Mother's Day

So this year for the first time in a while, I've decided I want to give my mom a present for Mother's Day. I decided on a Josh Groban CD, hehehe... hopefully she'll like it. I'm never sure what kind of music she likes, but I know she likes Celine Dion, and Josh Groban did a duet with her once, so maybe he'll also fall under my mother's favor? Anyway, as a friend says, Josh Groban is God's gift to women, so I'm pretty sure my mom will like his voice and his music. :)

But I have mixed feelings about Mother's Day. It's a great day to show appreciation to mothers for all that they do and how much they love, but what about those who hate their mothers? Or at least, don't really get along with them or aren't that close to them? Is it awkward for them at home on Mother's Day?

And I know people might feel bad for people whose mothers have passed away, but it's not as bad as people whose mothers have left them and their family, right? If your mother died, it would be a tragic and terrible thing. But it's better having mutual love with a parent before they died than a parent who never loved you, I think. And if a parent you hated died... then...idk. Too complicated.

Last year, I remember a friend's Facebook status on Mother's Day. Her mother had divorced her father, and she barely ever got to see her mom at all. (I don't know if her mother made any effort to see her daughter at all...) Her status was something like, "miss you, mom." It made me feel so sad. I didn't know how to face her at all that day...

Anyway. Appreciate your mothers. And to those of you whose mothers don't appreciate you, please don't be sad. There are plenty of people who love you. And of course, God ALWAYS loves you (even if you don't believe in/love Him). You always have someone out there for you. I love you! :)

Why do I feel this way now, of all times?

It's ironic how I had such a good day, but when I came home I suddenly got hit with this feeling of missing my older brother. To be honest I should be scolding myself for not missing him before. Er... don't tell him that. >_>

I haven't missed him at all since he left - that's normal... right? Idk. Anyway, I still feel happy and like I'm glowing from the inside to the outside, but just a little part of me really misses my older bro right now. I can't wait till he comes home in a few weeks. :)

Oh, and this is also very random, but since I was listening to music and shtuff it's not that random for me:

Either my future boyfriend has to be a good singer, or he's going to end up feeling jealous every time he looks at my face while I listen to a good male voice. Like Josh Groban or Jason Mraz, or Zac Efron. I can't control my face very well when it comes to listening to a guy sing when his voice makes me melt on the inside. XD And then when I realize my face is going all fuzzy or unfocused or is slightly smiling in a cheesy way... I try to correct it subtly and that ends up making me chuckle bashfully or something weird, cuz I'm afraid people will have seen my facial expressions before, during, and after the transition of emotional expressions. Haaa....;;

Life is Good

Although this morning I woke up at 6 to take the nation-wide AP US History exam for about 3 hours and 15 minutes... I had a wonderful day. :)

After we finished the exam, a group of friends and I went to Stir Fresh to eat lunch together (including a friend from Westview, even!) and celebrate the end of APUSH stress. I tried out random sauces to add to my bowl and for the first time it actually tasted REALLY delicious (usually when I go to Stir Fresh the bowl's always kinda tasteless to me...)!

And then we debated whether or not to watch Star Trek together, and went to the library next door to check the movie times on the computer. That was funny... a bunch of high school kids snickering and whispering in a library crowding around a computer... haha.

Then Ben invited everyone to his house instead, so we opted for that. It was so much fun!! I played on his piano a little, that was nice. :) I haven't played the piano with deep emotion for a long time, and although I didn't really play any moving piano pieces today, at least I got to PLAY a piano, where others could hear me so that they could feel the way I feel when I hear beautiful music. :) And then I joined everyone out where they were sitting with their legs in the pool, talking and laughing.

And then we ran around in the grass barefoot, doing cartwheels (at least I was lol), throwing a Frisbee around, and playing with a mini soccer ball. We took a bunch of pics that highlighted our happiness, hehe. The green grass and pretty ivy made the picture-taking really pretty and fun. And our crazy expressions.... oh man...

Then, time for the attic where we played a board game, and then back down to the pool where we listened to Josh Groban on speakers - and other songs where we sang along. SO much fun. And Patrick wet his pants. HAHA that sounds funny. I meant, he accidently got pool water splashed on his jeans as he tried to convert his chakra flow down to the bottom of his feet... er....hopefully some of you get that reference. He really did try, though.

All in all a good day. At this point I don't care what I got on that APUSH exam, because I had a wonderful, fun day with a bunch of friends I care about. :)

I Don't Put My Hope in Ephemeral Things

If you tell me that life is merely a collection of moments - happy moments, sad moments, loving moments, hateful moments, amazing moments, dire moments, moments that make you wish you were dead, and moments that made you feel like you were in heaven -

I'll tell you that you're stupid.

There's more to life than just how you feel at a certain moment.

