My cousin is doing a project in his Kindergarten class to help the kids learn about geography. They're asking for postcards from around the US and around the world to put them up on a map. It's a fun little project that's easy to help out with.

So to anyone who lives outside of the state of Pennsylvania (Literally anywhere), please help out by sending him a post card. If you're interested leave your email in a comment and I'll tell you where to send it :)

Thanks to everyone who already contacted me :D

Branden went and saw The Simpsons and Transformers movies yesterday. He originally went to see the Simpsons, and left with his friends around 3pm for the midnight showing. I was glad to hear they didn't sit outside in the parking lot and play hack for 9 hours straight. I was less glad too hear they went to a place called Steak n Shake. Ew.

I faded in and out of sleep all day yesterday. I woke up and vaguely remembered answering mom and Branden (and friend?) to watch the house when they left. Later I remember him downstairs (he has a loud voice) talking about the movies. What I heard went along the lines of "I liked it but he liked it better..." "They ran over an old BMW..."

Today I hung out with April and her kids. For the life of me I can't get their names straight and had started calling them "Number 1" (older kid), and "Number 2." So today I was informed that not only do they insist everyone calls them by their respective numbers, but my name is now "Number Awesome."

April: awesome isn't a number!
Number 2: Mommy! your name is Number Truck
April:...no, hon, that's not a number either!
Number 2:...what's a number?

I do not envy the math teacher for this kid.

Her eldest kid also went and saw the Simpsons movie today but refused beyond all struggle to tell us about it. He had his brother screaming and begging for details but just got angry at the thought of spoiling the movie (I think.) So for most of the car ride I heard infinite renditions of "SPIDER PIG SPIDER PIG..." from the movie trailer. More reasons for me never to reproduce.

The rest of the day was spent answering drunk texts from Eric who is at what we call "Family Values Tour Part 1" in Boston. Part 2 will be in Pittsburgh and will involve pancakes in the parking lot.

Still no word from potential roommates in Slippery Rock. Ug.

Room cleaning: Threw two posters away then went to bed. Now that's motivation.
School: Got a bill in the mail today >.<
FASFA: Give us 80.00 so we can tell you that you suck and get no financial aid. Bitch.
On campus housing: DENIED
Off-campus housing: in progress
Dad: back at work!!!!!! OMFG YES. May have fever...nurses can't tell wtf.
Family Values tour: Branden is planning on making pancakes in the parking lot.
Branden: finished RE4. No one confirmed or denied Merchant's death. Will avenge death if needed.
Jobs: I will be employed come August 27!
Voice mail: still a bad combination of a dot-matrix printer and subliminal messages. Give me a call, it's fun

Yea I'm not very exciting as of late.

So I just heard what my voice mail sounds like for the first time today. It's a rendition of "10 Little Indians" that can only be described as "choking a cat through a tin can." What do you want, I drunk-recorded it off a kids piano on New Years. Oh that fateful New Years.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm only listening to it now. Though it does explain why all my messages begin with either a long awkward pause, or something along the lines of "uh Shannon...interesting...uh message there..."

Quote from dad: "Shannon, the first time I heard it I had to hand up the phone. I couldn't even articulate a sentence to leave a message."

Maybe I should have stuck with the toaster answering.

I forgot to post the (somewhat) awesomeness that is my schedule next semester. Case in point: 8am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday -- Not so awesome. Nothing Tuesday or Thursday (minus a lab) and being done by noon every day -- pretty much made of win.

Monday
8:00 – 8:50 Intro to Personality
9:00 – 9:50 Experimental Psychology
10:00 – 10:50 Cognitive Psychology
11:00 – 11:50 Intro to Psych Testing
5:30 – 8:00 Utopian Experience

Tuesday
9:30 – 10:45 Psych Testing Lab

Wednesday
8:00 – 8:50 Intro to Personality
9:00 – 9:50 Experimental Psychology
10:00 – 10:50 Cognitive Psychology
11:00 – 11:50 Intro to Psych Testing
5:30 – 8:00 Utopian Experience

Thursday

Free!!

Friday
8:00 – 8:50 Intro to Personality
9:00 – 9:50 Experimental Psychology
10:00 – 10:50 Cognitive Psychology
11:00 – 11:50 Intro to Psych Testing
5:30 – 8:00 Utopian Experience

This is drastically different than my semester in Aber which was:

Monday: Greek and Roman ideas 10am
Tuesday: Writers Art 1pm
Wednesday: nothing
Thursday: Heroes and Dragon Slayers 1pm / Greek and Roman ideas 4pm
Friday: nothing

Uh...huh.

