Goodbye 2009

Today is New Year's Eve. Lots of people take this day to think back about what has happened this year, and I guess I'm no exception.

In all honesty, 2009 has been a year full of despair with little tiny bits of hope poking through now and then. In January of this year, I made a very difficult decision which I don't really feel like elaborating on, but to this day, nearly 365 days later, I still wonder if I made the right choice. My birthday was in February, but it wasn't very happy other than getting to go to a nice restaurant. When you realize that adulthood is sneaking up on you, and that soon you're going to be making more difficult decisions than what I had to do in January, it's very difficult to feel any happy emotion. In March, I took the SAT, and scored well enough.

In April, I learned finally what was wrong with me medically. I had anticipated something like this, but it didn't make it any easier to accept. Finding out something like this... I felt like a failure, like it was my fault, even though I had nothing to do with it. It's like, you think that the only thing you'll be able to do in the future is work at Wal-Mart or McDonald's.

May and June seemed to go by very fast. I do not remember very much about them.

July I spent a very lonely Fourth of July. Oh, I had my friends around, but it was still depressing. We lit off fireworks, but the only thing I cared about was getting the whole thing over with, and I like fireworks.

I do not remember much about August. In September, I went back to school, preparing myself for another despair-filled school year, and so far, it has not disappointed. The one good thing about September? I went to the state fair and got to nom on a fried candy bar. Maybe I'll be able to tell my grandchildren about that, after the Health and Safety Brigade bans sweets. It was delicious, and I still have dreams about eating that stuff.

October was one of the happiest months of my life. I went to Disney World for the first time in my life, and I went to the seaside. I really enjoyed my time there, and it was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak year, so it will probably have a special spot in my heart.

November was filled with college applications. Never mind that I'm not even sure if I really want to go to college, it's what's expected of me, so I filled them out, not sure if I was doing the right thing. Remember how I said the thing about decisions? This is another one that I'm not sure if I want to have to make. Besides, I'm not sure if I'll even be able to pursue my first-choice course of study because of my test scores. I don't know why I don't just give up and go to cosmetology school.

December, which ends today, was more of the same, with the exception of Christmas. Which I love. But other than that, the month was pretty boring.

Let's hope that 2010 is better than 2009. I don't think I can survive another year like this without losing my mind.

Snow alert!

Yesterday we got the most snow that the area has gotten since February 2003. We got at least two feet, at least at my house. When I was younger, I would have loved it. Snow is fun, I would have said. Not any more. Now it's just cold, wet, and nasty, unless it gets me out of school. Then it's the greatest thing ever.

As it stands now, we're all hoping there's no school tomorrow. And to be honest, the odds would be in our favor. After all, you've gotta either be stupid, a masochist, or in love with learning to want to go to school Christmas Week. Even the teachers/administrators don't want to go! And I have a feeling that if the superintendent tries to make us all go to school, there's going to be a sudden outbreak of "the flu" among students and teachers. I know of a few people who are using the "Oh, I'm going to the hospital about these symptoms cough cough hack" excuse tomorrow if they're calling for school.

The biggest problem about this snow is that it's making things very difficult for people to go out and Christmas shop. I WANT PRESENTS, damn it! I also need to BUY presents, damn it!

Hurr durr...

I work tech support. It's a very interesting, entertaining, fun job, and I get to learn all kinds of interesting things. I have a very good grasp of school politics (anyone who thinks that all the staff members get along famously- YOU'RE WRONG. They all hate each other!) and I get snacks when I finish a job, since teachers are so happy to have me fix their computer. Especially nice is when I fix the home ec teacher's computer- delicious homemade doughnuts anyone?

Anyway, today I had to help network a printer into some computers. It technically wasn't my class period for tech support, but if I'm needed I can help in whatever room I'm in. One problem: this computer had a null IP address. The scary thing was, it was printing from two computers, and the other tech support student was convinced the damn thing was possessed. And I had to agree- a computer with a null IP address should not be printing- it's not possible! Yikes. Either we had a ghost on our hands, the computer demon was bored again, or there was another problem.

