::Rockin' the Night Away::

Gyah. So I snapped awake when I heard a super-loud bang, almost explosion-status. And immediately after was the quake. I freaked out. A few minutes later came another bang and another quake.

And now, I am scared to sleep. So I'm here, blogging, since I've neglected to do so.

Yesterday (or, er, Friday) was my graduation. And really, it still hasn't sunk in that I have no school now. Which is a bit odd.

What is up with the high school planning the graduation at the start of a Memorial Day WEEKEND?! Do they not take into consideration those of us coming from an hour away to the school?! I was almost an hour late due to traffic (as well as two detours to pick up guests, but we left in plenty of time). So icky. The traffic.

Er, anyway. I got there. I had a gold cord shoved into my hand. Yay for a 3.0 (or somewhere higher, though lower than 3.5 since I wasn't called up for that, buu).

The ceremony was.. er. Interesting? I dunno, the speeches were great, in my opinion. Some were funny. Others made me dig my nails into my palms because I didn't want to cry. After all, Sheelah was filming this all, and I was in the front row.

There were singers. Two for the national anthem. One of which was good, the other seemingly had stage fright at the last second and barely tried and that made their voices clash and our ears bleed. The same happened with the choir at the end. Some were good, others not so much.

But one girl sang The Climb in the middle of the ceremony and was amazing. Why couldn't she have sung the other songs, hm? Ah, well.

The highlight of this whole thing, other than getting my fake-diploma (I suppose my name is Sample Diploma?), was the amount of people who came for me.

+Mum, of course

+Jordan, thank gooses

+Grandma, who was excited I was graduating on her birthday

+Kai, who was more excited than I

+Vince, who cheered the loudest (er, or I just heard him the best, I dunno)

+Matt, whose card he gave me made me want to cry

+Aunt Dee

+Aunt Cherie and Uncle Chico

+"Aunt" Nancy and John

+KEN, LAURA AND JASON

Now, I haven't seen my brother, Ken, or his wife and son for nearly.. actually, over a year now. And Jason is almost two. He has no clue who I am, just this girl with purple-blue hair. That was sad. But I was so happy they came for me. I totally stopped and ran out of the group of us grads, who were supposed to be exiting at this point, and just.. ditched them all. To hug my brother. It was amazing.

Though, it reminded me that my dad wasn't there. And that was, and still is, painful. He didn't care enough to see me.

That's done with, though. Nothing else to do about it.

Today, or, er, yesterday, Kai and his dad picked me up and we went to San Jose to go to an awesome card shop. I actually saw a Black Lotus. I squeed. I'm silly. Kai sold a few cards to get almost 80$ in store credit, which he used to buy a small stack of cards to almost complete his newest deck. Oh, the shinies.. Oh, the full art.. They are glorious.

We passed right by Fanime, too. Tons of people. Even a Tetris block. Yeah. Beat that.

Later today, my Aunt Cherie and Uncle Chico are treating our immediate family (as well as Kai and their daughter's boyfriend) to dinner for Grandma's birthday at a Japanese restaurant. I wonder vaguely how much Kai will totally pwn my family in speaking, and if anyone there actually speaks Japanese.. Either way--they'll have chopsticks, and Kai won't have to use a knife as his primary eating utensil.

Monday, we'd better be able to see each other. 1 3/4 years. Kanpai!

Love and other indoor disasters (such as, say, a postage-stamp double room),

葵

P.S. Dick Clark likes whipped cream. A lot. It was all over his chin and whiskers.