Baron Banner 08-09 ScrapbookPg

I got bored, so I wanted to make a digital scrapbook page on the computer to practice my designing skills.

This is just a page about the 2008-2009 Baron Banner year.

Anyhow.
Enjoy =]

I was gonna join yearbook this year, but then I changed my mind to do AP Studio Art 2D

Click on image for a bigger view.

I Love You One

Another slow joke Charlie was laying on me ;-;

- - - - -

C: I love you one!

M: o.o ... I don't get it...

C: It's okay :D Don't think about it too much.

M: .................Is the one supposed to be an explanation point?

C: Michelle! I said don't worry about it!

M: But I don't get it! D;

C: Michelle! I L OVE YOUUUUU! (repeats that a couple times)

M: I love you too?

C: I love you three :D

M: ....................................OH I GET IT NOW!

C: Yeah, it was all planned. =P You were supposed to say I love you two.

Taking the Jump and Cut

I think back in 8th grade when I was in a terribly depressed and at the start of my teenage mood swings of crazy emotions... emo.

I hated my life. I hated myself. I wanted to die. I wanted my life to end.

I think now how ridiculous I was back then, thinking so negative and thinking everything was hopeless.

I didn't want to attract attention to my depression, so I didn't change my wardrobe to dark, emo clothes.

I didn't cut myself because it would be too noticeable, but after learning about cutting more, I think, wow, why didn't I think of cutting myself there. In 8th grade, it was cutting your wrists and arms. Now cutting has been more creative in places not-to-be-seen. But that doesn't matter. My first ex-boyfriend was emo too and almost influenced me to cut myself as well. One night I went to the kitchen and opened the knife drawer and held up a knife.

I chickened.

I wanted to die as unpainfully fast as possible though. I thought...pills? I don't know...Shot or stab myself...Too slow. I just wanted to disappear...somehow. Some nights, I remember walking out of the house and walking towards the main streets and watching cars pass by...And day dream, at school, of walking off and jumping. Would I die really fast? What if I still lived?

I didn't jump.

Thinking about it now, I can't believe how absorbed I was into the whole depression and emo thing, neglecting the love of my close friends there for me. I never went up to them about it and ignored that they were some hope in my life. I neglected the only friend who was basically like my psychiatrist that year, who was trying to give me advice and support me. How could I not see them. All I thought about was why that guy didn't like me back, getting scared of my first ex whenever we had fights, my life at home, and envy for not looking pretty enough or talented enough as a friend.

What if I didn't chicken out though. What if I took that knife and did cut myself...leading to cutting myself more and more.

What if I jumped...

Let's think about all the great things I have today now. A great boyfriend named Charlie. My first kiss... Wonderful close friends. A great experience in marching band and Baron Banner, and Baron Broadcast News to come. A dream to attend Boston University and succeed in the film world.

I have such a wonderful life now and I can't believe I almost put it to waste.

I hope I never come down to that point of depression every again. And if I do come to a point where my mind sets to "I hate my life," I'll think...what do I have? The least amount I'll have is...my great cousins and my close friends. Seldom will there be a moment where they will all hate me for once and abandon me. At least one person will always be there for me and I will believe in them.

Life is good.

Sticks and Tubes

The result to shopping for clothes is always the same results...well almost always. The clothes didn't fit...they look pretty, but ugly on me...the arm holes were meant for skinny stick arms and pants and waistlines for small tubed tummies. I wanted anything...anything at all that would make me feel at least a little bit pretty, to myself, or, preferably, skinny.

Visits to the doctor is always the same...repetitive. After awhile, one would become sick of going at all. You're short for your age as a girl. I know. You know your overweight. I know. You should go on a diet. I've tried. You should exercise more. I see. Okay, time for some shots. Whoopee. Oh, and let's not forget my doctor telling my parents how to feed us next to control what we eat.

My cousin Bianca recently lost a lot of weight going on a diet. And she is perfectly healthy and skinny. She is one of the envies of my mom and me. Even worse is going to school and seeing almost every teenage girl with skinny jeans and long shirts so tight, they show how skinny she is. Stick-like bodies looking perfect and beautiful in every outfit, air passing through between their legs.

I stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom every time I go to shower. I stare at myself to examine what looks pretty about me and what I need to disguise or get rid of....improve of myself, to achieve that perfect self.

I need to control what I eat...I should stop eating...My parents wouldn't notice either way, especially my dad, who has already identified the fact that we all are "fat." I'm not hungry. His response: good. If I didn't have any physical activity at all, this plan would have gone out just fine. Hapkido Martial Arts. Halfway throughout this school year, I discovered if I skipped breakfast and lunch and attended class after school, result: black out in the middle of martial arts. Perhaps I should have drank more water. But it wasn't going to work. So I cut something else off. I'll skip breakfast and lunch on days I'm not going to martial arts and cut my dinner in half. I cut off the amount I ate rice.

My parents began to tell my relatives, proudly, that I was trying to go on a diet, and cut off eating rice. "Yeah, she's just like Bianca now."

Nothing changed. My weight stayed the same. No matter how much I ran in PE or on the treadmill...no matter how much I pushed myself in Hapkido...cutting my diet...The same big fat three digits came about when ever I stepped on the scale.

I stare at myself in the mirror in my room. At my body. My arms and thighs half muscle, half fat. And glare. I would start doing sit ups and ab twists, secretly while no one is looking my room, to burn off the fat on my tummy and hope the rest of the fat will go away in Hapkido. Hoping I could too look like the skinny girls and guys. Without having to disguise that my legs are at least a little bit skinny while standing, and feeling ashamed of my thighs showing off their fat, spreading across the seat while I sit. Without feeling fat wearing beautiful tops, with my arms squeezing through the short sleeves. Going down a size in jeans and not feeling depressed because my thighs are too gargantuan to fit all the way through.

