But you know what does bother me? The fact that I never read anymore. I mean, reading was my childhood. I was the first in my class to be able to read, and from that point on, I forever had a book in my hand.

Until the end of my sophomore year, that is. I haven’t read a book for enjoyment since (unless you could Twilight, but I consider that research). I just haven’t had the time. Scratch that. I’m sure I could have found time. But, despite the fact that I do so well in the classes, AP English has taken all the fun out of reading.

I mean, I get it. They want to develop our appreciation for writing as an art form and cultivate our ability to look beyond the plot. That’s lovely. But half the assignments we receive seem like nothing more than busy work to me. We’re given insane deadlines (one assignment was due online Christmas morning), and none of the work gives me a firmer grasp on the material than if I were given the opportunity to read in the manner of my choosing. Maybe I’m just ahead of the game. Maybe I’m behind. I don’t know. Perhaps this is me being your stereotypical frustrated teen, but I don’t think authors want us to analyze their work sentence by sentence. I think what the reader can take from a novel as a whole is more important than what specific word choices contribute to the overall mood of the piece. To me, if that mood at least translated to me, that’s all that should matter.

In an attempt to rekindle my passion for reading, I have embarked on a mission to read fifty-two books this year. Fifty. Plus two. Fifty two. That translates to one a week, but I won’t be holding myself to that. It wouldn’t make sense if I gave myself the same time frame to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that I give myself to read Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland.

For the most part, I will be reading whatever I can download for free on the Kindle my dad passed down to me, which means classics. I have a running to-read list here, and I am always open for suggestions. So suggest away.

But for the past two years, my hair has been long and blonde…ish. I went in for highlights a few times, but the change was always subtle. After growing tired of dark dye fading away too quickly, I grew to appreciate my hair for what it was.

Until last weekend. I was sitting in Biology, picking at my split ends and dreading the haircut that would take away that cool, unintentional ombre things I had going on, when I decided I finally wanted to change. Big time. The only color I’d never had was red because I never thought I’d be able to pull it off. But if I wanted to be happy with the change, I’d have to just go for it. So I acted on impulse and bought the dye. My mother had it in my hair by Monday night.

So now I have red hair. And I’m kinda obsessed with it. Other than the fact that I have to adjust my red- and orange-dominated makeup collection, I’m amazed at how well the transition went. I feel like I’ve been building up my wardrobe with the idea that my hair would someday be red in the back of my head the whole time. Maybe I’m secretly psychic. Who knows.

But since I love it so much, I’m afraid to wash my hair. I have color protection shampoo, and whenever I’d dye my hair with a red undertone before, the red would cling to my hair for eternity. Still. I’m paranoid about everything so I’m paranoid about this. I might stock up a collection of dye, you know…just in case.

My first holiday-related mission (which I placed before all my other missions), was to decorate my mini-tree. Last year I labeled myself “too busy” to hang up a few ornaments. BUT NOT THIS YEAR. My mom even offered to buy me a new set of decorations, which I found more exciting than perhaps I should have. So after narrowly escaping the clutches of that guy who wanted to “trim my tree”, I got to work with all the gusto I could muster.

There’s me and my naked tree in its naked corner. Even though everything else there is naked, I can assure you that I’m fully clothed behind all those branches.

And then there’s me in the crowded corner where I actually decorated the tree. I only had two episodes left of Death Note and was not willing to sacrifice my nightly anime marathon, so I attempted to have my cake and eat it, too. Since I couldn’t see my computer from the tree’s regular habitat, I moved the tree. If that’s not practicality at it’s finest, I don’t know what is.

Forty-five minutes and one tear fest later (Death Note was just too good to ever end), I had myself a purdy, methodically-decorated tree. I chose the rainbow ornament set, so I had to make sure certain colors weren’t too concentrated in certain areas. ‘Twas enough to give someone a headache. But I had grape juice and the warmth of a cuddly puppy on my side, so I survived.

It was midnight and I felt like being an artistic little bitch, so I took about eighty pictures like this, all of which turned out blurry.

And then I went to sleep and my lonely Christmas party was over.

What a shame.

Tumblr is just so much more conducive to my blogging needs. Something about traditional blogging is too formulaic, too formal, even. On Tumblr, I feel like I could spill out all my idiotic thoughts right as they come to me. With this blog, I feel like my posts need structure. They need length and a singular purpose. I can’t post four sentence entries about that new can of whip cream my mom bought or my affinity for watered down drinks or my theories on blue jeans here. I mean, I suppose I can. As far as I know, there isn’t a WordPress blog police that would send me to the stocks if I did. But just in case there is, I’m not taking any chances.

