Met some new potential friends and guitar blah blah

Today's been a nice day of catching up with things. I feel sluggish because I did not leave the house today, I should probably work out.

Today was just the usual, though I was really proud of how much work I put into accounting tonight. Two and a half hours. The time was necessary though, that's the amount of time it took me to read the 5th chapter. It's all about factory inventories and calculating the costs based on volume of products, cost per unit, etc... I found it sort of interesting so I was able to finish the assignments somewhat easily. There's a good amount of formulas in this chapter that I'll have to remember, though, so it's good that I'm getting on that now.

I've been feeling much more comfortable in my two business classes now that I'm annotating the chapters. I figure if I annotate, I'll get a much better understanding then reading alone, even if I just read over the chapter once. Usually I'll read it over twice for good measures, like I've been putting off re-reading chapter 3 for three days.. I found that chapter really confusing.

Toast, guys. This tea is delicious and I had a good day. 

But yeah, today was really productive! I got my guitar done early, 2 hours of really solid practice... I actually worked on arpeggios today for 10 minutes, I was impressed. I hate practicing arpeggios now, they're a pain because I never see them in any music I play but I figure if I learn them now they'll be very useful when I someday do find a purpose.

I remember seeing Jacob do some pretty cool solo stuff with them when he connected pairs of shapes. I don't really get it yet to be honest, I've been slacking on  trying to improve my shapes on the guitar neck because I've been messing with songs and picking exercises primarily for the last month or so. I've wanted to get Phantom of the Opera done really bad but it's a difficult ass riff at the beginning to get just right. 

The iron maiden logos make me laugh. 

I don't take their lyrics and themes too seriously to be honest with you, I'm more into Iron Maiden for the quality of the music itself. The vocals are spot on, absolutely perfect. The fast pace of it all, the rush... I don't care what it's about, something about it speaks to me on a level I can't explain. 

On that note. Freaking, Hollowed  by Thy Name has been stuck in my head for 3 days, I'm debating if I should learn it. The riff is really good. I might as well, why the Hell not. I like playing their music, is a variety really necessarily if I know that learning there music will eventually help me achieve my ultimate purpose? My purpose is really to play music by Dream Theater but it's still WAY too hard for me. Iron maiden has similar demanding picking and speed but is much more consistent than Dream Theater. Iron Maiden follows pretty simple patterns for the most part. 

I've been messing around a little more with pulls. Good lord my strings need to be changed. 

There's this really sweet girl that I remember meeting back at Leah's ice skating party. She taught me how to ice skate. I can't actually remember her name, but I saw her at Central awhile back. I'd like to hang out with her sometime, she's always seemed pretty nice to me.

I'm also thinking about learning Electric Crown by Testament. Really good song, doesn't sound too difficult either. 

So I have a secret crush on a complete stranger. He doesn't know me at all. He's philipeno. He's an engineering major (the friend told me this) and he's one of the cutest guys I've ever seen here. That's all I know. It's unfortunately a touchy situation because he's a friend with someone I recently met. This person that I met told me that he liked me, but I told him I didn't want a relationship. In actuality I just wasn't feeling the connection between us, though I liked him as a friend and all. That's the main reason I've debated talking to him is because it's out of respect for my new friend. That and oh, I'm scared shitless of guys that I'm attracted too and would much rather they talk to me first because from what I've found in the past, guys that I'm attracted to tend to be players... I don't know what it is but I would just rather have a guy approach me so I know his intentions aren't bad. If I talk to him first it seems eager and creepy. 

Ha ha but he seriously has no idea who I am, I feel stupid even talking about it... We'll see if I actually ever meet him.

On a more important note! I did meet someone at the gym, her name is Sarah and she's beautiful. She's pursuing the same major as me so I'm looking forward to getting to know her, we'll see if she wants to kick it with me. She seems like she does her own thing for the most part, though she clearly has friends back home... But yeah, very pretty and tan. I'm very pretty and pale. It just sucks that we wouldn't be able to go to bars together until she turns 21 in March. Don't get me wrong though, she seems really intelligent and level headed too so it's not like I'm just looking for someone to party with. 

Here's another person I met, her name's Reina and I met her via the exchanged student speaking partner program. I'm so happy I signed up for that, she's very sweet! Her english is much better than my Japanese so we're able to communicate better than I'd anticipated. She's a really sweet person, I just hope to God she doesn't misunderstand some of my dry sense of humor jokes and think I'm actually being serious. I have to be careful about that sometimes!

peace. 

