yet another year

so i suppose this will be my last post of two-thousand-and-eight. ain't that some shit?

i dont' really have much to say except that i'm happy it's over and that we only have 5.7ish months left until summer break. oh, summer break, how i want thee so badly. could you somehow expedite your return ... maybe?

anyway.

goodbye and good riddance, 2008. hopefully this new year will bear many fruits and gifts and candies.

marley has something to say

edit: and by bitches, marley means my good friends whom she too loves [which is errybody!]... merry christmas!

control yourself, take only what you need from me

2008

so. winter break started a little bit early for me this year. carter stayed at our house from wednesday last week until sunday. it was nice having a person my age around, a fun time indeed. unfortunately, during the school week we were still studying for exams [heh, excuse my vulgarities in the previous post]. i'm so incredibly happy that mid terms are all over with... i've been neglecting my homework, though. there's much to do, even though we are on break. midterms went well, to my surprise; all gov school stuff was fine, i think, and i aced math, and i got a b on the apush. so.

friday night was firstly spent at stone soup, where i told people telling me what to do to fuck off [jkjkjk, would that not have been hardcore or what?]. afterward, carter and i went to the Kronos art gallery in staunton to see our friends jordan and hunter play. the band formally known as 'freakscene' is now 'alex mahmoud and the mahmouds.'


alex mahmoud and the mahmouds

and so carter and i came back home after the show, and watched a 20/20 report on the Boyfriend Killer, or something like that. basically this dude would go and rape women who he would stalk for a couple of months beforehand. turns out the guy was a local cop. shit's crazy.

on saturday, carter and i made a trip through the fogs of the shenandoah mountains. we got to charlottesville and it was sort of dreary, but all was good. i got my christmas presents from vendors on the mall, but had to hit an ATM first. turns out all i could find that was open was a Wachovia atm, a motherfucking WACHOVIA atm. man, fuck the $3 service charge. before the atm, though, we had lunch at christians, which was delish.

i had emmett and dylan and sam over on saturday night. after the awkward greet with my neighbors, who were having a holiday dinner with my parents, everything was smooth. we went for a walk a little after, and it was dark, and sam and carter decided to have a race to the end of the street. carter fell really weird and it was scary. i was worried her bruise would get infected, but it didn't, which is good. theeennn after the walk we went to movie gallery to pick a movie, but we couldn't find anything and concluded that Run Lola Run would be fine. and it was. i think it was a hit.

i also peer pressured my friends into stealing. candy. from martins.

the next day was a kind of strange one. one full of questions, which were resolved by the time carter's parents came and picked her up. it was odd after she left, the house felt a little emptier, but back to what i'm used to.

monday marked the first day of winter break where i had no commitments when i had woken. i called my bitch Martha up and we decided to straight kick it, if you naw'mean. well first we decided to go to Swananoa, this crazy castle out in the afton mountains. she said nobody lived there and i said there was, but i drove anyway. we got to the top of the driveway, near this building behind the house, when i realized there were lights on inside. upon further inspection, i saw a white jeep parked in the back. time to jet.

we drove off to a nice spot where we could look on to the valley. i called joe lucas, who recently put up pictures on facebook, about the white jeep problem. turns out that the white jeep is the owner's - as in - the white jeep belongs to the person who owns the place - as in - somebody LIVES THERE. also, joe mentioned to me that the owner is not happy with the number of teenagers who go around the building hoping to find haunted shit. woops.

martha and i had to find something to do. we went to humpback, got a little ways up, got cold, took pictures, and left. i'll just have you know that i was in a long sleeve shirt, in windy coldy mounatin weather. so.

oh, and i got a hair cut later.

