People Not To Be Like: Anakin Skywalker

Anyone familiar with Star Wars knows the story of Anakin Skywalker. Talented jedi in training, he marries Padme and then turns to the dark side becoming Darth Vader.
For obvious reasons, you don't want to be Darth Vader. But what about Annie? Why don't you want to be like him?
Allow me to illustrate.

My mother, sister, and I have an inside joke that I actually helped create. It goes something along the lines of this:
Me: But I want a giiiiirlfriend!
Mom: You can't have a giiiirlfriend!
Me: then I want a seeeeeeeeeeecret girlfriend!
Mom: you can't have a seeeecret girlfriend!
Me: then I'll have a wife!
Mom: You can't have a wife!
Me: then I'll have a seeeeeeeeecret wife!

If you notice- that's whining. Why? Because Anakin whines. Actually, Annie whines a lot. It's easy to see where Luke gets it, if you listen to Anakin.
And, unlike Luke, Anakin never stops whining.

He also seems pretty abusive, if you think about it. I went to a lecture for Girl Scouts once, for A Safe Place, which is a home for abused women who need someplace safe to go when recovering (or escaping) an abusive relationship. During this lecture, she talked about the different types of abuse in relationships. You know what?
Anakin fits in two of them.

So, he might be the main character in Star Wars. He might even be really epic in parts. He might end up being the most epic bad guy ever. He might have the most quoteable lines in the entire series of movies.
But:
Do not be like Anakin.

Because he is whiny and annoying and abusive. And just in general not a good guy.

(I'm not a fan, can you tell...?)

New New New New ...ness?

My mother is always cooing over new parents, saying that they're so cute... and clueless. While I can't quite empathize with her (and can't seem to write a good intro to this post), I can empathize with thinking that new = cute.
No, really.

Newbies are, by definition, cute. I see them on websites all the time. No clue what to post, or where to post, and putting things in the wrong sections, and writing in BIG BOLD COLORED LETTERS  that are in colors you can't even read because they clash with the background and using text speech and friending everyone that says hi to them, and just in general making so many mistakes and just not realizing it because they're newbies.
Disclaimer: I have been a newbie. I have made these mistakes. I utterly regret them.
But sometimes being a newbie to a particular group is especially amusing.
Let's take a look at some of the most oblivious, clueless, and undeniably cute newbies that I run into.

The New Author
You see them all the time. The cocky teenager who thinks they know exactly what they're doing. The grownup with too much time on their hands. Mostly it's the teenagers who amuse me, however. (yes. I like to make fun of teens. It's a hobby.) Here are some rules as to how to spot the New Author in teenage form.

1. An obsession with their characters.  I mean a real obsession. More than a simple, "Hey, Jackie, go away so I can finish my homework" or "Gavin, get the heck away from that cat!" or even just seeing them wandering around their house. I mean, more than having most of their text conversations morph into character lounges. New authors truly are obsessed with their characters. They will text someone simply so that their characters will talk. They'll be surprised when a character informs them about something that happened in their pasts. They'll greet random drop-in characters in books with surprise, wonder, and utter baby-ing.

2. A disregard for planning.  New authors have no experience. Therefore, they do not seem to comprehend the amazingness that is called a "plot". They claim that they're most original when they don't have an outline to stick to, and they claim that plots are for losers.
Oddly enough, after they write their first free-form novel, they then tend to say something along the lines of, "You know, maybe next time I'll plan. I don't really like how this one rambles around."
Please note that I have nothing against free-form novels. I think they have their place, and I'd actually like to try writing one eventually. I just believe that you need to have some experience before attempting one.


The New Homeschooler
Oh, I guess I'm a bit biased on this one, having been homeschooled my entire life. But even I know how to answer all the questions that a new homeschool parent will come up with... "But how do you find other homeschoolers?" "What about curriculum?" "What if my kids don't listen to me?" blah blah blah. (For the record: There are a ton of homeschooling groups out there. Some are religious, some are not. There are a number of ways that you can find these groups, I suggest searching the internet. Another good way to find homeschoolers is to go to the library on a school day. Find a couple of kids that look like siblings and chances are you've found a homeschool family., We personally pick and choose what books we learn from, but there are many boxed sets that you can choose from., Well, that'll happen, but generally they'll more or less do what you say.)
I'm not even going to make some rules for finding New Homeschoolers, because you generally find them wherever there happens to be a group of already homeschoolers.

