Back!

Ahhh! Finally! I'm finally not so busy and able to post. lol. Well, ever since last week, school has been absolutely crazy. And the funny thing is, it's pretty much just one class making it crazy. And that class would be English. You see, we have a student teacher that has taken over teaching the class. She seems like a very nice person, but also seems to be a bit clueless about the fact that we have OTHER classes that we have to keep up with and do work for besides our English class. And also about the fact that most people need more than one week to do research papers AND research the topic enough to do a debate on it, and that research papers really shouldn't be done as group projects (yeah I know, you're probably wondering, what the heck? That was exactly what I thought when we were told we would be working in partners on our research papers). So yeah, I guess I basically summed up what we had to do. She put us all in partners, except I ended up in a group of three since we have an odd number of people in the class. She told us to pick a topic to write a persuasive research paper on, and that one person would argue for it and the other against it. The two girls in my group decided on the new universal healthcare plan, and me, not knowing a whole lot about the subject and figuring I could research it and find out enough about it to write a paper, agreed. When I later found out we'd be doing a debate, I immediately wished we had picked an easier topic. But it was too late now...
So anyway, we spent two days in class in the library doing research. The other two girls decided to write against it, which meant I had to write for it, even if I'm not even really for it. But again, I hoped I could just find enough research to be able to pretend like I think universal healthcare is the greatest thing in the world. Oh, and I can't believe I didn't mention the dumbest thing about this whole project, which was what made it the most complicated- we all had to use the same points in our papers. Like one person would write a body paragraph in their essay arguing a point, and you'd have to argue about the same thing. This whole thing would have been a hundred times easier if I could have just picked my own things to write. And, it was really hard to plan anything with your partners, because in the library, we couldn't even sit together- there weren't enough computers for all of us in that one room so some people had to go to another room, and we were separated. And then on the day that we were working on it in class and planning everything, we weren't allowed to talk (!). Uhh, the last time I checked, if you're doing a GROUP project, you need to be able to talk to each other. Luckily, we managed to get away with whispering to each other (the student teacher shot us a few glances, but we just explained to her that we really needed to talk just a little bit so we could figure out what we were going to write, so she finally let up and just told us to whisper and make it quick). So, after a lot of thinking and wanting to slam our heads into the wall, we came up with some subcategories to write about. They came up with their argument and I'd have to find sources that argued against those exact points- so it turned out the research I had done in the library was pretty much useless, and I had to find sources at home that addressed those exact points. Well, thankfully, I have now finally pretty much finished the paper. I have the rough draft written, so all I have to do is make the works cited page and add in one little extra detail, and I'll finally be done! YESSSS! It's such a relief. And also, I finally got the debate over with today, which I had been dreading all week. Some of the stuff about the healthcare thing is really hard to understand. Like, I get the basic idea, but all these little things about it can be hard to understand. So I was extremely nervous about the debate because of this. I'd have to defend it all on my own, and worse, I'd have to just spontaneously come up with a rebuttal after the other side stated an argument. I wasn't worried about presenting my opening statement or my arguments, but the problem was when I had to argue back to one of the other side's arguments. I mean, who can just come up with something to say right on the spot like that, especially when you have a topic that you don't even fully understand? I felt shaky and nervous pretty much all day before that class. Normally, English is my second block class, but since this week we're doing those good old graduation exams, they have to switch the order of the classes around each day so the people testing spend enough time in each class. So today, it wasn't until third block, so I had more time to dread it. When the end of my second class was nearing, I was already starting to shake and could barely concentrate on the story about the history of Spain that we were reading. When I actually got to English class, I thought I might actually throw up. My group members and I tried to plan as much as we could before class started. We basically hadn't had ANY time in class to plan our debates at all. But, one good thing about today was that since the class was later that day, all the people who are dual-enrolled weren't there, so only about half the class was even there. So, I didn't have to do it in front of as many people at least. Anyway, the first group went, but I hardly even noticed what they were saying. And then...my group was next. Well, at least we were going to get ours done before lunch, so I'd finally be able to relax at lunch, and maybe I could actually keep my food in my stomach. So, the three of us walked up to the front of the room and stood at our podiums with our notecards. I just tried to tell myself, this will be over in just a few minutes. Just get it over with. So we started, and luckily, with all the notes I had written down, I managed to always have something to say. In my rebuttals, I just read some of what I had written down, but it wasn't always necessarily related to what the other side just said. But at this point, I didn't care. It was better than saying nothing, and I just wanted to get it over with. And then, it was finally over! I don't know how well I did, but at least the student teacher said she wouldn't be too hard grading them, so maybe I did okay. But I am just sooo glad it's over!

Well, my other classes are going okay. Economics is almost over. We only have two weeks of that class left before we go into government. I'll be kind of glad when that class is over (although I'm not sure how much better gov will be- but, at least the teacher for that is extremely funny, so maybe he'll make it fun:) Econ just isn't my favorite subject. Pretty much all we do in there is write notes and listen to our teacher talk. See, whenever he's lecturing, EVERYTHING he says always reminds him of some story he has to tell, so it just goes on and on. Sometimes the stories are somewhat entertaining though, so I guess it's still better than doing a bunch of written work haha.

Peer helping is awesome! Next month, we're going to go to the elementary schools and put on a skit and teach them a chant and song about being drug-free. We have a few people in there who can play guitar, so we're all going to be divided up between all the elementary schools so different groups of us will go to different schools. We'll do our skit and chant and then someone will play the guitar and we'll sing. It's very interesting, somehow whoever wrote the words to the song decided to make it into the tune of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." It's all kind of cheesy, but it is for elementary kids, so...but yeah, that'll be so much fun!

Spanish is all right too. My teacher must think I'm the biggest slacker ever, because I've been having so much trouble getting homework for that class done with all this stuff I had to do for English. The homework we had this week wasn't exactly that quick either- we had these incredibly long packets talking about the history of Spain- in Spanish. Then there were questions at the end, and to find the answers you had to go back and look through the whole thing again! And when it's not even in English, that's really hard. And then last night, I also had to make a food dish to take for "food day"- we always have some of those in every Spanish class where everyone gets a different recipe from a Spanish-speaking country and we have to bring it in. Anyway, I spent most of the day working on my research, and then I got as much done as I could for Spanish, but I ended up just having to go to bed before I was even done because I couldn't have possibly stayed up any later without falling asleep in my classes the next day. Sorry Mrs. Clough! Now that this stupid research stuff is finally over, I can actually finish your homework now!

We have also had a few pep rallies already this year. It's not fun being a sophomore or junior at a pep rally, because they have to sit in the top bleachers, which are very cramped and crowded and it gets really hot up there. But unfortunately, it's not much better for the seniors- now we get to sit on the very bottom bleachers...right by the band. I didn't think I'd ever recover from the headache that came from all those drums banging and trumpets blaring right in my ears. The only good thing about those is that we get out of 4th block early.

And yeah, like I said, we also have those grad exams this week, but thankfully, tomorrow is the last day. Then we can look forward to having them again in the spring! But yeah, I believe I told about the joys of having those last year- how the test-takers can't have any "distractions", so they turn off the bells and block off areas where people are testing, making all 2,200 students have to take the same routes to class. Just a recipe for disaster.

But anyway, I guess I should stop complaining about stuff, since, after all, I am really really happy about this week being over! I'm so excited for the weekend!

Back in school already!

Yup, that's right. Although it seems like merely weeks ago that we got out of school, I already found myself back at school on Monday. Well, the rest of my summer after our California trip was pretty uneventful, so that's why I didn't write anything else after that. It was nice, and I did just some normal everyday stuff and did things with my friends, but nothing was really interesting enough to write about. lol. But anyway, I guess I should tell about school...

Well, I FINALLY don't have to deal with the screwed-up bus system anymore since I now have my driver's license and can drive to school! I have to make sure to get there a little early since I don't want to be circling the parking lot (which is total CHAOS) looking for a parking space, which is probably what you'll have to do if you get there after 8:00. As I've said many times, my school is extremely overcrowded. Last I heard we had 2,200 students in our school, and they were estimating to have about 2,400 this year, although I'm not sure if their predictions turned out to be right. Perhaps not, because if there were that many people I think quite a few people would have been trampled to death in the halls already...haha, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I haven't really noticed it being much worse than last year. Mind you, it was EXTREMELY crowded last year and still is. But anyway, yeah, since I make sure to get there at about the perfect time, I'm always able to find a place to park and then I go inside and sit in the courtyard with my two friends and talk to them until the bell rings. Last year and the year before, we had our own little corner in the hallway that we all met in, but unfortunately we all didn't meet on the very first day, so it was taken over by another group of people! So now we meet in the courtyard, which is nice, but I just wonder what we'll do in the winter...guess we'll have to try to claim another area of the school. ;-) But anyway, back to the parking lot. It's pretty easy to get in there in the morning, but getting out of there at the end of the day is a bit more chaotic. Although the sophomores don't drive since they're not old enough and I'm sure we wouldn't have room for them anyway, a lot of juniors and practically all the seniors drive, so that's still TONS of people trying to get out of the parking lot. But they have some teachers and one of the assistant principals out there directing traffic, so that at least keeps it running a bit smoothly. But it can sometimes take up to ten minutes just to get out of the parking lot. Kind of a pain, but still a little better than the buses I guess. lol

