Good haul. Excellent haul this year.

My mom made me drive to Tacoma today.
-_-
It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it was definitely very irritating sitting in the car with two parents who thought my tense shoulders and annoyed expression were due to extreme nervousness rather than extreme anger.
Because it's really annoying having your mom sit in the passenger seat going, "Slow down. Speed up. Okay, speed up a little.... Okay, okay.... Lauren! Are you paying attention? He's merging! Okay, just STAY IN THIS LANE. STAY IN THIS LANE. STAY IN THIS LANE. What are you doing? Make a lane change."
And then my dad decided to compliment my driving whilst clinging desperately to the back seat.
Yes, Dad. My peripheral vision is THAT good.
Too bad that, regarding love languages, "Words of Encouragement" is bumped down to #4, right next to "Acts of Service", when I'm driving.
Ironically, we were listening to The Ting Ting's "Shut up and let me go".
But we made it, and now I've completed 7 hours of driving time.
Only 43 more hours to go.
My birthday was fairly EXCELLENT, by the way. Not to brag. It just was. And all my teachers liked my birthday chicken.
I got three of those, along with a pretty awesome promise ring, some giftcards, and a cross necklace.
Then I got more practical gifts from family.
But they all came in pink, which I'm sorry to say I really like.
The party was pretty cool, but things got kind of out-of-hand with a game of Truth or Dare when the sheltered people refused to answer Truths, but didn't want to take part in Dares (yet still insisted on playing?), and then a couple that had broken up a week previous "got back together" and made things awkward and confusing for everyone (especially the guy's Tolo date. Yeah, I know.).
Other than that, though, it was fun.
And there's no school tomorrow, which might just be the best birthday present of them all.
No car, but there's always next year.
And until then, I have a pretty sweet Buick LeSabre I can run you over with.
16 is looking good so far.
I can now legally get drunk in Germany on their crappy German beer! Woooo!

I've been living a lie...THERE'S NOTHING INSIDE!!!

I've become obsessed with personalities and people in general!
It's completely fascinating. Others might not think so, but I do.
And there's a whole website dedicated to understand temperament, personality type, and your role in the workplace. It's AWESOME!
Yes. I was salivating over it in the computer lab today.
And though percentages have changed since the late 1960's, INFJ is the rarest personality and ISTJ is the most common.
I'll make a pie chart or something.
Seriously. This is way cool.
Stay tuned!
Crap, I have a research draft due tomorrow.
And I've done little to no research.
And there's math.
But no French.
For ONCE.
MY BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND THERE WERE PACKAGES IN THE MAIL THAT I WASN'T ALLOWED TO OPEN!!!!!
Do you know what that means?
PACKAGES!!!! PRESENTS!!!! PARCELS!!!
GIFTS!!!
I have an evil plan involving seduction and a low cut sweater.
Take that, Mr. Darcy.

Christmas: Only marred by Classic Crime and snowplows

All in all, a very good Christmas.
Except for arriving home and finding the snow plows had FINALLY cleared the snow off our streets.
And then pushed it all in front of our driveway.
No joke.
Every other driveway in the cul-de-sac was clear...except for ours.
Right. Thanks, guys. Merry Christmas!
Morons.
Maybe it was someone we know...but who did we tick off?
Boycott love...detox just to retox.
Heheh, I actually got stuff I wanted, and some surprises that were welcomed.
"ACROSS THE UNIVERSE" SOUNDTRACK!!
I hate the Beatles...but I love their music.
Does that make sense?
Ugh, Classic Crime.
The Silver Cord sucks. Albatross was pretty cool, not exactly new or hardhitting, but a nice semi-indie band with a great frontman. And hey, they were from Seattle! Kudos!
And then people (possibly over-excited Christian music fans who would gobble up anything with clean lyrics and possible Christian members, and/or Tooth and Nail execs) started telling this band how much they loved them, how cool they were, and how "edgy" and "hardcore" their music was.
And then the Classic Crime took all these comments super seriously and spent a couple years writing songs for their new album.
And these songs seem like the writers were trying REALLY hard to be "edgy", "hardcore", and "obscure".
Sadly, ALL THE SONGS SOUND THE SAME!!
Fall Out Boy's new album was a little weird at first listening, but at least every track had something different.
Listening to "The Silver Cord" was like slogging through an hour's worth of pain, misery, and angst.
The only exception was "5805", which was quirky and pretty unique, up until the chorus.
The melody of "5805" and "Salt in the Snow" are identical.
I no longer support you, Matt McDonald.

