THIS iS REALLY HAPPENING>>> MY COUSINS ARE COMING AT THE END OF THIS MONTHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm going to Dowling tomorrow...err... today to do a hundred things- including change my class schedule. There's only one thing bugging me. Should I take "digital photo manips"- which will likely be easy, if not boring OR should I take "Ceramics" -which will likely be difficult, possibly stressful? One will obviously be less rewarding than the other. OR should I throw them all for a loop and take "drypoint & Etching" with Jim, who i love.... but whose class is at 9:30 on friday morning.

I hate the weather today. The music festival in Jamesport is today and it's grossly thunderstorming. I gotta see my Lex Grey, my hero. I'm going no matter what! RA RA BAND.

Yesterday I drove into the city with my brother. Yes, ladies and gents I DROVE around the streets of Manhattan. It was quite an experience. Anyway, we parked in a garage and took the free ferry over to Governor's island. To see the Guhv vuh nuh. No, to see Eric Bibb! And I talked to him and his wife and his daughter.... his daughter who sang with him on stage for a few tunes and has an amazing voice!!! I bought her LP. Anyway, governor's island is SO COOL. it's an old Naval base converted into a park so there are tons of old abandoned buildings (most locked, but a few i was able to sneak into). And some buildings have historic information. There are infinite places to picnic and ride bikes and play games in the grass. Ah, i want to go back and explore more. Someone come with me :D

This coming weekend there are a lot of cool music things going on also.

Anyway, the weather is worsening. I should go.

I did some math using data from the World Food Programme website. The total cost for the WFP to buy, transport and manage 49,952 tons of food this year was $44,831,742. This means the cost per ton of food was $897. They say that an individual needs at least 500 grams of food daily, or 182.5 kilograms per year. $897 divided by 1000 kilograms and multiplied by 182.5 kilograms needed to feed one person for a whole year makes $163 per year to feed one person. There are about 860 million people who are perpetually starving. Thus it would cost $140.7 billion to feed all the hungry for one year. In 2006 the world's military expenditures totaled $1.2 trillion. That means only 11.7% of the world's military budget could be used to feed all the undernourished for one year. That means if the world stopped buying bombs for 42 days out of the year and instead bought food there would be no hunger in the entire world.

I'm currently sitting here waiting for a reply email that will decide my fate- if I've screwed up beyond repair or if I can be saved. I'm so nervous that I may have already effed up important stuff regarding paperwork and deadlines for the Psych Club. I have to meet with Dr. Youth within the next few days. MUST FIX. I've never NEEDED to be so organized before. Yikes. I can't believe how busy I've been and how busy I will be for the next week at least.

Everyday for weeks I've been at these stupid peanut sculptures. I'm breathing peanuts. I smell like peanuts. I go to sleep thinking about peanuts. I have nightmares about peanuts. I wake up thinking about peanuts. There are peanuts all over my desk, my car and in my bag. I used to like peanuts. Now I hate peanuts.

Yesterday I spent 6 straight hours working on my sculpture (with a bathroom break). I checked out the Pae's house for a bit last night because if I don't get to see my buddies at least once a week I will turn into a pumpkin. And implode. "Mostly likely to implode" I worked on my sculpture a few hours today. I had the professor look at it and she had nothing bad to say. Tomorrow I have class until 1. Then at 1 I'm meeting with Prof. Brown so she can help me mix grog into my clay since there was only clay without grog at the store. This is the clay that I'm taking home so I can work on my Abstract Sculpture at home while I work on my Split Sculpture in school. At 2:45 I have Carolyn's History Club Meeting and at 3 is the Honors meeting. At 4 I have to find Prof. Indick to ask him about his book. Then I'll be working on my sculpture until the studio closes at 8pm -unless she let's me stay later. When I get home I'll work on my other sculpture.

Thursday I'll be in the studio working from 10 till 2:30. Right after that I have a presentation about school psych (I gotta get on that). Then I have to rush home after class to get to my chiro appointment. I'm in so much pain right now I should have gone a week ago. I've been too busy. Then Smallville. And sculpture. Friday I have work 10-5. I have to make sure I "follow standard darkroom procedure". Whatev. My meeting and my sculpture.

Saturday, Laura and I are going to THE MET! That's the only thing I have to look forward to for the next few weeks. Although, probably the entire time I'll feel guilty about not working on my sculpture. I need this break so bad. Then! Sunday I'll be working on my sculpture for a few hours before going to the Islip Art Museum for a lecture by the artist whose work is there. I have to go for class. How annoying. Then I'll rush home to get to my meeting and sculpture. Monday, I have a test in Theories of Personality. Then at 1 I'll start working on my sculpture and I won't stop until they kick me out. Then when I get home I'll be working on the other sculpture. TUESDAY all three sculptures are due. God help me. I hope I get done. I'm tired.

And I didn't get that email yet! Shiite.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I haven't been doing anything for any of my other classes (i.e. reading, studying, hw) -only this insane sculpture.

