Hello Dead Week. It's been a while, huh?

Yes, so it's that time of year again where teachers cram us with work to study for our finals next week before we finish off the school year. While seniors are lucky to have their finals early, us underclassmen have a few more days at this school before the summer commences.... And then some of us have summer homework.. Well whatever.

Sooooo yeah. Lots of studying and cramming this week. Not much else. I kinda feel like writing a bit of my stories or making some rant on here but I'm just too tired and too lazy to really think that much. Luckily it's late start tomorrow and luckily no more advisory cause I hate that class so much. Sigh... Guess I'll just go old school and play some Mario Party on the Gamecube..

Unbelievable...

Last night at 6, a 21 year old was arrested at a local Safeway under suspicion of murder of Sierra LaMar.

Antolin Garcia-Torres has been under surveillance of police ever since March 28, after lab results showed his DNA on Sierra's clothes in her purse. He was already in the database from being arrested for 3 assaults three years ago but was never prosecuted for them. After some surveillance, they obtained his Jetta on April 7th and found Sierra's DNA in the vehicle. It was enough to get an arrest.

What I find scary about this is that this guy lives in Morgan Hill and knows the area. Who knows what else he could have done?

Once I heard the part where he was charged for murder... I was in complete shock and disbelief. I don't know Sierra but I've just been hoping for these past couple months and she's still out there and alive. According to detectives, they believe she was murdered because of "direct and circumstantial" evidences because of where certain DNA was found and other stuff like that. Where. Is. Her. Body?

As of now, Garcia-Torres isn't saying anything to police so they can't get where Sierra is out of him. And it's really upsetting to say that someone was murdered but in reality, they have nothing to say that. Up until now, they've believed that Sierra's alive because no evidence points to her being dead. Is there something the investigators are hiding? Are they hiding more evidence that we deserve to know about? They need more evidence to prove that Sierra's dead, but now, all they have is nothing. Zip. Nada. Zero.

Even our principal has given up hope that Sierra's still alive. It is NOT a "tragic loss" or "death". Tara Romero's dead, but Sierra LaMar is still out there. Un. freaking. believable.

I won't give up on Sierra. It's not over till the fat lady sings. I'm with her mother on this.

Sierra LaMar isn't dead. Until a body is found, she's still out there alive and she needs to be brought home. Call me crazy for trying to find a silver lining in all of this, but I refuse to believe it until she's found.

I need to....smell nice?

Woo, what a party!

I didn't really plan anything big or crazy so I had like ten people show up and we just hung out, watched movies, played ping pong, and watch more movies. Oh, and of course snacked and ate a lot like the gluttons we are. My friend Felipe made macaroons and they tasted like sweet, sugary heaven. Now he's not allowed to come to my house unless he's made macaroons. XD lol!

Most of my gifts consisted of lotions, body spray and soaps. So clearly I smell and need to take care of myself. Hey at least my friends care about my well being, right? XD lol! Some other stuff I got was some two manga, a new anime, a Hetalia wallet, a candle, a pearl necklace, and even a watch. I'm such a spoiled 16-year-old.

Well sadly all things had to come to an end and I'm drifting to the possibility of passing out while I'm online doing random crap along with the TV playing the second National Treasure movie.

Here's a birthday song by Arrogant Worms! :D

Super Duper Fantastic Sweet Sixteen

C'mon you know what I'm talking about from the title; I'm sixteen as of today. And I. Feel. Awesome!!


Just watch, I'll eventually be able to drive soon!


Today was a great day. Felt super happy all day. Today was AP World History testing so a lot of kids weren't in class and went home after it was all done. So every class except for World History (since I take regular instead of AP) was practically empty. My English class only had 7 students in it! Anyway, my Chemistry class, what was somewhat my English class and my Algebra 2 class burst into song and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Even my friends in drama club sang too which made me feel happier. Overall, a great day at school.


On a sadder note, our drama/dance teacher Ms. Brown won't be returning to teach next year. I can't help but feel sad because she's the only teacher who won't take anyone's crap and be walked on like a doormat. That's probably why. If someone acts like a brat towards her, she'll blow up on them and I don't blame her because the attitudes of a lot of the students are absolute s***. No adult deserves to be walked on by some bratty high schooler and she's not gonna be a pushover like other teachers here. She used to work in college with people who are more grown up and professional, so it makes sense that she'd want us to act a bit more mature than some people act, right? Apparently not. On top of which, from what I've heard from the upperclassmen, she's the best drama teacher they've had in all their years of high school. That really says a lot and it sucks that our administration doesn't support  drama and dance. We might as well not have it if they're going to hire mediocre teachers and not appreciate the best they can get.


