Happy St Patrick's Day!

I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's been over a month since I've posted. I've been neglecting this blog. The only excuse I have is that my offline life has precedence over my online life. Honestly, if you're online life is more important than your offline life, then you probably need to step back and look at your life as a whole. But, enough of that.

It's grey and overcast today. Soon, the rain will come along with the thunder and lightning. A storm is moving though Florida today. I'm sort of lucky at the moment that I'm in the cafeteria nomming this awesome pasta ^_^ I'm sure that when I'm on the way home, the rain will pounce upon me, much like Hobbes does Calvin ^_^ It's too gusty for a umbrella; either the wind would pull it from my hand, or it would send the rain from a different direction.

Personal life. Alice and I have gone our separate ways. We still email and talk, but it seems to a bit stiff and awkward. In time, even that will fade, much like Tayler and I. I love you Alice.  I love you Tayler. I wish you both well with your new paths. I'm sorry, but I have my own to follow.

Along my path is Lee. As I said in an earlier post, our relationship has mellowed out to the point that we might even forget about it and drift apart too. Lee has a lot on his mind with school and work and home. I fear that I might be pushed completely out of the picture and forgotten. But I know, Lee NEVER forgets me. No matter what is going on in his life, he does some silly, stupid, awesomely wonderful thing to remind me that I'm in his thoughts. <3 <3 I love him so much <3 <3 ^_^

Kyle has found himself a girl friend, Samantha (a.k.a. Sammy) ^_^ As strange as it sounds, they met on Valentine's Day. They were both at the beach baby sitting and just started talking. It wasn't until Kyle got home that he realized his attraction to her and apparently, the same thing happened with her ^_^ The problem was, they had no idea how to find the other. Then Fate stepped in, and them both going to Walmart at the same time ^_^ So, Kyle is almost completely out of the picture. Sounds sad, but it's not. He has someone very special and if things go the way they did with Lee and myself, he and Sammy will return ^_^

Yvonne's path seems to be intertwined with mine more than any of my other friends' (excluding Lee of course). There seems to be more to our friendship than I understand, more than just being besties. When Lee is unable to be there for me, she is almost always it there. I really need to think about our friendship before I can say too much.

Anyway, my pasta's gone and I think I caught a glimpse of the rain trying impatiently remain hidden behind a cloud.

Quick Update

It's been awhile since I've posted an update here. So, I thought that I might do a quick one. Dad was able to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with us ^_^ It was a perfect holiday. I miss us being together. I like large families and gatherings. Maybe that's why I like Lee's family and Yvonne's and Kyle's too. They also treat me as one of their own, including being yelled at, given chores, etc. O.O LOL I don't mind ^_^

Lee and I: Our relationship seems to have mellowed out. It's not as intense as it was when we first started going together. Back then, it was like river rapids, exciting, exhilarating, never knowing what was next. Now, it's the same river, further downstream. It's slowed, but it's grown. It takes a lot more to disturb its surface. But there's the chance of us drifting apart without realizing it.

School: I aced all my classes and course last semester. I received Honors in Calculus I, American Literature, and Animation ^_^ Yay me! LOL. This semester, besides my homeroom of Programming, I'm taking: Creative Writing, Calculus II, Biology, Figure Drawing, Intercultural Humanities II, and Drawing II. So far, they're all awesome classes ^_^

Alice and Taytay (a.k.a. Tayler): Alice was once my bestie and Tayler was my online bestie. In both friendships, we've drifted apart. I still consider them friends, but no longer besties. And I think the friends part is only because of my memories of the good ole days. Tayler has for all practical purposes, vanished from my life. If I hear anything from her, it's because I initiated it. And then, it's usually a terse, polite response, nothing more. Alice is similar, but we do see each other from time to time and talk for a bit. However, neither of us goes out of way to do anything further. Oh well.

I think I'm going to head home now. The sun has warmed me up enough for the journey. Along with the corn chowder ^_^

Cookout ^_^

Instead of doing the Labor Day cookout tomorrow like most people do, we did ours today at my granddad's. I was able to bring Kyle and Yvonne with me, so I had more than enough things to do ^_^ Lee couldn't come because he needed to go with his family for the day o.o His family will be doing Labor Day tomorrow so I'll be able to spend it with him ^_^ Anyway, we all had a blast and pigged out ^_^

Rain day

It rained most of today. It started very early in this morning, like around 2AM. It was raining so hard that it woke me up, but I quickly fell asleep--I love listening to the rain at night ^_^ Luckily that it stopped long enough for me to take Jack and Tom out for a walk a few hours later. It started again almost immediately the moment we got back home. And kept doing that all day yesterday: rain. stop. rain. stop.

