Christmas Books

Hey y'all. Something amazing has happened. I finally finished my book.
I started reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in October. It was really interesting to read the original stories about Sherlock because he is so popular in our culture today. As far as I can tell, the modern adaptions of Sherlock are still very true to his character. I will say that walking in to Sherlock Holmes I did not know that each book was just a collection of stories. I don't have a particular enjoyment for mysteries, as this book has helped me realize. But with effort, these stories were really interesting to me. It was super exciting for me when I started to figure one out before the solution was revealed, because I am usually not one to do that. I could have read another book in this series if I had wanted to, but since I barely had tolerance to finish this book, I doubted I would have the patience to finish another. So this is where my adventures with Sherlock Holmes end for now. The stories were actually really beautiful, though. If you'd like to read my full review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes you can do it here.
Now a lot of you probably read the title of this post and thought, "Wow. Really? Liz, you're reading more Christmas books?" Is there anything worse to read? Not because Christmas is bad, because Christmas is beautiful. But despite the beauty of such a holiday, it's hard to find literature as cheesy and low quality as Christmas books. And yet I'm reading more? Well, yeah, I guess so. But don't be so quick to judge. I am currently going through a small classic literature phase, I guess. Ever heard of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Yeah, little do most people know (including me until awhile ago) that is the first book in a series of other Christmas stories by that man. That is what I will be reading next! Everyone knows A Christmas Carol, and that as far as stories go is pretty beautiful. I can only imagine Dickens's other books on the subject can be the same. I'll let you all know how this goes!
Love ya, mean it!
--Lizzo

National Squad Day!

 This is all going to sound really dumb. Heck, it probably is.
In the reality of the thing I don't think I actually want to publish any of this. I don't like being sad. That is in general not a fun thing. But I don't know, I think it had to be done.
So, I've thought about, like, a million different ways to write this. And I feel pretty good right now, plus I think I've finally decided what to say. So I better write this fast.
So, I have a squad, right? Everyone needs a squad; they're the best friends I've ever had. It consists of me, Kyle, Carter, Gwen, and Shanny. You guys know of Kyle and Carter from the Kyle and da Boys Day post, but you need to know Gwen and Shanny! Because they're pretty Shantastic. (Sadly don't have a cute pun for Gwen's name.)

Gwen is my true love and she loves music. She's also my cool aunt. She likes henna and pink is her favorite color. One time I got hit by a car and she sang "Part of Your World" for me because that's what I wanted from her for my birthday.