After spending half an hour trying to figure out how the computers could magically print, we figured it out. They were hard-wired. DERP DERP DERP.

Just another day in Student Tech Support.

Atheists and the WAR ON CHRISTMAS!

Every year, if you scan through the radio channels, you're liable to come across some right-wing fundamentalist Christian screaming about atheists out to destroy Christmas. If you listen to them, you'd think that every single non-religious person is Scrooge on steroids. They hate Christmas. They hate Christmas presents. They hate Christmas trees. They hate Christmas snacks. They hate Christmas carols. They hate Christmas specials. Oh, and they hate puppies and kittens too.

I have one thing to say in response to that: LOLWUT? I love Christmas! I love presents- giving them and getting them. I love Christmas decorations- so pretty. I love Christmas snacks- probably a bit too much. I like the Christmas television specials (Mickey's Christmas Carol is my favorite). I love Christmas carols- in fact, one of my favorites is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Yeah, a religious song.

Christmas is a special time for a lot of people, no matter what their religion/lack of religion. Many non-Christians celebrate the holiday (I can think of at least eight off the top of my head). The fact of the matter is that people love holidays. I'm not picky about my holiday-celebration. I go to my friend's annual Eid party. Her mom makes the most delicious kebabs. We exchange Eid presents. Another friend (who is currently attending university) usually has a Diwali party (not this year, due to her being at uni and all). I've attended a Passover seder. Another friend's mother is pagan, and always makes delicious snacks and thoughtful gifts for everyone at the Winter Solstice. And yes, I realize that I sound like a fatass by saying all of this, but hey, isn't that what holidays are all about?

Holidays are for spending time with friends. Holidays are for nomming on whatever comes your way. Holidays are for exchanging presents. Most importantly, holidays are for having fun. So let's all remove the forests we've got stuck up our derrieres and just enjoy the season, no matter what religion you are!

The Christmas Tree

Today my family decorated our Christmas tree. As usual, it was complete pandemonium. Our tree is several years old (five or six, I think), and it came pre-lit. When the tree was new, that was wonderful. Now that it's older and the lights no longer work perfectly? Not so much. So most of yesterday we spent running around the entire metro area looking for some new LED holiday lights. FINALLY we found some at K-mart, although I'm not really sure how good of quality they are. The K-mart near where I live has a bit of a reputation around here for selling defective goods, but at the moment, they seem to be working OK.

Once we finally managed to get the lights on the tree, it was ornament time. I like Christmas ornaments. I have since I was a little girl. Many of the ornaments I remember from my childhood were destroyed when the basement flooded, but since then we have gained new ornaments. Still, it's not the same. When I was very young, there was an enormous red ball that was studded with fake jewels. Looking back on it now, it was pretty tacky, but I loved that ornament and it had to go on the tree every year no matter what, and it had to go on an important, easily seen place. Unfortunately, that ornament was destroyed during the flood- the cold water shattered it.

Since we lost so many ornaments, my mother has been trying to make up for it by buying new and interesting ornaments every year. We always get White House Christmas ornaments, and if an online store has offers on them, then she buys them.

I've also done most of my shopping, and I will tell you this now: Shopping districts are completely insane this time of year. I think next year, I'm buying everyone's stuff on the Internet, so I don't have to worry about getting run over by angry stay-at-home mothers with their entire tribe in one of those enormous baby strollers that fit 2000000 kids. Also, I have to ask: if you're buying Christmas presents, then why bring the kids with you? Then they'll know what they're getting for Christmas, and half the fun is not knowing! But I digress- this post isn't meant to be a rant.

I just love the holidays- I find this to be one of the least depressing times of year for me. I love Christmas lights, I love Christmas decorations, I love Christmas presents, I love Christmas snacks, I love the Christmas holidays from school- I just love Christmas! I can't wait- two weeks from Friday! I hope I get the stuff I asked for. And I hope my family likes their presents, although I think they might know what they are.

