I need guidance.

basically i have three choices in my pursuit of a harmonious balance between money and school and life and sleep.

1. Change nothing: that is, continue with my original plan of working my regular hours (M/W/Th 4-7, Sat 6-9) for $8.00/hr at Trezevant until the end of Junior year. Save enough money to help somewhat significantly in my search to afford college, but possibly become over-stressed in school with my 2.5 APs.
2. Change a little: Continue working the same at Trez through Junior year, but also pursue the job opportunity I have come upon at the Pink Palace starting at $7.25/hr for the summer (hours unsure). Make a nice chunk of extra money over the summer but potentially miss out on some summer fun because of lost time.
3. Change everything: Pursue Pink Palace job for the summer along with Trez, but leave the Trez job at the start of Junior year. Get a good deal more sleep, but learn to live with a good deal less money. Join the Y again.

help me. im incapable of making my own decisions. everyone please give your opinions or any other suggestions. kthx.

Hypnotic, Funky Fresh

i just lost the 1, 2 step. how can i go on?

someone please send me this song. poookokihu8otgdv or popsiclesareforthesummertime@gmail.com m'much obliged.

"LAST NIGHT, AGAIN?!"

"You can have a great high school party without drugs and drinking- you just have to replace those things with Candyland and the cast of Tick Tick Boom." --Annebel Simpson.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Last night was the pinnacle of my sophomore career. I think altogether I had almost fifty people there. Nothing awful happened, no one died or showed up drunk or left condensation rings on the wooden furniture. Amazing amazing amazing night. Thank you everyone who came, and I intend to list all of you right now by means of the cups with names. Here goes. Thank you's to

1. Austin Finney,
2. Amanda Allen,
3. Amanda Tittle,
4. Anna Talley,
5. Annebel Simpson,
6. Caroline Fesomething,
7. Chris Carlile,
8. Cody Hilder,
9. David Nikaido,
10. Derek Suen,
11. Devin Crenshaw,
12. Drew Stephens,
13. Dunkan Koch (as Mark Cohen),
14. Eileen Townsend,
15. Emma Austin,
16. Eric Neimeyer,
17. Hannah Joyce,
18. Hattie Strange,
19. Jennifer Lenow,
20. Julia Roseman,
21. Justin Campbell,
22. Kasidey Fisher-Wellman,
23. Kathryn Owen,
24. Kristen Howell,
25. Kristen Rambo,
26. Kristy Wilson,
27. Lane Roark,
28. Leo Ramos,
29. Lilla Pivnick,
30. Lydia Roseman,
31. Michael Neimeyer,
32. Morgan Stewart,
33. Nathan Meek,
34. Nhat Vo,
35. Peter Zastoupil,
36. Rachel O'Connor,
37. Rashad "Blackie" Blackerson,
38. Sara Stephens (that's me),
39. Sarah Mercer,
40. Sean Meek,
41. Spencer Miller,
42. Spencer Nineteen,
43. Stephanie Frega,
44. Stephanie Homeschool, and
45. Vania Datesspencernineteen (whom I never saw and have never met).

That's right, my mom stacked the cups alphabetically. I am almost sure that is all, but I definitely made up a few of those last names. Well, there were three more, but I'll get to that in a minute. So the point is, here is how my yesterday went, in fairly brief terms if I can stand it.

I woke up, went to school, and found out I got into AP 11 and I have three tests Monday. Then I came home briefly before hitting up the bank and Party City. Came back home and took a shower, during which time Spencer, Steph, and Rashad showed up (at like 540 for a party that started at 7) and hung out in my room till I got out and ready. Steph and I hung up streamers etc etc while Spencer watched TV with Rashad. How helpful. Kristen showed up at about quarter to 7, followed closely by Kathryn, and then they really started flowing in. I had a fantastic night and got some amazing stuff. Thank you thank you thank you everyone.

I'd like to take a moment to recognize those who were unable to attend: Amelia, Mouse, Emily, Newman, Huddleston, Hairston, Omair, John Ham, Audrey (whose mom wouldn't let her come because she didn't believe there wouldn't be any drinking), Afton, Mariana, Hannah Shaffer, Alex Bransford, Beaver, etc etc for anyone else not there.

Now, some highlights, if you will: Mercer giving me The Shirt, getting to see Amanda Allen and David Nikaido whom I haven't seen in FOREVER, Kathryn making the world's best brownies (not to shadow Morgan's baked goods which were also fantastic), story time with Homo Thug (the book Dunkan got me about a homo thug which has four typos just on the blurb and contains phrases like "love stick" and "cocoa shute" and "melon-shaped" ew ew ew), Dunkan's great footage which she's cut together to screen tonight in honor of Benny's wife Muffy--Allison--pulling Benny out of the East Village location (How many times did I say that yesterday? 10? 15?), and, o yeah, THE ENTIRE CAST of Tick Tick Boom showing up at my house without warning! WHAT!

