Tough times, good rhymes, nobody's listening.

Okay, nobody reads this anymore, but whatever.

It often feels like I can't have it both ways. And by that, I mean that I can't be happy and successful at the same time. I know success is such a shallow thing to want, but everybody does, really. Maybe that's why I've been letting the whole "success" thing pass me by for the past few months, though. I prefer happiness so much more at the moment.

But here it comes, the end result of something I did almost half a year ago. College acceptances. Karma's hitting me, and it's hitting me hard. But screw karma, really. I'll have it my way, just like at Burger King. Or King Burger. But don't get crazy. Just when I feel like all my dreams are coming true, they get stripped away just as soon.

I never asked for this. There are some things we are born with and some things that we earn, but I don't feel like I've worked to deserve anything nice. I'm always afraid that at the end of the day, I'll be the same person that I was from the start.

But I have to try, or everything that I've done will have been worthless. I have to try to attain something or there won't be a direction to go in. If I give up now, let these last few moments of high school pass me by, there won't be a second chance. There are things to be answered for, to make up for, to repent for. I know that I've probably done a great deal more terrible things in these four years than good, but if in these next three months I can do something or say something to change it... well, that'd be worth an entire three months by itself.

I'm trying to find my way through a life that clearly doesn't agree with me. Or, I don't know, maybe it's trying to find me.

The beginning of the end.

When one so often reaches the end of one road leading into another, it's nice to look back on everything and feel a sense of satisfaction and achievement. No more zero period, no more... trying, haha, and the rest of our days together lay paved in front of us. Who knows what sort of shenanigans we'll get into in the next five months?

We're dramatic.

We're silly.

We're ridiculous.

This is going to be an interesting five months.

I think I'll miss zero period the most.

The strangest things.

There are some things in life that you never expect to happen.

Like making up with an old friend.

Or hitting another person's car.

Or going back to church.

There are some things in life that you hope will happen someday.

And then they do.

The more I live, the more I come to believe that the law of equivalent exchange actually exists. You get back a friend... and then you lose one. Granted, I'm currently liking this side of the spectrum much, much more. You wait almost a year and a half for something good to happen, and finally, there it is. The bad... well, that's like a side dish that you don't really need to eat anyway. Sometimes you are led to believe that some people are better than they actually are. Then they turn on you, and you see everything for what it really is. All shit is inevitable. And things will work themselves out - as they have, as they are. It's just a matter of whether things work themselves out for the better or for the worse.

I'm guessing this will be the worse.

But that's okay.

So there's this one thing that I was praying for God to do for me for the past year or so, and when it came true, I decided to set aside my agnosticism for an evening and pay the good Lord a visit. And He reciprocates by making me scratch someone's car. And it's someone I knew like a bajillion years ago. Granted, that's a good thing; I'm not getting sued, but com'n. That's irony bottled up, put in a paper bag, and downed by a hobo on the side of the street. Curious. I don't think I'm going back to church.

Like someone said to me today:
"Let yourself grow old. That's the only way to get to the end of anything."

Hello, New Year!

It's going to be a good year, and I can smell it already... Like a breath of fresh air when you've been stuck inside for weeks on end. Which is pretty much what I've been doing.

I guess I've been drowning myself for too long now. You sometimes get trapped in waves for years before you realize that you were the only thing holding yourself down. If you hold still for about five seconds and stop squirming around, you float right to the top. And I guess that's what it's like.

Six months, and then new beginnings. That's what some people look for. The start of a new life. But you can never really erase the past. You lived it. It's there. But you don't have to dwell on it. You can learn from it, think about it, smile about it, and that's all there really is to memories in the end.

So what's everyone still worried about? Getting into college, teen drama, boys, girls, whatever's in between, blah, and blah. This chapter of our lives ends in such a short amount of time, and we're wasting it! College isn't a trophy, but it's sure as heck a whole new realm of possibilities. So while we're here, in this one, shouldn't we make the most of it? Put a smile on. Love yourself. Love the ones around you. Never know when the last time you see their face is going to be.

So, resolutions. I call them "promises that are bound to fail." Mine, well... just two. Be happy, and make others happy. Who knows? I might actually get it done.

Frustratedly happy.

I don't think I've ever felt so happy in my seventeen years and some-odd months of existence. Source? Hah, who knows? There's so just many things- so many people that make me feel like I'm lying in an endless mound of fluffy snow. You could say it's the holiday spirit; you could also say I'm crazy. But at the end of the day, who gives a damn? This. This is what I enjoy the most. Not money, not driving (though that is a plus), not good grades, not failing tests, not gifts, not giving, but this. Friends. In a way, they're all like giant, glowing lights- stars, even- and I'm just a mirror. They shine bright, so do I. If one were to ever believe in magic, this would be it. Everyone- all their significance- each person's impact on another's life, vice versa, their dog, their cat, their pinkie toe- all muy importante. Impact, that's what it is. It's all relative. Sometimes you look at a person and you say: "Well, they're not important at all," but then you've gone and lied to yourself because you've said that thing and that's what makes them important. You think you'll forget people, their faces, the sound of their beating heart, but you can't. It's there. Engrained. Like a scratch in your cornea, as some people theorize. Every image. Every sound. It's a fingerprint. A footprint. A strand of DNA and a key to a lock. Unique. Existent.

Fiction. That's what I'm good at. So who's to say that this isn't fiction? Oh, what a tragedy that would be! If this were all a figment, but again, who gives a damn? The price is nothing; the result is everything.

