Ketchup!

So this comic strip (xkcd, how you amuse me) reminded me that I haven't, uhm, blogged in a while. Yeah, sorry about that. When I remember, I don't have time. Because I'm generally in class, like OH, I should BLOG soon. Plus, nothing interesting has happened to me yet.

I'll try to list the interesting things.

I heard a story about a guy on LSD.
There's been more freaking drama so far than all of my high school years combined.
It's really, REALLY hard to make friends when you're not outgoing.

Okay, the last one isn't really an interesting thing. HOWEVER, it's a good thing to know. So be OUTGOING and you will do just find. But don't be outgoing to the wrong people. I don't know why, but people exclude you even if you look normal.*

I'll probably just elaborate on that for a while, because it's taking up most of my thoughts. Honestly, you'd think it'd be relatively EASY to meet new people, because everyone here is trying to make friends. However, a month and a half into the first semester, and I've only got one friend who I hang out with on a regular basis.

DON'T GET ME WRONG. I KNOW people. I'm not a sheltered freak. Ish.

I wave to people I kind of know, talk to people out of class, have acquaintances, but we don't do anything more than that. It's just weird, because back home I had a HUGE GROUP of REALLY AWESOME friends. I thought I'd be able to find people like them, but they're just too unique.

The one friend I have though, she's pretty awesome. I got her addicted to MLIA. She likes Harry Potter and crazy dance parties, so we're getting along just fine. Sadly, she doesn't have any friends either. Her roommate is pretty cool and we hang out with her sometimes, but she's got her own little group. So. Unfair.

Even my occasionally creepy roommate has more friends than I do. It's just pathetic.

Sometimes I'm okay with it. I'm like, "It's alright, I know people back home. I'll just go home and everything will be normal." So I go home, and everything is normal and AWESOME and then I come back to school with 119 pictures from just two days and then I'm sad again because I can't have that kind of fun here.

This is my fifth week of school and I've already been home three times. By the seventh, it'll have been four. Hopefuly, though, I'll be able to head over to Boston to do some seriously needed Friend Visiting.

Speaking of Friend In Boston (her new name is Fib, because that's awesome), I wrote her a letter. Well, I drew her a comic, colored her a picture of best penguin friends, printed out a picture of us with sticky notes on our faces, and wrote a note and sent that to her. I was so HAPPY. I sent an actual letter!

I even held up Connor's line at the register in Walmart just so I could get stamps. Thank you, Connor, for not giving me the extremely annoyed look that I know you were feeling because there were people behind me and one of my companions already made a scene about a bug in her wallet. (But, honestly, if a creepy bug was in your wallet when you went to take out money, you would have freaked, too, right?)

Anyway, after ALL OF THAT, I put the lovleness in the mail and waited for Fib's happy reply, either in ANOTHER letter or a spazzy text/IM/Skype thing. I didn't TELL HER I was sending this thing because it was going to be a SURPRISE.

But after a week and a half of no response, I got curious. I finally asked her about it.

Me: Did you ever get my letter?!
Fib: You sent me a letter?!
Me: Yeah! You didn't get it?
Fib: No... When did you send it?
Me: I put it in the mail last Sunday. It should have sent Monday.
Fib: Did you put my room number on it?

I told her the address she gave me. It didn't include the room number. So NOW my letter to Fib, my EPIC LETTER OF AWESOME AND ART, is lost somewhere at the Holiday Inn. Because that is where Fib lives.

So, yeah, I honestly haven't had that much fun. It's like... if you're here, you party. If you don't party, you're out of luck.

But where I live, in an all freshman dorm, the grossest building on campus, it's basically party central. Like, this is ridiculous the amount of people partying. I can understand going out on weekends. THAT MAKES SENSE. But last week, Tuesday. Last Tuesday we had a girl come to class, still partially drunk from the night before.

WHO PARTIES ON A MONDAY NIGHT?! Like... seriously? Get some homework done and relaxxxx.

I have yet to go to a party, but it's on my list of things to do. Just to see what it's like. There will be no drinking or drugs involved. Alcohol is gross and drugs are unnecessary. So this will be interesting. Thankfully, my only friend, now known as Mof isn't in to the whole partying thing, either, so we're just going to people watch.

However.

ADVICE FROM A SORORITY GIRL (while in line at October Fest for henna tattoos): You don't have to drink, just don't be a wallflower. You'll look like a creeper.

School wise, things have been going alright. I don't THINK I've learned much to be honest with you. Except in Spanish, which is my most difficult course. Except, ready for this? I'm not even enrolled in that class I guess. Something went wrong with the scheduling, so I have to figure that out so that I actually get credit for this class. Isn't that fantastic?

More or less, I'm paying $44,000 to be continuously stressed out and paranoid. Some aspects are fun. The food is good, and the state school up the road has cool people. There's a guy here that looks like Ben from the tv show What I Like About You. There are lots of hills and squirrels.

Now I've got to get ready for the Spanish class I'm not technically in. But first, for your enjoyment...


Zombie Spin Board

Congregate, Eat Brains, Drool, Hunt the Living, Decompose, Reek, Moonwalk, Plod, Rise from the Grave, Moan, Devour Flesh, Force Entry

It tells me what to do.

More hopefully soon. Maybe I'll actually have some decent stories then. *shrug*

Luff,
Ashley

*That was my goal. Look normal, and people will accept you. Uhm, fail?

I'm ALIVE, and OKAY

What is this? My third week of college and I've only blogged ONCE from here? Can you say ASHLEY FAIL MODE? I can. I've actually said it a LOT while here, especially at the beginning where my only plan was to watch He's Just Not That Into You five thousand times until I got internet. However, thankfully, things have changed significantly and life at college is exponentially better than it was before.

Granted, I still want to go home, and I've done so these past two weekends, but I'm sticking it out. I have to, otherwise there's no way I would be able to survive. Lets start with the depressing things, shall we?

Like I said, I went home these past two weekends. Being at home itself wasn't depressing at all. In fact, it was the most fun I've had since college began. After that first FREAKING PACKED weekend, they have a few things (like movie nights Friday and Sunday. So far I've seen Up and a bit of Star Trek. <3)>

I got home late Friday night and went right up to my room to post a vlog about it. Which, actually, is something I'm becoming addicted to. Should I post those, too? Or just text blogs? Whatever, and then Saturday I went to a birthday party and had the time of my life.

The thing is, even though I had SO MUCH FUN with all of my friends from home, it just made coming back to college even harder. The night I got back, that Sunday, I felt kind of car sick (which is weird, because I usually don't get car sick). I had to leave Star Trek early because I thought I was going to throw up. Thankfully, I didn't, but when I got back to my room, I went into major freak out mode, covered myself in a blanket, and just cried and complained to everyone for a while. I wanted to go home. And I wanted to go home right then.

In fact, I told my mom that if I threw up that night, I was going home and I wasn't going back to school.

I GUESS you could say I was being a bit dramatic. But I was SAD and I missed my FRIENDS and living in the computer just DOESN'T CUT IT. I'm SORRY. Attacking them with hugs though, that was fun. Lots of fun.

This weekend it was the same thing. I got home earlier this time and went to my high school's homecoming football game where I saw A LOT MORE PEOPLE than I expected to see, so, of course, there was a lot of hugging going on there. Saturday was just NONSENSE. I can't even BEGIN to explain. It might actually need it's own blog post. I will give you some key words though.

Mustaches. Subs. Yellow cars. Coinstar. Walmart. Dressy clothes. Rain. A Very Potter Musical. The Bunkers.

You can make your own assumptions on what happened that day/night.

Then on Sunday, I went up to my aunt's house early because my cousin was having a birthday party (she's two) and she needed help getting ready for it. Organizing birthday parties is NOT easy with two two year olds and a five year old.

Oh, did I mention my mom was out of town for the entire weekend? So I didn't get to see her until Sunday, the day of the party, and only for about half an hour? Yeah, that sucked a lot.

When I was leaving, merely half an hour after the party actually started because I had to get back to school early, it was POURING. I was afraid my windshield wipers wouldn't make it through the rain because... well, because it's my car and my car isn't the most RELIABLE of cars. I love it, yes, but... *headdesk*

Anyway, as I was running out to get to my car, it was pouring, and I realized that I hardly got to see my mom, so I started crying. I had half a mind to just NOT go back to school. I would just call my dad and have the following conversation:

"Hey, Dad. Listen, I know you're busy tonight, and mom offered to take me up to school after the party. Is that cool?"
"Yeah, Ash, that's fine. Did you get your laundry done?"
"Yeah, most of it."
"Okay, call or text me when you get back."
"Will do, thanks, Dad."

