How the Internet Changes Things

This is another blog post posted from my phone.

Do you have things about you that you think most people would be surprised to know about you? I'm so shy that I sometimes wonder what people think I'm like. I don't mean that in an "are they judging me?" way. I just wonder if they would be surprised if they knew what I was like when I'm not shy.

I think a lot of people know I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. I tend to give that away pretty soon. I do wonder if they'd be surprised if they knew sone of the other things I'm interested in though.

Now that people from school are starting to follow me on twitter (and I post links to here and my YouTube channel on there), I don't think it's as surprising anymore. I know at least a few people from school have discovered my videos, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had read something on here too.

It's interesting since they might be learning more about me on here then they do at school since I'm so quiet. I tend to forget so many people from school even have twitter accounts now until they mention it. (Good thing I don't talk bad about anyone.) It's interesting, but not necessarily bad in my opinion. It's just one of the ways the Internet has changed the world.

Church Dinner, Dan Radcliffe on SNL, Etc.

It has been a long day.  I had trouble sleeping last night, and then I woke up today feeling a little sick.  I don't know if I really am sick or it's just allergies.  Whatever it is, my head feels congested, I can barely breath through my nose, and my throat feels kind of scratchy.  It's not too bad though, and I hope it doesn't get worse.

I'm really happy tomorrow's a holiday, and there's no school.  After getting no sleep last night, I really need another night to sleep in before going to school.

We had a dinner after church this morning/afternoon.  It was kind of a welcome to our priest (who came a few months back) and new parishioners.  I was probably there for about an hour, but I came home a bit earlier than most of the others because Ji was coming over to drop off some Friends DVDs and The Hunger Games that she had borrowed.  (She didn't actually ever read The Hunger Games, which dissappoints me a bit.)  We watched Daniel Radcliffe on Saturday Night Live (He was amazing, and I love the Harry Potter sketch!) and some Youtube videos before she left.

Other than that I didn't do much today.  I, of course, did some homework, but that's about it.  I actually got less homework done than I had been planning on because I didn't know that Ji was going to come over, and I didn't know about the dinner at church until this morning.  (Well, I knew it was happening, but not that it was today.)  Since I didn't get much done today, I'm also going to have to do more tomorrow than I planned on.  It's not much though, so hopefuly it won't take long.  I want to be able to enjoy the day off from school.

Beauty and the Beast in 3D

I love two-hour delays!  You won't have to make it up, but you get to sleep in for two extra hours.  There's even still some snow on the ground outside, but it's not much.  I think it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, but I doubt we'll get much.

In current events today we finished playing our quiz show game thing for this week, and our team won again!  It actually seemed easier than last weeks.  The last question was who won the Iowa caucus, which we'd been talking about all week.

After school Haley, Jordan, Rachel and I went to go see Beauty and the Beast in 3D!  We went and ate at Taco Bell first, and then stopped by Walmart.  The movie was amazing!  I loved the Tangled Ever After short that was shown before it.  It was so cute!  (I still haven't seen Tangled all of the way through...)  Beauty and the Beast was amazing.  It's my absolute favorite Disney movie (as most reading this probably know), and there was no way I was going to pass up seeing it in theaters.

I'm not a 3D fan.  3D movies always give me headaches.  But I've been pleasantly surprised with the Disney re-releases in 3D.  Beauty and the Beast was just like The Lion King: the 3D was there, but it wasn't incredibly noticeable.  I don't know how to describe it very well.  It's like there are multiple layers to the movie, but nothing's flying out at you.  It was a completely different 3D than the previews and Tangled short that came before it (which did have some things flying out and such).  With both The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast I didn't get headaches like normal, and I loved getting to see both on a movie theater screen.  If you're a Beauty and the Beast fan, I definitely recommend going to check it out even if you don't usually like 3D.

A Long Semester

It's only the second day of the semester, and I can already tell it's going to be a long one.  It's not so much that I have senioritis (although it's setting in as well), but I'm ready for the summer.  My classes this semester seem great overall.  I have a decent amount of homework, but they're interesting, and I have friends in all but one class.  I keep telling myself that I need to cherish the short time I have left in high school, and overall, I think that I am.  Still, there are so many moments when I just want it to be summer (or college, which I may regret) already.

This is going to be an extremely short post, since I have things I need to finish up and homework that I need to get done.  It shouldn't be as long of a day as yesterday, but I think it's going to come close.

A Long Day with Awesome People

It's late, and I'm extremely tired.  However, there are a few things I want to blog about before I forget.  This post will probably be a little disjointed and jumpy.  I'm just trying to get things down before I fall asleep.

I love when Harry Potter comes up somehow in everyday life.  Yesterday my yearbook teacher's daughter was there, and she played The Mysterious Ticking Noise for those of us in the classroom (a lot of the class was over in the computer lab).  No one had seen it before.  I got so excited when I realized what she was playing.

