2009

I'm a little late on this, considering 2010 started today, but I promised Nicole I would write this up. Looking back on it, 2009 was actually a pretty good year for me, and I learned sooo much about myself (ew learning I know whatta nerd).

On December 31, 2008, I was babysitting with the lovely Brittlyn Foster. We decided that my new years resolution was to stop caring so much about what others think about me (hers was to be more spontaneous). Anyways, that was the day I bought my bright blue pants, and those definitely hold symbolic meaning in "being more myself." We jumped of the coffee table, into the new year, and that was that.
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SOPHOMORE YEAR
I just remember that this was second semester, and it was always cold and really dark in the morning. My classes were APEC, Spanish, Badminton PE, Chemistry, PreCalc, and Humanities. They were easy in the beginning of second semester, and I basically skated by. As school progressed, however, I started slacking in APEC and Mrs. Hepler went insane. I started worrying about school and that really messed me up. Probably one of the worst times in my life... All of this ON TOP of softball, and I was stretched so thin that I didn't know if I would survive. Chemistry really made me mad, but somehow I survived with a strong A. After the AP test-- which I got a 5 on-- I was able to relax a lot more. I also decided to go for ASB, and got the position of student store manager.

Now, my love life during this time was.. not so productive. I really liked Steve at the same time Ginny did, and when I told her she got really mad at me and we fought for a little while. It pretty much was all my fault... she wasn't overreacting at all, considering I was trying to edge her out of the group so I could get my shot. At the time, though, nobody really liked Ginny anyways. She had ditched Sam for Andy and so Sam became a good friend, and Angela was constantly pushing me against Ginny. ANYWAYS, I wasn't getting any and started to get used to it. And then, I met this kid named Micah (but I'll continue that when I get to summer).

Went to three concerts during this time I believe. The first was the AP Tour with The Maine, Family Force 5, A Rocket To The Moon, 3OH!3, and Hit the Lights. The former three have still stayed in my life, while the other two don't really matter to me. It was a fun night, and the first time I met The Maine! Although, I lost Garrett's autograph and didn't get a picture with him so Brittlyn and Nicole teased me. :(
The second was Bamboozle Left on April 4th. My first festival, and I went with Brittlyn, Ginny, Nicole, and Bianca. It was really an epic day, and got a lot of firsts in. We met Every Avenue, We the Kings, and The Cab, and got to meet Kyle and Caleb from FTSK. We waited outside in the cold for All Time Low for a long time, but only Rian was nice enough to come greet us.
Thirdly, I think it was the Forgive Durden concert (HAHA). They played with Anarbor and You, Me, and Everyone We Know. First concert at the Epicentre, and not to say I was disappointed... but it wasn't quite what I expected. I went with Brittlyn and it remains a good memory of ours. Now she hates Forgive Durden, but I still like them! The big showstopper was the singer of You, Me, and Everyone We Know. I believe my favorite line of the night was "Now we know why he 'lacks that luck'".
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SUMMER
No school this part, just a lame Bio summer assignment. We also did some ASB bonding stuff, like CORE Camp, which didn't really change my life, but I did meet Travis, my new concert connection!

This is where the love life gets interesting.. So Micah was a 17 year old guy who was staying with his older sister on my street for summer. He started "pursuing" me while I was in school, but I brushed him off because I had other stuff to focus on. Basically, I knew he liked me and he texted me A LOT, but I wasn't really enthusiastic on liking him. He said a lot of really sweet things though (very experienced), and Nicole convinced me to give him a chance cause he liked me so much. I basically just went along with what he did, and wound up getting my first kiss in his backyard. Got to second base, and like I said, he was very experienced... hahaha. When he moved away I wasn't that upset, because I only let it happen since I knew he was going to be leaving. It sounds kinda bad, but he was my summer romance. To this day, I'm not sure I really ever had feelings for him, but I don't regret what happened.

