Name Tags and Addictions

"Like the fading moon
Ruining the darkness,
That paleness of my lips

Of what do I sing?
Of what do I sing?

You are my setting sun."

Once upon a time, there was a foolish little girl who expected her senior year of high school to be a breeze.

She was sadly mistaken.

It has only been the first week of school (and not even a full week at that), and I am already exhausted. Because for some idiotic reason, Advanced Journalism does not count as an art, I am taking 3-D Sculpture during zero period at 7 am. Furthermore, because the first two weeks of school require the editors in chief to stay for seventh period to teach the new staff writers, I spend about eight hours at school each day, functioning on approximately five hours of sleep.

Frankly, I liked my teachers from my junior year better than the ones I have now. Particularly my second period teacher -- although I will only have her for one semester, I get the feeling it will not be a pleasant one. How do I not-love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. We have to make name tags for our desks --- and she expects them to be decorated and colored. Honestly woman, I am operating on five hours of sleep. I don't need to waste any more time drawing my life's story on a stupid name tag.

2. Apparently, if she could have had any career she wanted, she would have been an opera singer. I absolutely agree, ma'am. Then I would have had a blast sitting at home NOT drawing a name tag while watching you mangle Puccini's Nessun Dorma on "America's Got Talent."

3. I don't know why she says "That's hot" all the time, but it annoys me to no end. I can only imagine how much money Paris Hilton could gobble up from lawsuits if she decides to sue.

Why am I wasting time writing about this? I should be spending this time to redo my name tag, which apparently has no character. Uh, hello? My name tag, which is the one I use in AP Stats, is completely brimming with character. It says: I am practical, I save trees, and I don't waste my fucking time.

.........
Okay, I lied. I waste a lot of time.

Now that my parents allow me to keep one of our many laptops (which I have claimed for myself) in my room, I have been wasting plenty of time. Ah, but I don't sign on to AIM or browse around Facebook. And as you are aware of, I haven't been blogging much either. So where the hell have I been?

Since my idyllic days at Stanford, I have picked up a nasty habit of reading manga online. Yes, I have been reading manga since fourth grade; but now I am just simply so tech-savvy that I read everything online.

Seriously though, if I ever need inspiration for a story, I go and read manga. And I don't read the stupid shojou ones where some shy girl with glasses always turns into some bombshell when her glasses come off. Those piss me off -- if I wanted to read that kind of story, I could just go to fictionpress. No, the last two I got hooked on may have been labeled shoujo, but none of them were the same stupid high school romance stories -- one was a supernatural mystery, the other was an action comedy.

Kagen no Tsuki (Last Quarter) is by Ai Yazawa. I have to say, Yazawa is probably my favorite mangaka, since she's the same person who wrote Nana and Paradise Kiss and because all her stories are done in my kind of style -- dark and bittersweet. Kagen no Tsuki has a lot of supernatural elements to it -- ghosts, reincarnation, etc. -- stuff that have helped me rethink about how I plan to write EP's ending. I have to say, even though Yazawa gets a lot of crap for how she ended Paradise Kiss (which I thought was brilliant), once again I loved the last chapter of Kagen no Tsuki. Yes, I am sucker for bittersweet endings.

Kagen no Tsuki gave me a lot of ideas for how to write EP, but unfortunately, I have not been able to write due to homework. But at least in my head, I know how it's going to end... if I ever manage to get that far.

Tokyo Crazy Paradise by Yoshiki Nakamura is done by the same author who created Skip Beat. She really needs to find somebody to give her stories better titles, because they do no justice to how cool these stories actually are. Tokyo Crazy Paradise is set in 2020 and involves feuding Yakuza gangs, centering on a daughter of two murdered police officers who has lived her entire life pretending to be a guy. She ends up getting tangled with the Kumichou (Gang Head) of one of the most powerful gangs -- a guy her age who has been her classmate since kindergarten.

Obviously, it's a violent story, but you all know how morbid I am. Plus, Yoshiki Nakamura's stories can get really hilarious at times. Both Skip Beat and Tokyo Crazy Paradise provided a lot of inspiration for the tentative story I have been plotting in my head, How to Slay a Heartthrob. I really hope to write it someday, but since I never write anything until I have the entire storyline all planned out, I don't expect to start anything until after I graduate from high school.

GAH I REALLY WANT TO WRITE DAMN IT. Stupid school.

"Like the fading moon,
Ruining the darkness,
Paling,
These lips...

I sing for something
I pray for something,
As I lose the sun that is you."

-- Last Quarter