Crazy Kilt-Hating Pastor

[url]http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/110809p.mp3[/url]

I found this last night during my travels across this fecund land we call the Internet. While it might drive some people to rage, I have to say that I found this completely hilarious, especially the bit about kilts being feminizing. This could prove interesting if he ever comes across a Scottish dude in a kilt. I have a feeling someone would be getting pwned, and I don't think it would be the Scottish man.

Also, his whole spiel about the Sistine Chapel being painted by perverts or whatever, I have one thing to say in response to that- ART, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT!? And if he thinks the tastefully rendered nude angels in the Sistine Chapel are perverted, then do I ever have a shock for him! Some of the art you can find on the Internet (especially the yaoi artwork) would probably send him into cardiac arrest. Hell, show him the doujinshi Unapai and he'd probably have a brain aneurysm. That, or the infamous corn gif. I can see things becoming QUITE entertaining then... ohohohoho.

J-Drama Review: Princess Princess D

I have to admit, when I first started watching this series, I didn't have high hopes. I had read the manga it was based off of, and while I enjoyed it, I didn't think it was the best thing I'd ever read, or the epitome of manga or anything like that. It was a mildly entertaining story about guys at a really whack school that forces them to dress like women. How could you transfer that over into a good television series? But I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. I was drawn into the story much more than I had expected. Unlike the manga, this drama had a r storyline.

Yes, the school is still whack and forces select students to dress like women. But, there are different characters, all in all making things very interesting. There's the transfer student out to take over the whole school, making use of OTHER guys dressing like girls. In order to stop him, the student council president calls a friend of his from out of the country to stop the insurgents. What he didn't plan on was the friend abruptly switching sides. He wins the student council election (a development that I must admit came out of absolutely fucking nowhere), and the school starts to be run like a military dictatorship. I just had to ask- what the hell happened to the school staff? You'd think there'd be at least one teacher in the place, but you never see a single person that isn't a student, or a student's henchman.

Is it great art? No. Would it win an Emmy? No. Is it worth your time? Well, depends on your point of view. If you're looking for a not-too-difficult to follow story with some nice messages about friendship and pretty boys to look at, then yes. If you're looking for a show with girls in it, then no (there's not a single female character, unless you count the boys dressed like girls).

The Lazy Score: 7.5/10

By the way, Christmas season is coming! My neighbors already have their Christmas lights up! Due to a mishap at Chez Lazy we can't find the box of lights, so decorating is going to take another week or so. But I can decorate my blog! Paranoia Room got decked out for the holidays thanks to Cutest Blog on the Block! :D

Lazy Goes On Holiday, part 1

I'm currently in Florida, enjoying the sand and the sun. Well, not at the moment since I'm locked up in the world's most epic beach house typing this, but in a few minutes I'm going to go chill on the beach. We're in town for my uncle's wedding. The bride's family is allowing us to stay in their incredibly well-equipped beach house free of charge, which I find incredibly kind. In case they see this, thank you very much! You guys are great!

Anyway, once the wedding is over, we're going to Disney World. I've never been before and am quite looking forward to it. My cousins told us to avoid Magic Kingdom, as it was too young for even eight-year-olds, and my tech support homework is to go on Space Mountain. I'm going to go on Space Mountain, even though I don't particularly like roller coasters. I'm still going on the damn Space Mountain.

Not only is Florida home to Space Mountain, but there are FLAMINGOS here. And not only are there flamingos, there are PELICANS. The pelicans are hilarious... they just kind of chill until they see a fish, and then it's swoop! and it's DINNAR TIME! They're so funny! I want to kidnap one and take it home with me. :)

Anyway, going to go to the beach now. I'll post some pictures when I get them taken.

