So, I happened to find my old high school Spanish 'portfolio' today, and it had me wondering... how the heck did I manage to PASS that class? And what in the world was I thinking? Seriously, the odd mixture of 6-% and 10-% are just confusing! I suspect the 6-% grades were mostly from Spanish 1 and the 10-% were probably from Spanish 2, so maybe the deal is that I was slow catching on in the beginning, but once I had a basis for it, I was able to build on it relatively easily. Still... very weird. I wonder what the teacher thought, having a student with grades that varied so widely. I dunno. All I remember is that I HATED high school Spanish. I felt like I was horrible at it. And it turns out I was. ;)

So, earlier this week we noticed there were a number of emergency vehicles gathered together further down the road... We didn't find out until today what happened, though. Apparently a woman was found dead in the middle of the road with a motorcycle nearby. But investigators are saying the injuries she died from don't match up with injuries she would have gotten from a crash. So they're suspecting homicide. And now I have a creepy feeling in my stomach.

Seriously, murder way out here? What's the world coming to? I told my brother it was getting too crowded around here, and that's what you get when your out of the way rural cities become sprawling suburbs.

To make matters creepier, the woman (can't remember her name) worked at Achieve, a sort of work program for disabled adults that we've been considering sending Dave to next year (for lack of any good options)...

Things on the news aren't supposed to be things that are happening right here on my own street or things that are so closely connected to my homelife in general! Well... not unless they're positive things, at least.

Anyway... yeah. Creepy.

The thing I'll be most glad to be rid of when I move out... well, it isn't really a thing, seeing as how my problem's with a person... anyway, I'll be really glad not to have to be around Sandy so much.

Don't get me wrong, she's a good person, and really good with Dave. She just really grinds on my nerves sometimes, more than any of my brothers ever did, I think.

The problem is, as I've grown and matured, it's almost as if she's gone backwards. I suppose that's not entirely fair, but sometimes I'm convinced that she has the maturity of a teenager when she's older than my parents in reality. As the 'youngest' member of our 'family', she can be quite annoying.

My gripe right now (that I just have to get off my chest, so deal with it), is how she takes every little thing as a personal attack against herself. The examples are numerous, so I'll use a few of the most recent occurrences to begin with.

Dave loves bubbles, so Sandy bought him a ton of bubble machines and somehow expected us to store them in our crowded garage. Naturally, we put them in a storage box. She rarely took them out, and when we were cleaning our garage recently my mom asked her to take most of them to her house since we just don't have room for them. Turned out a number of them were broken and she flipped out, conveniently forgetting that they'd been broken for a while, she grumbled for days about how we don't respect things she bought with her own money... if she was that concerned about them, why did she store them at our house in the first place? What kid needs ten or so bubble machines? It's frustrating to hear her badmouthing myself or my parents...

The thing that just happened today is, of course, the reason I felt the need to rant about this. All I did was ask her to please put the folding chair we keep out for Dave to sit in to wait for the bus back under the tree by the fence, folded up so it wouldn't get wet. She was immediately defensive, saying she always put it back where she found it. I said okay, that's fine, I just thought I should tell you. Anyway, then I continue walking my puppy around 'cause she needs the exercise... we go around the back of the house and when I come around to the front again I hear her complaining to my grandfather about how I was yelling at her for keeping the chair out when she doesn't even do that. I was like 0.0 she made me seem like a complete jerk! Naturally, I try to defend myself: 'I wasn't saying you did that! I was just--' but she cut me off, acting very much the victim... grr... anyway, I was rather POed, so I chose not to respond to her sarcastic comments that followed... and proceeded to speak to her as little as possible the rest of the day. I'm still fuming about it, though, obviously... I mean, I wasn't trying to insult her, the only thing I was thinking was that if I didn't ask everyone to put the chair back there, I can't expect them to do it... So maybe I'm not great at making small talk, what does that have to do with anything?

