My eventful week in pictures

Arts and scraps

This past Saturday, D and I went to do some volunteer work at a craft store in Detroit. The store has some sort of sentimental memories to me because my dad used to take me and Tim to this kind of craft store when we were little. Basically, they get tons of donations of overflow materials from all kinds of companies (like sponge pieces, bottle caps, buttons, unassembled paper milk cartons). Then, you can get a small paper bag and fill it up as much as you can for a few dollars, and voila! A bag of artsy materials for a kid to create to his or her heart's content.

Tim and I used to "invent" all kinds of things. I remember one time, I filled my bag up with green nail polish remover sponges (the kind you stick your finger in and swish around), and I glued plastic eyeballs on them and yarn mouths on them and stuffed the little whole with cloth for the nose to make little characters out of.

Anyway, despite how cold and early it was, it was actually a lot of fun! We organized, cleaned, fixed, and decorated their "utility" room (I think that's what it was called). It was a room purely for all their die cut machines and book binding machines. I guess during the summers, they have day craft camps for kids and these are some of the stations provided to them.

Here is a picture of a box I made into a holder for all their scissors, markers, pens, and miscellaneous stuff, and the other picture is of a die cut machine with a handle that Dusan fixed.

My first fish auction

My first fish auction was also the first auction I'd ever been to.

It was quite serious for the buyers and sellers that showed up. Everyone had very concerned, serious looks on their faces when they inspected the bags of fish and scribbled down the reference number for each fish. You know only the serious aquatic fanatics show up at these things, so you also know that the sellers and buyers really know what they're doing.

I bought a whole bunch of plants. Over a dozen small bundles of Saggitaria and a good few handfuls of Baby's Breath. The Saggitaria was dangled in a web of thick roots, so when I got home, I replanted the roots just to see what might happen.

Oh I also bought a python syphon for $11 (usually, this is nearly $60 at a store). It is 20' long and has attachments for a sink, so now I can avoid carrying buckets back and forth.

D's made a spur of the moment purchase - a real nice 45 long, gallon aquarium and stand for less than half the price of buying it brand new. The condition is great and looks like it has never really been used, although the stand is a little bit beaten up.

This means I get D's old 40 tall! I can't wait to set it up and start my aqua gardening!

But alas, we promised each other that neither of us would mess with the take down or re-build of our aquariums until school is out.

More than complicated

I don't really want to deal with the pressures of a relationship anymore, but
I enjoy his companionship and he is my best friend.

I am afraid that if the next big decision I make isn't one that gives me a chance to move, get away from away, and flee from my problems, I'll get pushed over the edge.

I am scared of making a decision to improve how unhappy I am because I'm afraid I will realize there's no one who will be strong enough to carry me if I fall.

My brother told me some really discerning things on the phone that made me cry in a heartbeat. It only proves my theory true - that the three of us are so disconnected, everyone would probably be more relieved if we weren't obligated to stick together.

Which way do I go?

I dunno if it's the beat or lyrics or what but these songs put me in kind of a foxy mood :P

Fall Out Boy - "This Ain't A Scene"
Clipse - "Ain't Cha"
Usher - "Take Your Hand"
Usher - "Bad Girl"
Gwen Stefani feat. Akon - "Sweet Escape"
Jamie Scott - "Made"

The love of my life

After the pup greeted me when I got home today (he's always so happy when someone comes home or when someone knocks on the door), I was playing around with him and I picked him up and started teasing him. I started blowing puffs of air at his ears and he did not like this. Usually he sort of tells me to back off by pretending he's going to bite, but this time he snapped a little too close and sort of scratched my nose and lip. I guess I deserved it for bullying him though, but I think it's hilarious how spunky he is.

