Its a Beautiful Day

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Won't you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Ah, Mister Roger's Neighborhood. Good times. Or, I could spin it the other way...

Its a beautiful day outside
Everything is okay and alright
Your smile is a vast contrast from the things we said last night.
(Oh, last night)

Gosh, I love HeyHiHello. Its like the Relient K of the secular music world, even though Relient K is kind of secular. Even though I just keep quoting songs, its because they illustrate how I feel today.

Yesterday ended rather pleasantly. I got home and found several things waiting for me. A) news that I have won two scholarships (FINALLY!) and B) my graduation invitations, which I ordered monday night, had arrived. I also took my final exam for sociology last night, and I made a 77, which means that I am making a B+ for the class for the semster, which means I get both college and highschool credit! Needless to say, I was rather happy. I also ended up cleaning out my room-ish area in the corner of our living room and organizing it so that I felt rather refreshed at the change.

Then, this morning my mom and I discussed the graduation gift that I would be getting from my grandparents (on my mom's side), which is a new camera. I've had the same camera throughout highschool, and I would really like a new one since I will be working on more professional things. I'm looking at a Nikon DSLR camera that is like 24 megapixels (if I remember correctly) and takes HD video. Plus, you can change the lenses, which means that I can find a WIDE ANGLE LENSE that will allow me to take up the whole box on my youtube videos. Whoo! I hope to be getting that within the next month or so, it just depends on how it all works out.

Then, when I got to school this morning, we went to the library and filmed two commercials for the telenovela. I think we have them done now. We have two more commercials and four scenes to film, but I can at least begin editing stuff now. I'm the director, editor, and sometimes the camera person. One of the commercials is a green screen car commercials, so we'll see how that works out.

Overall, I'm just really happy and today has been a really good day. I just hope that it doesn't start going downhill.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

Exam Day

Today, I have my sociology exam for my dual credit class. All of the other tests in the class have been on weekends, and they have been available for two or three days. However, this final exam is only available to be taken today from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. This means that I have to take it as soon as I get home. Its worth 200 points, and I need at least 100, so I plan to take my time on it. It covers every chapter in the textbook, pretty much, so I plan to go through the book during the school day and mark important things.

I began writing the second chapter of the story this morning. I think its going pretty well. I really like how its turning out. I've been thinking. Maybe, if I can finish the story this summer, I can send it to a publishing company during the school year or whatever you have to do to get a book edited and published. Then, they can start selling it in january or so of 2014 and I can have some money to pay for college with by the next school year. I just hope I can write it fast enough. That way, even if I can't go to SHSU this year, I can go to it the next year. Of course, I have no clue how much it takes to get a book published, nor how much you generally make from a published book. I'll have to reasearch that. I do think it would be cool to be paying for college with money from something that I made, though.

The concept of the book is similar to The Hunger Games, The Giver Series, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and things like that. I don't want to give too much away, but I do think it will be a great read. Its kind of funny, because the book came from an idea that popped up during a random conversation when we went as a OAP group to eat at denny's at midnight. I hope to get somewhere with it, and I will definately be crediting people who helped me with it and have given comments on the rough draft.

I guess I should go work on marking things in my textbook, even though I really don't want to.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

Fangirl Morning

This morning, I was fangirling (yes, its a verb now) over the email that I got from youtube. Youtube sends me emails all the time, particularly about comments on my videos. The other day, a contest was held on a vlogbrothers video that had something to do with submitting a video response and possibly getting to vlog on the channel or something like that. So, I submitted my Zombie music video. This morning, I got an email (my email comes to my phone) from youtube about a comment on my video. It was made by a person who works with the vlogbrothers and was through the vlogbrothers channel, saying that the video was great and that the person loved zombies. I was uber excited, and I keep thinking that maybe since the person works with John and Hank, one or both of them saw it also.

I was going through an old unofficial smash book the other day, and I found some stories, poems, and songs that were incomplete. I think I may start typing them up today. I am also working on another story (I can't remember whether I've told you of this one) and I made it to chapter two. I'm actually outlining this one, so I hope to finish it within a year or so. Hopefully sooner.

I keep thinking about how much I want summer to be here. Yesterday my mom and I sat down and ordered graduation invitations, which should be arriving before the end of the week, and started collecting addresses. BTW, if you are a relative or family friend of mine, send me your address so that I can send one to you. Comment for my email address.

I want to dye my hair red because I'm ready for a change. It kind of will be like a transformation and the starting of a new life as an adult. I also cannot wait to get a new camera, a bank account, a paypal account, and an activated adsense account. Hopefully that will help me out a little bit in the area of money. By the way, I have a friend, Lisa, who has a blog that she posts on (Apostolic Girl) that you should read also. I feel that she will be very good at blogging since she can take things with meaning and talk about them, rather than just random stuff like I post about.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

The After-Prom

So, yesterday was the day after prom, and today is the day that my after-prom madness begins. Prom itself was really fun, even though the DJ was TERRIBLE! It was the same guy as last year, but this year he was even worse. I had a fun time regardless, spending time with the people I love to be around.

Note to self, fake nails are not meant for typing. It kind of becomes like an annoying disability that prevents typing from being as fast and effective. Grrr.

I am still super tired. I got back home after prom and prom-related activities at about 2:30 AM and I didn't get to sleep until about 3 in the morning. Then, I went to church the next morning (the only high school girl to do so) and spent the day working on a spanish project.

This morning, we were supposed to film one of the commercials for the telenovela. I got to the library and two of my actors were there out of three. We went and searched for the third one (whom I had reminded via text message and email that we were filming) and could not find her, even though I saw her walk into the building. SO, I took over her part and we fillmed it in one take. We may have to do it over again though, because two of the lines were missed. GAH. Being a director and a senior in high school is a difficult thing to try and juggle.