Okay, so my mom is amazing. She saw Kevin (of TickTick) at U of M yesterday afternoon cause he goes there, and she was like "Would you consider dropping by tonight?" and so he said he and Annie of TickTick (Ms. Best Voice I've Ever Heard Personally) could come. And then when my mom called him to give the the time and directions and make sure he was coming he said, "Yeah, I'm on my way to pick up Slade right now." And thereby Kevin Murphy, Annie Freres, and Slade Kyle, three of my local heroes, came to my birthday party and sang happy birthday and stayed for at least an hour. It was a phenom.

And while we're at it, I still have two hip-hop mixes, a bunch of pictures from Lane 'n' the Dunkmeister, and Dunkan/Mark's great footage which (s)he's cut together to screen tonight in honor of Benny's wife Muffy--Allison--pulling Benny out of the East Village location to look forward to.

In conclusion, I love my friends, I love fun, and I have OFFICIALLY proven that a fantastic time is easy to have without intoxicants and said time is generally more successful and has far fewer repercussions.

Thank you goodnight (Yeah its 543 in the afternoon).

DCT

Happy Dreams Come True Day, everyone.

(DTC Day was officially created one year ago today in honor of BatBoy.)

*balloons n stuff*

It has to end

sometime between now and tomorrow night i need to read 360ish pages of snow falling on cedars and do 360ish worksheets. (okay, its not that many worksheets at all, but its several.) oi vey. sometime between now and six i need to have lunch and take a shower and make some progress in sfoc. guess ill get on that. (april 7th get here soon please!)

Spring Break

break is refreshing me. i like this warmth. its only been the first weekend but it is great.

i slept in, watched four movies in twenty-four hours (the bbc pride and prejudice, elizabethtown which i actually really liked, walk the line which i need to watch again, and sisterhood of the traveling pants), shopped with kristen and bought whats hot for spring, got a birthday card from my job, had happy birthday sung to me at bingo, put two hip hop stations on presets on my radio, drove well, hung out with morgan eileen kristen (a lot) and lena, fulfilled one of my new years resolutions, and went to the calvary lenten luncheon with kristen and had the best waffles in all the land and saw A-Tal and D-Tal.

in other news, codys birthday i think was yesterday, and one of the security folks at trez has my birthday. if you dont know when that is, im not telling you. okay i will. its tuesday. the 14th. pi.

ps: it is a fantastic day.

pps: if you have something after the ps, its pps, not pss. you dont have a post script script, you have a post post script.

Uplift Thyself

TRUTHS:

• sara is not in a state of motivation.
• sara is in a state of tired.
• sara is in a state of tennessee.
• sara is in need of more hours in a day.
• sara is in need of spring break.
• sara is in need of advice.
• sara should see her counselor.

FALSITIES:

• saras english assignment is worth the time.
• sara is in control of herself.
• sara is a good driver.
• sara enjoys cauliflower.

UPLIFT THYSELF!:
imagine a situation or two or a lot the thought of which makes you happy:

• imagine a world where sara and morgan go to the same college.
• imagine a world where sara is not taught by ms douglas every day.
• imagine a world where sara gets nine hours of sleep every night.
• imagine a world where sara is not semi-secretly very tempted by drugs and alcohol.
• imagine college.
• imagine summer.
• imagine sleeping until waking, not until being awoken.
• imagine a boy.
• imagine lakeshore.
• imagine clean, strong fingernails.
• imagine never itching again.
• imagine time.
• imagine having time.

TRUTH:

• sara misses time, sleep, josh brown, her friends, being comfortably warm, spending time, not having guilt, forgetting regret, smelling spring.

imagine a world where all those things are here all at once. uplift thyself.

A Little Stress... A Little Stress...

i daydream about sleeping more than i actually sleep.

SNOW

SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW on friday. its still here. look at it! (you have to scroll down a little to get to the snow ones)

A Little Less... A Little Less...

theres a fair chance i get a B in latin this six weeks and yknow? that thought is really not killin me.

wtf is this? why is it in my bookmarks?