And then I would hide in my closet for a while, perhaps over night and then just pop out Monday morning and yell, "SURPRISE" to my mom while she was getting ready for work. It seemed like a stable plan, don't you think?

Yeah, well, I didn't do that. Instead, I went back to school and wrote a three page paper on MyLifeIsAverage.com. Not that I have a problem with that. I mean, I was EXHAUSTED, so I had to take a nap, but I got the paper done which was good and such.

Now, onto the happy stuff.

I hope you'll be happy to find out that I've made some friends! Not just hey-we're-new-and-no-one-has-friends-so-I'm-going-to-talk-to-you-and-maybe-get-you're-number-JUST-IN-CASE-we-might-but-probably-won't-hang-out-eventually friends. Legit friends, who I consistently hang out with and make plans with and go to dinner with.

Basically, because there really isn't much to do here, we sit around and watch movies. But not Wall-e, even though we've tried. I've been called dibs on watching that movie with Brian, so I can't watch it with anyone else first.

They're really funny, and it makes me happy because one- yes, I can COUNT how many friends I have- of them doesn't drink at all, or do drugs, or anything which is PERFECT for me. The other, yeah, he parties, but he doesn't make us go or make us do anything, which is good.

Also, the nonpartying friend LOVES HARRY POTTER and we've joined the Harry Potter Club. The sorting ceremony is on Sunday and I'm, obviously, rooting for HUFFLEPUFF. I don't know how they're going to do this, but I'm pumped anyway. It's. Going. To be. AWESOME.

Other than hanging out and not having time for reading and lots of homework, I JUST TODAY got my tv to work, which makes me a lot more comfortable because I miss the mindlessness it can give me.

I would ramble more (REMIND ME ABOUT the drugs- not that I've used because GOD NO, but that I've seen... that sounds weird. JUST REMIND ME, OKAY?!) but I've got Spanish homework to do and, well, tv means procrastination, m'dears.

Oh. I got a hat. It's really cute.

Spanish homework! Next time I vlog, I'll post it up here, okay? Alright.

Luff,
Ashley

*yawns* *waves to blog* Blog, where should I start? Should I go in order, from when we drove here, or should I just talk about the interesting things, like buying a yacht,* OTD (Obsessive Tweeting Disorder), lack of interwebs, and more? I'll give you the beginning in a nutshell.

Basically, when I got to college, I was alright. My family was still here, my cousin thing came along and tried to help me meet people (fail, mostly), and I was still in the mind set that I would be going home with them. It sucks when you realize that you aren't. It sucks a lot. My mom and I are really close, so when she was all, "Sorry, kid, we're leaving now. See you on Thanksgiving,"* I kind of freaked out a little. There were tears, and lots of tissues and lots of picture taking, because apparently on emotional days like these she decides that her actual career is as a photographer and she absolutely had to document this.

Needless to say, I wanted to keep crying for the rest of the night. I just wanted to go to sleep. Who cares about making friends, right? I have friends! Just because they're not here with me right now doesn't mean they aren't there. I actually told my mom that I was going to quit school, live at home, and get a job to support gas money and bus fare so that I could just constantly visit them.

This was all before she even left.

Clearly I was sooo prepared. But she made me go downstairs. It was time for dinner (wasn't hungry) and it would be a good time to meet people. My roommate was already down there, and I found her on the sidewalk. She had just said good bye to her parents, too, so it was kind of awkward and we were both really upset, but we went to dinner anyway. (Long story short about dinner: The line was long. We met a couple people around us. Ate with them. Went back to the room. She read. I watched He's Just Not That Into You. Fantastic movie. Except when you watch it three nights in a row.)

Here's the internet story. One of the first things I did after I unpacked and my family and I were just lounging around my room, was check to see how the internet worked. See, the thing is, it didn't. That automatically was a cue for a Freak Out. I had lots of those. If you saw my Twitter at all, you know I had at least eight. So here I am. In my room with my family. And I don't have internet. "But that's where your friends live!" you're saying to me. I know.

I went up to the tech room to figure out why this was happening, thinking it must have something to do with my computer, maybe they just needed to push a button. Hahahaha. In reality, we had to go to a 2 hour course two days later to install a program for security reasons. Do you know what that means? That means I had to wait TWO WHOLE DAYS in a completely NEW SCHOOL without ANY FRIENDS WITHOUT THE INTERNET. Do you KNOW HOW HORRIBLE THAT IS? When the guy told me, I almost had a freak out RIGHT THERE. I said thanks, left, and put my sunglasses back on because I thought I would start crying. Do you understand the seriousness of the situation now?

OTD:

OTD is a direct result of not having internet. It was the only way I could let people know I was alive (you know, other than texting them...). All I could do was update my Twitter via text messages. Thank god, though, I had Maureen Johnson's tweets sent to my phone. Only hers, unfortunately, but it was better than no one's at all. It was a healthy dose of insanity after much wanting to hide under a rock.

Because I didn't any form of internet available to me (at the time, I wasn't aware that the library was open. Oh, glorious revelations.) this was all I did. I didn't know you could tweet so much in just a few days. (It felt like a lot to me, anyway.) But it felt like I just fell off of the face of the earth.

Note to ALL COLLEGES OUT THERE: Get your internet stuff fixed before letting scared, friendless freshman come! It's MEAN if you do NOT.

Yacht shopping was all I could do.

The thing with new situations like this is that the people organizing it are convinced they must force you into groups and you will find your life long best friends there. See, you don't. The only reason I made friends was because of this weird situation.

We were waiting for the buses to come to go on a tour of the lake that's about ten minutes away. They were supposed to get there at 1, to take my group, and then 20 minutes later for the other group. Except that didn't happen. The buses were half an hour late, there weren't enough of them, and they took the OTHER group first.

We were put into these Dialogues Groups*** but once we got to the bus stop everyone started chatting and such. It was awkward. I tried to join in, but I'm awky, so it was kind of difficult. I mean, it's not that bad when you have one person who is just REALLY GOOD in situations like that and always keeps the conversation flowing, and the group I was in had one for a while. But then he tried to mesh our group with another one, leaving us to stand there uncomfortably when we didn't follow.

I tried to be the one who kept the conversation going by talking to Guy Who Looks Like Fishy.**** It wasn't originally supposed to just be to him, but he was the only one who really answered, even if his answers were short and kind of left the conversation hanging. It was just weird. I don't think any of us wanted to be there, so trying to force conversation was awky.

BEHIND ME I kept hearing a group of people mentioning I think it was Twilight to start with. I was tempted to join their conversation, but how do you just jump into it and expect to be accepted. So I just stood there awkwardly with the little group I was in. It felt like the only thing I really COULD do.

After a few minutes of silence, I finally heard the words Harry Potter, and right then I knew what I had to do. I didn't care if they were freaked out, I jumped up, spun around, landed in- when I say in I mean in the frame of- their circle, and said, "Are you talking about Harry Potter?!"*****

They said yes, and we hung out for the rest of the day. One of the girls I actually consistently hang out with, and we met a guy, too. We've got this little group, I guess you could say, and we just hang around, watch movies, and not eat food in my room. I don't know why. I have a TON OF FOOD BUT NO ONE WILL EAT IT.

SO IF YOU WANT FOOD, TELL ME AND I WILL GIVE IT TO YOU. *glares at box*

It was nice to make friends, though. Even if I really only have 2/3. I met another guy when we were getting the stupid internet thing fixed, so we sat next to each other for 2 hours, freaking out about everything. Runa, you'll appreciate this, he loves Harry Potter and is a Hufflepuff.

I'll post another one SOON, probably tomorrow, but I've got CLASS SOON. Grawr. Class sucks. More on that later. Au revoir, mon ami.

College Bound,
Ashley
Who didn't really proof this. Sorrooo

*I understand my metaphor is lame and sucks, and shouldn't actually be CONSIDERED a metaphor at all, but bare with me, please.

**Okay, so she didn't really say that. But that's what it felt like. Even though I am GOING to see her before Thanksgiving. She couldn't (alright, I can't either) live without me for that long.

*** We have First Year Seminars, and they put us into these groups based on which one we took. I'm in the Geology one (don't ask) so mine was with all of the Geology kids.

****Not an ACTUAL fish. It was the nickname my friends had for this guy I liked in... tenth grade? Oi. *pathetic*

***** Or some variation of that.

Au Revoir

I figured I should post this before I ACTUALLY leave for school so that it is still relevant. Not that it wouldn't be relevant then, because I will still be missing my friends, but for now, while the goodbyes are happening, seems like the BETTER timing option. Also, who KNOWS how much time I'll have once I get there.

Probably lots, because I don't have too many classes, but you NEVER KNOW.

