Florida!

I'm really bad at keeping this blog aren't I?
Well robotics season just finished for me, we lost pretty badly on that one... Theatre season finished too, with one awesome last show! And I just got back from my latest choral competition in Orlando! Grand Champion! Yeah, we brought home 6 trophies! 3 first place, 2 soloists, and 1 GRAND CHAMPION! Epic way to finish out my high school singing career!
Not to mention how much of a roller coaster addict I've become! We spent 13 hours in Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure! I rode every coaster within the first like 4 hours and then went back for more! Note: Riding a floorless roller coaster 5 times back to back will result in waking up the next morning with a ton of pain.
Yes I was crazy enough to ride Dragon Challenge 5 times within about an hour and a half... Rockit was better, but there was a line... and I probably wouldn't have been able to survive doing Rockit 5 times in a row...
As for photos, I did a shoot yesterday for an ad campaign and will be doing some family portraits this week so my project is going to have a couple shots pulled from the 300+ taken in Florida, well once I stop procrastinating long enough to go through them...

Day 4

It's day 4 dear reader! I've gotten 3 out of 100 done...

This is #75- Mirror

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Seasons

Well it's been a long time, mostly because I've been working on another blog project a lot and have had less time for my personal blog...

I just realized how this blog has so many seasons. It's been dedicated to so many things; writing, satire, guitars... Right now it's about to go through photography season! Why? I got my first DSLR camera yesterday! For those curious photog nerds, it's a Sony a580. No regrets!
So I'm starting a new photography project! I found a list online and my goal is to get the whole list done by the time I start college! Right now I've got #35 and #1 done! So I guess I'll blog about my days and my goal reaching.
I don't want to just snap any picture for each of these, I want a superb shot that's unique! I realized a lot of photos I've taken have been taken thousands if not millions of time! So I'm in the search for things that are new and exotic and harder to get! I want to see the world through a newer perspective!

01. Introduction 
02. Love 
03. Light
04. Dark
05. Seeking Solace
06. Break Away
07. Heaven
08. Innocence
09. Cut
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Under
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. War
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Wrath
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand 
36. Precious Treasure
37. See
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. 4:29 PM
41. Citric Acid
42. Still
43. Die
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Drop
47. Creation
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Desert
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can't
74. Confrontation
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Testament
78. +
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Hunger
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Alone
100. Gone

Fun Pick-Me-Ups For Smiles :)

I'm a person who loves to smile and make people smile. So lately I've been feeling really down, I don't know if it's from all the crap talk or what, but I've just felt really depressed and lonely lately. There are tons of ways I could self medicate, but this round, I've decided to go with a pretty healthy way! I decided to do random nice things (or at least try to be nice, I'm naturally a very temperamental snappy person...) So today I've decided to compile a list of things that I've been doing or want to do while I'm feeling like this.

1. Sticky notes. I've been writing encouraging notes and sticking them on mirrors and such in bathrooms! Nothing made me smile more than when I walked into a school bathroom this morning to find that someone had stuck a note in one of the stalls and beat me! Of course, I proceeded to add another 10 notes to that bathroom :) Just cause I felt it was necessary for people to see notes everywhere they turn. 3 bathrooms got sticky noted today :)

2. Smile, really smiling at others makes people smile and sometimes smiles are all someone needs.

3. Crawl into a corner and cry, yes I'm guilty of doing that way too much this week, but it's not weakness to cry. Had to learn that lesson the hard way.

4. Go learn new software. If you've talked to me lately while I've been in a techy mood, you'll hear about me and my obsession with Prezi, because right now I think it's one of the best things since sliced bread!

5. Write, that one's a bit hypocritical... because I haven't been able to make myself write for weeks now... it doesn't feel very good... but I've done some good in art if that counts for anything...

6. Wear a dress! It's such a good confidence booster! I feel so pretty when I wear a dress or skirt! Disclaimer: Guys, it might not be very helpful for you to wear a dress... let's leave this one to the girls...

7. Surprise someone, pay for movie ticket or coffee for the person behind you, the looks on their faces when you watch through your rear view mirror is awesome!