False!!

You Are Biscotti

You are a very direct, honest person. You don't have time for dramatics or emotional pleas. You feel most comfortable in the intellectual realm, especially with science and technology. You are good at understanding difficult subjects. Understanding people? Not so much.

What Holiday Cookie Are You?

"Intellectual" is probably one of that last words people would use to describe me.
Without really meaning to, I've become extremely excited about the upcoming "Sims 3". It doesn't even come out till February.
What would you most like for Christmas?
Twelve drummers drumming.
No, really.
That would be amazing.
We now have 9 and a half inches of snow, the most we've seen in this area for...9 years?? Ha. Alexis and I went sledding yesterday, then made a not-so-successful snow fort out of sleds, packed snow, and manpower.
2 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS EVE! 3 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!!

You are Multicolored Lights

Your holidays are a time for cheer and excitement. You love so much about the holidays, and everyone perks up a little from your happiness. You try to be grateful for what you have this time of the year. Even if things have been tough, you can't help but be joyful.

What Color Christmas Lights Are You?

It's not "Shining Star", but it's a start.

Happy Christmas, Harry! Happy Christmas, Ron!
Speaking of Harry Potter, I watched the 5th movie recently and it sucked, but I really liked Luna Lovegood and Ron was a hottie.
Still working on my 2007 playlist. There's this one Barlowgirl song I need to add. Also, I'm definitely replacing the Tobymac opening track with a Hannah Montana one. Unfortunately, I did not receive a Hannah CD for Christmas. Darn.
I DID get High School Musical 2: Extended Edition, though. Yeaaaah. We watched it last night and it's pretty much the best movie I've ever seen. That one part with Sharpay STILL makes me cry. Sooo sad. I hate Vanessa Hudgens.
Soooo I'm LOVING my bass. It's all black and beautiful and shiny and there's a small dent in it, but it works GREAT. My amp is bigger than William's, though. He's better at guitar than I am at bass, though. :P I managed to somewhat master sixteenth notes. Its been fun. Maybe by next year I can play in pep band!!
Uh oh, scandalous pajamas!! Comfy, though. I already ate all my Christmas candy.
SWEET, thanks to my dad's diligent help with my quarter collecting over the years and the $10 my grandma gave me for Christmas, I might just go out and BUY that Hannah Montana CD.
So Christmas was good and William is having a semi-fabulous birthday. Actually, Chuck E. Cheese was kind of lame because his friend was being stupid.
But he always has Mario.
Heh, yesterday we were being dumb and singing along to Metallica with our best James Hetfield impressions. Ironically, today is Lars Ulrich's birthday. Hm.

Santa is depressed...and he's a pig?

Yeah, I just went to my church's Christmas Eve service, which was pretty cool, because the whole theme was Jesus' birthday, so there were balloons everywhere and pictures of cake on the bulletins and we gave him "gifts" and sang songs. The only bad part was the puppet show. I will forever have nightmares of not-funny puppets with stage fright.
Yeah, I've sort of been online a lot today. It's all good. After all, it's Christmas Eve.
Kind of feel bad that I just had a sermon on not focusing on gifts and on God, but now I'm bugging my mom to let me open presents. I don't even know if we'll do it because William has the flu and wanted to sleep in my mom's room, so she didn't get to wrap them. Like I want wrapped presents. Okay, yeah, I do want wrapped presents.
Aaargh, I just read "Falcondance", sequel to "Snakecharm", and it, too, was a letdown. I thought it started off good, though, and had me pretty hooked, but then it fizzled and got really confusing. Nicias is a cool kid.
Hopefully "Wolfcry" will be better, as it has Oliza, Zane and Danica's kid, as the narrator, but the last book is sure to suck.
Foom foom foom. Mmm, rodeo cheeseburgers.
Merry Christmas. No happy holidays for you.