18 - HCW

   I'm sitting in my last Honors Creative Writing class. Today was donut day, and we ate krispy kreme on the veranda as we watched cars go by. I can't believe that this is the last day of school. I just can't believe it.
   Once I've reached twenty posts, I will no longer need to update this blog. It will be the end of my mandatory participation. I will still continue to write stuff and post it on here regularly, but I won't update it as much as I have been. Ha, like I update on a regular basis. Anyway - yeah. I want to keep the blog running throughout the rest of my high school years, and perhaps throughout my time in the places beyond. 
    One of my friends - well, three - skipped school today to go to that convention thing I'm going to tomorrow, and Ash left me alone here in creative writing. I'm really going to miss this class. ("We're not even having class right now!" cried my teacher when I told her this. It's kind of true - we're wandering around the classroom taking pictures and eating donuts and playing paper basketball.)
     I'm going to go now so I can take part in the festivities. Adios.

17 - the catscratch bunker

   Ace always liked to take the railing instead of the stairs. It was faster and more thrilling - and he was extraordinarily balanced, not like Luci, who had recently attempted to leap onto the railing, had sharply misjudged and had fallen to the dusty floor, a sprawling heap of limbs. Luckily, Ace had been nearby, and he'd been able to help her when she couldn't put weight on her ankle. He'd been able to support her feeble frame as they made their way to the room where they had first met. 
   The house was crumbling, but it'd been that way for as long as Ace and Luci could both remember. He'd first taken refuge in the place during an acid rainstorm, and had been crouching in one of the left wing rooms when Luci appeared, shakily pointing a blaster at him. She'd scared him at first, but he soon realized that she was just as afraid as he was, and that it'd be better to get on good terms with one another instead of being in conflict. So over the days, she'd allowed him to stay in the old place that had once belonged to her and her brother, despite the dwindling food supply. They called it the Catscratch Bunker. It was their home now - both of them.
    Ace helped Luci onto the couch, then went digging around the room for the bandages. "What exactly made you think that you could perform a flying leap from the top of the staircase and end up sliding down the railing without a hitch?" he inquired, casting her a glance and giving a small smile that let her know she wasn't being too serious.
    She scrunched up her face at him, holding her ankle. "Because you do it all the time," she said indignantly. "And because it looked like fun."
    He snatched a nearby roll of gauze with a spurt of triumph, then looked at it for a moment. Was gauze good for sprained ankles? Eh, it'd have to do. He turned back to Luci's couch. "But I'm a trained pilot, remember? I'm balanced." He grinned at her, then crouched down and motioned to her ankle. She moved it toward him.
    It was certainly swollen. Excessively swollen. The sight made Ace kind of queasy, but he steeled himself and tried to think of a solution. Floundering, he said, "I don't really know what to do here."
   Luci smiled. "Well, I'm the one who knows about medicine." She winked and opened her palm towards him. He plopped the gauze in it. "Get me something to elevate it on," Luci commanded, sticking her tongue out as she began to wrap the injury. Ace shrugged and stood up, ducking through the doorway to find a box or something.

16 - more guard probs

   It's 8:45 and by tomorrow I have to finish an AP Bio project complete with drawings and look at the anatomy of a pig and write five more of these blog posts and study for a Spanish test that I feel like i will fail.
    I want to write stories, but I feel like I am too stressed at the moment to carelessly cast my imagination out very far. By tomorrow at this time it will all be over. Tomorrow is my last day of school. I have made it this far, and I can make it for 19 more hours. 19 hours.
    Then on Saturday I'll be going to a convention, cosplaying Rose Lalonde! It'll be a lot of fun, but I haven't quite had time to think about it yet. I actually still need to finish my costume. 
    Also, after school tomorrow is the first time the color guard and band will be practicing together, therefore becoming the unified marching band. I am really nervous. I'm afraid I'm going to mess up the spins we learned yesterday. We attempted marching and spinning at the same time, and I had difficulties with it. The main problem I'm having with color guard is that I know I suck and I also know that everyone else knows I suck. I don't like feeling sucky about myself and my abilities and I want to stop feeling sucky but that will take time and effort, which I am entirely willing to put forth, but for now I still feel sucky, and the fact that I won't feel sucky in the future isn't helping. 
   And some people at school didn't help today. I was trying to explain my problems to them and they're like, "Well, yeah, you kind of are the worst of the three new guard members…" and then "your windmills are really crooked, by the way!" Geez, thanks for giving me such a confidence boost when we're not on the floor and I therefore can't improve upon what you have just suggested of me. 
   Ajkdsjkadnj. I just want today to be over, basically.

15 - DHSADOHSA MY BACK HURTS

    I am finally coming to realize that school is about to end. Friday's my last day, save for exams. There will be no more trekking to the Bio lab after art class, and no more chillaxing in the computer lab during Honors Creative Writing. I will no longer have my favorite English teacher! I've had a class of hers every year since I came to this school, and next year will break that streak. :( 
    Anyway - no more of my perfect Spanish class and no more stupid Algebra II and no more of many things. I'm wondering what will happen at lunches next year - as juniors, we'll be able to go off campus for lunch if we want to. I don't think I'll be seeing much of my friends at lunch anymore. I'm one of the few who doesn't drive - not yet, at least. I won't be getting my license until senior year. 
    I really need to finish these blog posts, but I also really need to take a shower and finish a math review sheet and study for a Spanish test tomorrow that I haven't even attempted to study for yet. So adios. 

