"Children, you must remember something. A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive." -Pearl Bailey, "Talking to Myself" (1971)

When I graduated from high school, I didn't really have any idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I planned to attend one of the community colleges for a year or two and then try to transfer to a local university. The summer after high school changed everything and I honestly haven't thought about going back to school since. First of all, there wasn't any way for me to get enrolled when I didn' t have any money other than what I made in my minimum wage job, and I didn't have a long-term living situation. I didn't see the need for it.

Last year when Connor and I started going to school with the twins, I got to thinking about it but still didn't see the need. Was it going to benefit me in some way? I didn't have the drive to do any particular thing. Not even slaying. Don't get me wrong, I get the thrill out of a good kill every now and then, but I must be a broken slayer because I'm just as cool without it. Maybe it's because what I relate to that summer when everything changed, but that's just how it goes. It's more of a if I happen to come up on something kind of deal instead of going huntint. Unless I do it to relieve the stress and let's face it, I had a few months where everyone around benefited from me relieving any kind of stress I could, okay.

Anyway, the point is that ever since we went toe-to-toe with the big bad not that long ago, it got me thinking again about school-type things. I still don't really know what there's for me to get my hands on but I know it's something I want to do. It's something my mom always wanted for me and it's something I want for me now. I have the time, the funds, and the drive to do it, so why the hell not?

Starting June 23rd I am officially a student of Communication Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Look at me being all collegiate and stuff.

1. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.
2. Go to http://images.google.com and search for that word.
3. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results -- don't tell me the word.
4. Put this in your own blog so that I can do the same.

Life is a Soundtrack
Rules:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.

( soundtrack )

Warning: By posting this up you are subjecting yourself to other peoples tastes in music. First rule of Play List is do not get offended by the music people share with you. Your cup of tea is could be someone else's leafy water.
Warning: By posting this up should be willing to seek out the same meme on your friends list and give them some music too!

01. How it works: Place this post up in your journal.
02. Fellow friends list members [and their writers too] are to then in turn comment to your post with music.
03. Said music is shared via an upload that you can download, or a link to lyrics for the connection challenged that reminds them of you.
04. When you comment leave the song title and artist in the subject line so that if someone else thought of the same song they don't have to send it to you again, ;)
05. With enough people and enough variety of songs you should end up with a lovely playlist inspired by those that know you pretty well. [or so you hope]

After you die... Hell After death, you will burn forever in the fires of hell. Or much more likely, you will be put into a room with two other people for all of eternity. Because hell is other people.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Great. I'll give you three guesses on who my "two" people will probably be. Or one of them at least.

People kept filing into the hospital one after another and I kept looking at faces to see if there were any I recognized. Friends, family, a nephew, a brother. The not knowing was starting to get to me and it made me restless. Walking around the hospital in search of people was starting to get old, but I couldn't just not do anything. Both Connor and Fred had fallen during the fight and both were being looked at by doctors which meant no visitors for the time being. One of the other slayers and I were able to help get Fred to the hospital while a couple others did the same with Connor. I hadn't seen Angel or anyone, but hopefully they'd be able to find him once they got here.

I was worried about Fred, but at least I knew she was going to be okay. It would take her longer than the rest since she didn't have that superhuman kick, but the doctor did come out of the room long enough to let me know she'd make it. A sigh of relief and I went off in search of my family.

Finally, I spotted Harry standing outside of a room and immediately I went over and threw my arms around him. I have this thing where I worry about him even though I know he can take care of himself. That dying twice thing kind of has something to do with it. He told me he was okay and about a few of the others he'd heard about. Grace wasn't doing well and they didn't know yet about the baby. Tyler was okay, but Lily was still unconscious after getting thrown out of a window. Faith and Angel were alright. Lexi was gone. I wasn't really sure what to make of that, but I just nodded at him. I knew better than to ask him too many questions right now. He looked like he'd been ripped apart and put back together all wrong and then stomped over by the Marshmallow Puff we'd been fighting. But at least he was alive.

