So for the most part, this has been a shitty, shitty week.



Seeing Panic, The Hush Sound, and Motion City Soundtrack in Anaheim.

Mine and Tyler's seats were waaaay up above the stage, in the section 437. When you're that far away from the stage in a huge arena like the Honda Center, it's really more like watching a concert on TV where they only filmed crowd shots, except that the music is live and you're surrounded by a bunch of screaming fangirls (I'm counting those both as good points, btw. Last HCT I went to the screaming was right in my ear and also tended to drown out people singing, but this time it was at a totally acceptable level and just added to the 'yay, huge group of fangirls' experience). Still, it was an awesome experience just getting to hear the music. It was my first time seeing all 3 of those bands (I missed Phantom Planet because I was buying Hush Sound merch) and ohhh, so much love.

I was really interested to see how the Hushies were going to arrange their set, since Goodbye Blues has primarily Greta singing and the older albums have primarily Bob singing, and I was surprised to see that it's still primarily Bob singing for the live show (by a pretty small margin). I was also really interested to see how Greta would handle the older songs given her expanded range, and while it seems like she hasn't really figured out what register she wants to sing them in, it also sounds like she's getting there. What I love about the Hushies' stage persona is pretty much the opposite of what I love about Panic's stage persona--while Panic really seem to know what they're doing onstage and how to interact with the audience as performers, the Hushies are still sort of deciding how genuine they want to be onstage and so it comes off sort of awkward and adorable. "Lion's Roar" was def the highlight of their set, though I was really happy to hear "Not Your Concern" too.

Motion City Soundtrack--okay, theirs is the music that I relate to most, because it's all about being an adult and being really bad at it and being a fuck up, so during their set I was singing along to almost every song. I luuurve them. I also bought a 50 dollar hoodie because I didn't really dig the rest of their merch, but I wanted to support them. (Also the hoodie is really ugly-cute--bright pink with blue and pink leaves all over it, and a pink pocket-thingy. I can no longer mock people who own non-necklace Clan merch. It was expensive, but whatev. I really needed a new, well-fitting hoodie, and once Ty pays me back for his ticket, it'll essentially be paid off.)

Panic Panic Panic! Oh, those little stoner fucks are so adorable, and they really did try to include those of us in the cheap seats. I loved the arrangements of the older songs, and I also loved getting to hear the new songs. Basically I loved everything, especially the way in which they're not really a band with a frontman anymore, which is somewhat evident when you hear Ryan and Jon singing on the album, but even moreso when you see Brendon, Ryan, and Jon all playing and singing onstage and see all three of them talking to the audience.

Getting to hang out with Tyler

We have totally opposite schedules during school (he's free during the week, I'm free during weekends) so we don't really get to see each other much unless we schedule it waay in advance, such as, for example, making plans to go to a concert. I feel really bad because Tyler was my ride so he came to Denny's after the concert and basically had to tune out all the slash talk for an hour, and then I ended up ditching him for fangirls. But he said he had fun watching me have fun, and we did get to spend the rest of the day together, as well as make plans to do Disneyland and possible the Hushie/Cab concert.

Fangirls!

So, prior to Saturday, I'd only met 5 fangirls, and I've now met about 7 billion. Slight exaggeration, but seriously, many fangirl meetups and awesomeness. I was really tired, and also the latter part of the night was hanging with Cab fangirls and all I know about the Cab is that they're super-adorable, so I'm sure everyone thought I was super-awkward, but whatev. I had fun. Also I hadn't seen Telis in faaaar too long, so we spent much of the night clinging to each other. And I made new friends! *waves to notshybutsly and jzbell*




Academic fail

So the late paper that I turned in got marked down 50% by the instructor, which is really going to fuck with my GPA. I thought he would probably mark it down somewhat, but not nearly that much. In my email to him I reminded him that I hadn't gotten the email changing the due date, and he emailed me back and basically ripped about how it was my own fault, even though I did everything I was supposed to do--my email was confirmed on the school website, and I check it, including my junk mail, every three days. Also there was another girl who didn't recieve the email, so I know it's not just that it went into junk mail and got deleted without me seeing it. I was irresponsible in turning the paper in late, but not in terms of the email thing, so it really pissed me off that he tried to blame me not getting the email on me.

Money fail

I still don't have a job yet. Last night I applied to Kohls and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, though, and today I'm going to go down the little mass of shops around the corner and see if Goodwill or Susie's Deals are hiring, and later this week I'm planning to go to the job placement office at Citrus to see if they can help me out. I still have money, but I've made a few big purchases lately, and also since my loan has almost run out and since I'm probably not going to get that transfer grant, my money is probably going to have to help me pay for tuition and books as well as transportation, food, personal expenses, etc. Also there was a 90 dollar charge on my BAR account this month, because my school charged me 30 dollars per class for the Instructional Enhancement Initiative, which is supposed to pay for class websites for Humanities classes. None of my classes used their class websites this quarter, like, at all. What a fucking rip off. Also, why charge me in June, as class is ending, rather than at the beginning of the quarter with the rest of my fees? WTF.

Family fail

So, yesterday was pretty much horrible. My parents came back from Vegas and my mom was in an awful mood and bitching at us as soon as she got home. It was Father's Day, and I didn't get Dad a present because I was planning to get him something at Disneyland, but we didn't end up going. I figured he'd be okay with it because we'd actually had a conversation where I asked him what he wanted, and he said, "Nothing," and I said, "Oh, just my love, then?" and he was like, "yes, that's exactly what I want." I still planned to get him a present, but I figured that he'd be okay with getting it late since I've had so much going on this week.

My dad actually seemed pretty okay, but he's not really one to show his emotions or talk about when he has a problem or say what he wants. My mother, on the other hand, flipped out entirely and spent most of yesterday screaming at me and Sheryl for being ungrateful and selfish and awful children who don't think our parents have feelings, and told us that if we don't care about her and dad, we should get out of her house. She's sick of always being the bad guy, she's only telling us the truth, etc. But the reason she always feels like the bad guy is that she screams at us about how awful we are until we're crying, and then just doesn't stop. We get it, we feel awful, we're crying, and she still. won't. stop. She's "just telling us the truth" about what awful people we are, and she doesn't seem to get that we aren't thanking her for delivering such wisdom to our ears.

The thing is, it wasn't really about Father's Day. It was about a) her being tired and cranky after driving back from Vegas, and b) her built-up frustration from have four kids in their twenties, two of whom aren't even her children, living in her house rent-free and not contributing much. I get that. But the problem is, she let her frustration build up into a screaming rage and then unleashed it on me and Sheryl in the worst way possible, and she also refused to admit that that was her real problem. She made it about Dad, but it was really about her. And again--this is an argument that lasted all day, from about two in the afternoon to two at night. She was crying, she made Sheryl cry, and she made me cry, but she just wouldn't stop. We got it, we already felt bad, we already promised dad we would make it up to him, and it wasn't enough for her.

So basically I feel like a shitty student, a shitty adult, a shitty friend, and a shitty daughter right now. I also cut myself for the first time in about a year last night, and just. I don't know. It's just been a really bad week.