So...I guess I should tell about my classes now. Well, right now, I have economics, English, peer helping, and Spanish 4. I have all of those the whole semester, except for economics, which is only nine weeks, so after fall break I'll switch to government. Not exactly my first choice, but that's the required history course for seniors. So yeah, economics is first. It's going okay so far. I can't really tell if it's going to be excruciatingly boring yet since we haven't done much. But, our teacher did say he'd try to make it more interesting and have us do more activities instead of just read a bunch of stuff out of the textbook. I however do hate it when we have discussions during class. We haven't had many yet, but we always have a warm-up to do when we first get to class, which usually asks your opinion about something, and he'll call on a few people and ask what they put down. I never like to talk about stuff like that in front of everyone. So of course I don't raise my hand, and since I've never spoken a word in there, luckily the teacher seems to be unaware of my existence as he has never called on me...yet. Let's just hope it stays that way. ;-)

Then second block is English. Gaaahhh, we're doing British literature this year, which my brother says was the worst and most boring year of English. And of course we have to read another Shakespeare play (surprise, surprise), Hamlet, which we haven't started yet, but I just know it's in the syllabus. And we'll also have the dreaded yearly research paper. But, we haven't started any of that...so far we've only gone over our summer reading book and taken the test on it, and prestented our poems that we had to write for the book. I was of course dreading having to read my poem to the class, because I can assure you I am not the least bit skilled in writing poetry. But thankfully, the poem only had to be fourteen lines so I got it over with pretty fast. So I can't say I'm too excited about English this year...but let's look at it this way, at least I'll have it over with and out of the way after the first semester. The teacher seems all right too, so that makes it a little better. Of course it wouldn't be any fun to have a boring class and a mean teacher combined. haha.

And then I have peer helping, of course! So far that's been a lot of fun. For the first three days of school, we did what we did last year, where some of us sat at a table in the cafeteria giving people their lunch numbers and bus numbers, and some of us sat at the "new student table" where any students new to the school could come sit. So, I got to talk to a few new people, who all seemed really nice and glad to have someone to talk to at lunch. Me and one other girl in peer helping also got to give one new girl a tour of the school. Tomorrow, we're having a little party for all the new students- they can all come down to our room during their lunch and we're going to have pizza, snacks, and cake and stuff. So that should be really fun! And also, even though most days I've been busy doing stuff for peer helping during lunch, we weren't doing anything today so I got to sit with my friends, who finally, this year, happen to be in my lunch! And since we're now seniors, we get to sit at the tables outside. It felt so weird to actually be able to sit out there! lol. But lunch is a lot of fun this year, it's just an awesome group of people sitting at my table.

And then last, I have Spanish. Although I did decide to go up to Spanish 4, I'm definitely stopping after this- I'm not going to take AP because according to one of my friends from peer helping last year, it pretty much takes up your whole life. Plus I'd be worried about having to do really hard stuff, like giving a speech in Spanish. In Spanish 4, we already are only allowed to speak Spanish (well, there are some exceptions sometimes, but usually it's "no ingles!") and will apparently have to write research papers in Spanish, but I can't imagine it's going to be on any topic that's too difficult, since we still don't know THAT much Spanish. But so far it's going pretty well. It actually ended up being a small class, even though most classes at my school are totally full. So that kind of makes it a little less nerve-wracking when I have to talk in front of the class since it's less people. And most people in there seem pretty nice, so I don't think anyone will laugh at me or anything. And usually, my teacher doesn't call on you unless you raise your hand. So I raise my hand sometimes if it's something I'm sure I know, but never do when I don't know so luckily she doesn't call on me then. The only thing I'm concerned about in that class is that I feel like I've forgotten a lot of stuff. Mostly because I went a really long time between Spanish 3 and 4- I took 3 the first semester of last year, and it wouldn't work with my schedule to take 4 the next semester, so I had to wait until this year. Plus, we learned a crazy amount of grammar in Spanish 3- it's not so much the vocabulary that I think I've forgotten, but all those different verb conjugations and stuff. I'm definitely going to get on the classzone website and try to review that stuff! And hopefully we'll review it a little bit in class. We've already gone over present-tense, preterite past tense, stem-changing verbs, and some of the ones that have a change in spelling in certain forms (yeah, it's pretty mind-boggling when you think about all those little particular things like that, lol.). Tomorrow we all have to take in a paper bag with five items representing us, and explain it in Spanish! Kind of scary. I'm going to have to try to find five things about me that I know how to say in Spanish!

So yeah, school is going pretty well so far. I think I've covered pretty much everything. :) Later!

