end of the month

so, it's the end of the month. which means i get to stay up all night - or at least until midnight - and use up the extra internet download. YAY! i have discovered some fantabulous things, which i will now share with you. are you comfortable? good! :)

- i heart The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. My Guardian Angel is honestly one of the most beautiful love songs i have ever heard, and i got to watch this video again:

aaah! Face Down is the bomb, Ronnie Winter is muy talented and beautiful, and RJA generally just rocks the party. good times!

- i equally heart Death Cab For Cutie. i watched the whole 8 and a half minutes of this video, which means you can, too. but don't get too concerned - it's enthralling, i think. the song is called I Will Possess Your Heart.

- Relient K is the current featured band at www.zambooie.com! i owe it all to zambooie for my pretty hoodie. them and my fabulous aunt Kymmie. i will post a picture of it another day, though... i need to get off now!

i blame it all on Relient K.

if it weren't for two lefts not making a right, i'm pretty sure i'd still be wanting to wear girly shoes in two years' time. but... it was not to be.

i don't suppose i can get away with blaming Relient K entirely, though. it was mostly Andrea, my cousin, now that i come to think of it. she was the one who introduced me to the phenomenon of Christian Punk Rock, and especially that of my now-favourite band. a band named after an old Plymouth Reliant. good times! but let me begin at the beginning and end at the end.

it was December 2003, and it had been 4 years since i'd seen my American family(excluding my gramma, who visits us fairly regularly). i was, and still am, closest to Andrea, my aunt's eldest daughter, but we hadn't been able to see her for at least a week since arriving in the US of A, because she'd been terribly sick with flu.

she eventually recovered, and on the night we finally got to see her, my gramma - whom we were staying with - decided to have a cookie party. the whole family arrived and, as usual, there were hugs and kisses galore. after chatting about trivial stuff for a bit and eating more cookies than should have been legal, Andrea, Sindi and I retired to our makeshift room, where we engaged in very deep, meaningful conversation which went something like this: "Oh. My. Gosh! Orlando Bloom is so cute! have you seen him in Pirates of the Caribbean and the Lord of the Rings movies? wow! he's so good looking! I think he's just the best actor in the world." 

eventually, we decided we should have "husbands". working in reverse, of course, i stated that since i was the youngest of the party, at 10 years old, i got to choose first. and who did i choose? you guessed it... Orlando Bloom. then it was Sindi, and she chose, after much deliberation, to go for Shane West(of A Walk To Remember fame). all the while, Andrea sat patiently on Sindi's bed, smiling to herself. hmmm, what was up with that? i'd just stolen the guy we'd spent about 20-odd minutes gushing about. she shouldn't look so... serene! i figured i'd find out what was going on behind that placid look on her face, and the following interrogation ensued.

Hannah : Andrea? who's your husband gonna be?

Andrea : oh! well, i could've told you that ages ago. Matthew Thiessen!

Hannah and Sindi (collectively) : WHO??!

Andrea (frowning) : Matthew Thiessen, of course. also known as Matt T. don't tell me you don't know who that is?

Hannah and Sindi : we don't know who that is.

Andrea : *gasps* you poor uneducated souls! he's only the coolest, best, most awesome guy around in existence. he's also the lead singer of a band called Relient K. they just released their third album. i can't believe you haven't heard of them!

what followed that evening was what could best be described as a Relient K attack. Andrea made us listen to all of their albums. when we stayed at her house, we were constantly surrounded by Relient K posters and music. even when we went to her youth group, a song i vaguely remembered, about a carpet tasting like coffee grounds, was playing in the background. they were completely and utterly inescapable. 

and Andrea was particularly enamoured with a song called In Love With The 80s. off of their most recent album at the time, Two Lefts Don't Make A Right... But Three Do, it was subtitled, "Pink Tux To The Prom". i think Matty was having identity crisis at the time.. but that is besides the point. after Sindi and i got our inevitable copy of Two Lefts, we listened to the album non-stop, and could sing along pretty much by the end of the week.

somewhere along the line, Andrea coined the phrase, "pink chucks to the prom". as in, pink Converse Chuck Taylors... because it'd be slightly awkward for a girl to show up to the prom in a pink tux. if you know what i mean.

Andrea never got to wear pink chucks to her prom, since she was homeschooled. but only recently did i decide that i was actually going to wear pink chucks... to my very own prom. (or Matric Dance, as it's called here. but that's another story.) in just under two years, you can betcha i'll be wearing those babies with pride... and it'll all be thanks to Matty Son's identity crisis and my cousin Andrea.

now all i have to do is buy them. *gulp*

i feel so terribly little.

uh-oh! the Dreaded Day is just around the corner. On Monday, my sister Sindi turns 18. and i am not yet 16. bah... so not cool.

obviously, my sister has always been older than me, so it shouldn't feel like such a big deal. but it does... it does. she is almost finished high school, too - she has less than a month, including finals - and that doesn't really help in the Making-Hannah-Feel-Better-About-Her-Littleness department... especially when i think about the fact that i have another TWO years of slogginess. 

but that's not even the worst part.

in February next year, she'll leave home for good. she'll be off to study at Rhodes University, all of 10 hours drive away, which means i finally get a room all to myself. so i should be happy, right? right. the thing is, i've never not shared a room before. and even though she gets on my nerves sometimes, there's no one i love like my sister. whenever she's away, the room feels lonely and it's just a tiny little bit harder to fall asleep. needless to say, i think i'm going to have a hard time dealing with her leaving. i really will miss my Sinderella.

but onto brighter and better subjects! tomorrow, as a gift for her, we're going down to the closest BIG mall around, Gateway, (it's an hour and a half away, in case you're wondering ;) ) with 4 of her friends. my mom and i have been banned from their exploits once we get there, so we're going to go have fun on our ownsomes. possible activities include watching a movie and buying books! yay :)