Other than that, nothing really happened over summer. I can say that I found confidence (hmm wonder why?) and became well adjusted to just being me.

I'll do Warped Tour here, since it's technically a summer festival. I went with Nicole, Brittlyn, Diana, and Bella on August 22nd. It was my first Warped Tour, and definitely will not be my last! I crowdsurfed to She's A Lady by Forever the Sickest Kids! We also met The Maine and All Time Lowwww :) The whole atmosphere is addicting... with all the tents and music blasting everywhere. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it has like the attitude that it's Warped Tour and it's gonna kick ass. The damper was that Nicole sprained her neck when a crowdsurfer fell on her, but obviously that won't deter her or any of us from continuing going to concerts.
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JUNIOR YEAR
I though that academically, the first trimester of junior year was easier than second semester of sophomore year. I definitely was jaded when I came into the year, but with classes like US History, American Lit, and ASB taking over half my schedule, the workload wasn't too hard. AP Calc is fine so far, and AP Bio is a decent amount of work but the class is survivable. Most of what stresses me out is ASB related, because a lot of pressure goes with managing the student store along with all our normal responsibilities. I've definitely spent more time at school this year than any other, that's for sure.

Starting the year, I was single and honestly enjoying it for the first time. My new years resolution had been fulfilled. I started doing a lot of stuff with makeup and that made me happy, along with all my neon clothes. During September, Mr. Chad Eckman started sending me strong signals that he liked me more than a friend and I returned the feelings. On October 7, he asked me out with an amazing box and we've been together since. Our first kiss (his first) was on... October 18th? on the Double Tree golf course under the stars. It's been rocky, and I'm not saying we have a perfect relationship. We started working stuff out winter break and hopefully we'll continue to grow.

My friendships really solidified because of ASB, and Nicole, Andy, David, Chad, and I became a tight unit. They're all my best friends in a long time and I'm super glad we're all so close. I did fight with Nicole around homecoming, but we always say that our fights make us stronger friends.

The only real concert I went to during Fall of junior year was the Boys Like Girls one, with The Maine, A Rocket To The Moon, Cobra Starship, VersaEmerge, and of course Boys Like Girls. I went with Brittlyn and Ally (biter!) and JJ, which was an odd crowd.. Anyways, my concert connection Travis came through for me and got me to go backstage and on The Maine's bus and hang out for a while. It was fun!
The other musical.. occurance was the All Time Low acoustic show at Fashion Valley. I went with the FF5 and we had an amazing time, and got to meet the boys of ATL afterwards! My favorite part, besides Alex's Claires rant? David's face after Weightless when he went, "Did they just say the F word???"
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Now it's 2010, and I just wanna see what happens this year :)

Weightless? Can't Stop, Won't Stop?

Soooooooooooooooooooooo are you happy that I'm finally blogging Nicole? It's been freaking forever! Okay, so the last time I actually blogged was the first day of the new semester way back in January. I guess the first thing I should clarify is that there is no way that I am back to liking Connor. This is probably the farthest from liking him I've been in a while.

The drama that occured since I last posted was basically all after winter formal. I really really liked Steve and I made the decision to tell Ginny. Obviously, she didn't take it too well and stuff went down, but that's behind us now. I don't really care so much anymore, so that's cool.



Basically, all I want to talk about are the AP Tour and Bamboozle Left, although Bamboozle is more prominent in my memory right now.

The AP Tour was last Sunday night and super fun! A Rocket to the Moon, Hit the Lights, The Maine, Family Force 5, and 3OH!3. I got to meet The Maine and their signing! And then... I lost the poster in the pit. I got super depressed and then made it my mission to get all their signatures again after the show but Garrett didn't come out and so I didn't get a picture with him or his signature. Either way, it was really fun and I still got to shake his hand! John was super nice too. At the actual show, Family Force 5 blew everyone out of the water. No way did 3OH!3 even come close to following them. They had so much energy! Their music might not sound great on the record, but when you're in the actual atmosphere to rock out to it, it's amazing.

