sunny disposition.

I have SO MUCH to do in the month of april that it's not even amusing.

I am in the process of recording two albums, classes started yesterday, I'm trying to seriously clean out my room and get rid of things, and I have to learn to driving a fucking manual car by May 1st.

I was all ready to jump in head first on Monday, but then my train wreck of a life happened, and I literally did nothing yesterday but cry and feel sorry for myself. And sign up for a class to take the place of Japanese 113.

I need to find some quick way to leave all of that horrible stuff behind and just get motivated quick because these are all things I NEED to do this month and I can't let obstacles get in my way.

Right now I just feel moody though.


Lauren is wonderful, she can make me feel so much better even when my life literally collapses in a single text message. Parselmouths wont be the same without Brittany. Wizard rock wont be the same without her. But I dont have to stop, and I have so many wonderful friends who immediately stepped up to help, which made me feel so overwhelmed with love I cant even explain.

I feel ... I don't know. I have two classes to go to today. I don't have to work afterward. I am going to run the errands I meant to yesterday, return the books I already bought for Japanese, send the emails I was supposed to... after my minor delay, I am going to just... push through.

Also I sent a grumpy email to Alex this morning and I feel badly.
I dont like being grumpy like this. It reminds me of being in high school and I much prefer sunny-disposition-Kristina. LET ME HAVE A SUNNY DISPOSITION, LIFE.

rawrrawr ahh.

BUYING PLANE TICKETS IS STRESSFUL AND BEING IN A BAND IS HARD.



But in other news, I officially have airfare to Boston (for LeakyCon) for me, Eia, Liz, and Alex.

Now we just need to get Brittany there. :/

mindless.

When I am at work, I have full access to the internet, and even though I'm not REALLY supposed to use it, I do anyway.
Often times this is where I reply to messages I receive on Youtube or emails asking me interview questions from the Parselmouth inbox... things that are a bit of a hassle when I have other fun things I could be doing at home, but here at work, replying to this stuff is infitinitely more fun than proofing subscriptions or filing things.
Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that when I get tired of doing things like that, or run out of messsages to reply to, I start to play mindless games to pass the time. Among these are games like freecell, bloons, boomshine, insaneaquariam, or today's game of choice, facebook bowling buddies.
The sole purpose of this blog update is to say that I have racked up so much "cash" on bowling buddies that today I was able to "buy" myself a new pink bowling ball covered in hearts and that it rains hearts behind it as it zooms down the bowling lane toward the pins, and I am way more excited about this than I should be.

It's the little things in life. <3



Also, tonight is Brittany and Adam's birthday party and Luke is coming up and apparently Adam the Alien is coming too and I am excited because I never go OUT with people, ever, when I am in Seattle. And I got her a fun present and I cant wait to give it to her.

I need more fun games to play at work. Now that I have gotten the best ball on bowling buddies, I dont have much more to work for besides stupid trophies. "All Spare" trophy? Who can get ALL spares in a game? Pointless.

hello mr. postman.

I'm grumpy and I think it's just because I am SO FREAKING TIRED.
But it's only 9:30 and I CANT go to bed because last night when I went to bed at 10, I was up at 4:45 AM and I am NOT doing that again.

Rarwrawr so I have to just suffer the tiredness and keep myself occupied in meaningless ways until a decent sleeptime.

I have a stack of mail 15 envelopes high from when I was in London and some of them look important - I suppose I could start going through those... although last time I did that I found a renewal notice for my car tabs informing me it's that fun time of year again where I send away like $90 for stupid little stickers to put on my license plates. Sigh.

As much as I am not looking forward to learning to drive a manual, I really hope I win the Ford Fiesta thing. Driving around in a hot little car with free gas and stuff for 6 months would be... just... ahhh. So good.

The envelope on the top of the stack says in black printing "CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL FOR KRISTINA HORNER." I have my fingers crossed it's a very, very late Hogwarts letter and not junk mail. <3

Okay. I'm done complaining.
I've just realized Leaky is relatively soon and I havent even begun to think about plane tickets. I need to like... book those. Sometime.



Edit: It was junk mail. Discover Card Application. Dreams = crushed.

jetlag woes.

Ugh.
Last night I went to bed at 10PM because I thought getting loads of sleep again would cure me of my jetlag, but then I woke up at 4:45 AM, so that was fun.

Now here I am at 7; already watched an episode of Doctor Who and piddled around on the Internet and still have 2 hours before I need to be motivated at all. But then I have a 9 hour work day so... gross.

I haven't written anything else in here about my last days in London or my trip home or anything.
I was going to type things up on the plane but then I literally watched 10 straight hours of movies and television. Amsterdam to Seattle is a LONG nonstop flight.

