School and My Opinions About It

Quick self-promotion: guest post on La Stranezza's blog! 

School started (is starting) today. I'm a little torn right now, because on one hand, I get to talk to everyone again without having to figure out where my phone went. On the other, school is starting, and there is no longer any caffeine sold in the cafeteria. (EDIT: Yes, there is. I just didn't see it. Alas.) I'm a bit exhausted. Because of that, this is a class by class breakdown and opinion series!

• Senior release
• I'd like this better if it weren't at the beginning of the day, when I can't sleep in. Right next to lunch, maybe, so I could wander off for an hour or so. Probably going to be my designated piano/choir time, since I'm not technically in that class this semester.
• AP English Lit.
• This is a good class, if I ignore Jack the [donkey] who sits in front of me. We have to diagram sentences this year, though, because the last senior class sort of sucked and did know a verb from a prepositional phrase. I'll be able to remember that, though.
• Creative Writing Independent Study
• Favorite class, bar none. A one-on-one class with my favorite teacher, Mr. H., in my co-favorite subject. Yes. I have free reign to write whatever I want. Je l'adore.
• Side note:  Facebook and Armor Games aren't blocked. My productivity (what there was of it) just disappeared like a mirage.
•  Ecumenical Issues
• I'd love the teacher if he taught anything else. At least this is basically comparative religion.
• Update: Homework assigned first day. A one page essay due tomorrow.
• Side note: 'A one' looks weird, but sounds right. I think I'll call it 'a single,' but I'm not correcting it, because this side note would then be pointless. 
• Jazz Band (during lunch) 
• This is going to be fun. Also: new senior alert! Intelligent, musical senior! Mission: Get to know him.
• French 5
• All three of us. We've been in French together since freshmen year. The class has shrunk every year. Now there's three of us left, and only one shall survive, on.... Survivor: French Edition!!
• I hate myself a little for that sentence.
• Yearbook
• I'm Senior editor now, in charge of all the pages involving Seniors. Which is like a third of the yearbook. Huzzah for responsibilities and resume-building! Also for having Mr. H twice a day! Woo!
• Physics
• This is the scary teacher, but I love her. She's intense. My first day ever at high school, second semester, first class, 7:45 AM, she pulled out a Vandergraph generator and shocked the jock in front of me who didn't know what it was. I sort of want to be her when I grow up.
• Calc. B
• This is the teacher that makes me a real teacher's pet. She is amazing. She is the reason I got an 800 on my SAT for math. And I'm pretty sure this class is going to be sink-or-swim, honestly. It'll be fun.

  There we go. School is basically over and I'm going home to do homework. Fun. *headdesk*

An Actual Post About Stuff

Hello people. I know there are at least a couple of you out there, because the majority of the hits on this blog are from the US instead of Russia. (On the subject of blog hits, someone got here using the search 'scared I drank mold.' I am, of course, the premier source of information on what to do if you're suffering from mold poisoning. Obviously.) You three are cool.

My musical is going more or less swimmingly. I love it. There's an awesome review here. I'm not mentioned, because I don't have a huge part, but still. And everything said in the article is true, and everyone in the show is awesome (especially some other people who weren't mentioned - Kitty, Claire, and Andrew, you are all too cool). I'm going to be taking pictures of my costumes tomorrow and doing a post with pictures, because the costumes are amazing. And I sort of want to buy the party dress for a Homecoming outfit, just to see how people would react, because I love it.

I'm quite happy right now, is it obvious? I've gotten enough sleep for the first time since dress rehearsals about two weeks ago, so I'm on my own little natural high. Wheeee!

I've discovered during the course of the shows so far that I'm possibly clinically oblivious to certain normally obvious things, like when I'm being flirted at. However, someone is beating me with a metaphorical cluebat, which is appreciated, and I will have updates on that later, I hope.

No, please use it! I'm so confused!

Later today, I'm going to a movie to see off one of my best friends, who's going to college in four days. Then tomorrow or the day after, I'm making random pancakes with Kitty and her girlfriend, to see her off to college. I'm in a bit of a Peter Pan state, therefore, covering my ears and going 'lalala I'm never going to grow up you can't make me lalala.' Very mature. But since I've been writing college essays in between doing Camp NaNo, it's not working very well. At least I can reuse them once or twice. And then I have to write my resume and get senior pictures taken tomorrow and apply for scholarships and go on a final college visit and figure out how to take Creative Writing as a class (thereby making NaNo a legitimate use of my time) and survive five more shows and audition for the next play and...

