Political Debates Drive Me Insane

What is with this crazy weather?  When I went to school this morning I didn't even need a jacket!  Then, it started storming in the middle of English.  This wasn't a small storm either.  It was a large storm that you'd expect to see in spring.  I'll admit that it was a lot colder after the storm, but the temperature is supposed to go up again over the next several days.  This is one crazy winter.

The juniors took the ASVAB this morning which meant there were only six of us in AP U.S. history, and we did nothing.  I'm definitely not complaining about that.  Especially since we had a timed essay on Beowulf in AP English right after history.  That didn't actually go that badly.  We knew what it was about ahead of time and could write some notes.  I had notes and an idea of what I wanted to say, but I wasn't entirely sure how to say it.  It was one of those cases where I started writing and it just happened though.  It could still have been better, but for a timed essay it went rather well.

Our current events class was spent watching the latest Republican debate the entire time.  I really wish they would stop attacking each other.  It's just annoying, and it definitely doesn't make me want to vote for any of them.  It just makes me hate them.  Although I was really happy when Santorum called Romney out for not answering his question directly.  I wish that would happen more often.  I hate when they start rambling on about stuff that has nothing to do with the question they were asked (which is almost all of the time).  It just drives me insane.

We started a project in probabililty and statistics that involves sports statistics.  I am not a sports fan.  We had to pick one baseball pitcher, one football quarterback, and one basketball point guard.  Now, if I was watching a game of any one of those sports, I could follow it pretty well (especially basketball).  However, I don't really know any players, and I have no idea what all of the statistics mean.  It took me forever to find them, and then there were all these abbreviations and I had no idea what they meant.  It was just confusing.  When I finally did figure everything out and got around to making my frequency table, I didn't have enough classes.  (Don't worry if you don't know what that means.  It's not important.)  I took it up to the teacher, and he said I'd worked everything out right, it just ended up that way.  These are the reasons I'm not a math person... (And definitely not a statistics person.)

One Week Into the Semester

It's only the first weekend of the semester, and I'm already relieved that it's Friday.  My sleep schedule is still really screwed up from break, so I'm extremely thankful to have a day to sleep in.  Still, school's going really well so far, and I think it'll be a good last semester.  (I still can't believe it's my last semester in high school...)

My books seem to fall off my desk in AP English a lot...  I attribute this to the amount of books I have to carry to AP U.S. history and AP English.  If you watched the video I uploaded the other day, I talked about the bruises on my arm from carrying the books.  I have to carry a binder, and the books I stack on top of it always seem to slide off my desk.  Anyway, I'm telling you this because my books fell again today (while I wasn't at my desk just like all the other times), and someone picked them up for me.  They missed my planner, and I never noticed it was gone until two classes later.  I ended up rushing back to the room before psychology to get it, and it was laying under one of the desks.  I'm just glad someone didn't pick it up and mess with it.  (Junior year a freshmen got a hold of my calculator that I left in accounting and messed around with it before the teacher found it.)

We had a food day in yearbook today!  That's always a plus.  I was particularly happy because lunch was especially nasty today, so I wasn't as hungry when there wasn't much to eat.

In psychology we started a documentary on Freud.  I'll admit that I've never really known much about what Freud taught.  I'd heard bits and pieces of course, but that was it.  It's really interesting though.  I don't think I agree with a lot of it, but he has some very interesting thoughts.  I think most of it is a valid theory, and I can see how he could come up with this stuff, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

We finished a current events quiz game in current events today, and my team came in first!  We're apparently playing this game every week, and we'll have the same teams.  He also said we're being graded based on how well we do on the game, so hopefully our team can keep that up!  I don't know how I feel about that type of grading though.  There are four teams, and we apparently get an A, B, C, or D based on what place we get.  I know he has to get grades somehow since it's all current events stuff, but I don't know how fair that really is.  Most of it involved every team guessing and using any clues we could get anyway.  (For example, one question asked what communist country this guy came from.  We could tell his name was Spanish, so we just guessed Cuba and got it right.  It had nothing to do with actually knowing the answer.)