I miss Alex and his house and his mom and not having responsibilities.
School starts on Monday and I am totally not ready for it.


...good thing blogger autosaves drafts of blogs because I completely forgot I was typing this and accidentally closed the window. Oops. Haha.

Anyway, hi. I'm back home in Seattle. I have classes to focus on, 2 albums to record, a big major conference to get ready for, a Doctor Who to catch up on, and a boyfriend to miss.

<3

Also, my foot fell asleep while typing this. Owowow.

last few hours.

Alex and I are writing a wizard rock song together in my last bit of time here in England.




I wish this were my life.

more more london.

My time left in London is dwindling down and I as much as I have been trying to not think about it, I do go home on Wednesday and then it'll be another month or so of UW and working and not seeing Alex without annoying pixelation and time zones.

Gah it's so strange how quickly a person can get used to something. I got here 5 days ago and it's already hard for me to imagine him just.. not being here next to me whenever I want. :(
I think that's a really good sign, that he just already feels like a part of my life, even though it hasn't even been that long. It's just going to make the time apart harder though.

I like London. I'm not good at being in all unfamiliar surroundings, but that's all I have ever wanted for myself. Stretch my comfort levels. Expand my horizons. See exciting things. Learn new stuff.
When we went into London for the HP meetup, I had this overwhelming sense of belonging... seeing Rosi and Emma and David... I dunno. I just felt like I was meeting up with some friends. London didnt feel all that far away from home that day. And it's nice to know that there is more for me in London than JUST Alex. Like, obviously he is a large reason for me liking it here, but it's nice to know that there are plenty of other people here I could just call up and spend an afternoon with or whatever, because seven weeks is a LONG time, and that's how long I will be here when I come back this summer.
And I want to keep coming back, again and again.

I cant wait. Ahhhh.
Already have plans to go shopping with Emma/Rosi/Ally when I'm back in the summer. <3
GIRL THINGS.

more london.

I am loving this week. :)

Currently Charlie is doing a blogtv show right next to me, in which he has already sang a love song about Hayley, his rendition of Mrs. Nerimon that he calls "Mr. Nerimon", and is now singing an ode to Rhymezone.com which I think is probably my new favorite song, as I am a TOTAL secret rhymezone.com addict.

Anyway, my week:

Wednesday was just kind of a laze around and be excited that Alex and I were in the same time zone again kind of day, which was gooood.
Thursday we INTENDED to go into London, but that never happened, and then his cousin Danny came over anyway and so we hung with him and did video game-y boyish things.
Friday was Thorpe park, and I am realizing now I am losing steam with this story as I have already told it 2-3 times in epic fashion, but here is the gist:
We were having a lovely, dry day full of rides and merriment and then since Stealth was broken down, Danny defaulted to the next closest ride with happened to be "Tidal Wave". It was a water ride, and I did not want to go on it. The boys insisted it would be fine and made me go; I resisted as long as I could, passing "WARNING: YOU WILL GET VERY WET" signs and they made me feel like a wimp but DRAGGED me into the line. We sat in the middle of the middle where I thought I would get the least wet, but as we went down the drop....
Well okay, right away I just felt the spray and had a nice little euphoric moment where I thought "Okay this wasnt so bad" BUT THEN OH MY GOD. The water DUMPED completely down our backs for at least 10 seconds. This may not sound like very long, but stop reading right now and count to 10 out loud and imagine freezing cold water just POURING down your back the entire time.

Yeah, not so nice, is it?

But I was ALMOST a little happy it was that terrible, because Alex may have won, but really... we ALL lost. It took a long time to dry and my jeans were sticking to me for hours. Eck.

Today (Saturday) we went to King's Cross for a Harry Potter meetup and it was so much fun. <3
I got to meet Lex and Charlie and J0ames, and got to see Emma and Rosi and Ally and Lily and David and Amy and loads of other people again which was so nice because I havent seen most of these people since Terminus and they're all lovely. We wandered around and ate food at Nandos and saw Big Ben and went to an arcade where we had a pretty intense round of Dodgems (for you American readers those are bumper cars) and I enjoyed it because actual bumping is usually outlawed in America, which takes all the fun out of it.

Basically each day here keeps getting better and better and I plan to keep with this trend.

england.

I'll admit, I spent the first 2 days of being in England kind of just... in Alex's house.

But today I went out with him and his cousin Danny to Thorpe Park, which was loads of fun in itself, but also good to just to soak up British culture.
I think I was a bit quieter today than usual because I was just observing and trying to take in everything I possibly could.
I'm now going to try to remember all of the little things I noticed.

