Monday or something, I wrote a Lady Gaga (The Fame Monster) review, since people have been annoyed about all the Alternative music reviews. I hate the name “alternative” for a genre name. And what am I supposed to call The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys’ music? If I say Rock, people think I mean, like, Led Zeppelin rock. “Modern Rock” confuses people. “Rock n Roll” sounds like The Beatles. Grr. I don’t know.

     I wrote the Lady Gaga, which actually wasn’t that painful to write. I cannot write a country or a hip-hop review, though. I don’t know what’s good and bad in those genres, man.

Wednesday Switzer started giving me dirty looks when she saw me waking up from a doze. I wake up, and she looks me straight in the eye and says, “Some of you have to pay more attention to your grades.” Look, lady, I’m sorry. I want to pay attention in your class, too. I don’t know whose fault it is, but I always get tired in that class.

Thursday Aliya’s parents asked our family to Thanksgiving dinner with her. Mom’s working that day (remind me never to become a nurse), so it’ll be just me, Dad, and Hyunwoo going. I thought it’d be awkward for Hyunwoo, but he said that it wouldn’t be that awkward, since Aliya’s family seems really social. And they’ve got Rockband 2 (with Reptilia!)!

Friday we had a math retake quiz. My half of the room had gotten the answers from Matthew fucking Peng, so they finished the quiz really fast and then talked for the rest of the period. It really fucking pissed me off. The only good thing that came out of that was that it pissed off Alex, too (he had gotten the questions from Matthew Peng, but not the answers, which was at least a little better than the others). The other thing that pissed me off was that Julia was the main person giggling and talking, and she doesn’t know shit! She definitely doesn’t deserve those answers, man.

David Dixon saw one of the four comics I drew for Newspaper. The comic he saw showed a kid telling another kid a cross country joke, and another cross country kid showing off his trophy, and another cross country kid wearing his spiffy jacket, and I’m sitting off in the corner saying, “I know sports are supposed to bring the team together, but are they supposed to make the other people feel like losers?”

     David got really offended (being a cross country runner himself. Chris later told me that he was a captain) and said, “Wow, that’s pretty direct.”

Brigid: I’m sorry, did I offend you, David?

David: You didn’t offend me, but … no one’s excluding you from the cross country team, Brigid.

Brigid: It feels like it.

David: You could’ve tried out for the team. No one stopped you.

     I’d been saying this all pretty jokingly while he’d been saying it really seriously. Suddenly I got really hurt by the way he said all of this. David made it sound like everyone could run, but not everyone tried out for the team, and, like, “too bad for them”. I—and many others—cannot run long distance very well and lack the proper motivation for training, so I could not be on the cross country team. When the cross country people watch Destinos and say, “Cheese squeeze!” when they see a yellow car and then just say, “Oh, it’s a cross country thing,” when people ask them to explain, the others feel out of the loop and out of place. I’m not saying I hate the cross country kids; I just don’t like how they bring their cross country memes to the classroom.

     After David said this to me, I left the room and went to lunch and cried on Aliya’s shoulder and told my friends about it. They told me that David could go fuck himself. I got back to the room and Weiss was like, “We were just talking about you.”

Brigid: … what?

Weiss: Good things, good things. We love your comics.

Brigid: *looks over at David on the computer* *fumes inwardly*

     Casey then came up to me and asked me to draw a comic for him. His smile revitalized my confidence for drawing.

Saturday I went to an academic bowl tournament. It was fun for the first couple rounds and then it got really boring. Charles wanted to sit out a round, but we kept him in all the rounds since he’s good. He blamed me afterwards when he was exhausted. I’m sorry, Charles! Next time I won’t doubt your tiredness.

I thought I finished all the notecards for Anderson, but then I looked over the rubric and realized I made 50 cards in total, but only 33 cards from outside resources. So I guess I’ll do those 7 cards on Monday.

We went over Soyun’s house and met Hyunwoo’s godfather. That was awkward. They hadn’t seen each other in 13 years.