TUESDAYYXZ was spent lollygagging around and shit. tyler and i went to stone soup, and i got my sister the book Once Upon a Tart - a cookbook for them to use in their new house. i think they'll like it fine. later on we met up with carter and went out to staunton. that was pretty fun, especially waffle house! likeohmygod, that was quite the first experience.

waffle house is such a cool place. if i smoked cigarettes, i'd totally go here every morning and every night and smoke my fags and eat waffles. and i would make sure to ask for the blueberry topping and make extra sure to ask for extra whipped cream. and also cross my fingers that the butter has melted.

and so. here i am. today i hung out with travis and jordan for a little while, but not long, seeing as how it's christmas eve and all... we opened presents tonight. i got the jacket that i really want. but i stupidly asked for the wrong size. so we have to send it back and wait. and wait. and wait.

i'll post more before the new year. merry christmas, world.

nothing on my back

i'm 6 hours from snapping, big time.

i've had a grand total of 4 hours of sleep in the past 38 hours. and i don't expect to be going to bed tonight, because i'm still 1 chapter shy of being done with my outlines. and i need to study all of that shit too. and i need to write my essay, but hopefully i'll be able to do that between the hours of 8:45-10 at govorners school tomorr-- oh wait, i'm sorry -- today.

and then the apush exam. and then after that, at 12, i'm going to come home and sleep. for 4 whole uninterrupted hours. and then i'll wake up, and do the case 7 lab and resolution, because it's so fucking boring and i can't do dat' sheet on no sleep (ie right now). but apush is okay. and hopefully, hopefully, i'll be done with that by 4pm, when i can start studying my math stuff. i don't really remember anything from math, because i can't commit anything to memory, because i'm a fucking idiot. a fucking tired idiot. but hopefully, if i don't eat dinner, i'll be done studying math by 10 or 11. and then i'll review all my science shit again, because i need to take 2 quizs and a test by thursday.

i don't even know why i'm doing environmental science. i hate it.

shit's about to hit the fan.

i'm 200 types of weird

and counting.

much homework to do tonight. it's 1 am. fuck.

so i was going through the hard drive, screwing around, you know. so i come across these pictures! hahaha, holy whapz. these are from the 9th grade, which wasn't that far away. i guess we were excited about the new computer or something? i remember this was the day we were working on a history project, and the rest are IDK pictures of myself. yay webcamszz!

i'm fragile

what a long, long week. it's been physically draining. but before i write this, let me mention that i just woke up from a 3 hour nap, and it's 12am, so, bear with me if it seems as if i'm rambling.

monday was so long and stressful. that night was the last quiz bowl competition of the year, which is a bit relieving because now i can go to govorners school on mondays. i believe i was up doing math homework online this night; i'm starting to get better at math! or maybe it's just chapter 4... but it seems as if i'm understanding it alright, even if i don't really do the book homework. oh yes, i was also trying to study for my humanities exam, but i ended up falling asleep like i always do. i can never stay up. on the bright side, the exam wasn't as bad as i had anticipated and i'm pretty sure i did well.

tuesday was another normal day at school. i went to carter's house afterward. actually, i went to stone soup with carter afterward, and had a cookie and gingerale, i think. but then carter realized she had to go to some meeting for concert choir for a thing she volunteered for at the country club. THEN i went to carter's house, where we vented about how messed up it was that our demonstration exam was taken over by a member of our group. before i left, we walked her dogs.

pictures [the first one is of carter picking up dog poooooop, which i refused to do] :

and so i went home and cut up 28 3"x3" pieces of cardboard. and did my homework, whatever that was.

wednesday was the day of our group demonstration, which, suprisingly went well. i'm trying to think about what happened today, and i think i was tired, which made carter think i was in a bad mood, which i partially was because of said group take overage. but, i didn't mean to come off as rude, which i'm pretty sure i did. and so the day went on and i went to work after school, where kylene came and got a to-go order [a sandwich and a cup of soup]. right while she was leaving, carter came in. and soon after so did sam and dylan! that was exciting, since i hardly ever see my friends at stone soup. as the night went on, math homework was finished, apush outlining was ignored, and studying for the studio exam happened.

i took my studio exam on thursday. it wasn't too bad except that there was a bunch of stuff from the 'right side of the brain' book, which i think screwed me over for a small portion. what screwed me over the most was my egg drawing. i mean, fuck the blind contour and the normal contour - i rushed through those since i didn't have much time and mrs.vaughn can't really say anything about them. what i fear was my 'shading' of the eggs and the wrapped up towel around it. i avoided the 6 steps of shading and just tried to sketch it by direct observation, which, i dunno, made some ugly ass eggs.

