take five

woah, journals. I'm not sure I like these things too much. haha.

anyway, so...maybe I'll actually get some pictures up? eventually? and maybe *gasp* an actual profile picture. could it be? it can. I'm working on it.

only one more day until I hit Christmas vacation (thank god). if I have one more biology test or history paper or geometry quiz I think I might just die.

going to see Sweeney Todd this weekend. I'm excited as all hell.

I've seen Nightmare Before Christmas two times in the past week purely by chance. I forgot how much I loved that movie and how fun it is to sing along to it, with all my friends of course.

with 2008 inching ever closer, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the year being left behind. I must say that for me, 2007 was pretty freaking amazing. I had a lot of really cool experiences this year and I traveled more than I ever have in my lifetime....so many adventures in such a short time. I started to realize I really like going out and doing things and living my life at about 100 mph rather than, you know, just cruising along at the speed limit or something like that. and as far as I know, life doesn't hand you speeding tickets, so what's there to lose anyway?

my top five moments for the year...

5. October 7, my 15th birthday

okay so maybe this is like "wow, was your birthday really THAT great?" yes, it was. I had like eight of my friends over and we spent the night in my driveway in the family camper, crammed onto bunk beds and couches and one queen bed, with a 10-inch TV for movies and a CD player for, obviously, blasting music. we went out to dinner and almost got kicked out for laughing too loud, ran around blockbuster renting a stack of movies, spent an entire car ride home flipping the camera around and pressing flash at random moments (hilarious results), watched silence of the lambs (freaky shit), and stayed up until 6 AM singing panic! songs horribly off-key with no CD accompaniment. of course, there was the obligatory fall out boy sing-along as well. boyfriend shopping on photobucket (long story), cake for breakfast, etc. memories like that stick with you. we're still talking about it, every day.

4. "release the freshmen", aka summer '07

we were way too excited about entering high school. and can you guess where I got the idea? yeah. I like remembering crazy times too, I guess. starting literally the first day of summer, we had a camera with us pretty much everywhere, capturing our escapades on film. we've taken to filming everything we can so we always remember these days. we look back on some videos from the summer: parties at each other's houses, mall-rat saturdays, baking snickerdoodles (insert wtf here), and all that, and we never stop laughing. it's gonna be great when we start putting it together. and due to all this, we've promised ourselves a chance to take a year off before college, jump in a van (all seven of us), and drive from east coast to west coast, hitting a bit of canada on the way. because we realize that taking the time for these things matters so much. it's gonna be epic, the ultimate road trip before our lives turn to semesters in universities and applying for jobs and grown-up stuff like that. unless we do start that rock band we dreamed up, haha. but I digress...summer '07 was where friends became like family. I'm thankful every day for that, because these kids are seriously my life. here's to the second-to-losers, now and forever.

3. Kiss 108 Jingle Ball, December 13

the funny thing is, this could probably qualify on a list of 5 least favorite moments of 2007. it's a story with a horrible beginning and a sweet miracle of an ending. this was my third time seeing fall out boy in the span of about seven months. as always, I was leaving school early to drive up to the venue because I live a few hours away and wanted to get there on time. and what happens? a snowstorm hits. lucky me. what usually was a two hour drive became a nine hour struggle. I was having a meltdown thinking I was going to miss fall out boy's set and practically losing it sitting in unmoving traffic through a city in the dark and the cold and the snow. but we made it through (shockingly) and we got to the venue, and as I literally bolted inside I was told fall out boy hadn't gone on yet. I could have died from happiness. it made the experience so much more powerful, because the odds had been so against us, yet I was still there, and would still get to see them one last time before their break. so it made it on this list for turning out to be an amazing night and a surely long-lasting memory of the things I do for this band. haha. lovelovelove.

