Top 10 Favorite Albums:
1. Nirvana - "Nevermind"
2. Shakira - "¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?"
3. Dashboard Confessional - "The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most"
4. Melanie C - "Northern Star"
5. Robbie Williams - "Sing When You're Winning"
6. American Hi-Fi - "American Hi-Fi"
7. Eve6 - "Eve6"
8. Fuel - "Sunburn"
9. No Doubt - "Tragic Kingdom"
10. Poe - "Haunted"

Top 5 Favorite Unplugged Performances:
1. Nirvana
2. Dashboard Confessional
3. Shakira
4. Alanis Morissette
5. La Ley

Top 10 Favorite Movies:
1. Can't Hardly Wait
2. Josie and the Pussycats 
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Empire Records
5. Sixteen Candles
6. Dogma
7. Go!
8. 200 Cigarettes
9. Get Over It
10. That Thing You Do!

12/27/02

It's 2 days after Christmas and I'm sitting here doing nothing. I've decided to try using my thoughts page as some sort of online journal, though I prolly won't update it often enough for it to be one, hehehe. Anyway, I've got 2 weeks of vacation and I had hoped on spending it making a couple of short films, but unfortunately things didn't go my way and I didn't end up bringing home a camera from school and I really don't want to use my old 8mm camera and then have to do all the transfering and crap to edit my footage digitally. (Okay FYI I take an advanced media class at school where we produce 3 weekly TV shows and that's where I work on my short films and so on.) Not working on a short film might actually be a good thing because I've now decided to record a short 5 song EP! I had planned on working on one that was going to have more of an EMO sound since that's the way I've been writing lately, but I haven't gotten around to it and that EP is still in the works and it'll more than likely be called The Graduation EP. I've decided to use some of my older songs that I rejected from the After Hours CD because they just didn't seem to fit because at the time I didn't think they would sound very good with only a guitar. But now I've changed my mind and I'm going to work on a more rock sounding EP called On The Rocks. My buddy Oscar and I discussed the title for it and that was the one we chose. He suggested Forget the Awakening, but I decided to save that title for the follow up to After Hours which I'll probably record this summer. I'm hoping that the next week will be very productive for me. This week just seemed like a waste since I didn't do much. I wish I had spent more time with my friends and less with my family ( I know that sounds bad! hahaha!) But I had such an awesome time hanging out with my friends last weekend and our little Christmas get together on Friday actually felt like Christmas should feel like, hehehe. As far as gifts are concerned, I loved the gifts I got from my friends, they were awesome. :) Thanx guys! Well I guess that's all for now. Hopefully I'll be spilling more thoughts here very soon!

I actually meant on putting in an entry earlier, but I haven't had much time to sit and do it. Last night I was able to record "Virgin Suicide", well the guitar part at least. All I need to do now is record "Death City, USA" and then 'On the Rocks' will be complete. I didn't get to write an amazing short film script like I planned and I didn't work on any of my writings. I don't think it was all my fault that my vacation is practically over and I didn't accomplish much, I blame a lot of it on the fact that my parents are constantly nagging me to do stuff for them. That's a whole other issue I don't want to get into right now, hehehe. But one thing that sort of is bothering me right now is something I probably should've stayed out of. My friend, Lori, started an online journal at livelog and even though I probably shouldn't have been snooping through it, she did put it up for the entire world to see, so I don't feel like I was doing anything wrong. Anyway it's a complicated subject and I always felt that there were so many things about Lori that she wasn't sharing with me and maybe even our other friends, but reading her online journal just opened my eyes and exposed me to this whole other person that I didn't even think existed. I felt so much like an outsider. In 8th grade, I was very good, if not best, friends with my pal Oscar and then one day Lori just came along and it became, in my eyes at least, a little trio. I felt like the three of us were best friends and I thought the feeling was mutual. Freshman year, I sort of grew apart from Oscar and he started hating me for some reason and Lori and him stayed best friends and I sort of was left out of the loop. I remember at the time I felt like just another friend to them and it wasn't the three of us anymore. Although, at the time Lori would always reassure me that I was still one of her best friends. Since they started leaving me out, I ended hanging out with whoever I was dating at the time and her friends, cause sadly, my freshman year is probably the year where I did my most "dating", hehehe. Sophomore year, I practically wasn't even friends with Oscar, and we weren't even on speaking terms after he told me off online. Lori sort of started getting close to me again and supposedly we were best friends when Oscar became best friends with this other girl named Amanda. But the whole time I was best friends with Lori, I remember she'd constantly complain about how Oscar was being mean to her and how badly she wanted to be better friends with him. At the time I was probably better friends with Gilbert, my former bandmate, and we were probably best friends because we were trying to get our band off the ground. Junior year, I reconciled with Oscar and maintained my best friend status with Lori. Reading Lori's journal was just a complete shock because there were things I suspected, but never was told even though I was her supposed best friend. Of course I had found out earlier that I really was left out of the loop during our freshman year and her journal confirmed that so that wasn't much of a shock. It's a fact that sort of stings because it confirmed one of my worst suspicions, but I'm not upset about it because it's in the past. The shocking part was her revealing she has a secret lover who's 14 years older than her. I had joked that Lori had a lover, but I never realized how true it actually was. My bet is that it's a teacher who's name will be witheld ;) hehehe. I guess I'm done ranting here and boring people for now.

It's about 2 in the morning and my pal Oscar has just left my house. It's the last day of my holiday vacation :( It's very early Monday morning and school starts again on Tuesday. Oscar and I hung out tonight and watched a movie like we usually do. We went for a ride and talked about reading Lori's online journal (we both did) and all about how things have changed between us over the years. I liked talking about all that, sometimes I think I need it. I think Oscar needed to talk about it too, because every now and then I'd lose him in his rantings, hehehe. I felt so bad for a while tonight because as we were driving, Oscar was telling me about something and this Kylie song was on the radio and my ear's were split between the two! Yeah it was Kylie's "Get In Your Eyes" or something and I'd be wanting to find that song for a while because I heard it on the EMA's and all I could remember was the line "I wanna make it with you" or something and I thought it made the song completely hot and so as Oscar's talking I blurt out "That's the Kylie song I was looking for!" Yeah, not exactly perfect timing, hehehe. Anyway we came back to my place and watched "Seven" cos neither of us had seen it, and it turned out to be a pretty cool movie.

I meant to make entry a few days ago, but I haven't had a chance since I've been pretty busy these past few days. Anyway I was totally stoked that my friend Mike has a gig in Killen next week (I'm not sure if that's the right town, hehehe) and he wants to play my song Heat Stroke! I was just completely amazed and complemented by it. Of course I said he could and I helped him out with the chords since he wasn't sure on them and I begged him to tape the show so I could hear his rendition of it. Plus, it'd be awesome to hear some feedback on the song since I've only gotten feedback from people I know and I don't think it's always honest feedback, it's just "I'm your friend and I haven't the heart to tell you, you suck" feedback, hehehe. I can't think of anything else I wanted to include in this entry....so I guess that was really all I had to say, hehehe.

Okay so it's Sunday, there's practically no sun outside, it's cold and wet, and I feel miserable. I'm listening to Ben Kweller and hoping it'll cheer me up, and it sorta is. I'm feeling really frustrated. There were some really confusing changes on the TV shows I work on and so now I have like 3 assignments and like 3 days to get them all done in since I won't be at school on Thursday or Friday (it's the stockshow and I raise a lamb every year). I had no idea what to do for the main show, 57 South, and so I figured I'd just work on a short film and so Oscar and I had come up with this really cool perspective type thing where basically it tells the same story several times from each character's perspective (like Go!). Anyway, I had planned on it being me, Oscar, Xareni, and maybe Robert. WEll Friday night, Xareni tells me she and Rob are going to the movies, but for me to call them afterwards so we could get together and work on the film. Oscar had talked to Rob about it and after they hung up or whatever, Rob asked his parents if he could stay out longer and they supposedly wanted him home after the movie. I was ignorant of this and so Oscar and I are here at my house watching TV waiting for them to get out of the movies and then when they finally do around 10, they don't wanna do the movie. :( So Oscar and I watched The Good Girl (which was pretty good but I expected a bit better). Saturday, Oscar didn't feel like doing anything, but I needed to make this movie, first because I got all excited about it and secondly because it was my God damn homework, so I begged and finally got him to do it. Xareni was up for doing whatever so I figured we'd go eat and then do the movie, since it wouldn't take very long. There was a problem, Rob wouldn't answer his phone. Then Xareni got a hold of him and he didn't wanna do the movie. I tried getting someone else and I couldn't, so I decided to go ahead and do it with just us 3. Anyway after eating, all Xareni and Oscar wanna do is watch that damn tv show Cheaters. So I sat at Xareni's computer downloading songs (Robbie Williams' Me and My Monkey is an awesome 7 minutes.) and chatting, bored out of my skull. I tried getting them to get up and go so we could film and they didn't want to. Sometime around 12, the show's over and I'm frustrated and I knew we couldn't work on the movie, so I decide I'm just going home. So here it is Sunday evening, I have no short film and with the weather, I feel like crap. Yeah once I type it all out, it doesn't seem like much to get upset over but I really wanted to work on this movie, it seemed so funny and I thought it was an awesome idea, I got all hyped up about it and then it completely sucked that no one wanted to do it. :(