Today Jordan and Haley started writing A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel quotes on the dry erase board in AP English.  Everyone kept asking what AVPM and AVPS stood for, and no one really knew what the quotes were.

We had a fire drill during econ today.  Those are always fun during the winter.  We also finished watching a movie called Madison.  I may do a post on it later...

This evening my grandma, Aunt Kate, Aunt Linda, mom, sister Regina, cousin Danielle, and I all went to Red Lobster.  It's my grandma, Aunt Kate, and mom's birthdays soon, so it was their birthday dinner.  It was a whole lot of fun.  We also went by my Uncle Ken and Aunt Linda's before and after.  Four of the male cousins and my brother where there while we were at Red Lobster.  I'm always guaranteed to have a good time when I'm with my cousins.  They're always doing something interesting.

After all of that, my mom, sister, and I went to the mall to do some Christmas shopping.  It was late and I don't like shopping, so I really just wanted to go home.  Then I remembered that Summer works in the mall and had told me earlier she was working tonight.  I have seen her since July!  (I need a car and more time...)  I wasn't sure if she was still there or not, but when we entered the store she works at, sure enough she was there.  She looked up at me and Regina, looked back at what she was doing, and then looked back up and realized it was us.  She immediately started talking loud enough that the whole store could hear.  She hugged me and started telling everyone, "This is my best friend since first grade."  She got so excited.  Haha.  We couldn't stay long, and she had to work.  Still, it was awesome to get to see her.  I don't get to see her nearly enough anymore, and talking using a phone or computer just isn't the same.

Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to write a quick Thanksgiving post.  If you're in America, I hope you're having a great Thanksgiving, and if you're elsewhere in the world, I hope you're have a great day even though it isn't a holiday.

My dad's side of the family is getting together this weekend, but for today it's just my grandma, dad, sister, brother, and me.  My mom is unfortunately at work today, but someone has to be at the hospital even if it is Thanksgiving.  My grandma and sister are downstairs while everything cooks right now.  (As you can tell, I'm being a great help.)  Everything was already put together last night, and today just really involved sticking stuff in the oven to cook.  We should be eating really soon!  I can't wait for the dressing!  That's the best part of the Thanksgiving meal.  (My family has a dressing recipe that's just amazing.)  And of course pumpkin pie is another amazing Thanksgiving food.

I got up early to watch the Macy's parade for the first time in a few years.  I used to watch it every single Thanksgiving, but then I got older and discovered the joys of sleeping in.  Since then, I've usually only caught the end of the parade.  Today though, I was supposed to help my sister cook, and I was determined to actually see the whole parade.  Our dog Poppy woke me up just before my alarm this morning by coming into my room and laying on my chest.  After that I was wide awake, which under most circumstances would be good because I'd actually get up, but I really didn't want to move her.  She looked so peaceful sleeping there even though I was in a slightly uncomfortable position, so I laid there a little longer than planned.  I still managed to catch all of the parade.

Ji's mom made a Korean dish called kimbap today, and she wanted us to have a roll of it.  I'm not really sure why, but Ji brought it over to us about an hour ago.  It was an interesting experience.  It wasn't that I didn't like the kimbap.  It's just not something I'm used to eating.  I think it's something I could get used to eating if I had it over and over, but it's probably not something I'd seek out.

Since it's Thanksgiving, I'll do a little list of things I'm thankful for:  family, friends, our dogs, books, writing, Harry Potter (especially the fandom), J.K. Rowling, the Internet (that may sound stupid but really think about all it's done), the fact I have a chance of going to college even though applications are stressing me out recently, and all of the other things that make me happy.

I hope all of you Americans enjoy your Thanksgiving meals!  I'm ready to go eat all of our awesome Thanksgiving food!

Dresses and Breaking Dawn

I've had a busy weekend so far.  After school on Friday, Ji, Regina, and I went shopping for Christmas dance dresses.  We stopped to get something to eat, and then went to this house Ji's parents are fixing up.  (This is in a city a little less than an hour away, and they're moving out there when the house is done and stuff.)  We left Ji's car there, and her mom took us to the store where she had us (particularly me for some reason) try on a ton of dresses.  Luckily, I found one, so I have that done with.  I'm not a huge shopping or trying on clothes fan.  Ji's mom was really into it though.  She wanted to see me in every dress, and she kept going to get more.  It felt like I was in that dressing room forever.

Today I went to go see Breaking Dawn with my friend Haley.  I was so excited!  Every showing before ours had sold out, so I was really worried this one would be when we got there, but we managed to get tickets.  I loved the movie so much!  As of right now, I can really only think of one complaint.  For the most part, I thought it was done great.  I'll post a review of it later.

My biggest thing was that the Hunger Games trailer wasn't shown before the movie!  It was supposed to be, but for some reason it wasn't at our theater.  Haley and I were dissapointed because we both really wanted to see it on the big screen.  I hope I get to see it in front of something before the movie's out.

