These are the things I overhear in AP Psych.

(Today McCulloch wasn't here; there was a sub teacher. One of the guys who sit in front of me was debating whether to skip or not.)

Friend: Then make an excuse and go! Say you're preparing for a lecture or something, and just leave.

Guy: But that would feel wrong... like shooting somebody in a church.

Girl: (just walked into the conversation) Somebody got shot in a church?

Guy: No, the thing that he's telling me to do would feel like shooting somebody in a church. It would just feel... you know, morally wrong.

Friend & Girl: Shooting somebody anywhere should feel morally wrong!

Gahhhh.

I've been trying to do this one math question for ten minutes straight, wondering why the hell I keep getting the wrong answer, and only now do I realise I've been doing the wrong question the entire time.

/headdesk forever

Blurb of the day.

Today, I poured myself a bowl of cereal and then mindlessly retrieved a pair of chopsticks. I didn't realise the stupidity until after I had sat down.

In other news, I have a ridiculous load of math to do this weekend.

So far, however, I am enjoying my PA Day.

Sadness and pain.

Why do I fail so much at writing it? I had to wrestle with so much writer's block to get this much out, yet it's still such a fail... and it's not even done yet. OTL

The clock was a liar, Yao decided. It was making time go faster than it should. They couldn't possibly still be awake at this hour.

Yet the blocky figures spelling out 3:28 AM glared at him through the darkness, reminding him of his exhaustion, taunting him to go to sleep. Yao glared right back. The rational part of his mind felt silly for having a staring contest with a digital clock, but nevertheless his gaze remained mulishly fixed on the glowing numbers. He would not surrender to the night. He would not lose himself to unconsciousness. Not yet. Not until Kiku had finally fallen asleep as well.

Which, unfortunately, seemed to be taking quite a while. The frequent coughing fits interspersing uneasy lulls did not help matters. Having taken up the responsibility of caring for the ill Japanese nation, Yao had stationed himself on the edge of Kiku's bed, his legs stretched out alongside his brother and his stiff back propped up against the headboard. He had lost track of how long he'd been running around the house, cooking meals and spooning medicine and emptying out basins of crimson-saturated vomit. It must have been hours, at least. Days? It all seemed like a blur. He'd barely gotten any rest since this whole nightmare began, but even though his mind screamed for sleep, he had to make sure Kiku was at ease first. Family always took priority over self.

The sudden shrill of an ambulance pierced the silence in the room. Yao's weary eyes strayed to the window (though they saw nothing but black), and part of his tired thoughts wondered where those paramedics were going — and what they would find there. Dying civilians shivering in their beds, wrapped in dirty, bloodstained sheets? Strained, haggard parents trying in vain to hush their crying children? People reduced to little more than corpses, dragging themselves through day after agonising day, feeling the life drain slowly from their bodies? These were the horrible conditions Yao had seen on the streets, conditions that were reflected in his siblings' own frail states. But, being nations, his siblings were at least granted immortality that allowed them to cling to precious life.

... No. Not immortality, he reminded himself grimly. Being nations, their lives were tied to their countries. If their people died, they would die with them. Nobody was truly safe.

Yao grimaced at the clock.

Beside him, Kiku stirred. Yao froze, half expecting him to collapse into sudden convulsions and start hacking up blood. Instead, he only tossed restlessly over to his side, splaying out a leg that might have punted Yao off the edge of the bed had it not been so weak. The Chinese nation remembered how they all used to do that — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, even the perpetually stoic Hong Kong. As children they would disturb him in the middle of the night, begging to sleep in his room when storms thundered outside or scary stories kept their imaginations alive and their minds fearfully awake. Often still half asleep, he would let them in to share his bed... only to wake up the next morning with a foot in his face, tiny hands latched to his hair, and a tangled mass of limbs piled on top of him and trapping him to the mattress. Such mornings had always been endlessly uncomfortable, but Yao still looked back on them with fondness.

Fondness now tainted by heartache as he gazed at Kiku's deathly still figure curled up beside him.

He reached out and drew his palm across the rumpled blankets to smooth them out. He could barely feel Kiku's body buried beneath them. He traced around the thin torso, up the bony arms and gaunt shoulders... there was a moment's hesitation, and then he let his hand float up to his pale face, faintly illuminated by the clock's ghostly glow. It was as if they were three thousand years in the past, when the younger nation was still a child, lovingly watched over by his elder brother. Yao brushed Kiku's wispy black bangs away from his eyes, which were closed but seemed to be fluttering ever so slightly. (Was he pretending to be asleep...?)