Ok the live stockshow is over :) I got 3rd place with my lamb (I never expected much because I hardly worked it, but at the show, everyone was giving my lamb buzz and they kept telling me I was gonna win which I thought was crap cos I've had way better lambs before.) Anyway I got caught up in the hype and so winning 3rd place, even though it surpassed my original expectations, sort of didn't please me. I sold my lamb yesterday for $8 a pound, so I should get at least a $1000 but I'm hoping for more since I got 4th place last year and got $1200 and with my Reserve Champion lamb the year before I got the same. Enough about that, my parents and the kids went to San Antonio for the weekend and I'm home alone! Yay! It gave me a chance to finish up the On the Rocks EP. I just got done recording vocals for Death City, USA and Virgin Suicide and all 5 songs are now in mp3 format on my computer and hopefully they'll be online by next weekend. Yesterday I saw About a Boy with Oscar. It was a pretty awesome movie. It was funny and sad and just really cool. I recommend it! Oh and as far as movies are concerned, I've come up with a concept for a short film taking place entirely in a laundry mat. So hopefully I can work on that sometime soon. Now I think I'm completely disorganized in my thoughts here, but I wonder if Mike played Heat Stroke at his gig. I haven't talked to him since maybe Monday cos I was too busy all week long. I hope he did and I hope it rocked. I'll find out later.

The next few weeks look sooooo frickin' hectic for me :( I've got stuff to do every weekend this month. Friday morning I'm leaving to Beaumont for the Lamarr University Film Festival where I entered both the Alright video and my short film The Attack of the Life-Force Sucking Martians From Mars. I have a very strong feeling that I got recognized for one of the two. Mr. Fuentes, my media teacher, got the results in and he said 3 of us would be recognized. There were only 4 entries. So I'm assuming that Chris (my friend who makes the most awesome experimental type music videos) and Cristy (this really cool girl that is an amazing artist) and myself were the 3 that placed. I can't wait to find out! I hope the trip turns out to be fun because I don't have a positive outlook right now. Anyway the week after I have both a Student Council workshop and a UIL meet. The workshop will be on Friday and Saturday and the UIL meet is on Saturday. I'm hoping we leave Saturday morning for the UIL meet because I want to at least stick around for part of the workshop since I haven't been to any others. Oh, plus our school is hosting the workshop and I'm an officer so I'm supposed to help out. Then the week after there's another UIL meet and I have to go to both since they are the last two before district. Then I'll have a break and the weekend after is a One-Act Play clinic. So that weekend is when I plan to shoot Laundry Mat. I finished up the script this weekend and I'm touching it up right now. I don't know how I'm going to pull all this off, but I hope I can last, hehehe. There's not much for me to report on other than bitching about my busy schedule. Oh and anyone reading this who is somewhat of a DJ or knows of someone who's somewhat of a DJ, drop me a line because I was thinking about having some of my songs remixed just to see how that sounds. So go ahead and download a couple of my songs and try remixing them and let me know how that goes.

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm glad that I finally have a frickin' break. This past week was pretty hectic. I'm glad my school decided not to go to that UIL meet. Anyway I still had to attend that Student Council Workshop, which wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be. The consultant lady sucked and she was really rude while she was here, well to me at least. Some of the games she made us play were pretty fun, but she dragged them out for so long that became a little pointless. I had alot of fun at the dance though. My friend Mireya and I danced practically the whole time and I thought it was so cool that we started some sort of dance craze, hehehe. Back in 8th grade I was in this show called Dancing Through Time and it was basically like a showcase of all the different dances of the century from the waltz of the 1900s to the 90s pop dancing. I had to learn how to swing dance for it because we also did some swing dancing and I remember that the routine started off where we did this kicking thing where one person kicks their right leg to the left and the other person kicks their left leg to the right so they cross each other. Well when the DJ played Good Charolette's The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, no one knew how exactly to dance other than by jumping around and so I told Mireya I had an idea and so I made her do that leg kicking thing with me and we add some spins and some arm spinning and it was really fun but also a little tiring. Before the song was over, we had all these people doing the same thing and then I caught some people doing it during some other songs too, so that was pretty cool. I've never been a very good dancer to know that I might have started a dance trend is really cool. I wonder if I'll find people dancing like that to some punk songs somewhere. I realize that I didn't create it, but I was responsible for it being done at this dance, hehehe. I'm also dead sore from sitting on the gym floor for both days :( . Changing the subject though, this week we took our senior class poster picture and I used this inflatable guitar Xareni gave me for Christmas as my poster. I stuck a posterboard cutout of my name onto it and even though it was really small compared to everyone else's signs, I can still pick myself out of the pic by looking very closely and squinting my eyes, lol. Oh and of course last weekend I was in Beaumont. The film fest was awesome, considering it was practically dead, but it was still cool for my first one. The screenwriter for RoboCop and Starship Troopers was there and I got his e-mail address so maybe we'll see about sending him a script to look over, hahaha. I also sort of met these film students from UT (my future home!) that made this really funny movie called My Name Is Buttons. I saw this amazing documentary by a college student, who I don't think he even went to the festival :( but he did win 1st place so congrats to him! It was about the DIY punk scene mostly in Staten Island, I think, and it was just so awesome. It made me want to play in people's basements and do guerrilla shows. There were some awesome bands like The Might of Princes, who I think are gong to make a major label debut :) I think it was called Between Resistance and Community. Chris and I came home with Honorable Mention certificates :( which wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but oh well. During the awards ceremony, they did show like a 2 second clip of my Alright video on the big screen so that was cool :). Norbert, this guy who doesn't go to our school anymore but last semester he was the one who covered all the football games for our tv show 57 South, had made this montage of all this football segments into a music video and he got 2nd place for it. It was cool, but it was just football games so I didn't see anything really special in it. I went up to get his award and this old man stopped me on my way back and he was like "You did a great job." and I was like "uh, it's not, ugh, I didn't, uh," and mumbled as I walked away, hehehe I felt like such a dork! Cristy was apparently the only animation entry and so she got 1st place for that so that was cool. All in all, I had a pretty okay time.

I feel so blah today. I'm stressed out, mad at the world, and I think I'm getting an ulcer. :( I've tried working on new material for my next CD and it's just not happening. I've got a bunch of songs that are finished lyrically, a lot of random lyric chunks, and writing music and finishing them off seems impossible. I need a change of scenery or something. There's been so much to write about but nothing I've written lately seems good enough to bother finishing. Nothing's catchy or impressive. I've got so many ideas and I just can't seem to make them work. I tried working on music for a few songs I already wrote words to and I kept getting interrupted by inconsiderate parents who care nothing about my privacy or the things I want to, and are only frickin' pleased if I'm babysitting for them or running errands for them. Which by the way, I've done all day. Spring break is next week and I hope to God I can actually take a damn vacation. I don't care where or with who as long as I can get away from this damn place. I've been out and about for the past couple of weeks, but one day/two day trips aren't cutting it. I went to a One-Act Play clinic on Friday and we performed twice. We came back last night. Saturday was spent all day at the mall in Laredo because our director, Mr. Flores was running the clinic since no one in Laredo wanted to. Oscar, our friend Kristina, and I wanted to go to the movies and then the mall so we wouldn't stay at one place all day. We already told the group and no one objected so that's what we had planned. Then Friday night a couple of people complained that they didn't spend their money on going to the movies and then Saturday morning Pattie, a sometimes friend who can turn into an arrogant bitch at the drop of a hat, led this whole rebellion against us and complained that they didn't want to go to the movies because they didn't want to pay and if they were they didn't want to see some movie that was a compromise that everyone had to agree on. So we spent 4 and a half hours at the mall Saturday. Of course it got very boring after the first hour and a half and I was ready to smack the shit out of that whole group when they complained about being there too long when they knew damn well if we didn't go to the movies, we'd be at the mall all day. In other news, I made this completely awesome music video for the Avalanches' "Frontier Psychatrist" for 57 South this week. I titled it Dreams on TV and it basically had a bunch of clips from different movies and TV shows that I reversed and messed around. I also finally finished up the cover for the On the Rocks EP and I started uploading the songs onto mp3.com I'm trying to get my music played on this local Christian radio station that has a sometimes cool morning show that plays lots of Christian rock. Of course I don't play Christian rock, but what the hell it is worth a shot and besides I guess if someone wanted to they could say my music had some sort of religious undertone. On the Rocks does have "Cattle of the Sun God" on it which is actually supposed to have been about temptation but it might as well be about condemning false idolization, hehehe. Well we'll see how things turn out, I hope they get better.

