Something really weird happened last night. I was sleeping. I try to do that occaisionally at night. I had fallen asleep watching I Love the 80's (Strikes Back), and after it gets really late, or early, depending on how you look at it, VH1 plays Insomniac Music Theater, where they just play a bunch of music videos forever. So the weird part of this is, the drum beat introduction to "Gravedigger" woke me up at 4:11 AM. I looked at my watch and I was like wtf... And then I watched the video because it's uber good and I went back to sleep. This may not seem weird to most of you guys, but I am not a light sleeper. I have 2 alarms to wake me up in the morning, and that doesn't even work. At all. In fact, I have trained myself to press the snooze while sleeping. So the fact that a little bit of "Gravedigger" woke me up in the middle of the night/morning strikes me as odd.. As Will has put it, it's "Dave on the Brain."

I took a nap today. Or atleast I tried to. I fell asleep on the couch (with my contacts in, which I later paid for dearly) for about an hour. Although not all of this hour was sleeping. You gotta love these: "Hey Laur...Laur...LAUREN!" "Ahh! Uhh...what?!" "Are you asleep?" "Not anymore." -.- And that happened about 3 times. Within an hour. My mom finally decided that I'm getting sick and left me alone. I am too...it's just what I need right now. Sick. Oh well... might provide an opportunity to get a bit more sleep. But I have a party to go to on Saturday. I haven't RSVP'd yet, I'm thinking of not going. I dont know.

I have to start doing Christmas shopping. Damn, this is what makes me hate this time of the year. I'm broke all the time. Oh well. I like Christmas a lot. It's my favorite holiday. It's not that I don't like giving gifts, it's just that I don't like never having money ever. Yea. But I'm counting the days till Christmas break. 37. 23 1/2 school days. Can I make it?

Today I found out that I'm a Safe School Ambassador. I think that's kind of ironic. I have no idea how it happened. Actually, on the one paper they gave me, it said originally C. Gray, which is Cara Gray, who I know, but they just wrote an L over the C and put my room number on it. So I thought the whole thing was a mistake. But then on the other paper they gave me it said Lauren G. Which could be any number of people come to think of it, but my name was on the typed up sign in sheet at the meeting today. I was also signed in for the last meeting. o.0 Oh well, I've wanted to be in it anyway. Another thing to add to the resume. Now we're gonna make a movie. You know, one of those awful corny high school movies that they distribute around the country. We're famous! Sorta... I wanted to sign up for one of the things, but most of them are for guys. Whatever. I'll figure it out later. Someone remind me to order a t-shirt and give my money to Ms. Kelly. Yea. That's about it. Pretty uneventful. Clarinet Choir practice was cancelled today because we were locked out of the band room. My precalc book is still locked in there. Mr. Power is gonna kill me. I dont even have any time to do the assignment in the morning because I have to make up a vocab quiz. Oh well. I only kind of get it anyway..

I was commenting on Amanda's journal, and it took a mind of its own.

I'm trying to decide what to ask for for Christmas. I really think I have decided though. I was in best buy and I saw the most awesomest camera lens ever. It goes 70-300 mm. 300! My current lens is the one that came with the camera, 28-80 mm. I want to buy it, but it's tres chere. hmm... That's why I was thinking of asking for it for christmas. If I want to do some of the things I want to do in terms of photography, I need a better lens. Well, my lens is really good, it's a nikon lens, it just doesn't zoom far enough. And I'm thinking, if I get it for christmas, that's right before I go to Pittsburgh, so it'll be good for taking tons of pics up there. *Ponders*

Problem is, since I mortgaged my soul to buy the camera in the first place, I still owe $100 on it. That's not bad though, considering how much I once owed. Ah, well, it was worth it. I got some money shots in Aruba and Ohio this summer. I should see about selling some of them to Joe la Pierre. He's a painter guy. He painted all three of the "real" paintings that are in our house. He's kinda friends with my dad. He told me once that if he painted a reproduction of a picture I took, he'd give me 10% of the selling price. His paintings now though, the big ones atleast, are going for a good 3 grand. Good thing we bought ours before he was famous. lol. That would make me some good money. It'd pay me back for the camera atleast. Well, if he painted a few of my pictures. I doubt one would cover it. That would have to be one big ass painting to make that kind of money. Oh well. Enough complaining about my camera. I love it. I need to get it a new lens though, so that I can take more close up pictures. So, long story short, I think that's what I've decided on for Christmas. Hmm..


