The waves are calling to me

This won't be a long post, I just have three things to say, so I'll list them for you:

1. I am a senior. This gives me about three days off this week because underclassmen are taking state exams, which seniors don't take.
2. I am going to the beach tomorrow when my mother thinks I will be at school. I am nervous and pretty much melting into a complete mess on the inside of my brain. I can't even begin to think of what will happen if I am caught, but let's try not to get into that.
3. I just saw the movie Sex Drive, and despite its vulgar jokes and crude humor, it's made its way onto my favorite movies list.

That's pretty much it. Cross your fingers that I make it back alive tomorrow.

Cartels and Cadavers

I've been putting off writing about this, because it's so obviously a huge part of my life at the moment, and I just can't figure out how to put it in words. The fact is, there's a war going on right now. It's not overseas in Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan and it's not between the Canada VS United States Gold Medal hockey debate. This war is happening beneath your radar, and if you hadn't heard it from me now, you probably wouldn't hear of it until something insanely horrible happens.

I've lived in a border town all my life, and right up until now, I never really considered it anything remotely bad. I get to speak two languages fluently, thrive in the bold Latin culture, and eat Mexican food daily without worrying about its effect on my health. This past week brought out a whole lot of ugly from the other side of the border.

It all started with a gang. You see there used to be these big top head gang guys that would keep all the little gangs in check. They owned everything, and considered themselves the unofficial "police" of cities. But then the Mexican government stuck in their little foot and took all the big bad gang guys to jail, where they've stayed ever since. Things went pretty well after that. Drug trafficking was still going on, but it never affected any innocent citizens, just like it is here in the United States. Then the fight began.

See, all these little gangs realized that the big bad gang guys weren't around to keep them in check anymore, and they all scrambled to try and take the top spot. Around Tuesday or Wednesday this past week, there were gunshots and shootings, killing dozens of innocent bystanders in cities that I've gone to many times in my life. Drug cartels killed doctors that serviced in cities to keep any drugs under their watch, killed American citizens in the deeper end of border cities, and stole any vehicle that they deemed too high class for their region.

People that I know have gotten emails from people in Mexico pleading for help and many of my relatives over there are confined to their homes to escape getting killed. Passageway between major cities isn't attempted for fear to get ambushed by one of the two major gangs. My dad told me that there was a a truck-full of cadavers seen near a canal, just dumping the bodies in the water. There's no way to know for sure who is dead or not because none of the news are reporting it, not even local news around here.

The situation is bad, and almost everyone is terrified of going to Mexico right now. I doubt I'll be going anytime soon. On a good note, I hardly have school this week because underclassmen are testing. Boy, is it good to be a senior.

xoxo
Janet

Awesome: Overweight hedgehogs that eat dog food and run on a treadmill.

Saturday the 13th never happened.

I've honestly tried to write a blog about 10 times, and the only good thing that came out was the previous post with old photos. Saying that sounds annoyingly cliche', but it's true. So many things have happened lately, that I'm beginning to resent my whining of an absolutely boring life. Mostly, this weekend sort of threw me off. My well-executed plan for Saturday went extremely well, too good actually. I have no clue how I managed to get in my bed without my mother noticing that I was way beyond normal.

I suppose the worst part about that night is the fact that I can't remember most of what happened. There's different stories flying around, most of which include me puking twice, me falling off of a tower of brinks, sitting on a bench and suddenly realizing that I had lost my phone, which started me off in a full on freak out, and slapping several innocent bystanders. That night is a big black slate, with several occasions where the world decided to fade in and engrave into my memory, only to fade out into black again.

I'm just glad that there were no kissing of strangers or taking off of clothes involved. I've spent this entire week trying to remember with the rest of the people that were there, but all we have is a recording of a friend of mine screaming,"SENIOR YEAR!", and several more indistinguishable noises. I guess we can look back and laugh right now, but I still have a load of battle scars from the brick fall and a sore throat, probably from all the screaming.

Other than that, life has been pretty normal. My school's theater program is putting up our production of Bye Bye Birdie this week, and everything is pretty much chaotic as per usual. I'm only in the stage crew, so I'm not too stressed, but it's our first musical, and a lot of the actors aren't exactly musically talented. Let's all hope that goes well.

Did I mention that somebody from school stole my camera? And I was just about to grow the balls to finally make a youtube video. RIP Optimus Prime. You will be missed.

Momentary Immortality

I've realized that when I talk better when I have
nothing to talk about, which is an oxymoron in
itself. Last night I went out and got pretty
much WASTED. I figured I was going to have to
do it at least once in my life,so why not?
Hangover, and bored as hell on Valentine's Day.
Story of my life, huh?

