"I Knew You Knew..."

"I knew you knew, I knew you knew I liked you. But I figured desperate guys never had a chance with you." Desperate Guys by The Faint. I love that song!
Today was the speech tournament. It was a looong day for sure but it was definitely fun. I broke finals in both extemp and poetry, and I was super excited because not only is this my first speech meet of the year, it's my first speech meet ever! Hooray for noobs! Anywho, I did pretty well. Extemp was a little stressful for me, because I would have a lovely little speech planned out in my head, but they were too short. Also, much of the time I wouldn't exactly know what I was talking about (you draw three topics and choose the one you can best bluff your way through), and my sources didn't have information on the topics.
Also, right after we got back to our home town school, one of my friend texts me saying she got pwned by a pole because she was checking Facebook and ran into it. Don't be like my unfortunate friend, watch where you walk!

Every Pessimist Was Once an Optimist

Imagine standing up in front of your judgmental peers and an almost-as-judgmental judge and trying to put emotion into words you've only read yesterday. Or, try telling the same audience all about a topic you have had thirty minutes to think about and you very likely don't know anything about it either. That is what I will be doing tomorrow!
As uncomfortable as the situation sounds, I am excited. I have a speech tournament tomorrow and I haven't been to any this year! This means I have to be at school at 5 A.M. But I'll be doing poetry and extemp at this tournament and I hope it will be fun.
Truly, I admire optimistic people. I have slowly become more and more pessimistic, though, and it is a little disconcerting. You have all of these expectations of the world, and as you get older, more and more of them disappear because you've already been let down. Despite this seemingly depressing outlook on life, I still entertain a little moment of hopeful amusement where I think school might not be insanely freaking boring.

Pretty Girls Make Graves

I am home sick today. Bleh. But hey it means I'm not at school, which is a plus. It also means I should probably catch up on my English essay, do my math homework, and maybe learn my lines for the school play. This is not very likely, but it could happen.
Has anybody been listening to some good music lately? I am sadly feeling a lack of metal in my life. It is a little discouraging. Of course, I've started listening to a lot of trippy indie music, so that almost makes up for it. Today, I am listening to mostly Pretty Girls Make Graves and The Sounds, and both of them are really great bands. I wouldn't classify them as "indie" but then again, I don't really know exactly what counts as indie. Indie is can either be a genre or a term for a band that isn't signed. Don't ask me how this works.

Weekends...

My Valentine's Day was not, in fact, spent doing Valentine-y things. Are you amazed? Because I'm certainly not. I was in Topeka, KS participating in CIA, which actually stands for Citizenship In Action. It was a 4-H event, and I got to pretend to be a member of the House of Representatives. I amended bills and debated whether certain bills should be passed or not. I also learned to swing dance. All in all, I felt like a nerd.
Now that it's the next weekend, you would think I would spend it in a relatively average relaxing manner, but that is not the case. I spent six hours yesterday arguing over the correct way to name and label different rocks, minerals, and fossils. I am not even kidding. It was the Kansas State 4-H Geology Action Group meeting, and I am now the vice chair of this group. I was kind of a celebrity there, though, because I am the only person in the state who does Lapidary. Lapidary is a section of Geology only you polish the rocks and make them shiny and pretty. All the people crowded around me and started telling me that they've seen my display and it was gorgeous, and ohhh, do you think you could show us your rocks? It was very weird.
I could write much more, but I have no time to do so....

I Wish I Had My Own Pet Dinosaur

So, it's getting pretty close to Valentine's Day. Of course, I will not be doing anything particularly Valentine-related on the actual day, but I'm sure some people will.
Today was the day in school where we received our carnations. You see, in my school you can buy different colored carnations for people that mean different things. It comes with a little heart card that you either sign or mysteriously leave anonymous. My best friend and I always arrange to send each other pink (Secret Admirer) ones, so we at least definitely get one carnation, and so we can giggle coyly about an imaginary boy while our other friends ask us who it is. I was given three carnations, all of them from people I already knew I was getting ones from. Still, it's nice to be told your friends love you! Also, we filled out "Matchmaker" quizzes, and today, you could buy the results for your school. The boy who was my so-called number one match was teasing me all day about him being my "number one." It was kind of cute, but so embarrassing because this boy knows I used to have a crush on him! My best friend certainly thought it was funny.
I have a four day weekend! Yes! I am so glad for this break from school. Not to mention my grades are not doing so well, and I might even spend this weekend working on stuff that probably already should have been done. I seriously almost punched a boy who was making fun of my grades. I didn't because I had a test to take, so instead I shouted expletives at him in front of the whole class. It was pretty great.
I'm having problems sleeping still. I don't understand why I can't sleep. I also have a tendency to pass out? And I'm beginning to think the two things may be related.
Trail mix should always have chocolate in it.

Blink of an Eye

So much has happened since New Year's that I am not even going to try to summarize. There were lots of band-related developments, of course, and I even ended up having a trumpet solo in jazz band. I don't even play the trumpet! At least not well, by my standards. But I managed to not only NOT fail fantastically at said solo, but I did pretty well I think.
Well, in honor of this being February, I have a little poem. It goes like this:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I have a crush
But not on you!
I'm not a big fan of mushy poetry. I mean, I think it is really cute, but I can never write it. I start out really sweet and romantic but I end up writing something derogatory or otherwise insulting. It can be really funny, but it makes for poor Valentine poetry.