Failure

Wow so I have a really bad grade in Chemistry and that's so bad because I want to eventually major in that. Also I've been sick a lot recently. Man. October is not my month. Anyway, I've been wanting to write this for a long time, so here's a short thing on failure:

"Failure is not an option."

False. Failure is a plausible, if not viable option. Sometimes it's better to fail. A failed suicide attempt. A failed drug run. And while there are a lot of extreme examples like that, there's a more common way failing can actually help people: it makes someone human. If you fail, if you've admitted defeat, you've announced to the world "I AM HUMAN," which is the least human thing to do nowadays. People are so caught up with being perfect and being amazing and just being right that they forget about what's really going on. No, not the economy. Not the third-world countries with starving children. What's going on is we, as humans, are getting farther and farther away from being human that it's scary. Now, with some things it's good to be "more than human". We want good doctors, good educators; I'm not saying we should throw away everything we've achieved and restart, we just need to look back at our roots and appreciate what we (as humans) have achieved. Depending on your religious beliefs, we've evolved from neanderthals and landed on the moon. We've utilized fire and gone through a ridiculous number of wars. Is this getting through to anyone? We're not perfect, we're never going to be perfect, but we are perfectly imperfect and that's the main achievement of humanity. Failure ties all this together by forcing us to see that we are human but we're still great because we're human. We've attempted and failed, we gave it our all, however much that is, and didn't make it. And we learned from it. We're not going to retake that test without studying, we're not going to try that ridiculous stunt with out better preparations, and we're sure as hell not going to do that again. And the truth is, it's hard to fail. It's hard to put in everything and get out nothing. It's hard to prove to the world that you're not perfect. In order to fail, you have to first learn, and grow, and try, and give, and push and push and push until it doesn't work, and when you sit down as the dust settles and the sky begins to fall, you've successfully failed, you've finally achieved that imperfect perfection we strive for, and you are officially human.

Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.

Is anyone else happy school finally started?

Oh lord I haven't posted in a while. Oh loooordy. I blame school, even though I've had tons of free time. If anything, school should have given me more things to write about. It has, I've just been too lazy to write about them.

WELL. For starters, I'm just going to put out my schedule so future me (and anyone else reading this dead blog) can know what I'm talking about.

1st period - AP Lang & Comp - Mrs. Andreasen
2nd period - AP Chem - Mrs. Kistler
3rd period - Chem Lab - Mrs. Kistler
4th period - Pre-Calc - Mr. Sutton
5th period - Concert Choir - Mrs. Combs
6th period - Online AP Psych and Online Creative Writing - No teacher (I'll get into that later)
7th period - Newspaper - Mrs. Costello.

So, my schedule is great, I know, go ahead and bask in it's glory. I love being a Junior. I love all my classes. I especially love my 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th. Like, love love. 1st, because it's English. And I have Mrs. Andreasen! Great teacher. 5th, it's Chorus, with Mrs. Combs! Great teacher, again. 7th, it's Newspaper with Mrs. Costello! How many times must I say it? 6th, there's no teacher! Another great teacher</sarcasm>. I love having what is essentially an independent study. It's great. I go into the Newspaper/Journalism lab and read whatever I need to read for the week or do whatever activity is due, and if I'm done early, I can do other work. Or, if I feel like I have so much other work to do I can't concentrate, I can do the Psych/Creative Writing work at home. It's great. The Psych class just started, so I'm really hoping it's going to be good. Creative Writing doesn't start until next semester. There's only one thing that I don't like about the online classes.

THE ECOACH.

MRS. SUNCHIPS.

KILL ME.

She is the ONE reason I took Creative Writing online. I would LOVE a classroom environment, but I cannot STAND that woman. Hopefully, I won't have to interact with her at all. I would LOVE that.

How's this for a transition.