I just got done filming Laundry Mat. I haven't seen the footage yet, I'm just about to, though. I looked at some of it, and I'm not real pleased with the way it looks. I'm hoping that editing will fix it up. Oscar was supposed to be the cameraman, but when we started filming, he threw some tantrum or whatever and took off, so Robert took over and he really didn't even know what the hell was going on in the script. He got a copy of it yesterday and had just looked over. Oscar really disappointed me because he knew how long I had been waiting to work on this film and we'd been putting off for a while because I never had time and I expected him to help out, but actually the only scene he was even there to help out with was when Robert had to come out and so he couldn't film. It really stressed me out but I decided to forget about it and go on with the movie with Rob as the cameraman and just do it. I'd been wanting this for too long to let it get pushed aside, even if it comes out like crap, at least I actually did what I planned. I've decided that if I do write any more scripts or make any more short films this year, I'm definitely gonna have to stay behind the camera because that's the only way for me to get things to work out and look more or less like I planned them. I can't rely on other people like I have before. Robert can do some good stuff it's just that sometimes it's completely odd looking things, hehehe. And once you get Oscar to quit bitching about what he can't do, he can do okay, too. I guess this movie was cursed from the start. First off today, Xareni calls and asks if I wanted to go with her to Del Rio to watch movies or whatever and I told her that I had planned on filming the movie tonight with Robert, Oscar, and Kristina. Then she says she had intended on inviting Robert, Oscar, and I to Del Rio. She begged for a while for me to cancel working on the movie and go with her, and I felt bad because I hardly ever hang out with Xareni anymore, but I needed to do this movie. I suggested going to Del Rio tomorrow and she was like "No! I have plans for tomorrow." which sort of angered me because I had made plans to make my movie today and it was something that I had planned for a good while and I knew I wouldn't get a chance any other time during the week. It was an awkward situation because I wanted to see Xareni, but at the same time, why were her plans more important than mine? When I told Oscar, he seemed so intent on us making the movie. So it got to me even more when he took off. After he filmed the one scene, we went to eat and then went back to finish filming and Oscar left again. I'm assuming he went home because we finished and he never came back, so I dropped Kristina off at her house and Robert just went home. (Oh, by the way, we filmed the movie in the laundry mat at Robert's apartment, so he basically stayed there, hehehe) Well I guess I'm going to check out the footage and see if it's not completely horrible. Either way, I have no choice because I don't think we'll be doing any reshoots. :(

Okay, worries about Laundry Mat have sort of subsided. The footage isn't great...borderlines crap, but we'll see how it turns out. Anyway, I've just been completely gutted because I found out that people at garageband.com HATE my music. :( Yes it's sad, but true. Cattle of the Sun God is currently at #33 on the Punk chart, but I'm assuming that's 33 out of like 35 songs, hahahaha. A few people were helpful and said that the song would do better with drums and bass (of course) and my voice should either be more confident or just in tune, hehehe. One guy said the song and i quote "licks balls". No, that one didn't hurt, but once I got through the reviews, I realized "licks balls" was right on the mark! hehehe. Now I know I have so much to prove on my next CD Forget the Awakening and it has to kick ass! I've been thinking of working on some reggae type song with a saxophone since I can play that and I'm hoping I can learn harmonica fast enough to write a decent harmonica part for some other song. At first, reading these reviews, I felt sort of indifferent, like "oh well that's just one person's opinion" but after 22 reviews I realized that yes, something has got to improve, hehehe. I wanted to feel like I should just quit, and one reviewer did suggest it, but then I remembered reading something Sheryl Crow said about being rejected from several record labels and basically she said being rejected made her practice harder and get better. So now I'm determined to practice guitar more and actually learn to be a better composer. I also started hearing some lyrics come to mind which were inspired by all the bad reviews, hehehe. But just like a few actually pleasant reviews suggested, practice makes perfect.

It has been a very hectic week so far and it's not completely over! Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Laredo for the UIL One-Act Play Zone contest. The judge kinda sucked. Last year we had a horrible judge who said we were going to hell and that we were cursed and he told me their was a little theater out there somewhere for me. We had performed "Dark of the Moon" which can be pretty offensive to narrow minded Christians. This year we performed "Inherit the Wind" and thank God no matter how clueless our judge was, we were able to advance to District. Which is cool, but it means another overnight trip to Laredo next Wednesday and Thursday. I came home with an All-Star Cast medal, which was cool, but I think I overhyped myself in my head and was really hoping for the Best Actor medal. I'd won it in 8th grade when we performed "To Kill A Mockingbird". But like I said, this judge sucked and he didn't like me much. Every clinic we went to, the judges said my character was fine but this guy saw so much wrong with my acting. I play Drummond, the defense attorney, and Frankie Sanchez, plays Brady the prosecuting attorney. The judges at the clinics always had most of the critiquing to do on Frankie. He has so much do to with that character and he does very little with it. But this judge loved Frankie. Frankie got way more praise than I did, which really shocked me. Not to sound conceited or anything, because I really don't think of myself as an awesome actor, but I do think I'm better than Frankie. It's just that a lot of the time, he doesn't emphasize the right words to get his message across, which means he doesn't understand his character which a good actor does. Plus, Frankie's a bitch to work with because he's always playing around and never memorizes his lines. But oh well. I still have a second shot at Best Actor and hopefully we can advance to Regionals (which I think is next). I'd love to make it to State, but I doubt we'd be able to pull that off. I'd be happy with Regionals and even happier with Area. Anyway, today was the Renaissance Faire at school. Yes, I came home around 3 in the morning and slept maybe 4 hours here and maybe less than 2 on the ride home, and I still had a performance to do at the faire. Kristina, Oscar, and I performed a play called "Shipwrecked" which we all came up with for the faire and I went on to write. It's a parody of several Shakespeare plays. I played Telmah (Hamlet spelled backwards), Kristina was my stepmother witch who poisoned my father, Latrine, Oscar played the twins Stephano and Stephan (wears glasses) my cousins. Maybe I'll put the play online, we'll see. Tomorrow afterschool, I'm going back to Laredo :( for the District UIL meet for speaking events. Hopefully I'll come home with a trophy. Maybe I'll even advance to the next meet. ;) All this damn traveling and performing better be worth something! hehehee Wish me luck!

