I’m sick and tired of environmentalists blaming global warming on the United States as if we’re the only country in the world contributing to it.

People like to say, “Oh, Americans drive lots of SUVs and use lots of energy. They’re ripping holes in the ozone layer and they’re increasing temperatures around the world.” This is 100% BS.

Wake-up call, folks: Global warming is nothing new. There have only been, oh, I don’t know, 6 ice ages before this as a result of global warming. There was global warming long before humans built cities and skyscrapers and oil wells. It’s part of the Earth’s cycle. The temperatures get really hot, then the planet freezes over, then it gets back to normal. Repeat. Humans may be helping global warming along, but it’s not entirely our fault. Pretending like it’s completely the fault of humans is stupid.

Americans drive SUVs and use lots of energy. Does that mean that people in other countries don’t do those things? No. It’s not America’s fault that global warming is being accelerated. If you blame us, you also have to blame other countries. Saying, “America did it!” is ridiculous. America did lots of things, but so did you, rest of the world.

America may be home to big cities and oil wells. But doesn’t Europe have lots of big cities? Doesn’t Asia have lots of oil wells? People like to say that America ignores the rest of the world, but so are those who blame America for global warming. You don’t ever hear, “Asia is having a massive effect on global warming”.

I’m not saying that global warming is not present. It’s ALWAYS been present, ever since the Earth came to be. It makes the world really hot, and then it makes it really cold. Nothing causes it. Things can speed it up, but not cause it. Blaming America for global warming is like blaming Neanderthals from ages ago for the ice age. We have an effect on the world, but so does everything else. Look at the whole puzzle, and not just the big pieces.

I have extremely large feet.

When I was 10, I could wear a US women’s size 8 and a half. My classmates would make fun of me by stepping on my toes and then saying, “Sorry, but it was unavoidable”. I hated my feet. They were enormous.

Oh, who the hell am I kidding, “were enormous”? They still are. I’m 15 now and I can wear a US men’s size 12. I don’t have any gripes about the shoe selection - I prefer tennis shoes to strappy sandals, so my large feet mean nothing in terms of sacrificing style.

Unfortunately, I’m due in court in two weeks for a mock trial competition (I’m an attorney). That means no jeans, no men’s shirts, no Yankees hat, and no tennis shoes. I have to put my hair up, wear a pantsuit, and heels. Now, I never put my hair up, but I could probably live with doing so. I’ve never worn a pantsuit, but I could probably live with wearing one. But heels… yikes.

The facts are these: I have large feet, I have to wear men’s shoes, soon I will have to wear heels, and they don’t make men’s heels. Yesterday, when I went to Ross to buy my suit, I took a glance at the heels. They had a section for women’s sizes 10 and up. Yeah, 10 and up… sure. Half of the shoes in that aisle were baby shoes that somebody probably threw in there as a joke. Most of those remaining wouldn’t go with my suit. They had a few heels that fit my feet, but they cost more than I could afford.

In the end, I just got boots. I hate that word, boots. It reminds me of being 4 and wearing rubber rain booties around the kindergarten campus. But I guess that’s what they’re called, boots. So I’ll just say boots. The boots come halfway up my calves and have like a 3 inch heel. I have never worn heels voluntarily. I do not know how to walk in heels. Thank goodness I’ll be sitting down in court most of the time.

In an attempt to get used to walking in heels, I’ve started wearing them wherever I go. Today I got my heel stuck in a crack on the porch, I rolled across some gravel, and I sunk 2 inches into the grass. I suppose eventually I’ll get used to heels, but I will always prefer men’s tennis shoes.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What’s your shoe size? What style of shoe do you like wearing the most?

I think that people say “I’m sorry” way too much these days.

Take, for example, when they give their opinion. “I’m sorry, but…” BUT NOTHING. It’s your opinion. It’s not a crime to have one. Don’t apologize for it. Check this out. Here’s my opinion.

Literary analysis is a complete and utter waste of time.

Am I going to apologize for that? No. It’s the truth, at least in my mind, and I shouldn’t have to say I’m sorry for thinking so. Nobody else should have to, either. It’s not your problem if you offend someone. Maybe the other person needs to lighten up.

And then people say that they’re sorry when they’re talking to somebody about a loss they’ve had. “I’m sorry that your husband died.” Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything! You didn’t kill him, so you have nothing to be sorry for. You can be upset, and you can be saddened, but you can’t be sorry if it’s not your fault.