Then, of course, there’s that whole commenting thing. I get so caught up in trying to return every single comment that they build up and then I just don’t return any of them. On Tumblr, there really aren’t comments. I could reply to people whenever the fart I have time…and whenever they say something that genuinely interests me. Let’s face it, not everyone posts jewels all the time. Like when people start talking about emotions…I do what I can to stand clear.

Still, I miss this blog. I’m just having a hard time remembering it exists. Can one of you just cyber pinch me when it’s been more than a week since my last blog? I mean, it’s not like I don’t have the time. I just…forget.

Too bad all snails are Jews.

Really, though, “Christmas for Snails” is the name I came up with roughly five seconds ago for the little plan I’m about to spell out for you lovely little cherubs. The idea received a favorable response on on my Tumblr, so I’m extending the offer to those of you who have chosen not to sacrifice your soul to the devil a.k.a. Tumblr. See? I haven’t forgotten about you.

I’m just going to cut to the chase: I am currently an overflowing vat of holiday cheer, and I’d like to spread said cheer to any fellow blogger, designer, and/or homosapien who wants it. To accomplish this, I am holding a Christmas card exchange of sorts. No, not a Secret Santa. The uncertainty of Secret Santas gives me indigestion. So no, definitely not. All I want to do is send drawings or writings or funny little construction paper concoctions in a standard envelope to people. And, hopefully, those people will send something in return. Simple, yes? Yes.

If you’re interested, email me at gabi@atomicaffliction.com with this little form:

Name:
Interests:
Address:

I only ask for interests so I have something to base my creation on in case I don’t know you well. If you’re uncomfortable about sending your address right away, you can leave that blank until I reply. But you’ll have to send it eventually since…well, I can’t mail you anything without your address.

I don’t expect that great of a response, but just in case, I’ll only “accept” the first twenty people to contact me. I mean, I love Christmas and everything, but the shipping will start to add up after that, and I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to make something for over twenty people. Also, I’m still unsure of whether I will ship outside the U.S. Once I figure out the approximate shipping cost on that, I’ll give a definitive answer.

So make like elves and…I don’t know. Just send me an email, okay?

Once upon a time, I was sitting at my computer filling out college applications a.k.a. browsing Tumblr and flipping to the Common App tab every ten minutes, only to flip back immediately with an even stronger desire to blow chunks than I had ten minutes before. How am I supposed to write an essay about how awesome I am? My charm isn’t easily put into words, because, well…only about three people in the world think I have any sort of charm in the first place. And when it came to the essay about my extracurriculars, I was lost. I’ve never had a real job, and the only club I’ve ever joined is art club. And I barely went to half the meetings. All I really have are my websites. My websites.

Bingo.

Why have I been trying to figure out how I could turn my small, insignificant half-interests into a career for all these years when I’ve essentially been prepping myself for a career in web design since I was eleven? I mean, what the hell. Am I stupid? I adore web designing and I’m already fairly good at it, yet I’ve never considered it as a career because it’s not a “smart” job. For some reason, I’ve always thought that being in the top 1% of my class of 900 meant I’m supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. But wouldn’t my intelligence give me an advantage in any field? Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought if it’s taken me this long to reach this point.

So, I may not go to college for web design specifically, but I’m definitely entering communications. Advertising, marketing…something along those lines, maybe. Whatever I do, I want to communicate ideas to people with words and images. That’s what web design essentially is, isn’t it? Yes. Yes it is.

Finally having a direction, a direction that makes me happy, has taken so much weight off my shoulders. I still care about my school work, sure. It’s impossible for me not to. But I’ve allowed myself to relax. The first quarter ended yesterday and I’m fairly sure I have at least one B, and you know what? That’s okay. I’ve spent these past two weekends messing with Photoshop and hanging out with friends, and I don’t remember the last time I felt this good. I almost wish I didn’t waste my high school years on my work alone. These were supposed to be the simplest years of my life, and I made them so complicated.

Still, I can’t say I necessarily regret my high school life. If anything, I learned. I learned so much that I could probably enter the work world right now and turn out A-OK. And for the most part, this knowledge has been free. I can’t scoff at that. No-sir-ee.

Yeah, neither do I.

My attitude has improved since my last post, but my situation has not. I never thought I could have more work than I have in years past. But now, even though I no longer nap or spend every other day sitting at Starbucks all afternoon, I never have all my homework and design work finished by my normal bed time. I haven’t even found time to start a single college application essay. It’s rough, knowing I’m doing everything I can and it’s still not enough. At this point, I either need to stay up past midnight every day or get bitten by a radioactive spider to stay on track. I like sleeping, so if anyone knows where I can find the latter…hit me up.

