Almost Done that Book!

95.    An odd number.  A multiple of five.  The precise number of pages remaining in my book The Help.  What with all of the volleyball sessions I completed this week, and the all-day Universal Studios adventure, I had barely any time to read (although I do admit that the time I did have, I watched TV…  Bad Erin!  I know you would shake your finger right up in my face if you had the chance, wouldn’t you?! J).  Because of this no-time, no-read factor, I knew I had to seriously crank that book out today.  The Help became a movie yesterday, yesterday¸ and I’m not done.  I have to get it done by tomorrow afternoon, that’s my goal.  But I have 95 pages.  Almost 100.  That’s a lot and I kind of want to take a break the rest of the night since all day I was wrapped up in this novel.  But it is a REALLY good book, so it’s worth every minute I spend on it.

So I’m sure the first thing you noticed when you clicked on this page was the new and improved appearance.  Thoughts?  Let me know.  I think I like it, the wild colors.  So hopefully you do too.  I mentioned on my profile that I was very indecisive, that the colors and themes would be changing regularly.  I am just as surprised as my mom that I have not changed anything majorly before today.  I believe that the very bottom color of this site was substituted for a purple or something like that, but nothing huge.  I’m shocked, just because I know my personality, and I’ve seen how fast things changed on a wiki that my 6^th grade teacher recommended we create.  I’m shocked, but my old wiki is still running!  I mean no one is reading it anymore or adding to it, but here it is:

http://supdramaqueen.wikispaces.com/Words%21

My original!  My second wiki site is right here:

Just kidding!  It’s not right here because I don’t remember it!  Darn.  It was about your favorite vacations spots or something I can’t remember.  If I ever think of the site name again, I will let you know, but you can just continue to read this blog.  J

I’m going to go read now, or watch a movie.  I don’t know yet.  But, I will tell you if I finish my book mañana.  Hopefully.  Wish me luck!  Tomorrow I am going to seriously read and finish that sucker.  Bye, guys and please let me know if you like the blog’s new look.  Thanks ahead of time and my way to say goodbye today, in the famous language of pig latin, is oodbyeg!  I have no clue if that is even right but it works!  …and you will just go with it, right?!  J  Of course you will!

New Look

Give me your feedback on the new look of this blog!  I said I was going to change the appearance and I finally did!  Yay!

The Three Never-Evers

I’ve never been camping.  I’ve never been to a sleepover.  I’ve never munched on salmon.  I know there are many camping addicts, sleepover lovers, salmon fiends.  Me, I’ve done okay so far without any of the three.  Here’s why.

Dirty.  That’s what pops into mind when I think of camping.  As you all know from my OHWD, I hate dirt, dust, stickiness, anything that to me is considered, unsanitary.  All I can think about when someone brings up camping is all of the bugs, the mud, the sleeping on the hard, cold ground.  Now, camping in a RV is totally different to me.  There’s a real bed, a real bathroom, a real kitchen.  None of this outside stuff.

Which brings me to my next argument: bugs.  You know the old saying: Can’t live with them.  Can’t live without them.  I changed it around a bit to work with bugs: Can’t live with them…  Can’t live with them.  Plain and simple.  I hate them, everything about them.  Even the dainty little ladybugs everyone seems to adore, I do not find cute whatsoever.  Although I still hold my hatred strong, a couple weeks ago I found a helpless little rolly polly sprawled on its back.  Numerous legs kicking, determination pouring out, the little buggie caught my eye.  I stepped over him, kept walking, continued talking.  Something hit me, though.  I felt a strong urge, a strong feeling that made me crouch down, leaf in hand, to turn that little guy over and back on his feet once again.  I felt great about myself, that I helped a being survive, never mind the fact that the being was about a centimeter long.  No matter how big, how small, any life matters.  (Wow!  That sure was deep!  I feel like Shakespeare…  But a younger and girlier version!)