This doesn't really sound like a busy weekend, but it sure feels like it.  I think most of it is because I woke up really earlier this morning.  I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.  Usually, I lay in bed a while anyway, and I eventually go back to sleep.  I didn't do that this time, and I regret it.  I've been so tired today.  Plus, I can't sleep in tomorrow, so I'll start off the week tired.  Thankfully, I only have school two days this week!

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.

My First Shakespeare Performance

Today was our field trip in AP English (along with the English 12 Honors class).  This was the first field trip I can remember being on since middle school (unless you count the character trip I went on to Nashville sophomore year), so I was excited about it.

We did have to go to our first class, so I spent AP U.S. history trying to prepare for the debate we're having next week.  My group and the group we're debating against are debating over Indian removal.  It had to be a subject that we had learned about so far, and we were currently on the chapter about Indian removal and the Trail of Tears.  The group we're debating against wanted slavery, but we were able to get them to agree on something different.  I'm in charge of writing the conclusion for my group, and I have no idea what I'm doing since I've never participated in a debate before.  It should be interesting.  We're the cons side, and I'm hoping it'll be easier since I think that's the side most people are already on.  I just don't want to screw up the conclusion.

After AP U.S. history, we all met to get ready to leave on the field trip.  Haley and I were surprised to see that the bus we were riding on was the bus we both used to ride.  (We ride a newer bus now.)  It was weird being back on that bus.

Hamlet was interesting.  It was the first time I'd seen Shakespeare performed live, and Hamlet is one of the Shakespeare plays that I haven't read.  I was impressed that I was able to understand most of what they were saying.  Some of the actors were really good and a few weren't as great.  I was impressed with some of the younger kids they had.  Some of them were really good for their age.  Most of the adults were good as well.

Not knowing much about Hamlet beforehand, I was a little surprised by the play.  Because it was a tragedy, I wasn't expecting it to have as many jokes as it did.  I'd heard enough about it that I knew Hamlet went crazy, but I didn't know that he became an amusing type of crazy.  I always thought of it as a darker sort of crazy.

Although I enjoyed the play, it was definitely noticeable how long it was, especially after the intermission they had.  I think most of this came from the fact that I was really tired, and there were several times I almost fell asleep.  Still, I learned today that Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, and that was definitely obvious today.

Overall, I really appreciated the experience, and I enjoyed it.  It was really fun to see Shakespeare performed for the first time.

After the play we stopped to eat lunch.  We had a choice between several different restaurants, and I went to Taco Bell with some friends.  We didn't have a whole lot of time to eat before we had to be on the bus again to head back to school.  We got back about half an hour before school ended.  A large portion of my government class had been on the field trip, and we decided we just weren't going to take our books or anything when we went in.  It was a good choice because they were watching TV when we entered, and we basically spent the rest of the day talking.

Of course, I had play practice after school today.  Nothing huge happened there.  It's gotten to the point where pretty much all of the "big" stuff is finished.  I'm just doing random things.  I had to paint this banister, find some coats for a costume, wash glasses, and other things.

The field trip made today go by really quickly.  It actually feels really weird because it doesn't really feel like I went to school today but yet it does.  I'm not complaining about it though.  It was an awesome field trip.

Breast Cancer Walk

Today there was a breast cancer walk in a city near where I live.  One of the teachers at my school was diagnosed with breast cancer the summer before my freshmen year.  She was my Spanish teacher for three years, and she is an amazing person.  She was walking today, and a group of people from school decided to get together and surprise her today.

We picked up my friend Haley at about 1:30, and we drove to where we were all meeting.  We weren't entirely sure where everyone was going to be, but we ended up finding everyone pretty easily.  In fact, we almost drove right by them, but we noticed them at the last minute.

We were along the route they were walking, and we had to wait for the walkers to come by.  Someone had painted some of the breast cancers survivors faces on this wall, including our teacher's.  It looked awesome.  We all wrote our names in pink chalk on the ground in front of it.

We also wrote our names on these cards and tied them into balloons.  The cards also had a thing about our school's WHOO (We Help Our Own) cancer fund.  It's a fund my school has set up to help anyone in the school (student or faculty) who's diagnosed with cancer.  We let the balloons go later, and hopefully they'll land somewhere where someone will see them.  Our school's done this once before, and some people saw some of them and even sent money to our school for the fund.

It took the walkers longer to get there than we thought it would, so we spent some time sitting around talking.  Finally, the few people who were running began passing us.  Mrs. Deweese, our teacher, was pretty close to the front.  She was walking with some of her family.  She looked so shocked to see all of us there.  She even stopped walking for a bit and put her head in her hands.  We should her the wall, and we took pictures with her in front of it.  It was really emotional.  She started crying, and I was really close to tears.  She gave each one of us a big hug and talked to us a little while before continuing walking.

