I realized something this morning.

( This has nothing to do with my bronchitis )

Second time this year I've had bronchitis.

Pros of moving to Florida for a school year:
- Get away from Debby.
- Easier school.
- Get away from bullshit.
- New environment.
- Closer to more family members.
- Could start over. (Technically. Sorta.)
- Aunt Becky would be gone at least ten days out of each month.
- Pool. Beach.
- A bit more independence.

Cons of leaving Louisiana:
- Leaving Dad.
- I just got back into dancing. I don't want to give up my ballet friends just yet.
- Florida to Baton Rouge to visit Megan is a much longer trek than New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
- NONE OF MY FAVORITE BANDS FUCKING GO TO GULF BREEZE, I MEAN COME ON.

Granted, the pros outweigh the cons, and the cons can be fixed with a four-hour drive every other weekend or so, but still. It's so much to take in right now.

1) Megan baking for the first time.
2) Watching the kids' choice awards.
3) Deciding that we'll one day host the kids' choice awards.
4) Writing monologues and skits to perform and making lists of who to slime at the kids' choice awards.
5) Being proud at the amazing skits that we came up with at the top of our heads. We decide that we will become famous one day JUST to be able to perform them.
6) Getting pissed off that the burp contest was only for nick cartoons this year. Burps from the audience at home begin.
7) Laughing at all the slut jokes pointed at Miley. "Like a hooker." "Are you wearing a thong?"
8) Jizzing our pants at Zefron giving the Jonas Brothers an award. The sexy/gay overload was tmth. We were only partially ashamed.
8) Laughing when the Jonas Brothers started singing Lovebug at the end, and the slime began. "THE SLIME GODS ARE ANGRRRRRRRYY."
10) Being pissed off that we didn't see Broseph Bronas being slimed in a WHITE T-SHIRT. MAJOR. COCKBLOCK. NICKELODEON.
11) Realizing that an awesome snl rerun was coming on in two hours.
12) Spending the next two hours being bored, bouncing the ball off each other, creating new games, fighting over if we're going to make a pillow fort, saying shitty guitar-playing sounds indie and we would be a hit at the High Ground, and watching Freaks and Geeks until snl comes on.
13) Laughing: OFF TO FIND THE MYTHICAL CLITORIS.
14) Being unimpressed by Cameron Diaz's irrelevance, loving Gary Jonas but hating that we can tell he reads the cue cards, and loving Bill Hader because we can never NOT love that man.

Goodnight.

So my crush used to be in a band with my brother and my ex-boyfriend. (Yikes, I know.) I always looked forward to their shows because then I could multitask: support my brother and spite my ex by flirting with my crush. Well, earlier this week, the band broke up and my crush was DEVASTATED. He kept talking to me on facebook about it because he was so upset. Now he's decided to form a one-man band and just continue on with the album he was going to make with the rest of the guys. He's been asking me for advice about everything, from his songs to the vocals and instrumentals. He even wants me to help him co-write some songs with him and lay down some vocals and whatnot.

When he asked me this, I got all excited obviously. I asked him, "So, does this mean we're bandmates?" He says, "No. Just co-writers."

What the fuck?! No! No fucking way am I going to be your backup singer and not get any credit! If anything, he should be MY backup singer. He's terrible at singing.

Then he has the nerve to say, "Whenever you write something new, just send it to me and we can work on it together." Um, no. I'll write my shit on my OWN, thank you very much. I'll help you if you get stuck with your own lyrics, but stay out of mine.

When he gets out of the shower, I'm telling him straight up that we're either equals, or I won't help him at all.

