Hunger Games

So I went and saw The Hunger Games not once, but twice on opening day. Now, before you go "Oh my gosh another obsessed fan-girl" and stop reading, hear me out. Mom and I bought our tickets for the midnight showing at the beginning of the month. We always go to see these types of movies together, and she never let me see Harry Potter at midnight so she said we'd see Hunger Games then. Earlier this week, Mackay asked me if Neil and I wanted to go see it Friday night with him and his friends, and I jumped at the chance to 1) go to the movies with Neil, which is always great, 2) have Neil see that movie so I'd be able to analyze it with him, 3) spend time with Mackay and his friends, which is usually fun. Also, I'm an mildly obsessed fan-girl who loved the movie :D

As requested, I've made this currently-not-but-may-become-Hunger-Games-fan friendly :D Unfortunately, I'm not sure what qualifies as a true spoiler, so I've just put things having to do with MAJOR points (by the way, they all die at the end xP) in the spoiler section. Little details are slightly spoiled in the "non-spoiler" part, but nothing I think someone would get angry at me for. 

Non-major-spoiler part-

• I really enjoyed the camera work in the film. I've heard people complaining about the shakiness of several shots, but I think that just added to the urgency and panic of those scenes. A friend of mine said "I can barely tell what's going on," but in certain parts of the movie, that's how it was for Katniss as well. I also really enjoy what they did after the tracker jacker stings. 
• There wasn't as much gore as the book called for, but it wasn't taken out completely. They balanced not being bloody in order to get a PG-13 rating well with not being total wimps xP
• The casting was amazing. I wasn't too impressed with Donald Sutherland as President Snow. He played his part well, don't get me wrong. He just looked too much like a giant teddy bear. But I was really nervous about Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, and he blew my mind. Amandla Stenberg (Rue) was adorable, and her acting was awesome.  Alexander Ludwig (Cato) actually looked a lot like my middle school bully. I liked him in that role :P Isabelle Fuhrman (Clove) was wonderful in her star scene at the feast. She was just infuriating and creepy and I loved it. And Dayo Okeniyi (Thresh)? Amazing. Absolutely amazing. As for the main characters, they all did really well. I loved how Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) interacted with Prim and Rue. I really liked Woody Harrelson (Haymitch), although Neil disagrees on me with this :P

SPOILER

• I felt like Rue's death was handled extremely well. It was dramatic and heart-breaking. Them showing District 11's response made it all the more painful. I cried both times it happened. 
• Cato's monologue at the end was BRILLIANT. It made him and all the other Careers seem way more human than they did previously. 
• Something else that was brilliant- Seneca being locked in the room with the nightlock berries. I can't even describe how beautiful it was. 
• Movie-specific spoiler: The mutts were done awesomely. Maybe not the way they looked, but the way they came out. With Katniss lowering her bow in supposed safety and then BAM. I was sleepy at the midnight showing and nearly ended up on my mom's lap when I jumped. I made Neil take his arm away from me when I saw it with him so I didn't hurt him xD A girl a few rows ahead of us screamed :P
• Not spoiling the movie specifically anymore xP The mutts... they weren't right, but I couldn't be happier about that. The way they were described in the book creeped me out. "What wolf waves the rest of the pack forward with its front paw as though it had a wrist?" That. Sentence. Scares. The. Crap. Out. Of. Me. But in the movie they were just like giant pit bulls. 

END SPOILER

Go see it. NOW. :D

Letter to my Twelve Year Old Self

Hey me,

Alright, I know stuff really sucks right now. You're very far away from all of your friends and everything you've ever known. You've been uprooted and dropped into a really sucky school with some really sucky kids. Don't worry about them. You'll get through it. And you know that one girl that you're terrified of? You have good reason to be. However, she gets what's coming to her. And that boy you have a huge crush on? Yeah, he is a total jerk, but he'll come through when you need him in a couple of months. After that, move on. 