He softly stroked the top of his head. "Shi shang zhi you mama hao... you ma de hai zi xiang ge bao," he sang in a whisper, hoping the old, familiar lullaby would help Kiku drift off to warm memories. (Did he even remember the song? It was so long ago...)

"Tou jin mama de huai bao... xin fu xiang bu liao..." He was singing himself to sleep, it seemed like. Yao's voice grew fainter as he fought to keep his own eyes open.

"Shi shang zhi you mama hao..."

A stifled yawn. (No, he would not fall asleep...)

"Mei ma de hai zi xiang ge cao..."

His hand slumped listlessly to the pillow.

"Li kai mama de... huai bao..."

(Not yet... not yet...)

"Xin fu... na... li... zhao..."

(Would not... fall...)

(... asleep...)

Minutes later, another ambulance passed by.

Neither Kiku nor Yao stirred. Its wailing siren faded into the night, unheard.

The ending is rusheddddd. I thought I was rambling too much and I didn't want to bore people, but maybe I went a bit too far in the other direction. x.o (Also, gratuitous Chinese for the win~ Hey, he is the freakin' People's Republic of China. I'm allowed. :D)

In other news, there's a long weekend coming up. Also, we may or may not be having tea-time in Chemistry now, just because Delbi doesn't want people falling asleep in his class (it being fifth period and all). xD

It got neglected.

Deepest apologies for that. (Again.)

... I should be working on the essay that's due tomorrow in Challenge and Change, but whatever. It only needs to be 500 words. That's like... a normal roleplay post. It's fine.

(Trufax: Instead of "Change", I typed "China" at first. There is something wrong with me. Or maybe I'm just tired. xD)

... I really need to start on that math assignment. I hate formulas. I hate math. I may or may not give up on AP math for Grade 12, depending on if my dad lets me or not. x-o

I feel vaguely like my brain is going to deflate and die. This isn't good?

Blurb of the day.

Today, I tried to draw a tree. It ended up looking like a tentacle monster from the most abominable depths of hell.

Icebreaker.

It's an assignment for Challenge & Change in Society. Ingber gave us a bunch of questions and we're supposed to pick three and answer them. Mine were, in order: "What's your ideal dream job? What worries you the most about the world you live in today? If you were an animal, which animal would you be and why?"

At first I thought the assignment was silly (in fact, I still think the assignment is silly) and I thought I would just write a random answer without worrying too much because it's not getting marked. But... during the process, it kind of made me think. Kind of.

And I feel like posting it on here because of that. (Please don't shoot me if you think it's crappy, which it probably is. It's not getting marked, after all.)

The ideal dream job for me would be a published author, which I have thought about pursuing ever since I was young. Even now, when I’m considering other (admittedly more realistic) options, there are still fleeting occasions when I imagine spending my life crafting stories and putting them on paper. Presently, creative writing is a very prominent hobby of mine, and in my free time I love frequenting the Internet and writing with others who have a similar passion for it. I much prefer writing fiction over non-fiction, which is why I do not express the same level of enthusiasm for writing essays and the like in school, but I suppose writing non-fiction still holds some degree of fun for me. Despite my love for it however, becoming an author will probably remain an ideal dream and a dream only; realistically, I feel it would be too difficult to make a decent living for myself and for a possible family on that alone, and I would rather leave writing as a simple hobby than have to struggle with financial troubles.

What worries me the most about the world we live in today is the fighting. It worries me that wars are still ravaging lands and destroying lives. It worries me that there are people who genuinely feel alone and unloved and have nobody to turn to. It worries me to see deep, unwavering hate between husband and wife, brother and sister, parent and child... bonds which are supposed to be the strongest of all. I tend to be a rather peaceful person, someone who dislikes arguing and conflict and serious violence; I am even averse to watching overly violent films, despite knowing they are fictional. A few people have labelled me an idealist in the past, and I myself admit there is truth in that, at least when it comes to alleged impossibilities such as world harmony and peace. But even still, I hold hope that humanity will see that someday, even for a fleeting moment, because the reality — or rather, the brutality — of the world we live in today is quite, quite worrying to me.

If I were an animal, I have a feeling I might be a crane — a red-crowned crane in particular, due to its ties to both Chinese and Japanese culture. The former is my heritage, which I am rather proud of, and the latter is a country I have a special fondness for. Cranes are very large birds; in fact, the tallest flying bird in the world is the Sarus Crane, which can grow as tall as an average human. Similarly, I am taller than most girls my age (and, incidentally, I often feel quite awkward about it). Cranes are omnivorous and generally aren’t picky eaters, and neither am I. There are only two or three foods which I detest enough to refuse to eat, among them ginger and “blood tofu” (which is exactly what the name suggests: blocks of coagulated animal blood). I also see a parallel between cranes’ wide range of specialised calls and my own extensive vocabulary, which is regularly practised through my hobby of writing. Finally, origami cranes have become a symbol of world peace through the story of Sadako Sasaki and her thousand paper cranes, and as a peace-loving person who wants to see the world stop fighting, lay down their arms, and be in unity for once, I feel that represents my personality rather well.