I’m trying to figure out how and when to hang out with Jane and Susan this week. I kinda don’t want to go through the trouble of planning it all out, and I do have that project to do, but maybe…

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And for a gorgeous but very huge picture of Jules, click here.

Lately I've been obsessed with strategy games. Wonder what this means about my personality.

This week I got back into the game with school work. I saved my physics grade, which was dipping down to a 90, and I got my APUSH grade to an 89, and I got my BIO GRADE TO A 89.87 WHICH ROUNDS TO A 90! Well, until I got the bio test grade and my grade dropped back down to a B. I’m still proud of my Bio grade, though! Now I just need to get my math grade up. Oosh.

Monday Aliya and I traded our main points for the debate (The legitimacy of standardized testing testing intelligence) with the opposing team of Addie and Murtaza to ensure getting a good grade. Smart move, if I do say so myself (thanks, Aliya, for suggesting it).

Thursday I got a 94 on the Physics test! I told you I was gonna get an A!

I thought the bio test was pretty good, and I ended up getting a 72 on it, which is the FIRST TEST I’VE PASSED! I’m glad that I’m comfortable with myself and how smart I am in that class (well, to some extent), because I could condole people when they got grades which were low for them but high for me. I guess the way the person takes it also factors into whether I’m gonna comfort them or not. If they’re, like, “I can’t believe I got an 88! That’s the first B I’ve gotten in my whole life ahhh!” then I’ll rant to them, but if they’re like, “Man, I got an 88,” then I’ll be like, “Aw, it’s okay.” Why am I talking about this? I’m gonna stop now.

Friday I went to the Food Bank with Virginia (I was supposed to go with Hyunwoo, but he had a last minute birthday party to go to). It was pretty fun. There were, like, 5 crates full of open Ziploc boxes that we had to tape up. It was very annoying. Dad, Virginia, and I thought that it was an attack on the Food Bank. I worked at checking this time, and although it was hard to find the expiration dates at first, I quickly got into the system and started checking them rapidly. God, those people who were checking before were so dumb…!

Saturday at Praise Team, Michael was very forceful about us singing Trading My Sorrows. The audience is really important to him—he tries to get them to sing and dance. So when we were having trouble singing the bridge ([1:02]) , Michael was like, “No! We must sing this song! They love it!” It turned out well at the end, but it was really frustrating. Although Michael still looks good playing his guitar, after getting to know him a bit more and seeing how weird his sense of humor is, his coolness has diminished.

That evening, Virginia, Aaron, Jonathan, and I went to Five Guys. It was fun from the start—Aaron parked and waved at me from his car, and I couldn’t tell who it was and thought it was some weird guy so I ignored him, and then I realized it was Aaron and waved back, but by then he was already laughing. Then Jonathan came late and muttered, “I hate parking, I was here five minutes ago, driving in circles around the parking lot. My car is parked literally a mile away from here.”

            We went to Walmart and played Spies, which is my favorite game ever (not an actual game; just, like, hiding behind shelves and sneaking up behind the opposing team and scaring them). Jonathan and Aaron said Virginia and I’d be the worst spies ever.

            After a while, all three of them gave me looks of exasperation, and I immediately felt alienated and so so weird. I sobered down my energy so that I was a little more normal. It was still fun after that, but it suddenly got really real. It was hard to explain. Like, before I’d been living in this world of oh-they’re-my-friends-so-I-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want-to-do-and-they’ll-still-like-me, but suddenly I was forced to be real about everything and accept that they wouldn’t want to be friends with me if I kept up my level of weirdness. So that was a little … weird and scary.

            Jonathan and Aaron found this enclosed staircase with a broken elevator and Virginia went down, too, and it was dark, and the parking lot wasn’t as busy as it had been, and I was so scared for everyone’s safety, and then Aaron disappeared, and I got worried. And then he showed up out of nowhere and I hugged him. He told me I didn’t need to worry and that he’d attack someone if they tried to kidnap me, but I thought someone needed to worry, so it was okay for me to be the worrier. Aaron could be the warrior, and I’d be the worrier.