Shanny has gained a recent enjoyment of performing, which makes me pretty happy. If she's not in the choir room she's probably helping with one of the other million and five clubs that she's in. She loves yellow sunshine.
So I have to publish this post early because I'm going to be at girls camp for the rest of the week. But the ninth of June is National Squad Day, and my squad deserves some love! So here's an early post for some of my favorite humans.
Alright, so this is the trickier part. I wanted to thank my people for being awesome, and so I was gonna do that. But I realized if I did that, a lot of the things I wrote wouldn't make sense. I'm not going to go into the entirety of the dark details of the past few months, because that is pointless and some of those things you guys don't need to know and to be honest what's done is done. I keep trying to explain things that don't need explaining. I keep trying to apologize for things that everyone just wants me to forget about. Sometimes I want to forget too. But I don't need to say sorry for things that everyone is already aware of. I've been forgiven and everyone loves me still so it's okay, and I'm an insane amount of grateful for that. But the point is instead of going to either of those extremes, I'm going to be honest with you guys, but I'm going to tell it in a more positive light, because usually when I want to talk about how dark it was I'm just getting down on myself and feeling super low again, so it's no problem.
Awhile ago I did write a post about the outcome of my mental downfall and I still will not deny my social anxiety. It was a crazy amount of real, and I've been showing symptoms of that since long before I learned about it, because the thing about mental disorders is most of them aren't that severe; people just think it's that way because the word "disorder" sounds scary and throws us off even when the condition is not that bad. It's not the first time my mental health has gotten worse, it's just the first time it's gotten this bad. Sometimes I wonder how it got so bad and then I realize that I'm a teenager which will cause the chemicals in my body to become off balance at times, which would make me have a period of time where my anxiety attacks are a lot worse and where I in general feel a lot suckier. So what happened was not actually bad, it was pretty normal for a mental abnormalcy to get worse considering everything. But that's beside the point. When I wrote that post for you guys a few months ago I didn't tell you all how everything started, and I think for the sake of this post I probably should start at the beginning.
And you see, the thing is it's hard to tell how it happened because it all seems to blend together. One day you feel low, then the next thing you know you're doing things you never would've believed you'd fall to. So what I'm saying is the timeline for some of these occurrences might be kind of difficult. Oh well, I'll do my best.
I remember the day it happened, I remember what we were doing and the reason I noticed something was wrong, and I remember how worried everyone was because I was really off. You guys don't need to know the details of that night, but I remember that it was the day things started being weird. But it wasn't a big deal, because I figured bad days happen to everybody, because they do. So I figured the next day would be better. It was better; it's not like good days stopped existing. But the week after that was really weird because I had two breakdowns during school that week and everyone was asking what was wrong and I couldn't tell them because it is not socially acceptable to cry just because you don't feel good; what do you even say to that? I remember Gwen and Shanny hugging me and being really worried; I remember Carter messaging me later that day to make sure I was okay. Yeah, I was okay.
But I treated those days the same. Bad days happen to everyone, so it was fine. But after a few weeks of feeling consistently awful I was starting to wonder when it would stop, feeling terrible about everything in the world and nothing at all, and hating myself for all the conflict I had about myself in my mind. And one day that I really broke. My gosh, that day sucked.
Sure, those days weren't awesome. But my squad was super supportive of me and how much I didn't have my life figured out. I remember one day when I finally confessed to Carter what was happening in my head and later that night he and Shanny took me to Barnes & Noble and Yogurtland. When did I get so blessed?
Okay, that was all fine. People feel low. People get lonely. No big deal. And then the anxiety attacks started happening. And they usually weren't that bad; many were just internal, and when they were worse I was usually by myself. And then one day at school I broke really bad. If I had ever been that scared in my life, it had at least been awhile since I've been that terrified. I remember how it started and how it escalated and how it felt and what I had to do after and it's still scary just to think about. I thought that was a one-time thing. Well, at least I never had one that bad again. But anxiety attacks became more public and more frequent. That was really bad for me, because every time I cried I would get really tired, so instead of doing homework or anything productive at all I would just lie down and sleep all day. To be honest, it really wasn't working all the times that I made myself say that I was okay even when I wasn't.
But even though that was a hard adjustment and it took a really long time to learn how to control them, even that was okay. Because my people were there. Sometimes I can't believe how supportive these people are to me. I am so lucky to have friends that have been with me through all my inconsistency. That was all fine. Things really started to suck when I shut down entirely.
