Birthday

It's odd to think that I'm eighteen now, if for no reason other than because now I'm technically an adult. I'm just so used to being the little sister that I tend to think of age relative to my brother. Eighteen and (not quite) twenty just sound so... Old, even if they're not.
I dunno.

I GOT INTO COLLEGE!

I applied Early Action to my top college, and, a week later, got my response. The letter of admissions hasn't been mailed to my house yet, but my account online told me I was accepted. 

I AM SO HAPPY I AM GLOWING.

I've applied!

I've finished applications for two colleges! Yay!

I keep seeing all these cool tea flavors sent around on mail blogs--like mint chocolate or vanilla or what have you. I really want to try a vanilla or chocolate tea, but they don't sell them here!

WHY.

Yesterday I tried taking some self portraits. I've been thinking about posting some of my photos, maybe from class or otherwise just so that this blog isn't empty. I swear I'm not dead!

These are my favorites :)

So. Lately I've been intentionally forgetting my taekwondo classes, simply because I haven't been in the mood and it hasn't been fun there in a while (since the instructor broke his ankle about a year ago and brought in a replacement). I was even going to go today, I just... forgot. For real.
I feel bad about it. But at the same time, I don't enjoy going anymore.
It's kind of lose-lose.

I've fallen in love with octopuses.

Seriously. I love them. I've been endlessly googling videos of them just so I could watch them move.
I've been looking for octopus-shaped stamps or other octopus things online (to no avail D: )
I want more octopus things.

Also, I kind of have a small obsession with cecaelia. They've become my favorite mythical creatures. Seriously. They're so cool.

Hello again! It's been such a long time since I've written -_-
I'm sorry! I'm so horrible at this.
So anyhow. Today I went to the library and picked up all seven of my holds. Added to the five books I now have at home to read, that's quite a bit of time. But if you're reading this Beh, don't worry--your book takes priority :)

Just updating on all the awful tests I'm taking: I have my SAT subject test this Saturday and my ACT the Saturday after that. UGH. Not to mention that I'm totally unprepared for the US history subject test--I have done no studying other than taking the class this year, so I have zero confidence in my knowledge. Taking practice tests totally reinforces that, because seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing.

I got two letters from The Netherlands this week, which is freaking amazing. I promise I'm going to write back as soon as I can, but I'm seriously busy right now. In two and a half weeks, school will let out and I'll finally be able to write back at a decent pace :)

I also finally sent a mysterious book to Beh--hopefully she likes it, although it is rather strange, so I don't blame her if she doesn't.

I ought to go, I'll try and blog again eventually :)

No mail this week

Woe is me.

Oh My Gosh...

I just found the letters from my Spanish pen pal from when I was in the fourth grade. I thought I lost those letters.
He only sent me three, then never again.
I still have the earrings he sent me. And now I have his letters, too.

So... I used to be 35 pages behind on my Script Frenzy script.

I wrote 13 pages today.

I suppose I'm catching up.

Day of Silence

This friday is the Day of Silence.  It is a "national youth-run effort using silence to protest the actual silencing of LGBT people due to harassment, bias and abuse in schools," and our school participates in it every year. I've definitely been participating for as long as I've known about it. 
I'm kind of pumped for it. In the past, I've brought whiteboards to help communicate, though I think I might actually go for some hardcore silence this year. 


Also, next week I'm going to donate blood! I've never donated before; hopefully there's nothing wrong with me preventing me from doing so (I'm more afraid of being turned down for donating than I am of the actual needle.) You have to be at least 17, and none of my friends are either old enough or willing to... I can't understand why you wouldn't want to, though! 


Plus, I have type O blood (though I'm not sure if it's positive or negative!), making me a universal donor. I want to help the best I can!

What makes me really angry, though, is that when I got my driver's license, my mum didn't check the donor box. It wasn't her decision to make--I would rather be helping others than taking my organs with me to rot. 


Yay activism!

Wall Art! :D

I put this up on the wall :D It was approved by the vice principal, so it wasn't even against the rules. 

Also, now there seem to be tons of cute posters appearing around for no particular reason. For example, high five posters with giant hands to slap while walking by. I don't have anything to do with these--they just make me happy :)

EEEP!