(... why does that last bit sound a tad narcissistic.)

(By the way, I learned to use blockquotes. It looks much prettier. ♥)

Five hundreth post.

And yet I don't have time to write something crazy or witty or celebratory or special or thoughtful.

Today was the first day of Gr 11. The second half of my high school career has begun. For some reason, eleventh grade feels old. /wok'd

Two Gr 12 social science courses (one of them AP), one pre-AP Gr 11 math course, and Chem. (And Zoidberg.) And these marks are going to be seen by universities. It's so sad; I can't afford to loaf off so much anymore. Yes, I admit that I loafed off plenty in the past.

I'm probably going to have to quit one of my roleplaying sites, just because I don't think I'll have time. balsfalsdjfff I don't want to though...

Ah, time. Sometimes we can't get enough of you. Sometimes we want you to go away and never bother us with petty things such as deadlines or time management ever again. Either way, you're always on the receiving end of somebody's hate, aren't you?

LATER EDIT: I fail. It's actually my 460th. How did I misread 459 as 499 wtf brain summer is over now start working already

Tea.

That was my Smugleaf's name when I first played Pokémon Black.

Anyway, my China muse is beginning to dwindle. This is bad. What's also bad is that Japan muse is slowly but surely beginning to replace it, and I don't want to play both of them because it's no fun roleplaying two characters who are so closely related. On top of that, I have more muse for this other site on which China is going to die a violent death in a few posts.

... I feel like a bit of a sadist.

And a masochist at the same time because I'm practically forcing myself to sit here and type and bang out a response that isn't completely stupid or melodramatic. I do believe people on that site are waiting to see that first death.

... (The roleplay is based off HetaOni, if that clarifies things for anybody.)

My creativity feels dried up this is very bad

It's gotten so bad that I've fallen victim to run-on sentences what is this

blah

My brain feels squished now. Oh, the ups and downs of being a writer.

Hi.

I've had this window open for at least half an hour now. And... well, sure, I know what to do with it, but... there's something intimidating about staring at a blank box that you're supposed to write in.

I mean, as a writer anyway. It mocks you with its blankness. And you know you're supposed to put something there, but you sit there with your fingers hovering over the keyboard and a million thoughts are running through your head but you don't know where to start and seconds turn to minutes and they're just flying by and then you lose them to space and all the while you never got anything down. The box is still blank.

It pisses me off when that happens.

I'm going to try attempting NaNoWriMo this year (National Novel Writing Month, for uninformed readers; you can Google it), but only as a personal goal. I don't know why, I don't feel like officially signing up and posting progress and all that.

Mostly because I don't want people reading my crap.

I finally got accepted into Toronto Western's volunteer program, but apparently my resume sucks. (To put it bluntly.) I really hate not having bucketloads of experience like some applicants do, because it makes me look really bad on these kinds of things. It's embarrassing, especially when somebody points it out. It makes me feel like I don't do anything useful with my life (... which, now that I think about it, is painfully true).

Axis Powers Hetalia has become my newest obsession. Roleplaying China made me wonder though: what would it really be like to be immortal? I could trope right here and rhetorically ask "Who Wants To Live Forever?", but that's not really the answer I'm looking for. Well... it is, but I want more. Are there really enough words — enough of the right words — to describe thousands of years of experience? I mean, trying to summarise China's history in a few paragraphs was incredibly difficult, just because there are so many things in that one country's past to talk about. Of course, I had to focus on important things like wars and leaders and relations with other countries and all that History class stuff, but the process just got me thinking... if nation personifications were real, how would they cope with all that? Being at the front lines of every war, witnessing millions getting slaughtered, seeing leaders rise and fall, watching empires be forged and defended and crumble to pieces... never connecting with people, always caring but never loving, because love is fleeting and lives are always seized by time in the end.

... That's the pessimistic route, in any case.

"In the grief of this unending world, why is it that people fight?"

It's a beautiful song.

Also, I do apologise for neglecting this blog (and not checking up on other people's blogs) for... the entirety of this summer, really. Vacations tend to make me withdraw completely from real life; yes, I know it's a bad habit. But oddly enough, I don't mind being alone that much. I suppose that can be a little concerning...

PS. I felt like doing another layout change. Now I actually know how to fiddle around with the coding and not mess things up, so that's an accomplishment.