You know what else? My cat's really old. She turned 10 like 2 weeks ago, not that we celebrated her birthday or anything... Ten...hmm...that's gotta be atleast halfway done for a cat, right? Sure it does. Cats don't live past 20. She's really starting to show signs of aging though. She's slowing down a lot. We have to keep her food up on the counter so that the dog doesnt eat it, and sometimes when she jumps up to eat she misses and falls back down. And then sometimes when she's jumping down she sliips and goes head first into the side of the chair. It's fun to watch. We asked the vet about it once, and she doesn't have arthritis or anything. I think maybe she's just stupid and old.

Bando Photos

Yea, I took TONS of pictures yesterday. Ended up with 90 total, but after being a bit selective I uploaded 74 and deleted a few after that. All in all, they're really sweetness. I love my percussion seniors (and Shane) picture. You just gotta love percussionists with flowers.

Game was good last night. It was an awesome football game, and also fun bandowise. I went up and sat with Kristen for a bit. I was going to visit the clarinets, but I ended up sitting like directly behind Krystle and Adam anyway, so I just talked to them while I was sitting there. Leah was all upset because it was her last home game and now she doesn't know what to do with her friday nights. My response to this dilemma: Go to away games.

Tonight was fun too. We went to the mall and spent a good long while picking out exactly which hermit crabs we wanted to buy, and I decided that hermit crabs are really ugly and useless. Oh well. Not mine. Note to everyone reading this: While I do enjoy giving people hermit crabs, do not give them to me under any circumstances. The last thing I need right now is more useless pets.
Anyone want a cat?

Had fun at the party. I went in and beat the crap out of freshmen at ping pong. Me and Kristen teamed up at the end and took them out. Jenn was really pissed at me for putting that picture of her and kyle on the internet. I'll take it down when amy takes down the pictures she has of me that I hate.

Party poppers freak me out. There are few things that make me run and hide, but party poppers I just can't take. I don't know...there's something about having something loaded with gunpowder pointed at my face that just turns me off of them. I really don't mind them that much as a whole, only when they are pointed at me. It's not the loud noise or anything. If a party popper is a good 10-20 feet away from me, I'm fine. It's just when people are standing 2 feet from me with the thing freaking pointed right at my face. They're almost as useless as hermit crabs, and less entertaining.

I'm really confused. (Note mood) A lot of my friends are making...interesting decisions, and I don't know what to say/do about it. I'll figure it out I guess...just mentioning it.

Dave was on SNL tonight. Awesome. He did "Save Me" first and ended with "So Damn Lucky," which will most likely be his next single, not that people play it on the radio. The "Gravedigger" video is on VH1 all the time though, which is great because I watch VH1 all the time because their always playing I Love the 80's.

Speaking of the 80's...did you guys know that next year's freshmen will have been born in 1990?! What's up with that??? How can they have just completely missed the 80's? Is that allowed?! It makes me feel old again.

Today was not as good as yesterday. It wasn't the worst day ever, but yesterday was good. Well, let's see...it was pouring. The school flooded. That's always fun. My sweater is still wet I think. Had to make up the math test I skipped yesterday and my mind totally blanked on one of the problems. Oh well, I'll see how I did tomorrow. I'm not overly worried about it.

History can bite me. That B I had last quarter appears to be the only B I'll ever see. I'll be happy with a D on that dbq we just did. I hate that class almost as much as I hate Mr. Hall. The feeling is mutual though, so I don't really feel bad about it. I have never ever had a teacher hate me that much, and I've pissed off a lot of teachers in my day..

I went in and asked Mr. Lerner during second lunch if he had made a decision as far as practice was concerned, and of course he hadn't. So I told him I kinda needed to know before the very end of the day after the bell rang because I didn't sell any cheesecakes and I was gonna take the bus home if practice was cancelled. So he told me to see if my seventh hour teacher would let me out 5 minutes early and I could come and see then. I said "Mr. Lerner, I have Ms. Youngman seventh hour. She won't let me out without a pass." So he freaking reached over, grabbed a paper, and gave me a pass to get out of french at 2:40. Sweet. So I left french, got a 15 second answer, and hung out with Leah and Kristen for 10 minutes. As far as the answer went, "We're going to be practicing inside, so you don't have to come." Ok! No questions asked. I was on that bus faster than...I have no idea where I'm going here.