But he's also such a sweetheart! Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch with my laptop in my lap and he sort of came over and nudged it. Sometimes he nudges pillows and blankets like he's checking what's under them so I picked up my laptop for him to check under. He crawled into my lap, made a little circle, and went right to sleep :)

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures of him I was looking through:

If you pick up my pup when he's in a calm and cuddly mode, it is so precious! He'll kind of curl up around your arm and fall asleep. Oh and he also snores! But yeah this is a good picture to show his small size.
I took this because I thought this was would be a funny picture. It kind of looks like he's using the laptop - haha
Sometimes, if you're sitting on a chair or couch with your legs down, he'll kind of just walk up, put his paws on your leg, and pop up to see what's going on.
Often when he's bored or at home alone, he'll jump up by the bay windows and watch what's going on outside like it's a TV until he falls asleep. He'll even stick his nose up to the crack of the window and take a few really deep breaths of fresh air! It was quite funny when we figured out what he was doing, and my mom started putting blankets up there for him to fall asleep on. As you can see, he's pretty protective of his toys too - he'll gather them in a pile next to his bed before he falls asleep (that's his ear hanging off the edge).
This is the first time Romeo got to meet Catherine's dog named Little Man (I know, weird name right?) It was kind of funny because Romeo sort of bullied her dog around... of course I won't deny, her dog was kind of being a pushover anyway and I think Romeo was getting mad that Little Man didn't want to play. I mean he loves chasing/being chased by dogs and humans and Little Man would sort of just back up and corner himself before barking a fit at Romeo to make him back off.
A picture from the first day we had him :) He's so tiny! I don't even think he was 4 lbs. when we first got him. My little baby!
Sometimes when there's nothing good on TV (aka there's nothing fun to watch out the window), he'll kind of sit on the steps with his head between the rails. I would have never guessed he could fit his head there, but even when people are downstairs and he is on the steps, he'll poke his head through to look down and see what's going on.
In the morning after he wakes up with my mom, he'll come to my room when she leaves for work and he'll and go back to sleep in my bed. When I get up for a shower, he usually gets up with me and follows me around until I actually get in the shower. Sometimes, he sleeps outside the bathroom door waiting to lick my legs when I get out, but sometimes, I come back to my room and he has crawled back into bed! Often times he'll even crawl halfway under my covers.
This is before his first official haircut! I can't believe he looks so fat with all that hair (which is why it's hilarious to give him a bath - he looks like a little skeleton under all that hair). Tim cropped this picture, shrunk it down, and wrote "die!" in red letters under his face as an AIM icon joke since his eyes are kind of devilish in this picture - haha
This is another picture from the first day we bought him. After we chased him and played with him for a few hours, me, my mom, Tim, and Dusan all kind of stood around him trying to figure out how we could get him to take a nap on his new bed. We pulled the bed out of his little cage-y and put it on the ground while we were talking about it, and he sort of walked over, sniffed, scratched to fluff it up, plopped down, and sighed. He is so funny when he sighs before he falls asleep! It's like he's had a stressful day or something. Well after he fell asleep, we moved him and the bed back into the cage-y and gave him a little blanket. He sorta kicked it off and scrunched it up but I remember I couldn't resist taking this picture because of the awkward posture he was in.
I think this picture is adorable because his face is so precious! Also, D was just sitting there on the couch and Romeo crawled up the armrest and sat down on D's head :) And his hair looks kind of funny too.
I just like this picture because I think he kind of looks like a bear! We joke that he is part bear (by the way he walks), part bunny (by the way he hops when he wants to slow down from running), part snake (by the way his tounge flickers in and out), and part pig (because the shape of his nose is kind of funny).
I think having a dog has most definitely improved the relationship of our family. We're not at all affectionate towards each other but we've all grown to generally be more affectionate people after we got the pup. Also, we kind of treat him like he's our little kid so we joke and laugh to each other about funny things that have happened. I honestly dunno what I'd do without him!

Aaaaauuuugghhhhhhhh... I don't know

Sometimes, I really really hate being in a relationship. I mean I really really hate feeling like I'm stuck and I don't have a choice. I know it's a strong statement to make, but I can barely take care of myself, much less someone else. I don't want the results of my actions to have to affect two people either - I want to do what I do and be done with it.

If I were to still be in a relationship, I'd want to want to be with that person and want them to want to be with me or not. I can't stand being with someone who needs me - I can't be needed! I need myself more than I need someone to need me.

I can't even begin to describe how trapped I feel. All I can express when I think about my frustration is just wanting to rip my hair out and cry and scream (which I have done, which somehow has not gone noticed).

Common I'm 18 for heaven's sake - I don't want to act or even feel like I'm married. Just leave me alone!

