So much stuff that I can't pick a title enormous enough to cover it all.

Hello everyone! Yeah, I'm back. Hugs and all that stuff later. We'll see how this back-from-hiatus thing goes.

Blah, I've missed blogging. A lot. As in, I spent a lot of my free time thinking of blog posts I could be writing. But I didn't want to actually write them because then I would have broken my hiatus too early and I would have become even more inconsistent.

I exaggerate too much. Some people don't post for 2 months and make less of a deal about it than me. I don't know, blogging's become quite natural for me. No matter how busy I am, I always blog. It's a stress reliever for me. It's weird thinking about how just over a year ago, I didn't have this blog or this fantastic community of bloggers around.

Oh yeah, speaking of a year ago, my blogoversary passed. I don't really think of it as the one-year anniversary though, because I wrote a couple of embarrassingly crappy posts and then stopped writing for 3 months, so I acknowledge April whatever as my actual blog anniversary.

Strangely enough, I've noticed that my blogging dramatically decreases in winter months. As in, almost nonexistent. Look at 2011. I didn't blog from mid-January until April, when spring started. This year I took a hiatus in January. I blame winter.

I actually think I might have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don't want to self-diagnose because that will screw me up, but I've read about it and most of the main symptoms of it I've had for years (in winter). Somehow, knowing this comforts me immensely because it's attributed to a lack of Vitamin D, and Lord knows we get none of it around here with the amount of sunlight we have in the winter. But, that gives me an excellent reason to migrate to Italy in the wintertime!

I love Venice. Venice is cool.

(Haha, what would my mom think of me right now? She's always laughing at how I constantly self-diagnose myself with bizarre diseases that I probably don't have.)

I'm reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac right now. It's fantastic. Like every time I even see the book cover, I get all happy and try to organize some time for me to read it. I'm not going to give a synopsis, because I'm too lazy, and I'm only like halfway through anyway. For 3 years, I've been searching for this book, too cheap to spend $15 on it, but forever unable to actually find a copy of it in every single library I've been to. Seriously, it drove me crazy. Finally, I found it at the library last week (after finally paying my 2-year overdue fee). There is no better feeling than going to the library and actually getting the books you've been dying to read.

Speaking of books, perhaps you've noticed my "Books" tab? I've decided to make a goal for myself. This year, I'm going to read 35 books. To some, that really doesn't seem like much, but it saddens me that throughout my high school years I haven't found much time to read. This is largely because I like to read books on my bed. It's just my spot to read because I find it the only completely comfortable place to meditate over literature. The problem is that I fall asleep within 5 minutes of starting to read. Lack of sleep does that to you. But it's mostly my fault for being so stubborn about where I read.

I also finally figured out what this "nerdfighter" movement is. I had heard of it, but I didn't know what it was, and when I first found out about it I thought it was too complex for me to research (and actually understand). I finally figured out that it was attributed to John Green, an author, so I watched some of John and Hank's videos and fell in love. It was like walking into a European pastry shop. So many videos, so many choices, SO LITTLE TIME. (Oh God, every time I say a "so many...so little time" phrase I think of Mary Kate & Ashley's trainwreck show. Ugh.) Anyway, I got Looking for Alaska at the library, but it's still sitting on my shelf. Sorry, bookbro, Kerouac comes first in this case.

60's. 60'S 60'S 60'S 60'S 60'S 60'S 60'S. I LOVE THE 1960's! (Sorry, that enthusiasm has been building up for ages.) It is the best era ever. Don't argue with me. It's fantastic. It's spectacular. It's every synonym for great. If I could marry it, I...would think about it. The fashion was incredible. The music was amazing in every aspect. I mean, you have Frank Sinatra and the Beatles in one era? Not to mention Audrey Hepburn, who was at her best at this point. Everything about this era is fantastic; the fight for civil rights (the fact of which is actually heartbreaking, but the fight for it was beautiful), the movies, the music.

Twiggy's pretty cool too.

I also love 1940s, mostly because of its collection of fine films and music. I have a post in the works for that though, so look out for it. Actually, don't. As soon as I promise you guys something, I don't do it. I'm aware of it. I'm thinking it's best not to jinx myself, so don't expect it. The less you expect it, the greater chance it'll actually happen.

I have this unbelievably fulfilling obsession with older culture now, as you can see. The period from the 1940s through the 1960s is wonderful. Listening to swing music, watching classic award-winning films, reading Beat literature makes me so happy. I'm so glad I found it, because I need something fulfilling to get me through this winter.

Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart are my favorites. I love them.

Gregory Peck

Jimmy Stewart

I also haven't really explained why I took my hiatus in the first place. I basically have an enormous amount of problems that have stemmed from school. These past two years I've been overworking myself dramatically in terms of academics. To cope, my mind basically decides that I need a break. It refuses to let me do any work. I procrastinate terribly because I never have any free time to do fun stuff, and I need a daily dose of "fun" (ugh, lame) for me to function at all. But that is where my body starts to protest. Due to my procrastination, I tend to go to sleep late, so I get very little sleep. My body then decides that any time I spend relaxing I should actually spend sleeping. This results in me taking a nap for 3 to 4 hours almost daily to make up for lost time. Then I wake up late and spend an hour or 2 being lethargic until I completely wake up. By then, it's like 10 and I spend the rest of the night doing homework and periodically procrastinating by spending time on the internet. It's a vicious cycle, but I'm working on it. I can't fix my body clock because I don't have any time to make up for the lost sleep, and I can't cope with stress because I don't have any time to actually work on stress-relief. Eh, we all pick our own poison I guess.

