It's been a long time since I've been on here, hasn't it? ^^' Even after I promised to post about Acquire the Fire (February), the St. Louis Lion Party (May), and I debated writing about my sister's wedding (August). Oops. ^^' Unfortunately, all those events are too far in the past for me to do them justice (well, I could still write about my sister's wedding, but I don't want to write completely in "my sister", "her then fiancee", and "my mom"s ;)), so I think I'm just going to do a rambling post. :P

So, what have I been up to lately? Not much, honestly, aside from school. ^^' This year, I switched from regular English to AP English...biggest mistake ever. Even though regular English was too easy for me, AP was a mistake. First off, in regular English, they've spent the last few years reviewing things I knew by 6th or 7th grade as if it was brand new material, whereas there are some more advanced subjects (i.e. the difference between "who" and "whom", for cryin' out loud) that they have never touched on. I've self-taught myself more than I learned in that class, and that's just from learning Spanish. However, in AP, they expect you to already know how to read a difficult (*cough-Shakespeare-or-Postmodern-cough*) piece of literature and analyze it ON A COLLEGE LEVEL. ...Yeah, quite the jump. And since we never get any homework, our grade relies on projects we've been doing and tests...on said difficult-to-analyze books. Not to mention we only ever hear our teacher's perspective on it, since she's always completely right. Even when she says Lady Macbeth was justified in plotting King Duncan's murder because her society was so hard on women, and that "Enlightened" slavery was worse than regular slavery because it gave the slaves a false sense of hope. Um, WHAT?!?!? Oh, and let's not forget that we just read a book that would blow an NC-17-rated movie out of the water in terms of content, and I couldn't get out of it because I'm in a college class. Like I said, big mistake.

But enough with my rant about the evils of my school. I did enough of those last year. ^^' In more current events, I've been working on my NaNoWriMo, Ditto Story segments, and, just today, I updated the Index. :D I hope someone gives me some feedback on it soon, though. :( I want to make sure my summaries are okay (since I am a horrible summarizer, in case my posts aren't any indication ;)), but no one in my family is willing to read them. :( Oh well.

Okay, since I have to start getting ready for work in about 20 minutes (for some reason, I work 4 1/2 hour shifts four times a week rather than 3 1/2 hours three or four times a week now), I should wrap this up. Suffice it to say...yes, I am really still alive. :P ;)

Sorry about disappearing for forever then coming back with a rant, but I am really mad at some things right now, and I've really gotta vent or I'm going to explode. (Actually, exploding at a few key people would actually feel really good right about now, despite the fact that a) I'm never going to meet them and b) what I would say to them would probably be slightly out of line without solving a thing other than making me feel better.) BTW, I'm going to be bordering on political, and there's a part some people might be able to pick up on (while others won't) that's about people they know. Just so you know.

I'll start with the most mild of the ones currently eating at me (as in, at this moment, not in general). It has to do with my school. Last year, we started doing the (mandatory) IB program (stands for International Baccalurate, though I'm not sure that's spelt right...), which basically tries to incorportate environmental issues, health issues, styles of learning, and stuff like that into the cirriculumn. On the one hand, it's not that awful; some of the things we discuss are kind of important issues (we even deal with helping out in the community occasionally), but on the other hand, it's messed up. I mean, in my Spanish class, we had a 5-part health-related project, which we had about a week to do (!!)---except for one part, which we had a few more days on---and which was about 30-60 points a project. ANNOYING. VERY ANNOYING. Especially when the instructions aren't clear enough on one of them and you FAIL it. (Thankfully, it was one of the ones with few points.) Finally, we're done with that and moving on to actual SPANISH...when we start working on a ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECT. And the cirriculumn and teacher don't hesitate to make their views on a few things clear. It makes me want to stand up and say, "Los seres humano no tienen que cuidar el medio ambiente mas que tienen que cuidar otros seres humano." (Approximately (and though it's missing a couple accents), that's "Humans don't have to care for the environment more then they have to care for other humans"; that's something it sometimes seems like the cirriculumn would argue with me about!) We had a diorama we had Thursday to Tuesday to work on, and two other projects--we got them on Friday, with one due today and the other due Tuesday. I am getting really, REALLY sick of these projects. They're too much of a workload, they're stressing me out, and they're bringing down my grade---not too dramatically, thank goodness, but I have a friend who's failing because she can't keep up with the projects. STUPID IB PROGRAM. !La programa de IB es muy estupida! (Approx., "The IB program" is very stupid!")