it's selfish for me to complain about something so small, though. thursday night i got word from suzi about a girl from our school who died. at this time, probably around 7pm, the only thing i knew was that 'a girl named Lindsay, a freshman in freshtones, died because a car hit her.' as the night progressed and word kept leaking, and a news report was on the net by 11. CLICK.

so i still didn't know who she was today [friday] when i went to school. on my way out of APUSH, i noticed a decorated locker. when i went over, i realized it was her. the girl who died lives 2 houses behind me, and she has for the past 6 years. i never really talked to her because of the age gap, and i feel so horrible about that now. shit. i remember this one time when it was raining hard and her mom gave us a ride to school so we didn't have to wait in the storm. a nice family, indeed. i couldn't even imagine how torn up our family would be if something like that happened. i've noticed cars there all day, so it's good to see plenty of support from around the community.

i was thinking about how fucking fragile our lives are - our bodies and our brains and everything we've got. death is such a weird thing; like, there's no warning signs when it's about to happen. she probably was expecting the furthest thing away from dying when she went to go get food from hardees after school. fuck.

UHH, so anyway.

after school was the environmental club meeting, which i showed up to late, again. i don't think i really missed out on much though. we went to chickpeas after, which was cool.

i really need to start carrying a real camera on me.

and sooo. i came home, went to take a nap, which ended up being a 3 hour sleep - that's how much sleep i get some nights - which is insane. and then i woke up, had a bowl of cereal, stepped outside for a second. and holy shit! the sky is beautiful tonight!

this was not taken with a camera phone, haha
[click on it for full size]

and so. that was a week in review.

i'm going to sleep.

in the same boat.

so. last week i went to bed at 4 am because i waited until the last minute to work on maximum homework. well. i'm the same fucking boat again. i've been putting off homework for the past 6 hours, doing everything i can to avoid it. and so, here i am, blogging about my troubles hoping that somebody will read it.

I ONLY GOT 1 E-QUAY-SHUN ON MAH' MIND:
winter break = 2 weeks away.

ergo. 2 weeks of exams, outlines, etc. i hope i can get through it.



it's so hard not to be crushed,
when you're praying for too much,
and the stars refuse to shine for you,
they do it just to spite,
well they know, you're trying too hard



[EDIT: 10:12PM (~2 hours later) have i ever told you how G i feel when i'm doing math problems and listening to 'Hail Mary' by 2Pac? because i do. i almost feel too G. what do we have here now, do you want to ride or die? la-lala-la la la]

across the country

my mother didn't seem totally opposed to heading cross country. and i found out that she's not too keen on beach week.

and today went very, very swell. much better than yesterday, yes. and that is all that has to be said about that.

"so if you want to burn yourself, remember that i love you,
and if you want to cut yourself, remember that i love you,
and if you want to kill yourself, remember that i love you,
call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead,
send me an IM, i'll be your friend."

a picture from today, taken in math. i'm not sure if he noticed i took it:



p.s) i finally, finally turned in my global warming paper. theoretically, i could have sent it in a couple days ago, and theoretically, if i didn't get off track from my schoolwork so much, i could have finished it up and turned it in in the timespan of half an hour. 2 weeks ago. but i'm trying to get better at focusing. i'm trying.

nothing worked today

mmm, yes. nothing worked today.

except:


hehehe.

everything worked today

so. today was a good day. a day i wish i could put on repeat for the rest of the year. waking up was the worst part. er, maybe it's homework, which i have a lot of. but.

[for the record, i was inspired by carter to write up a post about my whole day]

it started at 5:45 when my cat was meowing at my door. i got her meows mixed up with the alarm clock and thought to myself, 'damn, already time to wake up?' ... i soon realized it was only my cat - which is not the alarm clock. but first i looked at my phone for a quick second to make sure that i usually wake up at 6:30, not 5:45. it was a puzzling morning, indeed. so, i was thinking, since carter told me the night before via text message that she would not need a ride to school this morning, i could take my time waking up and getting ready for school. i woke up at 6:50, which is twenty minutes later than usual, and got ready for school. i got out of the door by about 7:20, which is ~5 minutes later than usual. and when i got to my car, well, damn, i realized i needed to scrape all that ice off my windshield.

