Augh. Had update halfway written, and then the power died. At mom's friends house, on hideously ancient, slow dial-up. Anyway. No internet at the mountain house, and no cell service, either, so I've been calling people via landline, and by 'people', I mean Ari, Claudia, Audrey, and Winter. Tried Marina, but I only have the cell number, not home. Have mostly been lazing around or getting harrassed by relatives to do various little things. Went whitewater rafting today, which was great fun, although very wet, and saw many of the classic Southern sights along the way - confederate flags, strip-mining, prision work crews, signs for the Church of Christ and Seventh Day Adventists within ten feet of each other, Baptist churches beyond counting - I feel somewhat smothered by the fundamentalism.

Um. Anyway. I think that's about it. I may or may not be on tomorrow afternoon, depends if we go to my little cousin's house again tomorrow, he's got DSL. Probably will have access Friday, as well, Saturday will be driving, Sunday I'll be in Philly with Audrey and Micheal if things work out well, so I'll be home Monday, and I'll see you all then ^^

Love and hugs to all of you, except for Ari, who updated Anarchy while I can't read it, as I'm not stupid or inconsiderate enough to read gay pr0n on other people's computers.

...No, I give in, you get love and hugs too ^^

Signed in from one of my other cousin's houses right now (he and my bro are playing Nightfire behind me), I may steal the PS2 and play me some FF8 later ^^ Anyway, uneventful trip down - short plane trip, loooong car ride, but I survived, watched Buffy, managed to run FF7 on my mom's laptop, and got caught up on my FMA. Someone needs to send the scriptwriters or whoever it is coming up with this plot some chocolates, they've actually managed to mostly catch me by surprise, which is actually rather hard to do nowadays. I'm also reading Count Zero, after losing it in my desk for a month. A number of things in this particular universe of Gibson's I'm actually starting to get, which means that I'll have to probably read Mona Lisa Overdrive again, so I'm actually doing the books in order, and things will make sense ^^ Unfortunately, this will also probably result in me having lots of strange dreams and wishing I had brought Deus Ex with me, but I didn't want to lug our PS2 down here - the PSOne is smaller than some of the books I brought, so it's not a big problem.

Anyway. Hopefully there will be internet at the mountain house tomorrow night, as that's where I'll be most of next week, and it would seem my cell gets no reception (Rural NC, I'm not terribly surprised). I think I may be able to check my voicemail from a landline, so we'll see.

Also, much love and congratulations to Marina and Elisha. (my possibly Baptist cousin was reading my friends list over my shoulder and went "...Two girls?" and I replied "Yes, and I don't see the world ending yet. Or the Antichrist walking around or anything. ...Unless Jo is the Antichrist or something, that'd actually be quite funny...". Nevermind that he doesn't know who Jo is)

Um. Enough rambling for tonight, I think. In conclusion, Squall is hot, even if so far in FF8 he has even less personality than Cloud or JC (i.e., none). But not in Kingdom Hearts (Augh, voiced by Angel, it hurts. And the hair. And 'Leon'. WTF, Squall?).

Leaving in about fifteen minutes for a week and a half or so in North Carolina, to visit relatives. Yeah, I'm not particularly pleased about it either. Unless my cousin has decided it's a good idea to have internet at his weekend house, I will probably not have any internet access, at all, because we have no dial-up any more. I will have my cell phone with me, if anyone who's got the number wants to get in touch (Call, save my sanity!)

It's 4:15 AM and I'm still awake. Feeeear. Anyway, spent most of my day sewing, with a brief aside into playing video games (Kingdom Hearts yay!), and doing a mini-update on Yuuzai. And drinking lots of tea. Seriously, I've had three or four cups already - two of mint, at least, and one of vanilla maple (it tastes like butterscotch, it's odd), and possibly another one I can't remember. And that was seriously about it.

I now feel the urge to go on a long-winded rant about something, but I already ranted to Marina about how I feel it's vaguely pretentious to go by the name of characters online - yay for my inner bitter cosplayer ^^ And I'm not awake enough for my 'Why LJ kind of sucks' rant I keep meaning to write...Murasaki touched on a few of the points here - I knew there was a reason I've kept reading her blog all these years (Seriously, third one I started reading. First was Heidi, second was Leareth...or maybe Leareth was third and Murasaki second, I can't remember now).