One Bad Week

All I can say is thank Longcat it's Friday. Friday of a three-day weekend, to be exact. And all I can say is that it's about time. This week has been hell.

Monday: Woke up early, went to school, and promptly fell asleep in finance class, resulting in getting a discipline referral for snoozing in school. After that, I had tech support class, in which I found out that yes, I get to install special software on the computers that takes about a million years to install. Oh joy. After that, I had government in which I got into an argument with one of my closest friends over political crap. And then I got about a month's worth of English homework that was due by next class.

Tuesday: Fell asleep in Advanced Programming and missed all the presentations since I was asleep. At least the teacher was cool about it and let me nap, realizing that my health isn't all that great and that teenagers do need to sleep. Tech support went well, still had to install the software, but figured out a way to do. In photography, I got oil paints on my freaking clothes, which won't come out. So now there's this big gray splotch on my best pair of jeans thanks to that crap. And my photography teacher hated my work anyway, so I ruined good pants for nothing. Then, I went to lunch. Some stupid fatass bought the rest of the ramen noodles, which was all I could afford, so I didn't get to eat anything for lunch, and nearly passed out in Psychology.

Wednesday: Went relatively well... can't think of anything that sucked too badly off the top of my head other than failing a government quiz.

Thursday: Ugh... got caught browsing the news sites in Advanced Programming, epically failed reimaging a computer in tech support, got really hungry in Photography and couldn't eat my damn sandwich because of the chemicals, and then bombed a psychology test. I haven't gotten the grade back yet, but I'm going to be honest: I will be incredibly surprised if I got anything higher than a D. And then to put the cherry on top of the cake of fail, I went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner. Nothing unusual, right? Not that difficult. Just get some damn pot pie and we're good. Or I thought we were, until I realized the car battery died! Even trying to jump-start it didn't work, so we had to walk all the way to the mechanic shop a little ways away. They managed to get the car running, but they think the alternator went bad. So I no can has car until that gets fixed, which means I'm back to relying on my parents to take me everywhere. Not that once my dad gets back in town I'll have a car anyway, but you know what I mean.

Friday: Thinking that my finance test would be easy since my class is full of people so stupid it takes them the entire block period to Google something, I naively decided that it was not necessary for me to study. Oh how wrong I was. That test had all kinds of difficult crap on it. I take comfort in the fact that if I failed, everyone else epically failed. I had double government, and got stuck sitting behind the Evangelical Conservative Christian Birther girl. Even my good friend who I'll refer to as Pigeon (inside joke) who is quite conservative was ready to smack her upside the head. At the end of class, Pigeon turned to me and just shook his head, as though he couldn't believe all the B.S. he was hearing. THEN I had to go write an essay on one of the most useless books ever written, Ethan Frome. Now, this wouldn't be such a problem if this essay wasn't worth THREE DAMN TEST GRADES. So if I did badly, I basically just screwed myself over for the rest of this quarter. Lovely.

I could go on and on, but don't want to rehash every little thing that sucked this week (well, if I didn't want to do that then why the hell did I type all this up?). So I'll stop here. But I really think that this week might be setting the standard for bad weeks everywhere...

Regarding the Sink

I volunteer at the local library to get my graduation service hours done. It's a crap job with crap pay ($0) and the head librarian hates my guts. I've had to deal with old ladies who get angry when you don't have a copy of the King James Bible right on hand (what do I look like? The Bookmobile?), people who want "dog books" without telling me exactly what they need, and crazy little kids who try to take books off of the holds cart. It's enough to make a person want to jump off the roof of the library, cart-o-books in hand. But occasionally, something really cool will happen. Once, it was finding a $20 bill tucked inside an old encyclopedia. And yesterday, I found a book. Well, that much should be obvious. I mean, I am in a damn library after all. But this was a book I had no idea existed until yesterday. It is the sequel to the book I must have read upwards of a hundred times as a child. That book was called Regarding the Fountain.

