I met my lovely best friend Merry (aka quantumspork), whose LJ I'm too lazy to link at the moment, around a year ago on June 16th--yes, we mean enough to each other that we actually remembered. Her 16th birthday was two days after, on the 18th. I guess it would have made more since to post this bit of information closer to the time it happened, but I've been busy/lazy.

That >family reunion I mentioned has come and gone, and it was definitely interesting. I hadn't seen most of those people since I was ten years old, and I really don't like myself at that age. But it was okay--the age difference between me and my slightly younger cousins didn't seem to mean as much this time around.

All we really did, besides hang out at the lodge in the mountains of Gatlinburg, is shopping and white water rafting, the latter of which was awesome. It made me wish I lived in that area, so I could do it more often. Unfortunately, I started my period on the way up, so that was unpleasant to deal with. And I finally got those moccasins I wanted...Let's hope they don't wear out nearly as quickly as they get dirty.

I also finished two books: On Writing Well, and Fahrenheit 451. On Writing Well was actually not condescending or pretentious at all; it held some vauluable advice for serious writers. The only complaint I have about it is that the author seemed to have a disdain for fiction writing, as if he didn't consider it "real" writing. Or maybe it was just that it's not his field. Whatever. It did make me realize the value of nonfiction more, though, and made me want to read more of it.

I read Fahrenheit 451 of my own accord, although the sophomore honors English class has to read it for their summer homework. It's definitely worthy of classic status, with its painfully true-to-life commentary on the nature of society and the way it's going downhill--typical dystopia, which is definitely a genre I'm beginning to like. The way Bradbury writes is also so creepy and compelling and atmospheric. Read it. Do it now. I might just have to write a proper book review for it sometime.

As for the boy, I'm quite pleased. He did end up talking to me, and though we weren't too successful at first, we later made up a little bit better. My opinion on him is changing, too--he's a very complex creature. He's very difficult to form a solid opinion about if you've seen drastically different facets of his personality. As I've told him, I've gone from liking him to hating him to being just plain puzzled by and fascinated with him. It probably inflated his ego more than was necessary, but shh.

Yep. Overall, I'm pretty good.