Back from vacation

Well, actually I've been back for almost two weeks, but I was too lazy to get on here and write about it until now haha. Well, so I guess I'll start with the trip there, which was pretty uneventful. We went over to the airport in our city, and luckily, unlike last year, they didn't fool with our flights and make us go on more planes than we originally were going to. So, we got on the plane to go to Dallas as planned. We met my brother there, who was flying in from his city. To my delight, they had a Fuddrucker's in the Dallas airport, so we ate there for lunch. Seriously, they need to extend their locations a bit, because sadly there isn't a single one in my whole state. But anyway, after that we got on our second plane, which was taking us to San Francisco. That was the biggest plane I've been on. Instead of the kind that has three seats on the right side and two seats on the left, there were two seats on each side, but then three more seats in the middle of the plane. I ended up having to sit in one of the middle seats, which I didn't like as much since I like to be closer to the window. Well, I usually don't like to sit right by the window, at least during take-off, because it makes me feel kind of queasy, but I still want to be near it because I want to be able to see what's going on outside. lol But anyway, it didn't end up being too bad because I could still kind of see out the nearest window where other people were sitting. And also, since this flight was about three-and-a-half hours long, they showed a movie on their little TVs. For that I was thankful, because getting myself really into the story of "Inkheart" really helped me forget that I was thousands of feet in the air. lol. And, since I now have an iPod, I had my own headphones to use, so we didn't have to pay 3 dollars or however much it was to use some of the airline's headphones. So finally, we began landing in San Francisco. It was kind of weird, because the airport is right by the water, so it seemed like we were literally two inches above the water, and just when it seemed like we were going to go right into it, the runway appeared and we were on the ground! So that was kind of scary but cool too. haha. So we got to the airport and took a tram over to the rental car center. So we got the car and then went to our hotel, which was in a suburb called San Bruno. We had dinner at this little Chinese place there, which ended up being really good, and then went back to our hotel.
So the next morning, we got in the car and headed over to Yosemite National Park, which was quite a ways from San Francisco. But finally we got there, and met my uncle, who lives in California and decided to come with us. Since Yosemite is pretty big, we spent two days there. We stayed at a hotel in a little town called Mariposa (that means butterfly in Spanish haha) which was right outside the park. But yeah, Yosemite was really cool. We saw the big waterfalls there, and all the rocks and lakes. It was very pretty. :) We also drove out a little ways from the park to see Lake Mono, which was SO cool! It was a big lake which was surrounded by these weird looking rocks, which made it almost look like you were on another planet or something! lol. Here's a pic of it: http://www.pashnit.com/pics/road5/Hwy120/MichaelMaloney_MonoLakeTufa.jpg
Then, we went to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, which was a little smaller so we just spent one day doing that. So, we saw all the sequoia trees, and also saw the General Sherman, which is the largest tree in the world! And it definitely was huge! http://innovatechurch.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/general-sherman.jpg
The next day, we left our hotel in nearby Visalia and started heading over to Monterey, which is a town on the coast. On the way there, we stopped in a town called Cambria to eat lunch, which was kind of what you might call "hoity-toity". lol. It was nice, but I lost count of how many "upscale botiques" and ladies carrying tiny dogs in their purses there were in the town. haha. Then we went to the Hearst Castle, which was a huge house and estate owned by William Randolph Hearst. We rode a bus up the big mountain where the house was. We got a tour of the guesthouse, which had guest bedrooms and a big dining room with a really cool ceiling. There were also two pools there, one outside and one inside, which was called the Gold Pool because it had real gold on the tiles. So that was cool! Then we drove the rest of the way to Monterey. I was wearing a skirt, since the weather had been warm in all of the previous places we were. In fact, it was quite hot at the national parks and in Mariposa and Visalia. But it's amazing how drastically the temperature drops when you get into a town right by the ocean. Because both Monterey and San Francisco were far from hot. lol. When I stepped out of the car in Monterey, I was freezing! Even during the day, it usually only gets in the upper 60s, and at night it's like in the low 60s or even in the 50s. I guess it probably felt colder to me than it really was, since it's so hot and humid where I live and I'm totally not used to cool weather right now. But anyway, since it was about evening when we got to Monterey, we ate dinner and then after it got dark, we went right up to the coast so my brother could take some nighttime pictures (he's into photography and has this special camera that can even take pictures at night). Luckily we had brought jackets with us so we wore those, since it was cool and windy. There wasn't a place to go right on the beach, but there were some rocks you could stand on and see the ocean from there. So that was fun, but my mom and I ended up going back to the car after awhile since we were freezing, and let my brother finish taking all his pictures.
Then the next day, we did the 17-mile drive which started in Monterey. You just drove all along the coast for 17 miles, and there was all this stuff you could stop and see. You could see the beach, and there was one place where you could see seals and sea lions on this big rock out in the distance. We also stopped at the part in Carmel, which had a beach that you could go on. My brother and went in the water even though it was freezing! lol. So that was really fun too! And then that night we ate at a place called California Pizza Kitchen, which again, is a chain restaurant, but we don't have any in our state. We got pizza, of course, even though they had pasta and stuff too, and we quite enjoyed it.
The next day, we drove through San Francisco and briefly stopped there. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was cool. It's so big! We also walked around downtown (and had to wear our jackets of course lol). Like any big city, it was extremely crowded, so I think it was a cool place to visit, but it would probably drive me nuts if I lived there because of how crowded it is, not to mention the fact that you're shivering in July. lol. So yeah, we finished looking around San Francisco and then drove the rest of the way to Santa Rosa, which thankfully was further away from the ocean, thus it was quite a bit warmer than San Francisco. There wasn't a whole lot to do there, even though it's a pretty decent-sized city. The reason we went there was to look at a school that I'm thinking about attending, which is specifically for people who want to train assistance dogs. So that was pretty much all we did there, besides eat and go to the mall there. lol. And I LOVED the school. Everyone there was so nice, and it looks like such a fun place to go. Plus it's a pretty small school, so you get more one-on-one classes and stuff. So that's definitely staying on my list of places I might like to go!
And then we drove back to San Francisco since that's where we were flying out to go back home. That day we actually walked across the Golden Gate Bridge instead of just driving over it. Well, all of us except my mom, because she hates bridges. I guess she has a fear of it falling or something. lol. But anyway, yeah, the bridge was really awesome, but again, it wasn't too comfortable unless you were wearing a jacket. It was so windy that by the time we were done my hair was all over the place! lol.
So then the next day we flew back home. This time we got the long flight over with first, when we flew from San Francisco to Dallas. Since they always offer drinks on flights, I stupidly made the mistake of drinking a whole can of Coke. I started needing to use the bathroom but I figured I could just wait until we landed. But soon I just didn't think I could wait any longer and we still had an hour and a half left. But I really didn't want to use the bathroom on a plane. I'd actually never even done it before, but I didn't think I'd want to go in that cramped thing. But now I pretty much had no choice. So, I stood up, and started walking to the back of the plane. This of course felt really weird while the plane was moving. I have no idea how the flight attendants move around throughout the whole flight like that. So, after I managed to walk back there without falling over, I went inside the tiny thing. It was seriously the most cramped place ever, so any claustrophobic person could never go inside. And for some reason it felt even bumpier and more turbulent in there than it did in the rest of the plane, so I really made it quick so I could get the heck out of there. Moral of the story: Don't drink a whole can of soda on a long flight. haha. So we finally landed in Dallas and ate dinner. Then, as we were waiting to get on our plane home, they suddenly announced that the plane that just landed, which was supposed to be the one we were going to get on, was having problems and couldn't be used. Of course, everyone groaned. It was going to take them forever to find us another plane. My brother was supposed to leave to go back to his home after us, but of course he ended up leaving before us because of our delay. They told us it might only take 30 minutes, but of course, they lied- 30 minutes later, they announced that we could go to a different gate, but still, the plane had not arrived. So, we took a tram and went over to the other gate, and then waited about another hour before the plane FINALLY got there. Then they finally boarded us and we took off. By then, it was almost dark, and it got completely dark while we were in the air. If we had left on time, we wouldn't have had to have flown in the dark, which I don't like, unless we're landing in a big city, because all the cool lights provide a good distraction from the fact that I can't see anything else or see what's going on. lol. But anyway, we finally made it home! It was really late, after 10:00, when we finally made it back, but we were still so glad to have finally made it. And of course, I was very thankful that no problems had occured while we were 30 thousand feet in the air and we made it back alive. haha.
So yeah, that was basically the trip! It was a lot of fun! Definitely one of the biggest highlights of 2009. =]

Summer

Well, so far my summer has been pretty good. I'm still going to Jazzercize every Saturday with my mom, and going to lunch with my mom and her friends once a week. And it is SO nice to not have to worry about homework or tests! I'm so glad to be out of school. lol. Sadly I do have two summer reading assignments to do, but I might try to read those books on the plane ride to California, since I won't really have anything else to do.