I don't think I'm going to blog all weekend.  It'll be nice to go a couple of days without blogging.  I probably won't really be filming any videos.  I filmed one earlier that I'll put up tonight, and I may film one Sunday.  Overall though I think I'm taking a break this weekend (other than for homework).

The End of 2011 and My First Hunger Games Fanfiction

Can you believe Sunday is the start of 2012?  I can't.  I filmed a video earlier today that will be up on my channel tomorrow.  I talked in there about some of the awesome things that happened this year, and things I want to try and do in 2012.  Like I said, that'll be up tomorrow if you want to watch it.  I may do a similar blog post here tomorrow, but I'm not sure yet.  I'll be at my grandma's for New Year's Eve tomorrow, so I'll probably blog about what we're doing there instead (which is why I filmed the video today). 

I haven't done much today.  I did manage to get a small part of the essay for AP U.S. history done, but then my mom called me down for dinner.  I'll probably finish it Monday, since I couldn't think of what to write anyway.  I think I'll be able to focus better on Monday.

As I mentioned earlier in a blog post, I finished writing the first draft of the story I was working on, and I put it away for a while before editing it.  For the past week or so I've been writing Hunger Games fanfiction.  I talked more about this in the video that'll be posted tomorrow because finishing the fanfic is one thing I mention as wanting to do in 2012.  I'm having a lot of fun with it so far, since it's my first Hunger Games fanfiction.

It's going to be a series of one-shots that are in chronological order and have a similar theme.  I'll talk more about it when I start posting it online.  They definitely have a lighter tone than the actual Hunger Games books because I'm focusing on Katniss and Peeta's kids who have much happier lives.  The story I just finished was also a bit dark.  It wasn't incredibly depressing or anything, but I wanted to write something a lot lighter and more positive now.  There is some darkness to it though, especially when the kids kind of think about their parents' pasts.  Actually, I just discovered this but both the story I just finished and this Hunger Games fanfiction are heavily centered around growing up.  Other than that though, they're completely different.

Anyway, I'm going to quite ranting about the fanfiction and go work on it some more!

Even More Stress

Is it really only Wednesday?  This week has been so long.  Today was a mixture of getting things out of the way that have been bothering me forever and adding even more things to stress me out.

We had an open book test in AP U.S. history today.  It really wasn't hard since it was open book.  If only we could do that for every test...

All we did in AP English today was work on our annotated bibliographies.  I still don't have mine even halfway done.  I'm not looking forward to working on that.  Even though it's not that difficult to write, I feel like it's going to take forever.

Ji and I have one yearbook page that's due this Friday.  The only problem is standardized testing is going on the next couple of the days in the computer lab, so we can't work on them during yearbook class.  That means we have to work on them at home.  I didn't even know we could access the yearbook stuff from home until Ji told me we could today.  I really hope we're able to get that finished.

At the end of computer applications I had to go up to the guidance office.  I've been trying to send my transcripts to colleges through this e-transcript thing for over a month now, but the guidance office wasn't getting my requests through the thing.  I'm not even really sure what was going on, but we have it all sorted out now.  My transcripts have finally been sent!

During lunch Haley and I ended up sitting at the table where Jordan and Bridget were selling dance tickets.  Haley said she sat at our usual table, and some immature boy started throwing food at her, so she moved over there.  I didn't see it happen since I was late to lunch because I'd been in guidance.

Peer tutoring was pretty much the same as usual.  I helped two girls with some worksheets, and in the other class, I really just sat there and watched.

We had a test in economics today.  The thing with econ tests is that I feel like I know it well, and I do perfectly fine on most of it, but there's always at least two problems that I get to and have no idea what the answer is.  It bugs me because I swore I went over everything.  Today, there were still a couple of hard ones, but I thought I remember talking about it, so I may actually be right this time.

I completely forgot that I had a hair appointment after school today until my sister reminded me as we were getting off the bus.  Regina was trying to get me to cut a ton off, but I told her that wasn't happening.  I don't think I've had my hair short since freshmen year.  I like how easy it is to brush my hair when it's short, but other than that I hate when I have short hair.  Instead, I just got it trimmed.