Argh. She drives me nuts sometimes. And she acts like she always knows what's best when dealing with Dave and bites my head off (or just completely ignores me) if I offer a suggestion... I know she's worked with him for a long time... but I'm his sister! Not only have I known him his entire life, held him when he was a baby, suffered through years of his biting, changing food tastes... Not only am I the one who wakes up with him when he cries in the middle of the night (well, sometimes my parents do... it's about 50%, I think), I get him ready for school every morning, she often expects me to intercede when he gets to be too much for her, and even in addition to all of that, I'm written in my parents' will as his guardian if anything happens to them. So just because I'm younger than her, I don't think she should be able to write off my input so easily.

Lately I've taken to seething silently to myself, particularly when she goes to feed him dinner (when she actually does). Half the time she makes an entirely new dish for him when we've got leftovers in the fridge from some dinner he likes, like tacos or spaghetti. And there are some foods he's a little iffy about eating... she globs frosting on it like he's malnourished or something. Sometimes we do have to put a little frosting on some things to get him started eating it, but we usually like to start him out without frosting--cause it's way more nutritious if he eats it without all that added sugar, and even when he needs frosting, he usually only needs it for the first few bites, then he realizes that he likes it, anyway, and you can ween him off. And as though adding insult, she puts the tiniest amount of Nesquick in his chocolate milk, commenting about it like she's doing him a favor. Well, a tablespoon of Nesquick in his milk is a heck of a lot better for him than two tablespoons of frosting with his eggs.

Anyway, it just drives me nuts. I don't really feel like I can point any of these things out to her because... well, for one thing she's a lot older than me, and it seems a bit disrespectful. Also, I know she'll just react defensively and I doubt anything will change because of it, unless for the worse. Whenever I've tried to fight back in the past, we've just been reduced to basically being rude to each other for several days. (Of course, that was when I was a teenager, too.) So... I dunno. Part of me wants to get out of here as soon as possible because of all this.But I really love my family, too, and I'll be lonely when I move out... plus, do I really want to leave Dave in her less-than-capable hands? I mean, most of the time he's fine, but she's old enough that he can overpower her these days, and sometimes it seems like she doesn't keep as close of an eye on him as she should... although, naturally, he's a tough guy to keep an eye on.

I don't even know what to do... I guess I'll just go on seething to myself and trying to block out her juvenile antics...

We're calling her Kova, I named her after Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space in 1963. She's about 8 1/2 weeks old, a golden retriever, and so cute! Anyway, she sure has a lot of energy, too, so I'm going to have to keep her busy.

She's surprisingly quiet. When we put her in her crate, she whined for a little while, but calmed down pretty quickly. She was the last of her littermates to leave, though, so that might have something to do with it. She's been slowly acclimated to living alone and so now all that's different is she's at a new house.

... But she's sooo cute!

Well, Houdini didn't show any signs of recovering after being on treatment for 24 hours at the vet. He was still getting worse. It seems his liver had shut down completely, so we decided to have him put to sleep. It seemed better than trying hard to keep him alive for another couple of days/weeks with a food tube and antibiotics that probably wouldn't end up doing anything. At least he probably wasn't in too much pain at this point, so we kept him from getting too miserable.

I decided to go down to the vet with my dad, so I could see him again and he could see me again. It was sad. He was so happy to see me again when they brought him into the exam room. Came right up to me and started purring almost immediately when I pet him. They said he hadn't purred at all since I left him there yesterday. :( Poor kitty.

So I was with him the whole time, petting him and keeping him occupied as they stuck that carthridger thing in his leg and then injected the anisthetic. And he was still purring up until he fell unconscious and went limp. So at least his last moments were happy.

Anyway, we just got done burrying him...

It was hard. He was such a good (fat) cat. It's not the same deep, piercing pain of losing someone close to you like a brother, more on the surface, but still painful. Very sad. :(

My kitty had to go to the vet today. He hasn't been eating the last few days, and we found out that it's something to do with his liver. They're keeping him overnight tonight and putting him on some antibiotics and some fluid to flush out his system. Hopefully, he'll start showing a recovery, because otherwise he'll need some sort of biopsy to figure out what's wrong. They tested him for leukemia, too, because he'd never been tested for that and we couldn't really give a parental background... but luckily he tested negative for that. One good thing!