Oh God, where do I start? so much has happened since the last time I logged in, hehehehe. Okay lemme see...okay first off, in chronological order, I was going to the District UIL meet, ok I went, and it was horrible! God Laredo is the worst at this stuff! The meet was sooo badly organized, I hated it. In prose, I managed to rank 4th out of 6, the 2 behind me were such crap and one above me was almost crap too, but oh well that was in the prelims so I didn't get to advance to the finals which was also crap cos they should have had a semi-finals since it was the District meet and all. Anyway, I also do Informative Speaking and I completely sucked in the prelims, I had no research material, I made up everything I talked about, I stuttered for about 6 and a half minutes (which is actually really good time since I have 7 minutes max), my judge was cranky and wanted to leave so she kept looking back at the time keeper to see if my time was almost done (which was completely rude by the way and I have some more on that story in a second), the time keeper had fallen asleep and all this was completely rude and distracting and made me feel even worse about my performance. Afterwards, I ran to my coach, Mr. Davis, and shouted about my judged being tired and rude and there she was like less than 10 feet away walking towards us! I spun around and whispered, "That's her!" in total shame and then as I walked back into another building she passed me and all I could so was smile and say "Hi ma'am." and she gave me this little "Bastard" smirk, hehehe. I thought I'd been blown out of the water, but again, it was Laredo where if at first you don't succeed, lower your standards. I swear the only actually good school in that damn city is Alexander and the kids there are soooo snobbish it's not even funny, and it's a magnet school that barely manages to beat us at anything, and our school kinda sucks. Well anyway, I ranked 1st in the section (fuckin' amazing!) so I advanced to finals. At finals, I again had no research material and I made up everything I was talking about. As I walked into the room I was supposed to be in, the judge from Prose (who stared at me blankly with his mouth open the entire time) was sitting there with the judge I had for the Info. prelims (she was asleep with her head face down on a table) and the judge Kristina had for prose (who she said was a cold bitch) were all sitting in there waiting for me. Hell right? Actually it almost was but the guy judge was like "Are you in Persuasive Speaking?" and I was like "No!". Fuckin' saved, hehehehe. The judges had switched rooms without telling the people in the holding room. Anyway, I managed to do okay and I came home empty handed. Well I got 3rd place, meaning I advanced to Regionals but they didn't have any awards so I had to wait till the Academic District meet to get it, hehehe. I should have been stoked, but I could have cared less. I hate Informative Speaking and I didn't want to advance to a harder meet, hehehe. My sophomore and junior year we were in the San Antonio district and I could never manage anything better than maybe a 5th place if I even advanced to finals at all, hehehe. And San Antonio is exactly where I'll be on Saturday at UTSA for the Regionals meet. After that, on Wednesday, we went back to Laredo for the District One-Act Play meet. Frankie forgot half his fuckin' lines and I could have knocked the shit out of the loud bastard. He kept being all loud and confident and then he fucked up his lines. On top of that, our play was fuckin' sabatoged. The door we use in the beginning scene, (WHICH BY THE WAY WAS PART OF THE UNIT SET PROVIDED BY UNITED HIGH SCHOOL THE HOSTING SCHOOL) worked perfectly fuckin' fine when we rehearsed earlier that day and the many other times we performed on that stage with that set, was fuckin' jammed when we started the show. There was a whole minute where Kristina stood on stage alone because the damn door wouldn't open. The judged commended us on carrying on so well. Anyway, I wasn't completely happy with the performance. I tried my best, but the play as a whole just didn't do as well as I hoped. Alexander performed The Elephant Man and Mr. Davis watched it and said it was amazing, he and Ms. Cardenas couldn't stop going on and on about it. We watched Martin High School perform Cireno De Bergerac. All I can really say is the lead actor was great. Except his death was completely fake because his body was weak and his voice was as clear and as strong as ever. It didn't work and he was basically the only actor in the whole show. I mean yes they had a cast with other people, but those people weren't actors. They weren't even speakers, they sucked! Hahahha, I hate to be mean but they did. He was the only person in the whole cast who had any talent. United High School performed THE ELEPHANT MAN, seem a little redundant? Anyway, their show also sunk. It was a complete flop! The guy who played the Doctor was a good speaker, his voice was awesome. But (and there should be a but) he had this awesome emotional scene at the end and he delivered it like he'd read the Constitution. There was no emotion, no nothing. I didn't buy their play at all. The Elephant Man kept breaking character because at times he was crippled like he was supposed be, then he'd be fine, then his right arm (which was IMMOBILE) worked perfectly fine in putting on his coat, opening books, supporting him in sitting down, etc. There was a moment during the doctor's "emotional" breakdown where he made his left arm immobile then quickly switched back to the right! It was horrible! Thank God he didn't get any acting medal! I think the actress, the doctor, and the circus guy were the only people to get medals from United. In Alexander's play, I think only the actress (who Mr. Davis said was too fake but I dunno, I met her and she's a pompus bitch, which might be too strong a sentiment, but she's not a very likeable person) and the Elephant Man got medals but they got Best Actor and Best Actress :(. We brought home the most acting medals (6). Frankie, Kristina, and Andrea brought home Honorable Mention All-Star Cast medals. Rob, Mireya, and I brought home All-Star Cast medals. Unfortunately, we came home completely empty handed with a 4th place nothing. The judge's critique sucked. She stood there and asked us questions about our characters and in her whole half hour critique she made like maybe 2 suggestions the rest was made up of pointless questions. I don't think she paid attention to the story because she didn't seem to understand half the things our characters were doing or saying. Elias, our light guy, said that he asked her if controversial relogious plays were good and she said there were a lot better plays than that kind. So maybe she didn't like the play's perspective of the Bible, which obviously shows how ignorant and shallow minded she is because Drummond makes the clear point that just because you believe in the Bible doesn't mean you can't accept modern thoughts and scientific studies. It does explain why she cut me off with "okay, okay, okay, okay, okay" and looking down at her notes when she had asked me why I put the Bible and Darwin's book side by side in the end. I don't think she wanted to accept that I do that to show that the two ideas are equal and should be side by side because they're both so powerful. Our other explanation for the snub was that she was just afraid. More explanation on how crappy and ghetto Laredo is: The savages throw things at us when we beat them. Nixon high school ( the most ghetto) throws rocks at our buses after we beat them in football games. In past OAP contests, when Eagle Pass wins, the people from Laredo get rowdy and I've heard of judges getting slapped or beaten because a school from out of town beat them at their own contest. The hosting school made it very clear that we were from out of town because they were so cold and rude to us like when announcing our awards they'd say it quietly while people were cheering for the person before us. And they kept pointing out that we weren't from Laredo, which they aren't supposed to do because the judge can be swayed if they know what school is performing and whatever. In whatever case, we came home bitter and angry because for 4th place, we were not the worst play there. In happier news, Alexander (the snobs) placed first and went to compete at Area in La Joya in the valley ( an even ghetto-er area, but La Joya is actually a good school) and they DID NOT ADVANCE TO REGIONALS :). I'm horrible, taking pleasure in their loss. United (okay they really didn't have a chance!) also went to Area and they didn't advance either. I think Alexander might have had a chance but since I generally don't like them at all, I'm glad they lost. I don't think we would have done entirely better than them, but we would have been good competition for Area. United advancing was just a total waste. Okay, moving on since this is really, really, super long, yesterday I directed my first LIVE TV show!! Okay so it wasn't the best ever, it was a school board meeting, it was still the my first live show. On top of that, it was the first live show EVER produced by the media technology department at our school. We got a lot of positive feedback and the few people that did tune in loved it. I felt so proud. Even though it was a snore fest, it was the first time I ever had to direct a show and not be able to stop or anything. There was no delay in the broadcast feed so it was going out on cable TV as we were filming it. It was a long 3 hours, but it was well worth it. That's something I don't think many other high school students can say they've done. I also got in the critiques for my music video for Alright that I sent to the Spindletop film fest and the critiques for Attack of the Life-Force Sucking Martian From Mars, which was about frickin' time because that thing was back in February! hehehehe. I think Alright might have aired on TV in Beaumont. Which people prolly threw beer cans at because I've been getting increasingly strong hate mail from people about my music, and all I can say is: KISS MY FUCKIN' ASS! None of you losers can rock as well as you say you do! And on top of that, I've never claimed to be the best fuckin' rocker out there! Yes some of my songs are bad, and yes I'm not amazing at playing guitar, and yes my voice isn't amazing either, but I like to do it and so I fuckin' will and that's fuckin' rock 'n roll to me. So again, KISS MY ASS and if any of you losers are reading this, then that shows how big of a fuckin' loser you are! You're sitting on your ass, wasting your fuckin' time, reading about my boring-ass life. So who's the fuckin' loser here? Me for doing what I fuckin' please? Or you for not having a fuckin' thing to do with your fuckin' life and time? And to all you who that does not apply to, if any of you, thank you for reading ;).

Okay, it's Tuesday night at 10:41. I'm sitting around to see if the 'rents want me to run to the store for them. Long boring story not even I care to repeat. Anyway, last week was a blur. We had our annual Battle of the Bands and it was Spring Fling week. Spring Fling was a total flop :(. Stu Co does that and I'm 2nd Vice (well practically 1st Vice since the real Vice President never shows up to the meetings and hasn't for a very long time). No one in our ghettos school participated in anything. Well hardly. I made myself in charge of Battle of the Bands since no one else was. Lori, for some strange reason because she's not really even in Stu Co anymore, was chair person for Spring Fling. I have new found respect for her. She really helped me pull off Battle of the Bands. It was an amazing success considering we did a horrible job advertising. We made $500 and the turnout was way better than the past 2 years. It was a bitch to pull off, though. It was basically Lori and me decorating the auditorium because I got little help from anyone else. I do thank the few other people who helped out here and there, but Lori really helped me and even though she had to leave early to go to church, she really made things easier for me. I really wish I could have played, but without a band and all, I settled for being an MC. It was really fun and some of the bands were pretty good, even though the technical aspect wasn't great. I'm glad I had some time off this weekend, but what sucks is that I didn't get to do much. I mostly just sat around or ran errands with my sister. I started working on this Godzilla meets the Power Rangers video for this week's show. I'm directing and it's sci fi themed. I just want to say that the new iMacs we got at school are CRAP! iMovie 3, i think, completely sucks! It took forever for me to edit my footage today >(. Everytime I clicked something, the stupid little colored wheel would come up on the mouse pointer and it'd go into almost a minute of loading. I swear to God it took an hour and a half for me to just do a couple of minutes of voice over narration and most of that time was spent waiting for the damn thing to load! I got soooo fuckin' frustrated and I didn't even finish. I still have to do some last minute transistions and add some music to the thing. It better damn well be worth it. On top of that, the show is tomorrow and I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow afternoon which cuts my time to do the show in half. So basically, I'm gonna tape the in studio part and then go back afterschool and piece the show together. That's gonna be a pain in the ass :(. But on a lighter note, I am going to Arlington for the Stu Co State Convention. That should be fun, it'll be 3 days from Thursday to Saturday and I think we get to go to Six Flags. I hope it rocks. We'll see.