Today I came home and there was a fat package from Poland! EEP!
I sent Ada poptarts a couple weeks ago, since she had never eaten them before, as they don't sell them in Poland. Well today I got a giant envelope full of her favorite sweets!

Ahh, I was so excited opening it! They're so foreign and amazing!

Plus, the outside of the envelope had little Super Mario stickers :3 

She also sent me pictures from her hometown, of her family and pets, as well as a letter on nyan cat paper :D

Yay!

Oh my gosh. I got another letter today, so now I have three things to respond to! Two of which I will have to start on right away because they came when I was on vacation! SO much writing to do today!

In other news, I'm almost done with one of two essays!

I'M BA-ACK!

...Although I realize I may have never said that I left.

Anyway, I just spent the last week road tripping up from San Francisco, through Oregon and Washington. We saw tons of colleges (six, in fact). I also met up with my brother's best friend (at the University of Oregon) and his girlfriend (at Puget Sound) and hung out with them a little :)

But anyway, it was pretty cool! I really loved Seattle. I could live there, I think.

In other news, when we were in Seattle I found this japanese import shop called Daiso that is SO AWESOME. I'm generally not the biggest Asia nerd, but I started geeking out when we were there because they had so much stationery and other cute things, it was awesome. I bought eight new stationery paper set thingies, and tons of new tapes and punches. I got an embosser too! Other than the paper goods, I also bought a couple bento boxes--they're something I've always wanted, but never really known where to get (or else they would be expensive!) The AMAZING thing about Daiso is that EVERYTHING is $1.50--it's so unbelievably affordable :D

Being back home kind of sucks, though. Mostly because I realize I have to write 2 essays, and only really have tomorrow to do so. Oh well.

I am so sorry about how grammatically incorrect the majority of this post is. I would like to point out that it is midnight and I just spent the last 5+ hours either in an airport or on a plane. At this point I'm just beyond caring :)

So last year I did a few anonymous projects around my school to make it more fun and colorful. I hung colorful happy tags from the locks on strangers' lockers, drew smiles on some glass pebbles and placed them around--simplistic things that still make people smile.

Well, this week I finally had the time to spread some more little projects.

I hung a colorful banner in the staircase, and placed a few love posters around the school (with little tabs that you can pull away-- it was inspired by this.) I'm working on making more non-permanent paper art to stick to the walls!

What I find funny is that it's technically against the rules to put up anything that hasn't been signed and approved by the principal-- so if they really wanted, they could get me in trouble for putting up the love posters, or for hanging a paper banner. But I don't see the harm in hanging up positive reaffirmations :)

Most of my ideas are inspired by Katie Sokoler, a really cool photographer and street artist! She's one of my favorite artists and role models :)

So I've never written a screenplay before. I've never had any interest in it either.

I got emailed by the NaNoWriMo headquarters today-- I generally just ignore their messages. I opened it today out of boredom-- it turns out that Script Frenzy is 12 days away.

For whatever weird reason, I decided that I'm going to do it.

I spent a long time reading about how to write a screenplay. I even made an account for celtx, which is a free script writing software.

I have no idea what it's going to be about. It'll probably be one of the crazy fun ideas that I had always considered for NaNo, but turned aside for whatever reason. (I usually treat NaNo as though it's Serious Writing Time, which is sad. It would prolly be better if I let myself have a little more fun with it, but then I wouldn't like the result.)

So yeah. Any suggestions for what I should write about? I think I might just lump a bunch of unrelated prompt-y type things together (Barista? Zombies? Greenland?) without a plot in mind at all and see where it goes. And throw things in for no particular reason when I'm getting bored. Heh. I'm kind of excited.

So now I just wait, I guess.

Foreign Mail!

Hello! Today was a good day :)

I got a letter from Hortense, my pen pal from France! She sent me all sorts of adorable goodies!

The entire letter was covered in cute stickers and happy drawings! I don't want to post a picture of the letter itself :P

She tucked in the postcard from Paris. So pretty! I want to go to Paris c:

She also sent me some tea (it's in french!) and a little pink bracelet. I love it!

You may also notice that my fingernails are tuxedos. Indeed :)

Sometimes I just need to look at this...