I'm also taking on a new project. I'm making a bag (for my books and such) out of an over sized concert shirt I got last year. It's from the Family Values tour and I love it to death, but Eric forgot that I'm not a man sized XL when it comes to shirts. Because I don't know how to take them in I'm seeing what I can do.

Alright, so a bunch of things.

( Gogol Bordello Road Trip )

( Yesterday )

I remember from my middle school days being partially convinced that the plural of "sheep" was "more sheep."

The Catholic school system never fails.

I came home one day last week to find emergency services parked on the street a few houses up from ours. People were running around outside in a panic while on phones, though nothing made the news.

I found out last night that someone had ODed and his corpse had been rotting upstairs for about a week. Maggots in the eyes and all that fun detail was included in said description.

Weird. Someone 3 houses up from us died and no one knew until the smell caught up to his neighbors.

I'd make a shitty nurse.

Phone conversation because I can't be bothered with a real update.

Branden: Shannon, we don't tell people about anyone in the hospital.
Me: why's this?
Branden: Because a nasty game of telephone starts. Think about trying to tell mom new of any kind: "Look I passed my classes" suddenly turns into an entire-family intervention because they thought you claimed to be "dropping some acid."

If you don't hear from me after this weekend, check the bottom of April's stairs. I'll probably be there with a broken neck next to an English major with a triumphant smirk on his face.

Or at least that's the plan according to Eric who will be driving in from Boston (a good 10 hours!) Friday night. Yes I am that special that people will do a 10 hour drive to end me. hah.

Good day today, though I didn't get much accomplished. As usual. Well I was going to, but I got distracted by a little trek over to April's place where the graduation party was being planned and the house was being prepared. She just moved in to her new place and boxes and misc junk were lying everywhere. Because I'm usually the source of messes I offered to stay after mom left and help her clean. I was doing pretty well until she gave me some coffee and I started messing around with her kid who had been attacking me with giant Superman and Spiderman dolls for the past half hour. I think the most I accomplished by being there was carrying boxes up stairs as her kids ran around their room and threw things she had just put away. Like I said, it was productive lol.

But I ramble. Mainly because the coffee isn't quite out of my system yet. It's odd, coffee usually doesn't hit me this hard. Maybe I need to put more caffeine in my diet? Bah.

Tomorrow I have to call people who put up Roommate Wanted adds on the SRU site to see if they still need a roommate. I've been trying to think of the best way to sound like a good roommate candidate, but all I know how to do is make obscure threats and shake my fist at them from a distance. I'll tell you how that one works out.

I pulled out my guitar to mess around with today, and it's so much nicer to play when I'm not cramped into a tiny spot on my couch. To anyone whose only see the "before" pictures of my room...well...I HAVE A ROOM AGAIN! A room with (brace yourselves) space to move around and do things! I think my first reaction when I saw dad had moved all the huge crap out of it (that he threw in there) was "omg I can do a jig in this room!" I'm not entirely sure why that was the first thing to come to mind. But it's true! And yes I am still as excited as ever about it. Judge ye not.

Alright I'm hungry again for whatever reason. I'll be downstairs having an eating disorder if you need me :P

In celebration of being able to use my CIA ringtone phone again:

( here is the deal, Go grab your phone! )

Sorry to waste your time hah.

A bug was flying around our living room yesterday.

Mom: Aww is that a lightning bug?
Dad: I don't know, I can't tell from here
Me: Branden quick, make a pass at it and see if it lights up
Branden: ....hey sexy
Bug:...
Me: Rejected

+Slept over Marci's and woke up to a turtle running across the room
+Great time at karaoke and met some really interesting people
+Branden bought dad a sword cane for fathers day/his birthday...because he needs more weapons
+Branden made the front page (of section B) of the Saturday Pittsburgh Post Gazette
++the headline did not read "Teen Saves Earth" as we had hoped
+Mom as she stuffed her face with cake: "Shannon, you're disgustingly thin!"
+Steve has some very, very disturbing movies at his disposal
++In retrospect I learned that sheep in New Zealand are very silent
+My camera shit itself :(

I love Canada, let me say that first.
but this was hilarious.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=15NuesOh_JQ

I will cheer up and stop whining soon I promise, but for now I need to rant

( bah )

I never thought going out to a karaoke bar would cheer me up, but I was definately in good company. And because I obsessively read signs, I now know how to spell the word. Though if I'm still wrong, I blame a sign that I may have dreamt that I read.

