How To Sort of Prepare Yourself for Senior Year

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that White Haje and I are now friends. The bad news is that my last year of high school shall commence in six days AND I AM SO NOT READY FOR THIS.

But back to White Haje. It was quite cool how we met, actually. He showed up to the last couple meetings of Japanese Language Club, and it turns he's a pretty chill guy. First of all, we both share a common passion for the Japanese language. And let me tell you, it is SO HARD to find someone else who is studying Japanese. People are always studying French or Spanish or Chinese... But not Japanese. So the fact that this guy is STUDYING JAPANESE makes him super awesome. Also, he watches anime, is cultured, and actually talks to girls (unlike a good percentage of the guys in my old school). So I figured it was safe to tell this guy about his resemblance to Korean Haje and how I've wanted to talk to him ever since I first met him blah blah blah.

Korean Haje

So I did. And he was pretty chill about it. In fact, he even said: "Wow...us meeting like this...this is kind of like fate, the universe, you know?"

YES, HE SAID THE THING ABOUT FATE! Although he did mention afterwards that I had to call him by his real name from now on, but meh. We kind of just stared talking on facebook after that and we bused back together a couple times on the last few days of school, talking about Japanese mostly. He reminds me of myself, when I first started studying the language. Overwhelmed by the sense of euphoria and determined to become fluent, even if it means giving up one's social life. Lately though, I've found that my passion for the Japanese language has been dwindling... Don't get me wrong, it is still the most beautiful language I have ever heard, but now studying it has almost become like a chore... Sigh. I've tried taking a break from Japanese by occupying myself with French and Latin, but it's been several months now and I don't really know what to do anymore.

And now, back to school--

Update: Sorry if this next section is entirely in CAPS. I didn't write it that way--only some things were supposed to be in caps. Like, I'm in the EDIT section of this post right now and the post looks normal, but when I go to preview, the entire thing gets messed up ;_; 

It's so weird. Normally, around this time of year--the end of August--I am just dying to go back to school. To open a new pack of pencils, to see my friends again, to just be at school. But I don't know if it's old age or what, but this summer has gone by way too fast. Like, I need a whole other month. I'm super jealous of Phineas in Ferb--they get 104 days of summer vacation. I get like 60 something. That is a frigging ridiculous number. I remember around May, a friend from the States texted me, mentioning that his exams were almost done. EXCUSE ME. BUT IT IS MAY. WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE ANOTHER MONTH OF SCHOOL LEFT. 

All summer long, I've been dreading going back to school. Last year was just such a bad year for me, in terms of grades. I'm actually worried that I won't even be able to make it into university. In grade ten, I was a silver medal student. My average was in the frigging 90s. My mark in Math was an 86 or something. Last year, guess what my mark in Math was. Come on, just guess.

A 60-bloody-7. 67. THAT SUCKS. Okay, that actually sucks. And I worked SO HARD for that too. So all summer, I've been thinking about that number, thinking and thinking. Wondering if it's even POSSIBLE to do better than I did last year or if I'm doomed to be stupid forever. I've just been so stressed out. When I was in middle school, I would be SO SAD if I got a mark in the low 80s. For me, that was a fail. And people would always say Gee, how do you think I feel with my low-ball mark? BUT THIS IS A 67! I told some random person a couple weeks ago about my grade, and they told me: "wow, I would be LUCKY to get that grade."

Which means that it could get worse. THIS HORRIBLE NUMBER COULD GET WORSE! I am convinced that Math was invented by Satan himself at this point. 

And okay, okay. I agree with the people from my past who got pissed off at me for complaining about an 82, because if I got an 82 in Math during my grade 11 year...aaaaah that would be so wonderful! That would be heaven! I would clean the entire house and not complain one bit if I got such a marvelous grade! BUT A 67...OKAY, I THINK I AM DEFINITELY ALLOWED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A 67. And while I'm on a rant, let me just point something else out:

I hate it when adults think that they're the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD who have the right to be stressed out. Like, excuse the fudge me, but do you have a patent on stress or something? I was working out at a gym in Nova Scotia this summer and the coach there asked me how I was enjoying my vacation. To which I responded something like, oh yeah, it's so nice! I've just been able to relieve so much stress!

And do you know what that woman said to me? She LAUGHED and said "what does a 17 year old have to be stressed about?"

EXCUSE ME? EXCUSEZ MOI!? DID YOU JUST FAST FORWARD THROUGH THE PART OF YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU'RE A TEENAGER AND HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THAT SHIT, OR DID YOU HAVE SUPER PROTECTIVE PARENTS WHO PROTECTED YOU FROM THAT SHIT, OR DO YOU JUST ONLY REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES OR SOMETHING, OR ARE YOU JUST SO OLD YOU DON'T EVEN REMEMBER BEING A TEENAGER PERIOD?

#ugh #teenage angst #sorry if im offending any adults, im mostly referring to that gym coach and my mom who also seems to think she is the only one who is allowed to be stressed #just because my stress may not seem as epic as yours doesn't mean im still not affected by this btw mom #double ugh #also school you need to go away, no one even likes you

How to Stalk Draco Malfoy, Part 2

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Draco Malfoy.

And no, I don't mean the "Tom Felton" Draco Malfoy.

(source)

I mean the Draco Malfoy from this post here. Actually, don't click on that link. It was the first post back in 2011 and it's terrible.

Brief Recap: Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy is:

• A guy who goes to my school
• A grade above me (so he's in gr 12)
•  He is in the visual arts program (in my post about him from grade nine, I say that he's in the music program. I thought this because I saw him holding a trumpet case one day, but nah, he's in vis).
• Looks like Tom Felton (obvs)
• His name is not actually Tom. It would be funny if it was, though
• AND HE IS SITTING AT MY TABLE IN ONE OF MY COURSES

That's right. He sits at my table now.