8. This is probably a "me" thing because I'm a weird crazy loser, but I like to browse DeviantArt telling girls they're beautiful. I don't blame you if you're too shy for that haha, I'm generally insane in that department.

9. Paint your toenails, another confidence booster thing, because every time I look down I see sparkles and it's just a little thing that boosts my confidence :)

10. Sing and dance like no one's around, especially if there really isn't someone around... Every morning I'm not rushing to gulp down coffee and get makeup on as my car warms up, I sing and dance around my room. It's fun and super energizing!

11. Green Tea Ice Cream, it just makes everything better. Pair it with Mountain Dew and life just seems so much better!

12. Play guitar, I don't know why this is so far down the list... probably because it's mostly an every day activity... but it really does make me feel better...

13. Try on old prom dresses, or in my case, my 20 formal gowns I happen to randomly own... It makes me feel like a princess and beautiful :) Yeah, you can probably tell I haven't felt very beautiful lately, but these little pick me ups help!

14. Clean out your purse, the sense of accomplishment is amazing! It's like a huge weight has been lifted!

15. Do the same for your car, room, makeup table, etc, not that I actually did that or really want to... but I imagine one would feel accomplished...

Is It Just Gonna Be A Dream?

Valentine's day is coming up! Of course I'm going to spend most of it with the robotics team considering we have a fundraiser that day, but I'm hoping a certain someone will be dropping by to see me ;) As for a dream, I've actually started working on a new blog called The Unconditional Love Campaign. It's going to be all about showing the love of Jesus and the world to others no matter what. I have no artistic inspiration for the look of it or how I'm going to kick this off or make it any good, but I'm just so excited!
Life's been treating me both amazing and horrible at once. It's almost like I feel like I'm living a double life. One minute I'm at home being miserable and hating myself, a few hours later I could be getting excited over getting something new to cover.
What I'm really excited for is for all these robotics related events coming up! Monday is the fundraiser, which is basically my project and my baby. Then next week even though I'm on the team, I've been asked by the TV station I'm "working" for to cover the unveiling of the robot! I get to lead my own crew and everything!

And I haven't done this in a while but... Songs That Are Currently Stuck In My Head:
1. "Enchanted"- Taylor Swift- I can't stop singing it! I even learned how to play it for the most part!
2. "Who Is Like Our God"- Skillet- I've been listening to a lot of chill stuff lately, just cause
3. "How He Loves"- John Mark McMillian - amazing song, nuff said.
4. "The Only Exception" - Paramore, it has a lot of meaning to me right now :)
5. "F***ing Perfect" - Pink, I'm not quite the advocate of cussing, but that song is so beautiful!

Facebook "Likes"

Guess it's time for me to write something a bit lighter considering how down I've been feeling lately, so here it goes!

I know you've seen those crazy "facebook likes" about how guys should treat girls or "being weird" Sure they're cute but has anyone realized that you're just not as weird as you think?
Those fairytales of "a real guy" have the same likelyhood of those "fairytale vs real life" things. Sure my guy has put down his video games and stopped playing Deadspace to call me, that was sweet of him. It def wasn't as big of a deal as some girls make it out to be...
I do have guyfriends that are like brothers that do threaten my boyfriends, it's quite fun actually! And yeah it's true, guyfriends are amazing until you start liking them. Oh another one was the whole "Going to school wearing sweatpants, no makeup, hair undone and he still calls me beautiful" or whatever it is. Now, I've been told I don't need makeup by my guy before, but the one time he's seen me looking like a slob was when he was taking care of me after my surgery and I looked like a freaking CHIPMUNK! All he said was "it's not THAT bad"
But in his defense one day I told him I felt prettier than normal cause my hair was really cute and he said "You should feel like that every day" and I said "I just feel extra pretty today" and he goes "You look that pretty everyday!" "But you haven't seen me today..." "I know, I can feel it with the force." Now that is corny but so cute! He did start going on about his win streak in Starcraft right after though...

