It was a simple sentence; a four-year-old Hungarian child could construct the exact same combination of words after one English class. There was nothing wrong with these words, per say, except that they centered around the one thing my friends apparently had no interest in talking about at that moment, and by the looks on their faces, at any point in their lives that would follow.

            What provoked this heinous combination of words to spew forward from my bile soaked gut? Nothing, really. I was merely providing (what I thought) was the perfect solution to the problem at hand. Yet, despite my good intentions, the minute this evil assembly of sounds finished its departure from my gullet, the room became so silent, so pregnant, and so very, very pale.   

The things that will never fail to silence people also never fail to amaze me. The mention of genitalia, a whisper of divorce, an ever-so-unintentional shout of a curse word; they all merit the same reaction. These things, which have become for one reason or another, as common a part of daily life as discussing the most recent episode of (insert medical drama here), are still considered awkward topics. Why? Who knows.

All I did was make a suggestion.

It was my good friend Tommy’s birthday (her real name is Rachel, but she prefers ‘Thomas’ for her own reasons) and four of us had gathered with her to celebrate the occasion. What started as a beach party was quickly transformed into a ‘let’s get the hell out of the sun’ party, which brought us into Tommy’s house for some much-needed air conditioning and shade. We waited there until it got a little cooler before we finally decided to go swimming in Tommy’s backyard pool.

“That’s a good idea,” Brenna, the resident hydrophilous agreed.

“I could use a dip.” I’m usually up for a swim.

“I’ll just watch.” Megan’s not much of a ‘mess-around-in-the-pool’ gal.

That just left the opinions of Pia, the ever quiet lemming, and the birthday girl herself.

Knowing the two of them like I did, I knew it would go down one of two ways: one, Thomas would ultimately agree with our idea, which would bring Pia automatically since she would never go against all of us, or two, Thomas would disagree and Pia would stay and fight to stay in the house (she likes to argue for the sake of arguing).    

             However, I was wrong, slightly. It actually went down like this:

            “I can’t go swimming,” said Tommy, “I can’t wear my bathing suit.”

            “What? Why?” Brenna was the first one to inquire about anything.

            “Thomas, I highly doubt you and your lack of mass would have trouble fitting into anything.” Megan always knows just what to say.

            “No, it’s not that,” said Tommy, “I have my period.”

            Funny how this didn’t silence anyone. Instead, it actually fueled the conversation.

            “Don’t worry; your flow stops when you’re in water,” assured Pia. She was always good with the science of things, so if she said it, it was more often than not correct.

            Ever the skeptic, Thomas glanced down, clearly contemplating some way to avoid getting in the water. “Yeah, but still…”

            “It’s fine, Thomas. Trust us, it really will stop the minute you get in the pool.” Brenna again. “C’mon, let’s get in and we’ll show you.” I swear, I think Brenna would exchange her lungs for gills if she had the chance.

            Still, after all the reassurance, it was obvious that Tommy was less than thrilled with the idea of getting her suit dirty.

            I’d been quiet for this portion of the conversation, just listening, curious to see if anyone would bring up (what I thought to be) the easiest and most obvious solution around. After all, I was positive that every girl in that room knew there was an alternative when it came to protecting clothing from the red monthly visitor.

            “You could stay out with me. I don’t want to go in either.” Megan. Tommy was rubbing her hands together nervously, clearly regretting ever having brought up the problem. She never was one for conflict.

            This discussion had gone on for at least a few minutes, and as far as I was concerned, we were wasting valuable sunlight pool-time hours. So, finally, I said the one phrase that made the entire room blush and pale at the same time. I guess I missed the memo that said we weren’t supposed to talk about that stuff.

            “Tommy,” I laughed a little, “just use tampons.”

            I was unaware that the sound of silence was so loud. Really, like I killed a puppy or something…

Needless to say, the conversation turned away from that subject rather quickly. XD

Well, I'd say that this Valentine's Day was probably one of my favorites ever! No, this is not because that 'special someone' confessed or anything (currently single and loving it), but because of all the things I did with my friends.

The best thing that happened was with my friend Holly. Being the forgetful and usually uncaring person that I am, I forgot to get things for my buddies (but they know I love them ;D), but some of them were nice enough to give me stuff. Holly, who had already given me candy in a plastic heart earlier in the week (which I later used to hold hershey kisses that I gave to the person I like, but don't want to go out with :D) decided to yet again be the kind and wonderful person she is and give me another gift. She walked onto the bus with a big bag of assorted crap, and I stared at her as she sat down behind me. 

"Happy Valentine's Day!" she said.

"Happy Single's Awareness Day," I said back. This was how another good friend of mine, Megan, had greeted me as I boarded the bus earlier that morning.