So far, amidst all of the packing, the buying of THINGS, sorting all of my stuff, the remembering to check all of my random email addresses, all of which are very important, saying goodbye is definitely the hardest part. The first time it happened, I hadn't actually REALIZED what I did until they were in the car driving away. And it's just getting worse.

I mean, they're all off at school having fun. There are only three of us left, which sucks royal hippogriff if you ask me. I keep hearing things like, "Oh, don't worry, you'll LOVE IT," which, okay, MIGHT be true, but how do they KNOW? What if I HATE it? What if I don't WANT to make new friends? What if I think the friends I have now are perfectly PERFECT in every way?

It's like accidentally finding a car and taking it in and realizing, hey, not only is this car reliable, it has never done ANYTHING wrong. It might, actually, need to be knighted for the amazing deeds it has done as An Awesome Car. But then the time comes where people are telling you that you need to try new things. Perhaps you should learn to drive a boat. Maybe you should buy a yacht, even though you are PERFECTLY HAPPY with this car. Why do you NEED a yacht? It's not necessary. But you have to. You have to learn to sail. Or drive a boat. Whatever. What happens if you can't find a yacht you're happy with, and all you want is your car?

I like the car I have now (figuratively AND literally). It's lovely and has a wonderful personality. Sure, sometimes it gets a little difficult to understand, but it always goes back to normal, nothing bad to be said. I'm sure a yacht would be fun, but I don't NEED one.

On the bright side, we're trying to pack a lot of stuff into the last days. Which includes sock puppets, Taco Bell, TBK, Birthday presents (THAT I HAVE TO FINISH, OMG), Inglorious Basterds (awesome movie!), 500 Days of Summer (I wish. Also an awesome movie), and just plain insanity.

But now I've got to say GOODBYE, and that kind of sucks, right? Right. So many happening tomorrow, and then the hardest ones actually happening THAT DAY. The day I leave. And I have to get up at 5 in the morning, to leave my house- my HOME- and go live in a small room, learning really hard stuff, meeting new people (which I'm sure you'll hear all about) and having nothing familiar around me. At all.

Now, please tell me again WHY college is a good idea? Just, just give me one reason, alright?

Sleepyyyy, surrounded by Stuff, folding clothes, and panicking, I'll write more when I've got more to say.

College: Part 1

This may or may not work. Honestly, I haven’t got a clue. But here’s the plan. In September, I’m starting college. Currently, that is the most entertaining aspect of my life, and why shouldn’t it be? Throw an awkward person like me into an entirely new environment and there’s bound to be some comedy involved. So my goal is to blog about it, at least once a week, with what’s been happening in this new college student’s life, from dorm (ahem, Residence Hall) shopping to school food. Hopefully it works out. I haven’t got many friends there yet.

The more frequent blogging will start soon, I think. I’ve got RH shopping to do, still, which includes looking for every-and-anything orange. There’s still the mystery of the Sleeping Bag, which is apparently a necessity in college life. The roommate? There will be more about her after, when I respond to her email.

Some of the blogs may be emails I write to my friends that are just pasted in here (probably edited a bit) if I’m slacking, some may be written during class, or I might just hand over my laptop (which is coming soon, however in black, not orange) to the giant gorilla statue and let him take over for a bit.

OR I could just completely forget about this and get lost in the entirely new, perhaps suffocating, and definitely different world that is college.

Now I must go do completely unrelated-to-college things, including kidnapping my friend and maybe going to Walmart.

Germs and Bees

I. Hate. Germs. Particularly germs that attack my friends. PARTICULARLY, particularly germs that attack my friends, live on them for a while, and then JUMP SHIP TO ME! GERMS, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, PLEASE STOP. It is NOT NICE.

I'm hoping they will get the memo so that I can stop eating cough drops, because while I like cough drops sometimes, I do not like not being able to form COMPLETE SENTENCES without coughing eleven times in between.

Three, as far as I know, of my friends are currently being attacked by the STUPID, GROSS germs, and they have also come for me. I really hope that I can defeat them, but I'm really bad with battles. Though, I must say, I prefer coughing my brains out to puking. By a lot. The last time I was sick, I was puking, and THAT was not fun at ALL. Ugh, just thinking about it fills me with unhappiness.

I didn't really want to ramble about germs, and I wasn't sure what I actually wanted to say today. I feel very uninspired right now, but that might be because I'm getting attacked by the evilness that are germs.


Whatever.

What I finally settled on was bees. I COULD write about how bees collect pollen, make honey, how there are different types, how some chase you down, and how some are ninjas. But I'm only going to talk about how bees are ninjas, and perhaps I'll leave the "chase you down" story for another day.


Along with a ghost, my room has a tendency to attract bees. About a foot away from my window, there is a bee hive. I don't know why they chose THERE to live, because I never gave them the impression that I wanted them for window neighbors. Apparently, bees like to assume things. Also, apparently, bees like to make WRONG assumptions.

Somehow, and we still do not know how they managed to do this, but I'm suspecting they had help from my ghost, they found a way INTO MY ROOM. I woke up one morning, and apparently woke up the bee, because he zipped out of somewhere random and started to fly around my light, which, obviously, FREAKED ME OUT. Ugh. I hate things flying around me. I felt like it was watching me, so I had my mom swat it with something.


I didn't think much more of it, because random things get into houses all the time, right?

Well, it happened the next day. And the next day. And it continued happening ALL SUMMER. Almost every single day, a bee would make its way into my room, and fly around. Even after we sprayed the hive, they KEPT COMING BACK.

Also, if I didn't manage to kill them, I'd find dead bees ALL OVER MY ROOM which, as it sounds, is disgusting! I'm getting that feeling I got when I thought of puking.


All these bees had to do was NOT live in my room, and they would have lived happy bee lives, but they wanted to be NINJAS and SNEAK IN and FLY AROUND and THREATEN TO STING ME.

Miraculously, I only got stung once. Thankfully, I'm not allergic to bees. Unfortunately, it was while I was sleeping.

I don't know WHAT this bee was thinking. I think it might have had some anger management problems or SOMETHING, but I was just happily sleeping, and then it STUNG MY ARM! Seriously, I didn't do ANYTHING TO IT. I was SLEEPING and it STUNG ME!

Who DOES that?


Stupid bee.

So I went to sleep downstairs in the living room because I was attacked IN MY SLEEP by a vicious, vicious bee.

By the time winter came for real, and it was cold, they stopped coming in. I'm afraid that they'll come back again, though, come summer. Especially because I now have flowers in my room. I mean, yeah, they're dead flowers that I keep forgetting to get rid of, but they're still flowers, and bees LIKE flowers.

(They're the flowers I got after our Haiti Water Benefit Dinner, so they lasted a LOT longer than I thought they would. I don't even know why they died. Apparently they've got it out for me.)

So these ninja bees attacked me in my room, once while I was sleeping, and STILL thought it was okay to come in afterwards. I think they might be INSANE, or just have a lust for danger.

I can see the headlines now.

Bees Gone Wild
[If I was any good at/had Photoshop, this is where I would have made a picture of a couple bees wearing biker helmets and leather jackets, holding flame throwers and ninjas. Yes, ninjas, because these bees are so badass that they can CATCH NINJAS.]

Facts of Awesome

I'm slightly exhausted (even though it's only Thursday AND I have tomorrow off) and therefore feeling uncreative. I know, it's very disappointing. Rocks are being gathered AT THIS MOMENT to be thrown viciously at me.

Or not. I appreciate the not.

But because I'm feeling ridiculously uncreative and rambly at the moment (very tired, I could rant about how tired I am, but my guess no one wants to read about that) I'm going to answer more ABOUT ME questions. Because I'm sure you guys are DYING to know everything.

Just kidding. But that is what you're going to get. Possibly accompanied by some pictures, for kicks and giggles. Enjoy!

Last hug?
That, I think, was yesterday in gym class. My friend and I are in a butt kicking war. That started when my school was trying to convince kids not to smoke, and there were stickers that said Kick Butts Day, because that's what it was called. Anyway, he had a sticker and he said something along the lines of, "Do you see this sticker? It gives me complete permission to do this."

And then he kicked my butt. And now we're in a war. I think I'm winning.

Anyway, yesterday in gym, I didn't change because I "didn't feel good" (I'm EXTREMELY incapable of coordination, so gym isn't exactly my favorite class, and I didn't really want to participate AT ALL). He came up behind me and kicked my butt.

So I glared at him.

So he hugged me. I 'spose that counts, right?


This is NOT HEALTHY.

Name one person you hate and why:
See, I thought this was somewhat interesting, because I have the hardest time actually HATING someone. I can dislike them with a passion, but if I ever say I actually HATE someone, I feel really guilty afterwards.

I even feel bad if I talk about someone, even though I know they'll never find out what I said, even if it's a celebrity who gets much more bashing than I could EVER deal out, I feel guilty.