Hyunwoo has a ton of projects that are due on Monday, and I’m bring a nice older sister and helping him out (and Aliya’s being a nice older sister’s friend by sharing her science fair paper with him).

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Stop being pretty, Jules. You're making everyone else feel bad.

Monday I turned in my middle-spread layout, and Weiss looked at it and was like, “That’s good, but it’s boring,” which was true, but still hurt my feelings. So, like, all week I worked on the fucking layout to get kinda an art-y, collage-y feel. When I was finally done, Weiss was like, “These pictures need to be bigger, so cut some of the lines in these articles,” and I was like, “They worked really hard on these articles, and I don’t want to just cut them out of there completely,” and Weiss was like, “Brigid, you’re an editor. This is what editors do,” and we had a staring contest, and then she was like, “Fine, move these pictures up, and then you won’t have to cut them, Ms. Kind-hearted woman.”

            I feel bad, though, because I had to cut out Liz’s entire Visual Arts column. I told the editors, and they said they’ll try to work it out. Hopefully it’ll work out.

I got my SAT scores back.

CR: 570

M: 640

W: 750

So far I'm good enough to get into UGA, Georgia State, and Oxford at Emory, but not Columbia, Brown, or Emory. I'd need to get a 700 on each section for that.

Tuesday I wore my proof shirt to school. I used my tie-dye shirt from last year and wrote proofs all over it in sharpie. The other proof shirts were cute. Mallory Ellingson wrote in really small letters the really long proof that took up the whole class period to solve; Charlie wrote, “YAY PROOFS!” on the back of his shirt; Taylor, Lee, and Chris Rogers wrote on their pants as well and actually looked really cool.

            Weiss said that me writing on my tie-dye was “such a good idea. It’s such a great shirt.” I remembered how last year she said, “That’s pathetic!” about my tie-dye shirt.

The math test was hard. I hate Washington. He gives Alex shit all the time, and he makes the test really fucking hard. Now I have a B in math again.

Thursday I did my chismes about pants shopping this weekend, and Salus was like, “You’re going to wear pants under a skirt?” [in Spanish]

Brigid: Yeah?

Salus: You don’t wear pants under skirts.

Brigid: [out of the corner of my mouth] Yeah, you do.

Salus: Do you wear pants under a skirt?

Mallory: No.

Salus: Do you wear pants under a skirt?

Jenna: No.

Salus: See? You wear leggings under a skirt.

Brigid: But—then what’s the point of me getting girl pants now?

Salus: So that you’re not wearing boy pants anymore!

I went to the orchestra concert, and dude, the violin section sucks. They need good people. I felt bad for not being in orchestra anymore, but I can’t do anything about it, so.

Friday I had my US History test. I got an 85 on it, and I’m wondering if that’s good for studying all week. I have a strategy for next unit so that I can get an A on the next test.

I have yet to get an A on a test in physics. I refuse to get a B in that dumb class.

            … the only problem is that I’m so fucking tired in that class, and the lights are off, and she talks in a drone, so I can’t help falling asleep. Ugh! Need. To. Get. An. A.

After school, Emily, Virginia, Mallory, Madison, and I went to Old Navy to get some girl pants (Aliya was invited too, but she had the SAT the next day, so she had to study). Mallory was excited and picked out every style for me to wear. I’m glad Emily was there to pick out my size (4) for me. And Madison was really adorable. After trying out 3 pairs of pants and much discussion, the girls picked out the pants labeled “The Flirt” for me to wear. And they were only $31! Aliya freaked me out when she said that pants were usually $50. Thank you, Old Navy!

            Afterwards we went to Charlotte Russe to get leggings (since Salus told me that’s what normal people do). It was my first time at Charlotte Russe, and it surprised me how much cheap + good clothes they had there. I need to go there sometime when I need more shirts. There was one shirt that said:

PEO

PLE’S

LIBERA

TION

            I thought it was awesome.

            … now that I know that it’s a brand name, though, it’s not as cool.