Life is more than emotionality.

...

Today I watched a movie about North Koreans trying to escape from the horrible life they led. And I cried, and sobbed, and my heart ripped apart and basically broke multiple times throughout the whole movie.

What makes it worse is that that movie didn't even go into detail of the horrors the North Korean people must face there. It's even worse than the conditions the movie showed. And that makes me cringe.

I. HATE. The North Korean government. I hate all the soldiers who DARE to beat or kill the precious human lives that they seem to think they own. I hate Kim Jung Il and Kim Il Sung. And I hate those who say that North Korea's right. I know, hard to believe people outside of North Korea would say that their form of government is correct, even seeing the atrocities that are committed. But there are people who still support North Korea. Those sick, twisted, convoluted minds.

My heart was broken all day today. It's still broken. That movie was based on a true story, and that kills me.

There is a holocaust happening right now. Except this time the entire world knows clearly what's going on, and yet is not doing anything definite about it. In the mid-1990s, ONE MILLION North Koreans starved to death. This statistic shouldn't even exist.

I wonder if what's left of my relatives in N. Korea are ok. If they're still alive. If they've been brainwashed. Maybe some escaped to China. Unlikely.

It's a holocaust.

Obsessions

I have obsessions. It's how I work. I obsess about a certain manga, a certain anime, a certain book, a certain band/artist, a certain movie, a certain video game and its plotline..... I obsess about a lot of things. Usually my obsessions come one by one - I rarely obsess about multiple things at the same time - that's too much intense passion about too many things at once.

After a while I'll fall out of love of whatever it was that I was so in love with, and I'll either drop it or at least stop obsessing about it. But usually it's still in my heart somewhere. I remember it and cherish it.

I'm going to try to remember all of my obsessions.

In music: Yellowcard, Evanesance, Trapt, Three Days Grace, Philip Wickham, Switchfoot, Hairspray the musical, Rent, the All American Rejects, the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. etc etc.

In hobbies: Knitting and origami.

In movies: The Phantom of the Opera, Hercules the Disney movie (I think I watched this movie everyday for 2 or 3 weeks straight, my freshman or sophomore year of high school...), The Little Mermaid the Disney movie... a lot more that for some reason I can't think of right now. :/

I would post my obsessions in manga or anime, but I realized that right now those are not what I'd define as "obsessions," as all those that I listed are no longer my life's passion and joy. Manga and anime are still a great part of my life that I enjoy, and HAS been for years, so I suppose it's not an ephemeral obsession... although I used to knit for years before dropping it, as well as do origami for years, so we'll see...

My lated obsession is with this movie called Howl's Moving Castle, by Mayao Miyazaki. I LOVE Miyazaki's works - I think all the ones I have seen are amazing and ... just amazing. He always pulls you into a completely magical, fantastical world that you can't help watching and get absorbed in. I've had slight obsessions with his other movies before, but this one is a pretty big obsession. I can tell that I'm in the midst of it and it is only just beginning... oh boy.

I won't talk about the plot of the movie b/c I'm an anti-spoiler nazi and I want anyone who hears of this movie to watch it w/o spoilers. But I guess I can advertise for it a bit, cuz I love it so much.

Howl's Moving Castle is about a girl named Sophie, perhaps around 18 or 19, who's pretty quiet, solitary, and responsible and works in her late father's hat shop. She hates it, but she feels a sense of duty to work there. One day she is almost... er.. assaulted(?) by two soldiers in the city (their kingdom is on the verge of war, so there are a lot of soldiers everywhere), but she's rescued by a handsome wizard named Howl. She's not sure if his intentions are good or bad, because he's so mysterious, but he helps her anyhow. Late that night the Witch of the Waste visits her shop and casts a curse on Sophie, because the Witch of the Waste is enemies with Howl and her spies had seen them together. Sophie runs away from the city in her curse and tries to find Howl to help her break the spell.

A bunch of amazing things happen and I cannot properly describe this movie to you to make you understand how good it is. It's filled with (obviously) wizards and witches, warring kingdoms, demons, curses, magic, beautiful scenes of nature, love, humor, and a lot of other things. :)

Oh dear... I went off on my obsession again... anyway... I think the reason I'm obsessed with this movie is because of the love story in it. I love this love story. It's so unique and precious to me for some reason. Perhaps it's cuz I see a lot of myself in Sophie, and I wish I'd meet someone like Howl? I love Howl - he's awesome. Sure there are parts in the movie where (when my little bro and I were watching it together) my little brother went, "Ugh..." and I went, "Omygosh he's so cool! 8D" - but I love the love story... GAH IT'S SO GOOD.