You know, excuse me. I'm going to go and watch childhood cartoons for a while and pretend I'm six.

YES.

Can't Quite String Together a Coherent, Long Train of Thought

I'm semi-officially a senior in high school now. Summer vacation has started. I should be freaking out over both of these things, and figuring out how best to get maximum enjoyment out of my summer.

Instead, I spent two hours yesterday cleaning up after previous renters to make a house ready for new ones. Ew. Certain things I'd really prefer not to clean up, and someone else's nasty kitchen or odd-smelling bathroom are definitely high on that list.

On the upside, there's a pool party this afternoon. I love having so many friends with pools. It means I don't have to pay for a pool pass, ever. Maybe, if I go swimming enough, I'll even discover a heretofore latent ability to *gasp* tan. Unlikely. But whatever.




I discovered a lava lamp in the attic today. Yes, it's now in my room. Shut up, it's blue and purple and highly distracting. I spent half an hour earlier just watching it. Lava-stuff goes up... Lava stuff goes down... Lava-stuff goes up... Lava-stuff goes down... Then I distracted myself from that distraction by trying to figure out the relative density of the lava-stuff in heated and unheated forms, compared to the liquid in which it floats. Then I realized I had to factor in cohesion of the lava-stuff to itself, and how much it weighed, and measure the time it took to float up and down, and while I was searching for a stopwatch I realized exactly how bored I am. And how much of a nerd I am.

(No, of course that didn't stop me. As far as I can tell, if the water at 50 degrees C has a density of 988.1 kg/m^3, then this material has a density of roughly 900kg/m^3 at the same temperature. When unheated, I'm thinking it's something like 1050kg/m^3 or more. Of course this is probably all wrong, considering some research I did, which led me to realize that the water isn't pure [duh], so that density is off and therefore so is everything else. Plus I have no clue what the wax is, etc. etc. There's only so much Google can help me with. But it was a pleasantly nerdy distraction from my distraction from my distraction.)



I just realized my soda is the same color as my lava lamp. Interesting.

Letters and Stuff.

First, a letter:

Mr. Murphy, you are one of my favorite teachers. Seriously. It's a little disappointing you're retiring next year, but since you're older than dirt, I'm not complaining. Thank you for the candy. Just so you know, I never ate any of it, because wintergreen is awful and free candy is always a little sketchy, but I fed it  to my friends. They'd like to thank you, as well. 

This letter is mostly to thank you for the biology final, however. I almost feel a little guilty about how quickly I finished, considering that all I studied beforehand were the tests, and those for maybe twenty minutes. I have a semi-photographic memory, Mr. Murphy. When you take the questions word for word from the chapter tests, switching the orders of the answers doesn't work. I have a catalog in my head of every question and every correct answer. Nice try, though. I appreciate the college credit.


In any case, I'll miss you next year. You need to make sure the new biology teacher informs every student about the elastic properties of frog eyeballs - the Anatomy kids still talk about that. The glowing bacteria lab needs to continue, as well. 

                                             - Gabi


Next:

I got a haircut. Four inches, gone. All of one person noticed, though, because two and a half feet minus four inches still equals more than two feet, which still registers in people's minds as 'really freaking long'. However, it's super wavy now. Neat trick, that.


Lastly:

No more finals! Huzzah!
Two more days of school! Huzzah!
Then freedom to participate in 50/90 and finish my rough draft! Huzzah... Crap. I need to finish my rough draft.
IN ANY CASE, freedom to sleep in late! Huzzah!

Easiness and Guns

Well, that calc. final was easy.

 Not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so that's all I'll say.

The foreigns are leaving in roughly two weeks, and since we realized exactly how much American culture they've missed out on, we're trying to educate them. This weekend, it's either rollerblading or shooting guns. When I pointed out that there's just about nothing more American than shooting things, the general complaint from the Americans in the room was, 'Yeah, but do we really want to give guns to the communists?' (They're all from the former USSR satellite nations.) They were joking. I'm 99% sure of that.

In any case, I'm going shooting guns this weekend, both legit ones with gunpowder and stuff, and the kind that you control on the 70 plasma screen tv my friend keeps in his barn.

Yes, I have friends who keep televisions like that in their barns. We're a bunch of hicks, where else would it go? You should understand that this is the same guy who keeps the family's gun collection in his room. His dad is a freaking gun dealer. You could live through world wars III through X at his house.

If the zombie apocalypse happens, look for me there.

Big booms are going to happen. :D