Cousin the Younger's card, made with Painter Elements and the Trackpad of Awesomeness.





Now I just have to find a way to give it to him. Hmmmm.

( Today I was invited to go get root beer floats with the counselors I'm working with. )

( Anyway, I walk home all relaxed after the godsent adult conversation and come home just before my aunt and uncle pull into the driveway. I go in first, toe off my shoes, and all of a sudden I hear crying. )

( You leave them alone for an afternoon and all hell breaks loose, I swear to god. )


ETA: Apparently, this huuuuge fight was some kind of freak happening––it's been avoided before, if only by a tiny margin. Thank goodness.

Sooo we went to go visit my uncle's old college roommate, his wife-to-be, and her daughter. They were all great people, funny and nice, and the house was on Frye Island, so it had some beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, my aunt was not feeling well enough to go. :(

But it was amazing because for the first time, I said exactly what I was thinking, I made jokes and told stories––and no one told me I was boring; in fact, they laughed––and I dove (which is sadly kind of momentous because I have been afraid of diving since someone swam in front of me and I had to abort the dive midair and ended up hurting myself). At home I am this quiet person who listens a lot and tries not to talk, for fear of boring people, which I apparently do quite often. And, just, it was so nice to remember that I have things inside of me to share that aren't born of anger and frustration and sadness.

Pluuuus I just watched the Avatar series finale and it was absolutely fantastic.


P.S. Okay, so I know I'm one of those fickle people who changes her mind all the time, but I think I've got a good idea: for the AP art concentration, I think it will actually be a series of self-portraits. This is not as stupid as it sounds! I was thinking about what I tend to draw, and I realized it's really pretty much self-oriented (save for the few things like Avocat, but even that is driven by my own philosophical and spiritual leanings). Plus, my adolescence has been pretty angsty, which totally makes for good art. I think. Anyway, presenting my general awkwardness and different phases by using different styles of art that are brought together by theme and not necessarily by media could be really interesting if I manage it. Hoo boy, that was a long sentence.

And as we all know, I'm perfect, so clearly I am my own best subject. Mmmm-hmmmm.

Good bye, mes amies, until Sunday!

<333

After an anxiety attack, time to reflect, and a swift kick in my teenaged ego by the incomparable aiakerr––and a day spent having fun with the kids despite the requisite obnoxious troublemaker––I am feeling remarkably better. :)

Report card: distinctly mediocre. My mom sure had a lot to say about it.

AP US History: 5
AP English Lit: 5
AP French Lang: 3 (Um, methinks I will be taking this again next year.)



I am so anxious. I am so, so, so, so worried and anxious and obsessive and the stresscreature has come back and just, just, this is why I don't like school. I am never, ever good enough, and I never will be good enough, and this, being like this, it's not fun.

Today, on the walk home, I talked to Cousin the Younger, who has class and taste enough to enjoy Calvin & Hobbes despite his predilection for Naruto and Dragon Ball Z manga.

( As a result of his expert opinion as well as my own aesthetic (which, as we know, is perfection itself), there is now a color scheme for 'Avocat.' )


ETA: I really feel like a part of the family, now. The dogs stole a shoe and ate one of my socks, and when I begged off biking tonight because my hip was like, "Hey, Adriana, if you go long distances I might DEVOUR YOU ALIVE," Cousin the Younger decided he no longer wanted to go.


P.S. I think I may have finally and completely convinced at least this corner of the family that no, I do not have a girlfriend (although if I did I wouldn't be telling them about it, thankyouverymuch) and I am not about to shave all my hair off and stop wearing bras. *facepalm*

We went on a hilly bike ride. I walked for about two minutes during a steep hill and then I got back on BECAUSE AN ASTRONAUT COULD DO IT.*

But my long-legged, thin, beautiful cousin couldn't make it up the hills––this revenge is petty, but oh, how sweet it is. I may be fatter, I may be less attractive, but by god, I am more in shape.




*Uh. Travelogue. Be there or be square.

I am so ridiculously comfortable right now. I think this mattress must be softer than the one at home, because the small of my back doesn't hurt when I lie down.

Also, using the laptop on the bed, while I'm half-sitting up and under the covers, makes me feel like a delinquent (in the best kind of way).

You guys. You guys.

I won a game of Monopoly.

I feel like a rock star.

I also wrote a song on the ukulele. This day has been pretty awesome!


ETA: My mom called to tell me that Harvard, Yes That Harvard, sent me a letter and a packet with information including an application in it.

WTF, man. Even though I know it doesn't really mean anything (and that my grades are just this side of abysmal), this is utterly surreal.

The camp group, all four of us, went canoeing. It was pretty freakin' awesome even though we had a headwind the entire time all the way back. It's not so much my arms are tired, although they certainly are; it's more just whole-body-tiredness. MORE IN TRAVELOGUE ETC. ETC.

Man, this comic is going to be so long. Cool, I think, but long. I totally thought it would be a page a day but there is so much to talk about!


When I go home, I need to find an outside sport group, or something, who will take on beginners, because this stuff is so much better than stupid suburban exercise. I didn't realize how much I would like it. There are definitely places in my state to do this, but the best trails and so on are either to the west or to the south, and so require a vehicle and a driver. And, of course, I don't know what I'm doing particularly well, so I need someone more experienced willing to spend some time with people like me (without me paying them a whole lot of money).


Signed up for the common application thing. This should be exciting.

You know . . . I kind of like myself.

This could be the result of actually taking all my medication regularly. Uh. >.<

Woo-hoo!


