.
It was an orange sweatshirt-ish type hoodie/jacket. The person wore blue jeans and comfortable looking green shoes.
I walked past him.
Slowly.
Looked down at the shoes.
They looked somewhat familiar..
Then I remembered Daly's text from earlier this morning.
"I feel like a different person today."

As I rounded the corner out of his sight (peripheral vision, rather), I whipped out my cell phone and texted Daly with "Different person, huh?"
Then I walked quickly around to another corner where I could see the person in the orange hoodie clearly.
Sure enough, he got out a cell phone from his pocket and in mid-text, looked up and saw me.
"Thought so." I said to him and smiled.

"What is another Value?"

First day of Human Values and Meaning was today.
It was... actually... boring.
But hey, it was the first day.
I'll certainly give it another chance.
A girl spotted my hamster before class began. She remarked how it was neat or cool or something. She seems like a nice girl.
We got out of class early, and my Dad came early, so it worked out okay.

Tomorrow is Grandma's birthday. She'll be 76 years old. It's amazing. She doesn't look that old at all.

Bother.

You'll never believe what happened today.
I was kicked out of the Student Center at CCCC.
For having a hamster (the lady probably thought it was a mouse, though).

The story:
Daly, Amy, and I were sitting at a table in the Student Center. Daly and I were having tea. Amy was "reading" her Literature homework and eating a cereal bar.
After a little while, I noticed a lady at a table across me, staring at me.
I looked up, felt uncomfortable, looked away.
And repeated the process once or twice.
I told Daly, eventually.
Amy agreed that the lady was clearly staring at me.
(This lady, she had shoulder length, straight, gray hair. She looked older. And she looked quite disgruntled.)
Well, it wasn't long after Amy, Daly, and I were discussing that, that the lady got up and walked over to me.
She said, "You cannot have that in a restaurant."
I said, "Okay."
"You're going to have to leave."
"Okay."
So we packed up our bookbags and tea and walked semi-quickly out the back door.
Let me say a few things, first, though.
The Student Center is technically not a restaurant. A Subway just opened in there, yes, but the chairs and tables that surround the area are not only for the occasional snack or meal, but for studying and socializing at.
Also, I have talked to the security guards in there. The New Zealand security guard asked about Dormir while we were in there just the other day and I told her that I had him in my sleeve.
She had no problem with him. If there was a rule that I was breaking, she would be the first to tell me.
Amy, Daly, and I ended up walking around for the next 20 minutes or so. In the freezing cold. Matthew saw us and joined us (WHY IS HE EVERYWHERE).
At one point, Rocky, the other security guard, drove over to us on his golf cart and said to me, "Don't bring your friends in the cafeteria, please."
"Oh, you heard about that, huh?"
"Yeah,"
"Who was that, anyway?" I had never seen her before.
"That's Janet. She works in the mailroom. She's worked here for quite a few years."
"Ah..."
After a few more words, he drove away.
Daly said, "I can't believe she complained to a security guard..."

When I got home, later, I took one rock out of the basket.


So I have decided there are three people I avoid.
Scott.
Matthew.
That lady.

But hey. That's only three.
I'm sure there are a lot of people with more than three on their "Avoid" list.

Sunday....

I made a video with my brother today.
About last week's Sunday.

Very sad.

Lady Dragon.
She died today.
In her sleep.
I half expected it. She's not been eating lately. Been sleeping excessively. Not really moving about very much.
And I have to say, I am very sad to see her go.
I think she missed Dragon. She's not acted herself since Dragon died about two months ago.

Here they are, the Dragon pair.
The closer one is Lady Dragon. She's got her arm around Dragon (not sure if that was intentional or accidental).
Perhaps that's what they look like now in dragon heaven.
Together.
Forever.

Huh?

I saw Mrs. Miller and two of her kids at Lowes Foods today. She asked about Daly and if he and I were "an item" or just friends.
I said "just friends."
I do believe he is my best friend, though.

I think that's the first time I've heard an adult use the term "an item."

First Day!

Ah, the first day of the semester...
It's actually one of my favorite days. New classes, new people, new teachers (good if you didn't like your teachers last semester, bad if you did (I guess it was bad for me, then, because I'm going to miss Mr. Stumpf.))
I've always liked the whole "new" part. I switched schools so many times in the past, I got to meet new people all over again every two years or so. It was nice.

Of course, knowing a few people in your new classes is nice, too.
Amy was in two of my classes today. Jason was in one. (a few random other people that I recognized were in them too, but no one that I actually knew)
First days are almost always the same. The teacher goes through the syllabus. There are introductions (sometimes). You may or may not get homework.
In Literature-Based Research, I learned my teacher, Larry Hamilton, is quite a character. I notice that he can be easily misunderstood. He is funny (some people think he "tries too hard") and intelligent. He also likes the Wizard of Oz character (says it's his favorite character of all time, and that if he could have, he would've loved to play the part of the Wizard).
He likes names (though he said nothing of mine (he quoted Shakespeare's "What's in a name?")) And he also gave us homework on the first day... Assignment: Read pages 1-54 in the textbook. (By the way, the Literature textbook is the thickest book in the picture. 2004 pages long) I sat in the back of the classroom with Amy. On the other side of me was a girl named Jordan.... I am NEVER sitting next to her again. She was smoking marijuana during class! She was using occasional profanity (something I don't particularly right (I'll post a blog someday explaining my reasons, probably)) and when she talked, she talked LOUDLY. She was very annoying. Like I said, NEVER sitting next to (or even NEAR) her again. EVER.
In Spanish II, I already knew my teacher. She's a nice lady (some people can't understand her, because of her Spanish accent, though). Her name is Begoña Buxens. Because about half of the people in the classroom were in her class last semester, she didn't really do formal introductions. She called the ones she knew by name and had us each take turns reading paragraphs of the syllabus. The only homework she assigned was to go over the present tense verbs from last semester.
Daly's classes (I wasn't in any of his today) apparently went fairly well. Nothing too terribly bad happened.
I won't know how Human Values and Meaning will be until Tuesday. I'm hoping it will be my easiest class, since I have a feeling Literature and Spanish are going to be a bit challenging...