I sang terribly, "Smells like Nirvana" and won points (according to Marci) by gargling one of the verses, Come as you are, Paranoid/War pigs, Losing my Religion, and 99 Luftballons. At first we were the only ones who sang which explains why we got so many songs in, but I guess the rest of the bar boozed up enough to step up to the mic.

That night I stayed the night and Marci tagged along to my cousin's birthday party in South Park. We got lost in the worst way, even with April on the phone attempting to guide us. Eventually we were told to stop at the police station and they'd send help. This is funny because half of the people there were medics of some kind, or at least used to be.

Thankfully the family didn't scare poor Marci off. I never make a point to introduce people to my family. The most popular question of the evening was "How was Wales???" since none of them had seen me since I left. I got to the point where I was running out of answers and started saying "good." Yes 5 months of my lifechanging experience summed up in one word. I was made of win with that one.

Eventually a frisbee party broke out and we literally threw the frisbee for hours on end, getting more aggressive as time went on. More members of the family joined in (adults) and an all out frisbee war broke out in South Park. It was absolutely hallarious. Strangely enough we didn't think to stop when we found blood on the frisbee...there should be a moral to this story ha.

Today I also learned why I'm loud all the time. Dad's deaf and I spend a good part of my day repeating and yelling so he'll hear me, it's just habbit now.

I like this comic :/

I finally snapped the other day. That only took me 4 days since returning to the States, go me. Branden said "I knew you were still manic depressive" and that made me want to cry all over again. I thought I was doing well, sitting with him and playing video games and laughing...but apparenty he has his own opinions. Apparently I will remain deemed the "Manic depressive drunk" until proven otherwise >.> So I guess that will be in two weeks during Branden's graduation?

Truthly I don't want to go. I don't care about the family coming in. I don't care about graduating from SRU. I don't care to sit in the same room with dad. I want to say I don't care about this summer, but I care so much it's making me anxious to think about. I wish I could curl up under my covers and sleep until I'm old and decrepid. Because I know that would completely solve everything >.>

I wish everyone was just in a funk that I could wait out. Maybe I just need more distractions. It's hard when I'm moodly and would rather curl up and die somewhere. I have a terrible attidude but at least I recognize it.

I should be asleep right now but instead I'm here wasting energy on my laptop. I believe the power settings are formated to something right below "supernova" at the moment, and I haven't played around with it enough to remedy this. At least it will give me a project (besides my room) to work on tomorrow.

And from the last entry, I've been informed to write that I had dinner the other night of "chicken salads with Steve, his psuedo-bf, a porn salesman, a massage artist, and a drag queen. After which, Steve took me home at 2:30-am, and dad later threatened his sister to run him over with a cart." It was an interesting chain of events.

Today I took a nice walk down to the South Side to apply to any store with a "Help Wanted" sign in the window. So far I applied to a cafe in the South Side and a wine store in Station Square. Branden also brought home an application from a call centre a friend of his works at so I can apply. Hopefully it won't be as hard this summer to find temporary summer work like it was when I worked at Eat n Park. Tomorrow I'm going back down to Station Square to meet with the manager and turn in my application in person. I'm tempted to keep something in my pocket to keep track of how many times they ask me to verify my age. It's an interesting store in the fact that you can't apply unless you are 21 even though 18 year olds can serve (but not consume) alcohol in restaruants. Go figure.

Afterwards I hung out with Marci and we walked around Shadyside and hung out at her new apartment eating double stuffed oreos and talking about any random thing that came to mind. It was an awesome night. I now have a special ringtone (Chop Suey of course) so I can annoy her with my "screaming music" when I call :P

Branden and mom made several attempts to later find the apartment and pick me up; it was an interesting state of affairs involving me chasing the car down the road while yelling "pull over" into the cell phone. On the way home, Branden begged once again for me, Brian, and Eric not to make a nussance of ourselves at his graduation. Apparently for City High, high school is srsly buznez!!! Only minus the grammatically poor attempt at a macro. The principal is run by a Hitler incarnate (paraphrasing here) who will stop the entire graduation if anyone/thing so much as sneezes wrong, and won't resume until the problem is taken care of in full. Branden is quite certain she has snipers in the wings. I suppose we owe him, after years of abuse, two hours so he can graduate without a gunshot wound.

It's still very strange to think about him graduating and heading off to Pitt. It definatly feels like he's been my "younger brother in high school" forever, but still.