I find it really interesting, actually. I started off my high school career being unhealthily intrigued by this guy and writing an entire blog post about him. Now I'm almost done my high school career and my muse is sitting right next to me in my favourite subject.

I know that the title of this post hints at the idea that I've gone back to "stalking" Malfoy (if by stalking, you mean asking other people what grade someone is in and happening to walk by their locker while they're opening it). Well, I haven't. I've found a new victim.

So there's this South Korean actor who plays a character named Haje in a Korean drama called Boys Over Flowers. 

source

And there's this guy in grade ten drama who looks like a white version of Haje. White Haje wears glasses though. But so does actual Haje! (in BOF, at least)

See? See?

And I am itching to tell White Haje that he reminds me of Asian Haje.

Meeting someone who looks like a celebrity is like opening a book. And the only way to close it is by becoming at peace with yourself, and this can only be accomplished by telling said celebrity look-alike that they look like, well, a celebrity.

There have been so many opportunities to talk to White Haje. I walk by him almost every day in the halls, my friends who take the city bus to school sometimes sit next to him, and he came to our school's literary arts coffee house. He saw me READ! And I saw him laughing in the audience! He was also listening to my ghost story and was LAUGHING! (my pieces were supposed to be funny, by the way. Thanks to Flav for helping me write the poem!). I had this great euphoric feeling after that night and my ego had inflated five times over, so I was so tempted to walk right up to this guy and confess my feelings about him. Also, I was on noopept that night, but I doubt that affected anything.

But I didn't say anything. Couldn't. I approached him several time while his back was turned, opened my mouth, then shook my head and skittered away. Not because I was embarrassed. But because I didn't know what to say.

• Hey man, you look like a white version of this South Korean actor, haww
• Hey! You probably don't know me but I'm Kayla and I just wanted to let you know that you look like this South Korean celebrity!
• WHITE HAJE WHITE HAJE WHITE HAJE *HYPERVENTILATES*
• So K-dramas. You heard of 'em?

THERE IS JUST NO WAY TO TELL SOMEONE THEY LOOK LIKE A CELEBRITY WITHOUT COMMUNICATING ALL YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THAT CELEBRITY INTO YOUR SENTENCES AND UUUUAAAAAIIIEEEE

I bet that at the end of the year, when I finally make my confession, he'll just be like: "Oh, okay."

Watch that happen, I swear. 

How to Return from an Extremely Long Hiatus

Hey guys!

So it's been a while.

And by while, I mean nearly two years.

You're probably wondering why I stopped updating this blog. Well, the truth is, I kinda sorta got lazy. And then I forgot about it. There were just too many distractions, like school and anime.

And I didn't remember this blog until about an hour ago. I don't really remember exactly how I remembered How to be Epik. But I did, and when I did, told my sister about it, since my old posts were about my grade nine adventures. Right now, my sister is in grade nine, so I figured she might appreciate some of the posts. She did. My sister's really awesome, so I'm glad I got her stamp of approval.

Rereading my old posts made me miss blogging. It also made me cringe, because my posts seriously sucked. I digressed a lot. And the posts could have been significantly shorter. AND I ACTED SO IMMATURE-LIKE! And worse, I acted like a ninth grader.

Crap, now I'm getting war flashbacks.

I'm in grade eleven now. Grade ten was a shitty year. Nothing worth blogging about. As soon as grade ten started, I couldn't wait for it to be over. Below is a rank of the awesomeness of years (in my humble opinion):

1. Grade eleven
2. Grade nine
3. Grade twelve
4. Grade ten 

Here's why grade eleven takes the throne. Grade nine, you don't really know what you're doing. You're still new, still sniffing out the scene, trying to figure out who you are, get the high school game down, et cetera.
Grade twelve, you're either like: I CAN'T WAIT TO LEAVE THIS HELL HOLE COME ON GRADUATE ME ALREADY OH WAIT I DON'T HAVE MY FORTY VOLUNTEER HOURS IN YET SHIT NOW I CAN'T GRADUATE or you're like I DUN WANNA LEAVE MY FRIEEEEEEENDS D: Grade ten is super boring. It's a filler year. Your grades don't even count for university. Grade eleven is the best year. You understand the high school game, there are stakes (your grades count!), and you're near the top of the food chain. High enough to receive the benefits that come with age. Low enough to not suffer the sadness of knowing your reign is coming to an end.

Because grade eleven is supposed to be the best year, I figured that getting back into the blogging scene might be fun, because I'll actually have things to blog about.

To ensure that grade eleven would be the best year possible, I decided to stop being a hermit this year and really put myself out there. So this is what has gone down so far:

1. I joined the Senior Girls Basketball Team

2. I signed up as a designer for the fashion show

3. Tried to get my license

4. Won NaNoWriMo!

5. Started a Japanese Language Club (oh yeah, I started learning Japanese in the summer before grade ten)

6. Took part in Ottawa University's Perfect Pitch Competition

7 Attended a business conference on business and the sports industry 

8. Attended another business conference in which I got a chance to meet ARLENE DICKINSON as in ARLENE DICKINSON from the DRAGON'S DEN

9. Got a job

10. Began learning Bo

That's all I can remember at the moment. Yup, it's been a busy three months. My mom keeps telling me I'm doing too much. Telling me that I'm going to burn out. But as author Jack London once said, I would rather be ashes than dust. I started writing mini descriptions about each item, but then realised I could do an entire post on each one. So I'll probably do posts on them whenever I run out of ideas XD

I'm sorry that this post is sort of lame. This post isn't supposed to be a ligament post. It's supposed to be a post that basically says HEY WORLD! I'M BACK! AND IF YOU WANNA LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY, YOU'RE SUPER AWESOME AND I RESPECT YOU BUT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO ME, THEN I UNDERSTAND, MY LIFE CAN BE SORT OF LAME.

