I really didn't let half this drama bother me that much. [Project timeline, age 16]

Jessika is back on the scene.

I saw that she updated her profile picture today, which was the first update I'd seen from her since June 5th (around the time we had the falling out). Back then I figured she'd blocked me but I later realized that she temporarily shut down her facebook. I had actually wondered in the bath today what she'd been doing. I had more assumed she'd moved away, like to Idaho or something to help take care of her friend's baby.

Nope, she's still here.. I have no idea where she's living or what she's doing but I have no intention of asking or clearing the air between her and I. I'd rather put that to bed for good. However, I will not delete her from my friends list. Seeing her occasional updates might be interesting. I love facebook for that reason, you can see what people are up too while keeping your distance.

 Last night I spent the night at Katelynn's house and slept on her mom's mattress that she's going to sell soon. I actually really like that mattress, or maybe it's just that I like the sheet on top. I have been noticeably more sore lately but I think that's from all my working out with the whey protein. That stuff lets you work out for longer periods of time but it has a tendency to let you over-do it if you're not careful. My abs are really starting to get definition, it's strange.

Onto my project timeline again. Going back further I have to dig into my old myspace, back even further I'll have to go into my old photobucket account... I don't think I have any pictures of me when I was a child on my facebook, we'll have to wing it with snapshots from my phone. Until then...!

Project Year Timeline, 

Age 16, 2007-2008

Year of blissfully surviving social nightmares.

At 16 I was sort of starting to find my identity. I knew I didn't fit in that great with the mainstream popular leadership kids after getting shut out by them the previous year, and I was ready to find a more accepting crowd and move on. 

Unfortunately this was hard to do, because the way I saw it I had two choices: Either find some freshmans to hang out with or try finding friends two classes above me. Katharine's class was off limits because I knew pretty much all of them from being friends with Katharine, and none of them seemed like they'd want to hang out with me. Maybe someone would have if I tried, but I didn't, they were an extremely tight class and had very defined groups of friends that I didn't fit into. 

The previous year had been really rough for Katharine and I, which I will explain when I talk about 15. During soccer Katharine would snap at me for one reason or another, like this one time she was at the front of the line when we were running tied hand to hand with the rope and I asked a question to the girl in front of me (probably Alex S.) and Katharine yelled out the answer, sarcastically, as if it was a stupid question. Caitlin D. yelled that we needed to stop fighting immediately. 

Soccer season was rough especially because I hardly got any playing time. Lindy played defensive center mid too and scored a couple goals with her enormous kick and put me out of the job. I was a solid varsity player though, never had to play on JV. There was actually enough of us to have a jv team that year. 

Katharine was going to CBC but she was still in yearbook with me. We had soccer sports awards and I apparently didn't get the memo on when they'd be held. I had forgot about it and NOBODY called me to tell me it was going on. It pissed me off so bad that I started cursing and crying in Mrs. Tyrell's room, and Katharine just shrugged like I should have known. She could have easily called. Soccer season ended badly on that note and I didn't know if I wanted to play again. 

On top of that I was dealing with absolutely crazy shit with Tony L. and Genisis, the younger sister of my ex boyfriend Chino. Genesis printed a bunch of flyers saying I'm a "hoe" and left them all over the football stadium. She was never punished for it. 

You see I'd made some other friends, a much larger group consisting of a lot of foriegn exchanged kids. Austy C. was a really well liked person and she seemed to like me after I'd become friends with Heather E. the previous year. 

They were a really good group of girls, definitely involved in the school and super spirited (note that I was NOT. I was actually anti-school spirit after my previous year...).. Austy and Chelsea L. really were the group leaders and we'd all sit together at lunch. 

I was really envious of this girl in my group named Alice (pronounced "Aliche"). Well, I'm pretty sure almost girl in the school was. She was drop dead gorgeous, I mean tall, rich, beautiful, tan, from Milan. At the beginning of the year I was pissed about it, I was like, okay now my chances of dating anyone in highschool are probably even worse. Ha ha little did I know Chino wouldn't have let me date anyone regardless. Once I got to know Alice, though, I really enjoyed her company and stopped caring. She ended up dating Tony L. (Chino's cousin) who at the time absolutely despised me. 

Jack and I started talking on the phone this year at some point. During one of our long phone conversations Jack asked me where he should take Aliche on a date. 

