Happy Thanksgiving everyone (:

I hope everyone's having fun.
I know I could be celebrating with my family, but something's wrong this year. They aren't doing anything. My dad's sleeping and is going to a friend's house for dinner... And well, my grandparents are just sitting on the couch... My uncle's not home cause he's working... And my aunt, hmmm, who knows what she's doing.

I want to thank my daddy, for being both a mother and father to me since my mom left. Thank you for loving me for the disoriented and always-sad person I am, for always taking care of me and allowing me to be your little daddy's girl when I am incapable of looking out for myself, for working until 11 every night to give me a better future, and for having me as your daughter, as maddening I can be.

I want to thank my mother, for giving birth to me and at least visiting me a few times in my life. I'm sorry that you haven't come to visit me in almost 4 years and that I sometimes seem scrutinizing. No matter what you have done in the past, you're still my mommy and I will always love you.

I want to thank the Lord for giving me the world, for everything that I've ever experienced and for the things I have yet to. Thank you for making everything I know of, and I am sorry that I have not appreciated the things in my life as much as I could have.

I want to thank my Auntie Melody for being my second mother and for raising me. Thank you for the principles you have taught me that my world revolves around, for not being the "normal parent" that tells you what to do, but instead leaving the world as my playground and for me to explore. Thank you for showing me that I must be who I am and love it, that I should never regret doing things, and teaching me what's right and wrong.

I want to thank my Uncle Boboy for showing me that I can still be philosophical and passionate while being logical. For always pushing me to do my hardest in all fields and for recognizing talent in me. Thank you for loving me for the "little tweet" I am and allowing me time to expand my two cylinders into five. Thank you for being my academic role model - you are the reason I want to be the best leader I can be - and thank you for knowing that I can do amazing things in this world.

I want to thank Lola Rebecca for being the helpful, sweet, caring, and sometimes-annoying grandma that I know and love. You have helped my father and I through too many financial problems to count and I KNOW that I would be living in the streets if it weren't for you. I'm sorry that I can act very meanly when I'm in a bad mood or when I'm sick, but I honestly appreciate you for taking care of me when I don't even need to be taken care of. You have taught me the meaning of generosity.

I want to thank Lolo David for simply being my grandfather. Your success has brought me to realize that I can actually be something in the Paraiso family. I love you for being who you are, even though you are just about the most serious and stiff person I know. You have taught me the meaning of obedience and self-control.

I want to thank my Auntie Tessie for helping me realize that I may actually be loved and needed in this life. Thank you for always being sweet and never discriminating or biased.

I want to thank John Joseph Banaag for giving me reason to live, for loving me, and for making me fall in love with you. Thank you for being the most amazing person I have ever met and for making me feel like I am more than that boring and unacknowledged person I was before I met you on September 25, 2007. You've brought the meaning of true happiness to my life and transformed me from a living robot into a real human being. You are the reason I have compassion and hope for the world. You really are my life, and the reason why I do anything. Thank you for being my inspiration to live.

I want to thank GG Hilliard for rekindling my love for singing and piano. You have inspired me to be the best person I can be, whether it is knowledge-wise, talent-wise, or simply moral-wise. Among the many people I have met or known of in my life, you are the one that has exceeded all others in different aspects. Your unbelievable talent for the arts and your passion for life is just about the most inspiring thing I have ever witnessed in a person. The fact that you're close to 75 years old and that you may be moody affects me none at all. Your health defects have never stopped you from doing what you love, and from the bottom of my heart, I look up to you. I want to be as talented, passionate, and courageous as you. Thank you for showing me all the hidden beauty in the world.

And lastly, I want to thank the friends I have in my life that are always there to cheer me up. Thank you for filling up the empty spaces in my heart.

I've always given much thought

to what my purpose in this world is, and every single time I would figure out the same "cheesy" (by other people's standards) conclusion:

I live to inspire hope- to help people in a way that others can't by just simply giving money to charities or by donating this or that to homeless people. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because I do that too, but I want to help people in a more personal way. Singing at the City of Hope hospital for the first time in two months (due to no time to go there) made me realize that singing to a sick and dying patient can really turn their world upside down. You, my dear reader, most likely have not first-handedly sung to cancer patients. When you walk into the desolate halls and peer through the windows of the patients whom you're about to sing to, you can easily notice the blank, lifeless faces. And once we open our book to find some song to sing, one of their family members in the room with them (if there are any) opens the door with this look of awe that people of such spirit are actually allowed into the hospital to sing once a month. When you're singing TO a patient, singing that song specifically for that one single person, and you see their faces light up, you will understand what it means to give- to give hope. Some patients cry with joy, and some patients smile like all is right in the world, but no matter what their reaction is, you KNOW that a little candle of hope was just set on fire through looking at their faces. You KNOW that you can do so much in this world just by singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" (inserting their favorite baseball team, of course). It truly is touching when you know that you have helped a person realize that even though they are in the Intensive Care section of the hospital, there IS hope. Hope is an unimaginably strong word, and I can honestly say that I live for it.

