I seriously love that Mario Kart Love Song. Look it up on YouTube. It's devilishly adorable and quite frankly reminds me of the days when I used to play Mario Kart every day of my childhood life. I remember when I first got my own Super NES. I was SO excited and my mom was very upset when I came home from the mall one day with this brand new gaming console. "Why can't you just borrow Alfie's?" (Alfie is my cousin, by the way.) She was mad that I somehow manipulated my cousin's mom to buy me one of my very own.

Since my mom wasn't very supportive of my new SNES, she didn't buy me any actual games at first. I had to steal them from Alfie. Somehow, I was going to play on my SNES.

The first game I stole from my cousin was this game called Bugsby. Don't really remember much about it as it didn't excite me very much. I decided to get very  clever and sneaky. I then took his Super Mario Bros. and he had this other one entitled Super Mario Bros. All Stars and it pretty much had every Super Mario Bros. game to date from what I could remember. I guess my mom felt bad for me that I had no games of my own and she began to notice that every time Alfie came over, I hid the two games so I could keep playing them after he left. Never occurred to him that he was missing any games because he had already beaten all the ones I stole. My mom bought me The Jungle Book. I wasn't too thrilled.

THEN, my wonderfuly daddy-o bought me this uber cool game called SuperScope. To me, it was like the EPITOME of awesome-oh-so-cool-it-even-comes-with-its-own-huge-ass-gun-thing game. As sucky as many people claimed Super Scope to be in the long run, I was still very excited to have this laser zapper to play with.

Afterwards, I stole Alfie's Mario Kart - and I became addicted. I played the game nonstop. I would stay up for hours on end playing the game. I would wake up just to play it.

One of my favorite childhood memories is during the summer when my cousin, my younger sister, and I would wake up really early in the morning to play video games. One summer, my cousin got this game called Legend of Gaia. While I don't particularly remember what the story was about, I do remember the countless of hours we spent playing that game. We would wake up really early and make ourselves Eggo waffles (I still think Eggo's are madly delicious...) and we'd sit ourselves accordingly to watch my cousin play Legend of Gaia. If he couldn't get past a level, we would take turns trying to figure it out. Back in the day it was expensive to buy any cheat books and there was definitely no internet available for us to search things so good ol' trial and error always did the trick. Around lunch we would make ourselves that delicious box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheeese! I got the blues! Very good. My parents would roll in around 4:30PM and they'd make us something delicious for dinner and it was back to the game play.

One summer we came up with this brilliant idea to start our own comic book series: and so came the birth of Super Bunny. Yes. It was a bunny. But my cousin could draw so it was the best mofuckin' bunny I had ever seen! My sister and I would write the stories and overall, Super Bunny went on maybe four or five adventures and he retired.

Good ol' summer days, when all we had to worry about was how to beat the next level on a game and what new adventures Super Bunny would go on.

So far, 2009 sucks.

Can you believe the New Year is already upon us? I'm almost sad in a way, only because I know 2009 is going to bring some definite changes in my life. No longer will I be that little moocher using Daddy's credit card, eating mother dearest's good homecooked food, and barging into my little sister's room at ungodly hours just so we can watch Big Bang music videos and reality television shows.

Nope, after May this year, I'll be pretty much on my own in the real world. It's nice thinking for the last four years I've pretty much had a safety net to fall back on in case anything went wrong. But at this point, I would really like to see the world for what it is, without the safety net.

I spent New Year's Eve with family instead of going out and spending $80 on a ridiculous New Year's Eve party. I'm sure if I were balling out of control, I would have easily found myself at one of those parties, dressed up, sipping on champagne, on the arms of the boyfriend awaiting the thousand dollar balloon drop and my first kiss of the New Year. Instead, I found myself eating food with the fambam, sleeping until 11:45PM and waking up just in time to tell everyone Happy New Year. Outside, the family across the street went berserk with the fireworks. It sounded like a warzone. Popping, shooting, fire everywhere. Man the New Year looks fun.

I'm excited for the new year only because it really does feel like a fresh start. I feel like this is my last opportunity to try to do things right. And I have every intention of doing my best this year as I do not want to end up "selling newspapers on the side of the road," as mother likes to tell me everytime the topic of my future gets brought up. It's true, I don't want to end up selling newspapers but at the same time, I really don't believe my family would leave me to the mercy of early morning commuters to make my income and daily living. Still, it's enough to instill some sort of fear in you. And with graduation just around the corner, I have every intention of getting my diploma and doing something great with it.

With the coming of the new year comes resolutions: those silly little promises you make to yourself in an effort towards self betterment and improvement. Quite frankly, I like the idea of having a goal to work towards and I like the thought of having misconceptions and flaws that you would like to fix about yourself. It's always in the doing that I find myself unable to even complete ONE resolution. In the event that I am pushed out into the real world with no safety net, I really do want to find myself able to finish one New Year's resolution by the time 2010 comes around.