When you get to middle school, you're going to go completely boy crazy, and that turns out okay. You get some experience that are really going to help you out later in life. Don't worry about the ways you're different from all your friends; it'll start to make sense in a few years. Just don't forget that a certain friend is even crazier about boys than you, and try to stick by her even when she deserts you for a certain boy. She'll come back, and she's going to need you. Try not to be so resentful. Also, please realize that Taylor Swift isn't the only recording artist out there. It's okay to love her, it's not okay to scoff at anything but her. And don't be all "I loved her before everyone knew her." It's not attractive. 

When you get to high school, don't be so scared. Most of the people you'll be terrified of at first turn out to be your best friends. Please do your homework. That's the biggest thing. Once you get into the habit, it shouldn't be too hard. I wouldn't know. It's hard to break the habit of not doing it. There's going to be a boy (there's always a boy), and he's going to take your heart and break it and mend it so many times that it'll make your headspin. But he'll introduce you to so much that it'll all be worth it in the end. When you go through what you think is the worst break-up in the history of break-ups, remember that you've got friends that will never leave you the way he did. Love them as passionately as you loved him. You'll pull through. 

You're going to go through a lot of crap in the five years until you're my age. And for all I know, you're going to go through a lot of crap even after that. But know that you'll get through it. You'll laugh as much as you cry. There's a lot of good music and literature coming your way. You've got a lot of wonderful friends to make, and a lot of good memories to have. Just hang in there, kiddo. You'll make it. 

Sincerely, 

Me. 

Why I Hate Being Me Sometimes

So imagine you're finally with a guy that you've been crushing on for a couple of years now. He's probably the best guy you've ever dated. He has the same sense of humor you do. He's smart. He gets along great with your closest friends. You like his family, and he likes yours. He has the hairstyle that you've always admired, and he doesn't want to cut it off anytime soon. He's a musician, so you can have intellectual conversations with him about music and actually learn something, too. He's also your favorite nationality. Everything that's important to you, he has, and then some. When you're with him, you feel like everything's going to be all right. 

You're lying down with him on the couch and you know there's no chance of him trying anything that could make you uncomfortable since he's already pretty much figured out your limits. This is what you've been dying for forever, and you finally have it. You're happy, and you're warm, and you're comfortable. You're also kind of sleepy. You close your eyes, and all of a sudden everything is wrong. It's no longer March of 2012, it's August of 2011. This isn't the guy of your dreams, this is the one who keeps trying to rape you. You bolt up to find that everything's back to normal, but you're still shaky and afraid. Everything you've worked towards for the past seven months has been stripped away again, and you're back in victim mode. And even worse, your boyfriend is hurt and confused, and you can't quite get the words out to tell him what's wrong, so he sits there thinking he did something he shouldn't have. 

This happens time and time again, but you don't know how to stop it or where to turn for help. You just want to find some way to make the memories disappear, or at least leave you alone when they're so inconvenient, but you don't know how. You feel so alone, and so dirty, and so miserable.

And it is awful. 

Sweet Asexy Love Day

So apparently the tradition is to post pictures and captions, but I don't feel like posting pictures. So screw that. I'm just going to briefly summarize the relationships that mean the most to me in no particular order until I lose interest. 

Neil- le boyfriend. We danced around each other for a while, but we're finally together. I'm not going to say our relationship is perfect, because no relationship is. He's known I'm asexual since August, and obviously he's cool with that. We're still kinda awkward around each other sometimes, but when we finally get into the groove, it feels right. 

Mary- I have so much trouble describing us. Imagine the best friend you could possibly have, the one who knows what to say, who makes you laugh, who cares about you sometimes so much you feel like crying of happiness even when everything else seems to be falling apart. I mean sometimes it's hard, because when she's hurting all I want to do is be there for her in person, and I can't. 

Selby- She's already gotten her blog post ^-^ We have a million inside jokes, and we both know how to make each other smile. We also know how to piss each other off, but we haven't taken advantage of that yet. I show her a side of me that most of my IRL friends have never seen. 

Zach- I've been friends with him since eighth grade. I've probably fought more and harder with him than anyone else in my life, but we get each other. We've been there for each other through a lot. We often talk about really dark topics, because we've both been in really bad places, and I think we worry Neil sometimes. Neither of us mean what we say, and it's nice to have someone to talk about that kind of stuff theoretically. 

