Live Blogging on Espresso!

9:14pm:  I don't know how many people (who actually look at my blog) are online right now, but I realize there are some things, I probably shouldn't have... Is Espresso coffees after 6 o'clock one of them? I don't think so!! (as my dad would say, "You're not qualified to make that diagnosis..")

In any case, I have decided that I like espresso coffees and Daddy made one for me tonight. It was sooo tasty!! I feel like a gorilla cheerleader!!! I want to chant "Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo!!" While I prance around my mother in circles.. Haha! The thought of that makes me laugh so much!

9:17 pm. I want you all to know that I feel ALIIIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Huah! Please excuse me while I paint you a picture showing the victory and energy I feel...

 9:23 pm. This did not quite turn out the way I intended it.. One reason is that it looks quite a bit more despairing.. I am not despairing.. I am a lion!! Roaring in triumphant energy. ROOARR!!!

Let me try this again on a piece of paper and with crayons and maybe it will turn out a little better. However, this may take longer as I have to take a picture of my drawing and upload it after I draw it...

9:33 pm. I am back!!! Behold!!

This, I believe, is an accurate crayon representation of what happens to me on Espresso... It's funny; I've had a few lattes the last couple weekends hanging out with friends, and I never felt like this... @_@

It is truly fantastic! I feel like frolicking through fields of flowers and dancing under rainbows and around the butcher block in our kitchen and doing cartwheels while whooping through lawns of green grass!!! I feel like a dog with it's head out the window...

Kinda like this:

But without the floppy tongue and all the slobber...

9:42 pm. I feel like this is the extent of all I have to say.. but I still have energy!!!  Like a pogo stick on steroids...

9:45 pm. Did you know that if you google "pogo stick on steroids," you actually get a result for a super powered pogo stick!! It's like pogo stick for adults... it says it works like a trampoline.. Cool? Yes..

 This teeny tiny picture doesn't do it justice... Look up the "Fly bar" if you are interested. Or just "pogo stick on steroids" would work too..

9:52 pm. You know, the thing about coffee, is that it goes right through you... It's kind of like tea... (Or tea is kinda like coffee? I'm not sure which one came first..) I'm also drinking an arnold palmer at the moment, so that oculd be contributing..

But I hate having to go to the bathroom every ten minutes or so.. I went to starbucks a few weeks ago and I got a tall vanilla latte (and tall is the smallest size they have!!) And then, I had to go to the bathroom like eight times over the next four hours!! What's up with that? I don't get it... It also didn't help that I was sucking down water like a camel.. (or a cactus) at IHOP afterward... I had like three glasses...

9:58 pm. So You know what I just realized? I was supposed to take a practice test for a computer exam tomorrow which I'm taking at 1 o'clock... But I didn't.. I am so ready for this test to be over.. How computers work can be a very dry subject... Especially if you have to read 200 pages or so of it... =P Anyways, the test is tomorrow.. I'm feeling relatively confident about it.. If confidence were a measure, I'd have half a measure and be looking at it as half full, not half empty.. if that makes any sense... Or is anything on here making sense? I don't even know...

10:08 pm. I just nicked some candy out of my super secret stash... (which everyone who comes to my house pretty much, knows that it lives in the jaws of my closet..) I wish I could say I nicked it out of my little brother's stash just because it would be really funny when he finally noticed (if he noticed at all, that is..)


10:11 pm. I just announced to my mom that I have been live blogging this whole time about Espresso jitters and she laughs and says, "No more espresso for yous!" And I start the "insane giggle" as I'm lowly feeding (or attempting to) a twizzler into my mouth like a log into a lumber mill.. She said that adding sugar on top of it, isn't helping.. But I don't mind. ^-^

10:21 pm. I believe you can do a lot of damage with these things... Phone, camera, crayons and twizzlers? Oh yeah!!

10:24 pm. A haiku for you:

Yummy Espresso
You do stranger things to me,
Than just plain sugar.

A dead man walking,
Prowling through the house at night,
But I feel ALIVE!!!


I decided that some of my best prose comes out at times like this: late at night, on caffeine and/or sugar, sometimes with friends around... On Friday night, Nicole spent the night to write our brains out together and we ended up staying awake until around 5 in the morning... But I think one of the best scenes in my whole novel came out about 4 am or so..

I wrote this amazing cannibal scene in which my main villain cuts off the MC's (main character's) finger and cooks it up like a sausage and then eats it in front of him!!! The scene was totally epic. I read it out loud to Nicole and we were scaring ourselves with it.. It was so... gruesome.. But it was awesome. Best scene in the whole book so far... Which is almost finished. I will be sad when this one is over. I've had a lot of fun with it..


The only thing with late night prose is that as you get later into the night, even if the prose gets better, the spelling gets worse.. Fun stuff though.

10:34 pm. Whelp, I think this is enough crazy weirdness for tonight.. I'm gonna sign off here for now.. I apologize that I neglected to break up some of the text with more pictures... But you can only pirate so many off of Google before you start to feel bad... In any case.. This is all for now.. Chow.

bathroom tally: 345

Today I learned...

How to make a schedule!

