She Came from Planet Z

half sunny half rainy

Well, the ups and downs of our remaining two or three weeks of school continue.  I, for some reason, seem to be the only girl capable of producing a glistening layer of sweat on every surface of my body after P.E.  Well, this is after real football on real fields in real humidity.  Oh, the horrors!  Poor, poor us.

Everyone is grouchy at the end of the day.  Linnie comes up and bluntly says, "Why do you sweat SO MUCH?!  You look like a GUY!  And why do you look like that?  Your face is all weird!"  We find her bluntness a breath of fresh air.  Sometimes. 

I had to color this one today as I found it appropriate.  This is one of my main fixations at the end of the day, after waiting those extra minutes in the girl's locker room, waiting for the end-of-school bell to ring.  All of us, sweaty and desperately crowding around the mirrors trying to fix this and that.  I wonder, what does the mirror see?  Well... what we see, I guess.

I took the algebra HSA today.  It was my first really long test.  It was very easy, I am glad to report, but also very long.  We all looked, just as our teacher had predicted, like we had been run over by a train. 

Other strange moments of the day: the weather is just as wonky as us kids.  I looked outside and found it to be sunny and dry on one side, and pouring on the other.  That's just annoying. 

So good news and bad news ahead.  And of the present, I guess.  I can run precisely 3.68 miles!  BUT, finals are coming.  I am not getting worked up about them.  No I am not.  Just wait until next week...  BUT right after finals comes THE END OF THE YEAR!!!

An

Good An came and let me draw her.  I can't get enough of drawing people.  If they don't mind sitting for half an hour and not moving, I'll draw anyone.  Now I just have to teach myself to stand drawing objects. 

An also drew a little cartoon of me!  It's very good.

And just like that, the rain stopped.

Heh heh.  Isn't it funny?  How, like, you can have a bad day?  And then, like, have a good day?

And all because you somehow feel better, not because the actual day was any different.  But y'know what feels good?  Feeling good after a day of feeling bad.  Yes I do think so.

I'm making friendship bracelets like crazy.  If you double up the strings, they go really fast.  They are gifts for my wee second-cousins that we see every memorial day.  For two years now I have promised them friendship bracelets, as they always see mine and want some. 

So, uh, be calm and happy everyone! 

I sold my soul to school

Guess what?  School sucks.  I know I'm not starting out happily.  But today, I wrote down "ZOE'S SOUL" on a sheet of notebook paper and gave it to O as a joke, because she believed you actually could place a soul on a sheet of paper. 

I'm not saying that giving my soul to someone would ruin a day, but I literally felt like Bart Simpson in that old episode where he sold his soul.  Crazed and anxious and evil and desperate all at the same time.  I just want to eat that notebook paper up like he did and feel that warm feeling of goodness as the paper settles in my stomach.

Also, to make matters worse, we played dodge ball in P.E. today.

Dodge ball.

Are they trying to KILL us?

P.E. is my 7th period, so I walked home with a sore chest (target spot for the mega-throwers) and low spirits with a Spanish presentation, exams, and a lost soul on the horizon.  (LOST SOUL -sob- !!!) 

Yes, I DO intend on eating more than my fair share of chocolate chips today. 

happy mother's day!

Here is my happy momma.  She requested oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a clean table.  So that's what I did, and dad gave her a lovely extendable back scratcher. 

Thanks a billion mom!  We love your happy spirit and great food and amazing knitting creations! 

I also love moments like these.  I am scared of going on a field trip to King's Dominion with all my friends at the end of the year, but I have a lovely time just sitting here at the table with my mom.

metaphorical organs

Such a metaphorical picture!  Never did I think that the junk I got from the science fair and school pictures would be good for symbolizing, I assume, the insecurities within ourselves.  As you can see, the top part of the picture represents our fractured and un-healthy insecurities of our body parts at adolescence, and how they add to our identity (as you can see, the crunch wrapper, the little organ images that are cut in half, the sketchy handwriting).  On the bottom part of the page is the false image we strive to be.  A perfect self-portrait, with all of our inside and outside arranged perfectly.

why sometimes it's just better to draw

Today was a significant day, because we had our first field trip since 6th grade.  We went to Gettysburg.  And this is my sketch of our tour guide.  This is why I bring a sketchbook instead of a camera, because I could not have photographed this.

book stories (not stories in books)

Well, I've been reading my way throughout the last few weeks of 8th grade.  As of right now, there are about 4 more weeks left.  In those four weeks, we must endure a week of final exams, scramble to conclude all units, prepare and live through two field trips and a dance (8th graders only), and makes sure everyone signs our yearbook. 