Mom had to try to time our shopping excursions between the rain bursts. We did get to the bookstore where I got the new issue of Juxtapoz magazine ^_^

Anyway, around 10am, I got an email from my online "bestie." She finally got around to replying to an email I sent back on Wednesday. She said she had lost her iPod and just found it. Okay, no problem there, except, why didn't she reply using her computer??? That's how she used to email me. She isn't grounded so I know she has her computer or her parents' computer. I at least try to email her when my wings get clipped just so she doesn't worry. Bleh! I didn't email her back cause I'm mad and my mom and I were leaving to do the shopping. Then around 7:30pm, she emails me again, "guess ur mad." Well, DUH!!! >.< I haven't replied yet. I don't know what to say if anything. She seems to always be doing this to me. Now I'm torn. Do I just ignore her and carry on and probably lose her as a friend? Or do I email her back and have her dump a guilt trip on me for being mad at her? o.o

- Posted from my iPad

It's done

She's gone and I need to move on. I've deleted the playlist of her favorite songs. No longer are they collected together in one place. They're now scattered throughout my own songs. Like dust in the wind. She's gone. The filters I use in Gmail to tell me that I have email from her are now silenced. No more alerts from her. I need to move on. I felt this awhile ago, deep in my stomach. I started departing from online awhile ago. She's gone and I'm moving on.

An ending

It finally appears that my friendship with Taytay is coming to an end. She emailed me Tuesday asking me to email her. I did, but told her that I was in dance class. Never heard anything further. Last night I emailed her again and her replies seemed terse and distant. She never did respond to my last email last night. Today, I sent her an email that it was raining and I haven't heard anything from her so far. The end is near. I don't like losing friends, but if you think about it, if the friendship is over, then I'm not losing a friend.

Anyway, it rained to day. Torrential down pour just in time to catch me in the open on the way to lunch >.< I was almost completely soaked grrrrr >.< Of course, after lunch, the sun came out and now there's only a few clouds in the sky. GRRRRR!

Lee's coming over later to do movie night, though we're not sure if we'll be continuing the Doctor Who marathon. Netflix isn't streaming the last episode of the 4th season. I can get it on DVD if mom is willing to subscribe to the service. But she isn't and it would be here too late. I could also buy the episode on iTunes, but that would require us to watch it on my PC, my small screen PC. Or even on my smaller screen iPad. And what am I going to do with one episode of Dr Who? That would be like buying a copy of the LOTR: "The Return of the King" or "The Amber Spyglass" without owning the previous books. Maybe we'll just go hang out ^_^ We start our Spring break this weekend ^_^

Shush girl, shut your lips...

Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips. LOL ^_^

I spent the evening with Lee tonight. It's almost impossible to see him in school except for a few minutes before Humanities or if I can get to his Language Studies class just as he comes out. He works on Mondays and Tuesdays and some times has to work other days too. And we both have friends we need to hang out with or they might stop being friends. Mom says, "welcome to the real world" when I complain. Anyway, we spent tonight helping me practice my guitar playing. He makes an uber comfy, cuddly chair <3 ^_^ I seem to be getting better, even he admitted that. Still no song beyond "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" But, hey, I getting better ^_^

This morning, mom reminded me about my online curfew >.< A lost friend found me right beside her last night: "omg. i see it now. MLE" LOL ^_^ We stayed up late, like 90 minutes past my curfew. While I didn't get clipped or even scolded, I did get a reminder. Anyway, since I said, "Taytay," just now, she gets another tag :P ^_^

Warming up

Well, today was warmer than the past few days. So much for autumn temps. I hope the temp drops in time for Halloween. For some reason, Halloween needs to be chilly for it to be Halloween ^_^ Halloween is special this year because it's a particular someone's birthday ^_^ Do you realize how awesome it would be to have your birthday on Halloween??? Way too awesome to even imagine LOL ^_^ I need to learn a song on my guitar. No, not the "Notice Me" song, I think that I've been noticed ^_^ I'll give that to him as present for his birthday and something else too ^_^