My favorite "like" is definately "What do you call a guy that tells women to make him sandwiches? Single"

But really people, liking dinosaurs isn't the weirdest thing on earth anymore... actually it's pretty popular, gotta love counter culture! I'm pretty sure just about everyone dances around their room in the morning too and has pretended to be asleep when they're parents are around, so you're not that different.

Then there's another funny one I liked "First "Firework" then "Grenade" what's next "Nuclear Bomb?" You know what my first thought was? "How about I go write a song called "Nuclear Bomb!" Well I do have a sub in Sci-Vis today... thus why I'm writing during class... maybe that's what I'll do for the next hour and half... My writer's block is going crazy though...

Hope and Freedom

I'm sitting here in my Sci-Vis class making and animating an electric can opener in 3D. I finished quickly and turn on my laptop (aka use iTunes) and the song "Set Me Free" by Casting Crowns started playing. This song is just what I needed to hear. Lately, it's been a depressing month. One, it's almost Valentine's Day, that's enough to make anyone depressed. Two, life generally sucks.

Point is, even though during all the stress (I've cried my stress tears for the year already...and it's not even musical season yet...) I still have hope. Hope that things will get better, that things will work out, that I can make it through this. Of course I'm going to need Jesus and his angels to get me through the next couple months even more than usual. My schedule pretty much exploded to the point I've been staying on campus... a lot...

No matter how broken down one can feel, there's always that bit of hope, somewhere. I once heard a saying that went "It's the minority that screams so loud that everyone thinks there's so much more than there really are." I find this to be quite true, even in politics haha.

Today in tech theatre, I pulled out a stapler from my purse. Duckie was wowed and said "Do you also carry the cure for cancer in there?" My response: "Maybe, I carry DO hope in there." I pulled out my sticky note pad with my prewritten notes of love and hope on them. I haven't actually gotten around to putting many up today because of my busy meeting schedule, but I'll do it soon enough.

That brings me to last night, a great friend of mine finally helped me get the guts to work on my other blogish site thingy... I have been a huge supporter of Operation Beautiful for a long long time. I started working on what I call Unconditional Love Project. It's my personal campaign of love. I want to keep leaving these notes of love, hopefully I'll get other people to do the same. I want a blog dedicated to encouragement, but I don't want to be the sole writer, more like the editor. It's a big dream for it to be anything big, but I think I have the right to dream like that ever once in a while. Plus, as Paul put it "If you can get one person to smile for one second even once, it's all worth it." Very true words.

Not really much else to write today... I got 3 hours of sleep last night sooo yeahh... brain=fried.

10 Cute Creative Unconventional Dates That I Wish Guys Would Come Up With

Well every magazine and website is doing Valentine's Day stuff, so here's my V-Day special.
No guy has ever taken me on a date like these, but a girl can dream right? Makes me think of those dates on that old MTV show Parental Control...
These are so not the classic dinner and a movie, because I hate cliche. Guys that are cliche are so boring, unless they were acting like that as a joke of course. Not only are they rather different, but they're pretty cheap too.

1. Guitar store. Nuff said. I seriously would LOVE a guy to take me to a guitar store for a date. However, location is just step one. The guy should also serenade the girl and if he's feeling confident. Guitar duel random people in her honor, think medieval reenactment with guitars. However, if the guy sucks at guitar, he should skip over this one.

2. There's this place around where I live called The Skinny Dip. It's a make it yourself frozen yogurt bar! I guess any make it yourself ice cream or frozen yogurt place will suffice. Here's the catch: Make each other's frozen yogurt! Pick each other's flavors and toppings for a surprise, it's all charged by weight anyways. This gives you a chance to get to know your date's likes and dislikes, and have a little fun. Make sure both of you are well aware of any food allergies beforehand.

3. I have to say this. It sounds so middle school, but LASER TAG! Seriously, find a place with teams and have each other's back! Then go out to a cute little cafe or diner later and share laughs. I guess it'll cost as much as dinner and a movie.

