Saturday, September 24, 2005

So far... 'Hurricane Rita'
Still here, right out side of Houston, at a time I thought I wouldn't be, we're waiting to see how things will unfold.

We’d planned to leave for my uncle’s house in Dallas, but when we couldn’t fill up the tank of my dad’s car (we procrastinators) we started to lose the idea. And when we heard of the terrible traffic…

Get this, if you haven’t heard already, there was a traffic jam over 100 miles long going out of Houston headed to Dallas on Texas’ I-45 North.
People spent hours and hours only trying to get out of town and only managed to move 10-15 miles. The usual time to get to Dallas is about 4 hours, but Thursday it took people a solid 24 hours. Simply outrageous. I don’t see how those people did it; 12 hours is forever to me.

At school, Wednesday, I heard there were fights at the grocery stores and I know there were some fights at the gas pumps yesterday.

I saw a classmate, at the Wal-Mart down the street from our neighborhood. My, mom, older brother and I were there getting some non-perishable items, water and other things we’d need. Or at least what was left from when others had all ready come.

There were “tailgate” parties out side of gas stations and grocery stores and anywhere else people could take a brake from the heat and lack of AC in their cars.

Also, good friend of my mom’s and her daughter came over to ride the storm out with us because they didn’t want to be alone so I guess we’re having our first “hurricane party”.

I tell you I’ve never heard of such a term until a girl in my English class, Wednesday, told of her many hurricane parties back in Florida, where she is from originally.

I can’t believe that at 4:00 AM this morning in the dark someone was out on one of Galveston Island’s beaches (Galveston Island was the first area called to evacuate) trying out the surf. A policeman tells him to leave and he ‘doesn’t comply’. The policeman arrests him and he says:

“What’s a surfer gotta do to get arrested?”

A woman, after having so much trouble and stress in her situation states, “I just wanna buck Rita in the face.”

And another, “About now, I feel like fixing Rita a glass of iced tea and just sitting for awhile.”

On the window of a neighbor’s house it reads, ‘No Rita, only Margarita’s’.

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Thursday, September 22, 2005

School's out for the rest of this week and also until they announce that we have to return.

There hasn't been any word about the area we live in to evacuate or anything, but we're not taking any chances. Considering that we've never evacuated, let alone for reason of a hurricane because this is really a first experience for my family.

I have seen nasty thunder storms, and even flash flooding, but this here is a whole different thing.

I don't know what to expect as far as peoples houses and stuff are concerned. Yesterday night I began packing up or at least thinking of what to pack up. If I was certain that nothing would happen to what I left behind, then I'd simply take essentials and the like. However, I'm not.

So with that in mind, I try to think of how I can take as much of my things that I want as possible. I'm mostly referring to the zillions of papers consisting of things I write down, things I like to keep just because, all of my pictures, and things given to me... There's just no taking the "essentials" with me, I feel I must take it all.

Maybe if I wasn't such a durn pack rat it would be that much easier for me. Anyhow I hope we get out of here later this morning in time to make progress on the way to Dallas where we will seek refuge with my uncle.
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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

What's going on
I've wanted to put some thoughts of things current up so I thought I’d go ahead with that.

It's been interesting with all the Louisianan kids coming to my school and everything. They’re of course rather friendly and from what I’ve seen they're getting settled in quite well.

I can relate to their feelings and views about our school because not too long ago I was new here. This school is quite different from most other 'school
cultures'.

Also, thanks to them and a friend of mine from Indiana I'd have to say I officially don't feel like a 'newbie' in a sea of 'oldies' anymore.

I'm thinking my school will probably be closed Thursday and Friday since where I live now is between Houston (right outside of it) and the safer areas evacuees are advised to go.

I pray this hurricane season hurries along to its end; I believe the Gulf Coast either way you look at it, has had enough.


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Monday, September 5, 2005

Things we fear the most...
I almost have a fascination with the little petty things that some people are so afraid of for whatever reason.

There are just some things people do or don't and mainly because there's this maybe powerful, I guess, feeling inside them that is the cause.