Anywho...I got home and went rollerblading. 2 laps. That's probably anywhere from about 3-5 miles. Not too bad. I would've liked to go a bit longer, but my knee was like hey! heeey! go home! So I yelled at it and took a rest. -.-

Something I found interesting the other day. Spanish River High billboard thingy out front reads Happy Birthday Kielle Kogan. I went to elementary school with her. She was one of the biggest boca bitches I've ever met in my life. We were still "friends" though in third grade. I went to her sleepover birthday party and she had karaoke. That was actually the first time I had done karaoke. And the last, come to think of it. There was big drama with me and Danielle Laratro choosing our song, because we wanted to do the same one as each other, but couldn't agree on which one to choose. We came to a compromise though, and sang some song about a car accident I think.. The songs were all from the 60's. But me and Kielle stopped speaking after a sticker incident. She traded me her jaguar fuzzy sticker for three of the little dollars our teacher gave us when we were good and we had white elephant sales at the end of the week/month/whatever...I can't really remember how often they occurred. Anyway, right after we traded she's like no, I don't want to trade. And I'm like tough, we said no trade backs. So she wrote me a note and put the dollars on them saying TAKE THESE! So I threw them inside her desk. (We sat next to each other) I still have that sticker. Sucker.

I remember random things. One time I was on a website looking at bunnies (don't ask..it was summer and I had nothing better to do), and my dad came up behind me. He said "oh, so-and-so had a rabbit just like that." "Yea, I know. Suki." (that's "Sookie," btw, not "sucky") He was so shocked you would have thought I had said...something other than the name of a rabbit. "What?!" "Wow, how do you remember that?" "I dunno...I just do." "Man, you could not have been more than two years old the last time you saw them." Hmm...I dunno. Just liked the rabbit. It was black and white. I fed it alphalpha. Bunnies are nice.

I took a mental health day. So sue me.

I woke up this morning, and it was next to impossible to get out of bed. So on my way out to the kitchen, I thought about what was going on at school today. Precalc test, possible english oral, chem notes, health class. Ok, it's manageable to make all that up. I just could not function today if I was that exhausted. So I got to the kitchen and I said to my mom, "I should stay home today." And she's like "ok. Your attendance is good enough this year, and I think you need to take a mental health day." Sweet. So I went and asked my dad what was going on today and he said he was just gonna run some errands. So I said Ok, I'm going back to bed. And I did. I couldn't even stay awake long enough to see the "Gravedigger" video that was currently playing on VH1 and I fell asleep with my TV on.

I slept through school.

I woke up, glad that it was light out for once, and looked at my watch. Ironically enough, it was exactly 2:50. I slept a lot. I feel better now though, although I got nothing done really. I had planned on doing stuff today and being productive. Oh well.

I went to the mall though, at about 4. I had to get a top for Saturday. I got a top and new pants! Not pants for the party. Just pants. I'll wear them tomorrow. They're good pants.

And, since I slept through the better part of today, that's all I've done. And I'm very happy about that.

I'm extremely close to actually studying, so I figured I'd get on woohu and YELL AT PEOPLE FOR NOT COMMENTING!! :'-( I feel so deprived....

Speaking of being deprived....I got the finding nemo dvd today!!! ^_^ I watched a little bit of it, but with the precalc test and the history test tomorrow, I figured I could watch it another time... But I got a nemo plush, a squirt plush, a pin, and 4 lithos with the dvd! Now I have 8 lithos! I'm starting a collection. The next ones I wanna get are 101 dalmations and Fox and the Hound. Ya know, just FYI... o.~

Ok, ok....I'll actually go study....