I really wish I could go back three months and restart from there. I've done so much I regret in the past couple weeks (hell, the past couple days) that I wish I could stop myself from doing. I just wish I knew what to do. I'm too busy trying to please everyone else that I forgot that I still exist. Sometimes I feel like I'm being too selfish, but really, what I've been doing recently has been for other people. I would've done all my summer work, I wouldn't have gone that far with that guy, I would've done so much more.

Sorry for those random feels, guise.

Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.

Insanity. Seriously.

I really need to start writing more.  The last time I wrote (more than a journal entry) was months ago. Seriously. It's bad, especially considering I really want to write professionally. Hopefully this next school year will force help me to write more. I mean, I am going to be in charge of Lit Club and all, so I'm going to have to actually write some. My kind of serious writing project has been on a back burner for well over a year, I've hardly taken one look at it since. I used to obsess over it, writing some everyday, re-editing previous parts over and over and over again until I decide to just replace everything with something new to completely change the ending. I don't know if it's better that I stopped being so crazy about it, or if it's really true that most authors are crazy. Well, here's the prologue of my life's work:

            Running down the halls, banging on the doors, I can’t seem to escape this realm of insanity. All the doors are locked, some even boarded up. I knew coming here was a bad idea. Someone’s following me. I can feel it… I can barley see the knife he’s holding in his hand or the blood stains on it. He wants something, but I don’t know what. I don’t think I’ll ever know either. I keep running, and running, and running. I can‘t stop, I have to run. If I stop, then I’ll die, and if I die, then she’ll die too. The lights are coming back on, and I see the bloody dark walls turn pure white. My ragged black jacket is now white, the bleeding stops, and I can’t move my arms…

This was supposed to be a flash forward to the rest of the story. I've heard a lot of different criticism on it, the general consent on writing forums is it's dumb because you don't know the rest, but everywhere I posted it, people loved it. In case you didn't know, the first few sentences are the most important. It's what captures the attention of the reader. Whenever I go into the local bookstore, the library, or the book section of thrift stores, I go straight to the murder mystery section and if there's not a Dennis Lehane book I don't own, I find a random one that catches my eye and I read the first page. After doing this for a few (more like 20) books, I pick out one or two that were the most interesting. This method almost never failed me.

Anyway, back to my work-in-progress. It's called Insanity, and , well, I don't even know what it's about anymore. I've tweaked the ending so much, I don't know where I want to take it anymore.


I'm totally stuck. It sucks.


Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.

I like making people angry, honestly.

Do you guys want to read a speech I wrote a while ago? I'm sure you do. Before I rant about the rant, I'll let you read it.

This is not for me. Do you think I sat down and wrote a lengthy speech for fun? This is for you. You, sitting in the background, pretnding not to listen. We all do it. Listen for inspiration or a good laugh. I bet you weren't expecting a lecture, were you?

People always say that terrorism is the biggest threat to America. I don't think it is. You know what I think is? Freedom. How often do you turn on the news and see all the things the government is doing about terrorism? You see a lot about how they're restricting people's rights. But it's for a good cause. That's what they tell you. It's shoved down your throat and regurgitated like good little Christian children. "Gay marrige is wrong." "Abortion is wrong." They give you your opinion. And you listen.  You obey. Where does that get you? That gets you an average job - usually stable, until they start laying people off. Then what wil you do? You're just the same as the other guy, they can find better people to do your job better. Then you're out of work. And guess what? You can't do a thing about it. You're stuck on welfare. You're equal to the people you used to look down upon, jobless, broke, barely eating.

Where's your god now?

I know what you're thinking. "This doesn't apply to me. I have my own opinions." But if I wasn't talking to you, who would I be talking to? Don't try to say "But, you don't even know my name." Because what does an arrangmemt of letters mean?

I know you're offended. But I'm not sorry. You know what they say, it's a free country. I can say what I want. For now.

Go ahead and take a minute to breathe. If it has the effect I want it to have, it should have made you really rethink your beliefs. If not, oh well, I'll keep tweaking it.