*So the day started a little late...^^

I’ll rephrase that first line there; you see, I’m fascinated with why people would meet fear in everyday things like having to talk to someone they’re about to meet for the first time. Ok, maybe that is a little reasonable, normal even. Then some people don’t like to order food in a restaurant because they have to come face-to-face with a “stranger”. And I won’t leave out how some people really don’t like talking to those they don’t know over the phone. They just won’t do it.

“These are just social phobias” you might say, but what about a person who simply will not hang up first on the phone? It’s not that big a deal, right?

When I was a little kid, I had this thing with public restrooms. I always got this deathly scary feeling whenever I realized I was alone in one and I’d run for dear life to the exit. I used to peek inside a restroom to see if there was someone else there and if I saw that there wasn’t, then I just didn’t go. A little weird, a little sad, but don’t worry, I soon grew out of it.

Isn’t there something that you find yourself not able to do for what seems to be an unexplainable reason? Or perhaps you know of someone who has some strange way about them you’ve noticed? Let’s say, someone who will practically tell you their entire life’s story, but they won’t even give you their first name?

That I find irritating because I find some people rather interesting, you know ^_^ ? And of course, I just have this thing with names.

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Monday, August 29, 2005

The Name Game Pt II
I know that about 11 or 12 years ago I had this particular personal curiosity come to me. I now think of it as rather hilarious the logic I used to come up with such a question.

Why do people have the same names? Why would someone want to name their child a name someone already has? If everyone is all their own person then shouldn’t they have a name that’s all their own? Did they run out of names? No, that can’t be it. So why then?! o_0

Then I decided that when I grew up I wouldn’t name my kids any common names because it just did not make sense to me at all then to do so. My reasons as to why a lot of us share the same name:

- There are more people than there are names, you know
- Some people have no problem with/love common names
- People have never put much thought into the matter
- Not everyone likes what’s different and refreshing
- Common names are just liked among lots of people the reason so many wind up with them

However, I could understand how a person would name their child after someone truly awesome in their lives like a certain overseer in my early childhood that got a huge kick out of teasing kids, especially me. And even without that, Lisa, is still a clever name in its own little four-lettered, feminine way.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s possibly silly to think of why people continue to use the same names and that only I, over 10 years ago and now, would with all my “relevant” curiosity even ponder such a thing. ^^

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shinmaru: Yeah, but your's is one of the best of its kind! Because it's Greek, it has the French equivalent of 'Michel' and there are some very famous people by that name.

Joey: Now, if I do recall, 'Joey' is one of my favorite names/nicks!
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Friday, August 19, 2005

The Name Game
I was annoyed the other day thinking about my name, Krystle. I neither hate it nor think it’s the greatest name there is. But it is mine and there for I like it. While common, to me it still seems uncommon. I’ve only known two other Crystals besides the two in my family and other than myself.

I’m glad my dad named me Krystle because it’s not a name for me to hate although he supposedly named me after some singer I’m not familiar with. A teacher of mine in 8th grade asked if I’d ever heard of the song “Crystal-Blue Persuasion” and my answer was no and I’d guessed he thought my name was from the title; a few days after I heard it in my then art class. I don’t really remember its tune, but I do remember I thought it sounded okay.

Some people’s minds think of certain things or pictures form in their mind’s eye when they hear certain words. My mind does this with some names in particular like Emerald, Pearl, and Diamond in that I think of what the name refers to, but not with Ruby (with this name I actually think of rupees). I wonder if people think of crystal when they say my name. I sure don’t.

Now what I find annoying about my name is whenever someone says it, I automatically think they’re addressing me. And then with names like Christian, Christine, Kristy, Christopher, Kristina, and Christen the first syllables always get my initial attention. Three years ago I had a class with girl named Krista and my teacher and most of the other students always said the last syllable of my name softly so it sounded very much like Krista. So there were many times when someone would call me and she’d be the one to stand or speak and vice versa. That got tiring after a while and I often thought to myself, If you all would just say it right in the first place!