Haley and I had to wait for my mom to come pick us up, so we were some of the last to leave.  There were two teachers there other than Mrs. Deweese, and they were the last ones to leave other than Haley and me.  One of the teachers actually stayed with us until my mom showed up.

After we got picked up, my mom wanted to go buy Lowes quickly to buy a new stove.  (This makes me really happy because our current stove is crap.  Most of the burners don't work, and the oven bakes things really unevenly.)  Haley and I spent the whole time looking at cook books and a dog training book.  There was this seriously cool cupcake book there that had absolutely adorable cupcakes.  I definitely would have bought it if I thought I could make something even remotely similar to those pictures.

Overall, I didn't really do much today, but it was a really nice day.  I had a lot of fun.

Pokemon Lectures

Today seems like it was packed with stuff that I could mention in a blog, but I'm having trouble actually remembering things.  This seems to be happening a lot lately, and I don't like it.

Our English teacher wasn't there today, so we had a sub.  This sub just happened to be one of our past English teachers who retired this year.  It was nice to see her again.  Another awesome thing about English:  We took a vocab test, and the name Hermione was on it.  I'm not at all exagerating when I say that made my day.

Yesterday, we got our yearbook shirts that I meant to post a picture of on twitter but never did.  (I would now except it's kind of in the laundry since I wore it today.)  The fit of them seemed kind of weird when we first pulled them out of the box, but mine turned out to fit okay.  The design is really cool too.  My friend Ji actually drew up the design.  I'll try and post a picture at some point in the future.  (We all know that I'll completely forget, and a picture will never really happen.  Just know that they look awesome.)

Also in yearbook, we had our training over how to use the site/software to design the yearbook today.  It was all pretty much the stuff I learned at the workshop I went to over the summer, but it made me excited for designing the pages all over again.

This is random, but it's awesome, so I'm going to mention it.  I got a brownie in computer applications.  Alyssa made them for yearbook, but we didn't have time to eat them (because of the training).  Ji and I are lucky enough to have also have computer applications with Alyssa right after yearbook, so she gave us each a brownie then.  It was an awesome brownie.

My grandma, brother, and three of my cousins picked me up from play practice today, and we all went out to eat for supper.  It was so much fun.  I always have some hilarious conversations with my family.  Just a small portion of our conversations were about: jokes (mainly Chuck Norris and blonde jokes), flying snakes, Pokemon, riddles, and so many more.  When it comes to Pokemon, I just want you to know that they taught me a lot tonight.  I was surprised how much my brother and all three of my cousins know about Pokemon.

There was a lot more that happened today of course, but those are the things that come to my mind first.

Animals: Both Cartoon and Real

So far this weekend has been packed full of stuff.  I'm looking forward to sleeping tonight because it didn't happen much last night.

We got out of class early on Friday for a pep rally.  Our school isn't usually the most energetic at pep rallies, but yesterday's was particularly bad.  At one point the principal actually stood up and said we wouldn't have another pep rally unless we actually participated.  Everyone cheered a bit louder after that.

Friday night was football homecoming, but some of my friends and I decided that it would be a much better idea to go see The Lion King 3D instead.  Haley's cousin Rachel, who used to go to our school but is now in college nearby, came to get Haley, Jordan, and I and drive us to the city she lives in (about an hour away).  We decided to go eat at Denny's, a restaraunt that I hadn't been to in years.  We sat there waiting for our food for at least an hour and a half.  We were going to leave, but they told us our food would be free if we stayed and waited.  Needless to say, we stayed.

The Lion King 3D was amazing!  I plan on writing or filming a review later, but if you have chance to see it, go!  I was surprised that most of the people in there were teens or young adults.  There were only a couple of parents with their young children.  When "The Lion King" came up at the beginning of the movie (after The Circle of Life) and at the end of the movie the audience started applauding.  There were also some people (or at least my friends) who were singing the songs quietly to themselves.  It was so much fun.  It was so cool to actually see The Lion King in theaters.  I was impressed by the 3D too.  I usually hate 3D, but I thought they did a really good job.  I think it's because it's not obvious 3D.  The 3D isn't even that noticeable.

After the movie, we went to Rachel's apartment, where we spent the night.  We watched most of Tangled before we fell asleep because we were so tired.  I'd been wanting to see Tangled forever!  I need to watch the whole thing sometime.

We woke up rather early this morning to meet a couple of Haley's family members at the zoo.  I hadn't been to the zoo in years, and it was so much fun.  One of the first things that we saw when we got in there was some guy with an unidentifiable animal that he was letting people pet and feed.  He told us that it was a South American porcupine.  It was so sweet and cute!  It was really cool to get to pet her.  We saw a lot of other animals too, but that was the most memorable one.