/rant

As a teenager, I’m plagued by an extreme case of acne. My pores are so large that golf balls become proud of their appearances. I have no idea when my face decided to destroy itself. I had pretty decent skin until I hit the ripe old age of thirteen. I feel like my bout of puberty hit as soon as hurricane Katrina introduced herself to my city.
“Hello, I’m going to destroy your home!” She cried.
Conveniently, my hormones decided to knock on my door as well, “Puberty-gram! Special delivery for Maddie Gaudet!”
Not only did I have to deal with the fact that everything I had known was gone, my family was scattered across he country, and I could not seem to make new friends at the foreign country I called Public School, but I also had to climb the oily cliffs that made up the Himalayan Mountains that relocated to my face.
I was horrified. I was mortified. There are not enough words in the thesaurus to describe how I felt. Flipping off Mother Nature didn’t make me feel better in the least because all she would do was laugh in my face and continue to torture my poor sebaceous glands and remind me that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
I did everything I could to try and stave off the pimples. I really did. I tried makeup, washing my face, popping them (I still have the battle scars.) having my equally greasy hair up, toothpaste, Acne Free, and ProActive. The only thing I didn’t resort to was ingesting drugs such as Accutane, and that was because I had seen the things it had done to my friends back in New Orleans.
Even to this day, I wish I could sandpaper off my skin. The oil that seeps through my pores can be used as moisturizer, if this was ever possible.
What pisses me off is that my mother goes to the dermatologist, but for some reason I can’t. I’m almost positive that she’s under the impression that her crow’s feet is way more important than the health of my skin.
My face looks like a third world country, and all she can think about is staving off any signs of her half-a-century on Earth.

Guys, I have no idea what to think right now.

Last weekend, I went to this Jesus Camp type of retreat (I might make another post because that's just too long of a story), and my good friend Andrew was there too. He was one of the only people I knew beforehand besides my brother, so naturally I hung out with him the majority of the time. I also found out that he's bi, just like me.

The only reason I knew him was because he's friends with my brother and I watch his band perform every now and then. Well, over the weekend, I got more comfortable with him. When I get comfortable with people, I usually get really hug-y and touchy-feely or whatever. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep on the guy's shoulder a few times, too. I consider him a friend now, but that's it.

Well, he sent me a message on facebook an hour ago asking me how he should break up with his girlfriend. A girlfriend I was not aware that he had.

Now I'm wondering if I had any part in his sudden decision.

I really hope I'm just being paranoid.

In case you haven't heard what a calendar is, or you just haven't been paying attention to what's going on, today is the last day of 2008.
I'm spending it getting the last few scraps of service hours required for my high school graduation.

Normally, this is a very contemplative day. People are scrambling to figure out what their new year's resolutions will be before they settle on "lose weight" and move on. Others make plans with their friends and scheme on their crushes to make sure that they're the people they share their midnight kisses with. Corny jokes such as "see you next year" are thrown around the office space.

Me? I'm just hoping that my short term memory skills won't be shot after spending nine hours every other day in front of this computer.

I really haven't given much thought to 2009. These past few new year's celebrations, I've thought "Hey. This is going to be MY year." Then I make plans on how I'll make it so. However, these plans usually fall through. Those years usually end up shitty. I haven't really had any amazing years. I'm waiting for my optimism to kick in after I graduate.

Probably the only things I will work on this new year are my posture and getting in shape and reading a book a month. I haven't taken the time I should to read like I used to, and I'm going to change that.

I have a feeling that things are going to take a turn for the better or worse this year. I have to be really vague about that statement because something might be happening, but I'm not sure how things are going to turn out.

This has been a really haphazard journal.

What I'm going to say is, I hope everyone enjoys the last few hours of 2008. Make it extraordinary.

This is going to sound really selfish and spoiled of me. I know. I know a lot of people are having much worse Christmases than I am.
I'm still pretty pissed off, though.

We skipped Christmas last year. My parents just didn't care enough to do anything for the holidays. I haven't gotten a present since I was 13, unless it was from a friend. So I was really looking forward to this Christmas, you know? It had been a while since my parents had actually taken the time to think of something to get for me and wrap it and whatnot.
This morning, the family woke up, and this is what I got. A moldy, five sizes too big, secondhand, lumpy mustard-colored sweater, a poster of London, and a "lap desk".
What does my brother get? A BRAND NEW, $2000 MACBOOK. I'm just like, REALLY?