Oh my. The point of this blog wasn't supposed to be about Howl's Moving Castle - it was supposed to be about my obsessions in general and what I think it says about my character... oh well... got a little sidetracked there. ^^;;

Anyway, I was thinking before I'd written this blog at all, that I love things fiercely and with great passion. It's in my nature to do so, I suppose. But after a while I kind of stop... and find something else. I was thinking that I hope I don't go through this pattern with boys. Once I find a boy, LOL. I don't want to love so fiercely that I burn out after a while... I hope I have a love that burns steadily and not chaotically, and so dangerously that it might put itself out.

Well, for now I'm still madly in love with Howl-- I mean Howl's Moving Castle, haha... I wonder how long it will last.

Music and My Future

Hm. It's about 1:30 but instead of feeling EXTREMELY tired I'm pensive and relaxed. :) And I want to blog! Yay for blogging!

So I've recently found this new musician (through a friend) named Joe Brooks (pictured above), and I can't get over his voice and his songs (and his cuteness LOL) at the moment. His voice is so... calming and peaceful. And yet he can sing upbeat songs too and it works. His voice is rich and creamy and appealing especially to female ears - at least, to my ears, haha. And his songs - I think he writes his own songs - and they're amazing too. :) I love them all.

The thing with love songs, though, is that I never listen to them as if that singer was singing to ME. Perhaps I should do that one day. Consciously listen to the words and pretend that this singer was a boy who knew me and was singing to me. That'd be nice, haha. Or maybe I should wait till that actually happens in real life. Assuming that that WOULD happen to someone like ME in real life. >.>

I was thinking a lot about my future today, particularly cuz my family is facing a decision that will significantly change our current lives and lifestyle (which I don't want to elaborate on here - blogs are too public for personal things like that :P), and I realized that I only have a couple of years left before I'm gonna be thrust into open water and will be forced to float on my own in the world. I hope I'm capable of making it on my own. I know my older brother is, and he's proving it right now by being at college miles and miles away, but I don't know if I'm made of the same durable stuff he apparently is made of. I'm pretty confident that my college roomies and teachers and ppl in general will be nice and friendly to me, and I'll probably make a bunch of friends. Hopefully. But it's always the fear and anticipation before actually going through something that produces anxiety and worry, right?

I wonder how much I truly lean on my parents. I wonder if I'd be able to make it in this life without them. I wonder when I'll be able to finally be completely independent. I suppose it's ok to need people and rely on them at my current age because, come on, I'm still a youth - a kid, for goodness' sake! I hate how the world demands me to be more "grown up" when I'm still really sheltered, naive, somewhat innocent of the world's perversion, and totally confused as to my place in the world. Give me more time, people!

What a Chick-Flick Led Me to Realize

So I pretty much spent all Saturday afternoon till night watching chick-flicks- ya know, the two Cinderella Stories, with Hillary Duff and Selena Gomez, and A Walk to Remember, and the ending of The Perfect Man (again with Hillary Duff). I had never watched The Perfect Man before, and I still haven't watched it all (but it looks like a good movie - I'd like to watch it all sometime), but from what I gather it's about a single mom and her two daughters, and she's looking for someone to marry so she won't be alone when her daughters grow up and leave her (and of course Hillary, one of the daughters, ends up with someone too. It's a chick-flick, duh!). But because she's afraid of letting people in b/c she doesn't want to get hurt, she constantly moves across the country. So life in one place for the two girls is very ephemeral - they got used to it, though.

But at the end of the movie, the mom and the daughters all realize that running away won't solve anything, and that the real adventure is sticking through a tough or scary situation and making it through ok. And I remember that the character that Hillary was playing was narrating at the end, and she said something about how she actually used nails to hang up her posters and shtuff on her bedroom walls - a sign of permanence.

And that line just hit me. Cuz in my room, I don't use nails, except for my calendar. I use tape. And paperclips, to stick the tape on, cuz I don't want it ripping the paper I put up on my walls. And I never realized why I did that. Sure, some of the reason was because I'm a weird person who doesn't like punching holes into the wall, but the main, underlying, unconscious reason was because when I moved into this house, I had an unconscious thought that we would be moving in 3 or 4 years, so why use nails?

Ever since I was born in Nebraska my family had moved about every 3 years - usually to another state, although once or twice we remained in the same state. But the point was that I was raised being so used to moving. I never really missed anyone any time we moved b/c, I guess, I didn't really get to know ppl that well. Of course I had made some good friends, but it never really hurt to say goodbye to them. I was leaving, on a new adventure, and pretty soon after that I'd probably leave in a couple years for another one. That's how I thought - unconsciously, anyways.

So after a while I began to start up this habit of using paper clips and tape to "hang" things up in my room. I guess I never got rid of that habit, since I did that to my current room... and I've been living in this room for, mmm, 5 years. And I've been living in California for, like, a little over 7 years. MAN.