So yeah.

I think I'll try to update at least twice a week. I'd try to aim for three, but at the moment, I have so much stuff to get done. I don't know what days I'd post one, but I'll eventually figure that out as time goes on.

...Can you guys tell that my writing style has gotten a bit more mature? XD
Or maybe it hasn't ;_;
Sadness.

How To Cheat on Exams

Before we go any further with this post, let's just get one thing straight here:

I'm not a cheater. Never have been. And (hopefully) never will be.

The last week for me has been extremely hectic. You know. Cramming for Thursday's French exam the day before. Cramming for Friday's Science exam on Thursday night, waking up only to realise it's a snow day, not learning your lesson so you end up procrastinating all weekend, and cramming forty-five minutes before the examination? Yeah...

Exams suck. They're not extremely difficult if you study, but they're SUPER LONG and tiresome. To solve this problem, my friends and I were discussing ways to cheat, and how these ways would fail.

The Kleenex Trick


If you've done an exam before, you probably know that you're not allowed anything on your desk. Unless it's see-through of course. You need a see-through pencil case (I used an old Del-Sol shopping bag), and even a see-through water bottle.


However ladies and gentlemen, right now it is January. Yes, January-one of the coldest months in the whole year. In a quiet classroom, people constantly sniff, blow their noses, cough, and other annoying things. When you're sitting in a room for an hour and thirty minutes (plus another half hour if your exam goes into over time) with your head down, noses can start to get REALLY stuffy and pretty soon, you're making very gross noises.  And you REALLY don't want to make those noises in a silent classroom. On the other hand, if you DON'T sniff... well, you know what happens.

Which is why we're allowed a box of Kleenex on our desks during the winter exams (though in my opinion, someone blowing their nose in a silent classroom is WAY more distracting than someone sniffing. Especially since you block them out after a while).


My friend Flav, developed the Kleenex Trick. It's pretty straight forward, really. Basically, you write the answers down on the tissue, fold it, then pick it up and pretend to blow your nose with it.

Do I need to explain why this fails? Sorry Flav...but I can't possibly imagine someone trying to read a tissue that's way up close to your nose :P Also, it's kind of risky :P

The Water bottle Trick


I overheard a conversation a couple days before exams where a group of girls were debating how to get their answers underneath their water bottle. I suppose this could work...but it's still risky. Especially if you're using a see-through bottle.

Also, how the heck would you read the answers? It would be so obvious when you lift up your water bottle and peer at it's underside-part-thing. And what if you really were thirsty? Lifting the bottle up to drink from it would only expose the answers to everyone.

And perhaps the most failish part of all, how many answers can you really fit on a water bottle with a less than 10cm diameter base?

...I'm sorry. But no.

Getting the Answers from your Friends


Like the above, this does not work. Unless the head of the Science department made every single Science teacher give all their grade 9's the exact same test paper, this will fail because none of the exams will be the same. Which means

1) no, you cannot buy the answers
2) no, you cannot ask for the questions in advance

Winging it


One of my very good friends always wings tests. Always.

Winging it is almost as bad as cramming (which I really need to stop doing), and when you get your test back with a big fat 40 on it, don't even think about wondering how you managed to get that mark.

Of course, you kind of have no choice BUT to wing some tests. For example, pop quizzes (which apparently, don't count much towards your final grade). But when your test is worth 20% of your final mark, I DO NOT recommend winging it.

Drawing on you Hand

Please don't tell me I need to explain this.

Studying

Two words. This. works.

There's no risk of getting caught, you feel better about yourself when you do well, and..well...it's just better :)

The Moral -.-

I decided that I'm going to review all my notes from each of my classes every night from now on. That way, I won't have to give myself a brain cramp when studying for next semester's exams.

Also, sorry about not posting in a while :P I didn't really feel like it and decided to quit... But recently, I figured, what the heck, so here you have the first blog post of 2012 ^o^

Cheers, everyone! And for those of you with exams, I wish you guys luck/hope you guys did well XD

How To Improve your Writing while Cramming for a Test

I've spent the last two weeks lying on my bed; trying to decide whether I should study, or whether I should write something.

This is a constant problem for aspiring writers who are still in school. While you may be devoted to your art, there are always other responsibilities that bombard you. Homework, babysitting, your after-school job... There just aren't enough hours in a day!

To illustrate...

Last week, my Lit teacher made us all enter a writing contest. Okay, cool. I'll just scribble something down, send it in, and not really expect anything. Easy peasy. But then APPARENTLY, our teacher wanted to look at what we were submitting, and then grade it. Which basically meant that the piece had to be good. We had three class periods to work on it. Most people would think that this is enough time! Three hours and forty-five minutes? Pssh, you're probably thinking you could get your piece written in half that time!

Well...I thought that, too. AND I WAS WRONG! I spent about forty five minutes reading the rules and other entries, to get an idea what I should write about. Then I needed an idea, and needed to preplan. The next class, I had a first draft. No way in heck you're going to hand in a FIRST DRAFT! So I needed AT LEAST two other people to edit it for me. Which just takes up time, because they're trying to write their story, while editing yours and other people's, and when they finally give you your draft back, they ask you to edit theirs, so you can't type up a second draft, and spend half an hour editing their story. But just when you hand it back to them, MORE people ask you if you will edit their drafts, and what are you going to say? So you edit, manage to get out a weak second draft, ask someone to edit it for you, until you realise that that person isn't really good at editing, so you need to print off another copy, and hand it to someone else (who asks you to edit their draft in turn). So this went on for the next two classes, and in the end, I only had three drafts, not including the final copy.

