27 1/2 Hours

The above title proclaims how long I spent at er's house. It probably wouldn't have lasted that long if my family hadn't gone to see a movie that was, according to them, way too innapropriate for me. So I stayed till 6:30, roughly. ER ended up leaving the house before me, cause she and her dad were going to a hockey game. I find that terribly ironic.

Despite staying roughly two days there, our activities didn't vary much. When I got there ER showed me the ADD book her mom was reading. Took the quiz too. According to the test I had a very strong suspicion/you do have it of Inattentive Type ADD. What a surprise. We played on her keyboard for a very long time, and I learned the top part to The Heart & Soul, or something like that. Then all of us (me, ER, parents and Pixie) went sledding. We went down a very steep hill and flew (yes, I do literally mean flew) off the sled. I landed on ER. Her face was in the snow. It was very funny. Then during another ride down, Pixie was right behind us. We stopped first, obviously, then moved out o fthe way as Pixie sped toward us. Her sled got stuck in ours, and so, according to Newton's second law, she went flying straight across and landed two feet ahead, in the snow. It was hilarious.

Then we went home and had pancakes for dinner. Then we watched The Reduced Shakespeare Company. Then we went to bed at 9:30, but didn't stop talking and fall asleep until like, 11:20. ER pathetically tried to make me believe something stupid, but it didn't work, because she had already tried it on me. It was very funny. In the morning we were both hungry, so I had two bowls of rice krispies, a glass of milk and slice of bread while ER had something of the general mills persuasion.

Then she showed me how to King's Corners. We played about 20 rounds of it, and me being me, I won only once. Then we went to the axman store, and I got this bird thing. Then we went back and played more King's Corners w/ popcorn. I also taught her how to play spit. Sophia called while we were playing, and ER beat me. It was sad. Then we went sledding. Came back, played more King's Corners/Spit. Then my parents came.

I feel like I just came back from a vacation or something. It's good to be home. Having access to a computer and whatnot.

Merry Christmas in Review

I woke up on christmas day at around 7ish. Looked at my watch, groaned when I saw the time, and tried to fall back asleep, but phailing. Then at around 8 I finally got out of bed and went to the living room with a comic book and ipod in hand. Sat on the couch reading and listening to music until my parents got up, then ate a lot of pumpkin bread and read the morning comics.

Then there was a whole lot of waiting while my brother got his lazy butt out of bed and up the stairs. But, can't exactly blame him. He's 16, with sore tonsils about the size of Alaska. But then he finally came up, so we opened our presents at a remarkably slow, painful pace. I filmed a lot of it until my brother got pissed at me (why, I have yet to discover) so I stopped. For awhile.

Presents:
- Guitar Hero 3
- DDR pad
- Calvin & Hobbes
- Chocolart (thing that lets you make chocolate)
- Whole lot of gum
- Graphing calculator
- Pocket knife
- winter crocs
- pajamas (no idea where they got that idea)
- snow globe
- 365 day trivia calendar
- Grossology & You (the stuff in there is hilarious o.o)
- flute book of a bunch of Beatles songs
- The Sims2 Seasons
- Booklight thing
- AIDS T-shirt
- Sudoku

Then after I went on WoW and opened presents from 'Great Grandfather Winter' and my guildies (people in my guild/group/thing) then played on there for a bit. One of my presents was this explosive robot that would shoot explosives at other robots, so a bunch of people would be huddled around to see how long their bots would survive. I got eight in a row at one point.

Then after I hung around the house, not sure what to do with myself. Ate some cookies, had a lunch of leftover chinese food, and read a bit. Asked my mom if we could go to the movies. She said no. So then I decided to go outside. Busied myself for about twenty minutes trying to make the bottom of a snowman, but that didn't work. It was really nice outside though. Whole lot of snow with big flakes coming down.

Then I went to the front yard, grabbed a snow shovel and went to a snowdrift that was beside my driveway and started digging through it with plans to make a small tunnel you could go in and out of. Was so hot by the end that my hat was off, coat unzipped. Kept having to sit down and whack at the snow with my boots, which got really annoying. Eventually I just laid down, watching the snow from a vertical point of view. Very interesting.

After I went in, took off my snow stuff, made a plate of various xmas cookies (gingerbread shapes, shortbreads, sugar cookies, frosted pretzels, reindeer cookies and snowballs) sat down on the couch, put on my glasses and watched A Christmas Story for about two hours until dinner was ready. Ate shrimp and couscous and milk, had a lindor truffle afterwards. Skipped fruit. Then the family played scrabble, in which I got 3rd place with 87 points. Played on the computer after. Then went to bed.

I actually spent most of xmas day by myself. Oh well.

p.s. I'm getting a trumpet... but I have to pay $70 for it >:(

Next three days...

My schedule for the next three days:

- Baking
- Wrapping
- Decorating
- Shopping

God, going shopping is going to be so much fun... all the mothers buying fisher price toys, men buying fifteen pounds' worth of diamonds for their spouses... stores gonna be plain packed. Can't wait!