Or at least a different way of scheduling. And here is the answer:

hour by hour.

This way of scheduling is different from any other way I've done it before. I've done weekly schedules, and monthly, and every-other-weekly schedules, and I keep a calendar on my wall... (although, I don't use it as often as I should.) but I've never done an hourly schedule before today. For all you list-lovers out there, this one is for you!

So, earlier today, I was reading a few articles about academic success (yes, you read that correctly.) and I learned some very interesting things. (you read that correctly too.) One thing I learned was that your brain functions better if you study in chunks of time and take breaks, rather than cramming for six hours straight. Now, this I already knew, however I had not put it into practice.

Some of the best tips I got from that article were to study for 45 minutes followed by a 15 minute break and to schedule myself. I've done schedules before, but the author suggested an hour by hour schedule. So I decided to try it. I made a list of all the things I needed to get done today: read such and such many pages, type up an essay, debate homework questions and so on and so forth. Then I estimated the time it would take for each one. And organized it into a list.

I also made "mini-lists" (you know what I'm talking about-- those tiny lists you make in the margins of the page, so small, but ever so important!) or small tasks I could do during my 15 minute breaks. These ranged from doing the dishes to getting snacks, to going outside in the sunshine. (They say that some time in the sunshine makes you more alert; I believe it.)

And you know what? The whole thing worked out pretty well! I was happy to have an actual plan and I wasn't lured into deviating because I included "fun" and different things in it as well. =D I'm trying it again tomorrow. In fact, I have my whole day planned out from 7 o'clock when the alarm goes off (but I rarely get up at that time; I generally hit the snooze button 5-12 times and then get up.) to about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Pretty cool eh? Unless you actually have a life outside school and/or work. 

On an ever so slightly unrelated note, the other article I read regarded the behaviors/habits of A+ students. In summary, the article said that the best students are successful because they manage their time well instead of procrastinating and cramming like many other students. And because they manage their time well throughout the whole year/semester/class/whatever, they are able to make sure their work is top quality (for instance, where essays are concerned: finish early, have lots of time to edit and make it as good as possible.). It was quite an interesting article and time management is a bit of a weak area for me (if you can believe that!).

Lately, I've been stressing out a lot because I'm "behind" (there really is no "behind" in homeschool, but there is a relative point at which I "feel" behind.) in almost all of my subjects and (confession--) I tend to procrastinate a lot. Particularly with classes like Debate.. or extracurriculars like Awana. The week just slips by and next thing I know, it's the weekend and I'm scrambling to get my homework done. (Never thought you'd hear that from a homeschooler did ya?) I'm hoping to become less of a procrastinator and catch up on some of my subjects by drawing up more detailed schedules.

I've just felt really bogged down, discouraged, like everyone wants a different piece of me. Whether it's church or  Bible study(ies) or classes or work.. You know. Whatever it was. Everyone wanted a chunk. Everyone wanted me to "do this by next week." A week isn't that long, people. I think our leaders/teachers (and this is not a bash on them at all.) honestly think to themselves, "a week is long enough to get such and such task done." but no consideration is given to all the other tasks one has due that week. If I have five different things due on five different days, odds are that I am bound to drop one of the juggling balls if I'm not organized enough. That, I believe is the key. So this is an experiment in the works. (And also a long post that only the people who truly love me will read all the way through. Like my mom. Because that's what moms are for.)

Don't you love how we learn new things every day? Why, just a few weeks ago, I learned how to help a little boy go to the bathroom! That was quite an experience. If you can imagine this (and you may choose not to at this time, if you wish), they do not go to the bathroom like little girls. (Perhaps an obvious truth in retrospect, but it was not so obvious at the time. I didn't know what to do. I can imagine that anyone outside the bathroom might have laughed at my conversation with the little kid.) Here's the trick (which the little boy's mom was so gracious as to share with me): you have to sit them on the toilet backwards. Once this was revealed to me, however, I was a pro.


In other news:

-I have a TON of posts to publish (as soon as I write them.) So that is exciting. These upcoming posts may include but are not limited to: an appreciation post, CLEP exams, my Halloween costume, NaNoWriMo, a narrative essay, and our recent weekend getaway to Seattle. Ain't that exciting?

-As you may or may not know/remember, it is NaNoWriMo time yet again. I believe I've made several posts on this topic (all of which I am too lazy to hyperlink at the moment) and there are bound to be at least a few more. But a little less than an hour ago, I hit 10K!!!!! (10,000 words in 3 days.)

-I cannot sleep. And that is the reason why I am blogging at one in the morning. =P And probably, the reason why this post is so long and rambly. If I am thinking about too many things at once (like today) then it is near impossible for me to sleep. But now I've got a load off my mind, I shall try to get some sleep.

-I'm also thinking about switching the blog around (so much for sleep). Not tonight of course as I get overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of options I have... but soon. I don't like the width of the layout where my posts show up. And the green on the sides just makes it look all claustrophobic. What do you think? I think I want to make it more open like my sister blog. It just looks a lot cleaner to me. And (you will appreciate this), it will make the paragraphs look smaller!! YAY!!! Gotta love smaller paragraphs!