Not far from Austy's group sat Kandyce's group. Kandyce and her minions were sort of the power in numbers clique that were SUPER school spirited and supportive of our football team that was doing really well that year. Kandyce was a friend of Chino's (well, Chino didn't care that much about her I don't think but Kandyce would hold parties and Chino would probably be there...) and after an atrocious experience at Warped Tour her whole group wanted to make my highschool experience a nightmare.

I guess they failed at that. Because in all of this, all these people gunning for me, I somehow stayed pretty in my own world. I think at the time I was playing a lot of video games and hanging out with Katelynn when I could. 

Academics weren't great this year. I really excelled in English with Tyrell but I had to deal with an elective nightmare. Stupid Minkler put me in Welding the first half of the year... Oh my God, Welding, THAT was an experience...

I'm pretty sure I had a crush on every guy in my welding class, namely Levi D. At the time I had just broken up with Chino, who all these guys partied with. No way in HELL they wanted to date me at this point. I was totally off limits. I don't think me and Chino were talking at the time so I didn't understand. Jessica S. was in my welding class, did much better than me, was a favorite of the teacher and got flirted with all the time. Obviously I'd be jealous for this reason. I was really happy when this half of the year was over. 

I was then placed in a weight training class, which was completely full of guys aside from Katharine, Emily B., and Jessica S. Katharine at the time was more than happy to just be partners with Miguel, who she'd started dating recently. Jessica and Emily would work out together and wouldn't really include me so I was stuck without a partner. I didn't have a partner that whole half of the year, I was really fortunate this group of hispanic girls let me in. They'd talk in Spanish together and take turns getting stuck with me. 

Things didn't get much better in the Spring. Tennis was rough because I had started acting like a complete bitch toward Haley in order to regain my friendship with Katharine. This didn't really work; actually when I'd talk bad about Haley toward Katharine to try to impress her she'd say "Haley isn't that bad, actually!" This completely drove me up the wall because HALEY was the whole reason Katharine was mad at me the previous year; of course it was clear that this wasn't the only reason once it that "problem" was taken care of. 

Me and Haley got in a number of arguments, including one on the tennis bus over some headphones. She would take falls during challenges so she could be in the 2nd seat because I seemed to WANT to play first seat. Actually my sophomore year I didn't want to play first seat, I wanted to beat Haley because I didn't like her and she didn't want to give me the satisfaction. What better way than to put a 16 year old against girls that completely whiped the floor with my face? I probably deserved it, honestly. Haley ended up quitting and I was stuck playing monsters the rest of the season. I think I won a couple matches, it was good practice however for the next year.

Overall:

Looks: I was still sort of dressing/dying my hair how my mom told me it would look the best. I did the blonde thing most of the year and didn't feel that comfortable with it for the most part. I dressed in plain, sort of preppy clothes from Pac Sun, JCPennies or the new Fuego. 

Work: This was the height of babysitting for Chad and Carmin, I'd be over there multiple times a week pulling practically all nighters. I had just started driving and would get pulled over by cops for violating curfew.

Skills: Developing tennis skills, I wasn't that good but I still loved it. 

Love:

I guess one of the best things about my sophomore year WAS Connor. I had talked to Audrey, his best friend, and ended up meeting up with her to go to Ray's. I met Connor and we clicked almost immediately. We'd cuddle in Audrey's basement in this spare bedroom downstairs. There was a lot of crazy shinanigans going on that I wasn't used too.

Connor was a huge smoker, and I'd never been around that before nor did I really know what it was. It didn't bother me though because I liked Connor so much I was willing to put up with whatever. It really drove his day to day life back then, though, and it bothered me that he cared more about it than he did me. Overall, though, my relationship with Connor was good. 

The timing really was perfect (around tennis season my Sophomore year). I was never really attracted to Chino and after our relationship was over I was looking for another guy that resembled Toren-- long hair, skater type, etc... and Connor fit the mold of what I was looking for even better because he was tall. I really liked this one and it took a long time to get over him after we were through around July. it's funny, in the times we've spent together he said the same thing even if he acted as though he didn't give a f*ck either way at the time.

I've never really had a relationship like Connor's since we broke up in 2008.. It  really has been that long. Regardless of Connor's lifestyle's contrast to mine (I was still pretty goody two-shoes back then, Hell I still am in a lot of ways) he still really liked me for me and I think that was the last time I really had faith in love. 