My next never-done, never-will that I will address is “the sleepover”.  Sounds so elegant doesn’t it?  To sleep in a thin, dainty little bag on the hard ground?  At 2 am?  So I’m cranky the whole next day?  Not happening.  This short thirteen year old needs her beauty sleep if she is ever expected to leave the house again.  Period.  I think the part where you watch movies next to your friends, paint each other’s nails, talk boy-talk sounds super fun.  But I don’t think I could take all the other stuff.  Besides, I (as you know from my The All-Nighter--Not as Much Fun as It Sounds post) have a hard time sleeping in my own bed sometimes, let alone someone’s floor.  The only time I ever even attempted a sleepover was when my sister invited our neighbor over to stay the night.  I joined the neighbor on the floor while my sis took her bed and stayed there for about an hour before I gave up and moved back to my room.  Anyway, if I stay at someone else’s house then I wouldn’t have my middle-of-the-night-blood-sugar-test caddies.  I’d have to, like, do it MYSELF!  Not happening.  Beauty sleep, duh.  Enough said?  I believe so.  Moving on to the salmon.

I can eat fish in tacos, in fact I love fish tacos.  But fish without the tortilla, without the breading, just plain fish, I don’t know if I could take that.  I just don’t know.  I’ve never tried it, and don’t really want to.  My dad keeps saying that he will give us a taste of some real fish, some real smoked salmon.  But, no fish yet.  I will try it, however I do not see myself going out of my way to get some fish.  Maybe for some fish sticks, definitely for a fish taco.  But I don’t think for plain fish.  Nuh-huh.

Well that’s my spiel on things I hate.

That’s my spiel on staying up late.

That’s my spiel on camping outside.

That’s my spiel on eating fish on the side.

That was my new way of ending this post.

See you later, alligators!  Adios mi amigos!

Just so you know, I could change my mind about any of the three tomorrow.  What can I say?  I was born a female!

Universal Happiness :)

It was not like any other place.  It was my first time there.  It was amazingly fun.  All of yesterday, I was riding rides, watching shows, and hiking up massive stairs.  All taking place at Universal Studios.

I went there for my friend’s birthday party and it can be summed up with just one word: unbelievable.  We started the day off with a tram ride that was almost forty-five minutes long.  Not boring one bit.  It was packed from the first minute to the last with tours of real sets on TV, a phony but super realistic-looking train station flood, and a crazy-awesome King Kong 3D experience.  There were even a couple points in the middle of the ride where the lady explaining everything had to keep quiet because REAL filming was going on.  It was incredible. 

After that, we strolled over to The Simpsons ride which was like Star Tours at Disneyland.  But it was much, much different than Star Tours.  Made me real dizzy and queasy at the beginning.  You feel like you’re going upside down, veering to the left and right.  My favorite part, as I made very clear to all of the people in the car on the way home, was when the cart swung into Maggie’s enlarged mouth.  The room suddenly smelled like baby powder.  One of my favorite smells ever.  The second time I went on this ride, later in the day, I started sniffing the air prematurely.  I wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to miss the smell. I have no clue what it is about it that I just love, but I do.

I was so proud of myself that I went on The Mummy ride, being probably the scariest ride there.  In fact, I went on it three times.  It was super fast, super scary and super short.  The first time I went on it, I was completely shocked when it ended within just two minutes of it starting.  “That’s it?” I remember saying when we rolled back to the entering and exiting area.  I felt extremely special when the crew members applauded me for surviving the daunting Mummy ride.  I was so proud.

We went to several shows after the rides including Terminator, Waterworld (my favorite!), Special Effects, Animal Actors and Shrek 4D.  All of the shows were amazing but I came home nearly 10:30 and went to bed almost midnight (I had to tell my mom all that went on that day…  It took a long time!)  I woke up at 6:00 that morning to make sure I had enough time to get ready and paid for it later by being exhausted.  And I am tired once again!  I’m going to sleep now so see you later, Terminators!

Late Night!