ATTENTION

ALL WHO INTEND TO ATTEND THE

HEATH LEDGER EXTRAVAGANZA

(AND EVERYONE IS INVITED) NEEDS TO LISTEN TO ME NOW. BROKEBACK KONG (AKA BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) IS SELLING OUT ALL OVER THE MOFO. THE EXTRAVAGANZA IS GOING TO BE 1:00 CASANOVA KONG AND 3:15 BROKEBACK KONG AT STUDIO ON THE SQUARE THIS SUNDAY. IF YOU WANT TO GO YOU NEED TO PREORDER YOUR BROKEBACK KONG TICKET LIKE RRL RRL SOON.

also, all in favor of following the heath ledger extravaganza with a 7:10 tristan and kong (aka tristan and isolde) at the paradiso say aye. tristan and kong isnt playing at studio and brokeback kong isnt playing at paradiso.

so anyway, comment if youre coming or call me or tell me at school or something. i love you guys.

(ps. its not really kong, youre just supposed to put kong in every movie title cause its funny. really its casanova, brokeback mountain, and tristan and isolde.)

THIS IS THE HOUR.

its 10.23. i always have a weird feeling about that time. 10.23. it just seems odd. anyway, 2006 comes in about an hour and a half, which is quite soon. i hereby vow to make 2006 better than 2005. at least the 10th grade part of 2005. its been insane, and not in a good way. i need to step up my game, so here're a few resolutions. actually, a lot.

• first and foremost, make 2006 better than 2005. also:
• stop eating all the time
• get back out of the habit of not doing all of my homework every night
• try to make time to go back to the Y somehow
• observe lent without cheating, except once on my birthday (which is inconveniently always during lent) [EDIT:Sometime after Lent] I was awesome. And now I make way fewer Yo Mama jokes.
• be less pessimistic about alto I (N/A)
• be less pessimistic in general
• (there is a resolution here that is private)
• save more money than i spend
• not buy anything that doesn't fit
• be nicer to my parents
• eat more vegetables and drink more water
• give up on sean (because seriously, thats a both hopeless cause and a bad idea)
• apply for 10 scholarships
• stop scratching my knees and elbows all the time
• improve my posture
• get rid of everything i own that i dont like (who wants some stuff?)
• get to school earlier than 725 every day
• overcome fear of at least one of the following: sleeping with my ears exposed, dancing, report cards, lindsay douglas
• grow out my hair and wash it more often
• get more sleep
• keep up with all my reading
• take 100 walks and keep count
• get something overpriced from victoria secret [EDIT: 11 March 2006] Check! IPEX goes wireless!
• brush my teeth twice every day
• forget justins phone number [EDIT: 6 May 2006] I sure don't remember it.
• write

thats enough for now. its 27.

im giving up my vices. / im goin back, back to school. / eviction or not, this weeks been so hot / but long as ive got you i know ill be cool. / last week, i wanted just to disappear, / my life was dust / but now if just may be a happy new year.

happy new year.

A Slightly Late Christmas List

or, what i got, not what i want. plus a million links to pictures of stuff. overall a good catch.

DVD's:

• first season of lost
• moulin rouge
• mulan
• stage beauty

CD's:

• how to succeed in business without really trying soundtrack
• miss saigon soundtrack
• narnia soundtrack

Book-like things:

• 20 b&n ducks (a duck is a buck)
• 10 b&n ducks
• an iou for any book at bookstar

Clothing items:

• AE peacoat/blazer thingy (but in light khaki)
• AE sparkly brown flats
• three aero shirts (the entire store was half off) in white, grey, brown
• sears blue skirt unt jackety thing
• old navy shirt. brown.

IOU's:

• iou a book from bookstar (the same one as before)
• iou a RENT shirt (hopefully ill find one thats not "for small individuals only")
• iou reasonable parental assistance with room decor (which means when drew moves out i get his room and we're getting new curtains and pillows and things and taking up the carpet and getting a rug etc etc etc)

Other:

• iHome (which is a machine that plays your ipod aloud and charges it and has an alarm clock and a radio and you can hook up a cd player to it.)
• blockbuster giftcard
• 50 ducks from work (christmas bonus)
• from eileen-- a bluish hat, a pink purse, a black sleep shirt that says ARCHITECTURE on it, and the deee-lite cd world clique (insane). yay for the goodwill.
• 50 ducks from mimi (my grandmother, not the best ass below 14th street, though that would be really cool)
• a gigabunch of candy
• 10 malco ducks
• probably some other things.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS, BITCHES!" --Tom Collins

it is, right now,

december 24th, 9pm, eastern standard time.