Tadaaaa.

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter?
Every year in June, my city does the Relay for Life, and Key Club signs up to participate. I went to the one last year, and that was my first all nighter.

It was so hot out, but in a good way. It wasn't like humid or anything. Just sort of dry. But we managed to sell lots of fudge by walking around and asking people if they wanted it. You'd be surprised how many people would buy fudge from a bunch of shouting teenagers, but they seemed appreciative.

Also, we had FACE PAINT, which was EPIC, except that it came off easily because it was really hot and we were all rather sweaty.

I didn't think I was going to be able to make it through the night, because I'd never COMPLETELY stayed awake all night before. Also, when I get tired, I get annoyed VERY easily, so I was scared that if I did stay awake, I wouldn't be able to tolerate people. But I did! It was so exciting!

We had these glow sticks and we were just throwing them Frisbee style to each other for like an hour. I think we made a people pyramid. We played KNOTS which was so much fun, because we were all ridiculously over tired, so nothing made sense, and we just made a bigger mess of limbs.

I did manage to stay up all night, and that was exciting. However, I got home and completely crashed. I don't know if that cancels out the all-nighter bit, but if it does DON'T TELL ME. I prefer to remain ignorant.


It was this, nothing, or random pictures of people I DON'T KNOW. Yay!

Yahoo or Google?
Google. Because Edward Cullen googles. 'Nough said.

Just kidding. That's not the only reason I love Google. They are FULL OF AWESOME, and, if you ever have the opportunity to be EMPLOYED by Google, TAKE IT. They have the craziest working environments EVER. It's like... going to a party. Every day. And getting PAID for it.

Unfortunately you have to have like four excruciatingly intelligent brains to even be considered, which makes sense, because if they let just anyone in (like me), they would get nothing done, because I'd be too busy freaking out at the awesome.



And last but not least:

One rumor that has been spread about you:
Okay. I don't know if this counts as a REAL rumor, because one of my friends started it as a joke, and I played along with it, because it was really funny, and unbelievable.

Although people actually DID believe it!

Okay, so in tenth grade, my friend Peter decided to started the rumor that one weekend I was in rehab from OD-ing on heroin. See, there are some things wrong with this.

a) I have never, in my life, EVER seen heroin. So unless I had super cool imaginary heroin, I don't see how this could possibly be true.
b) I HATE needles, which proved to be very problematic YESTERDAY when they did a blood drive at my school in the gym, which is RIGHT across the hall from MY LOCKER. PLUS, all day I saw people walking around with bandages on their arms. It was awful.
c) It's me. And I'm morally apposed to all forms of drug usage.

It was REALLY funny. I know this makes no sense, me laughing at a rumor about me over dosing on drugs, when it really happens to people, and it's a horrible situation, and I hate drugs anyway, but it was just so ridiculous that it was kind of funny. At least he had the decency to send me to rehab afterwards.

But, and I'm not even kidding you, people ACTUALLY BELIEVED IT. I don't know what they were thinking, but apparently it could happen to me, and I had to reassure someone just a couple months ago that, no, that didn't ever happen.

And on April Fools Day this year, the kid that started the rumor gave me a nice little pamphlet about the dangers of heroin.

My rumor-starting friends are looking out for me.

Maybe it's not so bad after all...

So there you have it. My BEDA of the day. I'm sorry it's so lame. I really am tired. Sadly, I'll probably think of something interesting later, and be like OMG PEOPLE WOULD LOVE THIS.

And that would be full of fail.

Slaters :]

BEDA Addiction: The Possibilities

Guys. It's getting bad. Seriously bad. It's been just over a week of blogging, and it's ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT. I'm not even kidding when I say that last night, I was blogging IN MY DREAM. I can't figure out if that is extremely cool, or extremely pathetic. It's extreme though, and I'm interested to see what will become of me by the end of the month.

Option One
I think that, after thirty days, I may have developed an obsession with blogging. I will definitely be in the habit by April 30th, and I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to break it. You see, I'm bad with habits, and breaking them. I'm not a smoker, so I've never had to jump THAT particular hurdle, however I've gotten into the habit of (a) using the computer right after school and (b) buying chocolate every opportunity I have during math class.

These habits are hard to break. I feel DEPRIVED if I do not use the computer immediately and oh-so-very sad when I don't have my delicious happy-making chocolate. It's so yummy, and helps me survive the evils that are pre-calc.

The problem here is that I won't even be able to ween myself off of blogging. Perhaps I could have done it May first, took a day off, May third, skipped another day, May fifth, skipped a couple days, and so on so that I wouldn't go completely insane from not rambling into a text box about something or another. But I CAN'T.

See, on May first I have a school trip to NYC (I'm so excited! I've never been before!), and we're leaving VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING. We won't be returning until VERY LATE AT NIGHT.

Can you see the problem? The first day of Not-BEDA, I won't even be able to have weened myself a bit. IT WILL HAVE BEEN TAKEN FROM ME COLD TURKEY!

Blog-readers, I'm terrified about this. There's a good chance I'll need to be placed in a mental institution. If that's the case, I'll find a way to let you know (unless they make me attend something along the lines of Bloggers Anonymous) and I'm relying on YOUR encouraging comments to save me.

Option Two
I die.

Option Three
This seems like the most reasonable option, and the one I hope to take, because it involves neither insanity nor death, which are two things I really don't want to happen to me any time soon.

Option Three is where I go back to how life was pre-BEDA. That is to say, I don't blog as frequently, however I don't NOT do it, either. That would be bad. But I don't DREAM about blogging, because that can't be a sign of anything good, and I don't not pay attention in math BECAUSE OF BLOGGING. It's amazing how much brain time this takes up. However, I can't guarantee that I won't pay attention in math. It's just not fun. At all.

I think it's getting better, now that I've developed some sort of routine. Wake up, go to school, come home, blog a bit, do homework, sleep. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Or perhaps this is what Maureen Johnson wanted. Maybe she wanted to create an army of BEDA zombies. Or ninjas. We're learning about each other so that we can cooperate easily, and then we'll take over the world in favor of books and random adventures.

Or maybe I really am going insane. Or I'm just tired. Actually, I'm quite tired today. Even though I got a decent amount of sleep last night, I'm ridiculously tired. It's kind of suckish, particularly because I have to finish an essay, study for TWO tests, do a lab, and finish this all before sleeping.

Though it shouldn't be hard. This one is going to be significantly shorter. As in, TIME FOR RANDOM QUESTION!

The temptation to answer the question "Do you have a blog?" was almost unbearable. I'm refraining, because that wouldn't have a very good story.

Would you eat sushi?
I don't think I'd try sushi. Again, that is. I have tried sushi before, but I didn't actually eat it, if that makes sense.

A couple years ago, my group of friends decided that we should have a really cool night and go get Chinese food and hang out. We went to this Chinese restaurant with a buffet and got really good food. They had mashed potatoes, which we all found amusing, and french fries, and things like that, along with other things that you would suspect would be at a Chinese place.

Including sushi. (Which is odd, because isn't sushi Japanese? I could be completely wrong, but I'm just saying.)

No one else took the sushi except for my friend. She was determined to try it, and we all decided that she was insane. She took TWO pieces, for kicks and giggles.

After much persuasion (or maybe I was just a fool, either option is plausible) I took her second piece of sushi and put it on my plate. We decided that we would eat it at the same time.

We picked up the sushi, held it in front of us, and on three we took a bite. She managed to swallow hers and then looked at me. I should have known by her wicked smile that nothing she said would have been good, but I currently had some unknown substance in my mouth and wasn't paying attention.

"Oh," she said after seeing that I hadn't made any movement to actually chew my bite. "I think you got the one that had the [fish] egg on it."

And that was the end of my sushi experience.

I have, in fact, sunk my teeth into sushi, however I have never actually swallowed any.

Now I've got to go do the massive amount of homework I've got.

My Haunted Shoe

Right now, my arm feels very woozy. Kind of like it has a concussion. In fact, I think I might possibly have an ARM CONCUSSION, which doesn't seem medically possible (or normal) and that happens to be gained from carrying things. Like monkeys. Or friends.

This particular arm stress happened from carrying my friend on my back after she decided that she was tired. And, because I am such a wonderfully fantastic person, I said I would carry her.

Let me tell you something about myself, Blog-reader. I am weak. The circumference of my arm and a piece of spaghetti are almost the same. The spaghetti may be bigger. I haven't measured it recently. (Though, I've got to admit, my arms did get a bit stronger after tennis season, but if you ever witness my serve, you'll know that I still have the strength of a piece of cotton.)