Two other fun moments from the day:  Jordan got licked on her shoulder by a giraffe.  It was hilarious.  We all saw it coming towards us so we backed up quickly.  Jordan just ducked.  It was hilarious.  There was also a bee that refused to leave us alone while we were eating our lunch.  I was the first one to get up and attempt to hide behind Haley.  Eventually, we were all up from the table while everyone else there stared at us.

It was a lot of fun.  It's time for the relaxing part of the weekend though.

P.S.  I have no idea what the title's about.  I couldn't think of anything, and remember, I got very little sleep last night.

I Could Never be a Sales Person

I love Saturdays.  Sleeping and not having to go to school is the best.  I haven't done much today other than read and work on some homework.  I have to write notes on a chapter of AP U.S. history this weekend, and I'm about halfway done at the moment.

After posting yesterday, I remembered that there were two things I forgot to mention in that post.  I decided I'd just post about them today.  Now that it's almost a day later, I'm not sure if I want to post about them or not since it feels kind of pointless now, but here we go anyway.

I was in the bathroom at school the other day when two of my old best friends walked in.  There was someone else in the bathroom, but they were actually in one of the stalls, which meant the three of us were just kind of there at the sinks.  As soon as the walked in my awkward self got a little nervous.  I've barely spoken to one of them since middle school, and I still fill kind of weird around the other one even though we talked in class all last semester.  We started up a conversation though.  It was awkward, but not quite as bad as I expected.  To most people reading this, this may sound random and unimportant, but these two were my best friends for a really long time (in addition to Summer, who still is one of my best friends.  Our group kind of split in half I guess...).  It's just so weird whenever I see them now.  I miss them, but at the same time all three of us have changed so much that it's just not the same.  Yeah...

I also forgot to mention that Ji and I went around selling yearbook ads again yesterday.  This is getting kind of stressful.  We have seven businesses between us, and we only managed to sell one ad last Friday.  We sold another one yesterday.  One business told us they're definitely not buying one, and there's another business that we're almost positive isn't because they're really indecisive.  Out of the other three, one we just managed to find yesterday, and they're thinking about it.  I can't find addresses for the other two business anywhere.  They're no where online, in the phone book, and no one I ask has heard of them.  I'm going to have to talk to the yearbook teacher Monday because I'm not sure what to do about them.

Before I wrap up this post, I just want to share a cute little scene I saw earlier today.  At about noon, I went looking for my little brother to see what he wanted for lunch.  I found him on the ground outside just reading a book with both of our dogs beside him.  It was so random but adorable.  I looked kind of embarassed when I found him.  I think he was just taking them out so the could go to the bathroom, but he took a book to read while he was waiting and lost track of time or something.  I'm not really sure what happened, but it was cute.

Four Day Weekends Throw Me Off Track

The four day weekend really screwed up my days, sleep schedule, etc.  I laid in bed for hours last night before finally falling asleep at some time during the early morning.  I honestly can't remember a whole lot of the day because I was half asleep through most of it.  Hopefully I can think of some things for this post.

We turned in our first paper in AP English.  This paper is our first assignment that goes toward getting college credit.  I'm kind of scared to think about the fact that she might be grading it right now or maybe already has.  I don't think it was that great, but I hope that's just because I'm so nervous about it.

We finally got to hand out yearbooks during yearbook class today.  It really wasn't that eventful, but I like knowing that everyone finally gets to see it (even if I had nothing to do with last years).  Ji and I handed out books to the kids in Spanish and study hall.  The study hall kids had kind of scattered across the school as some where in the library and some went to teachers rooms to get help, so we had to go to about four different places other than the Spanish and study hall rooms.  After that was all done, we finally got our theme for this year's yearbook down.  I'm so excited about it!  It's basically the theme that the teacher and I talked about at the workshop over to summer, which makes it even awesomer to me.

Third block was stressful because I was supposed to help this kid who absolutely refused to do his work.  The teacher told me to go help someone else because he refused to do anything.  Luckily, the girl I ended up helping had no problem actually working, and everything after that went fine.

I almost forgot to mention that my friends and I discovered that one of our friends switched schools today.  It was really unexpected, and there were a few sad moments today when someone would comment on how weird it felt that she wasn't there.  I'll miss her.  I now have an empty seat beside me in AP U.S. history and government.  She was quiet like me, so when it was just us two, we didn't really talk to each other since I don't think either one of us is great at starting conversation.  Still, she's an awesome person, and it sucks that she won't be there anymore.

My Sister's 16th Birthday Party

My sister's 16th birthday party was/is today since her actual birthday is this Wednesday.  I'm already worn out, and I still have to make it through the night with a loud group of girls just down the hall.  Thank God it's a three day weekend, and I have an extra day to sleep in.

My birthday present for Regina wasn't much.  I just gave her a little bit of money.  However, I made her search for it.  I made a scavenger hunt and made her go through it to get the money.  The funny thing was that I had the money in my pocket the whole time.  The answer to the last riddle was the number of dollars I was giving her, and I just handed her the money when she solved it.  She wasn't too happy about that.