BAMBOOZLE LEFT! Dudeee, it was so amazing. We got to see Mercy Mercedes, The Cab, Forever the Sickest Kids, We The Kings, Every Avenue, and All Time Low. I love every single one of those bands and we got to meet a bunch of them. As a matter of fact, we met The Cab, We The Kings, Every Avenue, and the drummer (<3) and guitarist of FTSK, and RIAN! from All Time Low. The Cab was amazing and we all found a new love in the keyboardist, Alex. Afterwards, everyone moshed towards the Wonka Stage for FTSK and me and Ginny ended up in like the second row. They were so good! Probably my favorite of the day, and I ended up getting their shirt signed by Caleb. Then came We The Kings, and they were also really really good too. Travis threw his pick out into the crowd and it landed between my feet but the beezy next to me took it and didn't give it up. After WTK, we got out of the pit to go explore, and catch Every Avenue signing at the Glamour Kills tent! We also got there to find out that we missed All Time Low signing there :(. That was very depressing, but then after we ate, Nicole, Brittlyn, and Bianca stayed to watch Every Avenue while me and Ginny scoped out other signings. We came back in time for the last couple songs of Every Avenue and then caught We The Kings and The Cab's signings. Then it was All Time Low time!! Me and Ginny dashed into the pit but it was CRAZAYY and I fell down and Ginny freaked out and we got out of there... But ended up going back in a couple songs later :). We tried to stalk All Time Low during Fall Out Boy's set, but none of them came out except for Rian, who was super duper nice.


Okay, since I'm freaking tired and gave Nicole a post, I'm off to bed.

Paperback Novelty

Wowowow. It's been quite a while since I last updated, no? A lot has happened since then. In fact, I went to another concert that I meant to talk about but I never got around to it. A Dull Science, yeah.

This is awkward.

Today was the first day of second semester so I guess I'll go through class by class?

APEC- Still have it first period, which I'm not incredibly thrilled about, but I'll live. Guess who's in that class? The first time in like, 3 semesters, I have a class with Connor. It's really weird because I don't know what to do. The Fates do have a twisted sense of humor. The first semester I don't actually care about getting a class with him, it finally happens. GREAT! Do I make the effort or completely shut it out? Who knows.

Humanities- Easy class, cool people. Not as close as last semester but it was only the first day so I'm not placing too much weight on it. No good guys worth noting! Hahaha

Badminton- Bad Minton! Haha, so this class is pretty chill. Oh yeah, guess who's in this one too? Two classes with him! Not one in the past 3 semesters and 2 this semester! Baffling. There are also maybe a couple cute guys in there but I didn't get that good of a look today. I'll keep you posted :)

Chemistry- STENGER! It wasn't AS bad as I thought it would be, probably only because I was expecting the portal to the seventh level of Hell was gonna like open up beneath us in the middle of class. I tried sucking up by raising my hand but I don't really know how far that got me. I heard she likes kids in Key Club, so that's cool for me. No cute guys if I remember correctly.

Pre-calc- That class is gonna be reallyy hard to pay attention in. Surrounded by Bella, Melissa, Nicole, Dave, and Jason. It was funny though, and I understand at least what we did today, so that's good.

Spanish- My third class with Nicole! It's pretty chill even though Cooper is a beezy. A cute guy sat in front of me today and Colin's in that class! Remember Cute Health Guy from last year? Hahaha, finally another chance to look at him daily!


In general, life has been okay. There's been a bunch of drama with friends, but for the moment I think everything's okay. I know I haven't updated in foreverrr, but I've mostly been afraid of tackling this and then it just builds and builds... Anyways!

Oh, on March 29th I'm going to see The Maine in concert with 3OH!3, Family Force 5, A Rocket to the Moon, and Hit the Lights! I'm super excited to see my lover Garrett Nickelsen!