Also, for your random amusement - I see cosplay dead people! No, really. It suddenly came to me when I was talking to Marina. All of the characters I've cosplayed or plan on cosplaying have died in some canon form aside from Yolei. Clow's dead, Tatsumi's dead, Seishirou's dead, Subaru died in the movie, Fuuma died in the movie and the anime, and Sephiroth splats at the end of FF7. I think the only person who beats me for dead person-cosplay is Ari, who's got Seishirou and Sephiroth, plus movie!Akio, who splats, and Nagare, who seems to wish he was dead, and probably would have accomplished it too if Tatsumi and Watari hadn't shown up.

...Okay, that ended up as a long-winded ramble instead of a rant. Yay early morning. Oh, and happy slightly belated birthday to MD, and I hope you have a wonderful trip, Mara ^^

-Got stuff mailed
-Helped cheer C up.
-Played five hours of Kingdom Hearts (doing all the side quests now)
-Schemed

Sleep now, as I am cold and tired.

So, I just finished Kingdom Hearts. Six months, that's probably a new record for me and video games. It took me over a year for FF7, I've had a save file in FF6 for longer than I can remember, and I first picked up Ocarina of Time at least back in 2000 (In my defense, other people kept erasing my save file, so I started over about four times). I'm not sure I can manage any coherent thoughts on KH, as 1) It's not a very coherent game, and 2) It's nearly three am. However, the annoyance that was Goofy aside, it was a fun ride. Being both a Squaresoft and a bit of a Disney fan, it was nice to see all the characters I know and love again ^^ Driving Ben crazy by singing along to all the background music was fun, too.

Oh, and KH Sephiroth turned my brain into a happy puddle of fangirl goo. Sephiroth = SO COOL *.* And the remix of One Winged Angel is neat too. And Ansem is such a Sephiroth knock-off (Never mind that Sephiroth is kind of a Magus knock-off, but Sephiroth and Magus are cool, while Ansem is just annoying)

Sleep now, and movie babble later, as I've now seen not one, not two, but three movies that deserve my rambling ^^

*yawn* Good day today. First day of my summer vacation, and it turned out to be quite nice indeed ^^ I finished off rereading A Long, Hard Road, which has left me with the desire for more Sephiroth/Cloud (fic recs, anyone ^^?), and to actually cosplay Sephiroth (On my 'Future' list, I don't have the time, money, or talent to do it now). I also picked up a bit down here and up in my bedroom (What? You mean I have a floor? And...and a desk?! And a copy of Count Zero I thought someone returned to the library a month ago ^^?), as well as getting some of my costume stuff organized. It never really struck me how many costumes I have until I was hanging them all up in my closet - there's like...eight finished ones, and another four or five in-progress ones. Wow ^^ Also picked up an English copy of Tokyo Babylon 2 down at That's Entertainment, which was a lot better than what I was expecting to find, Fruits Basket 3 (Although I still wouldn't mind a copy of that, too. It's just TB rules over all ^^). And I've decided to be crazy and start a new FF7 game, even though it took me an eternity to finish the first time. Got through the Wallmarket cross-dressing sequence today, and actually bothered to do everything so Don Corneo would pick Cloud. Highly amusing. And now I am going to catch up on my lost sleep, as I finally can. I love summer ^^

Also, *hugs* to all mis amigos. I know things haven't been going well for a lot of you, hell, things weren't going well for me for a while. But through all of my bad moods, I still care a lot about you guys, and if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm a fairly good listener ^^ Here's hoping that summer brings some good with it ^^

First and foremost, stuff from the picnic is here, which photos and such. I'd just copy and paste, but this is rambling enough as it is without that. Now, on to the true rambling...

