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!