Anyway... poor Houdini. He's been feeling pretty bad. (Obvious, since he hasn't been eating, but that's a hard thing to pick up on when you've got two cats!) His vet was really nice, though, and she managed to get some food into him... in the form of a kitty-slushie. (Canned cat food mixed into water... ew...) Got some X-rays taken and blood drawn (he wasn't thrilled about the latter). Had his temperature taken, too (through the ear, luckily for Houdini), and the vet said it was a little low... It was 99 while cats are usually supposed to have a temperature between 100 and 105. Interesting...

Very sad, though. Hopefully, the antibiotics will be enough.

In other news... we're going to get a puppy. :) Hershy's getting pretty old and worn down, so my mom said that she'd let me pick out our next dog if I'd train it. Then I can either take it with me when I move out, or it can stay here. I'm still debating between a Golden Retriever and a German Shepherd right now... I think I'd rather get a German Shepherd, but a Golden Retriever would be better for our family, since we always have a lot of people coming around and a Golden Retriever is friendlier.

... My poor kitty... :(

So... I finally got a new car one week ago today. It seemed like a good deal at the time. A '98 Saturn, kinda high miles, but those're usually good for even up to 200,000 or more, plus it gets up to 30 miles a gallon... And then yesterday morning, all of a sudden, it doesn't start. Er... So we bought new spark plugs for it, but that didn't work... so my dad says it's probably the timing belt or something, which is in a crappy place to get at so we'll probably have to tow it into the shop to get it fixed for, like, $600... Either that or my Grandpa said he'd work on it when he gets back from Arkansas in a week or so. -_-

It's really my parents who want it done quickly, though, because at the beginning of the month, Jon got in an accident with one of their cars. (Some other kid ran a red light and hit him.) ... (He's fine, though.) So they agreed that if we take it into a shop they'd pay for it. Me, being the responsible little person I am nobly volunteered to pay for half of it... It is my car after all.

*Sighs* I hate cars. After I get a good job, I'm going to move to live within 10 miles of my place of business, then I'll rarely have to drive. Either that or I'll live within 1 mile of a bus route. (Yeah, I'm willing to bike or something up to ten miles, but if I have to take a bus, too, I'm only willing to bike or walk one mile.) ... Or maybe I'll just deal with them. My next car will be a 2XXX.

(My mom's boss says I should try applying for 3M... so I guess I'll finally break down and give it a try. At least if I get hired, I'll get some good field experience.)

It was... a little exciting, a little frightening, and way too fast. I generally consider myself to be a good driver. I signal turns and lane changes, I slow down gradually, I stay around the speed limit. Unfortunately, being a good driver isn't good enough. Everyone else needs to be a good driver, too.

On my way home today, I was slowing down for the turn onto my street and the guy behind me, apparently having looked away to check directions on a map, slammed right into the back of my car!

Apparently he noticed at the last minute that we had slowed down and instinctively swerved to the left... unfortunatley, we were turning left, so his right hand side slammed into our left hand side. Since he was going 50 mph or so, both cars were totalled. Luckily, it was 1:30 pm, so the traffic was light and no one else was involved.

Anyway, the police and ambulence staff advised us to go to the hospital right away as a percaution to make sure we weren't seriously injured. Thus followed four hours of pain and boredom.

We were in triage for what had to be an hour (hour and a half?) before finally being moved back to where we could be seen by the doctor. About fifteen minutes before we were brought back we were given quick examinations in triage... at which point I was lucky (read: unlucky) enough to be given a neck brace. They are highly uncomfortable, if you've never worn one.

Anyway, a nurse saw us and we had to repeat what happened for the dozenth time (note: this might have only been the third or fourth time the incident actually had to be related). After another long time of waiting around I was seen by the doctor... who still refused to remove the highly uncomfortable neck brace... and who chastised me for standing around when I should have been laying down.