So yeah, we're leaving for our vacation to California next week, so that should be fun. My brother will also be able to come with us. And I also already took one vacation a the beginning of this month. So I have to tell all about that. lol. Well, we went to Florida and brought my friend along with us, since 1. she had never been to Disney World before and really wanted to go and 2. because she was dying to meet my relatives, some of who are quite odd (but nice) people. But yeah, we had TONS of fun. The first day we were there we went shopping at this big mall. We found this amazing store called Lush that has cosmetic stuff. Mostly stuff like bubble bath and soap and shampoo. But they have tons of different scents and everything in there almost looks like candy. Like they had these things called "bath bombs" that were like bubble bath, but they were bars. And they were so colorful! It was the coolest store.
Then we also found an M&M store! Yep, everything in there had something to do with M&Ms. They had tons of M&M T-shirts and other clothing. They had M&Ms in every color you can imagine. That was the only time in my life that I'd ever seen purple M&Ms! So yeah, that was really awesome too. :P
The next fun thing we did was Disney! My grandma knows this really nice lady who used to work at Disney, so she was able to get my friend, my mom, and me in for free. Plus she gave us a park hopper pass, meaning we could go to any of the different parks in Disney! Well, all the parks are huge so of course we didn't have time to do every single one, but we ended up going to Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom. We parked in Epcot and took a boat over to Hollywood Studios first. My friend really wanted to go there because she wanted to do Rock n' Roller Coaster, which is an Aerosmith-themed roller coaster that's in the dark and plays Aerosmith music. I thought the concept sounded quite cool, but the fact that the coaster had three inversions (upside down things) and was in the dark made me chicken out. I'm really afraid to go on a roller coaster that goes upside down, but I figure that if I ever were to try one, I'd at least want to do one where I would be able to see what was coming. lol. But my friend went on it and said it was the coolest thing ever, and at the end of the day said it was her favorite ride. I kind of feel like I missed something now, but oh well. lol. Because I can still say that I went on one intense ride! Before my friend did the coaster, she wanted to go on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. She had been trying to convince me to go on the roller coaster with her but I refused, but I compromised with her and told her that I MIGHT at least do the Tower of Terror with her. I'd have to check it out first. Basically, it was a free-fall ride, meaning it just dropped you straight down. It looked pretty intimidating because it was 199 feet tall, but I learned that it doesn't drop you from the very top all the way to the bottom. It has a series of shorter drops. So, even though I was a bit unsure, I decided I'd go ahead and try it. Of course, my mom doesn't ride ANYTHING (she wouldn't even go on the little kids' roller coaster at Sea World- we'll get to that later haha) so she just dropped us both off at the ride and then went and sat down somewhere. The line was really long and it was extremely hot, but luckily they had mist spraying so that made it more bearable. lol. Finally we actually went inside the building which was supposed to be the haunted hotel, and the people working in there were dressed as bellhops. We waited some more and finally my friend and I went with a group and we were led into a dark room. They shut the doors and played a short little video clip about the Twilight Zone. I don't really remember it much because at this point I was getting really nervous and all I could think about was the ride. Then they let us out of the room and we stood in line a bit longer, and this time we could actually see the "elevators" that we were about to ride. The scenery inside the hotel was really cool. It actually looked like an old abandoned haunted hotel. lol. But anyway, the time came and my friend and I were at the front of the line and they started lining us up to get on the ride. I noticed that there was an exit over to the side of the building, I guess for people who whimped out at the last minute, and for a minute I considered running over there, but I decided I was just going to be brave and try it. I was pretty much shaking at this point though. We went inside the elevator, and luckily they had seatbelts and little handles on the seats that you could hold onto. So the ride began. First, I think they showed another little video clip telling the story of the hotel. Back in 1939, it was this big glamorous hotel that all of the Hollywood stars stayed in. Then on Halloween night, five people got into the elevator when it was struck by lightning during a storm, and the people were never seen again. Apparently they had been transported to the Twilight Zone. So now we were apparently traveling to the Twilight Zone, in the out of control elevator. So after the clip played, we started moving forward. That part was cool because it was dark but you could see all these stars and stuff, like you were going through the Twlight Zone. And then, suddenly, came the first drop! It was so unbelievably fast and it felt like we were dropping really far, although I have no idea how many feet we actually dropped. Apparently no two rides on the Tower are ever the same, because the computer always randomly generates how many times and how far the elevator drops. Of course it was pretty scary and I used all the energy I had to scream as loud as possible, but at the same time it was lots of fun. We probably dropped 4 or 5 times, but each drop only lasted 2 or 3 seconds so it wasn't too bad. And plus since my friend was right next to me, it wasn't as scary. I'd never go on a ride like this alone, but when you're with your friend it's different. We actually laughed too on some of the drops. And before I knew it, the ride was over! I breathed a sigh of relief. The ride had been really fun, but I was actually starting to feel a little nauseous after all that falling, and figured 4 or 5 drops was enough. Plus my throat hurt from screaming and laughing. But, I did really enjoy the ride. What I liked about it was that you were in an enclosed elevator, which is good for people like me who are afraid of heights, because most of the time you couldn't actually see yourself falling, you just felt it. There were a few parts where it stopped at an open window and you could see outside right before the tower was about to drop, but I think I closed my eyes on that part. haha. But yeah, my friend and I came off the ride and found my mom waiting for us, so of course we had to tell her all about it. Luckily my slight nausea was fading away, so I could still eat since it was about lunchtime. We went and got some pizza, and then all three of us went on The Great Movie Ride. My mom could handle it since it was just a little train that took you through all these different recreations of movies. That was pretty cool. Then my friend did the Rock n' Roller Coaster, and we also saw a show called Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which was really cute.
After that, we wanted to go over to Animal Kingdom, but that park closes at 5:00 for some reason, and it was already 4:00 and it was starting to storm, which means they close all of the outdoor rides, so sadly we had to skip Animal Kingdom. My friend and I wanted to try this roller coaster called Expedition Everest (it doesn't go upside down, so I was willing to do it lol) over there, but we didn't get to. Stupid rain! lol. So we decided to go ahead and head over to the Magic Kingdom. We hoped it would stop raining soon but we figured we'd just try to do all the indoor rides until it stopped. So we took the bus over there. My friend and I got a kick out of the security people there. They had to wear these colorful uniforms, and every time someone passed through, the guy would say, "Have a magical day!" (My friend ended up recording that as her voice mail on her cell phone lol)
Anyway, we of course saw Cinderella's castle, which was beautiful! I think the first ride we did was the Haunted Mansion, and since that's not an intense ride my mom did that one too. We also rode the carousel and Snow White's Scary Adventures, which was just a leasurely ride that took you through the movie basically. We also went on one like that for Winnie the Pooh. haha. The cars we rode in were designed as honey pots. It was so adorable. lol. Then my friend and I rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is a roller coster, but it's a very mild one. Of course my mom still wouldn't do it though lol. It went pretty fast and it had quite a few twists and turns, but there were no big drops. So yeah, that was fun. lol. And of course we had to ride the classic spinning tea cups too! The last thing we went on was Pirates of the Carribean. Disney was tons of fun!! We were so tired at the end of the day, but it was so worth it. :D
And then we also did Sea World! That was tons of fun too. We went to four different shows. One had dolphins and also acrobatics performing, another had sea lions, and then there were two Shamu shows- one called "Believe" and one called "Shamu Rocks." I liked the Shamu Rocks one- Shamu did all these tricks to rock music. :D Me, my friend, and my dad went on a ride called Journey To Atlantis, which was a "water coaster"- a combination of a log flume and a roller coaster. We just rode in this boat and first went through "Atlantis." That had some of the coolest scenery I'd ever seen. Then we had to escape from Atlantis because Medusa was there. haha. So Medusa appeared and we exited the little building and went outside. We went up a little ways until we finally came to the big drop into the water. I braced myself, because I wasn't exactly looking forward to it- it dropped you 60 feet. But hey, I did Tower of Terror, so I knew I could handle it. lol. So we went down the drop and splashed into the water, and since we were seated in the back of the boat we actually didn't get as wet. The people in the front were the ones who got drenched, but that was kind of a good thing because we didn't want to be soaked for hours. lol. This little tiny drop after that was the one that got you the wettest, surprisingly. Then after the flume part came the roller coaster part, which was really only one drop. We went back inside the building, and it was almost pitch-dark, but luckily I knew that the drop was coming because I had looked up the ride on youtube and on the website. That's a little OCD thing that I do- I always research every ride that I'm considering going on, at least if it's a thrill ride, because I have to know whether it'll be too scary or not. lol. So we went down the last drop and we were done! I really liked that ride!
We also went on the Wild Arctic ride, which was just a simulator ride that was supposed to be a wild helicopter ride through the arctic. Even though that was pretty mild, my mom (and my grandparents and aunt who had come with us) opted for the motionless seats. My dad, my friend and me did the ones with motion though, so that was pretty fun. Then, we went over to the "Happy Harbor"- which was the section for kids. But my friend and I were so excited about this, because we were going to finally get my mom on her first roller coaster, which was a kids' roller coaster called the Shamu Express. We got there, and it had a brightly colored pink track and you sat in little Shamu cars. But my mom took a look at the tiny roller coaster and suddenly said, "No, I don't want to do that!" My friend and I were so disappointed and couldn't believe she chickened out at the last minute! But the two of us still went on it. It was only about a minute long and had two drops, one of which was surprisingly steep for a kids' coaster, but still not that big. I still think my mom could have handled it. :P Then we headed over to the Swishy Fishies (which were like the spinning teacups at Disney, except they were shaped like fish instead), since my mom was willing to do those, although she requested that whoever rode with her didn't spin the cup at all. Sheesh. lol. So my dad rode with her and my friend and I rode in a different one. But as we tried to climb in, we discovered that since the ride was designed for small children, we barely fit in the thing! lol. My friend was practically sitting on me at first, and then we both got situated and ended up having to sit sideways for our legs to fit! lol. After that, we rode a carousel, except this one had sea creatures instead of the typical horses. And then, we headed over to the Manta! It's a new roller coaster that just opened there last month. However, only my dad and my friend were willing to go on it. Obviously my mom wasn't going to do it, and I immediately put the nix on it when I saw the gigantic loops and twists on it. And also, you're laying forward for the whole ride so that it's like you're flying! That actually sounds kind of cool, but at the same time I think it would be scary since I'm afraid of heights. lol. So my mom and I went and looked at a dolphin exhibit while they were riding that crazy thing. Then we met them afterwards, and of course my friend thought it was awesome! My dad liked it too, because he's a huge thrill seeker as well. At this point it was dinnertime and they actually both still had an appetite after riding that, so we ate dinner and then afterwards went to the stingray exhibit, where you could touch the stingrays. So that was fun! Then the last thing we did was go to the gift shop, where I bought a stuffed otter (since I love otters- they are so CUTE!) and my friend bought a gigantic stuffed walrus, because we had seen a walrus at one of the exhibits earlier and she had fallen in love with him. haha. So yeah, Sea World was tons of fun!
That was pretty much all the fun stuff we did. The trip back home ended up being long because we got stuck in a huge traffic jam, but we amused ourselves by rolling down our windows and waving the walrus at everyone. People's reactions were priceless. Some people just stared at us blankly, others smiled and waved, and several small children were absolutely delighted. These two ladies held their cat up to the window and made it wave back, and one guy even took a picture of the walrus! Haha it was great! And then we finally did get home! So yeah, this was definitely one of the best vacations ever!
And now we're leaving next week for our other vacation! I'm excited of course, but not so thrilled about flying. I don't know, something about being trapped hundreds or thousands of feet above the ground if anything happens to go wrong kind of freaks me out. I KNOW it's not likely for anything to go wrong with a plane, but just the mere possibility scares me. So please pray for our safe trip! If I can just get past the flying part though, I'm super excited about the trip! I'll be sure to tell about it when I get back! :)

The last day of school!

YAAAYYYYY! I'm soooo happy! :D Well actually, the state superintindent decided that we DID have to make up the two days we missed, so we're having school for two days after Memorial Day, but practically everyone is skipping! Yes, that includes me, because I can assure you, we won't be doing anything the slightest bit important. We still had our final exams yesterday and today as we originally were going to. According to the superintindent, we will have school the extra two days to do "enrichment activities." Psh. Yeah, that basically translates to "we're going to sit and twittle our thumbs for two more days so we can get our money." Because the whole reason they decided to make them up was because apparently we'll only get our government funding if we have exactly 180 days of school, and somehow there's a HUGE difference between 180 and 178 days. But yeah, since a lot of people had planned to go on vacation right after school got out, they decided that teachers wouldn't be taking up any grades on those two days, and they'll excuse your absence if you don't come as long as you give them a note from your parents. So yeah, I am so not going, because it would be totally pointless! lol.

And OMG!!!! I am totally in shock right now because I logged onto the website where you can look at your grades, and guess what? I HAVE AN "A" IN MATH!!!!! The only other time in my life that I ever had an A in math was in 6th grade. Other than that, I always got Bs, and even a C in that dreadful geometry class. I had an 87 in my Algebra II class originally, but apparently I made an 86 on my final exam (that's pretty shocking as well) and it made my grade go up to barely a 90, so I just barely made an A! haha. I think when I first saw my grade I just sat here staring at my computer screen with my mouth wide open. I looked quite similar to Kris Allen when he won American Idol.

