I think this was supposed to be done about a month ago but whatever. I just like crossing things off the list when I do them.

- finish second semester with at least a 3.30
- learn the khmer alphabet
- get a summer internship
- write my novel's first draft
- run a sub-5:40 mile
- run a sub 2:35 800
- learn 400 kanji
- write my dreams every morning
- knit 10 scarves
- finish that touchscreen MT Mini
- get a motorcycle license
- take an auto repair class
- read two books of the bible
- complete Photo 365
- use my planner
- break into an abandoned building
- use a cheesy pickup line
- read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- learn to pick locks
- make a flamethrower
- make a smokebomb
- buy a trenchcoat

Finals. Tomorrow. Hohshit. Well, I've been procrastinating for the past week, why stop now?

Indoor track = suckage. My last Saturday: leave at 6:30am, get back at 8:45pm, and I didn't even run. Fortunately it was followed almost immediately by the HASH, which is a tradition started back in 1776 when Wilbur Hash, a young Baltimorean, challenged the British to a footrace. Thinking they would easily win, the Brits accepted--BUT! Hash disguised himself as a British loyalist and offered them alcohol at several stops on their way to the starting line. The Brits showed up drunk, the Americans won, and Wilber Hash lives on in history through the cross country team's yearly multi-stop drinking festival. The tagline is, "Because we can. Because we shouldn't." Most hilarious night of my life. ^_^

Also of interest: what the hell is going on in Hollywood? We've got M. Night Shyamalan doing Avatar (with Jackson Rothbone! Yum!), the Wachowski brothers doing Speed Racer and apparently some other Japanese-import, and Spielberg doing a Ghost in the Shell movie? I don't know what's going on but I like it. :)

Speaking of The Last Airbender, Jesse McCartney as Zuko? WTF? If this isn't a joke, then at least it's a way to get the entire 12-20 year old demographic into the theater to see the movie. But I have faith in Shyamalan, he sounds like he really wants to do it right. Really!

Did I mention that I'm now double-majoring in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (yes, that's one thing) and also Biology? I have my schedule planned out for the next three years and it is ROUGH. Like, 21 credits per semester. But I can do it! I can! I think, at least. :-/

Other news of little consequence: I'm currently applying to no less than 12 places for an internship this summer. Fortunately I got Mr. K and my academic advisor (who rocks, and (unrelated) is bald) to write me recommendation letters, so hopefully those will be good. Cross your fingers for me! :)

Snippets of good news: I can catch up in Taekwondo, I can drop the 25/100 I got on the last chemystery test, I got into a 3-week lab where we insert genes into E. Coli (I think it's sweet, okay?! Yes, I'm a geek!) and see what happens, I can wear my contacts again, and I can't get koobface because I have linux. Sweeeet.

Bad news: I suck at school, and probably life in general. I am a girl and caucasian and therefore the least likely (statistically) to do well here. I have a calculus final in less than 24 hours. I can't run. FINALS.

Yeah, finals. Gotta go. Peace and love and all that jazz.

Or at least Obligatory Occasional Post. Whatever. Does anyone even use LJ anymore, apart from me and Jane? Seems like the transition to facebook is complete, disregarding us leftover loners here on the el-jay. Depressing, isn't it, since facebook is such a stalker-enabler.

Anywho. The most important thing anyone reading this would need to know is: I currently have roughly 5 pounds of Skittles in my room. I also have two pounds of Moose Munch, three bags of Junior Mints, a bag of Reese's, 4 bars of AMAZING mint chocolate from Lindt, and a ton of Hershey's chocolate bars (with peanut butter). So basically I am a tub of lard. (Oh, did I forget to mention the Kit-Kats? And gallon of ice-cream in my freezer? Oops.)

I've been sick for about... four weeks now. Chest pain for the first two, honest-to-goodness cold the last two. Now the cold is gone but it gave me a sinus infection, so I'm on these antibiotics with lovely side effects. I'll leave that one to your imagination.