I really need to go work on my annotated bibliography, but I want to get some other stuff (including another blog post) done before I work on that.  It's going to take up my whole day!

I Need a Break

I'm am so ready for Thanksgiving break!  I need these five days off of school.  I'm beginning to get really stressed out, and a break will be nice.  I mean most of the stress is coming from college stuff, and I'm going to spend break applying to two colleges.  Still, no school helps take a bit of the stress off, and I think I could the main college-related thing that was stressing me out sorted out today.  So, hopefully it will be an unstressful break for me.  (If my sister succeeds in getting me to go Black Friday shopping, then I guess we can throw the unstressful break out the window.)

Since it was the last day before break, we didn't do much at school today.  I had an AP U.S. history test first thing this morning, but other than that, I didn't do much today.  We're researching for our trend analysis paper (with an annotated bibliography) in AP English, but I don't really consider researching to be hard work (unless you're having trouble finding information).

Our Jostens yearbook representative was in our yearbook class today to show us how to create the portrait pages, but all that required was us sitting quietly and listening to him talk.

I'm way ahead in computer applications, so our teacher asked Ji, Bethany, and me to help her wrap pennies from Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF.  Once we were finished with that, Ji, Alyssa, and I went up to the guidance office since we each had seperate things that we needed to get worked out.  That's when I hopefully got the biggest college-related thing sorted out.  Guys, applying to college can be hard when things don't go right.  I think I go to a great school, but something I didn't learn until this year is that it's sometimes hard to get things figured out because of the small staff.  I've been trying to get this sorted out forever, but our guidance office consists of two people (a guidance counselor and a secretary), and whenever I have time to go in there, they never seem to be in there (hence why I went during class today).  It was starting to get frustrating.  I've never had this problem until this year, since you don't really need to deal with guidance much (except during scehduling times) until senior year.  Hopefully, that's all sorted out though, and as soon as I send in these two applications, I'll be done applying to college.  (Then I just have to be accepted...)

Just like us high schoolers, the middle schoolers weren't doing much today either, so I didn't do much during peer tutoring today.  In the first class I'm in, I helped one girl with math a little bit and helped two boys study for a social studies class.  In the second class, the were watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while working on a math worksheet that they didn't really need help on, so I spend the whole time just watching Charlie Brown.

We did actually do work in econ today, but it was easy and not nearly enough to take up the whole hour and a half we're in there.  Most of the class was spent doing nothing.

Since getting home, I feel like I've accomplished a lot, but it really doesn't seem like much looking back on it.  I managed to get some reading done, which hasn't really happened in a while.  I got half of a college application filled out, which I'm relieved that it's nearing being done.  I also filmed a video that I was currently in the process of editing before I got in the shower and then started writing (first my story and then this).  I have over twenty minutes of footage, so I hope to get it edited down a lot, which probably won't happen since I can't bear to leave out anything when it comes to books.  As soon as I post this I'm going to get back to editing that, and I'll hopefully have it up before I go to bed, which is looking less likely as it's getting late.

My Pencil Got Stolen in the Bathroom

I got the pleasure of beginning my day by standing out in the rain waiting for the bus.  I was also alone because my sister stayed home sick.  I'm so glad that the bus actually came early today.  Normally, I would mind the rain, but being stuck at school with wet clothes and hair isn't fun.

All of the seniors with a certain GPA or above had a meeting this morning about a scholarship.  One person in our county gets it, and the winner recieves full tuition for four years at any college in Indiana.  It's a great scholarship, and I'm going to apply for it.  It's just that I don't want to go to college in Indiana.  There is one college (that I really like) that I applied to that's in Indiana, so I'm still applying for the scholarship.  We'll see what happens if I get it.

This meeting ran into our first class, which meant I had less time than normal to complete my AP U.S. history test.  Thankfully, I got done on time.  I think it's because I knew I had less time, and I made myself focus more than usual.  (I'll admit that I sometimes zone out in the middle of tests.)