Since I'm on the subject, I realized today we have a hypocritical principal as well. She interrupts our classes to remind seniors to show up to classes so they'll graduate and guess what? They never show up. From what my sister, who is also a senior, has told me, about 100 seniors won't be graduating. That is nothing but freaking sad. This just goes straight back to what pushovers our faculty is full of. They keep whining and complaining about "the Sobrato way" yet no one pays attention, students still act like they own the freaking world, and teachers are too big of wimps to punish these kids. I don't think anyone from the administration will ever see this, but if they do, I got a message for you guys: Toughen up against people who aren't adults yet.


Whew, glad that's off my chest. Got a little rage off from typing.


I wanted to share a quote today from a family member of Sierra LaMar. As of yesterday, it's been two months since she went missing. Ever since they found the Jetta, nothing. Yet everyone still has hope.


"If you wanted to create a very high profile case, you got it. If you wanted to cause heartache and anxiety among friends and family, you got it. Give Sierra back to the people who care for her. Stop being a coward, and own up to your actions. I don't believe in any deity, but I do believe that karma can be very cruel. The longer you keep her from us , the more harsh your fate will be." ----- Keith LaMar, cousin of Sierra.

New Evidence

This week has turned into a hopeful one in the search for Sierra LaMar.

On Tuesday investigators found a red Jetta believed to be linked in the case. It was seen near her home the day she disappeared, including where Sierra's cell phone and purse were found. Right now, the car is undergoing forensic examination and I hope they find something. They've also ruled out the possibility of this case being related to other recent kidnapping attempts; even the condoms and handcuff box were said to be irrelevant so thank God for that. Yet there are still no suspects or a person of interest. Dive teams are looking in small ponds and waterways. The bright side is that they don't believe she's dead because there's no evidence to say that she is.

All anyone can do now is pray that she'll be found soon.

What if life was a musical?

With nothing else really on today, we decided to watch the second half of West Side Story... It was pretty bad. No offense to people who liked it, but the ending was just awfully depressing and was so abrupt. Did anything really get resolved?? It just had a sudden ending where Tony just died and Maria becomes depressed and the gangs just kinda leave like nothing really happened. There's barely even any law enforcement either! Do we just assume they just ignore them? I get it's supposed to be a spin-off of Romeo and Juliet, but.... All I did see was Romeo and Juliet with American and Mexican gangs and dancing. Even though I did like it gave a solid reason why these two groups hate each other, it wasn't really too spectacular to me.

Oh and not to mention how super unrealistic it is. My sister and I poked fun at it a lot how people just sing and break out into dance and suddenly everyone's problems are better. I know it is a musical but c'mon, can't we have just a little bit of reality apply to this? Let's take a look.

Scenario #1: The two gangs into a knife fight, resulting in the death of one guy from each gang.

• Reality- Law enforcement comes in to do some murder investigation or something and interrogates friends and family.
• Musical- Dancing offstage with one of the guys who became a murderer screams the name of his girlfriend into the air. (BTW screaming "Stella" is more classic than screaming "Maria")

Scenario #2: A girl had her brother murdered by her secret boyfriend because of said knife fight and boyfriend sneaks into her room to see her.

• Reality- Girl would break up with boy, hate him and call 911. Would grieve for the loss of her brother.
• Musical- Girl would be angry but still in love with boy and go into a romantic song number

Scenario #3: One of the gangs after the death of one of their members

• Reality- Grieving and possible plotting of revenge/running away from police
• Musical- Burst out into choreographed dance number and forget the sadness of their loss

Oh how fun it is to poke at this stuff in musicals. But again, didn't like this particular musical.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imaganation

On Friday, I went out with some friends to see another high school put on the musical, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's based off the movie from the 1970's but is obviously very different from the original. There are extra songs, slight alterations to the story and characters, heck, even they switched Mike Teavee into Mikayla Teavee. But I digress.