I have qualified to apply to be in the honors college at the college that I plan on going to. I started filling out the application yesterday and I have to send it in before the end of the month. I really hope it helps me because the classes will be smaller and more serious and the dorms are seperate and better. There is also a quiet room for studying and such. I would love to do this, so I really hope that I get some scholarships so I can pay to go.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

Friday... Finally.

Today is Friday, May 3, the day before prom, 2013. I'm really excited about tomorrow, and I would love to be out of school today, doing things to get ready like many of the other girls, but I don't have the time or money to do so. I'm not getting my hair or nails professionally done because it takes too long AND costs way too much.

I only decided last night how I want to do my hair for prom, and I'm still clueless about my nails (although french tips are tempting). I made reservations for dinner before prom yesterday after school. We're eating chinese food at one of my favourite places... Jade Palace. Its a chinses food place in Humble that has some really good food at decent prices and some really sweet oriental people run the place. One of the waitresses, Sylvia, is kind of like my adoptive grandmother. Not many people go there for anything fancy, but I knew that they could seat us on such short notice. Things like Italiano's, Zio's, Olive Garden, etc. were either way too expensive or bound to be booked.

I think that tomorrow will be a really long but a really fun day. I love dancing, which makes prom really fun for me. I enjoy dressing up, but thats not really a major thing for me. I will get up early in the morning to start getting ready, take pictures, then meet everyone at a friend's house. We'll leave there and go eat, then go to prom. After prom, we'll go back to the same friend's house and stay up all night playing videogames and boardgames and talking. Fun. Nerdy fun, nonetheless, but fun.

Many people are going out and partying or drinking after prom. Personally, I think that's a really terrible idea. You don't have to be drunk or otherwise intoxicated to have a good time. Keep all of the kids from our school in your prayers, in hopes that we'll all be back at school on monday, safe and sound.

In other news, I'm currently reading a book called "Girl In Translation", by Jean Kwok. Its about a girl who comes with her mother to America from China. Its about how she had to adapt to the American school system and way of life. She and her mother work in a garment factory and live in a broken down apartment building that is due to be demolished at any date. Its a really good book that gives insight into what immigrants go through and feel like in their coming to America.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

Shopping...

Yesterday, I went shopping with my mom. We left the house at about 5:00 or so, and we didn't get back until 10:30 or so, so I didn't get to bed until roughly 11:00 or later. Needless to say, I am really tired. I almost fell asleep during a lecture in aquatic science AND while I was reading a book in economics.

The first thing that my mom and I did was go and order a boutineer. I really don't care if thats spelled wrong. My hands don't want to type today anyway. We went to one flower shop, but before we pulled into the parking lot they closed. So, we went to the other florist in town, and got there 30 minutes before closing. It ended up being the place that my date had ordered the corsage from, so they looked up his order and made sure that the color was right, and we got them to make the two items match.

The second thing that we did was go to a place called Sam Moon. Its almost like an outlet for jewelry and purses and such. I got my purse for prom. Its a really tiny silver one with sparkles all over it. I already have jewelry for prom, so I didn't have to worry about that. I did manage to get a wig for my Snow White costume though. It isn't a typical snow white hairdo, but a black wig with a bob-style hair. I bought a red bow to wear with it also, but they didn't sell just single bows, so I ended up buying a pack with like ten bows in it. I now feel obligated to wear a bow at least once a week. we looked for shoes there too (they had a shop next door with shoes) but we didn't find anything the right size that would match my dress. My mom doesn't exactly believe that my bobs match the dress perfectly. Its a floor length dress, so it doesn't matter that much.

We went to party city next. We managed to get the last snow white costume they had. The only thing was that its really short, so we bought some fabric at walmart that we are going to use to make a longer skirt. I was rather suprised that they were still selling costumes at this time of the year.

My mother and I then ate at Casa Ole in the mall before heading to walmart. There were some stops in between there, but nothing important. Most of the stores were closing up.

I am about to fall asleep while typing. Blech.

Love,
Elizabeth W.

Steel Magnolias

The other day, I watched the movie Steel Magnolias. Its about this girl who gets married, but she is diabetic. She is told she shouldn't have a kid, but does anyway. Then, her kidneys start to give out so she gets a transplant, but ends up dying anyway. Trust me , though, there is a lot more to the movie than that.

The whole moral of the story is that women are the Steel Magnolias. We're pretty like flowers, and we're supposed to be delicate. That's the way everyone thinks of us. But in times of trouble, we're the ones who are made of steel. We stand strong and keep others from falling when times get tough. As women, we are made of steel. We can stick around when the guys can't. In times of sadness especially.

Personally, I consider myself very much a steel magnolia. I have this ability to, when needed, basically turn off my emotions so that I can hold up in the situation. The thing about this is that I also have to break down sometime later, as the girl's mother did in the movie. And I think that, as women, it is important to have this trait and pass it on to other girls who are younger, so that they can stand strong when the time comes.

Today there was a car crash re-enactment at our school. I knew about it, but I was not looking forward to it because I cannot stand sad things like that. However, myself and many other girls got through it without shedding a single tear. Yes, it was sad. Yes, there is a guy dressed as the grim reaper walking around, taking kids out of class. Yes, it has had an impact on many of us. But just because we are told "you should cry", doesn't mean that we can't stand tall and... take it like a man.

Now I want to go home and watch steel magnolias again. The original one, not the new, lifetime movie one. It is such a good, and emotional movie. It was made in, like, the 80's. I have a friend named Shelby, who was named after the main character in the movie. If you haven't seen it, I suggest watching it.

Love,
Elizabeth W.