soil, soil – tegan and sara.

I drew a koi today.

I’d say it was a good day.

Tags: artwork, charcoal, drawing, koi

possibility – lykke li.

I wish lemonade in Hello Kitty kids’ glasses could cure everyone’s problems. Like when you’re five and it actually can. When it goes down your throat like a cold compress on a feverish forehead, soothing your every worry and fear and hurt.

Nathan is perpetually in and out of relationships that hurt him and the other person because he uses them to not deal with the problems within them he’s faced in the past. The fact that he is stopping it after two weeks with me can mean one of two things:
1) He’s finally found something that’s actually valuable enough to him to make him deal with everything so that he can be happy with that person.
OR,
2) He’s just sick of being kind of a pussy about his problems.

I’m personally hoping it’s number one, myself.

society suckers – walter schreifels.

Well friends, there’s a lot of extra Twilight-mania bursting on to the stage with the approaching Eclipse movie premiere. As the third installment of the four-part series, Eclipse picks up (if my memory serves me right) a few weeks after New Moon leaves off: Edward is back, Bella is grounded because Jacob exposed her motorcycle rendezvous, Jacob is obsessed with Bella but hates Edward too much to be her friend anymore. The evil Victoria is on the hunt for Bella and the Volturi clan are coming back at any given moment while Bella’s vampire coven and teenage werewolf pack families begin clashing violently. What’s a girl in love supposed to do?

Now, there is– on the surface– nothing wrong with the Twilight books. There’s a teenage girl caught up in mythical battles while being hopelessly selfish and whiny. Nothing wrong with that, and it was rather original until the first movie premiere, albeit at a fourth-grade reading level. But as you get deeper in to the Twilight saga, you begin to notice some problems, such as the ones listed below.
1) The relationship between Edward and Bella is emotionally abusive.
2)  Bella has absolutely no redeeming qualities to make her a lovable character.
3) The story line gets more and more unbelievable as the series goes on.
4) The end of Breaking Dawn. Enough said.

1) Edward and Bella’s relationship.
Okay. Let’s pretend, for one second, that all these characters are ordinary teenagers. Edward will actually become a legal adult because he is a human and not a Greek god-like creature. Jacob is not a hormonal teenage boy that will turn in to a horse-sized wolf when he gets pissed off and Bella has not, for some ungodly reason, been chosen to be Edward Cullen’s destiny. They are now everyday people, the kids that myself and many people who love Twilight so much socialize with for hours on a daily basis.

Edward is an ordinary teenage boy who is so possessive and insecure that he will not allow his girlfriend to see her best friend, mainly because he is afraid that said girlfriend will leave him for the friend. He also will not leave her side for more than a few minutes or hours each day and bribes his sister with sports cars to keep Bella as a hostage when he has no other way of watching her, because he will not allow socializing between Bella and Jacob to take place.

Anyone else see how this could be unhealthy?

2) Bella’s Character.
Since we’re still playing the Twilight-characters-are-normal-teenagers game, I will admit right now that every teenage girl is selfish, whiny and overall kind of a bitch. We all have a side to us like that, even me. But in every classic piece of literature, even Twilight, all the main characters have something we love about them. Alice’s quirky personality, Charlie’s small-town gentlemanliness, Renee’s childlike charm, Carlisle’s assumption of fatherhood, Edward’s selflessness, Jacob’s brashness. We could name at least one good thing about all the major Twilight characters, even Rosalie, except for the “most important” one– Bella Swan. She is ordinary. She drives the speed limit. She does her homework. She doesn’t get tattoos or body piercings, she doesn’t change her hairstyle, yet she complains about every little thing. She keeps Jacob around so that she remains happy and so that she will always have someone in her life that loves her unconditionally, as she admits in the second installment of the series.  So why exactly is this imaginary world in chaos over this girl that no one would give a passing glance to, or even like for that matter, in real life?