Ta ta for now :)

Poppin' Champagne

All Time Low concert was last night!!! It was soooo much fun!

First, we got there at around 6 and waited in line. While there, some guys came over and gave us flyers for their bands. One of the guys, Hutton, is in a band called A Dull Science, and he was super cool! I looked up the bands today, and they're all good so I want to go to that show now :)

When we got in, we immediately went to the merch stands. I got a concert T, and Nicole and Bella both got different All Time Low shirts. Then we went to the bathroom, haha.

The first performance was Every Avenue. We started at the back of pit to test the waters, and a circle mosh pit formed in front of us so we were a little afraid to go further. The lead singer of Every Avenue was really hot once he took his wig and shirt off! Haha, I remember people throwing a bunch of crap on the stage and he was like "C'mon, anything else?" They played songs I knew including Where Were You and Think of you Later. Once the circle mosh died down, we ran through and shoved our way closer to the front. That was the last we saw of the moshers.

Next up was The Maine! The lead singer came out in like a British flag speedo with money stuffed into it, haha. He was SO HOT! And I remember that the guitarist was cute too, with a Transformers (?) costume that was 3 sizes too small on. I kept hoping he would take it off (in fact, we were yelling "TAKE IT OFF!"), but he didn't. Anyways, they played a bunch of songs from Can't Stop, Won't Stop, most notably Count 'Em One, Two, Three, and The Way We Talk. And they didn't have the audience sings "sex sells" so I lost five bucks to Nicole. We went up probably 3 or 4 rows during their performance. Afterwards, the drummer threw me a water bottle! I drank it and licked it and then poured water on people, hahaha. (then Bella threw it at Mayday Parade)

Obviously, the next performance was Mayday Parade. I don't know them very well, but I remember that they played Jamie All Over and Miserable At Best (which was a chill song because people weren't really shoving). Their costumes were really cool! It was a batman theme, I think. The guitarist was SUPER hot with a green question mark on the side of his face. Even though I didn't really know them, they had a ton of energy that really pumped us up.

Next, the main attraction, ALL TIME LOW! They came out jamming to Poppin' Champagne. They kicked it off with a couple of other songs to start the energy from the beginning. We were so close at this point, like 2nd/3rd row status. They were SOOOO CLOSE! When Alex would lean over the crowd, it was like.. amazing. The way he sang and smiled and looked at you made it feel like he was actually singing to you. And then he was drinking Fiji water out of a big bottle and he threw it into the crowd and Bella caught it! She squeezed it so hard that a ton poured all over me and her, and that was super awesome. Then we both drank some and passed it around. We were both just like "WE HAVE HIS GERMS NOW! SQUEEEEEE!" And during one of the songs (The Girl's a Straight Up Hustler) the guys in the other bands came out in their underwear and danced and stuff for like 20 seconds. Ahhhhh so nice. The last song they played was Dear Maria, Count Me In, which was a great song to end with. It's the only full song I recorded on my camera. Near the end the guitarist came into the crowd and I tried to dive but I didn't touch him :( But Bella did!



I was EXHAUSTED when I got home, but it was soooo worth it. I totally miss it already. I'm like super ready for another concert, and we want to go to Hutton's concert in December! Hahahaha :)

Take a Step Back

Wow. So it's been almost a month since I've actually updated this thing. Mostly because.. well, my grandma passed away. I really didn't want to talk about it at first and then after neglecting the blog it just seemed too big to tackle. But I'll just say it now: Sarah Grant, rest in peace. I know you're happy now and you're with Don looking down on me. You will be missed, especially when anything reminds me of you. I just need to find the confidence that you aren't sad and that you don't want me to be sad either.



Now of course, anything else I say will seem superficial but I couldn't just NOT mention my grandma.

