Wonderful early release from school today. I got home about an hour ago, and I've been sitting on the couch with my laptop, the three Nightwish CDs my friend let me borrow (!!!), fanfiction a-plenty, and leftover chocolate from Easter. Sounds like heaven, no? Okay, time to rant excitedly about one of the items mentioned previously. MY FABULOUS FRIEND KELSEY LENT ME THREE NIGHTWISH CDS SO I COULD BURN THEM TO MY IPOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So now I don't just have Dark Passion Play, I also have Century Child, Oceanborn, and Over The Hills And Far Away. Yeah! I've already listened to/burned Century Child, and I'm working on Oceanborn as we speak. I love Tarja's voice, really I do. Very different from Annette's sound in Dark Passion Play, though. I can't decide what I like better. I guess I'm different, since I listened to the new singer before the old singer, so my initial reaction to Nightwish was Annette's voice. My loyalties lie opposite to those of most fans. Then again, I live in a frakin' white, American, middle-of-nowhere town, so it's not like I had much opportunity to hear of them. I had to wait until my brother, who is FABULOUS at finding more underground bands, to find them for me. And now, I am hooked. *grins* If you're reading this, and you understand everything I'm talking about, then you get virtual chocolate.

Have you ever had an afternoon absolutely filled with epiphanies? I thought I was going insane. It all started when my friend said my normally brown eyes looked green. I knew it would be a good day. After school, I went to a meeting of my school's literary magazine. We discussed a couple poems, then looked a bunch of art submissions and had random, crazy, wonderful conversations about everything and nothing. Afterwards, I hung out with two of my friends, both a year older than me, who I never see. Kelsey and Bree. We sang a bunch of songs from Anastasia and walked in circles while we waited for our parents to show up. Then Kelsey's mom showed up, and it was just me and Bree. We sat down on the ventilator by an upstairs window and watched for her ride while joking about summoning the hawk and geese in the sky and counting how many times this random kid kept walking by us (it was about 17). I laughed SO HARD. Then, Bree had to leave. My other friend Elise, who I see all the time, came along. She'd been comforting her friend, whose name I don't want to mention for the sake of her privacy, the friend had an emotional breakdown over all the bad stuff that's been going on at her house. I was told that the only thing keeping her from suicide was her friends here at school. I also heard that one of our mutual friends, name also omitted, was being abused at home, and I'd never known anything was wrong. Elise has been planning to find help for them, so they can get out of their poison environments. I felt really, unneccessarily lucky. I shouldn't be this lucky, should I? Elise left, and I was alone to wait for another hour (my mom is slow). I took a long walk around the school, unable to stop my feet from moving. When I was finally slowing down, I saw a picture that had seemed inspiring, but in reality was a part of a science lesson upon closer inspection, and I sped up again in an inexplicable burst of anger. I changed from the white jean jacket I'd been wearing all day into my new, warm, wonderful literary magazine sweatshirt. And epiphanies about nothing in particular started raining down on me all through this. I thought about everything, making myself laugh in a strange, choking, emotion-filled way, and I was absolutely sure I was clinically insane. It was the weirdest feeling. The moving air felt so, so wonderful on my skin, and I felt like a wind goddess. I sang high notes to an empty school, and in my mind they soared clearly and perfectly, though I don't really know how they sounded. I felt so...strange and wonderful. Don't tell me you've never had an afternoon like that.