3) Story lines.
Installment one: Bella and Edward meet in the halls of Forks High School and, after Bella’s near-death experience chasing the evil James in Arizona, the two teenagers fall in love. Installment two: Edward decides that either he can do better or Bella just needs some alone time to grow up, so he takes off and leaves Bella to spin in to a depression. Now, I’ve done something like that, and it really sucks. When you have so little of a life that you will even do your calculus homework or sleep early because you’re trying not to think about that special guy who dumped you, yeah, that’s hard. But roughly 300~400, maybe even more, pages of the book is Bella talking about how much her life sucks and how sad she is now that Edward’s gone, as if now she’ll just have to go do dangerous things like ride motorcycles and chill with teenage werewolves and not date ever again because no one else will be good enough. Installment three: Edward spends the whole book trying to talk Bella in to marrying him while the evil Victoria could come and avenge her lover, the evil James (who Edward killed in installment one), by killing Bella. There’s a bunch of fight scenes and gore and you learn what makes Rosalie such a bitch (it’s not her rockin’ body, by the way), but that’s the entire plot of the 500~600 page book. SPOILER ALERT! Installment four: Edward and Bella have a picture-perfect wedding, have violent vampire sex and end up with a half-vampire baby that would have killed Bella if Edward didn’t turn her in to a vampire at the last second. Whew, close one there. Then Jacob imprints on the baby, whose name is a combination between Renee and Esme and ends up nicknamed after a mythical sea creature, and the vampire covens of the world and the evil Italian Volturi come to town to say, hello. And have a vampire-powers battle. The end.

4) Dude. Whatthefuck.
Basically, Meyer has thoroughly dug herself in to a hole by the end of book three by making Bella, a selfish whiny bitch with nothing lovable or even likable about her, perfectly compatible with two completely different mythical creatures, so she gifts Bella a baby with an accelerated growth rate to attempt to satisfy vampire and werewolf fans everywhere.

Really? Rather than tying up the loose ends, you’re just going to appease the masses and not kill off any of the major characters? I had so much more faith in that book.

Thus, I leave you to Eclipse midnight premiere tickets. Happy mass conformity!

Tags: Bella, Eclipse, Edward, Jacob, media, popular culture, Twilight, vampires

american idiot – green day.

I knew the second grades came back for the first semester. AP US History: F. 47.2%, according to the sheet Mr. Richards gave me. Not even close to a passing grade, and now I’d have to make the credit up somehow. I tried not to think about it while I was finishing second semester, but alas. The counselors caught up to me. Bribed me in to going to summer school by knocking $20 off my tuition. My mom accepted it and enrolled me in the American History I class in the Summer Recovery Program. I didn’t think it’d be that bad on the first day. Other than 4.5 hours a day, four days a week, how bad could it possibly be? With that attitude– because I knew, deep down, that I’d hang myself from the shower curtain railing to get out of going if I didn’t– I pulled my hair back, put on shorts and a woven shirt, and went to the junior high.

No one noticed when I slipped in at 7:46, though it starts at 7:45. A sign pointed the summer school kids to the auditorium. The noise hadn’t completely died down yet, so none of the teachers– huddled in to a corner at the back of the room with their heads bent together– noticed the door creak open and me sliding in to the first available seat in the back. That’s when I noticed the… colors of the ethnic rainbow present. I counted heads. Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, black, white kid dressed like a black kid, Mexican, black, black, black, Asian, Mexican, black. Where. Are all the white people? Oh. Found ‘em. A group of goths in the middle. A bunch of them have green hair. Probably hasn’t been washed since school ended three weeks ago. I just remembered that I’m wearing a collared shirt. Also that the back of my ponytail flips out like a prep because the bottom layers are so thin. When did I think dressing like this was a goodidea? Shit. This is like asking to get shanked on my way to the bathroom. Fuckfuckfuck.

A blonde lady walks to the front of the auditorium, but the noise gets louder. She’s smaller than me. The muscles on the black kid in front of me are enormous. So are his tattoos.
Blonde: QUIET!
Juvenile Delinquents:
Blonde: Okay. Welcome to summer school! I’m going to talk to you in detail about our policies first before we group you off for class.
Juvenile Delinquents:
I spaced out for a few minutes. This is NOT regular school, you won’t get away with everything you do at school, only one absence, blah blah.
Blonde: In regards to absences. You can only miss one day of summer school! Any more and we’re dismissing you. That means that whether you’re sick, or you have a court date, or a meeting with your parole officer–
Me:
What the hell?! That shit is normal around here?! I mean, yeah. I was engaged to a guy who had regular meetings with his P.O. for a marijuana possession bust. And also went through all the credit recovery programs at least twice. But I didn’t think you could judge all summer school kids based on that.
Blonde: Okay! Time to go to class.
Me: (gets out a pen.)
Blonde: American History I, you’re with Mr. Hodnik in room 115.
Me: (jots down “115,” bolts to doors.)