Oh! Which reminds me. My 3JR6 shirt is from the company Basic House. It’s still a mystery, though, because I can’t find a catalog of their clothing, so I still don’t know what 3JR6 means.

I watched Up. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.

Sunday I went to Wendy’s after praise team to get a frosty, but I ended up eating a big meal so that I was too full to drink a frosty. I think I’ll go through my whole life without drinking one of those.

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Julian apparantly has always wanted to write a Christmas song (and a pop song, but that's another story). Here it is!

Also, is this the first record of Julian singing I'll Try Anything Once live? Apparantly Liv Tyler, Devendrea Bandhart, and some other celebs were there. And "Julian laughed and seemed surprised when the audience knew the lyrics to this song." Oh, Jules, everyone loves both versions of this song

Currently Fevers and Mirrors By Bright Eyes Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh see related

Tuesday I went to the tennis meeting. I didn’t look either Coach Hyman or Michelle Gofman in the eye.

     Jenna doesn’t know if she wants to do singles or doubles. Who the fuck is going to be my doubles partner if Jenna’s not my partner? I don’t fucking want to play singles.

Wednesday I went to a physics study group at Panera. It kinda helped me, but I was being very asocial that day, so I didn’t get as much information as I could’ve, which led to me not doing so hot on the test (don’t know the actual grade yet).

Thursday I went to my GHP interview:

Interviewer: Brijeed?

*takes a deep breath* It’s Brigid

Sorry, I didn’t review your application yet. Do you want to stand outside while I review it or do you want to sit here?

Does it make you nervous if I sit here?

No, not at all.

…

Describe yourself in one word.

Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is Asian, because that’s the first thing people think when they see me. But I would describe myself as …. I don’t know, I can’t describe myself in one word. I’d just say Brigid.
How long have your parents been living in the US?

They moved here in college or just after college. My dad found a job at the University of Minnesota, and then he moved to the Wisconsin, and then Connecticut, and then Georgia. So a while.

Who’s your favorite author?

J.D. Salinger.

*makes a face*

I know, a lot of adults make that face when I say my favorite book is The Catcher in the Rye. I really like Salinger’s style and his repetition. And I really like Holden. I like his rebellious attitude.

If you would recommend me a book, what book would it be?

The Catcher in the Rye. But I know people either hate it or love it, so I guess I’d try to get to know you better first before recommending you a book. Other than that, there’s a book called I Am The Messenger that’s like a … thriller. And the character’s a lot like Holden. It’s like Catcher in the Rye with a twist.

What extracurricular activities do you do outside of writing?

Academic Bowl. And … I did Wren’s Nest, but that’s writing too. I went to a couple math team practices. (completely forgot about praise team and tennis and violin)

What would you bring to GHP?

Well, obviously I’d bring a little diversity. … actually, I don’t know.

I don’t know either. When I went to GHP, there wasn’t a lot of diversity, but I don’t know about now.

I mean, my sister went to GHP in her junior year, so I’m familiar with how it works. So I’d go in there with an idea of what would be going on. And I’m not like most students in the fact that when I disagree with a teacher, I raise my hand and tell her. And I’m lucky to have a teacher this year who’s okay with that.

Yeah, it’s too bad when you have a teacher who doesn’t value your opinion. It’s one of our jobs as teachers to encourage independent thought.

     There were more questions, but they’re insignificant, I guess.

     I saw Virginia, Aliya (she gave me a ride), Anastasiya, Tyler Lucas, Katie Yaeger, and Bronte there. It was nice talking to Anastasiya again. I miss her! I hadn’t talked to Tyler Lucas in forever. And of course, it was great seeing Bronte again.

     Aliya’s dad brought us halal food while we were there. It was great.

Friday I went to Cici’s with Jono, Aaron, Elisabeth, and Virginia. The boys ate so much pizza. Virginia and I love cheap American food, so Cici’s was great. And that crowd is so fun, man.

     Mom called in the middle of it and told me that she had a fight with Dad and that I needed to come home. And then she said that Dad left the house. Sigh.