Finally, people say they’re sorry when they do something small, like step on somebody’s toe or when they knock over someone’s book. It would be proper to say sorry - if you mean it. If you don’t care whether or not you bumped into someone, don’t say “sorry” half-assedly. Most people can tell when you’re not actually sorry, and when they figure it out, you look like an insincere dick. At least if you keep your mouth shut, you only look like a dick, not an insincere one.

In short: Stop saying sorry when you don’t mean it, and make sure you say it in the right context. “I’m sorry” is an apology, so only say it when you’re apologizing for something you’ve actually done wrong.

For once in my life, I’m going to stop complaining about what is wrong with the world and start complaining about what is wrong with my life.

No, none of that “I’m fat and hideous and today my boyfriend of 3 hours dumped me because I’m fat and hideous” BS. This goes deeper than that. It goes into my brain. Wow, that’s so deep.

See, lately I’ve been looking at scholarship opportunities. Half of the scholarships I don’t qualify for because I don’t have a GPA (my school simply does pass-or-no-pass, none of that letter grade stuff). Another eighth I don’t qualify for because I am not of the proper race (where’s the white people scholarships, people?). Another fourth I don’t qualify for because I do no community service or any of that. I would, but no place around here will hire a kid my age, even if it’s not for paid work. I call BS on this in addition to the “fat and hideous” stuff.

That leaves an eighth of all available scholarships available that I can apply for. I have no interest in writing an essay about a cure for poverty, because my family is nearing it as it is, and if I had an idea for a cure for it, you’d be damn sure I would be doing it, not writing about it. Those remaining that I qualify for? There’s maybe 5 of them. I applied for those yesterday. Hoping for a response.

So what is wrong with scholarships? In principle, nothing. Free money to go live across the country and hang out on beautifully landscaped college campuses and eat ramen noodles. But in practice?

1. There aren’t any scholarships for white people. Black people, sure. Asian people, sure. Hispanics? Why not? But are there any German people scholarships? Any Irish people scholarships? Surely there’s an Italian people scholarship. No? Come on, scholarship people. You’re trying to make it easier on those who have endured racism in the past, but now you’re putting us white people through racism.
2. Many scholarships require you to have done community service/volunteer work. Many people have access to such opportunities. I do not. There ain’t a market for teenager work around here, volunteer or not. It’s not my fault, are you going to deny me free money because of it?

Actually, that’s all I can think of. But both of those things are limiting my options. When I grow up, I’m going to invent a scholarship for white people with limited opportunities. I’m going to help Katies everywhere go to their dream school (or at the very least, the community college down the street). How will I fund this? I don’t know. Rob a bank?

Woke up this morning
To find that I couldn’t see.
So I went to the bathroom
To figure out what was wrong with me.
I looked in the mirror -
My eye was swelled and puffy.
I was horribly upset;
I felt like I had been stung by a bee.

As you probably know now, I awoke this morning with an eye so swollen, I couldn’t see out of it. I could’ve added another rhyming verse to those blues since I had an allergy, but I didn’t want to. I can see now, just so you know.

I really need to do something. I’ve spent the past three weeks doing nothing, and it sucks. Today I had an excuse for not doing anything - I couldn’t see. But my inactivity recently had not been because of an injury - it’s been because I’m too lazy to get out of bed.

I really need to start applying for scholarships and stuff. I want to go to college right after I graduate from high school, and right now I have $15 towards tuition. The $15 is sitting in my wallet, so there’s no guarantee it’ll be there tomorrow. This time tomorrow, I could have no dollars towards my tuition. Isn’t that grand?

The thing with scholarships is you have to do stuff to get them. And frankly, I’m not good at stuff. I’m good at complaining and sleeping for unnaturally long periods of time, but I haven’t been able to find anyone willing to pay me to do those things. I can’t “explain how I show leadership in my community in 500 words or less”, because I don’t show leadership in my community. I blame a lack of reliable transportation and apathy.

I now fit into a size 12 1/2 men’s shoe. I thought Japanese people were supposed to have small feet? Maybe it’s my more prominent blood coming through. Do German people have large feet?

I’m off to go sleep. I got woken up at 10 AM today - I have three lost hours of sleep to regain.

Recently I guess there’s been some technical difficulties with my server, so the site’s been down. It’s back now, obviously. There’s a new layout too. Can you tell?

A lot of the site is out of date - most of it is from last year! Gotcha, didn’t I? It’s only the 9th of January. I’m good.

I’ve done absolutely nothing over the past few days. I hung out with my duck, watched Family Guy reruns, and repaired my computer. What was that last thing you said, Katie? Repaired your computer?