I like my class. There are only five of us. One of us isn’t even in American History. He has to make up government. At the end he gets his diploma. He definitely came in stoned, or hungover, or something. He’s blonde with blue eyes though. Seems normal. The others are a pair of Mexicans, one of which dresses like he’s black, bling-bling and all. The other has the tiny little mustache and full sleeve tattoos. He’s a total toothpick, though. A black boy with a shaved head and a neck tattoo, with grimy clothes. One of the goths sits behind me, complete with snake bites and blue hair. Hodnik comes in wearing khakis. His glasses aren’t straight and sit too high on his nose.

Mr. Hodnik: Good morning.
Us:
Mr. Hodnik: I have taught summer school for twenty-five years. I’ve seen it all, guys. Believe me, you are nothing special if you have to schedule meetings with your P.O. around the times you’re in here. Now, you heard her, you only get one absence. And if you’re even a second tardy, don’t think you won’t be giving me that second in detention. You only get three of those before you get kicked out, by the way.
Us:
Mr. Hodnik: Now, we have a treat for you this year: if you have no absences or tardies in the first nine days of summer school, and you have all your work done by 12:15 on Day Nine, you don’t have to come on the tenth day.
Us: !
Mr. Hodnik: Okay. Now I want you guys to take out a piece of paper and write me a few paragraphs about why you’re in here.
Me: (gets out a pen and notebook.)
Mr. Hodnik,
First off, please call me Dani. Absolutely can’t stand my given name, and that’s about all I have to say about that.
I’m in here for a very simple reason. I didn’t fail American History I. I completely bombed AP US History I, known on the Local Community College class listing as “American History: 1492-1877″. I was completely unprepared for the college-level workload; thus, I failed. I don’t want to be here, and I don’t belong here, but I want to graduate and experience more college-level work, which is the academic level I’m currently working at.
It’s only nine days, so let’s get on with it!
I think that seems pretty fair. I don’t want this guy, or anyone else here, knowing anything more about me. I check the clock.
Eight days, 3.75 hours until I get my credit.

Tags: public education, summer school

micro cuts (live from le zenith) – muse.

It’s summer. Sleeping in, procrastinating AP assignments, beading bracelets, swimming pools. Good times to not worry about anything substantial.

Somehow I feel incomplete. I don’t like how Sawyer and I have started playing these mudslinging games. Or how Michael’s not speaking to me when there are “no hard feelings”, he just “can’t guarantee [my] safety” when I’m less than 100 feet from the girlfriend.

And of course the most overcast, cool day of the week is the day Nathan and I decide to go swimming. Damn.

I can’t wait till college. Maybe I should start working on my personal statement for SAIC.

Tags: school holiday, summer

almost lover (remix edit) – a fine frenzy.

I don’t know what happened today. My headvoice said, be brave! but my body said, if you’re “brave” you’re going to die. And then I realized, I’m done with it. Him. Her. Them. He can burn in hell. He can go fuck himself. She hates me, big fucking deal. The lies? The tricks to get me out of my pants? The games you played to keep me around? I’m not dealing with it anymore. Your shit is not my problem.

I’m going to go be happy. So many people have made me believe that’s what they want for me. I should do it now. I’m going to have fun, go with my gut, and do what I want. It’s time I stopped caring so much about how other people are going to react to me. I can’t control them anyway.

Goodbye, my Almost Lover.

Goodbye, my Hopeless Dream.

I’m ready now. I can do it. I can move on. Get back to who I am underneath all this. I know she’s in there; some Danigirl that’s starting to come to be. She likes sunlight and flowers and water and she smiles too much. She’s banging on the door, trying to break the locks off to be happy.

Here we go.

Tags: breakups, moving on, relationships

careful – paramore.

I can articulate the truth like fiction. I have a gift, my English teacher says.

So here’s the truth.

He hugs me when he drops me off now. Freeze. Does this make me uncomfortable?

I’m sorry about how shitty things are in my life right now, I tell him. He calls me “hun” and tells me I don’t have to apologize.

Stop. Does that make me uncomfortable?

What I want to say: no.

What I do say: I don’t know. I just. Don’t know.

I feel guilty about something. It’s manifesting itself in the Michael situation. It’s why I can’t be a normal person and face the girlfriend. Thinking about it terrifies me so much, I look like Charles Logan on 24 when he knew Jack Bauer was coming for him. She hates me. Allegedly. So I guess it’s okay. But I don’t like feeling like that much of a pussy.

Nathan: But don’t apologize to me. You haven’t hurt me in any way

Me: I’m afraid I will.

Bingo.

Tags: high school, relationships

alligator (vhs or beta remix) – tegan and sara.