The New Blogger
Again, I'm biased. I've been writing on this blog for four years, and I've definitely been a new blogger myself. (Some of my old posts? Awful!) but now that I've gotten a bit more experienced, I can poke fun at other bloggers without risking someone calling me a hypocrite. (Maybe.)
Here are some ways to find the New Blogger:

1. Posts apologizing for not posting.  I don't even mean the occasional "sorry I didn't post, I was on vacation" or "I'm going away for a while". I mean that every single one of their posts will be an apology for not posting. I went through this stage: it's nothing to be sorry about. It's just stinkin' cute is all.

2. Big, bold, colored letters.  Just like forum newbies, this generally shows that they're a rather inexperienced blogger. (except in my case... I used the colored letters about a year into my blogging, which means that I have no excuse whatsoever. Shun me.)

3. Annoying self-advertising.  This is different than shameless self advertising. Why? Because with shameless self advertising, you generally know what you're doing is pretty dumb. If you see someone shamelessly self advertising online, they'll say something along the lines of: "Go read my blog! (insert blog address here). Shameless self advertising FTW!". Someone who is annoyingly self-advertising will not apologize for what they're doing, but will instead think that they're being sophisticated. This will include pestering you every time they see you to go and follow their blog.

4. Asking you to follow their blog.  No self respecting blogger will ever ask you to follow. They will ask you to read, but never to follow. That's just harrassing you. (Besides. We all know that followers don't always read the blogs they follow.)


Of course, now I find myself needing to apologize to anyone I may have offended. Not because I actually mean it, but because it's the nice thing to do and it keeps y'all reading my blog . So, I'm sorry if this offended anyone. I try not to be too offensive. :)

To make my apology sound genuine, let me add:
I myself am a newbie in so many ways. I am a newbie speaking Japanese. I am a newbie on many websites. I'm a newbie at putting on makeup. I am a newbie when it comes to dying hair. I'm a newbie in so many ways it's not even funny.
Which is why I try to poke fun at the things I'm not a newbie in as much as possible. ;)

So, I shall leave you by asking... (Because you as a blogger know that asking a question is the best way to get a comment... *hint hint*[shameless asking for comments FTW]) what are you not a newbie in? And how do you tell the newbies from the oldies? And what about the ancients?
Heck..
What about Naomi?!

That's a joke from Love Of Chair which is a small part of an old program made in I think the 70's called The Electric Company which was made to teach kids to read. Yes, we have the boxed set. And, yes, I still watch it. :D

The Problem With NaNoWriMo no. 1

The first problem I have with NaNoWriMo actually only comes into my mind about a month later when I finally get around to trying to write some more on the novel. This problem?
The fact that my book sucks.
In fact, the problem is that since I give myself the ability to write badly in November, I do write badly. Which is the point of a rough draft, of course. But then when I come back to my book in December, I'm suddenly struck with how completely unrealistic and horrible my book is.
Urgh.

Be Warned

Food. Is. Amazing.
No, really. If it were not amazing, I would not be opening up my post with this. As you can tell, my posting ability has gone down the drain, if I'm just posting about food. My brain has been all over the place (eeewwww) recently, so my one-theme posts tend to be either pathetic, or half-finished in my drafts folder. Sorry. I had some really good ones.
And yet I keep getting comments on my random posts, and not so much on my not random ones... Hmmmm...

But, anyway, back to the subject. Food. It is delicious. It keeps us living. How weird is that, anyway? We put strange substances, such as cheese, into our bodies, and we continue to live. It's a bizzare concept, if you really think about it. About how our bodies are actually really like machines. We don't control any of it. We really can't control whether we're breathing or not breathing or whether our hearts are beating or how fast, or how we're digesting stuff, or anything. Our bodies just do these things.
Bizzare, huh?