I'm learning simple music theory with his help. The more I learn, the more interesting it becomes. Music is patterns upon patterns upon patterns. By changing a single pattern, you can change an entire piece, but usually not for the better. That's where the theory part comes into play. Some fundamentals: Music uses an alphabet of seven letters: A B C D E F G It then repeats itself. Each letter represents a whole note. On the guitar, each fret represents one half step. It takes two half steps, one whole step, to go from one whole note to the next whole note, except to go from a B to a C and an E to an F. Each of those takes only a half step. The extra half step between each of the remain notes is be called either a flat or a sharp. I haven't figured out when to call that note a sharp or a flat yet. Anyway, in between the A and B is the A sharp (A#) or the B flat (Bb). It's the same note A# = Bb. In between C and D, C# or Db. D and E, D# and Eb. And so on, except between B and C and E and F. There's no half steps in between them, so there's no sharps or flats. The collection of whole notes and half notes is called a scale. One of the more common scales is the Chromatic Scale. It is a collection of 12 notes each half a step apart. The one that is used most often as an example is the C Chromatic Scale. Going for low pitch to high pitch: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C and going back down: C B Bb A Ab G Gb F E Eb D Db C. Notice, no E#, Fb, B#, or Cb? Okay, that's one pattern.

The next pattern is called a major scale and it consists of seven notes separated by whole steps (W) and half steps (h) in this pattern: W-W-h-W-W-W-h. The C major scale is a common example of this: C D E F G A B. There is a whole step between C and D, and D and E. There is a half step between E and F. Whole steps between F and G, G and A, and A and B. And finally, there's a half step between B and C. It's called the C major scale because it starts on C. This was a simple scale, not much thinking was required to generate it. An example of a more complicated scale would be the E major scale. It's not just EFGABCD. Nope. That doesn't follow the WWhWWWh pattern. The easiest way to generate the E major scale is to apply the WWhWWWh pattern to the C Chromatic scale listed above. Since each of those notes is half a step, you just count off the steps starting with F. A whole step from F is G. A whole step from G is A. A half step from A is A# (or Bb). A whole step, two half steps, from A# is C. A whole step from C is D. From D is E. Finally, a half step from E is F. Why did we go from A# to C? Because we need to go to half steps. A half step from A# is B and a half step from B is C. Remember the exception in the previous paragraph? Patterns applied to patterns. Now toss into this mix chords and minor scales and such, each having a pattern to create them.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. Taytay, this is an example of how to teach what you don't know very well ^_^

Sleep over and sad news

'Tis Friday night and I had fun. I met up with my friends downtown because we wanted to see a movie. But we didn't because we couldn't find any that we liked. So instead, we just hung around the pizza place and pigged out on pizza and soda. I had milk instead because mom doesn't like me all hyper on a sugar-caffeine buzz lol ^_^ Afterwards, Kyle, Yvonne and I headed over to my house and hung out. Alice and Sheila and Teagan and Mike went their own "couple" ways. It's late and they're still here and mom gave them permission to sleep over so that's what they're going to do ^_^ Soooo, time for me to post this and demo some more on my guitar for them ^_^

But, sad news before sign off: Taytay's grampa died before she could get there. I'm so sorry Taytay *hugs tightly* The funeral is tomorrow and she should be home by Sunday

Autumn is approaching

This is the third day that had an autumn feel to it. The sun was hot but there was a breeze that was nice and kept the worse of the heat away. There was even a chill in the air this morning. No clouds until around 1pm. But they never formed into anything and by the time my mom came home, they were gone completely again. Hmm, I need to decide on what I'm wearing for Halloween this year ^_^

I'm writing this entry in between breaks. I'm practicing with my guitar. I'm having problems tuning it though. It seems to have gone out of tune since last night. I guess that might be one of the reasons some guitars cost so much: they stay in tune much longer. Also, learning to play right handed when you're primarily left handed is a pain. I keep catching myself holding the guitar weird. But, so far, I've learned the A minor chord and am working on the C and G chords. The E minor chord looks extremely simple which means it'll be a pain to learn >.<

My online bestie is out of town for awhile. Her grampa is dying. Her and her family are in my thoughts and heart. Love you Taytay.