4. Next Up: Sushi! I personally love sushi and I love getting sushi with guys that say they'll "eat anything" cause usually they'll hesitate at raw fish. However, it's a fun way to try new things and the guy might just love sushi! I guess this can be a bit on the pricey side... I'm just glad I work at a sushi place and have an employee's discount...

5. Photo shoot. Ok, I guess I'm biased with this one, since I do have a crazy love for photography and graphic design. But what's a better confidence booster than wanting to go on a walk to take some pictures of each other? See who can make the wackiest pose with whatever's around and those cute couples self pictures are always adorable for facebook! Walk in nature is the cost of the memories and camera, personally, I used my iPhone.

6. T-Shirt cutting! No joke! Go buy some extra large T-shirts from the clearance rack and reinvent them! Ladies, cut off the sleeves for your guy to show his arms, guys, measuring tapes (Not that I've ever used them) can lead to some cuddling ;) Bonus points if ya'll go tie dye the shirts too!

7. Science Museum! Yeah in movies all those art museums and guys telling girls they're prettier than the paintings are cute, BUT science museums are so much more fun! You'll get laughs from the interactive parts, it's a great place for some chemistry (I'll admit that was corny...), and you just might learn something!

8.  Not really a date, but an add on. I really love holding hands with my guy when we're driving. Make sure he lets go when he's turning though, safety is important. My little issue with this is that when I drive one handed, I use my right hand, and it's weird to reach my left hand over... but usually my guy drives anyways because I'm just not a big driving fan. Only do this if both of your are comfortable with it. I know I hate when a guy drives with no hands at all.

9. Ok, this is probably the corniest one, but it's so cute! Stay up on video chat or something with a guy at like 2am and cook together! Then the next morning, bring over whatever you cooked. I made microwave brownies with my guy friend over IM once and it was so much fun! Good for if you're away on vacation or something!

10. This one is cliche, but  go do some charity work together! Be it making "You are Beautiful" stickers and stuff to leave in public to going to help at a soup kitchen. I read all these stories about beautiful lucky people helping out others, why can't beautiful lucky couples take some time to help others too?

Musical Singlesisms

Short one today because I'm saving up for a very long one coming soon!

This is what my week has looked like: 

***Satire at bottom of post

- Screw chick flicks and chocolate and tears! Full tank of gas, 6 pack of mountain drew, monster, guitars, nice amps, homecooked Asian food= how us single depressed musicians spend our singles day... Oh yeah, there were some pretty guitars and a trip to Guitar Center and Sam Ash!

- "Romantic" dinner and a movie? How about you take me to a guitar store, play with me, serenade me, and try to impress me. Then, laser tag. Forget dinner where I have to wear a dress and everything, take me home and cook with me, it's more fun, or take me to a coffee shop with live music. Bonus points if you bring me heart shaped guitar picks instead of flowers. 

- Guitar guy: " I can get any girl I want because I play guitar! All it takes is one easy sweet song!" 

Me: "That ain't gonna work on me" 

Guy: "Why not?" 

Me: "Because I can play. Write me a song, lyrics and all, stand out side my window and perform it to me, throwing pebbles and all that sweet stuff included" :P 

- Rainbow roses are awesome, google them. 

- "You're smart, cute, sweet, and beautiful" as reasons for wanting to date me will get a door slammed in your face, and I will be NONE of those as I do so. 

- Bowling is a sucky date, I would just leave. It's worse than putt putt

- Sonic has the least unhealthy french fries

-What do you call a guy that tells women to go make him sandwiches? Single.

 Guitarists And Dating: Satire

-Guy That Plays Guitar= hot stuff that can get a date

-Girl that plays guitar= Asked out by jerks and a-holes and then remains single because she scares hot guitar guys. 

-Guy that can play well AND built his own guitar= Hottest stuff on the market, but then either falls for a blonde ditz or scene "songwriter" that knows nothing about music theory. Either way, she has no guitar skills whatsoever. 

-Girl that has a sparkly pink guitar and THNKS she can play "like Taylor Swift"= Never gonna be taken seriously and all dates will be with completely pansies that don't know good music. 