Okay, things should be winding down now, but they're not and I've been extremely busy since I last wrote. The Stu Co State Convention was awesome. I ran into Cates and Jacob from summer camp and I took pix with them. I also ran into Aisha from summer camp but at the time I couldn't remember her name so I just passed her by and we exchanged "Hey"s even though she did add "Travis" to the end of that and I didn't add "Aisha" cos for some reason I was thinking her name was Trisha or something, hehehe. I felt bad about it because she remembered my name and I didn't even stop to chat or anything. I also saw Stephen, but I dunno if he saw me or anything and so I didn't talk to him. I was sad that I didn't get to see Jeff (my roommate from camp) or Chelsea (the girl I was convinced was perfect for me and who happened to be Jeff's best friend) because their school doesn't take seniors to the convention. But they're from Arlington where the convention was held and I was hoping they'd stop by and whatever, but they didn't. I had a lot of fun, but nowhere near as much fun as I did at summer camp. I miss my senior year :( it was over too quickly and I wish I had taken advantage of everything, especially Stu Co because I feel like I was a bad officer like I was lazy because we had such a horirble year. We also finally performed "Inherit the Wind" for the public and then we went to see the State One-Act Play contest. The first place play "Black Snow" was amazing! I was soooo happy for them! I loved their play! It was just awesome because it was so artsy and funny and awesome! Hehehehe. The 2nd and 3rd place plays were good but not top 3 in my mind, hehehe. Today was a horrible day where I was attacked by a bird and then I was just generally frustrated with everything, so I was miserable and on top of that, I didn't get to hang out with my friends and I made Oscar rent El Crimen De Padre Amaro and we didn't even get to watch it because we were having my little sister's b-day party at this pool and I was busy till about 9 and then I had to buy my mom a mother's day gift and so I really didn't get a chance till after 10:30 and Oscar didn't wanna come over and whatever since it would be 11 and he was just here yesterday till 2 chillin' with me. Anyway, I wasn't gonna do an entry but I was talking to Oscar online and he wanted company so he could finish writing some story and now he's ditching me to go hang out with Kristina and Lela. I'm going to bed now.

It's 1:05 A.M. Prom Night. I'm so pissed off. Well not pissed off really, but I'm in that post pissed off angsty phase. No it's not because prom sucked and I came home early, I didn't go to prom. I didn't think I'd regret it because I didn't and don't care that I missed it, I just feel a little regret because even though it might not have been tons of fun, it might have been a bit more enjoyable than the fuckin' day I've had. I had planned this anti-prom where oscar, kristina, robert and I would go to Del Rio and watch a movie and go bowling and basically just have fun to help us forget that we weren't going to prom. Well Rob's aunt died sometime this week so he wasn't here Friday and obviously wasn't going to be doing anything at all this weekend because he had the funeral to be at. So that brought things down to 3 people which wouldn't really work for bowling. Oscar and I decided to just go alone in his car but then his sister came down and borrowed his car and so we had to go in my shit-mobile that doesn't have a cd-player and unreliable A/C. So it was frickin' hot as we were leaving. Maybe less than 10 minutes out of Eagle Pass and Kristina calls wanting to know if we're going to Del Rio so I felt bad and we turned around to get her. When she said she needed a few minutes, I suspected she needed a few minutes to get dressed. So we get to her house and she says she needs 20 minutes. So we're sitting in my car, with hot air blowing from my vents and Oscar starts to feel bad and wants to go home. Kristina tells me she needs to wait for her aunt who was gonna give her money because she's broke. After a while of sitting in the heat, Oscar tells me to take him home. So we go to his house and he doesn't seem in the mood to leave anymore. As we check the showtimes for the movies online, I'm begging him to go because I don't want to go alone with Kristina. Somehow I convince him to go and as we're sitting around, Kristina calls and says she's ready and originally we had left around 5, now it's 6:30. We drive back to Kristina's to get her and we leave Eagle Pass. We decide to watch Identity and it's next showtime is at 9:50, but we get to Del Rio after 7:30 so we have a lot of time to kill. We go to eat at Cici's Pizza and this is where the trouble started. As usual, I don't know why, but when Kristina's around Oscar starts being an asshole to me, constantly picking on me and teasing me and it's okay sometimes, but sometimes it just gets annoying. Everytime I walk away they start laughing and whatever and when I come back, they stop and get quiet and it just annoyed the fuck out of me. And then they'd have private conversations and so I just sat and watched the damn Dallas game on TV. Around 9, we were getting ready to go kill time somewhere else and I decided to go to the restroom and as I went in, I got the strongest feeling they'd walk off and go hide and play the ditch game. Oscar and I have ESP so that's prolly where I picked it up. I started thinking of the times I did that to the "friends" I didn't really like and how mean that was and how bad I'd feel when people did it to me, thank God it was rare. When I come out, surprise, surprise, they're gone and my cell phone and the cd I had just bought are sitting on the table. I felt so fuckin' disappointed that they actually played that fuckin' childish game and so I looked around and didn't see them and I grabbed my stuff and headed out. As I left, I saw them sitting at another table by the window and I was gonna turn around and go back, but then I thought "Oh fuck that! I'm not gonna go back all 'Hey! Where did you guys run off to? Naughty, naughty!" I'm not a fuckin' idiot. I decided to just head off to somewhere else since the mall was closing. As I was walking away, I kept looking back to see if they were following me or anything and they weren't, so it pissed me off even more because it was like they didn't even care that I left. They didn't even call to say "Travis it was a joke, come back" Nothing. So I headed out towards the entrance of the movies and waited a bit and they never showed up, never called. I went over to my car, very intent on just coming back home and leaving them stranded in Del Rio, but that'd be too mean. So I drove around the parking lot and parked somewhere else. They were having a carnival in the old K-Mart parking lot so I went over there and walked around and looked at everything and they still hadn't called or come looking. I called Xareni and talked to her about what was happening at prom and then I called Chris and still Oscar and Kristina didn't call and I didn't see them looking for me. I sat on some steps and around 9:30, Oscar calls to ask where I'm at and I tell him I'm driving around, going back to Eagle Pass and I say that I'll see him tomorrow and he's just like, "okay". No "We're sorry, it was a joke" nothing. So now I have every intent to leave because it's not like they would care. A few minutes later, I see them walking in the parking lot and they go to my car and I hear them saying, "Okay he did come to the car" or something and they see me sititng on the stairs and I waved at Kristina and they both just kept walking, completely ignoring me. I called Oscar and I said, "Why did you guys just walk by me?" and he was like "who is this?" and I said "..Travis?" and he was like "Oh do I know a Travis" and I was like "Alright I'm leaving now" and he was all "Kristina there's this Travis who says he's leaving now!" and I just hung up and headed to my car. I drove around the parking lot intending to leave but I pussed out because I'm too nice of a guy to actually leave my friends stranded 50 miles from home. It's aroud 9:50 so I head on over to the movies and Oscar text messages me saying they're already inside if I want to join them. I don't want to so I sit in the back and while they're up front and I message him back telling him I thought they didn't want me around. I guess when he gets the message that's when they start looking for me and he saw me and went over to tell me to sit with them. After making him beg and give a weak apology I go to sit with them, not because I forgive them, but because I have to be okay with them since I'm driving them home. I know I overreacted a bit, but it does fuckin' hurt when your friends play stupid games like that and ruin your fuckin' night and then don't even have remoarse for it. When I dropped Oscar off he asked if we could talk about it later tonight and I'm currently ignoring his IMs because I want to get all this down first. I don't want to hear his apologies or anything until after I've explained the story because I know he's going to do what he does every fuckin' time he gets me pissed off. He's going to rationalize why he pissed me off and make it into such a sob story that I feel like a complete asshole for getting mad. Just like the time I filmed "Laundry Mat" and the time I wanted to make my perspective video and I don't want to feel bad about shit like this anymore. When someone does something to piss you off, you shouldn't have to feel bad for it. It's not your fault. Especially in this case. I didn't do anything to deserve being ditched or having my entire night ruined. The only thing that was able to salvage my night was the fact that Identity is a good movie, because if it sucked, I would be even more pissed off. Moral of the story here is, I should have gone to prom because if that sucked, I could be getting drunk off my ass right now at an after party.