I know it's late, but I had to write..
I literally just purchased my airline tickets to go to Pittsburgh. I am SO excited!!! It was a major ordeal though. I went on expedia a few days ago and saved some info as an "itinerary" which you can do so that you have not yet bought the tickets, but you save like what flights you want to go on. At that point, I got a fairly decent price for the trip I wanted to take at the time I wanted to do it. I was planning on getting into pittsburgh at like 9:35 AM or something like that and leaving at 2:40 PM. It was good, because that would give me a full day on the day I arrived and atleast till lunch on the day I was to leave, but I wouldn't get here too late for people to come pick me up on the flip side. I got online today to check up on the itinerary, because Will was going to book it for me, and the price had jumped about $140. WTF?! I was really pissed about it too, because just last night I had gotten in a small argument with my dad over when to buy the tickets. I was under the impression that the longer you wait to book a flight, the more expensive it gets. "Well that's not exactly true all of the time." Grr.. I really honestly thought that this thing would be allowed to slip through the cracks. Just like a few other unmentioned things... -.- That's a huge reason that I've been talking about it 24/7. It's been 2/3 because I was excited and 1/3 because if I dont talk about things constantly around here, they do not happen. I have learned this the hard way. ANYWAY... He said that the prices had been dropping on airfares and that we would wait a week to ten days. FINE! UGH! Yea, dad, the prices sure are falling. They're falling so much that they're falling up! =-O I know I'm shocked! Who ever heard of airline tickets going UP in price?! So anyway, after a few minutes of looking around on expedia, I found a trip that was equal in price to the original one. Trick is, this one is the same flight out, but it leaves pitt at 7:40 PM, or something like that. It also leaves a day later. WOOT!! A whole day and a half more than I thought I was getting!! I'm so happy that this thing is actually happening!!

I was trying to explain to Nikki why this thing is so huge for me, and I ended up summing it up pretty well on accident:

It is everything that I miss with everyone that I miss.

I miss everything about Pittsburgh. I miss snowball fights. I miss fires in the fireplace. I miss sledding. I miss breaking icicles off the roof of the shed and eating them like popsicles. I miss cardinals in the snow. I miss deer. I miss fall leaves.

Actually, that last one brings up an interesting point. I missed fall leaves so much one year that my grandmother and my little sister, whoops, I mean cousin, Karen, ironed fall leaves in wax paper (that makes them stay, guys, I know we dont know much about seasonal thingies) and shipped them down for me. It was great. My next trip to Pittsburgh (well, maybe not next...I may need one more snow trip in there somewhere) will be for fall leaves. Then for tulips in the spring. Well, actually, by then, I won't need to have such a huge deal to get myself up there. I'll be in college. ROAD TRIP! Oh yea...

Anyway, this whole post has just been one long way of saying...

I AM SO PSYCHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy halloween guys! Hope everyone had fun trick or treating. This was the first year I didn't go. I feel so old. But the 311 concert rocked. They are really good live. They did they're new single for the encore, and it was awesome. It's a good anger management song. It will go on my anger management mix disc 2. They played Amber also, which is one of my favorite tracks. I love that cd. They played mostly from their new cd though, which I don't know as well. But it was all good. It was Gabe's first concert! O.O Good first concert though I guess. I have never seen people with that much drugs in my life. It wasn't so much that there were a lot of people doing drugs as much as it was how much the individuals were doing. I have no idea how some of those people were standing. Well, to be fair, some of them weren't, but still.

We had a new record of trick or treaters at our house last night. Eleven.

Yesterday was very weird. I'm still trying to ...recover. Not the concert. That was sweet. Something else. But I am definitely not writing about it until I get it sorted out in my head. Just not real sure how to deal with this, and I'm really really extremely freaked out right now. o.o

Today rocked my socks. NOTHING BAD HAPPENED! OMG. Somebody pinch me. Please. ...Ow! grrr.

Today in precalc I became first on the list of amanda's "buckos." Hehe, it's funny cuz she says that a lot. And now we're pirates. Arrgh! I get to be the monkey too! Aha! I outlive you ALL! My haunted coin!

So anyway...back to reality. School was great today because I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I didn't do my english oral, even though I semi-prepared it, so it wouldn't have been horrible to go. We got our chem tests back sort of. I got a B on the multiple choice. He hasn't graded the free response though. That's fine with me. A B in chem makes me very happy. Sweet.

I FINALLY got that email I have been waiting for. Yay!!!!! :-D Amy is getting kicked tomorrow for giving me a faulty email address. -.- I waited three weeks to be emailed back from a faulty email address. grrr.