Then I ask if we can go to Target tomorrow so I can look for furniture for my room. I don't need a lot. Just a dresser. Maybe a chair and a desk. MAYBE. That's pushing it, really. But my dad gets all pissy and starts saying how we can't afford it. ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? I could've taken the money it took to pay for that macbook, get furniture from that sale tomorrow, and STILL have enough money left over to buy a nice purse or dress. I feel completely ripped off right now.

At least I'm getting my brother's computer. I also got The Dark Knight from my brother, which is awesome. So the Christmas didn't completely suck.

It just sucks that my parents didn't care enough to get me something nice this year, too.

Seriously. I should have realized that my parents would forget I was even grounded.
But I'm pretty sure this is a new record, even for them. It took them less than a week for them to forget they even punished me.

Here's a list of things I did last night in front of my parents:
- Texted Megan
- Watched Iron Man and Hancock
- Got on the computer
- Listened to my ipod

Basically, everything that my parents forbade me to do.
I'm laughing right now, to be quite honest.

My nephew pulled the partially ripped up retreat application out of my purse, and my parents found it.
I now will not have any phone privaliges, no ipod, and my computer time will strictly be for school purposes only.
My mom finds me disgusting, my dad thinks I can't make decisions for myself because of my bad grades.
They considered pulling me out of school and sending me to public school, but decided I'm going to stay where I go now.

I'm going to be a prisoner until May of 2009.

This is goodbye, everyone.

IT IS FUCKING SNOWING IN NEW ORLEANS RIGHT NOW, YOU GUYS.
MY BFF boombox SAYS HAI. WE ARE WET AND COLD, BUT IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.
IT. IS. SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need to go home and enjoy this.
It hasn't snowed here since before Katrina.

I'm delirious right now. I can't type properly because I'm so cold and excited.

Stuff like this just doesn't happen here.

More updates later. Maybe.

This snow better not melt.

This is a story of how Maddie lost her only brother to a cult.

For about the past year, my brother Andy has been seeing this girl on and off. I won't get into details about her (or how much I hate her) just yet. Just know that she is very religious. She's like how my mom used to be and how my mom wants ME to be.

You know what I mean. Bible-waving, rosary praying, Church regular Catholic.

I'm just not into that. I'm not sorry to say.

Anyways, my brother used to be like me. He wasn't into the whole praying to God, praising Jesus bullshit thing. Then, the girl forced him to go with her to this retreat called T.E.C. (Teens Encounter Christ. I swear, I had made up this badass phrase that was so much funnier than what it really is, and it summed up how I felt about it all.) Of course, Andy went because she owns his balls, and he'll follow her to fucking Pluto if he could.

At first, I thought nothing of it. Hell, I didn't even know where he was the weekend he was gone. I thought, Whatever. He knows it's all bullshit. He knows better.

Then when he came back, he proved me wrong.

When he got home that Sunday night, he walked in with HER. She was looking very smug. He was looking very drugged. That's the only thing I could come up with to describe the glazed look in his eyes. I swear, it looked like he had been hypnotized or something. I was freaked the fuck out.

When asked by my family how the retreat was, he would look nervously at HER and reply with, "Uh, we can't tell you. It's a secret."

They would say how everyone thinks T.E.C. is a cult, and they would say, "No, it's really not! It's a lot of fun, and you get in touch with yourself and God and stuff." But if you tried to ask them what happened, their standard answer was, "It's pretty confidential. You can only talk about T.E.C. with other people who went on it. We could get in trouble even talking about it now."

Hmm...I don't know about you, but if that's not a cult I don't fucking know what one is. Andy and HER wouldn't stop finishing each other's sentences all night, and he kept talking about how he couldn't wait to go to church and how he was going to work for T.E.C. as soon as the next retreat came around.