It's been 1400 years since I've even looked at this thing. But that's a good thing. I've been keeping busy. I'll try to recall stuff now. Way back when.... Marie had an arty farty party at her house with Lauren and Aurora. I started a little painting. It looks cool so far so I hope I don't mess it up when I resume it. Then there was The Superb Paesano's Block Partay. It was spendid. I even hung out with Corrine and that whole crew for a while. Umm. My parents' 25th anniversary was uneventful. Me and my bro picked out some silver things. I found a hippie picture of my parents and built a frame for it. They loved everything of course.

The Fourth was ok. I set off some fireworks at my Uncle's house. One went off in my hand but I still have all my fingers. Yay. My cousin Joe is going to be a dad. Weeeiiiirrrrd. I went to Courtney's party around 5. I met a lot of cool people. They got even friendlier after they were drunk. I got to see Steve, Russ, and Katlyn from Dowling. Interestingly, I had more fun with Courtney's friends from HS. Figures. This hippie girl named Jackie who I'm pretty sure kept trying to get me drunk enough to make out with her but whatever. She was really funny, though. This girl Danielle and I sat outside and watched some fireworks. I yelled at her friends for her because I didn't care. I saw Dan Fitterman from CHS. This girl Alyssa made out with Russ while he was practically passed out. Desperate much? Blah blah.

One day I went to Coney Island with Vera and Bobby. It was awesome. I went on the ferris wheel that I thought was broken. The only scary ferris wheel ever. The rickety Cyclone was amazing. We also went to the aquarium and I fell in love with the jelly fish exhibit believe it or not. Yesterday, I went with my family to Greenport. That was a lot of fun. We went on a boat tour thingy, looked in some shops, peed in Starbucks, and ate in some fancy restaurant. I ate Long Island Duck...mmm... Today I went with Dave to see Sicko. Very sad stuff. I think I'm moving to Nova Scotia with Anastasia.

What else? I've been going to the beach, BBQing, swimming, cleaning the basement, yadda. My computer died last week when the power blinked. But! I got my new computer yesterday. An actual new computer and not a handmedown from my dad. Amazing. It has Windows Vista and I'm not sure what is so "revolutionary" about it. It seems to be like every other windows update since 95 oh well. This weekend is the music festival in Patchogue. I really want to go on both Saturday and Sunday. Seven bucks. All day. Weeooh. I think that's it.

If anyone's free they should call me. The End.

I forgot to say that I went to a Jazz show at the Bay Shore Second Avenue Firehouse on the 6th. Dave won tickets off WUSB. It was supposed to be called "Hot Jazz for a Cold Night" but since it was nearly 60 degrees they had to rename it to "Cool Jazz for a Warm Night" :) It was a great show. They played a bunch of stuff by Gershwin and Duke Ellington and some French dude with a name like Jengo or something. There was an adorable Jewish-looking violinist, the bassist looked like a bodyguard, and the guitarist looked like a mobster. All in all- great performers. The violinist was my favorite, though.. he would play, pluck, and bang on that violin till I thought it was going to break and just before or after a really fast part in the song he would moan or yell "Oh My God"... it was awesome.

Then! This past Sunday I saw the great Garland Jeffreys at Stony Brook's University Cafe. This guy played with a lot of great musicians, including Lou Reed and Jimmy Cliff. I has only recently got into his music before finding out that he was playing right in my backyard so I didn't know too many songs but it was amazing nevertheless. It was just him and his guitar and his friend Alan... an incredible guitarist. I'm not going to lie... Alan at first glance looked like a bumbling idiot.. but my God... when he started plucking at that guitar it was breathtaking. Anyway, Garland was great. Sometimes he would be sitting doing his soft tunes, sometimes rocking and dancing on the stage and other times he'd be walking around the audience. He even did some sort of half spoken/half sung poem/song about his mother. Beautiful. He didn't sing "Boys and Girls" which is my favorite that I've heard from him... but he sang some great tunes like "Don't Call Me Buckwheat" and "Spanish Town" and his hit "Wild in the Streets".. oh! Also! About 10 minutes before the show was to start, I see Garland all ready to go and I guess he was bored because he goes to the door and was opening the door for people :) and then! he was helping people find seats. I swear I thought he was going to start bussing tables. What a humble guy. After the show I went up to him and said how much I liked the show blah blah... and he gave me a hug! And then he autographed a cd for me. So cool. I almost forgot! At the show Dave and I met up with Dave and Rob... two college buddies of my brothers (severely handicapped- but really smart guys). After the show Garland exchanged email addresses with Dave and Rob. I thought that was so nice. I can't wait to see Garland again when he comes back from his tour in Europe. He said he'll be back on the island in February.

While I'm going on about music, I'd just like to say that I've been listening to War a lot lately. They were big in the 70's.. and they combine bits of soul, Latin, jazz, blues, reggae, rock and all that funky stuff. I've been in an overall r&b mood for the past two weeks anyway. They're amazing.

