Best things about this past week:

→ Seeing Li. It actually went very well. I was pleasantly surprised by how well she seemed to be doing and my parents were on their best behavior, thank God. We were going to go to museums and the park, but it rained and the museum was closed, so we wound up just shopping for most of the time. Not that I'm complaining. Also, Barnes & Noble gift certificates, get!

→ Comic book club. Yes, this one-horse town actually has a comic book/ gaming store, and since discovering it I've joined its Comic Book Discussion Club. We meet once a week. All of the members are older than me, and in college, but we have fun. I'm still in the process of wriggling out of my shell, though. Maybe this next meeting...

→ Thai food. We have a Thai restaurant, too! I eat there whenever Mom and Dad go out galavanting with their friends [and personally, I think the fact that I actually go out to eat voluntarily rather than staying at home is evidence of much personal growth, thank you and good night]. Anyway, it's gotten to a point at which the owner, a Thai national named An, knows me, and so whenever I go there alone she gives me free vanilla ice cream with blueberries, pecans, and chocolate sauce on top! I love An~ I love Thai food [Massaman curry, yum yum]~

→ This conversation, had while watching BBC Granada's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes TV series:

Me [thinking]: Aww, lookit Watson being all concerned and wife-ly...Holmes is such an ass...god, just kiss already, won't you?
Mom: "Are they gay, do you think?"
Me: O_O
Me: "...uh...well...uh, that is, totally, yeah."
Mom: "Really?"
Me: "Well, I mean...just look at them. They're so married it's not even funny."
Mom: "Huh. Guess so."

AND NOTHING ELSE WAS SAID.

Worst things about this past week:

→ The scary black girl in my culinary arts class. The less said on this conflict the better.

→ My Japanese class. I've been slacking so bad, oh my god. I still don't know all the hiragana I'm supposed to and my grade's dropped from a 99 to a 96 [which isn't in itself a huge deal, but my GPA needs all the help it can get]. Plus, I actually want to learn, not just pass the class, but I'm not and that bugs me. So I'm gonna have to step it up if I want to get all I want out of it.

All in all, more good things than bad, and nothing I can't fix.

For my eighteenth birthday, my family and I will be going to visit Li.

I'm nervous. I have no idea what to expect. Wish me luck. Or a speedy recovery, whichever. Considering how most of my birthdays tend to be notorious stomping grounds for blowouts, I'm only so optimistic.

I hope she likes her present.

It seems I only update this thing whenever I'm feeling random, hyper, or depressed. None of which I feel represents the best of my personality. Sooo, to change it up a bit: How are you all doing? I haven't spoken to any of you in a good while.

Also: brb playing Shadow of the Colossus nao. ^_^ I finally bought it, Kiki!

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

I JUST SPENT THREE DAYS WATCHING THIS SERIES:



Do any of you remember it? IT IS THE SHIT.

FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?

FIFTY THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS?

Who the HELL has that kind of money for college? Come to think of it, even thirty thousand is pushing it. Bad. I AM NOT MADE OF MONEY AND NEITHER ARE MY PARENTS, PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITIES. Seriously, what does a girl have to do to find a reasonably-priced university with a halfway-awesome English/ Writing program in this stupid state?

*kicks Georgia and its idiotic standards for education* And I ask, for the thousandth time in my life, why I couldn't have been born near or in New York or California or somewhere people beyond the usual bourgeois anti-establishment minority actually give a shit about the arts.

I'd really like to be rich right about now.

Why is it that men are considered people first and foremost, but women are only ever considered women?

Guess what?

I'm posting from my first laptop ever! It's an Asus, and it's all mine mine mine mine~! O joy! O rapture! No more having to delete the history every time I go online! No more silent wars over wallpapers! I have a computer of my own!

I take back every bad thing I've ever said about my father. Truly he is a wise and caring man, oh yes, and nevermind the fact that I'll probably have to be his slave till college--this totally makes up for the misery of school being back in session.

Made you all a sort of CD/ music recommendations list. Your mileage may vary, etc.