After another short eternity my dad arrived--I think it was about 4:45, by then. Shortly thereafter I was taken in to be X-rayed. Four X-rays, yippee. And it's always so encouraging when they have to tell you to "close your eyes."

Another twenty minutes or so of laying around and waiting and the doctor finally cleared me to leave (and remove the neck brace!), and my mom was cleared shortly after. We finally got to come home.

Unfortunately, it was already 6:00 by then, so I'd missed the dinner thing I was supposed to be at for church (to meet the parents of the kids in our homework club), so I called the lady in charge and politely explained that I hadn't been able to make it because I was in a car accident. She seemed very understanding.

That wasn't enough, of course. I had to call the insurance company and explain in detail what had happened all over again. Then I had to call my grandparents to explain why I wouldn't be coming up to visit them tomorrow. Last week I'd planned to visit them, but a surprise of snow made us delay to this week. So I call my grandparents.

"Grandma? I don't think I'll be able to make it up this week... my car's totalled."

Which, of course, led to another explanation.

So... yeah. I think I'll be alright. My neck's sore. I think I hit my head. And my right arm's a bit sore, too. But overall I think we survived alright. Thank God for SUVs. (Cause if I'd been in a small car, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.)

Snow! ^_^

Well, we've finally had our first official snow of the year. Of course, I use the word "official" very loosely in that it means the first snow fall that I'll acknowledge as an actual snow fall. Which is, of course, because the snow has actually accumulated on the ground. True, it's only, like, a centimeter or two thick, but that's better than what we've had so far! All I can say is... it's about time.

Meh... Happy Thanksgiving, too, I guess.

Eh... Life's not too bad right now, I guess. Could be better.

In between looking for a full time job, I'm working with Dave part-time (only, like, ten hours a week), and working as a coach (which I keep wanting to spell 'couch') for one of the Battlebots teams at PACT. Cute kids, it looks like fun... although, one of our members recently dropped, so hopefully we'll get another to replace him. Otherwise, we might not have enough people to be allowed a team. That'd be sad.

Anyway, in addition to both of those things, I'm trying to manage regular karate and demo team, which just started last week... I haven't been in it before, but it looks like fun. We have kind of 'mini meetings' to practice our form before/after our regular classes (depending on when our class meets, ours meets before), and meetings every weekend, so I'm hoping I can manage that and Battlebots... Hopefully, I can get out of Battlebots at 12 Saturdays, then I should have time to make it back for Demo Team.

What else... still trying to learn Go. Unfortunately, the rest of my family isn't nearly so devoted (heh) so they don't like to play against me much. They don't like to play in general much. I'm trying to work up my confidence to play online. It's getting there, slowly.

Oh, yeah, and I'm starting to look into Master's school again. I think I'd like to continue at the UMN, though, if I go. And maybe get a masters in ME or math... probably ME. I need to look into it a little more, though. ME would give me a lot more options for employment... but I'm not sure, yet. I think I could get accepted at the U, though. I mean, I have a good excuse for wanting to stay in the state, which is important if you want to go to graduate school at the same university you graduated from.

I think I may have broken my toe. Just, like, a fracture or something. It doesn't hurt a lot, so I'm not sure, but if I put pressure on it in certain ways it hurts like... well, quite badly. And it was two and a half weeks ago that I hurt it. (As long as I don't wear the shoes without backs, it's mostly bearable.)

There's a fiction writing contest in the UMN magazine. A <3000 word piece of fiction, and the winner gets $1500... So I'm trying to think of some plot to work around. I've written a few pieces that short, but most of them are longer. And... I've been working mostly in fanfiction recently, and I'm not sure that's allowed. (If it was a have a piece or two I wouldn't mind submitting...) Still, it would be awesome to have a short story published like that. Well, I only have 'till December to submit something. Hopefully I'll think of something... *sighs dramatically* There's not enough inspiration in my life!

