October 23, 2009

How to Relax

My second how-to! Anyways, I am almost always relaxed, and I will share some secrets of staying relaxed and calm, since so many people seem to be stressed.

*Breathe deeply. You'd be surprised how much of a change this can make. If you get used to breathing deeply, you are relaxed more easily.

*Be more optimistic. Don't be unrealistically optimistic, just don't be so morbid. Even if you don't show much emotion, at least have good emotions, even if you don't show them. I don't, but I am actually in a good mood most of the time. Remember, if things seem bad now, just think of all the ways it could be worse and be glad those didn't happen.

*Listen to music. Whether it's rap, country, metal, classical, or rock, enjoy music. Listen to music while on a bus, or walking down the street (keep it turned down enough you can still tell what's going on around you if you choose to listen to music as you walk). Even just read a book or surf the web while listening to your favorite tunes.

*Be spiritually sure. Don't say you believe a religion you don't. Try to find out what you really believe, what your core beliefs about life are. It doesn't have to stay the same for your whole life, just make sure you have your own solid opinion on faith.

*If you are in school, when a test is coming up think about what will help you. If you work well under pressure, feel free to freak out a bit, just try not to have a mental breakdown. If you study best and memorize the most when you have a rapidly approaching deadline, procrastinate. If you feel like you are going to fail if you don't study daily up until the test, then study daily at least to give yourself some peace of mind. I, for instance, remember classes well, but if I get nervous I don't do as well, so I try to forget that there even will be a test, that way I'm calm all the way up until the test. I don't normally need to study much, maybe look the material over the night before, or spend a few days quizzing myself until I get it all correct if it's a hard test.

*Don't drink coffee. A little to wake you up is ok, but although things like Mountain Dew are loaded with sugar, they have less caffiene. Caffiene can make you more anxious or nervous. I guess what I mean to say is that it's not exactly good for calming the nerves. At all. And it never will be. Ever. EVER. Get it through your head: too much caffiene will make you more nervous. It may help you wake up in the morning, but that doesn't mean you have to be sipping coffee all day. If you didn't get enough sleep, drink something like Mountain Dew that doesn't have as much caffiene so that you don't get high off coffee (caffiene is actually a drug).

*Don't worry about what's not worth worrying about. That upcoming inspection? Yes, you should probably worry a bit. Global warming? It's inevitable, and it's happening slower than the media implies. Although we should change our habits to slow global warming (which is a natural process the earth goes through in cycles, and just happens to be speeding up because of greenhouse gas emmisions) it's not as if the earth is going to turn into an oven overnight and we're all going to wake up frying our guts out tomorrow morning.

Well, not as much of a how-to as I expected, but it turned out OK. This is how I stay calm most of the time, so I pretty much just wrote it down. Feel free to copy these to pretty much anywhere if you really want to(wear these relaxation tips on a t-shirt for all I care), and when it comes to giving me credit I don't particularly care if something like this is never traced to me as the origin. Usually I'd never give permissions like that, but these tips are useful to me, and if they help you and you love them so much you want to share them with the world, give me credit if you want but it doesn't really matter either way. This is just my humble little blog. When it comes to my artwork, that is my property and please do not copy it, but when it comes to little how-tos anyone can reproduce them anywhere without even giving credit. Hey, with the iPod one it might be good if that's never traced back to me. It should be legal, but Apple's copyright stuff is kind of strange in my opinion. I mean, what if your computer and all your CDs are destroyed and you want the music from the CDs back?

Peace out!

October 20, 2009

Pervert Alert!

My school has unusually high concentrations of many kinds of people: weirdoes/freaks, Japan fangirls, musicians/artists/actors/writers, kids who know how to hack something (windows computers, firewalls, and the school website blocker to name a few), perverts...you get the picture, it's a varied place with all sorts of strange people and definatly a strange atmosphere for a middle school.

Anyways, perverts have been particularly annoying lately (I say "anyways" too much). For three days in Algebra there was a sub, and those days were absolutely laden with innuendo. You know, I don't think boys realize at all that being perverted actually repels girls. Well there are some that are okay, but most guys at my school are total pervs. Well, at least last year's main perverts' antics have died down, and this year's batch is a bit more entertaining. Although there is one boy who has been a constant annoyance. At the beginning of 7th grade, he asked me out. I turned him down (it's the only time i've been asked out, but I really don't like him at all) and he kept pestering me for a few days and finally I got kinda mad and said something that shut him up. It wasn't anything bad, it was just kinda rude. Well, it is a good thing I turned him down: a few months later I saw him talking to his friend (when they were already both in trouble) about the length of their...things. 'Nuff said. And this year he keeps blurting out random sexual references he probably doesn't even understand. Don't ask how I know what they mean, I'd really rather not explain. For example, in English the teacher was talking about some stupid group book report that I know we're not going to finish by the deadline because for the past few days we've had a sub who has no idea what she's doing. So she told us that we could write it up if there were good writers in the group, or if most of the group was actors they could do some sort of skit. So she said basically to pick our favorite thing to do, and this boy commented, "Eating, sleeping, jacking off," and he kept saying things like that the whole class. I just about yelled at him several times to just shut up already.

So there is another boy who is like his best friend, who is also a pervert but since he's not as outgoing he's not so annoying. Anyways in history the teacher joked (I have a great history teacher, he always says funny things about the students to make fun of them, but in a nice way most of the time) that when we got our school computers back, if we had looked at things like porn then when we opened them for the first time, they would say "Pervert alert! Pervert alert!" I bet if they did that then like half the school would be filled with the sounds of sirens and "Pervert Alert!"s. And he mentioned that the aformentioned person's computer would definately do that. So now sometimes when he walks into a room someone says "Pervert alert!" It's funny.