1. This was really strange for me, as I have never really been outside of America (aside from Canada and Mexico) so consequently I have never really experienced being the "strange" accent. I speak basic Hollywood English, so I am really used to being "normal". I dont have to think about it. But every time I spoke today, I was hyper aware of the fact that if anyone walked by their ears would perk up a little to listen to me, and I was on constant alert of it. This was an entirely new experience and strange for me to have to think about this for the first time in my life.

2. Things in London are generally just kind of smaller than in America. Houses/Apartments are small and cute, escalators are thinner, food servings are smaller... Alex bought me an ice cream cone (it was cute, since I wrote it into the script) and it was tiny but I liked that better because who can eat a big enormous cone anyway? It was lovely ice cream, too. <3

3. I know this is going to sound VERY shallow and very typical-American, but I realized how big the world is today. America is just a country, and I just happen to live there. I was on the train and I was standing there, leaning against a pole, watching the landscape whiz by and seeing everyday people reading British newspapers on their way home from work... this all sounds common and average but that's exactly it. There are people just living life all over the world and I never stop to consider them ever ahhh I am such a surface level person and that needs to end NOW. I'm not going to stop traveling until I see everything.

4. When Alex came to Seattle he told me he felt very much a PART of my life instead of a spectator; he didn't feel like someone I was just showing around, which is amazing if you think about it. Two people can connect so well that being halfway across the world in a different culture can feel like home. I was afraid I wouldn't get that same feeling of inclusiveness here, just because I worry about things, but even though I feel embarrassingly American here, I feel like that's just something I can easily grow out of. I feel like a part of Alex's life and can see myself in his world, so that's nice. It's nice here. I like his Mom (Mum? Do I have to use it?) and his cousin and his funny red buses and doors that open in strange ways and black current juice and oyster cards and I'm not too keen on sausage rolls but I think I could even learn to like them. :D

Basically, I'm giving London two thumbs up and predictably, I dont want this week to end.

eep.

Lesson #1 learned:

American hairdryers do NOT work in London, even with an outlet converter.

From the airport.

3/17/09

St. Patrick's day in the airport.
I forgot to wear green. Instead I am wearing my favorite bright purple pants and a pink vest and yellow socks and I almost feel like I look spiteful, wearing so many colors that AREN'T green.
I have nothing against green, world. I am a Slytherin.

So far I have had my currency exchanged (Really sucks handing over 133 dollars and getting 80 pounds back. Stupid), eaten a breakfast sandwich that just plain sucked, tried to buy milk and was informed they only had chocolate (who DOES that?) and have forgotten about my cinnamon roll until just now as I was typing this so it is surely cold. Sigh.

This trip is off to a good start!


There aren't any delays though, which is good, so I should arrive right on time into Alex's arms WITHOUT having the stay the night in Minneapolis or something. There are no Laurens to drive out to see me in Minnesota.

Right now it's still a little hard for me to believe I am flying to London. I have never been. I feel like I should be showing up at some indiscriminate place in the US for a wizard rock something or other, which is usually the case.
When I went through security, the officer who checked my passport and boarding pass saw where my final destination was and got a little twinkle in his eye. It was almost like he KNEW why I was going.
Maybe he just likes London, or knows I'll be having fun, whatever I'm doing.

I have an HOUR before I board my flight. I don't think I brought enough things to do. There'd better be good movies on this flight. Or at least ones I haven't seen before.

Right. I'm going to go eat the cinnamon roll before it's just rock hard. :/

Totoro!

So I have this whole elaborate sleep-schedule plan where I am going to attempt to get myself on London time before I even get there... it MAY work, but now I am just fucking tired.
It's 1 am, I was up super late last night cramming for exams, and I have to wake up in 5 hours. x.x

I had a lovely evening tonight though. One of my closest friends Colin is home for Spring break (he goes to Lafayette in Pennsylvania) and saaadly most of his break is while I am gone, but we managed to fit in hanging out tonight. It was nice to just chat about life, get sandwiches, and watch Totoro with Eia. (Well, they watched Totoro. I struggled to keep my eyes open like usual, and then we all gave up about 75% through because the dvd kept skipping and it was too annoying to deal with).

Tomorrow morning I get on a plane to go to London which will be my very first time off this big rock we call North America and every travel bone in my body is tingling. But more importantly, I get to see Alex in about 24 hours. <3333

Also, holy CRAP. Mrs. Nerimon has gotten me 600 subscribers and still rising, and hit 24k views in a day and a half. I am not used to this!
Why does everyone love the videos where I act like I am 10 years old. Hahaha. Oh my life.


tomorrowtomorrowtomorrow <3

Top Model.