The party started at six this evening.  My sister invited about seven girls, and one of them was more my friend than hers.  I'm so glad Ji came because she helped keep me sane.  It's not that I don't get along with all of Regina's friends.  It's that there are just two of Regina's friends that drive me insane when I have to be around them for extended periods of time.  The two of them together plus Regina means torture for me.  Ji and I found ourselves seperated from the group or with the girls that I am kind of friends with too for most of the party.

Regina and most of the other girls had a water balloon fight that Ji and I decided not to participate in since we didn't want to get wet.  Then, Regina hit my brother with a balloon when he didn't want to get wet either.  He wanted revenge, so he, Ji, my mom, and I filled up some water guns while everyone else was inside.  Turns out I got wet anyway.  The hose sprayed everywhere when I turned it on, and then Ji and I started squirting each other.  It was hilarious when Matthew finally got Regina too.  Another funny moment was when I slipped ice down that back of her shirt while she was eating.

One of the girls had the idea to walk down to the playground of the school that about half of us attended for elementary and middle school.  Ji and I went with them but didn't stay long.  We came back to the house, and she insisted on putting make up on me even though it was pretty late at this point.

After that we went out to the backyard where Regina, her friends, and my parents were roasting marshmellows and watching The Hangover using a projector.  We stayed out there and talked for a while before coming back into the house where it was cooler.

There was a Star Wars marathon that had been on TV all day while we were running in and out of the house.  We sat down to watch some of it.  It was the end of Episode III, and Ji had never seen Star Wars before.  I had to do quite a bit of explaining.  Some how we got onto the topic of Japanese and Korean culture.  Ji started explaining Korean food, and she showed me the youtube videos that explain stuff about Korea.  They're some pretty awesome videos.

I tried to convince Ji to spend the night and help me deal with Regina and the two girls spending the night, but she decided to go home.  Now I'm dealing with them on my own.  The three of them have invaded my bathroom while I'm typing this and are currently putting on face masks.  Yeah, I'm never getting sleep...

"It was you! You did this to me!"

Now that I'm looking back on it, today was actually pretty evenful compared to my usual days.

It was picture day today.  I'm not too fond of picture day.  We take them in a dark auditorium, and there are tons of people just staring at you as you take them.  Senior year your pictures don't go in the yearbook because you get to turn in senior pictures, but we still had to take them for school records or something.  Needless to say, I did nothing for the picture, and I'm sure it turned out horribly.  I am wearing one of my awesome Hunger Games shirts though.

Remember that paper I mentioned that we were writing for English?  We peer edited it today.  This has done nothing but make me even more nervous about the paper.  I don't feel like mine is good at all.  I really hope that this is just me panicking over nothing.

At lunch today, Haley was going on about how she's been absolutely obsessed with Disney movies lately, and she has no idea what caused it.  She started trying to think of why this is.  Suddenly, she stood up, pointed at me, and said very loudly, "It was you!  You did this to me!"  I burst into laughter as she kept on going saying stuff like, "I watched your video about Disney!  This is all your fault!  I'll never forgive you!"  It was absolutely hilarious.  I can't even begin to describe how awesome her reaction was.

During government everyone started to smell something, which we eventually figured out was freshly popped popcorn.  It turns out that the guidance counselor was popping popcorn over in the concession stand, which is next door to the government classroom.  I was absolutely starving at this point because it was the end of the day and I hadn't eaten much lunch as it was particularly disgusting today.  We had to smell this popcorn popping for at least half and hour before the guidance counselor came into the room carrying a decently sized bag of popcorn.  He said that it was unfair for us to have to smell it popping and not get some.  As soon as he sat the bag down on a desk, at least half the classroom, including me, ran up to get some.  Usually I don't think of my school as being that great, but it's moments like this that make me realize it's actually pretty decent.  I'm not sure how many schools have a guidance counselor that would just come in and give the kids popcorn.  There are advantages to attending a small school.

After school Ji and I decided that we were going to work on selling ads for the yearbook.  Everyone in the class is assigned certain businesses that they have to go to.  For some reason my sister Regina decided to tag along.  I'll admit she was helpful though because she helped us find this daycare that Ji and I had never heard of before in our lives.  It went pretty quickly, but the fact that it was so hot made it drag on a bit.  We couldn't turn the air-conditioning in Ji's car up that much because she was low on gas, and it was a hundred degrees.  At one point the thing on Ji's car said it was even a hundred and three degrees.  I thought I was going to die in that car.  I was so thankful for air-conditioning when I got back home.  I can't wait for it to cool down.  Regina's 16th birthday party is tomorrow, and it's supposed to be ninety-nine degrees.

One last little thing:  I watched some bats fly around earlier this evening.  This is pretty irrelevant, but I wanted to mention how awesome bats are.  When I'm thinking about my favorite animals, bats don't usually come to mind, but when I do think of them, they definitely deserve to be one of my favorite animals.  I love watching them fly around.  They are just cool.