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say at this point. I started this blog, thinking I had more to say on the topic, but all I have is sappy crap and emotional mumbo jumbo. I hate sappy crap and emotional mumbo jumbo. So really, I guess this is just to say that I’m not as pissy as I was a couple weeks ago. I mean, I’m still pissy. I’m never not. Just…to a lesser extent. To a “I won’t whip out the mace but beware a kidney punch” extent.

Yeah.

I’ve been feeling a little scattered lately. Overall, I’m happy, but deep down I have these thoughts that are gnawing at my organs and putting me through short periods of unwelcome melancholy. I’ve been posting a bunch of mini-blogs over at my tumblr to get some of it out of my system. Still, I feel like a list of all the odds and ends running through my brain will make me feel better if posted here. So…let’s roll.

1. I generally agree that absence does, in fact, make the heart grow fonder. But for whatever reason, I find my separation from certain people has made me dislike them even more. Perhaps it’s because I’ve realized I’m not missing much? I don’t know.
2. I’m more in touch with this year’s U.S. Open than usual. I’ve watched nothing but tennis for a week, so the weather delays are currently driving me into withdrawal. New York why are you raining please stop c’mon now.
3. I’ve been so bored at school that my staring problem has become a full-time hobby. I just really enjoy analyzing how people look. I like to compare their features to the features of certain celebrities and/or animals, decide what they could do to make themselves more (or less) attractive, and figure out what name suits them best based on people I’ve known with that name. This is what my life has come to.
4. Dunkin Donuts pumpkin spice coffee is the only thing that gives me true pleasure these days.
5. My work load and a seemingly harmless classroom discussion of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka have made the thought of going to college for some smarty-pants degree nausea-inducing. I’m at the point where I seriously want to say, “Screw my four years of hard work in high school, I’m going to college for web development.”
6. I want to go to the zoo.

I just…I don’t know how I feel right now. Funky. That’s the only word that really seems to fit. I’m not exactly sad, but something is bugging the bejesus out of me and I can’t figure it out. Is it a thought on this list? The combination of these thoughts? Or something that I can’t comprehend? I don’t know.

I just want to go to the zoo.

Of course, I had a feeling that this month of daily blogging would not leave me feeling as great as April’s did. My first round of BEDA is my magnum opus. I was on fire. That kind of quality is hard to reproduce with only three months of rest in between. So, I’ll be going back to bi-weekly-ish blogging. For now. You can fully expect me to swing back into BEDA next April with all the energy needed to tackle this beast.

Thanks to everyone who has been here every day whether I acknowledged your presence or not. I acknowledged it in my head, if that counts for anything. Expect some comment spam now as I go back and read through all the blogs I missed.

…This may take awhile.

I didn’t receive any fun booklets today. But I did find a letter from my school addressed to my parents. It technically had my name on it, so I opened it.

“We’d like to extend our thanks to you for taking part in our annual Curriculum night.”

What? My parents didn’t go to curriculum night. I don’t even think they know it exists. And even though I wish they knew how my teachers looked (I know I like to visualize people when they turn up in conversation), I would never expect them to waste nearly two hours of their time going through all my classes in lightning speed. That’s just silly.

At least, that’s how I feel. Much to my surprise, a good chunk of my peers’ parents showed up. Is it really necessary to be that involved in your kid’s school life? Since my parents have never taken a particularly controlling hold of my academic career, I say no. I’ve never felt pressured by my parents to succeed. They’ve always trusted me to do what I need to do, whether it be studying for tests or talking to teachers about questionable grades. They actually tell me I could get Cs if I want to. Of course, getting a B is the end of the world by my own standards, so that’s never been a nugget of parental wisdom I’ve listened to.

I will be forever grateful to them for this. They’ve allowed me to sculpt my own high school experience. My classes, my activities, and my work have always been how I’ve wanted them to be. Occasionally they’ve offered their input, but my decision is always final. Of course, not everyone agrees with this style of parenting. I’ll never forget having my best friend’s mom lecture me on the importance of taking Spanish when I was first entering high school. “What college is going to take you without language credits?” she’d say. “And your mother is okay with this?” Yes, she is. She knows I love art, and she wants me to be happy. Truly happy. Not “you’ll thank me when you’re a multimillionaire at age forty” happy.

And guess what? Her strategy has worked out quite dandily. I eventually took French junior year anyway after hearing rave reviews about the teachers and finding out Painting II is only a semester class. I’m somewhere in the top 1-ish% of my class and I’ve never dropped out of the honors/AP track of any core subject. I may not be going to Harvard, but I think I’ll at least avoid spending my life tossing the day-old salad at Cici’s for a living.

So thanks for not caring, Mom and Pop. You guys are the tops.