     We went to Aaron’s house later and played Scrabble and Pass the Pigs for a bit before heading home. Aaron’s got a really big and nice place, man.

Saturday I tried to sort out all the Mom vs. Dad business. I called Franny to ask her what to do, but she didn’t respond until a lot later when she told us that Arun died. He was at a party on a rooftop in China, and he fell off and died. Franny’s crying a lot. A couple months ago she said she’d always love Arun. I can’t begin to imagine the pain and loss she’s feeling. I don’t even want to think about what I would go through if I lost my significant other.

      Dad came home to grieve with us.

Halloween was a drag, since only 4 groups of kids came to the door and then it started raining.

I saw and heard Lady Gaga for the first time on that rerun of Saturday Night Live. She's weird, but I think she's really talented, and I respect her a lot. Even if you don't like her music, you gotta give her something for dancing in that way and still sounding completely undisturbed, man.

Sunday I went to tennis for the first time in months. I realized that I totally have beginner’s luck, because I was doing really well. Scott said he wanted me and Hyunwoo to have separate lessons, but that’s too much money, dude.

Hyunwoo and I finally went to youth group. It was okay, but I was uncomfortable listening to all the God stuff. Nobody in praise team (besides Hyunwoo) knows that I don't believe in God.

      I messed up my solo at church again. I realize I'm confident with singing when I'm at practice, but I get way too nervous during our actual performance, and I mess up all my solos.

     Peter was there again! He played bass during a performance that was trying to get people to come to the young adult praise night. =]

I want to get girl pants this Friday with Emily, Virginia, Aliya, Mallory, and Madison. And okay, okay, I’ll take my drivers test in two weeks. It’s possible for me to get my 40 hours by then (I’m on my 33^rd). I need to practice on parking, and then I’m done.

I also need to get more long sleeved shirts. But that’s another weekend.

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Don't like all of Conor's stuff, but there's a good bti that I do like. I do admit that his lyrics are phenomenal.

Did I ever tell you about Dad and The First Day Of My Life? Dad watched the music video and then smiled and laughed and said, "Oh, this is a good song," and watched the video again.

Monday I started writing a fic about Colin and Link. I really really like that game.

Tuesday I performed at the poetry café at school. I wrote a story about Virginia and her crush, and she tried to keep a composed face while she heard it.

     The poetry café had lots of build-up but no release. I kept looking around for Aliya, and when she finally came, I unfortunately had settled back down into my remote mood.

Virginia and I went to THE BRAVERY CONCERT at Center Stage! It was amazing.

     When we first got there, there were, like, ten people there, so Virginia and I ran into the bathroom and came out when 1) there were more people out there and 2) this man walked into the bathroom.

     There were 2 openers: Dusty’s and Crash Kings. Living Things was supposed to be the opener, but, as Sam told us, “they woke up that morning and their van was gone.”

     Dusty’s was all right. The guy’s arms were nice.

     Crash Kings was great. Virginia and I noticed how the singer’s face looked like Alex Dollard’s. He had Alex’s eyes and mouth, but he didn’t have Alex’s hair or body. Hm. His voice was amazing, though. Like a Cold War Kids voice mixed with The Raconteurs’ and White Rabbits’ chords. Crash Kings were a three-person band: drums, bass, and singer + keyboardist. He had three keyboards, and one had a whammy bar! Haha.

     After both the openers, I got really really excited. Virginia tried to calm me down, but to no avail. Finally The Bravery came out, and we all screamed, and then they played UNCONDITIONAL WHICH IS MY FAVORITE BRAVERY SONG and I was so so happy. Sam let us sing the echo of the chorus.

Sam: I just want—I just want love! *points the mic to us*

Crowd: I just want—I just want love!

Sam: I just want—I just want love!

Crowd: I just want—I just want love!

     Virginia was waiting for Out Of Line, but they never played it. They played Believe and Fearless, though, which seem to be her next favorite songs.