So basically my sister used my computer to play a game and download stuff. I realize now that allowing her to do this was a huge mistake. Not only did her game eat up major bandwidth, but she downloaded some kind of virus and my computer started crashing randomly. By the time I got rid of the virus, parts of the computer were permanently damaged (or something) and I had to repair it myself. The day I let some 40-something who lives in his mother’s basement fiddle with my computer is the day my duck stops trying to eat me.

I pushed a couple of buttons and everything was fine. Oh, and my computer thinks it’s November 15, 2007. I didn’t think that system restore could do that.

Frick, this was supposed to be ready by new year’s, but I’m lazy and there were technical difficulties that prevented it from being released.

It’s here: New Layout

Does it look okay? Are there any margin problems in different browsers? Let me know and hopefully I can get it up by Tuesday.

I’ve noticed that all I do on this blog is complain. Oh well, I’d rather read complaints and rants than “Oh, I didn’t do much today… I ate pancakes for breakfast and I like hot guyz”.

So basically I’m having a lot of thoughts about art. Thoughts about what I hate about today’s art, thoughts about how to better my own art, and even thoughts about that time my art was stolen from a gallery. Because I have brilliant thoughts, I’m posting some of them here. The topic? Art, of course.

Let’s kick things off with photography. I don’t do much photography anymore, but I’ve looked at lots of it on art sites. The most popular photos are heavily edited - thrown through 14 billion Photoshop filters and such to alter the colors. I believe that if you’re a good photographer, your pictures can look good without having to be colorized and such. Photography is capturing a moment in time, but what most “photographers” are doing these days is capturing a moment in time, loading it into Photoshop, and editing it to the point where the sky is brown and the grass is blue. I don’t think that this is photography. This is taking a photo and screwing with it.

“Anime” art has never been something I’ve been fond of. Before you go off saying “Not all anime involves big eyes!”, consider how much of your energy (and mine) it would save to just keep your mouth shut. I know that not all anime art involves big eyes. That doesn’t make me like it any more. Either the people in the drawings are super-short with a squished face and over-exaggerated features or they’re 12 miles tall with out-of-proportion legs, a pointy chin, and crazy clothes and hair. Lots of kiddies seem to be drawing anime in Paint and posting their drawings online. If I see one more crappily-shaded “cutesy” girl with a frilly dress, I will not be happy.

Yet if I tell these anime artists that they need to work on this-and-this, they will almost always retort with “Oh, but that’s my style“. This actually applies to most artists, not just anime artists. “That’s my style” is the worst excuse anybody can use. It’s another way to say “I don’t want to/am too narrow-minded to/am incapable of attempting to experiment with my art”. Nobody is saying that you need to abandon your “style”, whatever that may be, but by using style as an excuse to not try new things, you’re simply saying that you’re too stubborn to. It’s good to have some kind of trait in your art that people can use to identify you, but a good artist can break away from a full-on style every once in a while.

I don’t like a majority of the art classes I’ve been in. Why? Because there were requirements for pieces. Not quality - quantity. The teachers say that this is so that they can grade me well. I say it’s bullshit. I cannot produce 20 pieces in 3 months. Art takes time for me. If you want 20 crap doodles of a cat, then fine, I can do that. If you want 20 quality pieces, screw you. Give me a year and maybe I’ll have them for you. Maybe.

The way I do my art is complicated. I do several sketches, and those take about 2 days altogether. Then I begin the actual pencil outline, and that’s 5 days, at least. Then I do detail work… eh, 3 days. Then I shade - 7 days. Then I go over the pencil with charcoal, graphite, or pen - another three weeks. Depending on my mood, I’ll either finish it off or scan it into the computer to digital-ize it. If I finish it there, that’s a good 5 or 6 weeks for one piece. If not, it’s another month or so to get it done on the computer.

Now for my art needs. A good artist can know where there is room to improve. I am a good artist. I need to think before I start painting on a canvas. I’ve ruined so many canvases because I threw splats of paint onto them before I even knew what to paint. In fact, I have ruined 20 canvases in the past month using this method. I should get it patented. I also need to get enough pieces for a portfolio. I want to apply for scholarships and maybe (I haven’t decided yet) to art school. I need to get to work on the scholarship thing. At the rate I’m earning money, I’ll need to save for 45 years to pay for tuition. I also need to get art materials (ha, with what money?). I need pastels, more blending stumps, Bristol board, and new brush pens.