2. Young Wild Things Tour, November 9

this day hits this list at #2 for so many reasons. first of all, I only went to school for two hours that day. my teachers were horrified. haha. I spent three and a half hours with my two friends and my mom, sitting on the sidewalk outside the venue, with a pile of jackets and our ipods, so we would have a chance of getting a good spot on the floor. we ended up creating some real memories out there in the cold. we talked and laughed with some of the kids around us, we stole a pizza in a desperate attempt to obtain warm food (pretend you didn't hear this), we got lectured by a christian extremist telling us to repent, we met hemingway, we were on a VH1 segment that got taped there (...we were standing in the background...), we started a round of the "guilty pleasure" dance, and once we got inside we sat in about the sixth row on the floor, gabbing with some kids nearby about cobra starship videos and annoying teenies. all in all, it was cool getting to interact with some fellow fans. I haven't gotten to do that much. and then the show started and we almost died in the mosh pit during the very first opening set (cute is what we aim for). I got kicked in the head and ended up with some guy feeling me up accidentally at one point. not cool, but funny in retrospect. so we ended up rocking out from the back of the floor until just before fall out boy came on, and then we took to the seats off to the side for a better view. I learned to enjoy the show no matter how close to the stage I was, and it truly was an amazing show.

and now for my best moment of 2007....*drumroll*

1. Honda Civic Tour, May 31

picture this: a week before school lets out, standing in the GA pit with about 30-40 other kids, literally only a few feet from the stage (it had a walkout that was even closer), with my two best friends, at my first fall out boy show. wow is all I can say. it was by far the most amazing and memorable night of my year. possibly even my life (but I guess we'll see as life goes on). I've been a fan for a while but this was my first chance to go to a show. when the band came out (more like flew out) onstage I seriously fell over, overcome with shock and happiness and crying my eyes out and laughing and screaming all at once. singing along with "thriller" took the breath out of me. my friends and I had to hold each other up, and for the rest of the show--and some days afterwards--we never stopped smiling. it was like hearing every song for the first time. but we knew all the words and we screamed every one of them at the top of our lungs. every moment of that night lives on in my heart, right down to the final song, that traditional performance of "saturday". I wasn't one of the ones to hold pete's hand, but I was so close, and I didn't even care, because everything was so great right then that nothing could bring me down. it was me falling in love all over again and not a single thing could take that away from me. that feeling seemed so eternal and pure. I never wanted to let go of it. I wished that night could have lasted forever, but all good things must come to an end, after all. the feeling has stayed with me, however, which is why it earns that night its place as my best moment of 2007. thank you fall out boy for making that possible. I love you guys.

and thank you cobra starship for being there, because if you hadn't been one of the opening bands, I would likely have no clue who you were and would be ignorant to the world of guilty pleasures, hot addiction, and snakes on planes. just thinking about it makes me feel empty. love you too.

...and that's all. top five moments of my year, complete with my usual ranting and raving. I'm horrible at condensing my thoughts. pretty sure they were never meant to fit in a text box. oh well. happy holidays/new year, everyone!

12:16 AM

so may I say that I am extremely, EXTREMELY excited for the upcoming Fall Out Boy tour? for probably the past hour or so I've been holding in screaming with happiness and all that, like I did when I got my pit tickets for the HCT. watch me wake up tomorrow, screaming, because all my restraint just...stopped. or something weird like that. anyway. I'm holding out on the OCK presale for the tickets, I hope I can figure out the whole texting thing with the codes and get my tickets without any problems. I'm shooting for pit tickets. again. I loved the experience of the semi-mosh-ness the last time. and I'm bringing all the same friends too. I can't wait. every day since May 31st I have thought over and over again how badly I missed that night and how badly I wanted FOB to come back soon.

20 days left of summer. high school's on the horizon, too. here's to hoping it's not what the teen movies make it up to be. all the cliques, all the contests of popularity....they aren't for me.

yesterday was one of those days that I always remember as a day that belongs in a movie or something. it was me and six of my closest friends. spent a good part of the night on a beach, sitting around a fire telling those cliche ghost stories, burning the ends of s'mores sticks. and then lying in the sand, staring up at a completely uninterrupted canvas of stars...we could even see the milky way. best part was breaking into song, just screaming at the sky, anything and everything that came to mind. we'd all know the words and if we didn't, we'd make them up if we had to. and we couldn't have planned better luck; someone was shooting off fireworks at the other end of the beach, tons and tons of them. every memory is lit up with those colors exploding in the sky. and you could still hear our off-key version of Bohemian Rhapsody over all of it, because we're just that amazing.

I saw my first shooting star last night. my wish came true.

see you this fall, Fall Out Boy.

Pandaxhoodie's Journals

take five

12:16 AM