Speaking of perverts, the school laptops can be set up so they talk to you. In science on Monday there was a sub (the same one in Algebra) and so she pretended not to hear when a couple of boys made their computer say something like "[Insert name I did not quite hear here] likes to touch his vagina." I sort of chuckled and said to my friend who I was studying with(we were supposed to be studying for the test we had today) "I do NOT want to know."

Seriously. Perverts are annoying. They usually do not get girlfriends for a long time. They do not get laid at a fairly young age, unlike the nicer boys, I have noticed(there is a boy at my school who I wouldn't have even expected to get a girlfriend, but judging from the comments people make about him and his friends' reactions to these comments, he seems to have given a girl (who I would also not expect to have a boyfriend) an STD. He does not act perverted in public and as far as I know never really has. See the connection?). They remain single idiots for quite a while. I practically have a list of boys who, if they ask me out for some reason, I will turn them down because they are extreme perverts. Yet another reason I prefer to not have much of a social life: you get asked out a lot, and considering the percentage of pervert boys, I really don't plan to date anytime soon. Might as well avoid getting asked out for a few years and hope they've matured a bit.

October 11

Holy crap, I've been busy. I have a list of topics to post about, in fact. I just had to reset my passwords (again).

Anyways, I would've posted this on October 11, but...well...anyways...idunno...agh nevermind. anyways, for some reason I don't quite recall, I didn't get around to it.

So anyways, October 11 is my dad's birthday. So why is that such a big deal? He died about a year and a half ago. As we did last year, we made a cake, but this year there wasn't crying, or fancy decorations. It had legos and stuff (courtesy of my bros) but no writing. We just quietly ate cake, pretty much.

I don't know why, I just thought it would be nice to write about it.

October 08, 2009

Gaining Depth Perception

I've been busy, but not as busy as last week. This week I have time to read, and I have been rereading Xenocide, the third book in the Ender series, which begins with Ender's Game. It is not my favorite in the series, but it is good. I got to a part where Olhado (whose real name is Lauro) was talking about what it is like to have no depth perception. Now, Olhado lost his eyes somehow, and one was replaced with a mechanical eye, and the other with a place to connect to the computer. He had wanted to show other people what he had seen, so he had chosen a computer hookup over depth perception.

So what he said was that it is like everyone is a cardboard cutout, and everything behind them is a painted background. I don't know what it's like to have no depth perception, but I do know what it's like to have almost no depth perception. Over the years, ever since I was very small my eyes changed. One became very farsighted, and the other became very nearsighted. There are advantages to this, but it's really better to have depth perception. So finally about a year and a half ago I went to the optometrist for some reason, and I found out my eyes are like that. I never realized it until I got glasses, but for most of my life the world had looked like a painting to me, I could tell how far away something was by its size or by where it sat on the ground, but nothing really looked 3D. Then when I first put on my glasses, everything popped out at me, like cardboard cutouts. And I realized that depth perception doesn't actually help you tell how far away things are very well. Oh well. At least I can see a bit better. My eyes have improved enough that I can see a lot better without my glasses, but I still wear glasses when they're not lost if I don't have a headache.

Today's observation? Orson Scott Card clearly has no idea what it's like to live without depth perception.

October 01, 2009

news stuff0rz

I've been really busy lately. But yesterday, I went into the music room during lunch. I asked if I could play my piece for the concert on the piano that's not in a practice room. I played Gentle Rain, and at the end the student teacher asked me if it was from something, and I told him it was from Mother 3 and he said "Oh, I've played that one," like it was no big deal. I thought he seemed like a video game type, but who'da thunk he'd heard of the Mother series? I was shocked that someone other than me in this small town had even heard of them, let alone played Earthbound. But he seems to have not played either game for a while, because somehow for weeks he never recognized any of the EB music I played at lunch in the practice room. You can hear the piano from the main band room when no one's playing, and I know for a fact that he and the main teacher sometimes listen to me play when there's no one in the music room. And this guy is a musician, so you'd think he'd pay attention to game music enough to recognize songs like Pollyanna and the sound stone theme that I play fairly often.

Well today I went in and played the piano in the practice room because I like it better. I played Gentle Rain, and then I heard a sound behind me, and there were all these people crowding around the door trying to watch me play. Kinda creepy, if you think about it, that all of a sudden one day these people appear within like a minute. I played some more stuff, and then there was something I was going to play that I forgot. I still don't remember. Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually.

I just got in from walking the puppy for HALF AN HOUR. I walked down two blocks (even though I'm not in a city, they're probably about the same size as city blocks, but on a steep hill so they're actually longer)and then ran most of the way back up. That's the farthest he's ever walked. His teeth are getting sharper, he's getting bigger, and his claws are getting to be somewhat dangerous.

I don't have school tomorrow! And my little brothers do! YES!!! This SO makes up for being so busy this week.

So the school gave us these stupid planner things at the beginning of the year, but they're great for doodling. I draw my cats in every week along the edge. Last week I put an invasion of Mr. Saturns, and this week I drew the kraken from EB along the bottom, and also some other stuff, like in the math section, I drew a starmen saying "NO *whirr* HOMEWORK [beeeeep] DUE." For once I didn't have algebra homework last week because of the quiz. Also on one of the boxes I drew Kirby with his mouth open, and I colored it all in except a word: "-zilch-" like my assignment was sucked up into the black hole known as Kirby. I think next week I'll draw Tessie or maybe the mecha-drago or something. I'll have to take pictures of these eventually and put them on DA.

I am tired.