I envy them all and hate it when they call themselves "fat" while standing in their skinny stick like shells.

I want all the voices to go away, telling me I'm fat. The doctor, my parents, my relatives...

Sigh...

I stand in front of a refrigerator for a moment. Perhaps I should eat something for lunch...I'm not hungry, walking away, feeling satisfied temporarily in my shorts and t-shirt, feeling around my waist and stomach that I feel a little bit skinny...at least until the next time I eat: dinner.

Perhaps I try to hard to fit in with the rest of the world. Peer pressure as one would call it. Someday I'm going to die of starvation and wonder if it was all worth it in the end. But it'll be too late by then.

I hear, you need to lose weight. I need to hear more. I need someone to tell me I look beautiful as I am. That I'm not fat. That I'm pretty. It's quite a selfish request.

All this confusion is running around in my mind about what I want.

I want to be skinny.

I want to shed it all off.

She Ate Tarzan

So my mom's side was over for a lil party. And my aunt was helping my little cousin read, or at least identify objects in the storybooks. They were looking through Tarzan.

Aunt: Look, Maddy! Is a gorilla. The gorilla is eating the baby!

Me: No! The gorilla is hugging Tarzan!

Aunt: Oh, really? O.O It looks like she's gonna eat him. See? She's like holding him by the diaper.

So I guess supposedly, Tarzan never survived in his baby years.

I Stooped Down Low

"Wow...I haven't made an actual blog post in a long time..."

- - - - -

I knew report cards had come out by seeing the first message of someone enjoying their grades on FaceBook. I was hoping I would get A's and B's as well on my report card and wanted to be the first one to see it for myself before my parents would. But upon going out the front door to check the mailbox, it was empty. The mailman did not arrive yet. I didn't want to freak out about it too much, so I put it at the back of my mind and forgot about it for the rest of the day.

Later that night, I heard my dad call on me. And simple "Yes?" asking what they wanted or needed was not satisfactory to my parent, so I went to the kitchen. My dad showed me my report card.

00 Web Design/Publ ... A

01 AP Eur His ... B

02 Geometry ... D

03 PE ... A

04 Eng Hon 2 ... B

05 Chemistry ... C

06 Spanish 2 ... B

Usually I would have gotten scared and nervous by now, but I was feeling calmly depressed as is. And my dad saved the time to talk to me about it later...That's good. But he said I had to drop all extra cirriculars and clubs. Huh.

I'm not going to rant about the D. I somewhat deserved it. (Though I really don't understand how I got a C in Chemistry when I feel like I've done better than last semester [B].) One section I decided to slack off and procastinate and do homework later and the test scores kill me. I tried raising it by the end of the semester, but I guess it didn't help... Gee... I really screwed up now.

Most of the rest of the night, I felt absolutely depressed and when 3-way talking to my boyfriend Charlie and my friend Hannah on the phone, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to act happy around them or not.

I was always scared of telling my dad whenever I got a bad grade on anything, ever since I was a little kid. I guess that's where lying started and continued, thinking I could handle it. Obviously, in this situation, it made it worse. And it was my own fault to not do the homework.

Hannah helped me straighten my thinking a bit though. She said I should talk to my dad seriously and look at him straight in the eyes, showing them I am a mature person and not their little kid anymore. I mean...I wasn't even looking at my dad when he showed me my report card...mainly because one of the things I fear most is my dad getting upset and/or angry with me.

The next day, I was thinking to myself how to talk to him and what to say. I mean, I seriously don't want to drop Baron Banner for sure and Baron Broadcast News (BBN). I'm basically the head designer and almost an editor-in-chief (I'm not even sure), plus I need that film experience for when I major in Film Production/Cinematography in college (preferably Boston University...I'm starting to wonder if they'll still accept me in senior year because of my specific grades ><).

What's my BIGGEST distraction? Well, I suppose I've already realized this answer...the computer. There's everything to do on the computer, especially if everyone of them are installed with an internet browser. And you can do and get distracted by anything at all. So I planned to ask my dad to restrain and limit my computer and internet usage and let me join at least Baron Banner and BBN (obviously theatre is too much, since it's after school hours. So I don't really mind; it was just something extra I might try). And those two clubs, Operation Smile (OpS) and American Cancer Society (ACS). The only one I really active in is OpS, since I'm vice president now. Phone? Not really, I can manage to do all my homework while still talking to Charlie, plus I can ask my friends and Charlie for help on homework.

So I went outside and had that serious talk, thanks to the help of Hannah to boost my confidence. I'm not going to give details, but I'm satisfied with the results. My dad talked to me about my revised class schedule, college stuff, goals and discipline on me and my brother. Apparently, he's taking it easy on me since I'm a girl (kinda sexist, but okay; "Alex has to be the man of the house" is what I remember my dad saying) and I'm going into a film major, not a major like medical science or such. But he's definately keeping a closer eye on me on my academics (random, but I think it's kinda funny he pronounced "academics" as "economy," but I don't say anything everytime he says it during his lecture).

I shouldn't forget like it never happened, because it's affecting my GPA for sure going down to a 3.26 this semester. My dad wants me not to challenge myself too much like my cousin Tony who took all honors and AP's, but take at least the minimal basics, like my cousin Bianca, who has straight A's with regular classes. So I'm going to drop Spanish 3 next year, because he wants me to get an A for sure, not a B, to raise my GPA. So I need to find an elective now that I'll probably enjoy that'll get me an A.

I can't believe I've slowly stooped down this low for my grades, but I shouldn't be too depressed about it. But I'm staying strong.

New Blog Search Engine!

So I finally got a new search engine for the blog and got it to work and look properly on my blog layout ;D Woohoo! That's all I wanted to blog about. Haha ^_^