I think I might have improved as a writer, since there was a lot of pressure to write under. But the point of that story up there (besides venting) was to point out that there is NOT ENOUGH TIME D: D: D:

D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D:  D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D:

No mater how many sad faces I put, TIME NO SLOW DOWN D:

Well, I figured out a way to get all the things you need to get done done, while improving at the craft the same time! ^_^

I don't know how to Hyperlink (don't judge >.>), so here's a link to this awesome website: http://www.ladieswhocritique.com/

OH WAIT! NEVER MIND! I found the linky button on the menu thingy ^o^ Ladies Who Critique TA-DA!! My very first hyperlink. This moment should be remembered. Forever. In books...magazines... Yeah, yeah, I know you get the point already, but seriously! This is a MAJOR acomplishment for me! :o

Do not be discouraged by the title if you are male. Even though the title says Ladies who Critique, there are also some guy members...

To be honest, I actually have no idea why the title is somewhat exclusive. I mean, EVERYBODY who's a writer, deserves to have their piece critiqued if they want it to be critiqued, in my opinion. Regardless of their gender. Or maybe the creator of the website just thought, "Ugh! Peoplewhocritique.com sounds too lame! Umm...IMMA go with Ladies Who Critique instead :)" Well, whatevs.

Anywho, if you are a writer who wants to improve, what better way than to get feedback on your writing? :D And not just the type of feedback that goes something like, "oooh! It's so good! You spelled 'hello' wrong, though. Other than that, amazing!" You may feel good about this, and I love those types of comments! But if you're serious about your craft, you need to be open to ways you can become epic. On LWC, you basically write in forums and stuff, and then you find a partner whom of which you are able to trade manuscripts with :)

For the record, you need to be sixteen in order to join, but I never really listen to those kinds of guidelines :P I think the only reason the creator wants you to be sixteen is so the website doesn't become overrun with little kids. Hey, I'm not saying little kids can't write. In fact, they are very much capable of writing. But if there are too many kids running around (virtually, of course), the website will lose it's professionalism, and reliability, I think. (by the way, if you are under sixteen, I'm not saying you are a little kid. I mean eight year olds and nine year olds... no offense if you're eight or nine...)

I joined the site simply because I am serious about publication. Plus, I think I can write. I can't write well, but I think I'm good enough...Maybe. Ish. :P

When I first joined LWC, I thought everyone was going to be...well, adulty. You know, talk about what other adults talk about. Be super formal about everything. But about the second day of my snooping around the site, some of the people there started using emoticons! And I was like WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? Hooooooooow? O_O And they started making jokes, too!

>.< I kind of feel really immature right now. For thinking that adults have their own secret code, and everything. >.<

SO YESH! I STRONGLY RECOMMEND GOING TO THAT WEBSITE IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT PUBLICATION XD I also tweeted about it. And Facebooked about it. And left a comment about it. Because it really is an amazing site :) Plus, there is another reason. But I shall not reveal it... *evilly snickers*

So that's how I would recommend improving at writing. Instead of buying yet ANOTHER book on how to write better, send out your piece and get someone to critique it for you :) Tell you what you're doing good, tell you what you can improve on, and other epic amazingness :D

As for how to cram for a test?

Well, I had a Science test on Monday, but I didn't really cram for that. I crammed last year, though (for a history test), and it worked!! XD Just make sure you start cramming AT LEAST four hours before the test the next day, and also make sure it's not a UNIT test. otherwise, your brain would just shut down X_x If you're gonna cram for a unit test, I suggest the LATEST you start studying is two nights before the test. I normally study about four to five days before the test, and I do pretty good. Though that might just be because I review my notes every night. Reviewing every night really cuts down on the amount of time you need to cram for a test, so I would recommend doing that, too :)

I repeat a lot of words in that paragraph... <.<

LES QUESTIONS POUR LES READERS XD

Oh, gosh. My French is terrible X_x Well. Anyway-

• Do you wish there were more hours in a day?
• Do you have any other ideas how one can improve at writing?
• Might you possibly check out LWC? :D
• Have you ever crammed before? >.>
• When do you start studying?

XD

Other comments and/or questions very much appreciated! ^_^ THANK YOU!!!! X) X) X)

How To Gain Confidence

How to gain confidence? Ha! As if! Last time I checked, confidence comes from the inside. Not from the outside. But according to the some idiots in the corporate and media world, this is not the case.

Okay, so I'm not about to start being all preachy about how the media causes peeps to be all emo about their body image, turn to drug-use to satisfy their lives, and all that other stuff, because I think we all get enough of that already at school. Well, at least I do. For the last three years in Health, I've had to do countless projects and assignments on how the media affects our society. But enough about that, on with the post.

Aaaah! Time to be embarrassed >.< (if you're reading this and go to my school...do not harass me about this on Monday >.<) Okay, so I like to read self-help books, because 1) I LOOF psychology and 2) I'm always looking to improve my life. People who think that their life doesn't need any improving can think again, because there's always room to be better than what you already are.

Examples of the self-help books I've read! (not gonna name all of them...a lot of them are kinda embarrassing...)

