2011 in Review Part One

Splitting it into two parts because I have too much to say ^-^


January- I did the camera for the UD home hockey games. It was a total blast. I've love to do something like that again. Jake came along for the first game, and for most of the rest of the games, Clay came. He posted a status about having nothing to do. I told him to come to the game. He brought along Dana. He and Dana came over to my house after the game. They took apart my Rubik's cube :P I couldn't get it back together, so he came back later that week. And again. And again.

February- Clay and I started going out on the first. He asked if I liked him; I said yes. I asked if he wanted to go out; he said yes. I had my first Valentine's Day with a boyfriend and maintained my hatred of the day. My dad came up for my birthday and I had the best birthday party of all time. It lasted a full twenty four hours and we had a balloon animal guy and two separate magic shows (one hired, one by a friend of mine). I got my second degu, and she died six days later.

March- Bryar and I officially stopped talking. I started playing my first Pokemon game (Fire Red on an emulator). I got a donut from Dunkin' Donuts that only had sprinkles on half of it. Never went there again. Our gerbils had babies. I started really experimenting with my chocolate making. We got a dog, Levi, who was a German Shepherd/Rottie mix. Beautiful dog. I started watching Red vs. Blue and bought Clay the DVD set for his birthday. My beloved degu, Pika, died, and I got a rabbit who I named Gracie Alberta Tex.

April- Clay took me to see Sucker Punch in theaters, and it became my favorite movie made after my birth. We got ducklings. Levi attacked me and we gave him back to his former owners. I went on the band trip to Atlanta. The first three days were horrible, the last two were wonderful. I stopped talking to Moxi because of events on the band trip. I played through Portal for the first time and loved it.

May- The ducks ran away. I learned how to shoot an airsoft sniper rifle and ended up shooting myself in the leg. I finally saw a show by our high school's improv troupe and fell in love. Jake had an "end of the world bonfire" and asked me if it'd be okay to have the fire inside. I made a call from a rotary phone during the bonfire (which thankfully took place outside). I had my first job interview at the local pet store, but I didn't get the job mainly because I have no experience. I started Portal 2. I started playing bass. Two friends of mine broke up, and she went ballistic and we're now no longer friends because I took his side.

June-  Mary and I spoke face-to-face for the first time. We got two new degus. Some of my best friends graduated, and I cried. I found out my favorite teacher ever took a new job, and I cried harder. I ran into Bryar on my way out of school, and he saw me crying and didn't say anything. I was in the marching band for the Blue-Gold football game for the second year in a row and I got sun poisoning. We got Friscuit, who became known as "LeeLeeKitty" on AVEN chat and became as much of a regular as I was at the time. Bryar asked to hang out with Clay and said he'd be fine with me tagging along. It ended up being an amazing day.

Kirby Mass Attack

So today I spent the Walmart gift card from my great-aunt, the $10 from my aunt and uncle, and the leftover $5 from my mega babysitting marathon in preparation for Christmas shopping to get a new video game. It took less than a minute of looking at the display to choose Kirby Mass Attack.

I've had a love affair with Kirby since September of last year. I went to my friend Katie's house for a "chillax." Pretty much it was a bunch of her friends hanging out, eating food and playing video games. This was a few months before I really started playing video games. Somehow her boyfriend, Dave, talked me into playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I literally didn't know any of the characters, so I hit the random button and ended up with Kirby. I literally set the controller down on the ground and started mashing buttons with my pointer fingers. Somehow I actually did okay, considering I was up against seasoned veterans of the game. Every time I went to Dave's house after that, I begged him to let me play something with Kirby. I was always Kirby for Super Smash Bros. Melee. Everyone else became accustomed to my angry glares if they even considered picking Kirby. Dave even dragged out Kirby Air Ride for me (and promptly kicked my ass, as he believes you learn better if no one goes easy on you).

However, Kirby Mass Attack is the first real Kirby game I've ever played. I don't count the other two, because the first isn't specifically Kirby and the second I've only played twice. Overall, I am enamored. I'm a little disappointed that I can't do something to make Kirby make the little vacuum noise and eat his enemies, though. I've beat one out of five levels so far. For me, it's the right balance of challenging and doable, so I haven't thrown my DS across the room because of it yet (like with Pokemon Ruby...), but I'm not bored. For the first time in forever, I'm actually pleased with a purchase I have made ^-^

Update on Dana: He accepted my friend request. I'm hoping he'll come see me sometime soon ^-^

Toradora!