I remember what happened. I felt insecure about something. No big deal; everyone feels insecure. But I guess I just kept letting things about myself get to me, and eventually I was almost entirely convinced that I was now a burden to my friends and they didn't want me anymore. You know you've reached a low point when you apologize to your friends for talking to them. How did I go from being so effortlessly happy to that?
The worst part is it happened so slowly that it almost became normal and I can barely define how it happened. First everything was fine, and then I started being cautious around them, then I just sat there silently, and then there was even a day where I avoided them. That is the lowest day I've had in my life. I legitimately just started isolating myself from my best friends. It makes me want to die just thinking about it.
It started affecting my whole life. I wanted to be asleep all the time. I started eating a lot. And slowly I started listening to music all the time. I have always noticed that people with mental instability are often also people that drown themselves in music. It started becoming unhealthy and I didn't even realize it was a problem. Hopefully that explains my recent obsessions with Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Newsies, and Bonnie and Clyde. Haha, Carter once asked me how I could stand just listening to music on our bus ride to San Francisco without getting bored. Haha, well, that's how. I listened to feel something other than what I was feeling, or sometimes I was feeling too much so I listened to the music to numb everything. I can't even count how many times in a row I've listened to "A Million Miles Away", "Proud of Your Boy", "If Only", and "Letter from the Refuge".
When I got lonely I would scroll endlessly on Facebook, because somewhere my mind was grasping at the idea that those illusions of people would make me happy. They didn't. Luckily now I have certain times a day I'll even let myself look at social media. It works a lot better for me.
But guys, that's the terrible thing. Is I was lonely every single day. But I was convinced that my friends didn't care about me anymore, and so I just... didn't? Shanny would try to talk to me and I made a much lesser attempt to talk back; Carter would ask me if I was okay and I would shrug; Gwen would be talking to me and half of what she said would go over my head; Kyle would see that I was off and try to make me feel better and I would be generally unresponsive. Sometimes I even tried to reach out to them because in the reality of the thing I missed them so much. But it was like I had forgotten how to reach out to my friends. Because sometimes I tried, but I was so terrified that they didn't want me that my attempts were useless. My anxiety got so bad that every day my body would go numb, my shoulders were so tense that they became extremely painful. Everything sucked back when I let my life get out of control and was convinced that my best friends didn't love me anymore.
My mom is the hero of this story. She talked to me about how unhealthy my life had gotten and that I needed to do something. I really wanted my friends back. I knew that they loved me a lot. I knew that. I remember the day I decided I was going to stop worrying about all the things that made me feel insecure. It was the day of our choir's spring concert.  I was going to go there and make a real effort to make things as normal and joyous as they used to be, to really be a friend to my friends, to be happy, which is the reason they loved me before I went crazy. And then I got real scared.
Because I was pretty sure with the way I had been the past few months that I had ruined every relationship I have. What if everyone thought I was weird, acting like everything was fine when I had been a jerk to them for so long? I was pretty sure I had lost all my friends, which was my greatest fear, and it was my own fault. That was terrifying, but I was going to try to be myself anyway.
It worked, really well. I made it my main goal every day after that to try to include myself in my squad's lives. At first it was really hard. I was told to be myself, but the only thing I was certain of about myself at that point was that I wanted my friends back. But I told myself to just keep trying; and eventually I would feel like myself again, and eventually my body would stop going numb. Within a few days, I realized how defined I had become as a person again. I was actually an individual, instead of just something that was alive. The next week, my body wasn't numb anymore. I had rebuilt my relationships with my best friends. That makes me so happy to think about. Miracles happen.
But the point is, these people never left. Even when I did. Which is what makes you all the realest friends I've ever had, because you didn't give up on me when I went crazy. (Even though Shanny says she doesn't think I'm crazy.) I still have severely anxious moments, but I let these people help me now. (Which probably sucks for you guys, but I'd rather not shut you out again, haha.) I still want to say sorry for everything all the time. Sometimes I still do, but I'm getting better. Sometimes I still get embarrassed with having to bother you all with my idiocy. Sometimes I still worry that you guys think I'm weak. (Even though Carter tries to tell me I'm not.) But I can live with all of that as long as I still have you guys.
(Sorry, I'm dramatic and I have feelings.)
And sometimes I want to forget because the whole thing feels so ugly. But then when I think about it I don't want to forget because then I would have to forget how many great days I had with you guys!