My mom won't get me a cornet for xmas.

Golden Compass

So I saw the Golden Compass last night, and it was fun. E.R and I would occasionally talk at during scenes, but for the most part, seeing it the second time was very fun. I found myself actually tensing up whenever there were scenes like at the frozen lake and when Pan was being grabbed at by that evil monkey (which happened to have a nice resemblance of Bush).

After the movie we hung out in the lobby area for a bit and talked about what our daemons would be, and about the movie. It was pretty fun. After E.R drove Maggie and I back home, and we also talked about what our daemons would be in the car. I'd like to be an ermine. Maggie would probably be a mouse or something. E.R would be a dog or a hawk of some sort. Pixie's would still be changing, but we reckoned that when it did settle it'd probably be of the squirrel persuasion.

Now I'm going out soon to get holiday decorations for the house. Whoop-dee-doo.

WOO!

OOTP officially came out on DVD today! I am soooooooo so so so happy. But now I'm gonna have to work on all the cruddy homework I've got due tomorrow before my mom comes home, because we'll be watching it tonight. I'm also gonna be playing dreidel with my family, so that'll be difficult...

School always ruins the fun. In the word's of Sop's brother... "There's no such thing as breaks, Maya. There will always be homework."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

p.s That's how you spell Maya right? >.>

Here's to You, Santa

So people may have noticed that I'm posting a lot more than I used to. At the beginning of december I randomly got this huge inspiration to keep my blog updated as much as I could. And as I've got more time than most of my friends do on my hands, I realized I really had no good excuse for not posting for about a month.

I'm writing this in my room right now, and my hands are FREEZING. My coordination skills dropped about 28% since two minutes ago. I just spent about an hour making a list of songs I'd wanna buy when I get some Itunes gift cards... and there's a lot. But I made sure that I wanted all of them, which is the really sad part.

But anyway, I thought I'd share it with you guys. You can easily look it up on Itunes, and judge whether or not I'm tone-deaf to good music:

Islands

• Human
• Rough Gem
• Jogging Gorgeous Summer

Beck

• Que Onda Guero

The White Stripes

• You Don't Know What Love Is ('nuff capitalization for you? ;))
• Little Cream Soda
• Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn

Spoon

• Whole album of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga(....ga)

Santana

• Oye Como Va
• Into the Night
• Evil Ways

Modest Mouse

• The World at Large
• Bukowski
• The View
• One Chance
• Dramamine

Everlast

• Blinded by the Sun
• White Trash Beautiful
• Lonely Road
• Maybe

Red Hot Chili Peppers

• Dani California
• Charlie
• Warlocks
• Wet Sand
• Slow Cheetah

Incubus

• Dig

Killers

• Shadowplay
• Sweet Talk

Cake

• Short Skirt, Long Jacket
• Comfort Eagle

God that took me awhile to type out. Talk about tedious. Kept going on little breaks... >.> But yeah, those are the songs. Please don't waste one large chunk of time listening to all of them. Don't waste a precious hour of your life like I did. Though I guess it was necessary.

Say What!?

Second place. We got freaking second place. And in the words of Sophia's mom, "I don't know how you guys did it, but you did it." And this is a team that has gone all the way down to 9th place before, mind you. For God's sake, we only got nine questions on the oral face-off (which was, then again, a pretty snappy record for us) and our P.A.R.T.Y was complete improv. The only really planned thing we had was a basic plot (which sucked).

I knew we had done pretty well on the mind sprints, but 100? Jesus. And we beat E.R's time. That's the amazing thing about it all, AND WE ACTUALLY GOT A RIBBON! Even after thirteen hours of getting the ribbon, it still doesn't seem believable. Just... wow.

On another note, I feel extremely sluggish and lazy. After getting about 11 hours of sleep when I normally get 6-8 hours. At least to me it makes me feel as if I've just been hit in the head with a club.

... And that was not meant to give any of you ideas.

This whole livejournal thing is getting much less confusing. Perhaps I will move to posting on both blogs... :D

I'm Really Not Used to TV....

So it was just my mom and I at home today cause my brother was at debate and my dad at work. While we were making dinner she told me that there was this holiday special thing for Top Chef where various people from previous seasons that got eliminated got to come back and win 20,000 dollars (what an awful way to give out money...) We watched this rerun first though at around 6:30ish, and by the time we were finished watching everything, it was 9:28pm.

My brain feels like absolute mush. The last time I watched that much TV was when I was like... never.

I need a book FAST

Songs

Have any of you ever experienced a time in which you've got this great story thing going in your head, but you just can't, no matter what you do, make it like you want it to be on paper? THAT'S BLOODY TORTURING ME TO INSANITY!

(Note to self: If 'bloody' is an actual swear word, cut it out immediately and give your self fifty lashings)

But anyway, it's usually in bed when I'm thinking about the story and it's becoming literally one of my favorite past times, just sitting and thinking about it. And you know what really helps? Listening to these two sent-from-God-type songs called Believer and Crazy Angel, both by the same artist, Kill Hannah. Horrible name, but the songs are amazing.