Mary recently introduced me to an anime I hadn't heard of before. It's from 2008 and it's called Toradora! if you couldn't tell from the title of this post :P It's about two misunderstood high schoolers trying to get through life and get the attentions of the ones they love.
Ryuuji has the type of eyes that you often see attributed to the antagonist of an anime or manga. They're described in the series as "murderous eyes." He got them from his father, who does seem to be the type of guy to deserve him. In the ten episodes I've seen, we don't get to see his father, but we can pick up on things Ryuuji says to understand that there's probably a good reason he's not in the picture. Ryuuji lives with his mother, who works in a hostess bar. She's extremely childish and doesn't seem to know how to take care of herself. She refers to herself in the third person constantly. I kind of want to reach through the screen and punch her a lot of the time.

Dana

So from April until July we had a friend of ours staying in our basement. He wasn't the best boarder, to say the least. He was a druggie. His dad was a druggie, and he got started young. He smoked in our basement, stole from us, and lied about everything. He didn't work because he couldn't pass a drug test. Even with all that, he was still somehow family to us. It's kind of like when you have a puppy who is the most devious thing ever. You may get angry, and you may shove his nose in his poop, but when he looks up at you with his puppy dog eyes and starts licking your face, you can't help but melt. He didn't really have anywhere else to go. No one else would take him in. Eventually we did kick him out, but it had more to do with the fact that my mom's ex, who still owns the house, found out about him and threatened to kick us out. 

I have to say, I liked Dana a whole lot more when he wasn't living with us. He stopped by a couple of times, to pick up stuff or just check up on me. When he found out the way Clay dumped me, he promised me he'd make him apologize. He was constantly telling me to take care of myself and to let him know if there was anything he could do for me. Unfortunately, I have to rely on him to show up somewhere to talk to him, as I have no way to contact him. His number keeps changing as he keeps going back and forth between being homeless and finding a friend to stay with for a week or so at a time. 

My mom ran into him tonight. Apparently, he's joined the military. When I first heard this, I felt nothing but pride. It meant that he was finally shaping up, getting onto his own feet to support himself. Plus, he was giving up a lot to defend our country, and I have always found it admirable. Then my mom dropped the bombshell: He has two more months of training before he was deployed to Iraq. 

I have to admit, I'm scared. I'm scared that I won't get to see him before he goes overseas. He's so infrequent and random with his visits that I have no clue when he'll show up. I can't call him. I sent him a message on Facebook but who knows when he'll have the opportunity to check it. I'm almost tempted to get in touch with Clay to see if he knows how to pass word to him. I'm also scared that he won't make it back. Even with everything he did, he's still somewhat like a brother to me. 

Please, keep him in your prayers or thoughts. Here's to hoping for his safe return.

An Open Letter to Our Former Anchor

Warning to my readers: This could get ugly.

Dear Sir:
You may wonder why I'm calling you sir. First off, I don't want to use your name, because I'm about to totally rip on you and I don't want to attach your name to this. Second off, you seem to be better than all of us, so I figured you deserve a title? Am I right?
From all the fuss I've heard from you, first-hand and through others, I've gathered you've been removed from your position. And since I've only heard fuss from you, I guess the rest of the talent is exactly the same.
Wait a minute. They're not? Everyone's been switched around? Oh. Okay. Well, you must have been taken off the show completely.
Wait. You're audio engineer? Oh. Okay. Well, you must not have been taken off because there was no one to replace you.
What was that? There are plenty of people who aren't on the show because although they have the potential, there just aren't enough spots? Oh. Okay. Well, it sounds like this is going to make it harder for you to get into and succeed in college.
Huh? This will actually benefit you? You mean, colleges are looking for well-rounded people who have done more than one thing? And you mean you'll be getting more experience with more jobs this way, getting you even more ahead than most others? And you've already sent out your college applications? Oh. Okay. I guess it was because of your scarf, then. I mean, Freids does make fun of you a lot for it. He must be a homophobe.
Excuse me? A bunch of people who don't wear scarves lost their part, too? Oh. Okay. Well, I guess it's not fair because you're the best anchor our show has ever had.
Did I hear you right? No, I didn't, because you stumbled through your lines and even went off script even though you were looking directly at a teleprompter. But I guess you're still pretty good. So yeah, it sucks that you're the only one who lost their part you got taken off the show you were only kept on because there was no one else there you can't get into college you're being discriminated against YOU'RE A WHINY BITCH WHO NEEDS TO GROW UP.
*calms down*
Sir. You didn't get fired. It was fair. This is actually helping you in the long run. And no, it's not about the scarf. So just chill. Get over yourself. It's not the end of the world. It's okay to be disappointed, it's not okay to try to organize a school wide protest and make everyone hate a great teacher because you didn't get your way.
Sincerely,
A lowly junior