Also, I have continued with Twilight after a week's break. It has not gotten any better, and in fact the Edward/Bella dynamic has gotten so cloying that it's uncomfortable to read. Besides, I get the feeling that Stephenie Meyer has some sort of repressed dominance fantasy, and that is really creepy. I find myself wanting to skip whole pages of their conversation.

There are also comma splices all over the place. I am something of a fan of comma splices; they can be useful if you want to convey some sort of spoken rapidity. They also seem more common in certain kinds of British literature than in American, and anything that helps Harry Potter along is fine by me. However, there comes a time when it ceases to be useful and descends into just plain wrong, and I think Stephenie Meyer has crossed that line.

OW WTF

I just took a shower and I got shampoo in my right eye three separate times.



JEEZ THIS STINGS

also ha ha titular pun

There was some serious tide pool excitement today. Three huge rock crabs! Climbing over a boulder-filled beach because we thought it was closer to the group of kids than the trail (we were wrong)! Making up games and playing them with twelve little kids going into first or second grade!

My group is awesome. Bonding, man. SRSLY.

Out of all of the little kids and the other two teenagers, I was the only one who fell and got cut on the barnacles. This is because I am the awesome-est of all.

I'm doing this teen leadership thing at my cousin's summer camp. There are two other kids (both boys) and our awesome counselor (a girl). Travelogue comic whatever will have more details laterrrrrrrr.

Anyway, as a team/trust-building exercise, we went rock climbing. BUT WE DIDN'T JUST GO ROCK CLIMBING.

We went freakin' cliff climbing. We were right by the sea and there was this one part where you had to shimmy up between two sheer rock faces and oh man, I was so bad at it, and I have scratches and bruises all over me––legs, arms, small of my back––but it was a thousand kinds of awesome.

Well, yeah, except for real: I have no beta, I need help from all of you!

( Chapter two, take two: now with more wordplay! Also punctuation abuse. )

I think it is much better than it was, and I need you to tell me if I need to kill half of the semi-colons, because I'm thinkin' I probably should. EXCEPT THAT I LOVE THEM.

Called my mom.

Things went badly. She made it all about her.

What else is new.


In better news, I have finished mapping out the unicorn story--not plot point by plot point, because I don't want to make writing this story boring, but enough so that I won't be lost and floundering after I finish each section, something that often hinders my productivity. I figured out character motives and how to get everyone together, and I think it's much more believable now than it was in the original. Also: Rasia (the princess) is such a bitch. I love it.

Also, I wrote my first ever kiss scene. It was more difficult than I had hoped it would be.

VICTORY!!!

Aw, man, Yve has it so bad already, I am telling you.

Is it weird to be routing rooting (ETA: WTF, Adriana?) for your own characters to get together? All my other relationships were kind of abstract: I knew they'd get together, I was just setting the circumstances into the plot. But this story is, while not a romance, completely about love, and this poor couple has been waiting so long just to get to the "Oh, look, we acknowledge our mutual omgilikeyou" stage.

( WOOOH! )

Please tell me if you see something unsavory that could be fixed through the power of text!

HAH YES YVE JUST APPEARED IN THE REWRITE <33333

“Good,” Faith said. “I think now is the time for you to meet your guards; for they will be around tonight and each night after, and most likely during the day as well.”

“All right,” I said again; and an hour later, the six of them filed in.

“Carolina,” said the tallest one; and then down on the line they introduced themselves: Alexis, dark and almost as tall; Meredith-called-Merry, who was equally thin and colorless and kind as her sister Mary; Lidia, blonde and stocky; Yve, pale and more beautiful than I would have expected any guard to be; Rowena, who looked as if she spent her life in the sun.

Also: "mathemagician" is now officially a word in unicorn 'verse (GET IT? GET IT? :D)

So at first I didn't think I was going to be on teh internetz all that often--and I'm not, compared to my home use, especially during the school year--but I've been looking up bus schedules and college stuff, so I'm taking the occasional detour here.

I have finally learned to like portobello mushrooms. This is a useful trait in a vegetarian, and I have succeeded; I'm still not hugely fond of the little ones, but at least I can deal. My terrible palate FTW!

I am so excited for comics I can't even explain it in words. And speaking of words, in addition to reading a good book about medieval history and a bad book about vampires, I went to the library and got out The Well of Lost Plots, The Reavers, and The Sound and the Fury. I already own The Big Over Easy, and I like it better than this Jasper Fforde novel, but this one is enjoyable enough that I think I will be lookin' up some more Thursday Next mysteries when I get home.

My cousin is being a pretentious thirteen-year-old "pill" (as described by her father, my favorite uncle), but whatever, she could be a lot worse: she could be me, and I was a sullen maladjusted thirteen-year-old pill. I was past the worst of it by the time I got this journal, so you missed the terribly embarrassing bits, but anyway. I have been hiking/walking--Uncle J. took it easy today because of my asthma and everything, but he promised forrealz hiking and climbing tomorrow--in the mornings, and it is pretty fun. My aunt, on the other hand, has made some irritating comments regarding my life style/size/etc., etc., but you, my dear friends, will be reading about it in the travelogue, so I won't bore you now.

P.S. This family eats together almost every night and they cook real food and I don't have to cook for myself and it is a pretty sweet deal. It is so much easier to be happy here because, adolescence aside, everyone else is happy, or at least they don't talk to me about their anxieties or depression or money problems or what have you. I love my mom, but she is kind of stressful sometimes. :/

P.P.S. It occurred to me that, y'know, I really like this header. I'll be changing it eventually, I'm sure, but for whatever reason, I really like the style it's in. This is unusual, so I will bask in the self-liking while it exists!