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens
• The Six Biggest Mistakes You'll Ever Make
• The Secret
• The Secret to Teen Power
• The Law of Attraction made Plain and Simple
• The Success Principles for Teens

Those are all super good books, by the way! I also have books on world domination, but I'm not gonna give that title away. Otherwise, I shall have an enemy! :O

Anyway, in every single one of those books, the author increases your confidence levels by teaching you how to...well, be happy. Like in The Success Principles for Teens, the authors strongly encourages following your dreams and passions, and tells you 20 success principles that should help you accomplish them. In The Secret to Teen Power, it's all about The Law of Attraction, and how you can use it to improve relationships, money, health, education, and more. In The Seven Happy of Highly Effective Teens, the author teaches you how to have a less stressful life, and just be happier in general :)

By the way, I Lost The Game! XD

On the other hand, in this book I found buried somewhere in my Closet of Doom, the author has a different approach on gaining confidence. Forget following your passions and seeking a fulfilling life! Forget becoming a more responsible person and how to deal with stress better! Forget choosing to see the light in every setback that happens! No! The way to gain more confidence in yourself is to wear make up.

Yes, Make up.

In the book, a twelve year old girl asks the author during a question and answer session how she can gain more confidence. Her response is makeup. The author's response to a twelve year old girl asking how she can be happy, is makeup! If a twelve year old asked me that question, I would tell her that she's already awesome. You know, say all this positive stuff to get the vibes going, so the LOA starts attracting all this epic stuff to her. I mean, if you believe you're awesome, chances are; you are awesome. If you're convinced you're a piece of crap, chances are; you are a piece of crap! But the point is, would I think for one second to tell her to get a new wardrobe, get a new hair style, get a nose job, lather on the eyeshadow? No... I wouldn't. I would never think to say that, because that's not how you go about achieving confidence.

I'm sorry... I don't mean to sound preachy :(

I have a couple more examples of the media ruining lives, but I'm only gonna mention one more of them, because when posts get too long, nobody reads 'em.

Okay, so what kind of music do you listen to? Country, rock, pop, rap, or...? I used to enjoy listening to those new songs everyone seems to be listening to. You know. The ones by Brittany Spears (eewww! I hate her, though!), Lady Gaga, Rhianna, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, and Pitbull? I really liked the beat of the songs, and since I took hip-hop, it made sense to listen to that kind of music (please note the singers just mentioned don't sing REAL hiphop music, except for maybe Pitbull). However, last year I began to listen to the lyrics of the songs. Like, REALLY listen. And wow-flipping-wow, I can't believe the kind of words that were streaming through my ears! It was bruuuuuuutal! :o All the singers ever sing about is drugs, alcohol, and sex :S

Umm...okay? We understand that you enjoy smoking your weed, but that doesn't mean you have to sing about it. I love Spider Man. That doesn't mean I sing about...oh wait. Never mind.

Okay, if you like listening to that kind of music, the ones with the drugs and the sex and the swearing...cool. My opinion of you is not degraded whatsoever. But I firmly believe that this is subconsciously corroding people's brains -_- Not to sound like one of those moms who would kill the creators of Call of Duty if they could, or anything.

Hooray! I finally did a not-so-long post :P

QUESTIONS FOR READERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Has the media affected you? (positively and negatively)
• how do you think one goes about gaining confidence?
• What kind of music do you listen to?
• Have you ever milked a cow?
• other comments... :)

How To Be Lazy

How To Have a Weird Theory

According to my mom, spider veins are caused when people refuse to wear socks.

No joke. She legitimately believes that this is true.

I tried to tell her the other day that this idea was, and still is, completely and utterly absurd. "It makes perfect sense!" she kept telling me in the car, and kept rattling on and on about why she was right, and why I was wrong. Her mind was pretty much made up, so I plugged in my mp3 Player named Wonder, and drowned out her whiny voice with epic music the rest of the way home.

I don't know all the factors that lead to getting spider veins, but I know that age and heredity are one of them. Not wearing socks, on the other hand, is debatable. Our conversation in her red Jeep Compass basically went as follows:

Me: What are you talking about? How the heck does a person get verrucas veins from not wearing any socks inside the house?
Mom: Come on, Chiaki! Even a grade one-er would know the answer to this! Two plus two equals four!
Me: Oh my gosh. My Health teacher told us in class the other day that you are wrong.
Mom: Tell your teacher that she is wrong. Is she a doctor? No! Is my doctor a doctor? Yes! Of course she is! And she told me that not wearing socks inside the house is how you get verrucas veins!
Me: -_- I bet if the doctor told you about a shampoo that makes you smarter, you would believe her.
Mom: WHAAAAAAT? What are you going on about now? How does shampoo and brain cells link? >.>
Me: Well, maybe the soapy bubbly stuff gets absorbed into the cells on your head, and then it seeps into your brain, thus making you smarter :D
Mom: That makes no sense. The shampoo is on the outside, and your brain is on the inside. That's impossible.
Me: And your veins are inside your legs, and the cold floor is outside of your feet.
Mom: Whatever. I'm not talking to you, anymore. You're just talking nonsense now...

Yeah. I'm the one spurring out nonsense.

This little conversation made me aware of a couple of things.
1) How grateful I should be that my mom's weird theories didn't ruin my social life
2) My mom isn't the only person with weird theories

Congratulations, you lucky How To Be Epik reader! Today, you have the awesome privilege of reading up on weird theories  ^_^ Yeah, yeah. I know the title of this blog entry is called, "HOW TO Have a Weird Theory," which basically leads smart people to believe that this blog is going to tell you how to accomplish nonsense, although I must point out that How To is simply a fancy thing I decided to put before every title on this blog, since, y'know, this blog is called How To Be Epik, and it would be pretty cool if all the titles commenced with How To... and blah! This is a long sentence D:

I would also like to thank EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!! If you subscribed to this blog, left a comment, voted in the poll, or even just read the post (and didn't comment because you're cool that way (*cough*Flavia*cough*Rebecca*cough*Maria*cough*)), then I...love you forever. Seriously. You have just made a little girl (500 FREAKING POUNDS, MAN! Haha, just kidding :P) in a small town VERY VERY HAPPY. In fact, you have all made my dream come true. I made a list a while ago of 101 Things I Want To Do Before I Die, and blogging was on one of them. I love you guys forever, and award you all virtual muffins. You have no idea how thrilled you have made me. Even if you hated the blog layout, the post, or thought I was some immature freak hyped up on sugar, I still love you, for taking ten minutes of your life which you shall never get back, and devoting them to this blog ^_^

Well...maybe twenty minutes for some of you, but still :) You guys are all amazing,

<3

Back to the blog. As already mentioned, the first thing I came to realise was how lucky I was that my mom's weirdness did not damage my social life as much as it could have.

