Roots

Dear Bloggie,

So Saturday I went to a Portuguese festival in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Now, if you've never been to a Portuguese festival before I'm sure your thinking "Cool". But trust me, it's not. Yes, I love being Portuguese and all, but our festivals kinda suck. Still, they're amusing so I go to two every year. One at the Portuguese church not far from my house around late May, and one in Ludlow around Labor Day.

The festival is the same every year. I go with my mom, her best friend who I call Tia Cathy, and her two children Samantha and Brandon, who I consider my cousins. I know I've mentioned them before so I won't go more into that. Basically what happens every year is that we show up, look around at all these tents that are full of knick-knacks people are trying to sell for outrageous prices, then go up to this small hill where you can light a candle in memory of someone who has passes away. Normally we light one for my grandmother and Sam and Brandon's grandfather, but this year we also lighted one for their uncle who committed suicide almost a year ago . Sam and our mom's did that, while Brandon and I hung around talking about school, friends, ect.

One of my favorite things about a Portuguese festival is our fried dough. Most fried dough is covered in that powered sugar I can't stand, but Portuguese friend dough is covered in real sugar, which makes it ten time better. And ten times worst for you. ;)

Following the fired dough we headed over to the carnival games. I tried one if those drat games and failed at it. The first dark hit the top of the bored – at least a foot away from any of the drawn strawberries I was supposed to be aiming for. The second dart ALMOST made it, but sadly it it hit the leaf instead. Which I consider good enough but the carnie didn’t. Of course, I went on rides too. First I went on the Pharaoh's Furry:

( As you can imagine, this ride turns your stomach into a gymnast)

But that wasn’t my favorite ride. No, my favorite was the Round a Round:

(I forgot to get a picture of it, so on my way out I just took one of the park to use instead; it’s the ride I circled and put an arrow to)

And the cool thing was that the man operating the ride let me and Sam on over and over again for free. Brandon only rode once with us because he gets sick on rides that spin. *shudders at memory*

Sadly no amount of rides can make up for the music they played. But then again, when a CD cover looks like this:

(I'm too sexy for my cat too sexy for my cat/ Poor pussy poor pussy cat)

What do you expect from the music inside?

Of course we had to get some souvenirs! My mom got and old fashion baking dish:

(Is it me, or does that design look like it could have been weed in a past life..?)

And a cork decorator for a wine bottle:

(Nothing says “Getting drunk with class” like a chicken!")

While I was torn over what I wanted. First i says these, but my mom said no:

(Sadly the didn’t come with any balls or a pimp hat, so they’re not totally correct)

But then I saw this:

And just knew I HAD to HAVE it! Plus, it lights up!

(Is it me, or does this remind you of Sailor Moon too?)

There is one Portuguese song I love, but sadly they did not play it. it’s about the Portuguese island that my family come from. Thankfully, i found a version of the song on you tube. Ignore the beginning with the the strange people, I don’t know who they are. I only choose this video because the rest has pictures of Madeira (the island’s name, which actually translates to wood…)

During this song, they use traditional clothes that look like this:

(In my opinion the, the female outfit looks like a fancy table cloth)

And someone plays this instrument:

I know these things look a bit ridiculous, but when you live in a houses like this:

(No wonder Portuguese people tend to be short!)

It would be normal to dance to that type of music, with that type of instrument, and in that type of outfit, all those years ago. Now, people just do it for fun.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit of my culture. Before I finish this post, I want to show you pictures of Jonah I found the other day when I was stalking—I mean browsing—his Facebook page.

(Yes, the first two look a bit feminine, so I added the third which is what he looks more like now.)

Sadly, I don’t think anything will ever work out between us seeing as he did not accept my friend request on Facebook. :(

~Libby

I’m A Bigger Shame to All Feminist than Taylor Swift

Dear Bloggie,
I am a shame to all feminists out there. I really am. I thought I was a good feminist. I believe in equal rights and pay for women. I am Pro-Choice (even though personally I could never have an abortion) because I believe a woman should have control of her body and be able to make the life changing decision to be or not to be a mother. I even read articles and stuff like that so my knowledge on feminism can be greater! Except for my love of Taylor Swift music, dream of being or feeling like (the later being more rational thinking) a princess, and having no problem taking my husbands name someday when I get married (I don’t really like my last name or I wouldn’t change it when I get married) I thought I was a pretty damn strong feminist. Well, for a fourteen year old feminist.

That all changed today when I made the greatest fool of myself. At least I was alone when I did. What happened was I was logging onto my email about ten or so minutes ago when I noticed it said I got a friend request on Facebook. Guess who friended me? I’ll give you a hint; I was supposed to tell you about him today anyways. Yep, my new crush (Dulian Progonati) friend requested me. Of course I almost jumped for joy, then tabbed the page and went on Facebook in 1.5 seconds.