( Read more... )

In other news, this past weekend Kim invited me to the movies with Phillipe, Josh, Frankie, and two new kids. Two nice boys, 20 years old. I can't believe how many people Kim knows. It's always great to be with that group. Ummm yesterday Carolyn called me so we hung out and went to the movies to see The Good Shepard. Not a good movie. But regardless, it was nice to see Carolyn. Sooo last night I hung out with the usual crew at LPs' house. Lisa is backkkkkk. I had an unstoppable urge to sing and had a lot of fun doing the American Idol karaoke. B-Man came by after a while and was showing me and Laroo various weaponry he likes. Some things never change.

There's about two weeks left of my vacation. I don't really want to go back to school but I guess I have no choice. I don't know what I'm doing. I wish I could run away and explore the world for a semester. blah. "Find myself" whatevs. Good things to look forward to: silverchacha February 12 with my buddy! Keeps me going. Anyways, I should be seeing Su-Yee on Thursday for .. something we don't know. I'm excited about that.

I keep putting off writing down my resolutions so here they are in brief form:
Sing my heart out
Make art like crazy
Write everything
Read what I want
Be honest and courageous and kind
Find happiness
Study and learn
Love
Figure out what I'm doing for the rest of my life

Something I wrote back in Novemember, figured I'd post it:

Honestly, I don't have time for this petty insulting drama bullshit. I shouldn't have to explain myself, but for my own records I might as well put this down concisely.

I've been talking about making changes in myself for some time now. The truth is I'm too quiet. I've always been too quiet. I try to respect people, forgive, give them chance after chance. I want to be fair, but I'm only human. I have limits. There are a few people in my life that I will never forgive:

Jessica S.- from my childhood, she lied about my friend, Tara, "touching her" when we were in elementary school so that Tara would have no friends. Kathleen- my brother's ex-wife, she took everything from him and now he struggles to get by. Sean- he broke my two best friends' hearts. Valeri- she said awful hurtful things about the people I care most about behind my back and to my face and she told me I shouldn't be friends with my- best- friend, Laura and her sister, Lisa.

I don't like confrontations. How did I let these people know I did not want them in my life? I ignored them. That's it. Only in the case of Valeri did I *gasp* tell a secret of hers. That "secret" was an awful statement about a girl she was calling her "best friend". Amy had been talking about how Valeri had been hurting her and she couldn't take it much longer. Amy did not deserve to believe that Valeri was acting as a friend to her while Valeri was thinking and saying terrible things. So I told Amy the truth. I care about people, good people.

I did not want to end my friendship with Kelly Herzog. I had hoped that we would still be friends, despite me and Valeri's differences. I was still friends with Valeri long after Valeri and Laura stopped talking... so I didn't think it was unreasonable to believe it was possible. Kelly and I never had an argument. But shortly after Valeri and I parted ways, Kelly started acting differently. She suddenly had to work when we had planned to go to Ozzfest. And she had to work "the next day, and the day after that and the day after that". "Okay", I told her, "you call me when you are free to hang out". I was hurt. I'm not ignorant. I know when someone is avoiding me. I let plenty of time go by. I was still hopeful that maybe she really did have to work every single day she didn't call me. But time went on and my hope was diminishing. I invited her over but she was "busy". Now I'm really beginning to lose hope in her. I thought about calling her again, but I realized that she probably hates me because I'm not friends with Valeri anymore. I tried to let it go but finally I had to make some sort of contact. I made a simple "get well soon" comment on her livejournal. She replied "thanks" as if nothing was the matter. So strange. So... cold. Then one day I noticed she took me off her myspace friends list and made her profile private. Okay. I guess that is her virtual "get out of my life" kick in face. So I took her off my deadjournal friends list. I finally knew what she wanted. It was over.

Now out of seemingly nowhere she comments on my deadjournal "I always thought that helping someone involved not... blatently ignoring and then violating their trust. But what do I know anyway?". What am I supposed to think of that? Does she want a fight? From her condescending tone it sounds like it. Does she want to be friends? Doesn't seem like it. I immediately IMed her "hi" when I got that message. She said she wanted to talk but she's heading out now and we could talk tomorrow. Of course, I'm going to Medieval Times tomorrow. I tried to tell her that but she had already put her away message up. Fabulous. So what do I do? Do I try to reason things out via IM? Do I ask to meet face to face? She picked the worst time to do this. Midterms. I have tests, reports, projects, stress about school. I want to talk this out with her, but I'm afraid from her attitude she does not want to reconcile. She wants to waste time arguing. And honestly, I don't have time for this, but I'll give her a chance to speak her mind. I'm just not sure if I have any forgiveness left.

January 7 '07 edit:

I gave her my email address. She never IMed or emailed. She dropped off the earth. It sucks when someone you care about just changes into something you can't recognize. Life calls for moving on.

I haven't done a real update in soooo long. And you're still not getting one. Sorry. Listen people... I want mucho winter break memories. So CALL MEEEEEEEEE. In other news, I love not having school and I need to post pictures like whoa.

( Read more... )

me: My science teacher is in love with Darwin
girl: from the wild thornberrys?

---

Sigh. I can't get no ... satisfaction.

Hi, I don't know if you know this but...
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH IS.....

INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!