We got to peer edit papers in AP English.  Basically every problem that was pointed out in my paper is stuff I already know.  The problem is I'm not sure how to fix those problems.  This paper is proving to be very difficult.  When I'm finished writing this, I'm going to go through it and do some editing myself.

Here's an interesting story:  Whenever I go to the bathroom at school, I always leave my books and things sitting on this ledge thing over the sinks.  I've been doing this since freshmen year, and I've never had a problem.  Today I did the same thing I always do, and when I went to get my books, my pencil was gone.  My eraser, book, and notebook were all still there, but the pencil was gone.  I looked around, thinking maybe I dropped it, but it was nowhere to be found.  I think someone stole it.  I wasn't too bothered by it.  I just went to my locker and got a new one.

I really funny part of the story was during econ.  Some people started complaining about how they'd had bad days, so our teacher started going through every person in the class and asking them how their day went.  When he got to me, I was just going to say that my day had been fine when Jordan mentioning that I did actually have a bad day.  I don't know if she was referring to the pencil thing or what happened while peer tutoring (I'll get to that in a minute.) as I had just told her and Haley both.  I kind of stammered for a bit before just saying, "My day was fine, but my pencil did get stolen in the bathroom."  Everyone in the class, including me, burst into laughter, and I turned bright red, which Haley pointed out to me.  After a few minutes, the teacher said he wasn't even going to ask for that story, and we moved on.  It was interesting though.

As for what happened during peer tutoring over at the middle school, I was put in charge of helping three sixth graders with a math worksheet today.  They were doing really well.  They were each dividing up the problems and doing them on the board.  Then, the boy got frustrated over something and decided he wanted to do them himself, so he went and sit at a desk and worked on them alone.  Then, the two girls got into an argument because one girl didn't think the other was being fair, so they insisted on working the problems alone.  It was kind of dissapointing.  I remember at the beginning of class being really impressed by how well they were working together, and by the end of class that had fallen apart.  At least all three of them had a pretty good idea of what they were doing.  That was the point of the worksheet.

On a bright side, the pouring rain had stopped by the time I went over to the middle school, so I didn't have a problem with that.  I also got a ride home with Ji instead of riding the bus.  That was especially nice since I was lugging home books for my sister Regina, so she could get homework done.  Overall though, it wasn't a bad day.

Operation Christmas Child

I'm still worn out from the weekend.  I was at the school enough for the play that it doesn't even really feel like I had a weekend.

I got to start off my Monday with an AP U.S. history test.  Luckily, it wasn't bad.  As far as AP U.S. history tests go, it was fairly average.

I was looking forward to actually going home after school today, but I ended up staying after for about fifteen minutes with Ji.  She was calling this college for information and wanted someone there for moral support.  After she was done with the call, she asked if I was interested in going to the Dollar Store with her to get things for Operation Christmas Child.  We're supposed to have everything for that turned in to school tomorrow.  We stopped at my house, so I could get some money, and my brother and sister ended up coming with us.  We looked around the Dollar Store for a while and found some stuff.  We got a pretty good mix of hygiene items and small toys.  We even saw Randall (who I've known since 4th grade) while we were there.

Once we were done shopping, I just headed home to sit around the house for the rest of the day.  I'm very happy to say that I had no homework today.  It was nice to have a day with no play practice and no homework.  I was even able to watch episodes of both Naruto and How I Met Your Mother.

Debates, Papers, Yearbook Covers, and Dress Week

The first thing that happened today was our debate in AP U.S. history.  Our group was debating the cons of Indian removal.  I was really worried about how the debate was going to go because I didn't feel as if we were ready.  I was pleasantly surprised that it went extremely well.  Our group argued our point well, and I think we definitely got our point across.  It went great, and I had so much fun.  It makes me wish our school had a debate team.  It would be so much fun.

We're getting ready to start writing our next paper in AP English, and it's going to be an analysis that deals with obedience to authority.  Guess what I'm analyzing.  Voldemort ordering Draco to kill Dumbledore, and Dumbledore asking Snape to kill him.  I'm so excited!  Hopefully I can make it work well.