I absolutely will not result to being one of those girls who finds a guy at a young age and decides she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. It's stupid, it really is. Because then when you have problems, you tell yourself "It's okay we'll just work through this" or "If we can work through this, we can grow and become stronger." Girls like that need to face the fact that they are too young to excuse themselves in having to put up with this kind of stuff. Totally unnecessary.

And yet I am becoming her who has no courage to do what she wants.

Of course I always get the "well fine, if you feel so strongly about it then why don't you just say we should break up?" and eventually I say it and noone takes me seriously.

Sometimes I really think people take what I say as a joke.

On the flip side, it's nice to have someone there for you especially when it seems like everyone else has bailed out on you. I mean we watch out for each other and are there in a split second for each other if anything happens. We enjoy each other's company and usually have a blast. It's nice to have someone to curl up with when you're cold or sad, it's nice to have someone to always call or be on the phone with when you're driving home from school or after a bad day at work.

But sometimes I wonder how I've come so long being so dependent and compromising what I really want to be. I don't know how I ended up like this.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww

My pregnant fish died of abdominal dropsy. And my orange platy with pop-eye and abdominal dropsy also died. Seriously though, abdominal dropsy is absolutely the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life - to the point that I have been physically sick and uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. With pop-eye and abdominal dropsy, my platy's eyes popped out (each about 1/8th of an inch) and the fish's body blew up until all of the scales were sticking out line a pine cone seeds and actually started popping out.

Being so grossed out by the first two fish, I picked out one of my guppies that has recently become deformed and decided to end it's life in the toilet for fear of having to find it floating dead in my tank tomorrow morning with other fish eating away at it.

And PQ (which stands for Prom Queen... the other blue Pseudotropheous is PK for Prom King) has some type of fungal infection which I have to take care of since D is out of town. We went through hell Tuesday morning trying to catch her to put her into what Martha calls the "hospital" (it's just a mesh floating separator that hangs on the inside of the tank) so PK would stop harassing her.

The only good news is that the Ick on my cardinals is cured, but even that was a pain to have to see and research.

I am so grossed out that I am short-term considering stopping my fish hobby.

Oh PS...

D is in Atlanta with the Lightning team and getting drunk with the mentors at the hotel (and BBQing off the balcony unless hotel management made them stop), and I am extremely jealous I did not get to go!

Honesty, disconnection, and selfishness

Everyone always always asks "how is school?" and "how is work going for ya?" and such. I mean I ask this too but often because I don't know what to ask or how to engage in conversation by starting off asking something "how are you" (which would generate a typical response and I'd be left having to ask another question or reply to a "good, how are you?" kind of thing). The best thing would be to remember past conversations and remember what he or she said and then ask about that instead.

Lately, I've starting answer "how is school?" and "how is work?" honestly.

"Well school isn't going too well... I just haven't been doing too well," and of course I get the: "Well grades aren't as important as they seem... what really matters is ______," and I protest because that what I used to think until I started really looking into internship, co-op, business programs, and grad school requirements. Then you know it matters. "And work isn't going too well either... I applied to some out-of-state summer internship programs but haven't heard back from anyone so I guess I'll be at Ricardo this summer," and I get "It's okay, you're still young."

I mean not that I wanted to be dishonest before, it's just that to a random acquaintance or old friend, I don't think I should dump emotional baggage on him or her. I suppose it is kind of sad that it has come to this - that I feel like I haven't had someone to really vent to and discuss things with that I take the opportunity to talk to just about anyone who is willing to ask how I am. Boy do I think I often make them sorry they walked into such an awkward conversation.

I've recently been really bothered by the fact that me, my mom, and Tim are sooo disconnected. I mean, ultimately, we don't really look out for each other, and I think for all three of us, we secretly know that it would be easier to not have to deal with the other two. We have to make an effort to things together and spend holidays together, and even then, it is depressing that there are only three of us to exchange presents or cook food for. I thought about last Christmas when my mom repeatedly told us that we should not exchange presents and waste time/money because she felt that we all knew what the true meaning of Christmas was and that was all that mattered. We all half-heartedly bought a few things for each other anyway, but it really upsets me she does not feel that we should take advantage of one of the easiest opportunities to do something nice for each other, since we rarely even do for birthdays.

I hate to admit that sometimes I think about how things could be if I had a dad and we had a family that supports each other. I was telling D about my dad a few days ago, about how intelligent he is and I was telling D about something my dad had taught me or said to me (or something) when I was little. I started talking about what he probably does now and where he probably is.