Anyway, my arm concussion happened because I carried her through a hallway and a half before finally giving up and dropping her. Not on her head or her butt of anything. It was more of a, "Hey, my arms are about to fall off because I am very weak. Please remove yourself from my back. Kthx."

Because she knows about the uselessness of my arms, she complied quite quickly. However I am now left with an arm concussion. I'm extremely grateful that THIS particular concussion was not a result of evil Bunny Hills.

Alright. My main topic for today (Oh yeah! Happy End of Week One/Beginning of Week Two of BEDA!!!) is my ghost, whose name I'm still deciding. I think it's going to be Thomas, but he hasn't made an appearance in a while so I'm not sure if Thomas fits his personality.

What I imagine Thomas to look like.

I think Thomas (which is what I'll call him in here so that I don't have to keep referring to him as 'my ghost' which would get old quickly) is a summer ghost, or at least a relatively summer ghost because he seems to shy away from being annoying in the winter. Perhaps he's upstairs in the attic with whatever else we've got up there. It's small, but I bet he could fit, because, like, he's a ghost.

There are two stories that I think are evidence of me having a ghost. That only haunts my room. And only likes to bother me. It's kind of similar to the problem Emily has in The Year My Life Went Down the Loo.



Except Thomas doesn't live in solely in my underwear drawer and, thankfully, he doesn't toss all my bras around the room. I'd get really annoyed with him if he did that. Thankfully, he only likes to fix things for me and occasionally misplace my shoes.

Which are the stories that I'm going to tell you about. I'll start with the shoes, as it happened before all the rest and was the reason I decided I had a ghost in the first place.

As I've mentioned before, I play tennis. I don't have a nifty SPECIAL pair of tennis shoes that I wear, I just have sneakers. However, during school, I didn't want to wear sneakers because it was still MOSTLY summer, therefore still warm, and my feet did not want to be confined by the evilness of SOCKS.

So, everyday, I would have to bring my sneakers with me to school, along with my tennis clothes, so that I, you know, didn't have to play tennis in jeans and flip flops. I'm pretty sure my coach would have had a heart attack if I did that. He's a stickler for proper footwear.

Like I said before, I am NOT A FAN of having my feel TRAPPED BY SOCKS AND SNEAKERS in the summer, so on the way home from practice, I had a habit of, despite the risk of High Stink Levels, taking off my socks and shoes, stuffing them BACK IN MY BAG (Note the importance of this!), and putting my flip flops on. Then, when I would get home, I would drop my bag on my bedroom floor and leave it until the next morning, where I would swap out clothes for things that don't smell like ick or post-tennis.

Well, one morning, I was about to replace what was in my bag. My sneakers were in there, just hanging around waiting for their new best friends that would be another pair of shorts and a t shirt. I saw BOTH OF MY SNEAKERS in my bag. I knew they were there. I SAW them. THEY. WERE. THERE.

And then I got sidetracked and went to find more clothes to put in my bag. When I returned to the bag, I wanted to make sure my shoes were still there and in the bag, because occasionally they fall out, and even though I had already seen them, I just wanted to make sure. However, when I went to look, I only saw ONE SHOE!

Just ONE!

Frantically, I started searching my room, tossing clothes aside, checking the bag five more times, under the bed, in the closet, under the dresser. It COULDN'T BE FOUND. I was distraught. I had no idea WHERE MY SHOE WENT.

I ran downstairs and asked my mom if she saw it. She said she thought she saw it by the back door, so I searched the pile of shoes that live over there. There were heels and flip flops and fancy shoes and everything EXCEPT MY OTHER SHOE.

You can see the problem.

I bolted back upstairs, paranoid now that I was going to be late for school. I checked EVERYwhere, doubled checked everything, and my shoe, still, could not be found.

"Seriously!" I was shouting to no one in particular except my shoe. "Where the hell could a SHOE go? How does it just DISAPPEAR!?"

Apparently, after frantic searching, if you cannot find the desired footwear, you start to go insane. I did not know this. I sounded like a lunatic.

At one point my mom heard me because she answered, "It's probably by the back door!"

"No! I checked! It's not there! It's gone!"

"Ashley!"

"WHAT!?" It was seven in the morning, and I couldn't find my stupid shoe. I hope my short-temperedness can be perceived as slightly reasonable. I mean, I needed it. Tennis + not sneakers + crazy coach = sprints for Ashley, and probably while not wearing shoes.

"It's down here!"

Confused, I ran back down the stairs and RIGHT THERE in the middle of my living room floor was my missing shoe. It was just lying there, as if it had been there ALL ALONG, even though I KNOW IT HADN'T BEEN because it was in my room. I swear to you, blog-readers, my shoe was in my room and I saw both of them. Also, it doesn't even make sense how my shoe could have gotten in the living room in the first place. Also SQUARED, don't you think I would have seen it the first fifty times I was running frantically through my house, LOOKING FOR IT.

That is the first reason I think I have a ghost. And an annoying one at that. However, the lamp story isn't as much annoying as it is helpful. Also, I felt like a complete moron after this happened. Sometimes it's frustrating knowing that your ghost is smarter than you. I'm just saying.

A couple summers ago, we moved into the house that I live in now. The one that left me with a haunted room. We went to Lowes (or maybe it was Home Depot) because we were going to fix some things up a bit before we actually moved in. I mean, I'm quite glad that we added that final wall. The breeze would have gotten quite cold after a while, especially in winter.

When we were at Lowes (or Home Depot), I was also shopping for things that I wanted. I think we were actually buying paint. I knew my room was going to be blue (Unfortunately. My mom was dead set against it being orange, even though I would be the one having to live in it, not her.) and I wanted something nice and pretty to make it lovely and mine. Well, I found this lamp that matched my room almost eerily, so I bought it. It had a lamp shade that I thought was uber cool and balanced on top of this ball on top of the lamp, so that is how I always had it, balancing on top of the little metal ball.

Yes, occasionally it would fall, but I just thought that it was one of the downsides of that particular lamp. But everything has flaws, so I looked passed it. It was only human, after all.

Well, one day, I got home and went to turn on this lamp, because I needed it light, and it turns out that the lamp did much more than compliment my room. In fact, it made light, too, which made things like seeing much easier. I went to turn it on, careful not to knock the shade off as I had so many times before.

When the shade didn't even wiggle, I became intrigued. Did the shade suddenly become adhesive? Did it not want to move? Over the course of a day, did the lamp acquire very good balancing skills?

None of those were the answer. What had happened was this:

The little metal ball, that I thought was used for BALANCING, could actually be unscrewed! Yes! You're supposed to unscrew the little metal NOT-balance ball, put the shade on there, and then screw the ball back on! WHAT A CONCEPT! I was in complete shock about this that at first I didn't even wonder how this came to be.

And then I did.

"Mom!" I said when I went downstairs. "How'd you know the little non-balance metal ball unscrewed and that's how the lamp shade stayed on?" I was beaming. I would never have to face the wrath of unbalanced lamp shades again!

My mom looked utterly and honestly confused. "What?"

Which lead to me asking every person in my house if they knew anything about my mysterious balanced lamp. And none of them did. The only logical explanation that I could come up with was that MY GHOST HAD STRUCK AGAIN!

Yes! Thomas had come back, except this time he was HELPFUL. That was something strange and new. I appreciated his help, but it was still kind of strange having a ghost look out for me.

He hasn't made an appearance since then, and I'm wondering if he'll come back. Maybe he'll come visit me in college? Maybe he'll move his hauntings down the hall and into my brother's room? Perhaps he'll take residence in one of my shoes. I don't know. But there is my proof that my room is, in fact, haunted.

Have you ever been in the hospital?

This seemed like the perfect random question for today. Not because I'm about ready to go to the hospital or anything, because I'm not. My arm concussion seems to have faded since I started this, so I don't think it will need to be hospitalized, which is good, because I need my left hand as I am left handed.

I have been in the hospital, for many reasons. Four births that I can remember (not including my own), a concussion, and stitches. You've already heard about the stupid concussion. Now I'm going to tell you about the stitches.

This happened in sixth grade. My brother had this very bad habit of starting water wars with me at horrible times, but I would always fight back. Do you know those little things that you suck medicine into, so that you can measure it, and then squirt it out? Well, those are actually also very convenient to have in a water war. That's what he was using. My weapon choice was a cup. A glass cup. I wasn't thinking much when I grabbed this, and I'm sure you're already piecing together what happened.

I chased him through the house, out the door, around the backyard, and he bolted up the stairs. Somehow, in my attempt to follow, I tripped up the stairs, trying to catch myself with the hand that was also holding the glass of water.

Bad idea.