And if he told me he was technically dead, I'd smack him.

I hugged him again and we both agreed to talk after things settled down. Tyler was in the room with Lily, so I didn't want to disturb him there. Seeing him alive and okay, though, was what I needed the most anyway. Now that I'd seen my family, I needed to get out of the hospital. I'd be back, but I was anything but useful there and I had someone waiting for me back at the hotel who needed to know I was okay.

My car was back at the school, so I huffed it on foot to the hotel. Pretty much ran the whole way no matter how tired I was. Once I got back there, I could finally let myself loose. From what I knew, people were heading there anyway because Kim was there with first aid for those were weren't nearly as injured as the ones needing to be seen at the hospitals.

It took me a little while but not too long before I was opening up the doors to the hotel and saw a bunch of slayers already getting themselves fixed up. A few looked over at me, but went back to whatever they'd been doing. At first I didn't see her, but she came out from behind the counter carrying more first aid supplies. She looked pretty relieved to see me standing there in the flesh and I just shrugged, grinning a little.

After a beat, I walked over to where Kim was standing with an armful of bandages and gauze and kissed her soundly. She probably had no idea what her being here meant to me and I didn't mean just here in the hotel and alive and without a scratch on her. Even before the relationship we had changed to what it was now, she was like a breath of fresh air around here. I was so looking forward to finally getting home after all this was over. But, for now, that would have to wait. "What can I do?" I asked, nodding to the girls who still needed bandages and fixing up. Kim handed me some of the supplies in her arms and we both got back to work.

Harry had tried to talk me out of it. He'd wanted me to take Tyler and get the hell out of town. While I supported my nephew leaving town, I wasn't going to skip out on a fight that could use every single fighting person it could not to mention every slayer it could get. As much as I would have wanted to see Tyler get out of harm's way, I understood his wanting to fight because I felt the same way. Stubborn runs in the family. Maybe this wasn't my fight in their eyes, but I didn't care. They were my family and I wasn't leaving with the risk of never seeing them again. I'd told Faith I had her back, friends or not, and I wasn't planning on backing down on that promise. Family was family and now that I had one I wasn't running away from that. Even if it called for my life.

When I heard cat boy's voice come into the room, I narrowed my eyes and realized that he'd decided to come back for the fight. Well, good for him. I couldn't stay mad at the moment because we actually needed someone like him in on this but that didn't mean I had to take orders from him the entire time, right? Not when I could have Connor doing the same thing.

Once the groups were divided up, I broke from the crowd and found my nephew and put my arms around him. I might not have taken Harry up on his idea of getting Tyler and leaving the city, but that didn't mean I wouldn't watch out for him no matter what. "Kick some ass," I told him, smiling a little and then filed out with the rest of the group but stayed close enough to Tyler. I had an axe gripped in my hand and was just waiting on the time when I'd need to use it.

Fred was using her own fire power for the fight and I fell into step next to her as we walked. Then we waited and I kept my eyes fixed on the building in front of me where I knew Harry, Faith, and everyone else were fighting for their lives just like we were about to do.

The demons came at us suddenly and in waves. So many at one time and I could hardly keep sight of anyone or anything but whatever was coming at me next. There were so many of them. Every now and then I could hear Fred's flame thrower somewhere charring up a demon and I couldn't help but smile at that a little.

I'd just knocked down a demon when I heard Connor yell something up ahead of me and I looked frantically around for Tyler only to see him and Sarah heading off to the side and then looked just in time to see Connor fall to the ground. "Connor!" I yelled, but didn't have the chance to go over to him. Instead, my eyes widened as another demon came at me. Spinning around, I felt the axe smack the demon hard and the thing fell to the ground. My eyes went to the building again, but I couldn't go inside there no matter how much I wanted to right now.

What I could do right now was fight until I didn't have any fight left in me and these sons of bitches didn't know me very well if they thought that fight would give out anytime soon. I was Pierce, Osborn, and Slayer. Put it all together and it's guaranteed to kick your demon ass.