Like Mastercard but Better

MLA Handbook: $17.00
Pocket Thesaurus: $5.99
Vocabulary Workshop Form G: $8.00
Le Morte D'Arthur: $7.95
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: $4.95
The Once and Future King: $7.99
Antigone: $7.95
Cry, the Beloved Country: $14.00
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar: $4.99
Two packs of hiliters (because the first ran out): $19.98
(TOTAL: $98.80)

The English Exam Being over: PRICELESS

The Year in Short

Instructions: take the first sentence (or 2) from the first post of each month of 2005. That's your year in review. except im going to do from the last post of each month cause its easier cause theyre at the top.

January (29)
I'm Dead I'm Dead I'm Dead I Died I'm Dead

February (20)
imagination, one was awesome this weekend. and last.

March (14)
go shawdy, ish ya burfday, we gon pawdy like ish ya birfday, we gon sip... ovaltine? like ish ya burfday...

April (23)
a schedule...
Friday, 42205
730-215: school
230-4: chamber
4-6: novus
5-730: thespian banquet
8-945: metamorphoses (fabulous both times)
10: home
1001: sleep

May (30)
i went to spencer mississippi. innocent bystanders would never suspect we were friends, seeing us there with him playing halo [or something] and me reading the entirety of the sisterhood of the traveling pants.

June (29)
at about 10:39PM tonight, after his performance of lumiere in beauty and the beast, MICHAEL A. INGERSOLL KISSED MY FACE.

July (27)
The Summer of Amelia!
http://flickr.com/photos/honeylight/sets/654301/
enjoy.

August (30)
Probably Like the Best 24-Hour Period Ever
[mood: walkin on sunshine]
[music: hold me, bat boy]

September (21)
Uncle! Uncle!
there. that was me saying uncle. i give up.
(some other stuff)
LIFE OVER. HOMEWORK = VERY YES.

October (25)
This weekend I was productive for the first time in about two years.
~Three Affiliated Tribes~
Driving to North Dakota is like lighting your
Arm on fire: at first it looks kind of cool,
But you just end up screaming in agony.

November (29)
"I DONT WANT TO LEARN. I JUST WANT TO DIE." -Sarah Mercer

December
(well my last post in december hasnt happened yet, and this is the first one, so here it is. lets end where we began.)
The Year in Short
Instructions: take the first sentence (or 2) from the first post of each month of 2005. That's your year in review.

"I DONT WANT TO LEARN. I JUST WANT TO DIE."
-Sarah Mercer

Dear Scientific Community,

IF YOU DONT DEVELOP A PRODUCT RIGHT NOW THAT WILL MAKE MY KNEES STOP ITCHING FOR GOOD I AM GOING TO SCRATCH THEM UNTIL MY LEGS FALL OFF. AND THEN I AM GOING TO SUE.

Thank you,
Sara

And the Daddy Tomato Said, "Ketchup!"

november 3: morgans birthday
november 4: austin finneys birthday
november 5: mercers birthday

that is a lot. happy birthday to all of you.

so, since i last blogged, in no particular order:
i was late to novus because i went to four music stores (cats, pop tunes, spin street, tower) to get the RENT movie soundtrack, and i cant even listen to the second disc because i made a pact with myself to wait till i saw the movie. but they put la vie boheme on disc 2! the week of death ended monday morning. sweet. except now we have the veryvery intimidating
JULIUS CAESAR PROJECT
which, i have no doubt, will eat me. plus i have to read it. blast. i do, however, get to be brutus to justins caesar in act three. o, how ive dreamed of the day.
i didnt really say anything about writers retreat before. it was AMAZING. o, it has been too long.
yesterday morgan came home with me for a while, i went to see broadminded mental brains again, mercer, em, lilla, and k.ho showed, and afterwards eileen, morgan, lilla, mercer, andy harper and i walked to tcby, then eileen and i went to morgans and watched something about the cosby show, and morgan made o god pie. we ate it for breakfast, and it does live up to its name, especially with chocolate sauce. O GOD PIE. you dont even know.
today we watched the bbc narnia and i came home and had an english muffin plus spaghettti sauce for lunch, tonight at six i go to work, at nine i get off, and at 945 i hope i hope i hope someone will go see shopgirl with me at studio. hope hope hope. i love claire danes.
wednesday i go back to the dermatologist, thank god, and i can get some more of that stuff because my knees are driving me crazy itchy for real. im finna tear em up.
what else? i always forget to go to the bank and end up not cashing my check for like a week. speaking of money, if you were going to buy an ipod, would you get All You Need Is Love engraved on it or No Day But Today? because i am torn.
i need to go read julius caesar and take a shower. this paragraph only exists because i havent used red yet.