I thought school was supposed to be a joke after the second week in May. We’ve already done the AP test. Nothing’s more important than the AP test.

I just wrote a detailed analysis of whether or not America has lived up to her initial ideals and a rant about how I view American history. I hate history. I wrote that to us America sucks and to foreigners we rock, in five paragraphs and roughly eight hundred words. I said that every way of viewing America history contradicts itself, so I’ve tried to put the puzzle pieces together as best I can. In about four~five hundred AP words.

What is the education system? Nothing but a factory for politically-correct clones who don’t know how to think because thinking isn’t important. I’d rather be illiterate than a robot, if I had to choose.

So far I’ve gained a stress-related acne cyst, a 2.71 GPA and a headache from high school. If these are the “best years” of my life, I’m just going to kill myself now.

Tags: AP, frustration, high school

someday – tegan and sara.

The year is almost over.

Final exams start Wednesday. That “AP exam” I swore my ninth grade AP English teacher was making up in order to scare me in to doing my work, it came and passed with a major headache. I have passed United States History: 1877-Present, which my sister also took at college this semester. Michael and I are friends again. Sawyer and I broke up. Nathan and I have a good, easygoing connection. Katie might let me kiss her again.

On the dock in Astoria, Oregon, I stood three feet from a seal that weighed at least twice as much as me. In Seaside, I stood knee-deep in the Pacific and experienced the relationship between man and sea for the first time. I walked amongst my kind at the Portland Saturday Market and felt, finally, like I belonged somewhere in the world.

I beat out 91% of all the test-takers in the US on the April ACT– without studying outside of class. At a whopping 2.7, my GPA will get me in to Kansas State; not ideal, but better than Local Community College or University of Kansas. I might have a shot at University of Michigan, if I can get my ACT score up. Some of my better art projects might get me accepted in to the art program. I’ll go to school with Chelsea and Rob and Nick and Pipa; those are just a few of the awesome people I’ll be with.

I will graduate high school one year from tonight. In nine months, seven days, I will pierce my right eyebrow and cross over in to the world of legal adulthood.

Time does fly when you’re having fun.

resistance – muse.

I know, I’ve been on hiatus for a while. I greatly apologize.

In November, I was assigned the religion story for the school yearbook. When I told my adviser and editors that I was going to focus on celebrating the diversity in our school, they were fine with it. I did interviews, took pictures, did research on faiths I didn’t know much about. But when we put it on the spread, I needed to lengthen it. More fluff, more interviews, more pictures.

Then, the dominant picture, which I had staged depicting all my interviewees sitting at a library table with their holy books open and having an in-depth conversation about their faiths, “didn’t represent what’s going on in the story,” according to my adviser. Which I knew was utter bullshit, but since I want him to convince our principal to allow my three years on the staff to count for my technology credit– which I can’t graduate without and is the only reason I joined the staff– I decided not to stir up shit. But their idea was the Bible study group, who worships between our large and small theaters twice a week– a group that wasn’t even represented in the story. Which led to another problem– I had to represent them, because they’re the majority. And I normally wouldn’t have had any problem with that, except that they all knew I wanted to focus on minor religions instead.

Bigoted problems such as this continued to arise, up until Wednesday. I opened up my spread, and there had been a lot changed graphically– which didn’t make sense, because it’s my spread that I made from plain white space. They also normally don’t edit anything I do, because they know that the work is good enough to send straight to the plant. I changed back all the unattractive graphic errors and zoomed in on the text, when my attention was drawn to the ending sentence of my introductory paragraph– which was worded almost to say that the people I had interviewed were the only people in the school practiced those religions. Thus, I changed it to essentially say that while many students were Christian, there were also many who were not. Saving my changes, I shut off my computer and went to my next class.

On Friday, I noticed that the spread was no longer in its proper folder, but in the “sent” section of the server. Knowing that it was probably too late to make any more changes, I opened it to find that all the graphics had been changed back, the photo had been changed to the exact same group, from the exact same angle– but the lighting was different, and my adviser had taken it. Zooming in to the text boxes, I found that my words in the last sentence had been edited– the same words, but arranged in such a way that it sounded as though I were trying to attack the majority, which has never been my intention.

When I asked the editor that seems to like me more about it (the other, who I suspect made the changes, was sick), she said that she had no idea how that had happened, and that she would tell our adviser when the representative from the plant left. Which didn’t happen during the class period, but still.

It’s also magically my fault that the page hasn’t been sent until now, when it was ready to go two weeks after it was assigned.