Album: Dark Passion Play Artist: Nightwish Songs: The Poet and the Pendulum Eva Amaranth The Islander Meadows of Heaven That's my playlist for my new story (the order is important). I wanted to try and explain my idea here first. It all started when I got an assignment in English to write an essay on what we think the future will be like. I started writing the first thing I could think of, some complete crap on how I wanted the future to be. Naturally, I ran into a wall two paragraphs in, and it all just sucked completely. So I put on this album, which always seems to inspire me for some reason, and finally found why it always does this. It's been begging this whole time for this story I've found. Alright, here goes. It begins in the future, you pick a date that seems plausible. The government is corrupt, out waging wars and letting the people do whatever the hell they want. A girl lives with a group of people she calls her "family," because that's all she has. She doesn't even have a real name - they call her Poet, for reasons you can probably figure out. She's young at that point, probably around sixteen (I haven't decided yet). The group lives in one of the falling apart cities, with almost no money, fighting to survive. One day, one of the family members is caught in the crossfires of a shootout in the streets. Poet is perceptive enough to see that they have to try and move on, search for a safe place in vain, because they'll all die if they stay. That whole thing is basically how I see The Poet and the Pendulum. The next song, Eva, talks about the journey in desperate search. It gives a hint at what Poet's name will be changed to later in the story - Eva, obviously. She's young, but she's smart, and wise for her age, and something inside her that nobody can explain is telling her where to go. This inner sense leads her to stealing a boat and bringing the family, with an eerily calm passage, to an island that few others have been able to stumble upon. This is the song Amaranth, which talks about finding an untouched, immortal bit of beauty in the world. There are a few people living there, who found it before them, and they've found a way to live like people did back before industrialization existed. Nobody knows why the island is so perfectly preserved - I'm trying to paint it as a sort of Eden. The Islander is about how Poet meets one of the inhabitants (name ideas?), and he starts calling her Eva. This will be a vague reference to the Bible story of Adam and Eve - basically, once the rest of the world is gone, then the people there will have to rebuild it, starting the world over again. Basically, he tells her all about their life on the island - near the end of the song, where female vocals come in, it symbolizes how Eva agrees to join it and starts understanding how things are around there. It's also where the two start to fall in love (I couldn't resist). This is the most symbolic song in the story. Meadows of Heaven is really just an epilogue. Eva and ? have to be strong together, because they can sense the world outside taking its final breath more clearly than anybody else. They live in Eden, in heaven, and they have to carry on despite all the death outside, because it's just them and the other islanders left to be a part of the planet. The adventure ends, and it's time to let new life have it's time. Tell me what you think about it! This all took a TON of thought, and of course the perfect storm of a situation to even come up with it. It's probably the clearest vision of a story I've had in a long time.

Right now, stuck in my head simultaniously, are the two songs Devil in Jersey City by Coheed and Cambria, and The Poet and the Pendulum by Nightwish. For the second song, namely the chorus. They're both good songs (well, the latter is more of an incredible symphony than a good song), but they really don't mix. Can you hear them? They just chimed "Too bad" in unison then both started in on their choruses. Gods, have you ever heard any particularly malicious songs before? It's like they want my eyes to go permanently crossed. I think The Poet and the Pendulum is winning. I hope. Someone has to win at some point. I just jinxed it, didn't I? Okay, on to different matters in varying levels of relative importance. School is slowly poisoning my creative soul. When I can clear my mind and focus on what I consider truly important, the ideas just start flowing, and I can really feel happy. But when those moments end, I'm back in this world, where I have to pass all my classes and get into college and do all my homework instead of reading another chapter or writing another page and pay attention to boring math lectures instead of listening to truly good music (wow, long sentence). It's stressful, and it's draining. I feel tired all the time, and I feel like my work is never truly finished - there's always something else due sometime down the road. And at the same time, my life continues to chug foreward, so it's not like I have the time to just dedicate my time to finishing my homework and writing. It's just...too much work. I don't know, so much of school at this point feels ridiculous. When will the girl who wants to grow up and major in English and write her way into a sort of fame ever need to find the tangent of a right triangle? When will she ever need to explain the process of photosynthesis in detail? When will she ever need the exact date of this particular battle in WWI? I'm drowning in all this. Thanks for listening to me rant. I needed that.