The glass broke, obviously, and decided that, instead of being nice and avoiding my hand, it would cut a nice jagged line right into my hand. I mean, it was pretty deep. Clearly, as I had to get stitches. I'm pretty sure I hit an artery (unless, if by hitting an artery you die, in which case it wasn't one, because I'm still alive), so it was bleeding like a head wound, which was really gross.

I started freaking out and wrapped it in a towel, and my mom came rushing down, saying that we needed to go to the hospital.

See, I didn't think I needed to go to the hospital, so this news freaked me out EVEN MORE. That is NOT something a twelve year old needs to hear. Regardless, we went to the hospital, where, first they wrapped my hand up, and asked me questions, and then stuck me in the waiting room for HOURS. I'm not even kidding. It was SO LONG.

In the time spent waiting in the waiting room (and they did name that quite properly), I made a new friend, who I'm pretty sure was drunk. It was this lady who was bit by this bug, and it made her hand swell, and she wanted to make sure she wasn't going to, like, die or anything.

She even brought the bug in a little plastic bag.

She was really funny, possibly because she might have been drunk. Maybe just over tired. I'm not sure which, but it was enough to amuse little twelve year old me. She came with one of her friends, who had bug stickers in her purse, so I was helping her pick out which ones she needed to put on the baggy to make a home for Charlotte. Which is what she named it.

It gets better though! After a while, another lady walked in and went to do the whole Asking Questions bit, and her daughter came to sit with us. At this point, it was probably midnight, because hand wounds and bug bites apparently aren't NEARLY as important as other highly rated hospital priorities. Anyway, so this girl comes over, and we tell her the story with the bug and how we named her Charlotte and everything.

"Can I see it?" she finally asks, holding out her hand for the bug-in-a-bag.

Crazy possibly-drunk-but-funny lady hands over Charlotte with her Sticker Family. We wait patiently while this girl observes the bug.

After much waiting (again I say, this room was FULL OF IT!), she finally says, "That's a boy bug, not a girl." Our response was pretty much... *blink blink blink*.

"Really?" The girl nodded. So then we changed Charlotte's name to Charlie. It was the only logical thing to do.

Three years of waiting later, they FINALLY called me in and said that I needed stitches, which, along with hearing that I needed to go to the hospital, was not something I WANTED TO KNOW. But I went anyway and tried not to stare at the gaping black hole that was the hand wound. Or the needle. The needle that they POKED INTO THE GAPING HAND WOUND to make the pain stop.

I hate needles.

I remember talking about soccer, because I think they were trying to distract me from the fact that they were SEWING ME UP LIKE NEEDLEWORK.

There were five stitches, and I had them during my sixth grade graduation, which was kind of cool, but kind of inconvenient. Also, I got to go into school late the next day because we were at the hospital until, I'm not even kidding, three in the morning.

I never actually checked how much I write in these things, and this is close to 3000 words! I'm so sorry that they're so long! I'll have to cut back!

Slaters, guys,

Ashley

(Also, I'm not sure why the second half of this is formatted weird, and I'm too lazy to go solve the problem. Sorry!)

Panic! Or Just Dance

As the fourth and final marking period begins at my school, I find that, as a senior, I have two things to worry about. They are two things I do not want to worry about, but two things that are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to worry about because they both DETERMINE THE REST OF MY LIFE.

I see that as a slightly big deal.

The first is COLLEGE.

Yes. I know. Many, many, MANY people go to college, and they love it it, and they party, and they get drunk, and they make new friends. But this all happens AFTER they choose which school they go to. College, in fact, is just one giant stress ball that too many people have to go through IN ORDER TO SURVIVE or else they will face the wrath of EVIL PARENTS.

Or not. Okay, parents aren't EVIL for pushing this on their innocent children. They are actually, in fact, quite smart for wanting their spawn to have a nice future full of plush cars, fancy houses, and 2.4 kids. I'm sure college IS A BLAST and everyone says it will be the BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE (Although, I thought that was high school. Huh.) but what is causing this big deal, you might ask?

Well, I'll tell you, you curious blog-reader.

Picking a college.

There are people who know where they want to go, and they have their college picked out. I mean, these are the types of people who wore diapers with Harvard or Notre Dame stamped across the front. The ones whose mothers ate nothing but Harvard scarves and leprechauns for nine months. They. Know. They're prepared. They WANT this.

Then there are the Me's of the universe, who don't know WHAT they want to do or WHERE they want to go, and looked at some colleges based on the boy to girl ratio because that was the only interesting thing they could think of. It's muy pathetico.

This is turning quite serious, and I'm not a fan of serious. If you've read my previous posts, you should know that me and serious do not add up to anything.

Panicking about college is... necessary. It proves that you are able to actually CARE about where you want to go, and worried that making the wrong decision will, you know, affect your entire life. I mean, it's something horrible, but it can also be enjoyable.

Now I've just got to pick, damnit, when all I want to do is eat really good chocolate chip cookies.

The second reason to panic is PROM.

Oi, with the poodles already. Prom is supposed to be fun, but everything that needs to happen before prom is RIDICULOUSLY STRESSFUL. I don't understand why. It's the END OF SENIOR YEAR. I should be jumping for joy that I get to put on a pretty dress, painful shoes, get my hair done, and have nice looking feet for a change.

Our prom this year is supposed to be really cool. We're having it at this really nifty train station (which, now that I think about it, is much more nifty than it sounds), and we get to take a train there. However, just today, I realized that my date prospects are DWINDLING. And quickly. Very quickly.

In the matter of ONE DAY, I found that one potential-guy-that-could-be-asked-by-Ashley has the possibility of already being asked, and the other, in fact, has a girlfriend. Which I suppose I should have realized before that. But I am a firm believer of IGNORANCE BEING BLISS.

It really is. Not only is it a wonderful song:




(Yes, I actually know these people, and am proud to say they have never bitten me.)

but it is, in fact, VERY TRUE.

Think about it. If there is a bug in your oatmeal raisin cookie that looks like a raisin, wouldn't you MUCH RATHER eat the raisin-like bug than find out that it is a bug so that you can continue to eat the otherwise delicious cookie?

I'm not saying that it's ALWAYS true. I'm just saying that the phrase, "ignorance is bliss," has many true qualities.

So, with the mixture of COLLEGE plus PROM, it's very amazing that seniors around the country haven't imploded by now. I'm impressed. However, once all of this is resolved, once colleges are chosen, once dates are found, dresses picked out, financial aide handled, it will all be fun. I mean, there's DANCING at prom. I can't dance like a normal person, but I can wiggle something fierce, and sometimes in beat with the music and act like a goof, and I think that's good enough.

On a MUCH happier note, today you get TWO random questions about me, because I feel bad for this being such a rambly and un-happy-making (save the epic video) entry.

Can you fit in your locker?
Okay. Story time. I'll set the scene for you. It was the last day of school, and my friends Shannon and Rachael and I were over by Rachael's locker. It was sunny out, and we were getting ready to leave, but we had some last minute locker cleaning to do.

We were a very random bunch of people. The three of us, plus three more of our friends, had study hall fifth period, and we'd go to the library. There, we would sit between the shelves looking for books, occasionally finding random trap doors that were useless so we left notes in there and sitting in random places we thought we could fit. Eventually, the librarians decided we were a disturbance and intimidated people who wanted to go through those particular shelves to look for books, so we went to a corner.

For your entertainment, to see how random we actually were in the library, I give you the following, possibly paraphrased, but ultimately true, conversation.

Shannon: *did something to make Rachael annoyed*
Rachael: I can't hear you. I put up a force field. *holds up hands to symbolize said force field*
Shannon: Move over.
Rachael: I CAN'T hear you!
Shannon: *shoves*
Rachael: Hey! *being shoved* Stop!
Shannon: What was that, Rachael? I can't hear you. There's a force field.

It was definitely one of those times that you HAD TO BE THERE for, however I still find it funny now. They were sitting in this little cubby thing in between the bookshelves. I know, it might not seem funny to you, but trust me, blog-readers, it really was.

Maybe if you pictured them like this:


Anyway, back on topic. Rachael was cleaning out her locker, and I'm pretty sure, once she finished, one of the exclamations was, "Oh my God! It's so clean! Like, someone could probably fit in there!" (Note: I'm using the fact that I was a FRESHMAN when this happened as an excuse for the possibly excessive omg's and like's.)

Also, I was about locker size, then. So, we decided that I should hop into the locker. And so I did. And they shut the door. And Rachael COULDN'T GET IT BACK OPEN, which was tragic, because I thought that I'd be stuck in this stupid locker ALL SUMMER LONG, while everyone else was off going swimming and having fun, and oh man, what if I had to pee? and it was awfully cramped in there and uncomfortable.

So, after much fidgeting with the lock, the door opened, and I was able to escape into the wonderful glory that is summer. Thank god.