Paul- He's getting his own blog post. I've been working on it. He's my big brother. I love that I can run to him when things are going wrong and he gives me the attention I crave and even seems to enjoy it. He's one of the few that never get annoyed with me. He knows how to make me giggle and how to make me cower in fear, and does both quite often. He seems to know how I feel about most things without me telling him. He just knows me :)

Moxi- Jeez. Where do I start? We've had our rocky parts, but it's smooth sailing right now. I think she handles my depression better than everyone else. She's the right mix of "it's going to be okay" and "pull yourself together and get done what needs to be done." I'll never forget her teaching me a unit's worth of AP Bio in fifteen minutes when all I really wanted to do was go curl up somewhere and ignore the world, and me acing the test because of that. I've gotten to the point now where when she hits me, I do it right back, and I think she respects me more now that I've learned to stand up for myself. 

Alex- Moxi's boyfriend. I'm forever indebted to him for loving her when I couldn't stand her. He's somewhat of a brother to me now that Mox and I are friends again. I can talk to him like I couldn't before. We bond over her craziness. The day that I decided I really liked him was the day that my nose was running and he gave me a tissue while Moxi laughed at me. I think that pretty much sums up our friendship somehow. I haven't quite figured out how to put it into words yet. 

Matt- I don't even know which relationship to state here. He's Alex's, Moxi's, Zach's, and my close friend. He joins Zach and I with our discussions. He feeds me. He teases me. I feel comfortable around him. He makes jokes about a lot of stuff that some people think he shouldn't, but I find him highly amusing. He's also really smart. 

Mackay- Our friendship is uber complicated. Sometimes he gets super irritated with me, and sometimes I can't stand him. He's extremely blunt, and he never does anything to save my feelings. However, he's still a good friend of mine. I can trust him to be honest when I ask him something. He balances concerned and joking extremely well when I tell him about my past. 

George- I've known him since I was a freshman and he was a junior. We have a lot of miscommunications because he keeps a straight face while being sarcastic, and I often think he's serious when he's not. He's one of the few I ever talk to on the phone. I think we become exasperated with each other pretty evenly, so it all works out. I definitely think we'll be friends for a long time. 

All right, I'm bored. Hey, it's an even ten!

A Million Sad Faces

I'm depressed again. I was doing so well, too! I went from the Friday before my birthday (that'd be... February 17th) until last Sunday (March 4th?) without being depressed, but I'm back. I'm just gonna, you know, curl up here and wait for it all to go away...

Pointless Post

I just wanted to know... If I pre-schedule a post for 2:30 AM on the night/morning that it's supposed to leap forward an hour at 2 AM, what time will it say it posted since 2:30 technically doesn't exist?

And then I found out. You get an error. "Because of a daylight savings time shift on the date entered, the time entered does not exist."

More Deep Thoughts (for me, at least)

It's weird the way my thoughts go when I'm depressed. I've been mulling this idea over since Sunday night. 

So you know how when someone doesn't want to be your friend, people usually say something along the lines of "Well, it's their loss"? I don't think that's right. It's not their loss. It's not yours either. They're not being your friend, and you're not having to put up with them hurting you later when they decide they can't take it anymore and really explode on you. It also frees you up to spend time with/making real friends who actually like you.

I officially lost a friend last summer after a year of back and forth. It took him that long to realize that being around me was not worth the annoyance of one of my flaws. I finally found out last night through a mutual friend what that specific flaw was. It's something I've recognized as a flaw for a long time and something I've been trying to work on. I've never lost a friend specifically because of that flaw before, but it has caused some arguments (especially with my ex before he was my ex). Most people seem to accept it as part of me. They don't like it when I act on that flaw, but they recognize that no one's perfect. This friend couldn't take this flaw, and that's just the way it is. Instead of talking to me about it so I could try harder to change around him, or deciding earlier that I just wasn't worth it and telling me that and cutting off contact, he waffled for a year and went back and forth between being my friend and hating me. And when he finally made the decision to end our friendship entirely, he couldn't even tell me himself. He told a different mutual friend to tell me he didn't want me to contact him anymore, and he wouldn't even tell me why.