Now, I am not the type of person who goes all, "WAAAAAAAH! WHADDUP WITH MY SOCIAL LIFE? D: EWWWWWWW! WHY DOESN'T SHE TALK TO ME ANYMORE?" No way. I have way better things to obsess over. Like Tom Felton, for example :P (for the record, I am now over him. Stalking him is just BOR-ING -_-) I'll wonder about that stuff, sometimes. Like, if one of my friends is avoiding me, I'll obsess over it accordingly, but I try not to be overly-obsessive. So I can focus on other things! Life doesn't evolve around one person, y'know.

Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make last paragraph. If you grew up with my mom and her weird theories, you would doubt almost every single thing said to you. For example...

A lot of little girls love to make crowns or tiaras out of flowers. Well, that was the "in-thing" with all the other five year olds in my area. But then my mom told me that there were teeny tiny bugs living inside the flowers. I love flowers, but hate bugs, as all sane people should. Well, I didn't believe her. One day, I brought my flower-woven tiara inside, and on the kitchen table. I turned around for a couple minutes to do something, and when I turned around again, there were bugs EVERYWHERE! Well, not everywhere, but in enough places to make me scream. These little black objects all just marched out of the flowers and started swarming this random little spot on the table, and I was there, sobbing because I just remembered that that tiara had been in my hair, and now there were probably bugs up there. Which just sucks. It's almost as bad as the time Kyle told me toast was better than muffins, which it's not, for the record :P (I also blame this on The Law of Attraction, by the way)

So score one for my mom. But then she told me things like, "Ohh! Your toys will come alive at night and take you away unless you're sleeping by 8:00!" and "If you don't wear socks in the house, you're going to get big ugly veins all over your legs" and other weirdness. " My mom believed some of the theories she told us, but made up others for the sole purpose of getting us to do what she wanted. Mind you, they worked, but it was often difficult to tell whether or not she believed herself. Because of this, we often confused the truth with the lies, and often looked quite odd in front of other children.

It's just plain embarrassing when teachers ask you a question, and you answer, and it turns out you gave an answer way far from the truth, and it's all your mom's fault for having stupid theories.

Randomness ^^^^

I shouldn't be bagging on my mom, though. I love her...when I'm not yelling at her. She's pretty awesome when she's not yelling at me, too ^_^ Plus, she's not the only one with messed-up theories. I know plenty of other people that have twisted theories, too! ^_^

TIME TO START NAMING THEM!! XD

Okay, so you know how when you shed skin, you leave behind a trail of dust? Well, I guess it's not necessarily a trail, but your dead skin cells are basically dust. One of the girls in my Tap class last year had a Science teacher, who believed that if you shed all your skin in a particular spot, you would eventually have your own little clone growing inside your room.

Can I just say that having your very own clone would be total awesome-possumness!! ? SERIOUSLY! They would...go to school for you, eat your vegetables (eeeew!) and everything! Oh! Have any of you guys seen that cartoon by Pip Animation Studios, that played on Teletoon? 'Twas called Carl^2 ("Carl Squared") and it was the best human-clone show EVER!! XD

I like weird cartoons. Don't judge.

On the topic of vegetables and how they are gross, I would just like to point out four things. One. One of the ways our school is divided is by the Meat Lovers and the Veggie-Freaks. Two. Next week, the cafeteria has decided to only sell vegetables. Three. I blame the vegetarians. Four. This is terrible, and lowers the overall rating of my school. I predict there shall be blood shed next week.

Now that that point was made, and quite randomly, on with theories!

Children also tend to have weird theories. For example, when I was younger, I had no idea how babies were born. No one ever bothered to tell me, so for some reason, I had this random idea (completely out of the blue) that people bought babies at drug stores. They were in little cages, and the people shopping would buy the baby they liked the best. I also thought that children didn't grow up. I  thought I would be four years old forever, which would just suck, by the way. But then I learned that people did grow older, and eventually I would be taller. I thought that this happened all in one burst. One minute, I'd be sitting down at a table, eating quite awesomely. And the next thing I know, dramatic music starts playing, I grow really tall, and am super-mature with all the skills the average adult seems to have.

It was quite an amazing thought :3 Especially since I was taller than my mom AND my dad, so I was like 6 foot-something, which is a height I am convinced I shall never reach :(

More weird theories!!

In future generations, humans will no longer posses a pinkie toe D: I decided to put this theory in bold because....well, I'm just cool that way :P But seriously. I'm starting to think that I should've just made a list of all the theories I was going to talk about, and then expanded on each. Whatever.

Coackroaches are invincible. I have NO idea if this is true or not, though I am convinced that this is pretty far-fetched. You see dear non-cockroach, cockroaches are bugs. Bugs are tiny. Humans are big. Humans squish bugs. Bugs die. And people, that is the natural order of things! Don't give me some speech on bug-rights or something, because no matter what the law tells me, I am still going to accidentally kill bugs. I walk on grass everyday, and who knows how many bugs I step on?