I don't think I can fit into my locker NOW though, because, you know, my hips got bigger, and I grew like an inch. Only an inch in four years, which sucks. I was just measured today, too, randomly, because during gym the substitute was like, "Name?"

"Ashley," I answered, quite used to this protocol.

"You need to go to the nurse."

Blank stare. "Me? Really?" astounded that I had the honor of going to the nurse, therefore missing the first ten or so minutes of gym where I would have otherwise been running around, looking like I was doing something active, but not really doing it.

"Yes."

So I went to the nurse, where they took my blood pressure, height, weight, eyes, ears, all that good stuff that got me out of gym! Yay! It was extremely random, though, because I already had a physical this year for tennis. Not that I'm complaining. I suck at all things in gym. Except badminton. That's fun.

And that's how I figured out I've only grown an inch.

What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
This is actually a very good story. And it wouldn't have happened if I didn't have very odd, very random friends.

I was distracted reading blogs this morning before my friend came to pick me up. Normally, if I'm distracted for too long and don't realize that she's already here, she'll text me to let me know. This morning, my phone went off while I was reading a blog, and I jumped up, and asked my mom if she was in the driveway. I wasn't even going to read the text message, because I figured it was her telling me that she was here.

However, my mom said that there wasn't anyone in the driveway. So I pulled out my cellphone and looked at the text message.

"'Want some toast?'" I read to my mom. We both laughed.

I immediately sent back my 'yes,' because toast is excellent, especially random surprise toast.

When she finally did get here, I jumped in her car and she offered me her toast, complete with jam and everything. It was very delicious. And square. Like, perfectly square. Not a cube, because, while interesting, that would be very difficult to eat, especially with jam all over it, just square. I was quite intrigued by this.

So for breakfast this morning, I had a square piece of toast with raspberry jam.

I feel much less witty and clever than I do other days (which is strange, because I'm hardly witty or clever then), so excuse me if BEDA 6 was suck-tacular. Tomorrow, I will try to make it better. Would you like to hear about bees? Or ghosts?

Let me know in the comments. Those stories are much more interesting than today, I promise.

Slaters,
Ashley

Luck Levels

After using the word 'levels' about fifteen times in the last half an hour, I'm dubbing it my Word of the Day, which isn't something that is consistent, and happens randomly (that was redundant), and sometimes the Word of the Day can go into Word of the Month, which would make it qualified for Word of the Year, which means it gets added to my List of Really Cool Words.

That list includes words like defenestrate, redundant, repetitive, and asshat. I have them written down somewhere in a notebook that I think might have made a home in my school bag, but I'm in fact much too lazy to actually GET UP off of this slightly comfortable couch in order to search for my bag that is UPSTAIRS.

But if you're really curious, it involves other words like asshat, defenestrate, redundant, and repetetive.

The main topic of this blog, BEDA 5, is to talk about Luck Levls. Or Bad Luck Levels, depending on your optimism level. This idea spawned about half an hour or so ago because my mom is "spring cleaning" as she calls it.

What really happened was that my mom decided that our house needed to be Windex-ed to death, which I'll admit, is sometimes fun. Windex and Lysol are my favorite cleaning products. However, that does not mean I use them often. Do not intermix FAVORITE with USAGE LEVELS.

Also, she vacuumed it, with the help of my little sister (1.5 years old) who she has somehow brianwashed into enjoying cleaning. It's very strange. I blame the fact that my mom was young when she had me and, thus, didn't herself enjoy cleaning then, so it would be illogical to assume that I would like cleaning. Which I don't, generally, unless I'm really bored and my books don't want to be read. (Note: This is extremely RARE.)

While my mom was vacuuming, she hit the wine wrack. (OH. MY. GOD.) and one of the wine glasses (also, I keep wanting to put WIN GLASSES, which is funny, but not what I'm meaning to put) FELL OFF of the wrack. And broke.

No big deal, right? I didn't think so.

I had to go make sure my sister didn't go step in it, while she sat on top of me saying, "Broke. Uh-oh. Broke. Broookkeee!" because she's only a year and a half old, and intelligent.

My mom cleaned it up while saying, "You know, Ashley, you could dust," but I told her that I was distracted in keeping up with the blogs of other BEDA-doers, which isn't even a lie! It was/is what I was/am doing. Also, blogs > dust.

Then she went to go do something. I wasn't paying too much attention to whatever that was, but my sister decided it was time for her to vacuum again, and she wanted to do it next to the shelf that, coincidentally, was right next to the wine wrack. That corner/wall was not a LUCKY PLACE TO BE.

So she pulled the vacuum along, and tried to turn next to it, but hit the shelf. And apparently the nifty lamp we have doesn't like to be disturbed, because it leaped off of the shelf and it's glass shade thing broke! Broke! It really was a nice lamp, too, but my mom said that we just need a new shade, which cheers me up.

I heard the crash and walked over while my sister was pointing to it going, "Uh-oh. Broken. Uh-oh. Osh, broke," because she calls me Osh and I could clearly fix the problem.

So I cleaned that up, accidentally kneeling in some broken glass that I didn't know was there. It's okay, I'm indestructible, and didn't even feel it. Although it could just be my kick ass pajama pants. Except my mom didn't feel that I did a sufficient job (probably because I missed the little bits of glass that I was kneeling on...) and so she finished it.

My sister likes to randomly disappear when we're not looking. Particularly, she likes to run to hide in closets, which is awkward and funny and we really have no idea why. She'll leave the room, and we'll search everywhere for her. And where will she be? In the closet. It's slightly ridiculous and gets mad at us when we try to coax her out.

But anyway, while my mom was cleaning the rest of the glass, and I was blog-reading, my sister went to sit in the closet. It's very, very strange. She goes to sit in mine sometimes, which is weird and inconvenient, especially because I call my closet the Bad Karma Closet, so whenever it's left open I have a gloomy day. And one and a half year olds aren't good at remembering to close doors. (However, because she's been trained well, she turns off the TV before leaving the room, and occasionally the lights. Just not to shut closet doors once she's done using them.)

My mom asked, "Ashley, where's your sister?"

"I dunno."

She rolled her eyes. "Is she in the closet?"

"Probably." I was very tuned in to the blogs I was reading, hence the excitement in this conversation. I could try to make it more interesting.


"Could you get her for me?" Grudgingly, I nodded, set the laptop aside, and went to fetch my sister. Except when I tried looking at her, she went, "Oshh, no! Nooooo!"

Also, I swear, she discovered closets on her own. We don't lock her in there, although sometimes I'd like to do that to my brother. Unfortunately, he's slowly getting taller than me, which I do not like, and could probably defenestrate me if I tried.



(The more interesting version of this story:

"Ashley!" my mom yelled as we stepped closer to the open door of the plane.

"What?" I shouted back, not bothering to look at her, mostly because I physically couldn't. My gaze was held by the ground, which was, in fact, a great distance away.

"Where's your sister!?" she asked over the sound of wind rushing past us due to the high velocity of the plane. I gripped the straps to my parachute tighter.

"I dunno!"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Is she in the closet? In that house? Way down there? That we're conveniently over?"

"Probably!" I answered, preparing myself for the jump of a life time.

"Could you get her for me?!"

I looked at her like she was out of her mind. Me? Jumping? OUT OF A PLANE? It seemed ridiculous, but I've always wanted to go sky diving, and that seemed like the opportune moment, particularly because I already had a parachute strapped to my back, and had somehow gained infinite knowledge on What To Do When Sky Diving.

The ending to this is the same as the dull version, except in this one, I'm trailing a parachute behind me.)

Back to luck. Glass broke. Lamp broke. Sister goes into closet and won't come out. Bad luck. Which has a higher luck lever? Wine glass or lamp shade? I think it's a lamp shade, but I also think that we all know nothing brings more bad luck than THE MIRROR.


Thankfully, the Luck Level was rather low, and lasted probably about seven minutes, instead of seven years, as now my sister is running around with her toothbrush and watching iCarly.

One more random note before Random Question Time: My mom JUST (ten seconds ago) almost broke ANOTHER glass when she tried to move the wrack over. And now my sister is shaking the whole thing. Annddd *facepalm* That is a wrack with very high Bad Luck Levels, apparently, but still not nearly as high as the mirror.

Do you have any strange phobias?

In fact, I have many strange phobias that range from Santa Claus to caterpillars. I'll explain both of those, because they are my biggest, I think, and I also don't like to think of all my phobias at once...

Santa, and yes, I completely understand that he DOES NOT EXIST, just developed recently (a couple years ago) because I realized there are many innuendos that could be made about Santa, and that he could, in fact, be perceived as a pervert. I prefer not to sit on an old-man-in-all-red's lap just to tell him what I want so that he can sneak into my house in the middle of the night and leave presents (or BRIBERY) under a tree. And he expects cookies in return.