And omg!!! Speaking of that I am soooo happy that Kris won! I was sure Adam was going to win since everyone was always fawning over him and his screeching, which personally I thought got quite old after he continued to do the same thing week after week. I really wanted Kris to win though, and I even voted for him a few times. ;-) I LOVE him! He was one of my favorites since the beginning. So yeah, I was so happy when he won! YAY!

Well, I guess that's all the news for now. Oh, well my recital was last weekend! It was a lot of fun, as usual. :) Sadly my parents couldn't come to it this year because my brother's college graduation happened to be on the same weekend, so they had to go out to that. So I just stayed with some friends of ours, and they got to be the "recital parents". haha. And some of my friends came to it too so I still had plenty of people to support me. lol. But anyway I did three dances as usual, one for ballet, one for tap, and one for jazz. They all went really well, except my pants started falling down in the tap dance because they were too big! But luckily it wasn't enough for anyone to notice, and I took the opportunity to slyly pull them back up when I was in the back and not as easy to see. lol. But yeah, all the dances went well and it was lots of fun! And I also got the results from my competition auditions yesterday. Well, sadly I didn't make it because they said they had a lot more people try out this year and it was impossible for them to let everyone in. But oh well, I'll still get to do all my regular classes next year, so I'm mantaining a positive attitude. ;-) Besides, if I had gotten in it might have turned out to take up too much time, so maybe it all worked out for the best. haha

Well, that's all for now. Later!

Our first real tornado

Well, it finally happened. For the first time in the 4 years we've lived here, we got a real tornado in our hometown that actually did some damage. But don't panic, no one was injured or anything, so we're all okay. Well, it happened this morning, so I was at school of course, in English class to be exact. We were getting ready to do our debate, which I had kind of been dreading, and hoping that I wouldn't have to talk. We were all given a topic- either whether marijuana should be legal or whether the drinking age should be lowered- and there had to be two teams for each, one for it and one against it. We didn't get to pick either, so we wouldn't necessarily be arguing for what we actually believed. But my group was supposed to be against legalizing marijuana, and we were going to go up against the group that was for it being legalized. But anyway, I've gotten way off topic. haha. Well, we were getting ready to start when our principal came on the intercom and told us that we were in a tornado warning and that we all had to go to our designated areas to take shelter. We were all quite used to this by now. We had had to do this once last year, and once or twice this year. It's been crazy the last couple of weeks, because we've been getting so many storms and there have been a few really minor tornado threats. We've gotten tons of tornado warnings since we've lived here, but usually no one thinks anything of it, because it always turns out to be just a strong thunderstorm, or it is a really small tornado, but it never comes right over our town. But anyway, my class went to the classroom that we always go to if there's a tornado drill or warning. They made sure none of us sat near the windows, but we could still see outside. It was raining really hard and the wind was blowing like crazy. It really was some of the strongest wind I've ever seen. We sat there for about an hour, when our principal finally came back on the intercom and said we could go back to class. By then it was almost the end of 1st block, so SADLY we didn't get to do our debate. ;-) But we still have to do it tomorrow, so I haven't completely gotten out of it. But anyway, I heard that apparently we actually had a tornado right in our town! It did some damage too- trees had fallen everywhere, and even a few houses were slightly damaged, but there haven't been any reports of anyone being injured, so I think everyone is okay at least. I texted my mom during peer helping (our teacher doesn't really care if we text, at least if it's something that's somewhat important, lol) to make sure she was okay, especially since I heard that the tornado had been on a street just a few miles away from my neighborhood! Luckily I got a message back that said, "I am fine." When I got home from school today, my mom said she had talked to my brother (remember, he's a meteorologist, so he's always right on top of these things lol) and apparently the tornado had actually gone over our neighborhood, but thankfully it hadn't actually been on the ground yet! That's such a scary thought though! lol. They have also confirmed that it was an F1 or possibly even an F2 tornado! I'm just glad everyone is okay, and I hope these dumb storms stop pretty soon, because I'm ready for the sun to come back out! lol. Today also happens to be my mom's birthday, and we're going out to dinner and for ice cream tonight, so hopefully we won't have more storms interfering with that.

Well, all this swine flu hysteria is finally calming down a bit. They actually decided to open the elementary schools again today, so they're not actually staying closed for two weeks. They've also finally reopened my dance school, so I'll be able to go back tomorrow. And it's also looking like we won't have to make up the days we missed! So I'm happy about that. :)

Back

Wow! I can't believe I haven't come here in over a month. I've actually been pretty busy lately, it isn't completely due to laziness this time. ;-)

Well anyway, I don't think much has happened since my last post, which I believe was the post where I ranted more about the DMV for sending us back home because it was raining. Well, obviously since school is still in, I haven't taken my driving test again yet, but I plan on retaking it probably in June. Well, I actually could have taken it one of the days that we were out of school this week (the whole story with that is coming in a minute. lol), but there was a chance that it would *gasp* rain! And it did end up raining Friday I think, plus I wouldn't be surprised if they used the swine flu as an excuse to close down so that they could all just sit and twittle their thumbs and not have to work.

Well, speaking of swine flu, now I'll tell about the whole thing with school. Well, on Wednesday, they found two "probable" cases of swine flu at an elementary school here, so they decided to close that elementary school for a whole week, and close the rest of the schools around here for two days, which was this past Thursday and Friday. And this weekend, they found even more cases at other elementary schools! So now all the elementary schools are closed for 14 days! It's crazy! But since they haven't found any cases in the middle schools or high school, we're all going back tomorrow. Normally we all would have been really happy about missing school, but sadly since the school board people are all so obsessed with getting in the exact amount of school days each year, and for some reason this year they haven't built in any extra days, we're afraid they're going to have us make up the two days we missed. I assumed they'd just make us go two more days after the day that we were suppsed to get out, which is May 22nd, but now some of the parents are complaining that they've already planned to leave for vacation the day that school gets out, and have already made reservations and stuff. So now the school board is really in a sticky situation. I looked at the superintindent's newsletter, and he basically admits that they have no idea what they're going to to do about the missed days. Gee, you think maybe they should have thought of that BEFORE they decided to close school. I really don't know what else they'd do though. Some people have said that we could make them up on Saturdays, but I haven't heard anything about the school board considering that, and I most certainly hope they won't, because my dance recital is supposed to be on May 16th, which is the Saturday after next! My recital is in the evening so I guess going to school wouldn't affect it, but we still have the younger kids performing at the afternoon show! And I'm afraid if they had to cancel that one they wouldn't have the evening show either. Seriously, if the school board makes us do that and ruins the recital, I'll have to find out where they work and go down there and go kung fu on everyone there. But I guess I shouldn't worry too much about that, since the superintindent didn't say anything about that, plus if they did decide to do that, I'm sure they'd be getting tons of complaints from parents since a lot of people have stuff going on on Saturdays. The only other option I can think of that they can do besides adding the days to the end of the year or us going on Saturdays is them just adding extra time on to each school day for a little while until all of the hours make up for the days we missed. As much as it would suck to have to stay at school for 30 minutes or so longer, I think that would at least be better than going on Saturdays or having to go extra days at the end of the year. So we'll just have to see! I also heard that in Texas, the state superintindent decided that they didn't have to make up missed days because the whole swin flu thing had been an "emergency situation." So I'm really hoping that maybe my state can decide that too! Apparently our state superintindent has the authority to decide if we don't have to make them up, so even if the county superintindent wants to make them up, we may not have to. But wow, we've really gotten ourselves into a mess! And we're not even the main problem- the elementary schools are the ones that are going to be closed for two weeks! So I don't know what they'll do about them. Maybe they won't worry as much about the elementary schools since they don't have exams or anything. But yeah, I just really hope they decide we don't have to make up the days- all of us students would be a lot happier, and it would make things a lot less complicated!

But yeah, my last day of school is SUPPOSED to be on May 22nd, but whenever it ends up being, I can't wait! I'll be so glad to get out of Algebra II. haha lol. Ugh, and I have a test in there tomorrow that I was supposed to take Thursday, and now I'm afraid I've forgotten everything since I haven't studied it since then. lol. Oh well, I'll just look over it again tonight. Dance is also going well, although class was canceled Thursday night, and I'm worried that they'll close for a long time now since all the elementary schools are closed and we have plenty of elementary kids at our school. But really, I doubt any of the kids infected go to my dance school, and if they did they obviously wouldn't come to class! And any of the other kids who have been exposed, well, we should know by now if they caught it, so I really don't see why we would have to stay closed. We need to practice, because our recital is in less than two weeks! Last Monday we went to the "big room" for the first time- that means all of the classes go down to the biggest room that we have in the studio, and we all do our recital dances in front of everyone. I guess it's partly to practice in front of other people, and partly to practice with a little more space since we're pretty cramped in most of the other rooms, but we'll have plenty of room on stage. But yeah, that went pretty well, even though I always get really nervous, especially when these two really advanced girls who were in some of my classes at school last year are in there- it's just kind of awkward, when someone who you don't really know, but who still knows who you are, is watching. haha. And I also went to the competition auditions that night. I decided to give it a try because I figured next year will be my last chance to do it if I ever want to. I kind of wanted to do it before but I always chickened out because I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough. But I finally worked up the nerve to give it a try! I still was really nervous and I think I messed up on a few of the combinations they showed us because of it, but I guess I didn't do really bad or anything. lol. So we'll just have to see! I won't find out whether or not I made it until after the recital. But oh well, even if I don't make it, I suppse I won't be any worse off than I am now, because that would mean next year I'd just end up doing the same classes that I'm doing now, which is still fun, so yeah. :)

Well, I guess that's it for now, later!