I actually originally wanted to take it in a different direction. I wanted to talk more about how it seems like the American government is doing more to restrict our rights than to protect us from outside threats. Now, I know that's not true (I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not true), the government is really doing their part to keep us safe and if they weren't, well, we would have bigger issues to worry about than these petty things. This was right after the SOPA/PIPA scandal, and I wanted to write about it because it made me so angry. So I wrote something up and shared it in Lit Club.


I really wanted to make people angry with this, truthfully. I think it's a bit to short to do that, but you never know. The only people that have heard it are agreeable people, and we tend to have the same view on stuff like this.


I don't have anything else to say right now. My brain isn't working.


Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.

How to prove someone wrong on the internet

We're finally getting new carpet. In part of our house, at least. Our current carpet is old and disgusting. Unfortunately, the parts of the house we're not getting new carpet is in the bedrooms, and my bedroom is where I spend most of my time (when I'm not out & about, which is unsurprisingly not often). So I still have the faded, uncomfortable, unattractive blue carpets I've known and (not) loved all of my childhood. But, just because I'm not getting new carpet in my room doesn't mean I don't have to do a lot of work to pull up the carpet in other rooms, right? Well, I don't have to do a lot of work, but that's not the reason why. The reason is because I can't. I physically cannot cut and pull up the carpet. So, while my brother and dad do all the dirty work, I have to vacuum up the dust and nastiness that's under the padding that is under the carpet. Thank god we don't have to install the carpet. That would've been torture. My dad finally realized that he doesn't have to do everything himself, and sometimes he can pay a little extra money to have something done so he doesn't end up messing everything up and have to pay a lot of money to restart. I'm glad. All we have to do is move the piano, the couch, and the armoire, which, for those of you that don't know (because I didn't know), is cabinet of sorts for your TV. I don't know how my dad expects me to help move these, when I can't even pull up carpet.


Anyway.

Fast forward a few hours, we have new carpet, and I'm trying to get over the fact that this guy totally texted me first but he never replied when I texted him back and he's probably ignoring me and he's sooooo ignorant and....


Wait, I forgot, you don't care.


Let's talk about something I hate: Bitches on the internet. I was on Facebook earlier, looking at the posts from the pages I like, and I stumbled upon one that caught my eye. This girl found a page for the sole purpose of hating on it. She looked it up just to start a flamewar. Who does that? I mean, if something pops up on your wall and you wanna voice your opinion, go ahead, but who seriously takes time out of their day just to make people they don't know and have no affiliation with angry? It's so ignorant. I'm not even going to say the name of the page, but this stuff happens so much and it makes me so mad. How can people be so ignorant? I would take what they say more seriously if it wasn't just "this page is full of Fags" or "tbh i just wanted this to be between us know one else." If you're trying to prove someone wrong or insult someone, at least try to use good mechanics. Hate mail isn't taken seriously if you can't spell. Maybe people wouldn't hate you so much if you knew the difference between "your" and "you're." That's why I'd like to share with you the mini check list I go through when I reply to a hater.

How to prove someone wrong on the internet.

Step one: Make sure you actually have an opinion on the subject.

Do you not care one way or the other? Then it's better to not get involved.

Step two: Make sure you know your opinion on the subject.

Don't go in thinking one way and blindly switching sides throughout the argument.

Step three: Do you really care? Really? Are you sure?

This is an important step. You know what's gonna happen, they're not going to listen. You're a busy person. Wanna let off some steam? Go right ahead. Writing an important paper? You probably shouldn't.

Step four: Read what they said and what others said.

It's important to know what to say and to thoroughly understand what they're/you're saying before you post it.

Step five: Type up your response.

Shouldn't take too long.

Hint: Be. Super. Nice. Kill them with kindness. It really, really works. I like to end mine with "I'll pray for you." Even though, honestly? I probably won't. Try saying something like "You poor thing, you must have a terribly hard life" and use something they said to back it up.

Step six: Check your grammar, spelling, and flow.