After all, Nostradamus says the world is going to end in 2012. I need to start "bettering" myself sooner or later.

I really wish that I could just stop time, figure out what I want to do, and then just do it.

It's never that easy is it? Here I am, in the midst of graduate school applications, feeling lazy as shit, and not wanting to do ANY of it. Needless to say, the due dates for a few of my applications are in January. January 15th to be exact. And quite honestly, I'm not sure I care. I care about getting into a graduate school. I don't care about the paperwork. And quite frankly, I think I'm getting to the point where I'm not even sure I can get into a graduate school.

And how badly I want to get out of my parents house. I'm sure if I were living on my own, without my firebreathing dragon of a mother constantly nagging me and asking me if I'm doing this or if I'm doing that, I would be much more motivated to do things, to be active, and not be lazy. But, of course, I still live with the dragon. It's not that if I were living on my own I would party my ass off and come home every single night drunk. Rather, I think it would just free me to do what I need to do, to come and go as I please; to live in the way that satisfies me. And surprisingly, both to you and to me, I don't particularly see myself as someone that would go out night after night simply because I no longer live under the rules of my parents. I'm not much of a "partier" and going out takes its toll at me. There are plenty of nights where I would just like to sit on the couch in my jammies and watch whatever is on the telly. There are plenty of nights were sleeping in early is highly desireable. More so, there would DEFINITELY be nights where I would Iron Chef it up. Yes, by myself if I had to. Read any good books lately? Why not read it on a night in? 

Things like that are what I envison myself doing as I live in my own fanciful apartment. Of course I would go out every once in awhile. I mean, I'm not exactly your party pooper either. However, it definitely would not be the number one thing to do on my list.

But, I need to get out of the house. Somewhere far away. New York? 

I've had this undying interest and desire to move and live in New York. Not particularly sure why, but I think its the big city lights and crazy lifestyle that really interests me. The idea of moving somewhere where time moves so fast and there's things to do non-stop. The thought of living in a location where energy is found everywhere. The thought of living somewhere where nobody knows me and I know no one - allowing me the ability to become whoever I wanted. For all they knew, I could be the princess of some remote island tribe in the Philippines. And they wouldn't have a clue.

And maybe it's the thought that it's so far away from home, that it really appeals to me.

Honestly, I think I've just hit that point where I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing with my life. I'm applying my ass away, but I'm afraid to move on past where I am. I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing, or how to do anything. Give me that much independence and I'm pretty much useless. Thanks mother dear for all the sheltering.

Like I've said before...I just want to know that in the end of all the testing, applications, personal essays and statements, everything will be okay. Just let me know that everything will be okay.

It's been a good minute since I last had a chance to hang out with the girls. I just feel like there's so much going on that I haven't really gotten a chance to just sit, drink a good beer, and sing a few karaoke hits.

Okay, I didn't really sit and drink a cold beer. But I did get to go to karaoke night with the girls. That was good fun =D And definitely a good change from hanging out with the boyfriend or the family. It was fun to just chill and make a fool out of myself because I could still somehow remember the words to Britney Spears "Lucky" or Ace of Base's "The Sign". Songs that I definitely remember singing to or jamming to when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure the other people in the karaoke place were upset that we did get a pretty good number of songs in line before anyone else got to sing. It was probaly a good 30 minutes. I mean, it's not as fun if you're not the one singing, right?!

Everyone else went out after the karaoke joint, but me, still living with the parental units, had to miss out on that part. Which I think, in a way, is fine for me. I feel like I'm a little out of the party scene. Maybe it's because I really do feel like I've partied enough or too much or it's because I'm just so damn lazy to even try to make myself prettyfied and ready to go out. I guess I'll save all the partying that I haven't done for Halloween. It's supposed to be a really big Halloween this year in Houston so we shall see.

Other than that, I think everything is beginning to settle and work itself out. I'm almost caught up to where I need to be at school, I need to study for my test on Tuesday, I need to get ready for our service event this week, and I need to spend some much needed time with the boyfriend. He works when I'm not working and when he's not working, I'm either working or in class. Our schedules are so screwed. This weekend I got off thinking that we were going to get to spend some time together and all that mushy crap. Then I found out his fraternity has their brotherhood rally this weekend in Baylor (Waco, TX.) and they've been practicing for some time doing their dance, step, stroll, whatever it is they do. SO, as I'm sitting here complaining about how we haven't spent time together, he's probably out there in Waco getting his ass drunk and partying it up. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatever.