Lastly, what irked me was the time one of my teachers was explaining something to the class. And I wasn’t paying attention because it dealt with class behavior and I seldom have trouble with that. So I was just looking down at the work I was doing for another class when I heard a person say, “CRYSTAL!” I suddenly looked up and my eyes darted across the room to see who had urgently called me. I went back to my work and soon heard again, “CRYSTAL!” I looked around the room again with a slightly frantic expression (What?! What is it? running through my mind) because it seemed to me someone was trying to get my attention. My classmates laughed when they saw how I was looking about the room. I realized then that someone was only loudly replying to what the teacher said to the class after her explanation, “Is this clear to everyone?”

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Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Heureux et Triste
Saturday I was taking advantage of the tax free weekend when I unexpectedly bumped into an old friend of mine. When I last saw her it was my last day at my old school. I had to leave so abruptly that didn’t get any sort of contact info from her. I prefer talking in person the reason why I didn’t already have her phone number, email or whichever.

Anyhow, it was really awesome to see her again and hear that she was doing great. I haven’t seen or talked to her in almost two years! T_T I feel bad about it, but spending the day with her seemed to almost make up for it, plus the fact that she was very glad to see me. She’s bilingual and although her grandma spoke Spanish and hardly any English, I loved how she and I were able to talk to each other with out my friend translating every word. Not that I speak any Spanish.

Even though I’ve known her since we were 11, there was still a different side of her I’d never seen before that I witnessed that day. I even saw someone who has been my classmate ever since we were in 3rd grade. We were never really friends, but she was also happy to see me again, and I just the same.

One of the things I miss about the area where I used to live in; running into people I know and being able to catch up with them on a regular basis. I don’t like losing ties with friends and even if it may happen some day I do not wish for it to happen any time soon. So I’ll make better effort! ^_^

Now even after that wonderful experience I must say that I actually feel a little down inside. I see it’s possible to feel happy and sad at the same time. This here epitomizes how I feel at the moment. I was actually going to draw something up my self or maybe find some cat image and use it. But I came across this and I agree with what the webmistress of evilkid said: “When it comes to depicting sad, there is nothing for me that tops a sad kitten.”

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Tuesday, August 9, 2005

...And they rhyme
When my Aunt Alice, from Atlanta, Georgia, came out this way for a quick visit she gave me a bunch of little things like a scarf and a pair of gloves ( that don’t quite fit ^^ ) and some perfume samples and some small bottles of lotion. My mom says that her older sister hasn’t got much, but she tries in the little ways that she can. So whatever she gives me is worth more than what they really are in many ways.

I notice that one of the hand lotions has a certain scent to it. It isn’t especially nice or very bad, but it’s a funny kind of scent for hand lotion. When I first used some of it I thought: Pickles?!…sweet pickles? Is that what the people who made this were going for? (I’ve never even eaten sweet pickles to know how they smell). Yet still it reminds me of something too, but I can’t think what of. Either way I like this stuff that smells like sweet pickles.

I came across this article on MSN about that book written by a physician from NYC, called “Why Do Men Have Nipples?” I think that’s one of those good titles for books of this type; not just to grab your attention, but have you investigate further. The article tells how the authors, Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner, came up with the idea and everything; people were always asking him (Goldberg) questions so he decided to answer them in this book subtitled, “Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini.” Some people are discourteous enough to not answer the question that is the title of an article, but not with this one. I thought to myself Now there’s an interesting something I didn’t know. At the end it reads:

“While only females have mammary glands, we all start out in a similar way in the embryo, the authors explain. The embryo follows a female template until about six weeks, when the male sex chromosome kicks in.
Men, however, have already developed nipples.” (Reuters)

I see that as rather hilarious because you could say that we all start out as girls and not feel as if you had told a perfect lie. I usually don’t bother with the articles that MSN showcases because I usually don’t care to read them because they’re, I guess boring. And they seem to pick those that don’t go into very much detail; I love detail (of the right kind). A lot of them are on things that I couldn’t care less about, but every now and then there’s one that sparks my attention.

And that’s not so hard to do because of my grand curiosity about things.


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Tuesday, August 2, 2005

My Dear Aunt Ev
I’m going to miss her a lot. She’s been the grandma close to home that I’ve never had. She’s never even had any real grandkids until now although they’re adopted. But that’s cool that they’re my cousins now.