Ha, you thought that was bad? Wait until I move onto my next subject, which would be...school propoganda (yes, this is the political one). No, I'm not overblowing it or exaggerating it in any way; I'm dead serious. The school system is literally brainwashing the students, and sometimes, I think the people responsible are doing it on purpose. I feel the pressure every day to ignore my Christianity and switch back to their worldview, where there are no real rules, the key word is "tolerance" (and I mean the kind where you turn off your common sense and values and would have to "tolerate" a Nazi), and everything is anti-Christian, anti-Christian-based cultures/remotely Christian-based cultures, and...well, please don't take this the wrong way, anyone, but sometimes, it seems anti-white. What I mean is sometimes, there are textbooks (and I even have a teacher this way (same one I mentioned earlier), who is almost blatantly so) that seem to blame modern Caucasians for what some of their ancestors did to other ethnic groups (i.e. slavery); I don't mean to say that they're racist against white students or anything like that. Since I say "no" to almost all of that pressure, I feel pretty attacked all the time. What's worse is that it seems like only people in my family and/or online friends agree with me at all! I talk to my friend about it, and she seems to think I take it too far to the extreme. In fact, she's sided with what they say about some things...and she's a Christian! In fact, here's a conversation we were having about my Geography class. I had just come from a lesson about the colonization of Africa by Europe, and I was mad because the textbook---and more obviously, my teacher---were clearly slanted against the Europeans, making them look like rather foolish, power-hungry warlords who just wanted more land, resources, and to (intolerantly, as the book suggests) spread their religion (oh my goodness, trying to help people by giving them what a Christian would believe would be the best thing in the entire universe for them is sooo terribly evil and wrong!), despite the fact that they never mentioned any wars that the pre-colonization Africans fought. Any, despite the fact that they were at war quite often, and some of their most praised empires were based entirely on greed. Here was what I remember of the end of conversation:

Me: "I don't get it; why is it so awful for the Europeans to come and conquer the Africans when they'd been doing it to themselves for hundreds of years? I mean, they weren't necessarily right, but what makes conquering land so wrong? Every nation of the world has done at least a little bit of that."
My friend: "Yeah, but they shouldn't have taken the land. It was wrong."
Me: "Why? What makes it different from the African nations doing it to themselves before hand?"
My friend: (Pauses in thought) "I...I don't know."

That was the second worst moment of my entire struggle with the worldview my school shoves down our throats. The worst was the one that started it all (when I discovered another friend had been suspended for three days to standing up to a teacher who was using her class as a soapbox for 10-20 minutes (I was there; I know he was in the right)), and this was second...because that's when I was faced with a horrible truth: even Christians can fall for this. Even Christians can swallow what the teacher says, opinion and all, just because it's the teacher. They won't think through it themselves until someone asks the question, and even then, they might stick to what the teacher says. Granted, it's difficult to say, even from a Christian worldview, whether or not the Europeans were right or wrong in conquering Africa, and that's not what I'm fighting for. What I'm fighting for is the truth; the unslanted, worldview-free truth. No more, no less; I just want people to know the truth and not what the teachers think about the truth. I want to be able to go to school without having to pick apart everything every teacher says; I want to go back to the days where I could just take them at what they said. But I can't; not until I'm assured that they're not trying to brainwash me, like they did until I was in 9th grade. I'm not going to fall for that trick again...ever. I absolutely refuse to.

Well, considering how important that one was, it feels kind of silly to move on to something so trivial, but...this is the one that triggered what I needed to vent. The school thing has been simmering on the back of my mind for a long time. Two years ago today, in fact (my friend was suspended two years ago today). This one has been there for a while, but I just noticed something that retriggered the whole thing all over again. (BTW, some people might pick up onto what this is, and if you're one of those people, please don't say it. I'd prefer if the people I'm mad at don't find out until we're ready to come to some kind of agreement that would work...which is nearly impossible, so I'm thinking I won't tell them unless they ask or things get drastic....) Also, if you think you might be involved, don't read unless you want to read only my side of it. I know this is kind of unfair to some people and it's all based on emotion, but I'm so frustrated that all I want to do right now is vent it all out.

This one has to do with...well, the same place I mentioned in my last ambigous rant (my first rant, which was called "Paradise Lost in my life"). For those of you that didn't read it, to recap...it's an online place that I've fallen quite in love with during my years there, though I mostly fell in love with it as it was when I first joined. In fact, there was a special place there that I especially grew fond of; partially because I met a lot of good friends there and we'd often share wonderful, uplifting conversations. I always knew that when I was happy, or sad, or whatever, I could go there and meet with people to share with my feelings and comfort me if possible. There was also something very special we all shared; I won't get into too much detail (like I said, I'm trying to keep it from being too obvious, though anyone who read the first one already knows what it is), but suffice it to say it had to do with my imagination. It was a lot like stepping into a whole new world, and having wonderful adventures there. Never before had I experienced it quite as strongly as I did there, and I don't think I ever will again. It was next to perfection for me, and I promise you, I'll never find another place quite like it again until I get to the real Perfection.

However, after a while, things dramatically changed. A lot of new people came, and though some of them really tried, things really lost the tone and feel they used to have. Instead of being among people I knew were as good as friends as many of my real life ones, I often felt like I was among a whole bunch of people who were acting as sympathetic as possible, but they didn't feel it as much as people used to. (If you've figured this out and think that might be you, don't feel offended; I'm not saying you were insincere, I'm saying it felt different.) After a while, I got caught up in my own life and I had to leave that place for a while.