Everything about the lyrics related to my story. The tune, the accents, the dynamics, every single thing makes my mind burst with little images of the story. I love the songs so so so so so so so so much and I listen to them for about an hour every day. My brother gets extremely pissed at me whenever I do that, but he doesn't understand how godly they are.

But anyway, I should probably suck up all the motivation my brain can muster and start writing. But it is soooo hard.

ADD Suspicion

So this may sound obsessive, even though it's not, but for the past week or so I've been taking multiple ADD tests on the internet. Yes, I know it's the internet, and how about 89% of the stuff on it is crap, these are tests that seem pretty legit. Anyway, so I took this really long test (took me about thirteen minutes, I should say) on ADD, and I came up positive with this one type of ADD. I never knew there were different branches... but anyway, here's the information. It's called ADD Inattentive Type, which I think suits me the best:

The onset of these symptoms often become apparent later in child-hood or early adolescence. The brighter the individual, the later symptoms seem to become a problem. The symptoms must be present for at least six months and not be related to a depressive episode or the onset of marijuana usage. Using marijuana can often make a person seem as though they have ADD without hyperactivity. It is important to screen for pot usage in teen-agers or adults.

Girls with ADD are frequently missed because they are more likely to have the non-hyperactive form.

The severity of the disorder is rated as mild, moderate or severe. Even though these children have many of the same symptoms of the people with AD/HD, they are not hyperactive and may appear hypoactive. Additional symptoms for this subtype include: excessive daydreaming, frequent complaints of being bored, appearing apathetic or unmotivated, appearing frequently sluggish or slow moving or appearing spacey or internally preoccupied -- the classic "couch potato."

Most people with this form of ADD are never diagnosed. They do not exhibit enough symptoms that "grate" on the environment to cause others to seek help for them. Yet, they often experience severe disability from the disorder. Instead of help, they get labeled as willful, uninterested, or defiant.

As with the ADD combined type, brain studies in patients with ADD, inattentive subtype reveal a decrease in brain activity in the frontal lobes of the brain in response to an intellectual challenge. Again, it seems that the harder these people try to concentrate, the worse it gets. ADD, inattentive subtype is often very responsive to stimulant medications, such as Ritalin (methylphenidate), Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), Cylert (magnesium pemoline), Desoxyn (methamphetamine), and Adderal (a combination of amphetamine salts). These medications "turn on" the frontal lobes and prevent brain shutdown, allowing a person to have more access to this part of their brain.

Who knows? I actually do kind of want to go to the doctor's and see if I actually have it or not, because the description above is what's been happening to me for a VERY long time. I'm afraid that my parents won't take me seriously though, since I foolishly kept talking to them about the ADD thing ever since E.R brought the subject up. But it's kind of like the whole glasses situation though. My mom was convinced I didin't need glasses, but when I finally got them checked it turned out I badly needed them. Huh. Maybe it'll turn out the same with the whole ADD thing?

I don't really know if I'd like to have ADD or not. I heard that if you've been diagnosed with it you get less homework. But I think that's for severe cases... dang it. But still, I wouldn't find it much to brag about. It'd be useless to use it as an excuse if I can't get something done, because someone can overcome a disorder. And for God's sake, it's a freaking attention disorder. What's there to brag about? I've already got freaky problems with me! Cold hives, asthma, gunky stuff in my hair (don't ask...) this one listening academic thing where... well, it's really complicated. But do I really need another thing like that, especially when it deals with lack of attention and constant daydreaming? (E.R, if you are reading this, not. A. Word.) Bleh. I dunno. But I guess it would be kind of cool, I guess, since ADD is a lot rarer in girls. Go feminism, eh? It'd suck to be color-blind.

... Yeah. Completely unrelated, but my train of thought went to ADD being rare in girls, to other disorders being rare for girls such as being color blind. Not as weird if you draw out your train of thought. Wonder who the conductor is.

Oh. Right. Me.

Well bye. Longest post I've ever done I think.

Accidentally posted something completely random and unnecessary about... ohhh thirty seconds ago. Anyway, I'm writing this on my computer, and it's snowing like crazy outside. Can't see the grass anymore (WOOHOO!) and just... yay. I love the snow. Might go sledding tomorrow at Browndale? Who knows.

Haven't posted in a while. What can I say? Never felt like it. But I've had this blog for about four months now, which is quite amazing. I'm usually not that dedicated to something as meaningless as a blog.

I went to the orchestra concert a few days ago. The 8/9th grade concert was really the only good one, or the one I enjoyed anyway... E.R and I kept improvising percussion parts for the songs though, except whenever I tapped my hand on her armrest she'd slap it (hard), which was annoying.

Last night I went to see The Orphan Train at Valley View. It was about a million times better than the plays South View has ever done. Why? The play had serious concepts in it, and there's also the fact that there wasn't about 200+ people running around the theatre and richeting off the walls. Which basically describes South View's plays. Although there were some people that were a bit shaky on the acting.

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