I took a nap today. :-)

I am now the self-proclaimed president of the National High School Marmot Club. Suavé is the VP. That is all.


Before I wrap this up, my brother just sent me this link. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. http://members.cox.net/impunity/endofworld.swf Go take a look.

Peace.

Uhhh...I just cannot not be tired anymore. I'm so tired all the time. Maybe the lack of sleep has something to do with that. I think I'm just gonna go to bed tonight though. At like 8. Because I can. Well, actually, I can't, but I'm going to. SCREW IB. Mr. Youngman is the devil. Hmm...what would that make Mrs. Youngman? ooo! I know! I know! I'll give you a hint...

I have to do this stupid oral in english. Grr. I dont want to do it. Maybe I wont. Psh..ya right. I have to analysize (lol) Leonardo. Anyone know why he has a name? If I wrote that play, I'd just call him "whore." That'd work. "Adulterer" "All around dumbface" How'd ya like to see that in one of Lorca's plays? It would make me more interested atleast...

I'm not making any sense. I'm talking to my little cousin. She's like what the hell is wrong with you? Well, she didn't say it like that because she's 13 and is not quite as corrupt as the rest of us, but still.. I'm trying to explain IB to her, how I've had about 10 hours of sleep this week. It occurs to me how sad this life is. I am so exhausted. It really wouldn't be worth it if I didn't look forward so much to being financially independent from my parents as soon as I go to college. It's what keeps me going.

Just a quick sidenote. Amanda just IMed me with this. http://www.woohu.com/users/userphotos/2184 You make kitty scared. o.0

Ok, so that's about all I'm going to ramble about in here. Just figured if I don't post something every few days or something of the sort, people will assume I'm dead. Even if I show up at school. Oh, that reminds me, something interesting. We got our report cards today. I missed one full day of school this year, and Ms. Schilit is the only one who noticed. I found it odd.

That was lots of fun. Just got home from the Atlantic band mini-field trip to get solo and ensemble music. I walked over to the clarinet section, said hi to my posse, and then ran away, unnoticed, over to the percussion section. Okay, so they saw me go.. But I am not going to play a clarinet solo, Adam! I looked mainly through the grade threes. I picked out three that were options. One was a Mozart, one was Bach, and the other was "Funeral March of a Marionette". After looking through them a bit more closely, I put back the Bach, because it had too many rolls. I hate rolling. Grr. So it was between the Mozart one and the green one. I took a vote, and the green one won, because it was prettier. Then I went and hung out a little more with the clarinets. Seeing what all they were getting.

I was just kind of chilling out doing nothing while Leah was saving our spot in line and she goes "Lauren! Lauren! Come here!" So I walked over and she's like look who came! Mr. Markgraf was there! Yay! Then I had to hide the marimba solo. He came over to talk to us and ask us what we were getting. He asked Leah and she explained her whole book of duets for her and Kristen that are apparently easy grade 5's because they have only two mallets. Right. Then markgraf was like so, skillet, what are you getting? I turned around the paper..."A marimba solo.." "Oh. ...what? Really?! Lemme see!" Hehe, it was a good double take. He opened up the booklet thingy, took one look at it, and said "This is a really good one for you. Not a lot of rolls." LMAO! I had just been talking about that to leah like 2 seconds before. Crazy. But I hate rolling. With a passion. So my solo got the "markgraf stamp of approval" and I feel better about which one I picked. The green one.

I still have not decided if I'm going to actually do anything for solo and ensemble. Well, I mean besides clarinet choir. I wasn't even going to go today, but Leah bugged me about it. So I asked Mr. Lerner this morning if we went and bought music when we would have to decide whether we were actually going to do s&e, and he said we didn't have to sign up until right before Christmas Break. So I figured I'd get something to work on, and if I feel it's good enough to perform by december, or that it will be good enough to perform at some point ever, then I'll do it as a solo. It just gives me something to do that's still on percussion, but not like in the class or anything. Dont worry guys, I'm still doing clarinet. It just is a change. Gives me something to do during lunches I guess. It's a grade 3, so I may be able to do something with it by the time solo and ensemble rolls around. Who knows..