Granted I can't say I really loved Connor, but I'm sure I wouldn't have broken up with him and it could have gone there. It's probably for the best that it didn't, he didn't like how caught up I was with school and sports and discouraged it. Sports kept me out of trouble.

Music: I had a Zune with a huge amount of memory so I started buying CDs from all sorts of rock genres. One of the CDs that I bought was Trivium; I originally got it for Katharine (not realizing at the time that Katharine didn't like metal at all) but she didn't really want it so I kept it myself. This was really my first exposure to metal. 

I mainly listened to Coheed and Cambria. Katelynn got me really into them when we started talking again and she burnt me a couple CDs such as Junesong Provision. 

Confidence: 

Like I said before I really didn't let half this drama bother me that much. I wrote a lot in my blog to get it off my chest but I was able to escape by playing video games, namely Bully for the PS2 that we'd finally purchased that year. My mom was always really stressed about my drama but I put a lot of it behind me. Needless to say I didn't really like Ki-Be, but I dealt with it and figured it was just part of being an underclassman. If I had to do it all over again I probably would abandon sports and transfer to Kamiakin because I had a long road ahead. 

Alright that's it for now. Tomorrow I'll talk about 15, my year of being CRAAAAAAAAZY.

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.

Impulse purchases are hard to shake at times.

Ahh, Friday night. My day off is coming to a close. It's 8:23 pm.
What's on the menu?

1. Load vape.

2. Exercise for 1 hour (8:45-9:45pm)

3. Guitar for 1 hour. (10 pm-11 pm)

4. Not do Visual basic homework.

Reason being, I'm waiting until Sunday. I feel like I've worked hard enough this week that I've earned a little bit of leeway this weekend. Soo I intend to study hard Sunday after work. Maybe I'll squeeze in an hour or two of programming between work tomorrow and Sam's party. Yeah, I've decided to go to the St. Patricks day party thing. I know it could potentially be really coupley and uncomfortable but *maybe* if I am subtle about it I could invite Connor to go. Like, as friends.

The reason why I just don't call Connor about it now is because he just got out of a relationship and I need to approach our friendship carefully to make it not seem like I'm trying to pursue a relationship of any kind with him. Because I'm not. I don't want a relationship, I'm moving in four months... however, spending time with him would be really entertaining and it'd be nice to have him to come along to Shawn's party thing. I don't think I'll invite him though because it could send the wrong message. I've gotta give it space, especially considering that we did date.

I'm waiting for Katharine to get to my house currently. They're going to come pick up Katharine's flats that she left here. We hung out today, worked at the estate sale... It went pretty smoothly, and we made a decent amount of money. The entire situation is weird though, and the house is atrociously icky with really lame stuff. My parents don't think they're going to do this for another day. I feel bad that I promissed someone that we'd be openning up at 1', but if they still want that couch or whatever it was, they can talk to the bank about it... My parents have put WAY too much work into it.

Alright well I'm gonna start my little routine thing I guess. Well, this isn't a nightly routine but it's what I like to do lately. Things've gotten quite slow. I put $40 of the $60 that I earned from the estate sale back into the bank and I have a balance of $943 now. That's pretty good. Granted, I'll have to spend probably $30 in gasoline before my next paycheck.. But still, saving is going well for this week! I just need to try not to go crazy and buy stuff I don't need this week.

I did buy a nice pair of yoga capris today at value village. Me and Katharine went after we went out to sushi. We haven't seen eachother in quite awhile so it was nice to catch up for the afternoon. Katharine found some good yoga pants too that fit really well. She even admits though that the point of thrift store shopping has sort of depleated when everything is so expensive. Like, I found a used wig that I thought would be fun to cut and dye as a cosplay wig. This would be an easy purchase, except for the fact that it was $7. For some freaking used hair that's BROWN and the same length as mine. So I passed it up. I'll probably kick myself for this later when I'm trying to come up with a good cosplay. But you know, I'll cross that bridge when it comes. Kuro Neko is so close to when I'm moving out, it might not even be in the cards this year.

peace.

I remember some of the frustrations of last year's con that makes me wonder if I'd even want to go to one again. By that time who knows if Shawn will have a job. That and I'm sure Sam and him will just be moving in together and will be paying for all kinds of living expenses that weren't there this time last year. Yeah, best cross that bridge when it comes....