Another strange thing to think about is sleep. Every night/day there are (if you're getting enough sleep) about 7-10 hours of your life that you probably won't remember. That's 7-10 hours of your life that you are more or less unaware of. And yet while you're asleep, you're aware of what's going on. Your dreams. Who knows what deams you don't remember!
Or, think about it. You don't remember anything. For all you know, you could be going through extreme pain while sleeping, and you wouldn't remember it. You could be transported to another world and come back and you wouldn't remember it (actually a story idea I have). It creeps me out! But in a good way. :)

Words also don't make a lot of sense. Writing this, you probably know exactly what I'm saying. If I say "a bear with balloons" you probably get the mental image of a large, fuzzy, mammal with four legs, holding a couple of helium-filled balloons tied to ribbons. You probably don't get the image of a small electronic device being pelted by tiny rocks by an army of mechanical pencils. (You might be, though. I wouldn't know.) Words don't make a lot of sense. Why are things named what they are? Why is "blue" called "blue" and not "jigoff"?
I don't understand how this communication thing works so well.

Or colors. For all I know, what I consider blue, versus what you consider blue, could be completely different. Your blue could be my orange, your yellow could be my chartreuse! You never know! It's so creepy thinking about this sort of stuff.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to a sort of revelation that I had no clue I'd come to when writing this post which I honestly did think was going to be on that amazing, fantastic substance called food which I am now desiring having not eaten a large breakfast this morning:
We are completely different people.
No, really! We are not only individuals, but we are pretty much completely seperate little units. Think about it. Our minds are like those hamster balls that they run around in. We can bump into each other, and we all somewhat resemble each other, but we're all seperate, all sort of isolated from each other. And we can never get into someone else's thoughts.
O_o
...
...

And that's why I should never start out a post without knowing where I'm going to be ending...


Anway, I'm going to go eat food.
(food. is. amazing.)
Have a (insert holiday greeting here)!

~Angela

Ramblings

I don't usually wear a lot of makeup. In fact, my so called "beauty routine", makeup wise, usually consists of these steps:
1. put hydrocortisone cream on eczema on face
2. put on facial sunscreen/lotion on face
3. put on foundation
4. possibly apply eyeliner
5. wear lipbalm

Ta da. Mostly I wear most of that stuff because of the eczema. If I don't, my face all looks all flakey and icky and crap.
We don't want that. :)

Last night, however, I went to my friend Catt's birthday party. And, with the exception of the random intimate touching and awkward talking, it seemed a lot like Valerie's slumber parties. For example: we played Truth or Dare. We did makeup. We sung karoke.
Did I mention the makeup?

It was actually pretty cool. We all got paired off and had to do each other's make up. Of course, I have zero confidence in my own makeup skills (you saw my "beauty routine"... That's not a lot of makeup!) so I didn't want to put any on anyone. My friend Nina, fortunately, didn't want to wear makeup (but wanted to put it on someone), so we got paired off.
Heh.
Heh.
Heh.
Life lesson number 5826784: Never let Nina near a jar of facial glitter.

CAUSE THE PARTY DON'T START UNTIL I WALK IN!
I present...
Myself.

See? Glitter! And you don't even see how sparkly my face/covered with makeup my face is, in these pictures. Mostly because I took 'em with my phone, which has a... well, a phone camera. Which isn't the best for taking pictures with.
XD

So, I'm recovering today from the party. Which will be fun. I've already taken a super long shower, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth (and retainer) got dressed in nice clean clothes, washed off most of the makeup (some of the glitter won't leave my bottom eyelashes... T_T) and I am eating breakfast.

Breakfast for Angela today:
A cup of peach yogurt mixed with 3/4 an apple cut up, one banana cut up.
One M&M cookie.
Possibly a cup of water.
:D


Here's another thought on my brain:
the stereotype "emo".
Let's think about this for a while.