When I came back, things were even more different. Most of the people I used to know had left, and they were replaced with people who barely knew me at all...and who I found it difficult to get to know, since it usually took around 5 posts to say what used to be said in one or two. Also, the place that I said was like a whole new world? It had been replaced by a new one; one far darker and less appealing than the first. They regarded what I used to love as obsolete history; I can even think of one (anonymous) person who often requested/requests that parts the "old" one be left out of the "new" one, since they're different and the "old" one is "ancient memories". Instead of actually finding out what some of the unique phrases, people, and places from this place were, they throw the names around and change them so that they're not really what they used to be anymore. To paraphrase HK-47 from the second Knights of the Old Republic video game (to a Jedi): "Imagine if someone where to take your Jedi Code and twist it so it wasn't really your Jedi Code." Replace "Jedi Code" with "place you love", and that's exactly how I feel. Despite more than one attempt on several people's part (myself included) to let people see what they're doing to us, they still do it.

In fact, I noticed recently that, in one case, they used part of what I was part of...very incorrectly. Since I can't get into details, I'll put it this way: let's say a group of people wrote a story about a struggle between good and evil, and that was an integral part of the plot. It was also handled in a unique, but very fun way for the writers. However, they left room for more writers, and several newer writers took a couple elements here and there from the original, but didn't even bother to read the whole story, nor see how they were used in the original. When they're making their own story, which they claim to be like the original, they use the battle between Good and Evil...by creating something called "The Good and Evil part", which combines the two sides into one, despite the fact that they are opposites. That is certainly not the only event that makes me angry, but it's the straw that broke the camel's back tonight.

Now, I know I'm probably being a little hard on some of the people who have done this. The original of what I'm talking about was a little involved, and I can see why they would see it as easier to just make a new one. However, what's frustrating is how some of them refuse to even acknowledge the original's existence, the fact that it's still alive and running, refuse to look up what they're doing, and they sometimes try to say "Just forget the old stuff; we only want our new stuff". It makes me want to scream; I feel like they're regarding everything I and many, many good friends of mine worked so hard on and put so much love into like there's no reason for it to be prevalent at all in the newer stuff. All the values we put into the original, all the things we did together, the whole point of it all...it's been almost completely washed away by a few people who won't bother to look at it. And because they pretty much dominate the website now, there's no way we can ever reverse it unless they are willing to take a look.

(BTW, for people who read the first one, this is kind of the other half of what the original rant was about, not the same thing (since that one has been essentially resolved).)

*Sigh* I should just stop now. This is my third rant in a row. My life isn't even all that terrible right now; I'm just really frustrated right at the moment. I should be really happy...but these just keep getting in the way.

I'm really going to stop now.

~Ryadian/Ashareya ThirdCrystal/Elicael, Fire Sarien~

I had a pretty lousy weekend, not counting Friday. Friday was fine; I finally got to see the rest of the special features on my Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 DVD box set, and if I had time, I would've started on a marathon so that I could see them all again before season 3 premeires on Friday. Unfortunately, my brother has started a MacGyver marathon, and since it's nearly impossible to get him off the TV after he starts watching it....*sigh*

But that's not what really got to me. What really got to me started Saturday. I worked from 12-3, which I was happy with; normal hours (for me), and it gave me plenty of time to do my homework. Well...I discovered that I had been put on "Dining" for the first time. The person on "dining" is the one who goes around the dining room and cleans off the tables, fills salt/pepper shakers, vaccuums the floor, etc. I had been wanting to do a little bit of that, just to see what it was like, and I was fairly excited...at first. However, I didn't know how to do it, so I had to ask other people for advice...and unfortunately, everyone does it differently. One person told me to take dirty pepper shakers to the back so that someone could put them through the washing machine, then about a half hour later (when I was about to start looking over the shakers), someone else told me that I should go around and do them all at once when I had time. While I was trying to do that, I got called away multiple times to go clean up the tables and other stuff like that...only for my manager to tell me that I should do salt and pepper shakers quickly! That was the moment when I came the closest to yelling at one of my co-workers...ever. And I hated the feeling, especially considering she was my manager.

Suffice it to say, by the end of my shift, I felt like I was being pulled in about 5 different directions at once. Thankfully, about 15 minutes before I was off, someone started doing some of the things I was asked to do while I did some of the other stuff. Even so, I've never looked more forward to the end of my shift than Saturday, and never have I disliked my day at work so much.

Unfortunately, I used the fact that it was a Friday and my bad day at work as excuses to put off my homework all weekend...meaning I had a good hour and a half's worth of work to do on Sunday. However, Sunday was also the day that my youth group was going to go to Valleyfair; something I've been wanting to go with for years, but I've always missed it for one reason or another. I was planning to go, since I was going to be available and had the money...but when I found out they were leaving right after church and not getting back until 8:00, I knew I couldn't go. I spent most of my day working on the homework, and feeling my depression growing.

*Sigh* I'm still kind of depressed. I have a lot of homework, and I work 4 days this week---three of them being tonight, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Weekdays I work make doing homework pretty difficult...meaning I'm probably going to be stressed out for the next three days.

Why can't we have 32 hour days and be awake for 31 of them?!

~Ryadian/Ashareya ThirdCrystal/Elicael, Fire Sarien~