CATS

The first movie I remember ever becoming truly obsessed with was the movie version of the musical Cats. It started when I was two or three. For my fourth birthday we got kittens, and I named mine Magical Mister Mistoffellees and my mom's was Rum Tum Tugger. We had it on VHS and it's pretty close to worn out from all the times I've watched it. I can still recite the commercials that came on before the movie: one for Schweppes, one for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and one for the Broadway version of Cats. I spent a lot of weekend and summer days in the basement of our house, watching it and trying to do the dances (with varying success, usually on the low range of the scale). We got it on DVD a couple years ago, and it's probably the one I've watched the most. I even bought the book of poetry it's based off of with birthday money one year in middle school.

Cats was the first musical I ever saw done professionally live. I can't remember how old I was, but it must have been when I was considerably young, because I only remember two things. First, at the very beginning of the musical, the actors came running up the aisle with glowing eyes. My mom was sitting on the end, and I was sitting next to her. One of the cats leaned over her and right into my face. It was the most terrifying event of my young life. Secondly, when I get overheated I get nauseated. When I was younger, I would actually throw up. I did so right before intermission >.< I made it to the bathroom, though! One of the ushers brought me water in one of those little triangle paper cups, and we watched until intermission on this big screen tv they had in the lobby of the theater that showed what was on stage. After intermission, we went back into the theater and I made it through the rest of the show (or so said my mom when I asked her earlier, I honestly can't remember for myself).

My obsession came back with a vengeance in middle school. I started to not just watch it, but to find stories that weren't so obvious. I think that maybe that's why I love this musical so much. I've always adored things that have more than one meaning. You can either look at it from the perspective of "hey, singing and dancing cats!" or it can be "hey, singing and dancing cats that are related this way and that and have this relationships and those and there's this backstory and..." It's also really great for someone with an overactive imagination to think about when she's bored... >.>

Some of my Backstories

• Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger, and Magical Mister Mistoffelees are brothers, and all the sons of Old Deuteronomy. Munkustrap and Tugger are litter mates, and Mistoffelees is younger. Munkustrap is the more responsible one of the older ones, while Tugger is more of a ladies' man, so Munkustrap is their father's right-hand man. Tugger's perfectly fine with this, so the two of them get along great. Mistoffelees, however, doesn't get along with Tugger that well. He wants some of the attention from the female cats, too. He does eventually get it, but he starts off being jealous and irritated by his brother. Tugger approves of Mistoffelees, though. He's proud of him and really supports his magic-ness. 
• Victoria is the name of the white kitty that has the most demanding dancing parts in the show (I know this because one of my pipe-dreams when I was younger was to play her on Broadway so I did research. When I found this out, I dropped the dream :P ). She's one of the younger cats, the same age as Mistoffelees. She's probably going to be similar to the female version of Tugger when she's older, but for now she's just exploring what it means to be seen as a possible mate. She and Mistoffelees are really close friends. He doesn't approve of her infatuation with Tugger. You can see him keeping her awake in the background during Gus's song ^-^ I'm a total shipper for Victoria and Pouncival
• Grizabella has plenty of theories flying around about her. Because of this, I didn't come up with my own theory about her, unlike the others (except Demeter), but instead combined bits and pieces of others'. She left the tribe as a young cat because of being vain. She thought she was better than them, and they didn't enable her, so she left. They allowed her to come back when the real world crushed her, but never really accepted her after it. They felt she deserved everything she got, but Old Deuteronomy convinced them to allow her to rejoin the tribe. 
• Demeter is one of my favorites, but I didn't come up with her backstory on my own. Instead I found it on the interwebs :D Demeter used to be Macavity's mate before he became infamous. Then she realized what a horrible person he was and tried to get out. He made it really difficult for her, which traumatized her. That's why she's so jumpy when she thinks/knows he's around. Bombalurina is either her slightly older sister, or just a very close friend who's slightly older than her. She runs to her a lot when frightened. 