I LOVE WINTER.
sike!

so it goes. anywho. it was a good morning.

and so, as the day progressed, i made it to govorners school on time, parking in the lot that carter hates, egypt. humanities went well; i drew a picture of an individual who will go unnamed, made small talk with jeremy about said unnamed girl, and grossed ellen out with my open-zipped jeans. expecting a dough nut, i was saddened when carter didn't have one for me. but it's all good. all good. she had bloodwork done this morning, so i found it out of the goodness of my heart to buy her a drink, so she wouldn't faint. she kept insisting, 'no, alex, i'm fine, i'm okay' but i said, "look carter, i don't want you to faint, so here's this dollar. buy a drink." she then took the dollar and ripped it into tiny pieces, placing it into the little cup you put quarters in for poptarts in mrs.conner's office. i bought her a mr.pibb anyway because i'm a wonderful friend.

everything after not getting a dough nut did not happen, it was a joke.

in art, we worked on our mask for The King and I. it was great, it really was. i still can't figure out how i'm going to work these ears for my hound, so i gave up. it looks like a twist between a pig and a bull, but oh well, maybe that's what a dog from Taiwan looks like. it was nice that Jordan was back at school today. we sat near Stu, who works at Wintergreen with Hunter and Jordan and Tawny. Tawny told me a little more about her canon rebel today, and we made small talk about her mannequins that she bought from Steve and Berry's [which is shutting down].

on the way home, carter and i talked it up.

and onto lunch, where i was harassed by everybody about going out of town so often. i got called out on the one time where i said i was going out of town when i really wasn't so that i could work on homework. whatever.

what really made my day was math. today i seemed to get everything a lot more clearly than yesterday; granted, yesterday i was running on two hours of sleep, but still. mrs.gross helped rachael and i out with the composite functions - and now i feel alright with Chapter 4, Section 1. it was great, because that sort of thing never happens. and the period after, band, was the normal. nothing out of the ordinary, i sat and played with my sidekick and text messaged and web browsed and made jokes with edward and talked to ethan.

after school, martha and i decided we should go get some candy from martins, so we did. i got a small piece of chocolate - smaller than a ghiradeli square, when a stupid worker came into the candy aisle and we decided to jet out. no need to go to jail over candy, right? whilst walking back to my car, her mom called to notify her that she needed to get to the staunton mall since she accidentally locked herself out of the car. i tagged along for the ride, and it was much fun.

life's good. this homework waiting for me isn't.

edit: mmm, i like putting up pictures on my posts. if you're interested, here's what i'm turning into mixed media tomorrow. we were supposed to put together a news article about where we see ourselves in X amount of years. i made the article part of it up as i went along but i kind of like the layout.


yikes.

delicious

since thanksgiving has just come and gone, i thought it would be appropriate to make a cup of hot cocoa, seeing as how we have all these ingredients in our house. so i use this hershey's hot cocoa stuff, thinking this is going to be delicious. the last ingredient that you add, before the last 20 or so seconds, is vanilla extract. the recipe calls for 1/4 tsp (teaspoon) of vanilla extract, and i accidentally added 1/2 tbsp (tablespoon) - this means that i added way too much vanilla extract. 'well,' i thought, 'a little extra vanilla extract isn't going to hurt, right?' ... so i went on with the cocoa. first i went through my fridge and found some whipped cream we used for a pie on thanksgiving, and scoop, there was a spoonful of whipped cream on my hot cocoa. but what about sprinkles? starbucks uses sprinkles and their hot cocoa is delicious, so, sprinkles it was. finally, we had marshmallows for those potato things, so a handful of those too.

i thought this was going to be delicious, but, too much vanilla extract, too much whipped cream, and nasty old sprinkles make for a not so great cup of hot cocoa. oh well, it looked pretty, right?