Set list:

Unconditional

No Brakes

New Song (1)

Public Service Announcement

Hatefuck

Believe

Jack O’ Lantern Man

Red Hands and White Knuckles

Mike Hindert song

Every Word Is A Knife In My Ear

Swollen Summer

Time Won’t Let Me Go

Slow Poison

An Honest Mistake

The Ocean

New Song (2)

Fearless

     Sam let us sing the first full chorus of An Honest Mistake, which was nice of him. Sometimes I thought he looked directly at me, which really made my heart flip. A famous person saw me! I saw a famous person! Zonino!

     Sam was really hot, which was weird, since he dressed like an emo guy. I hate it, but I have a thing for hot emo guys. I’m sorry, World! Michael Zakarin’s hair was weird, and I could barely barely see John, which was disappointing. I could barely see Anthony, too, but to be honest, I don’t really care about him. Hindert, though, dressed punky and made me think about how he and Sam always wear the same type of clothes. I wonder if one copies the other or if they decide to do it together.

     Afterwards, Virginia went to the bar to get some Coke, but the guy gave us two free waters instead. Yay! Then they kicked us out because there was some kind of party going on, so we went outside and saw Virginia’s dad in a minivan. Aw!

Wednesday I noticed how Blue’s been acting weird with me. We had two conversations last year, and one was me asking her if she was okay with her breakup with Lucy (the other was just like, “Hi!” “Hey.” “How was class?” “I wanted to do my work, but my friend dragged me away and talked about boys with me.” “Oh, I’m sorry.”). I’ve been accepted to this new group of people around school, but I don’t know if I should, like, actively be involved with them. Hm.

Thursday I got a check for $10 from the school of psychology at Georgia Tech for participating in a 4 year long experiment. Cool.

Bryan talked to me about girl problems, which made me happy. I’m glad guys have the same feelings as girls. Sometimes I think they have no feelings, but they do.

Also, Alex Chiang said he didn’t think Megan Fox was hot! Now girls will like him even more.

John Twomey: You don’t think Megan Fox is hot? Alex, she’s bi!

Alex: So? She’s, like, makeup queen.

Friday I saw the school musical, Into the Woods. I thought it would be a play, because the musicals are usually in the second semester and the plays are in the first, so I went to see it, since the school plays are good, but it was a musical, and those, I think, suck really bad. It was nice seeing it with Aliya and Elisabeth Pendergrass, though. And Julian Bridges was right behind me. He never got a newspaper! And I wrote about his band! Grr.

I went to Aliya’s house afterwards to work on the bio project. We got all the information and basically everything done—I had to leave her to paste the shit on the poster, though. Sorry, friend.

     Aliya had organic 2% milk. It tasted amazing.

     I told Aliya about how Hyunwoo and I share and savor the Horizon chocolate milk that we’re allowed to get ≈once every 3 months at Borders, and Aliya looked really surprised…. Great story! Tell it again!

     This whole week, I’ve been feeling shitty and I’ve been really super sensitive. Going to Aliya’s somehow made me feel a lot better.

Saturday Hyunwoo won level 8 on ROLLGOALLLLLLLLLLLL! I’m proud of him.

I think Hyunwoo should DDR dance at the next school dance. That’d be really funny. And he makes it look like an actual dance, which is cool.

Mom gave me $20 for doing some of her homework for her. Haha.

It was my first day on the job as a manager of Praise Team. The only ones who came to practice were Sun Seng Nim, Michael Yu, Yuna, and me. Michael Yu’s sense of humor’s pretty weird, even though he looks great when he’s playing his guitar. Yuna reminds me of Rachel from Glee, in that she’s really really annoying and she talks too much, but she’s an amazing singer.

     Praise Team probably could go out and do gigs. We’re talented enough. Maybe I could write a song for us.

Mrg, I want to go to Sixflags with Aliya and Virginia. And Kathlene (still).

Sunday I got $70, because the refund check from the cancelled SAT class was written to me, not Mom. Mom decided to just give the money to me. Whoa, thanks, man.

So this week I got $100. Hm.

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Arcade Fire. Wow, so many people.