The driver's test that never was

Okay, I'll start by saying this...I hate the DMV even more now than I did before, as does my mom. It is truly the most messed-up system ever, probably even worse than the bus system at school, and let me tell you, that's saying a lot! lol. But anyway, I should get to the story...

Okay, so last week we e-mailed the DMV office asking to make an appointment for me to go back and take the test again. They're not open over the weekends, but we figured I could miss just part of one school day. So they scheduled me for Tuesday, March 31 at 2:00. So, my mom planned on picking me up from school at 12:15 today at school, so that we would have time to eat before we go, and arrive there 15 minutes early like they told us to. It was sprinkling a tiny bit this morning and we knew that the DMV people don't give tests when it's raining, but we figured that was only if it was raining pretty hard, plus my mom checked the forecast and it was supposed be pretty clear in the afternoon. So I went to school and went through my first two classes, English and math. It did rain a little during the morning, but it stopped after awhile. It was still gloomy outside and I hoped it wouldn't start raining again anyime soon. It got to be 12:15 and it wasn't raining so I went down to the office and met my mom, and we got in the car. I drove since we were in my car and I wanted to have practice before I took the test. I drove down to Arby's so we could eat something before we went. Then we left and drove down to the DMV. Along the way, it started sprinkling again. But we figured, surely they wouldn't cancel it over a little sprinkling rain? Well, we got there, and when I got up to the front of the line and told them what I was there for, the lady said, "Well, I don't know if we're going to be able to do road tests today because it's raining, but we'll go ahead and get you in." My mom and I just looked at each other like, "What?!" Well, I just went back there hoping they weren't going to cancel over a little sprinkling. I mean, seriously, people drive in the rain all the time, so why can't people take a simple driving test when it's barely raining?! Besides, if we're ready to get our driver's license, surely we would be experienced enough to drive in a little bit of rain. But anyway, I had to take the vision test again, and my heart sank when I saw the one and only Mean Vision Lady from last time sitting at the desk. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her get up and saw another lady replace her. So by the time it was my turn I got the other lady instead. And surprisingly, the numbers were a bit easier for me to see this time, so I got most of the numbers right, and if I did get one wrong, she'd just say politely, "No, that's not a 3, it's something else," and if I looked at it a little more, I could get it, and she didn't rush me or anything like :cough: some OTHER people might. haha. So I passed the vision test with flying colors, thankfully, and then my mom and I went back outside to the back of the building where three other cars were lined up, and pulled in behind them. We realized that they had probably had earlier appointments, but had to wait because it was *gasp* sprinkling. We sat in line for a bit, and to our dismay, suddenly the rain started coming down harder. Mind you, it still wasn't raining that much, and I could easily have driven in it, but we knew there was no way they were giving the test if they wouldn't even do it when it was sprinkling, and now it was actually raining. We would have just waited for it to stop, but here's the best part about their asinine rule: even after it stops raining, we have to wait until the road is dry! What? So what, do they actually send someone outside to touch the road and see if it's dry enough? Do we have to wait until the sun comes out and let the road dry for 30 minutes? So needless to say, neither my mom or I were the least bit happy. We figured there was no point in sitting any longer, because even if the rain stopped, who knows how long we'd need to wait for the darned road to "dry." By that time the DMV would probably be closing. So we decided to leave, but not before my mom had a few words with the people inside. I decided to stay in the car, because I didn't want to be in one of those awkward situations where you're just standing there while your mom is raking someone over the coals. My mom told me what happened though, after she came back out and we left. She told them how we had wasted our time driving down here and how I had missed school for nothing. I could only imagine how mad she was. Apparently, the lady she talked to argued back and said, "Well, why would you want your child driving in the rain?" And my mom was like, "Well, she's driven in the rain quite a few times, and she drove all the way down here in the rain!" Gosh, they act like we're driving in a hurricane or something. It's really not that dangerous to drive in a little rain! Wow, let me just say, that's one of the dumbest rules ever. So, thanks to that ludicrous rule, we again drove all the way out there for nothing, and I also missed half a day of school for nothing. I didn't really miss any work because I checked out after my two core classes (I have both my electives last) but it still counts as a "parent excused" absence, and now I only have two left before I'll have to have a doctor's note in order for the absence to be excused. I probably won't end up using them all, but still! All of this for nothing. Grrrrr.

Well, I guess that's enough ranting. lol. On the bright side, I at least did get to have some curly fries, which I love and haven't eaten in forever, and we also stopped at Kohl's on our way home and I found quite a few summer clothes there. So yeah, that was good. Later. :)

Much better day

Well, today was a lot better than yesterday! Today I actually didn't have to sit in a parking lot for 3 hours and bake in the sun. lol. My mom decided we'd drive out to the DMV again so I could practice driving on the same route that I'll have to drive on again when I go back to take my driver's test. Since we were already driving all the way out there, we decided we'd go get pizza for lunch at a place called Bellacino's. We used to have one close to our house, but unfortunately it closed so we only go to the one on the other side of town if we happen to be all the way out there, which isn't very often. So, we drove up to the shopping center where Bellacino's is, only to discover that this one was now closed too. I'm so sad, Bellacino's is all gone now! :-( It was one of our favorite places to get pizza. We were already out there, so we had to find another place to eat. We saw a Nothing But Noodles, Jason's Deli, and Panera Bread, and decided on Jason's Deli. My stomach had been so ready to have pizza, so I decided I'd still get my pizza fix and ordered a mini pizza from the "Junior Meals" section. Of course, it did say "ages 12 and under" but I can get away with ordering stuff of the kids menus since most people who don't know me actually think I'm about 12. lol. Sure enough, the guy taking our order didn't even bat an eye when I ordered, or ask how old I was. lol. They even still gave me one of those silly little cups! A lot of the time if I order something off the kids' they still give me a regular cup, or they at least ask me which cup I want. Of course I would have prefered a regular cup over the little cup that had a bunch of little dancing vegetables with faces on them, but it's not like anyone I know was in there, so I didn't really care that much. I figured if that's what it took to get my pizza fix, it was worth it. lol. So we waited a little bit and then our food came. My pizza was actually a pretty decent size- it was about the same size as those personal pizzas they have at Pizza Hut. I tried it and I thought it was quite good! It definitely wasn't just some little frozen pizza they pulled out of a box, they had obviously actually made it. And you can also get free ice cream out of their ice cream machine, but we decided not to have any since we just had ice cream last night. So yeah, we had a good lunch at Jason's Deli!

So then we drove back to the DMV, and I got in the driver's seat and drove around that same route that I'd gone on yesterday. Ugh, going through the parking lot took me back to that extremely embarrassing moment from yesterday. Gosh, I really hope when I go back that I don't get that same lady again, because she'll probably remember me. haha lol. But anyway, I practiced my left turns a bit and also made sure I came to a complete stop at the stop signs. So I'm hoping that with a little more practice I can go back and pass the test in a few weeks!

Driver's license (or not)

Well, last Friday I got out of school for spring break, so that was really awesome. My spring break has been pretty good. I haven't done a whole lot, but it's been nice not having to worry about school. And the weather has also finally gotten warm! On Wednesday I went and played mini golf with my friend and her family. It was a lot of fun! But sadly, I can't say that today was so much fun! It's yet another really long story for me to write, so brace yourselves, this is going to be long. ;-P

Well, let's just say my mom and I basically spent our entire day at the DMV today to get my driver's license. And I certainly hoped that after all that waiting, I'd pass the road test. We got there at 8:00 in the morning so that we'd be able to get an appointment. Luckily, we got there early enough and they gave us an appointment. However, they were already full for road tests so they told us to come back at 1:00 for the next batch. But, they went ahead and took my papers and wrote some stuff down, and also gave me a vision test. Unfortunately, the older lady giving the vision test wasn't exactly that friendly. As I sat down she immediately said, a bit intensely, "Have you taken the test before?" So I answered no. She then told me to look through this weird little machine and read the 6th line of numbers to her. For the first part, I could see it with both eyes, so I did fine. Then I had to just look through my right eye, and again I did okay. Then came the left eye. Uh-oh. Back when I was in 3rd grade, they had told me that my left eye was a bit weaker than my right, but since I could still see fine with both eyes they decided I didn't need glasses. But somehow these driving people think that I'm going to be driving around with one eye open. Perhaps they're afraid that I might be dressed up as a pirate on my way to a Halloween party and have an eyepatch over one eye? Really, that's the only valid reason I can think of. But anyway, as I looked through again with just my left eye, I started to panic. I couldn't see one single number. It was so blurry. I tried to read them the best I could, and Mean Vision Lady didn't make things much better by saying things like, "Just try!" and "You have to be able to read these to take your road test!" Eventually she led me over to a different machine. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, but luckily I was able to read at least most of the numbers, so she finally said, "Okay, that's good enough."

