Smoking vs. Meth

you know, you see a lot of posters in public places giving you reasons for why you shouldnt smoke
of course you shouldnt smoke, because
one) it causes shortness of breath
two)the chemicals within ciggarettes can end up straining your heart and blood vessels
three) it makes your teeth yellow
four)it lets less oxygen get into your blood system
five) it gives you wrinkles
six) it makes you more susceptible to sicknesses [im pretty sure]
and seven) it causes cancer.
read it again
C-A-N-C-E-R
you know, that sickness where your cells start growing uncontrollably and you have to take chemo and all your eyebrows fall off?
yeah
Cancer.



you see all of that in the posters
reasons for why you shouldnt smoke
and you think about it
and it makes sense

and then you read the posters that ask you that big question::
If the outside of a smokers body looked the same as the inside
[rotten, black, ugly, raw]
then would people still smoke?

normally the immediate answer would be no.
because I definately wouldnt smoke if it made my face look rotten
but then
what about everyone else?
the almost obvious answer should be no, people wouldnt smoke

but then you think about meth

meth is an intense drug
and affects your physical appearance drastically::
one) yeah, it tends to make you lose weight, but continued use results in drastic weight loss
two) you get pale
three) it causes your body to practically cook its internal organs because of all your excess body heat
four)it blackens and yellows your teeth
five) your body begins to emit an odor so that you smell like glue or mayonnaise
six) people that use meth regularly lose their ability to feel pleasure because the drug causes you to feel so much illusion of it
and seven) you get sores all over your body because of all the scratching you do while youre high

so meth does have a lot of external physical effects on your body, along with a lot of internal and i guess emotional

it pretty much takes a perfectly attractive human and being
and turns them into something visually revolting.

Yet People Still Do It.

So if people are still doing meth despite the external effects,
then people would most definately still smoke regardless of whether or not it made their appearance frightful and grotesque.
of course, not as many people would smoke,

But people still would, nonetheless.

symbolism

so once upon a time there was this girl that lived an an island all by herself and she couldnt go shopping or driving or flying or walking or on myspace or hang out with her friends because there wernet any stores or roads or planes or anywhere to walk to or people to hang out with and the internet company that she used blocked myspace.

and approximately 13 miles away there was a town that wasn't on an island and had plenty of stores and roads and planes and sidewalks and people aaand the internet companies didnt block myspace

so this girl decided that she was going to find a way to get over to that non island town, no matter what it took

so she asked her islander father to build her a boat that would take her the whole thirteen miles to the non island town, the one with the stores and roads and planes and sidewalks and people and internet companies that didn't block myspace

but her islander father couldn't understand why she would want to leave the empty island. the one without the roads and planes and sidewalks and people and had the internet company that blocked myspace

so the girl explained to her fahter that she needed roads and planes and stores and sidewalks and people and cars and internet companies that didn't block myspace

but her father just didn't understand
because he liked walking instead of driving
and got airsick in airplanes
and didnt need to walk on the sidewalk
and had animals instead of people
and was totally against using cars
and believed that his daughter shouldn't have myspace anyway.

so the girl had to remind her father that he was nearly fifty and already settling down, so he wasn't supposed to care for any of the stuff that a typical teenager would anyway, and could she please move to the nonisland town

and her dad got mad because he didn't like being old

but she got him not mad somehow anyway

and explained that if she went to the nonisland town
the one with the cars and stores and roads and people and sidewalks and planes and internet companies that didnt block myspace,
she could go to school
and build up her social skills
and get a job
and prove how responsible she was
so not only was the nonisland town just a place with cars and stores and sidewalks and roads and planes and people and internet companies that didnt block myspace,
now it was a nonisland town that had cars and roads and sidewalks nad planes and people and internet companies with myspace AND schools, opportunities for social growth, employment and the chance to prove responsibility

soo
her dad was still iffy about everything,
but now he actually had stuff to think about before he said no
because he didnt want his daughter to grow up stupid
without an education or any life skills
and she had proved to be rather adequate at the practically homeschooling

so the daughter took advantage of her doubt and convinced her dad that indeed she needed to go to the nonisland
the one with cars and roads and sidewalks nad planes and people and internet companies with myspace AND schools, opportunities for social growth, employment and the chance to prove responsibility

and so he let her
and she left
and went to school
and had friends
and had fun
and was responsible
and everything turned out fine

the end

Getting your way

so i got my car taken away for a month.
its dumb.
me and kara were going to johnnys place, and since we werent really going to go anywhere else, i decided that i could just drive her the one mile there. which is uuber short by car. but. of course. not uuber short by walk.
so because its not driving around town
or going out and having fun,
eating and jamming out to earsplitting loud music
or going out to a party
or picking up a gazillion friends so that we can all drive around town and defy the law
i decided
that i could drive kara the one mile to johnnys house.
and everything would have been absolutely fine if her parents hadnt pulled up behind us with my parents in the car with them, and followed us all the way to johnnys house, and got out and started yelling about breaking the law and irresponsibility, and not following the rules, and how its more my fault than karas, or its more karas fault than mine, blah blah blah.
really
i think the situation would have gone along MUCH more smoothly if just her parents or if just mine had pulled up.
our parents were so busy being embarrassed that they decided to take all frustrations out on us.
redeemance of the suburban law abiding parents.
blah.
so i knew that i wasnt supposed to drive kara.
i knew that my dad was freaking out about his parental reputation
i knew that karas dad was also freaking out about his parental reputation
and i knew that people expect you to argue.
and that when someone is extremely upset with you,
esp. for doing the opposite of what they tell you to do,
the best thing to do
is to reply
with
yeah i know i did something wrong. ok ill accept my punishment. i completely understand where youre coming from. and even though i dont like it im not gonna complain.
because then they dont know what to do with you.
and then you can ask...
hey, can i go to carloses?
=]