The first time I saw the Invincible Cockroach idea was during an episode of The Fairly Oddparents. I vaguely recall a bomb, and lots of roaches, and not dying. If roaches can survive atomic bombs, I think that the government should make larger versions of cockroach skin, sell them, and whenever a nuclear-bomb warning thingy goes off, we should all jump into a giant cockroach skin, and prepare for impact.

Oh my gosh, I just came up with all that while writing O_O I am a genius. I think I have just solved the world's nuclear war problem. Or something...

IF YOU ARE THE ENEMY, DISREGARD WHAT YOU HAVE JUST READ! I actually don't know who the enemy is.... I don't make it a habit to keep up with these things.

Wow, I just realised I could do a whole blog post on war.

But back to theories. One of the weird and messed-up ones I have (and I am quite convinced of this) has to do with corn skin. I think it might have been L.S. Tredom who told me this. Apparently, it's really difficult for your stomach to digest corn skin, or something. So. What if there was a suit, made entirely of corn skin, and you had to walk through a pool of acid? I bet if you wore the suit of corn-skin, you wouldn't burn.

Never mind the fact that I doubt anyone would ever find themselves in a situation where they would have to walk through a pool of acid, but you never know. The apocalypse may possibly be approaching.

Something I love to do is trick a small kid into thinking I have secret powers. You know those automatic doors? The ones that open by themselves thanks to a suspicious little sensor? Well, when I was seven, I always found it quite amusing to go up to a door, shout, "OPEN SESAME!" with my hand stretched out, Voldemort-style, and then watch as the door would "magically" swing open by itself. Smaller kids watching would gasp at my amazingess. I also liked to make kids cry by passionately eating a lollipop in front of them when I was three (and other sweets, like ice cream, but mostly lollipops), but that's another story :P

Okay, so you guys are all probably getting quite bored now, and possibly a little creeped out at the above paragraph. I mean, what monster would want to make little boys and girls cry? Well, I did. Deal with it. I'm going to talk about one more theory now, and that theory is one that a lot of people seem to have. It also has to do with colours, which makes it awesome.

Okay, here goes.

What if you saw different colours than me? For example, I'm staring at a purple binder right now. What I see is purple, and what you see might be what I call "yellow." But what I call yellow is "purple" to you, so then it seems like everything is all good, but in reality, it's not, because one of our visions are rigged 0_o

WEIRD THEORIES!! FTW! XD

That's about it for today, folks. As usual, I shall end this post with several questions to readers ^_^

• Does anyone you know have any weird theories?
• Do YOU have any weird theories? O_O
• Have you ever heard of the cartoon show called Carl^2?
• Are cockroaches actually invincible? >.>
• Are you a meat lover? :D
• Is the new blog design kind of weird? (yeah, nothing to do with the post, but who cares :P)
• I AM NOT A BULLY! (just had to say that, in case you guys start thinking I spent my childhood shoving other kids off of swings. I was actually quite quiet, for the record :P)
• Uhh...any other comments? :P

That's more questions than last week, but we're that cool ^_^ Plus, you don't need to answer all of them. It's not like I'm going to find out where you live, and then chase you with a flaming empurpled broom. Even though that would get my out of French class, I can't risk missing a day :(

One more theory to think of before you leave! The Earth is flat!! ^_^ And I am a penguin :)

How To Stalk Draco Malfoy

 Anyone who's anyone has their own blog. Well, so it seems. Chelsea's got one, NightOwl0_0 has one, I think Amy might have one...EVERYONE IS BLOGGING D: It's like... attack of the mutant-blogs or something :(

Anyway, please note that the next few paragraphs will basically consist of my lame attempts to get you guys all pumped about this blog-How to Be Epik. And yes, Remi, I am aware that I misspelled epic.

My English teacher says to never ever do an introduction when it comes to literature. "Just read your piece of writing! NOBODY CARES how you came up with it, what inspired you. Just...read it." Good thing this isn't English class. After the introductions, I'll get to the good stuff, which involves my epik stalking endeavours of Draco Malfoy/Tom Felton >:D

For those of you who don't know me, I go by the alias Chiaki on the WWW, or Chi for short. Some awesome peeps, like Ash, call me Lord Chi, which I find completely flattering and awesome at the same time ^_^ Call me that, and you shall have the benefit of receiving your very own medieval title, as well! :D Like, Lady Ash, or Count Sandy, or something. YAY! WE'LL BE MEDIEVAL BUDDIES XD

My friend, Chelsea, has her very own blog. It's totally completely awesome, and earns my Stamp of Approval in five different countries. She's the person who kind of introduced me to the whole world of blogging. In fact, her blog was the first one I've ever followed. You can find Chelsea on KidPub :) (http://www.pinkteamslocker.blogspot.com) My other friend, Sabrina, also has her very own blog, and you are also able to find a link to it on the left-hand side of the page :) She's just starting out with this whole blogging thing, and so am I, so it would mean the world to her if you could check it out :) (in case you missed that, that was an advertisement :3) (http://www.theamazingishlife.blogspot.com)

So now that you have all had the privilege of hearing my introduction (even though my English teacher would slowly kill me if he ever found it, and also impale me for using an adverb just there), I shall continue with the sole purpose of this blog post :)

To ramble about Draco Malfoy/Tom Felton.

So you know how there are always celeb look-alikes? For example, one of my friends looks a lot like Grady from Sonny With a Chance. and another person looks a lot like Miley Cyrus. Well, there's this guy who goes to my school who looks exactly like Tom Felton.

So it's the second day of grade nine, and me and my friends are chilling in the library. We're all still getting to know each other, since everyone lives scattered throughout the city. We attend an arts school, so that's why we're all so spread out. In fact, I have to take an hour-and-fifteen minute bus ride every morning just to get to school. I wake up 5:30 am and don't get home until 4:30, unless I walk, which means I get home at 5:00 instead. Not to complain or anything, lol.