Am I mad? Nah. I think the only reason I'd be upset is that he's having fun over there while I feel like I'm scrambling to find something interesting to do haha. Not only that, I'm sure there's girls over there that I don't really care for so we'll see. I don't think I'm a jealous girlfriend, but I'm probably more untrusting than I should be. And I don't think it's not even Henry that I don't trust but more like the girls that I don't trust. I'd go into more detail about the ones I don't like...but that takes way too much energy. More energy than I'm willing to invest in complaining about them.

Either way, I'm at home on a Saturday night. Bummmmmmmmmmmmer.

I could do something productive, like studying. Maybe read a book? Re-watch the Lord of the Rings? HAHA. Goodness. What to do, what to do. On a lonesome, boring, Saturday night? I GOT IT: sleep.

I'm baaaaackk! Not that I went anywhere, but I'm pretty much done with getting sick and on the pathway to a full recovery. The only thing now that is totally messing up my schedule: TESTS.

That's right. TESTS. Thank you HURRICANE IKE for messing up the entire academic calendar for UH. Now I have tests back to back to back for the next few weeks because everything was pushed back for Ike and my teachers don't want to change test dates. So it's perfectly okay if I have a 3 tests for one class three weeks in a row. That's perfectly fine. THANKS IKE! 

Not only that, I think I'm beginning to get back to that whole point where I'm having trouble motivating myself to do anything. Not that I really have so much things to do that I don't have time, but more like I just don't want to do them. Why can't I just sit my butt here and do nothing? When was the last time I really did that anyways? The leisure of not having homework, of not having to go to class, of not having to study for anything? I miss going to the restaurants and eating food; I miss shopping; I miss going to the park. I miss being able to appreciate the fact that the weather is changing and its Fall. But I think I really miss coming home at 6PM, with nothing to do, and watching the weather change outside my house.

I have this memory that I always associate with Fall and the weather changing. I remember when I was in elementary school and my parents would pick me up from whatever extracurricular activities I was doing at the time. We would come home and I would do all my homework. While my mom was making dinner, I would sit in front of the TV and watch my cartoons. My mom likes leaving the front door open (we have a screen and a gate in front of the door so no crazy people can just barge in) to let in all the cold air. I remember just sitting on the couch and looking out the door and watching it get dark from the couch. There's a very distinct October/November-ish scent that I associate with Fall and it's what really brings back those memories. The windy, burnt leaves, cool weather where you can wear shorts and enjoy it, type of weather is what I miss being able to experience at home.

Now, I'm just cooped up in the library smelling moldy books. I just want a week off, and then I promise I will become motivated once again.

Even though realistically, I know I won't get that week off...it's always nice to think that I maybe COULD get the week off =)

So we basically went through TWO weeks without any electricity. My poor house and its lonesome self. And after you get electricity...you get sick?

That's right. SICKNESS! Maybe in a weird way, the cold weather is a blessing for all the hot days that we sweated our asses off because there was no air conditioning anywhere. BUT, it sure did mess with my immune system. My hands, arms, neck, and back are in pain and they're really sore. Sore to the point where I'm about to stop writing because it takes a lot of effort to blow my nose, sanitize my hands, and then come back and then try to type some more. That and my body just hurts from typing overall.

So now, I will take some medicine and lay down and curl myself into a fetal position...with a nice roll of toilet paper by my side to catch any dribble from my nose -_-;

Not really, I don't really have a story about sucky people, but it did catch your attention didn't it?

Anywho, I haven't been doing anything productive AT ALL ever since Hurricane Ike hit. I'm basically living with my aunt and uncle until power is restored to our house. My entire neighborhood has been without power since last Friday. A week without power, electricity, phone service, internet...it really does suck. The icing on the cake is that Centerpoint Energy has one of those power plants literally within 5 minutes of my house. WHERE IS THE DAMN POWER?! It's like they're moving from the outside in or SOMETHING. I checked the website that tells us when our power is expected to be restored...it says past Monday, Sept. 22, and my sister just said on the phone that someone told her probably on Wednesday. That's just ridiculous. UTTERLY RIDICULOUS.

I feel like a nomad. Nay, a hobo. A hobo without a home to go to...but a comfortable bed to sleep in.

I have ALSO come to the conclusion that Hurricane Ike caused me to lose weight. Somehow, I've miraculously lost 6 pounds within the last week. Why? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because I've been on the chips and nonperishable foods only diet or maybe because I haven't eaten a warm home cooked meal in forever, but I've lost the weight.

When i go home, it's always saddening. My house looks so lonely and so sad without anyone in it. It's almost as if its asking me why we left it all by itself during the hurricane.

I really just miss my bed, my desk, my pictures on my desk, my closet, my washing machine, my loofa, my mirror...basically I miss everything in my house. We can only wait to see how long we'll be running without power or water at my place.

But seriously, one and a half weeks without power? Ridiculous. The Subway and sandwich/deli shop near my work never lost power during the storm. NEVER.

All I can say is...WTF.