About that time my drawing got stolen from a gallery… it was a school exhibition, and apparently somebody came, ripped my piece from the wall, and made off with it - during school hours. So much for fricking school security. The police were called in, and my art teacher at the time addressed the officer. He asked me how much the piece was worth. I had worked for 2 months on it, so I said “$200″, taking into account the cost of the materials, the time spent on it, and personal damages from having it stolen. I stayed at the scene, thinking that I should since my art had been taken. I got shooed away, and I never got jack back. Fuck you, thief. Hope you’re enjoying my self portrait, because I sure as hell ain’t.

I have a bunch of papers to type up before the 11th. I could probably finish them all in one day if I put my mind to it, but that’s the thing - I don’t want to put my mind to it. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s hard work, or if it’s because I’m just lazy, but I can’t bring myself to do any of the work. It’s sending me into a bit of a panic even though I’ve got six more days to do it. It’s frustrating beyond belief.

So in other news, absolutely nothing. I’ve been sleeping for 20 hours a day. Nothing quite like waking from a long sleep only to wander into the living room and lie down again.

Lately I’ve been hanging around Deviantart, hoping to find some nice poetry to read.

Who the hell was I kidding? I’ve found maybe 3 pieces I enjoy, and the rest are crap. Here’s why I hate the vast majority of today’s poetry. Note: Examples are written by me.

“I miss someone WAAAHH” ≠Poetry
When I look at you I cry
Because you left me in the night
With nothing but my tears to keep me company

Now, what’s wrong with this bit? It’s just somebody’s feelings put into verse. I generally hate it when poetry discusses crying in an obvious way (”a wave crashes out of my eyes”, “I taste salt in my sobbing mouth”, “I am crying”) because it’s boring. I don’t care how hard you are crying or how much you miss somebody. If you’re not going to put a semi-original spin on it, don’t write it. Save it for your diary.

Random Spacing = Headaches
The T O T A L I T Y of the situation
Is S T U N N I N G
to M E

I see a word as a family of letters. When the letters are spaced out like this, it screams “dysfunctional family” - or maybe “dysfunctional keyboard”. There is no reason why there needs to be a space between every letter. It doesn’t add to the meaning, although it does add to my headache.
P.S. - The totality of the situation is stunning? As opposed to what, the part of the situation is stunning? Please.

Rhyme Time = Groan, Moan
When I saw your face today
I wanted you to go away
Because see u broke my heart
I think u tore it apart

Wow, “cry” and “die” rhyme well? Brush up your Swedish, you might win a Nobel! I’m being sarcastic, in case you can’t tell. Obvious rhymes make a poem sound like hell. One of the reasons I’m not inclined towards rhyming poetry is because the rhymes are rarely original. Chances are, if it rhymes, Dr. Seuss did it first.

Inconsistencies = WTF
I miss u so much
I wish u’d come home
U broke my heart
I hope u stay gone

So first you miss him and then 2 lines later you don’t? Was there any thought put into this poem at all? Did you write whilst you were intoxicated? I get the mixed emotions thing, but most of the time there’s no segue between the loving and the hating in poetry. Abrupt changes throw me off, and I don’t like being thrown off.

OMG I read it out loud so it must be classified as “Spoken Word” = Dumbass much?

This one has no example because it’s more of a writer’s trait that I hate, versus a poetic trait that I hate. Poets tend to say, “Oh, this poem is spoken word” just because they read it out loud. Was the poem written with the intention of being spoken? Was it spoken, in part or in whole, before being written down? No? Then it shouldn’t be classified as spoken word. Spoken word is rap, hip-hop, or slam poetry, NOT your woeful poem that was spoken after being read.

Big Words = “Do you even know what those words mean?”
A quasi-superficial entity illuminated,
She dwelt lethargically, totemic, yet risqué
in the impermeable compartment

So you flipped through the dictionary, put your finger on a random word, and repeated. Such talent you have. You do NOT know what those words mean. Even I do not know what those words mean, and I’m a girl who loves words and knows thousands and thousands of them. Is this poem going to be read by members of Mensa? No? Then stop trying to impress them with your nonsense.

“I wrote a sonnet” ≠You are smart

This too has no example, since it is more of a writer thing than a poem thing. People like to write sonnets because I guess Shakespeare is cool now. I won’t say that the sonnet is dead, but the good sonnet is nearing extinction. The sonnets these days are often fractured - every other line rhyming means nothing if the syllable count isn’t there. And the sonnet offers a set place for bad rhymes (see “Rhyme Time = Groan, Moan). Do the good sonnets still exist?

I’m not picking on any one poet. Maybe I made fun of Shakespeare a little bit, and perhaps I took a peek at one of my friend’s poems as reference, but this is more about general writers than any specific one. I don’t write poetry very much anymore, but I do read it often, and I know crap when I read it. And a majority of writing today is crap.