So anyway, we drove all the way back home and then all the way back out. We arrived at the huge line of cars waiting to test. I'd say when we got there about 10 or more cars were already in front of us, and then a few more pulled in behind us. Then, one lady regulating everything went around to all the cars and told us she wanted us to move out a little bit more to make a wider space so that more people could get in line. The poor guy driving a truck in front of me was in a really weird position and had to do all kinds of backing up and moving forward, and he nearly hit some cones. He had a crazy hysterical mother in the front seat yelling at him. Gosh, I felt bad for him. But anyway we all finally got situated. You know, you'd think it'd be a little easier for them to just put up a sign telling people where to stop, rather than have the lady go around to every single car and tell them. But whatever, I guess I'm crazy. What was even better was that there were only two people giving road tests, making things even slower. So we sat in the line of cars, occasionally moving up a few feet. An hour passed. Then another hour. Then about 45 more minutes. My mom and I always rejoiced at the sound of someone's horn honking, because that meant that they were going. For some reason the first thing they asked you was to honk your horn. But anyway, we finally got close to the front of the line. Truck Boy with the Crazy Mother was still in front of me, and then there was just one more person in front of him. We were happy to be this close to the front, only to have our hopes crushed when it looked like the two women giving tests were now getting their "break." We saw them both walk off in different directions and they didn't come back for at least 15 minutes. But finally, they came back. I had been extremely nervous when we first arrived, but after sitting in the hot car for awhile and baking in the sun to the point that I was getting sunburned, I pretty much just wanted to get the test over with and get out of there. But, as we approached the front of the line that sick feeling returned to my stomach. Finally, it came to be my turn. The woman came up to my window, and she at least greeted me and asked how I was. Okay, good, I thought, at least I'm not stuck with someone like Mean Vision Lady. THAT would be a nightmare. My mom got out of the passenger seat, wished me luck, and said, "Don't be too nervous!" Oh, how I wish I could have followed her advice, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from shaking. First, the lady of course told me to honk my horn, which I did with no problem. Then she told me to put on my left turn signal, then right, and then push the brake after she walked around to the back of the car. So I did. Then she walked back around and went and stood a little ways over to the right. She was pretty far away from the car so I started to worry about not being able to hear what she told me to do next. So sure enough, she said something and I had a bit of trouble making out what she said. I thought she said something like, "Go to the left". So I moved the car forward to the left a little. It kind of made sense to me since that was the way we had to go out of the parking lot, plus the lady was standing over to the right. Maybe she wanted me to come forward and she would get in the passenger seat. Boy, was I wrong. The lady's eyes went wide and she said, "I didn't tell you to move the car!" I just stopped and sat there dumbfounded, my face turning bright red. It seemed like she knew that I couldn't hear her, because she came back up to the car and told me again. Apparently she was telling me to put on my left turn signal again. So, sheepishly, I put on the signals and pressed the brake again, and then she got in the passenger seat. Luckily she wasn't too mad about what happened, and she even made a joke of it and said, "Were you just going to run me over?" Well good, at least she wouldn't hold an eternal grudge against me for supposedly nearly running her over. I just managed a sheepish smile and said, "I'm sorry, I misheard you." I was still so embarrassed though, and wanted to sink into the floor of my car. So we drove a bit and she asked me to do a few things and make a few stops and turns. Most of that went okay. I was worried about the three-point turn, which I had just practiced for the first time last weekend, but luckily I actually did okay on that. I did end up having a problem on a few parts though, which is what apparently made this turn out to be fatal (don't worry, I'm not speaking literally here). She asked me to pull up right next to the curb and park as if I was parking on a hill. Okay, this scared me. I hadn't practiced this before, and my mom and I had only briefly talked about it before I left, because they never gave us a paper telling us what they'd be evaluating us on until we got there. You'd think maybe they'd want to post that on their website so that maybe people could actually know what they're looking for and practice, but naw. That would make things waaaay to easy. So I just did what I could remember. I knew I had to turn the wheels a certain way, but I wasn't sure which way. So I just kind of turned them in a random direction, and then put my parking brake up, which I knew I was supposed to do. Well, I later found out that I hadn't turned the wheels the right way. We finished the 15-minute drive and parked back at the DMV. The lady finished writing a few things, and my heart sank when she said, "Well, you'll have to come back another time and take it again." Then she started rattling off all of the things I needed to work on. Basically, it was just the parking on a hill, and she also said that my left turns were a bit too wide. She also said that I had to work on stopping at stop signs. I didn't understand this since I always stop at them. She then said that I don't always come to a complete stop and that sometimes I do a rolling stop. Then I kind of realized what she meant. Well, I really do stop at stop signs. But usually what I do is stop, and then inch up a little bit more so that I can see better if anyone is coming. I don't really see what's wrong with that, especially since I never inch past the stop sign or all the way out into the traffic. It's better to actually be able to see if people are coming! But anyway, somehow that counts as a "rolling stop", so that was another fatal mistake I had made. I had to go back in the building and get my mom, and I won't lie, I was pretty upset. Not so much upset that I didn't have my license, but more upset about the fact that we had sat in that stupid parking lot for the whole flipping day for nothing. My mom assured me that it was okay, and that a lot of people don't pass on their first try, especially since no one knows what to expect since we don't know what they're going to ask us to do. Well, I suppose she was right, but still. I wanted to just have it all over with! Now I either have to wait until the summer to go back, or I'll have to miss a day of school, because they aren't even open on weekends. My mom says she thinks we'll just go back on a school day, but we'll just have to pick a day where I don't have any tests or anything. And luckily, my mom found out that instead of going over there and sitting for hours, we can just call them ahead of time and set up an appointment, so at least we probably won't have to go through all that again. Ahhh. I'm just glad now to have the whole thing over with, even if I didn't end up getting my license and I'll have to take the test again. At least now I know exactly what they'll ask me to do. And at least we're going to go get ice cream tonight, so maybe that'll cheer me up a bit. :-) So yeah, I know this was an extremely long post, but I at least tried to make it somewhat entertaining, partly for your sake and partly because I always like to be able to at least find a little humor in a frustrating/embarrassing situation. So yeah, I guess that's it for now! Later. :)

Spanish Honor Society

Well, tonight was quite nice because I actually had no homework. It was also the night of the induction ceremony for all the foreign language honor societies. You can get in it if you've taken 3 years of a foreign language and have always maintained an A. So, I went ahead and signed up for Spanish honor society. They don't really require much from you, except at the end of the year before final exams, they want you to tutor a student who needs help.

So, this morning I went to a "rehearsal" for the ceremony at 7:25 a.m. Basically, all they did was put the German, Latin, French, and Spanish honor society members in line alphabetically, and then we just sat there for a minute, and the Spanish teacher who is the leader of the honor society came over to us and had us practice the short poem we had to have memorized for the ceremony. I was like, "I got up at 6 a.m for this?!" lol. We really didn't do anything. lol

So tonight was the actual ceremony. When my parents and I got there, I dropped my maraschino cherries on the refreshment table (we all had to bring it a food item, lol. The cherries were for this Spanish drink called Sangria- the non-alcoholic version, of course) and quickly found these two girls that I know so I would have someone to talk to while we were waiting. We stood around for a little bit, and then they finally started lining us up. Of course, the Spanish people had to be last. lol. Finally we all went into the auditorium and sat down. So the German people were first. I was worried when I saw that they all had to light candles and hold them (I have a pathological fear of flame). I saw how close to each other they had to stand with those burning candles. I made a mental note to myself to remember to push my hair back behind my back, because I certainly didn't want the flame to ignite my hair, which is starting to get long again. We went through the same ritual with the Latin and French people. I noticed that both the German and French people had to repeat a phrase in their language as they were lighting their candle. I figured we weren't doing that though, since no one had told us we would have to do that at the rehearsal that morning. As far as I knew, all we were doing was reciting a poem and saying the oath alltogether. I certainly hoped we didn't have to say anything individually, because I pictured myself being so nervous that I wouldn't be able to make out what our mentor was telling us to say, and having no idea what to say. And not to mention I'd be freaking out over the darned candle at the same time. Well, it came time for the Spanish people to go up, so we all walked up on the stage in alphabetical order. It turned out that there were so many people in the Spanish honor society that thankfully we didn't do the candle thing- it would have taken way too long! The president, vice president, and treasurer lit candles but none of the inductees had to. I was so relieved about that. I was towards the end of the line and there wasn't room for us on the stage, so some of us ended up having to form a second line behind everyone else. Since practically everyone else is about a foot taller than me, it wasn't that easy to see me. This ended up being a good thing, because even though I had memorized the poem and had it down completely, the president of the honor society started reciting the oath and telling us to repeat after her, and I couldn't hear a darn thing she was saying, because I was on the opposite side of the stage. I stumbled over the words quite a bit, but thankfully, I don't think too many people could see me. So, I finally received my award! So yeah, I'm now in the Spanish Honor Society. Whoo. lol. I'm glad the ceremony didn't turn out to be too bad!

