Too much damn disappointment for one summer.

This summer has been hard. I keep feeling like I'm coming close to something good happening and then it doesn't happen.

I've been trying to stay optimistic because it stresses out my family when I'm sad. It's just hard not to be sad when I feel like I've been forced to face being let down time and time again. I'm praying to God for inner peace and to have a job in the upcoming two weeks just so I can get my mind off what I feel like I'm missing.

I started talking to someone earlier this week and we were making some pretty strong implications that we'd hang out today and maybe float the river. I guess I didn't make things clear enough because this morning when I offered to pick him up on the way back from dropping off an application in Pasco he said he had to help his friend move. I was like, "Okay well would you want to make some solid plans for tomorrow then?" and he brushed me off a second time.

I went on his profile and found that 20 hours ago he saw his ex. Pretty transparent what happened here and now he doesn't want to bother spending time with me. Fabulous.

Whatever, I don't care. I'm still more beautiful, talented and intelligent. Someone will appreciate that eventually. I just didn't anticipate feeling lonely this summer. And I'm not saying I haven't been doing stuff with friends almost every day-- I've felt super fortunate in this regard and it's been nice to see as many people as I have already. But as much as I try to suppress it I just feel that nausea in the pit of my stomach every so often that tells me "You're so alone." when I see my friends and their boyfriends and wondering what my problem is.

peace.

Needless to say I've been listening to a ton of metal today. Listen to this awesome intro riff, I would love to learn it once I get better at my sweeps. 

Metal will always carry my soul away if I'm in pain

Intelligence beyond your age is incredibly sexy

Afternoon.

Well I'm happy for two reasons. First, I've qualified for an unexpected tax return so I'll be getting a few hundred bucks for free next week, thanks government. Secondly my mom is coming up so I'll have company in a couple hours. My house is still kind of a cluttery mess but I'm picking it up little by little and it's coming around. I cleaned my bathroom the other day and picked up all the dirty clothes off my bedroom floor so that's a major plus. My problem with keeping things clean in the family room is the mass amount of papers I own and try to keep track of between tabs and returned schoolwork...

Last night was a late one, like most Monday nights. Michael came over for the first time in a week or so and we got a solid hour and a half of studying in. Michael (as I've mentioned before) has the privilege of doing a workstudy with Sipic doing really complex math and learning how to use advanced regression model programs (...and here I am just figuring out how to input data to excel, and he's 19). Soo of course every time he's here I ask him about it.

I was doing the dishes yesterday Michael was  proofread one of his papers when he started b*tching to me about his choppy writing style. I'm like "Shut up, Europeans just write like that... They're more too the point and don't waste time."**  (**Okay I have no clue if this is true or not... my only evidence for this is my experience having read Mein Kampf and Hitler wasn't even a good writer)

 So he started reading some of Toni's work that he was trying to dissect out loud and my jaw dropped, listen to this crazy sh*t.....

"The main mechanism through which disasters lead to policy outcomes is the increased salience of the issue with the public which may lead to political responses to increased demand for mitigating policies."

"...This result largely captures the requirement for MARPOL to enter into force in at least 15 countries with combined merchant fleet of no less than 50 percent that of the worlds fleets..."



Blaghh he's just way too freaking brilliant to be in his early 30's. I told Michael it was like poetry to my ears, ha ha ha. Okay I'm going to get back to cleaning before my mom gets here.

 peace.

Can you be any more endlessly helpful? ...And sexy dresses.

Look at all that.

Okay I know you guy's can't really tell what all that is but that was my to-do list today and everything I've gotten done and it's only 7:30 pm. I studied a total of 3 hours today, including a solid hour on Managerial and I'm not even done yet. I also read the entire chapter on Public goods twice this weekend. 

This last Thursday I was feeling really discouraged about my time management lately... Like having gotten a 72% on that Money and Banking test made me realize that I had to change some things to more evenly distribute my studying for my classes instead of just focusing primarily on one course for an upcoming assignment. By writing out all that I need to do at the beginning of the day makes me feel obligated to accomplish them, this really does work.

Jake also sent me this packet called "Live Your Legend" weekly planning which is going to help me reflect on the progress I'm making each week as well as set goals for upcoming weeks. So yeah, this has been great.. This weekend I've been more productive than I was all week and I plan to continue to use these methods this week to feel more confident both academically and the guitar, and this confidence will evolve into happiness. 

Jake told me that the power of perception is everything too, and by simply forcing myself to think "I CAN read this chapter..." instead of "Damn I don't want to read this..." or "I will do this" instead of "I wish I'd do this.." This has helped me a ton this week too. Whenever I find myself getting stressed over not understanding the material I'm reading I think to myself "I can learn this" and it sort of pushes me to move forward. I know it sounds silly but it works. 

Uhh let's see, Friday I just stayed in (did get invited to go out but have been hacking my brains out all weekend and wanted to heal). 

Yesterday evening when I felt a little better I decided to go to Kyle's house when he'd invited me to hang out. I had already told Kyle like twice that I wasn't really into him that way so I was surprised that he invited me to hang out in the first place. I saw his friends that he lives with from the other night, one of them was sooo wasted and loud and borderline scary acting... I definitely was not into any of the guys there that way either. Originally when I came over I thought we'd be going to the bars but we ended up staying because there was a party going on next door. 

Short, tight party dresses.  I can't say I own any of these. 