1 question...
1 chance...
1 honest answer...

That's all you get. Ask me one question. Any one question, anything, no matter how crazy it is. An honest answer. No catch.

Well, okay, there's just one. All comments will be screened so your question stays private between you and me, and only you will get to see my answer to your question. But I dare you to repost this and see what people ask you.

ooc: well, not really screened since that whole not being able to respond to screened comments irks me, but let's pretend they are all screened, mmkay?

You stupid bitch. Get your dumb ass back here now.

I'm not normally the kind of girl who makes resolutions. Mostly because I suck at keeping them. There's no reason on God's green earth to make a decision to do something just for the sake of doing it. I've never really made one and I never had any intention whatsoever of making any. Until recently.

See, life's been pretty interesting around here lately. Not just the usual death and fucking angst that happens on every day ending in y. I've had my own little bit of crazy shit to happen.

So, I've got some resolutions. Two, actually. Here they are.

Number one. No more dive bars or bars in general. I thought about giving up alcohol entirely, but that's just a dumb idea and I know will never actually happen. Bars? Whiskey shots? Drinking games? I can do that.

The second is a little more complicated. Partly has to do with number one, but then again not. Number two is going to be a group effort on the part of two others.

Number two. I want to avoid a cetain face. Lucky for me one face pretty much covers two different people. From now until further notice, I will be avoiding any and all who look like this or this. So, you know, stay away. And yes, I know they look exactly the same but hey they tend to get confused more times than not so I'm covering all my bases here.

Now I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my bottle of expensive wine with my hot girlfriend and ring in the new year.

That is all. Enjoy 2008 everyone.

[ooc: post-dated after the snow storm is over for everyone!]

I'm never drinking again. Really, I'm not. That's my freaking New Year's resolution. Or it will be when New Year's actually comes. I'm never playing any retarded drinkng games and hey while I'm at it, let's swear off all crappy dive bars too. Because the morning after and waking up with Alec's god damned smirk next to me? IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN EVER AGAIN.

I mean, I wasn't drunk enough that I didn't know mostly what was going on at the time but oh my god did reality really hit when I sobered up. I've had bad hangovers and morning afters in the past one, but this is on up there with the worst of them. Maybe not the absolute worst because, well.... despite the fact that I did have sex with Alec.. I had sex with Alec. After going way too long without getting laid at all? Top it off that it was with a guy who was genetically enhanced in lots and lots of ways.

And holy shit he is never finding out any of those thoughts or I might have to stab myself in the eye because I wouldn't be able to handle the smirk any more. And while I'm at it, I'd have to bust out my ear drums too.

For the most part, I was pretty positive that neither one of us was planning on spreading this particular mistake. It happened and maybe it shouldn't have, but it did and there's nothing either of us would be able to do about it now. Plus, I've got the thing with Kim now. It's new and different and we're both still figuring it out, but it's there. I'm okay with that. I still have no idea what really is going on with Alec and Grace but I wouldn't want to be the cause of something... else between them. I like Grace more than most others in her family and I know if it were me, I'd be pissed as hell. Broken up, on a break or not, I'd be pissed. And.. my slayer abilities don't work against her magic thing either.

I'd also really like to send a memo to my brain to forget the visible resemblence to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named if at all possible. That'd be great.

For the most part, I'd be hanging out around the house ever since that little incident or driving around. The insane snow storm of Los Angeles 2007 was gone by now and so far the world hadn't ended so hopefully nothing terrible happened because of it. Kim was at work for the afternoon and I was getting ready to go run a few errands. Since Kim did most (all) of the cooking in the house, I at least liked to go to the store and pick up a few things. I'd gotten changed into a good pair of jeans and top when the doorbell rang. As far as I knew, I wasn't expecting anyone but you never knew around here. I was putting my hair half up when I got to the door and opened it up to see... Grace.

Oh crap.

[Open to Grace]

( to wake up the muse.. mebbe )

Well, that was exciting. Who wants to go out?

( and because it's kind of funny )