Monday, April 25, 2005

Back to school ... again.
The very worst thing about taking a foreign language in high school is that, since everyone's vocabulary is so limited, the teacher is compelled to repeat things that are painfully obvious over and over. Things like, "Sus vacaciones fueron muy cortas, no?" and "Estan cansados, no?" She has to say them over and over because anything more intelligent goes over our heads, and no one feels compelled to respond because we are tired, as she'd told us we are at least 3 times in Spanish. This means that she has to say it again. Then, since everyone is still tired, she gives up and says it in English until she gets a response. At this point, "Ugh," is an acceptable response, though, so you could fall out of your chair from fatigue and she'd take it as, "Why yes, my vacation was wonderful, though rather too short in the long run!"

And I'm sure that made no sense at all, but that's the day I had.

My CD player is soooooo smart!

It picked all the songs I wanted to hear, just after I thought of them on a random setting! I thought of the Smothers Brothers, and up comes "Pretoria." I wondered about Nickel Creek, and on comes an assault of bluegrassy goodness! I thought, I wonder about Chad and Jeremy and the Kingston Trio, are they on this disc? and up they come! It was a beautiful morning ...

And I'm done talking, as it makes me feel stupid ... incoherency doesn't agree with me, and I think the cat has something unpleasant.

Scratch that. She's just sitting on one side of the kitty door and attacking a hair band sitting innocently on the other, through the cat flap, which is a little violent to observe.
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Sunday, April 24, 2005

Happy Birthday Mom ... Dad's sick, we're late for church, the cat's missing half her teeth, and I need new sneakers.
Poor mom.

Church was funny. They had the finances guy talk to us about how if we used to give a dollar a week, we should allow for inflation and give four dollars a week. And donate for the whole month at once so we don't miss weekd when we're on vacation. And isn't it shameful that we Catholics only give 1.1% of our earnings to the church? Gosh, people, Protestants give twice as much! And *hint, hint* Mormons tithe.

It was, on a whole, graceless, blunt, unflattering, and hysterical.

So yeah ... our cat has pretty much no teeth. It's actually quite sad. She's also sick.

Dad got sick today too, and he can't hear out of one ear. This makes him miserable, so he wants hugs. Mom yells at him every time he touches anything though, and if he has to touch it, in she goes with bleach.

I got a pair of sneakers and burned all the folk music I've been accumulating. That was fascinating. Especially since, after eight days of nothingness and sleeping, I had forgotten what the heck you're supposed to do with logarithims (sp?), so I had a good long panic attack, which exhausted me beyond belief.

And just who thought of naming it a "logarithmic function" anyway? It sounds like a mental disorder.

Speaking of which, I hate the concept of mental disorders. Not the big serious ones that threaten daily life, but the littler ones that just make you feel unduly like a freak. It's so nice of people to distribute fun labels like that. If you don't have trouble functioning, leave them alone!
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Saturday, April 23, 2005

The mother of one of the members of America though that
I was given the joy of seeing three children view MPHG for the first time yesterday. It was indeed a touching moment.

So ... the book club, which has degenerated in book choice thanks to tons of ninth graders of the "I'm a good writer! Really!" variety who are going to see me as invading their turf when I return from my months of absense due to sectionals and this will tick me off because I have more right to be there than they do, chose The Hitchhiker's Guide.

I figured I'd read it again over vacation, as I own the book. I get home, and my sister's there, "I hope it's okay, but I just realized I left your Guide in my locker." So, I had to go to the library. Which had no copies left. But they did have it on audio tape. So, I spent the most painful 6 hours of my life listening to Douglas Adams read it with his infuriatingly British accent, while I made friendship bracelets.

Looking back on it, I ought to have knitted.

Today, we went shopping. Augh. Shop, shop, shop. It was a only a little painful.
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Tuesday, April 19, 2005

There is a very small, very obsessed M*A*S*H fanbase out there, and none of them are obsessed with Col. Flagg, which renders me sad. And if you've ever seen a Col. Flagg episode, you'll understand my sorrow.
I am overjoyed to see that I and my sister are not the only people left in horror by the destruction of HHGttG that is painfully evident from having seen the 2 TV spots once and a half.