-Guy that thinks he can play guitar but only has a Fender Squire that he carries around to attempt to look hot= A lot of very short relationships because he's stupid enough to ask out the girls who play guitar only to get dumped after the first time he tries to serenade them. 

-Girl that can't play guitar at all but claims she's "into rock music" which means wannabe punk boybands that play a total of 5 chords = Actually ends up going out with above, until she realizes that the guy that plays guitar is so much hotter. 

-Guy that is in a "punk rock cover band"= Gets the above girl while attempting to get the girl who plays guitar because he thinks he's BA enough for her but ends up embarrassing himself. 

-Guy that plays banjo as well as guitar- Hated by other guitar guys, but wins over the hearts of girls who like banjos, especially Taylor Swift wannabes.

-Girl who wears bunny ears, is obsessed with dinosaurs, and says her boyfriend will teach her guitar= Never actually learns guitar but stays happy with boyfriend and for some reason always has a hotter boyfriend than the girls who play guitar. 

-Guy that says he's "always wanted to learn" guitar but "never has time" and wears too tight skinny jeans = gets laughed at by everyone except girl who is "into music" and girl "plays like Taylor Swift" who either says "I'll teach you!" or "Let's learn together!" They actually make a cute couple that ends up as the ridicule and/or envy of all the single guitarists even though both sides generally suck. 

- Band geek that claims woodwind is better than a guitar=  Doesn't date a guitarist.

Prince Charming?

Paul did a "8 Ways to Win My Heart" thing on his Tumblr, so I'll do a prince charming thing just because I feel like it and don't have much else to blog about...

8 Ways to Win My Heart:

1. I have to agree with Paul HAVE GOOD TASTE IN MUSIC! I have a very wide variety so it shouldn't even be that hard to find good music...

2. Don't care when I decide to have a mopey sweatpants and no makeup day. Because I am finally becoming comfortable with myself and after a long time of problems and issues, I am just now beginning to be able to call myself beautiful. I'm not going to let a guy ruin that by wanting me to always be barbie dolled up. I promise, I'll be reasonable and pretty up for proms and weddings and such though XD

3. Don't ask me to change. Don't ask me to not change at all either. I have a very contradictory personality to deal with and I do want to improve myself. I can be really chill and quiet at times and loud and crazy the next moment. If you can't deal with that, don't even try.

4. Don't let me walk all over you. I've had so many guys groveling at my feet and trying to "make me happy" I ain't gonna be happy if you ain't happy too. Plus, its such a bore! There is nothing more annoying than a guy who's "trying to treat me like a queen" because it ends up becoming extremely shallow!

5. Don't tell me to make you a sandwich or go back to the kitchen. I'm a bit of a feminist, even though I believe chivalry isn't dead. I will cook for you, I will take care of you, I will sing to you, I will cuddle, I will even clean,  but I do not do sandwiches unless I truly love you.

6. Be spontaneous. Of course, there's a line between spontaneous and completely insane, so use good judgement. By spontaneous I mean surprise unconventional dates, hugs from behind for no reason (at reasonable times of course, hugs while driving won't end well) I can't stand being mundane and boring so a little creativity will be needed.

7. Serenade me. Sounds simple right? HA! Serenading me with a guitar (or other musical instrument) and singing is good, but to melt me to putty, write me a song and perform it to me from outside my window; yeah I know, fat chance I'd get a movie scene like that, but a girl can dream right?

8. Play at least 6 out of the following instruments: Guitar, bass, voice, mandolin, violin, drums, piano, banjo. However my father might have an additional requirement for select guys: guitar duel.

Here's the outcome of a recent guitar duel : 

Zzz... Zzzz...