The sequel to that book is called Regarding the Sink. These books are chapter books written in letters and emails. The storyline is that there is a famous fountain designer who gets commissioned to make a new water fountain for a middle school in this small town. Things get out of hand when the students discover that the reason their water is not working well is because there is this big conspiracy involving two of the town's most powerful business people. With the help of the fountain designer, they catch the criminals and get the world's most epic water fountain (the damn thing has an ice rink, spa, soda fountain... it's not yer ordinary water fountain). The second book is about a bad sink clog that got stopped up. The fountain designer is contacted again to design a new one, but she doesn't respond, and there's a senator that slashed the state school funding by 90%. I don't really know what happens next since I'm really not that far in the book. They are meant for elementary to early middle school students, but you know what? I don't really care. I was so happy to find a sequel to a book I loved as a kid that I checked it out after my shift was over. The librarian (the one that hates me) gave me a really weird look when she saw what I was checking out. I guess she thought I was a creeper or something... oh well. She's a bitchy librarian with nothing better to do than glare at people using computers and harass teenagers. Thereby her argument is invalid, and she can't pass judgement on who's a creeper and who's not.

Lazy Goes To The Fair

I got out of school today to go to the State Fair of Virginia. Usually I would be jumping around for joy like a sugar-high eight-year-old with ADHD, but I did have to miss a rather important psychology test. Normally I'd say "what the hell", but this year I'm actually trying to pass my classes...

Anyway, enough blah about school crap- on to the fair! Despite having to wake up at the usual time of 5:30 AM, everyone was pretty excited about traveling to the fair. We all loaded on the bus and got the usual lecture about "what happens on the bus stays on the bus, so if you've gotta go, hold it until we get there." I got stuck in front of some people who were talking so loud they pierced through my headphones. And when you're listening to speedcore at 70% volume, that takes a lot. But whatever, it's not like I was on a flight next to a crying baby for eight hours. I only had to put up with it for an hour and forty-five minutes, so it could have been worse.

When we got to the fair, we divided up into groups. I got in the group with people who wanted to go on all the rides. Normally I like amusement rides, even though I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to them, but then I saw the ticket prices. I have to go to the World Capital of Expensive Crap, Disney World, next month, and then a few days after I get back from there, New York City, so I didn't want to pay $20 for a ride pass... and then I proceeded to spend WAY more than $20 on snacks and jewelry. Well, more on the snacks- fair food is expensive. Actually, speaking of fair food, I ate way more fried stuff than I probably should, and I was even brave enough to try a fried candy bar. It was delicious, but I think I gained about 10 pounds just thinking about it! I should have taken a picture and uploaded it to This Is Why You're Fat. No matter, I don't intend to eat fried candy bars every day, especially since even though it was good, my body couldn't handle that much fattening content and rejected it- I haven't been able to eat anything else since then. One good thing about this trip was the strawberry sweet tea- my friend's grandmother makes it as well, and hers is an old family recipe. While the tea at the fair wasn't as good as my friend's grandmother's, it was the closest thing to decent sweet tea that I've ever had from a mass company.

The way back was rather interesting... some guy fell asleep and someone doodled on his face with a Sharpie, and he didn't wake up, so that provided some entertainment. But this time I was able to listen to my music relatively uninterrupted, so that was nice.

I took a couple of pictures at the fairground- I'm not in any of them, though, and probably no one wants to see my ugly-ass self, so you'll just have to make do.

I was really pissed because I had this great shot of the roller coaster, and then some fugly bitch had to get in the way. And she wouldn't move! So I can't post that epic picture... damn. The best one is the one you can see at the top of this page.

Starting From Scratch

Some of you may remember back when this blog was called The Rant. Well, I hadn't updated The Rant in quite some time, and I really had no interest in continuing with that line of blogging. So welcome to Paranoia Room, the new blog from The Lazy One! Technically it's the same blog, but let's just pretend it's the grand opening, OK?

I'm looking forward to this endeavor!