I would love to say that my illness is what's making me run like shit but that's doubtful. I think I just got suckier. Today's meet was... a catastrophe. I started out good, then started getting passed around the 2K. By the 5K I was wheezing, and the finish had me basically crying. Awesome. Also couldn't find the inhaler when I needed it. Seriously, why are there iPod arm-bands and no inhaler arm-bands? Geez. (Just as a shout-out to my team: they're awesome. Our top 7 girls were leading, turned the wrong way and kept going, and we STILL won the meet. Not that I had anything to do with it, but they're pretty darn good.)

School: sucks. My classes are insatiably boring. I have no interest in the bond length between carbon and hydrogen in a methane molecule. I have no interest in how much kinetic energy a marble has when dropped from an air balloon. I have no interest in how to integrate sine to the seventh power. Japanese is my only semi-interesting class. It's sad.

I may have to drop out of TaeKwonDo. Turns out it's a very expensive sport. Which is fine for most people because money is no object for these kids. I, on the other hand, have a maxed-out credit load, a varsity sport, multiple clubs, and this nagging urge to sleep every few days. It's $55 for a belt test, which happens twice a semester, and if you don't move up in rank you have to stand in the back. Also, a girl 'tsk-tsk'ed me and gave me the shame-finger when I said I wasn't taking the test because I didn't have money or time for a job. I am the only varsity athlete in the stupid club, so they clearly have no idea what kind of a time commitment that is. Ugh. Stupid rich kids. :(

Baja is going to be fun. (That would be SAE Mini Baja, which is basically building and competing a go-cart, for those of you unfamiliar with the term.) I am the only girl, and also the lightest, so they think I'll be a fast driver. We'll find out this thursday when I learn to drive on last year's car. Also, our tool shop has pre-war equipment. I don't know which war but either way, that's pretty damn old.

Started watching House last week. Cameron's crush on House annoys me, Chase is adorable but such a jerk, and Foreman... he's cool. I'm almost done with season one. Anybody know how many seasons there are?

I don't like this city. I'm starting to miss Michigan a bit. I miss people rhyming tour with sewer instead of bore, and saying 'pop' instead of 'soda.' I miss pointing to a part of my hand to tell people where I live and them not thinking I'm weird. I miss my car. I miss lakes. I miss highways with 70mph speed limits. I miss my piracy and ninja-cy. And I guess I miss a few people. Jeez.

Last XC party of the season is tonight, so I supposed I should go make myself look somewhat presentable (ie, change out of my pajimjams). But seeing as how I'm sick I'll probably come home pretty quickly and watch House. :)

Over and out.

To begin: I think I'm going to drop engineering after this year. It seems incredibly boring. I think I'll do Behavioral Biology, chase the dream, all that jazz. Screenwriting? I've got physics, chemistry, and calculus. And I hate them all. My Japanese class is vaguely entertaining but the entire class (and the book!) seems counter-intuitive. Ack.

Classes suck, but life is good overall. The team is great, the weather is awesome (yay hurricanes/tropical storms! It's almost like monsoon season! And I've got cute rainboots!) and I HAVE A NEW FRIDGE. I have seriously been waiting for this fridge for a month. Today I saw a poster for a Target run and decided IT WAS TIME. Turns out the run was run (er, bad wording?) by a church group, and I was the only one going because it was literally pouring outside. So I had some religious conversations with nice religious people and got a fridge and a knife set for Paul. He better pay me back. (He's a redhead with dreds. Awesome, no?) But back to the fridge--tomorrow I get to go grocery shopping! YAY! (That's my favorite kind of shopping, you know.)

We had our first meet last saturday, and I came in 49th with a time of 21:03, which is pretty damn good considering I usually start seasons in the 23 range. Guess all this crazy hard work is paying off. And I'm getting used to the constant pain in my legs. :)

I need to make a point: PEOPLE HERE ARE WEIRD. Seriously. I'd say about 80% of the non-athlete boys here lack even the most basic social skills. About 5-10% need to shower a bit more, and probably 40% need new wardrobes. For the girls, I'd say about 30% are weird. There is a surprisingly large number of pretty, socially competent girls here.