Emo is short for "emotional", and was originally meant to mean someone who is overly emotional, especially one who has a problem with self-injuring.
Now, let's look at what it means nowadays:

That is what "emo" means now. It means... Someone with some epic piercings and amazing hairstyle. Who happens to wear a lot of black and punk-ish clothing.
Does this girl look like she hurts herself?
I don't think so.
And, even if she does, do you know how seriously someone would take her if she says "I'm emo" meaning "I cut myself"?
Not seriously at all.
In fact, they'd probably just laugh.
Because "emo" is a stereotype which has come to mean this bit of style and stuff.
Which is why I am anti "emo". Because the "emo" kids who actually do hurt themselves need attention and they need care. They don't need to be laughed at. Because the name "emo" is thrown about for everything. I can't count how many times I was called emo last year.
Introverts?
Emo.
Quiet people?
Emo.
People you're annoyed at?
Emo.
Someone sitting in a corner?
Emo.

Heck, THIS is considered "emo"!

Okay.
I just don't understand it.
And, I could rant about this for another ten pages, but I'm not going to. Because I'm sure it's boring y'all to death. XD

By the way, this yogurt is really good.
XD


I know I said earlier that the sleepover I went on had random intimate touching. Which is starting to venture into the reasons I love my teen group/homeschool friends so much.
Why?
Because no other people on the face of the earth could say "Course there's a f***ing camera! B****es!" and not offend me. No other group of people could come up to me and random start petting my hair without having me freak out and hit them. No one else could sing this song (strong language, be warned) in quite as epic of a way during karoke. I mean... The entire time, I think I was basically snuggling with someone.
(Sounds far creepier than it actually is, I must say.)
Yeah.
Kind of awkward/strange, but epic people.
XD

By the way, may I mention that, during Truth or Dare last night, Lizzy got dared to name one good thing and one bad thing about everyone playing?
And that she couldn't think of a single bad thing about me?
Oh yeah.
I'm just that epic.


M&M cookies are amazing, guys. Just throwing that out there.


Oh!
I want to have a shoutout to my friend Molihua.
She is amazing, and we love her. She's always there when anyone needs her. She always asks us if we need to talk, even when she doesn't have a lot of time. She always wonders how we're doing, and she always posts these really inspiring, kind comments. She's one of the most selfless, amazing people I know, online and in real life.
We love you, Molli!
*huggles*

I'm going to leave off now, because I have a feeling that y'all are getting bored of me.
As a last picture...

People Not To Be Like: Mrs. Defarge

Because it's totally right when you kill an innocent man and his wife and child, all because that man happens to be the son of the man whose brother raped your sister.
That makes sense, sure.

Revenge in general is not a pleasant thing. When it is carried out to such extremes as Mrs. Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities carries it out, not only is it unpleasant; it is destructive, horrible, unfair, more wrong than usual, and the sort of thing that makes everyone hate you.

Besides that, one of the qualities of Defarge in this book is the quality of not stopping. That is to say- she no longer sees any difference between people. There is no difference between the prisoner and the free man; captured, free; guilty, innocent.
That is why you shouldn't be like Defarge.
(does this post make any sense so far?)

Defarge had a horrible back story. I will admit. It sounds traumatizing and horrible and scarring for life. However, I do not believe that her backstory gives her the right to accuse and bring to death the innocent characters in A Tale of Two Cities.
As dramatic as that sounds...
It's altogether possible in today's day and age. Think about it. Someone does something wrong to you. Let's say it's a parent of someone you know. Because you can't take revenge on this parent, you decide to be cruel and bully-ish to her children.
Do they deserve this?
No.
Although you aren't accusing them of treason and having them executed in a literal sense, think about what you're doing to their brains. You're basically making their life a living hell.
Why?
Because you happen to be mad at their mom.

Or, to set another example...
Let's say you hate a couple of people your own age. And you try to take revenge on them. However, there is also someone else (who you'd ordinarily not mind at all) who is friends with these people. So, you begin to shun her and purposely not invite her to things (and then say "shhh... don't tell her about the party!" knowing it'll get out).
Does she deserve it?
Heck no!
All that's happening here (and with Defarge) is that she's taking all her anger and everything... And transferring it onto someone else. She's taking all the things that she'd like to do to the original person (Darnay's dad and uncle) and transferring it onto innocent people who are vaguely connected to them (Darnay, Lucie, little Lucie). Why? Because she happens to be mad.