Also, don't use acronyms or smiley's. Here's some good grammar guides from the best website ever (a.k.a The Oatmeal) :

All these comics are funny, and are very useful.

Step seven: This is your last chance. Do you REALLY care?

Remember what they say: Don't feed the trolls.

Step eight: Click send. Congratulations!

Now notice either the inevitable missing burn/grammar/spelling error or the time lapse from the last comment.

Now you know how to piss people off that you don't know. Have fun, and remember, you're so much prettier than they are.

Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.

HGTV ruined my summers

I don't really know what to write about, which is not very surprising, considering I'm indecisive. At least, I think I am. I'm not really sure. I originally thought I would write about my building adventures I have with my dad and my brother, so let's start with that, hm?


I think this madness of home improvement and my dad's E(xtreme)DIY mindset has always been in remission, but it was really brought into light a couple years ago when we got a pool. I love the pool. The pool is my best friend and my little baby. It's great at parties (it's more sociable than I am) and it's almost always agreeable. Almost always. It's not very agreeable when I (when I say "I" I mean "my dad and sometimes my brother and I") have to take apart the pump and rip out the filters to clean them. It's traumatic for the poor thing, I'm sure. It also doesn't like when we pour gallons of chemicals into it to clear it up and try to make it look all nice and pretty for the guests. Now, our pool isn't a Chlorine pool, so we have to get special chemicals from a super-special dealer. Naturally, most of the workers at the dealer and idiots and don't know much about pool care, so when we have questions, we just have to put in a bunch of stuff and hope something good happens. One thing my dad has found he likes to do (or, he likes to make me do) is vacuum the pool. I know. It sounds weird. But we hook up a hose-thing to a pump in a bucket underwater that's connected to another-hose thing that leads into the woods and the first hose-thing is attached to a nozzle-thing with wheels that is attached to a pole that we push around the pool to vacuum up stuff that doesn't get sucked into the filter. Please think that as if it was said in one breath. Anyway, that's how we vacuum the pool. Of course, all this work and effort is to save the little money it would take to buy an actual pool vacuum (one that wouldn't waste water like this one and in the respect save money, but I digress).


Shortly after getting this wonderful pool, my dad decided this wasn't enough. We needed more, more decorations, more colour, and especially more work. So what did he decide to do?


Build a Tiki Bar.


From scratch.


With his twelve-year old daughter and thirteen-year-old son as helpers.

And I thought I was crazy.


Well, long story short, we built it (even though I don't really remember doing much work) and in less than a month, we had a full blown bitchin' Tiki Bar. Needless to say, it's a huge hit at parties. It gets along great with the pool, they're totally in sync. I'm starting to think I should name these characters.


But then it got bad.


My dad suddenly got the urge to plant fifty-something plants around the pool and Tiki Bar. It was horrible. He would pick the hottest day of the week, wake my brother and I up early, and put us to work all day long. I hated it. And for everything we did, I could think up an effective and simple way to make it easier. For example, we had to mix up the dirt and the fertilizer. He told my brother and I to scoop a ton of dirt onto a tarp, pour a punch of fertilizer on it, mix it up, and drag it around the yard to put in with the plants. This is opposed to emptying a bag of fertilizer (maybe on the tarp), putting dirt from where we were planting in the bag, put some fertilizer in it, and boom. It's easy to carry, you can fill it up whenever you need to, and it's easy to mix up. Of course, I'm just a child, so my ideas wouldn't work. But that's a rant for another day.


So, you would think that after we got through the hell of planting, it's be over, and the pool would look nice, right? Wrong. Not only do the plants look (mostly) bad, my dad has an obsession with buying more plants.  More more more more. We don't have any room left to plant, but he keeps buying more. Now the area around the pool looks great for about a week in early summer (when we're so busy prepping to yard for summer that we don't have time for parties), but then when the plants start to die, it looks awful. Not to mention we've slowly started pulling apart the house and redecorating.

I blame HGTV.


Much love from the girl in tight jeans, GinnaaayMarie.