stuff i'm thankful for

currently writing a sarcastic editorial on “Why the American Independence was unnecessary” to focus on reasons why Doctor Who is awesome. I think I’ll post some of what i wrote. Maybe. Yeah. am i actually having genuine fun while doing something for school? Yeah I know, I can’t get over it either. 

I’ve found a way out of the system. I’ve found a way to combine scholarship with procrastination. I’m writing about Doctor Who in a multi-genre paper, and in order to research, I have to watch countless episodes to fully understand and commit to the characters’ different voices and, well, characteristics. It is the best thing I have ever thought of doing for school. I cannot wait to write a double voice journal between Amy and the Doctor. And a List poem about the Doctor. And to incorporate my favorite episodes into my favorite class. This is gonna be awesome.

So I’ve been driving for over a year now, and my curfew is currently at 11pm because I begged my parents to at least have it be the legal curfew—-it originally was going to be 9pm, but that made me mad and almost made me want to just run away forever because that’s unrealistic and frankly stupid, but that’s a different story. Anyways, after more than a year of meticulously making it home before 11, I proposed to make my curfew midnight. That’s not to say that I wont be home before then every night, but I just wanted to make it later so that I don’t always feel so rushed. It’d be nice to be driving the speed limit once in a while, and not running over albino squirrels in my race to beat the clock.
My mother said she’d think about it, but my father literally laid down the law and said that it’s not his curfew, it’s the law. The legal curfew for minors is indeed 11pm in my area. Before I go further, i want to address the fact that he’s right. He is. It’s not stupid, but it’s still really lame, that’s all. There are too many lame things in the world, and this is one of them. The back of my head says that one day, when I’m all grown up and I have no choice but to actually stay up even when I don’t want to, I’ll miss the times when I have a curfew. But then again, of all the laws to break, I feel like this would be a pretty good one. What, they can’t put me in juvie for driving around in the middle of the night. The cops won’t even have fun inspecting my car because I’m clean as my parents would like me to be.
I just like being out there, that’s all. I guess I’m a romantic for saying this, but I don’t care: there is something about driving away, not knowing exactly where you’re going, and just laughing your heart out with friends that are just as directionally-challenged as you. There’s also just something about sitting on the grass at night, just sitting there, and looking at the stars, realizing how small you are, yet still acknowledging your tiny contributions to this universe as necessary, however insignificant you might literally look.
I don’t necessarily wanna YOLO it up, but still. I want to look back and be proud of those times when I accidentally joined a protest, when I talked to a bum about the apparently existent Communist Party of America, when I (hopefully have, before graduation) ran away in the middle of the night only to look at the night sky and to simply marvel at their glory.
That being said, the stars look better at midnight, especially in a place like MN where summer pushes the view of the night sky to later hours.
So yeah. If I’m tempted enough, I just might do illegal-er things just to paint a compare & contrast picture of how not bad staying out til midnight actually is. I mean, I’m not dead yet, am I? I want to have my death be AFTER I was having fun anyways, sooo I plan on looking at a lot of night skies before I die.
Peace.

while our minivan is getting fixed at the dealership, they let us drive a newer model of the Sienna. it’s so great. the best part is the new car smell. how do I keep my car smelling like that?

Today is the end of AP tests (for me anyways) and this is also around the time when I stop caring about school and, well, most things. It is currently illegal to speak of the test questions—-it won’t be on Friday!:)—-but may I just say………I hope the scorer of mine has a fabulous sense of humor because I kind of mentioned drugs. And sex. And other scandalous things. But then I talked about To Kill a Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch, so that makes up for it, right? No, I didn’t write about sex in a technical writing kind of way. I did not write “step 1. Find someone…” I wouldn’t know anyways.

I went to the Mall of America today with my friend Joycelyn. There, I ate Chipotle for the very first time. I cannot believe that I’ve been missing out for almost 5 years.
Then we went shopping for a bit, and then we went and got our make up done at Macy’s—-they had a special where if you sit down and get your make up done, they’ll give u a free gift afterwards, which ended up being a compact with a mirror, blush, and eye shadow. Win-Win? I think so.
Afterwards, we headed to Nickelodeon Universe where we saw someone we knew from church, and she proceeded to give us free tickets to ride any ride we wanted to. We rode the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ride and it was quite fun.
Then we headed to some other stores and tried out every single lotion/perfume/thingy and made ourselves smell good and look glittery. Finally, I felt like Edward.
When we got to her house afterwards, her mom was opening a new business and was having a demo night. Her mom then proceeded to show me some samples and send me home with some.
It was a great eventful day full of free things. And I used some of their sample hair stuff and I cannot even express how soft the hair on my head is. It is very soft. I hope at some point in their lives, every single person in the Earth can have the Soft Hair Petting experience. There is nothing quite like it.

this morning, when I checked my news feed, I saw something quite alarming: pictures and pictures and pictures of “Stop Lady Gaga from having a concert in the Philippines” with arguments ranging from “she’s an occultist that attacks children’s vulnerability” to “she calls her followers little monsters. it’s a satanic movement”. let me be one to say that that argument is stupidly narrow-minded and unrealistic.
I’m not saying this to defend Lady Gaga because I don’t even like her that much and I don’t really listen to her song, but to make such claims that her having a concert in the Philippines would be unChristian is just, well, kind of shows how intolerant and misunderstanding people can be. And I feel embarrassed because I’m a Filipino and I feel a personal responsibility to protect my country’s image, however badly it might look.
This is why I think those arguments are trash:
1. To say that her music is Satanic because she calls her followers Little monsters, with herself being Mother Monster, is quite the stretch. The Lady Gaga monster movement is a fandom. It is a loose association of people that like the same things. If you like Harry Potter, you’re a Potter nerd. Or a wizard. If you like Doctor Who, you’re a whovian. In this case, if you like Lady Gaga, you’re a monster. It’s a title that indicates who/what you like. It’s not supposed to be a bad thing.
2. To say that her music is unChristian is partially valid, especially because a lot of her songs encourage fornication, but it’s being put down for the wrong reasons. The first commandment was to not have other gods before God, therefore, no idolatry. But actually, idolatry is applicable to anything. Any other little thing that you put before your Christian duties can be considered an idol or a god. If they are arguing that Lady Gaga cannot have a concert because it is idolatrous, they should just ban popularity and fame. They should ban Harry Potter and all those Korean boy bands from coming. But we all know that that’s impossible and cannot be undone, so why aren’t we letting Lady Gaga come?
3. Not everyone can/will have to come to her concert/listen to her music. You don’t like it? Don’t listen to it.
4. Everyone will hate you. While you should definitely stand up for your beliefs, if you can’t allow others to be themselves and listen to/do what they want, that’s worse and isn’t loving and Christlike at all.
So yeah, I’m done ranting about that. It is ridiculous and I hope it doesn’t actually happen for those reasons.
In conclusion, I’m thankful for a fully functioning brain that can distinguish between empty rhetoric & stupidity and tolerant, realistic assumptions.