So, I'm sort of begging you, in a round about way... Do not be like Defarge. Be kind. Forgive the people. Try to ignore the people who tick you off. And... Whatever you do... Do not try to take revenge. Because revenge is destructive (as illustrated by Defarge dying) and it will make people hate you.

Have a nice day!
<3

Style

One of the most fascinating things about today is the different clothing styles that I see. There's the girly style. There's the "fashionable" style. There's the sweat pants and hoodies style. There's the punk style. The "I just threw on whatever I found on my floor" style. There's the emo style. There's the "nerd"y style. There's the "normal/boring" style. There's the outdoorsy sort of style. There's the jock style. There's the dressy style. There's the "I don't even know why the heck you thought that was a good idea" style. There's the costume style, like Veela. There's a bazillion different styles.

Which is why I think it's dumb that people say you have to be fashionable. Or say you should follow the trends. Or say that something happens to be trendy. Because EVERYTHING is, at one point or another, in some sect or sub group or another, trendy.

Personally, I don't usually fit in any of the style groups, all the time. I know people who do. I know people who always dress goth. Or always dress costumey. Or always dress... insert style here.
I don't usually, though. Unless "refashioned and restyled and re-done" is a style. Because I do that quite frequently. Altered t-shirts... Altered pants.... Purses made of old jeans.... Homemade jewelry.... Hair stuff made out of random stuff I find lying around... painted shoes...
Yeah.
I guess I do have a style. ;)

Anyway, the reason I put this up here is just to remind everyone (I seem to be reminding people a lot of different stuff) that it's okay to have your own fashion sense. Or, on the other hand, it's okay if other people have their own. You see someone walking and you feel like you want to throw up at what they're wearing? You know what... That's just what they think looks cool.
Or it could be like me on days where I haven't done laundry forever and literally all I have to wear is a pair of jeans that are too short and a strangely fitting shirt that I never wear because it fits strangely. You know, it could just be laziness. XD


On a related note... Possibly after Monday (because Saturday-Monday is going to be insanely busy for me) I'll maybe write up a tutorial for my not-so-original bracelets.
Pictures:

So, I might possibly have a tutorial for thsoe up soon. :)

Decorating the Tree and Somesuch

Yesterday we put up our tree. Today we finally got around to decorating it. Of course, it looks pretty much the same way it does every year, only with possibly more ornaments. I think we must have something like six boxes of ornaments, not including the lights, beads, and the star.
Our tree has bling.

Anyway, I wanted to say Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate Christmas, and happy holidays to those of you who don't. And "bah, humbug" to you party poopers who don't celebrate nothin' but instead hang out at your house all season ignoring the cards people send you.
:)
I don't actually have a picture to put in this post (the horror) but I found my Santa hat, so I'll be wearing that pretty much everywhere until... March? And I have my Christmas light earrings, so those are going to be worn an awful lot too.

Anyway, one thing I encourage everyone here to think about is how you're acting around Christmas. I don't want to sound all preachy, but I can tell you... It really doesn't mean anything when you give someone a present, or say happy holidays, if you don't actually care.
So, I encourage you to think about... How you're acting. How you're treating everyone. If you're being a kind person. If you're being a person your friends think they can talk to if they need to. If you're thinking about others. It really does feel good when you know someone who finally comes to you and talks to you about stuff because they know that you won't yell at them or anything- and that's speaking from personal experience.

Love everyone.
All the time.


Happy Holidays!

~Angela
(totally rockin' the santa hat, by the way.)

Math Problem

Hey, guys! I apologize for not keeping up with my overly prolific post-every-day posting schedule. Procrastination, homework, and people suddenly realizing that I'm awesome and they want to spend time with me has been taking up all my time.
Let me illustrate this last point really fast.
This was my weekend:
Friday = Teach piano. School. Procrastinate. Go to Elena's Christmas party.
Saturday = Religious Ed training, Yule Ball.
Sunday = church, homework, procrastinating, go to movie with Vivian.

Nothing today, though. Thankfully.

Anyway, here is the math thing that I came up with at the Yule Ball. Because I'm an awesome math geek and I have mad skillz. In fact, I'm so awesome, I put a "z" on the end of "skills". Oh yeah.