I probably did act obsessed. [Project Year Timeline, 17.]

I've got a few things I've gotta get done today.

First of all, I need to pick out a small piece of something showy that I can use in a video promoting Jacob's business. Apparently my two videos weren't the correct format that he was looking for so I need to do the following:

-Play 20 seconds (something fast)
-State my name, how long I've gotten lessons with A Sharp Guitar School, and why I like it.

Done.

I just have to find what I'm going to play. He told me to choose something that I'm comfortable with but I think instead I'm going to find something new, like maybe I'll find a piece of Phantom of the Opera and really shred on it over and over today until it sounds good enough for the video. Maybe not today but sometime this week this has to get done...

I'm probably just going to hang out with Katelynn again today. I hung out with Samantha for the last time before I leave yesterday. It was a really nice time, we walked around shops like Leyte. I'm planning on making some fried noodles tonight with tempura, yum!

And back to my project....

Project Year Timeline

Age 17, 2008-2009

Last year of being wrapped up in highschool, failed relationships and becoming a true metalhead. 

Junior year I sort of found my first concrete group with Robert, Skyler, Logan and Tyler. I'd always liked Robert from when I'd met him in middle school, I remember the first thing I said to him (when I was about 12) is that he "looked like the guy in System of a Down." I think I meant Daron Malakian at the time. Anyway, Robert invited me to Logan's on halloween and I started spending time with them both in and outside of school. We all took Spanish together.

Junior year was my peak with soccer, I remember doing really well that year even if our season wasn't fantastic. Marty played me a lot more, but because of my aggression I really only got significant chunks of playing time against teams like Naches, Connell, etc... I started to get a little more control than I did my sophomore year, but my passing and dribbling skills were still crummy. Actually they always were. My only real skill in soccer was the human shield factor, and it served it's purpose on many occasions. 

I don't miss that part of highschool at all.

One memory that I AM quite fond of is having Calligraphy with Skyler F. We sat next to eachother at this extremely crowded table of David P. (who I honestly sort of had a crush on that year even if he was a sophomore), Drake J., Zach K. and Dwight R. It was a pretty difficult art class but we had a lot of fun doing lettering projects. I'm pretty sure Skyler and I were the only ones at the table that passed the class, the rest of them would spend more time screwing around than actually working... I wasn't very good at calligraphy itself at the beginning and really had to work at it to get it down. Still, the class was two hours long and we had a blast ripping on eachother, talking about music and joking around. 

I also joined the art club this year and went on a field trip to Seattle, another one of my fondest memories. I spent a lot of time with Sitthinee and learned about Thai culture. 

I went to my only prom my Junior year with Robert, Amy, Samantha and Shawn. This was before me and Sam were really friends, but I think I was *trying* to be her friend so I invited them along. I remember singing System of a Down in the car with Robert like a f*cking nut and it makes me a little embarrassed but it makes smile at the same time. 

Prom was really, really fun. We had an awesome time and that dress was HOT, HOT, HOT.

I had the craziest tennis season Junior year because of the problems I had with Nicki. This picture might actually be from sophomore year because it was taken at the courts across from Wolfies... What made Junior year interesting is that those beautiful new courts were built so we ALL got WAY more practice time than we did waiting in line for others when we only had two courts.

I said things to Nicki that I really would never think to say to anyone... it was horribly mean and out of character for me but she was being a two-faced bitch and threatened my 1st spot, I felt a need to damage her psychologically to better my chances to get ahead. To be honest we were very neck in neck in our playing skills, Nicki worked hard... which made me work harder. I got lessons, practiced with Lindy as much as I could, then was able to maintain my position. Not with the help of the coaches, they hated me that year. I had no support from them, which was frustrating, and I couldn't even celebrate my wins without feeling guilty about it. The whole season was an emotional mind f*ck; I hated it. 

Somehow I was able to come back the next year and completely kick ass, but Junior year was a huge struggle in tennis because of all the drama. I did have a lot of support from friends though, at the time I'm pretty sure I was hanging out a lot with Lindy, who was also on the tennis team and more than happy to rip on Nicki with me.

 It's sad when I look back on it, just to let the reader know, I DID apologize to Nicki. Though it wasn't all one sided (she admits to being out of line in her behaviors that CAUSED me to act like this), I still felt extremely bad a couple years later and said I was sorry at RadCon this last year. She's okay, neither of us ever became big tennis stars (hahaha) and none of it ever mattered so I don't know why we let ourselves get so wrapped up in sports... 