I've been thinking a little, recently. Just about random things, about me, how things have been going recently. And I had a strange, somewhat paradoxial realization. Over the last few weeks, I've had a number of very social moments, at least for me, where I actually go out and spend time and make friends, and talk to them, but at the same time, I've been pulling more into myself in the stretches inbetween, becoming more reclusive. It's not depression, or stress or anything...I think....it's probably closer to apathy, really. I'm heading back to the way I used to be in elementary school and middle school, that maybe two or three people reading this remember at all - where I basically just don't care enough to reach out to the rest of the world, and be content alone, with my music and my reading, as, as it's always been, most of the world doesn't exactly reach out to me ^^

*sigh* Some part of me realizes this is probably not a good thing, but the rest of me can't really bring itself to be terribly upset. This whole ramble is probably from too much ALHR and not enough sleep, anyway ^^

So, we had to write a reflective essay about the past year for English, and I firgured I'd share it with you guys for kicks ^^

September 2003-June 2004

The passage and perception of time is an interesting thing. Sometimes it seems like each hour is an eternity, and other times, it seems like three months ago was just last week. The school year is often like that, at least for me. On one hand, it seems like just yesterday that I was making my first lunch, standing around for an hour while schedules were passed out, and making new first impressions. On the other hand, I can't believe it's only been ten months.

The 2003 to 2004 school was...interesting, to say the least. A lot happened, and there were times when I couldn't see an end to the list of things I had to do. I made friends, lost friends, spent hours meticulously creating digital thumbnails of photos, sewed lots, learned new things, and generally got very little sleep.

The year got off to a rather shaky start in September. I managed to have a major fight with one of my long-distance friends the very first week of school, and we sort of haven't been on speaking terms ever since. That aside, it was mostly just the usual routine of forcing my body to be sentient at six am in the morning, and adjusting to new teachers.

October, however, was a different story. Mid-October, my father and I traveled to Washington state and British Columbia for about a week and a half, and I think the phrase 'trip of a lifetime' would be a pretty accurate description. I got a chance to meet Clare and Jo, two people who I met through a friend and common interests, and had been exchanging e-mails/letters/IMs with on a regular basis for nearly a year, in person. And they turned out to be just as funny, friendly, attractive, and generally cool in person as they were long-distance. It's not really an experience that can be easily summed up, but a few of the high points included: my first taste of sushi, the almighty dancing Angry-Bear, Clare and Jo being incredibly cute, getting thoroughly beaten at Dance Dance Revolution, and navigating a foreign bus system all by myself.

November and December were fairly ordinary months. I sewed some, took notes, wrote essays, and mostly sat around freezing and piling on the blankets. The only exception was that now that I had a real job, life guarding at the JCC, I actually had money to afford presents for all of my friends. And buy presents I did. As well as burning CDs, and writing massively long cards. I also made the acquaintance of Marina, who was a friend of Clare and Jo's, and has turned out to be both wonderfully silly, as well as my voice of reason in recent months.

Sadly, January and February were far from ordinary, and not in the enjoyable way. I managed to hit yet another emotional low after Christmas vacation, probably due to the fact that cold and lack of sun isn't really good to me, and it began months that can be described as 'My Trip to Hades'. I had a huge string of projects to get done by the beginning of April, which meant work, work, and more work. Starting in early February, and moving all the way through March, I was stressed about everything. I got snappy with friends, had minor issues get totally out of control, and it was largely not a fun few months.

Come April, I somehow managed to get everything done - costumes, school work, websites. I went to Anime Boston, the local Japanese anime convention, Easter weekend, and had a wonderful time. I met new people, got a chance to catch up with some old friends, and also got to meet a local online friend, Mara, in person, and generally spent lots of time being silly and having fun with her and her girlfriend Nicole. A week later, it was off to Louisiana, where I discovered that there are still people who wish they were living in the Confederacy, and that New Orleans has a fascinating history but no decent grocery stores. From there, I had my first experience flying by myself, out to Seattle to SakuraCon and visiting Clare, Jo, Marina, and all of my other wonderful west-coast friends. The weekend...well, it had it's high points and low points. Emotions were unfortunately running a bit high, but I had a wonderful time seeing people again, and meeting some for the first time, as well as bringing home my very first costuming award.

May was a bit of a non-month, and then June included more sewing, meeting new people who actually live nearby, and largely looking forward to summer. Which leads me to now. One week left to school, and ten months of it behind me. It was a wild ride while it lasted, one of friends and cakes and teen angst and sewing. Not sure it's an experience I'd like to repeat, although it definitely had its moments. Looking the future, I have a whole summer of sleep, learning to drive, and seeing friends again to look forward to. Next year, on to Mass Academy, AKA school for the intelligent masochist. It should prove to be quite a trip.

***

And now I'm feeling all nostalgic after writing about my trip last October. I miss you guys, hell, I miss everybody. There's AE, at least, I guess.

Also, I love the smell of summer rain.