Late night.  Me tired.  Long day at cool buddy's birthday party.  More tomorrow.  :)
Thanks for riding the Erin Marie Tram!--randomness!  What can I say?  I'm really tired!

Professor Erin Marie is in the House!

I feel like there’s so many things I need to do, so many things I want to do, but there’s just not enough time in the day.  I woke up, read a lot (I have to finish that darn book!), showered, munched on some lunch (I’m a poet who didn’t know it!), drove over to my volleyball camp, stayed there for three hours, ran some errands (my shower rod fell on me in the middle of my scrubbing!  L  We needed a new one!), came home, tried the new shower curtain, rod, and liner (the liner didn’t fit.  Gosh darn liner!), completed a site change, ate dinner, turned on the laptop, sat down and wrote what I’m writing now.  Good thing I wasn’t saying all of that aloud or else I would be heaving for air.

I was surprised, completely shocked, that I had a whole day free of the girl’s (from yesterday’s blog) annoying comments.  Completely and full-blown stunned.  It was nice.  In fact, during snack we were all sitting there when the girl’s friend asked me what type 1 was.  I was thankful she wasn’t going to give in to the usual assuming mentality like most do.  I answered her with my usual spiel, my memorized speech that was sitting on my tongue, ready to be said.  As I was testing my blood sugar, the younger sister in the group was closing her eyes, covering her ears.  Sorry I offend you so much, I muttered to myself.  I told her that I was finished, like she wanted me too, after I put the blood on the strip and the number 142 popped up on the screen.  Pretty good, I told myself.  I took away .4 units of the total bolus (and it worked!  I was a whopping 116 after the camp!  Go Erin!  …who’s speaking in the third person!  …which is kind of weird!  …now I’m going to stop!).

Turns out, that one question from the friend turned into a full-on lesson about diabetes.  I didn’t mind one bit.  In fact, I kind of like all the attention, knowing more about something than everybody else in the room.  I answered each question, and I reassured them many of times (when they had wary looks on their face as if it was okay to ask so many preguntas {Spanish for questions!}) that it was perfectly fine with me.

“I’d so much rather people ask me questions about my type 1 than to just assume,” I added.

This next thing I said probably wasn’t one of the smartest things I’ve spoken, definitely not the nicest, but very true.

“There has been so many times where parents and kids will bring treats for all of the students, treats for birthdays, treats for who-knows-what.  They will pass them out to every single kid in my row, but me.  They just skip over me, just assume I can’t have one.”  Here is where I look over at the girl, check her face to see if she has any remembrance.  The reason that it wasn’t so smart to bring this up is because the girl’s mom and she were one of these people.  The ones who just skipped over me.  Her face was blank, nothing on it to make me think she knew I was directing that right at her.  I barely got away with that one.  Thank goodness.  I skimmed the other faces and was actually very grateful that the friend’s face looked disgusted that someone would do that.  Just skip someone over like that, not even ask if they can partake in the celebration.  Just shows how messed up this world has gotten, doesn’t it? L

 I was happy I was granted the chance of educating just three more brains in the world.  When the sister asked, “Which one is easier, Type 1 or Type 2?  Type 1, right?”

I replied, “Oh gosh no.  No, no, no, no, no.  Type 2 is way easier.  I wish mine were as simple as the other one, but it’s certainly not.”

And when I informed them that I see an endocrinologist every three months, they all breathed a big sigh of relief.

“We thought you went every week,” the little sister said with a disturbed look displayed on her face.

“Nope, but they are almost four hours long,” I exaggerated just to see all of their eyes get huge.  It kind of amuses me, see them get so shocked, which sounds really mean…  Scratch that part.  J 

So it was a productive day for Erin Marie (there’s that third-person talk again!)  Me going to watch some TV now, recharge me brain.  Goodbye and…

See you later alligators!