So this is what I've just finished (yes, finished.  Suprising, right?):

Perhaps you recognize the name "John Green"?  Perhaps you don't?  Apparently, he's MEGA famous right now for his writing.  I have a theory it's all because he has a YouTube.  BUT, Looking For Alaska was an amazing book all the same, and great for a teenager who processes life and death and the meaning of it all too much.

So, I guess the only reason I put a picture of the book up there or even mentioned it was purely because I just wanted to brag about how I can finish a book.  I really should give you all a rambling paragraph about the actual plot, but I am far too lazy today.  Instead, I'll just tell you how I got it!

It was late in the evening, after I had just attended a Take-Your-Friend-To-Chorus day (don't ask), and we had decided to go into Politics and Prose, the book store I had yearned to go in but never spent long enough in D.C. for.  I made a bee-line for the hairy hippy guy sitting in a very tiny chair in the center of the youth section. 

me: Uh... can you give me some advice?

hippy guy: (stares for a moment, pleading to god that I don't ask something creepy) Uh... yeah?

me: Do you have any good realistic fiction books that don't have anything to do with fantasy, sci-fi, or girls owning cupcake shops in New York?

hippy guy: (great sigh of relief) Yes!  Yes we do!  Here, let me get you some.

And with that, he immediately began, like the expert that he was, plucking book after book off the vast shelves of colorful teen literature.  He gave me seven to choose from.  I was most certainly not, at 9 o'clock at night, going home empty-handed.  So I came home, after my first spontaneous book-buy, with two John Green books (hippy guy said even he had raved about them).  I'm planning on starting the second one today.

super de duper

Super 8!  I saw that movie last summer... or was it a few summers ago?  For some reason the name has stuck with me... it's awesome.  I'd love it as a nickname.  I also love the characters in the movie.  (click to enlarge)

I found the image to copy off of on google images.  I liked how the kids were placed... and their expressions.  And also how all the colors go nicely together.

I have had a lot of self-help thoughts and thankfulness and such.  It was partly the article I saw in a nutrition thing about how sweets literally contain addictive chemicals, but it was also this book.  That's right!  Book talk!  Get reeaaaadddyyy!

This is a diary of a spunky (and maybe a little crazy?  You'll think that at first... ) teacher about her first year of teaching - in an inner-city Chicago school.  All of the kids are poor as dirt and come from troubled families.  They have a very hard time in school and life in general, with such a scary home life to come home to.  By the time I finished, I felt SO grateful to have such a healthy life.  And, maybe it was because it was late at night, promissed whoever gave me such a great life (yes, superhero cat, I'm talking to you) that I would do my best to be enthusiastic and hard-working at school, because I had it so good there. 

After that I read an article about addictive sweets.  How they contain addictive chemicals.  That make you CRAVE sweets.  So so so true.  I thought, so all it takes is mind power, eh?  Can I have a life with a couple chocolate chip handfuls less?  Come to think of it, I may be ahead of myself here.  I may be a little crazy.  I just seriously want to feel good about myself.  Because, thought this isn't true, I feel fat a lot of the time.

happy Earth Day everybody!

It's a rainy, april day.  A smoky smell hangs in the air, and along with the smell of rain, and the oatmeal raisin cookies mum baked (note: it is very rare to have spontaneously-made cookies in the house), it is heaven.

Oh, how nice it would be to make an entire graphic novel colored this way.  Oh, how nice it would be to actually have a plot for a graphic novel. 

Yesterday, it was sunny.  Also heavenly.  And strangely summer-like.  I fear the great heat that may attack us when it's actually summer.  Anyway, I felt like being someone else for a few minutes and raided mom's closet. 

Ha-ha-ha-ha HA.  Oh so sweet and innocent.  This was the best shot mom got after my attempts to spin and look girly and young and weightless.  Which is a fun feeling, if you can accomplish it.  In real life I'd be sweating in the buttoned-all-the-way-to-the-top shirt and would have already taken off the skirt out of annoyance. 

No, I have NO idea what I'm doing fashion-wise.  But hey, if you have a blog, and use it to put of pictures of yourself wearing clothes, then you are officially an online genius, right?  I most certainly think so.