Their neighbor that was having a party was this girl named Lyndsey who seemed really nice, of course it was late and who knows how drunk everyone was. She was really pretty and her friends were too. They were wearing these teeny-tiny dresses that I always see girls wearing at college parties.. Of course I'm over here in jeans like always. I was really stoked to have met Lyndsey because she lived in on her own in a house too, is a senior and we seemed to have a lot in common so I was trying to talk to her. Her boyfriend showed up though and she wandered off so I don't know if I made a lasting impression.

 I think I was pretty friendly there and it was nice that I got out and be around people though I doubt I'll see any of them again. The more Kyle came onto me the more I pushed him away and now that he realizes he can't get anything out of it there's no point in having me around. 

Meh who cares. I'm not here to build relationships, I'm here to grow intellectually and confidence as an individual. 

peace. 

Wow, tonight was pretty perfect

I'm so stoked you guys.

I had no idea today was going to be awesome. This morning I woke up thinking I wasn't doing anything really when I'd joked that Brendan should drive her today. I didn't think he was coming until Saturday the 22nd so I didn't think it'd be likely that he'd take up the offer but he's like "okay I have to get my tail light fixed but I'll see what I can do..: )" or something like that. It was like schweeet, this is actually happening today.

I told him we'd meet in Prosser in our original plans, so I asked him to meet me at the McDonalds at 3:30. He'd originally suggested we see the movie IN prosser but I was like "Naah, I think I'll just pick you up..." like no, we can go back to Benton City than go to Kennewick or wherever.

He apparently didn't fully get the plan so when I was waiting for him in Prosser at 3:30 he was MIA. He called saying he was at the McDonalds but apparently he was at the one in Zillah thinking I was going to pick him up there. A little embarrassed, he ended up driving to Prosser in about 20 minutes. In the meantime I had taco bell in the parking lot. It made me feel really sick. In all honesty I've been eating junk food all day, between the popcorn at the movies to that taco bell burrito that was loaded with nastiness I feel pretty gross. Like if you don't eat fast food for a long time, it's almost unbearable to eat. I scarfed it quickly but when I was finished I felt like I would have gotten more nutritional substance going to the truck stop gas station and getting a chicken sandwich.

Brendan got there pretty quickly, got into my car, and we drove back to my place. I gave him a tour of my town, and he was laughing at all the similarities our my town and Zillah. He said he appreciates that I'm from a small town because he feels like he can't relate to people that aren't. I understand what he means.

Anyway we left here around 6:45 (to buy the ticket for the 7:30 show... once I could get my ass out the door). Brendan actually thought it'd be sold out, but I thought by now it won't be nearly as much of a full house for it. Regal Cinemas is a quiet theater anyway.

We saw the Hobbit, which was of course extremely neat. I love the dwarves, they remind me of prog metal artists. There was one in particular that was really hot named Kili.

Bah, he's beautiful! 

The movie itself was great, really followed the book perfectly from what I remembered. Brendan gave it an "A-", I couldn't find anything about it that could have been particularly better.

Brendan and I agreed that the date was awesome and I'm sad I'm probably not going to see him again until New years eve. Tomorrow I'm going to meet up with Hannah S.! i'm very surprised that she's actually back in the tri cities for Christmas holiday! I mean granted I didn't expect she'd fly to Korea. She's living with basically a host family here in the US but they are friends of her family's and they are also Korean. 

I hope maybe tomorrow Hannah and I could hang out at her place for a little while so I can see it. 

peace. 

Drop C tuning and oral exams.

guess what I figured out?!?!

Shavo's tuning. Finally. I figured out how to tune my bass to drop C... carefully. I've been playing bass like a madman because I'm so stoked to finally be able to try playing Shavo's basslines. It's exciting. Right now I'm learning Darts. Not really my favorite song, but the bass is relatively simple, but really fast so it is good practice. My goal is to be good enough to play with Robert Mosley at some point. AND to be able to play along with the songs at normal speed. Right now, with this song that I'm learning, I'm at 75% speed that I can play along with, but it's that extra 25% that makes it so difficult. I'll get it if I keep trying.

Tomorrow are the Japanese oral exams, which is one of my two finals. Leah and Michael got 100%, Marisa and Andrew got 100%, there's no reason in hell that me and Hannah won't get 100% too. Tomorrow I'm going to go into school extra early to practice. Once that is over, I will have successfully completed my first year of Japanese! Be proud of me. hahaha. I'm proud of me... I've learned so much this year.

The only real concern for me right now is my jogging class... My teacher hasn't posted my grades for any of the assignments I've submitted except for like... a few, not even enough to get me a 1.0 in there. I've submitted everything to stupid Angel. I swear to god if I get an F on my report card on some stupid 2 credit P.E. class I'm going to strangle someone. I hate the stupid Angel software, it makes it such a guessing game. I messaged the teacher yesterday, and I've got no response to this point. I have read that syllabus a bunch of times to make sure I was doing everything correctly. I put a lot of work into it and there's no reason why I should fail it. Like, only one of my running logs that I've submitted has entered the gradebook. It freaks me the hell out. One fail on my report card could mean a whole extra quarter at CBC... over this? Nitemare. Hopefully not, lets hope for the best and that this teacher simply hasn't posted the grades yet for some reason. Fuck, but he better respond to me soon, it's starting to stress me out hella bad.

Speaking of jogging, I'm going to go take a jog and try and clear my head. Then maybe I'll study, or play more bass, who knows. I went over to Shavonne's today and she made me a canadian bacon pizza (we split it, one of those little ones), which I know has trans fat in it so I have to run. Maybe Lindy would want to take a walk with me.

yours,

Emily