Song of the Century [Green Day]
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots [The Flaming Lips]
Welcome to the Black Parade [My Chemical Romance]
Tao of Now, Om Nia Merican, Sea Lions [Saul Williams]
Canta Per Me, Fiction, Vanity [Yuki Kajiura]

So, an of interesting developments in Adi-land: I got a job. Or rather, I was given one. I'll be working as receptionist/ filer/ general monkey-girl in my father's office, and as much as I don't want to be "that girl" who lives at her daddy's indulgence, I'm grateful to have it. It's not like other workplaces will be falling over themselves to hire an unexperienced seventeen-year-old with competence issues. So yeah. A good start. A way to find my feet. Plus the women I'll be working with are super nice, so if I screw up it might not be so bad. And considering that the minimum wage here in America [my wage] is up to $7.25...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Yessss. I am such a money-monger it's not even funny. I don't go out of my way to actually earn cash--no lemonade stands or a great many babysitting jobs for me--but once I get it, it tends to stay. I'm saving it. I'm not sure why--it just makes me feel better to know I've got it--but it can't hurt to have it, yeah?

Okay. No more feeling sorry. Logically, there's just as much chance things may go great as they may go bad. And that's just chance; if I try really hard, I've got even better odds. If I make a bunch of little goals, eventually they'll add up into one big one--whatever that is. I'll figure that out.

What was it that Rumi said? "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." I can do that. He said other stuff too:

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

Okay.

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

...Okay.

Just take it a day at a time, right? Right. Just breathe and try to enjoy things.

Guys--thanks. I mean really. Thanks so much.

She's gone. I was expecting to feel relieved, but. Fuck.

It's gonna be harder from now on; all Dad's attention is going to be on me and I'll have to jump through more hoops than usual to keep him off my back. I'm going to have to actually talk to people outside my own family, try to be friends with them. For a year or two, I'm an only child, and by the time she comes back it'll be time for college.

Shit. College. Fucking college! I'm going to be eighteen in four fucking months. A legal, consenting adult, and I haven't so much as gone on a date or had a job or acquired skills that remotely resemble a mature adult's. I mean, driving, yeah, but I can barely do that! Half the time I don't even remember whether or not I can turn right at a fucking red light.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I'm literally hyperventilating here.

She's going away and I won't see her for at least a year and all I can think about are fucking RED LIGHTS. And whether or not I can survive my senior year. And how the hell one goes about getting a job, much less how to act at one. And majors and careers and growing up in general. This is fucking ridiculous. To hear mom and dad talk you'd think adulthood just happens, like you just climb on a bus and drive your merry fucking way towards competence and it can't happen any other way.

I can't even tell if that made sense.

How can a person be so fucking lonely and hate people as much as I do???

I want my sister back.

ATTENTION:
If you find we no longer speak as much as people on friends-lists should and/or you no longer care what I have to say, this is your free and open opportunity to de-friend this journal. I won't do it to any of you because I'm a passive-aggressive coward, but rest assured there'll be no hard feelings on this end. I promise. ♥

Dum-da-da-dum-dum-dum~! Welcome, everyone, to Adi's first-ever official reccomendations post! Herein you will be exposed to a few of my favorite things; or, more specifically, a few of my favorite comic books about superheroes. No, not manga--bona fide American comics, which can be just as silly and wondrous as their Japanese counterparts, provided, of course, you have a little guidance~ So, in the words of the Joker: "and here...we...go!"

( More powerful than a locomotive, and just about as subtle. )

...Welll, on that cheery note...Next I'll probably review miscellaneous graphic novels. I'm working on a few writings right now, but the urge to geek about such things is strong within me.

Not a whole lot to report. It's three days since school let out and I'm already sunburnt. Hello, summer vacation.

Stolen from Rhu-san: ask me a question about any of the characters listed below! I'll expound/ babble/ pull answers out of my rear.

1.) Mireille Walker
2.) René Fontaine
3.) Felicia Suárez
4.) Uri Elouai Bey
5.) David Lang
6.) Neil Ferguson/ "Pirate"

The Joker Blogs

Watch and marvel. I literally got shivers of discomfort and awe.