I finished writing my global youth final paper this morning.

I SHOULD be studying for my japanese art history exam that is tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM, but I am too excited about London to focus so instead I am watching this week's America's Next Top Model that I missed.
I almost auditioned for cycle 10 (we're on cycle 12 now), I dont think I ever really told anyone that. Brittany and I drove up to Alderwood mall where they were doing auditions but we were too late and the line was too long.
I dont know if I would audition anymore.
I dont think I am drama-y enough.
But gah. The photoshoots. Are amazing.

Anyway, they're only picking girls UNDER 5'7" this next cycle anyhow, so that rules me out.

I want it to stop raining so I can finish filming a video later today.

And, you know. Study eventually. ^^

Just a Person.

I just went to my last lecture of my Global Youth class, which has thus far been my favorite class at UW.

Our professor asked us to write on a piece of paper the main thing we learned in the class, and this is what I wrote:

"I have learned in these 10 weeks that every single one of my peers in any given class has a unique story that is completely different from my own."

This may sound obvious, but when you walk into a class of 200 people and see 75 north face jackets, 82 pairs of Uggs, 35 macbooks, 112 brunettes, 42 iPhones, and 112 pairs of converse shoes... it's pretty easy to forget that these are people who have hobbies, dreams, accomplishments, and quirky talents.

Alex and I were discussing once how someone can be considered "just a person". I think that if you view someone as "just a person", either they dont know who they are yet, or you just dont know then well enough.

There were plenty of sorority girls in my class. Jocks. Dozens of similar haircuts and outfits.
But over the course of the quarter we did a lot of excersizes just to get to know each other.
People I thought were cardboard cutouts had moved here from Taipei. Had grown up in a small town and just gotten to the big city this year. Had spent a year living in South America. Had gotten themselves in a lot of trouble and were back taking a second chance at life.

EVERYONE has a story.
That, my friends, is what I'm learning in college.

Not freaking... Japanese art.



I am going to write my last paper of the quarter now, because it and an art history exam are the only things standing between me and Alex's FACE. <3

hm

I am sitting in the artsy indie art cafe at my University again. I always feel like a faker in here, even though I LOOK alright with my shortish hair, floppy sweater and my mac computer. Ha. how little I care about what "appearance" I have makes me wonder if these leather jacket/beret wearing/rolled up jeans tea drinkers think I'm an intruder in their cafe or something.

I ran into an old friend from highschool and it was the strangest experience.

Even though I never had any sort of romantic crush on this guy, he always made me nervous because he was one of the leading people in the whole "indie retro arty philosophy book reading coffee shop" types. I always felt like he was psychoanalyzing me and just being around him made all of my nervous flaws just feel very exposed. I enjoyed talking to him; we were on the newspaper together and he wrote in my section, which was Opinion (I was an editor) but gah. It was just a lot of WORK being around him. I always felt awkward. Not hip enough. Not blasé enough.

Anyway, the point of the story is I ran into him down here in the art cafe (figures) and we had a nice little chat that felt completely normal and fine. We found out we have a class together next quarter which is nice.

So I dunno what changed in the 3 years since highschool. Either I got more hip, or less awkward/nervousy, or care less in general how people view me or something.
Or maybe HE changed. Maybe he was really judgmental/trying to be an anomaly and now he's just a guy reading a book in a cafe.

Well whatever it is, I think it's in part because I know my life is awesome and that I have been doing things so I have nothing to prove. Or something.

Either way, "Mushaboom" is playing (Feist <3) and I am mouthing along the words and writing in my blog instead of working on a paper WOOO.

<3

Simultaneous chopping.

My little brother shaved all his hair off!

If you dont know why this is crazy, it's because he has had SUPER long hair for.... years. YEARS.

This is blowing my mind. Cannot comprehend.


The weirdest part is, we both chopped our long hair off on the same day, without even knowing it. I called home last night to tell my parents my long hair was gone and before I could get a word out my dad said "Tina you should see your brother right now, you wouldn't BELIEVE it."



RIP all those shiny blonde locks.

the ciiircle of life

I am grumpy.

I got home from a lovely weekend in Kansas with all my friends, and a week from tomorrow I leave for London and spending time with Alex, and while both of these things are wonderful, sandwiched in here between those is an entire week of crappiness. I have to work 5 days this week, as writing two final papers and studying for a huge final exam.

I feel like a spoiled brat complaining, because I DO get to travel and do loads of fun things... but I feel like lately my life is a constant cycle of doing fun things and then in between just having this really low hard work filled wait time in between. I would like a bit of free time to just watch tv shows I like and maybe learn to cook or something. I dont like the CONSTANT running from place to place to homework etc.