That's what upsets me about not being friends with him anymore. Not that he doesn't like me, because I understand where he's coming from. The fact that rather than talking to me about it directly, he kept me on a string for so long while he decided and then used other people as his messenger.

I am mourning his friendship, because he was a guy that I really respected and enjoyed being around. However, I don't think that it's truly a loss for either of us, and I fully believe that we're both better off now that we're not friends.

By the way, I find it slightly amusing that I become more at peace with my life every time I get depressed. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing...

FWAH!

(Title is my new default happy noise)

So Stacy over at Sweets Galore (adorable little blog, by the way, go check it out if you haven't already) gave me AWARDS! I'm not one hundred percent sure what these are because I haven't actually seen them before, but there are surveys attached so I'm going to do them because I love surveys (also I'm hyper today).




The first one's called Mrs. Sparkly’s Ten Commandments award.

1. Describe yourself in seven words: Childish, impulsive, excitable, needy, creative, curious, scared

2. What keeps you up at night: People. Whether it's staying up late to wait for someone to get home from work so I can talk to him, or anticipation of plans with someone the next day, or the way they're worrying me, I mostly think of people when I should be sleeping.

3. Whom you’d like to be: Independent but loved.

4. What are you wearing right now: The sweatpants I stole from an old friend a year ago and my marching band hoodie and borrowed fuzzy socks from my mom. One's black and pink and blue stripes and the other's pink with blue peace signs.

5. What scares you: Abandonment, and people, and myself when I'm depressed, and mascots/clowns/masks, and body fluids, and exploding soda cans, and my English teacher from my first two years of high school.

6. What are the best and the worst things about blogging: Best thing is probably that I can get my thoughts out and be heard without actually having to talk/address anyone specifically. Worst thing is that I'm always scared that someone might leave mean comments/harass me (again >.>).

7. What was the last website you looked at: Google Images for a reference to draw Latvia (Hetalia) from ^-^

8. If you could change one thing about yourself what would you change: Probably how much I wallow. Like, it's a good thing that I feel passionately about everything, but I need to stop wallowing in the hatred of things/my life (though the latter has been less hate-worthy lately :D)

9. Slankets, yes or no: *googles* "The Orginal Blanket with Sleeves"? What about Snuggies? Snuggies aren't very warm, though. I prefer just using my comforter. My comforter is, like, the best thing ever. It really lives up to its name.

10. Tell us something about the person that nominated you: First off, like previously stated, is really cute. I like her posts because they're well written and also I like the pictures. And I LOVE the font. So much.



The other one was The Sunshine Award 2011.

Favorite color: Lilac ^-^ Actually pretty much any purple except eggplant.

Favorite animal: Brrrraaaar duckdogeeldragonwolfelephant *nods decisively*

Favorite number: 8 because it's a sideways infinity sign

Favorite drink: Orange soda. Or Arnold Palmer. OR MONSTER

Facebook or twitter: Facebook, because that's where my friends are. I do have a Twitter, but none of my IRL friends know it (Mackay and Danny know it exists, though) so I can be totally honest.

My passion: Life

Getting or giving presents: I feel like I'm stealing her answer here, so I'm going to expand on it :P I like giving and getting. I like making them think of me. But I also like getting because then I know they thought of me on their own. I really like used presents (like hand-me-downs). I think I like them better than store-bought gifts when it comes to my favorite people.

Favorite pattern: Stripes. But any patterns make me happy.

Favorite day of the week: Wednesday. It used to be because that's when my ex had off and I'd stay afterschool with my favorite teacher and then he'd pick me up and we'd go get food or go to his friend's house and play video games or something, but I don't know why I like them so much now. I guess it's just because it's in the middle of everything.

Favorite flower: Snapdragons ^-^ Ever since I was little we've planted them every spring.


And now apparently I'm supposed to pass these along? You know what? I know a lot of my followers don't actually follow :P At least, I know that I don't always read what comes up in that little box. So if you've made it this far, you get the awards.