Annoying Friends Die Hard--And are Remembered Easily

Turns out, I am a natural volleyball player (if I do say so myself, which I just did! J).  This is something I discovered at a volleyball camp I am attending this week.  At the beginning of the summer, my mom asked me what it is I wanted to do this summer, what camps I wanted to enjoy.  Volleyball was something I wanted to try ever since my P.E. teacher chose that as one of the lessons we would learn (I also wanted to try hula dancing, but that was a no-go L).  I liked volleyball in P.E., the bumping circle my peers and I started.  I have, “a natural instinct,” my sister told me from watching me.  That’s so sweet, puts tears into my eyes.  And when I told my sister that, she said I should not get used to it.  That I’ll never hear those words again.  Well, it was worth a try…

I entered the gymnasium at the local high school, the high school I will be attending in a year.  That’s so crazy to think about, that I am almost going to be granted the brilliant, the wondrous, the honorable title, “fresh meat”.  Okay, not that honorable.  I cringe in delight and fear of that thought…the fear now overtaking the delight. 

Anyway, when I first got there, I saw a bunch of kids and parents standing around the courts.  People were talking, some kids were playing, and I searched every one of those faces for a familiar one.  Results: nada.  That’s okay¸ I told myself.  I will deal.  A couple more minutes of standing drift by, when all of a sudden the stars align, the sun lights up the room.  Someone I knew walked into the door.  Thank you, I praised the world.  Thank you so much.  But all that delight ran out, like the battery juice running out of your favorite robot toy, bpuuuuuuttttt.  I realized just who the person was.  She’s a girl my age who I know has good intentions at heart, but comes across very mean, annoying, rude.  I understand she doesn’t try to make me angry, embarrassed, but it seems like every little flaw I have, every little mistake I make, every little humiliating thing about me, she points out.  It makes me crazy, just plain crazy.

As the helpful blogger I am J, I will give you examples of why she makes me just so darn annoyed.  To begin, every day in the fifth grade, after I tested my blood sugar, she asked me what my number was.  The first day it seemed caring.  The second day it seemed nice.  The third day it seemed a little repetitive.  The fourth day completely staged.  The fifth day…I was done.  And as the little bit of Italian I am, I had a hard time not showing it.  She could tell it bugged me, but she didn’t even think about stopping.  My problem wasn’t that it embarrassed me, it didn’t at all.  My problem was that it was every day of plain insincerity.  I would rather you not ask anything at all than to ask a bunch of phony questions your mom told you to ask.  Deep breath in, Erin.  Hold it, hold it.  Let it out, nice and steady.  Much better.

As the day went by today, I remembered very quickly why I stopped hanging out with her.  Today, as my next example, I was testing my blood sugar for snack (we ate snack earlier than the other 12, 13, and 14 year olds because we thought it was time.  It didn’t matter though).  There were four of us sitting in the same spot.  One was the girl, another her sister, a friend of the girl, and me.  The friend didn’t know me at all before this camp, therefore she would not know of my type 1.  I was pricking my finger, squeezing my blood, contemplating whether I should let her ask me about it, or if I should come right out and say it.  It was loud where we were, right next to the big fan, so I didn’t hear the friend ask the girl what snack she was eating.  Since I am so used to the questions of, “What are you doing?”, I just assumed that was what she was saying.  “I have Type 1 Diabetes,” I said to the girl.  I saw the confusion displayed on her face, so I added, “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize you were talking to her.”  Most people, the nicer ones, would just blow over the topic, talk about something new.  But not this person.  No, she goes ahead and talks on about my mess-up, moving me from mildly embarrassed to full-on red-face embarrassed.

“That’s so funny,” she remarked.  “’Cause she wasn’t talking to you, but you were, like, explaining everything.”

Yeah, I thought it was hilarious.  And by the way, how is saying I have Type 1 Diabetes explaining everything.  If I was explaining everything in my life, the testing, the site changes, the bolusing (the insulin intake using a pump), it would take quite a long time to explain everything.  I don’t care.  I can’t change some people.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better and she won’t make me annoyed.  Good luck to moi and adios for now!