I don't want to forget all the days you guys tried so hard for me, and I don't want to forget you guys at all. You're all so beautiful and I love you so much.
Okay, ew. Now that I've written this and I can like burn it or something because now I'm a happy person and I have friends and everyone loves me. Yay!
Kyle McGowan. Bro. Everyone needs a chill friend, and I'm fairly certain I have the best chill friend in the world. Thank you for teaching me that the chill comes from within. Haha, and for always being down with the adventures me and Car plan. I don't even know how you became my best friend; like, one day you were just a kid in the marching band and the next day I find myself willing to talk to you about almost anything. Not to mention it's awesome to have a friend to talk about marching band with that actually knows what I'm talking about, haha. Thanks for talking to me even when I'm being crazy irrational. I swear you're always looking out for me and my needs and I'm so grateful for that. You are so selfless, which makes you one of the best friends in the world. (And a  great section leader. You're awesome.) Other people always come first for you. And that's why people trust you so much and love being around you. I am so very grateful for all the effort you put into making me feel included in life and make sure I am a part of everything, and not letting me leave myself out, because sometimes I do that just because I don't know what to do. I'm so lucky that we've both been in chamber choir since freshman year, because otherwise I don't know if I would've gotten to know you as well, and that would really suck, because you're amazing. I'm so glad I have you; you're like family to me. (Haha but I guess you technically are family right?) I love you!
Gwen Rogers! You're the best cool aunt ever. I've always admired your confident personality and your love of life. It's so great to know that I have someone that knows what I need while I'm at school because sometimes I get nervous and I think no one can help but you always know what's going on. You are one of the most understanding people I know. The effort that you put into life is so admirable, you work so hard on everything and it's beautiful. I love how we can have any conversation, where we're super serious and honest, or where we're being weird and can't stop laughing, or anywhere in between. I swear, we have too much fun. You've always been willing to teach me anything you can and help me with whatever problems I may be facing. Thanks for all the help you give me in every aspect of my life. And for always giving me CURLY HAIR!!! You work so hard in everything for other people too, and I hope you know that your efforts don't go unnoticed. You always know what I need help with; sometimes I don't even realize I needed help until you start helping me. I am so lucky I have you because you are constantly present in my life; I can go to you whenever and it's not a problem, you're always down to talk to me or be with me.. You always put up with my craziness, keep me grounded, and push me to be better. You always know what I need to hear. Thank you for letting me do me all the time. I love you!
SHAN. What even is cute? Oh yeah, us. I almost forgot. You became my best friend so fast, because I barely knew you at all before this year and now all I do is cling to you. God placed you in my life because He knew I was going to need you now; you are so talented at people; you're so good at being a friend. (Haha, it must be hard being better than everybody else!) I remember one day that was pretty bad and you talked about things with me that should've made me uncomfortable but they didn't and I felt so loved I could hardly believe it. I've said a lot of things to you that are hard for me to say; you make me and everyone so comfortable. I'm able to talk to you in the middle of really low moments without feeling crazy and that is more of a blessing than you know. I loved having you in almost half of my classes this year, and all the problems we're able to talk to each other about, and all the fun stories we tell each other. FaceTiming you every day on the chamber trip was my fave. And thanks for letting me test all of my music on you before I show it to the rest of the world, and for just letting me send you random songs. And singing with you this year was so great, I've watched you grow a lot this year and you have no idea how proud I am of you. Thanks for helping me during crises, being cute, everything we laugh about, and for making me feel like I've ever done something for someone else. I love you!
Okay, Carter, confession time. Once a long time ago (because remembering things for you and I is my job) you and I were discussing mental illness and you said you thought it was possible to control, which I think is very true, but I'm not certain it's possible to just make it disappear. So when my mental stability started going way downhill, I was legit SO SCARED that you were going to think I wasn't trying hard enough to pull my life together. Maybe you do think that, I don't know. But thanks anyway for talking to me when I'm flipping out and for all the times you told me not to give up and that I could do it when I was crying to you about how I thought I had finally figured my life out. (Haha, you didn't know I was crying because I was messaging you, but oh well.) Thank you for always asking me "why", whether it's why I'm scared or why I'm sorry, because sometimes I need to talk about it and sometimes I don't even know why I'm sorry. And yeah, thanks for telling me all the time that I don't need to be sorry and that everything's okay. Haha, I know you think I'm crazy because you've told me, but you also told me that we wouldn't be friends if I wasn't and you love me that way. Thanks for watching movies with me and for listening to music with me even though you probably hate it. I miss talking to you every day, but that doesn't matter because you're still the best donut advocate. I love you!
And to all of you, thanks for not giving up on me. And for even being with me when I stop thinking, and trying to ground me again whenever I get lost in whatever anxiety/sorrow/anger I get lost in and reminding me that everything is fine. Haha, I put you guys through a lot, and I'm so glad I have friends that are willing to stick with me because of who I am. I wish I could help you all half as much as you have helped me. I feel like we only have one year of high school and I'm half expected to just accept the fact that I'm going to get new friends and I have to forget my old ones. And I don't know, I'm not really cool with that, because I love you guys.
And for the rest of you readers that aren't my squad, and to my squad too, sorry, because some of this post probably sounded a little gloomy, just because I guess it is, not to mention I wrote part of this on low days which makes everything sound worse. I really don't think on low days; that's why my friends are the best friends in the world. But everything's okay, because I'm a fighter just like all of you. Just don't let the bad things in life take over everything, because contrary to a popular belief, life is pretty great. And if there is a point in your life where bad things take over, don't despair. As Leo's mom (Heroes of Olympus) said, "Nothing is unfixable." *insert High School Musical jump*
Haha, I love you all.
--Lizzo