No school tomorrow!!! We have Good Friday off, and I know you're supposed to be all somber and remorseful and contemplative, but seriously, IT'S A DAY OFF. I'm going shopping tomorrow, albeit with my mom for colorful Easter clothes, but still, we'll probably end up seeing a movie once we're done. And then I have to go to the nighttime service at my church and play in the handbell choir *and* sing in the normal choir. Honestly, I don't know why I sign up for this stuff. But AFTER that, I'm getting driven to my friend's house, and my whole group of best friends will have a much needed sleepover. Oh, and we can't forget sleeping in. That part's the most important, of course :-). It's why I'm still awake, updating this wonderful journal o' mine. I got my braces off, by the way. And retainers suck. Especially the invisalign style ones. You know how when you're wearing gloves, you're hands feel all clumsy and useless? Well, that's what this is like...except on my TEETH. Oh, and since my dentist bitched to my orthodontist recently about giving his patients the whitening gel for free after removing braces, so now people with my dentist only have to go visit him and BUY the fraking whitener, even though you can clearly get it cheap as free. Stupid greedy dentists! If you happen to be reading this journal, but never really write your own entries, I suggest that you go out and write one yourself. It's incredibly fun to rant about nothing, and it's not like people who read it have any opportunity to send you a rude comment about it or something. So that's your assignment for today. Go rant something to all the pretty strangers. Bonus points in the afterlife if you do it in person instead of via journal.

I don't even know why I'm updating again, and so soon. It's just, I only just found out about these journals, and honestly, I love it. I started clicking on the latest journal entries, and it's interesting to see into other people's minds...is that creepy? I'm sort of a people-watcher at heart. Not always that social (except with my little group of best friends - there I'm just all out crazy), but I do notice people. Sometimes, I'll just watch someone, try to figure them out. Dear gods, I sound like a stalker. I'm not, really. It's just the curse of a writer, I guess; things that are none of my business interest me, and then they inspire me. Does that make any sense? Tomorrow I'm getting my braces off *pumps fist in excitement*. I swear, it's been 5 fraking years since they put them on me. It feels like 50. Ooh, I just reminded myself of JC Superstar. *sings* I've tried for three years...feels like thirty...*stops singing* Oh come on, you know you love it. Best religious musical EVER, and pretty appropriate for this time of year, no? Just to clarify, I'm not really that religious. I think there's some sort of God-like figure out there, but gods help me if I know what (and yes, gods is my way of avoiding taking a religious figure's name in vain). For JC Superstar, I really just like the music. A LOT. My brother was just in a concert version of it last weekend - they all dressed in black, and everybody played some sort of part, staying on stage as part of the chorus when their role wasn't on. It was really cool, and my brother made an AMAZING Pilot. Seriously, his solo at the end of the trial made chills go down my spine. Okay, fine, I'll stop ranting for today. I think this journal has had all it can take.

Has a day ever inspired you so much that you feel like you could do anything? I don't know, but sometimes it's like I'm more inspired by inperfection than by perfection. Take today, for example. The sky is completely clear blue, like I haven't seen for a long time. The grass is brown and dry and snow-scorched, with a few scraggly hints of green struggling up, and it's covered in long-dead leaves. The pavement is gray and dull with dirt and leftover sand from the days of snow. There are a few melting snowbanks here and there, covered in dirt and hard as ice. The trees are bare, except for the weathered evergreens. The wind whips around so badly that every time I go outside, I want to go inside. Really, except for the sky, it should all depress me a little, like spring will never come - so why do I feel so wonderfully inspired, like I could write a million words and sing any song and be on top of the world? I sometimes worry for my own sanity, but then I forget to, and it doesn't matter anymore. I mean, who can worry on a day like today? It's just been really good. I've gotten pretty far in a fanfic I'm writing. It's pretty cool: the plot of Phantom of the Opera, mixed in with the characters and setting of Twilight. It's been fun to write, so far. At least, it occupies me in class when I should be working on some stupid math problem. Although sometimes I feel like I should be working on fiction of my own - which I do, but I haven't much lately. I should work on the one I failed at completing during NaNoWriMo - it's sort of like a continuation of the story after Rapunzel, but with a bunch of MAJOR twists. Maybe I can post it on fictionpress, see what people think. Okay, if you happen to have read through all this, I have an assignment for you. Go look up the version of the Phantom of the Opera title song that the band Nightwish performed. It is absolutely INCREDIBLE. Actually, just look up all things Nightwish in general. You won't regret it.