I have skipped class today, which was stupid, but I have vowed I will use my day to write one of my papers. The easier one, probably.

Actually, maybe I will do myself a HUGE favor and start the harder one. That would make life easier for sure.


I just miss Alex and I miss having time to watch Doctor Who and I miss my mom's cooking, honestly. Mac and cheese is getting old.



It stopped raining since I started typing this blog and the sun is shining in through my window. That's a sign if I ever saw one. It's time to shut up, get work done, and smile because in 9 days I will be giving Alex a big, long overdue hug. :D

owowow.

I've just had leftover curry followed immediately by some girl scout cookies.

Upon second thought, that maybe wasn't the best dinner. My tummy hurts.

:D:D

I am just so happy.

After the crappy events that took place in the world of the Internet yesterday (still angry, ignoring it all) I am so pleased that the new HBP trailer was posted today.

I.. I NEEDED something like this. :D

When you've loved something for so long without having any new material to be excited for and cherish and snuggle with, arms holding a new book or DVD close to your chest, you can find yourself becoming a little jaded.

I will ALWAYS love Harry Potter. There will never be a day when I don't love Harry Potter, and I have a lightning bolt tattoo on my foot to prove that.

But it's easy to find myself becoming more of a "Yes, I do love Harry Potter, so?" sort of person rather than an "OMGHARRYPOTTERANDMERCHANDISEANDAHHH" (even though I was never really like that either, to clarify. Just using the analogy for added effect).

However, this new trailer has renewed that fangirlish love in me, at least for now, and I cannot WAIT for July.

As we say in the Parselmouths, "This is never gonna end." <3

Method, Imagination and Inquiry.

Blogging about how much I hate this class while sitting in said class.
This is the only way I can fight back, as the notes need to be taken and the papers need to be turned in.

10 minutes of class left. ugh ugh ugh.

1 week of classes, 2 papers, and 1 final exam away from completion of winter quarter and more importantly, from seeing my boyfriend again for the second time and seeing London for the first.

My patience is being tried.


I am a spoiled human being, because what I didnt mention in the above list is that I also get to see most of my best friends in Kansas this weekend at a big wizardrock shindig.

BUT I STILL WANNA COMPLAIN ABOUT SCHOOL RAWR.

Okay, I'm done.

grandma <3

I almost forgot - this was HILARIOUS.

So my dad sent my grandma an email this morning; in it there was a picture of him at work installing a furnace in some place out by the water. In the background of the picture were two of his male coworkers and then a pretty view of the sound and a few ferry boats.

He wrote "Look at the ferries behind me!"


She was quick to write back, and replied with this single sentence:

"Okay, just because you live in the city doesn't mean you have to call them ferries, Randy, here in the country we still just call them Gays."



LOL. I love her.

crab rangoon.

Okay. I am significantly more calm than I was in my blog earlier.


Because honestly, if a boy was gay, and dating a girl as a coverup or because he was scared of coming out, WHY would he invest as much emotion as the two of us have into someone THOUSANDS of miles away, when he could easily hide behind a nice nearby girlfriend? Silly.

Anyway, tonight I am going out for Thai with 2 of the regular housemates and our brand new housemate, Ben. That will be nice. I hope we all get along with him.
And this afternoon I had Thai food with my dad.

And really, any day in which I can have Crab Rangoon TWICE is a good day.

(and dont call me a seafood hypocrite. I hate 99.99999% of it. I just happen to like crab rangoon. suck it.)

RAWR.

Yes, public.

You are allowed to formulate opinions about how I look, the things I say, and how I dress.

But do not tell me "Honey your boyfriend is gay."


That's.. just... it's FALSE.

No. He does not have a secret crush on Charlie. No, he wasn't dating Tom when he made the "Eyelashes" video. I think I would know a bit more about the sexuality of the guy I am dating than you, Mr. Random Internet Fan Guy.

All of this time I have felt badly that Alex has been getting the brunt of this "Your relationship wont last" garbage, but now this. This is just irritating.

Now I just went to check and see if this guy has replied to my last email, and I saw THIS waiting for me in my inbox, from a new person:

"Hey,
Just wanted to check whether or not you and Alex were dating, following all the hintings on twitter.

Adam"

This is just bizarre to me. Everything about it. "Hey yeah, just checking whether or not you were dating, see ya around."



Gah. No point to this blog. Just - everyone - shut up. Not gay. We are dating and it's working and it's good and it's lasting and we're both straight and WHAT ELSE do you want from us?

Honestly.