~Acting~

All of the cast seem very devoted to their part; from the kind Charlie Bucket to the whimsical Willy Wonka. Every seemed to have fun playing their characters. Even when they got a guy to play Mrs. Gloop! That was my favorite character out of the entire musical! It was like Monty Python when the cast is cross-dressing and I loved it so much! Plus it was a very humorous part to go along with. The other ticket finders were played exactly how they're supposed to be: bratty, obnoxious and greedy. Though two other of my favorite characters were the Candyman and Grandpa George. I liked the Candyman because he could dance and was portrayed as a caring and fun character, and Grandpa George was portrayed as an old man losing his hearing and saying a whole bunch of random and silly things. Overall, acting's a perfect 10 out of 10.

~Singing/Dancing/Music~

This next part's a hit and miss sadly. I could immediately tell from the first song that some of the singing wasn't that great. Not because they can't sing well, but because of voice projection. It didn't help I was sitting a couple rows away from the orchestra either. A lot of the actors didn't sing loud enough over the orchestra which kinda bugged me a bit. And since I'm talking about it, the orchestra was really good. Granted of course there were a little less than ten people, they played the music beautifully. And you didn't really need a whole lot of instruments for this particular music because it works so well. As for the dancing, it was lively and energetic and I loved it. Nuff said.

~Set/Lights/Visuals/etc.~

The set was pretty simple. Not great, but simple. For the most part, scenes just took place in front of the curtain with some props. For the entire first act, the set to the Bucket home was just left there and you had to imagine that it wasn't there at a lot of scenes, but it was somewhat of an eyesore. Not that it was bad, but I wasn't too fond of it.

In the second act, they had walls that spelled "Wonka" which was there the entire time with the exception when sections of the wall were taken out for the different "rooms" they were in, like the Inventing Room and the Nut Sorting room. The only time I saw the set in the entire second act change was the Chocolate Room, but it looked too simple other than the chocolate waterfall made out of satin fabric where it was moved to look like an actual waterfall. And there was also the boat ride scene, but it was very impressive because of the lights. While there weren't any creepy footage of chickens getting decapitated, the lights were very over the top. I figured out what strobe lights were when we were warned about them and was about to get a headache cause they were flashing right in my face. I thought it was really funny when it just went black and all you hear is the actors screaming their heads off.

Another couple funny visuals were Violet turning into a blueberry and Mikayla being shrunk down. With Violet, they had the actress wear some type of shirt that blew up and I thought that was pretty cool. With Mikayla when she was "shrunk", the guy who played Wonka pulled a puppet that looked like Mikayla out of the TV. Granted it's pretty cheap, but I thought it was freaking hysterical cause I had no idea how the heck they were gonna pull something like that off and I was not expecting the puppet. So to me, that was hilarious.

Some other visuals that didn't really hit the mark were the Fizzing Lifting Drink room and the Flying Glass Elevator. Now cause it's a high school musical they could only do so much, but I just saw the characters in front of a projection screen with a blue screen. I just didn't feel like they were "flying" but that's just my opinion so I can't really complain too much about that.

~Overall~

While it's not the best production of a musical I've seen, it's not like it's total crap. For what it was, it was really well done. I enjoyed it even if some things didn't really hit the mark. I loved the music and a lot of the characters that were super funny. If I had to rate this..... probably a.... 7.9/10.

Just a few more weeks of madness

It's finally May. And as of today I will turn sixteen in two weeks. I'm so ecstatic for my birthday~!! I'll have another crazy party like I did last year and hopefully it goes just as well.

The school year will be ending in a month and teachers are cramming every bit of information necessary for our finals and for us to move on into Junior year. From planning choreography with a group of three to reading Lord of the Flies, it's all coming to us like there's no tomorrow. This will surely be a fun month in academics.

Unfortunately, Sierra LaMar still remains missing. In just a couple weeks she will have been gone for two months. Recently police arrested 5 sex offenders out of 300 interviewed hoping that maybe one of them could become a person of interest. But those five were just arrested for violating their parole so they could be completely unrelated to the case. Now they're still searching for her, even in reservoirs in southern Santa Clara county. Some small businesses are even having sales and will donate money to find Sierra. I just hope she comes back in time to finish the school year.

So nothing really big and planned out so far... well except for going to see a musical, going to a party and hosting a party within a two to three week span. Until then I'll just continue with school and social life and lots and lots of writing.