My cousin will hopefully be visiting for Thanksgiving. Hopefully. He's a noob in the Navy (no longer a mini-recruit, but still not too far up the ladder), so we're not entirely sure, but he should be able to get a few days off. So he thinks. We'll see.

My story's got 77 reviews right now (at 6 chapters), which makes me excited. I like reviews. A little too much, I think. But I can't help it. They're just so... nice. ^^ Especially the ones with some real content. Like... that ask questions or comment about what they want to see... There are a good chunk of those, so I'm happy. And I'm really hoping to break 100 in the next week or two... we'll see.

And that's about all that's up with me. I know everyone's been waiting, perched precariously on the edge of their seat to find out the intimite details of my life, so there it is. Please slide back carefully and resume a safer seated position. Thank you.

Meh... So, I'm still working on finding a job. (Grumbles...) It's a lot harder when you have to actually go out and find a job rather than... well, pretty much being given one by my parents. So the career fair at school should be good. I think I'll go on Tuesday.

At the end of the month I'll get my red belt. It's exciting. But red belt takes longer to pass than the others... and then high red takes even longer. Which means... (dramatic pause)... I'll probably be at the same belt level as my brother for a month. Gasp! Well... what can I say? It hasn't really happened before... Well... except when we were both white belts... And then he decided he didn't want to continue until I managed to convince him he did want to continue and... yeah...

I started a new story. Well... I started it about two and a half months ago. It's 13+ chapters long (not really finished yet...) and it amuses me. Harry Potter, Naruto AR crossover... it's fun cause I've never actually done a crossover before... I've started a few but this one's the best. Because I made the story radical enough to be entirely different from anything other people have done. And it will continue to be entirely different, even into the sequel! (Which I've kinda started already even though I'm not done with the first...)

Anyway... if you want to check it out, I'll post the link... lesse... A Personal Matter. Should take you to the first chapter... I've only got 2 chapters up right now, but I'll be updating once a week... at least until I finish it. After I finish the story, I might move to twice a week... we'll see.

I like tennis :)

Hmm...

Well, I just finished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"... I liked it alright, but it was an extremely tiring book to read. I think people who read that all in one go are insane. (I started on Friday and just now finished.) It just throws one thing after another at you. I'm pleased with the outcome of the story, but I'm quite exhausted from it and don't think I'll be able to appreciate it really for another day or so... Maybe a second reading would be lest trying?

Harry was, maybe, a little too "righteous" or something near the end... but he must have been even more tired than me at the time, so I guess it's within his rights to be all selfless and noble and whatnot. Although, really, he has the alterior motive of doing it all just to get some rest... But I guess that's within his rights, too.

I'm going to stop rambling on now and try to pull myself out of the pit of selfless uncaring that I seem to have been sucked into after surviving the final battle.

So... my uncle had kid number ten the other day... Well, my aunt did, actually, but it's really only eight for her. (Yeah, right, only.) Anyway... They named him James Aluycious (I don't think I spelled that right... stupid weirdly spelt names). He was born on June 22 (the day before my birthday... it'll be easy to remember, at least.). He's cute. He's the third boy in his family, for the longest time they only had girls, then they suddenly switched to boys for the last three. He's also got down syndrome... which I so predicted. (The odds were against him and the timing seemed right. Cruel of me to say? Maybe.) Seriously, though... this will hopefully be their last because they're too old to be having kids. (Says me.) But what do I know?

My profile was yelling at me for not updating my journal in 9 weeks so I thought I'd let people know I'm alive. July 28th is coming up soon... Makes me feel a little depressed and a little anxious. This year I'm going to ask my parents so I can be all melancholic and do... something. Even if there's no reason to I still want to... because I feel even more depressed every time I don't. (If you're completely lost, don't worry about it. If you know what I'm talking about... wow, I'm surprised.)

Anyways... I'm going to go dream about depressing things or something.

It's not even a FULL day. It's about... 14 hours now. That is, 14 hours until I'm officially done with school. I won't, of course, officially get my degree for... how ever long it takes them to mail them, but... Technically, I'm graduated right now. There's no way I couldn't graduate at this point. Even if I were to skip my final tomorrow, I'd still get a C which is passing on all accounts. Of course, if I go tomorrow, I'll probably get an A. Which makes me happy.