...and it makes my day better. It's also become my response to pretty much anything cute :)

I Got Goodies Today!

Today when I got home from school, there were 2 packages for me! Woo!

The first consisted of some stationery items I bought from PrettyTape on etsy.

It's washi tape! I've always loved washi tape, so I finally bought some! It's totally going to be all over my letters from now on :P

I also bought a made with love stamp:

I just thought it was so cute :) Plus, it arrived really quickly! I'm happy :D

The second thing I got in the mail was a letter by the lovely Shelby!

She made me a playing card :3 I think it's adorable! I'm slowly working through the available parts of the deck. Hehehe :) And I still love the envelopes she made! Since her first handmade letter, the letters I've sent to my other pen pals have been handmade. I'll probably send one this time too :)

Shelby has been sending me mail with the most frequency of all my pen pals. I'm going to send a package soon, as soon as I can get a box for it!

Weee!

In other news, I have a ton of English homework to read. I hate Fredrick Douglass. I guess it could be worse, though.

Now that I finished Ashfall, I'm onto Wither by Lauren DeStefano.

(In the future, women die at age 20 and men at 25 due to a strange, unavoidable virus. After Rhine is sold into a polygamous marriage, she wants nothing more than to escape. After all, at age 16, her clock is ticking.) Although there are a few flaws with the premise, I'm still really enjoying it. I'm about halfway through it now :D

I'm trying to read at least 50 books this year. I'm already through 22!

I have to go get some work done. Adieu!

Hello! I'm just stopping in to say that I finished Ashfall by Mike Mullin today! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like apocalypse books : ) This one was about a super volcano in Yellowstone exploding, and Alex, the main character, trying to find his family.

You may notice that I am terrible at blogging. This is in part because of a lack of interesting things happening in my life.

I've had a tumblr for a while. It's here!

That's probably more interesting! I'm probably not going to update this all too often, if I do. I'm sorry : P

Hello!

I went to Knott's Berry Farm amusement park today with my physics class. Apparently every year they have a "physics fun day" where a bunch of schools drive up to play on the rides and find the acceleration and such.

I had a super fun time with some really awesome people, and we went on most of the exciting rides. Sonja and I are totally awesome together in theme parks, especially since we're both able to handle the really intense roller coasters. I love roller coasters. ♥

My favorites are definitely the Xcelerator, the Boomerang, and the Ghostrider. The first was crazy fast with a pin drop, the other shot along loops backwards, and the last was just a massive adrenaline rush after a two hour line wait. (Which would have completely sucked if I wasn't with Katherine. Even then it was just SO LONG.)

I hoped I could find some souvenirs for my pen pals there, and I'm really sorry to say that there honestly wasn't anything of worth. I wish though!

Also, I've been holding off on sending a letter to Sierra from Texas--in her last letter she sent me a framed texas thing (which is really cool, though hard to describe) and a Doctor Who book! I want to send something back, but there's nothing interesting that I could get here for her! I'm struggling and have been holding off writing her back for a few days, hoping that there will be something magic that I find. I have no idea what though! :/

PS: I watched Labyrinth yesterday and it was awesome. The baby, Toby, is the most adorable little boy ever.

I did find the lead character's acting to be a little bad, though. Also, the little blue worm was creepy.

What am I reading? And other things.

It's called XVI by Julia Karr. I'm not far enough in to know if I like it or not, though.

It's about a society in which every girl, at the age of sixteen, gets XVI tattooed on her wrist. It's a sign of reaching the age of consent. Supposedly, some big event changes everything, just as a new boy joins her life.

I should finish it sometime soon. I love recommendations, so if you think of anything, definitely tell me!

Why seas of lemonade?

I really like Charles Fourier. He's a french Utopian Socialist and was completely crazy.

He thought that if everyone followed his ideas, the seas would lose their salinity and turn to lemonade.

I like him for that.

I'm currently not happy, though I usually am. I don't want to rant here, though. It wouldn't be fair to everyone involved.

Hello.

My name's Bri. I'm seventeen and I like things. Like pen palling.

I'm going to use this blog for all sorts of things. I'm not quite sure what yet. I might write a bit about my pen palling, post some pictures, or just talk about things in general. Who knows : )