I guess they were the most important thing at the time, everybody wants some sort of glory from beating others. Again, don't miss sports.

Overall: 

Looks: 

I wore a LOT of Metal t-shirts that year, I guess probably more to impress Robert and Skyler and them than anything, it's like I really wanted to prove that "Yes, I like this music too, I'm one of you guys." 

I took that friendship pretty seriously, you guys have to understand that I never really had any close friends in my class of 2010 so finding a group that was only slightly younger than me and didn't know my past very well gave me a chance to have a clean slate and really be myself. I could never be myself around my own class because they were very mean and exclusive toward me; it's like nobody in my class really seemed to like me enough to want to spend time with me, I gave up. Wearing the metal t-shirts, again, was like quietly taking a stand against them. 

Work:

Babysat for Carmin and Chad. This was before Tori. 

Skills:

I mainly focused on sports, but I did learn calligraphy this year which I still remember the alphabet for today. Mrs. Mowery told us that we'd never forget and it's a skill we'll have the rest of our lives, it's true! 

Love:

Chad reminds me of Hank Hill (I look back on him and I can REALLY see why him and Caitlin worked well together). He was so logical and didn't get half the crazy shit I probably talked about. 

The main guy that I liked this year was Chad S., and I liked him for a pretty long time afterward because we ended up meeting up again late in my senior year (which didn't work a second time around, either. I'm not going to go into detail.) Anyway, i had Chad in my Junior honors English class. Chad was a year older but was taking the class because he didn't take English at CBC. This was so *like* him to just not do something because they didn't feel like it at the time; what I liked about Chad is that he really knew what he wanted.

He didn't want me. He might of... had I have been myself instead of acting like a stupid bimbo around him. Back then I'd never had much luck with guys because in highschool it seems like guys only go for stupid girls. So what does an intelligent girl do? She dumbs herself down!! Shouldn't have done this around Chad, he got annoyed quickly. He was really physically attracted to me, and I REALLY was toward him too, so initially our weird cat and mouse game that we were playing in English worked out. I bugged the shit out of him. 

I remember going over to his house once, he basically lived on a farm. His family had all sorts of country decor and heads sticking out from the walls. We really had nothing in common but something about him really enticed me... Needless to say, it hurt pretty bad when he DIDN'T want to be together. At all. In fact he wanted to stay the Hell away from me after awhile because Caitlin D. (his ex girlfriend that played soccer with me) was giving him a ton of shit for showing any interest in me.

The time spent with Chad was actually DURING soccer season, which is when Caitlin was on the same team and probably had to hear me go on and on about how great Chad is. During Basketball season she told all the cheer girls that I was obsessed with him on the bus. Word got back to me and I wanted to kick Caitlin's ass, but ended up just confronting her about it... sort of, really all I said was that I was "disappointed" in her. I really should have said, "Look bitch, keep my name out of your mouth..." but at this point things were such a lost cause with Chad that I didn't care.

I probably did act obsessed. I was just really lonely at the time and didn't know how to handle myself I suppose. 

I can't remember if this is before, during or after I liked Chad but I also liked Tyler D. during my Junior year when I was hanging out his friends (Robert, Logan, Skyler). At the time Tyler was an extremely closed book, I probably shouldn't have been as persistent with him... Actually a girl shouldn't EVER be persistent with a guy, I learned this lesson from guys like this. But when you never get pursued and everybody else has boyfriends, sometimes I just tried to do what I thought I had to do. 

I was just so lonely in that aspect of my life after having serious boyfriends the previous year. I still must have had some faith in it my junior year at the beginning but after Tyler treated me like shit and Chad didn't work out I threw in the towel for anyone wanting a relationship with me. I stopped caring as much. 

Me and Robert's favorite song to sing together, Holy Mountains by SOAD. 

Music:

LOTS and LOTS of System of a Down. I REALLY got into them my Junior year with Robert and we used to sing in the car together when we'd hang out, it was so much fun. I wasn't THAT into Metallica at first, but my friends were listening to them all the time so I sort of had to get a taste for it. In time I ended up really into them too. 

Confidence:

Pretty good, certainly better than Sophomore year. Getting some playing time in soccer kind of gave me an edge, which ended up being my major downfall in tennis when I got cocky. I didn't really know how to apply makeup back then so my eyes were oftentimes a smudgey mess but at least I knew how to properly spread foundation. 

Some fun with me and Robert at the end of my Junior year. 

That's it for now, I'm going to make a separate entry for 16, it's going to be a big one!

peace.