Aunt Ev (great aunt) is moving back to New Jersey where she started out and raised her kids before moving to other parts of the country. It still amazes me that she’s been retired for all the years that I’ve been alive; that sort of makes me feel like a baby.

I helped her do a lot of packing that she would other wise have had to do by herself. And as I was doing so I felt sad because I thought to myself that I wasn’t ever going to see her house the way I’d always known it since I was little, again. And even just the house itself because of many memories. My family spent many holidays in that house. During Christmas she always decorated her home so beautifully even though she was the only one who stayed there. I used to always love opening presents under the wonderful Christmas trees that she would pick out and have look simply extravagant.

When I was little her house was like this magical and enchanted place because of all the interesting items and antiques that filled its rooms. My favorites were what I call the Japan-lady pillow, her miniature shrine, the little Japanese doll which I thought was a little creepy, but liked it anyway. Those are all from her trip to Japan many, many, years ago. I would open up three of her curio cabinets from time to time and look at some things when she wasn’t looking. What I loved about that house is how it was structured so that the kitchen, formal dining room, living room, front sitting room, and two of the bedrooms on the first floor were all conveniently connected. This made for nice and rowdy games of hide-and-seek and tag. But since there was so much that could fall over and wind up broken, my brothers and I usually didn’t get to play for long.

Also these two chairs over 100 years old that I tried avoiding for fear they’d break if I sat in them for too long; belonged to her husband’s great grandfather. Not that I weigh a ton; it’s just they’re really old although she said they’re in good condition. I took a look at her coin collection with most being from Europe, but still interesting enough. One coin looked like it might have been used for gambling, but she said it was real money. And she showed me this street sign from a street here that was named after my cousin. She said that people kept taking it and it would show up again so the sign was just given to her to keep since people wouldn’t leave it alone. Imagine that. ^_^ I think I’d be a bit ticked if people kept stealing the street sign from the street that was named after me.

Another something amazing is, well, she’s rather old and yet she is so healthy; not just physically, but mentally too although her memory isn’t what it used to be. But then she is quite the health nut with all of her wonderful organic foods and natural herbs and seasonings. It’s really kooky how she buys a lot of food with the intention of giving some to my family, but winds up waiting til it’s pretty much gone bad or she gives it to us all frozen. She’ll stick anything into the freezer: fish, fresh ginger root, fruit, bread, fresh vegetables, milk, and leftovers. And the funny thing is she’ll leave the stuff in there for weeks, months even before getting it out and eating it or sending it our way.

I’ll miss her two Yorkies also that she’s had ever since the time I first knew what a dog was. Spike and Clarice, 12 and 13 and yet so young; they’re too cute and are just like two little puppies.

I wish to visit her in New Jersey as soon as the first opportunity arises. : )

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Thursday, July 21, 2005

Knowledge to enlighten
I was just thinking about this earlier today about how it seems that some adults stop learning and discovering things. And even if they do become aware of something new, not long after do they forget. And when I say adults, I don’t mean little teenagers who think they’re grown and I don’t mean people who are twenty-something or so.

It’s as if they feel they know everything or just so much that they don’t think there’s anything more to discover. Children know nothing, and in most cases know they know nothing so they learn and learn. I’m not talking necessarily about school, but just learning in general. More like life and the world around us, I guess. This is one of those things where if you admit you know nothing and you are then you able to learn.

I hope this sort of thing never befalls me.

And for something not completely related: I must say that it’s interesting and a tad annoying that of my mom’s raising me for all of my 17 years of existence it has not occurred to her that I do not like jellybeans.

Yes, I know it’s such an unimportant thing and it really doesn’t matter, but it just boggles me that she hasn’t figured that out yet. Every time she buys jellybeans she comes and says something like, “Mmm, look what I bought! Some yummy, delicious jellybeans!” and she hands me the bag of the disgusting little things. And I proceed to remind her for the 100,000th time that I don’t like jellybeans and she replies, “Oh… well I just love a good bag of jellybeans!” Isn’t there that one person in your life that refuses to remember that one little detail about you that you just happen to mention almost all the time it seems?

Now a quote:


“It’s beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.”

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