I haven't been getting much sleep lately, mainly because I keep spontaneously waking up. How I spontaneously wake up however is quite interesting. For the past few days I've been falling asleep but about 10-30 minutes later I have this crazy weird falling sensation so I bolt up and my mind is spinning and racing faster than I think is possible and I can't grasp any of those thoughts. My first clear thought: " Woah this is like Inception!" that just shows how much of a nerd I am!
Inception is one of my favorite movies of all time and all but, that was truly nerdy. It's a mind bending movie with a ton of symbolism, two elements I absolutely love in a story! The story is pretty AMAZING! The cast is really good too! Ellen Page and Leonardo Decaprio are pretty great as well as the other cast members that I can't remember the names of. As for the speculation of the ending, that is something I won't give too many of my thoughts of to save my readers from spoilers.
Being a writer myself, I will look at it from several perspectives that the writers could have taken. Really there are only three options: Either it fell, it stayed spinning, or the story cut off before either was ABLE to happen. From a writer's standpoint, I have always found that I need to keep my reader on edge at every second. With the anticipation of closure, a writer wants to do the unexpected, thus the wobble. My theory is that before there was time for either to happen, the story ended. It's something I call a "Lady or The Tiger" ending. The reader will never know. In my book that will hopefully be published soon, I've got several situations that are similar and will make my reader hate me. No more will be said about said book for now :P.

Darling Don't You Ever Grow Up

It was my little sister's birthday a few weeks ago so I learned "Never Grow Up" to sing to her. Today I was working on some graphics and it started playing and I just sat there for a while and listened to it. I thought a lot about growing up (I guess that's a given) It's so hard to believe that I'm 17 now and that in about 5 months, I'll be on my own in college. I'll be 18 in June and I'll have to handle everything myself.

I've always loved being an independent person, I have a job and I use my own money from it to buy lunch when I go off campus, I shop for my clothes myself, I basically take care of myself in general with my plans. But I don't do my own laundry and I love my mama's cooking. Part of me can't wait to grow up and start a career and have a family and all that, but another part of me screams to stay like this forever. Senior year is partially a dream for me, I have so much access to all this amazing software and I can do whatever I want with it. I have a security blanket of being a student when doing anything and someone to actually tell me how to do something when I'm stuck. This time next year I'll be doing similar things, but I won't have that safety net.

I want to get out of this town so badly. I want to go away from all the people and the all the hurt more than anything. But that also means I'll be running away from my friends, my life here, and just about everything I know. Thinking about that scares me. Life already isn't innocent anymore, I'm growing up. I don't really want to grow up but yet I do want to grow up. I guess I just need to suck up the fear and face it, then I'll be happy as I grow up and college life starts.

I once wrote a song that went along the lines of "Winter will become spring even though I'm leaving" Honestly, I don't remember much more about that song, but I thought of that line when I'm sitting around thinking of college. It's going to be a new season and a new start, which is exactly what I need. There's too much pain and memories in this season that I'm more than willing to just go away from.

But Dear Reader, hold onto what you have now as much as you can. Life is only going to get tougher as you grow older. You may hate your parent's rules and curfews, but keep your innocence as long as you can, the world is cruel and sometimes you'll be happier not knowing.

This Week's Playlist

So here's a random one... this is the music that has been stuck in my head for a while... I blame theatre and the 80s craze...

"Jump"- Van Halen
"Livin' On A Prayer"- Bon Jovi
"Thriller" Michael Jackson
"Nieve" The Kooks (Yes, European pop music is one of my musical obsessions)
"The Artist" The Hush Sound (I just can't stop listening to it!)
"I Love Rock and Roll"- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
"Single Ladies"- Beyonce (Because Will was so obsessed with playing it in his car all day...)
"Knock Em' Out"- Lily Allen- it's just sooo funny!
"Limelight"- Rush
"Last Summer" Lost Prophets

On another note: An awesomesauce musicy friend of mine has started a blog! http://saul-of-tarsus.tumblr.com/ Go read it!

Oh oh oh and today the big thing I did was go to the FRC Robotics Kickoff! To be honest, the challenge they revealed looks really intimidating! Basically our robot has to hang up inflatable tubes on a peg rack looking thingy and try to make the FIRST logo. Also there's the element of minbots that have to climb polls for bonus points, that's going to be the fun part! Well Dear Reader, wish me luck on this! 6 weeks for the team to build this thing and I've got to document it all!