I do not think so. Nope.

Caterpillars happened a year before Santa. I was walking to my friend's house, and FOLLOWING THE SIDEWALK. Now, tell me. When you see a sidewalk, don't you generally think it's, oh, I don't know, A SAFE PLACE FOR YOU TO WALK? As in, if you WALK ON THIS SIDEWALK, you will not get dive bombed by caterpillars?

I thought so, but, apparently, I'm a moron.

Tent caterpillars. Those were the little asshats. I didn't really give much thought to caterpillars before that summer. I didn't care about them, they were just there, and always minded their own business. This was BEFORE.


They hang from trees in case you didn't know. Yes, they hang in trees, and live in trees, in populations of HUNDREDS. Like I said, I was walking to my friends house and walked RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE of hundreds of caterpillars HANGING FROM THE TREE. And I didn't notice until I was IN THE MIDDLE.


I made it to my friends house, freaking out, dancing and flicking those stupid things off of me. They were all over! I was extremely close to taking my pants off, right in the middle of the street. Jeez, just thinking about it now is freaking me out.

Also, that was the same incident where my glasses first broke because they flew off of my face during the caterpillar dance.


Yeah.

So those are a couple of my phobias, and so far what my day has been about. I just now realized that, in two blogs, I've talked about weather and cleaning, which makes me feel kind of lame. Maybe I will go sky diving, because that's got to be more interesting than OMG BREAKING GLASS!

Until tomorrow,
Bye, guys!

iHelp

I feel like I'm blogging earlier right now, even though I'm clearly not. If anything, I'm doing it around the same time as I always start to write/post a blog, but because it's SATURDAY it feels so much earlier, even though my day has already been busy. I've been volunteering once and a half today. ONCE AND A HALF.

I know you're all dying for an explanation, and what kind of BEDA-doer would I be if I didn't tell you about my Volunteering 1.5?

1. I'm in Key Club. Yes, Key Club, and no, not just because it would look good on college applications, though I'd be a liar if I didn't say that wasn't a nice benefit. In tenth grade, my friend David insisted that my friend Shannon and I join Key Club. His brother made him do it, I think, and what friends would we be if we didn't go to this random key-making club to keep him sane?

No friends at all, that's what.

So we started. It was run by about four seniors, and maybe like two of their friends were in their club. And then we would go, and, just picture it. Seniors + sophomores with short attention spans and the feeling of a hostage situation = nothing really productive. So we pretty much spend the first year doing what they told us (and, really, all I can remember is bell ringing and helping out at the special olympics). Then the second year came, and OH NO. The president, treasurer, vice president, and secretary were NO MORE. Because they were gone. Because they GRADUATED. (Just like I'll be doing in a mere 84 days.) So we had NO ONE except ourselves, really, and were left to RUN A CLUB.

Miraculously, we did not blow up the school. Pretty much, we rang bells at Christmas time to raise money again. Cleaned the city. Cleaned the Kiwanis Camp. Normal Key Club stuff. To be honest, I think what we talked about the most was OMG!DCON, which was the annual Key Club convention where all the Key Clubbers go and party for a weekend in a hotel.

Oh yeah.

So I'm in Key Club, which means that the first half of my day four of BEDA was spent helping out in my school's gym at an Autism Walk where we raised money for... autism. I worked the game booth with some friends, and they had the COOLEST and MOST RANDOM prizes ever.

Squirt guns. Yes. Those Chinese fans. Yes. Random bear key chains. Yes. Vibrating gorilla key chain. Yes. Dinosaur head on a stick with a button that makes it's jaw move so it can go OM NOM. Yes.

From nine in the morning until about eleven thirty, I wore an extremely bright green shirt, played with squirt guns, and helped manage the ring toss table. Thus, volunteer Part 1.

.5 My mom is a member of the Elk's Club, so I'm commonly kidnapped and forced to help out there, too, when needed. Which isn't that often, and they need me. So it's a... willing kidnapping, if you will. Today was an Easter party for little kids so that they could get these cool Easter baskets and go on an egg hunt and everything, and I assumed my help would be needed.

I went there, but my help wasn't exactly needed. I count this as a point five, because I could have just as easily gone to get ice cream after The Walk.

I don't know if it should count as a .5, because I sat there with my mom the whole time, occasionally chasing my rampaging and disaster-causing sister, being the most cliche teenager ever, texting a couple friends and reading. In order to not completely fill the stereotype, I refrained from pulling out my mp3 player.

Tonight is the night I'm passing out programs/being Usher at my school's musical, The Wiz, which could possibly replace my .5 that may or may not count. I'm excited. We've got these awesome shirts, and even though mine's much too big, I'm in love with it. It's extremely comfortable. I want to keep it away from all of my other shirts in fear that they'll get jealous and starch it or something, which would be VERY BAD.

You want to know another thing that's VERY BAD?

Today's random informational About Me question.

What's the worst injury you've every had?
Assuming that head injuries beat out stitches, I'm going to have to go with the time I got the "mild concussion" snowboarding, which is going to make me sound quite pathetic. Maybe later I'll do a "What's the second worst injury you've ever had?" BEDA, just for kicks and giggles, though it involved no kicking OR giggling.

I think it was two years ago, I absolutely begged my dad for a snowboard because "everybody is snowboarding" (yes, I was one of those kids) and "this will pay for itself" so it wouldn't make sense for me "to rent one, because I'm going to be going so often!"

Right.

My dad, being all sport-loving and athletic was thrilled that I wanted to do something that involved movement outside of my house. (AKA, not sitting inside reading/watching movies/etc). So what did he do? He BOUGHT ME A SNOWBOARD.

Oh, boy, it was pretty and shiny, and I didn't want to get it dirty by actually using it. However, that's what a snowboard was for. It was staring at me in my room going "Usseeee meeeeeee." I've learned not to ignore the random seemingly inanimate objects that demand things of me.

I used it once. That was fun! It was powder, fluffy, and safe. My friend Monica taught me how to stop. We didn't leave the Bunny Hill.

In fact, I never left the Bunny Hill. Yes, you're right, I got my concussion ON THE BUNNY HILL. For the record, it was extremely cold, therefore extremely icy that day, and not the most ideal snowboarding conditions. I just remember going, going, going, pretty much bombing the hill, hitting ice, trying to stop, turning COMPLETELY AROUND, losing balance, and falling. On my head. On the ice. That isn't powder, and has no resemblance of physical characteristics that could compare it to powder.

The result: my very first concussion.

It freaked me out. It hurt, but I thought it was just another head bang, so we went into the lodge, I took Advil, and we sat in there for a couple hours. Which, incidentally, was enough time for the Advil to wear off. Shannon and I went back up the ski lift, back to the bunny hill to go down some more. I got off easily (that was my favorite part), and started to go down the hill.

And then everything had started to spin.

I had fallen, and Shannon stopped a little way down from me. So I sat up, looked at her, and said, "Hey, Shannon. When you lie down and then sit back up, does the sky spin?"

Being Shannon, and my good friend, she hopped over (or whatever, she got near me), lied down, and then sat up really fast. "No."

I blinked. "Oh, crap."

Deciding that the SAFEST way to fix this, I took my snowboard off, and WALKED DOWN THE BUNNY HILL, which is apparently something extremely embarrassing, but at that point, I didn't care one bit. This little kid slid up next to me and was like, "Why are you walking? You're supposed to SNOWBOARD, hence being on the hill. Could you not make it down? Do you suck that much?"

He might not have actually said hence, but seeing as I was in the middle of MY FIRST CONCUSSION, I think I should get a free card.

I blinked at him. I was already dizzy and absolutely DID NOT NEED this little ten year old telling me that I sucked. I knew I did, clearly, or I wouldn't have gotten the concussion on the Bunny Hill in the first place. But I didn't need HIM telling me that.

"I hit my head," I said bluntly and made to make my way completely down the hill.

"How?"

Really? Did he REALLY just ask that?

"Snowboarding." I was in no mood to be sarcastic or witty. Though I wish I was. Or that I could have, I don't know, strapped him on the ski lift for all eternity.

He looked at me like I was completely INSANE and walked away, so I made my way down the hill, called my mom, and sat at the bottom while my friends finished up. Then Shannon fell out of her snowboard, and it came down close to me, my mom came, we went to the emergency room (because I'm a wuss), I was diagnosed with a "mild concussion," and I went home to sleep.

Though I must say, the time spent at the hospital for a head injury was much less than the time spent for stitches.

That was my worst injury, and an extremely long story. Sorry. :p

Now I've got to get ready for The Wiz.

Slaters, BEDA-doers.