14 - enjolras/flag. i ship it.

  This week is almost over, thank goodness. Color guard has been fun so far, but I suck at it. I blatantly suck. There are so many things I'm having problems with. Everyone says I'll get better at it, but during practices I tend to panic and then I forget what I'm doing. My instructor has to keep calling me out because I do stuff wrong, and I'm okay with learning, but I hate feeling scrutinized. I hate how everyone turns to look at me when my name gets called out. I almost burst into tears a few times today, but everyone else says that when they first started out in guard they cried every day of practice. I just want to get better so that I don't feel so out of place. 
   I'm considering buying a flag so I can practice periodically during the summer. I found a bunch of websites that have cheap practice flags. I'd like to get a pure red one so that I can be like Enjolras.

  Yes, this is a thing that's going to happen.
  We are currently dissecting pigs in AP Bio, which is the last thing we'll be doing this year. It was okay for the first day, when we went over lab procedures and pulled our piglets out of their plastic vacuum coffins. The enjoyment factor dropped dramatically in the two days that followed. I find the task rather tedious and grotesque. It doesn't gross me out or make me feel sick, it just seems inherently wrong. I also hate the smell, but everyone does.
   I'm looking forward to the end of this year, but I will miss my Spanish class. Best class of the day, right there. There are only about 16 of us in seventh period, and it feels like a little family by now. ^u^ 

13 - fsaf;;

   Yesterday was my first color guard practice. It was really fun, but now I am really sore. When I got home I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed, but I couldn't because this is literally the most stressful week of my life. I have so much work to do that I don't really know what to do with myself, and I actually got basically nothing done last night. Not to mention the convention geek thing I'm gong to is on Friday, and I'm still going that evening, right after color guard practice. I'm still not done with the cosplay of Rose Lalonde I'm supposed to do, and I don't know how in the heck I'm going to find the time to do so within the next three days. headsmash
    I learned a lot yesterday, though. We did stuff like spinning and standing at attention and this one thing where you swoop the flag over your head and then down around your feet. We actually started doing tosses. That was fun. It was all fun. Seriously I don't even know what I'm writing at the moment and I should be doing homework rn so I'm just going to go

12 - Half, pt. 9

  She scanned the room, not seeing anyone. It was the same room that Doc had led her to the previous day - where they had examined her wind-ups, which were still scattered on a nearby table. It seemed as if all of that had taken place ages ago, and she could hardly believe that it hadn't even been a full day. She walked over to the table, stepping over a dirty rag and a toolbox, and picked up one of her wind-ups - this one a mouse. She touched its wire tail. Twenty-four hours ago, she'd been at home with her mother, getting ready for her job. Now her mother was dead, she had the job, and she was living in an entirely different place. She felt as if she'd aged a decade in only a few hours, and although she liked her new home, she didn't think that being there felt right.
    Something clanged behind her, and she whirled around to see Silas enter the room. He hadn't noticed her yet, and she stood frozen, still holding her mouse. She sat down abruptly in a chair because standing up felt too conspicuous and busied herself with the constructed rodent. She heard him grab something off the shelf - a wrench. He turned around.
   "Oh, you're awake!" said his voice in slight surprise.
   She looked up at him. He looked just the same as yesterday - leather jacket, tousled dark hair. He held the wrench easily in one gloved hand, watching her earnestly. She figured he wanted her to say something in reply.
    "Yeah," she said, then added reluctantly, "thank you for the tea."
    He pulled over a chair next to her, twirling it around with a flick of his wrist and plopping down in it. He stared at a bookshelf across the room for a moment, as if captivated by it; then he looked at her seriously and said in a soft voice, "I'm terribly sorry. About your mother."
     Eve met his gaze and lifted her shoulder in a shrug. "Thank you," she said, looking back down at the mouse. She felt the threat of tears in the back of her throat and didn't really know what else to say.
     They sat in silence for a little while longer, and the lump in Eve's throat eventually dissolved. She felt awkward in Silas' presence, and the mention of her mother brought everything she'd felt the previous night back to her. She remembered, for a moment, being in the hovercar after she'd discovered her mother's body - how Silas had been there with her. She stole a glance at him and realized that he was looking intently at her wrist. A stab of shame went through her, like fire, and she straightened her back and folded her arms, cheeks turning red. She looked away.
     After a moment, Silas asked, "Would you like something to eat?"
     "I honestly don't think I could stomach anything," she replied, wondering what he was thinking about her wrist. He didn't seem perturbed by it. Hadn't he noticed it in the hovercar the previous evening? 
     He was looking at her with an apologetic look, and she glanced at him as he stood up. "I hope you feel better soon," he said automatically, growing awkward all of a sudden. "Tell me if you need anything." He started walking towards the door he had come in from.
     Eve didn't want him to go. She wanted him to stay and talk with her, and she wanted him to tell her that everything was going to be okay even though she felt like it wasn't, and she wanted to decide whether he made her feel better or worse, comfortable or awkward, but she let him go.