Anyway... Had a final today. It went well. I think. I can't wait until noon tomorrow... Well, 12:30 tomorrow. After which I'll never have to study for another final again. Hopefully. Unless I get knocked on the head and decide I want to go to crazy school... I mean, graduate school. Yeah.

So weird... I just came to the realization that it's really weird to accidently touch your arm and find that it's actually quite hard. As a kid I was rather scrawny and didn't really have any muscle to speak of... So it just seams really weird to me... Even though I've had pretty decent muscles for a while now. Kinda creepy. Like, what's this hard thing--oh, it's my arm... Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far...

Yeah, I'm just putting off the inevitable. There's one more thing I wanted to do tonight before going to bed. Well... but want is such a strong word. Still... I should really go through my homework real quick... Hopefully tomorrow won't be as hot as it was today. (95 degrees?!? Stupid weather men only predicted 85 high...)

I am so tired right now. I think I got a grand total of three hours of sleep last night... maybe... kinda restless sleep. And that's after being up at six the morning before, too. I'm to the point where I'm so tired it feels almost like I'm sick--if you know what I mean.

We had our FDR - Final Design Review, for those of you who aren't engineering savvy - this morning. At eight. AM. It took a grueling three and a half hours. Yesterday, I got home from school around three. I was working on our presentation until eleven, when I finally went to bed. All of that with barely twenty minutes for dinner. Still, after tossing and turning and sleeping a little, I finally got up around four thirty. I updated the presentation a little more and practiced my part once. Then got ready and went to school. At school, I found that my minions - er, I mean team mates - had even more updates for our presentations. So I updated again. And again. For the entire half an hour I had arrived early.

Finally, FDR started. It actually went pretty good. Our project sponsor called in for the first two hours, and I managed to project myself at a very reasonable volume. Which is very impressive since I tend to mumble or talk quietly most of the time. It was a long, LONG three and a half hours, but when we were done, Joe (our teacher/adviser/whatever you call that guy who gives you your grades when he's not an official professor) told us that he was impressed by what we'd gotten done for FDR. So, I'm now hopefully optimistic about my grade in that class... That is, well, I'm optimistic that I'll hopefully get a B.

I am never again taking the position of management. However, I do have a new found respect for anyone IN a position of management... Does that mean I'm going to be more prompt at meeting deadlines before the last possible minute? Meh, maybe. Well, at least I'll be more sympathetic towards their plight.

So, all in all, a horrible experience that I'm glad is behind me. Looking back, good learning experience. Going through it, just about the most stressful time of my life. Well, I think it was the most stressful time of my life. Which is why I'm infinitely pleased that it is no longer in front of me. I'll I've got to do now is burn a CD and turn it in when I go in to school on Monday. Easy peasy. I don't know why, but I really like saying that. It amuses me. And my sleep-deprived mind.

I'm going to go jump off the edge of the planet now. Please excuse the massive void left in my wake.

Recently our adult sunday school class at church has been watching the series "That the World May Know." Today one of the topics that came up was after the Israelites entered Israel, where the local god was Baal. The video discussed some of the rituals surrounding the worship of Baal (the same god that Jesus later used the name of to refer to the devil--he said 'baelzebub' or something like that, I don't really feel like looking up the spelling... but it's known to be the same 'god'). One such ritual was the sacrificing of infant children, particularly first born sons, to the god. They made these sacrifices believing it would bring them personal gain, it would entice Baal, the fertility god, to return to the land and give them a good season.

Now, it seems like a horrible thing to do, doesn't it? Kill a young child for the interest of your personal finances? But, then, one of the main reasons people in America choose to have abortions is because they 'can't afford' to have a child right now. So... killing the babies in the interest of their personal finances... And this from the wealthiest country in the world... So... the Philisteens sacrificed their children for personal gain... we sacrifice our children for personal gain... The only difference is, probably, that our sacrifieces aren't based on faith, and our babies don't scream as much as theirs probably did as they were being burned. Then again, who knows how much that baby is screaming in the womb where no one can hear it?