I joined a TaeKwonDo club. It seems fun but I suck because I'm so uncoordinated. But I guess if I was good I wouldn't need to go to a class for it, now would I? I keep getting paired with excessively large boys though, and my teacher keeps having to re-pair me because he fears for my life. :(

In other news, the internet service here basically destroyed all known forms of downloading--EXCEPT for the Hopkins p2p network on DC++, which is fabulous. I can get entire movies in under two minutes. Very speedy, good quality, and I'm a happy camper with all sorts of new movies. Plus, it can't be traced. Perfect!

I have to go run a meet--as in be a course marshall, not actually run in the race--at 8:30AM tomorrow, so I should probably go to bed. Toodles!

~Ashton

Hokay. I know it's been FOREVER since I posted anything at all, but I've been busy. But to make up for it I have lots of photos. WARNING: ALL THESE PHOTOS ARE HUGE! :)

--Jane, did you call me the other day? I thought my phone said you called while I was on the phone with my mom, but then I looked in "Missed Calls" and you weren't there. Hmm? And have you left yet? Surely you have, right? How's the room? Pictures, plz?

( PHOTOS! )

In other news, everything is going really well. I'm off to a game of Capture the Flag with the team. Wish me luck! And tell me how you guys are doing!

TTYL,
Ashton

I'm not dead!  I swear!  I've just been busy.  Honest.

I am taking a few classes right now: yoga, calculus II, and automotive fundamentals.  I was taking a scuba class, but I finished it this morning.  That would be the only thing on my 2008 To-Do List that has been completed as of yet.  Go me!  Calc is a drag, yoga puts me to sleep, but I love my AF class.  It's great fun and has paid for itself several times over.  Max will be like new by the time I leave for Baltimore.

Speaking of Baltimore, I'm leaving in a little over 2 weeks.  I can't wait!  Hopefully JHU will be all it's cracked up to be.  Another plus: I saw a few photos of my roommate and she appears to be one of those people that showers regularly and practices good general hygiene.  Yesssss!  No creepy smelly roommates for me!  ^_^

In other news, it's official:  I attract creepers.  From the boy at the vending machine to the 30-year-old father of three to the guy from the A/C class, the universe seems to be out to prove it to me once and for all.  How depressing. 

TTFN.

Stolen borrowed meme from Jane.

Yeah!  Another meme I stole from kwiditchjunkie   who stole it from thereisnosp00n who ganked it from bobbinrob.

1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters. ;)

Okay, okay.  Another meme thing, this time from sharingank.  DO IT.

IF YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST, I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine ... You're on my list, so I want to know you better!

BE HONEST! COPY FROM HERE, THEN SEND DIRECTLY TO ME IN A COMMENT, THEN REPOST THE EMPTY QUESTIONS.

Looking for scholarships, one comes across the strangest qualifications.  Here are a few:
- incest survivor (does it normally kill you???)
- member or the child of a member of the American Association for Nude Recreation, Western Region
- Francophone (not even sure what this is)
- registered voter
- rodeo team member

And interests in:
- knitting
- beetles
- orchids
- urology (?)
- weaving

I'm getting slightly weirded out.

Been watching baby videos all day since my mom is transferring them to DVDs.  I WAS THE CUTEST KID.  Seriously, I don't know what happened later (I think it was the birth of my sister) but I was adorable.  Kind of like a monkey, really.  So cute.  It's weird to watch my family in the videos because I am the center of attention, all the time.  I haven't watched them before, but I don't think I've changed much.  I'm always shoving huge pieces of food in my mouth, smiling and laughing, and generally being happy.