It's Graduation Night at 3:23 AM! It's GRADUATION NIGHT! Can you believe it? My high school life is over. Everything about being a teenager is over. Well mostly since college doesn't involve the typical teen movie antics I've always been searching for. I feel....I dunno how I feel. I didn't get as emotional as I expected. It hasn't hit me that it's over. That I won't see all of the people that I know, all of the teachers I know, the surroundings I know. I know it but I don't feel it. I started getting emotional when the ceremony started, but then I fizzled out and got bored and my ass was sore and I wanted it to be over. I hope I got enough pictures of tonight. I felt so lost after the cermony because everyone was going to eat with their families and my family left me to be with my friends. Xareni went to eat with her family, Oscar went with his, Robert disappeared, and Lori had left also. Since they didn't let us take anything onto the field, I didn't have my cell phone and Lori's brother was holding it for me. She ended up taking it home so after the cermony I had to go over to her house to get it. Since I had no one to hang out with and I was really only invited to 2 parties tonight, Brenda Dickerson's and Paulo Valero's, I decided I'd just go to Paulo's and eat and wait till Oscar finished with his family and we could do something. But Lori invited me with her to Susy's party and so I went with her but we ended upg going to Xareni's house and eating pizza and then we left to find Fernie's party which was in Piedras and Lori drove my car and we couldn't find the party and we got lost and it was quite a thrilling hour we spent trying to get out of Mexico, hehehe. Then we came back and drove around looking for a different party and we went to Susy's and no one was there, then we passed by Paulo's and we didn't see anyone there either, and we ended up going to Marisol Alfaro's party for about half an hour. It was 2 so we went back to Lori's and sat on her front porch and talked for about an hour. I missed talking to Lori like that. We haven't been getting along so well and so talking to Lori and spending time with her was refreshing because Lori really is alot of fun. I had called Oscar but he didn't wanna come hang out with us. I feel bad because I know he probably drove around for a while and then watched a movie at home by himself. He's my best friend and he shouldn't have been doing that on graduation night. All in all it was a pretty dull night. I thought it'd be so much fun hopping from party to party but every party was dead. I'm having mine tomorrow and I hope it's a little fun. We'll see.

It's the end of my first week as a post graduate. This week has seemed much longer than it actually has been. Although I've been out almost every night doing something or other, I've almost run out of things to do in this town. Plus, I need a job and it's frustrating that the only place I can get one at is McDonald's. Anyway tomorrow I start my second year working for pork and beans for the Art Council's children's theater summer workshop. Last year the kids performed Alice in Wonderland and it was not a very pleasant experience and even though it's only 2 hours a day for 3 weeks, $100 and a free t-shirt aren't worth it. I'm going to try and spice things up this year. I'm gonna look for some games and whatever to make the time a lot more fun. I can't wait till summer orientation, which will be July 7th for me. Now I'm starting to think I should have signed up for session 2 because Lori went and she called me up Friday morning saying a lot of the classes are filling up like crazy. I'm not too scared though because I'll probably mostly be taking basics and I really doubt they would open fewer classes than the number of incoming freshmen, leaving students without the classes required for their first year. I might not get the most fun electives, but oh well. The electives I might be taking aren't really electives anyway because they're required for my major so I also doubt they would fill all those up by the 2nd out of 7 orientation sessions. To kill the time before I make the move to Austin, I want to record some more songs and finish one of the many novels I've started on, but I can't seem to find the inspiration. As far as the novels go, I know what I want to write, I just haven't been in the mood to do it. As far as my music goes, I've been very disenchanted with the whole thing especially after all the negative response I've gotten online. I've written several songs that I need to put music to, but everytime I pick up my guitar I just feel like it's almost pointless and I lose that desire to want to sit and work it all out. I've been working on some songs to record with my friend Mike. I'm hoping these songs sound awesome whenever we finally get to work on them. Hopefully that will give me the spark I need to continue. The new songs have a slightly different sound than After Hours and On the Rocks, at least I hope. I've been trying to apply all the music theory and stuff I learned in my music classes to writing them and I hope the finished product actually proves that yes I do know music and I'm not rythmically impaired and so forth. If anyone cares, I'm going for a type of Emo-White Stripes sound that's simplistic, emotional, and still rocking.

My summer just seems to be dragging on with absolutely no excitement whatsoever. I'm desperately in need of a change and it doesn't help that Mike's getting me all impatient about moving to Austin so I can join his band, hehehe. Being in an actual band that plays gigs makes me completely ecstatic! But until then, I'm stuck here play guitar for myself. Anyway, so far I've not heard back from the places I applied at and it's been a couple of weeks so I guess I won't be working at Blimpie, KB Toys, or Bealls :( in other words, BOYCOTT them! Hahahaha, just kidding....or am I? ;D McDonald's is my last option, but I doubt I'd get hired there either because now that we're almost in mid-summer, they've probably already hired everyone they're going to hire. Yes and it will piss me off soooo much when those other 3 places hire people from Mexico who couldn't understand or speak English if they're life depended on it. That pisses me off soooo much because I mean, hell what's the point of teaching us proper English at school if you don't have to speak English to get a non-fast food minimum wage job! Plus, I doubt I'd have gotten hired at KB Toys because they give extra employment credits to people on welfare, ex-cons who have been "rehabilitated", and veterans. Of course there wouldn't be too many veterans applying, but half the people in this ghetto-ass town are on welfare or were once in jail so good guys whose parents actually have jobs can't get hired there :( It's frustrating especially since my Dad knows everyone here and throws that in my face constantly saying that he can get me a job real easily, but has he? And you can't say that I haven't asked him either, because I've asked him to get me a job at places that I know he's friends with the manager and whatever and again, has he? The "job" at the children's theater workshop sucks ass especially since it's at the high school because it's like "I graduated, why am I still here?! Why am I still on this stage when I'm never gonna get to perform here again?!" It makes me feel really sad, mostly the stage part, hehehe. I'm going to miss acting and UIL and all the free and fun trips we got to take. Looking back, I regret skipping UIL meets because I was tired of traveling and whatever. I wish I could go back and take advantage of all that and actually have made the most out of it all. In other news, I'm finally getting braces :( I had wanted to get them while I was still in high school because I didn't want to go to college wearing braces, but my mother never "had time" to schedule an appointment and now the only reason she did was because the insurance won't cover me once I'm 19 and well I'll be 19 in a few months. Motivation, eh? Anyway this means that while I'm in Austin, coming down once a month to get my braces tightened will take time away from whatever I want to do there especially the band. Not to mention the fact that I might lose the voice that has helped stand out! Instead of being the speaker I am now, I'll prolly be drooling, spitting, and lose my ability to pronounce anything with an 's'! Ugh! I hate my life right now :(

I've had a terrible, no good, very bad day. Well not really but the way I feel right now would make you think that :( I was so bored all day. Chachi's at St. Mary's for her orientation so I didn't have her to hang out with, Lori was with other people all day (other girls and I didn't wanna be the only guy just chillin'), Rob went to Del Rio with his sister and I didn't wanna bug him when he got back and plus that'd be awkward with just me and Rob, and Oscar didn't wanna go to the movies with me because he wanted to stay home and watch movies and no I wasn't invited. So I went over to Lela's and had a boring ass time and I started to think about things and other things going on around me increased my frustrations and now I'm at home, sulking and working out trying to get rid of this feeling. Actually two songs fit my mood. 1. Screaming Infidelities by Dashboard Confessional and 2. (okay this one is wayyy out of left field but I heard it on the radio on the way home and somehow I actually could relate to the song) Sometimes by Britney Spears. Yes I've got some heart ache and it hurts :( On a good note, while I was bored watching "They" (sucks ass) I called up Chelsea and it was good for the few minutes I talked to her. The downside is, she's in Arlington and I'll prolly not be able to see her in forever so it's not like she exists :( I dunno if I'd want to be with her, but I'd want her around to cheer me up and I dunno, I just think she'd help me out in this situation. In other bad news, tomorrow I become a metal mouth :(