But, really, looking back on it, why didn't people see the brutal killing of those infants as wrong? If they did, which they must have, why didn't the culture try to put a stop to it? If you saw something like that on the streets today... wouldn't you step up and speak against it? Could you really stand on the sidelines and let it happen? But today, same situation, how many people know that killing our babies today is wrong? And how many of us just stand on the sidelines and let it happen? Shouldn't we fight harder and louder against such disturbingly familiar cultural morals?

Another disturbing statistic... The Philisteens obviously acknowledged that what they were doing was ending someone's life. They, at least, had the decency to give their children burials. We, on the other hand, refuse to think of these unborn infants as humans, and thus refuse to bury them. How large a burial plot would the 29 million babies aborted in the nation take up? Assuming about a square foot per child, that's 29 million square feet, about a square mile... Of course, we could condense it down by making 'layers' of burials, like the Philisteens did.

And... it isn't like the Philisteens were barbarians, you know. They had iron, a writing system, and were a major world power in their day, much like we are today. If one sophisticated culture could make what we all see as today as a depraved mistake (I hope)... Isn't it just as believable that we'd be able to make one today? I mean, we're as human as they were. I wonder, if a thousand years ago, people will look back at America and gape in horror at the atrocities we've committed. If they'll cry for the children we murdered, and use us as an example of a depraved civilization gone wrong...

I just saw the most completely awesomest thing ever. Yes, that's right, I finally saw Itachi's dead-awesome Mangekyu Sharingan in full moving color. It was so cool. (And I feel kind of bad for saying that since I like Kakashi, too... Poor Kakashi...) It's just priceless, "71 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds left." And then poor Kakashi freaks out, "It's only been one second?!" Poor Kakashi... So cool, though... I'm such a sadist sometimes. Particularly... whenever Kakashi's involved. Poor, poor Kakashi.

Anyway, if we switch across to real life... Actually, let's not do that, come to think of it. I hate real life. Well... I hate... what... 1/5... no, maybe 1/6 of real life... Particularly, I hate design 2. Well, not really. I'm just not doing very well in it, and I hate not doing well at things. It's the thing that's making me all stressed out right now. I've done more work on it over the weekend, though. My plan is to finish strong right now. And I'm really, really hoping that works out. Then I think I can get a good B... Yeah, that's really depressing... That I'm hoping for a B... (Can you see why I'm so stressed out? I wish I weren't the team lead, and I've been wishing that for the past month or so... but I can't just back out now cause I've got to at least see it through.)

Luckily, my other classes are going much better than that. I must be at the very top of my Propulsion class. Or at least very, very close. Both the midterms I got 100's on, and my lowest grade on the homework was a 96 on one of them (the others are mostly 100's with a few 99's and 98's)... So that makes me feel quite a bit better. I'm doing alright in my Civ Eng class. I barely managed to get an A on that midterm (with the retake he gave us on two of the questions, I managed to get 91%). So I'm hopefully optimistic about that class, still. Design 3... is a bit more difficult... our team was kind of slow on the uptake (like last semester, too)... But things are moving along now and getting done, so I'm hopefully optimistic about that, too. Right now... we've got a guaranteed C, but, of course, we're going for the A. (Our grade increases depending on how much we get done from this point on. It's a weird grading schedule.)

Anyway... I've been so stressed out this semester. I haven't gotten anything I want done. I haven't even gotten my taxes done yet. Speaking of which, I'd better do those tomorrow, ne? Too... much... work.... I haven't even done much application stuff yet... I'm planning to stop by the career center on Monday and get everything done in the next week.