If
Teenager = Awkward
and
Homeschooler = Dork
and everyone at my teen group is geeky, then what are the people at my teen group?

teenager + homeschooler + geeky = teen group people
awkward + dork + geeky = teen group people
awkward geeky dorks = teen group people

See? It's brilliant! I was so proud of myself. XD

Phocookie

There is, in fact, a reason that I don't often talk on the phone. Actually, there are several reasons. These include the fact that I don't have very many people that I can call on the phone, the fact that my phone is a piece of crap, and the fact that when I do have phone conversations, they tend to last forever.
Forever = teenager speech for "a really long time; several hours".
For example.
Today, I was bored, after church, so I called my friend. And I'm still on the phone with her. According to the timer, it has been 2 hours, 53 minutes, and... 20 seconds. That's a long conversation. One of my previous conversations lasted almost two hours. Another time, my friend Katie and I called each other about every day for three days and the whole total was something about... twelve? Nine or twelve hours. My conversations? Are really long. Which is part of the reason I don't have them very often. The other reason is my phone. Which is currently getting really warm and slightly overheating and which is still on speakerphone because it's a piece of crap that has issues and won't talk to anyone if I don't have it on speakerphone.
T_T

The other part of this title is for "cookies". Why? Because my amazing family members who are actually posessing of cooking talents, have made cookies today.
Yum.

By the way...
Those are my cookies. >:D
You're welcome, Ashlynne. XD

Writing Contest December 2011

Believe it or not, I've actually had a request to create a writing contest. On my blog, so non-OYAN students can participate.
Because you guys are amazing followers and don't usually tell me (or ask me) to do stuff for you, and you just let me ramble along with my nonsensical posts about nothing, I'm being a nice blogger and doing this for you.
You're welcome.

~~~

For this contest, you are going to write three scenes for three categories (one scene for each.). You will then submit them to me (I will have a few other judges, don't worry) and then we will judge them. I will then post the results of the three categories up, with first, second, and third in each one. If you want- even if you didn't get to finalist in any category- you will be able to email me, and I will send you copies of any/all your scenes with the notes from the judges, including myself.

The three categories are:
1. Tragic death of a character.
2. A party.
3. An escape.

Here are the categories in more detail.

Tragic death of a character:
This can be your main character, or not. It can be the MC's best friend, or a random movie star that your character loves. Either way, your goal is to create as much emotion as you can. In other words, you're trying to make us cry our eyes out.

A party:
This sounds really weird, I know. But think about all the different types of parties you could have. You could have a ball in a different world. You could have a party where the MC is a spy. You could have a party in a world where music is illegal. Again- your goal is to create emotion. Is it a happy party? If so, we should be feeling uplifted. A party full of serial killers? We should probably be feeling creeped out. Just make sure that it's PG-13 or less.

An escape:
This is another fun one. What is your MC escaping from? Where are they? How are they escaping? What world are they in? Is there magic? Are they alone? Or are they with a group of people? Is it a sneaky escape through a window, or are your characters running through a field away from the soldiers with guns? Again- emotion.


Here are the rules.

1. Scenes must be between 500 and 1500 words long. No longer, or we won't have time to read them. No shorter and I'm afraid they probably won't be very good.

2. Everything MUST be sent to me by December 20th. This gives you at least 19 days to write your scenes, and gives the judges enough time to read/critique them and still get everything out by mid January.

3. When emailing me the scenes, please put "WRITING CONTEST" in the subject line. That way I don't just delete it. ;)

4. Format your writing in Courier New, sized at 12, double spaced.

5. You will retain all rights to your writing.

6. No plagarism.

7. Please provide the name you want us to use when putting up the names of who won. For example, I might say that I want to be called "Chanterelle" instead of "Angela" or vice versa.

8. Scenes must be G, PG, or PG-13. Nothing rated above that; partly because I don't like reading that sort of stuff, and partly because I think it takes away from the scenes.


The fun stuff is a prize, I know, and I'll (hopefully) have a grab button for your blog if you get into the top three, depending on which category you get into. :)

Have fun... And if I remember anymore rules, I'll make sure to put 'em up. XD