Then Andy and HER started saying shit like, "Oh, Maddie! You're going to have so much fun with us! You're going to make so many friends, and you get to sing! Won't that be fun?"

My reaction to this?

1) ...?
2) O__o
3) "No."

Of course, my mother is trying to rejuvenate her faith NOT by being religious herself, but trying to force it all on me so she doesn't feel like shit. So she's agreeing with the demons saying, "Maddie! It will be so good for you! And didn't you hear? You'll make FRIENDS!!1! And you need to go on retreat for your Confirmation."

Excuse me? First off, I already went on a damn overnight retreat with a quarter of my class last month, thank you very much. It was in the woods. I don't need to do that again, much less with complete strangers. Second off, I never fucking said I wanted to fucking get confirmed. All of a sudden, my decision on whether or not I'm going to Catholic lies in YOUR hands, not mine? I'm not even fucking RELIGIOUS. I can't stand my school because of the mere fact that the Catechism is shoved up everyone's asses. So don't even fucking tell me that I'm going to be a Catholic for the rest of my life. Going through Confirmation will be a waste of my time and my parents' money.

I don't understand why I have to be Catholic just because my mother wants me to be.

So, I took matters into my own hands. I saw the application in the mailbox (the one that I hardly touched, other than to answer the "Why do you want to attend T.E.C.?" My answer? "I don't." My mother filled in everything else). I shoved it in my purse before the mailman came. Half of it is still in my purse. The other half is swimming in my school's septic tank.

No one can expect me to take it sitting down.

My brother is upset. My mother will be upset when she finds out that I'm not going because the application "got lost in the mail."

They just have to realize that religion is subjective.

The only thing that makes me really upset is that my brother is going to lose another part of his brain going on the same retreat again with the same girl.

Because of her and because of the cult, I'm slowly losing my brother.

I'M NOT GOING ON THAT DUMBASS RETREAT MY MOM/BROTHER WANTED ME TO GO ON IN JANUARY!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!! THERE IS A GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

My brother just checked the list of people that can go on the retreat. My name wasn't on it.

I innocently said, "That's weird. Why is that?"

Andy said, "You wrote 'I don't want to go' on your application. They actually read what you have to say. They took what you said to heart, apparently."

What they don't know is that I stole the application out of my mailbox before the mailman came to pick it up. I'm still in the process of ripping the check up into tiny pieces and flushing them down individual toilets at my school.

When I told them that I wasn't going on to join that cult, I meant it.

Using my party-Miley icon for celebration.

If I actually had a good video-editor software on my computer. I'm stuck with shitty Windows Movie Maker or nothing at all. Normally, I don't use anything, but when I make really long, tedious videos it makes me long for the money to buy decent software.
I don't want everything about the movie I'm working on to look like a youtube video.

thank yooh!! a frend of mine saw the movie and was like im obsessed wiff twilight, and its like uhmm no, yooh havent read the series yett.. its so annoying how like in the past 2 months people have been crazed.. ive been stalking the series for like a year and a half.. haha

That was the bulletin comment I received when I talked about how this dumbfuck in my class was raving about how Oscar-worthy Twilight was.

People really need to learn that proper grammar will really help them out when they get into the real world.

To write a screenplay. I have an excuse to make a MOVIE. There's this student film festival for grammar and high school students that's going to be held in Shreveport in April. I think I'm gonna do it.

I mean, this could be PERFECT. I would finally be taking charge of something that I've wanted to do for so long!

The thing is, the other screenplay that I had started working on would be way too adult for this festival. I want it to be completely natural, and I want people my age to be able to relate to it.

At the moment, my dilemma is not something to worry about. I have until a couple of weeks before Christmas to start worrying about why the script isn't finished yet, haha.

I have a plan on how I'm going to get this all done.  It's going to be EPIC.

[1-28] Nick J.
[29-37] Zefron
[38-70] House/Wilson/Chase/pretty doctors
[71-76] Jensen Ackles
( unda the cut )