Right now, my plans for after school are to find a good job and work for a year. (Don't tell my bosses that, 'kay?) Unless I really like that job, I'll probably quit and go back to graduate school after that. Maybe I'll work for two years... haven't decided for sure yet. Then... I'm thinking just a Master's degree. I don't need a Ph.D, and I don't really want to go to all that work. But I think I can manage a Master's degree, at least. If this plan works out the way I'm thinking, I'll probably end up quitting my job around June, then head down to Australia with my brother for the rest of the summer. Mau, we'll see.

Anyway, that's about my life right now. It's much hated. At least 1/6 to 1/5 hated. Which is much in my opinion. Any hate of life is too much. Why can't we all just get along? Because some crazies hate their lives. Point and case. See? Hating one's life isn't good. I can't wait until May.

(Note: I love the Sharingan. Except on Sasuke. What a waste. Except he's kind of getting cool in the newest parts of the Manga. Foolish little brother.)

It was crazy today. It's so busy that... (wait for it)...

The UNIVERSITY canceled all classes after 2:30! The UNIVERSITY! The evil college-y school that will NEVER cancel classes unless it's the world is threatening to end! How crazy is that?

I have a large, black creature lying on me right now, making the strangest noise ever... can't decide if I like it or hate it, he's rather annoying. Getting a ride home today was horrible... Everything closed early so everyone was trying to get home around 2:30... which meant ALL THE BUSSES WERE FULL!!!! So annoying! We had to wait for several busses to pass before we could actually get on one... and even THEN we had to stand. Of course, just because EVERYONE was going home early, doesn't mean they could get out extra busses or anything. That would be too easy. Or convenient. Or something.

So this is the randomly not-deep thought that popped into my head while I was waiting hours and hours (read about 20 minutes) for a bus to pick me up:

You know how in the Bible it says, "Wherever two or more of you gather together in my name, there also I shall be"? Well, I just thought, it would be really great if that same philosophy could be extended to busses. "Wherever two or more of you gather together for the bus, there also the bus shall be."

It amused me. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I got this crazy idea for a Harry Potter story... it's insane. Really. It's so AU that it could actually be possible if I wasn't absolutely sure it isn't going to really happen. Because then we'd need an eigth book. eighth... I'm not sure how to spell that, now that I think about it. because eight is, well, eight... and then... what... eighth? It's so weird... eigth... eighth... huh.

Well... she's dead... It makes me sad since I've had her since I was eight or nine... I can still remember when she was born... and all we went through as we grew up... But that's the way things go. She was starting to get old... and she had a tumor and that's what made her so sick. The vet said that that kind of tumor is really bad in cats and they thought it had probably reached her lungs, so we had her put to sleep. I'm glad that she won't be suffering anymore, since she was so out of character yesterday... But I'll miss her, too. Ah, well, I've survived worse. That's the way life goes and this is really nothing compared to some of the things that have happened.

My cat's sick... or dying... or something... One way or another, she feels pretty horrible today... and smells pretty horrible... and looks pretty horrible... My dad found out that her stomach was injured pretty badly... maybe in a fight or something. I'm not entirely sure if she'll survive the night. It's... um, gross, to be frank. I don't deal well with sick or dying animals... I think we're going to try to take her to the vet as soon as possible... and if they can't do anything for her or it seems unlikely that she'll recover, I'll have her put to sleep... because while it'll be sad when she's dead, seeing as how I've had her for more than half my life, it would be way worse for her to be suffering for a long time. Besides, I'm not the kind of person who gets overly emotional from a pet's death, even if that pet is one that I like a lot. I just, you know, don't want to see it die in front of my eyes... yeah...

We went to Lockheed Martin today. They're in Eagen, a little less than an hour from my house. My mom thinks I should try to get a job there, but that's not what we were there for. Lockheed Martin is sponsoring our air drop project so we were taking a look at their Rascal, the UAV we'll be dropping from. Or, that we HOPE we'll be dropping from. It was fun.

I've also got my belt test tonight... At 6:30... we're supposed to spar, but I've never had the chance to spar in class before so I'm a little nervous... I don't think anyone else from my class (besides Jon who doesn't have to spar, anyway) is testing this month... Hopefully that will go well.