Yearbooks and Mockingjay

I don't know why but this week has just seemed to inch by for me.  There's no way it's only Tuesday.  I was also a little shocked yesterday when I turned to the new week in my planner and saw September.  Time's going by so fast and yet so slow.

Last year's yearbooks came in today!  We spent all of class trying to sort out all of the personalized ones by grade.  Tomorrow I think we're sorting them into groups passed on what class the kids are in that period, and hopefully we'll be able to hand them out.  We did get to take our own, so I have mine.  I haven't looked at it much though because I haven't had the time.  It's really similar to past yearbooks, but it's pretty awesome.

During lunch today, my friend Haley, who's reading Catching Fire, picked up a copy of Mockingjay and read the last page.  Her reaction was absolutely hilarious.  Neither one of us could really say anything since Jordan, who's getting ready to read Mockingjay, was sitting right there, but her face was priceless.  She said she wanted to go read Catching Fire after that.  I love seeing Jordan and Haley's reactions as the read the books.  We also had fun talking about Starkid and fanfiction.  They're basically the only people I know who actually understand these things.

We took a quiz over Ammendments 14 throught 27 in government today.  (We took one on one through thirteen yesterday.)  It's definitely wasn't as hard as I was expecting since I couldn't remember any of them, but I know I screwed up a couple of things.  It's so hard to keep all of the numbers straight!

That about sums up my rather uneventful day.

Who's Irene?

I love Saturday.  It is by far the best day of the week.  My feelings for it kind of wan in the summer, but as soon as school starts again, I remember how much I love that particular day of the week.

Today was the Drive One 4 Ur School event that I worked at.  One of the local car dealership let people test drive cars for free, and our school got money each time someone test drove.  There was a decent sized group of kids there from school, way more than was needed.  Most of our time was spent just sitting there talking.  A lot of the teachers were there, including our principal, vice principal, and guidance counselor.  It's kind of weird seeing them outside of school.

I was so excited about finally getting to wear my awesome new shirt today.  (I can't wear it to school because it's kind of spoilery for the last Hunger Games book, and Haley and Jordan are still reading them.)  Then, I get there, and they hand me a Drive One 4 Ur School.  I didn't really have to take it, but everyone else was wearing them.  (Plus, I wasn't turning down a free shirt.)  I'm determined to wear that Hunger Games shirt tomorrow.  I don't care that it breaks my rule of not wearing t-shirts to church.  (I'm never dressed up at church anyway, so it's not like it's a big leap or anything.

Ji and I were only supposed to work an hour and a half, but we ended up staying for two and a half hours.  It really wasn't that bad since we were just talking to everyone.  We even played hangman for a while.  Ji and I took some pictures for the yearbook.  (Ji took a lot more than I did.)  We also informed Ji about the hurricane when she asked who Irene was after hearing the name.  I then informed Ji of every single bit of Hurricane Irene news that I say through twitter for the rest of the morning.  We even got some awesome free popcorn.

When I got home, I discovered that my Hoosier Girls State DVD had come in the mail!  That actually reminds me that I need to go make my family watch it with me.  I'm looking forward to all of the memories (and making my family see how awesome it was).

I  have a slight favor to ask you guys today.  As you know, I'll be going off to college next fall, so it shouldn't be surprising that I'm trying to get as much scholarship money as I can.  There's this site called Fastweb that helps you find scholarships.  It's pretty awesome.  Right now, if you refer someone to the site, you're entered into a drawing to win $500 of scholarship money.  If you're also looking for scholarships, please use this link to register.  It'll help you find scholarships, and you can help me out at the same time.  I'd be extremely greatful.

That basically summarizes the more exciting parts of my day.  The rest of it was mainly spent watching Naruto, How I Met Your Mother, vlogbrothers, and The Hillywood Show.  (Isn't that just full of variety?)  I'm going to go convince my parents to watch that HGS DVD with me.  (It's only August, and I'm already reliving the summer.)

Busy Weekend

The blog post you're reading right now was written over a kind of long period of time.  I wanted to write about this, but I didn't have time to just sit down and write, so I wrote bits and pieces of it whenever I could.  Part of it was written Sunday, and part of it was written Monday.

This weekend has been extremely busy.  On Friday we had a social after school.  The idea was that the new kids could meet new people and stuff like that.  We got free drinks, and then everyone basically grouped into their normal groups.  I don't even remember seeing any of the new kids, and the freshmen seemed to stay in one large group toward the entrance of the gym.  Ji and I were supposed to get quotes for the yearbook.  It didn't go to well since no one really wanted to be there.  We got a total of three quotes.  My sister wrote down something completely random that had nothing to do with the social, and my friend Haley and another boy just made stuff up that they didn't mean.  The only good part was getting out of class.