I don't think I did a blog post where I mentioned our ideas for the yearbook cover.  Well, we were going over ideas for the cover the other day, and I think it's going to be awesome!  We had some awesome ideas.  I just keep getting more and more excited for this yearbook.  I can't wait to see it finished!  (I can't believe I'll be in college when it's sent out.)

Play practice was interesting today.  This week's dress week.  I can't believe it's that close to opening!  We had to change around jobs and things for one of the scene changes today, which was a bit stressful.  Now, instead of bringing stuff out on stage during the first scene change, I'm helping Bridget with her quick change.  I wasn't sure how that was going to go, and I was a bit worried that she wouldn't get ready in time and it would be my fault.  Luckily, she got ready in time.  Overall though, I think practice went well.  I think we'll be able to pull everything off this weekend.  Some of us crew members are now doing our curtain call behind the "window" too, and five of us have to climb up on this bench thing.  I hope that doesn't look to awkward (and that one of us doesn't fall over or something).  Hopefully it all goes well.

Debates, Yearbooks, and Inductions

Next week we're having debates in my AP U.S. history class.  I'm pretty excited for this because I've never actually participated in a debate before.  Being a very quiet person, I'm a little nervous, but I hope it will be fun.  We went to the library to work on it today.  My group with debating Indian removal.  We're on the con side.  Today I got put in charge of our conclusion.  I'm a little worried about it because I have to have something written down, but I also have to be able to change it a bit during the actual debate so it relates to what the other team argued.  I'm really worried because I'm not great at coming up with things on the spot.  If you take out that little bit though, I'm extremely excited about this.

Today was also our second day of watching the movie A Few Good Men in AP English.  Our next paper is going to be about obedience to authority, and we're able to use the movie in the paper.  I'm definitely not complaining about watching a movie for a few days in that class.

We're making some decent progress on the yearbook this week.  We looked at a template for the pages today, and it looks so cool.  I'm really excited for this yearbook.  I have hopes that it'll be pretty great.

I'm not really sure why, but our economics (which is the same class and teacher as government from last quarter) teacher had us form our desks into a circle during class today.  We had a discussion about economic stuff (descriptive I know) like minimum wage, Social Security, etc.  Then we watched a video about China's economy (and how it's tied to the U.S.).

I stayed after school today (just like every day the past few weeks) for play practice.  We didn't do a whole lot today.  I sorted through the makeup and picked out some of the older, used up stuff, and I helped paint just a little bit.  It was actually a bit funny because she asked me to paint because I'm left handed, and she couldn't paint this one bit because she was right handed.

After practice, my sister and I came home for just a little bit before going back to school for the Beta Club induction.  My sister was inducted into Beta Club tonight, and I was taking pictures of the induction for the yearbook.  I didn't get that many good pictures unfortunately.  I stayed in the back because there was no way I was going up to the front, and I had a bit of trouble with the camera (it refused to take pictures at one point).  Still, I think I could enough pictures for us the use for the yearbook.  Ji and I actually have the Beta Club page, which we should start on since we now have pictures from several things.

First College Paper?

We took our third test in AP U.S. history today, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was the easiest one so far.  (Let's hope I didn't just jinx myself.)

I got my first draft of the summary we have to write for English done today.  We started it yesterday, and I honestly just sat and stared at the computer for a while because I was a little scared.  We're getting college credit for this class through Indiana University, so this is kind of like my first college paper.  That's slightly terrifying to me.

There's just one more thing that I want to mention in this post because I'm a nerd.  I was reading Abe Lincoln Grows Up by Carl Sandburg at school today, and I'm on the part where Abraham Lincoln's family moves to Indiana.  If you've read my post about Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, then you might know that I live in the same county that Lincoln did when living in Indiana.  Well, they mention our county in the book, which I thought was cool.  That of course meant that I had to bring it up to three or four other people over the course of the day.  Only one of these people thought it was anywhere near as cool as I did.  In my defence, we live where nothing ever happens, so this is as good as it gets.  (Well, that and Holiday World, and both of them are still over half an hour away.)