I have found a direction in my life.

Have you found yours?

I'm impatient and critical and I make judgments without thinking about it,

and sometimes I think entirely too much.

I believe that one learns to take risks. Don't force yourself to do something you don't want to.

I defend and protect my friends. I help them when I can and I buy them food when I can't.

I am observant but not all-seeing.

I am quiet but not shy.

I am logical but not without dreams, hopes, and totally unrealistic fantasies.

I've realized that my ambition in life is to have kids.

I don't need a husband or boyfriend or fiance or what-have-you.

I just want that kind of unconditional love,

to be completely reliant upon someone,

to love someone with every fiber of my being.

I do not have that, not in this time and place.

That is all I want.

I like music that sounds big.

Symphonies, choirs, sweeping scores of violins and cellos and all kinds of strings.

I usually like female vocalists or none at all, but there's something about (Muse frontman) Matthew Bellamy's voice that unhinges me, that makes me feel powerful.

If you're on the lookout for some symphonic metal or instrumental bullshit, you've come to the right place. :3

After Forever - "Energize Me" - "Cry With a Smile"
Ahn Trio - "Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac" - "All I Want"
Apocalyptica - "Farewell" - "Hope, Vol. 2"
Atargatis - "4 Giving"
Coheed and Cambria - "Welcome Home"
Dawn of Destiny - "Where Are You Now"
Delain - "April Rain" - "Stay Forever"
Domina Noctis - "The Mask"
Epica - "Martyr of the Free Word" - "Our Destiny"
Evanescence - "Together Again" - "Lacrymosa"
Juno Reactor - "Navras" - "Mona Lisa Overdrive"
Kajiura Yuki - "Hear Our Prayer" - "Grandpa's Violin"
Krypteria - "Why"
Legenda Aurea - "Reflections"
Lunatica - "Winds of Heaven" - "Farewell My Love"
Magica - "Through Wine"
Muse - "Crying Shame"
Nightwish - "Sahara" - "Wish I Had an Angel"
Sirenia - "Seven Sirens and a Silver Tear"
Stream of Passion - "My Leader" - "The Art of Loss"
Within Temptation - "Jane Doe" - "See Who I Am" - "Hand of Sorrow"
Xandria - "Sisters of Light"
Yann Tiersen - "Summer 78" - "La corde"

So lately I've been getting into a lot of classical music, mostly since it's what's on 24/7 at the preschool I work at.

This one is my particular favorite, though.

"Greensleeves."

I hope you like it as much as I do.

You know those stories. The ones with the main character, either a girl or a boy, who has a best friend who's been in love with them forever but the protagonist never EVER notices? Or if they do happen to notice, they either say, "I'm sorry, I only think of you as a friend," or "But you're like my brother/sister/punching bag!" or "I never even noticed! How could I be so stupid?!" and then proceeds to feel sorry for her/himself.

But almost no matter what happens, the protagonist and the best friend never end up together. The protagonist ends up with the guy or girl they've been in love with forever and the best friend smiles sadly and says, "I'm happy for you."

I hate those stories.

My ultimate love story, forever and always, is one where the girl ends up with the guy who's loved her for the longest time. I think it's the most beautiful thing in the world when she wakes the hell up and realizes that she can have the whole package--a best friend and a boyfriend. There are a few movies that play out like this, but none really do it justice.

With that out of the way, I've resolved to write one of my very own stories in which the boy next door does get the girl. It might not be a great story, or even a halfway good one, but it's my goal to write one—fully and completely—by next summer.

And now for something completely different.

This is my favorite poem, "To an Athlete Dying Young," by A. E. Housman:

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.