The feeling these spots give me in relation to the feeling I once had of, "Ooh, a movie?" is remarkably similar to the feeling of searching for a Col. Flagg fansite and finding that while other M*A*S*H fans love him, they are wasting their time being obsessed with Trapper John.

Because Col. Flagg rocks my socks. There is nothing cooler than Flagg, unless it's Charles besting Flagg.

So ... Tea's birthday began with the charming line, "Let's open presents!" This is, of course, about 12 hours before said opening happened, so the plea was repeated endlessly.

Birthdays stress me out. I'm so glad mine is over the summer, because it spares me the, "Oh! It's your birthday! Let us fawn over you!" that my deranged friends do for each other because they're the types who get all, "My birthday! You must be nice! Life must be fantastic! Obey my whims!" on you.

Though I guess my birthday will be awkward this year, since my old set and I used to always get together and have a sleepover, but we haven't celebrated the last two birthdays yet, and we haven't talked a lot, and that was always our regroup for the upcoming school year meeting. And I feel uncomfortable with having people over, so I couldn't have my now closer friends over.

I hate the part when friends drift away. I mean, it's like, we held together through middle school, then in high school, I made friends with the marching band (which means that they consider you okay and don't think of you as a band poser), one joined tech crew, one got cool friends, one moved to Minnesota, and the only one I still talk to, I only talk to because though she's joined the athletic teams, she's also something of a band poser. But it's been months since I talked to the first two, a week since I talked to my friend in MN, and Saturday since I talked to my band friend. And I know we're pretty much done being friends the way we were in general, and I'm personally done being friends almost at all with the techie and the cool kid, but it hurts anyway. The other day, I was talking to a very close friend from band, and she said something about an acquaintance of mine and once very close friend of hers, something like, "I wish they'd give you notice before they drift away! I wish they'd tell you!" and I said something like, "They never do, you know," and I almost felt like crying. This school year has jsut been a year for this kind of crap.

In case anyone cared ... I found out what happened at school, and it's a doosie. The air exchanger on the roof for the auditorium had a fire, found by the guy who changes the filter every six months (lucky he was there ...). He alerted the fire department, we got out, and we went home. So, the auditorium was all smoky, and they had to get cleaners. Through a fault in communication, they never heard that the walls in there contain asbestos. They scrubbed said walls, and the air quality people came in and went, "Whoa! Asbestos!" so they had to seal it off, and it'll be like a week before they can use the auditorium again. End result? Drama has taken over the band room.
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Monday, April 18, 2005

April vacation makes people happy!
And by people, I mean me.

Because do you know what this is?

This is a result of my school having two vacations, one in February and one in April, not just one in March.

Between these two vacations is the part of the year where you get all stressed out and all the teachers go insane and where your grades drop and you get into fights with everyone you know.

April vacation means that your allergies are over, your research papers are handed in, and you're probably done hating your friends for the rest of the year.

The best part is, you've finished offending everyone who wanted to leach off you for a good grade that you turned down because they're transparent, since all major projects have already been assigned! (Because I spent all last week turning people down, since, if you turn down the first one, you have to turn down the people you could stand working with because they're honest too.)

I need to go do something totally stress free! Too bad that tomorrow is my sister's birthday (Go drop her a line if you're in communication with Tea), Wednesday she's having friends over, Friday's her party, and I'm sure my bro will finagle having a friend or two over ...

Oh well ... I have to read HHGttG again for book club, but my sister left in her locker.

And a quick question: HOW DO WE RETAIN FORD AND ZAPHOD AS THE WONDERFULLY QUIRKY, DRUGGED OUR FREAKOIDS THEY ARE IN A PG MOVIE???
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Well, you’re really not going to believe this, but … my school caught on fire yesterday.
Which is actually a gross overstatement of what happened, but whatever.