My life is full of crap; really, it is. I break down about every day, but I'm never afraid to open up to people that I hardly even breathe a word to. I have nobody in my life; my mother is who-knows-where and my good ol' dad works until 11 or midnight (not to mention other curses of my life that are completely irrelevant to my point). I have to suffer in that bare white, 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2-story house ALONE (with my fish Nemo, too) and I cannot call THAT my home because your home is where your heart is. My heart is in the air we breathe and the soil we walk on. The world is my home, and everyone's duty is to take care of their home, right? To maintain it and to keep it clean and to make it a better place, etc? I live to take care of my home and the other people living in it. And if that means I have to sing to dying cancer patients or travel to Africa and volunteer as a health aide, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd die to help this planet in any way possible. I live for you. I really do.

As I've said today to two very good friends of mine, it is the terrible experiences in our lives that make us stronger people. I must be pretty darn strong then.

FAAAAAAAAAAILURE

I'M DISTRESSED :(
B IN BEEKEN.
B IN SPANISH
B IN ENGLISH
B IN ALGEBRA (I THINK)
OH.
MY.
GOSH.
I can't raise my grade up for Beeken, Spanish is over too, English... well Mr. Emigh hasn't updated the grades for almost 3 weeks so I'm not really sure what I have. And algebra, I'm 99% sure I have a B since I never do homework.

My life is a burning pit of sugar. Once so sweet, and now SMELLY.
(If you've ever burned sugar, you'd know how bad it smelled)
Haha.
Damsel in distress here. I need four A's to save me.

Bah.

So last Wednesday was my first day babysitting. Fun! No really. Haha, I just didn't have any homework that night so I was basically watching Hannah Montana the whole time.
Friday was Tiffany Chao's birthday "celebration". Dinner + cue = FUNFUNFUN! Plus, those freaky cats at Tiffany's house (10pm) = FUNFUNFUNFUN!
Today is Monday, and in 45 minutes I'm gonna babysit again.

I sound like such a queer.
I drew a mustache and a goatee on my fingers today.
I'm obsessed with 3 Musketeers. I realized that I really am.
I want ice cream.
I'm such a fatty. I gain fat and such but for some reason my weight is still 102 and it always has been for the past year and a half. WEIRDDD!
I'm gonna eat.
Food is my lifeeee <3
Goodbye.

There is nobody

there to listen to my problems. Why am I always alone?

I hate my life. The stress my uncle, my dad, my teachers in school, and my voice teacher puts on me is too much. Not to mention myself.

My dad wants me to maintain the house, cook, clean, blahblahblah.
My uncle wants me to go to COH and voice lessons and stop going to class council and any other extra curricular things.
My teachers, although not directly to me, give so much homework.
Gigi wants me to keep on coming to COH on Mondays, private voice lessons on Saturdays, and now come to her Tuesday class and the Music Workshop every month.
Then there's me, who WANTS to continue singing at the hospital, getting voice lessons, staying for class council, keeping up in my club presidency, cleaning up the house, taking care of my poor and becoming-cripple dad, and STILL getting a 4.5 gpa at the same time.

Stress. Stress. Stress. It was fine for me when all these were just options. But when I HAVE to do all this? I can't handle anything. My two best friends are distant from me. Nobody is thereeeee.

I'm screaming louder than I ever have for help, and nobody can hear me. I need somebody. Preferrably, you.

I can call you baby doll all the time.

So last night, I was so totally stressed with the author study, and so many of us were on AIM trying to finish before midnight. Well then I found out this morning that it was due tonight at midnight, and I'm just like, "oh woop dee doo" cause I could have been doing my Beeken homework instead. Oh, and speaking of Beeken homework, I thought that we could turn it in after school, like with most assignments we do, but after the rally and having a good time, everyone told me and Shereen that he wasn't going to accept it and I wanted to smack the crap out of that man. But then I figured I'd be fine since I had an A+ in the first place and could just do extra credit to fix it if it really affected my grade.

Anywayyyy, the Renaissance rally was fun. I love saying "THAT'S MY COUSIN" and people not believing me just because Foley is white-looking. I really liked not going to class just to run through the short opener that I'm part of. Oh, and I especially loved the clubs dance! Amanda<3 (I love being a guy!) The electric slide at the end was okay. But the highlight of my day was after school, <3 :)

1, 2, 3, 4 - Plain White T's

oh my, landslide.

obama won!
by like, almost half electoral votes!
hooray, can't wait for january 20, 2009 :)
this news made my day.

Wilting

Take me away.
Right now.

hahahaha

i love SNL, but Tina Fey is absolutely wonderful playing in all her Palin sketches!!!