So that movie totally jerked me awake as to the state of my consciousness. I guess, this whole time I've been unconsciously waiting for my parents to say one more time, "Hey Jennifer, we're leaving for Alaska" or some other distant place across the country... I put my drawings and papers up on my wall and treat them carefully so that they'll last... b/c I might have to take them down and repost them in another room later on.

Except this time, if my parents were to say something like that to me, I'd definitely feel something for my friends that I'd have to leave. I'd definitely be upset, and probably throw tantrums or crying fits. Cuz, I guess, California's become my home now. What a weird revelation, to come to me after 7 years...

Well. To be honest. I kinda miss New York. That place was the closest I'd ever come to laying down my roots, but before I could do that my parents dug me up and planted me down in California. Guess I'm a So-Cali person now. Hmmm... it feels weird, finally accepting that fact.

In the future, I might leave San Diego for whatever college I choose to go to. I might go out of state - maybe even abroad, for a few years (what fun that would be! :D). And I might not choose to live in San Diego, or even in California, during my adult hood. (Perhaps I'll return to my first love, New York, hehehe. <3)

But for now, I guess my roots are here. I've finally settled down. :)

The weekend is approaching!!!!

Hooray! The weekend is FINALLY coming!!!! I can't wait for Friday after school!

Anyway, I guess I'm just procrastinating because I'm supposed to be doing my homework right now... but I donwanna. So there. >:/

Haha, there's nothing deep, negative, positive, or profound to say today. Just "happy." XD I just feel like writing about nothing at the moment.... Hm Hm.

Meh. The dance is on Saturday. I don't really regret not going... I didn't feel like it'd be that fun this year b/c barely anyone of my close friends were going... and the ones who were were going separately, which left just normal friends. Of course there are close friends in the group that is going, but.. idk. It's too small, I guess. I'm socially awkward, k??? Geez... I gotta work on that.

Thinking about social normalities, what is normal when speaking to someone you know but not very well? Is it ok to just go up and talk to them one day even if all you've done before is smile and say hi before walking away or moving on? For months? Maybe for a year or so? Or is that just weird? How do you gradually get to know someone better? Or does it just have to be an abrupt breakthrough of the wall that divides people and only THEN can you eventually become close friends?

Woah. A paragraph of questions.... sorry. I guess I got a bit carried away with these thoughts...

But I have more...

Like...

Are there people that you just get along instantaneously, like you were MEANT to be friends, or is it possible to befriend anyone you meet, as long as they're reasonable, amiable people, and if you make an effort to become friends with that person? To be honest sometimes I look at students in my classes or in the halls and wonder if that acquaintence can ever be more than an acquantence. If I talked to her everyday and got to know her better, and her me, then would the possibility of being the type of friends who go over each other's houses and have sleepovers be opened? Or would it amount to nothing and we'd remain good "school" friends? I feel like the second option is the most probable... I just feel like some people's personalities and mine are not very compatible... and that it takes very tolerant and accepting people to be my friend. >_<

But that makes me sad, because I WANT that possibility to be open, even if it remains just a possibility. I'd be sad to see that the way I currently see things is the truth.
I suppose the only way to find out is to just try.

Ah well. Back to my homework.

My Thoughts of the Past Week

There've been a number of things that have been bothering me over the course of this week, especially since Wednesday, since that's when school started for second semester, so I guess I'll make a list of things and talk about them topic by topic. Although I may choose to skim over or skip more delicate or personal things that I'm mulling over.... or not. We'll see how I feel when I actually get around to talking about those things.

1) School's reminding me of how it was at the beginning of this year. The difference is, I've learned that school and grades isn't everything, and so I no longer break down crying every other night like I did in August/September.... >_> Still... school is tiring me out. I'm sitting in my room writing or reading or doing SOME type of hw at 1 AM and I can feel my throbbing temples and my dizzy spells of sleepiness, and the massive fatigue that rests in my arms and especially my eyes.... it just wears me out. But w/e. My parents endured worse when they were in school, sadly. So I will march on...

2) Stupid Winter Ball......
Ok, it's past 2:30 and I want to get up at 7. (HAHA, not happening, XD). Maybe I should move it up an hour and wake up at 8.....

I don't like saving drafts to work on later cuz then when I come back to it usually I'm in a different mood. So I'll just post what I have for now.

It's about 1 in the morning and I'm the only one awake in my house. I didn't do any homework (that's due Friday - I had no homework due tomorrow), leaving my load of things to do for Friday for tomorrow. I'm a sleep-deprived, over-stressed girl trying to fight her lack of self-esteem and realize that true joy is with God, not with her achievements in life. It's hard.

But I dunno.... I kind of like it. Right now. It's just me, this music, and God. Early in the morning.

I feel... like my spirit is floating and soaring. It's tranquil, beautiful.

It's nice.