This post was quite the roller coaster, wasn't it? I'm quite glad to be back, but all I ask is that you please, please, please, don't look at me differently out of pity. I'm not any different of a person just because I have some things that screwed me up. I don't like other people thinking of me as a weak person, because I'm not. I just hope you guys don't look at me differently, because I'm still a happy person. I just desperately want this school year to finally be over so I can finally relax.

Saw this on Facebook. Look for something in the picture. Comment if you see it!

Hiatus.

Dear blogfriends,

Hi. You guys are all amazing. Your comments always make me happy, and your support is always more than appreciated. You all mean a lot to me, and I'm so grateful to have you as readers on my blog. So, because of your continuous support, I'm hoping that you won't be too bothered (or maybe not at all) when I tell you now that I'm taking a break from blogging.

Over the past few weeks, I've been going through a hard time. Basically, the long-term stress of school (now in combination with work) has caused a lot of difficult problems for me that I'm trying to undo. I really wish I could elaborate more, but I'm afraid you'll pity me or look at me differently, and if there's anything I have too much of, it's pride. I know that I'm being melodramatic and stupid because I've always been extremely honest on this blog, but I hope you understand.

Maybe I'm making too big a deal of this, but I felt I had to give a brief notice, because it would ease the guilt I had of thinking I wasn't posting enough and that I was leaving my blog hanging. I don't like not posting for significant periods of time. It hovers over me, encouraging me to blog when I want to but simply don't have the time to. That's why this post is here: both to give me a brief sense of closure and to not leave any of you guys wondering. Then again, you might not care. I don't know.

I'll only be gone for a very short period of time. Probably only a couple of weeks. I can almost guarantee I'll be back by the end of the month, if not sooner. I can promise I'll still be commenting, though, because I love reading other peoples' blogs. Maybe I'll give up and just resume my normal sporadic posting, or maybe I'll just post once this month. I just want things to get back to normal, which I'm hoping will be soon. I realize I'm not making any sense, but again, I hope you understand.

If any of you guys realize you simply cannot live without my sharp wit and creative talent (I can hear your snorting!), feel free to tell me I'm pretty at annaphora94@yahoo.com. Don't judge the e-mail address. I think it's witty.

Anyway,  I'll be back soon. Don't forget about me!

Rebellious thoughts.

This is crazy. 2011 is over now, so all my posts are officially now going into a completely different category. Never again will they be part of 2011. It's gone, and my 2011 number of posts will never increase again. It will forever remain the same. Bizarre.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a bit. I have 7 drafts that I partially wrote in the past week, but gave up because none of them seemed worthy enough to start off the year. In the end, all these potentially decent posts are being given up for this post, which has absolutely no point to it. Blah, whatever.

I've been doing some self-reflection and I've realized something: I hate obedience. I despise obedience. Having started work, I hate the fact that I am beneath people. I can barely stand the fact that I have bosses. I hate it. I hate how they think they can control me. I hate that I have to listen to them. It feels as if since day 1 of work I have been taken advantage of. I'm just a piece in their games (heh, get the reference?). They have the right to yell at me, and I have to take it because I otherwise have to face consequences. I need the job and the money, so I have to tolerate them. It annoys me.

They seem to forget that if my coworkers and I were to all get up and walk out, they would be left with no one. They'd have to break in new workers, hire trainers from Canada, spend tons of money and time to get people to replace us. Perhaps they should remember that. But they won't, of course.

Then there comes the issue of teachers. Who are they? What right do they have to determine whether or not I can go to the bathroom? Why do I have to ask them? Who gives them the right to decide what time I can eat lunch? They are paid to teach us, not control us like we're in a prisoner's camp. Why is it at 17 I have to have permission to go out into a hallway, whereas in college at 18 I can walk out in the middle of class with absolutely no problem? Who are you to punish me for this? I don't pay you. The government does (in public schools anyway). You are nothing to me. I come for education, not discipline. I can get that from my mother, thank you very much.

Not to mention that according to my church's doctrine, women must be obedient to their husbands. It is constantly echoed among the members and preachers, even the younger, more liberal (but still painfully conservative) generation. Women are expected to be obedient to their husbands, while husbands love and respect their wives. Obedient? What am I, the Virgin Mary? If my husband were to tell me that I couldn't pursue the profession I loved for any stupid reason, I'm expected to be obedient? Pfft, good luck finding a new wife.

The only people I really listen to are my parents, and even that is under question, considering the fact that I applied to Cornell ED without my mother's approval, fully aware that if I got accepted I would be obligated to go there. Still, they are the only people I have enough respect for to actually obey.

I'm a failure at life. I should just be an anarchist and write outrageous philosophy books that make the government nervous.