"I got you something!" She exclaimed. Then, she started digging around in her Santa sack of goodies and pulled out two things. One was a set of theraputic flipflops for my buddy Coltar (who, to my knowledge has no foot ailments) and the other was a bottle of foot scrub for me. Both of use eyed our gifts carefully as Holly continued to pass out the other contents of the bag. 

She must have noticed our facesbecause she said "If you don't want them, I'll take them back," 

We did. With little remosre too. XD. 

"Aww," she said laughing. 

"Hey, how many returns do you think you can get before the end of the day?" I joked. Holly and Coltar laughed. 

"I don't know," she said.

"I DARE you to get fourteen returns by the end of the day," I said. 

"Or what?" 

"Or else you will have to drink the Pacific Ocean!!" That was Coltar. 

And so, our new Valentine's Day tradition began. Now, each year, we're going to try to bring in the crappiest gifts ever and see how many times we can get people to give it back. 

Holly did manage to complete the challenge, though one return counted as two people. That's because she gave it to someone who didn't want it, so what did that person do? They gave it to someone else, who tried to give it to Holly! 

*sigh* I love days based on propaganda.

Well, that's not really my subject, but it is a damn funny video XD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvltzwkUEEA

Anywho, the REAL thing I wanted to  write about is the fact that so many people get offended by so many insignificant things that don't even have to relate to them, but they make it about themselves because they're BORED. -.-

Where is this aggravation coming from you might ask? Well, it started because recently, I started watching the 'Card Captor Sakura' series. I'd seen it when it came out in English, but now I'm re-watching it in Japanese (they did a MUCH better job). So, like I do with all of my favorite/new series, I looked it up on Wikipedia a.k.a. everything you learn in school, but could just go to this website and find out.

I looked it up, and I found an entire article that talked about the dubbing of the show. Naturally, I was interested, so I clicked on it.

Do you know what I found (though, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised)? They started the English version of Card Captor Sakura on episode 8! They jipped us out of 7 whole episodes!!! And that's not all: apparently, when the toys were selling at some fast food restaurant (forgot, too lazy to go and look up XD) they got pulled, because the Clow cards were supposedly thought of as tarot cards, thus promoting witchcraft. -.-

Now, this isn't the first time I've seen this happen with a series, and to be honest, it just bothers me to no end! If someone doesn't like a series, and they don't want their kids to watch it, they shouldn't let them watch it! There's no reason to start a protest, or spread any kind of bad credit about the show (I try to follow the 'If you don't have something nice to say...' motto) just because you can. Now, if someone were to ask that person their opinion directly, then they should just find a way to phrase their thoughts so that no harm is done.

I'm not trying to be mean, or cranky, or sound like a know-it-all, but wouldn't the world be so much easier if people weren't offended by every little thing (I'm not talking about massive scale things, I'm seriously just talking about small stuff)? Seriously, kids don't know any better! All they know is that a cool girl on television just brought a card to life with a bird stick. Is there really anything wrong with that? 

I'm not trying to offend anyone! I really just wanted to get this off my chest...
.....

That is all. :D 

HAPPY CHRISTMAHANUKKWANZICE TO YOU! (that's Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Winter Solstice for anyone who was wondering :B)

I absolutely love my Japanese class, and all the friends I've met at the Center For Global Studies, because they are the funniest group of people I've ever met. So far, though, the best moment of all happened today. 

In Japanese, we were learning how to say we like something and something else. My friend Holly decided to write that she liked her friends and yaoi (yes, yes she did). So, she wanted to know if there were any special kanji that she needed to use. So, when she asked my teacher, my teacher was confused because she'd never heard of yaoi, even though she is Japanese. When she couldn't help, Holly turned to me and asked

"Why doesn't K-sensei know what yaoi is?"

I said, "Well, maybe she's not familiar with the term. After all, yaoi is just an abbreviation."

"Oh really? For what?"

"For 'Ow! My butt hurts!' or something like that in Japanese." I said.

"WHAT?" she screamed, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?? Then what's yuri? 'Ow, stop it my vagina's chaffing'???"

I nearly died on the way to my next class I was laughing so hard. 

There's that, and the fact that my friend just introduced me to this great band called Nightwish. It's totally worth checking out.

Zomg, I've never done one of these things before Xd Not to mention the fact that I should be working on my English project LOL.

Anyway, I just wanted to try making on of these things, and also, one of my favorite authors on fanfiction.net has a community here, and I wanted to see if I could join it. UMMM...I do have an account on fanfiction.net, so if you want to look me up, I'm Sangokagome there too ^_^

I guess that's all for now ^_^