Great Outcome

So i ended up having a pretty good birthday yesterday. it was fun.
school was pretty boring. but that was to be expected =P.
after school i went home, washed my hair, and then my family and had cake and opened my presents.
my mom got me this awesome radio tuner thingy that you can put in the shower, so that i wont have to lug my speakers and ipod in there all the time :). and i got a whole bunch of sewing stuff and watches and a head lamp and a toolbox and socks and a humongo picture frame and my ten year old brother henry gave me twenty dollars. lol.
so yeah, that was pretty cool.

after having cake and opening presents, Lyle and I went to Bethel by boat and stopped by carloses to see what we were going to do. they said that kara was planning to go out to eat so we spent like an hour looking for kara, picking people up, going to karas house so she could wrap my presents, and then finally going all the way out to the airport so that we could eat at brothers pizza.
[forgot to say, micah, johnny, kara, bill, lyle and katrina all went]
we ordered a half pepperoni, half supreme large pizza, and spent forever joking around and waiting for the pizza to get there. i opened the present that kara got for me [two shirts and some boxers haha], and micah and i interrogated Katrina, trying to figure out why the heck she would support bush. it was great.

after forever our pizza finally arrived, and it was a half white, half pepperoni instead of what we ordered. so we spent forever all over again waiting for them to get our order right. which sucked. but it was fun. after that me and lyle had to go home, because we were already late, so that's how the rest of that day went. so it was all cool. and now guess what.
im seventeen years and a day old. how cool is that :)

Happy Birthday?

so i guess that todays my birthday...
happy seventeenth?
idk.
it sucks because my birthday's got to be on a tuesday instead of a saturday.
and i cant get my dad to stay consistent with what i want to do.
we started off saying that i would have a feast for my birthday,
then changed it to my family and i going out to eat in bethel instead
then decided that i wanted to have a family party
then said that i wanted to go out and eat with friends
then said that i just wanted to go to bethel [which my dad doesnt approve of because he doesnt think that it's healthy for teenagers to just "hang out".. to which i replied with, its my birthday, you cant complain :)]
and then just last night, i decided that i want to go in to bethel, get a whole case of mountain dew, order a huge pizza, and go to carloses to watch Lucky Number Sleven, which my dad wouldnt let me watch because it was rated R, but since im seventeen now he cant say that i cant watch it. perfect way to welcome my seventeenth year :]
so thats my current plan right now.
but my dad is starting to go for a change in plans all over again.
he thinks that i should go in some other day.
but im already starting to lose my sanity... so i think im going to go for today.

anyway todays birthday kind of sucks.
im just not in a good mood.
havent been in a good mood.
[wont] be in a good mood?...

when the clock struck twelve last night i swore to myself that i would make sure today, at least, wouldn't suck like the rest of them have tended to. so far the plan isn't necessarily working out. blahh.

anyway. im determined to go in to bethel today and to watch Lucky Number Sleven, and to make the best of my situation. regardless of what i've had to hear about today. Regardless of what i feel about today. im just gonna forget everything that bugs me, and not worry about it tomorrow.

we'll see how that works out.

attempting the concept of skateboarding

So a few weekends ago i attempted to learn how to skateboard.
it was aaweseom
i went to the skatepark with kara and johnny, and pretty much everyone was there.
Kara had already been learning how to balance on the board, but i was starting fresh, so i had to go around the park a few times just figuring out how to turn the thing.
i was pretty embarrassed to be falling off my board and not being able to control it when i wasn't even doing any tricks, especially since the park was full of people. so it took me a while to get the hang of it. but once i had the whole balance and turning concept down, i was finally able to attempt going up and down the spine on the fun box, or doing a fakie.

and dude. it was Hard.

when you go up the ramp, you're supposed to lean your body out away from the board, almost like you're trying to become parallel with the ground, so that the weight of your body doesn't push the board out from under you. It took me forever to get the hang of this, so almost every time i went up the ramp i would lean the wrong way and the board would shoot out from under me. I landed on my butt quite a few times, but didn't have any major bruises really.
right before kara, johnny and i had to leave, i finally got the hang of doing a fakie. it was aweseom.

the next weekend, [last weekend] Kara and I went back to the park to learn some more board tricks. she told me that since i knew how to do a fakie now, i had to learn how to do a rock to fakie. that's when you go up the ramp, and once the board starts to slow down, you push on the back end with your right foot, and lift up the front end, simultaneously twisting and leaning your body so that you do a complete kick turn and go down the ramp with your board going forward instead of backwards, like it does on just a normal fakie.

again it took me pretty much all day just to do the rock to fakie, and by the time we left i still wasn't all that great at it. and i still wasn't all that great the next day either... but i kind of got the hang of it.

i'll admit that i still suck, but i moved on to the next trick anyway. I think it was called the Rock and Roll, but i'm not even sure. but in order to do the trick, you go all the way up the ramp until the front wheels of your board go higher than the edge at the top, and then rest briefly there, then you go back down the ramp without doing a kickturn. so it's like a fakie, but you're going a lot higher up on the ramp.

i'm still stuck on this step, and seem t have the same problem with staying on the board when i start to go back down the ramp. it's kind of frustrating, but i can't wait until the next time i go skateboarding. i am soo ready to get it right. :)

[[p.s. i fell just about a million times when i was learning the rock to fakie, and ended up with huge bruises on both of my knees and hips, and a super painful but invisible bruise on my tail bone. it was aweseom.]]