After watching the unbearably boring Powerpuff Girls movie with the babysitting kids, I hung out with my old high school friends. It was pretty uneventful and boring too. We went to a mall. I hate going to malls. I feel like it's a waste of time (and money). I only go if I absolutely have to or if I somehow was dragged to one by a shopper-addict friend or cousin. We went into a couple of stores. It's amusing to see many young women get excited over-priced, sweatshop-produced clothing. I was bored. Ugh. I don't know. I just feel that much more can be done with time and money than spending it on fancy, unreasonable clothing.

Afterwards, I got in trouble with my mom. I was out the whole day so none of the usual house chores were taken care of. Since I had "liberty" today, I thought I was free of those duties until I came home. But of course she got mad. It pisses me off though. When she yells at me, it's because I forgot to do something, some menial task that can easily be taken care of... something even my idiot brother can do. What does she yell at him for? Talking too loud, being annoying, getting in the way. It would be a lot easier on the both of us if she would give him something to do instead of accepting the Playstation 2 as his surrogate parent. He can do stuff around the house. I am sick of cleaning up after the both of them. I am sick of getting yelled at for their mess. But I'm dealing with it. When my mom is yelling I don't pay attention. I just tell myself that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Most of the time, it feels like she's just yelling at me because I'm the safest target for anger venting. If she breaks something, well that's an obvious duh. If she yells at my brother, he'll yell back and possibly hit her. If she yells at me, she knows I will be nothing except the obediant slave daughter she wants and expects me to be.

Fireworks Day

Or, sure, you can call it the Fourth of July, but that's usually connoted with American pride and gloating. Sure, there are some things to be proud of being an American but there are also things to be ashamed of. I just get a kick out of the fourth of july because of the fireworks. I love the way the sky lights up and the sound of rockets exploding in the sky. But I don't really like the rest of it. Go ahead and be patriotic but I don't really see anything great about it. Run around with a flag, identify your self as a "proud American". Just do something to make this damn country worthy of the pride. It's sickening. A lot of people out there are narrow-minded, their thinking limited to the borders of their city or states. But there is a whole other world out there. A whole other world that we affect, that most people don't care about. And it's hard to understand why some people don't care about it. We're supposed to be a "nation of immigrants." We should care about the world. About the places we left behind. Why we left it behind. People take things for granted.

End of rant.

I watched most of the fireworks from the freeway in a car, at freeway speeds. Of course I wasn't driving. Xab was. It was pretty interesting. All the firework sites were launching in synchrony, the same time, the same colors, the same rockets. Makes you realize how big (or small) the city is. During the last ten minutes we pulled into a traffic jammed street for a reason to stop and watch and then when it was over, escaped the flood of pedestrians, vehicles and sirens.

Before the fireworks, we were at an MRI lab. Xab helps his mom with her janitorial business and one of their clients is an MRI lab. I decided to tag along because I always read about those scans in my psych books and I want to see one of those darn contraptions. It was kind of creepy. Not just the huge machine that was just waiting to sandwich you, but the entire empty office. Hmm. I noticed that they kept an oxygen tank in the MRI room, which is a basic no-no. Flip on the switch to the giant magnet and someone's head is going to get flattened.

Tomorrow, I am getting paid to watch the Powerpuff Girls movie with my two neighbors. Yeh. As much as I like the cute little male-hero stereotype breaker, I can't watch more than fifteen minutes of it at a time. How am I going to stand 90 minutes. Oh well, at least I'm getting paid for it. I need a real job.

Exhausted

I've been working out, hard. I'm becoming impatient because I'm not seeing any change but I have to remind myself that I've only been trying (really trying) for about three days. Haha, what am I suppose to expect. But I think I need a break. I've been sleeping at midnight and getting up at six in the morning to jog. By three in the afternoon, I'm knocked out, taking a nap. I usually don't take naps. I either need to sleep earlier (which is hard since I have night classes) or get up later (but that's hard too). I think I'll sleep in a little bit tomorrow and then head out jogging.

I feel really sore and tired, but it feels good. I haven't been physically challenged in a long time. I blame it on my computer. If I didn't get a computer before the start of high school, I wouldn't have become so lazy (because I wouldn't be a computer addict). Back in middle school, I used to be able to run seven-minute miles (which was pretty good for a shrimp like me) but now I can barely jog a lap non-stop. I just have to work at it to get back at that level. I'm not much of a computer addict anymore. I think it's because I had a T1 connection at school and now I'm back at a measly 28k and I'm just to impatient to watch things load. I think it's better that way. I run around doing other things rather that sitting in front of the screen. Life shouldn't be experienced that way, anyway.

Watching from a Step Behind

I guess I've overcomed the shock from yesterday. I didn't think about it too much but when I do it seems surreal, dream-like. It's just something that usually isn't 'real'. I think what really shocked me though is not the pregnancy itself but the fact that she has grown up. She's a woman now, and soon to be a mother and it's hard to picture for me.

I start thinking about when we were younger. Even though FC and her brother were five or six years older than me we usually didn't take age into account. We spent time together and our differing ages didn't matter. Sometimes it helped that I was six and they were twelve because they would have an excuse to stroll into Toys R Us or places of the like. But other than that, we usually did a lot of things together. We played video games, had water balloon fights, ran around, invincible, ageless, youthful. I used to live with them during my first year in the States. We had our little conflicts. Sometimes they thought of me as old as them and constantly bantered with me as if I were twelve even though I really was still a tender, whiny five year old.

The time when we had to part ways. Their dad, who was in the army, was stationed in Texas, and my dad, in the navy, was stationed somewhere else in the city. So we had to split, but even our last moments together seemed endless to me. We dragged the bare mattresses off of the beds and when all the grown up had retired for the night we slid down the stairs riding the mattress together. You think those moments would always be. You could just replay them. Grab any old mattress and slide down the stairs.

Then we parted. We tried to keep in touch through letters but when we were reunited, some things were different, some things were the same. We had grown but we had the same cousin bond. We still spent a lot of time together. I even spent most of my summers at their house.

I don't know when things started faded. Probably when I went into high school and they started having family problems. There was a divide now. And it was visible. The six year age gap finally showed itself. It was hard to relate with each other. While I was having trouble with trigonometry, they were eloping and dropping out of school.

And now they're having children. I'm not jealous, as much as I like kids, I'm definitly not having any for at least another decade or three. It's just bizarre. It seems like they're now racing through life and I'm left behind, trapped (not that I don't like it. In fact, it's a great time.) The division is clear now.

It's not really a bad thing. In fact, watching from a step behind was probably beneficial to me. I stayed away from everything they did. I learned from their experiences. It just makes me feel nostalgic. Not jealous. Nostalgic.