Job hunting sucks. Especially when you live in Cerritos because some Chinese and Korean people really fail at handling themselves like professionals. Instead of a "Sorry, I don't believe any positions are available at the moment," you get a resounding, "Oh, no no no no, we not hiring right now. Go away." It's difficult like this. No money; just juggling whatever I get. I wish I could find a damn job already. My car's broken. Again. That'd be priority #8; fix my damn car or get a new one. Priorities 1-7? College. PS3. Laptop. Computer. Movies. Games. Food. Okay, yeah, I fail with money, but my entire family does, so bite me.

Sometimes you wish you had everything. Sometimes you wish you had nothing.

And now for a short rant on some phrases I think are stupid.

1) "The value of a dollar" is a dollar.
2) "A penny saved is a penny earned." No, a penny saved is one that I found on the ground that happened to be facing heads side up. Then and only then will I pick one up and throw it in the pile of "change that I will not touch until the day far in the future when I go to a CoinStar."
3) "Don't judge a book by its cover." The cover has the title on it, and if the title is "Wuthering Heights," I'm not buying the damn thing.
4) "The short end of the stick." or "The short end of the deal." One, I didn't know one end of a stick could be longer than the other. In fact, I didn't know that the end of a stick could be measured. I didn't know deals had ends either, for that matter, and if they did, they can be measured?
5) "Cleanliness is close to Godliness." So... if I take a shower, I'm kind of like Jesus?

Hyperbole. Blegh.

Hypocrites. (School policy rant included, free of charge.)

My mom's a real jerk sometimes. Not just to me, but to my FRIENDS. That's just jacked up. I deal with all of her idiotic friends that butt in on our Thanksgiving. Everytime I ask her to give someone else a ride, her first response is "NO." Like "NO!!!" Like "NO WHAT THE HELL SHUT UP WHY YOU WASTE GAS MONEY?!" It's silly. People always give me rides everywhere. I've been asked for rides for the majority of high school, for Christ's sake! And SHE complains about giving other people rides like once every two months? That's like complaining about there not being any ketchup when there's a bottle labeled "tomato sauce" on the table.

Except today I busted out the "Sarah's dad picked me up and took me to get a new bike when mine got crushed under the evil force of a giant black SUV." That shut her right up.

Hypocrites in general are ridiculous. And I don't mean hypocrites that know they're hypocrites and feel bad, because that makes them a lot less of a hypocrite. I mean hypocrites that do it and don't give a damn.

Peterson, for instance, is probably a blazing hypocrite. I bet she's happy in her quaint little office with her personal refridgerator snacking on celery sticks or Nutter Butters or whatever it is that people snack on these days. I bet she's happy when the other staff members present a cake to her on her birthday. It's not WE that matter to her, but how the school looks. The district must love a principal who enforces law in an otherwise liberal campus. It's not like we were engulfed in the chaos of a 16th century fiefdom. Student and administration conflicts were at an all-time low on all fronts, and the only overwhelming problem we had was a bunch of seagulls.

Don't you just hate people who think they're solving a problem when they're actually causing or furthering it? Then you tell them that they're making it worse, and they call you a rebel or naive or immature or whatever it is that we young'uns get called these days. There are always ways to resolve this issue. Let's review the facts:

1) Spread Alka Seltzer pills all over campus. Seagulls will be exploding in midair in no time and will be swept away in the winter rains. Easy as that. Okay, maybe a little gory... But fun, nonetheless.
2) Get clubs to clean up the campus. ASB seems to have no problem getting clubs to go to football games using club points. So why not campus cleaning? Key Club does it. Why can't everyone else? It's not that hard. I've done it.
3) Have SIAs do their jobs. This applies to the hall pass thing, too. If SIAs WATCHED people leave their trash on tables and all over campus, you'd think that they'd stop them or tell them to pick it the heck up. But no. They sit in their golf carts or in their office doing... nothing. Looking vigilant but in fact thinking about the programs they should watch when they go home. If you're going to hire new SIAs, you should probably use them. Get your money's worth.
4) If someone throws a cake and someone uninvolved gets owned, get the cake-thrower in trouble. Not us. If all isolated events were applied to an entire population, then America would live in holding cells wearing uniforms and having daily announcements from Our Great Leader telling us to Obey, obey, we must obey. We'd all be serial killers, rapists, burglars, larsons, felons, you get the picture. So apparently here we're all troublemakers, up-to-no-good, sinners, rebels, all that jazz. Well, I'll tell you what admin is. Unjust, unfair, overreacting, overreaching, and silly.

Positively silly.

Innocent until proven guilty, and not all of us are guilty. Punish those who have done wrong, and let those who have done naught be.

Washing, packing, packed, gone.

I'm going to miss Cerritos! I always claim that I don't get homesick, but this time, since not everyone will be with me, I'm supar sadz.

Thanks and love to Sarah and Melody for buying me the most bomb Christmas gift-in-preparation-for-the-frigid-trip-that-I-am-going-on-tomorrow ever. Now I'll only be REALLY cold instead of frozen on the ground like a hairy caveman in his loincloth.

I'll miss everyone, yes, everyone, especially Amy Chen. Wish you were coming with us so that I could hit on you and watch in delighted horror as you prance around your bedroom in underwear or a towel.

Still sick. Taking meds. Lots of 'em. Seems to be helping.

Love, love.