As we were walking to our lockers after the social, Ji mentioned that she wanted to do something after school.  I was reluctant at first because I had tons of homework, but then my sister showed up too.  Needless to say, Ji came over.  We made brownies and had a lot of fun.  (Even if Ji and I think the brownies made us sick.)  After a while, my mom, brother, and sister were going shopping, and Ji and I eventually decided to go along too.  We went to Factory Card Outlet first because my sister wanted stuff for her birthday party.  Ji and I may or may not have played with some toy swords.  After that, my mom and brother went to Target while Ji, Regina, and I walked down to some craft store that I don't remember the name of.  Ji and I kind of ditched Regina and just wandered aimlessly around the store.  Regina took forever, so at some point, Ji and I decided to go next-door to Petsmart.  We looked at all of the animals, but we definitely stared at the cats for the longest.  They are so adorable!  I wanted to adopt them all.  There were two kittens running around with each other, and another two were laying on top of each other.  They were all absolutely adorable.  We eventually made it back to Target, and we just kind of looked through clothes and other stuff until it was time to leave.

The next day Ji, Laura, Haley, and I went to this theme park in our area called Holiday World.  We were there all day, and everything has already started to blur together, but I'll try to pick out some of the more memorable things that happened.  I know the first thing we did was go to eat at the Alamo, the Mexican restauraunt in the park.  After that, I can't really remember the order of anything.

We didn't really ride that many rides now that I think about it.  We rode two of the roller coasters, the Liberty Launch, the log ride, and Raging Rapids.  That was about it.  I got absolutely soaked on the log ride and Raging Rapids.  I got the wetest out of my friends, and my clothes never dried.

We also watched two of the shows.  One was were they sing a bunch of country songs and the other was a diving show.  I've been to this park a ton of times and seen both of these shows before.  The diving show in particular never really changes, but they'd added this whole part that none of us had see before that was pretty funny.  One of the divers was out in the audience (behind us actually), and he started saying stuff about how he could dive better than the diver up on the "stage."  We didn't realize it was part of the show at first and were a little weirded out.  At one point, one of the divers was dressed like Tarzan.  Haley's been wanting to watch Tarzan forever.  You should have heard her when he came out.

We ate way more that day then I have ever eaten in that park.  I had fried oreos for the second time.  Those things are amazing, but I can only eat two.  I gave to other two away to my sister, who had joined us by this point.  We also ate blue and red ice cream. That stuff is amazing!  Haley and I actually went to get ice cream while Ji and Laura got some other food somewhere else.  While carrying the ice cream back to the restaurant they're in, it all started melting.  By the time we got back, I had red and blue ice cream down my leg.  Ji's was basically soup by the time she ate it since she was still in line when we got back.

At one point Ji and I went into this glass blowing shop that no one else wanted to go in.  We were in there forever.  I honestly hadn't bothered to go in there since I was a little kid with my mom.  Later on, we went back in because Haley wanted to get fudge from the candy/baked goods area in there.  I decided to get a mystery box in there.  Regina told me I shouldn't because everything in those boxes sucked.  She was wrong.  This store is in the Christmas section (remember we're at Holiday World), so a lot of the stuff was Christmas-themed.  I picked the least Christmas looking box and got a dolphin one.  It even has a little heart!  I love it!  Plus, it was cheaper than if I'd actually picked it out.

Ji also wanted to play a lot of the games.  At one point, Ji, Haley, and I played this duck game that everyone wins.  It's meant for little kids, so we were a little embarassed at first.  Ji and I got little ducks, and Haley got a teddy bear.  Laura also won a stuffed minion from Despicable Me playing another game that she gave to Haley.

As we were leaving, it was decided that Ji, Laura, and Haley would come over to our house and watch Tarzan, which Haley's been wanting to watch forever.  We even invited our friend Jordan.  We picked up Jordan, and then went to Ji's house for a bit.  I've never actually been to Ji's house before since she usually comes to mine.  We all sat in her room talking (and looking through her diary written almost entirely in Spanish while she lived in Guatelmala) while she took a shower.  Ji warned us that her mom would over us food, and she was right (although we turned her down).  I've only met Ji's mom a couple of times, but she is a very nice and friendly person.

We eventually made it back to our house.  I was finally able to change out of my wet clothes, and we sat in my room and talked for about ten minutes.  Then, Laura reminded us that she had to be back home in about an hour and a half, so we needed to start watching Tarzan.  Watching a movie from your childhood is so much more amusing with other people.  None of us had watched it in a while, and we made some interesting observations.  Ji, who said she had hated the movie before, was crying at the end.  She also said she was shocked by Jane's voice (last time she'd watched it, it had been in Spanish), which I found funny for some reason.  When the movie was over, everyone went home, and I got to relax for the first time that day.

Sunday was pretty much homework day since I didn't get to work on it Friday or Saturday.  Let's just say I'm glad that's done with.