It's Saturday night and I'm sitting around a little bored. Last week I went to Odessa for the 4th because for some reason my parents wanted to go there to spend the holiday with my uncle Bob. It's not like there's much to do in Odessa anyway. Sunday afternoon we left Odessa and drove the 6 hours to San Antonio and dropped off my sister and then spent the night in Austin because I had Orientation on Monday at UT. Anyway, Monday morning was horrible because it's the rents, the kids, and my grandma following me around as I get checked in and whatever. Thank God they couldn't stay with me because after being the car with them all weekend, I was ready to hang myself. Sadly though, I wasn't enjoying myself on Monday or for the first half of Tuesday. I felt sick and lonely and I wanted to come home. But sometime Tuesday afternoon after I was falling asleep during my math test, I decided that I didn't care about being lonely and whatever because Austin is where I've wanted to be since I was a Freshman. Well I did want to go to Full Sail, then Emerson or Pratt, but UT had always been my logical choice and as I learned more about Austin life and everything, I'd been wanting to go there and by junior year my mind was made up. So I wasn't going to let myself not enjoy it. I started just hanging around on Guadalupe St. and a homeless man asked me for money and that was like a total cultural shock or whatever and the whole experience was amazing. I didn't have tons of fun, but I really liked it. Austin Rocks! My roommate was pretty cool. He was also in D/C and we both liked The Rules of Attraction so I got along pretty well with him. We didn't talk a whole lot, but I wouldn't mind hanging out with him again. I'm so stoked about seeing D/C in September! I definitely have to get tickets! In other news, I finished up my new short novel that I had like written one page for months ago and right now I'm trying to fix the ending cos something about it bugs me. Anyway it's called The Sick Sad World of Cruising and it's a novel I've wanted to write since I was like 15 and now I've actually done it! I think it's really different compared to the others because it's a lot darker and it's completely un-comedic. Hopefully I'll have it online in a day or two. I'm also actually starting on some new songs for the Forget the Awakening cd. This time I'm going to take more time and not be in a real rush to get it done. If I don't finish the CD before the end of summer, I won't fret. I've got all the time in the world as long as I finish it, hehehe. I've got so much to prove this time around because obviously people hated the last two cds. I really thought I was improving, but oh well. Anyway I'm working on this new song that's sort of based on typical drunken Mexican music and I might title it "No" because that's really all that's said in the chorus. It's sort of a boring song but it's got a Spanish bridge I'm trying to liven it up by adding more guitar parts if I can. I'm hoping to get a good reaction to it...

1. Everyone watches Boy Meets World. You just have to! It's awesome and I've watched it since I was a kid which brings me to wonder why the Disney Channel shows it like 20 times a day yet they rotate the same handful of episodes. This show was on ABC for years, they must have tons more episodes than what actually gets shown now. And why don't they ever show the original opening? You know the one with the little cartoon kid with the sun glasses and the globe rolls around and then he kicks it and whatever. Whatever happened to that? Has anyone else ever noticed how inconsitent the show is? As kids Cory really disliked Topenga because she was all weird and new agey. But in the later episodes, everyone reminisces about how they loved each other since they were like 5. What the hell?! She was weird and he didn't like her! And has anyone else ever noticed how Topenga's family changes everytime they're mentioned? First her dad is named Jebidiah and he's all weird and owns a new age book store and then in another episode God knows what his name is and he makes guitars. And everytime he's in an episode it's always a different actor playing him. Do you know how damaging that could be to a child?! It's worse than when they changed Darrens on Bewitched (I personally like the first alot more). Aside from that, in the early episodes, Topenga had a sister named Nebula and then later she's completely gone. No sister is ever mentioned again. That's very similar to Sean having an older sister who also disappears. Does anybody else notice how Sean descended into trailer trash? He didn't start out as being poor and whatever but that got added as the show went on and the stories he tells about his family also change from normal to redneck-ish. Eric also went from being your average teenager to being completely retarded. Did they change writers or something? Why does Mr. Feeny follow them from elementary to college? Who does that? What is wrong with this show and why do I find myself watching it all the frickin' time?! The world may never know...

2. I rewatched the MTV Movie Awards and is it just me or did Kirsten Dunst diss the kissing scene in Daredevil? I thought when she said "That kiss in Daredevil was totally biting us." she meant it was close behind the Spider-Man kiss as being an awesome kissing scene, so it seemed weird that Jennifer Garner looked offended. But this time I saw the clips and I thought, "Hmm...that's funny, they're both in the rain..." and then I heard Kirsten Dunst's speech again and then seeing Jennifer Garner's reaction all I could think was "Ohhh! That's not cool!" Hahahaha, yeah I'm a bit slow at this...

I'm so bored! Xareni's leaving to SA tomorrow morning. :( I'm not going back to Austin until next week. I'm hoping Lori will come back and then drive up with me because that'll make the drive a lot more interesting. I've been talking to my roommate, John, a lot and he's really cool and I can't wait to move up and hang out with him. I'm so tired of being bored here. I started a new short novel called "Dog Days" and it's sort of about how I'm feeling right now, but I'm not sure if it's turning out really good. It should be done before the end of the week. I'm also hoping to record my new song this week. I won't have a new demo recorded before I move to Austin but I guess that's ok because I don't feel I'm ready to record a second one, especially if I want it to sound way better than the last two. Mike and I are planning on working on some songs when I move. I think those will be awesome. I can't wait to get out of here. In happier news, Tuesday Oscar and I went to Del Rio to buy Dashboard's new cd, surprisingly FYE didn't have it >( but Wal-Mart did which sort of pissed us off because we didn't expect Wal-Mart to have it so we didn't bother looking here, but when we came back we checked and our Wal-Mart's cd section was a complete disaster and we didn't see it anywhere. Anyway the album rocks! I recommend that everyone get it because it's awesome!!

It's is 6 o' clock on a Saturday. I'm sitting in my dorm room, bored. I know I haven't written anything on here in a long while, but just in case you cared I'm now at UT in Austin and it rocks! I've had so much fun these past couple of weeks here. I hope the rest of my life here will be even better. I don't know what to talk about because everything has just been so cool and so many things have happened in just one rush. I did finally get tickets to see Dashboard Confessional at Stubb's! Yay! I can't wait to go. It's gonna be so much fun. Last night I went out with Lucerito and Alonzo (they're from Eagle Pass, too) and we went to Spiro's. It wasn't amazing or anything. I hope if I go again tonight I'll have more fun. I wanna check out Emo's. It's right next to Spiro's and last night there was a band there but I didn't go in but as we were leaving Spiro's the band was packing up to leave. So if they were anyone cool, hey I was like less than a foot away from them! I passed them as we walked back to our car! Oh my God! hahahaha. Anyway, John's got some pix of the room up on a website. I dunno for how much longer he'll keep 'em there. He may decide to delete them soon so go ahead and check them out now at http://www.pbase.com/hookem03. I'm so excited about everything in the future. I can't wait to get a camera in my hands again and to start filming stuff and hopefully this time it'll be stuff that's way better than anything I ever made on 57 South. They're starting up a new Film Institute here where professional filmmakers are gonna hire students to make movies here on campus. Within the next 3 years they're supposed to make 9 movies. 2 low budget and 1 "big" budget film a year. I hope I can get in on that action. Oh and in sad news I was rejected from the Round About Players, a comedic acting troupe here on campus. It's okay, though. I'm determined to get in now. I'll try again next semester and hopefully this time I'll get in and I'll be able to get back on stage and do some acting. I really don't care as what. I'd be okay with having a small part in a play. I just want the experience of the bigger theaters and I want to be able to build up and become way better as an actor. We'll see how that goes. Well I guess that's all for now.

Oh my God! I am soooo deaf out of my right ear now but it was soooo worth it! Dashboard rocked! Okay, not to take away credit from the other 3 opening bands, Vendetta Red was awesome, Brand New rocked, and MX/PX were....I couldn't enjoy them so much because it was real crowded to start off and everyone started moshing and pushing and shoving so that was a little hazardous. Anyway D/C rocked! I loved the show soooo much! This girl, Morgan, from my FIG was there too and I saw her but she stayed later than I did and actually got to meet Chris and take a pic with him and get his autograph! I'm soooo jealous! But next time....next time :) I can't wait till they come back! I actually got Oscar to come out here and go to the show :) that took some serious balls on his part, hehehe. Today's been a very tiring day. There is still so much going on and I wish I could go to the Austin City Limits Festival this weekend, well really just to see Ben Kweller and REM but I'm going back home for a dentist appointment. But it's okay. I'm still on a Dashboard high!