Favorite Songs

• Macavity
• Skimbleshanks
• Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms and the Intervention of the Great Rumpus Cat!!!
• Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

Favorite Males

• Tugger. Dude. The first (out of two) sexual attraction I ever had was to him. I have to give total props to John Partridge for playing the part of a sex idol so well. 
• Mistoffelees. My second favorite. Forever. He's just... amazing. My perfect guy is him and Tugger put together... in human form. 
• Old Deuteronomy. He's so cuddly!!!

Favorite Females

• Victoria. Forever and always my favorite. 
• Jemima. She's so pretty ^-^ And her voice is gorgeous. 
• Demeter. I don't really know why I feel so strongly towards her, I just do. 

Real-life connections (where the fan-girl really kicks in)- Jake is the Mistoffelees to my Victoria, and Mary is the Bombalurina to my Demeter. I also have my very own Tugger... but that's not something I'm gonna share here :P

Doodle or Die

Just click it. It's like Telephone, only with doodles!

Winners from tonight:

Cutest Shit Ever

 Biggest Insult

Biggest Fail

Best Avoidance:

You can check out the rest of my favorites here.

Song of the Day: "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! at the Disco

A Significant Date

Today is December eleventh. Two years ago today, I attempted suicide for the third time. I haven't since.

About two weeks prior, I had passed Bryar a note during Health. "If I died, would you miss me?"
He looked at me for a second, and then started writing. When he handed it back, the bottom was folded up. He had written "Of course not. I'd throw a party to celebrate."
I shot him a dirty look and said "I'm serious."
He smiled mischievously and unfolded it for me. The bottom of the paper read "Of course, Delaney. This class would be boring as hell without you."

Flash forward two weeks. To be honest, I can't even remember what set me off. I just remember sobbing and getting my sleeping pills from downstairs (I was a horrible insomniac then). I had half a bottle in my hand when I realized that I wanted to leave a note. I searched through my room and the first paper I found had already been written on. "If I died, would you miss me?"
I started crying even harder and put down the pills.



Today is also significant in that it is exactly one year since meeting Clay. For the third time, but we don't count the first two. Before one year ago tonight, all he had said to me was "Why are you taking pictures of everyone but me?" and all I'd said to him was "Sorry."
It was one of Bryar's event things. We were playing Cops and Robbers at one of the local elementary schools. Jason gave me a hiding spot and said "If anyone sees you, run that way." Clay came along, and I did as I was told. Little did we know "that way" was directly into a thorn bush. Clay laughed and left. He came back later when our friend Jimmy was trying to scare me out of it. He asked me to just come out.
"What do I get out of it?"
"I dunno. What do you want? A hug?"
At this, I nodded enthusiastically. I freaking love hugs. I slowly started to climb out, getting many more cuts along the way. He offered to help me, but I responded with the "I got it" that I use when I'm trying to be independent. When I got out, he hugged me and started walking me to "jail." He gave me his hat to stem the bleeding, but I just held it. I didn't want to get blood on his hat!
Throughout the night, I spent a lot of time talking to him. He and Jason tickled me a lot. They also played keep-away with Bun Bun >.< At the end, I left with Bryar to take a couple of girls back to his house to get their car. Before I left, I went over to Clay for a final hug. He said "Hold on a second" and then slid his hand up my side towards my boob. He stopped before he got there, though, and once I realized what he was pretending to do, I jumped back and started screaming at him for "raping" me. He laughed and said that that's not his style.
We all went to dinner a little later at Cici's. He said he had enough to pay for a couple of people. I hid my wallet and asked him to pay for me, saying "With what you did at the school, you might as well buy me dinner." He begrudgingly did. We sat next to each other and I flirted hard all night.
At one point, Clay went to get more pizza. Some of the guys at the table added a bunch of stuff to his drink. Parmesan cheese, pepper, vegetable soup, all sorts of stuff. He came back and took a drink. I started giggling uncontrollably. He asked what was so funny, and I just shook my head and calmed down. He didn't notice anything in the drink until he'd finished it and there was stuff on the bottom.
We didn't talk besides a little bit of flirting over Facebook for about a month. Then I started seeing him every weekend, and then everyday, and then eventually we started dating.

So yeah. Today's a bittersweet day. But it's mostly been good.