It's also weird to see my dad in all the videos--and not just because of the mullet.  (Or the overalls--EW.)  I didn't even recognize his voice when I first started watching them.  Very strange to watch the family dynamics!  Not in a bad way, though.  It's cool.  I can see where I got my taste in music: when I unwrap a kids' tape player in my second birthday video, the first thing my dad says is, "Hey, I've got a Metallica tape you can play in that."  HAH.

It's also fun to watch me open all the toys on the holiday tapes.  For my second birthday I also got some girly toys and a tonka truck, and after the truck I wouldn't open anything else because I only wanted to play with my truck.  I recognize so many of the toys and I still have a lot of them, buried away in the crawl space somewhere. 

It kind of feels like I'm watching someone else, or a different family altogether.  It's weird.  Hmm.

In other news, I spent the night at Jourdon's and watched She's The Man last night with her and Jenny.  I love the movie but it's seriously so awkward to watch.  The whole thing.  We stayed up till 4 so I had to take a nap today.  :)

Finally got back today.  I thought I was going to hang myself if I had to stay up there with all those people any longer.  Plus, Lexi snores, and since we were sharing a room that meant no sleep for me.  No wonder I've been such an insufferable bitch the past few days.  Caught a ride back with the tios, who apparently don't believe in making pee breaks on car trips.  Have not done my homework or watched Rebelde; I have played Guitar Hero 3 for the past week.  Shame on me.

In other news, the wood floors are done and they look great.  Had to drive out to Pontiac to get the cats tonight but they like the floors.  Got lost in Pontiac and then had to go to my grandma's drug-dealer neighborhood to get the damn things before Tabby pissed in her cat carrier and stunk up my whole car.  Grosssss.

Hoping to get a job soon!  But more on this later.  Don't wanna jinx myself.

Anyway, here's a new year meme.

Christmas was fun this year.  My cousin Reiss is basically the cutest thing ever.  You know how a lot of times babies are actually really ugly but you tell the parents that the kid is cute anyway, because that's what they want to hear?  Not this one.  He's ADORABLE.  I'll post a video sometime.

Tom came over and taught me how to make crepes last thursday, which was fantastic.  I am a crepe master.

Kyle let me borrow Rebelde: Temporada 1, which I believe translates to Rebelde: Season One.  It's Mexican, it's cheesy, it's absolutely horrible and I love it.  And now that I've got the dvd-drive on Oscar (my linux laptop) working, I can waste over 13 hours of my life watching Rebelde!  YES!

Back to Christmas, I got my second hard drive that I wanted and named him Frank.  Vera's cord will be coming in the mail soon, I hope.  Lexi (my sister) got a Wii, which is pretty darn cool if I do say so myself.  We named it Ida-Mae.  (Noticing a trend of old-fashioned names here?  You should be.  My car is Maxine, btw.) 

I'm going to Boyne for the next week to snowboard.  Or at least attempt to snowboard.  Chances are pretty good that I'll be too damaged after the first day to do anything but lay in bed and watch Rebelde.  At least there's going to be internet, so that'll be great.  We're taking the Wii and Dan let me borrow about 50 gamecube games (which the Wii plays) so that should be fun. 

Saw Juno and loved it.  Jenny and Jourdon weren't so fond of it, but I thought it was brilliant.  It's indie, so I wasn't surprised that they didn't like it.  So, so funny.  Had a talk with Mr. Fackler at Jourdon's place afterwards that basically made me question some stuff even more.  So my new year's resolutions should be... interesting.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

So tonight I played laser tag for the first time, and it turns out that it's WICKED fun.  I went with the XC team, and it was amazing.  Seriously, I wanna go again like tomorrow.  It's great. 

Sadie Hawkins turned out to be pretty fun.  Sure, all the girls were dressed like slutty hillbillies and there were only about 100 people there, but J-Ko and Gabby and I had a great time.  I'm so lucky to have friends like that, because a lot of people don't. 