Photos are from Dec. 21st 2009, at my
family's Christmas party.
1)little one 2)my glee tee 3)cazzy & little one

Bizarre Coincidence

It frustrates me that there is absolutely nothing happening to me that is worth even mentioning to anybody. I feel likes it's the same monotonous routine day after day: wake up, go to school, go home, 5 hours on the computer, shower, sleep. How doing so little can be so exhausting is beyond me. But of course, I've been using Blogger as a procrastination tool more than a writing-development tool lately. Let's be honest though, who doesn't? I have at least 3 applications that need to be finished by Friday and I just can't seem to bring myself to start. But enough talk about procrastination.

This afternoon, I was so deliriously bored on the internet that I decided to Google my username, turning up with some rather interesting results. The one link that excited me the most was my old blog that I kept for about a week last summer. Apparently, I was under the illusion that taking summer courses at a University would bring all sorts of exciting adventures. The strange part though, is that I actually LIKE some of what I wrote in those measly four entries:

"You spend your entire life preparing for something. You're born and they start preparing you to learn, you go to school they prepare you for high school, you go to high school they prepare you for college, you go to college they prepare you for a job, you go to work and they prepare you for retirement, you retire and you just sit back and realize that you didn't do crap. Honest to god, I do not want that fate, and I realize that there are people whose goal is just that: to live and let live, but I want to die laughing."

I mean what was I, some sort of life guru? I don't even remember writing half the stuff on that blog. That's not the best part though: at the end of one of the entries there was a section called the "Mental Tip of the Day":

"Mental Tip of the Day: Don't eat your sorrow away. Instead, watch a few good Youtube videos and pretend that internet celebrities are your personal friends."

I wasn't sure whether to be amused or scared, but that advice was just way too much of a coincidence. Did I mention that today was crap? Because it was. And so is this entry. Sorry about that.

Song: "Free Fallin'" by John Mayer
Awesome: Laying outside in the grass with the iPod on full volume to the Fratellis.
Notsome: 95% of my high school's population.

Double Entendre 101

It's time for an English lesson! According to Wikipedia, Double Entrendre means:

a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often inappropriate, or ironic.

I'd like to point out that my English class is a physical representation of a Double Entrendre. I don't mean in the normal English Figurative Language sense. Given that I am a senior in high school, and most of the kids in my Brit Lit class are at least 17 years old, not a day goes by that the class bursts in laughter because of some sentence with an underlying meaning.

Sometimes I honestly think that the world will never mature and, to be honest, I sort of like it.
Okay, I'm done writing boring posts. I think I'll be back to write something worth reading in an hour or so.

Current Song: "Wordplay" by Jason Mraz. THAT WASN'T EVEN PLANNED! I swear it just came on Pandora.
Awesome: Rainbow Cakes, and not the ones you're used to.
Notsome: Application Deadlines. Particularly when it interrupts previous plans, like drooling over photos of pastries.

The Last Lecture (HOSA Competition Book #1)

COMPETITION BOOK #1

Title: The Last Lecture
Author: Randy Pausch
Genre: Self-Help
Pages: 224
Publisher: Hyperion
Website: http://www.thelastlecture.com/aboutbk.htm

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

Review:
Books for medical reading usually bore me to sleep, but as soon as I saw this on the self-help section and the unbelievable amount of copies shoved into the shelf, I knew it would be interesting. The book was apparently a best-seller, so there will probably be numerous other reviews of it. Bear in mind that I'm only doing this as part of my competition study routine, so it might not even make sense. Moving on:
I've always considered self-help books to be interesting, for the most part at least. I feel like the writers have experiences that gives them the credibility to promote self-change. Randy stood out to me as a normal human from the first sentence. For a man "sentenced" to death with pancreatic cancer, he sure has a healthy sense of humor. He regards to his diagnosis as an engineering problem, which (as horrible as it seems) was terribly amusing to me. Throughout the introduction, I remember thinking that the guy was extremely too happy to be dying in a few months. If it were me, I'd have to be on medication or something, but Randy seems...thrilled.
Of course, there IS that underlying sense of dread and sadness, but instead of regretting all the time he won't be alive, he spends looking back on what he's done. The section on fulfilling childhood dreams was definitely my favorite. In his lifetime, Randy was able to experience zero gravity, write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia, meet Captain Kirk, and become a Disney Imagineer. If that wasn't a fulfilling life, then I don't know what is.
The book was an eye opener for appreciating what we have now, and never taking anything for granted. Unlike most other books of its kind, Randy was able to convey this message without a hint of cheesyness. Not to mention that the book was a quick read. It's perfect for a nice long train ride or a quiet night with a warm coffee. And if you're not into reading (wait, why are you reading this then?) you can actually watch the video of Randy's Last Lecture he gave at Carnegie Mellon. You can find all the info at the book's website listed above.

Randy & his wife Jai with their three kids: Logan, Dylan, and Chloe.

Randy makes a 5 Sec. Cameo in the new Star Trek movie!

Randy Pausch died July 25th, 2008.