See, we had a fire drill about a week ago (during band, no less – that was the slowest evacuation I’d ever taken part in), so we all thought it was weird to have one this week, but since we were just starting construction now, alarms go off a lot thanks to dust and chemicals and crap like that, so, it actually didn’t seem that weird right away. Except that no one schedules a fire drill five minutes before the end of a class.

Then, ten minutes after we head out, fire trucks start arriving, plus a couple police cars that don’t usually hang around. Of course, we can’t see anything standing behind the building, so we stood there pretending we weren’t cold. I, personally, did this while trying not to argue with my teacher as she explained to me that Ferris Bueller is a more typical high schooler than Napoleon Dynamite. To which I can only say two things: 1) Have you ever seen either of those movies? and 2) Have you ever met a high schooler?

The funny part is, this happened five minutes before lunch block, so we heard the bells go off for each lunch, and were actually able to assess that we were outside for a total of 45 minutes. During which, no one in the administration felt we should know that the school was on fire.

They finally let us into the rubber gym (Yes, we differentiate between gyms by what the floor is made of – cute, huh?), and sent us home. And today, they don’t have it cleaned up well enough or something for us to come back in yet.

Apparently, there was a fire, caused by either a wire or an air conditioner (What? It was only 40 out …) in either the classroom my locker is attached to the outside of or a supply closet next door. Either way, I’m sure my books will smell pleasant and I’m glad I left my CD player in my backpack, salvaged from halfway across the school.

Whatever. It must have been a slow news day, because there were reporters and helicopters and the whole nine yards.

I did manage to leave my bassoon there, since the doors to the band room were locked, so I didn’t have it for my lesson today. So my teacher had me use hers, making today a lesson one on the merits of wooden bassoons.

I feel so guilty being out of school by myself, sitting on the couch watching anime. I mean, you're always dying for an excuse to be out of school, and then when you get the oppurtunity to sleep in, you feel so bad, you end up donig four chapters of biology vocabulary on the reproductive structures of plants.

Thank God we can go back to school tomorrow ...
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Sunday, April 10, 2005

Sturbridge Village ...
Right ho ... I am tired. And quite conceivably, a bit sick. So, I hunted up a few quizzes, which always makes me happy. And I haven't done that in a while. Also, a friend I love to talk to is online tonight for the first time in a long time.

Warm fuzzies to all!

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile. Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away I let mine out, and chatter all the while. I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day Is any day that's spent without a friend, With nothing much to do or hear or say. I like to be with people, and depend On company for being entertained; Which seems a good solution, in the end. What Poetry Form Are You?

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Thursday, April 7, 2005

Yay for essays, research papers, and other fun methods of testing ...
Yes, so, I have written more on literature in the past few days than in the rest of my life, quite possibly.

Also, I've been forced to spend a lot of time running away from people. Thanks to the onset of niceish weather, my friends all went freaky. There's been a lot of somewhat lewd jokes, random fits of laughter, quite a bit of loud shrieking, and WAY too many freakishly happy colored pencil drawings going on.

Anyway, Ever After is on, so clearly, I must watch it ...
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Tuesday, April 5, 2005

MCAS ... die ...
So, the MCAS test ... bleck ... and we have to take it tomorrow with, our research papers due and all ...

But today, in class, we were reading over past essays of the different scoring levels, and there was this one that was scored the lowest number that was on the question about a character from literature who struggled with society.

Whatever possessed the writer to pen about half a page about how MLK fought to earn black the right to use the water fountains that work is beyond me.

Then again, I suppose it's less pretentious than the high scored one that was a collection of all the vocabulary the author could think of.

Lord, I hate MCAS ...
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Monday, April 4, 2005

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail ...
You know how some days just endure forever? I had one of those ...

Tonight, I went to go see the Varsity Guard's rally, since they're going to nationals tomorrow, and they rocked my socks. So, though it does no real good to say it here, KAKP!

I love how our entire lobby at school is coated with awards for the symphony band, marching band, percussion ensembles, and guard, and the football team still has this idea that they're better than anything the music department can produce.
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