Thanksgiving is coming up, and if I have to hear Mr. Laing talk about how "it's his favorite holiday and he wears expandable pants and he has two rounds of food and he had the flu last year and golly gee whiz did that suck blow and he can't imagine anyone going hungry on Thanksgiving" I may have to throttle him.  He says it EVERY DAY and I am totally sick of it.  At least Thanksgiving won't fall on my birthday this year, because that always sucks.  My birthday is the 25th, and I will FINALLY be as old as the rest of my grade/get my full license.  Also, I want a cake on my birthday this year, dammit.  Every year I get a pumpkin pie and I don't even ruttin' like gorram pumpkin pie!

XC Pancake Breakfast went off without a hitch.  I love my team.  They're just the best group of kids EVAR.  I can't imagine what it's going to be like next year without them.  Banquet almost made me cry because that card was so darn sweet.  My cats are eating the flowers, though.

Benny is finally back to his old self but he still can't eat and he smells awful.  So we got him a cone.  He hates it but he looks awfully cute.

XC States was great for Rachel (19th in the state, wowzers) but super depressing for me.  I feel like I should have been there, because I was fast enough, without a doubt.  I love the course and I couldn't stop thinking about how fun it was sophomore year, and I was kind of unhappy.  Platt and Pat and Brian were good car-mates, even if Platt did revert to Freshman status by getting lost.  Anyway, I'm totally happy for Rachel and I'm going to make track my bitch.  Also, I've been declared Alpha Female of the XC group.  And rightfully so.

Homecoming was fun.  End of story.  Except that I felt like someone had drop-kicked me in the ribs for about a week, but that's not important. 

Engineering Expo with Bridgette and Sam?  Muy divertido.  Lots of free stuff and a game of Gigantic!Jenga.  Speaking of engineering, WHY HAVEN'T I GOTTEN ANY LETTERS FROM COLLEGES YET?!  AUGHHHH.  AM I THE ONLY ONE?!

Over and out!

[/transmission]

Today was weird.  I was extremely tired all day and had a few dizziness episodes, but when I walked into my last hour (physics) I got really dizzy and couldn't breathe well.  Stevie tried to walk me to the bathroom and I fell down and knocked the chair over, so of course that made a huge scene.  I started shaking pretty badly in the bathroom, so Lo and Stevie took me to see Moore.  (We don't have a school nurse, who else was I supposed to go see?)  He said to go home, so I had to call my mom and give my keys to Jourdon, since I drove today.  I felt alright by the time I got home but I took a nap anyway.  I think it's just exhaustion, but who knows?

In other news, I have no life, a fantastic-smelling candle, and a huge rip in the knee of my favorite pajama pants.  You win some, you lose some.

Anybody know how to play .avi's on ubuntu (or any version of linux)?  I've got every media player I could find and they still won't play.  :(

Happy birthday, Nicole!!!

Projekt Revolution was absolutely amazing. Lots of pictures, so everything is under there cut.  WARNING: SEXY-IMAGE HEAVY.  NOT GOOD FOR DIAL-UP USERS OR THOSE WHO FAINT EASILY.

I'm working on college apps and feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.  To anyone who has already gone through hell--I mean, the process--can you give me tips for essay-writing?  I'm not sure whether I should be writing formally or more in the style of conversation.  Please help!

Muse was absolutely fantastic.  We missed Cold War Kids, and BRMC was alright.  Social Distortion would have sounded awesome if their lead singer would have shut up.  But Muse was just phenomenal.

Got a cute shirt, too.  Mmhmm.

We tailgated for a bit after the concert.  A few guys drove past us and asked if we had another gatorade.  I said yes and gave it to the guy, and he said, "Thanks!  Jesus loves you!"  To which I replied, "I'm a Jew!"  (I'm not, though.  I just thought it was funny.)  Then I was looking in the cooler for some food and the lid fell on my head, and a few girls in another car yelled, "We saw that!"  Lovely. 

Absolutely wonderful night!

I just got the entire Firefly DVD set for $16.99 at Costco.

My life rocks.