OH MY GOD! I LOVE AUSTIN! I LOVE UT! I JUST SAW THE ALBINO SQUIRREL! OH MY GOD! I am not shitting you, no joking, I SAW THE ALBINO SQUIRREL! It was outside of the Texas Exes Alumni Building. I was with 2 girls from my FIG, Ashley and Kelsey, and we saw it and it was like "whoa...." I was half expecting it to be glowing or something. So now that I've seen it, it's a sign. I should buy a lotto ticket. Lori said that it means I'll get an A on my next exam or the last one I tok, which I'll be finding out my grade for tonight. It soooo better be an A! Hehehehe I SAW THE ALBINO SQUIRREL! My roommie from orientation, David, was walking by and I yelled at him and told him to see it but I don't think he understood what I was talking about because he looked all confused and said something like "oh that's crazy man..." and walked off. Well I don't care because I SAW THE ALBINO SQUIRREL! And none of us had cameras so there is no documented proof, but the 3 of us saw it and so did David if he actually looked...I SAW THE ALBINO SQUIRREL!'

Wow, time flies. I can't believe the semester's almost over :( I haven't had time to make entries. Anyway, I turned 19 on Wednesday! Yay! Except, eh, whatever. There's nothing real special about turning 19. But it was fun. Lori organized this whole surprise thing for me at midnight on Tuesday. She dragged me over to the PCL to find a notebook :S I figured something was up, but I'm a dumbass who thought there'd be a surprise party at the library. Anyway, everyone was over here and they had cake and Lori had candy bags and stuff. It was awesome! :) John tooks pics and hopefully I'll get 'em soon so I can post 'em here. On Thursday I met my mentor. Her name is Elizabeth and she's from Venezuela. She seems really nice. I think I bored her though :( But hopefully things will be cool with us and it'll be fun. Last night I was hoping would be awesome, but it wasn't all that great :( I didn't have a costume so I went last minute down to Goodwill to find one. Everyone was there doing last minute costume shopping except most people seemed to be coming up with ideas and I couldn't think of anything cool! >( I was thinking of getting this black and red demon type outfit but it was like $15 and I just thought it'd be stupid to get something I'd only wear once and spend that much money on it. I'd rather get a CD. And the outfit was too similar to John's, he wore a red cape with black clothes and he painted his face like a skeleton, very cool. I'm gonna steal a pic from his webpage to add to mine, hehehe. And I found a white cape which was really cool and I was thinking of being Gandolf from Lord of the Rings, but then I'd need the white hair and beard and then white clothes underneath it. It was too much so I decided to go with my original cheap idea of being a super hero- TRAVIS! And so I bought this big black belt, some cool long white leather gloves, and a little cheap eye mask thing. Of course I'm an idiot, and I tried washing the white gloves so they'd be clean and I could dye them red (my costume was gonna be red and black since I was gonna use John's red cape. He wasn't gonna use it since he was going to see A Perfect Circle in SA) but they turned all yellow in the washer and I'm an even bigger idiot for putting them in the dryer where they shrank to the size of infant gloves! :( And my little mask was all crappy and it was also white and I was trying to paint it or cover it with construction paper and that sucked so I ended up just making one out of construction paper. I also had a big red T on my chest and I made a little T for the belt. I put red paint in my hair and made a faux-hawk and I was in business! It looked ok. I went down to 6th with the girls and they were all wearing togas so I was the oddball, but seeing all the cool people in costumes was fun. Hopefully I'll get some copies of the pix and have those up as well. Tonight we're going to another costume party, I think, but I don't think I'm wearing the TRAVIS costume again, hehehe. I think I'm gonna wear a toga since the girls are gonna do that again, hehehehe. But of course I gotta keep the faux-hawk, that was awesome :)

Boy, what a week it has been...I would have written something sooner, but I didn't have time. Okay let's start off with I got a 95 on my RTF test! Yay! Then I took a test on Thursday for Astronomy, found out yesterday I got 19/30 :\ my typical C. But afterwards I had a GREAT pick me up cos Robert Rodriguez was here to speak at the Austin City Limits Studio (it is so much smaller than I expected). But he is AWESOME! He was soooo cool! Very motivational and funny! I wish I had gotten like a copy of Spy Kids, or Desperado or something so he could have signed it. He was just sooo cool! Made me feel better after I knew I had bombed that Astronomy test. Then on Friday I took another test in Psychology and found out yesterday that I got a 90, I'm slowly gettin' better there! I also had gotten an interview for the Production Assistant job for Cheer Up, the movie they're filming on campus. Stupid interview...I had to go downtown to the Omni hotel (very posh) and it was a group interview where you stand up in front of everyone and talk about yourself. Not fun. Felt like a brag fest. And I met this girl who's an RTF senior and her grandparents live in Eagle Pass. She was nice until she started to short cut my hometown. I mean I might not have LOVED it, but hey it's MY hometown! She had no right to say anything since the most time she had prolly ever spent there was like a week once a year. Anyway, I haven't heard back from them which sucks and so I prolly didn't get the job. I had to work on my RTF paper which is due on Tuesday, I hope I get a good grade but it's only 7% of my grade so it's not real big. This morning I got a call from the casting people for Cheer Up! Yay! They asked me to be in a classroom scene but it's the Saturday of Thanksgiving and I won't be here :( I'll be off prolly in Odessa :\ Damn 6 hour drive. So I told the lady I couldn't do it and she said they also had another scene I could be in but it's an all night thing from like 3 in the afternoon till like 4 in the morning BUT they're blowing up a van! Yay! I'm excited about that! Of course I know I said I would do that! That is gonna be awesome! I can't wait! And this weekend we'll prolly go to the stadium where they're filming a game scene for the movie and it should be fun cos they're giving out prizes and what not. Hopefully I'll hear from them for the PA job so I'll get paid for being there this weekend, but if I don't, eh that gives me a weekend and some fun standing around and whatever, hehehehe.

Okay first off, some observations: It has been a whole month since I last made an entry. It's almost a year since I started writing entries here! lol Anyway on that subject, I decided to start over on a clean slate for next year so I'll have all this stuff saved on a second page and all new entries on the thoughts page. This is also my first entry on my brand spankin' new 17 inch iMac! Yay! I love it! And I can't wait to edit movies and burn DVDs on it! Anyway, I'm back in EP, for almost a week now. I hate it. I miss Austin. I miss UT. I'm glad I've gotten to see my friends again. I missed Xareni, Oscar, and Robert. I'm glad I got to hang out with them this weekend. I'm applying to be a substitute teacher for the holidays, can't seem to finish that damn application though, it is the most complicated crap EVER! I went to the high school today to visit Flores and Fuentes and get them to fill out reference sheets for my application. It was weird. It felt so odd being there again but not having my friends there. I mean I recognized some of the kids but it's not like I really hung out with them or anything. I think that was the downside to having split campuses. You never really grew attached to the other grade levels cos they wouldn't go to the same school as you all the time. I knew more of the '02 class than the '04 class. Anyway there are like 30 kids in Media Tech and I stopped by to see Fuentes, thinking he'd miss me, tell me how crappy the show is without me, yadda yadda, but nah that didn't happen. He seemed happy to see me, but Fuentes always seems happy. The room was packed with kids and they were all wanting cameras so I didn't get to talk to him much. I was telling him about Cheer Up and the scenes I was in and everything. I miss all the stuff I used to do in high school. I miss Stu Co, Drama Club, Media Tech. I feel like I haven't accomplished so much at college. I haven't been in a play, I tried out for one acting troupe and got rejected and that was that. I haven't been involved much in UFA and I haven't made a single film. I need to get on the ball. I want things to happen and maybe they are happening at a reasonable pace but I miss constantly being busy like I was in high school. I need to do something. I'm hating all this free time at home. I'm just sitting around wasting my time. I've been working on some songs for the new demo but I dunno how those are coming along. I'm getting frustrated with everything. I seriously just need to start doing something. Writing or filming. I'm gonna start writing journals for this College Board website called MyRoad.com or something like that, I forget. I wonder what my journals will be like. They're supposed to be focused on the stuff that I do at college that has to deal wtih my career and academic goals. I need to start doing things that will make my life more meaningful and worth reading for people. Oh, and thanx if you're reading this. :P