The School Year in Books

 Warning before you read my past book reviews: Guys, we were all twelve once. We all were. Please forgive me.
Hello, my friends! This is a very important day for me. It is a very important day for a lot of you. This day is the LAST DAY OF MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Dang, it was hard. But we DID IT.

Alright, so since it has been awhile since I have written something literary on here, and since I didn't read terrible books this school year, we are going on a literary adventure of all the things I read for my English class!!!

The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The well-known play about the Salem Witch Trials, based on McCarthyism during the Cold War. This play is actually running a Broadway revival right now and is nominated for a few Tony awards, including Best Revival of a Play. I had heard things about The Crucible, which is one of the reasons it's great to have an older sibling go through school before you, and the things I heard intrigued me. The fact that everyone in a town can go crazy over things they have no actual proof about, and that they can accuse everyone, and if you don't agree with what they say you die, and almost no one actually was a witch but if not everyone agreed then most of the town would be dead? Can we talk about how this play was based on actual events? I don't know, that's just insane to me. But upon reading it, it's even better. The motives of the people in this text are insane... as well as the people themselves. I wrote an essay for the class that I almost shared with all of you, about Arthur Miller's idea of the common hero, how you don't have to be extraordinary to do great things, how John Proctor was a hero and just an average man at the same time. His desire to do good is absolutely incredible. I kept the book so I can read it again.
Alright, so now I am going to tell you about something that is rarely seen in the public English classroom: overachieving. I made an attempt that I really shouldn't have. I was going to finish reading The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum before I started a new book for the quarter reading project. Stupid mistake. I did not use that book for the reading project like I should have. But anyway, it was still a good book and a good trilogy, one that was so complex I would probably have to reread it to fully understand it since I can't remember a good portion of the details as is, but one that I don't have enough interest in to reread. If you want to read my full review of The Forgotten Locket, you can find it here. So since I wasn't doing that book for the first quarter project, I needed to read the next book on my list very fast. Luckily, that was easy. It was a very short book and all I had to do was read nonstop: Christmas at Harrington's by Melody Carlson. It was a lot like a Hallmark movie in that it was a soft storyline that wasn't great or exciting but wasn't terrible or boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't un-recommend it to anyone. You can read my full review of that book here.
During second quarter, my class read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Which is considered a must-read universally. At first I didn't quite understand the hype, but about halfway through, the hype made sense. While the rate my class had to read it at was wayyyy too fast, it was an insanely well-written book. However, this does not mean we all need to go into the insane Austen literary cycle where we all cry about why we're single. (The lesser reason that Austenland by Shannon Hale wasn't worth it.)
For the personal quarter reading project, I continued reading the next thing on my list. I started an attempt at the Sherlock Holmes series. Which was a great idea, but being a junior in high school, who has the time to do that? So instead I chose a book I had already read. (Something a little more common for a high school student to do.) The point of this project was to find a common motif in the book that we chose and in Pride and Prejudice. I had already wondered how I was going to do that with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, so maybe not finishing the book was a good thing. Instead I just thought of a book I could use that had the same motifs as Pride and Prejudice. I decided on Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. That's a really cute and high-quality story. It was a good book, and both books had motifs of marriage and social status, so it made a good book to analyze for a good grade. You can read the full review of Princess Academy here.
For the third quarter, the class read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. While a good number of hipsters hate on Shakespeare because he's too cool, friendly reminder that he's one of the most witty writers of all time. Don't hate on Romeo and Juliet just because it's popular. It's quality.
With that quarter, I had to read a book off of a list that my teacher had made, books that were also movies, then watch the movie and write about the book and the adaption side by side. I chose Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. (That book was seriously overhyped. I didn't hate it; I wouldn't un-recommend it, but it's only kind of worth it. Maybe it was too much character for me, if that makes sense. I loved Morrie, but it was written with the intention that I would love him more than I did, and perhaps that's why I was bothered by it, because I didn't like him enough.) This was good for me because I'd read it before plus it was a super short read, so I would just reread the book, watch the movie, and write my paper on the two. I started rereading it, but the movie was near impossible to get ahold of. The only way we could find to get the movie was buying it for about fifty dollars, so obviously I chose a new book. I went with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because I had read that book before and seen that movie before. (The one starring Winona Ryder. So I reread a chapter or two of the book (Ten out of ten as far as slacking goes) and watched the movie again. I wrote a paper on the way Beth's character differs between the book and the movie, which has bothered me since the first time I saw it. I hated it less this time, though. Maybe it just takes more time to understand. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yay! I made it to last quarter, by some miracle. We read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A book I'd always heard about, but I wasn't sure it would be that interesting. But it was intriguing enough just because I didn't know anything about it. A rich guy in the 1920's? Okay, sure. Why not? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than a rich guy in the 1920's. The fact that no one knows who he is, and all the chaos that happens to them all once they do know. It was a really good book. I enjoyed it very much. But the whole thing is so screwed up, I don't think I'll read it again. Everyone and everything in that book is an insane amount of distorted. For my final exam I have to write an essay on that book. I'm talking about the color symbols (which are truly amazing) and how they represent the women that Nick and Gatsby admire and how they are viewed by each. Since I'm writing this post the day before I publish it, I have still yet to write the rough draft of that essay. Procrastination at its finest. However, I have a bomb thesis and some pretty good notes.
The plan really was to do a project on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this quarter, but again, who has time to read? So I did another book I had read, one that would just be easy to do a project on. So I chose I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. This was a really good book, and the series as a whole is even better. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say this, and even I thought I was crazy when I thought it for the first time, but the Gallagher Girls series is the best-written series since J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. The way everything fits together is so impressive. Well done, Carter. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yeah, it was a good year, it was good literature. But that class was so dang hard, I'm glad I have time to read and write for myself now. As difficult as it was though, I actually learned a lot from it about writing and literature. (Don't tell my friends, they will make fun of me forever.) And I can only figure that it's helping me with all of the English classes I'm going to be taking in college. (Because I'm probably going to be taking A LOT of English classes in college.)
See you later, guys. I love you!
--Lizzo