Anyway, so we're busy talking, and the librarian keeps shushing us and giving us this epic death stare. She's trying to be nice, and she's smiling and everything, but behind her eyes, it's pure murder. I'm not trying to be all "oh look! I'm a writer!" and everything, but seriously, that's what it looked like. Her eyes were pretty much burnt sapphires, stuffed in a freezer to cool off. Or in other words, a heated rock left to freeze. Two words, man. Not. Cool.

The library doors suddenly fly open, and this guy steps in with a couple of his friends. He's tall, and he has beach-blond hair. His hair style looks really familiar, and I get back to work, when suddenly, everything snaps. He's Tom Felton.

For those of you who don't know who Tom Felton is, here's some brief info on him:

Tom Felton is the dude who plays Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter. For the record, I tend not to watch Harry Potter for personal reasons, but when I was younger, I did, and I always see trailers with him in it and posters. Tom Felton is also in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Umm...that's about all I know about him. Well, that, and the fact that the Hair and Makeup peeps had to stop gelling his hair, otherwise he would go bald. Thank you, Katerina, for that awesome piece of information :)

Back to the story.

Okay, so he's not The Tom Felton, but he's pretty much his clone. In fact, some of the people who pass him in the hallways often make that remark (For the record, having a clone WOULD BE TOTALCOMPLETEEPICTACULARNESS! XD). Of course, I was really intrigued by this Felton-look alike, so I decided to stalk him. Well, not really. It wasn't like I woke up one morning with one clear thought burning in my mind-Hello world! Wow, today's a pretty cool day. Hmm...maybe I'll go stalk Tom Felton!-no. No way. People who wake up with that thought in their head need serious help. I recommend going on AN on KidPub, since all the epicness is incredibly overwhelming and should vanquish any thoughts of suicide. Of course, some of the people there are still suicidal, but that's another story.

The other day, while gushing about how awesome Felton was and how I really want to talk to him, I randomly started blurting the following:

"Oh my gosh! You mean Draco as in that kid who looks like Tom Felton? Yeah, he's totally awesome! His locker number is ****, he arrives at school every morning at 8:30 via public transportation and takes the cafeteria entrance, sometimes he pays a visit to the library, he's in tenth grade, his name is S**** , and is on the Slytherin team for Quidditch!" (Yes, our school has our very own Quidditch team. We're very hard-core Potter fans :P)

Most people wonder how I know that much. Keep in mind I've never talked to him before, never talked to his friends before, and...well, have had very limited resources to retrieve that info. Plus, it's still only the first month of school. Well, in response, I say:

The secret to stalking is to not set out with the intention of stalking.

Let me explain.

I discovered Felton's locker number from the afore mentioned Sabrina. The other day, she saw him put his books away, and managed to snag a look at his locker. I discovered what entrances he takes and what time he arrives at school, by, well studying. Usually, I go to the library to study, but one morning it was closed. I went downstairs to the cafeteria instead, and at 8:30, the public bus arrived, and all the kids who filed out entered through the Cafeteria entrance. That's when I saw a beach-blonde kid. he's really hard to miss, you know. I've been studying in the Caf for a while now, and that's where Felton usually enters. I discovered Felton is in tenth grade from some random girl I've never talked to before, discovered his name from her as well, and discovered he is on the Quidditch team from her friend, AKA, one of my favourite Science peeps :D

So that basically concludes my stalking-but-not-really-stalking adventures with Draco Malfoy. My friend, Flavia, who attends the arts school for dance, takes things WAY too seriously. This is what she told me on the bus about the art of stalking:

"Don't stalk him and be seen. If you tail him, don't be a string; be an elastic, blend into the crowd. If you're seen more than twice, you've blown it."

My response to that would be, well, how the heck do you know whether you've been spotted or not?

I normally find myself catching Draco doing pretty cool things. Like walking with heavy boxes, flipping his hair... Though the other day, Sabrina saw something pretty cool, too. "Okay, so today I saw Tom Felton and he was knocking on a door. he was locked out, and he had like, full-on swag, man. Full. On. Swag."

Yeah. We're quite obsessive. But I personally think it can be quite healthy to be incredibly obsessive over a celeb look-alike :)

I was actually planning on talking to Malfoy. Yesterday, I decided to approach him and say: "Hey, random person. So my friends don't think I can go up to five random strangers and strike up a conversation with them. So, I decided to strike one up with you, since you look pretty epic. Like, Tom Felton-Draco Malfoy kind of epic. Not to creep you out or anything. So how 'bout it? Let us embark on epicness :D What's your name? What's your opinion on flying carpets, and where do you live?" ^_^

After I told my friends that was what I was going to say (we were in the library), right on QUEUE, Felton walks through the doors. I felt my eyes widen and my jaw loosen a bit, threatening to drop. The people sitting across from me are obviously curious about my sudden reaction, and turn around in their seat. What they see is Tom Felton, talking to the gorgeous girl sitting at the table across from us. At once, all eyes turns towards me with expectancy. They flit between the two of us, and time seemed to freeze.

Though I hate to say this, I just freaked. I stood up as quick as possible, and speed-marched right out of the library. I left my homework, backpack, and other personal belongings behind (which resulted in someone taking my earphones), and that's when I ran into the girl who told me his name and his grade.

Thus concludes my ramblings on Tom Felton ^_^ My questions to readers are:

• have you ever seen a celeb look-alike?
• Do you have any stalking advice?
• Have you ever stalked anyone before?
• and just other general comments :)

Haha, sorry this post was so long :/ In the future, they'll probably be a lot shorter, but...yeah :P