It's kind of hard to get started again since it's been so long, but I think I'll just delve into the dramaaa that plagues the group. Well, firstly, Ginny and Andy were very annoying. Then Ginny got mad at Andy for like a week because he "didn't seem to care" about her. And now they're back to "Big Bro" and "Lil Sis." Yay, everyone's happy (sarcasm). Lately I've been kind of.. avoiding those two, which secludes me from part of the group. Instead, when they went to Haunted Trails, I had an anti-Haunted Trails party at my house with Nicole, Chad, Jason, Shayon, and Angela. But more on that later ;). Basically, I'm just kind of.. done with Ginny. I'm not mad at her, we haven't fought, I still talk to her on AIM. The thing is, I just... don't like being around her too much? Let's face it, she's a little self-absorbed. If I could, I would just like.. break off with the whole anti-HT group. Which brings me to Angela. She told me that she thinks Andy has changed. Now, I can't really have an opinion there because I didn't know him too well before this year. She's been his best friend all through middle school. She says that he's getting a little bit of Ginny's meanish attitude. Today I was on the phone with Andy and Ginny and he was talking about how ANGELA has changed, and how she's started being mean to him. Me and Ginny both just told him to talk to her. I don't really know what's going on; I'll probably try to coax some more out of Angela tonight.

Sooo the anti party! It was definitely a blasty-blast. We baked pumpkin bread and picked out dirty words on the fridge and played Rock Band and chilled in the living room and were amazed at Jason's amazing bass playing. Hanging out in the living room gave me an extreme sense of security and comfort. Everyone being there and everyone being comfortable and happy just made for an awesome "moment." Jason still seems, well, pretty freaking cool. It was really great. I know he felt truly comfortable and open and I'm just glad I got to spend that time with him, and I feel like I'm becoming a real friend to him. (P.S.: I was alone with him in my room ;)


Oh, and last order of business: CONCERT THIS FRIDAY! All Time Low, The Maine, Every Avenue, and Mayday Parade. I'm going with Nicole and Bella, and uh, it'll be pretty freakin' sweet. I'm SO excited!

Decipher Reflections From Reality

Short post time.

Last night was Homecoming, and I went because I thought that it would just be better to go with Bella, Sam, and Chad.

Of course Gina and Jason were there. Oh yeah, seeing his arm around her and seeing them holding hands was great.

I don't know if I'm glad I went. I guess if I didn't, then I would have been wondering the whole time... Either way, it would have sucked.

I'm Calming Down

"I'm Calming Down" is a super awesome song by Lights Out Dancing. It's a really happy song about how life is worth living and all the things that make it good. Not only are the lyrics good, but the music is cool too :)

I guess I am calming down (maybe because of the song). It still really sucks that Gina and Jason are going to Homecoming, though. And I'm ashamed to say it, but if I didn't know that he totally likes her, then I would delude myself into believing he likes me. I think he's just naturally a really sweet guy though, and that's what keeps messing me up.

All this stuff happened at Floatbuilding (Woot! Done!) yesterday. Where should I begin? How about, he held my bag for me when we went to go put it in Mrs. Correa's room. Okay, when has a guy EVER done that before? Or maybe, when we were looking at the Minny and Mickey painting, and after I told him I drew Minny, he kept complimenting me, saying things like, "Wow, I think she's even better than the original picture (smile)." Maybe the fact that he gave me the duct tape flower he and Andy made, when every one else asked for it and I didn't. Okay, that's a little elementary school, but whatever haha. And for the Grand Finale: We did our handprints together. Gahh. It's hard for me to even talk about it, hah. Basically we alternated red and yellow on the fingers and then he did his palm red and I did mine yellow. And then we touched thumbs in the middle. So the first time we tried putting them on, I did my right hand and he did his left, and we had to cross over because I stood to the left and he stood to the right (if that makes sense). Just being close to him is... I can't explain. And after we put them on, and we both still had paint on, we touched hands together (kind of like a high five, but there was no motion and we kept it there for like 5 seconds). So anyways, our handprints are connected by the thumb and they have our initials under them.

I really really had to resist the urge to paint a + between the JM and OR.