I also admitted to D that because I know my dad currently makes a ridiculous amount of money, I selfishly wish that one day when I decide to find him, sit down with him at lunch, and let him know about how his behavior has affected me, he will apologize and change. We will have a decent friendship and I will meet his new wife (and possibly my half siblings, if I have any) and he will use his richness to pay for the rest of my tuition or my car or something.

I know, it's so selfish.

When the sun goes down

I think the main reason why I'm so eager to win an internship is because I feel like I have been missing out. Almost everyone I know has moved away to college or has met a new group of friends or something. I'm not saying I have to move away to school (I'm actually pretty happy with UM-D) but I'm itching to move on to something big and exciting - a new job or a new home or new people...

It looks like I'm going to be spending another summer at Ricardo though, and I'm not too happy about it. It's starting to feel like I've hit a plateau there.

I counted over 30!

At about 9:00pm, Dusan came over and we put the "Security" sweater on Romeo (he was not happy wearing the sweater - hahaha). He instantly went from a hyper mode to a slow mode. If you know my puppy, you know it takes a lot to calm him down, so I don't think he was too comfortable wearing the sweater. My mom and D kept joking around saying that Security was "slacking off" - hehehe

My large, pregnant guppy that I mentioned in the last entry had babies yesterday :) It must have happened right after 9pm because I came home around 8:45pm and thoroughly looked through my tank (I check every day for new babies or dead fish or whatever). When the three of us finished teasing the pup, D had to use our internet to do some studying, and I went back to syphon my tank and found the babies!

First, it started out to be like 2 or 3 hiding in the corner. But I soon discovered more and more hidden in the plants and corners of my tank. Altogether including my original 4 baby platys, 2 baby guppies (1 was the one I watched be born), 1 teenage guppy which is now released into the tank, and the 5 teenage platys that I got from Petco, I have a total of 35 baby/teenage fish in my tank. That's 23 babies that were born last night!

*Sigh* I'm such a dork about my hobbies, I can't help but geek about these things.

Some aqua updates

Last Friday was my pup's one year birthday! He had some ice cream, we bought him a black sweater that says "Security" on it, and took him to a bunch of pet stores and other places to make his day eventful. It never ceases to amaze me how small he is, especially when he sits down next to me or sleeps in my lap. So tiny!

I bought a few new plants and fish for my tanks - another Rotalla, two Micro Sword plants for my betta tank (these plants need a lot of light!), and a Bacopa plant nicknamed the "minty" plant because it smells like mint.
But wow, some of the magazine pictures I found are amazing! I mean look at some of these I found online:
I decided I'm switching from Neon Tetras to Cardinal Tetras. They look almost identical, but the red on Neon Tetras are only on half of the bodies while Cardinal Tetras have the red stripe all the way across their bodies. Also, the colors on Cardinal Tetras are a little bit bright. Most importantly, Cardinal Tetras are more "durable" even though they are more sensitive to the water type. So I currently have 5 Neon Tetra and I bought 2 Cardinal Tetras.
Meanwhile, when I start a new tank (or start over with an older tank), I want to have a school of Rummy Nose Tetra. Bernie said that as long as I have a school of fish, Rummy Nose will generally stick together with the Neon and Cardinal tetra, so I bought 1 Rummy Nose (that was all he could catch anyway).
Oh I almost forgot!
The other day when I went to Petco with D, there was a tank full of baby Red Wag Platys, some just born and some a few months old. It turns out that my little floater of baby guppies are not all baby guppies! The ones with a more orange-ish tint and black tails are Red Wag Platy babies! So I have two different kinds of babies!

I guess someone donated the bunch of baby Platys to Petco, and when I asked about them, they gave me 5 of them to adopt. They are sooo cute!

So I bought a very pregnant, full grown guppy from Bernie. My pregnant guppies aren't even full grown - they're like half the size of a full grown guppy. I figured I have 7 babies (used to have 10 but 1 died and I somehow lost 2 in the transfer of tanks because they're so tiny!) If I'm going to raise babies, I might as well raise a bunch more at a time and sell them or give them as presents.

Anyway, I hope I can make the time and money to keep indulging in this hobby when school gets out.