Song of the Day: "You Suck at Love" by Simple Plan (really into them right now for some reason)

This Song Saved My Life

I love this song. I love that it captures the way I feel about songs. Music really can change your outlook. It's nice to know that someone out there feels that way enough to write a song about it. It also helps to have a song that can put your feelings into words. And when that song takes the way you feel and makes you feel empowered about it... it's the best.

Some examples for me:

"Waldorf Worldwide" by Good Charlotte.
Freshman year, of course, was the first year I knew Bryar. One thing that we both shared was a deep passion for music. At the time, though, I didn't really know a lot of music. Bryar would send me YouTube videos of songs to listen to, and eventually he just lent me a string bag with about twenty CDs in it.
Whenever I was upset, I turned to him. He'd listen to me rant about whatever trivial or not so trivial thing that was affecting me. Sometimes he would know what to say. Other times he wouldn't, and he'd respond "Tell me how I can help you." I'd tell him, "Tell me it's going to be all right." And he would.
I was upset the night after he gave me the bag. I pulled a random CD out, put it into my CD player, and hit play. This was the song that played.
"March On" also became a fall-back song for me.

"Change" by Taylor Swift.
This one I discovered and fell in love with in middle school. At the time, I was being emotionally abused by my stepdad, and my best friend was being physically abused by his dad. Both of us felt belittled. He has a strong dislike towards Taylor Swift, so I never showed him this song. But it always made me think of the two of us one day fighting back. I did, he still hasn't taken the outs he's been offered. I guess it's a guy thing. I don't know.

"Somedays" by Regina Spektor.
I'm not even sure how to put my feelings for this song into words. Regina Spektor's voice is beautiful. I'm not one hundred percent sure what this song's even about, but it's still beautiful. And the beginning of the song "Some days aren't yours at all/They come and go as if they're someone else's days"... it's just great.

"Broken Hearts, Torn Up Letters, and the Story of a Lonely Girl" by LostProphets.
I freaking love LostProphets, especially the album this song is off of. I could easily put this entire album on this list. Easily. This song... "Girl you just can't dance forever/If you wanna make it better/Times like this won't last forever" When I'm upset, I listen to this at top volume and just let it be my thoughts. There's no room for anything else. I love this song. I would marry this song if that was possible. Hell, I'd have sex with this song.


And finally, somewhat of a joke, but I had to share this.

The song doesn't really matter. It's what happens about two minutes into the video. I laughed so hard.

Kicking Myself

"Ugh, I have nothing to do in Latin Slash Study Hall."
"Wanna borrow the Kindle?"

In my head now, I can hear Taylor Swift singing "You should've said no..." (Just that line, the next wouldn't make sense. Sure, it'd have been nice to go home...) But Moxi was persistent, and I gave in pretty easily because I didn't want to spend eighty-five minutes staring at the ceiling. I had no books to read, and I didn't have my notebook because SOMEBODY left it at his house even though I reminded him that morning. So in a way this is all Jake's fault <3

I still prefer real books, by the way. But there are some upsides.

Pros of E-Readers

• Being able to carry several books at once without making your backpack weigh more than you do. It's really nice that when you finish one book you can start a new one without having to pull another one out. 
• The books are organized. You can't lose them, and you can search for them and find them easily.  
• If you're trying to find a certain part of the book, you can search within the book (that is, if you know the wording of that part)
• Battery lasts a while

Cons of E-Readers

• There's no "new book smell" or "old book smell." There's no smell, period. 
• It's a lot more complicated to let people borrow an e-book than a real book. 
• I read Christine by Stephen King, and at one point, they're comparing one of the characters' signatures before and after he got possessed. They show both signatures in the book, and the reader's supposed to notice the total change. Except you can't see them on the e-reader. 
• The battery does eventually die. 
• If you accidentally skip a part and become confused, it's hard to go back and go find it. 
• You can't flip the pages of a book. I know there's a vlogbrothers video where one of them rants about not liking e-readers that I quote all the time, but I can't seem to find it. 
• It's a lot easier to steal books with an e-reader, which is bad for the writers and the economy and such. 
• I love libraries and bookstores and we won't have them anymore if the e-readers take over

There are plenty of other reasons I'm against e-readers, but maybe I don't hate them as much as I used to. 

Song of the Day: Not actually a song, but I have it on my iPod. Enjoy. 

Don't just look at her ass, eat it.