Well, I've really gotta get to bed, so that's all for now. Later!

Back

I know, I know, it's been forever. lol. I have been a little busy for the past week or so though. But I really need to spend less time on facebook, because I've been neglecting the blog. :P

Ok, well, let's see. I shall start with an update on school. Well, my classes are going pretty well. With my luck, both my English and math teachers decided to give us a ton of work at the same time, so that's why I was busy. But whoo! I finally have my research paper done and I don't have to worry about it anymore! Ahhhh, it's such a relief. :) And luckily I've been able to maintain an 85 average in Algebra II even though I'm terrible at math. lol Peer helping and art are good too. In peer helping we're working on this skit we're going to perform about internet safety. In art, we're doing something really hard called a still life. It's basically a bunch of random objects scattered around on the table, and you have to use this little viewfinder and draw what you see through it. Yeah, it's definitely not easy. lol. But luckily, my teacher was able to help me a bit today so I feel a lot better about it now. :) And currently at school, we're doing those graduation exams that I talked about last year. Well, I passed all of them last year, and it's mostly sophomores who are taking them, and also the juniors and seniors who haven't passed them yet. However, apparently they couldn't decide what they would consider as their passing score for the biology test, so they're now making all juniors take it again! So, this Friday I have to take biology, and that's it. But seriously, you would think they would determine their passing score BEFORE they give the test...but maybe I'm just crazy. I'm a little worried though because I don't remember much from biology, which I took the first semester of 10th grade. It's even worse for the people who took it in 9th grade, because it's been at least 2 years since they've had biology! But yeah, hopefully that'll go okay. :)

And of course, there has been craziness with all of the testing going on, especially since the people at my school aren't exactly that organized. Well, first of all, we have some people testing in the library. Everyone is so caught up in getting good test scores to make the school look good that they've gone completely insane to make sure there aren't any "distractions" to the students. Okay, no distractions would be a good thing. But guess what they consider to be a "distraction?" People simply WALKING past the library. I mean, gosh, if someone testing hears footsteps in the hallway, it might make them mark B instead of A! Also, we have to turn the bells off until everyone is finished testing. Yeah, the first thing I'd think if I was testing and heard the bell ring is, "Oooooh! It's a bell! The same one that I hear every single day between every class!" and then be so distracted that I'd mark the wrong answer. So as a result, all the teachers end up dismissing their classes at all different times because we have no bells. Also, since we can't walk past the testing areas, they rope off the areas so that no one can walk there. Our school is already overcrowded enough, but now since some places are blocked off and everyone is forced to take the same route to their classes, it's ten times worse. Last year when I was walking down a stairwell that was extremely crowded because everyone had to take it, I literally nearly got knocked down and sent flying down the staircase...okay maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I really did almost fall down! lol. It's just ridiculous. Also, last Friday when they were testing, I had to go to the nurse during one of my classes to take some medicine, and of course, since it's right by the library, I couldn't get to it. I had no idea what I was going to do. I would have just sneaked past, but the other day the assistant principal had announced that if we DARED walk in the restricted areas, we'd be suspended. So that kept me from trying that. Luckily, a lady was sitting in a little office right by that area and saw me, and she asked where I needed to go. I told her and luckily she said I could go ahead and go. But of course, she had to add, "Just make sure to be quiet!" Yeah, of course I was planning on doing backflips across the hallway or singing on my way to the nurse.

And also today, my math teacher was one of the proctors for the exam, so we were told to go to the gym, where all of the classes whose teachers were giving the test had to go. That is normally my 2nd block class, but during grad exams they switch the class order around each day to make sure we have enough time in each class. So we actually had our 2nd block during the time that's normally 3rd block. And 3rd block is when we have all the lunch periods. Well, the P.E. teachers told us to go to whatever lunch period we normally go to. We all assumed that meant go to the lunch that we always have, every day. I normally have 4th lunch, but I decided to go ahead and go to 2nd lunch because I was hungry (lol), plus my friend had that lunch. The teachers didn't have any way of knowing what our real lunch was, and it's not like it really mattered anyway. Before I left, I remembered seeing my math teacher talking to one of the P.E. teachers and then leave, but I didn't think anything of it. After I got back from lunch, I was talking to my friend Shaun when suddenly my math teacher came back, saying that her class needed to come back to class. Apparently they were done with testing. I was sad that we actually had to have math class, but luckily there was only about 30 minutes of the period left. lol. But anyway, I got down from the bleachers, along with a few other people from my class. There were some people who still hadn't come, so my teacher asked where they were. I told her that they might be at lunch if it was their normal lunch period. A few people from our class were still sitting in the bleachers, and they told our teacher that they hadn't eaten yet, because they had 4th lunch. Then our teacher suddenly went insane, saying how they should have eaten in 1st or 2nd lunch. We were all really confused because no one had ever told us we needed to go to an earlier lunch. At this point I was REALLY thankful that I hadn't decided to wait until my normal lunch period to eat. My teacher just told us all to go back to class, and when she came back to the room she was irate. She started yelling at us and again saying that they told us to go to 1st or 2nd lunch. And everyone insisted that no one had told us. I can only assume she must have been telling the P.E. teachers to tell us that when she was in the gym before. But we all knew that either they didn't tell us, or they didn't make the announcement clear enough (everyone in the gym was talking, so for them to tell us something like that, they would have had to get everyone's attention and get them to stop talking so they could tell us). We told our teacher this, but then she said we still should have known since all math classes have 2nd lunch. But the P.E. teachers had told us to go to whatever our normal lunch is. The way they said it, anyone would think that they meant the lunch that you have every day, not the lunch that the class you're in right now would have. But of course our teacher was still mad even though it wasn't even our fault...gosh. She said we should have known just because we weren't on a "normal" schedule. Oh well, she was in a better mood by the end of class at least. lol. Luckily we finished notes early so the people who hadn't eaten yet were allowed to go to lunch. But seriously, if we hadn't been able to finish early she was really going to make all those people starve...geez. Seriously, our school needs better communication!

So yeah, that's all the craziness that's happened at school. lol. I can't wait until after Friday, because it'll finally be spring break! I'll get a break from homework, projects, and all this craziness! lol.

Dance is also going well. Last week during our class times they took all our recital pictures in our costumes. They all went well, I just hope I didn't blink in any of them. :P But yeah, I can't wait till May when we'll have the recital!

First post of 2009!

I'm back! Sorry I've been gone for so long. It was mostly due to laziness, but I WAS a little bit busy. ;-) I was preparing for final exams, and then over winter break I was still kind of busy because I had to finish "East of Eden" (the longest book EVER) which I had to have finished by the time I went back to school and started English class. Luckily I did end up finishing everything. My Christmas was pretty good. We just stayed home as usual, but my brother came back home during his break.

Well, I started school again last Tuesday. So far, my classes are going well for the most part. First block, I have English. I was brave and decided to take honors English this year, but still not brave enough to take AP. But anyway, it's going pretty well so far. Right now we're discussing the books we read for summer reading, but unfortunately that dreaded yearly research paper will be coming up soon. But, our teacher did say that we would get them done before spring break so that that way, they wouldn't be "hanging over our heads" during spring break. So I guess that's good at least. lol
Then 2nd block I have Algebra II. Whoopee. Math, my favorite subject...NOT! lol. Well, so far it hasn't been too hard because we're doing review from Algebra I. The problem is that some of the stuff we've been doing has required a lot of steps and stuff and takes a really long time. I found myself rushing to finish the first test that we took on Wednesday because I was running out of time. I'm afraid I didn't do very well on it. :( Hopefully the time thing won't be a problem on all the tests. I REALLY hate timed tests!
Then, I have peer helping again 3rd block. I'm still enjoying it. We had a few people from last semester leave and we have a few new people in there this semester. They're all really nice too, so I think this semester will go well too. :)
And then I have art last. It's going pretty well so far, and I'm surprised that I'm managing to make somewhat decent drawings. haha lol. The only bad thing is that some people in that class are quite loud and annoying. One guy in particular, who was in my Spanish 1 class last year, is in art now. He is quite possibly the most obnoxious, immature person I've seen in my life, seriously. lol. And the teacher certainly isn't someone who will put up with people like that. lol. She's already given two people detention. But luckily she seems to like me since I don't do that stuff during class. lol

Well, I'm really enjoying dance now because we've started working on our recital dances! I really like them all so far, especially the tap! I LOVE that one so far, it's so fun. :D The song for that is We Will Rock You. For jazz we're dancing to "Just Stand Up" (that song from the Stand Up to Cancer telethon) and for ballet we're dancing to an instrumental remix of "Dance With My Father."

And I am sooo glad that it's finally Friday and I get a 3-day weekend! Woohoo! :D