The only thing was I had heard he had a girlfriend, but that was back in September. At the age of thirteen (he’s a year younger than me) most people aren’t in relationships that long, but I had to check. So I went on his page and checked his info. The problem is that I have my language set to Pirate English, which is funny, but hard to understand. So being a overly romantic twit I am, I changed my language to normal English (actually it I changed it to English UK, but it’s still the same so I don’t know why they give you the option between English US and English UK) and went back to his profile so I can see if he has a girlfriend. This is what I saw (I took out his siblings and birthday part for his privacy):

About me
Basic info Gender: Male

Birthday:
Siblings:

Relationship Status: Single
Interested in: Women

Looking for: Friendship
Dating
A relationship

Religious views: Albanianism

As you can imagine I was relieved, but at the same time I felt so stupid. I totally had a freak-out (a happy freak-out but that’s not the point) because I guy I’m crushing on friend requested me. It’s not like he asked me to marry him or something, he just simply asked to be Facebook friends! And now I feel like a stupid girly girl. I mean, I’ve always been girly, but I swore to myself I would never again act like a moron because I like a guy after I got over Brennan Graham, the guy who I crushed on from third to sixth grade. Though he had made it extremely clear he didn’t like me and had actually treated me kinda bad, I only got over him after he graduated from eighth grade (he was two years older than me) and I never really saw him again.
I only admitted this to Serena and maybe to my guy friend Corey (we had been three way talking on the phone a lot in the beginning of 7th grade, one of those times we revealed secrets to each other. I don’t remember it was then that I revealed this secret) that I kept on liking Brennan even after he was paid by two girls in my class (I forgave them pretty quickly, and decided never to bring up that subject around them again for the safety and mentality of all involved) to ask me to dance. I thankfully had turned him down because I didn’t have the nerve to dance with him. When I later found out he was paid, I was furious. But what can I say, he’s hot and I fell for him again. This time secretly.

So you can see how my experiences with guys in that past have caused me to be more rational. I can like a guy, but the second I start acting like a love sick moron it’s just sad. I’ve obsessed all this week over the fact that he says hi to me everyday at camp (he works there with me as a junior leader) but actually freaking-out just because he friend requested me? That’s sad. Especially since he friend requested my cousin Brandon who also works with us. I doubt that means he likes him! I’m living in the mall of patheticness, I know.
~XOXO
Libby

P.S. The picture I included is of Dulian, but then you probably already guessed that.

The Incident

Hey Bloggie,
I know it’s been a while, but that’s only because I’ve been apprehensive about writing down the incident. Nevertheless life moves on and I might as well just say it. So let’s start at the beginning.

You know my post about the horrible day? Well it turns out scraping my knee was only the tip of the iceberg. Even though my mom told me not to, I had brought my cell to school that day. That night I was going to take a picture of my graduation dress to show to Serena, when I checked my backpack and could not find it. I wasn’t too worried; I’m always losing stuff and there was a small possibility that it was somewhere in my house. On Tuesday I checked my school but couldn’t find it, so when I got home I looked for it around the house. Now, I was getting worried. I told my mom and she said to double check around school so I did. Still nothing.

My mom picks me up from school on Wednesday, so I told her it was still missing. I didn’t have school that Friday because of some teachers in service meeting, so I said if I didn’t find it by Thursday I wanted her to cancel my account ant I would pay for a new cell with my grandfather’s money I never used (100 for Christmas and 100 for my birthday). It never got to that point.

I was checking my mail when I saw people were commenting on something on Facebook. So I log onto Facebook and guess what the first words I see? No, not magical pony (good guess though) but instead “I HATE YOU BITCHES” as MY Facebook status. Under the status it has comments from different people asking what is going on and one – from Neena – asking what was I cursing her and Serena out. Of course I’m in shock because I did no such thing. That’s when I notice that the status was posted via mobile Facebook. My mom just so happened to be walking through the door from work at that point so I ran to her (she would later say that from the way I was acting when I ran to her she thought the house was burning down or something!) and told her someone was impersonating me and that she needs to cancel my phone account.

While she is canceling my account I started to tell people it was not me who had posted the status and that they should not believe any bad status. Well I guess the person who had my phone was not done because they posted a status (under my name!!!) saying “Chill out, I found my phone.” I of course told my mom who was on the phone with Verizon about it and again told people that I had NOT found my phone! Finally my phone was shut down, I changed my Facebook password and I start asking Neena what happened. I guess the person texted her and Serena saying that I hated them and that I didn’t want to be friends anymore. I told her to inform Serena that it wasn’t true and she did. The next day I told my friends what happened and asked Serena more about what happened.

In the end Verizon sent me a new phone right away (I had it by Thursday evening, the fiasco having occurred Wednesday evening), Serena and Neena understood and didn’t hold it against me, and everything went back to normal, but I can’t help but wonder. Who would hate me enough to try to mess up my life? Who is my enemy? It had to be someone in my class since they would have to have been aware of my previous arguments with Neena and Serena (they only targeted them from my phone list) but after this year I wouldn’t imagine anyone doing it. I have become pretty close to the girls in my class to a point where I don’t see anyone of them as backstabbing, and this incident is too bitchy to be a guy. So who? Now that’s the burning question...

~XOXO,
Carrie